24 Misc Laff: Fifty-Three Years Ago Today

Torcon II, the 31st World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Toronto over the Labor Day weekend of 1973, opening, as it happens, fifty-three years ago today. It was there that Lafferty won his only Hugo Award for "Eurema's Dam," in a tie with Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth's posthumous collaboration "The Meeting." It was the first tie in that category's history. Lafferty always expressed embarrassment over winning the Hugo for a story that he didn’t consider to be one of his best. Here is a rare photo of him from the event.

From the same event: Lafferty in a sea of faces. I have zoomed in considerably, yet even among dozens of people, he stands out at once:

Over the years, I have collected a handful of these spot-the-black-capped-gnatcatcher photographs of Lafferty. The following is one of my favorites. It comes from another huge crowd convention photo, and you want to shout, “Get out of the way!” at the person in front of him because Lafferty’s face is almost completely obscured. But it is him, big domed brow, glasses, and gnomish ear. Notice that the shirt he wears matches the first photo in this post, though this picture comes from a different archive. A visual metaphor for some readers’ experience of making sense of him:

This may be the rarest photograph of Lafferty. I think only I know about it, though others have no doubt scrolled past it. It's also enlarged so we can see him. Lafferty is drinking at a convention. The image is dark. He is noticeably thin following the health problems of the previous year. I like the photograph for thematic reasons and have it framed in my office. Pour one out for Finnegan.

And here is a favorite photo from later, one that really catches something of the inner character (to me) usually hidden in photographs of him:

Finally, a photograph of someone I believe to be Sheryl Smith, Lafferty’s brilliant critic and correspondent:

Notes to self: