![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg81uOX2FI4qup5ZWtnuLBT0MUBKE3OIYDfRRKc9wwN1rzF3xcC7MNU3DhduBulwBpsX5HxGaljDa708WRJauu7h_HgNaDZ3h4Gh8iL90_JG1c9zbOm7B19YfRQVrp-5wqaZUVe/s200/Karl2.gif)
I keep thinking about that passage as I contemplate a favorite story I need to re-read, Sticks, by Karl Edward Wagner. Wayne Sallee, who was close to Karl, has written eloquently about him in a couple of posts, including this one.
Wayne's notes and going through my books, still for Library Thing, thumbing my paperbacks of In A Lonely Place and Why Not You and I, have me thinking about the days I went to a lot of conventions. Karl Edward Wagner always seemed to be there, everywhere, and doing something crazy.
I remember him coming into a panel room once and grabbing a table cloth to throw it around his shoulders or opening a panel discussion on monsters by affecting an instructor's monotone and saying: "We are here today to discuss the care an maintenance of the CXL small engine..."
I remember him acting like a professional wrestler and trading insults, boasts and challenges with Charles L. Grant
In my mind, that's a time it will always be. A floating universe somewhere, where time hasn't moved along so rapidly.
I read "Sticks" first in that big collection of horror stories edited by David G. Hartwell. It's collected in In a Lonely Place, which I bought along with a couple of the Kull books right after KEW died, selfishly worrying they would quickly become hard to find.
1 comment:
I like your comments on Karl. A wonderful fellow. Btw, I've revealed your true nature over on my blog today. I trust I won't be "cursed" for it.
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