...The celebrated Mr. K. performs his feat on Saturday at Bishopsgate...

Ribbon update. If you're bringing your own ribbons to laconiv, would you be willing to donate one sample of each title to an exhibit I'm putting together, please? (Mail to Chaz Baden, PO Box 17522, Anaheim CA 92817-7522.) If you've asked me to order some for you, I'll ask you this question when your order comes in; I'm trying to reach everyone who's ordered ribbons on their own. Thanks by the way to M.S. for promising to donate "Burning Fan" and "Gnome" (and others) to the exhibit.

Typically a Worldcon saves one of each type of the official ribbons it purchases, and puts them in the archive box; then sometime before the next year's convention, someone goes through and makes a coherent exhibit piece out of it. It occurred to me, that since there are so many ribbons being brought for silly or promotional or silly promotional purposes, there would be enough to fill up a standard exhibit board with them. So I'm asking for help. I'll throw in one each of the ones I'm bringing...

It'll be a straight alphabetical list; no room for explaining where each one comes from, or how you'd go about getting one yourself. So seeing the exhibit would be like passing someone in the hall who's acquired a whole chestful-plus of ribbons, except you can't ask him or her where they came from. (There will be a small explanatory paragraph, and a note about the principal suppliers of ribbons to fannish conventions. If you'd like to suggest a company that you've used besides RV, Hodges, Parker, or American Meeting Supply please let me know!)

Meanwhile, here's part 18 in my complete story about ribbons I've ordered before.

• SHOT BY A BEAR
• NO, I DON'T KNOW WHERE CHAZ IS

I ordered a bunch of "Shot by a Bear" in 2003, four times all told. I kept deciding I needed to have more on hand, culminating in an order for 500 of the silly things. As I mentioned in my Armadillocon report, when I was invited to be Fan Guest of Honor I decided to make a project out of trying to shoot everyone at the convention. Since I wear my bear ears at cons, "shot by a bear" seemed a natural tagline. I used to have pawprint stickers; I would either hand out "Shot by a bear" ribbons, or the paw print sticker, to anyone wearing a badge when I took their picture. (If they asked nicely and I had both with me, I might give them both.)

So for Armadillocon, I left the stickers at home, and just brought the ribbons. I believe the ribbons I brought were the only ones on anyone's badges.

The "Shot by a bear" ribbons are almost all used up; I still have a few, but not a lot. I've been waffling back and forth about whether to reorder them. If I do, I'm thinking I might include a paw print on the ribbon, because when McGraw-Hill bought out Trend Basic, they discontinued the paw print stickers. I have ten paw print stickers left on my last sheet. I found some little bear stickers, but it's not the same, not really...

And the "No, I don't know where Chaz is" ribbons were ordered these in 2003 for library_lynn, my lovely wife. It's the usual answer to one of the common questions she gets while at conventions. (I get the same question too, a lot of the time -- that's why I often answer my cell phone by declaring my location. "Ring, ring" -- "Standing in the lobby, this is Chaz.") The original plain text ribbons are almost gone; we've ordered some fancy ones for Worldcon (similar to the "Plays well with others" ribbons, if you've seen them).

• Cult of Johanna 1st Degree
• Cult of Johanna 2nd Degree
• Cult of Johanna 3rd Degree
• Cult of Johanna 4th Degree

( Johanna Mead is either a friend of Kevin and Andy, or figured out from my LJ posts... )