RIP Anne McCaffrey 1926-2011

[fleetfootmike]

A lady I'm honoured to say I've met, and spoken with enough to be remembered from one meeting to the next. One of the authors responsible for getting me into SF/Fantasy, I have a number of autographed hardbacks of hers, and a bunch of paperbacks.

My two Anne stories:

- I accompanied her at an Eastercon Filk Concert (Helicon, on Jersey). The 'Carmen Miranda's Ghost' anthology had just come out, and she wanted to sing the title song, so word was put out that she'd like an accompanist. Being the person with the reputation for being able to play pretty much anything, or figure it out, I got buttonholed. There were several problems with this.
1) I'd never played the song
2) No-one, including Anne, Sign of the Dragon, or anyone else had a recording.
3) No-one had a chord chart
4) Anne had tinnitus - pitching of the start of songs was hard for her - once she got going she was fine, and had a super voice.
So we spent an hour up in her room agreeing on a key (it's Fish, you can't go wrong with Am) and me working out a set of chords from her singing and my memory of the song, with really clear voice leading on the chords, and a nice obvious intro that tracked the melody.
Despite all that, it went fine, although it bugs me to this day that I got a chord wrong - there was an Ebdim that I really really* should have realised was an F7.

- Many years later, Phoenix were the Saturday night entertainment at a B5 con, "The Wrap Party", guests including JMS and Harlan (of whom the least said the better, so let's not spoil this memory). Anne turned up largely unannounced, purely to socialise with a few of the fen she knew, as far as I could gather. She was wearing a badge with a pseuodynm on it, was very definitely 'not working' that day, and we got chatting in the convention lounge. A woman came up and (nearly) gushed, "You look just like Anne McCaffrey." Anne glanced very briefly at me, with a wicked glint in those eyes of hers, and just smiled, a touch regretfully. "Mmm. I get told that a lot." Looking back, I'm touched and honoured that my company wasn't considered in the same light.

I just put a note of her death in the topic on #filkhaven. keristor is in good company (actually, she is, too).

Comments

[rinioth.livejournal.com]

I was lucky enough to meet her a few times, at a signing session at "Sign of the Dragon" and once having lunch with her at the 1995 World Con along with other members of the Pern fan group "Ista Weyr". She was always a graceful and friendly lady who always had time for polite fans.

She was usually described as "Everyone's favourite Grandmother".

[aunty_marion]

My favourite memories of her are from the many Star Trek cons she attended (well, it seemed like many - it may only have been three or four!). She was at the first one I ever went to back in 1977. A few years later we had a con that conveniently covered her birthday and Carol Keogh's, so Carol took a cake along, and at the Sunday night 'party' Carol's brother started playing idly on the piano. Anne, who'd just arrived in the room, said "Play something we can sing!", so he started on 'The Ash Grove', and I ended up singing the melody line (I seemed to be the only person who knew all the words...), while she sang soprano harmony above me. And I remember her crying, quietly but openly, when Doreen Iles(?) wore a Fancy Dress (Masquerade) costume of her interpretation of 'Helva' - because Doreen was just such a person as would have benefited from the treatment Helva had.

[occams_pyramid]

Ahem!
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jpolowin/filkstuf/mccaffry.htm

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. :D *innocent expression*