From: The Hell Driver <walter at nova.org>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 12:38:23 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Maunderings:  Loush and Stan
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Malapropos of Adrienne's inquiry about Lucius Shepard's dragons:

The week after the 1989 Disclave (and my acquisition of the
sobriquet "Hell Driver"), I attended the Capital Aikikai and
worked with black-belted Mikey Roessner.  I gave her a lift to
her parents home, where she and Lucius were staying a few days
after the con.

Over ice cream Lucius speculated on the proverbial chicken's thought
process in crossing the road ("He figured the Road wasn't packing,
and he could probably get away with it..."), critiqued the nomen-
clature of aikido maneuvers (finally advising us to work on our
"Abner Yokumuchi"), and reported on his visit to the home of Kim
Stanley Robinson.

The onset of new fatherhood, three months previous, had put Stan
into an extended state of paroxysmal exaltation, causing him to
sprinkle his verbal utterance with expressions like "Hey, little
dudelet."  Since Stan was a house-husband (writing was on hold for
a while) and principal care-provider for David, there really was
nothing to break this terrible cycle.  "Loush," as Stan referred
to his friend, endured the blather, together with certain epiphanic
freezes of facial expression that to Lucius were emblematic of
"brain events," for many hours.  Finally, he had had enough, took
the man aside and said "Stan, you gotta stop the babytalk, or I'm
gonna hafta hurtcha."  A signal moment in psychotherapy.

The Hell Driver

P.S. I'm SURE that Lucius was the model for the yeti in one
of Stan's Nepal stories.