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February 16, 2005
Renaissance Woman
A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from David Samuel Barr, inquiring if the character in Star Trek: A Time to Love, An Haslam An, might have been named after Annie Haslam. Annie was the lead singer in the symphonic rock band Renaissance and sure enough, he was correct. At the time I was writing that chapter, I had their music playing and when I needed a name, I adapted hers. (Renaissance was an oddity in the 1970s; never making the Top 40 play list, usually relegated to the Progressive Rock FM stations. I liked them a lot and still do. )
This thrilled David since he is a music industry veteran and befriended Annie some years back. We got to talking, he paid me a visit and handed off to her autographed copies of Love and Star Trek: A Time to Hate.
Annie loved hearing about this and was coming to New York soon so a lunch was arranged…which happened today.
Now, here’s where it gets weird.
Annie called and left a voicemail a week or so back saying she had met someone I worked with, couldn’t remember his name, but thought it was hysterical.
Meantime, yesterday I had a few minutes so returned some overdue calls including one to my old pal, inker Scott Hanna. I helped get Scott his first DC work and subsequently had the pleasure of working with him, on Doom Patrol. Scott explained that his wife, the delightful Pam Ptak, has gotten quite successful at fashion design and was recently asked by…do you see it coming?…Annie to design a dress for her to wear at a special function. When Annie first arrived to meet Pam, she saw Scott’s studio with lots of hanging comic art and commented she just got acquainted with someone in the business, who also writes Star Trek books.
Scott, on the first try, knew it was I.
And as he relates this story to me, he says, Annie is due in ten minutes to meet with Pam and look over the designs.
Weird.
Annie and David arrived at DC for lunch today. She’s had a pretty interesting career, having gone solo after Renaissance broke up in 1987, beat breast cancer, and taken up painting (for details feel free to check out her own site. ) She handed me a few of her solo CDs and then pulled out a copy of Doom Patrol: Crawling from the Wreckage which she had Scott sign yesterday and I added my name today. Over fine Indian food, we discussed music, comics, science fiction conventions, the foulness of regulated radio playlists, everything happening for a reason and more. It was a wonderful time.
I recounted the one and only time I saw Renaissance live: Passover 1975, they shared a bill with Electric Light Orchestra at the Westbury Music Fair. My best friend Jeff joined us for Seder and we bolted early to make the concert. Since it was the only time they toured together, Annie recalled the venue, which was neat.
Our world is sometimes very small and comforting. Other times, it’s downright bizarre. Today melded the two and it was wonderful.
Posted by Bob Greenberger at February 16, 2005 05:01 PM
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Comments
That sort of thing happens to me waaaay too often. I think the best one was meeting up with "Uncle" Floyd Vivino in the green room of some talk show, where I'd been invited as the guest of Proctor & Bergman. My zine at the time, INSIDE JOKE, had started as a Floyd fanzine and had sort of morphed (at least partly) into a Firesign zine (before I spun off a separate Firesign newsletter). Exciting about you meeting Haslam - I was a major Renaissance fan in college, doubtless wore deep grooves into my Scheherezade album (which I still have), and saw them perform live (in '76 I think) at Rutgers. Thank you for directing us to her eponymous website!
Posted by: Elayne Riggs at February 17, 2005 05:25 PM