J. K. Klein: Some Achieve Greatness...

.

In 2012, Gene Wolfe was inducted into the Chicago Hall of Literary Fame and I flew to Chicago to be a small part of that moment. The morning of the event, the late David Hartwell called me up and said, "I'm in Fred Pohl's kitchen, helping him sort through Jay Kay Klein's photos for pictures he can use to update The Way the Future Was. Wanna join us?"

Did I?!

Thus began a very pleasant several hours, a story which I will someday regale you with. But not today. Today I mention it because UC Riverside has announced that they've digitized the nearly six thousand photographs Jay Kay Klein took of the great, near-great, and perfectly obscure of science fiction fandom and prodom over the course of many decades.

But I hear you ask: Who was Jay Kay Klein?

The answer is: An inspiration to ordinary people everywhere. Jay kay was not inherently an interesting person. He wasn't a writer or a particularly articulate conversationalist. He certainly wasn't a fashion icon. He wore white shirts with slacks held up high on the waist by a thin belt. So far as I could tell (and I admit that I could be wrong), there was no particular reason to pay any attention to him. He was unimportant.

So he made himself important.

For decade after decade, he attended every convention he could, bringing along his trusty camera. Jay Kay wasn't a particularly gifted photographer. But he could take a clear shot of a human being, in focus. And he labeled every photograph with name, date, and convention.

So in J. K. Klein's photos, we have a visual history of everybody who was anybody in science fiction over many decades. You can watch the young Harlan Ellison grow old in them. You can find pix of people whom everybody but you has forgotten. All the greats of the time are present. Taken together, the photos are a treasure.

And a quintessentially ordinary man made them.

At least one person reading this feels that he or she is relentlessly ordinary and resents that fact. If that one person is you, reflect on the life of Jay Kay Klein. There's a way out for you. It doesn't have to be photography.

You can read the article about Riverside digitalizing his photos here.


And Speaking of Jay Kay Klein...

In conversation, Jay Kay was, yes, mostly boring. But that doesn't mean that he didn't have his moments. I was talking to him at the Millennial Philcon (2001) when he suddenly grew reflective and said, "I was at the first Philadelphia Worldcon fifty years ago, and I remember things about it that nobody else knows."

"Oh yeah?" I said, eager to learn. "Like what?"

"Like the fact that I was there."

And now his legacy lives on. I believe that would have made Jay Kay happy. It certainly does me.


Above:

*