That belated Worldcon report

[chanaleh]

At some length, as best as I can now recall. :-) I've been piecing this together in scattered minutes over the past week, that's why I've been so quiet in the interim.


Thursday I ended up working until 6:45, so then I took the T over (a mistake, I could have walked there faster) and arrived at around 7:15. It was oh so lovely to simply stroll in and say "oh, good, my programs got printed!" I don't have enough events in my life that I don't have to worry about running. :-) Actually much of this con was that way.

Saw red_queen briefly at the face-painting table. Saw c1, which turned out to be wonderfully refreshing for reasons known to some of you. Shortly went off to Cactus Club for dinner with ablock, kalessin, bookteacher, aurelis, and, to my surprise and delight, Kosher Boy, who came along for the company and margaritas.

Came back and played in the Arisia Bouncy Castle with bookteacher and doeeyedbunny. Went off to the LJ/Blogger party where I [re-]met ckd and learnedax, sold a livejournal addict button to vvalkyri, and cuddled with xiphias. Eventually got a much-appreciated ride home on the Latzko bus.



Friday I had taken a vacation day from work. But I had an early appointment, and spent the rest of the morning bumming around Harvard Square, having elevenses with jonathanjo, so I didn't get to the con until around 1:30.

Took a first pass through the dealer's room and the art show. Re-met jhulten which is always pleasant.

The one panel I managed to make a point of going to was (of course) the LJ/blogging panel. Heh. Ran into outerjenise for the first time in months... and drsnark, who in an interesting turn of events is now mrmorse's housemate.

Left at 5 to go back across the river to shul ("Don't they have services at the con?" "Yes, but I run ours..."), which meant I missed all but the tail end of the Time Machine. Got back in time to see Fahrenheit 451 win the Best Novel Retro Hugo, though, which was cool. (cheshyre: "Aww! Ray Bradbury loves me!")

Dragged Kosher Boy around a bunch of the parties, until he ran out of steam and headed home. Ended up at the Tech Suite party to say a quick goodnight, where I continued to cuddle aurelis and xdaemon as much as was humanly possible in a short amount of time, and obtained a ride home around 2am from the very cute zed42, with special guest wendelina2.



Saturday I was reading Torah in the morning, so got up at 7am to finish learning. Now that's dedication. Then I went off to my office to finish the outside sheet of the Masquerade program. (Yes, there was one... almost. More on that later.) and then I went to the con.

First stop: the ballroom, where tech rehearsal for the Hugo ceremony was going on. No sooner did xdaemon spot me than he was pleading for backrub intervention. Put my hands all over you? Anytime, dear. :-) I stood there kneading away while people filed up to ask him stage-managerly things, and while I'm looking around, oh yes, that IS Neil Gaiman standing ten feet away. And that woman who just came in looks familiar -- ah, because it's Lois McMaster Bujold. Eeee!

Had a flyby hello with Merv. Serendipitously managed to get in a quick but pleasant ABP lunch/dinner with sunspiral, wherein we caught up on all the immediate goings-on. Went with KB to "The Filkado" at 5pm, which was very silly but cute and worth seeing.

I had begged the temporary loan of a badge from a certain gratitude-inspiring benefactor in order to get Tiger Boy (Gaiman fan and penniless student) into the Hugo ceremony. He arrived as planned around 7:30 and we went in to see the Hugos. I should write about this at greater length, but I'm not sure what is left to say except that it was tremendous. Even though mabfan had to come in second to Neil Gaiman for Best Short Story. We had a ball.

After the ceremony, we hung around the auditorium for a while just sitting and talking (while the Hugo folks mugged for pictures onstage), until finally we decided I was overdue at Mini-Arisia and got up to head over there. At which point Gaiman & entourage were also exiting out the back door, and passed within four feet of us; and the two of us ended up following them out through the Hugo exhibit in the ConCourse. It was a confluence of happinesses not likely to be equalled anytime in the near future. :-)

Mini-Arisia was a huge success. palmwiz really is a wizard for pulling this one off with such panache. Also, in my stint as the Mini-Dealer's Room, I sold over 200 MuffinButtons! Go me! Tiger Boy sat by my side and made origami creatures for an hour or two before biking home. I was only going to stay until 2am or so... and then 2:30... but every time I tried to close up shop, three more new people would walk into the room (in which I was positioned directly across from the entrance) and go, "Ooh, what's this?".

Finally around 3am I managed to leave, by virtue of an extra-specially-appreciated ride home from Kosher Boy. (Whose mom had also come by and bought buttons, which amused me greatly, although I don't think she had any idea why...)



Sunday: Having gotten to sleep at 4am, I woke up *boing* at 7:15am and could not get back to sleep. So I made buttons, and I went back to the con in time to return sweetmmeblue her badge, and I poked around.

I thought mitgsp was holding an Iolanthe singthrough that afternoon, so I crossed back over the river to MIT at 1pm, only to find there was nothing there because the singthrough had been at 1pm *Saturday*. (Just as well that I hadn't known; I couldn't have gone Saturday anyway.) I was then supposed to go to my office to finish the Masq program, but since it was an hour earlier than planned, I decided I could almost as well do it at home instead and buy myself some downtime, so I went home.

Which was good, because (a) it meant I could catch an hour nap, and (b) instead of the 2pm deadline I was expecting, the text never came through until 6pm, and by the time I was done formatting it, it was too late to have it run off.

Fine by me, whatever. I headed to the con thinking they'd at least have distributed the outside sheet (with the order of events and the credits) -- but unfortunately they never did, thinking that it might get used the next day with some kind of finalized insert... to hand out to participants? as follow-up? I don't know, I don't know what anyone was thinking at that point. It never happened. The 3000 outside sheets were still sitting unfolded in the Newsletter office where they'd been copied. (If I'd been on site earlier I might even have been able to override the plan and get them folded and distributed -- but I never did because I was home until 7:15pm waiting for text all day, wasn't I?)

Which was a shame -- but really, Masquerades so *rarely* have printed programs of the entries, and it was just as well too because so many of the entries would have had their jokes spoiled by revealing the titles in advance (a concern that was raised and discarded early in this whole process). Anyway, the important programs (First Night, the Retros, and the Hugos) were a smash and that was the key thing.

Watched the Masq. (Would have appreciated all the Discworld-themed entries more if I'd ever *read* any Pratchett beyond Good Omens.) Enjoyed the halftime entertainment very much (see below). Got bored and antsy waiting for the judging and finally got up and left, which I almost never do. Ran into ladymondegreen (who now knows who Kosher Boy is ;-) and later some arisia folks. Went up to the Tech Suite where naturally no one had congregated yet due to the Masq That Would Not End; hung out for a bit in burningriver's room next door; then went back in to say a quick hellogoodbye to the techies once they *had* all turned up. Cabbed home.


Incidentally, since there were no Masquerade programs, here's the one crucial piece of information you should have gotten: One Man Star Wars is Charles Ross, who is (a) fucking brilliant and (b) now touring with his One Man Lord Of The Rings Trilogy.


Monday I slept until the blessed hour of 11am, which never happens. Got up in a leisurely fashion and made it to the con at 1. Made some last rounds (both social and mercantile) at the Dealer's Room with ablock. Fortunately managed to catch sunspiral's art show displays before running down to what turned out to be the legendary Last Panel.

Monday 2:00 p H312: How Do You Know When You're Dead?

The movie The Sixth Sense was not the first fiction to feature a character who is dead. Niven's Inferno, Connie Willis' Passages, and Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series all have protagonists who are dead or die and continue to be featured players. What other fiction features dead people? (And we don't mean vampires -— but why not?)

Are there any restrictions on the actions of dead people? What are some of the reactions of the characters who find themselves dead? Are there advantages to having a dead protagonist?

Should we always fear the walking dead? What do they have to tell us? (Must we listen? Do they lie?) Do they return to harm or advise us? Do they come to warn or blame, comfort or prophesize? Do they offer us forgiveness or courage, or perhaps death itself?

Discuss the use of the returning dead, and explain why they are such fascinating subjects.

Scott Edelman (m), Neil Gaiman, Larry Niven, Terry Pratchett, Uncle River, Connie Willis

This was SRO (which meant I ended up right up front sitting on the floor), and oh so worth it. The only thing I could be sorry about was that drsnark's solo filk miniconcert was scheduled directly opposite, at 2:30; but I couldn't even feel bad about having had to miss that. After the panel, a handful of people flooded up to the front to meet and greet Gaiman, and I hung around on the fringes even though I had nothing in particular to say or sign (having just bought a pre-signed copy of Angels and Visitations). But that's how I ended up being the camerawoman for not one but two other people's pictures with Neil Gaiman. Hee.

Proceeded down to the closing ceremonies, helped with a very small amount of teardown, then left for Menschen rehearsal. And that was my con.


Next stop: Iolanthe! (First singthru was last night. I'm in the chorus.)

Comments

[xdaemon.livejournal.com]

*grin* The unexpected bonuses of hanging around with the Hugo Stage Manager :-)

Oh, and as soon as Charlie gets back to me, I'll let people know when the One Man LoTR will be around here (the dates aren't on his website yet, even though he was advertising at N4)

[ckd]

It's amazing how much stuff there is to do at a Worldcon.

I'm struck by it in particular when reading con reports like this one, where an almost complete lack of overlap with my experience still has an entire con's worth of things I would have enjoyed doing....

Total overlap between your con and mine: the bouncy castle, which I enjoyed immensely, but not at the same time you did; the LJ/blogger party; the Hugos, though I watched them from the Mended Drum; the closing ceremonies; and stuff like the art show/ConCourse/dealers' room which basically runs all con.

Oh, and sweetmmeblue. Yes, once again it turns out that people I know from totally different contexts also know each other and not through me. (Though I suspect you met at a con somewhen, which would therefore make it my fault according to sweetmmeblue.)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

hee hee! Well, I know her... how, originally? Not from a con; through a web of susboid connections, I suppose. cos? points... no, not exactly. kalessin? sunspiral?

And yeah, you're not kidding about the myriad possible con experiences.

[navrins]

I hope Sir Roderick Murgatroyd was mentioned?

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

In what? Oh, the panel! You know, no one brought any G&S up; and I might have in questions if it had occurred to me, but it didn't.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I noticed that you linked to my nomiee's perspective post. Glad you found it link-worthy. We had a blast too, even though I came in second to Neil.

I do recall seeing you a few times at the con, but yeah, Worldcons are big, and it's hard to see everybody. And I imagine we'll see you in Iolanthe...

[ckd]

Ah, so she will have to work harder to blame it on me then. Heh.

She's not the only "uncommon common friends-list member" either; leaving out all the people I know either through SF fandom (or generically associated activities like LARPing) or various forms of online activity (IRC, USENET, mailing lists, and/or LJ) still leaves two people in the intersection of our friends lists. Now, can you guess who the second one is? (Heh, heh.)

Okay, I'll give you a big hint...the only remaining venue I'm likely to have met people in is that place I spent four years hanging out (until they kicked me out for passing too many classes).

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

sweetmmeblue who I used to date, and whose kids my daughter babysits for.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, most Worldcon masquerades do have programs, at least for the most recent N years. They do seem prone to problems though. I was house manager for ConJose, and due to the latest in multiple printer screwups, the programs weren't there by the time we opened the doors. In consultation with the Masquerade runners (and possibly some other Events folk; I forget for sure), we set 7:53 (with an 8:00 Masq start) as the drop dead minute by which if the programs didn't arrive by, we wouldn't try to pass them out to folk already seated.

Care to guess when they showed up?

7:52. Fortunately, I had an excellent set of ushers who managed to distribute 'em to the seated folk (including the 40% or so seating in a balcony accessible only by about 4-5 stories worth of stairs) and not delay the Masq start by even a minute.

Nice chatting with you while waiting for the 1 with drsnark Monday (which will hopefully also explain who this is).

tyg

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

(which will hopefully also explain who this is).

That's it! I was trying to remember who had told me this particular story recently :-)

snuggling with tech

[wren13.livejournal.com]

Aren't they just the greatest? I love tech parties - excellent hugs and scotch in the same place, with good conversation as dessert.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I was wondering if that was KB with you at the Filkado... :-)

Glad the "dealer's corner" went so well!