Worldcon, part two
Sep. 23rd, 2002 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanAt long last, the rest of my Worldcon report. The first part, which covers Weds, Thurs, Fri, and Mon, is here.
I forgot to mention in the Friday part that we went to the Technology Museum. It was cool.
Saturday
We went to this place called Lou's Living Donut Museum and had really good donuts. Then Laura changed her flight so she would return on Monday instead of Sunday. She had been waffling on this point because their kitty Dominic was in poor health and we were afraid he might die and Laura didn't want him to die at the vet's without her. :( But we had gotten word that he was doing better, so she changed her flight.
Then we went to a panel on how to brainstorm story ideas by reading the Tarot for your characters. But I was getting a bad vibe from it, plus I was twitchy about our plans for the rest of the day, because we hadn't discussed them. So we left midway through the panel and wandered around for a bit.
Then we went to a panel called "Cat Vacuuming," which apparently is the term used on some writing-related Usenet groups for all the things that authors do when they're not writing, or avoiding writing because they're stuck, etc. This was a fun panel that mostly devolved into the panelists talking about the things they do to try to get unstuck; their philosophies on writers' block and how to unstick it and what order to write stuff in; how they cope with distractions from cats and children; and so forth. It was interesting. The panelists (all authors) were Brenda Clough, Rosemary Kirstein, Harry Turtledove, L.E. Modesitt Jr., and Tad Williams. Tad Williams, by the way, was the Toastmaster of the con, and is a very entertaining guy. I picked up one of his novels to check out, just because of how funny he was. (I'll probably do a book report on it soon.)
After that panel, Laura went off to do something else and I went to a panel called "Adapting the Body." It was supposed to be about changing your body to suit your environment instead of the other way round, but it ended up being mostly about genetic engineering. The panelists were Frederick Pohl, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Pat MacEwan. Greg Bear was supposed to be there too, but he sent word that he was too tired. All the panelists seemed pretty tired by then, but they still managed to have a fairly interesting discussion with the audience. I felt bad because the question that I asked got misinterpreted. I asked, "in a society that believes we were created in god's image, is it blasphemous to make radical modifications to our bodies, and would that mean we have to reinvent our deities?" I was trying to get at the idea of how society might change as a whole, in response to such issues. But I think the panelists thought that I was saying *I* thought it was blasphemous. They pretty much dismissed it quickly, by saying basically "everyone has a different idea of blasphemy, that's not our problem" and then moving on. I was disappointed, but I do realize that they probably had no way of knowing that I wasn't a scary fundamentalist. ;)
After that, I went to get on line for the Masquerade. A guy on the con staff came around several times handing out free bottles of water. Freddie showed up, and then Laura and Ariana. We eventually went in and got good seats on the balcony. We saved one for Cynthia but she never showed. ;)
The Masquerade was fun as usual. I can't remember any of the costumes right now, though. I took a couple of pictures, but we were too far away and the people were moving, so the pix are tiny and blurry. Alas.
Afterward, we didn't wait around to hear who had won -- there's always a delay of at least half an hour while the judges deliberate. So we went back to the hotel, and a good thing too because the elevator situation was even worse. It was Saturday night, primo party night! The staff had designated two elevators as "express," going only from the first to 20th floor and back, and they were carefully controlling the other three elevators. It took us probably 30-40 minutes just to get an elevator and get back to our room.
And then we didn't feel like braving the elevators again, so we just stayed in the room and watched MadTV and stuff.
Sunday
Ariana got up all early to go catch her flight, and Laura went with her to help navigate the public-transit system. Then she came back and we went to Zanotto's (the gourmet grocery store) again. Then we went to the improv panel.
The panelists at the improv panel, who were Terry Pratchett, Tad Williams (see above), Phil Foglio, and some chick named Allison Lonsdale, had little clue what they were supposed to be doing, because panelists are never told much about their panel topics ahead of time. ;) I'll type in the panel description from the program booklet: "Want to both torture writers *and* see how the sausage of storytelling is made? Our intrepid panel will make up and tell stories on the spot, based on setting, style, and character suggestions from the audience."
So the panel started with about fifteen minutes of discussion between the panelists and the audience of how to proceed. Finally they decided to take character and setting suggestions from the audience, so they did, and they wrote down a bunch of them, and then they basically improvised a story, with each panelist talking for a while and then passing the mike to the next. So of course it turned into a bit of a "screw your neighbor" thing where each person would "write" the story into a corner and then hand over the mike. Much groaning and tearing of hair on the panelists' parts; much laughter on the audience's part. Terry Pratchett in particular was having great fun setting up these elaborate, awful puns. ;) The story was basically about an alien tarantula private-detective named Schwartz, who gets taken to an alternate dimension by a gang of biker nuns, and he's looking for a three-year-old girl with a kitten and a detonator. Or something. ;) Anyway, it was hilarious and I really wished I had made Laura bring her laptop so that I could transcribe the story in real-time. Drat!
After that panel we split up: Laura wanted to go to the second installment of the Trailer Park, whereas I wanted to wander around the dealers' room and buy far too many books. So we did that. Then we went back to the room and got the food we had bought earlier, and went to stand on line for the Hugo Awards ceremony. We were pretty early, so we got a good spot in line, and we received many compliments from people on our smarts for bringing food. The con staff was again walking up and down the line handing out bottles of water. Eventually Freddie and Cynthia and some other friend of theirs showed up, and we went in and got good seats in the balcony.
The Hugo ceremony was, as always, long, but fun. I was amused that Robert Silverberg, in his presentation speech for Best Short Story, made reference to Connie Willis's masterful speech in the same category last year. That speech was the main reason I started reading Connie, and now she's one of my favorite authors!
We had heard that two of the actors from "Lord of the Rings" would be present to accept the award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and sure enough, they were. (Technically they *might* have been there all for naught, but did anyone really think it wouldn't win? Naah.) Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee (although I know him best as the kid from "Goonies"), and the guy who played Sauron, were there. Sean Astin made a really nice speech about how much he loves the books and how impressed he is with Tolkein fans and sci-fi fans in general and how much fun he's having making the movies. I got a couple good pictures of him which I shall post shortly.
Neil Gaiman won Best Novel for American Gods, and he also made an entertaining speech. He basically said that when he started writing sci-fi he dreamed of winning a Hugo, but then after a while he resigned himself to the idea that he wasn't a good enough writer to win one. But now he had! And after a bit more blather he seemed not to know how to end his speech, so he just yelled out, "Fuck, I've got a Hugo!" and left the stage during the ensuing laughter. :)
Then Laura and I headed back to the hotel. The elevator situation was even worse than the previous night; it took forever for us to get on an elevator. While we were waiting on line, we were accosted by two large geeky men, one of whom seemed determined to get us to admit that this con sucked. Basically, as far as I could make out, he was annoyed by the lack of science programming and felt that, for a con in Silicon Valley, the programming staff had not taken proper advantage of all the local resources, i.e., they should have asked more local experts to give talks and seminars and such. I took him to task and scolded him pretty soundly, pointing out that a) the concom is made up entirely of volunteers, b) he had no way of knowing how many people they might have asked but been turned down by, or what other problems they might have run into, c) one person's idea of a deficiency in con programming might be another person's idea of a perfect balance, since everyone has different interests and that is, by definition, why cons have a wide variety of programming; and d) if he did have a problem with the programming, the time to complain about it was not on Sunday night of the con, and the person to complain about it to was not some random person who just happened to be next to you on the elevator line.
Luckily the elevator arrived before I had to get *too* medieval on his ungrateful ass, so Laura and I went back to our room and bitched to each other about the guy some more. Laura pointed out that this was a science FICTION convention, not a science convention, so his gripe about not enough science programming was lame, and I bitched about how some people just HAVE to find something to complain about at any con, even a really good one.
Anyway, having gotten that off our chests, we spent some time packing (snif!) and went to bed.
Miscellaneous Notes/Observations/Events
1. At one point I saw a mom and two kids all dressed in Star Trek uniforms. The mom was trying to take a picture of the kids with the dad. The littler kid was crying and trying to escape dad's clutches, while the bigger one just kept yelling "Cheese! Cheese!" over and over. I snapped a couple of pictures of them. They were cute. We saw another baby in a Trek uniform too.
2. We spent a lot more time in the dealers' room and the Con Suite than I necessarily showed from this report. Basically any time there seems to be a gap in the timeline, it probably means we were wandering the dealers' room. I ended up buying sixteen books and one magazine (an old copy of Fantasy and Science Fiction that contains a story by a friend of mine) and getting two books free besides. I also bought some earrings, and a t-shirt for Siubhan to thank her for feeding my kitty. It was touch and go there for a bit when I was trying to pack it all into my suitcase, but then I realized (d'oh!) that I hadn't unzipped the expandy part.
3. Once, we were in the Con Suite, and a woman came over and started picking out all the purple M&Ms from the bowl. I looked at her and saw that she was wearing a purple t-shirt, purple pants, purple shoes, and a purple con badge. "I sense a subtle theme," I said. About ten minutes later I went to one of the other snack tables to see what they had. I was looking at the table and saw a hand picking out purple M&Ms from a different bowl. "You're still at it?!" I said, and then I
looked over, and saw that it was a different woman! LOL!
4. We also spent some time in the Internet lounge at the con, which was cool. It was all on Linux, and they had wireless access set up, which meant that Laura didn't even have to use one of their terminals -- she could just set up her laptop. Very cool.
5. There was also a street fair/festival/craft show going on, one street over from the con center, on the weekend. We checked it out briefly, and then I think Laura and Ariana went back to it again later.
6. At one point there were four or five chicks randomly doing a belly-dancing demonstration in the hallway at the convention center. I got some pix of that too.
7. Worldcon 2005 will be in Glasgow, Scotland. Whee! That'll be ... different.
I'm sure that I've forgotten some stuff, so there could be an "addendum" post or three sometime soon. :)
I forgot to mention in the Friday part that we went to the Technology Museum. It was cool.
Saturday
We went to this place called Lou's Living Donut Museum and had really good donuts. Then Laura changed her flight so she would return on Monday instead of Sunday. She had been waffling on this point because their kitty Dominic was in poor health and we were afraid he might die and Laura didn't want him to die at the vet's without her. :( But we had gotten word that he was doing better, so she changed her flight.
Then we went to a panel on how to brainstorm story ideas by reading the Tarot for your characters. But I was getting a bad vibe from it, plus I was twitchy about our plans for the rest of the day, because we hadn't discussed them. So we left midway through the panel and wandered around for a bit.
Then we went to a panel called "Cat Vacuuming," which apparently is the term used on some writing-related Usenet groups for all the things that authors do when they're not writing, or avoiding writing because they're stuck, etc. This was a fun panel that mostly devolved into the panelists talking about the things they do to try to get unstuck; their philosophies on writers' block and how to unstick it and what order to write stuff in; how they cope with distractions from cats and children; and so forth. It was interesting. The panelists (all authors) were Brenda Clough, Rosemary Kirstein, Harry Turtledove, L.E. Modesitt Jr., and Tad Williams. Tad Williams, by the way, was the Toastmaster of the con, and is a very entertaining guy. I picked up one of his novels to check out, just because of how funny he was. (I'll probably do a book report on it soon.)
After that panel, Laura went off to do something else and I went to a panel called "Adapting the Body." It was supposed to be about changing your body to suit your environment instead of the other way round, but it ended up being mostly about genetic engineering. The panelists were Frederick Pohl, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Pat MacEwan. Greg Bear was supposed to be there too, but he sent word that he was too tired. All the panelists seemed pretty tired by then, but they still managed to have a fairly interesting discussion with the audience. I felt bad because the question that I asked got misinterpreted. I asked, "in a society that believes we were created in god's image, is it blasphemous to make radical modifications to our bodies, and would that mean we have to reinvent our deities?" I was trying to get at the idea of how society might change as a whole, in response to such issues. But I think the panelists thought that I was saying *I* thought it was blasphemous. They pretty much dismissed it quickly, by saying basically "everyone has a different idea of blasphemy, that's not our problem" and then moving on. I was disappointed, but I do realize that they probably had no way of knowing that I wasn't a scary fundamentalist. ;)
After that, I went to get on line for the Masquerade. A guy on the con staff came around several times handing out free bottles of water. Freddie showed up, and then Laura and Ariana. We eventually went in and got good seats on the balcony. We saved one for Cynthia but she never showed. ;)
The Masquerade was fun as usual. I can't remember any of the costumes right now, though. I took a couple of pictures, but we were too far away and the people were moving, so the pix are tiny and blurry. Alas.
Afterward, we didn't wait around to hear who had won -- there's always a delay of at least half an hour while the judges deliberate. So we went back to the hotel, and a good thing too because the elevator situation was even worse. It was Saturday night, primo party night! The staff had designated two elevators as "express," going only from the first to 20th floor and back, and they were carefully controlling the other three elevators. It took us probably 30-40 minutes just to get an elevator and get back to our room.
And then we didn't feel like braving the elevators again, so we just stayed in the room and watched MadTV and stuff.
Sunday
Ariana got up all early to go catch her flight, and Laura went with her to help navigate the public-transit system. Then she came back and we went to Zanotto's (the gourmet grocery store) again. Then we went to the improv panel.
The panelists at the improv panel, who were Terry Pratchett, Tad Williams (see above), Phil Foglio, and some chick named Allison Lonsdale, had little clue what they were supposed to be doing, because panelists are never told much about their panel topics ahead of time. ;) I'll type in the panel description from the program booklet: "Want to both torture writers *and* see how the sausage of storytelling is made? Our intrepid panel will make up and tell stories on the spot, based on setting, style, and character suggestions from the audience."
So the panel started with about fifteen minutes of discussion between the panelists and the audience of how to proceed. Finally they decided to take character and setting suggestions from the audience, so they did, and they wrote down a bunch of them, and then they basically improvised a story, with each panelist talking for a while and then passing the mike to the next. So of course it turned into a bit of a "screw your neighbor" thing where each person would "write" the story into a corner and then hand over the mike. Much groaning and tearing of hair on the panelists' parts; much laughter on the audience's part. Terry Pratchett in particular was having great fun setting up these elaborate, awful puns. ;) The story was basically about an alien tarantula private-detective named Schwartz, who gets taken to an alternate dimension by a gang of biker nuns, and he's looking for a three-year-old girl with a kitten and a detonator. Or something. ;) Anyway, it was hilarious and I really wished I had made Laura bring her laptop so that I could transcribe the story in real-time. Drat!
After that panel we split up: Laura wanted to go to the second installment of the Trailer Park, whereas I wanted to wander around the dealers' room and buy far too many books. So we did that. Then we went back to the room and got the food we had bought earlier, and went to stand on line for the Hugo Awards ceremony. We were pretty early, so we got a good spot in line, and we received many compliments from people on our smarts for bringing food. The con staff was again walking up and down the line handing out bottles of water. Eventually Freddie and Cynthia and some other friend of theirs showed up, and we went in and got good seats in the balcony.
The Hugo ceremony was, as always, long, but fun. I was amused that Robert Silverberg, in his presentation speech for Best Short Story, made reference to Connie Willis's masterful speech in the same category last year. That speech was the main reason I started reading Connie, and now she's one of my favorite authors!
We had heard that two of the actors from "Lord of the Rings" would be present to accept the award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and sure enough, they were. (Technically they *might* have been there all for naught, but did anyone really think it wouldn't win? Naah.) Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee (although I know him best as the kid from "Goonies"), and the guy who played Sauron, were there. Sean Astin made a really nice speech about how much he loves the books and how impressed he is with Tolkein fans and sci-fi fans in general and how much fun he's having making the movies. I got a couple good pictures of him which I shall post shortly.
Neil Gaiman won Best Novel for American Gods, and he also made an entertaining speech. He basically said that when he started writing sci-fi he dreamed of winning a Hugo, but then after a while he resigned himself to the idea that he wasn't a good enough writer to win one. But now he had! And after a bit more blather he seemed not to know how to end his speech, so he just yelled out, "Fuck, I've got a Hugo!" and left the stage during the ensuing laughter. :)
Then Laura and I headed back to the hotel. The elevator situation was even worse than the previous night; it took forever for us to get on an elevator. While we were waiting on line, we were accosted by two large geeky men, one of whom seemed determined to get us to admit that this con sucked. Basically, as far as I could make out, he was annoyed by the lack of science programming and felt that, for a con in Silicon Valley, the programming staff had not taken proper advantage of all the local resources, i.e., they should have asked more local experts to give talks and seminars and such. I took him to task and scolded him pretty soundly, pointing out that a) the concom is made up entirely of volunteers, b) he had no way of knowing how many people they might have asked but been turned down by, or what other problems they might have run into, c) one person's idea of a deficiency in con programming might be another person's idea of a perfect balance, since everyone has different interests and that is, by definition, why cons have a wide variety of programming; and d) if he did have a problem with the programming, the time to complain about it was not on Sunday night of the con, and the person to complain about it to was not some random person who just happened to be next to you on the elevator line.
Luckily the elevator arrived before I had to get *too* medieval on his ungrateful ass, so Laura and I went back to our room and bitched to each other about the guy some more. Laura pointed out that this was a science FICTION convention, not a science convention, so his gripe about not enough science programming was lame, and I bitched about how some people just HAVE to find something to complain about at any con, even a really good one.
Anyway, having gotten that off our chests, we spent some time packing (snif!) and went to bed.
Miscellaneous Notes/Observations/Events
1. At one point I saw a mom and two kids all dressed in Star Trek uniforms. The mom was trying to take a picture of the kids with the dad. The littler kid was crying and trying to escape dad's clutches, while the bigger one just kept yelling "Cheese! Cheese!" over and over. I snapped a couple of pictures of them. They were cute. We saw another baby in a Trek uniform too.
2. We spent a lot more time in the dealers' room and the Con Suite than I necessarily showed from this report. Basically any time there seems to be a gap in the timeline, it probably means we were wandering the dealers' room. I ended up buying sixteen books and one magazine (an old copy of Fantasy and Science Fiction that contains a story by a friend of mine) and getting two books free besides. I also bought some earrings, and a t-shirt for Siubhan to thank her for feeding my kitty. It was touch and go there for a bit when I was trying to pack it all into my suitcase, but then I realized (d'oh!) that I hadn't unzipped the expandy part.
3. Once, we were in the Con Suite, and a woman came over and started picking out all the purple M&Ms from the bowl. I looked at her and saw that she was wearing a purple t-shirt, purple pants, purple shoes, and a purple con badge. "I sense a subtle theme," I said. About ten minutes later I went to one of the other snack tables to see what they had. I was looking at the table and saw a hand picking out purple M&Ms from a different bowl. "You're still at it?!" I said, and then I
looked over, and saw that it was a different woman! LOL!
4. We also spent some time in the Internet lounge at the con, which was cool. It was all on Linux, and they had wireless access set up, which meant that Laura didn't even have to use one of their terminals -- she could just set up her laptop. Very cool.
5. There was also a street fair/festival/craft show going on, one street over from the con center, on the weekend. We checked it out briefly, and then I think Laura and Ariana went back to it again later.
6. At one point there were four or five chicks randomly doing a belly-dancing demonstration in the hallway at the convention center. I got some pix of that too.
7. Worldcon 2005 will be in Glasgow, Scotland. Whee! That'll be ... different.
I'm sure that I've forgotten some stuff, so there could be an "addendum" post or three sometime soon. :)
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Date: 2002-09-24 04:10 am (UTC)The yellow ones because of the SA and the purple ones because I had this dream three or four years ago that if you ate enough purple skittles at once you could summon up David Bowie from the ether. Which is really dopey, but the dream stuck with me and it never hurts to try, right?
I wonder who purple M&Ms summon?