![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersSo I went back to the Potlatch hotel and got swept up in an unrelenting rush of conversation with a variety of people, which was quite unlike what the rest of the convention had been like. First was dinner with Dawn Plaskon and D. Potter at a good Thai restaurant called Golden Singha. Hadn't really talked with either of them at the convention yet, so that was fun, and the tom ka was delicious. Back at the hotel, a small circle of returning diners gathered in the consuite, and Dan Steffan told us about a huge house he'd visited back east somewhere that's full of famous science fiction cover paintings from stem to stern and top (all four stories of it) to bottom. Andy Hooper and I chatted with Lynn Steffan up in her room for a while, and then Dan joined us and told some wild stories about Vaughn Bode and Jeff Jones. (Art Widner was right that Dan's cover for the latest Chunga was a tribute to Bode, in memory of the 30th anniversary of his death in 1975.)
Back in the consuite, I talked to Paul Carpentier about the state of Vancouver fandom and his efforts to revive or (perhaps sustain) V-con, while Julie McGalliard tried plaintively to get him headed northward to home in Bellingham. When she finally succeeded, I talked to Tom Whitmore about his experiences as co-chair of ConJose and the institutional memory that is involved in running Worldcons these days. The consuite was full of people and buzzing with strange energy -- or perhaps I was finally just more open to an energy that had been there all along. I ended the evening talking to Lynn Steffan and Victor Gonzalez about all kinds of crazy stuff (only occasionally involving Victor's beloved BMW, for which he is carving a new binnacle), and then Eileen Gunn threw the last of us out at just past midnight.
It was an extraordinary blast of desperate fun for the end of a convention. Did Octavia's death somehow bring us all closer together, by reminding us how brief and fragile our time here is? Tom and I talked about how much of fannish activity is about bringing people together, from fanzines to conventions to even bookdealing, in an odd way. I felt a strong connection to and love for my tribe last night, that's for sure. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make the convention happen.
Back in the consuite, I talked to Paul Carpentier about the state of Vancouver fandom and his efforts to revive or (perhaps sustain) V-con, while Julie McGalliard tried plaintively to get him headed northward to home in Bellingham. When she finally succeeded, I talked to Tom Whitmore about his experiences as co-chair of ConJose and the institutional memory that is involved in running Worldcons these days. The consuite was full of people and buzzing with strange energy -- or perhaps I was finally just more open to an energy that had been there all along. I ended the evening talking to Lynn Steffan and Victor Gonzalez about all kinds of crazy stuff (only occasionally involving Victor's beloved BMW, for which he is carving a new binnacle), and then Eileen Gunn threw the last of us out at just past midnight.
It was an extraordinary blast of desperate fun for the end of a convention. Did Octavia's death somehow bring us all closer together, by reminding us how brief and fragile our time here is? Tom and I talked about how much of fannish activity is about bringing people together, from fanzines to conventions to even bookdealing, in an odd way. I felt a strong connection to and love for my tribe last night, that's for sure. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make the convention happen.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 01:02 am (UTC)