randy_byers | Worldcon highlights

Worldcons are always too large to write about comprehensively. Not that I'm able to write comprehensively about smaller events either! I tend to go for the impressionistic approach, or a list of snapshots. So here are a few highlights of Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Montreal 6-10 August 2009.

1) Au Pied De Cochon - Chris Garcia apparently made the reservations at this restaurant thirteen months ago after Kevin and Andy watched an Anthony Bourdain show about it, in which the owner told his staff, "Keep bringing him more food until it kills him." This is the kind of fancy French place where braised lard is considered a delicacy. The foie gras poutine hardens your arteries from a distance. The atmosphere was exciting and the food exotic, but I mostly enjoyed this expedition for the company. Along with Monsieur Garcia and Linda Wenzelburger, the South Bay contingent included Jason Schachat,Kevin Roche, and Andy Trembley. There was also a woman named Abby (I think) from Israel, and Niall Harrison (who later in the convention became a giant spleen) and another woman whose name I did not catch, but who wore a T-shirt with a giant squid holding a Loch Ness Monster head above water, apparently trying to lure cryptozoologists to a certain death. We were there for three hours, so we were forced to get to know each other. I had a complete blast doing so.

2) Geoff and Annie - I first met Geoff Hartwell (David's son) at the 1993 Worldcon in San Francisco, when he was still sixteen. We hung out quite a bit in the next few years, including a memorable visit in 1997 when Tami and I took him and a couple of his girlfriends to Jimi Hendrix's grave. Geoff and I determined that that trip was the last time we'd seen each other until now. In the meantime he'd gone to college and become a professional musician. He was already a great guitar player as a teenager, but now he teaches guitar as well as recording and playing shows. (Yes, he has a website.) Annie is his longtime girlfriend, and someone he has known since she was a fetus and he was a toddler. She is a total sweetheart, and she's also a dancer. (Modern dance, that is. We talked about Merce Cunningham and her personal favorite, Pina Bausch.) It was just amazing to connect with Geoff again after all this time, thanks to Ron Drummond, who ran into him at the Tor Party. Geoff's all grown up, still has a goofy sense of humor, and has the rock dude look and attitude down cold. He's a complete sweetheart, too, and he and Annie made a beautiful couple. As a matter of fact, at one point Sharee and I were walking down the street with them, and a drunk panhandler looked us all up and down and said, "You people are GORGEOUS!" Hell, yeah!

3) Melissa auf der Maur - I didn't go to much programming, but I was really glad we made it to this. Melissa auf der Maur has been a bassist with both Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins, and now has a solo career. She is working on a multimedia project called Out of Our Minds that includes music, a short film, a comic book, and a website. This event was a presentation of the film, with commentary about it from her, along with two songs she sang accompanied only by her own bass. She's a native of Montreal, and we were told by several locals that her father was a well-known media personality and columnist in the city. Despite technical difficulties showing the film, I found her a fascinating stage presence. Seems to be deep into somewhat trippy woman-magic mythologies, but she came across as so sincere and introspective that it was easy enough for me to go along with it. I'm definitely interested in checking out her music now, and the soundtrack she did with neo-psychedelic band The Entrance Band sounded great. The film, directed by someone named Tony Stone, had utterly gorgeous visuals and was heavy with personal symbolism. Would like to see it again when it isn't seizing up and crashing every five minutes.

4) The Daytime Fanzine Lounge - When I heard that this was going to be a small space in a larger "Relax Area," I was really put off. Once again fanzine fans are shat upon by an uncaring committee! However, despite the limited table space and seating, this ended up being a pretty good deal, I think. It was a great place to touch bases with various friends during the day, and it did seem to attract a fair number of people who were curious about fanzines and wanted to see what they were all about. Lloyd and Yvonne Penney did yeoman work setting it up and manning their stations. This is where Colin Hinz put his Gestetner for display and to run off the one-shot that he and Sharee put together Saturday night and Sunday morning. I just love that kind of historical re-enactment! This is how it all started, folks.

5) The Evening Fanzine Lounge - What the daytime lounge was for the convention center, the evening lounge was for the party hotel, the Delta Center-Ville. Catherine Crockett and Colin Hinz presided over the room that rocked till dawn every night of the convention. Once again the space was a little cramped, but there were always people there I wanted to hang out with. Everybody pitched in, too. Even me! I made two beer runs over the course of the weekend (the first a complete ordeal that resulted in a very pissed Sharee), and I played the responsible adult in the early part of Sunday evening, while Catherine was at the Hugos. (I had done the same during the day while Lloyd and Yvonne went to their rehearsal for the ceremony.)

One of my favorite developments of the convention was on Monday, when I headed toward the lounge to meet Ron Drummond and Del Cotter for a dinner expedition. I ran into the Plokta Cabal, who told me there was a note on the door from Catherine saying that she'd be opening the room at 9pm that night, rather than the normal 7pm. "I've got a key," I said. So we opened the room, beer and brandy was found or acquired, and I waited for Del and Ron to show up. When the three of us got back from dinner, we found Catherine and Steven Cain getting out of a cab with bags of beer. I gladly volunteered to help with sherping the beer. Up in the lounge, Alison Scott was presiding over a roaring party. Leave the Cabal alone for a couple of hours, and a party ensues!

There was no fanzine display in the evening lounge, but one of the things I loved was that both times I heard someone demand to know where the fanzines were, a fanzine was produced. The first was when I whipped out a copy of Chunga for Pretty Jack. The second was when Michael Swanwick asked the question and someone whipped out a copy of No Idea. "Mimeographed on Fibertone!" I crowed. He seemed suitably impressed.

6) Geoff Ryman's family stories - At the awesome UK/Irish party on Friday night, Geoff Ryman wandered past and I said, "Greetings." Ryman is someone I've talked to in small groups several times over the years, mostly after his readings in Seattle, but most recently on the lawn with Lilian Edwards outside the convention center in Glasgow in 2005. I'm sure he doesn't know my name, but he's always an affable conversationalist. This time was no different, as he stopped and said, "Felicitations." I introduced him to Sharee, and soon we were talking about Australia, as you do. Turns out that Ryman had an Australian grandfather ("a hard-drinking, abusive man") who took his brother's name to join the merchant marines before he was old enough and who abandoned Ryman's grandmother and mother, only to sire another daughter by another woman (in Egypt, I think it was) and give her the same name as his first daughter! The latter family knew about the former, but Ryman's mother didn't know about her sister until they met many years later. The details of this story were so bizarre that they would seem fantastic in a work of fiction. I have to admit that I gave up on Ryman's novels a few years ago because I began to feel they always led to the same painful climax, but this conversation makes me reconsider. He is a natural story-teller, and he had us enthralled and amazed.

7) Snogging with [deleted] - Tobes was only too happy to teach various people, including Sharee, the difference between kissing and snogging. Well, who wouldn't want to snog Sharee? There was plenty of that going on. What surprised me was that I actually snogged with a couple of people too. Not really something I do, particularly when one of them was a boy. Well, everybody was snogging with him, too.

8) Hugos by Twitter - I had a great time opening the Evening Fanzine Lounge on Sunday night while Catherine was at the Hugos and Colin and Sharee were still mimeoing No Idea. Especially since I didn't really have to open it. When I got there, the door had already been opened (somehow -- it was never really explained how) by Dave O'Neill, Gaspode, and Gaspodia. Dave and Gaspode promptly went down the consuite to raid it for food, too, which solved a problem that I didn't personally feel up to solving. Handy people to have around! Meanwhile I chatted with Gaspodia, whose real name is Rita and who turns out to be the chair of the next Eastercon, Odyssey, which is being held in London in 2010. Rita is very much of the mindset that fandom is too insular and cliquey, and we had a fascinating conversation about her experiences with fandom and ideas for changing how it works. One thing that made me happy is that she had heard of Corflu's method of choosing a Guest of Honor out of a hat and is intrigued by it. It's intended to promote egalitarianism, and it's nice to know that the idea may be spreading out to other areas of fandom.

Once the Hugos got going, Dave reported the results as he received them via Twitter. This turned out to be one of the best uses of Twitter I've run into so far, and one of the best ways to experience the Hugos. We didn't have to suffer through the pomp and circus pants, and yet we did get to participate in the anticipation and excitement of the announcement of winners. It was a good show.

9) Conversations with John Hertz - I think I talked with John every night except Monday night, and I had at least one conversation with him in the convention center during the day, too. Usually we talked about some of the same things that Rita wanted to talk about -- insularity, cliquishness, reaching out, spreading the word. One conversation was about the fact that Japan is bidding for a second Worldcon, in which John talked about some of the problems of the first Japanese Worldcon and what we can learn from them. We also had a talk about the fan Hugos and whether they still have any meaning or purpose. John and I are very different people. For one thing, he's far more outgoing and open to new people than I am. I really, really enjoy talking to him, however, and I was glad that the opportunities had expanded since the last time I saw him in person, at the 2006 Worldcon in LA, where we only talked once. Plus the dude looks great in both a beanie and tails and top hat.

10) Sharee story - This list could go on and on just listing the great people I got to hang out with (Ron! Geri! Schirm! Tobes! James Bacon! Steve Stiles! Ranger Craig! Etc!) However, I'm running out of steam for today, so I'm going to end where I must inevitably end. Sharee said she thought she liked the Montreal Worldcon even better than the Glasgow Worldcon in 2005. There are a variety of reasons I'd probably give Glasgow the edge (Hugo nomination! real ale bar! Permanent Floating Floor Party!), but one of the big ones would be that she and I were still a couple at that point. I've written before that I don't really understand what our relationship is now. We had another heart-to-heart about it a couple of days before the convention, but it didn't really clarify anything. At one point on Monday night, Alison Scott asked me, "Have you and Sharee gotten back together?"

"No," I said. "We're just good friends."

"Right," she said dubiously. "You're just good friends who only spend every single minute together."

"It's complicated," I agreed.

But whatever the hell it is, we are still good companions for this kind of thing. We were together almost every minute of the convention, not to mention the days preceding it. That's one reason it was so hard to say goodbye to her on Tuesday. It's not that we're head over heels in love any more, but I sure had gotten used to having her around again. It was nice to have that level of companionship again, even if the passion is largely gone. It was utterly delightful to watch her instigate the mimeo oneshot. It was utterly heart-warming to have her come look for me to keep her company on some little errand or another.

As I told her in our heart-to heart, I simultaneously feel that we are so close together that we are practically one person and that we are so far apart that I can't remember what it was like to be that close to her. I've bounced back and forth between those two feelings constantly since she came to Canada in February. She's headed back to Australia in a few days, and who knows when or if we'll see each other again? There are various possible meeting points which we have discussed, including the Worldcon next year in Melbourne. Meanwhile, we go our separate ways, on our separate paths that could lead anywhere, including far away or into another pair of arms.

But those ten days in Montreal were something we do well together. We had ourselves another adventure. More memories I will always cherish, even if I have no idea what they mean.

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holyoutlaw.livejournal.com

This was so moving.

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Good place to get some thinking done

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