Dry Ice Factory

I've purchased a membership to Corflu 34 in LA. I'm curious what kinds of pre-convention plans people have.

Plans are proceeding apace for two conventions in August: Prolog(ue): A Pre-Worldcon Relaxacon, which is being held in the Seattle area August 14-16, and Sasquan: A Post-Relaxacon Worldcon, which is being held in Spokane August 19-23. I am area head for the fan/fanzine lounge at Sasquan, and I'm more or less just a useful idiot for Prolog(ue), which is being chaired by Ulrika O'Brien.

We're just a month away from the beginning of these festivities, and so this would be what they call crunchtime. I fell like I'm working almost non-stop on various organizing efforts, although probably the reality is that I'm mostly thinking about it non-stop. I've got a lot on my mind. Still, it's not all mental activity. On Saturday, for instance, I wrangled two large pieces of artwork to two different shops in an attempt to get them scanned. I'm still not sure that the scans I managed to have made at my second stop will be sufficient for the purpose, which is to have those pieces of artwork (and three others that I already had digital files for) printed as posters to decorate the Lost World Fanzine Lounge. All of the artwork is dinosaur related, because the Lost World Fanzine Lounge is where the dinosaurs of fanzine production still roam.

Also on Saturday I joined Ulrika, Scott, and carl at Gallaghers' Where-U-Brew in Edmonds to bottle the beer we had previously brewed two weeks ago. This beer is an imperial stout that we'll be serving at both Proglog(ue) and Sasquan. My contribution to the effort on Saturday was to put caps on bottles. It's a nice beer, too, although not weak!

These two activities were on top of lots of email correspondence, as well as other non-convention work I had on my agenda, including picking the last of my raspberries and writing a couple of blog posts. But it wasn't all work on Saturday. I also went to Julie McGuff's 50th birthday party at Andy and Carrie's, which was great fun, even though I pooped out around 8:00 and crawled home to unload the cases of beer from my car and into the basement.

On Sunday, more correspondence in the morning, and then in the afternoon I headed up to Andi Shechter's place to consult about the exhibition of Stu Shiffman's art that we'll be doing in the fanzine lounge. Andi has been going through boxes and boxes of fanzines and old notebooks looking for Stu's artwork and having a friend scan it all. These scans will feed into various projects Andi has in mind, and we're taking advantage of it for Sasquan. There will also be a memorial for Stu at Sasquan, but Andi still hasn't made up her mind whether she wants to face the potential emotional turmoil of attending the convention.

After that I was too wiped to see straight, so I went home and did a little bit more program wrangling for Sasquan before plopping myself in front of the TV to watch a movie. The To Do List seems hardly dented, and I'm sure the next few weekends will be just as busy, even if most of the business is in my brain. I'm getting to the point where I'm telling myself that it's okay if I don't get everything on the To Do List done. Everything's going to be fine, even if all the plans and ideas don't come to fruition. Whew!

I had intended to spend Friday evening at Potlatch, but I was so emotionally drained by a personnel crisis at work that exploded on Wednesday that I decided to bag it. Then I got an email from Spike asking if I wanted to meet her and Tom Becker for beer and dinner, and that sounded good. We met at the Big Time, and it turned out that Scott Kreidermacher, Ulrika O'Brien, and Jack William Bell (GeekWire's Geek of the Week) joined us as well. After a couple of beers we headed to the Shalimar for some curry. It was a welcome break from the work drama, but I was still feeling so wiped out that I went home afterward.

The next day I felt refreshed enough to face the horde, and I made it to the Deca Hotel, where the convention was held, just in time to join Tom, Glenn Glazer, Julie McGalliard, Janna Silverstein, a friend of hers whose name I lost, and Jerry & Suzle for lunch at a new restaurant called Seoul Tofu House & Korean BBQ. My spicy squid was good, and the conversation was a blast, ranging from an anthropological analysis of puns (including Julie's take that puns in fandom are a kind of mating display) to a discussion of military SF as written by women and whether, for example, the increasing role of American women in combat will change the kinds of military SF stories American women write. On the way back to the hotel Janna told me what an excellent, intelligent science fiction movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was up until the bog standard action finale that destroyed character continuity and derailed the whole thing for her.

Back at the convention I went to three panels. The first was the second half of "Living in a Fantasy World: The 21st Century Appeal of Fantasy Fiction," with Tom Whitmore moderating (as if!) Ellen Klages, David Bratman, and Nisi Shawl. The main focus of the panel was the evolution of fantasy as a publishing category, although the discussion frequently got into the roots of the genre as well. I believe one of the contentions hovering over the panel was that genre fantasy (perhaps roughly defined as fiction about magic) has overtaken science fiction in popularity, both in terms of what's on the shelves and what's winning awards. Perhaps lurking behind that contention is the idea that this is caused by the increasing number of women who both read and write fantastic fiction.

Next up was "Women Destroy Science Fiction: Not Again!", which was about the book of honor. Panelists were Kate Schaefer, Eileen Gunn, and Debbie Notkin. Debbie wondered whether it still made sense to be putting out women-only anthologies, or whether that was becoming a form of ghettoization. Eileen argued that she is marginalized by articles like her entry in The SF Encyclopedia that portray her as not really a science fiction writer. (" Much of Gunn's work, which is not copious, could not be described as sf.") Kate talked about how Gordon Van Gelder, who has been the editor and publisher at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for a number of years, was publishing only 20% stories written by women. She also compared the Lightspeed anthology to Pamela Sargent's 1974 anthology, Women of Wonder, and commented that the tone of the stories in the Sargent was angrier and those in Lightspeed more celebratory. In one of those moments that make Potlatch and SF conventions so wonderful, Vonda McIntyre spoke up from the crowd to tell the story of how Women of Wonder in part resulted from an angry letter she wrote to the publisher of a Best SF anthology that only included stories by three women out of a total of something like forty stories. When the publisher wrote back to ask Vonda if she'd like to put together an anthology of women writers, she connected them with Sargent, who she knew was shopping Women of Wonder.

The third panel I went to was "The Culture, Remembered," with Andy Hooper, Jane Hawkins, Chip Morningstar, and John D. Berry talking about Iain Banks' Culture novels. Jane probably put her finger on the core concern of the series when she said she doubted that an artificial intelligence (which in the Culture are called Minds) would have any motivation or reason to do anything. She also talked about how technology in the Culture has allowed everybody to be sane (unless they choose to be not-sane), and she tied that to her own struggles with depression and (getting back to her point about the Minds) the attendant inability to motivate herself. There was also a discussion of how Banks' stand-alone space operas, Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist, might take place in the same universe as the Culture without anyone knowing. Andy said he hopes to set up another panel about the Culture for Sasquan in August.

After that I headed up to the consuite to sample some of the beer that I had helped to acquire earlier in the week. Various dinner parties formed, but I wasn't feeling very hungry, so I hung out talking to Misha Williams and others who wandered in and out. Unusually for me (and no doubt only because Misha was there and isn't as introverted as I am) I ended up talking to a few people I didn't know, and that was good fun. Early on a woman whose name was something like Jessie joined us for a discussion about Sondheim's Into the Woods. When she mentioned that she'd stage managed a production of it, she and Misha bonded over how stage managing can ruin a beloved play for you. But eventually friends returned from dinner and I mostly went back to talking to people I knew. Then again, it was room full of people I knew, some of whom I don't see very often, so I talked to a lot of people! There was much talk of beer, and also a fair amount of talk about the revolution at Wiscon. Chris Wrdnrd invited me to sample some sake, and I joined a circle with her boy Andy, Luke and Julie McGuff, and Rich McAllister. Eventually, Scott, carl, and I headed down to Jack's room to sample single malts, and before I knew it I was staring at 1:30 in the AM and a long, drunken walk home.

Well, it was all a lot of fun, by grab. I chatted with Paul Wrigley and Debbie Cross in the dealer's room (mostly about beer), but the only book I bought (and not from them) was The Stone Boatmen by Sarah Tolmie, which was urgently recommended by Tom Becker. On the exhibit side I was deeply moved by the display of Stu Shiffman's artwork that Jerry and Suzle put together as a memorial. I hope we can do something similar at Sasquan. I got a lot of egoboo for the beer, other than one minor complaint about the relative paucity of stout. The book of honor provided a great framework for the weekend, and Ulrika O'Brien did a great job of building a program around it. Potlatch can sometimes leave me feeling a little alienated, maybe because I'm envious of all the writers and wannabe writers involved, and it's true that even this time I didn't spend a whole lot of time there. But in the time I did spend there what I saw was the gathered tribes voicing their enthusiasms and grievances in smart, engaged, thoughtful, feeling, funny, scathing ways, and it seemed to me that I was part of something that's still growing and evolving into strange and compelling forms. If women are destroying science fiction, it's only to create it anew.

View from the convention center

I spent the weekend in Spokane with akirlu attending a facilities walk-through and planning meetings for Sasquan, the 2015 World Science Fiction Convention, and also just poking around the city, which I had never visited before. akirlu and I (as well as other of the usual suspects amongst Seattle fanzine fandom) are running the fanzine lounge in 2015, and she thought it would be a good idea for us to meet the committee and especially to talk to Randy Smith, who is head of the Exhibits division, which is handling the fanzine lounge. Indeed, of the roughly twenty people who came for the weekend, I had met only five before, so it was probably good to make ourselves known to more of them.

These were the first Worldcon planning meetings that I've ever observed, and it confirmed my feeling that it's not something I'd want to do very much of, while at the same time being fascinating and educational in a variety of ways, from people to process to politics. There were a lot of jokes about Worldcon sausage being made, and the jokes seemed appropriate. It was great to spend some time with Randy Smith (one of four Randys I encountered over the weekend), who is very interested in the fanzine lounge even though it's only one small corner of what he's dealing with. It was also a pleasure to meet and start to get acquainted with various other folks, including the Chair, Sally Woehrle. A lot of folks were from out of state, but there were also a number of us from the Seattle area and a contingent of locals. The politics of outreach to the locals, and the different convention-running cultures on each side of the mountains, was one of the more interesting topics of the weekend. All in all, I was impressed with the people running the show.

Alongside all that was the exploration of Spokane itself, and I came away impressed with that as well. First off, there's something like seven micro-breweries, which is a good way to win my heart. We visited two of them, NoLi Brewhouse and 12 Strings Brewing Company, and I liked them both. The NoLi also has a pretty good food menu that included poutine. (I had the steak salad.) A group of us had lunch at the Saranac Public House, which has a good selection of beers from around the West Coast and a nice food menu as well. That's just the tip of the beer iceberg. akirlu and I also had dinner at Wild Sage Bistro, which was a little spendy but utterly fantastic. The flash fried calamari, which had been soaked in buttermilk over night and was served on a bed of shredded home made kimchee and pepperocinis, was to die for. We twice ate breakfast at Frank's Diner, which has great food and is located in an ornate old railway car. In general I got a strong impression that there's a good foodie thing going on in Spokane.

The downtown area is pretty interesting, with some cool old office buildings and a couple of architecturally impressive churches. The Davenport Hotel, which will be the party hotel, is just as spectacular and elegant as advertised. Some of the ballrooms, which the convention may or may not be able to use (they are still negotiating), are truly astonishing. The convention center is set right on the river across from a lovely city park. There seem to be a lot of restaurants and bars in the area, as well as some interesting looking shops.

Well, as I say, I was impressed. I know that there's been a fair amount of skepticism about this convention, but I hope folks will give it another look. Aside from everything else going on, we are going to do our best to make the fanzine lounge a happening place for birds of our feather and any and all folks looking for a port in the Worldcon storm. I honestly think we could have a total blast out there in Spokane, which was the earliest European settlement in Washington State (circa 1810, so not long after the Lewis and Clark Expedition) and feels like a place with real, live history. There's gold in them thar hills, I do believe.


Viewing the Marie Antoinette Ballroom in the Davenport Hotel

It was an uncanny feeling which was to haunt him through all his hours here -- the knowledge that what he looked upon was unreal, the wonder as to what was actually taking place behind the mask of humanity that only he could see. (CL Moore, "The Bright Illusion")

Due to a booking error by my secretary (yes, that would be me) I arrived in Sacramento at 11pm on July 4th rather than at 11am as intended. Thus I missed the Opening Ceremonies of Westercon 66, but did make it in time for the power outage that struck the hotel and its immediate environs. This was widely deemed the Best Blackout at a Westercon Ever, but I fell asleep in the middle of it. What can I say, it was very dark. Ah well, many thanks to Kat Templeton for picking me up at the airport!

( Why Westercon? )

I'll be at Westercon on Friday and Saturday. Friday night I'm helping out with the London in 2014 party (co-hosted by Westercon 66), and otherwise I'll just be hanging out. Hope to see some of you there!

I'll be at Potlatch this evening. Rumor has it that there will be a wine-tasting for London in 2014 and that I'll be helping out with it. Hope to see some of you there.

It appears that I'll be conducting a live interview with FGOH gerisullivan at SFContario in November. I'm not much of a public speaker and try to avoid the stage, but this is a chance to make Geri talk. I like to listen to Geri. However, I've never conducted an interview before. I'm sure some of you have. What do I need to know? What do I need to do? Teach me! Also, what questions should I ask Geri? What stories would you want to hear? (Geri can decide whether those stories are for public consumption or not!)

I ended up feeling pretty wiped out this weekend. I don't know why. Might just be part of the emotional cycle I'm going through. I ended up bailing on the Rat City Rollergirls on Saturday, because I just didn't have the energy.

I did spend a few hours at Potlatch both Friday and Saturday nights. It was good to chew the fat with various folks such as calimac, voidampersand, spikeiowa (who sort of complained that all I write about here is movies), k6rfm, and n6tqs (sporting a lovely new tattoo, and very close, apparently, to qualifying as an able-bodied seaman), along with local friends such as juliebata, nisi_la, jackwilliambell (who stroked my hair, the pervert), mcjulie, janeehawkins, kate_schaefer (who brought glad tidings of Full Sail's Imperial Porter Aged in Bourbon Barrels being on tap at the hotel bar, mach schnell), and even one or two non-LJ friends such as my co-editors, Scott K, Victor G, Craig S, and Bryan Barrett, who is recovering from losing his foot recently to complications from diabetes. As zoned as I was feeling, it still seemed to me that the convention was going very well and that people were really enjoying themselves. The auction raised a fair amount of money for Clarion West, and when I left around midnight on Saturday I saw Ellen Klages being shorn of her hair, which she had auctioned off. Congrats to the concom for a successful convention.

Other than that, I worked on proofing the British fanthology that will be distributed at Corflu Cobalt. It's a corker, if I do say so myself. And last night I watched Miyazaki's Porco Rosso. I'm slowly getting caught up on Miyazaki, and this is one I'd never seen before. It's brilliant, just like everything of his I've seen so far. The setting is Italy after WWI, but it's a fantasy Italy of sky pirates and bounty hunters. Our hero is a bounty hunter who was once a handsome young military pilot but who is now a pig due to a spell cast on him. One of the things I love about Miyazaki is the deep sense of mystery in all his films. He doesn't explain everything about the background. It enhances the magical feel. And nobody does flying like Miyazaki. I'm not sure how he does it. Maybe it's the way he gets right down on the landscape, and gives us the sense of rushing across it. Oh, and to enhance the strangeness of it all, I listened to the French dub, which I've read somewhere that Miyazaki prefers to the Japanese dub. Italians speaking French in a Japanese anime? Magic!

(Sorry, Spike! But at least I didn't watch the Oscars. But hooray for Kathryn Bigelow!)