Lunacon 2009 Ramblings

Friday
I arrived much later than scheduled due to my day job dragging itself out longer than planned.  Check-in was a nightmare; it took more than half an hour to manage the simple task of getting the room and paying in cash for half the room cost.  The guy could not figure out that amount, despite some math help from me (no, $63 is really not half the cost for the weekend, though if he'd give it to me in writing...)  And then he couldn't make change.  Midway through this my roommate Mary Alice Ladd wandered by and I found out that she'd been able to check in even though her name wasn't on the room.  Wonderful security problem there -- maybe I should have just tried to check into someone else's room?  I asked to speak to a manager but it took so long for one to appear that I finally gave up waiting.  The hotel sent me a survey a couple of days later asking about my experience, and I gave them quite a diatribe about the utter incompetence of their Friday front desk staff.  Not a good start to the con.  Fortunately, it got a lot better.

(Click the pictures for larger versions...)

I spent a frantic hour running around to get myself registered, get my Steampunk Ball helpers' memberships straightened out, and talk myself onto the Repo! panel, which I found that the excellent Leigh Grossman, head of program and Fan GOH for the weekend, had managed to arrange even though I'd emailed him about it Thursday afternoon.  Then I headed back to the room to change and prep for the ball.  I was wearing my plain black 1880s bustle ballgown with a top hat and goggles.  Mary Alice (left) was much more stylish.

I'd planned a Victorianesque program with a few twists, so along with doing a couple of figures of the Polo Quadrille, we also did a simplified Pas de Trois, some waltzing, Light Dragoon, a schottische, and my pet-project-in-progress, a quadrille figure done to the Abney Park song "Airship Pirate" (which I was on about last fall, here).  I've wanted to dance to it ever since I first heard it, and my little choreography was so successful that we ended up doing it three times in a row, with me being able to join in on the last repetition.  Tech ghod Hobbit took a picture of people dancing to "Airship Pirate" and pointed out to me that one set kept drifting left because they were unconsciously trying to line up with the large circlular designs on the new carpet (below right).

And speaking of carpet...the hotel has been redecorating in a new and ugly color scheme, and they haven't quite finished.  The carpet had been laid but not stuck down properly, so it had a habit of moving slightly as you walked on it.  It also was shedding with ferocity, sort of like a giant-sized flat cat, so shoes and the hems of long garments quickly became coated with brown fuzz.

Overall, the ball was a blast, and I hope to do it again.  We danced until around 1:00 AM.  My prize acquisition for the evening was the cartoon at the top of this post by artist Alexis Gilliland depicting me in my bustle ballgown.

Saturday

Saturday was the designated Repo! evangelization day, on which I would wear Repo! costumes and trot around with my laptop showing bits of the film and convincing my friends to see it.  (Yes, Raven, you have created a monster!)  I started off low-key with the Blind Mag poster hat (left, copied from this) and the shiny boots from "Chase the Morning," which you can't actually see in the film.  The boots were a pretty amazing experience: thigh-high with lacings and buckles, made of very shiny PVC, with high heels and platforms.  They made me over six feet tall, which put me at eye level with a lot of guys I'm not normally on eye level with and put some of my female friends' faces frighteningly far below mine.  It's a very interesting perspective, and made me wonder what it would be like to be that tall all the time.  Combined with the hat, I was pushing seven feet altogether.

Thus fortified with fabulousness, I went to a panel entitled "The Future of Short Fiction," which was a reasonably interesting discussion of what's going on with the print magazines, online magazines/websites, etc.  Short fiction seems to be destined to get shorter and shorter and shorter, which horrifies me, since I prefer longer stuff.  I do not wish to receive fiction via Twitter, thankyouverymuch.  Some of us still have measurable attention spans.  I keep meaning to write something much longer about why I don't subscribe to the magazines at this point and what I would like them to do to get money from me.  (For starters: hey, Analog, when someone emails the address on your website asking about purchasing a single back issue, you should answer their email and arrange to take their money!*)

Note to authors: when you do a panel and not only do you have a tacky little book display in front of you but also have every word out of your mouth be a personal reference to yourself and your career as an example to all, I make a careful note of your name so that I can make sure to never buy anything by you in the future because you really, really annoy me.

After the panel I loomed over the always-interesting Shane Tourtellotte for a bit, which was amusing (at least for me), and decided that him mentioning his reading meant he wanted me to come to it.  So I made that my second program item of the day.  He read from a story coming up in Analog's May issue, "A Measure of Devotion," which pleased me by going somewhere I really did not expect it to go.

I installed myself at the Accidental Heroes promo table for a bit and made every friend of mine that passed by watch the "Zydrate Anatomy" scene from Repo!  I'm sure the AH folks were just thrilled by this.  I also photographed an attractive light green Steampunk hall costume that passed by (left).  It's nice to see something in a more unusual color scheme.

I found it interesting that even when I was standing up, the giant red hat attracted a lot more attention than the boots.  I should've had business cards for the hat sellers to hand out.  I was quite annoyed that the carpet fuzz really liked my shiny boots and attached itself to them in quantity until it looked like I was growing a sort of brown moss on the heels.

Then I drifted through the art show for awhile, where I met the lady at left and exchanged picture-taking.  I liked a piece by Marianne Plumridge which I mentally dubbed "whales in astronomy" -- it reminded me of both David Brin's Uplift novels and (obviously) Douglas Adams. 

Laura Kovalcin, whom I've known since she was born (scary!) had some very nice work. 

I was puzzled by a large painting in which Perseus is shown receiving what looks like a soup tureen with little wings in it.  Presumably those are the winged sandals, invisible in the depths of the tureen, but why were they being presented in dinnerware? 

I then got into an idiotic conversation with someone studying Heidi Hooper's art:

Her: "Hmm, what's the medium here?"

Me: "Dryer lint."

Her: "Are you the artist?"

Me: "No."

Her: "Then how do you KNOW it's dryer lint?"

Me: "Because on the little slip of paper next to each piece it says 'Medium: Dryer Lint.'"

(I also knew this because I've known Heidi for years.)

I discovered that the restaurant had a reasonable cold lunch buffet (with warm apple cobbler for dessert) and was a really good WiFi spot, so I had a very lengthy late lunch during which I sat and tapped on my laptop and caught up with my email and blog comments.  The waiter eventually caught on that all I needed from him was lots and lots of water and started leaving multiple glasses on the table for me, thus earning himself a sizable tip.  After awhile the Accidental Heroes creative team of Meredith, Ed, and Charlie came in, so I joined them and insisted on taking action shots of them hard at work being creative:

After this it was time to change costumes for the Repo! panel at 5:00.  I shifted into my GeneCo Inventory Girl costume (right), which consisted of a rather short tiger-striped piece of spandex wrapped around me and safety-pinned (accurate to the movie; they were in a hurry and out of time/money) covered by a white labcoat with a GeneCo patch.  Properly, I should have been wearing short high-heeled boots with this outfit, but since I was having fun being really tall, I decided to keep the shiny platform boots.  I chopped the top of the photo because, as usual, the camera hates my face.  (And really, in this costume, no one was looking at my face anyway.)

At this point I discovered that a lot of men really like women in long shiny boots and lab coats -- the whole "she blinded me with Science" thing, perhaps?  It was quite a revelation.  I haven't had so much attention in years.  I let quite a few people pet my boots, which was more exciting for them than for me, since I can't feel a thing through the PVC.

The Repo! panel itself went fairly well.  There were four of us and we managed to keep it from dissolving completely into squealing fannishness and actually discuss the movie some, both on its own and in comparison to RHPS.  I offered to show anyone scenes from the film on my laptop afterwards, and people were coming up to me all night taking me up on that offer.

I retreated to the lobby to discreetly charge up my laptop and check email.  Shane turned up to keep me company and discuss my Scrabble accomplishments (I'd just had my first three-minute, 500-point game a few days before) and his writing.  Shane is, as a rule, completely immune to my dubious charms, but I convinced him that he was such a gentleman that he needed to clean the carpet fuzz off my boots before he went off to dinner.  I also scolded him for not having a website I could link to.

The masquerade was not huge, but had some nice entries.  I particularly liked Laura Kovalcin's Best-in-Show-winning doll and doll-owner costume, which had a neat twist at the end of the presentation with the doll turning the tables on its owner, and a Moon Woman costume with a very nifty asymmetrically-hooped skirt.  Richard Hill MC'ed.  Halftime entertainment was Bob Greenberger with movie trailers.  The new Star Trek film looks...interesting.  I'm half afraid to go see it, since Classic Trek was my SF show of choice as a teenager, and I don't want it ruined for me.  Bob was able to tell me when to expect the new animated version of A Christmas Carol, which my friend Matt Henerson did a bunch of motion-capture roles for and which I therefore expect to see.  November 6th, 2009!

After the masquerade I hung out with Bob for a bit then wound up spending half the night at the Reno bid party chatting with Sharon Sbarsky and Carol Salemi and Ben Yalow.  Eventually I washed up in the filk room.  I'm mostly a listener, but the filkers at Lunacon are just the most wonderful, friendly group of people who've been there for me with unconditional acceptance at some very bad times and don't mind that almost all the filk I know dates back to the 1980s.  I love hanging out with them and asking them to sing favorite songs for me.  This time I asked the yummy Dave Weingart to do "Wild Hunt":

I want to join the hunt he cried, his voice almost a scream
I want to feel the fever, I want to live the dream
To breathe the smells of man and beast that stir like woman's kiss
Not even that can move the soul, wake passion such as this
The chance of sublime pleasures, the thrill of joys unclean
The taste of terror, bitter-sweet, divine and yet obscene

Maybe I'm weird in finding this alluring?  I went to bed very late with much food for thought.

Sunday
On the third day, I rested.  I rested so long that I almost didn't get checked out by noon.  Me sleeping past seven is something of a miracle these days, so it was worth missing the entire morning of the convention.

After a checking out and loading the car, I wandered around for a couple of hours chatting with people.  I ran into Bob Eggleton, who told me about a wonderfully awful movie he'd screened the night before, which I'd managed to completely overlook on the schedule.  We agreed to get together very soon so he could show me that movie and I could show him and Marianne Repo!  Don't the words "Christopher Plummer in gold lamé" excite you as much as they do me?

I finally inched into the dealer's room feeling safe with only $12 left in my wallet.  I was doing very well at not buying anything until I got to Mike Walsh's book table.  There I spotted a copy of Black God's Kiss, which is a collection of C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry stories from back in the 1930s published by Planet Stories (whoever they are) with an intro by Suzy McKee Charnas.  Naturally, I had to have this.  Apparently it includes a Northwest Smith crossover which I didn't realize existed.  I'm not sure why such a thing was necessary, but as a completist I guess I need to read it.  I started humming the Jirel filksong by Special Guest Mercedes Lackey.

My resistance having been thus undermined, I was then politely charmed by Patrick Thomas (who has a very nice beard) into buying one of his books, Redemption Road, which he duly autographed for me.  Feeling cynical, I didn't ask for a personalization.  That way if I hate the book I can unload it at a used book store without feeling too guilty.  Since I was out of cash and he couldn't take credit cards, we had to take it to another book dealer to run my card, which meant I needed a minimum amount to charge, which meant more books, so I also ended up with Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark (first in the series on which HBO's True Blood is based) and Charles de Lint's Little (Grrl) LOST. 

Upon wandering further around the room to Ian Randal Strock's table, I was amused to find out that he'd edited the Thomas novel.  Small world.  I felt that this exempted me from buying anything from his table this time around.

Having mostly run out of things to do, I wandered by the filking for awhile, but it was the "plan for next year" session rather than any actual singing.  I decided it was time to leave while it was still early enough for me to drive home safely.

Overall: a great weekend, though I'm sad to say that other people had a much less enjoyable time, as discussed at length here.  I'm deeply embarrassed that so much idiocy could be concentrated at my home convention.

*Edited 4/7/09: Eleven days response time to my email to Analog re. back issue order.  I was told I could order by direct email or by calling a 1-800 number.  Getting a response: good.  Speed of response: lousy.  Lack of ability to order via a web form or somesuch: very 20th century.

Comments

[Serge]

Christopher Plummer in gold lamé? That reminds me of the extremely awful Italian space opera Star Crash.

Glad you had a good time.
Glad you were over 6 feet tall.

[Jeff]

It was a pleasure seeing your boots, hat, and you. Next year we'll try to make more of the con. Having a 5 month old puts a kibosh on things like that. Although Balticon should be fun.

And I expect to show Sandy Repo real soon now.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge:
Yes, that's it...I've seen it now and written it up and as soon as I get the pictures in the post will appear.

[Serge]

Susan... I saw that movie 30 years ago and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth just to think about it. (The only other Star Wars ripoff of that era that can compete with it in the abysmal category would be Japan's Message from Space.) I expect that reading what you have to say about it will have me smile if not keeling over from laughter.

[Mary Aileen]

I, too, had a very good time and was surprised and saddened to hear about the major troubles other people had.

I have to confess that I was one of the people on a panel I was not qualified for, but I'd already backed out of one thing, and didn't want to back out of another.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Mary Aileen:
I think that the original fault for that sort of thing lies with the program people. Did you know before the convention? My only suggested approach is to withdraw from the panel and offer to be on another, but that works better pre-con.

[Marilee J. Layman]

Great costumes for you and Mary Aileen!

Planet Stories is a publisher that's republishing old stories. I've got the book with all of the Northwest Smith stories.

[Serge]

My wife and I are going to Westercon in Tempe/Phoenix for the July 4th weekend, and I got an email the other day asking if my wife would like to be on some programs. After all, she is a writer. The woman, whom I knew from Making Light, also asked me, but I'm not sure what she thinks I'm qualified for. I did offer to put together a steampunk movie track, but it's probably too late for that.

[Serge]

Marilee... Northwest Smith? Goodness, that takes ne back to my college days.

[Susan de Guardiola]

I like Northwest Smith just fine ("Shambleau" is an old favorite of mine) but I don't see him combining well with Jirel of Joiry. If nothing else...old world France and space travel? Um, huh?

[Susan de Guardiola]

My next Steampunk thing will be at Balticon, where I am doing another Steampunk Ball and also a panel on Steampunk costumes. I don't feel hugely qualified for the latter, but I'll manage.

[Serge]

Susan... Smith & Jirel, together? Why not, thanks to the wonders of Time Travel?

[Serge]

Susan... I'll manage

Don't you, usually?

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge:
I'm not that big on crossovers, and this seems like an especially unfortunate one. If "why not" isn't obvious to you, I don't think I can explain it.

[Serge]

Susan... Personally, I do not like crossovers either. I was simply pointing out how possible it would be. I realize now that you were refering to the lameness of that crossover. In fact, it goes beyond lame.

[Mary Aileen]

Susan: I knew my schedule before the con, yes. That's how I was able to drop out of the Knitters and Crocheters Yarn Swap* and substitute the Middle Grade Fantasy panel, at the same hour. But it felt funny to then drop out of something else, too.

*I don't knit, I don't crochet, I have no yarn to swap.

[Susan de Guardiola]

I don't knit, I don't crochet, I have no yarn to swap.

That's an impressively bad piece of scheduling! What on earth were they thinking? (rhetorical question)

Last year I had to tell them to scrap almost my entire schedule for similar reasons, compounded by them having given it to me only three days pre-con, leaving me no time to prep for items I might have done had I had time to actually work on them.

[Neil Willcox]

Northwest Smith crossover with Jirel of Joiry; on the one hand this won't work as Smith and Jirel occupy the same position as protagonist in the same type of story* (weird stuff breaks in from another time/dimention/state of mind/planet etc.) so having both is redundant. On the other hand, it works fine as both are used to weird stuff breaking in from another time so it fits together brilliantly.

* From memory; I may be exactly wrong on this

[Serge]

I do have one crossover on my to-read list: Stark and the Star Kings, where Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark meets her hubby Edmond Hamilton's Star Kings. That crossover is less unusual, but I expect that time travel is involved, but not weird things from another dimension. The only reason I have the book is because I love Brackett's stuff even though I've heard it's not that good.

Weird crossover media-related novel: the X-men meet Star Trek's Next Generation.

[Mary Aileen]

Susan: They were probably led astray by my describing myself as a fiber artist (I meant fabric artist, but had a brain glitch). The fact that I then specified quilting and stuffed-animal-making obviously didn't overcome their assumption that fiber artists *must* be interested in yarn.

[Susan de Guardiola]

I'm a fiber (fabric) artist of sorts, if one includes costume, but I also have no interest in yarn.

[Serge]

Mary Aileen... describing myself as a fiber artist (I meant fabric artist

Dare I say that was a cloth call?
("No, you do not dare.")
Yes, Susan.

[Serge]

The boots were a pretty amazing experience: thigh-high with lacings and buckles, made of very shiny PVC, with high heels and platforms. They made me over six feet tall

This reminds me of the scene from Monsters vs Aliens, when B.O.B. the Blob meets a giant girl.

B.O.B.: What do people scream when they see you coming? Like "Look out! Here comes...?"
[leaves the question hanging]
Susan Murphy: Susan.
B.O.B.: [spookily] SUUUUSSAAANN!
[beat]
B.O.B.: Ooh, I just scared myself!

[Paul A.]

weird stuff breaks in from another time/dimention/state of mind/planet etc.

Well, then, a crossover's easy: Jirel of Joiry (or Northwest Smith) goes to investigate weird stuff breaking in from another time/dimension/whatever, and... it's Northwest Smith (or Jirel of Joiry)!

(NB: I don't know whether this would actually work, as I have never yet read any of the adventures of either. Yes, I know, shame.)

[Paul A.]

Further on the subject of implausible crossovers between an author's characters from disparate timezones:

There exists an official three-way crossover between Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (science fiction, set in the distant future year of 2001), his Black Jack (medical thriller, time period not specified but clearly futuristic) and his Princess Knight (swashbuckling fantasy, definitely set in the 15th century).

I remember thinking it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen; mind you, I was about twelve years old then. (It should also be noted that although I am not twelve years old now, I have yet to encounter anything starring Black Jack that I didn't think was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.)

[Paul A.]

Back to the original post:

My prize acquisition for the evening was the cartoon at the top of this post by artist Alexis Gilliland depicting me in my bustle ballgown.

A prize indeed!

Short fiction seems to be destined to get shorter and shorter and shorter

And meanwhile long fiction seems to be getting longer and longer...

I was puzzled by a large painting in which Perseus is shown receiving what looks like a soup tureen with little wings in it. Presumably those are the winged sandals, invisible in the depths of the tureen, but why were they being presented in dinnerware?

I seem to recall that the sandals came with a matching helmet, which looks rather bowl-like in some of the depictions I've seen. Could that be it?

[Serge]

Paul A... Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler does sound cool. Ever seen him in that public annoucement cum musical number he did last year against Prop 8? He played Jesus. Here it is on YouTube.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Paul,
I keep nominating Alexis in the Fan Artist category but he doesn't make the ballot lately. I love his stuff, and he often draws little cartoons for me at Lunacon.

Fiction length: yes, something between the doorstopper and the Twitter would be nice, wouldn't it? I'm perfectly happy with a good 300-350 page novel.

On Perseus: yeah, delivering shoes IN a hat, very hygienic. As a helmet, let's just say it was wide enough to make a good soup tureen. Maybe if he'd had a head like a mushroom.