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Put all the things on that you believe in
Was this Readercon cursed? I made my nice post about my much improved Saturday and took a shower and went to bed and I yawned and an excruciatingly gristly thing occurred in the hinge of my jaw that prevented me from sleeping more than two hours for the rest of the night because it took three hours lying in the semi-dark with a makeshift ice pack melting down the side of my face just to get the pain to calm down from crying point. I walked into my panel on Lloyd Alexander and existentialism in one of those crystalline states that is sort of the ten percent visible of an iceberg of collapse and lampshaded: "A Fflam is never hungover."
It was a great panel. We had people who'd read Alexander at deeply formative ages; we had an existentialist who'd read him first for this panel; we could have gone another hour, easy. We barely even got outside the scope of the Chronicles of Prydain and the Westmark trilogy. We did manage to name some other existentialist fantasies, but I'd honestly love to see a sequel panel delve into them more deeply. A lot of talk about responsibility, about absurdism, about the theme of reckoning with the world as it is. About what happens after the end of the fairy tale—magically, politically. Seriously, we could have just kept talking. As for the panel on horror and marginalization and being disbelieved, I don't quite want to say it was refreshing that the panelists were all AFAB, chronically ill, and variously marginalized after that, since we comprised a terrible indictment of the American healthcare system, but we really bonded over Gwynne Garfinkle's description of the scene in The Exorcist (1973) where a mansplaining doctor gets demonically slapped across a room. The discussion went real-world a lot faster than it went toward fictional recommendations, but it was very satisfying as such. Intergenerational trauma, gaslighting on the interpersonal and social scales, disbelieving yourself, learning to listen. I did manage to talk about The Naked Kiss (1964).
I saw so many people this convention whom I did not get to do much more than wave at or hug or mutually enthuse in a hallway. A totally incomplete list would include Sherwood Smith, Amal El-Mohtar, Rob Cameron, Mike and Anita Allen, Jim Freund and Barbara Krasnoff, Farah Rose Smith, Rose Fox, Marissa Lingen, Romie Stott and Ciro Faienza, Gwynne Garfinkle, C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez, and teri.zin, with slightly more featured time from Michael Cisco, Fiona Maeve Geist, Gemma Files, Ruthanna and Sarah Emrys, Greer Gilman, Erik Amundsen, Elise Matthesen, and Lila Garrott. I think I just sort of shouted at Nibedita Sen about how much I love her short fiction, but it seemed to go over well. Marc Abrahams got sung at, but he's already heard me read very fast from some very strange papers. I think I actually ran out of social skills by Friday and just kept going on theater.
And in the considered opinion of the urgent care doctor whose office I finally walked into this evening when by half an hour from close of business they still hadn't called me back from this morning, I probably subluxed my jaw last night. Which is why it still hurts and I'm supposed to eat a lot of soups and custards over the next few days. (I've had a milkshake today.) I will be calling my physical therapist first thing tomorrow and in the meantime I am trying to figure out if it's the Quincy Marriott or me. I never got food poisoning or anaphylaxis or partially dislocated bones in Burlington. I mean, I got stalked, but at least my skeleton didn't fall down on the job.
I still think I had a very good convention. All of my panels went well. I had a good time at my readings. People kept asking me to sign books (even if my collection could not in fact be gotten in the dealer's room except for this one copy that mysteriously manifested halfway through) and saying nice things about programming they had seen me on. I added copies of Michael Cisco's Unlanguage (2018) and Gwynne Garfinkle's People Change (2018) to my book-hoard. All of my fellow panelists were great, which puts me ahead of a couple of un-dodged bullets I heard about from friends. Emotionally, it was a fun and fulfilling experience! Physically, we're pushing the boundaries of irony here.
And of course I cannot actually collapse because I have deadlines. But I am going to sit on this couch with Autolycus for half an hour and breathe. A cat is a good decompression. This was a dramatically variable weekend.
It was a great panel. We had people who'd read Alexander at deeply formative ages; we had an existentialist who'd read him first for this panel; we could have gone another hour, easy. We barely even got outside the scope of the Chronicles of Prydain and the Westmark trilogy. We did manage to name some other existentialist fantasies, but I'd honestly love to see a sequel panel delve into them more deeply. A lot of talk about responsibility, about absurdism, about the theme of reckoning with the world as it is. About what happens after the end of the fairy tale—magically, politically. Seriously, we could have just kept talking. As for the panel on horror and marginalization and being disbelieved, I don't quite want to say it was refreshing that the panelists were all AFAB, chronically ill, and variously marginalized after that, since we comprised a terrible indictment of the American healthcare system, but we really bonded over Gwynne Garfinkle's description of the scene in The Exorcist (1973) where a mansplaining doctor gets demonically slapped across a room. The discussion went real-world a lot faster than it went toward fictional recommendations, but it was very satisfying as such. Intergenerational trauma, gaslighting on the interpersonal and social scales, disbelieving yourself, learning to listen. I did manage to talk about The Naked Kiss (1964).
I saw so many people this convention whom I did not get to do much more than wave at or hug or mutually enthuse in a hallway. A totally incomplete list would include Sherwood Smith, Amal El-Mohtar, Rob Cameron, Mike and Anita Allen, Jim Freund and Barbara Krasnoff, Farah Rose Smith, Rose Fox, Marissa Lingen, Romie Stott and Ciro Faienza, Gwynne Garfinkle, C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez, and teri.zin, with slightly more featured time from Michael Cisco, Fiona Maeve Geist, Gemma Files, Ruthanna and Sarah Emrys, Greer Gilman, Erik Amundsen, Elise Matthesen, and Lila Garrott. I think I just sort of shouted at Nibedita Sen about how much I love her short fiction, but it seemed to go over well. Marc Abrahams got sung at, but he's already heard me read very fast from some very strange papers. I think I actually ran out of social skills by Friday and just kept going on theater.
And in the considered opinion of the urgent care doctor whose office I finally walked into this evening when by half an hour from close of business they still hadn't called me back from this morning, I probably subluxed my jaw last night. Which is why it still hurts and I'm supposed to eat a lot of soups and custards over the next few days. (I've had a milkshake today.) I will be calling my physical therapist first thing tomorrow and in the meantime I am trying to figure out if it's the Quincy Marriott or me. I never got food poisoning or anaphylaxis or partially dislocated bones in Burlington. I mean, I got stalked, but at least my skeleton didn't fall down on the job.
I still think I had a very good convention. All of my panels went well. I had a good time at my readings. People kept asking me to sign books (even if my collection could not in fact be gotten in the dealer's room except for this one copy that mysteriously manifested halfway through) and saying nice things about programming they had seen me on. I added copies of Michael Cisco's Unlanguage (2018) and Gwynne Garfinkle's People Change (2018) to my book-hoard. All of my fellow panelists were great, which puts me ahead of a couple of un-dodged bullets I heard about from friends. Emotionally, it was a fun and fulfilling experience! Physically, we're pushing the boundaries of irony here.
And of course I cannot actually collapse because I have deadlines. But I am going to sit on this couch with Autolycus for half an hour and breathe. A cat is a good decompression. This was a dramatically variable weekend.
no subject
This was the first time I've had a chance to see the Ig Nobel reading, you were all great. Your theatrical pacing and sipping for the coffee paper was particularly inspired, and started things off with great energy.
One highlight of the con for me was attending a Kaffeeklatsch for the first time, which was great fun. It was Malka Older's first time as an author at a Kaffeeklatsch, and as you'd from people excited to meet the author of Infomocrasy and State Tectonics, everyone merrily geeked up at the intersection of policy wonkery, political theory and SF.
no subject
Me too! I was really worried about today's programming. I wanted to be able to talk about Alexander as he deserved.
This was the first time I've had a chance to see the Ig Nobel reading, you were all great.
It was a lot of fun! I knew Claire would be amazing, but I don't think I had heard either Rose or Heath perform before; I especially was not expecting Heath's Renfield. There have been readings at Arisia for some years now, but this was their first time at Readercon and honestly I hope they stay.
Your theatrical pacing and sipping for the coffee paper was particularly inspired, and started things off with great energy.
Thank you! I didn't even have that in mind when I picked the paper out. It just seemed like the natural extension of the conceit.
It was Malka Older's first time as an author at a Kaffeeklatsch, and as you'd from people excited to meet the author of Infomocrasy and State Tectonics, everyone merrily geeked up at the intersection of policy wonkery, political theory and SF.
That sounds like an excellent time all round. I'm glad you were there for that.