Ask my Colonel, for I don't know

[sovay]

I am badly missing the sea at the end of summer. I spent some time this afternoon reading on the front steps, but it wasn't the same. I was reading Dick Francis' Hot Money (1987) and Cat Sebastian's A Gentleman Never Keeps Score (2018), though.

After this year's Arisia and Readercon, I believe I am firmly not a person who was designed for virtual conventions, but I had a really lovely time this weekend. It ended up that two of my program items were pre-recorded, which gave me the ghost-like experience of watching myself while hanging out in the relevant Discord channel. Taking part in the Ig Nobel Dramatic Readings is a highlight of any convention—I especially enjoyed hard-selling the scheme of structured procrastination—and "Children of the Daughter of the Night: Descendants of Tanith Lee" was a blast from start to finish as we fanned over Lee and her identifiable inheritors and the difficulty of tracing the lineage of a writer who for all her influence is still far too much like a secret history than a cladogram. I really would like that tribute anthology edited by handful_ofdust. Gratifyingly, "Grappling with Imperialism's Traumas" blew past the premise in the first round of questions and turned into more of a discussion of the ways in which empires are commonly represented in speculative fiction versus the ways in which they actually function in real life. asakiyume took some notes and I have proposed a sequel panel now that we've done the revolution 101. I desperately missed wandering through the dealer's room and hanging out wherever in the hotel I found people to talk to, but I want those people to be there to talk to in future years, so. Still, it's hard to hug through a screen.

I suspect I will never know what I caught at the start of this month that made me so disablingly ill for almost two weeks straight, but it saw itself out with remarkable melodrama: at the classical wolf-hour of the morning, I spiked a sudden fever, even higher than I had guessed from the chills and the skin-ache and the light-headedness and so on; by the time I woke in the afternoon, it was gone and I felt better already. I thought that sort of thing went out with the nineteenth century. Or at least the early twentieth, pre-penicillin. I am now taking things carefully in case I melodramatically relapse. I am very against coming down with even a different plague.

For Afghanistan, I donated to HIAS. I should call politicians in the morning. I read the letter from the president of Bard College. Papers, papers, the old refrain of borders and visas and governments not caring to get people out, it lost its novelty last century. To this we've come.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Well, I'm glad you've shod the virus! ♥

[anna_wing]

Who would you consider to be the writers most obviously influenced by Lee?

[selkie]

Found it. Found a lineage....?

I had to start with the levity because I am very afraid for AFAB people who can't work, can't go in the street, can't be educated or access their bank accounts. We were an occupying force and that's problematic, but: we left them.

[minoanmiss]

*reads, and contemplates, and goes to read Asakiyume's notes, but not before sending you continuing healing vibes*

[dramaticirony]

Glad you had a good time at Readercon. Most people seemed to enjoy themselves, and sometimes were surprised at how much Readercon feeling you could get from a virtual event. While I was volunteering I did encounter two people who were sad that being online really didn't capture what they valued from the con.

I've been to large number of on-line cons both speculative and gaming, and I'm never seen a vendor area as active as the bookseller channels were. And people definitely mentioned to the damage to their wallets.

The prep work was really impressive. I hope other cons take advantage of it--I'm certainly encouraging Worldcon to leverage this for the hybrid side of the event.

[gwynnega]

The Tanith Lee panel made me realize I really need to read more Tanith Lee!

I'm glad you feel better, even if melodrama was necessary to make that happen.

[lemon_badgeress]

may this grace period of feeling well(er) extend like honey

[luzula]

It's been years since I read Tanith Lee, probably not since my early 20:s? The one that left the deepest impression was the (variously titled) Drinking Sapphire Wine duology.

[asakiyume]

I was so pleased with how the Readercon ended up working! It really had the feel of a jostling, talky, con, even though we were all distant. I loved hanging out in the different threads on Discord, talking with people while listening to a panel, and then talking with the panelists after the fact. Your imperialism panel was so lively! And so were the others I saw--I got lots of interesting recommendations for reading to follow up on.

Three cheers for driving off your illness!

[choco_frosh]

I have nothing in particular planned over the next couple of weeks, if you'd like someone to drive you/come along on a trip to some sea.