We're all mad here

[sovay]

I am returned from Readercon.

This was my third year in attendance, and as cons go, it was particularly awesome. High points included, but are not limited to, meeting eegatland (and hearing the first chapter of her novel-after-next The Sword Dance), sdn's stories about Lloyd Alexander, a very rapid conversation about film with Eric Van, the expression on time_shark's face after he won his third Rhysling Award, reading a collaboration with lesser_celery, recording three of my poems in Drew Morse's hotel room, and the entire panel on Angela Carter. The Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition ("Metal things that could think! Thinking metal things!") probably left me with permanent brain damage. I need to see yuki_onna and grailquestion (not to mention matociquala) in more than fleeting glimpses. My book haul was small, but worthy: Elizabeth E. Wein's The Lion Hunter, thanks to the dealer's room, and Ysabeau Wilce's Flora Segunda, thanks to rushthatspeaks. Next year, I am getting a room at the con hotel.

But first, I think I'm going to fall over.

Comments

[sovay]

Those lines alone make me feel like I swallowed thumb tacks and they went straight to my thinking metal head.

You laugh, but someday you will come to Readercon and take part in a Kirk Poland, and some of those sentences will never—even after years of therapy and yellow soap—leave your brain.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

you will come to Readercon and take part in a Kirk Poland

Oh, do attendees write the material or do they bring in examples of bad prose that they've read? It sounds kind of challenging, actually--at least, if the idea is not just to make bad prose but to make interestingly bad prose. The "Thinking metal things" is kind of interesting, in its way. I would want to make a Hindenburg, not merely a car accident (though I guess this falls under the heading of "be careful what you wish for").

even after years of therapy and yellow soap—leave your brain.

"My brain is yellow soap! Yellow soap that thinks! Thinking yellow soap! For a brain! My brain! Why can't I go home!? My happy home. A home that is happy . . ."

By the way, if you find yourself up at 3:30am, I highly recommend Modern Times on TCM.

[sovay]

Oh, do attendees write the material or do they bring in examples of bad prose that they've read?

If you've entered the competition. Each round, the audience is presented with a paragraph of staggeringly bad, professionally published (oh, Piers Anthony and L. Ron Hubbard, what would we do without you?) science fiction, fantasy, or horror prose, which breaks off in mid-sentence. The four or five contestants up onstage then each read a completion of the paragraph. The audience has to guess which one is the real completion, rather than the rest which the contestants have written themselves; for each fake which the audience votes for, the writer gets a point, and the audience gets a point for each correct identification. (This is done by a show of hands, and Eric Van keeps a running tally of the score.) Throughout the competition, a fragmentary sentence has been recurring always as the last line of a given paragraph—this year's was ". . . light that had mildew on it. It was obscure, as though the wick of the cosmic torch had been turned down, but nevertheless it was light." In the last round, various lead-ins to this line have been written, and the audience has to pick which one is the real intro. Usually the audience comes in third or fourth or dead last. This year, the audience was second by a bare twenty or twenty-five points. And it is confirmed that Yves Meynard is ridiculously talented at faking the audience out. His final entry was dead ringer William Hope Hodgson pastiche.

"My brain is yellow soap! Yellow soap that thinks! Thinking yellow soap! For a brain! My brain! Why can't I go home!? My happy home. A home that is happy . . ."

Lionel Fanthorpe would be proud . . .

By the way, if you find yourself up at 3:30am, I highly recommend Modern Times on TCM.

I am hoping to be, for a change, asleep, since one of the reasons I attend so few cons is that they have a certain exhausting death-march aspect for me. (I am hoping this will change as my stamina improves. It's nothing to do with the atmosphere of the con itself.) But it is very tempting.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

and the audience has to pick which one is the real intro. Usually the audience comes in third or fourth or dead last.

There's something oddly comforting about the fact that mediocrity is imitable.

Lionel Fanthorpe would be proud . . .

Wow. I was waiting for him to say he wouldn't eat green eggs and ham on a strange, alien, terrifying plate (or would that be greeny eggs and ham?).

Have you read any of Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad Seven: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure (http://www.colbertnation.com/cn/tekjansen.php)?

I am hoping to be, for a change, asleep,

Yeah, me too, actually, since the routines around here have been pretty strange . . .

[kate_nepveu]

I asked grimmwire about this the next day, and he said he usually had to re-write his first efforts, as they tended to be too good . . .