Your future is uncomfortable, trapped in your little cars

My schedule for Arisia. Apparently it's kind of huge this year.

The Exiled Character
Friday 7 PM
Catt Kingsgrave-Ernstein (m), Greer Gilman, Barry B. Longyear, Sonya Taaffe, Bob Kuhn

From the Mabinogion and the Arthurian cycle, our literature has used the archetype of the hidden prince. Let's focus on the notion of his exile and foreign upbringing, and more generally discuss the perspective of the outsider's perspective in F&SF. Why is it so common? What is the allure? What does this allow the author that they couldn't do otherwise? Does any of this parallel the experience and influence of the cultural outsider in today's society?

Fantasy Before Fantasy, SF Before SF
Saturday 11:30 AM
Hildy Silverman (m), Esther Friesner, Tim Lieder, Sonya Taaffe, April Grant, Gareth Hinds

The Odyssey, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Frankenstein, Gulliver's Travels, and Journey to the West. A look at classic works of world literature that, while not written as science fiction and fantasy, have been co-opted in the 20th and 21st centuries by speculative fiction readers and used as inspiration by the writers.

Chantey Sing
Saturday 1 PM
David Kessler (m), Sonya Taaffe, Angela Kessler, Jeff Keller

Songs of sailing in all forms, with an emphasis on work songs from the age of sail. Open sing. Fun for all!

Fantasy and Horror in Shakespeare
Saturday 2:30 PM
JoSelle Vanderhooft (m), Greer Gilman, David Nurenberg, Sonya Taaffe, Bob Kuhn

Before Brooks, Anthony, and Tolkien, there was the Bard. William Shakespeare was not the first to build the genre, but he was the first to make it marketable. This panel takes an in-depth look at the works of Shakespeare, and we reflect on Will's way through the genres of Fantasy and Horror.

Reading: Nelson, Silva, & Taaffe
Saturday 5:30 PM
Resa Nelson, Richard A. Silva, Sonya Taaffe

Authors Resa Nelson, Richard Silva, and Sonya Taaffe will read selections from their works. I will almost certainly be reading from A Mayse-Bikhl, of which I will have copies.

Death Personified
Saturday 8:30 PM
JoSelle Vanderhooft (m), Esther Friesner, Sonya Taaffe, William Freedman, Gail Z. Martin

Terry Pratchett's Mort, Peter Beagle's Lady Death, and, of course, Neil Gaiman's goth girl Death. The anthropomorphizing of the cessation of life has been a staple of genre fiction and fiction in general for longer than anyone can remember. Panelists discuss memorable incarnations of Death, and their varied uses and roles in fiction.

Myth and Folklore in Fantasy
Sunday 11:30 AM
Merav Hoffman (m), Esther Friesner, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, Erik Amundsen

How do writers use myth in their stories? What are the most common myth cycles drawn from? Has traditional folklore been run out of town by urban legends? Why is the appeal of these stories so strong after millennia?

Speculative Poetry Slam
Sunday 2:30 PM
Elayna Jade Smolowitz (m), Shira Lipkin, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Sonya Taaffe, April Grant, Julia Rios, Erik Amundsen

Join us for a speculative poetry reading!

Diana Wynne Jones: In Memoriam
Sunday 4 PM
Bob Kuhn (m), Greer Gilman, Merav Hoffman, Frances K. Selkirk, Sonya Taaffe

With the passing of the enormously prolific Diane Wynne Jones, we reflect on the body of work she has left us, from the Chrestomanci series to Howl's Moving Castle. What is it about her work as a primarily YA fantasy author that draws even adult attention?

I am also planning to attend the Post-Meridian Radio Players' Red Shift on Friday night (because I am finally not scheduled across from them) and the Skin Horse filk session on Monday afternoon.

Will I see any of you there?

From the times of the Greeks and Trojans when they sang of arms and the man

This would be the post that isn't about Arisia.

1. R.I.P. William Duell, the reason I am disproportionately fond of Andrew McNair, Congressional Custodian. He can be heard for about thirty seconds as the Messenger in the original Blitzstein production of The Threepenny Opera (1954); I noticed him among all the other character actors in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). I would see him every now and then on Law & Order and be glad he was still working.

2. Tilda Swinton on Virginia Woolf's Orlando. "In my attic is a box containing two of the costumes Orlando wore in the film. One day, I know my son will find them and try them on. One day—soon, I expect—my poetry-writing daughter, his twin, will pick up Woolf’s book and try it on for size." Yes, I will buy that edition, thank you.

3. Roman brothel tokens! I love ancient erotic art. It's not that it's rare: it's just much more rarely displayed. One of the reasons I found myself grinning like an idiot through the MFA's Aphrodite and the Gods of Love when rushthatspeaks and I visited in November is that it's full of things like a beautifully carved hermaphrodite or a marble relief of a winged, bird-footed siren mounting a man while he sleeps. Trying to find an image of the latter online, I have just found one of the great blog posts about classical art.

4. I am incredibly amused that Badass of the Week has done a feature on the historical figure I generally think of as "the nice one from I, Claudius." (They did Arminius back in 2005. Their articles have gotten rather more comprehensive and more sweary since then.)

5. Impostor syndrome and how to get rid of it. I seem to have convinced myself that if I say more than three sentences on a subject together, I will bore the pants off the person I'm talking to. This despite the fact that I spent some time last night boggling that my 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T essay has been tweeted and possibly even retweeted—I don't even have a Twitter account. People I don't know have demonstrably been finding it interesting. But then of course that's Dr. Seuss, not me. [edit: Look, I said I was working on this!]