Stranger stars to light my way

I am returned from Readercon. In point of fact, I have been returned from Readercon for about five hours now, but I spent most of them lying on a couch. I have an enormous headache and a kind of full-body inability to focus on anything; I am not really surprised, since the only night I really slept at the hotel was Thursday. I regret very little. This is not a con report, but I'd like to note some high points before I pass out.

I almost saw enough of handful_ofdust this year. We had dinner together two nights out of three and I sort of crashed her autograph session, since the next chair was empty—I ended up signing a friend's copy of Lovecraft's Monsters (2014) with an exhortation for Gemma to write more poems like "Haruspicy" (and send them to Strange Horizons) and then totally forgetting to ask Gemma to sign my copy, which I bought for the express purpose. She has bequeathed me a stack of DVDs, including Night Tide (1961), Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and the Criterion edition of Fiend Without a Face (1959). Some of these may yet be reviewed for Patreon.

I did not see enough of Michael Cisco this year, but I had the pleasure of hearing him not only recount the plot of Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), but perform the Baron's death speech with implied 3-D dangling liver. I am now sold on that film and Blood for Dracula (1974); I only hope I was able to repay in kind by describing Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1932). We talked about Aickmann and Tarkovsky. I am seriously thinking of trying to make a day of Necronomicon in August.

I did not intend to invite yhlee for an evening of watching my mother have her science fiction collection evaluated by a professional book dealer, but that's how today worked out. derspatchel came out and met us for dinner at Thai E-Sarn in Arlington Heights, because Thai restaurants are not apparently a thing that exist in Yoon's part of the world. We had previously, with rushthatspeaks, gaudior, nineweaving, and schreibergasse, been part of a Friday night expedition to WooRi in Arlington Center, because Korean restaurants are not apparently etc. We're back to that thing where all my friends need cheap, reliable teleportation.

At Arisia in January, Jean of Somewhere in Time Books promised to find me an affordable copy of Joan Aiken's A Necklace of Raindrops (1968). It wasn't that I didn't believe him: I just wasn't sure he would be able to. He did. I bought it. It is the exact same edition that I remember reading in elementary school, with the silhouette illustrations by Jan Pienkowski. It made me incredibly happy—I read it last night before bed and talked about it on the side of the Win Fairy at this afternoon's panel on re-reading. Weird little deadpan fairytales that they are, the stories have generally held up. "On the station signboard, under DESERT, the words FOR OASIS have been added."

Friday's panel on hells and underworlds could have gone on twice as long. I would have appreciated not having to get up for the Saturday morning reading at what Schreiber' calls the ass crack of dawn, but I went back to bed afterward. I am very pleased with the way my half-hour reading went. I was requested afterward to write a particular story; as soon as I get my brain back, I am going to try to.

I participated in the Readercon Miscellany again this year; I sang Lal Waterson's "The Scarecrow" and Peter Bellamy's "We Have Fed Our Sea." I do not know if a recording was made, but someone should please let me know if the answer is yes. It occurred to me on the day that sacrifice to the earth and the ever-hungry sea should go together.

(If recordings exist of the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours' "Lionheart," someone should also please let me know, because it's been stuck in my head since Saturday night and I can't find the lyrics anywhere.)

I can tell that at some point I misfiled some money slightly between the fold in my wallet for income and the fold for spending cash, because counting the bills in the former tells me I sold eight and a quarter copies of Ghost Signs, but there are now four copies left of the thirty which I had to sell in January. That kind of blows my mind. Also, it means that for the first year at a convention ever, my book purchases were paid for by my book sales.

I did numismatics.

I firmly believe that other interesting things happened (I saw asakiyume for five minutes!), but I have just realized that it's two in the morning and I would like to be asleep. Shockingly, I'm going to see what I can do about that.

It was a really good weekend.