Worldcon Report, Part the Second

[gnomi]

Picking up from where I left off...

Friday

We got a wake-up call at 8:30 AM, but we were all actually awake before that. We did a shower relay (four people, one bathroom, a 10:00 AM panel to get to), had breakfast (and MAB and I made sandwiches for lunch to take with us down to the convention, seeing as we'd have little time to eat), and then all headed down to the convention. MAB and I stopped in the convention office to pick up the Noreascon 4 clock that we'd ordered, and then we headed over to the convention center. MAB was on "The Enchanted Apple: New York in SF and Fantasy" with Esther Friesner, George R.R. Martin, Madeleine Robins, and Susan Shwartz. Much love for New York was shown at the panel, with the writers talking about how they'd used NYC in their stories. It was at this panel at which I saw my mother for the first time all con (she and my father had been on-site since Wednesday afternoon) and at which I gave her Yoga for Chickens.

After that panel, MAB and I headed for the green room to eat lunch. There we encountered Dan Kimmel and Susan de Guardiola, ate lunch, and took some time to blog and check e-mail. At noon, MAB and I headed off to his panel, "How to Become Invisible." Scientific and non-scientific means of turning oneself invisible were discussed, including real experiments using materials that can simulate invisibility and hiding in the back of one's garage as a method of achieving invisibility.

At 1 PM, MAB was on "15 Years of the Simpsons." Much love was shared for the animated family, with discussion of favorite characters, favorite episodes, and what allows the show to remain so fresh after so many years.

Before the convention, we'd e-mailed our friend Brother Guy Consolmagno to see about getting together with him at-con. We'd arranged to meet at 2 PM on Friday in the Green Room (and it's a good thing we did, as it turned out to be the only time all convention that we ended up seeing him). So at 2 we went to the Green Room and met up with Brother Guy. Early into our conversation, David Gerrold came into the Green Room and spotted the copy of his book that MAB had. Gerrold picked up the book and signed it and then spotted the copy of Analog with MAB's story "Time Ablaze" in it. Gerrold remarked that he was jealous, as he has never succeeded at placing a story at Analog. We talked to Brother Guy about all sorts of things - transportation to and from the Vatican (where he lives and works); kosher restaurants in the Vatican (which prompted laughter from Brother Guy); Clifford Stoll and Brother Guy's friendship with him; and many other topics. We also discovered, from running into Isaac Szpindel, that Brother Guy has become the go-to guy for Jews writing SF stories with Catholic themes.

Brother Guy had a panel at 3, so MAB and I wandered off into the convention center, intending to head off to the grocery store to pick up some last-minute things for Shabbat dinner. Outside one of the program rooms, however, we ran into my brother-in-law (for the first time all convention), and he told us that he was planning to go to the grocery store, so he added our items to his list.

Finding ourselves with some unexpected free time, MAB and I had some options. Having run into Robert Silverberg earlier in the convention, MAB decided that he wanted to get Science Fiction 101 from home for Silverberg to sign. So after we arranged that we would meet in the con suite upon his return, I headed off to wander as MAB headed home.

My intention was to quickly check the Voodoo Board and then go directly to the con suite, but this being a convention, I got caught vortexing. Some of it was productive vortexing (I hooked my father up with a camera wrangler for the Hugos, which were starting before Shabbat ended); some of it was just random shmoozing. And it was close to 3:30 by the time I made it to the ConCourse to cut over to the Voodoo board. I noted that there was a very long line at Information, where I was planning to go at 4 to sign up for a Kaffeeklatsch being held on Saturday. Concerned that we would not get a space at the Kaffeeklatsch MAB and I hoped to attend, I quickly called MAB to tell him I was going to queue up and sign myself up (due to the popularity of some of the Klatsches and the Literary Beers, the rules prevented me from signing MAB up as well; he would have to sign up when he returned to the convention). So I checked the Voodoo board and then queued up. I was pleased to discover (though others were dismayed) that the length of the queue was due to the fact that people were also signing up for George R.R. Martin's Literary Beer and not for the Klatsch that MAB and I wished to attend. I signed myself up and then finally headed to the con suite where I finally encountered my sister for the first time all convention. MAB returned to the convention and stopped at Information to sign up for the Klatsch and then joined me in the con suite.

At 5 PM, MAB had a panel but he also wanted to get a book signed by Neil Gaiman, who had a 5 PM autographing session. I agreed to take MAB's book and get it signed, so at 4:30 he and I headed over to the convention center, to the area where the autographing line was already significant. He and I stood together in queue until he had to go down the hall to his panel, "Turning Science into Science Fiction" (which I'd seen him do previous). Already at 4:30 the queue was quite long, and the signing was only an hour long. They'd told us, however, that the first 100 people still in queue when they had to stop the signing would get priority tickets for the next signing, at 1 PM on Sunday. The queue was quite the convivial gathering, with people shmoozing back and forth as we waited. And the line moved relatively quickly. At the end of MAB's panel, he came and found me in queue and waited to see if I'd get to the head of the line in time. At 6 PM, I was #3 in line after the final signature to be given. So I didn't get a signature at that time, but I did get ticket #3 to be at the head of the line for Neil's next signing (more on that in a bit, as well).

At 6, MAB and I went across the street from the hotel to the Trader Joe's to get the loaf of bread I'd been unable to procure at our own local TJ's. We ran into stakebait for the second time all convention (the first being a very quick hi on Thursday afternoon) and also saw a couple of other friends headed out for dinner. After exchanging brief greetings and trying to keep from vortexing, we headed back to our room, encountering Bob again along the way. Bob came back to the room with us and shmoozed while we organized stuff to be taken to my parents' room for dinner. We were taking a pass on the big group dinner for a multitude of reasons, one of which was that it was my dad's first convention and we didn't want him completely overwhelmed. Also, there had been the chance that dinner on Friday would be the first time we'd all get a chance to see each other -- which, in fact, turned out to be true. At 7:10-ish, MAB and I headed to my parents' room for dinner, which was called for 7:15.

Dinner was a lovely family gathering, with much laughter and joking. And after dinner, we all went our separate ways. MAB and I headed back to our room to drop off dinner leftovers and then headed up to the suite being run by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), as we'd arranged to meet Dawn Burnell (gblog_zhaneel), one of the other official con bloggers, there.

We did all meet up at the SFWA suite, but we quickly determined that it was too hot and crowded for any sort of meaningful conversation. We wandered down to the con suite, where we talked for a while as we waited for zmook and our friend Steve to join us. Steve showed up, but zmook was elsewhere around the convention. After a while Dawn, Dawn's husband Bates, Steve, MAB, and I headed up to our hotel room for an extended conversation, which only broke up because we were all beginning to get sleepy. farwing returned to the room as Dawn and Bates were heading out, and then Bob came back not long thereafter. We again talked and giggled for a while, and then we all went to sleep.

Saturday

We all woke up around 8 and did our morning-getting-ready thing. MAB wanted to go to the SFWA business meeting at 10, so he and I were ready and out of the room by about 9:30. I wasn't sure what I was going to do between when MAB went to the meeting and I had a panel at 11, so I walked down to the convention center with him. On the way, we encountered Robert Silverberg again, so he and MAB ended up going into the SFWA meeting together. Meanwhile, to kill time, I sat in the ConCourse until 10:15-ish and then I wandered around the dealers' room saying hi to people I hadn't yet seen.

At about 10:45, I headed up to the Green Room, where my co-panelists were gathered for our 11:00 panel, "Really Alien Languages." I headed down to the room ahead of some of the other panelists, and there I encountered both tsuki_no_bara and ckd, who were looking for me. Tsuki_no_bara and I arranged to meet at 1 in the con suite, as she was off to the Terry Pratchett reading and I had this panel I was on. The panel discussed languages that were truly different from human languages: communication through completely unpronounceable-by-human speech; communication via scent; communication via motion and movement.

After the panel, MAB met me -- fresh from the SFWA business meeting -- at my panel room and we headed back to the hotel for lunch. After we ate, we headed back out, as MAB had the Hugo rehearsal to attend and I was meeting tsuki_no_bara in the con suite. She and I had a lovely conversation while sitting in the con suite. At about 1:25 or so, MAB came back from the Hugo rehearsal. First, he showed me the ticket for the Neil Gaiman signing, which Neil had signed at the rehearsal. He also asked me to go see if I could catch Frederik Pohl, as MAB had a book of his for signing and he wanted to find a reasonable time. However, Pohl was just leaving his location when we got there, so tsuki_no_bara and I decided to wander the dealer's room while MAB went off to his 1:45 panel, "Using SF to Teach About…" While wandering the dealers' room, we encountered farwing again and stood by the Pandemonium Books table for a while talking. While we were there, Phil (who used to work at Pandemonium and who does not have an LJ) joined us, as did, for a brief time, astolat. Eventually, farwing, tsuki_no_bara and I went to the ConCourse to sit and talk about writing and the characters who chatter away in our heads.

At almost 3 PM, I ran off to find MAB at his "Smallville" panel. The panel was quite fun, with a mix of speculation on what will happen and an analysis of what we've seen so far on the show. There, we met up with Bob again, and after the panel he and we went to the con suite for his Kaffeeklatsch (the aforementioned one that MAB and I had signed up for on Friday). It was a small group, with the three of us plus two other people MAB and I know. There was a lot of conversation about comics (as is to be expected, given Bob's expertise in the subject), and a good time was had by all.

After the Klatsch, MAB and I headed back to our room and farwing met up with us as well to get dressed for the Hugo reception. The reception is basically a way to corral the nominees so that they all show up on time for the event itself. But they serve some hors d'oeuvres, so people show up, eat, and shmooze. They also showed us what the base of this year's Hugo looks like (while the rocket itself is always the same, each convention designs a base for the award): copper and brass flames. If I can track down a photo, I'll post it at some later date. At the reception, we saw and talked to a number of people, including Dawn (who was working for kalessin, who was hosting the reception), Joe and Gay Haldeman, Farrah Mendlesohn, Neil Gaiman (who was still working on his intros for the presenters, as he was the Toastmaster for the evening), Jay Lake, scarlettina, and many others.

At about 7:50, we were all led through the hotel to the auditorium and seated in reserved seating for the Hugo ceremony. This year's ceremony, as usual, had a number of components. First Fandom gave a couple of awards; the Big Heart award was given to Filthy Pierre (mentioned in my report about Thursday) for his dedication and hard work for fandom; the Seiun awards, the Japanese SF awards, were given; the Noreascon 4 committee gave a special committee award to Filthy Pierre for his dedication and hard work for fandom; and then the main event started.

For the full list of Hugo winners, see http://www.noreascon.org/hugos/hugoresults.html.

The ceremony went off with just a couple of glitches. While MAB did not win in Short Story, he came in a very respectable second to Neil Gaiman. And after the awards ceremony, we were whisked (or, at least, that was the theory) to the 29th floor of the Sheraton for what has become known as the Hugo Losers party. We stayed for only a brief time, as the room was quite crowded and hot, but during that time we spoke to Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink, Rich and Nicki Lynch, the Haldemans, and a number of others.

As we were leaving, the winners were coming up to join the festivities, so we briefly spoke to some of them in the corridor. We made an appointment to have drinks on Sunday night in the bar with Neil Gaiman, and then we went back to the room to change out of our Hugo finery.

While back in the room, MAB called Bob on his cell phone. Bob informed us that there were hula dancers in the Rhode Island SF club's party and that we should come up and watch. So we went up, and there we encountered Norman Cates, the Down Under Fan Fund (DUFF) representative, whom we had first met briefly on Thursday afternoon. After a while at the Rhode Island party, Bob, MAB, and I went party hopping, first to the SFF.net suite to see kradical and suricattus at their publication party (for Demon Precinct and Staying Dead, respectively). There we also saw terri_osborne, buxom_bey, and many others. After a while, though, we wandered down to the con suite, where we ran into more friends. We stayed at the con suite for a while, but we were getting quite tired, so MAB, Bob, and I collected farwing and the three of us headed back up to the room to sleep.


Four days down, two more to go...

Comments

[ckd]

sunspiral, the designer and builder of the bases, has a picture of this year's Hugo trophy on his web site.

Note that this photo does not do it justice; it looks even better up close.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It was astounding up-close. We saw it at the Hugo reception as well as later, when we ran into various winners carrying theirs around. The base was magnificent, indeed, and my admiration to sunspiral for his artistry.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

How did the alien languages panel go?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It was OK. We had some good discussion about non-verbal language possibilities, some talk about alternate methods of producing verbal language that would be impossible for humans, and the like. There was, to my mind, an imbalance between panelist participation and audience participation that made it difficult for some panelists to completely express their views on various topics.