mindstalk | Entries tagged with convention

Complaints

Scary turbulence on every flight except connecting La Serena.

Apartment complex has cleared the courtyard walk, but the public sidewalk in front is a deathly death trap of deadly ice.

Been going to Arisia. Either the hotel was cooler today or I'm starting to get sick.

Haven't filked much. There's been interesting things until 23:15, and there's a lot more people. Friday I got in my "Soldier Ask Not" and left, almost barely making the last trains. Saturday I hung a bit, then left earlier. Today I bailed out of a 22:00 "can we trust photos" panel and went directly home.

Con suite isn't stocked as well as Boskone's. Smaller selection and less reliably stocked. Though the Arisia meatballs are back. And it's much easier to get to than in 2011 -- 16th floor then, Galleria now. They do have some nice bread.

I guess the food trucks were a big hit, they ran out of food early. I've mostly been living on home breakfast and dinner, and con suite.

Airport has "next silver line" displays now, but South Station and World Trade Center don't.

Nice stuff

People seemed to like my "Soldier Ask Not". I went to a "strong sound" workshop that was interesting, and I got told I've got "an excellent instrument", though apparently clarity problems. A Game of Thrones fan meetup today had amazingly few people show up but I had fun talking to a couple of people anyway, no spoilers barred.

Nice panels: "Why root for monarchies? Class and fantasy lit." One random linkback: supposedly in medieval France it was believed only special people could learn to read, even while a much higher literacy culture (98%? I disbelieve) was right over the Pyrenees. Similarly Americans tend to think of singing as a special talent, vs. other cultures where everyone's expected to. This came out of divine or magical legitimacy for monarchs.

"Poetry and prose", authors switching modes. Went mostly because I knew a panelist, and the 5 panelists outnumbered the 2, later 4, audience members. Still, was fun.

"Sheroes", on female heroines, with Tanya Huff and James Nicoll.

"Housekeeping for nerds". I was curious and knew a panelist. Surprisingly fun as well as informative, in terms of options for spending money on the problem, and a few tricks.

"Geeky belly dance" performances.

"Judaism in SF", with the added fun of sitting by an SCA person I know and swapping notes to quietly comment. (I'd type on my phone, she'd write on paper or whisper.) She's a lot more Jewish than I am and disagreed with some of the panel statements, but it was sure entertaining.

Yeah, I know I'm not saying much useful. No time for that.

I wanted to like "Let's rule the universe" on space empires but I gave up fast, it was just a morass of unstated assumptions. Space access *is* hard but stating that as unalterable fact when you're assuming FTL is rather messy. And "no one has any clue how to make an ansible, while NASA has warp drive programs!" True for program values of "a few people are paid to have wacky useless ideas."

I haven't sung much, but I've gone to singing 'panels' for lack of a better noun: story song, doom song context, silly song mashup.

Had a few nice transit or hall conversations, though haven't met anyone new that I'm likely to ever see again.

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/389320.html

At Anime Boston this year, it was impossible to get into panels I wanted for most of Saturday afternoon, which I instead spent watching five episodes of Bunny Drop. I've now watched the rest, and I like it. For conflict and tension it's down there with Maria-sama, Aria, YKK, and Chii's Sweet Home; pure slice of life of a 30 year old bachelor who effectively adopts his 6 year old aunt (Granpa got lucky before he died) and raises her. It is basically pure parenting DAWWWW but as with Maria-sama and Aria and YKK that seems to work on me, and this time there isn't even the usual parade of nubile women. (I can't stand Chii.) Daikichi and Rin may remind me of my and my niblings or friends' kids.

There's a bit of bite: a look at how hard it is to be a single parent in Japan, people taking demotions so they can pick their kid on time, a cousin who runs away from her husband and in-laws, then later other good fathers. I'm influenced here by the Totally Subversive Toons panel, which said that Japan's long recession changed what was acceptable to show in terms of family dynamics and tensions. Before, only happy families; after, a Black Lagoon exec who comes home and ignores his wife and troubled kids. So I'm wondering if "parenting is hard, work isn't everything, and in-laws can suck" is part of that.

I don't know if actual parents would think this is sweet and awesome or just banal because they live it. But for what it is, it seems perfect.

Then I went to look it up online, and learned it's based on manga. Specifically, the first half of the manga, which seems just as perfect in its familial realism, but with more details than the anime. The second half starts with a timeskip of ten years, and, well... volumes 5 and 6 are said to be fine, but after that it takes a very weird turn and you might simply want to skip that.

( Or descriptions of it. But if you don't: )

http://japaneseliterature.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/bunny-drop/ is an interesting and positive review of the manga... again apart from the ending.

So, I still recommend the show, and the first 4-6 volumes of the manga (on hearsay.) Caveat lector on the rest.

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/367390.html

I haven't abandoned the parking book, I've been busy going to Boskone, and that book masses at least 1150 grams (the max my food scale can measure) so T reading has been _Empires of the Indus_ instead.

Personal highlight: I sang four times in open filk: "Bridal Shower", "Galadriel's Lament", "Gimli's Lament", and the One Ring poem, and got praise for all, especially from Heather Dale, professional singer. She's also professionally encouraging, so my self-critical xNTP side is quite capable of discounting her praise, but I'd like to think it adds up to something positive. Especially a spontaneous "your performance tonight was really good, particularly the first one" (Gimli). Tonight I was standing up, which did help volume and delivery, and also trying to act/gesture along with Gimli's words, inspired by Heather's Friday open filk of "Maiden and the Selkie", which in ways was even better than her stage performances. No Ben on guitar, but also no drums in her hand, instead her in the middle of the room miming out parts of the song. So, yeah, this morning I was imagining how to 'annotate' Gimli. Hope it worked.

Other personal highlight: I ran into akashiver, whom I haven't seen in a few years.'

( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/355899.html

Last weekend I went to Readercon, another area SF convention, this one devoted to SF/F books and writing only, no other stuff. Well, apart from one panel on cooking and another one of Joan Sloncziewki's trip to Cuba. It was lots of fun, usually had at least one panel to go to, if not two or more. Felt friendlier, as in meeting more people without the link of filk, than other conventions. Was sort of surprised to see Sam Delaney present without there being a bigger fuss, though there was a panel devoted to him. Was surprised to see Richard Stallman, then remembered I'd seen him on a *panel* at Arisia or Boskone last year, so shouldn't have been. Was surprised to see him handing out pamphlets on why e-books are evil, like a street preacher. Learned Arisia has so much money it can donate to smaller conventions in the area.

===
elaine pagels argues book of revelation is anti paulite, angry about
gentiles being let in

woman says she was catholic but missed narnia allegory by comparison to
other children's lit like uncle arthur. (heidi or secret garden?)
Compare to Lewis's claim that he wasn't thinking of christianity while
writing

(Frankenstein)
Kant coined modern prometheus, for ben franklin and electricity

mary sees herself as the creature? never met her mother. had bad father.
had notes her mother wrote in childbirth (mary wollstonecraft). "i have
no doubt of seeing the animal today"

anthro panel. meh in general. one guy did 2 years field work in geneva,
talks about event where activists asked everyone to stand in a circle
holding hands, which terrified the diplomats, and china tried to block
it. armani suits and tshirts. UN meeting toom totally set up to
reinforce hierarchy.

virginia has its own dialect.

lila garrott claims lothlorien is a walled city... caras galadhon, yep, it is.

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/332254.html

The previous weekend -- June 29th -- I went to Concertino, a filk convention held in Boxborough this year, off the South Acton commuter rail stop. Rather off: supposedly 5 or 6 miles, but the cab charged me and someone else $15 each, and I don't know if that was a split of $30 or just charging both of us.

What happens at a filk con? Concerts, mostly, from 1 hour ones for the top guest of honor, to 20-30 minutes for people arranged in advance, to 5-10 minute slots one can sign up for at the con. I could have gotten one of those, had I more trust in my a capella singing. There's also intermittent panels, on musical exercises and songwriting and on fannish music that isn't filk; that last is the only one I went to, and not for the whole time, but I learned dementia exists, and got a big list of names, including but not limited to Weird Al and Jonathan Coulton and Luke Ski.

One thing was clear: when filk gets defined as the folk music of SF fandom, we don't mean just geeky songs set to folk tunes, but a living folk tradition of musical participation and exchange, where the core experience is not "I bought their album" or "I went to their concert" but "I sang their song." Or "I parodied their song." And core experience is also of a circle of filkers singing at each other in turn, even if not always very well, rather than the dominant producer and mass consumer model.

That said, I didn't do much individual singing. Thing about a filk con is that everyone else is a filker too, so in the large bardic circle Saturday night it took two hours for the turn to go around once and a half times, before I went to bed. I got one in there, a song or two in Sunday's dead dog filk (after the con's officially over) and that's about it.

But! After Friday's chaos filk, where I was one of a few people who hadn't put ourselves forward to sing, a woman said "I didn't get to hear you sing". Non-participation got noticed and invited to participate. Probably helped that I was sitting between one of the best singers and one of the most prolific, rather than hiding in the second row of seats.

The dealer room had more filk CDs than I'd ever thought about existing laid out for sale, and rationally they'd only be a fraction of what's out there. That was intimidating; even this tiny tiny niche subculture has produced more stuff than I'm likely to ever own or even hear.

Con hotel was the Holiday Inn, which had what I thought was a really neat garden court. Third story skylight roof, containing not just a swimming pool but lots of trees and some fountains and a couple of gazebos. One of those "indoor outdoors" things that I love. Especially in last weekend's heat wave. Location sucks though; beyond the distance from the train station (there's a hotel shuttle, but it was already booked for the time I wanted to come; did take it outbound), there's about nothing in walking distance. The hotel restaurant is ok, with slightly crappy service; there's a take-out pizza and sub place a mile away, and then one gets into multi-mile distances.

Hmm, Arisia and Boskone aren't in top locations either. (Lot easier for me to get to, though.) Westin Waterfront Hotel is a decent hotel in its own right, but it's got somewhat expensive restaurants scattered around, and the South Station food court 20 minutes away. Not like Anime Boston, in the Hynes right in the middle of Back Bay. Of course, you pay more for locations like that.

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/331020.html

Last night Meetup.com informed me that something called Jiffycon existed in the area. On looking it up, I found that it was a small RPG convention that happens 2-3 times a year, and in fact was happening today in Davis Square, for $10. "How remarkably convenient." Sign-up started at 8:30, but thanks to the cruise I'm actually somewhat synchronized with the normal world, so that wasn't unthinkably painful. Small turns out to mean *very* small, like 20-30 people, 5-6 gaming tables. The games, at least this time around, are indie "story games", like Lady Blackbird, Burning Wheel, InSpectres, and others I hadn't heard much of. I played in both the morning and afternoon.

Lady Blackbird

I think I've downloaded this -- it's free! -- but hadn't read it. It seems to be a set scenario, with high intended replay value in that a few details are pinned down, and the rest to be made up by the players, so the setting can vary a lot each time, not to mention the differences of play. Still, you could probably do the same to any scenario, like Keep on the Borderlands, though LB has lighter yet more comprehensive rules. The general setting is as if Spelljammer and Firefly had a baby: "solar system" with Imperial and Free worlds, and a smugger ship that looks remarkably like Serenity, but "space" is full of air, the scale is appropriate for aircraft, and the 'worlds' are probably more like medium size asteroids ranging down to Little Prince worldlets. Game comes with 5 PCs, a start point, and starting goals; complexity is high enough that it's probably a fine multi-session mini-campaign, and our game in fact ended at a nice mid-point, nowhere near to achieving an official end. Recommended.

Note that while it's basically a module game, I think it's complete enough to make a light normal game of its own, with totally novel characters or scenarios. It's got more advancement possibilities than Spirit of the Century -- actually, it basically has the Secret and Key mechanics of Shadow Over Yesterday, right down to the xp numbers.

Forsooth!

This game is like a generator for lost Shakespearean plays, and *is* meant to finish in a few hours. You make up -- possibly randomly -- a setting and themes, and 2-3 characters per player. Each PC has a Soliloqy and Aside per game, combat is "you choose to die, take your attacker with you (competing for applause in your death scenes), or exit wounded". One PC for each player is a Protagonist, who wins non-lethal conflicts with non-Protagonists, and in the default mode the game ends when all Protagonists are married or dead. PCs have Motivations they seek to fulfill, or else are foiled, and Oaths, which may be Forsworn. PCs get Applause from players for being cool, and there are two 'winners', the Forsworn PC and non-Forsworn PC with highest Applause.

We rolled up a castle on the moors in Troy, with themes of Deceit and Power, and ended up with Trojan War 2: Electric Boogaloo. PCs included the Queen of Troy, actually a long-abducted Greek named Helene, whose husband had recently died and who was sworn to defend Troy; her daughter (my Protagonist) a scheming puritan who sought the crown and swore to never marry, her dullard puritan son, a lusty swordsman, scheming vizier, honorable knight, buffoon general, fool, and only two Greeks (a king, also the queen's *first* husband, played by the girl playing the son) and his brutish villain general Ajax (me again). The Greeks didn't get many scenes.

The queen and king ended up united in death; my Princess achieved her goal, and with a divine command and dramatic reveal, married what turned out to be her half-brother. Forsworn, then, but you'll note that she had to end up Forsworn, dead, or not a Protagonist -- which is possible, I could have had Ajax soliloquize himself into more importance. Even after death: a player can bring on one ghost. Since we never used the non-lethal conflict mechanic, I could have done that without losing anything other than dramatic integrity; a Protagonist ghost with the Motivation of looting Troy would have been odd.

Much fun was had, and I even bought a copy, $10 at the con vs. $14 online.

Other

I had lunch at Red Bones. I thought others would be there, but apparently there were vegans so they diverted to Snappy Sushi, and LB ran late thus I was uninformed. The BBQ beef sandwich was good.

Trader Joe's seems to be indefinitely out of stock of European style yogurt. NOOOOO. I bought their other kind, with pectin and all, and it seems so weird. Maybe I'll need to start making my own again.

Heard John Scalzi do readings at Harvard Co-op last night. I should actually read something by him. Probably starting with Redshirts.

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/328642.html

Rest of Anime Boston was fun overall, though I might be hitting the point of diminishing returns. Panel quality was variable... kind of crappy Saturday, until a pretty good Religion and Japan one at the end. Friday's star panel was a Madoka one. Saturday had a Madoka and Eva one, and the guy could keep talking at least, but didn't have much to say.

Oh, pics! http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/sets/72157629770586801/with/7055654061/ I'm friends with the Mami cosplayer, the blond.

I seem to have picked up a cold and have gone to ground for the past few days, apart from a paella at the Acetarium last night. I almost didn't go because sick and late, but then I saw an IRC message about their having started cooking, and I decided I should just go. Good thing I did; good food, good company, and some gossipy news.

My Shakespeare kick ran afoul of Titus Andronicus. It was easy to read, in a sense, but the plot was choppy and made little sense, and I gave up. I've re-read Paladin of Souls, The Deep Range (Clarke) and Small Gods. I had occasion to re-read my 1493 posts; found a bunch of typos I need to correct, but the content is still awesome.

Elsewhere, I found myself arguing with space cadets over the nonsense of dumping trash into space even with 'cheap' launch costs of $40/kg. It wasn't entirely unproductive: I found a source saying landfill costs were a cent per kg, and incineration 10 cents. So I learned something. Unlike the cadet, who is not to be budged by mere numbers, or not disagreeable ones.

I would also like to thank Google for changing the UI absurdly and letting me taunt my G+ loving friends.

Crossposts: http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/320163.html

Last April was too soon, I guess, but this year Madoka has become as popular here as it is in Japan. Cosplayers everywhere. I have a few cool pics to put up some time. The Madoka panel was given an entire exhibit hall. This was overkill in a sense, we didn't even half fill it, but that's a lot more space than the typical panel room can provide. Good panel too; one point was Madoka deconstructing both Magical Girl and Moe fetishism, but only reconstructing Magical Girl at the end; getting off on suffering and vulnerability is left in uncomfortable pieces.

This year I saw more T-shirts about specific anime, but of course most of them are for stuff like Naruto, not stuff I watch. There was a Haruhi Suzumiya shirt... with her pulling her shirt off and exposing her bra. Who of either sex wants to walk around with that in public? Similarly there was a Spice and Wolf shirt with nice art... of naked Horo. From behind, mostly showing buttcrack and underboob, but still, not the identify statement I want to be making. I got a Firefly Venn diagram instead.

Other cosplayers: Dalek. Tardis. 10th Doctor. Ouran, Bleach, Death Note, Suzumiya, and Avatar are still running around.

Someone thought Japanese curry actually came to them via the British, not directly from Asia. Someone else said it uses turmeric and cumin, but leaves out the red pepper. Makes sense, given that the only hot thing in Japanese cuisine is wasabi, if you call that hot. I'm not sure what it is.

This year I know people! Yay!