Continued from
Lunacon
(Part One)…
First, an omission: Amy Goldschlager, of the
Committee for Accuracy in Blogging, scolded me for having
neglected to mention that I also ran into her before the "Wrong About Japan"
panel (on which she was a panelist). Mea culpa. She asked if I
thought her chopped liver, to which I responded that I think of her as more of a
pate de foie gras.
Saturday was easily the best day of the con. It
started off for me at around 10:30 or so. I’d planned an 11 AM arrival,
but I made extraordinarily good time on the Turnpike. Since I was a bit
early, I hit the dealer’s room, which I hadn’t seen yet. It wasn’t bad —
better than I thought it would be at a con as small as Lunacon. Dave’s
autograph session was scheduled for 11, so I looked around for a bit to see if
anyone had
New Voices in Science Fiction, so I could pick up a copy. I did have
two things for him to sign: a copy of Realms of Fantasy with his story, "Seven
Brothers, Cruel," and a copy of the Phobos anthology,
All the Rage This Year, which contains his story "Veil of Ignorance."
Alas, no copies of New Voices were to be had. I also looked for the C. M.
Kornbluth collection,
His Share of Glory, but no one seemed to have it. I stood for a while
in front of the table that I thought was the publisher’s, but it turned out to
be a different publisher; the guy manning the table easily could have told me
this, but he ignored me the whole time I was there, instead preferring to
continue his conversation with some guy who was standing there, but not buying
anything. Guess it’s all the same to him; I wouldn’t have bought anything
anyway since I was at the wrong table. Still, no one likes to be ignored
when looking for assistance from a retailer.
11:00: After the dealer’s room (which I escaped without
purchasing anything!), I wandered around the lobby until Dave spied me from the
second floor. Good thing he wasn’t a slush writer I’d rejected; he was in
the perfect position to spit on me, or throw eggs, or…something worse.
So as the eleven o’clock hour approached, Dave and I congregated at his table in
the lobby where all the signings were held. His was supposed to coincide
with Paul Levinson, but Levinson didn’t show up (I don’t think he was actually
at the convention), leaving Dave all alone to draw in fans. Alas, there
wasn’t much traffic out and about at that time of the morning, and we basically
spent the hour chatting. Andrea came by later and joined us (filling in
for Paul Levinson). I was all prepared to shill for Dave, but there was no
one around really to shill to (at?). One girl, a rather attractive lass,
came by, but she thought we were the registration desk. Very exciting.
12:00: Now it was time for the inevitable panel… The
Rise and Fall of SF Magazines. On the panel were Gordon Van Gelder and
Darrell Schweitzer, along with a couple people I didn’t know. It was a
decent discussion, though no one came up with any bright ideas on how to save us
all. One guy harangued Gordon from the audience about there being a lack
of "editorial voice" in the magazine, like Campbell had back in the old days of
Astounding/Analog.
1:00: Next up was How Editors Think. This one had
Gordon, Jeanne Cavelos, and was supposed to have Ginjer Buchanan, but instead
had her husband, John Douglas. Also a decent panel. Helped me
understand how I think.
Also at one was a panel called "Fiber Arts in SF/F."
I didn’t attend, but I thought Fiber art–I bet that’s very…moving.
2:00 – 4:00: Dave, Andrea, Chris, and I got together for
lunch at the Sports Bar and played some pool. The food was subpar, as was
my game — I did all right, but blew the game when I scratched on the eight
ball. D’oh!
4:00: After pool and lunch it was time for Thog’s
Masterclass — a panel I’d been looking forward to all day. For those who
don’t know — Thog’s Masterclass was created by Dave Langford and John Grant to,
and I quote, "celebrate ‘differently good’ bits" of sf/fantasy writing.
You can read selections from Thog each month in
Ansible, Langford’s
free fanzine. Alas, Thog’s offerings tend to work better on the page than
read aloud, and the panel seemed to drag on a bit, but it was well worth it in
the end, for the best of their offerings made up for the blander entries.
Dave really liked “He lifted her shirt up over her head. Her panties followed.” There were many that had me laughing aloud, but the one I remember clearly was
from the great Connie Willis: "She learned how to embroider and milk cows."
(From Doomsday Book, I think.)
Hmm…criticizing Thog…that’s sure to get me into
Ansible!
5:00: More grilling of magazine editors with the Magazine
Editors Q & A. Marvin Kaye (editor of
HPL), Gordon, Chris Cevasco, and
Ian Randal Strock. Gordon, however, seemed to think the panel was at
six, so he was down in the lobby killing time, until he realized the error
(about halfway through the panel) and made a grand entrance. Marvin Kaye
revealed that he’s also editing a mystery magazine for Wildside/DNA called
Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. I have no information on it, other than
he said he is actively looking for submissions there (though HPL is still closed
for the time being), and it pays 3 cents per word (I believe). If someone
has a URL to guidelines or something, feel free to pass it along and I’ll post
the link. Kaye also said he hates it when people call him by his first
name when they don’t know him. So remember to call him Mr. Kaye, kiddies.
Gordon revealed that the cats sometimes do some unauthorized editing —
apparently, one of them scratched or chewed his/her way through a couple pages
of a manuscript (perhaps he/she disagreed with Gordon’s assessment) — and that
he hates unnecessary commas in the beginning of a story. Chris said a lot
of people send him stuff not relevant to his market (i.e., it’s not historical
in any way). Ian said Artemis is on hiatus, so don’t send him any stories.
6:00: Dave had a panel on writing workshops, so I went to
that. Not that I had any interest in it really, but there were no other
panels I wanted to see, and Dave’s my wingman, so I went to help support the
team. Though I did first sneak down to the lobby to get two books signed
by Swanwick, whose autograph session started at six. That took like five
minutes, so I got back for most of the panel. Chris and Andrea were there
already, soaking up the wisdom. On the panel were Dave, Jeanne Cavelos,
Gregory Frost, and Barbara Campbell. They talked about Clarion, Odyssey,
Viable Paradise, etc. At one point, someone in the audience incorrectly
mentioned that Viable Paradise was only a weekend long, and one of the VP
administrators (in the audience) snapped out an angry retort that VP was
actually a week long. I don’t know where the anger came from, but there it
was, then vanished, and she went back to her knitting.
7:00: After the panel, there was a pre-planned dinner for
Odyssey alums, which included Dave, Andrea, Barbara Campbell, and Jeff Lyman
(who I originally met at the art show Friday night). I was invited to go
along, so I did. At dinner, Barbara reveals to Dave that from looking at
his photo
on his website, she thought he was an elfin boy, but when she saw his
six-foot-two frame she realized he was really quite a strapping young lad (so
when we made fun of him for admiring his six-foot-two frame, it became his
strapping six-foot-two frame). At dinner (all day, in fact), Dave was
bragging about how he spent Friday afternoon in the F&SF office. Hard to
say if he was more impressed with the portrait of Avram Davidson or the wax
replica of Anthony Boucher — I mean sure, the wax Boucher’s Lenin-like
mausoleum is certainly more impressive, but it loses points for being creepy.
Andrea, meanwhile, told us about how there were several different couples on her
floor having really loud (and apparently marathon) sex at all hours of the day
and night, and this bothered her because it was keeping her awake (I can’t
begrudge anyone having loud marathon sex — god bless ’em). Jeanne seemed
to enjoy the sex talk, and didn’t blink an eye when Dave mentioned Paris
Hilton’s sex tapes, though she was appalled when he admitted to reading Paris
Hilton’s biography (she was somewhat mollified by the fact that he took it out
of the library, so he didn’t actually contribute to Paris’s royalties).
8:00 – 10:00: Hmm, I have no memory of this time period.
Dinner must have ended sometime around 8:30 or so, but the next thing I remember
was at ten. Guess we wandered around and chatted or something. Wee!
Oh wait, I remember now why I didn’t remember. There
was supposed to be a party in one of the rooms upstairs, so Dave and I went up
to check it out. I was ready to stroll right into the room (rookie
mistake), but Dave caught me in time, instead advising that we do a drive-by.
Good thing we did. All old guys
with bushy beards and middle-aged women. Not my scene, man. So we
bailed. The elevators were taking forever, so we decided to take the
stairs. We were on like the 20th floor, but we figured down is easy.
Besides, we’d just climbed like nine flights earlier when we went up to Dave’s
room for a minute. I think that’s the most stairs I’ve ever climbed at
once. Started off okay, but the legs were feeling sluggish by the eighth
or ninth floor (he was on eleven).
10:00: Here it is, the money shot. Best Panel Ever
(or should have been): "How to Get Laid at a Con." It started off okay,
like it was going to be fun as the title promised. Enough people certainly
thought it sounded good — I thought the panel would be dead, but it was
jam-packed with con-goers wanting to get laid. I’m talking standing room
only. So like I said, it started off good, with some brazen talk and
innuendo as the tips for getting laid were…uh, laid out. But then a girl
raised her hand and wanted to talk about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. See, she’d just
been at a party and some guy moseyed up to her and laid his hand on her buttocks
and said something lewd. Okay. That’s Not Cool. I understand.
But this was a panel on how to get laid, man! Not the place for this
discussion. We’re trying to have a little fun here. I cried out
"What does this have to do with getting laid?" (Well, cried out quietly,
to Dave…but not quietly enough, for an older lady in front of me scolded me
with a terse "Maybe you should listen.") Anyway, after the gropee was done
with her tale, and the crowd had finished its chants of "Burn the groper!" and
"Kick him in the balls!" I was thinking You know
what her problem is? That girl needs to get laid. (Call off the dogs — it’s a joke, people.) The panel then
continued and got better, with some people sharing amusing stories, and the
panelists providing more "advice" (i.e., bathe, make eye contact, compliment her
shoes, etc.). Overall, not very useful in the learning department, but it
was pretty amusing overall. I suggested that it might have been more
productive if everyone who wanted to get laid raised their hands, that way we
could all find someone to hook up with.
11:00: We had an hour to kill before the infamous "Sex in
SF" panel, on which our very own Dave was a panelist (apparently the con
organizers heard rumors of his ladies man sexual prowess and recruited him for
the panel…or that’s his story, anyway). So we had that hour to kill so
Dave, Andrea, and I sat around and talked about a variety of things, but we
couldn’t quite get past the getting laid panel. Alas, there was a shortage
of people on which Dave and I could practice our skills. I’m sure Andrea,
being a woman at a science fiction convention, wouldn’t have had any trouble,
but she’s married. Actually, none of us would have had any trouble if we’d
taken the panel’s first piece of advice: lower your standards.
12:00: So, the Sex in SF panel. Honestly, though it
sounded like it might be fun, I probably would have skipped this one if Dave
hadn’t been on it (it was already late, and I had to drive home afterward).
Alas, going to this one really was taking one for the team. It was at
times painful, though it did provide much amusement afterward when we looked
back on it mockingly. There were three guys on the panel (including Dave),
with two women scheduled…neither of which showed up. Holly Black was
actually there on the panel right before that one, but she bailed, claiming that
as a children’s author, she didn’t belong on a panel about sex. She may
have had a point there, but that left the panel with no women. Three guys
talking about sex in SF — kinda creepy, no? (Sure, not as creepy as the
wax Boucher, but still….) The second woman who blew off the panel (keep
your mind out of the gutter) was actually the moderator, so it was nice to see
she took her duty so seriously.
One guy on the panel appeared to be a self-published or
vanity-published author of a generic sword & sorcery novel; the other guy worked
in RPG manuals. When they explained why they were on the panel, the sword & sorcery novelist
said probably because his novel had some graphic sexual scenes in it which had
even caused some parents to complain because what’s sex (orgiastic,
anything-goes sex, apparently) doing in a fantasy novel — fantasy is for kids!
Later, when asked if the sex in his novel was somehow unique in that it could
only be done in a fantasy novel, he said that indeed it was. When asked to
explain how, he said, with all seriousness: "The queen goes both ways."
Ahem.
RPG guy explained his being on the panel by showing the
audience a bunch of semi-explicit paintings in an RPG manual. Though that
may have been a thin reason to be on the panel, he was a good panelist. He
stepped in as moderator and did a pretty good job of keeping the discussion
flowing. He did however, bring Swamp Thing into the discussion, not once,
but twice. When Swamp Thing made his second appearance, I felt as though
the circle was now complete.
In the end, it all comes back to Swamp Thing.
More soon…
TO BE CONTINUED…
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