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I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance. |
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Saturday, January 17, 1998
When I walked into the the con suite Saturday morning, Debbie Notkin said (paraphrased) "Your zine saved my life last night! When I was going to bed, I realized that I hadn't packed any books! So I read your zine and went right to sleep!" "I'm glad it did the job for you," I said.
The true but less funny version of this is that after reading my stuff she still had to sneak into the dealers' room and borrow a book to read.
The first panel of the day was about Literary Cartooning and why don't we see more of it today. The panel ringleader, Lenny Bailes, thinks of satirical sf stories as literary cartoons. He described a timeline of authors that he thinks fits in this category. David Hartwell said that such stories are still being published, but don't strike the reading public's fancy as they did in earlier times. I was baffled by some of the generalizations: "Do we need Literary cartoons?" asked Lenny? Said I to myself, "Who is 'we'? What does he mean, 'need'?"
The second panel was more to my taste; Luke McGuff, Jane Hawkins, Kate Schaefer and Ian Hagemann discussed post Clarion recovery. Clarion and Clarion West are writing workshops for SF writers. I fulfilled my convention goal of asking a question during programming here. When Lenny Bailes seemed to be hinting about a common myth about Clarion (he was talking about the workshop taking away the originality of spirit of a writer), I decided to put it more bluntly and play devil's advocate. "Is it true that attending Clarion will make your writing just like that of other Clarion writers? Does it put the Clarion 'mark' on you?" I don't believe this myself, but I have heard it said. It was denied by all panelists, of course.
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After a lunch of chili provided in the atrium, we spent some time just hanging about. That nice young man Fred whom I mentioned yesterday was giving neck and shoulder rubs. Note the expression of bliss on my face, and the shorts on his legs. I also took some photos of one of Jon Singer's ceramic creations, by his request.
After waiting around, we finally were ready for a shopping expedition to We-Be-Bop, a store that I had never seen. I have lots of clothes from there already, since I've given Freddie carte blanche to buy me things when she sees something that she thinks will suit me. (I reimburse her.) This had to be a lightening-fast trip, since Freddie was committed to doing a mini-programming item about Babylon 5 in our room at four o'clock, and we didn't leave on this expedition till after three! I was able to find some things I liked. Thanks to Paul for driving us, and Lise for accompanying us!
The next program item was "The Respectability Continuum" where literature of the fantastic was rated by the audience according to how respectable they thought it was. The benchmarks: The Tempest is the most respectable; My Mother the Car is the least. There was too much arguing on procedural matters here, but it was still very funny.
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When we were breaking into groups for dinner, I decided to add a new face to the group, and invited Curtis to join us. He is a metals physicist who has just moved to the Bay Area, so he didn't know anyone. We walked off to the Oakland Chinatown to eat at a noodle house. But I was very disappointed: they were out of Fun! The wide rice noodles I like were not to be had. Read Luke's report on the risks of ordering something because you think the name is funny. But what I had was just fine. All during dinner I was stressing about the program item that I was to moderate later in the evening.
I had not known how to refuse when asked to moderate "Whose Line is it, Anyway?". The request was flattering but startling. WLIIA is a very funny improv comedy/game show from England, that has been played with success at other conventions I've been to. I had done some web research of possible items to include, and had bought random props at the Goodwill store yesterday. But I couldn't discuss it in detail with the panelists, since them not knowing exactly what is coming is part of the fun! (Later I realized I should have consulted the wife of one of the panelists.)
Once the game started, I felt comfortable. My role wasn't to be especially funny myself, but to advocate for the audience. I would assign teams, call for suggestions, cut things off when they had run their course. Some one told me they liked me in dominatrix mode, but brisk and efficient was more the tone I was going for. The audience seemed to enjoy the show, and we ended it before everyone got exhausted. We could have gone on a little longer, but I was out of prepared material. We ended with David Levine and Ellen Kleges wrestling on the floor, as is traditional.
The rest of the evening was spent either in the consuite, the atrium (which sounds far more glamourous than it was) or out on the terrace. This image shows off my beautiful patchwork dress, another gift from Freddie. I met Lucy Huntzinger in real life for the first time!
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