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Arisia 2005 Con Report
Yes, it's late to be doing this. I'm tired and I haven't had dinner yet. But if I don't do it now, even in a totally half-assed way, it won't get done.
But first, some background:
The first Arisia was the first con I ever went to, and I have never missed one since...that's since 1990, which means that this is the 16th Arisia I've been to. My friend who goes by the handle Flight of Stairs (hereafter referred to as FoS here; she's not on LJ, unfortunately) brought me to that first one; I was nervous, but obviously I liked it. Even that first year we were program participants, of a sort. We had an amateur video for the amateur video contest. Won an award, as I recall.
We went on with amateur videos for several years, encountering various degrees of cooperation and difficulty from the staff. In the most memorable year, we had been promised that there would be some sort of contest or at least a show, but it was never scheduled. The guy who'd promised us a show was also hosting the Masquerade that year.
When the Masquerade half-time started FoS said "Come on!", grabbed my hand, and we ran down the side of the hall. In through the hotel's kitchen (the kitchen staff stared in amazement), found our way somehow to the entrance to the backstage area, through the large red STAGE - DO NOT ENTER door, past the people who tried to stop us, the stage lights dazzling us, the audience visible past the host standing at the podium...
...and FoS came up behind the host like an avenging angel.
No, she didn't kill him.
But she did grab him and hiss in the most intense way I've ever heard that he had better keep his promise.
It seemed to shake him, because he immediately announced a time for the amateur video competition to the audience and apologized for not having done so earlier. (He actually apologized several more times throughout the con, and even the next year. He really wasn't a bad guy at all, just overworked like most Arisia staff.)
A few years later I got involved in doing panels. My primary areas of expertise were amateur press, amateur video, and roleplaying games, of course. But despite initial fears I soon found that I really enjoyed public speaking, and that what's more, I was really good at it; I could come up with funny ad-libs and get an audience to laugh. And since I'm a bibliophile and polymath with a trick memory, I was able to do panels on a wide variety of subjects.
Before long Arisia was the high point of my year. I even dream about the con regularly, strange as it might sound.
Okay, just in case this is anyone's first encounter with me: I do have a life. I'm happily married, have a three-year-old red-headed son that is the pride of my life, and have many other interests. It's just that...at the con, I can wear white tie and tails, and look great. I can get audiences to laugh, to ask questions, to get excited. I wear a ribbon, and I'm a VIP (although unlike some, I'm not an asshole about it). For those 48 hours or so I'm a minor celebrity, and I like it.
Nor do I think that's anything to be ashamed of.
Anyway, for the past three years there were...problems. For various reasons I missed large chunks of Arisia, could not wear fancy dress or go dancing, had to deal with unexpected disasters, etc. I won't go into why, but the situation was quite unfair. I was upset, friends were upset...it was a bad situation.
Mind you, in all that time I only missed ONE panel, and I was able to give Programming substantial warning on that one. But I didn't get to do a lot of the things I enjoyed, see the friends that I only got to see once a year...I just can't tell you how much it all sucked.
So this year, things had to be different. But there were already problems: for the first time in a decade I was too poor to afford a hotel room (thank you, George W. Bush - nice to know that the richest 1% have their tax cut). I could sleep at my parents' place in Brookline, but it sucks to not be in the hotel. It also sucks to not be able to afford food, or to go shopping at the con, or do the breakfast buffets with my friends (a longstanding Arisia tradition for us), etc.
My wife Teri was committed to volunteering at an animal shelter on Saturday, and would not be able to come. She's not really a member of that curious subculture which falls under the heading of "fan", though, so she wasn't too disappointed. On the other hand...well, no point in complicating things further. She wouldn't be coming up to sleep in Brookline.
Another complication was taking care of my son, Sebastian. If I had my choice he and Teri would both be at the con with me, and Sebastian would be in a cool costume that Teri made for him: here's a photo from two years ago.
It was all very complicated, and not at all promising. Read previous entries in my journal if you're insane enough to want more details.
The con started Friday, and was supposed to go through Sunday afternoon. Wednesday I started feeling sick. Thursday I was in hell; a vicious head cold, with sinus pain like you wouldn't believe. Friday morning Teri gave me tylenol sinus allergy pills, and I stayed in bed for an extra three hours; by the time I woke up, I felt human. At which point I talked things over with Teri, and realized that taking the 5:27 PM train would be risky. But the only alternative was to pack in ten minutes and take the 10:53AM train instead.
Which I did. I'm a fast packer.
I made it into the hotel before 1pm; that's quite early, and there weren't many people around. So I hung around for a while and scouted out the territory.
Jeeze, it's late. I'd better shift into Hemingway mode. No, my writing style is not about to improve; I'm just going to get a lot more concise.
I saw![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unquietsoul5 and his wife Kiralee, and had dinner with them; it felt so good to talk with members of the clan! To clarify, by "clan" in this case I mean science fiction/fantasy people. If I were a decade or two older and spoke Fannish regularly, I'd say that I'd been FAFIAted for years.
My 9pm panel was about the science fiction/mystery author Fredric Brown. The panel had been suggested by me, as were a surprising number of the panels this year; I was mildly shocked to see how many panels this year were mine. There were ten at a minimum, although looking back there are others that might have been my suggestion; I'm not sure.
I - argh, it's just too late. I'll just have to pick this up later. I'll revise this entry, I think, rather than do a new one.
But first, some background:
The first Arisia was the first con I ever went to, and I have never missed one since...that's since 1990, which means that this is the 16th Arisia I've been to. My friend who goes by the handle Flight of Stairs (hereafter referred to as FoS here; she's not on LJ, unfortunately) brought me to that first one; I was nervous, but obviously I liked it. Even that first year we were program participants, of a sort. We had an amateur video for the amateur video contest. Won an award, as I recall.
We went on with amateur videos for several years, encountering various degrees of cooperation and difficulty from the staff. In the most memorable year, we had been promised that there would be some sort of contest or at least a show, but it was never scheduled. The guy who'd promised us a show was also hosting the Masquerade that year.
When the Masquerade half-time started FoS said "Come on!", grabbed my hand, and we ran down the side of the hall. In through the hotel's kitchen (the kitchen staff stared in amazement), found our way somehow to the entrance to the backstage area, through the large red STAGE - DO NOT ENTER door, past the people who tried to stop us, the stage lights dazzling us, the audience visible past the host standing at the podium...
...and FoS came up behind the host like an avenging angel.
No, she didn't kill him.
But she did grab him and hiss in the most intense way I've ever heard that he had better keep his promise.It seemed to shake him, because he immediately announced a time for the amateur video competition to the audience and apologized for not having done so earlier. (He actually apologized several more times throughout the con, and even the next year. He really wasn't a bad guy at all, just overworked like most Arisia staff.)
A few years later I got involved in doing panels. My primary areas of expertise were amateur press, amateur video, and roleplaying games, of course. But despite initial fears I soon found that I really enjoyed public speaking, and that what's more, I was really good at it; I could come up with funny ad-libs and get an audience to laugh. And since I'm a bibliophile and polymath with a trick memory, I was able to do panels on a wide variety of subjects.
Before long Arisia was the high point of my year. I even dream about the con regularly, strange as it might sound.
Okay, just in case this is anyone's first encounter with me: I do have a life. I'm happily married, have a three-year-old red-headed son that is the pride of my life, and have many other interests. It's just that...at the con, I can wear white tie and tails, and look great. I can get audiences to laugh, to ask questions, to get excited. I wear a ribbon, and I'm a VIP (although unlike some, I'm not an asshole about it). For those 48 hours or so I'm a minor celebrity, and I like it.
Nor do I think that's anything to be ashamed of.
Anyway, for the past three years there were...problems. For various reasons I missed large chunks of Arisia, could not wear fancy dress or go dancing, had to deal with unexpected disasters, etc. I won't go into why, but the situation was quite unfair. I was upset, friends were upset...it was a bad situation.
Mind you, in all that time I only missed ONE panel, and I was able to give Programming substantial warning on that one. But I didn't get to do a lot of the things I enjoyed, see the friends that I only got to see once a year...I just can't tell you how much it all sucked.
So this year, things had to be different. But there were already problems: for the first time in a decade I was too poor to afford a hotel room (thank you, George W. Bush - nice to know that the richest 1% have their tax cut). I could sleep at my parents' place in Brookline, but it sucks to not be in the hotel. It also sucks to not be able to afford food, or to go shopping at the con, or do the breakfast buffets with my friends (a longstanding Arisia tradition for us), etc.
My wife Teri was committed to volunteering at an animal shelter on Saturday, and would not be able to come. She's not really a member of that curious subculture which falls under the heading of "fan", though, so she wasn't too disappointed. On the other hand...well, no point in complicating things further. She wouldn't be coming up to sleep in Brookline.
Another complication was taking care of my son, Sebastian. If I had my choice he and Teri would both be at the con with me, and Sebastian would be in a cool costume that Teri made for him: here's a photo from two years ago.
It was all very complicated, and not at all promising. Read previous entries in my journal if you're insane enough to want more details.
The con started Friday, and was supposed to go through Sunday afternoon. Wednesday I started feeling sick. Thursday I was in hell; a vicious head cold, with sinus pain like you wouldn't believe. Friday morning Teri gave me tylenol sinus allergy pills, and I stayed in bed for an extra three hours; by the time I woke up, I felt human. At which point I talked things over with Teri, and realized that taking the 5:27 PM train would be risky. But the only alternative was to pack in ten minutes and take the 10:53AM train instead.
Which I did. I'm a fast packer.
I made it into the hotel before 1pm; that's quite early, and there weren't many people around. So I hung around for a while and scouted out the territory.
Jeeze, it's late. I'd better shift into Hemingway mode. No, my writing style is not about to improve; I'm just going to get a lot more concise.
I saw
unquietsoul5 and his wife Kiralee, and had dinner with them; it felt so good to talk with members of the clan! To clarify, by "clan" in this case I mean science fiction/fantasy people. If I were a decade or two older and spoke Fannish regularly, I'd say that I'd been FAFIAted for years.My 9pm panel was about the science fiction/mystery author Fredric Brown. The panel had been suggested by me, as were a surprising number of the panels this year; I was mildly shocked to see how many panels this year were mine. There were ten at a minimum, although looking back there are others that might have been my suggestion; I'm not sure.
I - argh, it's just too late. I'll just have to pick this up later. I'll revise this entry, I think, rather than do a new one.
arrrgh...
I did get to at least HEAR
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Re: arrrgh...
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Next year there definitely should be an LJ mixer at Arisia. Except that I'm not sure what a mixer is, exactly.
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