tiger_spot

Last night, my friend had ballet tickets for herself, suzanne, and me. The tickets had come with a parking pass for the garage across the street, so we didn't anticipate any trouble. But when we got there, the entrance we were at was closed for construction, so once this had been communicated to the cars that had pulled in behind us, we all gradually made our way back out and went around to the other entrance, where we joined a long line of waiting vehicles and eventually learned that our parking pass would do us no good because all the available spaces in the garage were full, and they hadn't issued this parking pass in the first place and they were very unhappy with whoever had, because there obviously weren't enough spaces because of the construction, and the nearest other parking the attendant knew of was ::vague wave:: over there.

So we went over there, where we paid $25 for parking (fortunately, one of us had cash), and hurried along to the theater. At this point we were about ten minutes past the start time. "I've never been late to live theater before!" I said. "I wonder what they do?" We were expecting to need to wait in the lobby for a bit, and then perhaps sneak in at intermission. But in fact enough people had been having this exact same problem that they had delayed the start of the show just long enough for us to zip in and find our seats before the house lights went down and the curtain went up. Hurrah!

And it was a lovely show. It started with a traditional pas de deux called "Diana and Acteon" which was very pretty and featured a lot of athletic capering about in the woodland and miming firing arrows, but inexplicably failed to contain any bathing, turning into a deer, or being torn to pieces by dogs. So I'm not sure what it had to do with the title.

The second and third pieces were interesting modern ensemble ballets with complicated lighting effects.

The last piece wins the coveted Creepiest Dance Award. It started before the intermission was properly over -- while the audience was still filing back in, the house lights were up, and the curtain was down, this fellow in a suit came moseying out on stage. "Perhaps this next one needs some explanation," we thought. "Or perhaps they're going to announce some kind of refund of the parking passes?" The guy continued to stand in front of the curtain, then wandered over to hide in the shadows at the corner of the stage, then eased on back out to the middle and started sort of bopping a little bit. House lights were still up, audience still coming back from intermission. We started speculating that he was lost. Eventually they put the curtain up, but left the house lights on and the audience kept chatting because, hey, house lights are up, but it gradually became apparent that Suit Guy was in fact the first dancer of the last piece.

Then about sixteen more dancers in suits joined him on stage. There were folding chairs, and chanting, and flinging of clothes on stage, and it all got more and more ominous and repetitive. Then there was a quiet bit with six dancers standing entirely still in their underwear while a metronome or something ticked creepily. Then later the suited dancers came out into the audience and collected audience members and took them back up on stage and had a loud techno rave with them and it was generally very interesting but not at all what I had been expecting from a night at the ballet.

FOGcon 5 is coming right up! Pre-registration closes this Friday, so if you'd like child care or you know you want to attend the whole weekend, here's your chance.

Full weekend and day passes are available at the door, but child care is not. Banquet tickets are also available at the convention, but only until we run out of them, so if you'd like to dress up fancy, dress up strange, or dress up exactly like you usually do and attend the fabulous Unaward Banquet (delicious food, great company, and minimal speechifying) on Saturday night, I'd recommend purchasing those in advance.

Come to FOGcon! Meet fascinating people such as our Guests of Honor Catherynne Valente and Kim Stanley Robinson! Check out our exciting programming, with panels ranging from Alternate Universes to Fake Authentic Folklore Improv to The SF/F of Suburbia and a new track of experimental kids programming on Saturday afternoon. Hang out in our amazingly well-stocked consuite, chatting and snacking into the night!

If you are thinking "Yes! This sounds amazing! How do I sign up?!" head to Registration and fill out the little checkboxes. If you are thinking "I already did that! How can I get more involved?" e-mail volunteers@fogcon.org and let us know how you'd like to help! Staffing the registration desk is a fantastic way to meet people, hosting the consuite is great for night owls, and helping out in general will earn you our eternal gratitude and a nifty sticker to put on your badge.

I'm going to BayCon this weekend. Not all of it, but if you will be there bits of Saturday, most of Sunday, or Monday morning, ping me and we can check out the art show or the DIY room or what have you.

FOGcon 4 programming sign-ups are open!

Have you ever wanted to be on a panel? Have you ever wanted to moderate a panel? Have you ever thought, "Boy, I wish they'd asked me which panels I wanted to attend before they put this schedule together"? Now is your chance! Come tell the FOGcon programming team what you want to see and what you want to participate in: http://fogcon.org/programming-sign-up/

(If you haven't registered yet, you can do that too! Memberships available online until February 21st or at the door; child care slots available only until Feb 7: http://db.fogcon.org/registration/)

FOGcon 4. Walnut Creek. March 7-9, 2014. With honored guests Seanan McGuire, Tim Powers, and (posthumously) James Tiptree, Jr. Join us! It'll be fun!

I'd decided that, although by the time 4th Street rolls around I am probably going to be Too Pregnant to enjoy it properly, what with the flying and all, I was going to try to make it to WisCon. Okay, the main hotel was sold out by the time I made this decision, and assuming nothing magical happens to my hip[1] between now and then I really want to be in the main hotel, but there seemed to be a fair number of people looking for roommates and things, so it was a good plan still. Flights were a little obnoxious time-wise but doable. Etc.

... but I couldn't get the time off work. Aargh! (If I'm going to put up with the pain in the ass that is flying, I want to be there for the whole thing, and the powers that be are not happy with the 4 days off right then that is whole thing + recovery time given the slightly weird flight timing. 2 days off okay, but 2 days off is not sufficient. Boo.)

Now I need something totally awesome to do Memorial Day weekend so as not to be pouty and resentful the whole time. Maybe I will hold my own very tiny convention in my living room.


[1] <voice="KHAAAAAAAAN!">
SCIATICAAAAAAAAAAAA!
</voice>

So FOGcon is coming right up, March 30 - April 1. You should go!

You should especially go because, in a fit of enthusiasm, I volunteered for things and am going to be moderating two panels! My panels are both on Saturday, so if you are local and just want to buy a day pass that is the day to aim for if you want to come heckle support me. They are:

Best Alien Ever
10:30 a.m. Salon A
Some aliens are just humans with funny foreheads. But sometimes an author creates an alien that stretches your mind or makes you see ordinary humans in a whole different light. What makes for an alien species worth reading about? What are the most extraordinary aliens authors have successfully portrayed?
Moderator: Theresa Mecklenborg
Panelists: Chaz Brenchley, Juliette Wade, Ann Wilkes

Did Everyone Fail High School Biology?
1:30 p.m. Salon A
From stupid stunts with DNA to implausible ecologies, lots of science fiction just gets biology wrong. Why is this? What are examples of books, movies, or TV that gets it right?
Moderator: Theresa Mecklenborg
Panelists: Tari, Wendy Shaffer, Cassie Alexander, Pat Murphy

(I am having some serious sad about things that are scheduled across from one another. Too many cool things, cannot be at all of them at once, oh woe.)

My job as moderator, as I see it:
* Ask interesting questions.
* Make sure all the panelists get chances to talk about the particular relevant things they would like to talk about.
* Interrupt/redirect as necessary to keep discussion flowing and the conversation ball moving between people.
* Keep an eye on the time.
* Summarize statements or rephrase questions as is helpful to aid general understanding.
* Track who gets to talk next.

The part of this I am least practiced at is the part where there's a panel/audience separation -- I've moderated a discussion or two, but they've all been sort of roundtable things, without that division. Anybody have any tips about audiences? I'm thinking save 15-20 minutes at the end for audience questions, maybe move that a bit earlier if the panelists seem to be running out of self-generated steam or the audience is all bouncing up and down waving their hands in the air. Does that sound like enough time? (These are all hour and fifteen minute panels.)

I have sent out pre-planning e-mails with a dozen or twenty possible interesting questions, so the panelists can tell me which of them sound most interesting and whether there are other directions they would like to explore, and then when I get that feedback I will make up a further list of slightly more tailored interesting questions to print out and keep in front of me in case interesting questions do not present themselves naturally in the discussion as it happens. If I can pick out the bits they'll argue about I'll put stars next to those questions and make double extra sure they get asked.

And that is my moderating plan! People who do this sort of thing more often: Good plan? Bad plan? Am I leaving out any important bits?

Jo Walton is celebrating the release of the paperback edition of her novel Among Others tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. at Borderlands Books. Be there or be a small rectangular object.

Christmasing has begun. Last night we all went up to Berkeley for tasty holiday dinner with brooksmoses's brother and sister-in-law and her sister and another friend of theirs. Great food, lots of fun, excellent company. We got to meet the dog, who is just the cutest fuzziest little bundle of enthusiasm.

Today chinders's dad is in town, so he's hung out with us as we go about our day (climbing, mostly, since we didn't go yesterday because of driving to Berkeley all evening) and will soon have dinner and then carry chinders's present for her sister off to the east coast.

Tomorrow there will be presents and big fancy dinner with just us, and seeing some friends, and then later in the week seeing more friends and general holiday spirit.

Right now everything smells like mulled cider. Perhaps I will go see if it is tasty yet....

Right! It's been busy around here. So Farthing Party.

An excellent time was had by all. The hotel was deeply strange; nearly as hip as the W[1], with attendant noise issues (it's "atmosphere", you see, so of course they cannot turn it off at breakfast). The area of Montreal it's in confused me; it was sort of scruffy, with strip clubs and whatnot, but not a kind of scruffy I recognized. It wasn't bohemian artsy scruffy, or college-student scruffy, or actually run-down scruffy, or just-about-to-gentrify scruffy, or any specific scruffy subtype, although there were elements of most of those. Lots of good restaurants, surprisingly varied architecture. It seems like it's one of the places that would be nicer to live in than to visit (if it were always late summer).

Panels were excellent; socializing was excellent. Summary is insufficient; have some quotes!

From the "How Hard is SF?" panel:

"I stay as far from falsifiability as I can. In case of velocity, distance, or time, I give one." -- Jim MacDonald

"I've been around rich people. They don't talk like that! . . . They have their staff talk like that." -- Jim MacDonald

"When people are talking to young writers, they say, 'Be concrete; be specific.' But not about the science!" -- Marissa Lingen

"The number of e-mails I've gotten about Venus [being in the wrong location in a story] -- Thomas Hardy never got e-mails like that!" -- Jo Walton

"You can't Google every word you make up. It takes too long. And you mostly get weird porn sites in Indonesia." -- Jo Walton


From "The Enterprise of SF":

"The world is made out of two things: there's stuff, and then there's thinking about stuff." -- Teresa Nielsen Hayden


From "Fractally Weird":

"There's a strangely numinous event going on, and you look at it and say, 'This is the Tim Powers universe; look out for loss of limb.'" -- Teresa Nielsen Hayden


From "Generation Starships":

"It's really hard to get star-crossed lovers these days." -- Marie Bilodeau (I think -- I couldn't quite see, so it could have been any panelist on that side of the room)

"I think launching Montreal into space is a good idea. . . . Launching Swindon into space is a better idea." -- Alison Sinclair

"There are cell phone towers arranged around Swindon in an asterisk, leading to an invisible footnote that says Don't Live Here." -- Jo Walton, quoting someone else






[1] Huh, okay, that story predates my LiveJournal. Fascinating.

We are back from 4th Street!

It's a very nice place, Minneapolis/St. Paul (I am assured they are different, really, and will glare at me if I confuse them, but darned if I can tell). We arranged for a rather long visit, relative to the convention, arriving around lunchtime on Thursday and leaving Monday evening. brooksmoses and suzimoses took an extra day at the beginning, even, arriving Wednesday. So they picked us up from the airport when we staggered in Thursday, exhausted (The airport shuttle came to pick us up at 3:45 a.m. I'm told the flight was cheap....), and then went off to an art museum or something worthwhile like that while andres_s_p_b, chinders, and I lay around like lumps. At some point I revived enough to explore the hotel and take pictures of goslings, and eventually people collected up for dinner and took over a corner of the Chinese restaurant, where we had very tasty food and a funny waitress and startled the heck out of mrissa when she turned around and realized just how many people she knew had been sitting behind her.

After dinner was the play-reading. This year we did Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. We swapped Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns every act, so I wound up reading Rosencrantz in the first act and Guildenstern in the last act, which I'm sure confused no-one. I had a good time, but I think we should try to find more ensemble-cast plays. andres_s_p_b did a lovely job with the ending speech, but I think he was a bit bored just being audience until it was time for that.

Friday morning (well... nearly morning), andres_s_p_b, chinders, and I went to the Amazing Mirror Maze in the Mall of America while suzimoses and brooksmoses went off to fetch emergency quilting supplies. The maze was pretty neat; it's set up on a triangular grid rather than a rectangular one, so nothing is ever in the direction it looks like it is. They give you plastic gloves to keep from smudging up the mirrors and interfering with the disorientation. We did it three times; the right way, backwards, and then back to the exit again. I'd be curious to look at a map of the place, because I think it basically just has the one path, rather than really having dead ends, but I couldn't keep careful enough track to be sure. Afterwards we poked around at a bead store and chinders bought jewelry and makeup stuff.

And then there were panels, which were great! And dinner and socializing, which were great! And not remembered by me in any particular detail. Saturday and Sunday likewise, really. Too much awesome all in one place; it kind of blends together after a while. I met neat new people and talked with fantastic not-new people and went to lunch with Lois McMaster Bujold and went rock climbing[1] with Elizabeth Bear and Emma Bull (this has been your name-dropping for the post). Yay people! Hi people! If I have just friended you, probably it was because we had a fun conversation at some point, and if we had a fun conversation and I didn't just friend you it's because I didn't know your LJ name, so poke me and I'll do that. At various points there were games and chatting and listening to music and admiring interesting T-shirts and stuff and so on and so forth and I USED MY WHOLE BRAIN. Now I know what the dog feels like after an hour of class.

Monday there was lunch out, and ice cream, and then this little tea shop jonsinger likes, and eventually the airport, which delayed our flight about an hour, grr. Eventually we got home, where the dog was delighted to see us and everything was nice and comfy like we left it. Today I am resting; tomorrow I am also taking the day off work but intend to get up to useful things like cleaning and perhaps getting groceries. I may not need all of today to rest, although the rain is encouraging me to be very thorough about my resting -- I was more careful about my caffeine consumption this weekend than I was at FOGcon, so I don't feel any immediate need to detox. I have already regained enough strength to sit upright and type more-or-less coherently, so that's a good sign.

It was fun! You should go next year!


[1] Vertical Endeavors grades much harder than Planet Granite, and between that and the limited amount of time left between getting belay-certified on different equipment than I'm used to and their early weekend closing time, I did not figure out quite what I ought to be climbing there before it was time to leave. They've got a very different style of route-setting, which is probably more realistic in terms of actual rocks but takes some getting used to. Next year we will plan ahead and probably aim for climbing Friday morning before things really get going, or Monday after fish, or some other time where we can have more real climbing time. Also they will probably have opened the new, closer, location, so that will help.