Connotations, mostly
I am home from the UK and - finally - recovered, mentally and physically (but primarily mentally), enough to actually write about it. Part of me so envies people who are able to write regular, short LJ posts describing their trips and things; I never am, though, because it has to percolate in my mind before I'm able to put it into words. So I find myself writing these mega-posts about how I felt about it all, the emotions that were stirred up and why; what I actually did ends up taking a back seat.
This was a long trip for me - eight days, and three entirely different locations. I started by flying from Dulles to Newcastle (through Heathrow), arriving Friday morning, just in time for connotations, which is in Tynemouth, not far from Newcastle.
The con was well-run and fun (with a few hotel snafus that were not the fault of the organizers, temaris and moonlettuce, who did a fabulous job). It's a small con by US standards, though growing each year - only about 60 people this year, which meant there was only a single panel at any given time. In my experience, this has both advantages and disadvantages - on the one hand, it gives a nice "unified" feel, keeps the con from feeling splintered, but on the other it can mean you can feel pressured to go to the panel even if you're not particularly interested in the panel topic, because otherwise you seem like a spoil-sport - and you feel kind of left out.
In this case, though, skipping a panel didn't leave you a pariah, or lonely. The con layout was great, with three adjoining rooms - a panel room; a "sitting around" room with tables and chairs, where food was served; and a third room, which had the con zine library, the registration table, and a screen set up for playing DVDs. There were always people - by which, of course, I mean fans! *g* - hanging out in these rooms - even if you skipped a panel, you'd have people to sit and chat with, which was nice.
I did end up going to a number of panels, though, because they were really interesting, and the discussions were great. I wasn't sure whether they'd be like panels at the American cons I've attended - in paticular, I wasn't sure whether people would talk and discuss and argue as passionately, and loudly, as we sometimes do at home. People talk about British restraint, but this set of fans was most certainly not restrained - the discussions were like those I've experienced at any number of cons; any of these panels would have been right at home in Escapade, for example - except for the accents, of course. :-) I'd feared that I'd come across as a pushy, loud American - and perhaps I did, but as it turned out, I was far from the most outspoken person there; this was not a soft-spoken, reticent bunch, as I was glad to discover.
I actually led one of the panels - within an hour or so after arriving, so my coherence was probably questionable at best! This was the panel on - surprise - Pros, and, more generally, fandoms like Pros that have stood the test of time - MfU, SH, etc. (though really there isn't much "etc.," is there, except of course ST: TOS). I enjoyed this, as I always love talking about Pros and trying to analyze and understand my feelings about it, though it did feel a bit odd to be an American leading a panel primarily about a quintissentially British show....
In fact, throughout the weekend it was a little strange, and not always comfortable, I must admit, to be one of the only Americans (there were two others, one an expat living in the UK). This isn't a normal reaction for me - I've lived abroad, including in the UK, and don't generally care, or even notice, when I'm the only American in such groups. And I'm neither a shrinking violet nor particularly oversensitive. My own reactions therefore startled me, and I'm not sure to what to ascribe them, though I have some thoughts (Bush hasn't done much for our image overseas, that's for sure!). I don't want to exaggerate it - in general, fans are fans, wherever you are, welcoming and friendly and generous, wanting primarily to share the squee; this was no exception. Still, though, in some subtle way I can't quite describe, I found myself, much to my own surprise, feeling ... well, alien, I guess, if not quite alienated, and occasionally - and even more surprisingly - defensive.
It's an interesting, if potentially touchy, topic, I think, the differences and similarities and connections between UK and US fans - and there actually was a panel, led by mandragora1, on "Brit-speak" and cultural ... incongruities, or anachronisms, or whatever (there must be a word, but I can't seem to find it) - on writing in a culture different from the writer's own. In my experience, British fans are much more touchy about Americans' failure to use proper British terminology in fandoms like Pros and HP than American fans are with regard to American-based fandoms (though Americans often react quite touchily to British touchiness! *g*), and assuming my peceptions are accurate, I wonder why this is. Is it because British fans take more care to use correct American terminology and use malapropisms, or whatever, less frequently? I imagine the average Brit is exposed much more to Americanisms than the average American is to Britishisms; perhaps this makes it easier for Brits to write "American," so the mistakes are fewer? Are the UK fans reacting not so much to the misused words as to a perceived American disregard for - or ignorance of - anything not American? Does it have something to do with the fact that most fannish source is American, so UK fans are more concerned that UK-based fandoms not be Americanized as well?
I think of these things a lot because the source that means most to me now is, of course, British, and has, compared to many other big fandoms, a very high percentage of British fans. I love its British-ness and love reading stories that really capture it - but that's a product of the author's skill, not merely her nationality. True, the stories I'm thinking of, the ones that so excellently seem to capture that sense of British-ness, are generally by UK writers, but certainly there are plenty of British writers whose stories don't have that quality. There are many, many Pros stories by Americans - and Canadians! *g* - and even Brits that I adore without regard to the fact that they might not sound 1000% authentically late-70s British, that they aren't filled with Britishisms. Perhaps that's partly because I am American and therefore don't notice it as much; it doesn't stand out to my inner ear in the same way. But in general, if the writing is good and the story pushes my buttons and the characterization is solid, minor discrepancies of this sort simply aren't going to bother me. Clearly, though, they do bother a lot of people, partly just because they're indicative of sloppy writing (the same kind of thing as being bothered by poor editing and dumb mistakes and failure to proofread or use a beta, etc. etc., which is an issue all its own) - but I think it goes beyond this, and I can't quite get a good handle on the reasons for it.
I'm rambling now, but it is an interesting topic, and this con - not just the one panel, but the entire con - made me very aware of these sorts of issues; not so much cultural differences as the different perceptions of and reactions to those differences, the varying degrees of importance placed upon them, the extent to which our nationality/cultural background affect the way we look at fannish things. I must admit, though, that I don't like to dwell on this kind of thing too much, because it threatens to harsh my fannish buzz, which is very important to me - I'd rather think about the things that bind us, the things all fans share, which I think are far more important; the differences to me are points of interest rather than of dissent, and I'm generally of the no-skin-off-my-back, do-what-makes-you-happy school of fandom.
Then again, I do, as I've said before, tend to be quite nauseatingly pollyanna-ish about fandom (though that's something for which I've finally decided to make an effort to stop apologizing!).
Anyway, back to the con. Two other panels stand out in my memory. One was on the meaning of, and differences and similarities between, "gay books" and slash. It was a really fascinating discussion about the difficulty of defining "gay literature" these days - does the fact that a fantasy, or a detective novel, has a gay character make it "gay literature"? There seemed to be fairly universal accord that there is some quality of "slashiness" that we all recognize. But though all seemed to agree it exists, no one could isolate the factors that comprise it - slashiness seems to be in large part a "know it when you see it" sort of thing. The fact that a novel is "gay" doesn't make it "slashy" - but does the fact that a novel is "slashy" make it "gay"? Interesting questions to explore....
The other panel I enjoyed was the one on preserving fandom. This focused to a large extent on online archives - their "rights," their roles, their purpose. What happens when the owner of the main online fic repository for a fandom gets hit by a bus, or less dramatically, simply loses interest, and the archive disappears? Should so much of a fandom be in one person's hands, and what are the alternatives? What are an archivist's obligations - and rights - with respect to authors, and with respect to readers and other fans? If an author requests her work be removed, should an archivist respect her rights/desires. or the rights/desires of the rest of the fandom that the story stay?
There was discussion of the fact that fandom operates, implicitly and explicitly, on the assumption that there is a sort of common "lore," that characters created by others become part of this and are owned by everyone (I can't think of the right vocabulary to describe this phenomenon - myths and folklore and common ownership of ideas are all wrapped up in it ....) There is an argument - and not a specious one, I think - that once a fanfic author publishes her story, it becomes part of this common lore. It still attributable to her, but it's no longer "hers" - in the way that Bodie and Doyle are attributable to Brian Clemens, but not "his"; they are collectively owned, now - all of ours. So it can be argued that the fanfic author's demand that her story be removed (in addition to being hypocritical) carries no greater weight than the community's demand that it not be removed, that it has become, indelibly, part of fandom lore, part of the fannish fabric we're all weaving and into which we're all woven.
I haven't, and the panel didn't, critically analyze every element of this argument. And of course, regardless of this, people tend often to acquiesce to the author's requests out of friendship or courtesy or simple fear that failure to do so will have negative repercussions in the community. Still, it's an interesting issue, the question of how, whether, to what extent, we can - or should - preserve history for future fans, and to whom that history "belongs."
In the end, the con was fun for me - but not on the same level as most of the cons I attend, and I imagine that's largely because I knew so few people. Not so much that I'd actually met so few prior to the con - more that I didn't even know them virtually, wasn't familiar with their livejournals, don't seem to move in the same online fannish circles, whereas it seemed to me that many, or most, of the other attendees did. So I didn't have quite the "connected" feel I usually get at cons. Still, it was great to be with those I did know, and to meet a number of others with whom I spent many enjoyable hours chatting; as far as I'm concerned it's never a waste of time to spend time with fans, I never regret it. Overall, a weekend well spent.
I left the con on Sunday evening and went to spend a few days with Fish ("Angelfish Archivist"), who lives near there.
I'd never been up to the northeast of England before, and it was interesting. Where Fish and her partner live is extremely rural. Their nextdoor neighbor is a sheep farmer named John with a Geordie accent so thick you could cut it with a knife - though I had little idea what he was saying! The countryside in that area is beautiful in a bleak kind of way, with moors and hills of heather and bracken and gray skies. It's right up near Hadrian's Wall - cold and damp and dark for much of the year; we went to an old church in Hexham, and all I could think was how cold those monks must have been back in the 12th century....
We had a long, long lunch with londonronnie in Newcastle on Tuesday, in a pub down by the river. That was wonderful, and it brought me right back into the world of Pros fandom, which is my favorite place to be these days.
The thing about a general slash con and staying with people not all of whom are Pros fans is that I have to pretend to be interested in things other than Pros *g*. Actually, I am interested in things other than Pros, but not as interested as I am in Pros, and it's nice to be able to release some of the restraints I normally impose on my Pros obsession when with non-Pros fans. And happily, I was able to do that: much of the rest of my trip was a pure wallow in Pros for me... about which more in another post!
This was a long trip for me - eight days, and three entirely different locations. I started by flying from Dulles to Newcastle (through Heathrow), arriving Friday morning, just in time for connotations, which is in Tynemouth, not far from Newcastle.
The con was well-run and fun (with a few hotel snafus that were not the fault of the organizers, temaris and moonlettuce, who did a fabulous job). It's a small con by US standards, though growing each year - only about 60 people this year, which meant there was only a single panel at any given time. In my experience, this has both advantages and disadvantages - on the one hand, it gives a nice "unified" feel, keeps the con from feeling splintered, but on the other it can mean you can feel pressured to go to the panel even if you're not particularly interested in the panel topic, because otherwise you seem like a spoil-sport - and you feel kind of left out.
In this case, though, skipping a panel didn't leave you a pariah, or lonely. The con layout was great, with three adjoining rooms - a panel room; a "sitting around" room with tables and chairs, where food was served; and a third room, which had the con zine library, the registration table, and a screen set up for playing DVDs. There were always people - by which, of course, I mean fans! *g* - hanging out in these rooms - even if you skipped a panel, you'd have people to sit and chat with, which was nice.
I did end up going to a number of panels, though, because they were really interesting, and the discussions were great. I wasn't sure whether they'd be like panels at the American cons I've attended - in paticular, I wasn't sure whether people would talk and discuss and argue as passionately, and loudly, as we sometimes do at home. People talk about British restraint, but this set of fans was most certainly not restrained - the discussions were like those I've experienced at any number of cons; any of these panels would have been right at home in Escapade, for example - except for the accents, of course. :-) I'd feared that I'd come across as a pushy, loud American - and perhaps I did, but as it turned out, I was far from the most outspoken person there; this was not a soft-spoken, reticent bunch, as I was glad to discover.
I actually led one of the panels - within an hour or so after arriving, so my coherence was probably questionable at best! This was the panel on - surprise - Pros, and, more generally, fandoms like Pros that have stood the test of time - MfU, SH, etc. (though really there isn't much "etc.," is there, except of course ST: TOS). I enjoyed this, as I always love talking about Pros and trying to analyze and understand my feelings about it, though it did feel a bit odd to be an American leading a panel primarily about a quintissentially British show....
In fact, throughout the weekend it was a little strange, and not always comfortable, I must admit, to be one of the only Americans (there were two others, one an expat living in the UK). This isn't a normal reaction for me - I've lived abroad, including in the UK, and don't generally care, or even notice, when I'm the only American in such groups. And I'm neither a shrinking violet nor particularly oversensitive. My own reactions therefore startled me, and I'm not sure to what to ascribe them, though I have some thoughts (Bush hasn't done much for our image overseas, that's for sure!). I don't want to exaggerate it - in general, fans are fans, wherever you are, welcoming and friendly and generous, wanting primarily to share the squee; this was no exception. Still, though, in some subtle way I can't quite describe, I found myself, much to my own surprise, feeling ... well, alien, I guess, if not quite alienated, and occasionally - and even more surprisingly - defensive.
It's an interesting, if potentially touchy, topic, I think, the differences and similarities and connections between UK and US fans - and there actually was a panel, led by mandragora1, on "Brit-speak" and cultural ... incongruities, or anachronisms, or whatever (there must be a word, but I can't seem to find it) - on writing in a culture different from the writer's own. In my experience, British fans are much more touchy about Americans' failure to use proper British terminology in fandoms like Pros and HP than American fans are with regard to American-based fandoms (though Americans often react quite touchily to British touchiness! *g*), and assuming my peceptions are accurate, I wonder why this is. Is it because British fans take more care to use correct American terminology and use malapropisms, or whatever, less frequently? I imagine the average Brit is exposed much more to Americanisms than the average American is to Britishisms; perhaps this makes it easier for Brits to write "American," so the mistakes are fewer? Are the UK fans reacting not so much to the misused words as to a perceived American disregard for - or ignorance of - anything not American? Does it have something to do with the fact that most fannish source is American, so UK fans are more concerned that UK-based fandoms not be Americanized as well?
I think of these things a lot because the source that means most to me now is, of course, British, and has, compared to many other big fandoms, a very high percentage of British fans. I love its British-ness and love reading stories that really capture it - but that's a product of the author's skill, not merely her nationality. True, the stories I'm thinking of, the ones that so excellently seem to capture that sense of British-ness, are generally by UK writers, but certainly there are plenty of British writers whose stories don't have that quality. There are many, many Pros stories by Americans - and Canadians! *g* - and even Brits that I adore without regard to the fact that they might not sound 1000% authentically late-70s British, that they aren't filled with Britishisms. Perhaps that's partly because I am American and therefore don't notice it as much; it doesn't stand out to my inner ear in the same way. But in general, if the writing is good and the story pushes my buttons and the characterization is solid, minor discrepancies of this sort simply aren't going to bother me. Clearly, though, they do bother a lot of people, partly just because they're indicative of sloppy writing (the same kind of thing as being bothered by poor editing and dumb mistakes and failure to proofread or use a beta, etc. etc., which is an issue all its own) - but I think it goes beyond this, and I can't quite get a good handle on the reasons for it.
I'm rambling now, but it is an interesting topic, and this con - not just the one panel, but the entire con - made me very aware of these sorts of issues; not so much cultural differences as the different perceptions of and reactions to those differences, the varying degrees of importance placed upon them, the extent to which our nationality/cultural background affect the way we look at fannish things. I must admit, though, that I don't like to dwell on this kind of thing too much, because it threatens to harsh my fannish buzz, which is very important to me - I'd rather think about the things that bind us, the things all fans share, which I think are far more important; the differences to me are points of interest rather than of dissent, and I'm generally of the no-skin-off-my-back, do-what-makes-you-happy school of fandom.
Then again, I do, as I've said before, tend to be quite nauseatingly pollyanna-ish about fandom (though that's something for which I've finally decided to make an effort to stop apologizing!).
Anyway, back to the con. Two other panels stand out in my memory. One was on the meaning of, and differences and similarities between, "gay books" and slash. It was a really fascinating discussion about the difficulty of defining "gay literature" these days - does the fact that a fantasy, or a detective novel, has a gay character make it "gay literature"? There seemed to be fairly universal accord that there is some quality of "slashiness" that we all recognize. But though all seemed to agree it exists, no one could isolate the factors that comprise it - slashiness seems to be in large part a "know it when you see it" sort of thing. The fact that a novel is "gay" doesn't make it "slashy" - but does the fact that a novel is "slashy" make it "gay"? Interesting questions to explore....
The other panel I enjoyed was the one on preserving fandom. This focused to a large extent on online archives - their "rights," their roles, their purpose. What happens when the owner of the main online fic repository for a fandom gets hit by a bus, or less dramatically, simply loses interest, and the archive disappears? Should so much of a fandom be in one person's hands, and what are the alternatives? What are an archivist's obligations - and rights - with respect to authors, and with respect to readers and other fans? If an author requests her work be removed, should an archivist respect her rights/desires. or the rights/desires of the rest of the fandom that the story stay?
There was discussion of the fact that fandom operates, implicitly and explicitly, on the assumption that there is a sort of common "lore," that characters created by others become part of this and are owned by everyone (I can't think of the right vocabulary to describe this phenomenon - myths and folklore and common ownership of ideas are all wrapped up in it ....) There is an argument - and not a specious one, I think - that once a fanfic author publishes her story, it becomes part of this common lore. It still attributable to her, but it's no longer "hers" - in the way that Bodie and Doyle are attributable to Brian Clemens, but not "his"; they are collectively owned, now - all of ours. So it can be argued that the fanfic author's demand that her story be removed (in addition to being hypocritical) carries no greater weight than the community's demand that it not be removed, that it has become, indelibly, part of fandom lore, part of the fannish fabric we're all weaving and into which we're all woven.
I haven't, and the panel didn't, critically analyze every element of this argument. And of course, regardless of this, people tend often to acquiesce to the author's requests out of friendship or courtesy or simple fear that failure to do so will have negative repercussions in the community. Still, it's an interesting issue, the question of how, whether, to what extent, we can - or should - preserve history for future fans, and to whom that history "belongs."
In the end, the con was fun for me - but not on the same level as most of the cons I attend, and I imagine that's largely because I knew so few people. Not so much that I'd actually met so few prior to the con - more that I didn't even know them virtually, wasn't familiar with their livejournals, don't seem to move in the same online fannish circles, whereas it seemed to me that many, or most, of the other attendees did. So I didn't have quite the "connected" feel I usually get at cons. Still, it was great to be with those I did know, and to meet a number of others with whom I spent many enjoyable hours chatting; as far as I'm concerned it's never a waste of time to spend time with fans, I never regret it. Overall, a weekend well spent.
I left the con on Sunday evening and went to spend a few days with Fish ("Angelfish Archivist"), who lives near there.
I'd never been up to the northeast of England before, and it was interesting. Where Fish and her partner live is extremely rural. Their nextdoor neighbor is a sheep farmer named John with a Geordie accent so thick you could cut it with a knife - though I had little idea what he was saying! The countryside in that area is beautiful in a bleak kind of way, with moors and hills of heather and bracken and gray skies. It's right up near Hadrian's Wall - cold and damp and dark for much of the year; we went to an old church in Hexham, and all I could think was how cold those monks must have been back in the 12th century....
We had a long, long lunch with londonronnie in Newcastle on Tuesday, in a pub down by the river. That was wonderful, and it brought me right back into the world of Pros fandom, which is my favorite place to be these days.
The thing about a general slash con and staying with people not all of whom are Pros fans is that I have to pretend to be interested in things other than Pros *g*. Actually, I am interested in things other than Pros, but not as interested as I am in Pros, and it's nice to be able to release some of the restraints I normally impose on my Pros obsession when with non-Pros fans. And happily, I was able to do that: much of the rest of my trip was a pure wallow in Pros for me... about which more in another post!