A Strange and Wonderful Evening
It was election night, THE Election Night, the U.S. election on which billions of Americans and others hung their hopes and fears.
And in the middle of that, Jeff and Ann Vandermeer were in town, to show their new Steampunk Anthology. We met before the talk at Borderlands, the amazing bookstore on Valencia in the Mission district. My Clarionmate J caught a ride with me. I proudly wore my new Clarion 2007 vest, made just in time for the occasion.
There's a story to the vest. In our Vandermeer week at Clarion, Jeff gave us an assignment: to write a 5,000-word story following a given plot structure, using named characters. The most important plot-point was that a character named Roman had to die. (There's more about this in my LJ post on Clarion - here.)
As we each killed our Romans, we scrawled a dead Roman on the courtyard floor in chalk. Inspired, our classmate Shweta got each of us to draw a dead Roman onto an electronic slate, and designed a colorful T-shirt, to be made available online. Unfortunately, the t-shirt I bought wasn't wearable. But the design was awesome, and I wished I could use it somehow. So the other day, I found a plain black vest, cut out the design, and appliqued it to the vest. And of course, what better day to debut it than the day I was meeting Jeff and Ann for the first time since Clarion?
We all went out for coffee. Of course our discussions kept looping back to the political situation. Everyone there supported Obama. We also worried about Proposition 8, that sought to ban gay marriage.
Back at the bookstore, there was a sizeable turnout. We stood around, everyone checking the election results obsessively on their 3G phones. The excitement underlay all the evening's events, growing as more people gathered. The charming hairless Sphinx cats wandered around investigating everyone and everything. At around 7 p.m., Richard Bottoms arrived, in character with a bowler hat and Victorian garb. He was another panel participant, and the organizer of last week's steampunk convention. They sat down and started the talk.
It was a good discussion, about steampunk, what it means and where it's going. Richard said he hopes Vallejo will become the steampunk capital of the world. Ann talked about what type of submissions she's getting as Editor of Weird Tales. Jeff talked about discovering steampunk fashions. They all talked about the convention and the book. As the discussion was winding down, we heard jubilant shouts from outside. Ann checked her phone and said quietly, "We have a President."
People outside were screaming and shouting as we walked out down Valencia. The mood was buoyant, though we still were concerned about prop 8. We wouldn't know the results there until morning*.
I came home to find my favorite voter in tears, watching the Obama acceptance speech. She cheered, grabbed a tissue, wiped her eyes and cheered some more.
ETA: And then we discovered that Prop 8 had passed. Buzzkill.
And in the middle of that, Jeff and Ann Vandermeer were in town, to show their new Steampunk Anthology. We met before the talk at Borderlands, the amazing bookstore on Valencia in the Mission district. My Clarionmate J caught a ride with me. I proudly wore my new Clarion 2007 vest, made just in time for the occasion.
There's a story to the vest. In our Vandermeer week at Clarion, Jeff gave us an assignment: to write a 5,000-word story following a given plot structure, using named characters. The most important plot-point was that a character named Roman had to die. (There's more about this in my LJ post on Clarion - here.)
As we each killed our Romans, we scrawled a dead Roman on the courtyard floor in chalk. Inspired, our classmate Shweta got each of us to draw a dead Roman onto an electronic slate, and designed a colorful T-shirt, to be made available online. Unfortunately, the t-shirt I bought wasn't wearable. But the design was awesome, and I wished I could use it somehow. So the other day, I found a plain black vest, cut out the design, and appliqued it to the vest. And of course, what better day to debut it than the day I was meeting Jeff and Ann for the first time since Clarion?
We all went out for coffee. Of course our discussions kept looping back to the political situation. Everyone there supported Obama. We also worried about Proposition 8, that sought to ban gay marriage.
Back at the bookstore, there was a sizeable turnout. We stood around, everyone checking the election results obsessively on their 3G phones. The excitement underlay all the evening's events, growing as more people gathered. The charming hairless Sphinx cats wandered around investigating everyone and everything. At around 7 p.m., Richard Bottoms arrived, in character with a bowler hat and Victorian garb. He was another panel participant, and the organizer of last week's steampunk convention. They sat down and started the talk.
It was a good discussion, about steampunk, what it means and where it's going. Richard said he hopes Vallejo will become the steampunk capital of the world. Ann talked about what type of submissions she's getting as Editor of Weird Tales. Jeff talked about discovering steampunk fashions. They all talked about the convention and the book. As the discussion was winding down, we heard jubilant shouts from outside. Ann checked her phone and said quietly, "We have a President."
People outside were screaming and shouting as we walked out down Valencia. The mood was buoyant, though we still were concerned about prop 8. We wouldn't know the results there until morning*.
I came home to find my favorite voter in tears, watching the Obama acceptance speech. She cheered, grabbed a tissue, wiped her eyes and cheered some more.
ETA: And then we discovered that Prop 8 had passed. Buzzkill.