Lojban Festival At Philcon 2006 Report
The Lojban Festival was fun, despite the organizational train wreck of Philcon. We persevered and had the biggest and best gathering in the fifty-year history of this language project. I've put up photos on Flickr.
First, the complaints about our treatment by Philcon.
A few weeks ago Philcon canceled the function space they had promised us and tried to put our twenty attendees and numerous curious bystanders at two tables on the mezzanine. Rumor has it that they completely forgot about the existence of the many outside groups, and we were all in the same boat.
Then they offered to pay half for us to rent a Junior Suite, and we accepted. But it was practically in another country from the convention. The internet access wouldn't work. It was not even vaguely classroom-sized-- it was two tiny rooms which only exceeded the size of a hotel room when taken together. They didn't take out the bed.
By the time I was done trying to work with Program Ops, moving all our stuff from the lobby to the suite, from the suite to empty function space, and then being kicked out of empty function space by a political maneuver among Program Ops, Friday's events had come and gone without anyone being quite sure where to gather for them. I made an executive decision and said in order to get all the Lojbanists in one place, we would use the suite all weekend, period, paragraph, end of story. The Lojban/Klingon skit and other programming which may have drawn a crowd was canceled-- and besides, Philcon scheduled The Klingon Guy solid back-to-back all day Saturday.
When Philcon finally gave us the data projector and screen they had promised, it was the size of a large suitcase, thirty years old. When had to track down our own power cord and A/V cables. The screen had no stand and nothing to hang it from. The room wasn't large enough to fit the stand and projector plus humans, to say nothing of a long enough room in which spread the beam wide enough to view. We tried setting up in the elevator lobby, but it wouldn't focus, and finally we were evicted from the elevator lobby by hotel security. It turns out our suite was not on a hospitality floor; everyone on the floor except for us was sleeping in preparation for running a marathon the next day. I canceled whichever projected presentations I could, and stood up an ironing board and a laptop for those that needed it.
I now have complete political support (and funds) from the Logical Language Group to have jbonunsla 2007 at Penguicon, if it would be possible. I'll evaluate the pros and cons of that in the coming weeks.
Second, praise for the Lojban attendees and our awesome time with each other.
My friend Bruce Webber from the local Lojban group carpooled with me to Philcon. I started learning how to drive a stick-shift. While I drove, he drilled and tested me in Lojban vocabulary on my handheld computer.
After the organizational work of Friday night, I got everyone together in one place about 10PM, and we started having a really great time. While at the convention, I spent more attention on organizing than I did on Lojban. That was serving the language community and my friends, and suited me fine. I hung posters and distributed brochures (PDF link page one) (PDF link page two). I cleaned the suite a lot, set out snacks and soft drinks, brewed fresh-ground cappuccino, turned up the air conditioner all the way, and kept track of time so we would be sure to feed ourselves. But I knew better than to try to stick to the schedule of events under the changed circumstances.
Nothing could be a real "event" in a room in which we could hardly open the door. That setting encouraged an open-ended round-table, but that was just as well. I learned a lot for the future. Scheduling topics of discussion only works when there are enough people to split into multiple groups, so that some will choose to talk about that topic and others will mill about having random conversation. When there are few enough people that they can all see and hear each other at once, they should talk about whatever they wish.
There might be an audio recording of Friday night on Stephen Weeks' voice recorder. Arika Okrent's presentation on the history of constructed languages went forward as a very informal talk, and was quite insightful. Pierre Abbat performed on the banjo and sang Lojban songs. John Cowan autographed copies of The Complete Lojban Language. Robin Lee Powell invented stories in Lojban from random story-idea slips he pulled out of an ornate wooden box. Mark Shoulson got up to the whiteboard and gave his class. David Montenegro gave his introductory slideshow and got some tweaks for it from the experts. I taught Daniel Adamec how to play the chess variant "Navia Dratp", using almost nothing but Lojban.
One of the most enjoyable and successful things we did this weekend was have Arika pose research questions in English for her book, have Robin Lee Powell answer in Lojban, and have several others translate it for her. This is the sort of thing that should be scheduled, rather than topics. There will be certain hours for:
- speaking in English about Lojban to beginners
- speaking in English about Lojban language design and the finer points of grammar and vocabulary creation, between experts
- speaking in Lojban.
I didn't see any of the rest of the convention other than making absolutely sure to meet Charlie Stross, but that's because I was there to do a job. For the most part, the convention came to me. I got to chat briefly with Scalzi. Eric Raymond hasn't been involved in the language for ten or fifteen years, but hung out in our suite anyway (I enticed him and Cathy into the room to play a game of Puerto Rico), and due to his history with the project he definitely counts. It was nice to see them. Laurence Schoen, "The Klingon Guy", dropped by when he could, and expressed interest in Penguicon. SF author David Louis Edelman stopped by to talk to me about his appearance at Penguicon and panel ideas.
On Sunday I paused our packing to gather everyone together and ask for historical memories of Logfests past. It was agreed that there were more Lojban speakers and enthusiasts at this gathering than at any previous. Everybody loved the Lojban Festival and looked forward to the next one. We dispersed with congratulations, thanks, and satisfaction about the weekend we had spent with each other.