Potlatch
So this past weekend was Potlatch. It was also the 10th Annual Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Film Festival. Being the sort that likes having her cake and eating it, too, I arranged to attend the convention on Friday evening and Saturday, and then the festival recap on Sunday.
JB was in town visiting, and I had to work, so I cut out of the day job at about 4 PM and we headed over to the hotel just in time to catch folks departing for dinner. Our party consisted of myself, JB, Vonda McIntyre and Amy Thomson. I haven't seen either Vonda or Amy in quite some time, so this was a lovely way to catch up. Vonda talked about the making of the movie based on her novel The Moon and the Sun. We had delicious Greek food at Costas, a University District institution. Afterward, we went back to the hotel and retired to the con suite for the duration. Discussion included the underestimation of Stephen King as a writer and The Hunger Games as media satire. I met Wendy Wagner, one of the editors at Lightspeed, who was just delightful and whom I hope to maintain as a friend. I was also reminded that youth is the sort of thing one is eventually cured of but, while in its grip, the young are just going to be, well, young. And that's all I'll say about that.
Saturday we got a late start and didn't get to the hotel until lunchtime. We caught a group that included mcjulie, randy_byers, Jerry & Suzle (they are forever ampersanded), Glenn Glazer and a couple of other people whose names I missed, and headed over to a new Korean place on the Ave. ( Randy reports that it's called Seoul Tofu House & Korean BBQ.) I had the beef with broccoli, which was . . . acceptable for U District fast food. The company was much better. Getting to listen to Jerry talk about the bands he saw in NYC in the 1970s was a blast. He's history on the hoof in this respect, having seen some pretty major groups before they really hit. On the way back, Julie was talking about Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which got me going on to Randy about how it was a terrific film until the big battle toward the end. I've already written about that so I won't repeat it here, but I realized that I may need to do more writing about it because there's no doubt that the proliferation of epic cinematic battles colors my perceptions and expectations of movies now in a pretty significant way.
We got back from lunch a little late, past 1 PM, and so came in late for the panel, Living in a Fantasy World: The 21 Century Appeal of Fantasy Fiction, which I admit, at this point, I don't remember much about. I do remember feeling a little as though whole chunks of conversation about the topic were being missed in favor of the panelists' biases; I know that suricattus had Opinions about the discussion. The next panel, Women Destroy Science Fiction: Not Again! left a greater impression on me because Eileen Gunn was furious that we were still even having this conversation (and rightly so, I think). Vonda chimed in from the audience with relevant historical discussions of women's work in the genre. Debbie Notkin and Kate Schaeffer, the other panelists, both brought good and interesting perspectives.
I skipped the 3 PM panel in favor of a little dealer's room shopping.
At 4 PM, I was on the panel What Dreams Need Come: A Task List for Visionaries, which was supposed to use Ursula K. LeGuin's National Book Awards acceptance speech as a jumping off point to discuss the kinds of SF and fantasy we need in the current, toxic political and business climate. Instead, the moderator decided to make it a discussion about self publishing versus Big Publishing, which I found enormously frustrating. As the only publishing pro on the panel, I found myself in the position of speaking about the business with people who had Opinions but not much in the way of practical knowledge. When I quoted directly from the program book description of the panel's intended direction and asked the moderator his thoughts about it, he clammed up and said nothing. I couldn't tell if he was baffled, embarrassed, or just not interested in actually having the programmed discussion. (Later, someone suggested that he may not actually have read the description beforehand, though I saw that he had prepared notes.) Someone in the audience tried to relate the discussion to the weekend's Book of Honor; that attempt at redirecting the discussion in a relevant direction also failed, though not for lack of support from me. I surrendered to the inevitable, carried on with the conversation that the mod wanted to have and let it go. I suppose I ought not to have challenged him; on the other hand, I'm too much of a top, I suppose, to have let it pass. Given what prep I did for the programmed discussion, I was pretty frustrated with the panel. I did the best I could, which is about all I could have done.
Dinner was in the hotel bar in the company of Nisi Shawl, and Mary Kay and Jordin Kare, and a fine and congenial meal it was (except for the burned dessert, which we kvetched about enough that the waiter gave it plus another to us for free).
After dinner, I attended the Trivia and Chocolate Fling, from which I emerged with plenty of chocolate in proof of my movie trivia prowess. From the auction I emerged with a beautiful African painting of an elephant and birds, which will be framed for hanging in my home sometime within the next couple of weeks. It's bright and beautiful and has great humor.
JB departed the con around 4 PM to see some friends perform in a band; he hadn't seen them in years and wanted to take the opportunity. So after the auction, I spent the balance of the evening ain the con suite. By the time he returned, I'd heard EE and RH jamming, playing hammer dulcimer and fiddle respectively. I'd been deep in a discussion about the efficacy of speech versus visual symbology as a communication method. And I'd avoided another awkward encounter with Youth Flying Its Flag. We stayed at the con until somewhere around 11:30ish and then headed out.
Sunday was SFFSFF, about which more in another post.
All in all, it was a good couple of days at the con.
JB was in town visiting, and I had to work, so I cut out of the day job at about 4 PM and we headed over to the hotel just in time to catch folks departing for dinner. Our party consisted of myself, JB, Vonda McIntyre and Amy Thomson. I haven't seen either Vonda or Amy in quite some time, so this was a lovely way to catch up. Vonda talked about the making of the movie based on her novel The Moon and the Sun. We had delicious Greek food at Costas, a University District institution. Afterward, we went back to the hotel and retired to the con suite for the duration. Discussion included the underestimation of Stephen King as a writer and The Hunger Games as media satire. I met Wendy Wagner, one of the editors at Lightspeed, who was just delightful and whom I hope to maintain as a friend. I was also reminded that youth is the sort of thing one is eventually cured of but, while in its grip, the young are just going to be, well, young. And that's all I'll say about that.
Saturday we got a late start and didn't get to the hotel until lunchtime. We caught a group that included mcjulie, randy_byers, Jerry & Suzle (they are forever ampersanded), Glenn Glazer and a couple of other people whose names I missed, and headed over to a new Korean place on the Ave. ( Randy reports that it's called Seoul Tofu House & Korean BBQ.) I had the beef with broccoli, which was . . . acceptable for U District fast food. The company was much better. Getting to listen to Jerry talk about the bands he saw in NYC in the 1970s was a blast. He's history on the hoof in this respect, having seen some pretty major groups before they really hit. On the way back, Julie was talking about Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which got me going on to Randy about how it was a terrific film until the big battle toward the end. I've already written about that so I won't repeat it here, but I realized that I may need to do more writing about it because there's no doubt that the proliferation of epic cinematic battles colors my perceptions and expectations of movies now in a pretty significant way.
We got back from lunch a little late, past 1 PM, and so came in late for the panel, Living in a Fantasy World: The 21 Century Appeal of Fantasy Fiction, which I admit, at this point, I don't remember much about. I do remember feeling a little as though whole chunks of conversation about the topic were being missed in favor of the panelists' biases; I know that suricattus had Opinions about the discussion. The next panel, Women Destroy Science Fiction: Not Again! left a greater impression on me because Eileen Gunn was furious that we were still even having this conversation (and rightly so, I think). Vonda chimed in from the audience with relevant historical discussions of women's work in the genre. Debbie Notkin and Kate Schaeffer, the other panelists, both brought good and interesting perspectives.
I skipped the 3 PM panel in favor of a little dealer's room shopping.
At 4 PM, I was on the panel What Dreams Need Come: A Task List for Visionaries, which was supposed to use Ursula K. LeGuin's National Book Awards acceptance speech as a jumping off point to discuss the kinds of SF and fantasy we need in the current, toxic political and business climate. Instead, the moderator decided to make it a discussion about self publishing versus Big Publishing, which I found enormously frustrating. As the only publishing pro on the panel, I found myself in the position of speaking about the business with people who had Opinions but not much in the way of practical knowledge. When I quoted directly from the program book description of the panel's intended direction and asked the moderator his thoughts about it, he clammed up and said nothing. I couldn't tell if he was baffled, embarrassed, or just not interested in actually having the programmed discussion. (Later, someone suggested that he may not actually have read the description beforehand, though I saw that he had prepared notes.) Someone in the audience tried to relate the discussion to the weekend's Book of Honor; that attempt at redirecting the discussion in a relevant direction also failed, though not for lack of support from me. I surrendered to the inevitable, carried on with the conversation that the mod wanted to have and let it go. I suppose I ought not to have challenged him; on the other hand, I'm too much of a top, I suppose, to have let it pass. Given what prep I did for the programmed discussion, I was pretty frustrated with the panel. I did the best I could, which is about all I could have done.
Dinner was in the hotel bar in the company of Nisi Shawl, and Mary Kay and Jordin Kare, and a fine and congenial meal it was (except for the burned dessert, which we kvetched about enough that the waiter gave it plus another to us for free).
After dinner, I attended the Trivia and Chocolate Fling, from which I emerged with plenty of chocolate in proof of my movie trivia prowess. From the auction I emerged with a beautiful African painting of an elephant and birds, which will be framed for hanging in my home sometime within the next couple of weeks. It's bright and beautiful and has great humor.
JB departed the con around 4 PM to see some friends perform in a band; he hadn't seen them in years and wanted to take the opportunity. So after the auction, I spent the balance of the evening ain the con suite. By the time he returned, I'd heard EE and RH jamming, playing hammer dulcimer and fiddle respectively. I'd been deep in a discussion about the efficacy of speech versus visual symbology as a communication method. And I'd avoided another awkward encounter with Youth Flying Its Flag. We stayed at the con until somewhere around 11:30ish and then headed out.
Sunday was SFFSFF, about which more in another post.
All in all, it was a good couple of days at the con.