Five Things Too Early on a Saturday

[scarlettina]

Woke at 6:07 AM. Bleh.

1) I had a night full of hideous anxiety dreams. I'm still upset about missing the bus to the airport for my trip (and watching it pull away from the curb) because I forgot to pack something.

2) rosefox has made a really thoughtful GenreVille blog post about harassment at conventions. Well worth the read.

3) suricattus talks about the

Comments

[daveon]

I believe that the most immediately effective way of overcoming this programming is to focus on conventions as businesses providing services, and on convention attendees as customers.I REALLY struggle with this concept, in fact, it trips me up really badly because Conventions, at least the fannish kind, just aren't like that. They are not-for-profit events run by volunteers for what is, on the whole, their friends

[scarlettina]

I haven't seen much of the grousing about WorldCon myself, but I'm not surprised it's happening. It seems to happen every year. I'm wondering if the amount of grousing about WorldCon has increased proportionally to the amount of money it costs to buy a membership. While it's not as pricey as a trade show, it's still quite a pretty penny. I also wonder if it has something to do with the graying of fandom, and what people are and aren't willing to accept

[daveon]

I think there's a few things I need to unpack here in a reply :)

1) While conventions aren't cheap, if I compare them to multi-day 'pro' events I attend they're at least half the price, the cheapest 2 day event I've attended recently had a 'rack rate' of over $400, and 4 day ones can easily cost over $1000. Hotels charge vast amounts for convention space... not sure what we can do about that.

2) The fandom as a safe place is tricky. I'm not sure it's true and I've written about some of M's experiences at conventions... Having clear rules that are enforced that protect the accuser and the accused is essential. But I worry that tensions are getting to the point that we could end up with drumheads cropping up. Reading a thread on this elsewhere and I'm watching a friend get piled on by Rosefox and Nick Manatis for what is, in my opinion, a clear misunderstanding and he's feeling miserable about it. The online world is currently feeling very uncomfortable and non-safe.

3) And here I don't have any great answers. But if someone

[scarlettina]

I'm already seeing questions about generational stuff...

I'm genuinely curious about this. Is it a question of older fans feeling like too much is being made of all this? It wouldn't surprise me. I'd be curious to read some of those threads.

As for blanket rules, I agree they're a problem. Humans require a certain amount of nuance. At the same time, it's really hard to provide and apply nuance to a large population.

[ghilledhu]

I love Eleanor Rigby. As a lonely high school student with very few friends, I felt like it spoke to me; and I loved the soaring instrumentation, which seemed to both accent the sadness of the lyrics and make it bearable. One of my recent silly ideas is that Eleanor Rigby was actually a super-spy master of disguise (that's what the "face that she keeps in a jar by the door" really meant!) and the lonely spinster act was her cover.

[scarlettina]

Heh. I like that idea quite a bit. But the song was an outlier in its time, completely different from the formulaic pop that filled the airwaves. It was the cutting edge of change (just as "Good Vibrations" was). Music's never been the same.

[amheriksha]

1. I hate travel anxiety dreams. I'm always missing an international flight somewhere, or the plane has to emergency land for a non-emergency reason.

4. The amount of deep trouble we'll be in terrifies me sometimes. I can only cling to the hope we as a nation are smarter than that. (My main problem isn't even party alignment at this point. It's sheer stupidity and lack of diplomatic grace. I called Romney gauche the other day, and it was so apt I could have wept.)

6. Really interesting! I've always thought Eleanor Rigby was such a beautifully bittersweet song. Then again, I can't stand stereotypically upbeat and happy songs. (They put me in a bad mood. I'm odd like that, I suppose.)

[garyomaha]

Thanks for the NPR music story link -- I had missed that story when it ran. I hadn't considered the mid-60s as a time the music styles particularly changed (it's the beginning of my "sweet spot" of music knowledge and memories). I'm too much of a radio geek; "Eleanor Rigby" first brings to mind a cold open (rare, during that period) and cold ending (fun, for programmatic purposes) -- sorry, that's where my mind goes with that song.

[scarlettina]

That's kinda my point. Everything about that song was different from what had come before. (geek mode on) Interestingly, this was the same year that The Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds came out, which was a musical turning point for them, too--all that lush overlayering and those magnificent harmonies. (We sang some of that stuff in chorus and I developed a new appreciation for the Beach Boys then; it was harder music to sing than I expected.) It's like 1966 was steam engine time for popular music. {geek mode off)

[bedii]

There's a wonderful few lines about art in an early Travis McGee novel that you'd like which by extension shows that those who pass over something like the Beach Boys since it's popular without looking at how hard it is in actuality to do what they did are severely fooling themselves. Ladyjestocost has heard me quote it too often, I fear, so I won't wave it about again.