And thus the taking over of the world began.

[seajules]

Had a lovely meet-up with shweta_narayan and elsmi, who are even more awesome than expected. Beverages were had, with much discussion about genre poetry, the SFPA, ASP, the steps involved in non-profit status, and other such revolutionary talk. We then moved on to pizza, for which Spouse joined us, and the conversation expanded to the U.S. military, the space

Comments

[shweta_narayan]

Hi! It was lovely meeting up with you both, and -- wow you're quick with the lj posts. We just got home. I'm a bit fuzzheaded from the smoke but bouncy from cool conversation!

And yay for being on the rough draft filter :)

Oh, and, did I mention? we also have a pool.

[seajules]

wow you're quick with the lj posts

I live less than ten minutes up the road from where we met, which helps. ;-) I too am fuzzyheaded (but at least I can see better again!) and bouncy. And reinvigorated about making the organization work for me.

Oh, and, did I mention? we also have a pool.

Oooooh. You just said the magic word. *G*

[shweta_narayan]

And, inspired by you, I posted.

[ajodasso]

Jealous! I love living in the UK, but it means that erzebet and alankria are the only folks reasonably within my reach. So many of you seem to live on the US West Coast, within fairly easy reach of each other. Granted, I know a handful are scattered throughout the rest of the US and even in Canada, but. Jealous nonetheless!

[tithenai]

Hey now! I'm mostly in the UK as well! Although, you know. "Reasonably within reach" ... Cornwall ... Yeah.

[ajodasso]

*blinks* Was I mistaken about you being based in Canada? Or do you spend part of your time in each place? I think I'm somewhat confused at this point ;)

[tithenai]

I'm from Canada, but I'm doing a PhD at the Cornwall campus of the University of Exeter. ;) I'm there until 2012, but I'm spending this summer at home to work so's I can live on more than tea and air in the fall.

[tithenai]

I am delightedly jealous! So glad you guys met up. I so look forward to making it out there again and finally meeting you!

[skogkatt]

That sounds like a super awesome meeting! I am so glad that things like this are happening around the SFPA conversation. Imagine how cool that poetry con would be!

[elsmi]

I had great fun too!

Here's the Jo Walton poem we were mentioning, btw. You can see if it trips your nostalgia aversion or not :-):
http://literary.erictmarin.com/archives/Issue%2031/ye.htm

I'm still curious to read really good poems in the classic SF mode, though.

[Goodness, I just discovered this sitting in text edit box 2 days later. Oh well! *presses Post*]

[seajules]

Two days is a better turnaround time than I'm managing, clearly. *G*

I have to say, that poem reads as nostalgic to me, but it doesn't read as blinkered nostalgic. It allows for the evolution of conceptions of the future, if that makes sense, and for the possibility that past conceptions may have been perfect for some subsets of people, but that was at the expense of an open future for other subsets of people. Jo Walton's really good at working in layers like that. I suspect one reason the Nine Things About Oracles meme took off like it did is because of her early involvement.

[elsmi]

That's my read too. It's nostalgic, but aware of it (in the ways you say), and that makes nostalgia part of the content, the point -- and for me that's fine, nostalgia's a legitimate part of the human emotional range (and perhaps one particularly appropriate for a eulogy!). What I'm bored by are people who think that instead of, y'know, writing a poem, they can gesture lazily at some chewed-up ideas from 20 (40, 60...) years ago and rely on the reader's nostalgia to provide an emotional reaction.

I guess what I'm saying is for me, the problem isn't nostalgia, it's nostalgia as mechanism. But I was curious what you thought!

[seajules]

It sounds like we have very similar takes. It's the difference between self-aware nostalgia, blinkered nostalgia, and character nostalgia vs. narrative awareness of the problems with said nostalgia. Any piece written on the presumption that of course I'll share the nostalgia for whateveritis, or that it doesn't matter what I think of whateveritis because my views really shouldn't count, just like they didn't used to, is a piece I'll find problematic. A piece written with the recognition that the reader may not share the nostalgia, and that their view is valid and worthy of consideration, is a much more successful piece.