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cathyr19355 at 10:48pm on 11/09/2004
cathyr19355 at 10:48pm on 11/09/2004Yes, I know it's been 6 days since Worldcon ended, but there's been so much going on at work that I haven't had energy to finish this sooner. :-)
In the end, I didn't manage to make it to any of the other panels I wanted to see, but there was enough good stuff going on that it didn't matter.
The Art Show was huge, and had a larger ratio of really good, professional quality entries to newbie work than I've seen in a long, long time. It also had a "retro art show" component of works not up for bids--genuine collector item art consisting largely of the originals of well-known covers from the pulp SF days. Fascinating.
I watched part of the Retro Hugos on Friday in "The Mended Drum" which was a cafe area in the fan concourse where the Convention Center people served drinks. They'd set it up with a projector screen and showed the major events on the screen in real time while they took place in the auditorium, which was on the same floor. (However, you got better sound and a much better view from the Mended Drum). I don't care in the slightest about the Retro Hugos, but they had several interesting interviews interspersed with the awards, including a neat interview of retro-Hugo candidate William Tenn, an interview of Terry Pratchett by big name British fan Peter Weston (another retro-Hugo candidate) and then, amusingly, an interview of Peter Weston by Terry. This last was all the more amusing because, as it turned out, Terry and Peter are old friends and went to their first con together. Then Peter stayed on in fandom, while Terry gafiated for about 15 years....
During the day, the Mended Drum also served convention center food. The items had been relabeled with Discworld-suitable names by the convention, including Granny Weatherwax's Headology Soup (chicken noodle soup), Fruit Wobbler minus the wobbler (fruit cup) and C.M.O.T. Dibbler's meat pies (real meat pies). The meat pies lived up to their name, but the rest of the food didn't seem quite so bad.
The Worldcon Masquerade was the longest one I've seen in a long time--50 entries, and only two or three scratches. It started at 8:30, and the presentation phase alone lasted until well after 11:00 p.m. There were a *lot* of Discworld-themed costumes (unsurprisingly). There were so many Discworld costumes that MC Susan di Giardiola started inviting the audience to recite the attributions with her. "Based on --DISCWORLD-- By--TERRY PRATCHETT...." Pratchett himself played a cameo role in one of the presentations, which was a kind of a "Being John Malkovich" parody.
Speaking of all things Discworld, there was a gentleman at the con exhibiting wonderful, painstaking miniatures of Discworld landmarks such as Unseen University, the Alchemists' Guild, the Unseen University organ (complete with the Librarian at the keyboard!) and the Hidden Temple of the History Monks. The breathtaking detail justifies the breathtaking prices he is charging. He trades under the name "The Cunning Artificer", and if you're interested in really high-class Discworld sculptural art, his website is www.artificer.co.uk
After the Masquerade presentation phase, Eric and I left and started to roam the room parties. The best one we found was a theme party by an old friend of ours, Vinny Salzillo. Vinny now runs several gaming conventions in New Jersey, the biggest and best known of which is called "Double Exposure" after the first LARP Vinny ran in 1988 (that LARP was, by the way, my first live action role playing game ever, in case anybody cares). Vinny also throws great room parties. This one was a Weird Al Yankovic Sing-A-Long! He had a DVD player and a stereo, and would play some of the songs with their accompanying videos and some songs without. As a result, I saw Weird Al videos I'd never seen before, including "Jurassic Park" and "It's All About the Pentiums". I nearly laughed myself sick...and we stayed until the party closed around 1:30 A.M.
The other great thing about this con, for us, was running into old friends and actually managing to find hang time with them. Eric arranged a Sunday-morning dim sum expedition to Boston's Chinatown with rv, her guy Chris, and a bunch of their friends. We tried to go for Mongolian barbecue with another old friend, Steve Tihor, but the place had a 2-hour wait to get seated so we ended up at a sort of Tex-Mex nouveau place across the street called the Cottonwood Restaurant that was pretty good. There was even a "Dick's Last Resort" in the Prudential Center (the mall that connects to the Convention Center and the main convention hotel) where we had Texas-style barbecue off the traditional waxed paper sheets with some friends of Eric's I don't know well. Overall, this Worldcon was a great one for food as well as events and company. Within a three-block radius of the Convention Center, there were Greek, Middle Eastern, Thai, and Japanese restaurants, as well as a ton of Irish-style pubs and seafood places. We didn't eat a single meal in the hotel all weekend.
On Monday, Eric and I had a leisurely breakfast, and worked in one final game of Puerto Rico in the gaming room before heading back to the airport for our 5:00 p.m. flight.
And thus ended Worldcon. My biggest complaint is that it was all over too soon.
In the end, I didn't manage to make it to any of the other panels I wanted to see, but there was enough good stuff going on that it didn't matter.
The Art Show was huge, and had a larger ratio of really good, professional quality entries to newbie work than I've seen in a long, long time. It also had a "retro art show" component of works not up for bids--genuine collector item art consisting largely of the originals of well-known covers from the pulp SF days. Fascinating.
I watched part of the Retro Hugos on Friday in "The Mended Drum" which was a cafe area in the fan concourse where the Convention Center people served drinks. They'd set it up with a projector screen and showed the major events on the screen in real time while they took place in the auditorium, which was on the same floor. (However, you got better sound and a much better view from the Mended Drum). I don't care in the slightest about the Retro Hugos, but they had several interesting interviews interspersed with the awards, including a neat interview of retro-Hugo candidate William Tenn, an interview of Terry Pratchett by big name British fan Peter Weston (another retro-Hugo candidate) and then, amusingly, an interview of Peter Weston by Terry. This last was all the more amusing because, as it turned out, Terry and Peter are old friends and went to their first con together. Then Peter stayed on in fandom, while Terry gafiated for about 15 years....
During the day, the Mended Drum also served convention center food. The items had been relabeled with Discworld-suitable names by the convention, including Granny Weatherwax's Headology Soup (chicken noodle soup), Fruit Wobbler minus the wobbler (fruit cup) and C.M.O.T. Dibbler's meat pies (real meat pies). The meat pies lived up to their name, but the rest of the food didn't seem quite so bad.
The Worldcon Masquerade was the longest one I've seen in a long time--50 entries, and only two or three scratches. It started at 8:30, and the presentation phase alone lasted until well after 11:00 p.m. There were a *lot* of Discworld-themed costumes (unsurprisingly). There were so many Discworld costumes that MC Susan di Giardiola started inviting the audience to recite the attributions with her. "Based on --DISCWORLD-- By--TERRY PRATCHETT...." Pratchett himself played a cameo role in one of the presentations, which was a kind of a "Being John Malkovich" parody.
Speaking of all things Discworld, there was a gentleman at the con exhibiting wonderful, painstaking miniatures of Discworld landmarks such as Unseen University, the Alchemists' Guild, the Unseen University organ (complete with the Librarian at the keyboard!) and the Hidden Temple of the History Monks. The breathtaking detail justifies the breathtaking prices he is charging. He trades under the name "The Cunning Artificer", and if you're interested in really high-class Discworld sculptural art, his website is www.artificer.co.uk
After the Masquerade presentation phase, Eric and I left and started to roam the room parties. The best one we found was a theme party by an old friend of ours, Vinny Salzillo. Vinny now runs several gaming conventions in New Jersey, the biggest and best known of which is called "Double Exposure" after the first LARP Vinny ran in 1988 (that LARP was, by the way, my first live action role playing game ever, in case anybody cares). Vinny also throws great room parties. This one was a Weird Al Yankovic Sing-A-Long! He had a DVD player and a stereo, and would play some of the songs with their accompanying videos and some songs without. As a result, I saw Weird Al videos I'd never seen before, including "Jurassic Park" and "It's All About the Pentiums". I nearly laughed myself sick...and we stayed until the party closed around 1:30 A.M.
The other great thing about this con, for us, was running into old friends and actually managing to find hang time with them. Eric arranged a Sunday-morning dim sum expedition to Boston's Chinatown with rv, her guy Chris, and a bunch of their friends. We tried to go for Mongolian barbecue with another old friend, Steve Tihor, but the place had a 2-hour wait to get seated so we ended up at a sort of Tex-Mex nouveau place across the street called the Cottonwood Restaurant that was pretty good. There was even a "Dick's Last Resort" in the Prudential Center (the mall that connects to the Convention Center and the main convention hotel) where we had Texas-style barbecue off the traditional waxed paper sheets with some friends of Eric's I don't know well. Overall, this Worldcon was a great one for food as well as events and company. Within a three-block radius of the Convention Center, there were Greek, Middle Eastern, Thai, and Japanese restaurants, as well as a ton of Irish-style pubs and seafood places. We didn't eat a single meal in the hotel all weekend.
On Monday, Eric and I had a leisurely breakfast, and worked in one final game of Puerto Rico in the gaming room before heading back to the airport for our 5:00 p.m. flight.
And thus ended Worldcon. My biggest complaint is that it was all over too soon.
nostalgic
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