Eastercon etc.

[altariel]

I am back from Eastercon, where I had a smashing time catching up with folks, spinning in bewilderment around curious corridors, talking so much that I crashed far too early each night, and blathering madly on panels. In what's becoming a tradition, I arrived just in time for my first panel, "Is the new Trek a Trekker's Trek?" Quite a big panel (6 of us), but with a good mix of opinions, from those of us who had thoroughly enjoyed the film for what it was, to those who felt it had destroyed too much of canon. I had a lot of a fun; I thought it was a jolly and good-natured affair, and I hope the audience enjoyed themselves too.

My final commitment was that evening, when the Conflicts anthology (in which I have a story) was launched (see the NewCon Press website for more information). After that I was free to come and go as I pleased, which means sitting around and yakking with friends, particularly katlinel, jellynewt, games_player, kalypso_v and communicator. And of course catching up with many other friends as I wandered about the hotel in high-octane con-dazed fashion.

A panel on reviewing critically boiled my blood in exactly the right way by sparking off ideas and response; a later panel on "feminist heroes" unfortunately boiled the blood in the wrong way. On Sunday night I was a last minute replacement on a panel about rogues and anti-heroes; I managed about twenty minutes of coherent thought, but suspect I wasn't much use during the last half of the panel. Never mind, there were other sharper-minded people around me and in the audience. I loved communicator's session on translating Chinese poetry, and enjoyed a session on "the mutable body", which wandered around the topic but always interestingly. Another panel about non-SF for SF readers touched a little upon multiple reading practices: I would gladly have heard more.

And of course, there was Doctor Who. What can I say? I loved it madly. The only disappointment is the title music, which turns out to sound a LOT better in 5.1 surround - you can hear the dumdy-dums much more clearly. (Yes OF COURSE re-watching was the first thing we did when we got back home.) Is Matt Smith going to turn out to be the Best Doctor Ever? It's a distinct possibility.

Also, when I got back home, I was at last able to open my COLOSSAL Easter egg, which turns out to be made up of five eggs nested inside each other like a Russian doll, each flavoured differently. So much chocolate, so little time! I'm going to try to make it last the whole of this season of Doctor Who, but scoffing is going to be a real temptation...

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Five eggs nestled inside each other? Cool! Sounds like it must be quite tricky to make, actually. And clearly you have already smashed it into a zillion pieces, or you wouldn't know how many eggs were inside it. :-)

Glad you enjoyed Eastercon - it is probably a sign that I am a terrible drama whore that I am instantly dying to know more about the 'feminist heroes' panel!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Each of the eggs comes in halves, so I didn't have to launch in with my egg-hammer (tempting though it was!): they also come back together quite neatly again - exactly like a Russian doll.

The bits of the panel that I heard (I cut out halfway through) were just banal and occasionally bordering on offensive (there was a very glib discussion of rape in narrative that needed to be more sensitively handled). I don't think the room served the panel (too big and too many people had turned up), and I do understand how that can be intimidating, but my impression was that perhaps several of the panellists hadn't thought through the issues sufficiently. As I say, I only stayed for the first half, but I'd hoped for something more sophisticated.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Bah, making eggs in two halves is cheating!

That's a pity about the panel. I think it is a good sign that the organisers of Sci-Fi conventions increasingly consider it important to address gender issues through their panels, but I've seen a similar example of it not working out very well in practice myself. A couple of years ago I went to a convention which featured a panel on the subject of "Why aren't more women into Sci-Fi?", where it felt to me that the predominant belief in the room was that women are just silly for not realising how great Sci-Fi is and how much it has to offer them. No-one seemed prepared to voice what I felt was the real problem - viz. that Sci-Fi has a 100-year history of being written and produced in a way that is largely alienating to a female audience, so it's no surprise that most women feel disinclined to try leaping over that massive hurdle in an attempt to discover the stuff that isn't. Thankfully, no-one went anywhere near the subject of rape, but I can really see how that could go horribly wrong in such a situation.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

No-one seemed prepared to voice what I felt was the real problem - viz. that Sci-Fi has a 100-year history of being written and produced in a way that is largely alienating to a female audience

This, absolutely. For ages, I came to the conclusion that for various reasons, I couldn't really call myself a science fiction fan. Then I thought, "Screw that," and started calling myself one anyway.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I was terribly disappointed by that panel. I think the ineptitude was embarrassment and lack of preparedness.

A pet peeve of mine, I think this was said after you left, but made me purse my lips in middle aged disapproval: 'Remember that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published the Vindication of the Rights of Women when she was only 17!' And everyone nodded sagely.

I mean, I don't need to say this to you but Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman when she was 33 and her daughter Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. Obviously the precise ages are insignificant (and I had to look 'em up on wikipedia) but these are two quite distinct people, and it's a shame to hear this kind of thing from feminists.

As for the rape discussion, if you are going to go into these sort of things you have to be better grounded than they were.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That was after I left, but I heard about it later and got even crankier.

Perhaps I might write up a post about the idea of a feminist hero, it would be an interesting discussion to have here.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I too was dissapointed by the panel - I found it suprising, as most of the women/SF panels I've been to have been pannelled by people who are aware of women's history (if not feminists).

The point about A Vindication .... was not that it was written by a chld progidy but that it was written in 1792 (and thus contempoary-ish with Jane Austen). I think the muddle was that in 1792, JA was 17.
Actually, I wanted to be shouty about this, as JA is _not_ the author they were making her out to be.

I think there was much bumbling around poor definitions (although I think Pink Doormouse, I think, was getting somewhere with distinguising the hero and heroine of swashbuckle from male and female protagonists).

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't want to tarnish pinkdormouse, who wasn't part of the disappointing discussion.

I was trying to remember the context in which they spoke about Vindication, and of course it was in contrast to Jane Austen. Thanks for remining me. As you say, Austen was not really the anti-Wollstonecraft they made her out to be.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Glad you had a good time. I got excited by the reference to "new Trek", wondering if I'd somehow missed something, before realising that it was actually the film that's now been out for very nearly a year. :)

What can they have been thinking of to make such a mess of the Doctor Who signature tune? You've got an iconic and very distinctive tune, so you do your very best to render it unrecognisable!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I confess I've disliked the music for the last five years, since it lost that lovely melancholic touch of the original.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Yes, but at least it was still recognisable.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I got excited by the reference to "new Trek", wondering if I'd somehow missed something, before realising that it was actually the film that's now been out for very nearly a year. :)

Oops, sorry about that! "Comparatively New Trek" is perhaps more accurate!

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

A panel on reviewing critically boiled my blood

And see, good or bad, this is why I prefer the bar. :) It was great to see you. I anticipate future posts on the demise of the TARDIS-egg ... ;)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I don't mind a bit of blood boiling, makes the, um, sap rise (and more mixed metaphors). Will try to take some pictures of the TARDIS-egg!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

By the way, have you come up with a G-s word for him, or are we having to fall back on Geronimos (did he say it more than once?)?

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I say that the Felicific Calculus calls for finishing the chocolate long before the end of the season, because it will be more enjoyable when it's fresh.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think he only said it once (and before that at the end of the New Year episode). My only other suggestion is "Gurns".

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Gallifreyicious?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-D

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

And at least once more in the trailers. So three sayings minimum. I think it is his word.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to hear you had such a wonderful time, even though the panel on feminist heroes was such a letdown. Sounds like a complete waste of a perfectly intriguing topic, especially since in the perception of many non-fannish "mainstream" folks, SFF geekdom is still culturally coded as masculine.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm going to try to get around to writing up something about that panel, although I'm desperately short of time this week. I think I'm spoiled by the discussions on LJ and so on. But the rest of the con was great.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

*hugs* and thank you for an increasingly long list of reasons. It was wonderful to hang out with you and the others - definitely made the convention for me.

And the Trek panel was fun - I wish more of them had been like that.

Enjoy your COLOSSAL egg and all the little eggs nested inside.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Lovely as ever to see you, made the con for me.

Still not tried any of my COLOSSAL egg! I think I'll dive in this evening...