Category Archives: Travel

Westercon, first day

Arrived late Thursday night. So far the score is No. panels given, 1, No. panels attended, 0. I am abashed, because there were several panels I would have gone to but that I had a couple of items left over from the week at work to take care of that I thought could be done within an hour. Slight misjudgement there. I am determined I have left work behind me now.

The one panel I sat on was a relaxed 9 pm panel on “SF Mind Control” with a good-sized, active audience. The other panelists were Donna McMahon and Danita Masian (whose first novel, Rogue Harvest, had its launch today). We had as much real world reflection as SF: cults, Bountiful, propaganda, Nazis, cold war, office life, conformity, the “7-up” series of documentaries, religion, gender socialization, criminality, biological basis of behavior; what was socialization, what was indoctrination, and what was mind control; whether the Internet was something that gave us immunity from the kind of media control that fascist and Bolshevik regimes exercised. Books and films mentioned: The Manchurian Candidate, 1984, Brave New World, We, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Puppet Masters, Stepford Wives, Dances with Knives.

I also caught up with people – having lived in Calgary from 1995-2000, and attended at least 5 Con-Versions over 8 years, there are a great many familiar faces – and having 4 days instead of the usual 2 is making that a much less scrambled affair. I’ve made it into the Dealer’s Room, which at the last con I went to (V-con) I never even did, and I might make it into the art show. This year they’re offering guided tours with a docent, which I think is an excellent idea.

Calgary is extraordinarily green and puddled, and you ask locals about it and they just shake their heads and groan. I’ve heard sad stories about flooded basements and destroyed books, including stocks of the writers’ own. Mosquitos are plentiful with all the standing water, so there were opening night jokes about mosquitos bearing off some of the guests. A zealous parent outside the Y nailed not only her wriggling child but my passing self with citronella. Prince Edward Island Park was flooded, so the Shakespeare in the Park has moved to Mount Royal – but it alas does not start until after I leave. Stampede is impending, with even the swank downtown hotels mounting plywood saloon faces and all the guests appearing at opening in white 10-gallon hats.

Rustycon

It was the best of cons, it was the worst of cons … Well, maybe not, but it definitely had its ups and downs. Lynda’s suitcase, full of copies of Throne Price and the Rustycon edition of Mekan’stan, failed to make the 20 minute tranfer in Vancouver between a delayed flight from Prince George and the on-time flight to Seattle. Lynda’s end of the telephone inquisition required to connect her (not yet found) luggage to her gave her roommate (me) some morbid entertainment. The joys of Explaining Oneself to Officialdom – particularly when said officialdom don’t have it together. Luggage reappeared mid Saturday morning, and Lynda undertook to divest herself of the contents in as many deserving directions as possible, on the premise that if it went awol on the return flight there would be nothing to lose!

Lynda started out on Friday with “Making Characters Die” and “Writing a Sex Scene in SF”, which was where I tracked her down after I rolled in at 9:30 pm or thereabouts, having taken the 506 from SeaTac, and not having lost my luggage. Though I discovered that while having carry on baggage searched was irksome, having to walk the length of Vancouver airport, retrieve my luggage from within a glassed-in carosel, prove it’s mine, lug it through US Customs and Immigration, reload it onto a conveyer belt etc, was enough to convert me to the principle of carry on and only carry on until they develop Transporters.

My first panel was “Make those Characters Speak Up!” with: Lynda, Kevin Radthorne, who was showing off (cool plastic stand!) his novel The Road to Kotaishi, published by Windstorm press. He did the cover himself using Bryce, and if he is not being utterly disingenuous about his lack of artistic talent, I gotta have that program! Susan Matthews, who has finally produced another installment of her Judiciary series (so I get to [a] read about how Andrej Kosciusko finally gets to make his break with Fleet and his damnable – and I mean it literally – job as chief surgeon and inquisitor … and lands up in even more trouble and [b] update my Medicine and Science Fiction page). After I went through my recitation of various subtleties of dialogue, learned largely from Bernard Grebanier’s book Playwriting and my love of drama, she said cheerfully “I cheat,” tossed off an example of the shorthand that the writer can use, taking advantage of modern cultures and assumptions, and then took the high road and described the intricacies of her polyglot, multicultural Judiciary universe.

The next panel we spectated at, “Contracts: your rights as an artist, author, or musician”, a one-woman show by Jennifer DiMarco of Windstorm Creative, followed by “To POD or not POD”, featuring Jennifer (“Pods are evil!”) DiMarco, Kevin (“Born of a POD”) Radthorne, Dave (“Multipod”) Duncan, and Jack Beslanwitch (whose alignment I am afraid I cannot recall). Though until I see one of those infamous machines in action, I’m not going to believe all the descriptions I get of it lining and binding without getting glue over everything! After that Lynda, Kevin and myself did “Developing your Creativity” with an abundance of writers in the audience, so we wandered cheerfully between rituals, angst, and works in progress, as well as Where Ideas Come From. (I’m in favour of Pratchett’s cosmic ray theory myself: in Wyrd Sisters he explains creativity as a sleet of particles of inspiration constantly bombarding the human brain – which every so often stops one or two. Certain unfortunate people – like the Dwarf playwright Hwel – have such high stopping power that they have difficulty finishing a sentence without having another idea.)

(Two entries merged into one, September 30, 2007; original first date preserved).