Continuum 9 Report
Jun. 12th, 2013 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenSince I did not choose to pay the high cost of internet through the hotel, I haven't been posting reports of Continuum 9, which happened over the long weekend just passed. However, I did write stuff in my netbook, mostly on the days they happened, so I shall use that as a basis for this.
Continuum 9 Day 1, Friday 7th June 2013
I arrived much later than I had intended, because I'd spent Thursday working on my Steampunk costume (*), while I had originally intended to spend Thursday planning and packing. So instead of arriving at the hotel in the early afternoon and lazing around, I arrived in the evening, and by the time I'd checked in to the hotel, fixed up various things, and then gone down to where the con was, it was about ten past seven PM.
So I got my badge and rego pack, and then I spottedlizbee (or Lizbee spotted me, I can't remember). So I sat down and had a nice chat, in which we realized that we had known each other almost ten years, which was awesome.
Then Lizbee had to go set some stuff up, and I wandered around and saw another familiar face, Claudine C. So I sat down and chatted a bit.
Then we moved into the room where the opening ceremony was to be held, and I saw two people I recognised two rows in front of me: Katherine Phelps and Andrew Pam. Great people, but we'd drifted out of touch quite a while ago. Then Katherine turned around and recognised me, and came up, and we chatted, and I gave her a hug, then went up and said hi to Andrew.
Then it was the opening ceremony, which had a vid, and then "welcome to the convention" and then "housekeeping" announcements. The vid was... confusing, really. I'm not entirely sure what it was meant to be about.
In the break between the opening ceremony and the Chronos awards ceremony, went and talked to Andrew again; interesting stuff interspersed with moments of awkwardness (awkward on my part, at least).
Another old face was George Ivanov, who was one of the people giving out the awards. Yes, he looked older, but he's still the same nice guy. (Irony - I didn't actually end up talking to him until the con was over... and he expressed surprise, and the people around us said yes, she's been here the WHOLE TIME.)
Then there was The Great Debate, which was Public Transport versus Space Travel. The debate ranged from logical to silly, witty to off-colour. The worst moment was when one of the debaters showed an image of two men fully clothed on a train... with erect penises; yes, he sort of warned us, but not sufficiently, I think. Rather offensive. Supposed to be an example of how boring sex on public transport was. But bravo to the retort of the person on the other side who countered that the men were obviously excited. And thus stole his point completely away from him. Another good exchange was:
Paul Collins: This is a science fiction convention!
George Ivanov: Whose symbol is a TRAM!
The public transport side won.
Tired after that; when I left the room, the foyer was much more crowded than before, as everyone was having drinks. Bumped into Lizbee again, and said goodnight.
(*) My steampunk bracer
, and steampunk decorations on my sandals.
Continuum 9 Day 2, Saturday 8th June
Slept badly. Kept on waking up. Thought I'd set the alarm but I must have done it wrong, because one moment it was 4:12 AM and the next moment it was 9:36 AM. And I was supposed to be in the chainmaille workshop at 10 AM! Scrambled to shower and dress (fortunately I'd laid out my clothes the night before) and went down.
Walked into the room with the workshop, saying "Sorry I'm late" to find that the table was filled and they weren't expecting me. Because one of the people there was an interloper! Who hadn't pre-signed and pre-paid. I said that it was okay, I'd brought my own pliers, but it turned out that my pliers were no good, because we were working with stainless steel and one needed pliers with grip (and mine were jewellery pliers which didn't have grip on purpose, so as not to damage delicate metals like Anodized Aluminium). So Kirstin loaned me a pair of hers for the duration. Glad I went - we did European 6-in-1, which I hadn't done before, was well as working with stainless steel, which I hadn't done before with that thick a gauge. Gee it was hard to work with! Even with the ridged pliers I kept slipping. (I mean, stainless is a lovely metal, but I'll be happy enough to go back to my brass). I also learned (from the person next to me) an additional technique for European 4-in-1 sheet; one starts out doing a 2-1 chain (i.e. 4-in-1 chain) and then works down one side doing the classic E4 speed-weave, and then fills in the rest by taking one open ring and one closed ring, and looping the open ring through three rings in the corner; repeat until rectangle is filled. Not sure which method I prefer.
We really needed two hours for the workshop, not one. (Told Liz this later)
Because the workshop ran overtime (and we only just started working on our necklace too) I didn't go to any of the 11 AM items, but just sort of sat down and caught my breath.
12 noon, Nora Jemsin's Guest of Honour speech was awesome. Serious and thought-provoking, about racism (and other *isms) outside and inside the SF/F community, the raging 10%, the silent majority who stand by and do nothing, and the mix of bitterness and hope she felt when she saw, coming to Australia, that yes, we have similar problems with racism, but that we are trying to do something about it. And she felt that in the US, this would never happen, not in her lifetime. (Which is heartbreaking) How we in the SF/F community can do more to promote diversity, not by welcoming others in, but by recognising that they have been here all along; ignored, hidden, marginalized, made unwelcome, blocked by the self-appointed gatekeepers, but still here.
I asked a question about how on earth an ordinary fan can do anything about book covers, since we aren't involved in making them, and she said that we can do the most of all; we can write to publishers, we can complain, and we can say things that the author cannot, not if the author still wants a career. Good point.
Lunch withlizbee at Mekong. Yum. And good chatting.
2 PM
Went into Liz's item, part of the kids programme, Design a Super (hero), which I thought would be fun. I followed the sound of shrieking children. There were three or four young children in the room, running around in circles, yelling, and attacking a cardboard spaceship (which had been made in an earlier segment of the kids programme). Two mothers were overseeing them. Liz was at a table with lots of coloured pencils and pens, colouring in some superheros. The kids were basically too young to be colouring in, hence the running around. I sat down and did my own colouring in ("Natura" and "Skyman"). The mothers took the kids away, and then Liz and I figured that nobody else was going to turn up, so we left.
I noticed Nora Jemsin was in the foyer, sitting at a table chatting to people, so I went into the dealer's room and bought her Dreamblood books, came out and lingered on the edges of the interesting conversation (which I now forget the content of - but it was interesting!) until someone else came by with a pile of books and then Nora realized I'd been waiting too, and apologised and I said no no, I wanted to listen. So she signed my books. 8-)
I said "I know what's going to happen, I'm going to finish these two and then be waiting impatiently for the third."
Nora: "No, it's a duology."
Me: "Yay, it's complete!"
3 PM, "Fighting Like a Girl". Good panel. The stereotypes cycle from too feminine to "a man without a penis" and back again. Various examples, good and bad. Different things that different panellists liked in female fighters.
Works mentioned included:
* Tamora Pierce
* Lois McMaster Bujold
* Deed of Pacsanarrion (and other works by Elizabeth Moon)
* Game of Thrones
* Judge Dredd movie
* Starship Troopers
* Battlestar Galactica
* Firefly
After that, I went out to get cash and buy Tim-Tams (in the hope of being armed with Tim-Tams in order to ensure, as requested, that Nora Jemsin have a Tim-Tam slam before the con is over). Also ended up buying stuff for dinner, and ate it when I got back.
During the day, people kept commenting on my hat. Oh, they ooohed over the bracer when they noticed it, but the hat was the thing that everyone noticed.
The costume parade was VERY informal. Basically anybody wearing a costume who wanted to, went out on the dance floor for the judges to look at, couldn't say anything anyway because there was loud music, and then went off again.
Best costume I think was the Ballerina Dalek: creative and well made.
I did not stay for the rest of the Maskobolo. Dim lights and loud music? Not my thing.
I'd brought some chainmaille stuff as well as the pliers, specifically stuff to make a watchband for my watch which had broken its band a long time ago. So I went into my room and worked on that... then stayed up too late making a chainmaille bookmark, because I wanted a bookmark to read Nora Jemsin's books with.
Continuum 9 Day 3, Sunday 9th June
Wore the Giddy Aunt costume, though nobody asked me who I was dressed as. 8-( Still it was fun: black pants, purple silk top, green patchwork vest, under-the-sea necklace (though one of the earrings broke during the day), did my hair in really really short plaits with the rest hanging free, and put butterflies all over my head.
10:30 AM "Still Stranger Than Fiction"
Fun weird creatures. Mostly sea creatures, interestingly enough.
12 NOON Guest of Honour Speech - Paul Collins
While the first fifteen minutes was a speechy speech, he spent the rest of the time very quickly giving us the "12 step plot" workshop (which normally takes two hours). So it was very sketchy, but fun. Basically, got into groups and invented protagonist and plot. I did it with the woman sitting behind me, Tatiana (lovely name).
We walked out into the midst of the "Song of the Slums" book launch, and we were kind of stuck because the people standing around meant we couldn't get to the stairs. Entertaining guy, Richard Harland. He wore a great steampunk top-hat all convention (leather carved with cogs, and painted to look like metal) and I realized at that moment that it was because he's a steampunk author.
3 PM "The Devil in the Details"
Really interesting panel. Main question was, how scientifically accurate does SF need to be? And of course the answer was "it depends". It depends on whether it's hard-SF or soft-SF. It depends on being up-front with the rules you are intending to break (FTL travel, teleportation etc). Is there too much science to know? Is one required to memorize Wikipedia? No, but it behooves one to use Wikipedia. Is there a hand-book for SF writers that one can read? Answer: high school science text-books.
4 PM "We Do This Stuff So You Can Write About It"
I'd thought this was going to be a panel, but it was more of an informal discussion, but there wasn't room in the room for all the people, so some of us went out into the corridor. I ended up sitting there the entire time with Hespa, where the discussion was mainly about Being A Park Ranger, but then went into Asexuality near the end. It's just interesting talking to interesting people!
So... the idea for this panel is great, but I think the format needs to be tweaked, I'm not sure how. A workshop? Multiple items with smaller numbers of people, spread over the con?
6-ish, intended to have dinner in the Louden (hotel restaurant), then decided to look for someone to have dinner with. Found Hespa, but she said there wouldn't be enough time before 7 PM to eat in the restaurant, and that she'd probably go on a sushi run. Couldn't tear myself away (interesting conversation! interesting people!) was torn between restaurant by myself and sushi with Hespa... opted for sushi with Hespa. Good choice.
7 PM "Spacetime and Spaceships"
Ended up being mostly discussion about stars, stars with planets, stars with planets with life. Good stuff.
8 PM "50 Shades of Reinterpretation"
I had a good time blathering on with Lucy and Kirsty about fanfic. Small audience, but heck, didn't care it was a panel, just having interesting discussion with interesting people!
9 PM "Speculative Fiction, Craft, and Shifting Gender Roles"
Smaller room audience size was about the same. No microphones this time. Lucy and I blathered on, Jane only interjected a question or two. But even more interesting discussion than the fanfic one, I think, possibly because it was a fresher topic to me. Cosplay is more gender balanced. Non-fandom forms of cosplay (that the participants would deny was cosplay) - e.g. football fans and historical reenactors. Art and craft and the higher status of anything that men do as opposed to women. The undervaluing of handcrafts and craftsmanship in these days of mass manufacturing. What makes one thing art and another thing craft? Status, intent, beauty, meaning, message (social commentary), technique, medium?
10 PM went back up to my room, and got caught up in making chainmaille again. This stuff is addictive!
Continuum 9 Day 4, Monday 10th June
Ran late because I couldn't get my cloak fastening to work and spent too much time trying to fix it.
10 AM "Stepping on Butterflies"
This was fun. What counts as time travel? Theories of history-changing. Lots and lots of examples.
11 AM "Watching the New Who"
This was also fun.
Narelle made the mistake of saying something about "no singing", so I started singing "Doctorin' The TARDIS", and the audience joined in.
"The first panel with a theme song!"
Narrelle snarked that she didn't think that the song was meant to be sung like a dirge, but hey, so I don't have perfect pitch, so what? It was still wicked fun. And to think that ten years ago I would never ever have been so bold.
To my surprise, we didn't actually have any New-Who-only fans on the panel. I had thoughtlizbee was one, but it turns out she had seen Who in the Seventh Doctor era. So I asked the audience if there were any. A few put up their hands up, but if I recall correctly, even those ones had had some previous exposure to Doctor Who before they saw New Who.
Judging from the panel I had seen her on at Aussiecon 4, I had been expecting Narrelle to be annoyingly Rose-centric, but she wasn't. Indeed, I think I said the most Rose-centric thing, that S1 Rose was great and then S2 Rose - "What happened to my Rose?" I said.
There was much Donna love amongst the panellists. As well as Amy and Rory love, and Martha wasn't forgotten either.
The Doctor as enabler of the ordinary to stand up for themselves, to be extraordinary; the shades-of-grey in this Doctor (though also pointed out that this wasn't the first time the Doctor had been shades-of-grey, e.g. Seventh Doctor).
12 NOON "The Intergalactic Atlas Part III
Interesting overview of British SF/F TV from 1980 to 1989. Discovered new bits of trivia. Felt nostalgic about old favourites. Made mental note of interesting stuff I hadn't heard of before, and then lost the mental paper it was written on.
1 PM Went off and had lunch with Sue B and Sarah Murray-White (did I get that name right?)
2 PM "Tolkien vs Jackson"
This was also also fun.
Richard Harland was of the school of thought that it doesn't matter if an adaption is faithful to the original or not, what matters is whether it is a good movie on its own merits. Paul countered that, if it isn't a faithful adaption, what's the point of making an adaption to start with - you might as well write something original instead. But none of the panellists were of the school of thought that "faithful adaption" means "don't change anything at all"; we were aware that the limitations of the change of medium from book to film means that changes need to be made, the question is, whether said changes are true to the "spirit" of the original... though of course one can't assume that everyone means the same thing by "spirit" either.
I got to complain about Faramir. 8-) Look, part of the fun about being *on* a panel is that one doesn't have to put one's hand up before saying something. Not that that's always stopped me when I've been in the audience, either...
Also differing opinions about Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" versus "The Hobbit". Generally agreed that LOTR was great though not perfect, while opinions were more divided about The Hobbit. Some felt that it was too padded, or that there was too much of Jackson's own ideas in it, or that it was too Hollywoodized. Interesting piece of trivia from audience member: apparently Jackson has rights to The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the Appendixes, but *not* anything from The Silmarilion; which means that he has to be careful to *avoid* being too similar to anything in the Silmarilion. Which could explain why there is "too much Jackson" in it.
Paul was also full of interesting trivia.
And near the end, we had some interesting input from someone in the audience who had worked with WETA on The Hobbit.
3 PM
Took a break. Read more of "The Killing Moon". Good worldbuilding, good characterisation, yes.
Implemented scheme for Nora Jemsin to have a Tim-Tam slam: made some peppermint tea in my room and put it into my Linuxconf water bottle. Metal bottle, but not a thermos, which meant that the bottle got quite hot. But I wrapped it in a dry washcloth, and put it in a bag along with a teacup. Tim-tams were secreted in my silver shoulder-bag. Went downstairs to wait for the fantasy panel that Nora Jemsin was on to finish. Accosted her as she was leaving, asked her if she'd had a TimTam slam yet. She said no thank you, because she was feeling queasy from lunch. So I offered her plain peppermint tea instead, which she accepted gladly. She said she did feel a bit better after the tea. So, no Tim-Tam slam, but being able to render unexpected assistance was even better.
Milling around and chatting before closing ceremony.
4:30 PM Closing ceremony.
The usual thanks, raffle drawings etc. Next year's chair took up the figurative baton. Squealing about next year's international GoH... another person I'd never heard of. I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if I've heard of the GoH, what's more important is if they're an interesting/kind/friendly person. Which Nora was, particularly.
Much chattings and goodbyes and deconstructions of the con withlizbee and others. Partings and hugs and farewells.
Continuum 9 Day 1, Friday 7th June 2013
I arrived much later than I had intended, because I'd spent Thursday working on my Steampunk costume (*), while I had originally intended to spend Thursday planning and packing. So instead of arriving at the hotel in the early afternoon and lazing around, I arrived in the evening, and by the time I'd checked in to the hotel, fixed up various things, and then gone down to where the con was, it was about ten past seven PM.
So I got my badge and rego pack, and then I spotted
lizbee (or Lizbee spotted me, I can't remember). So I sat down and had a nice chat, in which we realized that we had known each other almost ten years, which was awesome.Then Lizbee had to go set some stuff up, and I wandered around and saw another familiar face, Claudine C. So I sat down and chatted a bit.
Then we moved into the room where the opening ceremony was to be held, and I saw two people I recognised two rows in front of me: Katherine Phelps and Andrew Pam. Great people, but we'd drifted out of touch quite a while ago. Then Katherine turned around and recognised me, and came up, and we chatted, and I gave her a hug, then went up and said hi to Andrew.
Then it was the opening ceremony, which had a vid, and then "welcome to the convention" and then "housekeeping" announcements. The vid was... confusing, really. I'm not entirely sure what it was meant to be about.
In the break between the opening ceremony and the Chronos awards ceremony, went and talked to Andrew again; interesting stuff interspersed with moments of awkwardness (awkward on my part, at least).
Another old face was George Ivanov, who was one of the people giving out the awards. Yes, he looked older, but he's still the same nice guy. (Irony - I didn't actually end up talking to him until the con was over... and he expressed surprise, and the people around us said yes, she's been here the WHOLE TIME.)
Then there was The Great Debate, which was Public Transport versus Space Travel. The debate ranged from logical to silly, witty to off-colour. The worst moment was when one of the debaters showed an image of two men fully clothed on a train... with erect penises; yes, he sort of warned us, but not sufficiently, I think. Rather offensive. Supposed to be an example of how boring sex on public transport was. But bravo to the retort of the person on the other side who countered that the men were obviously excited. And thus stole his point completely away from him. Another good exchange was:
Paul Collins: This is a science fiction convention!
George Ivanov: Whose symbol is a TRAM!
The public transport side won.
Tired after that; when I left the room, the foyer was much more crowded than before, as everyone was having drinks. Bumped into Lizbee again, and said goodnight.
(*) My steampunk bracer
, and steampunk decorations on my sandals.Continuum 9 Day 2, Saturday 8th June
Slept badly. Kept on waking up. Thought I'd set the alarm but I must have done it wrong, because one moment it was 4:12 AM and the next moment it was 9:36 AM. And I was supposed to be in the chainmaille workshop at 10 AM! Scrambled to shower and dress (fortunately I'd laid out my clothes the night before) and went down.
Walked into the room with the workshop, saying "Sorry I'm late" to find that the table was filled and they weren't expecting me. Because one of the people there was an interloper! Who hadn't pre-signed and pre-paid. I said that it was okay, I'd brought my own pliers, but it turned out that my pliers were no good, because we were working with stainless steel and one needed pliers with grip (and mine were jewellery pliers which didn't have grip on purpose, so as not to damage delicate metals like Anodized Aluminium). So Kirstin loaned me a pair of hers for the duration. Glad I went - we did European 6-in-1, which I hadn't done before, was well as working with stainless steel, which I hadn't done before with that thick a gauge. Gee it was hard to work with! Even with the ridged pliers I kept slipping. (I mean, stainless is a lovely metal, but I'll be happy enough to go back to my brass). I also learned (from the person next to me) an additional technique for European 4-in-1 sheet; one starts out doing a 2-1 chain (i.e. 4-in-1 chain) and then works down one side doing the classic E4 speed-weave, and then fills in the rest by taking one open ring and one closed ring, and looping the open ring through three rings in the corner; repeat until rectangle is filled. Not sure which method I prefer.
We really needed two hours for the workshop, not one. (Told Liz this later)
Because the workshop ran overtime (and we only just started working on our necklace too) I didn't go to any of the 11 AM items, but just sort of sat down and caught my breath.
12 noon, Nora Jemsin's Guest of Honour speech was awesome. Serious and thought-provoking, about racism (and other *isms) outside and inside the SF/F community, the raging 10%, the silent majority who stand by and do nothing, and the mix of bitterness and hope she felt when she saw, coming to Australia, that yes, we have similar problems with racism, but that we are trying to do something about it. And she felt that in the US, this would never happen, not in her lifetime. (Which is heartbreaking) How we in the SF/F community can do more to promote diversity, not by welcoming others in, but by recognising that they have been here all along; ignored, hidden, marginalized, made unwelcome, blocked by the self-appointed gatekeepers, but still here.
I asked a question about how on earth an ordinary fan can do anything about book covers, since we aren't involved in making them, and she said that we can do the most of all; we can write to publishers, we can complain, and we can say things that the author cannot, not if the author still wants a career. Good point.
Lunch with
lizbee at Mekong. Yum. And good chatting.2 PM
Went into Liz's item, part of the kids programme, Design a Super (hero), which I thought would be fun. I followed the sound of shrieking children. There were three or four young children in the room, running around in circles, yelling, and attacking a cardboard spaceship (which had been made in an earlier segment of the kids programme). Two mothers were overseeing them. Liz was at a table with lots of coloured pencils and pens, colouring in some superheros. The kids were basically too young to be colouring in, hence the running around. I sat down and did my own colouring in ("Natura" and "Skyman"). The mothers took the kids away, and then Liz and I figured that nobody else was going to turn up, so we left.
I noticed Nora Jemsin was in the foyer, sitting at a table chatting to people, so I went into the dealer's room and bought her Dreamblood books, came out and lingered on the edges of the interesting conversation (which I now forget the content of - but it was interesting!) until someone else came by with a pile of books and then Nora realized I'd been waiting too, and apologised and I said no no, I wanted to listen. So she signed my books. 8-)
I said "I know what's going to happen, I'm going to finish these two and then be waiting impatiently for the third."
Nora: "No, it's a duology."
Me: "Yay, it's complete!"
3 PM, "Fighting Like a Girl". Good panel. The stereotypes cycle from too feminine to "a man without a penis" and back again. Various examples, good and bad. Different things that different panellists liked in female fighters.
Works mentioned included:
* Tamora Pierce
* Lois McMaster Bujold
* Deed of Pacsanarrion (and other works by Elizabeth Moon)
* Game of Thrones
* Judge Dredd movie
* Starship Troopers
* Battlestar Galactica
* Firefly
After that, I went out to get cash and buy Tim-Tams (in the hope of being armed with Tim-Tams in order to ensure, as requested, that Nora Jemsin have a Tim-Tam slam before the con is over). Also ended up buying stuff for dinner, and ate it when I got back.
During the day, people kept commenting on my hat. Oh, they ooohed over the bracer when they noticed it, but the hat was the thing that everyone noticed.
The costume parade was VERY informal. Basically anybody wearing a costume who wanted to, went out on the dance floor for the judges to look at, couldn't say anything anyway because there was loud music, and then went off again.
Best costume I think was the Ballerina Dalek: creative and well made.
I did not stay for the rest of the Maskobolo. Dim lights and loud music? Not my thing.
I'd brought some chainmaille stuff as well as the pliers, specifically stuff to make a watchband for my watch which had broken its band a long time ago. So I went into my room and worked on that... then stayed up too late making a chainmaille bookmark, because I wanted a bookmark to read Nora Jemsin's books with.
Continuum 9 Day 3, Sunday 9th June
Wore the Giddy Aunt costume, though nobody asked me who I was dressed as. 8-( Still it was fun: black pants, purple silk top, green patchwork vest, under-the-sea necklace (though one of the earrings broke during the day), did my hair in really really short plaits with the rest hanging free, and put butterflies all over my head.
10:30 AM "Still Stranger Than Fiction"
Fun weird creatures. Mostly sea creatures, interestingly enough.
12 NOON Guest of Honour Speech - Paul Collins
While the first fifteen minutes was a speechy speech, he spent the rest of the time very quickly giving us the "12 step plot" workshop (which normally takes two hours). So it was very sketchy, but fun. Basically, got into groups and invented protagonist and plot. I did it with the woman sitting behind me, Tatiana (lovely name).
We walked out into the midst of the "Song of the Slums" book launch, and we were kind of stuck because the people standing around meant we couldn't get to the stairs. Entertaining guy, Richard Harland. He wore a great steampunk top-hat all convention (leather carved with cogs, and painted to look like metal) and I realized at that moment that it was because he's a steampunk author.
3 PM "The Devil in the Details"
Really interesting panel. Main question was, how scientifically accurate does SF need to be? And of course the answer was "it depends". It depends on whether it's hard-SF or soft-SF. It depends on being up-front with the rules you are intending to break (FTL travel, teleportation etc). Is there too much science to know? Is one required to memorize Wikipedia? No, but it behooves one to use Wikipedia. Is there a hand-book for SF writers that one can read? Answer: high school science text-books.
4 PM "We Do This Stuff So You Can Write About It"
I'd thought this was going to be a panel, but it was more of an informal discussion, but there wasn't room in the room for all the people, so some of us went out into the corridor. I ended up sitting there the entire time with Hespa, where the discussion was mainly about Being A Park Ranger, but then went into Asexuality near the end. It's just interesting talking to interesting people!
So... the idea for this panel is great, but I think the format needs to be tweaked, I'm not sure how. A workshop? Multiple items with smaller numbers of people, spread over the con?
6-ish, intended to have dinner in the Louden (hotel restaurant), then decided to look for someone to have dinner with. Found Hespa, but she said there wouldn't be enough time before 7 PM to eat in the restaurant, and that she'd probably go on a sushi run. Couldn't tear myself away (interesting conversation! interesting people!) was torn between restaurant by myself and sushi with Hespa... opted for sushi with Hespa. Good choice.
7 PM "Spacetime and Spaceships"
Ended up being mostly discussion about stars, stars with planets, stars with planets with life. Good stuff.
8 PM "50 Shades of Reinterpretation"
I had a good time blathering on with Lucy and Kirsty about fanfic. Small audience, but heck, didn't care it was a panel, just having interesting discussion with interesting people!
9 PM "Speculative Fiction, Craft, and Shifting Gender Roles"
Smaller room audience size was about the same. No microphones this time. Lucy and I blathered on, Jane only interjected a question or two. But even more interesting discussion than the fanfic one, I think, possibly because it was a fresher topic to me. Cosplay is more gender balanced. Non-fandom forms of cosplay (that the participants would deny was cosplay) - e.g. football fans and historical reenactors. Art and craft and the higher status of anything that men do as opposed to women. The undervaluing of handcrafts and craftsmanship in these days of mass manufacturing. What makes one thing art and another thing craft? Status, intent, beauty, meaning, message (social commentary), technique, medium?
10 PM went back up to my room, and got caught up in making chainmaille again. This stuff is addictive!
Continuum 9 Day 4, Monday 10th June
Ran late because I couldn't get my cloak fastening to work and spent too much time trying to fix it.
10 AM "Stepping on Butterflies"
This was fun. What counts as time travel? Theories of history-changing. Lots and lots of examples.
11 AM "Watching the New Who"
This was also fun.
Narelle made the mistake of saying something about "no singing", so I started singing "Doctorin' The TARDIS", and the audience joined in.
"The first panel with a theme song!"
Narrelle snarked that she didn't think that the song was meant to be sung like a dirge, but hey, so I don't have perfect pitch, so what? It was still wicked fun. And to think that ten years ago I would never ever have been so bold.
To my surprise, we didn't actually have any New-Who-only fans on the panel. I had thought
lizbee was one, but it turns out she had seen Who in the Seventh Doctor era. So I asked the audience if there were any. A few put up their hands up, but if I recall correctly, even those ones had had some previous exposure to Doctor Who before they saw New Who.Judging from the panel I had seen her on at Aussiecon 4, I had been expecting Narrelle to be annoyingly Rose-centric, but she wasn't. Indeed, I think I said the most Rose-centric thing, that S1 Rose was great and then S2 Rose - "What happened to my Rose?" I said.
There was much Donna love amongst the panellists. As well as Amy and Rory love, and Martha wasn't forgotten either.
The Doctor as enabler of the ordinary to stand up for themselves, to be extraordinary; the shades-of-grey in this Doctor (though also pointed out that this wasn't the first time the Doctor had been shades-of-grey, e.g. Seventh Doctor).
12 NOON "The Intergalactic Atlas Part III
Interesting overview of British SF/F TV from 1980 to 1989. Discovered new bits of trivia. Felt nostalgic about old favourites. Made mental note of interesting stuff I hadn't heard of before, and then lost the mental paper it was written on.
1 PM Went off and had lunch with Sue B and Sarah Murray-White (did I get that name right?)
2 PM "Tolkien vs Jackson"
This was also also fun.
Richard Harland was of the school of thought that it doesn't matter if an adaption is faithful to the original or not, what matters is whether it is a good movie on its own merits. Paul countered that, if it isn't a faithful adaption, what's the point of making an adaption to start with - you might as well write something original instead. But none of the panellists were of the school of thought that "faithful adaption" means "don't change anything at all"; we were aware that the limitations of the change of medium from book to film means that changes need to be made, the question is, whether said changes are true to the "spirit" of the original... though of course one can't assume that everyone means the same thing by "spirit" either.
I got to complain about Faramir. 8-) Look, part of the fun about being *on* a panel is that one doesn't have to put one's hand up before saying something. Not that that's always stopped me when I've been in the audience, either...
Also differing opinions about Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" versus "The Hobbit". Generally agreed that LOTR was great though not perfect, while opinions were more divided about The Hobbit. Some felt that it was too padded, or that there was too much of Jackson's own ideas in it, or that it was too Hollywoodized. Interesting piece of trivia from audience member: apparently Jackson has rights to The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the Appendixes, but *not* anything from The Silmarilion; which means that he has to be careful to *avoid* being too similar to anything in the Silmarilion. Which could explain why there is "too much Jackson" in it.
Paul was also full of interesting trivia.
And near the end, we had some interesting input from someone in the audience who had worked with WETA on The Hobbit.
3 PM
Took a break. Read more of "The Killing Moon". Good worldbuilding, good characterisation, yes.
Implemented scheme for Nora Jemsin to have a Tim-Tam slam: made some peppermint tea in my room and put it into my Linuxconf water bottle. Metal bottle, but not a thermos, which meant that the bottle got quite hot. But I wrapped it in a dry washcloth, and put it in a bag along with a teacup. Tim-tams were secreted in my silver shoulder-bag. Went downstairs to wait for the fantasy panel that Nora Jemsin was on to finish. Accosted her as she was leaving, asked her if she'd had a TimTam slam yet. She said no thank you, because she was feeling queasy from lunch. So I offered her plain peppermint tea instead, which she accepted gladly. She said she did feel a bit better after the tea. So, no Tim-Tam slam, but being able to render unexpected assistance was even better.
Milling around and chatting before closing ceremony.
4:30 PM Closing ceremony.
The usual thanks, raffle drawings etc. Next year's chair took up the figurative baton. Squealing about next year's international GoH... another person I'd never heard of. I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if I've heard of the GoH, what's more important is if they're an interesting/kind/friendly person. Which Nora was, particularly.
Much chattings and goodbyes and deconstructions of the con with
lizbee and others. Partings and hugs and farewells.
