Missing the Strangest of Things

I missed Twitter over the weekend. I’ve barely been using it for two weeks and when it’s not working, I’m sad. It looks like it is finally almost working again, but I don’t want to get too attached or it will go away again. The RSS to the right of this post that has my Tweets in it just started double posting, so things aren’t fully righted quite yet, it seems. This doubling might be Twitter’s fault, or it might be mine because I changed the theme of my blog, but in both cases the services are free to me so I can’t really complain, so I won’t. This is not a complaining post, but rather just an observation of humans interacting.

Tonight is a big night for Barack Obama supporters. I don’t think we actually expect him to win outright in Pennsylvania. We know better than to hope for that, but if he comes close at all to victory, then it should be over for Hillary. She will probably hang on until the end, but I think we all know that this would be one of those blows that results in internal bleeding which really should be looked at by a doctor as opposed to trying to fight on.

How does this apply to Twitter? Well, because events/happenings like tonight or what sounds like happened at SXSW earlier this year are what Twitter seems perfect for. Maybe Twitter was fixed just in time, maybe not. For a site which has no visible business model, we can be thankful it exists at all. Twitter is a strange beast, but even people’s reaction, or lack thereof, to it being wonky, has been the most fascinating part of all.

Observed

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Happy

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Independence

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Day

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Fireworks can be excessive.

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But they are fun.

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Distraction

The aptly titled novel Distraction (199 by Bruce Sterling did a nice job of slowly drawing me into the story, in a way akin to being distracted. On the surface, it is all about politics, but what is politics all about?

Sterling explores that question in his own way. There are tidbits from his other novels. Twinges of crazy weather and glimpses into a perceived future of where the internet might be in 40 years.

Best of all it makes me laugh when I least expect it.

Science, Science and more Science

Norwescon 27 is here.

Northwest Bookfest 2003 Sunday

My plan for the second day was to be much more relaxed in going to presentations and attend three panels at most and maybe have another overly-expensive veggie dog.

I was a bit late to the first panel I wanted to attend: “Graphic Novels Where Literature and Art Intersect”, but I didn’t seem to miss much more than a few introductions. The panelists were Peter Bagge, Gary Groth, Ted Jouflas, and Jim Woodring, with Eric Reynolds moderating. The discussion was not new to me (being a fan of comic books), with a comparison of comics to movies, which I have heard before as a way to grasp why they might be successful. Woodring made an excellent point during this stage, which went something like comparing comic book artists and sequential art professionals saying it is “sorta like jazz… broken down practicioners trying to get the nuances down.” A nice way of thinking about it. Gary Groth of Fantagraphics fame announced that they would be publishing the complete run of Peanuts, which is no small task, and reminds us what a class act his company is.

The next panel I attended was a crowded one called “If This is the Doorway to the Future, Why are We Stuck in the Past?” The participants were Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, Susan Matthews, Spider Robinson, and moderator Syne Mitchell. As the moderator, Syne started things off quickly in attempting to interpret the topic as trying to figure out how to look to the future when one is inevitably tied to the past, wheras at least one panelist (Spider) saw it more as why more people aren’t willing to look at the future along with them. The discussion quickly moved to examine the idea of viewpoint, not only from a perspective of history, but rather gender and race as many of the panelists have written across those lines in the sand. A very engrossing panel that was kept on track considering the number of participants. There was a consensus to not be afraid of research in all the forms it can take from intensive study to eavesdropping on the conversations of your fellow bus riders. Lively to the end, this group did not disappoint.

Somewhere in there I had another over-priced veggie dog and keeping to the plan, only one presentation remained: An interview with scifi author Greg Bear and mystery author J. A. Jance done by Judith Chandler (a long time associate of both authors from here work at the UW Boookstore). Unfortunately J. A. Jance was running late from the airport and never made it! The panel was meant to be a discussion of genre literature and its value in the grand scheme of things. Greg Bear was perfect for such a discussion and I’m sure Ms. Jance would have only made it richer. Greg’s best comment was something about eclectic readers: “I you walk into the bathroom reading Jane Austen and come out reading Stephen King, something must have happened in there!” The discussion moved on to ideas centering around mainstream fiction being character-driven and genre fiction being plot-driven. Greg did not agree with this 100%, saying that this idea is more in reference to works like Jane Austen where class is the basis, which inevitably leads to character exploration versus any kind of dramatic plotting. Some variation of these ideas came up all the way to the end, the main thrust being if the reader feels like his world is out of his control, that they are at the mercy of the universe, then they will gravitate towards mainstream fiction where the characters strive for control. To balance this, if the readers feels that wit can gain control over any situation the universe manages to throw at them, then they are more likely to find themselves gravitating towards the genre works.

I kept my panel attendance down to three for this day. Overall a very satisfying experience from the focus on ideas of the first day to the draw of the personalities on the second.

Northwest Bookfest 2003 Saturday

I’ve attended the Northwest Bookfest for going on 5 years now. The venues chosen usually manage to give a nice outdoorsy and open feel to the fest and this being the second year in an decommissioned naval airplane hangar at Sand Point Magnuson Park did not disappoint on that front. This year was the first with a mandatory admission fee (a modest $10/day) which unfortunately seems to have kept some people away this year. It did not feel quite as crowded as usual (which is personally a plus for me, but not if the event goes away). Also, I could tell by the way the presentations were organized (no author seemed to be scheduled for more than one panel) that frugality would rule the day. I’ve since read in the paper that attendance was way down from previous years, so my eyes did not deceive, but I have yet to read whether they at least managed to break even monetarily.

Whereas the unplanned theme of (and as yet unreported upon) Westercon 56 for me was “music,” for Bookfest this year, it seemed to be “cultures clashing.” This is a two-day event and I planned to attend as many panels as I could without overloading on information. None of the Saturday panels had an author whose work I had read, but the concepts seemed compelling enough. Sunday was chock full of the authors who I had seen at this event before or who just packed that extra star power for me.

After taking a quick run around the expansive dealer floor, the first panel I went to was entitled “A Clash of Cultures in Fiction.” The two authors on the panel clashed nicely in personality as well: Kate Gadbow, an unassuming Montanan teacher with a loving family contrasted nicely with the world weary thriller writing marine biologist, Michael Gruber. If you get a kick out of fish out of water stories, then neither of their books will disappoint, if their performance here is any indication of their writing talent.

After an underwhelming $5.00 veggie dog, the next panel that graced my view was centered around the non-question “Ruling the Roost: Has Fantasy Finally Eclipsed SF in Today’s Market?” A couple of scheduled authors did not make it to this, but the trio that did, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Chris Bunch, and Kage Baker were immensely entertaining as they attempted to answer this question which wasn’t really much of a question at all. Appropriately, each of them has written both fantasy and science fiction, and all seemed to agree that the success or failure of each genre in the movie theatre sheds some light on where the public consciousness might lie in this regard. I’ve haven’t read any of their stuff, but their performance on this panel made me want to explore some of it. They took a horrible topic and made it interesting and took a couple of incoherent questions from the audience in stride, not to mention how well they handled the good queries. Modesitt seemed to get on several people’s nerves, but I found him refreshingly honest.

Stuck around the same stage area for the next presentation entitled “Disaffected? Affected? Hip or Just Plain Strange? Where do Literary Fiction and Contemporary Culture Interact?” There was that culture thing again. I won’t go into too much detail here. This was a good panel, but turned out to be more a reading from two local writers, which was great, but as the moderator Steven Shaviro pointed out, the panel was more of a chance for two authors to talk about why place was so specific in their works more than anything else. The authors were Matthew McIntosh who read from WELL, and Matt Ruff who read from SET THIS HOUSE IN ORDER. The former populated with the various points of view of downtrodden working class stiffs from the not well to do suburbs of Seattle and the latter written from the many points of view of a multiple personality disorder protagonist. Both had memorable readings and the multiple story was very intriguing.

Next for me was a panel on which the moderator also had the panelists read from their work, but on this one they also made the time to discuss the topic in some depth. Called “Dark Humor and Good Literature: So Funny It Breaks Your Heart.” These authors had works ranging from high school boys coming to terms with their homosexuality to a set of short stories and a novella which follow the adventures of a funeral junkie. Each piece was quite good and the success of shows like SIX FEET UNDER was mentioned as one indicator that we like a bit of pith with our pathos, possibly because life always manages to be a heart rending mixture of utter hilarity and great pain.

The final panel of Saturday for me was one with the straightforward name of “No Closed Doors: Privacy As a Privilege in the Electronic Age.” I was late for this one, but managed to arrive in time to hear some very pointed theories on African American slaves as being the first group to practice anti-surveillance techniques (by Christian Parenti), and a step by step technique for analyzing the effectiveness of any type of security situation (by Bruce Schneier). An energetic discussion moderated by a Seattle Times journalist, Jerry Large that spared no criticism for George W. Bush, which made for an excellent conclusion to Day 1.

Blankedness

I know I should write more here.

Westercon 56 - Report

On the evening of Thursday, July 3rd, 2003, I ventured down to Westercon 56 after work. At the same hotel as Norwescon 26, I did not have to worry about directions or figuring out where to go once I got there. Always nice.

I was pre-registered this time, so when I arrived, it was very easy to present my id and get my badge and bag of goodies.

I was running late for the Opening Ceremonies, so I made my way quickly to the ballroom housing them and found a place to stand in the back and soak in the already commenced interviews. The stars of the opening ceremonies would have to have been Dr. Kaku and Mr. Sterling. The doctor’s best line: “The mind of god is music resonating through the eleven dimensions of hyperspace.” Sterling admits that “he does a lot of weird crap.”

My first official panel of this con was a discussion of LORD OF LIGHT and why it might be considered a classic. The musical threadline was continued with a member of the audience bringing up the idea of “resonant range”, that is, a classic might defined as a work that has something in it for the peasant, the teenager, the master, a range. The remainder of the discussion ran the gamut of ideas, all quite good.

Friday evening complete for me, I made my way home to get a good night’s sleep for a long Saturday.

A movie preview session was the first thing on my agenda at 10am. It turned out to be a rumor mill by Gareth von Kallenbach, more than a preview screening. I will not rehash his multitude of quite interesting tidbits, here, mainly because I hate being a spoiler. If you like rumors, his site has them aplenty.

The next panel I chose was the Science Guest of Honor speech at 11am. Always interesting to listen to, Dr. Kaku went over some of the same ideas as in the opening ceremonies, but had more time here to hash them out. The best part for me was his retelling of a Heinlein story about “Jane”, which is retold in his own words here along with many of the ideas presented in his talk.

In the interest of finishing the report before the next Westercon arrives in Seattle 5 years hence, I am going to push on to the end of this thing, with the minimum of links and rambling.

During the Noon hour, I enjoyed the Writing “Hard” Science Fiction panel. Syne Mitchell was supposed to be on this panel, but it soon came clear that she was in the middle of giving birth a bit earlier than expected, so would not be showing up! The gist of this panel came down to tips on ways to communicate dense ideas in an easily digestible fashion to readers. The high points were using the tactic of “The Dumb Professor’s Daughter” and imbuing machines with personality so that their technical sides would not be quite as daunting.

My next panel choice was at 2pm and was a chance to see Larry Niven in action. He was running late, but at least I knew he couldn’t be giving birth, at least. This one was entitled “Supermen and Other Mutants.” Hero as larger than life, more than human, is archetypal. The most interesting aspect of this panel came when the audience was asked what superhuman trait would they most like to have. Some answers were fast brain reactions, excellent pattern recognition, being able to edit memory, or even better emotion modulation.

From 3-4pm I attended a reading by John Dalmas. I had read a couple of his books decades ago and had nothing but fond memories. These two disparate stories he read to us that afternoon updated my opinion and kept it as strong as ever. The first story had a strong norse feel to it and was about a sailing ship’s steam engine becoming incarnate and making a very useful friend. The second story was more of a mystery with a nice twist at the end.

For the next hour, I roamed around the Art Show. I didn’t even check out the art at Norwescon and was presently suprised at how enjoyable this group of art turned out to be. I will not be missing the art at any future conventions.

From 5-6pm, the panel was “Alternative Space Programs.” The focus in the end came down to economics. Lots of talk about how much these things cost and who in the world might be able to foot the bill. Xprize came up as a good example of a way to get the ideas and the money flowing.

My first big surprise of the con was my discovery of my love of the filk. I decided to go at the encouraging words of my brother, who was also attending the con and I think I might have developed a deeper fondness for the form in the meantime. An excellent harpist name Moira Stern starting off my filk experience. Then came Heather Alexander, whom I have since learned is quite famous in such circles. My filk appetite was whetted and was only to be further sated as the weekend progressed.

Which brings me to the next day, July 5th. I began the day at 10am with a seminar on storybuilding. Good tips about character vs world building, character compression, and the good advice that “no every idea is a story.”

Next I went back to the Art Show and tagged along with Greg Bear for a bit while he gave a docent tour. Quite a treat. Will have to try to go on more of these tours. The authors, of course, have been to many of these conventions and have developed quite an eye over the years, it seems.

From 11:30 - 12:30 I attended an actual movie preview seminar, which didn’t amount to a pile of rumors. The previews were, for the record: Hulk, T3, Underworld, Tomb Raider II, EA Games ROTK, American Splendor, Animatrix/Inside the Animatrix, The Haunted Mansion (with some behind the scenes), Jeepers Creepers 2, Freddy vs Jason (with behind the scenes ?!?), The Incredibles (which doesn’t come out until 11-5-04…), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Loony Toons Back in Action, and some random independent (very) stuff thrown in at the end.

The next treat of the convention was at 1pm with Greg Bear introducting the Science Fiction Experience. At the start Greg confirmed that Syne Mitchell did have her baby 2 days previous, 2 weeks premature. He presented a nice slide show of the vision for the space. Most or all of this would surely be on the official web site, so I won’t repeat it here, but it was fun to hear about an integral member of the group behind the experience gab on a bit about it.

From 2-3pm, I listend to Fiction GOH Bruce Sterling talk about “Garage Futurism” The best idea I heard was that of true futurists getting their best ideas by reading previous generations of futurists trying to look ahead. Very big on Calvino. Will have to check out some Italian SF one of these days.

Alternated the rest of the evening between more filking, a panel on ebook readers, and the masquerade ball. My filk discovery of the con would have to have been Escape Key. Mesmerizing from the get go (to me at least). An amazing mix of fantasy and sf filk ranging from songs about ai to post-apocalyptic musings about the speed of transport without combustion that could have been very sf but ended up feeling more than fantastic.

Blake Hodgetts and his daughters were also excellent as was Jordan Kare. Don’t know how I lived without filk before this con.

Probably got some dancing in there somewhere at one or two of the DJ’d events.

Which brings me to Sunday, the last day of the con, July 6, 2003. My plan was sparse, involving maybe a reading or two and attending what they were calling a “Tech Fair” Sunday turned out to be mostly disappointing for me. The tech fair was a bust. Seemed like the plan was for a room full of exciting booths bursting with tech, old and new. There were all of three tables set up ranging from primitive tools to battle bots to NASA’s space elevator. Interesting, but not for more than 5 minutes. I also had a hard time find some of the panels and/or readings I wanted to attend so spent most of the day wandering in and out of the dealer room (made sure to buy the Escape Key CD), the Art Auction (which was fun).

I did attend a couple of good seminars. One was about printer technology. I learned a lot about how laser printers actually work. Loved it. Wish there would have been more stuff like this at the Tech Fair….

Got another dose of Larry Niven at a panel on “Utopian Vision, Etc” Nice mention of Diamond Age. Larry dropped a nice tidbit about how he needs to talk to Stephen Barnes about a sequel to Dream Park. The bottom line of this panel truly came down to the idea that utopias tend to be a bit boring which is why we see so much distopian writing.

And then came the closing ceremonies. This mainly consisted of a quick summary by con staff and a nice friendly closing interview with Bruce Sterling. All of the other guests of honor had gone by then and the rest of us were soon to follow.

Overall, I had a great time. Some confusing moments ocurred, mostly of my own doing, but other things were utter failures, like the abortive Tech Fair. There were several treats for me each day which cemented my desire to attend the next Norwescon and maybe even Orycon in Portland in my brother’s neck of the woods.

Norwescon 26, Part 3

Norwescon 26, April 20 2003, Sunday continued

Let’s finish this sucker off.

The second to last panel discussion I attended at Norwescon 26 was entitled “The Dragon Ate My Homework.” It was meant to be a discussion of fantastic creatures in modern settings and turned out to be more of a discussion of the softening of the old faery tales and folklore, the idea of elfy welfy faeries and benign dragons.

This was my chance to see the Writer Guest of Honor, Jane Yolen, in action. Also on the panel were Wolf Lahti (whose Grendel reading I had attended), Andrew Dolbeck, and the moderator was Greg Robin Smith.

The train of talk started out much as described, bemoaning the fluffiness wrought on the old time dragons and other fantastic creatures. The scariness wrung out of them.

Joseph Campbell came up and there was some discussion of good books to read such as 10 POEMS THAT CAN REALLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE and LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT. This one turned out the be a nice bookend to the Power of Myth panel I attended on the previous day.

This brought to the final panel I decided to attend, called a “Lord of the Rings Celebration.” The moderator was Kara Dalkey, with the panel rounded out by Craig English, and Kevin Radthorne. This panel managed to stay on track, which is not surprising, since everyone in the room was in sync with the point of it. The time spent creating the depths and layers of the stories was touched upon. The languages Tolkien created as part of his mythos were lauded. The character of Gollum, his personification of the themes of avarice and redemption were focused upon. A good group overall who managed to put a nice capper on the convention for me. No overabundance of gushing, but enough admiration and awe to remind why I had decided to go to this thing in the first place.

Norwescon 26, Part 2

Norwescon 26, April 20 2003, Sunday

My second day at my first Norwescon started at a 10 am panel about Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Sounds exciting and going in I knew it would be a hard science panel, physics in this case, so I expected to be a bit in the dark, literally. The Science Guest of Honor, Dr. Geoffrey Landis, was on the panel, along with the moderator John G. Cramer and a previous SGOH, James C. Glass. Much discussion of normal matter, WIMPS, MACHOS, the big bang, and lots of friendly disagreements made for a disorienting dip into the milieu of dark holes, dark matter, dark energy, and the theories swirling around them. I enjoyed the academic banter and the fact that I didn’t fully grok all that was going on in the discussion.

I stayed in the same larger meeting room for the next panel which was called “Darwin meets SF.” No shortage of opinions to be found with this group which was made up of Jay Lake, Thomas P. Hopp, Greg Bear, Syne Mitchell, and Mike Moscoe. Some memorable quotes were things like “Virii don’t want to kill us, they want to replicate” and “God is an abortionist.” A little bit of context on that last one has to do with the fact that anti-abortionists often focus on the moment of conception as a key to their argument and Mr. Bear was running with the idea that there are so many chances along the route of conception for things to go wrong that ultimately God is the only one who can be held responsible, which, of course, would be quite ironic. The conversation then bridged to the idea of the evolution of societies and how fanatics (like rabid anti-abortionists) “energize the debate” and the fact that “evolution occurs on the edges.” In keeping with the pregnancy theme, there was also some talk about how women marry men who literally “smell” right to them. Despite the potentially incendiary topics, this panel remained light hearted and quite fun throughout, mainly due to Bear and Mitchell.

Next, was the continuation of a personal tradition of mine. Due to my love of movies, I endeavor to always attend any movie preview presentation at cons like this. The noon hour brought this to fruition. The following movies were previewed: ALEX&EMMA, DUPLEX, CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, 28 DAYS LATER, UNDERWORLD, JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, BULLETPROOF MONK, DUMB AND DUMBERER, IDENTITY, MASTER AND COMMANDER, HULK, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN, TOMB RAIDER 2, T3, X-MEN 2, ANIMATRIX, and MATRIX RELOADED. Extra special background footage was provided for both UNDERWORLD and ANIMATRIX. I hadn’t heard about UNDERWORLD before, but it is a vehicle to Kate Beckinsdale (as a vampire) and Scott Speedman (as a werewolf) and the mixing of these two movie monsters in a seemingly very focused feature film. I haven’t been checking out the ANIMATRIX stuff at all, but the bits I saw here have cemented my desire to snatch up the DVD in June.

I grabbed a bite to eat of my tofurky and fakin canadian bacon sandwich before the previews started, so I was ready to finish out my convention experience with two more panels. The first finally has at least a tangential relationship to dragons (the theme of the con) and the second was the obligatory celebration of Lord of the Rings.

My recounting of these will have to wait until part 3…