N4 Report: Rock Three
Friday, September 10th, 2004 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniWhere was I?
Oh! The Spectrums.
"This House" had been nominated for the Gaylactic Spectrum. I didn't expect it to win, but I was curious about the whys and wherefores of the award, about which I knew very little more than it was bestowed upon stories with "strong" GLBT content. The panel discussion immediately preceding the announcement of the short list and winners struggled with the question of what makes an SF story also a GLBT story. It was suggested that a SF/F-GLBT story would be one in which the GLBT content was integral to the plot -- remove it and the story collapses. This is certainly a valid place to draw the line, IMHO, but it does tend to leave out stories which posit a world in which the GLBT lifestyles have been accommodated, and/or are useful and valued.
Interesting side-discussions included the concern that, as GLBT lifestyles become more widely accepted, will the community diminish/diffuse/lose value to its constituents? This was a fascinating discussion in part because the theme of losing one's community because the community has become "accepted" -- this is a good thing, right? -- parallels in so many ways the diffusing of the larger SF community into the mundane world.
I had to leave before the actual awards were given, to meet![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kinzel and Mark Tiedemann for dinner. Mark had invited two friends -- John Lorantz (excusing my spelling) and another pleasant gentleman whose name has liquefied and leaked out of my brain.
The four of us repaired to Atlantic Seafood, where all partook of fine food and better conversation. We parted on a good note, Mark and the others to attend the Hugos andkinzel and I to nip down to the Meisha Merlin party, the SFWA suite, the Sff.net suite and a couple other parties before turning into pumpkins.
Sunday morning we met those Friends of Liad hardy enough to face the early hour for breakfast at the Marche Movenpick (I think I have that right). Perhaps a dozen of us partook, after whichkinzel took himself off to his 10:30 panel and I went off to mine.
"Memorable Scenes" was the name of the panel and it ...suffered greatly from many things, not the least a clear definition of what the panelists were supposed to do beside describing their favorite scenes. Happily, the audience was slight and we managed to escape with no loss of limb.
kinzel was not quite so fortunate in his panel experience, I found as we met up, but no lives were lost there, either.
We made a pass through the art show, attended our signing, then blitzed down to my kaffeklatsch, which was ...relaxing, in a weird sort of way.
I think we missed lunch, but we did do a signing at the Meisha Merlin table, where I spoke to Jim Revells, who traded me, even up, a Korval pin for a handmade copper Viking pin. Mr. Revells was extremely complimentary regarding the Liaden Universe and said he was going to try to make Korval's Ring. We apparently got the look-and-feel of a really old piece of jewelery exactly right, as far as he was concerned.
Since our signing was next to the Buzzy Multimedia table, we got to chat with the Pogers a bit. We learned that they had sold Serious Numbers of Ace Liaden Universe books and that manymany people had expressed to them their intention to buy the audiobook Local Custom. All good news. We were also given Stormfront as narrated by James Marsters, so we could get an approximation of what Mr. Shanks might be doing for Local Custom. We were also given t-shirts --kinzel's says Carpe Noctem; mine says, I keep hitting the escape key, but I'm still here.
I charged off the to the art show and, largely thanks to the kindly intervention of Martin Deutsch, collected the truly awesome pair of earrings that nobody else had bid on, raced back to the room to collectkinzel and charged back down to the lobby to meet Sue Krinard and her delightful husband Serge for dinner at Vinny Ts. This time, I was bright and left enough room to share a tiramitsu dessert with kinzel
Following dinner, we made our way to the Friends of Liad Lounge Pajama Party and read "A Night at the Opera" for those assembled.
Monday morning, we went back to the Marche Movenpick. We were much distressed to find that the crepes stall had only bananas with which to fill crepes and both slightly bored with our substitute omelets.kinzel then made off to his talk while I settled the bill (hmmmm.....)
My last panel was at noon -- What's In a Name? I had a heckuva good time at this panel, which, in retrospect always makes me fear that I talked too much and wasn't accommodating to other panelists. I metkinzel in the dealers room, received instruction regarding collecting SRM's cart from SFWA on the fly, did some paperwork and settling up with Meisha Merlin, collected kinzel and beguiled him out into the mall for a milkshake.
Fortified by sugar, we left the mall in search of the Christian Science Monitor Mall and other points of interest, arriving back in the vicinity of the Sheraton in time to interceptpapersky and her friend (whose name has also leaked out of my brain). We eventually wandered back into the Sheraton, took up chairs in the back of the bar and through force of ennui wound up having dinner with Sean McMullen and his wife -- Tricia?. We were joined by Mark Tiedemann and John Lorantz for coffee, then all six called it an early night.
And that's it.
Tomorrow is my birthday. Bad timing, that...
Oh! The Spectrums.
"This House" had been nominated for the Gaylactic Spectrum. I didn't expect it to win, but I was curious about the whys and wherefores of the award, about which I knew very little more than it was bestowed upon stories with "strong" GLBT content. The panel discussion immediately preceding the announcement of the short list and winners struggled with the question of what makes an SF story also a GLBT story. It was suggested that a SF/F-GLBT story would be one in which the GLBT content was integral to the plot -- remove it and the story collapses. This is certainly a valid place to draw the line, IMHO, but it does tend to leave out stories which posit a world in which the GLBT lifestyles have been accommodated, and/or are useful and valued.
Interesting side-discussions included the concern that, as GLBT lifestyles become more widely accepted, will the community diminish/diffuse/lose value to its constituents? This was a fascinating discussion in part because the theme of losing one's community because the community has become "accepted" -- this is a good thing, right? -- parallels in so many ways the diffusing of the larger SF community into the mundane world.
I had to leave before the actual awards were given, to meet
kinzel and Mark Tiedemann for dinner. Mark had invited two friends -- John Lorantz (excusing my spelling) and another pleasant gentleman whose name has liquefied and leaked out of my brain.The four of us repaired to Atlantic Seafood, where all partook of fine food and better conversation. We parted on a good note, Mark and the others to attend the Hugos and
kinzel and I to nip down to the Meisha Merlin party, the SFWA suite, the Sff.net suite and a couple other parties before turning into pumpkins.Sunday morning we met those Friends of Liad hardy enough to face the early hour for breakfast at the Marche Movenpick (I think I have that right). Perhaps a dozen of us partook, after which
kinzel took himself off to his 10:30 panel and I went off to mine."Memorable Scenes" was the name of the panel and it ...suffered greatly from many things, not the least a clear definition of what the panelists were supposed to do beside describing their favorite scenes. Happily, the audience was slight and we managed to escape with no loss of limb.
kinzel was not quite so fortunate in his panel experience, I found as we met up, but no lives were lost there, either.We made a pass through the art show, attended our signing, then blitzed down to my kaffeklatsch, which was ...relaxing, in a weird sort of way.
I think we missed lunch, but we did do a signing at the Meisha Merlin table, where I spoke to Jim Revells, who traded me, even up, a Korval pin for a handmade copper Viking pin. Mr. Revells was extremely complimentary regarding the Liaden Universe and said he was going to try to make Korval's Ring. We apparently got the look-and-feel of a really old piece of jewelery exactly right, as far as he was concerned.
Since our signing was next to the Buzzy Multimedia table, we got to chat with the Pogers a bit. We learned that they had sold Serious Numbers of Ace Liaden Universe books and that manymany people had expressed to them their intention to buy the audiobook Local Custom. All good news. We were also given Stormfront as narrated by James Marsters, so we could get an approximation of what Mr. Shanks might be doing for Local Custom. We were also given t-shirts --
kinzel's says Carpe Noctem; mine says, I keep hitting the escape key, but I'm still here.I charged off the to the art show and, largely thanks to the kindly intervention of Martin Deutsch, collected the truly awesome pair of earrings that nobody else had bid on, raced back to the room to collect
kinzel and charged back down to the lobby to meet Sue Krinard and her delightful husband Serge for dinner at Vinny Ts. This time, I was bright and left enough room to share a tiramitsu dessert with kinzelFollowing dinner, we made our way to the Friends of Liad Lounge Pajama Party and read "A Night at the Opera" for those assembled.
Monday morning, we went back to the Marche Movenpick. We were much distressed to find that the crepes stall had only bananas with which to fill crepes and both slightly bored with our substitute omelets.
kinzel then made off to his talk while I settled the bill (hmmmm.....)My last panel was at noon -- What's In a Name? I had a heckuva good time at this panel, which, in retrospect always makes me fear that I talked too much and wasn't accommodating to other panelists. I met
kinzel in the dealers room, received instruction regarding collecting SRM's cart from SFWA on the fly, did some paperwork and settling up with Meisha Merlin, collected kinzel and beguiled him out into the mall for a milkshake.Fortified by sugar, we left the mall in search of the Christian Science Monitor Mall and other points of interest, arriving back in the vicinity of the Sheraton in time to intercept
papersky and her friend (whose name has also leaked out of my brain). We eventually wandered back into the Sheraton, took up chairs in the back of the bar and through force of ennui wound up having dinner with Sean McMullen and his wife -- Tricia?. We were joined by Mark Tiedemann and John Lorantz for coffee, then all six called it an early night.And that's it.
Tomorrow is my birthday. Bad timing, that...
