ellen_datlow | A bit more on Readercon

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readercon; conventions

A bit more on Readercon

Just catching up to lj friend posts and realized I need to at least say a bit more about Readercon (there WILL be pix)...I had a wonderful time but also realized after the fact (and even a little during) that I missed saying hello (or interacting more than saying hello to a few people I know from online groups--I apologize. I either didn't recognize you until too late or kept seeing you enroute to somewhere else that I was running late. Also, there were people I would have liked to have seen that I didn't (even though it's a very small space). Finally, I didn't say goodbye to many folks I would have liked to.

My panels went ok, although I wasn't totally delighted with any of them. They kept getting sidetracked off the center of the topic or avoided the topic completely. No one at fault, just a confluence of panel members, possibly differing agendas, or a misunderstanding of what the panel was supposed to cover.

I attended the 40 minutes movie of Tom Disch reading his 33 poems just after Charlie Naylor's death. He read well. It was "nice" to "see" him one last time. I wasn't as emotionally affected as I worried I'd be. I didn't stay for the discussion afterwards.

I drank too much and slept too little. I had panels at 10 am twice --couldn't use my laptop to fetch email because the hotel wanted to charge $10 a computer per day. I just used the free biz center downstairs to read and respond to the most important emails.

I have to put the photos up before Wed because that's when the Jackson Award fundraiser at KGB is and I'll be taking more photos there!

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So...Scott Edelman wasn't pointing behind people and screaming "Oh my God, it's Paul Riddell, AND HE'S GOT A GUN!" this weekend? Pity: I may have to show up next year just to make sure that he follows through on his promises.

Nope and he we were all very disappointed :-)

I know, I know. Send a boy to do a man's job...

I tried, Paul, I really did, but I'm just not that good of an actor. No one believed me! So I gave up.

I'm sure that if our roles had been reversed, and you'd told people "Oh my God, it's Scott Edelman, AND HE'S GOT A GUN!," you would have been able to pull it off.

Okay, then we've got a plan for next year. Is it okay if, as part of the act, I bounce off a wall, take you down with a well-placed kick to the chest, and then bury a machete in your skull before you can start firing into the crowd? (Don't worry: they'll be props, complete with blood that goes SPEEEEEEERT in slow motion. The convention has a ban on costumes; it doesn't have a ban on theatrical makeup effects.)

Go for it!

Of course, they'll then need to find a new con hotel for 2010, but it will be worth it for the spectacle.

Any convention that doesn't resemble the last ten minutes of a Sam Peckinpah or George Romero film at least once during the weekend isn't worth attending.

That reminds me of Sleaze Con, which was held in the '70s in a Wilmington, Delaware hotel about to be demolished. Attendees were invited to trash their rooms. Edie the Egg Lady from Pink Flamingos was a guest of honor.

Since my memory of this con is vague, I googled it, and this was all I could find, a mention in Mark Jacobson's book Teenage Hipster in the Modern World: From the Birth of Punk to the Land of Bush: Thirty Years of Apocalyptic Journalism:

Legs and I were in Wilmington, Delaware for the First Annual Sleaze Convention. Legs was the Con Special Guest Star. This owed to his then-inflating reputation for doing nothing much but drinking, eating in McDonald's, watching television, and reading comic books. Those days Leg's professed only goal in life was to sing the theme song from Eva Gabor's TV show Green Acres before a packed house at Madison Square Garden. He had also been known to take an elevator to the top of the Empire State Building, look out on a perfectly clear night, and say, "Wow, you can see Nathan's from here."

I'll bet you've already read this book. I feel a sudden urge to rush off and buy it now.

His stuff sounds like something you might have written.

I know Legs (unless it's a different one)-I'm blanking on his last name, but he was friends with some of my OMNI colleagues.

The Legs referred to in the book is Legs McNeil.

Same Legs?

That's him!

Boy howdy, this sounds like one of the Dallas Fantasy Fairs. The difference is that nobody involved with the Flimsy Fairs had anything approximating this sense of humor (save for wags noting the number of incredibly attractive women surrounding the convention chairman, especially when said women would leave him right after he'd paid for their breast implants), most of the guests did little other than eat at McDonald's and read comic books if they weren't trying to drink themselves to death, and the attendees most enthusiastic about trashing the hotel rooms were all members of convention security. I nearly got stomped in the elevator at one of these when I was asked by three hipsters "So what is it that you do that rates you a guest badge?" and they discovered that I worked for Film Threat Video Guide at the time: they apparently were still holding grudges for the first issue containing a "When Great Directors Start To SUCK" feature on David Lynch and Tim Burton, and never mind that I wasn't even a contributor when it was written.

I saw you several times from across the room, but never had a chance to say hello, alas. Perhaps next time!

Hi Beth,
I think I saw you too, at least once --amazing how such a small convention can be so full of people that we can't interact with everyone? (rhetorical :-) )

It was so wonderful to see you again!

Likewise.
And I hope the photo I took of you looks as good when I download it ;-) If not, I promise to delete!

And I hope the photo I took of you looks as good when I download it ;-) If not, I promise to delete!

Danke. ;-)

couldn't use my laptop to fetch email because the hotel wanted to charge $10 a computer per day.

Ouch. I don't understand why hotels do that. I mean, I understand it, but find it ... slimy and greedy on their part. Makes me pick other hotels when it's possible.

Sounds like it was a typical convention -- too short, and draining and energizing at one and the same time. :-)

Oddly enough, usually cheaper hotels have free wireless. It IS greedy and I rarely will pay the money--I would if I could share but $20 a day? (if you're sharing a room and not sharing a computer?) Screw that!

And yes, you nailed it. I wish I had time to rest--yikes I still have to unpack. (and get dressed)

I've noticed that, too. I think it's because the more expensive hotels expect that people are expensing the whole hotel cost to their employer, most of the wireless access is expected to be business travel related. It's still pretty dumb, though.

I had a distinct moment of missing college when I happened to be traveling with some RPI (my alma mater) kids and they very nonchalantly set up an ad hoc network immediately upon reaching the hotel, serving their three rooms. I loved that they just did it as a matter of course. It's not too difficult to get one internet connection and then share it wirelessly with your neighbors.

I've just checked and the Marriott in Denver has free internet--so it's not a company wide policy.

I suspect the reason the Marriot offers free internet in Denver is because that whole mall area around the convention center has free wi-fi so who would pay at the Marriot?

Makes sense. There's NOTHING much around the Marriott in Burlington, MA.

I'll also be at the Marriott. I tried to get into the main con hotel too late and got squeezed out.

I think we chose the Marriott for the free internet.

Was good to see you even though didn't get much of a chance to chat.

Gabriel M

My panels went ok, although I wasn't totally delighted with any of them. They kept getting sidetracked off the center of the topic or avoided the topic completely. No one at fault, just a confluence of panel members, possibly differing agendas, or a misunderstanding of what the panel was supposed to cover.

Yeah, this happened several times in panels that I attended as well. Mostly I found it to be session leaders who did not steer people back to the topic at hand. In one panel people spent half of the session talking about 9/11 rather pointlessly, for example. The best panels were those in which the participants took on the topic head-on and the moderator kept people on track. The Apocalypse and Historical Eras panels were the best in this regard, because the panel had a conversation with the audience and we threw ideas back and forth, and the session leaders kept the ball rolling.

I'd arrived at Readercon fully intending to attend the Disch screening, feeling that's what Tom would have wanted. But as the weekend proceeded and I talked with Liz and John and then Barry about it, I decided to pass. I'll see it when it comes out, at home, alone.

John and I went to it together but he left soon after it begun. I almost didn't go but am glad I did.

I bit the bullet and was prepared to pay for Internet for two days. It was noon-to-noon, or I would've signed up Friday morning before the panels started. :P

I had to call tech support at least 4 times across those two days just to get connected, for a total of about an hour of phone time. And once I was connected, it would randomly drop me.

I was going to complain at check-out, but the wireless access didn't appear on the bill, so I didn't want to remind them about it.

I didn't realize the business center was free. Usually it's the wireless that's free and the business center that costs.

There were two free computers but if there was anyone waiting (and there usually was) you only had ten minutes to use them.

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A bit more on Readercon

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