Dragon*Con 2012: Total Eclipse of the Con.
Sep. 4th, 2012 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolven7If you don't like gushing, semi-self-aggrandizing, name-checking, quasi-narrative-but-mostly-disjointed recollections of conventions, you may want to skip this one. But, if you like that kind of thing, were at Dragon*Con, or are just keeping tabs on me, here you go. Warning: It's a long one. If you think your name is in here? It probably is. If it isn't, and you think it SHOULD be? Remind me.
So last week I had the shittiest week that ever shat. Let's just sum this up with an Allie Brosh-ism: ALL THE CAR AND MONEY PROBLEMS!!! culminated on Thursday, causing me to have to cancel ALL of my classes. At the end of which I took MARTA downtown to get my VIP badge, and I was stuck in line behind John Barrowman's handler, who was trying to get John's husband's badge. That was neat.
On Friday![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unknownbinaries and I went down to get her badge. On the way there, we met James Urbaniak on the street, and I told him how much I loved him in Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles. He responded with a smile, "Yeah I was in that for about five minutes, wasn't I?" We'll have more about Mr Urbaniak, in a moment. Then we ran into halafax.
All three @DC_Academics Friday panels ("The Superhero As The Other," "Fandom and Feminism," and "Gender, Power, and the Superhero Self") were Totally packed. Meaning that two of them were at standing room only and they had to turn people away from one, it was so full.
Somewhere in here, I briefly hung out withkittenspeaks.
The next part of the night was marked by meeting up withext_325066, Indranyx, mendori, and Erik at the NeedCoffee.com Funfest, where we hung out with @Widgett @HouseOfWhimsy @scottums @roxofspazhous @leighBC @jonboutelle @aaronfever Seige @UMadman, Jenna, and the rest of the #NeedCoffeeDotCom crew, and watched cailement perform Operatic Oatmeal Directions. Yes.
Also? Widgett is an amazing friend.
After this, we wandered a bit, travelling to The Hardrock to provide moral support for a friend stuck working there all weekend, on a really shitty turnaround (bright eyes). On the way back, we sat in front of the Hyatt withspooky_chan, soulbots, @specsocelot, and Doc Hammer, Singing/Deconstructing Bonnie Tyler songs. Specifically "Total Eclipse of the Heart." In Meatloaf's voice. Because Bonnie Tyler's songwriter for "TEotH" (which sounds like an eldritch demon) was the same as Meatloaf's old songwriter. So we began intersplicing the literal lines, such "I don't really think it would be weird for me/but if you think it would be weird for you/there's nothing I can do/a total eclipse of the heart," and, "Idon'tthinkwereallythoughtaboutwherethisrelationshipwasheadedandnowI Turn Around!"
And thus the title of this entry becomes relevant. You see, because of this, for the rest of this convention, any time ANY OF US had a silent moment in our heads, THAT SONG CAME IN OUR MINDS. Seen here: https://twitter.com/Wolven/status/241993669509525505 (she was literally Right behind me). It got to the point where, at Quiz Show, Sunday night, apparently EVERYONE in the audience was able to spontaneously finish a faltering line. Wild.
On Saturday, I moderated "History and Philosophy in Full Metal Alchemist," which was a similar paper to one I presented three years back, but was different enough to be Really interesting. After that I went and gotunknownbinaries and we went, saw kittenspeaks, got food, and then made my way to the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab table to begin my process of picking up a Truly Staggering amount of perfumes for people not myself. I have to tell you, if you've never gotten the chance, check them out. They make utterly amazing scents, and they are some of the absolute nicest people I've gotten a chance to meet. They are just so damn cool, genuine, and pleasant to talk to. So great.
Somewhere in there, I found out that Duncan Jones' Source Code was nominated for a Hugo Award.
After this was, "Comics, Critical Thinking, and the Canon," then "Philosophers, Warriors, and Sages," and then "Moths, Metafiction, and Miéville," and I got Gail Simone to throw us a RT.
Then we walked through the Hilton to findext_325066, and we went to a panel on Ray Bradbury, wherein they talked about Bradbury's friendship with Walt Disney, among many other things. We parted ways with ext_325066 for a moment, while she went to the Archer panel and we went to the Miéville panel. Archer was so freaking packed, they had to move it to one of the largest ballrooms, and they STILL had to turn people away. ext_325066 was able to get in by playing the "I Ran This Panel Last Year And Am Kind Of The Reason It's this Large This Year" card. Lucky Yates stopped her and said "Sorry for hijacking your panel," which is pretty sweet. I ran into Michelle Bellanger, and she told unknownbinaries about some people who might want her art for some book covers. So there's that.
Caught up with Lucky, just as he was done with pictures and signing, got to say hey, and he remembered me, which was nice. We met back up withext_325066 and then the three of us wandered around for quite some time, drinking, and then finding razelore and tsumari, and drinking in their hotel room for the next part of the evening. We left them and found spooky_chan and James Urbaniak who were talking, oddly enough, about Walt Disney, and his influence on the world and politics. I sat and talked with them for a bit, before beard and Sparky showed up, and I was pretty much the only one wanting to sit in the Hilton and talk. So we left there, went to the Hyatt, wandering, and then some other things happened and then we all parted, very late.
It was around this time that we ran intonot_hothead_yet and Cristiana.
Woke up, got suited up like a very attractive bruise, and started the day. Went back down to BPAL to get some more stuff for people, and Beth was VERY kind. Next I went and moderated Katherine Bryant's "Prospects for Human/Tech Interfaces: Is Geordi's VISOR realizable?" and that was extremely well-received.damnedsaint showed up. Then I went to the closed Academics Session, and talked about what we're going to do about next year.
Then we went for food, and more hangouts, and then there was the "Status of Women in Mainstream Comics" roundtable (the one Gail Simone RT'd), and that was Packed (picture is MAYBE 2/3 of the audience). Really great insightful discussion, in there, too. Women who work for gender-and-comics-studies blogs, people who work in comics, academics and professionals with direct interest and expertise in feminism and feminist narrative analysis. Very nice.
Directly after that, I moderated the screening of Dr Jonathan Gayles race, ethnicity, and comics documentary, "White Scripts, Black Supermen." Not only was Dwayne McDuffie love in that film really intense, the screening was probably the best received of anything we did. Proportionally, having 70+ in a screening on a Sunday Night at D*C, at 8.30pm, is Insane. They waited through delays and technical problems, and they all stayed all the way through, and through the Q&A at the end. Everyone who asked a question was fantastic, and there were SO many people afterward who wanted to talk to Dr Gayles. Really great session, all the way around, and extremely timely and insightful.
When I left there, met up withunknownbinaries, and we came across ext_325066 again, when we went to get dinner. She was with Indranyx and her husband, again, and we wandered a bit. unknownbinaries, ext_325066, and i split from the other two, met up with beard, and tried to get to Traver Vic's, because "Werewolves of London" was on the karaoke when we walked into the Hilton. They were out of Piña Coladas, so we left and went up to the Hilton bar, for a couple of hours. They kicked us out right as James Urbaniak showed up again, and we all went upstairs to one of the Hilton's weird guest floor lobbies. On 12, we found a Tardis. We talked with James about some work he has coming up (A judge in 'The Good Wife,' among other things, so keep an eye and ear out), and I got ext_325066's picture with him, and we all talked and drank and laughed.
James went to bed, we all took to wandering again, separated and regrouped, except for Sparky.spooky_chan stayed on 12, finishing commissions. Also, when next you talk to her, be sure to call her "Homegirl."
raidingparty had gotten a hold of a Panel Without A Purpose room, and was holding court. I'd intended to go, but there was a sudden shift in my mood, and I needed to be moving, wandering, so we hung with a group of us, and went and found people we'd missed.
Those people includedscamort,magicalkat, theapplethief, giana, Duby (who bought me 3/4ths of a personal pizza), Lauren B, and many others.
After we parted withext_325066and co., we went back to raidingparty, and hung out there for a while. We then went back downstairs and talked with spooky_chan, and saw Parson as he was doing his late night run of stuff to his car, to avoid the morning checkout crowds. I realised, as tired as I was, that I needed to do the same, to save time and effort in the morning, because I had a panel at 10am. So unknownbinaries and I went back up to the room, randomly running into ladyabigor, in the process. We'd not seen her since breakfast with Android Lust, last year. We got back to the room, I got my pajamas on, and started taking to the car those things which would be most awkward in a crowd. Suits, large-but-light bags, that kind of thing.
Empty downtown streets at 4am during Dragon*Con is a level of surreal I cannot even begin to describe. It's all about the context, you know?
So I went back to the room, set an alarm for 0923, and read until I started to fall asleep. This was about 5 or so. Woke up at 9, for no discernible reason, and lay there trying to go back to sleep, until I just said screw it, and got up and got dressed.
I got to my panel ("Dynamic Identities: Characters as Moving Targets," SFF Lit Track), and we got started a bit late. Gotta say, cramming all of Miéville's oeuvre into ten minutes, AND saying something interesting about it? Not as easy as it sounds. I don't feel it was the strongest presentation I've ever given, that's for sure. I was first, and most of the questions focused on the 3rd presenters. But oh well.
Left there, met back up withunknownbinaries, checked out of the hotel, took the last of the stuff to the car, and went to make our goodbyes to everyone, and do "one last run" of things. This took us FOUR HOURS, and had us encountering people Multiple times. It was at this point that Ted Naifeh complimented me on my suit. That was pretty awesome. After that we encountered stupid_drawings, which was awesome.
Didn't see NEARLY enough of Widgett and the Needcoffee.com family, but that means doing more over the year until next Con.
People I've seen this weekend, in too many different contexts to remember: Drew, my co-worker from the cheese job; Anje, Seth, and his brother Colin; Ms Bots, SpecsOcelot, Parson, Sarah, Bill,jaythebarbarian, Pete, Ean, James D, and many more.
People I never saw included Jaym Gates,wyldkyss, jerem_morrow's friend Trevor Collins (was really looking forward to talking to him), Noel, and others. I'm really sorry to have missed these folks. Then there were the Numerous famous people I'd intended to bother. Katee Sackhoff, Colin Ferguson, Misha Collins, Frakes, LeVar Burton, and so on.
In summation, this was not the Best con I've ever been to, and it certainly wasn't the Worst I've ever been to, but it Certainly was memorable, and a whole lot of fun. Also? It makes me bewilderingly happy that James Urbaniak and Lucky Yates A) met each other B) this Dragon*Con & C) got along really well. That is FANTASTIC. As James said, "World Peace!"
I feel like we should sing a song or something. Can anybody think of one?
So last week I had the shittiest week that ever shat. Let's just sum this up with an Allie Brosh-ism: ALL THE CAR AND MONEY PROBLEMS!!! culminated on Thursday, causing me to have to cancel ALL of my classes. At the end of which I took MARTA downtown to get my VIP badge, and I was stuck in line behind John Barrowman's handler, who was trying to get John's husband's badge. That was neat.
On Friday
unknownbinaries and I went down to get her badge. On the way there, we met James Urbaniak on the street, and I told him how much I loved him in Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles. He responded with a smile, "Yeah I was in that for about five minutes, wasn't I?" We'll have more about Mr Urbaniak, in a moment. Then we ran into halafax.All three @DC_Academics Friday panels ("The Superhero As The Other," "Fandom and Feminism," and "Gender, Power, and the Superhero Self") were Totally packed. Meaning that two of them were at standing room only and they had to turn people away from one, it was so full.
Somewhere in here, I briefly hung out with
kittenspeaks.The next part of the night was marked by meeting up with
ext_325066, Indranyx, mendori, and Erik at the NeedCoffee.com Funfest, where we hung out with @Widgett @HouseOfWhimsy @scottums @roxofspazhous @leighBC @jonboutelle @aaronfever Seige @UMadman, Jenna, and the rest of the #NeedCoffeeDotCom crew, and watched cailement perform Operatic Oatmeal Directions. Yes.Also? Widgett is an amazing friend.
After this, we wandered a bit, travelling to The Hardrock to provide moral support for a friend stuck working there all weekend, on a really shitty turnaround (bright eyes). On the way back, we sat in front of the Hyatt with
spooky_chan, soulbots, @specsocelot, and Doc Hammer, Singing/Deconstructing Bonnie Tyler songs. Specifically "Total Eclipse of the Heart." In Meatloaf's voice. Because Bonnie Tyler's songwriter for "TEotH" (which sounds like an eldritch demon) was the same as Meatloaf's old songwriter. So we began intersplicing the literal lines, such "I don't really think it would be weird for me/but if you think it would be weird for you/there's nothing I can do/a total eclipse of the heart," and, "Idon'tthinkwereallythoughtaboutwherethisrelationshipwasheadedandnowI Turn Around!"And thus the title of this entry becomes relevant. You see, because of this, for the rest of this convention, any time ANY OF US had a silent moment in our heads, THAT SONG CAME IN OUR MINDS. Seen here: https://twitter.com/Wolven/status/241993669509525505 (she was literally Right behind me). It got to the point where, at Quiz Show, Sunday night, apparently EVERYONE in the audience was able to spontaneously finish a faltering line. Wild.
On Saturday, I moderated "History and Philosophy in Full Metal Alchemist," which was a similar paper to one I presented three years back, but was different enough to be Really interesting. After that I went and got
unknownbinaries and we went, saw kittenspeaks, got food, and then made my way to the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab table to begin my process of picking up a Truly Staggering amount of perfumes for people not myself. I have to tell you, if you've never gotten the chance, check them out. They make utterly amazing scents, and they are some of the absolute nicest people I've gotten a chance to meet. They are just so damn cool, genuine, and pleasant to talk to. So great.Somewhere in there, I found out that Duncan Jones' Source Code was nominated for a Hugo Award.
After this was, "Comics, Critical Thinking, and the Canon," then "Philosophers, Warriors, and Sages," and then "Moths, Metafiction, and Miéville," and I got Gail Simone to throw us a RT.
Then we walked through the Hilton to find
ext_325066, and we went to a panel on Ray Bradbury, wherein they talked about Bradbury's friendship with Walt Disney, among many other things. We parted ways with ext_325066 for a moment, while she went to the Archer panel and we went to the Miéville panel. Archer was so freaking packed, they had to move it to one of the largest ballrooms, and they STILL had to turn people away. ext_325066 was able to get in by playing the "I Ran This Panel Last Year And Am Kind Of The Reason It's this Large This Year" card. Lucky Yates stopped her and said "Sorry for hijacking your panel," which is pretty sweet. I ran into Michelle Bellanger, and she told unknownbinaries about some people who might want her art for some book covers. So there's that.Caught up with Lucky, just as he was done with pictures and signing, got to say hey, and he remembered me, which was nice. We met back up with
ext_325066 and then the three of us wandered around for quite some time, drinking, and then finding razelore and tsumari, and drinking in their hotel room for the next part of the evening. We left them and found spooky_chan and James Urbaniak who were talking, oddly enough, about Walt Disney, and his influence on the world and politics. I sat and talked with them for a bit, before beard and Sparky showed up, and I was pretty much the only one wanting to sit in the Hilton and talk. So we left there, went to the Hyatt, wandering, and then some other things happened and then we all parted, very late. It was around this time that we ran into
not_hothead_yet and Cristiana.Woke up, got suited up like a very attractive bruise, and started the day. Went back down to BPAL to get some more stuff for people, and Beth was VERY kind. Next I went and moderated Katherine Bryant's "Prospects for Human/Tech Interfaces: Is Geordi's VISOR realizable?" and that was extremely well-received.
damnedsaint showed up. Then I went to the closed Academics Session, and talked about what we're going to do about next year.Then we went for food, and more hangouts, and then there was the "Status of Women in Mainstream Comics" roundtable (the one Gail Simone RT'd), and that was Packed (picture is MAYBE 2/3 of the audience). Really great insightful discussion, in there, too. Women who work for gender-and-comics-studies blogs, people who work in comics, academics and professionals with direct interest and expertise in feminism and feminist narrative analysis. Very nice.
Directly after that, I moderated the screening of Dr Jonathan Gayles race, ethnicity, and comics documentary, "White Scripts, Black Supermen." Not only was Dwayne McDuffie love in that film really intense, the screening was probably the best received of anything we did. Proportionally, having 70+ in a screening on a Sunday Night at D*C, at 8.30pm, is Insane. They waited through delays and technical problems, and they all stayed all the way through, and through the Q&A at the end. Everyone who asked a question was fantastic, and there were SO many people afterward who wanted to talk to Dr Gayles. Really great session, all the way around, and extremely timely and insightful.
When I left there, met up with
unknownbinaries, and we came across ext_325066 again, when we went to get dinner. She was with Indranyx and her husband, again, and we wandered a bit. unknownbinaries, ext_325066, and i split from the other two, met up with beard, and tried to get to Traver Vic's, because "Werewolves of London" was on the karaoke when we walked into the Hilton. They were out of Piña Coladas, so we left and went up to the Hilton bar, for a couple of hours. They kicked us out right as James Urbaniak showed up again, and we all went upstairs to one of the Hilton's weird guest floor lobbies. On 12, we found a Tardis. We talked with James about some work he has coming up (A judge in 'The Good Wife,' among other things, so keep an eye and ear out), and I got ext_325066's picture with him, and we all talked and drank and laughed.James went to bed, we all took to wandering again, separated and regrouped, except for Sparky.
spooky_chan stayed on 12, finishing commissions. Also, when next you talk to her, be sure to call her "Homegirl."raidingparty had gotten a hold of a Panel Without A Purpose room, and was holding court. I'd intended to go, but there was a sudden shift in my mood, and I needed to be moving, wandering, so we hung with a group of us, and went and found people we'd missed.Those people included
scamort,magicalkat, theapplethief, giana, Duby (who bought me 3/4ths of a personal pizza), Lauren B, and many others.After we parted with
ext_325066and co., we went back to raidingparty, and hung out there for a while. We then went back downstairs and talked with spooky_chan, and saw Parson as he was doing his late night run of stuff to his car, to avoid the morning checkout crowds. I realised, as tired as I was, that I needed to do the same, to save time and effort in the morning, because I had a panel at 10am. So unknownbinaries and I went back up to the room, randomly running into ladyabigor, in the process. We'd not seen her since breakfast with Android Lust, last year. We got back to the room, I got my pajamas on, and started taking to the car those things which would be most awkward in a crowd. Suits, large-but-light bags, that kind of thing.Empty downtown streets at 4am during Dragon*Con is a level of surreal I cannot even begin to describe. It's all about the context, you know?
So I went back to the room, set an alarm for 0923, and read until I started to fall asleep. This was about 5 or so. Woke up at 9, for no discernible reason, and lay there trying to go back to sleep, until I just said screw it, and got up and got dressed.
I got to my panel ("Dynamic Identities: Characters as Moving Targets," SFF Lit Track), and we got started a bit late. Gotta say, cramming all of Miéville's oeuvre into ten minutes, AND saying something interesting about it? Not as easy as it sounds. I don't feel it was the strongest presentation I've ever given, that's for sure. I was first, and most of the questions focused on the 3rd presenters. But oh well.
Left there, met back up with
unknownbinaries, checked out of the hotel, took the last of the stuff to the car, and went to make our goodbyes to everyone, and do "one last run" of things. This took us FOUR HOURS, and had us encountering people Multiple times. It was at this point that Ted Naifeh complimented me on my suit. That was pretty awesome. After that we encountered stupid_drawings, which was awesome.Didn't see NEARLY enough of Widgett and the Needcoffee.com family, but that means doing more over the year until next Con.
People I've seen this weekend, in too many different contexts to remember: Drew, my co-worker from the cheese job; Anje, Seth, and his brother Colin; Ms Bots, SpecsOcelot, Parson, Sarah, Bill,
jaythebarbarian, Pete, Ean, James D, and many more.People I never saw included Jaym Gates,
wyldkyss, jerem_morrow's friend Trevor Collins (was really looking forward to talking to him), Noel, and others. I'm really sorry to have missed these folks. Then there were the Numerous famous people I'd intended to bother. Katee Sackhoff, Colin Ferguson, Misha Collins, Frakes, LeVar Burton, and so on.In summation, this was not the Best con I've ever been to, and it certainly wasn't the Worst I've ever been to, but it Certainly was memorable, and a whole lot of fun. Also? It makes me bewilderingly happy that James Urbaniak and Lucky Yates A) met each other B) this Dragon*Con & C) got along really well. That is FANTASTIC. As James said, "World Peace!"
I feel like we should sing a song or something. Can anybody think of one?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 01:25 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njYCiBzhmSk
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 03:18 am (UTC)I managed to miss a HUGE number of friends and acquaintances this year.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 03:54 am (UTC)It was great seeing you guys. You actually remained the only non-ARTC people I ran into all 'con.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 06:44 am (UTC)That is REALLY WEIRD, but I'm glad we ran into you, at all :)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 02:09 pm (UTC)Maybe we can hang out for more than 30 mins sometime soon. We can talk of things and stuff, over coffee
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 05:57 pm (UTC)Also hopefully the weather wont be so miserable and humid when we do.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 06:04 pm (UTC)