Nasfic, Day Two
Aug. 7th, 2007 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowOh, yes. The final event of Thursday was a bardic concert - basically, the performers took turns playing. It was scheduled for two hours, but I skipped the first for the "Dust Off This Name" panel. The performers included (among others) Mary Crowell and Blind Lemming Chiffon. I was much impressed with Mary's voice and stage presence; she vamped it up pretty well on a number of her songs. (I neglected to pick up one of her CDs, but ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
filkferengi tells me she has a website, so I'll order one. After my budget recovers....)
On to Friday!
The bus trip to the con was much less strenuous. Thanks to Filthy Pierre, I learned that taking the #19 to the Collinsville station and transferring to the #15 would deliver us right to the door of the convention center.
My first panel of the day was "My Trusty Steed", a discussion of the use of sentient animals in F/SF. The panelists included P. C. Hodgell and Laura Underwood; I bought one of Underwood's books on the strength of her part in the discussion. I was awake enough to offer one question, about the advantages of using animals to mirror and critique society (as opposed to the more traditional foreigners or aliens).
I took a brief look at a panel on "Is There Room in an SF Universe for God?", mainly because Gene Wolfe was one of the panelists, but the discussion didn't seem to be developing in an interesting direction, so I left after about ten minutes in favor of another raid on the Dealer's Room.
11:00 brought a panel on alternate history, the panelists including R. M. Meluch and John Dalmas. It was moderately interesting; there was a bit of controversy as to whether Naomi Novik's Temeraire series succeeded as alternate history. (That it succeeds as entertainment is not in question, but Mark Tiedemann was concerned by the fact that the longtime presence of intelligent dragons had had so little effect on human history prior to the events of the series.)
One of the best events I attended came at noon, in the form of a presentation on ethnomusicology by Sally Childs-Helton. She ranged over the role music has played in different cultures, its peculiar status in the present-day West, the differences between songs in tonal and intonational languages, and a variety of other topics. After the talk, I went up to raise another couple of questions, and we chatted for about fifteen minutes.
At 2:00, I attended a panel titled "One Trick Pony"; the program description read "Can an author get stuck in a rut with characters or does their audience force them into one?" Naturally enough, the panelists, including Laurell K. Hamilton and Elizabeth Moon, indignantly rejected any such notion, but there was a fairly lively discussion anyway. (Arthur Conan Doyle and Reichenbach Falls came up, naturally enough.)
The next panel was "Adapting Fiction to Film"; the panelists were Peter Beagle, his agent, and his lawyer.... It was quite interesting. (Many of my favorite panels involve just sitting there and listening to people expounding on something they know a lot about. The topic doesn't really matter much: biology, music, Hollywood, ancient Egypt - it's all good.) Beagle told a couple of stories about his experiences, including writing the scripts for Bakshi's version of LOTR. Yes, "scripts"; he wrote up the never-filmed second half as well, and there was a story behind that too.
The Kaffeklatch with Peter Beagle was at 4:00; I didn't say much, but just sat back and listened. Beagle reminisced about his college education, baseball, music, and a variety of other topics.
Another bardic concert was held at 5:00; this time Tom Smith took part. He's just a riot; I bought one of his CDs ("iTom 2.0: Transitions") later. (He signed it, too.) Mary Crowell was also there, and every bit as good as the first time. Blind Lemming Chiffon's voice hadn't impressed me at the first concert, but he seemed to have recovered by this time. (Still not an outstanding voice, but better.) When the concert ended at 7:00, I went to dinner withfilkferengi and mikebernardi at Zapata's again.
At 9:00 we all went to a concert by Wild Mercy. (Sally Childs-Helton is their drummer, by the way.) Very nice, a mix of traditional Celtic music and SFnal filk.
My last panel of the day was "Are Vampires Really Sociopathic Serial Killers?" The main topics covered included the development of the vampire myth (the innovations Stoker introduced, and recent changes associated with authors like Anne Rice and Laurell Hamilton), the nature of sociopathy, possible historical sources for vampire stories, and cross-cultural differences in vampire myths.
This time we went to Days Inn (wherefilkferengi was staying) to call our cab. They had a more traditional phone, and the transaction went off much more smoothly.
filkferengi tells me she has a website, so I'll order one. After my budget recovers....)On to Friday!
The bus trip to the con was much less strenuous. Thanks to Filthy Pierre, I learned that taking the #19 to the Collinsville station and transferring to the #15 would deliver us right to the door of the convention center.
My first panel of the day was "My Trusty Steed", a discussion of the use of sentient animals in F/SF. The panelists included P. C. Hodgell and Laura Underwood; I bought one of Underwood's books on the strength of her part in the discussion. I was awake enough to offer one question, about the advantages of using animals to mirror and critique society (as opposed to the more traditional foreigners or aliens).
I took a brief look at a panel on "Is There Room in an SF Universe for God?", mainly because Gene Wolfe was one of the panelists, but the discussion didn't seem to be developing in an interesting direction, so I left after about ten minutes in favor of another raid on the Dealer's Room.
11:00 brought a panel on alternate history, the panelists including R. M. Meluch and John Dalmas. It was moderately interesting; there was a bit of controversy as to whether Naomi Novik's Temeraire series succeeded as alternate history. (That it succeeds as entertainment is not in question, but Mark Tiedemann was concerned by the fact that the longtime presence of intelligent dragons had had so little effect on human history prior to the events of the series.)
One of the best events I attended came at noon, in the form of a presentation on ethnomusicology by Sally Childs-Helton. She ranged over the role music has played in different cultures, its peculiar status in the present-day West, the differences between songs in tonal and intonational languages, and a variety of other topics. After the talk, I went up to raise another couple of questions, and we chatted for about fifteen minutes.
At 2:00, I attended a panel titled "One Trick Pony"; the program description read "Can an author get stuck in a rut with characters or does their audience force them into one?" Naturally enough, the panelists, including Laurell K. Hamilton and Elizabeth Moon, indignantly rejected any such notion, but there was a fairly lively discussion anyway. (Arthur Conan Doyle and Reichenbach Falls came up, naturally enough.)
The next panel was "Adapting Fiction to Film"; the panelists were Peter Beagle, his agent, and his lawyer.... It was quite interesting. (Many of my favorite panels involve just sitting there and listening to people expounding on something they know a lot about. The topic doesn't really matter much: biology, music, Hollywood, ancient Egypt - it's all good.) Beagle told a couple of stories about his experiences, including writing the scripts for Bakshi's version of LOTR. Yes, "scripts"; he wrote up the never-filmed second half as well, and there was a story behind that too.
The Kaffeklatch with Peter Beagle was at 4:00; I didn't say much, but just sat back and listened. Beagle reminisced about his college education, baseball, music, and a variety of other topics.
Another bardic concert was held at 5:00; this time Tom Smith took part. He's just a riot; I bought one of his CDs ("iTom 2.0: Transitions") later. (He signed it, too.) Mary Crowell was also there, and every bit as good as the first time. Blind Lemming Chiffon's voice hadn't impressed me at the first concert, but he seemed to have recovered by this time. (Still not an outstanding voice, but better.) When the concert ended at 7:00, I went to dinner with
filkferengi and mikebernardi at Zapata's again.At 9:00 we all went to a concert by Wild Mercy. (Sally Childs-Helton is their drummer, by the way.) Very nice, a mix of traditional Celtic music and SFnal filk.
My last panel of the day was "Are Vampires Really Sociopathic Serial Killers?" The main topics covered included the development of the vampire myth (the innovations Stoker introduced, and recent changes associated with authors like Anne Rice and Laurell Hamilton), the nature of sociopathy, possible historical sources for vampire stories, and cross-cultural differences in vampire myths.
This time we went to Days Inn (where
filkferengi was staying) to call our cab. They had a more traditional phone, and the transaction went off much more smoothly.
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Date: 2007-08-13 02:22 am (UTC)You can get
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Date: 2007-08-13 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 05:26 pm (UTC)