We're pretty sure Helsinki's in Finland
Aug. 22nd, 2015 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretAs promised, the next thing I did at Worldcon was go back to manning the audio theater room for a few hours. Over my two days at the con, I did that for a total of five hours and therefore listened or half-listened to six or seven audio stories. My favorite was probably "Waiting for a Window" by Frederick Greenhalgh, which turned a bunch of tropes about the creepy island nobody ever escapes from on their side.
After I was done with that, I bought myself a Sasquan shirt and some books in the dealer's room, and then poked my head into a panel where they were exquisite corpseing a story in one minute installments. It was an incredible amount of fun. Having a whole hour to tell the story gave it a hell of a lot of time for the story to get dynamic and weird, with ever-shifting character relationships and plot hooks. The resulting story had fairy tale elements, space opera elements, psychological realism elements, surrealist elements, and a lot more.
Then I got dinner and went to another story-improvising game, a 'SF Story Slam' where we generated some plot hook words from the audience and then had three minutes to write something inspired by the words. Age range of participants was from about 12 to about 70, those over 21 were encouraged to consume adult beverages in order to act more child-like, and everyone had a blast.
Every time I go to a print-SF oriented con I see people complain about how old the crowd is, compared to PAX or Dragoncon or AnimeWest or whatever. I really want to push back against these complaints. Not only is it not true that there are no younger people there- I have never had trouble finding people my own age at these conventions, and I've been coming to cons since I was in my early twenties and to print-SF events more generally since I was a teenager- but refuting the complaints that way is the wrong way to look at it.
At the dinner I went to with media staff the day before the con, the age range was from 20-something to 60-something, I would guess. The only things we had in common were that we loved science fiction and we were committed to giving back to the SFF community by volunteering at Worldcon. We had no trouble sustaining conversation throughout dinner on that basis. And I thought it was so affirming that the community ran the gamut that way. Among other things, it makes me feel like this is a community I won't outgrow. It makes me feel like as I grow older, I will be able to return to Worldcon again and again and have it feel, as it does now, like I am in some sense returning to my spiritual home. My Jewish communities are similarly age-longitudinal, and nobody sensible ever complains that there are too many old people in those communities.
In any case, sorry for the digression, but I wanted to say it somewhere. After the story slam, I met up withflamebyrd and we chatted for a few hours, and then she went to sleep and I went to the filk room, the highlight of which was hearing an amazing mashup of "Banned from Argo" and "Alice's Restaurant" performed. I had had this ridiculous idea that staying up all night would be easier than trying to grab a few hours of sleep before leaving at 4AM for my flight home, but after the filking dissipated around 1:15AM, I did end up managing about an hour of sleep.
And then I flew home, Spokane to Denver to Newark. I've been trying to catch up on the news from the con and particularly the business meeting. It looks like Popular Ratification failed. I have mixed feelings about this. I think it was a bad proposal, but I hope in a few years we can try again to get 1+1 ratification. And tomorrow they'll try to sort out EPH and 4/6, with the Hugo ceremony in the immediate rearview. Should be an exciting meeting, but with my sister's wedding occupying all of my attention tomorrow, I won't be able to keep much of an eye on it.
It was strange only being at the con for two days. Normally, I'm all frantic because there are always more things to do at a Worldcon than you can possibly manage, and you always have this sense that if you were elsewhere you'd be seeing something cooler. This time, when you'd think I'd be more frantic, I was actually way less frantic. This may be because I came in accepting that I'd be missing so much that I'd assimilated this fact more. It may also be because I've been to several Worldcons now and so I have a clearer idea of what is and isn't worth being frantic about. But in any case, I had a great time in the limited time I had at Worldcon, and now that word is out that Worldcon 75 will be in Helsinki, I am excited to figure out how to get to Helsinki.
After I was done with that, I bought myself a Sasquan shirt and some books in the dealer's room, and then poked my head into a panel where they were exquisite corpseing a story in one minute installments. It was an incredible amount of fun. Having a whole hour to tell the story gave it a hell of a lot of time for the story to get dynamic and weird, with ever-shifting character relationships and plot hooks. The resulting story had fairy tale elements, space opera elements, psychological realism elements, surrealist elements, and a lot more.
Then I got dinner and went to another story-improvising game, a 'SF Story Slam' where we generated some plot hook words from the audience and then had three minutes to write something inspired by the words. Age range of participants was from about 12 to about 70, those over 21 were encouraged to consume adult beverages in order to act more child-like, and everyone had a blast.
Every time I go to a print-SF oriented con I see people complain about how old the crowd is, compared to PAX or Dragoncon or AnimeWest or whatever. I really want to push back against these complaints. Not only is it not true that there are no younger people there- I have never had trouble finding people my own age at these conventions, and I've been coming to cons since I was in my early twenties and to print-SF events more generally since I was a teenager- but refuting the complaints that way is the wrong way to look at it.
At the dinner I went to with media staff the day before the con, the age range was from 20-something to 60-something, I would guess. The only things we had in common were that we loved science fiction and we were committed to giving back to the SFF community by volunteering at Worldcon. We had no trouble sustaining conversation throughout dinner on that basis. And I thought it was so affirming that the community ran the gamut that way. Among other things, it makes me feel like this is a community I won't outgrow. It makes me feel like as I grow older, I will be able to return to Worldcon again and again and have it feel, as it does now, like I am in some sense returning to my spiritual home. My Jewish communities are similarly age-longitudinal, and nobody sensible ever complains that there are too many old people in those communities.
In any case, sorry for the digression, but I wanted to say it somewhere. After the story slam, I met up with
flamebyrd and we chatted for a few hours, and then she went to sleep and I went to the filk room, the highlight of which was hearing an amazing mashup of "Banned from Argo" and "Alice's Restaurant" performed. I had had this ridiculous idea that staying up all night would be easier than trying to grab a few hours of sleep before leaving at 4AM for my flight home, but after the filking dissipated around 1:15AM, I did end up managing about an hour of sleep. And then I flew home, Spokane to Denver to Newark. I've been trying to catch up on the news from the con and particularly the business meeting. It looks like Popular Ratification failed. I have mixed feelings about this. I think it was a bad proposal, but I hope in a few years we can try again to get 1+1 ratification. And tomorrow they'll try to sort out EPH and 4/6, with the Hugo ceremony in the immediate rearview. Should be an exciting meeting, but with my sister's wedding occupying all of my attention tomorrow, I won't be able to keep much of an eye on it.
It was strange only being at the con for two days. Normally, I'm all frantic because there are always more things to do at a Worldcon than you can possibly manage, and you always have this sense that if you were elsewhere you'd be seeing something cooler. This time, when you'd think I'd be more frantic, I was actually way less frantic. This may be because I came in accepting that I'd be missing so much that I'd assimilated this fact more. It may also be because I've been to several Worldcons now and so I have a clearer idea of what is and isn't worth being frantic about. But in any case, I had a great time in the limited time I had at Worldcon, and now that word is out that Worldcon 75 will be in Helsinki, I am excited to figure out how to get to Helsinki.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-08-24 12:18 am (UTC)I had a very similar surprised reaction to my own lack of Fear Of Missing Something when I saw Sleep No More.