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seekingferretMy outgoing travel was easier than I expected, though I busted my suitcase shlepping it down the stairs from the El, so that is annoying.
Thursday I picked up some groceries, then grabbed my badge and started a shift as an Ops runner, which meant wandering around the con being a Visible Person on Staff and answering questions about where things are and seeing if any problems were cropping up. It also meant being Mask Police, about which I have complicated feelings, but nearly everyone I talked to had no problem putting a mask on when asked politely.
After that, I had a quick lunch and then did my first panel, which was the one about lab safety. I think it went well, we had a good mix of panelists with lots of stories about safety incidents, and we had an audience full of even more good stories they were happy to share.
Then I did another Ops shift, then caught the tail end of a panel about how to balance how much science belongs in an SFF story. Then I took an ebike up to North Chicago and picked up dinner from the southernmost kosher restaurant in Chicago, then headed back down and ate and then slept.
Friday morning I had an early Ops shift. I caught some of the business meeting, then had my second panel, on fanfic skills not related to writing, which was a little uneven but I think on the whole successful. My co-panelists were Foz Meadows and Seanan McGuire, so honestly I didn't really need to do the heavy lifting.
Then I ran my 5E D&D game "Carting Wars", inspired by the delightfully terrible reality TV show Shipping Wars, which I had a lot of fun doing. There's probably another post brewing about the style of rpg oneshot that Carting Wars and Zoo Adventure comprise, which I would like to see more of. One of the players afterward told me that he hadn't expected it to be fun when I first laid out the premise, but by the end he was totally into it, and I think indeed there is something extremely counterintuitive about adventures where logistics are the plot hooks, but it makes for a very satisfying convention game IMO.
Afterward I took a break from the con for awhile, then rejoined things for Friday night services (Nusach Arisia) followed by a kiddush organized by one of the attendees. I stayed there for a few hours shmoozing about Judaism and fandom before dinner and sleep.
Saturday I didn't have any program or ops responsibilities so I actually could enjoy the con. I went to the business meeting in the morning, then in the afternoon I camped out in the panel rooms for a while, for panels on Libraries in SFF, Hopepunk, and Silkpunk. After grabbing a quick dinner I then left the con and went to the Chicago Jazz Festival, free concerts in Millennium Park. I saw Carmen Lundy and then the first part of the William Parker Quintet's show. I actually saw William Parker play the Stone fifteen or so years ago, it was cool to see him again in a wildly different venue. I preferred the show at the Stone, though.
I returned to the con for trivia, which was brutally difficult in a fun and satisfying way- I got 36/90 and that only put me about six or seven questions off from the winner. Afterward I popped up to the party floors for the first time and talked to some people, but I wasn't super into it so I went back down to go to sleep. But people were playing SET in the hallway so I asked if I could jump in and we played a bunch of SET then instead. Every time we exhausted the deck I was like "Okay, I should go to sleep" and they were like "One more game?" Eventually I did manage to sleep.
Sunday was off the charts busy. I went to program ops at nine to print out crosswords, then co-ran the crossword meetup at 10. It was smaller than I'd hoped but a lot of fun, I solved Matt Gaffney and most of the Sunday Times, and we all talked as we solved about favorite puzzles and styles of clues and weird word things. I introduced someone to the Eggcorn database!
I ran down to the Fanzine lounge because they were doing WOOF collation and I for the first time decided to submit a contribution. More about that in another post. Then I went to the FFA meetup for about fifteen minutes before I had to go get ready for my second rpg.
I ran a Dungeon World game with the setting inspired by Piranesi's Carceri D'invenzione- not particularly by Susannah Clarke's take on the Carceri, just the artwork itself. The players were all new to Dungeon World new to Carceri and I am not so experienced as a Dungeon World DM, but I think it was well-suited and we had a good time. I had to prompt some players a bit to get them used to the Dungeon World style of taking ownership of your characters' actions, but every player got to have moments of badass and moments of struggle to overcome, so I feel good about it.
After my game, I only had half an hour before my last panel of the con, on Jewish Spaces in SFF. It wasn't a huge crowd but I think it was the panel where the conversation had the best and most satisfying flow and I was really glad to have the panel. I got to rant about my pet peeves about the MCU, everyone else got to rant about their pet peeves, it was a good time.
Then I got confused and went to my Ops shift an hour early, which was probably a good thing for Ops because prep for the lines to go into the Hugo Awards was starting and they needed all the help they could get. I'd originally intended to just work the before the Hugos line, but after surviving the chaos of that line situation I got sucked in and ended up watching the Hugos from Ops HQ and helping to direct people out of the Hugos as well. Afterward I was worn out and didn't do any of the post-Hugos stuff. But being in Ops for the Hugos was a fascinating perspective on the event and it was really rewarding. I've volunteered for cons before but never in such a public-facing way. It felt good to help people and be able to visibly see that their con experience was better for my help.
Monday I packed up and had a last Ops shift. As the con wound down, I headed over to the hotel near Midway I'm staying at while I take care of some business in Chicago tomorrow. I'm reading a bit of the latest Dresden Files book, I'm more into this one than I've been to recent past ones.
Scenes from a Worldcon
-I overheard a young woman, late teens or early twenties, holding her badge streaming down with ribbons and telling her friend "I don't know why, but for some reason these ribbons really solidify my geek cred." It was such a small moment but it delighted me. I know I bang on this almost every time I write a Worldcon post, but fuck "the greying of fandom" nonsense, what is delightful about Worldcon is so many people at so many different points in their fannish journey and we're all coming together to encourage each other to be our most authentic geek self.
-Seanan McGuire tells us she's read an advance copy of Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves and it is so good that it made her want to send birds to peck Novik's liver.
-I got to kick GOH Steven Barnes out of a panel room! Because he was running the previous program item before my crossword meetup and he'd run long and I needed the room, but still, I got to kick Steven Barnes out of a panel room and nobody can take that away from me.
-I want to mention this, even though I'm not entirely sure what it means. But wearing a yarmulke in Chicago, I got a lot more comments than I'm used to just walking on the street, mostly creepy philosemitism but also some legitimately nasty language. I've been to Chicago before without experiencing that, and certainly it's not like I don't sometimes encounter anti-semitism in New Jersey, but... it felt like a lot and it made me feel a little nervous.
But on the other hand, being at the con was a generally satisfying and enjoyable experience Jewishly, between the panel and the various Shabbos activities, so that balanced things out for me.
Thursday I picked up some groceries, then grabbed my badge and started a shift as an Ops runner, which meant wandering around the con being a Visible Person on Staff and answering questions about where things are and seeing if any problems were cropping up. It also meant being Mask Police, about which I have complicated feelings, but nearly everyone I talked to had no problem putting a mask on when asked politely.
After that, I had a quick lunch and then did my first panel, which was the one about lab safety. I think it went well, we had a good mix of panelists with lots of stories about safety incidents, and we had an audience full of even more good stories they were happy to share.
Then I did another Ops shift, then caught the tail end of a panel about how to balance how much science belongs in an SFF story. Then I took an ebike up to North Chicago and picked up dinner from the southernmost kosher restaurant in Chicago, then headed back down and ate and then slept.
Friday morning I had an early Ops shift. I caught some of the business meeting, then had my second panel, on fanfic skills not related to writing, which was a little uneven but I think on the whole successful. My co-panelists were Foz Meadows and Seanan McGuire, so honestly I didn't really need to do the heavy lifting.
Then I ran my 5E D&D game "Carting Wars", inspired by the delightfully terrible reality TV show Shipping Wars, which I had a lot of fun doing. There's probably another post brewing about the style of rpg oneshot that Carting Wars and Zoo Adventure comprise, which I would like to see more of. One of the players afterward told me that he hadn't expected it to be fun when I first laid out the premise, but by the end he was totally into it, and I think indeed there is something extremely counterintuitive about adventures where logistics are the plot hooks, but it makes for a very satisfying convention game IMO.
Afterward I took a break from the con for awhile, then rejoined things for Friday night services (Nusach Arisia) followed by a kiddush organized by one of the attendees. I stayed there for a few hours shmoozing about Judaism and fandom before dinner and sleep.
Saturday I didn't have any program or ops responsibilities so I actually could enjoy the con. I went to the business meeting in the morning, then in the afternoon I camped out in the panel rooms for a while, for panels on Libraries in SFF, Hopepunk, and Silkpunk. After grabbing a quick dinner I then left the con and went to the Chicago Jazz Festival, free concerts in Millennium Park. I saw Carmen Lundy and then the first part of the William Parker Quintet's show. I actually saw William Parker play the Stone fifteen or so years ago, it was cool to see him again in a wildly different venue. I preferred the show at the Stone, though.
I returned to the con for trivia, which was brutally difficult in a fun and satisfying way- I got 36/90 and that only put me about six or seven questions off from the winner. Afterward I popped up to the party floors for the first time and talked to some people, but I wasn't super into it so I went back down to go to sleep. But people were playing SET in the hallway so I asked if I could jump in and we played a bunch of SET then instead. Every time we exhausted the deck I was like "Okay, I should go to sleep" and they were like "One more game?" Eventually I did manage to sleep.
Sunday was off the charts busy. I went to program ops at nine to print out crosswords, then co-ran the crossword meetup at 10. It was smaller than I'd hoped but a lot of fun, I solved Matt Gaffney and most of the Sunday Times, and we all talked as we solved about favorite puzzles and styles of clues and weird word things. I introduced someone to the Eggcorn database!
I ran down to the Fanzine lounge because they were doing WOOF collation and I for the first time decided to submit a contribution. More about that in another post. Then I went to the FFA meetup for about fifteen minutes before I had to go get ready for my second rpg.
I ran a Dungeon World game with the setting inspired by Piranesi's Carceri D'invenzione- not particularly by Susannah Clarke's take on the Carceri, just the artwork itself. The players were all new to Dungeon World new to Carceri and I am not so experienced as a Dungeon World DM, but I think it was well-suited and we had a good time. I had to prompt some players a bit to get them used to the Dungeon World style of taking ownership of your characters' actions, but every player got to have moments of badass and moments of struggle to overcome, so I feel good about it.
After my game, I only had half an hour before my last panel of the con, on Jewish Spaces in SFF. It wasn't a huge crowd but I think it was the panel where the conversation had the best and most satisfying flow and I was really glad to have the panel. I got to rant about my pet peeves about the MCU, everyone else got to rant about their pet peeves, it was a good time.
Then I got confused and went to my Ops shift an hour early, which was probably a good thing for Ops because prep for the lines to go into the Hugo Awards was starting and they needed all the help they could get. I'd originally intended to just work the before the Hugos line, but after surviving the chaos of that line situation I got sucked in and ended up watching the Hugos from Ops HQ and helping to direct people out of the Hugos as well. Afterward I was worn out and didn't do any of the post-Hugos stuff. But being in Ops for the Hugos was a fascinating perspective on the event and it was really rewarding. I've volunteered for cons before but never in such a public-facing way. It felt good to help people and be able to visibly see that their con experience was better for my help.
Monday I packed up and had a last Ops shift. As the con wound down, I headed over to the hotel near Midway I'm staying at while I take care of some business in Chicago tomorrow. I'm reading a bit of the latest Dresden Files book, I'm more into this one than I've been to recent past ones.
Scenes from a Worldcon
-I overheard a young woman, late teens or early twenties, holding her badge streaming down with ribbons and telling her friend "I don't know why, but for some reason these ribbons really solidify my geek cred." It was such a small moment but it delighted me. I know I bang on this almost every time I write a Worldcon post, but fuck "the greying of fandom" nonsense, what is delightful about Worldcon is so many people at so many different points in their fannish journey and we're all coming together to encourage each other to be our most authentic geek self.
-Seanan McGuire tells us she's read an advance copy of Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves and it is so good that it made her want to send birds to peck Novik's liver.
-I got to kick GOH Steven Barnes out of a panel room! Because he was running the previous program item before my crossword meetup and he'd run long and I needed the room, but still, I got to kick Steven Barnes out of a panel room and nobody can take that away from me.
-I want to mention this, even though I'm not entirely sure what it means. But wearing a yarmulke in Chicago, I got a lot more comments than I'm used to just walking on the street, mostly creepy philosemitism but also some legitimately nasty language. I've been to Chicago before without experiencing that, and certainly it's not like I don't sometimes encounter anti-semitism in New Jersey, but... it felt like a lot and it made me feel a little nervous.
But on the other hand, being at the con was a generally satisfying and enjoyable experience Jewishly, between the panel and the various Shabbos activities, so that balanced things out for me.