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Saturday, we all actually got up when Beth's alarm rang at 10:30. I chowed down on meat, pate, cheese, bread, and fudge. After a bit of wandering, I joined agrumer for the GoH speech, and we were joined by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladymondegreen, akawil, and mnemex. Cool speech, and a lot of good questions asked afterwards, although we all forgot to ask what Tim Powers is currently working on.
Then, I went to Pitfalls for New GMs, which was a good panel because it was shaped to the audience -- in other words, you throw open the floor for questions, and you're going to get questions reflecting the audience's needs.
After that, I went to Fantasy Forensics. Tim Powers, who was on the panel, started taking notes about halfway through. Other panelists were Lisa Steele and Becky Shoenberg, moderated by Gordon Linzner. Werewolves and vampires were discussed, and one of the first questions was how one identified distinguishing characteristics of a werewolf attack on a human from a wolf attack.
Becky (who happens to be a veterinarian): Well, the fact that the wolf is attacking a human at all is suggestive right there.
After our favorite Creatures of the Night, we moved to elves. I forget which panelist said this: Okay, so we've got Legolas on a slab.
(This was followed by a brief pause while the audience laughed, drooled, or sighed, depending on tastes.)
After that, I went to the belly dancing workshop, which needed to be about 15 minutes longer. Then, I headed down to the Dealers' Room to get a better strap for my drum case. One of the dealers had many types of trim, and she inserted a piece into the pre-existing strap. By now, I'd met up with Beth and mnemex. Beth directed me to where she'd seem raw jet, something I'd been searching for. Turned out Ed Dragonslayer was selling it, so I bought a bunch.
By now, it was time for dinner. We'd decided to try to make a reservation for the hotel seafood restaurant, and when I called on Thursday, we agreed that we'd only do it if we could get a Friday 6 pm reservation. We did. We decided to forgo the multiple types of oysters and get a tuna tataki platter, a sweet rainbow trout dish, and a sea scallop dish with mushrooms, bacon, and artichokes. All three were excellent.
I managed to make a 7 pm panel on Women in Gaming. This one covered a wide range of topics, if, necessarily, shallowly. I chatted about it with agrumer and Beth afterwards. agrumer thought it might be time to retire the topic. I said that it might be when I stopped hearing contemporary horror stories -- male players' pcs rape female players' pcs, female larper not taken seriously when playing cross gender, a woman becoming one of the owners of NERO causing several men and a few women to leave the organization.
Horror stories aside, it was interesting to examine the boxes people put each other in, both in terms of gender and otherwise. I'd have liked to see a bit more of where the common ground is, and I'd have liked to hear answers from all of the panelists of my question, inspired by somethingnrivkis once said. To wit: What experience in a game (larp, online, tabletop, whatever) makes you say, "Yes. This is why I game." I asked that at the beginning of the panel, and folks agreed that it was a good question, especially in terms of finding common ground. As his closing statement, the one man on the panel said that what did it for him was watching his daughter have the spotlight in a larp, I think either NERO or NERO-esque. It would have been interesting to see what others said.
While, as I said, the panel didn't go deep, the width was interesting. Tabletops. What I consider regular larps. NERO. A brief mention of online gaming, where gender issues get really odd, especially as the game in question involved something called "Celestials", whose gender is in question to begin with.
And I did party crawling with, at different times, some combination of mnemex, agrumer, and Beth. And I did a bit more shopping.
Eventually, we got down to the filking. I explained about the overabundance of food we had, given that we did eat a restaurant meal, and offered folks roast beef, corned beef, and grape leaves. Tom Smith joked that this was the first filk he'd been to with a deli section.
I didn't do much singing -- I think just one song, fairly late. Partly, this was a combination of circle theme and lack of guitar, but part was that I was a bit blitzed.
We all crashed out at some point or other, and again, the alarm went off at 10:30. Everyone except me went to make 11 am panels. I rested and moved more slowly, making the 1 pm Urban Fantasy panel with Beth. Interesting stuff. John Bowker said that he wondered whether Urban Fantasy were dead, by which he didn't mean the fiction so much as the label / marketing category. While I like Urban Fantasy, if the label really is dead that way, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Urban Fantasy was written long before it was trendy, and will, I trust, be written after. I'd rather read it because it's what's in the writer's heart than because it's a formulaic attempt to cash in on a trend. I do admit that strong enough writing may mask the latter, though.
After that, Beth and I hooked up with mnemex. After one final game with the giant ice house pieces, we headed for the ice cream social, but decided to abandon the attempt to get ice cream after seeing the line. The line wasn't bad, really, but getting on it committed us to getting home probably 2 hours later than we did.
We hopped a cab, and it dropped us off at the bus stop, where a bus was waiting. Beth went to get tickets, and mnemex stowed harp and drum under the bus, it being a balmy 30-someodd degrees. I downed a dramamine, and took another in about an hour. This was supplemented with much brie and with peppermint. Seemed to do the trick.
We got off in New York, and went to a restaurant, getting duck, squid, pepper steak, and some other appetizer I'm forgetting. Then, Beth got on the subway, and mnemex and I hopped a cab home.
I think I need to look into better doumbek cases. The trip home was less agonizing, but shleping a drum is still a major production. That and the case is currently being held together with duct tape.
ladymondegreen, akawil, and mnemex. Cool speech, and a lot of good questions asked afterwards, although we all forgot to ask what Tim Powers is currently working on.Then, I went to Pitfalls for New GMs, which was a good panel because it was shaped to the audience -- in other words, you throw open the floor for questions, and you're going to get questions reflecting the audience's needs.
After that, I went to Fantasy Forensics. Tim Powers, who was on the panel, started taking notes about halfway through. Other panelists were Lisa Steele and Becky Shoenberg, moderated by Gordon Linzner. Werewolves and vampires were discussed, and one of the first questions was how one identified distinguishing characteristics of a werewolf attack on a human from a wolf attack.
Becky (who happens to be a veterinarian): Well, the fact that the wolf is attacking a human at all is suggestive right there.
After our favorite Creatures of the Night, we moved to elves. I forget which panelist said this: Okay, so we've got Legolas on a slab.
(This was followed by a brief pause while the audience laughed, drooled, or sighed, depending on tastes.)
After that, I went to the belly dancing workshop, which needed to be about 15 minutes longer. Then, I headed down to the Dealers' Room to get a better strap for my drum case. One of the dealers had many types of trim, and she inserted a piece into the pre-existing strap. By now, I'd met up with Beth and mnemex. Beth directed me to where she'd seem raw jet, something I'd been searching for. Turned out Ed Dragonslayer was selling it, so I bought a bunch.
By now, it was time for dinner. We'd decided to try to make a reservation for the hotel seafood restaurant, and when I called on Thursday, we agreed that we'd only do it if we could get a Friday 6 pm reservation. We did. We decided to forgo the multiple types of oysters and get a tuna tataki platter, a sweet rainbow trout dish, and a sea scallop dish with mushrooms, bacon, and artichokes. All three were excellent.
I managed to make a 7 pm panel on Women in Gaming. This one covered a wide range of topics, if, necessarily, shallowly. I chatted about it with agrumer and Beth afterwards. agrumer thought it might be time to retire the topic. I said that it might be when I stopped hearing contemporary horror stories -- male players' pcs rape female players' pcs, female larper not taken seriously when playing cross gender, a woman becoming one of the owners of NERO causing several men and a few women to leave the organization.
Horror stories aside, it was interesting to examine the boxes people put each other in, both in terms of gender and otherwise. I'd have liked to see a bit more of where the common ground is, and I'd have liked to hear answers from all of the panelists of my question, inspired by something
nrivkis once said. To wit: What experience in a game (larp, online, tabletop, whatever) makes you say, "Yes. This is why I game." I asked that at the beginning of the panel, and folks agreed that it was a good question, especially in terms of finding common ground. As his closing statement, the one man on the panel said that what did it for him was watching his daughter have the spotlight in a larp, I think either NERO or NERO-esque. It would have been interesting to see what others said.While, as I said, the panel didn't go deep, the width was interesting. Tabletops. What I consider regular larps. NERO. A brief mention of online gaming, where gender issues get really odd, especially as the game in question involved something called "Celestials", whose gender is in question to begin with.
And I did party crawling with, at different times, some combination of mnemex, agrumer, and Beth. And I did a bit more shopping.
Eventually, we got down to the filking. I explained about the overabundance of food we had, given that we did eat a restaurant meal, and offered folks roast beef, corned beef, and grape leaves. Tom Smith joked that this was the first filk he'd been to with a deli section.
I didn't do much singing -- I think just one song, fairly late. Partly, this was a combination of circle theme and lack of guitar, but part was that I was a bit blitzed.
We all crashed out at some point or other, and again, the alarm went off at 10:30. Everyone except me went to make 11 am panels. I rested and moved more slowly, making the 1 pm Urban Fantasy panel with Beth. Interesting stuff. John Bowker said that he wondered whether Urban Fantasy were dead, by which he didn't mean the fiction so much as the label / marketing category. While I like Urban Fantasy, if the label really is dead that way, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Urban Fantasy was written long before it was trendy, and will, I trust, be written after. I'd rather read it because it's what's in the writer's heart than because it's a formulaic attempt to cash in on a trend. I do admit that strong enough writing may mask the latter, though.
After that, Beth and I hooked up with mnemex. After one final game with the giant ice house pieces, we headed for the ice cream social, but decided to abandon the attempt to get ice cream after seeing the line. The line wasn't bad, really, but getting on it committed us to getting home probably 2 hours later than we did.
We hopped a cab, and it dropped us off at the bus stop, where a bus was waiting. Beth went to get tickets, and mnemex stowed harp and drum under the bus, it being a balmy 30-someodd degrees. I downed a dramamine, and took another in about an hour. This was supplemented with much brie and with peppermint. Seemed to do the trick.
We got off in New York, and went to a restaurant, getting duck, squid, pepper steak, and some other appetizer I'm forgetting. Then, Beth got on the subway, and mnemex and I hopped a cab home.
I think I need to look into better doumbek cases. The trip home was less agonizing, but shleping a drum is still a major production. That and the case is currently being held together with duct tape.