Minicon Moments Slice 1 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series
In lieu of an actual con report, here's my Minicon Moment. One of them, anyway. Time and energy permitting, I may post others.
David Emerson was hosting the David Party in the Mpls in '73 Suite. There weren't enough party supplies to satisfy David's hosting sensibilities, so I call down to the Bridge, who quickly connect me to a Parties co-head who immediately helps out. "Meet me in the Parties prep room", says Shannon. I head down to the consuite.
Walking with me is Lenny Bailes. Lenny has been around fandom for quite some time; but while our circles overlap, this is the first time we've had a chance to talk. Naturally, we talk about Shockwave and Opening Ceremonies. I give him a tape of a previous OpCer. He starts talking about how much he appreciates that David Ossman came back this year, and how he's a big fan of Firesign Theater and has lots of tapes of their live broadcasts.
About this time the elevator reaches the second floor and the doors open to reveal... David Ossman. "David, Lenny, Lenny David", and before the intros are off the floor Lenny is bragging of his tape collection. Some of them, Ossman doesn't have.
Feeling pleased that a Connection has been made, I leave them talking while I go off to claim chips and soda.
Epilogue: Ossman was headed to the David Party for the David Photo. Pics probably up on DD-B's web site, if not mine, fairly soon.
Minicon Moments Slice 2 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series
Audio Guest of Honor Tom Lopez is a quiet guy. As the man behind "The Fourth Tower of Inverness", "Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe" and many others, his words are heard, but not his voice.
During rehearsals for Shockwave/Sound Affects, he gave gentle but firm directions, in a friendly but terse and business-like manner. He barely opened his mouth at Opening Ceremonies. When called on to speak as Guest of Honor, he just waved from the audience, and only said a few words during the Mark Time Awards.
Still, Minicon has a way of warming people up. He was having a good time, and feeling more and more comfortable.
At 6pm on Saturday, he was on a panel on SF Radio with David Ossman, Jerry Stearns and me. The panel had no defined moderator; I wasn't particularly worried about anyone except Tom. Ossman has a lot to say and Jerry can go on about a subject in which he's excited and Ghu knows it's hard to shut me up. I was concerned Tom couldn't get a word in edgewise. He didn't say much at first.
Not too far into the panel, we come to the subject of sound effects, and how tricky they can be for an audio designer. There's a famous example of a sound cue that reads, "The snow stops falling". Ossman talks for a bit and Jerry says a few words, and I say something, then turn to Tom and say, "How would you handle it?"
"Music", he replies at once, and procedes to give a very erudite and interesting answer. With only a bit more prompting from me and Jerry, Tom regaled us all with several fascinating tidbits and personal anecdotes.
By Closing Ceremones, all the other GoH's are tired. Happy, but terse. Except Tom, who was still on the rise. He gives a very nice and locquacious thank you.
Minicon melts another one!
Slice 3 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series.
Sunday, 2pm. Minicon Bridge.
The Bridge is Communications Central, where Operations meets and greets the public, and where people are told to go when they have problems, complaints and/or solutions. On the walls and balcony overlooking the North Tower Atrium, strings of blinking Christmas lights herald the location. Just outside the doors are the programming schedule on huge sheets of paper, now down to Sunday's events. Just inside is one lone Communications Officer, and farther back is Sharon Kahn, pounding out the final Bozo Bus Tribune. And another person pleading to the Comm Officer.
I wander in, collecting bits of information for Closing Ceremonies. The person is saying, -"I usually come to Minicon, but couldn't make it until today. Can I get a one-day membership and just look around?"- Alas, Registration is closed, we don't sell one-day memberships and no one else with authority is around. The Art Show is closing up, the Dealers Room has a few hours left, and Closing Ceremonies starts at 4. There just isn't that much official Minicon left. (There's two more days of partying, but that's another story.)
After listening for a bit, I make an Executive Decision. "I tell you what. I hereby grant you Special Dispensation to come to the last few hours and *audit* Minicon." I have no power to make such a dispensation, but I am Well Known around the con and figure I can bluster the guy in. But the Comm Officer feels empowered and does me one better. He hands the guy an Ops badge labeled "Agent". "Okay, you are now an Agent. Your *job* is to go to the function rooms and see if anyone's there."
According to Sharon, this was the second guy who had the same problem, and who had the same solution applied by the previous Comm Officer. While I don't want to make a habit of slipping people in at the last minute, until Registration makes a policy (and is available) for Sunday, what the heck. I don't want these people out on the streets.
Minicon Moments: Gopher Spam
Slice 4 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series.
The University of Minnesota's men's basketball team, the Gophers, had made it to the collegiate tournament's semi-final, known as the Final Four. This is a Big Deal for many people, of which I am not one. Their game with Kentucky was Saturday night.
After midnight, in the middle of the Snotty Elitest Smoking Music Party (or whatever they're calling it these days), Kathy Routliffe enters with a large tray of Spam Hors D'Oeurves. A *huge* amount of Spam, pineapple and cherries shish-kabobed on toothpicks. She works her way to the enter of the music circle to make an announcement.
-"To appease the major Gopher fans here, we're going to sacrifice some Spam"- (In the headiness of the news of the Gophers, her exact pronouncement escapes me.)
Several people commiserate, donating 151 proof rum. Setting the concoctions on fire, safely ensconsed on the aluminum tray, proves to be trickier than planned, but in a roomful of smokers enough matches and lighters emerge to finally get small blue flickering flames going. More for effect than cookery, but the sight is impressive. Eventually extinguishing the flames with a combination of vacuum and carbonated water, Kathy plays hostess and exuberantly steps over musicians and listeners to proffer her culinary creation.
(Which happened also to be the exact moment that Tom Doherty chose to wander down the hall from the Tor party and stick his head in. He wandered away with his distinctive Tom Doherty Puzzled Expression... pnh)
By the time she gets to me, she's really into it. But I have my doubts, and ask, "Is this kosher? Was the Spam killed painlessly?"
"Of course! AND hung upside down to allow the blood to drain."
"Great!", I say with feigned enthusiasm, taking one.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden is standing near enough to overhear. She wobbles a bit, but doesn't collapse. "I've lived in New York City long enough that I understood most of that."
Epilogue: In gastronomic terms, I'd have to describe the hors d'oeurve as "awful". Ah well, the loss is commemorated by the bitter herbs.
Prologue: The events described above occur soon after "DD-B and the Elevator", an as yet undramatized Minicon Moment.
Minicon Moments: A chance encounter
Slice 5 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series.
By the Friday after Minicon, things seem to have settled back to mundanity. I go to work, come back, post on Usenet. The Usual. I work 10 hours a day (two classes), four days a week. While I'd taken off Monday, the rest of the week went pretty much as usual. Friday begins a three-day weekend.
More-or-less as usual, I go over to the SuperAmerica to get a newspaper and eat at the Persian restaurant across the street. As I'm settling in, having ordered, out the window I spy Don Fitch. Not the usual.
Inviting him to join me, he confirms my guess: He's staying at Geri Sullivan's abode, and was out wandering the neighborhood. We have a pleasant lunch; I didn't see much of Don at the con, and it was nice to talk to him outside the swirling masses.
It starts raining; sprinkles at first. The waitress and I comment on how nice the weather is, pleased that it's rain and not snow. I didn't even wear a jacket. Don did. He's from LA.
"Oh yeah, for you people this is *spring* For me, this is the dead of winter."
I give him the remnants of a bus card and give other useful Getting Around Mpls advice. The rain lets up a little, and we both dash to our respective domociles.
Minicon Moments: DD-B & the Elevator
Slice 6 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series.
This was my Minicon to be Noble & Self-Sacrificing.
Nearly going out for Afghani food, a small dinner expedition decided to be low-energy and walk across the parking lot to the French restaurant in Minicon's overflow hotel, the Sofitel. The dinner was quite pleasant company and quite good food. My room was in the Sofitel, and I split off from the group after the meal.
Eventually returning to the Radisson, I check the updated Programming listing outside Programming Operations and head up to the 22nd floor, where a panel on the Internet was scheduled. Most of Minicon's elevator-crowding problems have been relieved by moving the Consuite from the 22nd floor to Poolside, but not, alas, all of them. I head up to the 2nd floor bank of elevators. Space is available on the one coming down. Savvy congoers know the elevators don't stop on the second floor on the way up, if they're full. The crowd getting on jokes about this. "You have to go down to go up." Even the Elevator Monitor, assigned to make sure people don't get packed in and break the elevators, acknowledges this strategy. We go down.
On the first floor, we're met with the wrathful figure of David Dyer-Bennet, one of my dinner mates, raising himself up to full height and wagging his finger, "End of the line. On the first floor, you MUST get off." He repeats this, sternly, several times.
No one moves. DD-B's Bene Gesserit voice fails him. Impasse. "Well," I think to myself, "he's on a panel. Panelists have precedence." I get out of the elevator. After several tense moments, and more finger wagging, DD-B gets on in the spot I vacated and he's away.
Teresa, one of the people left waiting, asks trepidatiously, "Is he always like that?"
"No, he was just in a hurry," I reassure her.
(Comparing notes afterward, DD-B describes his actions much more harshly. He doesn't apologize, but explains, "We had been waiting a long time. This was the fourth elevator we couldn't get on." In the time I'd gone up to my room and back down in the other hotel, the people on the first floor of the Radisson had been standing there.)
One problem had been addressed, but not the others. Teresa had to go and host the Tor Party. One woman had a baby carriage. These people were still waiting, with no end in sight. "Well," I think to myself, "party hosts are almost as important as panelists, perhaps moreso."
Glancing at the bank of indicator lights to determine which elevator is coming down next, I take the escalator back up to the 2nd floor. When the elevator comes, I block the door. "Excuse me, there are people down on the first floor who have been waiting a long time. Please take the next one." Fortunately, the mob is not very large and not at all unruly. Cally Soukop leading the non-revolt, iirc. The doors close on me and a somewhat stunned Elevator Monitor.
On the first floor, the faces on the weary fen light up. They thought I'd abandoned them, and now I was a hero. The woman with the carriage gives me a hug. "All in a day's work, ma'am", I think to myself.
The panel, with DD-B and Bruce Schneier, was in progress when I got there, so I didn't get a seat. I pick a piece of the wall to lean against, satisfied with my spot. All in a day's work.
NB: For those of you with a sequential bent, this slice occured between the SF & Radio panel in Slice 2 and the Gopher Spam in Slice 4.
Minicon Moments: Of Codpieces and Registration
Slice 7 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series (I should probably have titled these, "Notes Toward A Modular Minicon", and they'll probably be listed as such when I put them up on my web site.)
Saturday evening/Sunday morning, perhaps 4 or 5am. Forgive any memory lapses, such as leaving out people or time-binding late-comers into an earlier part of the morning.
I wander down to the Bridge (which isn't the Bridge) to find Karen Cooper, Sharon Kahn, Dean Gahlon, and Lydia Nickerson laughing hysterically. "Waddya know about codpieces, Dave?" gasps Karen, tears in her eyes.
"Hey, you're talking to a guy who wrote *dialog* for a codpiece."
This generates further hysteria, and was duly entered as a lino in the BBT. It took a while for me to figure out what they were going on about. It seems that one of the hall costumes, this year and last, was a pirate outfit with a _huge_ codpiece. Worn by a woman, no less, calling herself Hook. This had generated some commentary, which had been duly noted by the daily newsletter, the Bozo Bus Tribune, into which Sharon was typing while all this was going on.
Eventually, other people add their own humorous observations (such as Lydia's description of how the "Ask Dr. Mike" event acquired a whiteboard) while others come and go. (It was here DD-B and I compared notes: "Hey, you want to know what happened after you got on the elevator?" Geri Sullivan wanders in during this story, and has to wait until the next day to hear the beginning. But I digress.)
The hysteria dies down into general smoffing. There's been enough turnover in audience that Karen and Sharon retell their story, not particularly funny at all, alluded to in Karen's post "A salvation at Minicon". To make a VERY long story short (and putting my own interpretation on events):
Sharon had gone to the Registration Chair to find out reg. numbers to put in the BBT. Registration didn't have them. This annoyed Sharon, which annoyed Registration. Later, someone from Registration comes in to berate Sharon, but winds up venting spleen at Karen, who was sitting at the BBT keyboard innocent of the entire matter. Words were spoken and hackles raised. Minicon Co-Chair Cat Ocel zips in and, in a classic case of poor phraseology, forbids the BBT to print anything negative about Registration. Sharon is now struggling to put something in...
At this point, my flags get raised. It's one thing for the newsletter not to have daily attendence figures, but I need a final count for Closing Ceremonies. I slip into Noble & Self-Sacrificing Mode again. I try to assuage Karen, with limited results. I try making suggestions about what's in the BBT, with even more limited results. Sharon's editorial stays put, though I did take out the most inflamatory line in a piece on another topic. ( "In retrospect," said Sharon the next day, "I should have made those 'Letters to the Editor' and not Guest Editorials. Oh well.")
Diffuse sunlight from the atrium. Dean has successfully stayed up later each night of Minicon, much to his surprise. About 6:30, I head off to sleep.
Sundays I usually spend winding down the con and gearing up for Closing Ceremonies. This mostly involves quick conversations with people I meet by chance, prompting a few, making sure the Assasination of the MN-STF President happens and checking if they need my help, and generally making myself visible for people to give me last minute announcements. One of the things I always try to get is a warm body count for the con. An estimate or preliminary count is fine, but I need to announce a number. It's tradition; I've done this the previous 18 Minicons. Sometimes Registration is up to date, and gives me precise (if preliminary) count of Pre-registered, Non-Drinking, Children, At-The-Door and how many were actually here. Sometimes the numbers are more fuzzy.
I wander over to the Mpls in '73 Suite. Sitting there, alert but relaxed, is Minicon co-Chair Glenn Tenhoff. I hadn't realize he'd been promoted; that only happened a few days before the con. I congratulate him, and give him a Hero laminated badge, left over from Shockwave. I ask him to get me Registration numbers. He thinks this is a fine idea, and will work on it; in addition to saying a few words, which he doesn't think is so fine.
In a good mood, I wander, encountering Victor Raymond, next year's Co-Chair, and remind him he may want to say a few words. At the Bridge (which isn't the Bridge) I encounter the guy wanting to register on Sunday, as described earlier. Sharon is there, busily typing away, working on the last issue of the BBT. Her dungeon is only a little lower. I wander toward the Main Stage, where Closing Ceremonies will be. I check in with the Sales & Info table, to make sure that they're selling memberships to next year's con and at what price. They're closing at 5pm, when Closing Ceremonies is scheduled to end. They're more than happy to stay open another few minutes if we go long. Meandering back to a panel with Patrick, Victor and Steve Brust; they're interesting but I can only stay for a while.
Sauntering back toward the Main Stage, Glenn comes up and hands me a fragment of paper with a number on it. 3547. He asked Joyce Scrivener (former Chair of Registration) to ask Registration, and Kate had just given this to her and she had just given this to him. No indication of what this number actually means, but I take it to be a preliminary warm body count, and announce it as such on stage a few minutes later.
Idle Digression: So... how long did it take to get a number from Registration? Nineteen Minicon's worth of tradition? The months spent schmoozing and reminding people about Closing Ceremonies? Twelve hours from when I learned there might be a problem? Three hours from when I asked the co-Chair of the con? The two-minute conversation getting the number from Glen?
The twelve hour time span feels right. That's when I started being On Duty and had to Pay Attention. Not that I was being official (or even paying attention) the whole time, but that's when I started to pull things together. Anyway, returning to the narrative:
Back at the Bridge (which isn't the Bridge), Jeff Schalles is busily typing on the BBT computer. "I have Registration numbers for you."
"Oh great. _Now_ you have them, after I've printed it out and run off all the copies," he says, waving at a stack of yellow Sunday issues.
Oh well. I tried.
I then wandered off, to have dinner, look at the comet and talk about Pangea, but that's another Moment.
Minicon Moments: Opening Ceremonies and Shockwave
Slice 8 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series Notes Toward A Modular Minicon
Slice 8 started off as a much longer piece about Opening and Closing Ceremonies, but when that got too large and unwieldy I chomped it down to the smaller bits below. Hence 8.1.
Minicon Moments 8.1: Falling Off
Falling Off: East
At one point in Tom Davis' script, the narrator gets, um, replaced. David Ossman, reading the narrator, does a bit of business: He ostentatiously falls off stage left. Brian Westley, doing the sound effects, also falls over, so we can hear it on the tape.
Falling Off: West
After the announcements have been made and the GoH's introduced, I figure Jerry is going to go into the Mark Time Awards, which give me the opportunity to get a soda. I ostentatiously leap off stage right. And fail miserably. Tom Doherty had come onto the stage from that spot, and I thought there was something solid there. Alas, no. (At Closing Ceremonies, Patrick also leaps on from stage right, demonstrating that only those in the publishing biz have the keys to that entrance.) I limp off to the Green Room, amid questions from concerned friends. Nothing hurt but my pride.
Falling Off: North
The stage is set up with a row of chairs along the back, microphones and monitors along the front, and the only stairs off the center. Right at the very beginning of Opening Ceremonies, I'm sitting in one of the chairs, idly cutting holes in newspapers, waiting for the 'voice of god' tech people to announce me. From behind the curtains the plaintive voice of Neil Rest, as Dr. Whoopie, asks, "Can you move the chairs so I can get through?" We're on in seconds. "No, just go around the end." Opening Ceremonies starts, and one of the first things I do is introduce Dr. Whoopie. Neil gets around the chairs, does his Whoopie thing, and then looks at me wondering how to get off stage. I motion to the steps. He's used to sliding away behind a curtain, but we're not set up to do that. He doesn't fall off, but it was an unexpected exit.
Falling Off: South
Jerry's skit features a duel between two magicians. Near the end, one of them gets blown away. Kevin Swan, playing Ruckus, and I had worked out a bit of business where he gets blown backward, lands in one of the chairs and pulls his cap over his eyes. During the performance, I realize that I'm sitting in the wrong chair. I gently sidle over one spot just as Kevin flings himself backward, without looking, to land in the chair I'd just vacated. *whew*
Minicon Moments: Pangaea and Hale-Bopp
Slice 9 in a non-sequential, indeterminate series Notes Toward A Modular Minicon The last in the series from Minicon 32, and all of the ones I posted will be up on my web site, soon. If I don't get this written now, there'll be a whole 'nother Minicon to have Moments in. That means you don't get the story of Sushi in the Mpls in '73 Suite or any of the rest. Sparks for completing this one keep cropping up, as in an article in the 8/3/97 Star Tribune, and whole panicky reports of world-shattering asteroids…
Between the David Party (from Moment 1) and the radio panel (from Moment 2) I had the chance to actually go to some programming Saturday afternoon. Wandering into Ask Dr. Mike after it had started, I sat down in the back. John M. Ford, as Dr. Mike, was in rare form, answering tricky questions with an air of authority.
At one point, answering a question about computers, he wrote on flip chart, "RAM" and "ROM". Someone from the crowd yelled, "You're missing an 'M'!" Dr. Mike blinked twice and altered the chart to read "DavE RAM". How'd he know I was an Aries?
Finally, it was my turn. "Why did Pangaea break up?"
One blink. "Irreconcilable differences."
Unsatisfying. Humorous, as is his wont, but didn't allay my mounting uncertainty. The question hung over the rest of the event. Indeed, the question hung over all of Minicon.
Dark.
Palpable.
Foreboding.
Why -- oh why -- did Pangea break up? Would we ever know? *Could* we ever know?
The next day.
After a nice meal in good company at the TGIF Karen, Mike and Eileen and I emerge to a crowd of fen pointing upward. There, in plain view, is Hale-Bopp. Without binoculars or telescope, still a spectacular sight. We join the crowd and marvel for a moment, then head across the parking lot to the hotel. We point as we're walking, and in the hotel grab some people and drag them outside to look "over the constellation Embers" at the comet.
Sensawonda is a marvelous sensation at a science fiction convention.
Hotel rooms with a view of the comet had parties, and people shared binoculars. Not quite as good as outside, but on the 22nd floor you were that much closer to the experience.
Back in the Mpls in '73 Suite, more fen were dragged out. I serve as tour guide to Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein. A bit past peak visibility, but still awe-inspiring. The conversation turned to comets and asteroids and how the moon was created and… why did Pangaea break up?
Phyllis and Alex had thought about this a great deal, and knew the subject well. They, too, entertain the possibility that the moon was created when something Really Big hit the Earth. My favorite theory is that the moon is the splash after a cosmic collision. Alex's theory is that the rock of Pangaea is the remains of a large impact. "Now we're starting to get into Veilokovsky", warns Phyllis. "Granite. They never tell you what happened to the granite", growls Alex, describing the Earth's mantle opposite Pangaea.
And more importantly: Could it happen again? The question hung over all of Minicon.
Dark.
Palpable.
Foreboding.
People must be made aware! The public must be warned!
So we decide to make a movie about continental drift. The dangers and folly of humans coming to grips with the movement of techtonic plates. In true Hollywood fashion we explore the High Concept before committing resources.
"It's got to be a love story!"
"The bass has to shake people out of their seats!"
"It's got to have a really catchy one-word title!"
So, once the financing has been secured and we get the go-ahead from our backers, coming at an unspecified time to a theater near a fault line near you:
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