ConTxt 2006
Only three weeks late, my
This was a strange con for me--usually when I go to cons it's either with the specific goal of taking part in scheduled activities and meeting new people or planning to just go hang out and party with friends, but the problem I had this time was that I was trying to do both those things at once and didn't feel like I got to do enough of either. Of course there's never enough time to do everything or see everyone at a con anyway, but--just to give one example--part of the fun for me is spontaneously going to meals with groups of fans I don't know or spend much time with, but one of my best friends in the world who I hadn't seen in over a year was visiting so of course that was going to be my priority... I still had a wonderful time, but as a result of being so overscheduled the only panel I ended up going to other than the ones I was moderating was 'Doctor Who: The Regeneration of Doctor Who as a Fandom' on Friday, which was fun because hey, it's my new (old) fandom, and every few minutes BYOB/Miss Pamela showed she was a brilliant leader by making sure we had the opportunity to talk about Captain Jack Harkness again.
Of the panels I was on, penknife has posted a report on the Care and Feeding of OT3s, which she was kind enough to help co-mod along with sanj, and one of the things we said we were going to do after the panel was make an OT3/trio/threesome recs post, which I've done here. I've created a del.icio.us page to keep track of all the links, although there are only a handful of my own personal recommendations there so far (my recommendations are marked with a star just to differentiate them from all the ones I hope other people will eventually contribute!).
I also did a publishing panel with an editor friend of mine, which you can find discussions of here, here, and here, although I would ask that people don't link this LJ or my or my co-mod's fannish identities to our professional ones. (If you have a work-related question, please just email me at my username at y a h o o and ask me first). I also wanted to correct something in the last article linked above, specifically where it says "the editor and agent said that e-publishing credits counted much in their particular businesses, in terms of persuading them to look at manuscripts", because that won't actually help you that much with me--it definitely won't hurt you either, but of course I can't speak for anyone else.
The last panel I did was the Academicization of Fandom (discussed in arallara's con report here, because if you know me at all you know I prefer to have other people write up reports on panels I was on and to not post anything myself unless I really have to). I wish I'd had more time to prepare for this panel, but I had lolaraincoat and cereta to co-mod which made all the difference (although I think I may have unintentionally insulted academics, Harry Potter fans, anime fans, and people who don't like to be generalized about over the course of the hour), and overall I'm glad the discussion took place because there is so much exciting stuff happening with the academic study of fandom now, and I hope that there will continue to be fruitful interaction between academia and fandom and more discussions along these lines in the future. I also need to take this opportunity to recommend the forthcoming book Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet because I promised to mention it in the panel, so of course I forgot.
The other book I would really encourage anyone who has an interest in the history of fandom to read is Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History 1967-1987 by Joan Marie Verba, available online in .pdf format here. My first experience of fandom was through the world of Star Trek and multimedia fanzines (which I initially discovered by reading the fan fiction chapter of Star Trek Lives!), so Verba's book is a more immediate reminder of my own history than it probably is for a lot of people... however, the best part for me was reading the descriptions of fannish debates over slash (p.22 & p. 30), types of criticism (literary vs. positive comments only, p. 24), pornography (p. 39), BNFs being inaccessible (p. 43), and the overall tone of the interaction (featuring a quote from Jean Lorrah asking “has anyone noticed that the quarrels in fandom are getting out of hand, people not speaking to each other, etc.?”, p. 36) and realizing that wow, I was three years old at the time, and yet none of these topics seems to have declined in popularity in the slightest over the past thirty years.
And, what con report would be complete without a mention of justacat's outfit at the Friday night disco party? There were pictures taken of us molesting a giant red and white inflatable rocket, but sadly these have not yet gone up on the (password-protected) con website. (Speaking of pictures, I also went on an impromptu date Thursday night that involved a lot of walking around downtown Silver Springs, and one of the landmarks I discovered was the disco turtle! I think there need to be more public works projects involving sculptures of disco animals).
Finally, during the party instead of vids there was a slideshow with lots of prettiness projected on two screens behind the dance floor, and I kept telling meri_oddities that I wanted to raid her hard drive for all of these pictures, so in the spirit of sharing I am putting up a zip file with all the pictures in my current screensaver rotation here for anyone who wants them (lots of images from my recent fandoms--some of them spoilery for Alias, BSG, Buffy, Doctor Who, Farscape, and various movies--along with Celebrities I Think Are Hot and other randomness... I've separated the images into worksafe and non-worksafe folders, but please keep in mind that my office is very liberal). Right-click and save!
29 days until Vividcon!
This was a strange con for me--usually when I go to cons it's either with the specific goal of taking part in scheduled activities and meeting new people or planning to just go hang out and party with friends, but the problem I had this time was that I was trying to do both those things at once and didn't feel like I got to do enough of either. Of course there's never enough time to do everything or see everyone at a con anyway, but--just to give one example--part of the fun for me is spontaneously going to meals with groups of fans I don't know or spend much time with, but one of my best friends in the world who I hadn't seen in over a year was visiting so of course that was going to be my priority... I still had a wonderful time, but as a result of being so overscheduled the only panel I ended up going to other than the ones I was moderating was 'Doctor Who: The Regeneration of Doctor Who as a Fandom' on Friday, which was fun because hey, it's my new (old) fandom, and every few minutes BYOB/Miss Pamela showed she was a brilliant leader by making sure we had the opportunity to talk about Captain Jack Harkness again.
Of the panels I was on, penknife has posted a report on the Care and Feeding of OT3s, which she was kind enough to help co-mod along with sanj, and one of the things we said we were going to do after the panel was make an OT3/trio/threesome recs post, which I've done here. I've created a del.icio.us page to keep track of all the links, although there are only a handful of my own personal recommendations there so far (my recommendations are marked with a star just to differentiate them from all the ones I hope other people will eventually contribute!).
I also did a publishing panel with an editor friend of mine, which you can find discussions of here, here, and here, although I would ask that people don't link this LJ or my or my co-mod's fannish identities to our professional ones. (If you have a work-related question, please just email me at my username at y a h o o and ask me first). I also wanted to correct something in the last article linked above, specifically where it says "the editor and agent said that e-publishing credits counted much in their particular businesses, in terms of persuading them to look at manuscripts", because that won't actually help you that much with me--it definitely won't hurt you either, but of course I can't speak for anyone else.
The last panel I did was the Academicization of Fandom (discussed in arallara's con report here, because if you know me at all you know I prefer to have other people write up reports on panels I was on and to not post anything myself unless I really have to). I wish I'd had more time to prepare for this panel, but I had lolaraincoat and cereta to co-mod which made all the difference (although I think I may have unintentionally insulted academics, Harry Potter fans, anime fans, and people who don't like to be generalized about over the course of the hour), and overall I'm glad the discussion took place because there is so much exciting stuff happening with the academic study of fandom now, and I hope that there will continue to be fruitful interaction between academia and fandom and more discussions along these lines in the future. I also need to take this opportunity to recommend the forthcoming book Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet because I promised to mention it in the panel, so of course I forgot.
The other book I would really encourage anyone who has an interest in the history of fandom to read is Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History 1967-1987 by Joan Marie Verba, available online in .pdf format here. My first experience of fandom was through the world of Star Trek and multimedia fanzines (which I initially discovered by reading the fan fiction chapter of Star Trek Lives!), so Verba's book is a more immediate reminder of my own history than it probably is for a lot of people... however, the best part for me was reading the descriptions of fannish debates over slash (p.22 & p. 30), types of criticism (literary vs. positive comments only, p. 24), pornography (p. 39), BNFs being inaccessible (p. 43), and the overall tone of the interaction (featuring a quote from Jean Lorrah asking “has anyone noticed that the quarrels in fandom are getting out of hand, people not speaking to each other, etc.?”, p. 36) and realizing that wow, I was three years old at the time, and yet none of these topics seems to have declined in popularity in the slightest over the past thirty years.
And, what con report would be complete without a mention of justacat's outfit at the Friday night disco party? There were pictures taken of us molesting a giant red and white inflatable rocket, but sadly these have not yet gone up on the (password-protected) con website. (Speaking of pictures, I also went on an impromptu date Thursday night that involved a lot of walking around downtown Silver Springs, and one of the landmarks I discovered was the disco turtle! I think there need to be more public works projects involving sculptures of disco animals).
Finally, during the party instead of vids there was a slideshow with lots of prettiness projected on two screens behind the dance floor, and I kept telling meri_oddities that I wanted to raid her hard drive for all of these pictures, so in the spirit of sharing I am putting up a zip file with all the pictures in my current screensaver rotation here for anyone who wants them (lots of images from my recent fandoms--some of them spoilery for Alias, BSG, Buffy, Doctor Who, Farscape, and various movies--along with Celebrities I Think Are Hot and other randomness... I've separated the images into worksafe and non-worksafe folders, but please keep in mind that my office is very liberal). Right-click and save!
29 days until Vividcon!