WisCon Highlights and Observations Part 2 (My Epic Saturday Birthday Funtime)

[skogkatt]

I woke up on my birthday to a call from my mother. Aww, thanks, Madre! Then Sumana and I went down to the green room to prep for the Imaginary Book Club panel. I wasn't on it, but Sumana said Benjamin Rosenbaum had a video camera and they could use someone to run it. Since Sumana and I had conceived of this panel and brainstormed a lot of the stuff

Comments

[maverick_weirdo]

Did you get a chance to meet Kevin Wiley? (Sooj's partner) It turns out you two share a birthday.

[skogkatt]

I did not! I don't actually know Sooj at all, though it was lovely to hear her sing and play.

[asakiyume]

That's a great idea, having a lane for walking in and a lane for stopping and talking to people in!

I like your earring haiku a lot.

And wow, what a busy, interesting con!

[skogkatt]

The lanes thing was really cool. I liked it a lot and wondered why I had never seen it at other cons.

The haiku Earring Party was a really fun thing generally. Everyone in that room seemed happy to be there, being creative and all. There were so many haiku slips on the table where Elise was sitting! Just all around excellent.

[sartorias]

Sounds wonderful!

And your mom is awesome.

[skogkatt]

My mom thinks you are awesome, too!

[ckd]

You didn't tell the story of how we acquired two additional people at lunch!

As for your erroneous belief that I know everybody: both Sunny (mentioned in your previous recap) and Liz were on my Monday panel, and I had not met either of them before then. I submit that this disproves the hypothesis....

[aedifica]

But you know them now! Clearly you knew everyone *except them* before, and now you know everybody. :-)

[skogkatt]

Spoken like someone who knows ckd!

[skogkatt]

Hee! Always trying to deny the inevitable.

[ekaterin24]

WisCon sounds simply fantastic! I do love the excellent conversations one can get into at cons. And diversity is wonderful. I was pleased to see so many teens and twentysomethings at Balticon, as well as a moderate variety in other ways.

The "party floor" lanes are such an excellent idea! More cons should do that.

Autism is such a minefield. I only know a little, mostly about Asperger syndrome, but there's so much variety in the spectrum and in opinions on how to approach autism.

Love your earrings, and the haiku you wrote for them. Silliness is such fun to write!

[skogkatt]

It was really fantastic in a lot of different ways. *g*

I think one of the things about having panels on really tricky topics (like autism or rape or race or ... you get the idea) is that everyone needs clear guidelines for what and how things will be discussed in advance (both panelists and audience members), and panelist selection needs really careful attention. It's really hard to talk about some things, and I think that makes it especially important to try to do it, and to try to do it in ways that will end up being constructive rather than destructive. But how to ensure these things?