[SKRIVA] Loncon 3: Have Pork Pie, Will Travel (2)
- From: Ahrvid <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "novellmastarna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <novellmastarna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "sskak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <sskak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:35:16 +0200
Del 2 av min rapport från sf-världskongressen, Loncon 3, i London 14-18
augusti. Del 1 postades här i början av september. Jag har skrivit rapporterna
som delar av mitt lilla E-zine till det som kallas EAPA (en
E-fanzine-organisation - det går utmärkt att gå med, fråga mig!). EAPAs
oktobersändning är "öppen" och kan laddas ned som PDF här:
http://efanzines.com/eapa/eapa126.pdf (då kan ni se litet bilder också, och får
annat material). Missade ni del 1 av rapporten som kom i september-EAPA, som
dock är "sluten", fråga mig så kan jag skicka mitt septemberbidrag med
Loncon-rapporten 1. --AE
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HAVE PORK PIE, WILL TRAVEL
or
THE SWEDE THAT ONCE OR TWICE (PART II)
Part I of our story from Loncon 3 ended: ...it was less than an hour until The
Great Pork Pie Race, and I hadn't yet found organiser Jim Mowatt. Now the story
continues...
Saturday: There seemed not to be too much activity on the Fanac tent, where the
Great Pork Pie Race would take place. I rushed around (eg to the Green room) to
see if I could spot Jim M, without success. Smuzz (as he calls himself) who
would be presenter of the race turned up, though, and I started to consider an
improvised Pork Pie Race entry myself, in case there weren't too many. I had a
pork pie and I could travel, the approx 15 metres the race was about...
About 15 minutes before tha race Jim turned up, and I did see some people
preparing mechanical devices and stuff for the race. An audience also turned
up, maybe 40 people.
The race was on! Smuzz did a great job entertaining the audience and
presenting the entries. Kudos!
My notes from the race are a bit chaotic, but entries - half a dozen of them -
included:
* A rolling helmet, which hid a pork pie. Gravity powered.
* Another gravity powered entry, which had to try several times before reaching
the finishing line.
* A radio controlled lampshade (!).
* Some sort of electric powered centipede.
* A Meccano device, which launched the pork pie by letting a weight fall.
* And finally my entry. It went like this:
I stood in front of the microphone and explained that I would take a pork pie
to a "higher level" and started to eat the pie... The meaning of life of a pork
pie is to be eaten, I explained, so when it is eaten and in my stomach it isn't
really broken - it has reached fulfillment, the pork pie heaven and is more
porkepieish than ever. Eating a pork pie fast isn't easy, I tell you -. I was
near choking... And then I simply rolled across the floor, claiming that I just
imitated a wheel (which is a mechanical device).
What won't you do to entertain the audience. And the audience decided the
winner by votes. My entry wasn't particularly rewarded (it was mprovised), but
according to my notes Rob Jackson won with the Meccano set.
The Great Pork Pie Race was finished, and I was a bit relieved since it had
been my idea.I stayed around the Fanac tent a while and then went to a panel
about "Researching fans: Fan Studies and Fan History". It talked about among
other things Polish fandom, Sherlock Holmes fandom, Star Trek and "slash
fiction", costuming and some other things. Nothing about mimeographs, Walt
Willis and Roscoe! It seems academic fandom research hasn't really picked up
the basics of fandom. Costuming, Star Trek, fanfiction and all that is much
more recent (from the last 30 years or so), in a fandom that used to be about
fiction, writing (eg writing fanzines, letter hacking), scientific concepts,
space travel etc.
Talking about costuming, it was now time for the big masquerade. With my
press pass I got special seats, but they were a bit too far from the stage. I
won't review or comment the 30+ entries - if you do picture googling you can
probably find lots of pictures. I have nothing against a masquerade show,
as such, limited to a special event. It's nice to watch. What I have my doubts
about are people dressing up for the whole convention, but on Loncon I didn't
see too many costumers walking outside the masquerade. (I have been to cons
where 50% or more are dressed up. Also on Finncon/Animecons where 90% were
dressed in japanese inspired comics dresses!) I'm not too happy about "sewing
machine fandom" as I call it. Fandom is about ideas, writing, reading, not
about silly fashion.
After the fancy dress show I didn't attend more programming for Saturday,
because it was party time in the fan area. The Finns had their bidding party (I
tried some of their salmiak vodka, dark, almost black, salty) and also went to
other party tents, for instance the Americans who had a BarBQ (a long line!)
and another tent with limitless, it seemed, amounts of cider.
My notes (which becomes very erratic for Saturday night, so I mush have ahd a
good time!) say I spent some time talking with eg Curt Phillips, Dave Langford,
Greg Pickersgill and Andy Saywer. I have perhaps a second article in line for
the Foundation journal - my notes says "Contact Foundation",which I haven't
done yet... I also bumped into Janne & Mia, from the Gothenburg sf club named
Club Cosmos (Sweden's oldest active club, started on 1954, having it's 50th
anniversary this year) which was a big luck, because they were only there for
the Saturday.
The con closed around 2am and I was there every night until then, also on
Saturday.
Sunday: My notes from Sunday are suspiciously sparse, barely a page in my
little black notebook. Maybe I had a little of a hangover from Saturday? I
don't remember. I arrived to the Excel convention centre well after noon. The
first thing I did was to go to the Spaniards and start charging my mobile there
(they had a converter extension UK->EU socket) and then to a book release in
the fan lounge.
I went to several book releases. This one was about Francesco Verso's book
Livido which won the Odyssey Award in 2013 and seems to be about a degraded
future and a bit cyberpunk. See http://www.francescoverso.com/en/livido/ . My
notes say that the book is a bit fun and has inspiration from the Pirate Party
(the IT oriented party once founded in Sweden, and now existing in several
countries - in the last term we had the fan Amelia Andersdotter as Pirate Party
MEP in the European Parliament). Nice white wine.
After that was the panel about Arabic science fiction. The Arab world has a
long history when it comes to fantastic tales, eg from A Thousand and a Night.
I'm not sure how strong fantastic literature is now in the Arab world, due to
political and religious struggles, but Arab writers from the diaspora were also
in the panel. They didn't seem too satisfied with the sitution in the Arab
world. We only have to open a newspaper to understand why. Let's hope things
calm down.
Time to meet a Russian cosmonaut! The second biggest hall on the con was
almost full. His name is Leonid Popov and he spoke in Russian with
interpretation. He had made several space trips (eg to Salyut 6, the space
station that came before Mir) and claimed the International Space Station was
built "on request by the Russians - the US only wanted the space station
Alpha". I'm not sure that history is correct. America paid much more than
anyone else for the ISS, and Alpha was simply an earlier design turned down by
congress. But it is true that the Russians has contributed quite a lot to the
ISS and that the Soyuz rocket system presently is the only reliable transport
to it for humans. The US will get their new launcher ready around 2017.
About 15 different countries are involved in the ISS (Sweden too, through the
European Space Agency - our astronaut Christer Fuglesang has been there twice)
which is much bigger and heavier than the old Mir (40 metres, compared to 110
metres for ISS) .He didn't have many comments about the degrading relations
between the US and Russia. The Russians seem to want to disconnect from the
project in the future, while the Americans want to continue with ISS. Maybe the
Russians will seek cooperation with China, which has an ambitious space program.
"Fandom firsts", which followed, was an opportunity to let people tell about
their first fandom memories, or any memories from fandom. One mentioned how he
volunteered to be hypnotised on a con (which didn't work). Others talked about
early electronic fandom, the BBS:s and Fidonet (which I too had some experience
of from the late 80's, early 90's - before Internet took over). Other subjects
covered were meeting authors (Asimov, Zelzany, my notes say) and early
conventions (Lunacon, the earliest British cons from the late 30's, etc).
Sunday night was Hugo night. There's no point giving you a list of winners
(because they are around everywhere since long) but just a few notes. Hosts
were Justina Robson (who I earlier met on the local Confuse in Linköping, in
the 90's) and Geoff Ryman. They did an OK job. There were cheers when the Big
Robert Jordan Conspiracy failed, the attempt to bloc vote and through some
loophole give Jordan a novel Hugo for the entire Wheel of Time series.
Party time then later in the evening, as usual. American bidding parties,
the Finns on it again, the Germans, even the Japanese.
Monday: "The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspe (Abridged)" was the title of a very
funny Comedia Dell'Arte play, which would get the audience ROTFL if it wasn't
too crowded for it. Full of oneliners and physical humour. Highly recommended!
And it was for my part followed by a panel about Israeli sf. They talked a bit
about israeli genre films, especially horror films. There are Israeli films (or
TV series?) about vampires and time travel. There are a lot of Russian
immigrants in Israel, and they seem particularly keen to consume the fantastic
genres. Alternate history books are popular, for instance books relating to the
infected Israel-Palestine situation. Several of the israelis on the panel
seemed very worried about this situation, and weren't particularly hawkish.
I think it was after this panel I bumped into Barbara, who recognised me from
earlier Eastercons, two decades or so ago, and after squeezing my eyelids
together I think I recognised her too (except her name, which I had to read
from the badge - I'm terrible with connecting faces to names). She said she'd
have a small post-Loncon party on Tuesday night and invited me and gave adress,
Tube-station name etc. I'll come back to that.
The closing ceremony was already at 3pm (perhaps because some had flights to
catch?) and included for instance showing a short Loncon film and celebrating
Brian Aldiss, who was present and had his 89th birthday the very same day!
Brian got a huge standing ovation from the audience. He was there already
onLoncon 1 in 1957. There were appreciations for Iain Banks who couldn't be
present because of the Ultimate Stiffness (death). The GoHs were thanked, as
well as all the co-workers and gophers, and people from the next Worldcon,
Sasquan 2015, came on stage to present their con.
But the program had not ended. I split my time between a panel called "They
do it differently" about fandom around the world, where Ian Watson appeared in
a mask ("a convention is four people in a bar" he said), and a filksong musical
named "Before the Dawn" set in a medieval fantasy world. To my surprise,
Bridget Wilkinson (known for Fans Across the World) was in the musical. I
didn't know she did things like this. It wasn't too bad, but rather long. I
only saw maybe 1,5 hour out of the 3 hours they threatened us with.
Talked a little with Niels, Lise and Eddie from Denmark and learned that
Barcelona had been awarded the 2016 Eurocon (the nice people who helped me
charge my phone and computer). Imants B joined me and said that Harry Harrison
was of Latvian descent, having some relatives who left Latvia in 1914 - he has
constructed the Harrison family tree. Met Birgitta S from old Hallstafandom in
Sweden, who I hadn't seen for 30+ years. She hasn't been around in fandom for a
looong time, but I guess "once a fan, always a fan" applies. Archipelacon, on
the islands of Åland between Sweden and Finland in June next year, boosted over
300 members, which may have to do with getting GRR Martin as GoH. Also learned
there may be an "Iron Sky 2", the partially crowdfunded Finnish film with Nazis
on the moon, due to be ready 2016-17.
So the deaddogging. I hate this "blue" feeling when a con is winding down.
People begin to leave, many are tired (incl me), the party tents run low on
booze - it's all very sad. I mingled with among others Bhob, Lawrence, Bernard,
Roberto, Jonathan and Imants again The last program, filking in the Poisoned
Pigeons Circle, began at 10pm and we were all pushed out from Excel at 12pm, so
the convention wouldn't have to pay rent for another day.
Loncon 3 was over. It had been a very good con, with good programming, nice
people, parties every night and so on. I can't think of any major glitches, so
the concom should be glad and proud.
Tuesday: I spent most of the day in a couple of museums, the Victoria & Albert
Museum (which is about design, old household items, pottery, everyday life in
Olde England, etc - it resembles a bit the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, but is
much bigger) and especially the Science Museum, where I studied all kinds of
gizmos. I saw the Babbage Difference Machine again (built to his drawings in
modern times), the Enigma encryption machine, rockets, steam engines etc.
I had intended to go to the Natural History Museum too, but they had a new
exhibition (about dinosaurs, I think) which had created the worst of lines
outside - some 200 metres. I would have to spend to much of my limited time in
that line.
It showed that all of the museum people, as the museums closed around 6pm,
created the even worst of lines - outside the nearest underground station! I
had to queue outside on the street for almost 15 minutes just to get into the
station! Some say the Stockholm Tube may be crowded (only along the central
stations and in rush hour) but this was terrible.
The first two trains were packed, but I got on the third. I had to change
trains two times to get on the the line to Leytonstone for Barbara's party, a
for me unknown area North-est of London. It was of course difficult to find her
place, since I had never been ther. I had to ask directions in a supermarket,
where I also bought some cheap cider for the party. Finally found Barbara's
terrace house. Some people were there and more arrived later. If I got all the
names right there were, except me and Barbara, Mary, Anna G (from Sweden),
Alex, Edward, Bernard, Tess, Oscar, Eya, Niel and Marcus,
about a dozen. Barbara made a vegetarian stew (which tasted good; I'm not
vegetarian and usually skeptic to such) and we had some wine and cider and
talked until about 12, about almost everything.
I remember for instance airing my skepticism against statistics, which I
think is easy to twist and lie with. I've read several books about how to cheat
with statistics, but a guy there who worked in a statistics office was of a
different opinion. I should mention that Barbara runs a very nice
bibliograpical site, listing sf/f works from other countries translated to
English. See
http://translatedsf.thierstein.net/tiki-index.php?page=Original+Languages - but
the listing of Swedish works is very limited, so I have begun research to make
it more complete. Around midnight I was offered me a mattress, so I wouldn't
have to go out hunting B&B's or something late, which I gladly accepted.
A nice little party. A fine way to take care of some of that post-con blues.
Wednesday: Left Barbara's place around 10, after some tea and sandwiches. My
bus to the airport would leave sometime after 2pm from Waterloo Station, which
is within walking distance from the Imperial War Museum - so I went there for
my third museum. It helps that in London, tax-financed museums have free entry.
Sometimes I thought that my so called Oyster Card for London Transport got
the wrong sums deducted, and I had to fill it up when I didn't expect it. But
checking my travel afterwards I concluded that it was the right sums. I paid
something like 13-14 quid for about three days of travelling (I didn't travel
the con days) which is cheaper than the Stockholm underground system. The
Oyster card is better than the Stockholm local transport "travel card". For
instance, you can fill your Oyster card with the exact sum needed (the
Stockholm card only accepts a minimum of 100 crowns) and you can get your money
back if you don't use the card - forget that for Stockholm card. Before leaving
London, I saw to it to get a five pound refund for the card deposit.
There was a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum too, about World War I,
so the line outside was ca 50 metres. But it went fast and I had plenty of time
to study the exhibitions. I thought the exhbit about a typical English family's
life during the Blitz was good, and also the things about special operations
(SOE, commandos etc) with strange spy and special equipment displayed.
But there was a lot to see and I unintentionally became a bit late. I had to
run to Waterloo and once there I couldn't find the bus stop, for this company
called EasyBus. I asked a bobby (British policeman) who directed me the right
way.
I made it to the bus with ca 2 minutes to spare. And shortly flew Norwegian
from Gatwick back to Stockholm-Arlanda.
--Ahrvid
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