Australia! In which Saturday arrives, and Seanan twitches a lot.: seanan

Australia! In which Saturday arrives, and Seanan twitches a lot.

Saturday continued the "early comes the dawn" trend, with Jeanne and I both out of bed by seven. Jennifer and Jeff didn't murder us for our sins against the sleeping, and that's probably a sign that they're in line for sainthood. (Then again, we didn't murder them for snoring, so maybe the scales are just nicely balanced.) This was already shaping up to be my busy day, and just got busier once we got to the convention center and discovered that my three o'clock panel had been moved to noon. Yay for the fluidity of time!

(Footnote: Originally, I was supposed to be on the eleven o'clock panel about female superheroes. For some reason, it wasn't printed on my badge, and I wound up not attending, since once the convention starts, my back-of-badge panel list is about the only thing that can make me change directions. While this was deeply disappointing at the time, all recountings of the panel have made me glad to have missed it, as I might have killed someone. Hint: telling me that there is no sexism in comics is a good way to get your head bitten off. I am a vermicious knid when provoked.)

The time-shifted panel was that glorious old standby, "What Is Filk?", and consisted of me, Bill Sutton, Kathleen Sloan, and Terence Chua. If you want a bunch of people to talk about filk and the definitions of same for an hour, well, you could do one hell of a lot worse. It was a lot of fun, watching all the local filkers realize that no, really, They Are Not Alone. We are filk. We are legion, yo.

I went literally straight from my panel-on-filk into an hour-long two-person panel with Paul Cornell, titled "Fringe: Paranormal Investigations in SF Television." I adore Paul. I adore geeking madly with Paul. And I adore paranormal investigations in science-fiction television. This panel was like the delicious chocolate bonbon of my weekend, and the only way it could have been better is if Jeanne had delivered a ham, cheese, and tomato croissant to me at the panel's end.

Oh. Wait. BEST PANEL EVER.

My signing was scheduled for four, right after Cat's signing. I went over and kept her company for a while, until her line began to form and she was occupied by her fans. Ah, the trials of stardom. Or something. Her signing ended, mine began, and I signed a bunch of stuff (as one does), while inking during pauses between people. Someday, this damn mermaid will be finished.

The AussieCon V filk concert was arranged a lot like the UK Filkcon Main Concert: everyone piled into a single room and performed two or three songs during the multi-hour slot. Kathleen Sloan was my stunt guitarist, and we went on after (among other people) the Suttons, Terence, and Nan Freeman. NO PRESSURE. I performed my own "Wicked Girls," and Vixy and Tony's "Burn It Down," both of which went over very well, before running to get changed for dinner.

Dinner! It was me, Jay and Shannon, Daniel and Kelly, and two people whose names sadly escape me right now (I'm sorry!). We went to a very nice place attached to the casino attached to the hotels attached to the mall, where we spent several hours chatting, enjoying decadently good food, and, in my case, eating a big bowl of bugs. Bay lobster! It's delicious! And looks like a horrible cross between a lobster and a trilobite, which made it EXTRA DELICIOUS.

There was some unpleasantness about the service, but Daniel was able to resolve it with a minimum of fuss, and we all decamped back to the Hilton to resume Barcon. While there, I got to meet Ellen Kushner, and tell her that she's a big part of why I write urban fantasy now. Also, there were cocktails. Which made it easier for me to actually fall asleep when I finally made it back to my hotel, since, well...

Saturday night. That meant it was almost time for the Hugos.

I did not sleep through the night.

tsgeisel

September 30 2010, 19:38:36 UTC 6 years ago

New comment

Ooh...I'm on tenderhooks[1] waiting for how this all comes out. I sure hope you don't die in the end.

[1] Tenderhooks are like tenterhooks, but not nearly as painful.

seanan_mcguire

October 1 2010, 14:41:30 UTC 6 years ago

Hee.

keristor

September 30 2010, 20:02:46 UTC 6 years ago

Trilobites FTW! You seem to have had a very large number of people whose names start with J, out of all statistical proportion *g*.

October 1 2010, 14:41:49 UTC 6 years ago

It's impressive, isn't it?

Jay has a hat knit with trilobites on it.

kippurbird

September 30 2010, 20:09:50 UTC 6 years ago

Did you happen to meet an Australian author there by the name of Katie Taylor? She wrote a trilogy that came out last/this year about Griffins.

October 1 2010, 14:41:58 UTC 6 years ago

I don't believe so...

herefox

September 30 2010, 20:37:10 UTC 6 years ago

One of my favorite moments of LA World Con was breaking Ellen Kushner with a tshirt I was wearing. She's very, very nice!

I can't wait to hear the Hugo's portion of the story! Are there going to be any pictures of the bed full of tiara, btw?

October 1 2010, 14:42:13 UTC 6 years ago

I didn't have a camera with me, so I don't know.

6 years ago

saffronrose

September 30 2010, 23:05:18 UTC 6 years ago

In this country, you'd likely get crayfish or langustinos.
How about a bowl of any of the above, bay scallops and bay shrimp (except bay shrimp are too annoying to eat, being so tiny)?

October 1 2010, 14:42:35 UTC 6 years ago

I am a fan of all crustaceans. I'm easy that way.

gothicsparrow

September 30 2010, 23:18:23 UTC 6 years ago

I was happy the male panellist on the female superheroes panel didn't try to take over the panel to the point where

I nearly went to the Fringe panel, even though I've never seen an episode, because you and Paul Cornell, how much awesome can you fit in one panel? Filk won, and I ended up laughing so hard I cried at a song about lemmings. And wish I could remember the words to that greensleeves song.

October 1 2010, 14:42:53 UTC 6 years ago

Sounds like you had a fab time!

taraljc

October 1 2010, 02:04:24 UTC 6 years ago

I continue to be ridiculously pleased that you and Paul get on so well. Mainly because this makes the eventual Party Where Everyone I Know Is In One Big Room together more fun for all involved--even if said party ends up being, well, one I can't attend.

Also, I am jealous about Ellen Kushner, cos I'm pretty sure we've yet to meet IRL (unless one of the times I accidently thought she was Ellen Datlow counts).

October 1 2010, 14:43:18 UTC 6 years ago

See, that just means we need to have the PWEIKIIOBR in Chicago. All fixed!

hoppytoad79

October 1 2010, 03:03:43 UTC 6 years ago

Glad the blast-having continues unabated. Sunday's Lio comic featured a giant cephalopod (with screaming people in two tentacles, no less!) and I immediately thought of you.

dornbeast

October 1 2010, 04:17:11 UTC 6 years ago

Random thought on the icon: "That's nice, but all I wanted was dinner at a nice restaurant, and dancing at the Cobalt Club."

Deleted comment

October 1 2010, 14:44:19 UTC 6 years ago

...see, I seriously doubt that, given how amused most people are when either of us gets our teeth into a topic and starts going "gnar gnar gnar." We could probably debate the existence of edible American chocolates and have a full house.

October 3 2010, 10:48:57 UTC 6 years ago

I was seriously considering going to that, despite never having seen an episode of Fringe, just to see you and Seanan on a panel together.

Thought of you

fayanora

October 1 2010, 08:32:20 UTC 6 years ago

"a mythical beast, not seen for more than 160 years. A nocturnal animal that feeds on the rotten flesh of large mammals. A species active only during the winter months that reportedly emits a luminous glow from its large, orange head. What new horror is this?

It's a fly, the bone skipper Thyreophora cynophila, and it is back from the dead. Considered globally extinct until now, the first fly to be killed off by humans, the bone skipper was first described by an entomologist who found it on the carcass of a dog in 1798. Last seen in the 1840s, it has now been rediscovered by Daniel Martín-Vega and colleagues of the University of Alcalá in Madrid, Spain. "

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19359-zoologger-horror-fly-returns-from-the-dead.html