Readercon

[rushthatspeaks]

Days attended: 2 (Friday, Saturday)

Bookspoils:

The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Justine Larbalestier (I've read it, I liked it, it was on sale)
The Moon Pool, A. Merritt (ditto, ditto, even more on sale, all hail Wesleyan University Press)
Heroes and Villains, Angela Carter. (The novel of hers that I don't like and consequently didn't have, but it is silly not to be a completist when the book in question is a quarter)
The 13 Clocks, James Thurber (nice hardcover)
Fantasy: the 100 Best Books, James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock (The reference book that warped my childhood by introducing me to Angela Carter, William Hope Hodgson, and Vathek, and which has cost me a great deal of time and money over the years by pointing me in the direction of Marjorie Bowen)
Cthulhu Senryu, Nick Mamatas (yes, it is a collection of one hundred Lovecraftian haiku; yes, it is extremely funny)
my contributor's copy of Cabinet des Fees

Less than usual. Odd.

Persons encountered: too many to be accurately listed, but the highlights were getting to spend time with eredien and raxvulpine and nineweaving and sovay, in various combinations, and also an impressive dinner involving the above and yuki_onna and lesser_celery and yhlee and godlyperspectiv and several other wonderful people whose LJ names I have completely forgotten. And I shook hands with crowleycrow in passing and went to his reading from Endless Things, which has finally found a home with Small Beer Press (and there was much rejoicing).

And I got to thank Liz Hand for recommending John MacGregor's The Discovery of the Art of the Insane in the foreword to Mortal Love, because it is proving one of the most interesting reference books I have stumbled across in lo this many a year. She also recommends his monograph on Henry Darger, but the library doesn't seem to have it; must try Harvard.

And was extremely amused to run across my boss at the MFA talking with oracne in the ladies, upon which each discovered the other knew me. It is indeed a small world, or at least a small convention.

Events attended: many many many. The motif of the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition this year was "the clammy embrace of the hell-thing", which turned out to have been perpetrated by Lin Carter. I went to nineweaving's paper on Shakespearean language and fantasy, and Faye Ringel's paper on the Gothic in Australia and New Zealand, and I want to write both of those up later, for they were rich. I went to the Mythic/Jabberwocky group reading (eredien's first public reading-- congratulations!) and sovay's reading and the last five minutes of Rosemary Kirstein's because I was running late, and I went to the Rhysling awards and heard a great many good poets, and I went to the panel on libraries in fantastic fiction and the one called 'Towards a Taxonomical Nomenclature of the Fantastic', and then I went home and went to bed and failed to get up again until just recently.

I will write up panels later. It was a very good con. Readercon is I think my favorite out of all the conventions of any kind that I have been to, because it is genuinely focused on the things that interest me, and is also a kind of singularity point of intelligent conversation and really good used booksellers. I am glad it is so close to home that I can make it, and I look forward to many more of them.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

have you been to wiscon? It's far superior to readercon.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Me too.

Having you and your friends there was immensely rewarding: a renewal.

a kind of singularity point of intelligent conversation

Yes. Oh yes.

Nine

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Cthulhu Senryu, Nick Mamatas (yes, it is a collection of one hundred Lovecraftian haiku; yes, it is extremely funny)


Glad you got a giggle out of it!

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

Ah ha, there you are. I've got this link for you; I'm going to dump it in this incredibly off-topic location where you can collect it at your leisure. :D

Tantei Gakuen Q (Detective Academy Q) live-action drama special:
d-addicts torrent here
It's not fansubbed yet that I know of; the subtitle forum at d-addicts should have the softsubs if someone does a set in future.

(This is courtesy ttg, incidentally.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I went this year, in fact. I enjoyed it a lot, but I came home with a nasty cold that is *only now* starting to go away, so although I intend to go back, my associations are... not quite as good. ^_^

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Many thanks. It was good to see you, and I'm glad I could hear you give the paper, though I'm sorry I missed your reading. Which selection did you end up picking?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Of course, the question now is whether you're going to do another chapbook with the endpaper haikus from this one. I will freely admit that I went through the entire pile reading the endpaper haikus and was selective-- my copy discusses the applicability of 'The Rats in the Walls' to modern apartments, and I have read it very sternly to my cats.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

I've contemplated that, actually. It would be endlessly recursive, as that chapbook would also have endpaper senryu, etc...

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! *bounce* *bounce*

I am downloading it as I type.

Um, what does the abbreviation ttg mean? I haven't run across that one before.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't *have* to be endlessly recursive-- after three or four go-rounds you could simply copy the first book into the endpapers, and then wait for people to come up to you whimpering about some form of conspiracy theory.

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

Wug, sorry, I'm an idiot. ttg is timmonsgray is kickinpants. She'd mentioned this one in a post about TV shows, and I immediately thought of you. ^^

[kate_nepveu]

The 13 Clocks, James Thurber

Aagh. I am consumed with envy.