Balticon, Part III
As the con-rep goes rolling along...
Sunday was another early start, with UT's Childrens' Concert up to bat first. (After a quick run to Panera for brekkie!) UT invited me, along with
decadentdave, sexybass and sposter to join them. While the young-at-heart did, as usual, outnumber the actually young, there were still a good number of kids (about 7 or 8 by my count) in the room including this cute young music-lover who toddled up and jigged away right in front of us. I offered up Tom Paxton's "Marvelous Toy", the Berryman's "It's Better Than That", Echo's Children's "I Meant To Do That", and Duane Elms' "Don't Push That Button". Much fun was had.
Immediately following I was on the "Megastructures in SF" panel with Andrew Love, Richard Williams, and James Ross. We spent most of the panel talking about both low-earth-orbit and geosynchronous space elevators, and Dyson Spheres. I also brought up the Quadrail from Tim Zahn's Night Train to Rigel and it's sequel. Had an amusing back-and-forth with an audience member trying to identify a book that featured mega-tall skyscraper archologies with the contained society stratified by levels. From the initial descriptions it sounded like Robert Silverberg's The World Inside. I confirmed this by asking her if she remembered characters going from level to level having sex with other characters who were not their spouses. She did in fact remember that part of the story.
I suspect this was not what Mr. Silverberg was hoping his readers would most remember after reading his novel...
Back to Panera for lunch, went to ransom my stack of books from Larry Smith's table (Esther Friesner's Nobody's Prize, S.M. Stirling's In The Courts of the Crimson Kings, and Charles DeLint's Widdershins, then killed time until Connie Willis' talk/interview. The session was good, although the weekend caught up with me and I cat-napped in the middle of the proceedings.
Killed a little more time after the talk, then metthelongshot, katrinb and a well-behaved Robster for an enjoyable dinner at Jesse Wong's Kitchen. While the food was excellent, the service was perhaps a wee bit leisurely (compared to what I'm used to for Asian and pan-Asian places), so we got back just a bit late for sexybass and sposter's concert. (Though not more than about a song or two). Their concert and decadentdave's were both excellent. The concerts were followed by a literary-themed filk, hosted by UT. Thinking it would amuse partiallyclips and jannyblue, I pulled out my John Ringo-inspired "Postie Toasties". From what I could see, I was not incorrect in my thinking *grin*. There was much singing of Tolkein songs including gottafilk's filk debut with "Shire Lullaby" and partiallyclips ever-popular "Narsil" (the mere mention of which is guaranteed to cause an earworm. My brain's scrolling it now as I type.)
I must stop here to note I was surprised and delighted at the turnout for Balticon filk this year. Attendance had been off for several years, stemming at least in part from the move to Memorial Day (and into competition with Marcon, Media West, et al.) In some years we've been down to just three or four performers trading songs (with maybe a dozen or so listeners). I did know going in we were getting a "bounce"--I'd heardsodyera, howmandu, kyttn and a few other folks were coming in addition to the folks I'd signed up for concerts. I still didn't expect to fill *both* Salon E & F combined nearly to capacity, as we did Sunday night. I was quite impressed!
Of course this had its downside too...the circle got a bit unmanageable; at one point we ended up trying to manage a queue of performers--three or four at a time--and still were having trouble keeping some folks from jumping in out of turn. In retrospect I probably should have had a second room available--but of course not expecting to need one I didn't ask for it. (What I expected was an extension of last year when we had 5 performers and about two dozen listeners and overflowed one Salon--which is why I had the partition between E & F opened.) With all the good music going on (see UT's comments about Sassafrass & Rin), I pretty much settled into listener mode, sat back, and enjoyed the show.
Finally crashed about 3pm, though I understand the die-hards (especiallypartiallyclips and mrgoodwraith) kept things going for a decent while longer.
Oh yes...speaking of Randy, he joins me in having accomplished a rare feat--attending both Marcon and Balticon in a single weekend!! (In fact I think we're the *only* two to do so.) Randy actually out-did me...he drove from OH to MD; whereas I left the driving (or, more precisely, the flying) to Southwest.
One more post to go!
Sunday was another early start, with UT's Childrens' Concert up to bat first. (After a quick run to Panera for brekkie!) UT invited me, along with
decadentdave, sexybass and sposter to join them. While the young-at-heart did, as usual, outnumber the actually young, there were still a good number of kids (about 7 or 8 by my count) in the room including this cute young music-lover who toddled up and jigged away right in front of us. I offered up Tom Paxton's "Marvelous Toy", the Berryman's "It's Better Than That", Echo's Children's "I Meant To Do That", and Duane Elms' "Don't Push That Button". Much fun was had.Immediately following I was on the "Megastructures in SF" panel with Andrew Love, Richard Williams, and James Ross. We spent most of the panel talking about both low-earth-orbit and geosynchronous space elevators, and Dyson Spheres. I also brought up the Quadrail from Tim Zahn's Night Train to Rigel and it's sequel. Had an amusing back-and-forth with an audience member trying to identify a book that featured mega-tall skyscraper archologies with the contained society stratified by levels. From the initial descriptions it sounded like Robert Silverberg's The World Inside. I confirmed this by asking her if she remembered characters going from level to level having sex with other characters who were not their spouses. She did in fact remember that part of the story.
I suspect this was not what Mr. Silverberg was hoping his readers would most remember after reading his novel...
Back to Panera for lunch, went to ransom my stack of books from Larry Smith's table (Esther Friesner's Nobody's Prize, S.M. Stirling's In The Courts of the Crimson Kings, and Charles DeLint's Widdershins, then killed time until Connie Willis' talk/interview. The session was good, although the weekend caught up with me and I cat-napped in the middle of the proceedings.
Killed a little more time after the talk, then met
thelongshot, katrinb and a well-behaved Robster for an enjoyable dinner at Jesse Wong's Kitchen. While the food was excellent, the service was perhaps a wee bit leisurely (compared to what I'm used to for Asian and pan-Asian places), so we got back just a bit late for sexybass and sposter's concert. (Though not more than about a song or two). Their concert and decadentdave's were both excellent. The concerts were followed by a literary-themed filk, hosted by UT. Thinking it would amuse partiallyclips and jannyblue, I pulled out my John Ringo-inspired "Postie Toasties". From what I could see, I was not incorrect in my thinking *grin*. There was much singing of Tolkein songs including gottafilk's filk debut with "Shire Lullaby" and partiallyclips ever-popular "Narsil" (the mere mention of which is guaranteed to cause an earworm. My brain's scrolling it now as I type.)I must stop here to note I was surprised and delighted at the turnout for Balticon filk this year. Attendance had been off for several years, stemming at least in part from the move to Memorial Day (and into competition with Marcon, Media West, et al.) In some years we've been down to just three or four performers trading songs (with maybe a dozen or so listeners). I did know going in we were getting a "bounce"--I'd heard
sodyera, howmandu, kyttn and a few other folks were coming in addition to the folks I'd signed up for concerts. I still didn't expect to fill *both* Salon E & F combined nearly to capacity, as we did Sunday night. I was quite impressed!Of course this had its downside too...the circle got a bit unmanageable; at one point we ended up trying to manage a queue of performers--three or four at a time--and still were having trouble keeping some folks from jumping in out of turn. In retrospect I probably should have had a second room available--but of course not expecting to need one I didn't ask for it. (What I expected was an extension of last year when we had 5 performers and about two dozen listeners and overflowed one Salon--which is why I had the partition between E & F opened.) With all the good music going on (see UT's comments about Sassafrass & Rin), I pretty much settled into listener mode, sat back, and enjoyed the show.
Finally crashed about 3pm, though I understand the die-hards (especially
partiallyclips and mrgoodwraith) kept things going for a decent while longer.Oh yes...speaking of Randy, he joins me in having accomplished a rare feat--attending both Marcon and Balticon in a single weekend!! (In fact I think we're the *only* two to do so.) Randy actually out-did me...he drove from OH to MD; whereas I left the driving (or, more precisely, the flying) to Southwest.
One more post to go!
