Long weekend

[lenora_rose]

Friday


I chose to go to a reading Jane Yolen was doing at the Millenium library, were I could also meet up with forodwaith for the first time in a while.

Jane Yolen read only one story, a short allegory about ghosts, souls, and Hitler. The rest of the time, she took question after question, mainly from the children in the audience. As one might expect of a lady who's been in writing, particularly for children, for decades, she handled herself extremely well, with quick pat answers to smart-aleck questions, serious and non-patronizing answers to most serious questions; it was fun watching her switch gears between them that fast and that smoothly.

Afterwards, forodwaith and I wandered up to the Exchange District, ostensibly so I could look a bit for gifts for tiene and Brannie, though i really didn't feel like serious money-spending shopping so much as like browsing. The wind, i should say, was gusting up to 50 or 70 km, so this was periodically rather breathtaking, but we managed well enough. We also ended up at the Underground Cafe, where I think I ordered something other than a Sunburger for the first time ever (Okay, I've occasionally, when really hungry, ordered a cup of soup or a salad as well, so I have tried more of the menu than that, but I've never ordered their other sandwiches.) A very tasty spicy tuna, with a distinct taste of curry. We then walked back to Osborne to do more window shopping - I did end up buying a stick of wax for my shell-stamp, oops - but on the way there, we got caught across from a wide open and sand-filled parking lot just when the wind decided to gust. I managed to block my face enough to keep it out of my eye and my mouth, though i got enough in the ear, and it stung a little along my limbs.

The evening ended up confused; First stopping with Amy and _aura_ to discuss Amy's wedding plans and dresses, then we meant to make dinner plans, which changed three times before we all wound up back at abacchus and _aura_'s place to watch the Emperor's New Groove - new to senekal, but an old friend to most of the rest of us. With Colin joining us from the other direction entirely.



Saturday night I went to Prince Caspian with taleisin and Colin.



First impression was, this is a very good fantasy movie. Better than Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

It thoroughly rearranges the order in which the story is told from the book, but I'd expected that; Lewis's choice of order is complicated and a bit odd, and works sometimes to the detriment of the adventure itself. It also rearranges the actual order of events slightly, adds a battle (though one that, far from being an action set piece only, does a fair bit of revealing of character, and has consequences that drive the plot), and made what was previously a minor temptation scene (in which all the good guys successfully resist) both more explicit and considerably more dangerous to all concerned. In fact, in general, all possible sources of tension are made heavier and darker -- as is the mood. As are all the deaths. Part of this is that Prince Caspian, the book, is made rather lighter and easier than it should be, considering its subject matter of a bloody revolution against an oppressor, and in some places I did find myself thinking, "That was what Lewis should have been getting at, but only mentioned as even possible once."

The thing is, it still captures the story, if in a different shape, and in spite of the grimmer tone, the spirit is recognizeable from the book; it's the same spirit grown up. I'm not wholly sure it's a children's story -- there are more deaths, certainly, and no resurrections, though there is a minor miracle. this might take more explaining to younger kids, at least.

Oh, and Reepicheep is fabulous, both in performance and in visuals. Trufflehunter the badger, like the Beavers in the first movie, doesn't really move like an animal anymore, or seem shaped quite right. The mice do much better; perhaps because mice and rats are more inclined to stand on their hind legs, they looked less artificial that way, and when they dropped to all fours, which they did more often, they looked even better.

(In the realm of dangerous temptations: I also encountered Peg Kerr's "Bad place" directly for the first time - with Radcliffe, at least it's only Finno who thinks he's seriously hot. Oh, dear.)

(But rather better, while the events and characters are massively different, the mood is about right to keep me going in the Serpent Prince. Where I seem to have sprouted an extra character I may or may not need. Ack. And the problem with this being my token heterosexual male book; a not-insignificant female character, a healer, has yet to get named, because the men writing the story haven't thought to ask her. Grrrr. You'd think Ketan himself would know better.)



Yesterday I did a day pass to visit Keycon.



The first panel I went to was called "write what you know - and bluff", and was hosted by two small-press authors and a small press editor. They didn't say much that was egregiously wrong while I was present (The female writer came close to saying fantasy could be less researched and more invented, but before I had to scream in disgust and interrupt, she clarified that she meant how it was possible to extrapolate from research to develop the world.), but I still got the impression they were discussing at a level well below several internet discussions I've been in -- and not necessarily with people any more published than they or I, so I can't entirely attribute it to a lack of high level pros. The editor seemed to have the point of view I agreed with most, but he also said the least. I gave up on it when the male writer said that alien races pretty much have to be extrapolated from human cultures -- with an example of a race a pro writer invented that is basically the Japanese taken to extreme -- because how else do we relate to them? And the other two agreed without caveat. (The potential for this approach to support unconscious racism never seemed to occur to any of them, never mind that this is rather more debateable than they seemed to find it.)

Instead I saw the second half of a panel with Tanya Huff, Jane Yolen, and two people whose names I didn't catch for coming in late, but one of whom was clearly involved in film making, and the other with Canadian television production. The subject was meant to be film and tv adaptations in general, but they spent a great deal of time on Starship Troopers around when i came in, and all the things the movie did wrong, including the possibility it was meant for intentional parody of itself. They moved on briefly to insult Battlefield Earth, then went on to Bill C-10 for a lengthy stay (Bill C-10 is a tax bill, but it includes a clause that indicates the right of the government to refuse tax credits, a major way films are funded, to any Canadian film deemed inappropriate for the general public standards. In other words, ick.) A few more topics snuck in at the very tail; they could have easily gone over time, it seemed.

However, I went over to listen to Decadent Dave and Bill and Brenda Sutton do songs by Stan Rogers. Which was a very nice hour.

Next was Jane Yolen's Guest of Honour speech, which was interesting, though I recognized a few tidbits of repeat material from the question and answers at the Library. Also, I spent that, and some of the other panels, sketching out pieces of ideas for a pottery design.

I then took a break, mainly because I needed to walk a bit (and get some reasonably healthy calories in me) before sitting again, to visit the dealer's room (No pretty jewellery or other ephemera remotely in my price range, considering my price range right now is rock bottom, though I bought books on credit card.) and to go up and wander the consuites. In mid-afternoon, they were basically dead, but one suite was selling various soups for very cheap, so I had some carrot ginger soup, some pretzels, some actual carrot sticks, and, oops, a buttertart. The movie room was showing A Nightmare Before Christmas, which I've been meaning to watch again for a while, so even though it was already a third through, I stayed for the rest even though there'd been a panel I wanted to go to in the hour or so I was missing.

Back downstairs, I glanced in at the art auction, but while some of the art looked very nice, it also looked like it was most of the length of a hall away from me, and while they toured a piece around a bit while bidding happened, they rarely reached the back. I listened to enough of a science panel to know that even though the person talking seemed to know at least enough of his subject to talk, he was also too dry. I wandered until the next panel change and wound up at Heroes Have Heroes too, where four of the authors present and one artist all discussed their influences, the people they love to read, the people whose work they like to look at -- Jane Yolen and Dave Duncan (I think, my head was down staring at my sketches, so i was depending on voice and context) -- at least seemed to have done enough looking at galleries and art shows to have intelligent things to say to support David Mattingly in his art-based side. I was amused that it was Eric Flint who admitted one of his characters was directly ripped from Dorothy Dunnett, just because he wasn't the one I would have expected to say that. Tanya Huff talked about some of her very pragmatic commercial decisions made before writing a book, based on seeing what sold when she worked at a bookstore, which is a kind of influence, if not usually considered a heroic one. (This may sound off-putting to some, or like selling out, if you weren't listening to her on the spot - I got a very different impression, perhaps because she also talked about trying to make the best book she could of the kind she chose.)

Anyhow; old familiar lesson; the subjects of the most interesting panels I made it to weren't the most interesting subjects listed on the program, but the speakers were knowledgeable, and reasonably well spoken and seasoned.

Oh. Because I arrived pretty much right when panels that interested me were starting, I hadn't got a look at the art show yet. By the time I took my break, it was closed to prepare for the auction, but because the con had moved to being a four day con, they meant to reopen it after the auction pieces were picked up and paid for. I checked as the auction was underway, and was told they'd be ready probably by five-ish. After the influences panel, I checked again,a dn they said six - this time firm and official-like

After that, I ran into a friend who had errands, including dinner, to run, so I went and picked up fast food with him. On my return, i decided to sit in on the Weakest Chevron, the Stargate (Mostly SG-1) trivia contest that was about the only thing happening that late (Besides the Aurora dinner), zipped out to see if I could finally visit the art show, only to learn they had decided it wasn't worth it to reopen from 6 to 9, and were only going to do so the next day. Bleah. Returned to see the rest of the contest; for someone only to the end of season 4, I would have done better than you'd think at the trivia, and not because it didn't get harder as it went on. Some bits may stick in my head later as spoilers, but if I'd been worried about that, I wouldn't have been there.

All this, of course, fails to mention the various people I see rarely that I got to stop and visit with along the way, though these were numerous.

I went up to the consuites again, talked with a few people but mainly got a drink at the Blender that was exceedingly tasty.

After that point, the main things going on were musical. The first was the Luke Ski concert. This year's musician guest was not someone who could sit in on a filk room, though he wrote pop-culture and geek-culture parody songs, because many of them were rapped and all of them used a dj for background. VERY funny, though, and very skilled at his musical and comic timing, although I'm not sure the tidbits of costumes he added on along the way were wholly necessary for the comedy.

The filk room stayed quiet a while; Peggy O'Neill and Ky were the only actual musicians present for some time. Peggy used the lull to work on composing a song, mostly on fine-tuning the words, which was edifying in some ways. We were eventually joined by a multitude of others; those who sang or played, besides the three of us who started there, were the Suttons, Dave Clement, John Speelman, Tanya Huff, Bodi_kat, Sun_in_her-Hair, and one lady I didn't know. Overall, it was a pretty good group; although the fact that we started into silly animal songs was partly my fault even if totally out of character for me (I opened with "Frogs"). It segued into chickens exclusively, then into bad food songs (I added in the Mollys' "The Haggis", tune slightly tweaked when I realised I started in the wrong key to hit the high notes - d'oh! At least the adjustment seemed to work.) then scattered around, so I got to actually sign things more in my usual style. My breath control sucked, again (I nearly broke Vaskilintu, and I usually nail that one.), but I'm getting still better at improvising working harmonies. Dave and John seemed in good form - John did "the Seawall", from their Dandelion Wine days, and just about took my breath away. Bill Sutton mostly did comedic work in the evening, though he'd proved he could go full bore at the Stan Rogers afternoon show. Still, his parody version of Mattie Groves just about killed me (As well as poor Mattie). Tanya Huff had some pretty interesting material, entirely new to me - although, being able to see her lyric sheet sometimes spoiled some of the funny, so i didn't crack up, even if I grinned. ("You picked a fine time to leave me, Narsil"?!!?)

Much fun had, I was reluctant to go home when it all broke up, though it was three AM and I was getting ahrd pressed to see straight, I was so sleepy. I made it home just fine - a dead quiet walk, and the most worrisome thing I noticed was that Ghost Love Score didn't come up when i expected it on my MP3 Player.

The next few days will be work to go to, dirt to dig in the garden, plants and seeds to put down, and driver's handbooks to finish reading through. And, hopefully, versions of tiles to draw out in detail; this wont be a ceramics project I can just jump into, it needs yet more planning.