I'm back from Arisia
Jan. 19th, 2004 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasMostly good things -- a couple less good things.
Oh, because there actually ARE people on my friends list who WEREN'T at Arisia (I can tell, because there are a lot of undread messages on my friends list, and, while there WAS an Internet room, I assume that most folks wouldn't blog a whole lot while they were there), and some people might not even know what an "Arisia" is, it's the biggest science fiction convention in Boston. Well, except for this year, because Noreascon 4 is Worldcon this year, but that's an exception. Mostly, Arisia is the biggest con (meaning, "convention", not "con") around. Lots of fun, entirely fan-run, good stuff.
I'll start with the less good things, because it's a shorter list.
I lost my voice. My throat hurts. I ended up feeling wonky enough that I wasn't able to continue volunteering after I got 9 and a half hours of volunteering time, so I didn't earn a free membership for next year. Folks were willing to give me easy stuff to do and so on just to finish off the hours, but I decided I'd just feel better paying the thirty bucks for a membership for next year. I didn't want to take advantage.
I didn't get to many -- any -- panels this year, except I did stick my head in for the last 10 minutes of a panel on theremins, the electronic instrument that you play without touching. I didn't get to see ANY Tom Smith stuff. Not even one bit. I saw Tim Powers walking past me in the hall once, but I didn't get to any of his stuff, either.
I did get to see Eric Raymond a fair bit, but, well, I'm neither a hacker, nor a libertarian, so, while I have respect for his intelligence and skills, I'm not a rabid Eric Raymond Fan, like some people are.
Um. Context. "Tom Smith" is The World's Fastest Filker. He's one of the really incredible, funny musicians out there. "Tim Powers" is a fantasy author (here's a fan site someone wrote about him). The two books of his I've read, The Drawing of the Dark and The Anubis Gates are among my favorite fantasy novels. "Eric S. Raymond" is a hacker and libertarian -- and, frankly, he's managed to turn that into a job. His hobbies include finding the WORST concepts for programming languages ever developed, and writing compilers for them, advocating gun ownership, and advocating for open source software. They were three of the Guests of Honor at this year's Arisia.
Okay, that's really all the bad stuff. Let me go on with the rest of it.
I volunteered again this year, as part of Massage Den, which is something that Arisia started a couple years ago. Arisia is entirely run by volunteers who run themselves ragged, and, over the years, Arisia has done their best to sew up the raveled sleeve of care of the volunteers on the fly.
Volunteers are overworked, underslept, and poorly fed. So, the Green Room has hot food for people on panels and the Staff Den has hot food for staff members. If you're both on panels and on staff, you can eat either place. If you're on staff, they'll find you a reasonably comfortable place to park your carcass for five or eight reasonably quiet and dark hours, if you just ask for it. You can get a shower. And, three years ago, they decided that it'd be really good if they made SURE that you could get not only a backrub if you needed it, but a full-fledged massage.
That's what I do -- I'm part of Massage Den. Staff members can sign up for a real, live, full-fledged massage with a massage table and massage oil and everything. Plus, we occasionally go around to places where stress accumulates, like the Security office, Gopher Hole, and Ops, to give chair massages.
The only complaints I've ever heard about Massage Den is that maybe there aren't always quite enough massage tables to go around. We have slack time and all, but the problem is that, if you are on staff and you need a massage, there may only be one or two hours during the con that you could reasonably fit one in -- and if four people each pick the same hour, and there are only three tables, well, that can suck. But, in general, we're appriciated almost as much as hot food.
Mostly, it's a lot of fun to be part of Massage Den. I like helping people, I like making people feel better.
There are a couple downsides to it. One is that it's physically demanding, especially since most of us are amateurs. We've managed to all train ourselves well enough that we are actually really good at making people better, but we don't have the training in "How To Move So You Don't Wear Yourself Out As Quickly." Plus, if you've ever shaken hands with a professional massage therapist, you know that their hands are "Hulk" strong, while all of our hands are like "normal human" strong.
Another is that there are a few stinky people. In the three years I've been doing this, I think I've massaged only two really stinky people, but still, it's memorable. . .
Um, this is already behind a cut tag, so I can't put it behind a cut tag to warn people, but there was this one stinky guy. . . okay, we use this Biotone Massage Cream. It looks and feels a little like cold cream, but not as cold. It's like moisturizing lotion, but a little thicker, and it takes longer to rub into the skin. But it DOES rub into the skin, so it doesn't end up greasy. It's good stuff. Expensive as heck -- it's somewhere around a dollar an OUNCE -- but it's worth it. If, y'know, someone else is paying for it.
But, basically, it's like a lotion. So, I start massaging this guy. And the lotion I'm rubbing into his back turns BLACK.
Squick. But I don't show it, and I get a towel, wipe off the black stuff and my hands, and get more lotion (it's a pump dispenser, so I'm not sticking my hands into the lotion or anything), and continue the massage.
The third downside to massage den is one I hadn't really thought about, but it suddenly occured to me at one point: "Hmm. I've got my hands all over a sexy naked redheaded woman. And the ONLY form of enjoyment I'm getting out of this is the general sense of wellbeing I get from helping and healing another human being. This is just plain wrong. . . "
I mean, sure, if you DON'T think of things in that way, you probably shouldn't be doing massage den. But it's still a bit weird to notice.
Other than that: Friday night, there was a "Glories Of Steam" dance -- a Steampunk themed dance. They taught Victorian-style dances which Patri had made up for the occasion, and encouraged people to show up in Steampunk-type costumes. There were some nifty ones -- me, I just used it as an excuse to wear my Uncle Mel's tuxedo. It looks good on me. No, I don't have photos to post of it. I just showed up to pose and show off how cute I looked; I didn't dance. After I'd showed it off, I changed back onto my more normal clothes and, a couple hours later, tthere was a Dresden Dolls concert.
The opening act -- Molly Zenobia -- was pretty good, but it wasn't really the kind of music I was in the mood for right then -- dreamy, floating, almost trance-like sort of stuff. The Dolls were fun. . . demonstrating that they KNOW their audience, they opened with "Science Fiction/Double Feature" -- which I suppose only reinforces the comment that it wasn't fair to the people showing RHPS to schedule them up against the Dolls. . . they did a 45 minute set, then we dragged them back with an ovation and they did another 15 minutes. At the end of the set, the drummer yelled out, "Science fiction orgy in the Lexington room," which I think everybody thought was a cute joke. . . but the next morning, I was talking to Dave, our downstairs neighbor, and he showed me a bunch of things he'd just found in the Lexington room -- three dented and cracked drumsticks, and an Arisia badge with the name "Brian Viglione" (I suspect this artifact will truly annoy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marquisedea, who likes the Dolls, but hates Arisia with a passion). . . so we're rather upset at ourselves for not going to the Lexington room to hang out afterwards.
Saturday morning, I went to the art show, and saw Arthur Ganson's work. It's amazing stuff. I can't say enough good things about the stuff he makes. Technically, I guess, you'd call it "kinetic sculpture." But what it is, it's incredibly carefully engineered and constructed things with really cool emotional impacts.
Then I watched a bunch of Higgins Armory Sword Guild demos. I try to watch them every year, and they do the same things every year, but every year, it's a little bit different, a little better. They've learned a little more, studied something new.
The afternoon was working in the massage den, then in the evening, I went to the Masquerade -- the Costume Competition. Lots of nifty costumes. Only one Junior division entry -- but the girl, who I guess was about eight -- made her hobbit costume entirely by herself, except for the feet, for which she got some help from her parents with the gluing. She also got a Workmanship award from Susan de Guardiola, for the pipe she'd made for the costume. Who doesn't just give those awards out. She's supportive of young costumers, but she doesn't think that just handing out awards willy-nilly counts as support -- I've always gotten the impression that she thinks that young costumers would rather have a CHANCE to win an award that actually MEANS something, than be pretty much guaranteed to win something that, well, you're pretty much guaranteed to win. Brian Healey won Best in Show for his recreation of Gimli. I saw it close up. It's terrifyingly good. Like most of the things he does.
After that, we party-hopped for a bit, then went to the movie room to watch "Shaolin Soccer". That was hysterically funny, but, by that time, my throat was really hurting, and I couldn't laugh very well. . . .
Sunday, I watched another sword demo, from a different group, Autumn Tree Armored Combat Company, who have also been getting better year after year. Two years ago, they were basically nothing more than yahoos who strapped themselves into armor, then bashed each other with swords. Now, they are yahoos who study medieval combat manuals, and bash each other with swords well. Much better.
I went to the gaming room for a bit, and found an incredible game called X-Machina. It plays like a cross between Junkyard Wars and Apples To Apples. One player draws a card which is some sort of invention; everyone else has a hand of components. You put down a bunch of components, and then you take turns explaining how YOUR method is the best way to create this invention. (Actual quote from the game: "First, we take our particle accelerator and . . . wait, what were we building again? Oh, yeah, a laundry folding machine. We, um, blast the clothes into submicroscopic particles. Then we sort the particles into these 55 gallon drums and. . . " Yes, he won that hand.)
After that, I went to the Ice Cream Sunday -- the Sunday afternoon make-your-own-sundae social -- and, eventually, we came home. And then I wrote this post for the last four hours or so.
Oh, because there actually ARE people on my friends list who WEREN'T at Arisia (I can tell, because there are a lot of undread messages on my friends list, and, while there WAS an Internet room, I assume that most folks wouldn't blog a whole lot while they were there), and some people might not even know what an "Arisia" is, it's the biggest science fiction convention in Boston. Well, except for this year, because Noreascon 4 is Worldcon this year, but that's an exception. Mostly, Arisia is the biggest con (meaning, "convention", not "con") around. Lots of fun, entirely fan-run, good stuff.
I'll start with the less good things, because it's a shorter list.
I lost my voice. My throat hurts. I ended up feeling wonky enough that I wasn't able to continue volunteering after I got 9 and a half hours of volunteering time, so I didn't earn a free membership for next year. Folks were willing to give me easy stuff to do and so on just to finish off the hours, but I decided I'd just feel better paying the thirty bucks for a membership for next year. I didn't want to take advantage.
I didn't get to many -- any -- panels this year, except I did stick my head in for the last 10 minutes of a panel on theremins, the electronic instrument that you play without touching. I didn't get to see ANY Tom Smith stuff. Not even one bit. I saw Tim Powers walking past me in the hall once, but I didn't get to any of his stuff, either.
I did get to see Eric Raymond a fair bit, but, well, I'm neither a hacker, nor a libertarian, so, while I have respect for his intelligence and skills, I'm not a rabid Eric Raymond Fan, like some people are.
Um. Context. "Tom Smith" is The World's Fastest Filker. He's one of the really incredible, funny musicians out there. "Tim Powers" is a fantasy author (here's a fan site someone wrote about him). The two books of his I've read, The Drawing of the Dark and The Anubis Gates are among my favorite fantasy novels. "Eric S. Raymond" is a hacker and libertarian -- and, frankly, he's managed to turn that into a job. His hobbies include finding the WORST concepts for programming languages ever developed, and writing compilers for them, advocating gun ownership, and advocating for open source software. They were three of the Guests of Honor at this year's Arisia.
Okay, that's really all the bad stuff. Let me go on with the rest of it.
I volunteered again this year, as part of Massage Den, which is something that Arisia started a couple years ago. Arisia is entirely run by volunteers who run themselves ragged, and, over the years, Arisia has done their best to sew up the raveled sleeve of care of the volunteers on the fly.
Volunteers are overworked, underslept, and poorly fed. So, the Green Room has hot food for people on panels and the Staff Den has hot food for staff members. If you're both on panels and on staff, you can eat either place. If you're on staff, they'll find you a reasonably comfortable place to park your carcass for five or eight reasonably quiet and dark hours, if you just ask for it. You can get a shower. And, three years ago, they decided that it'd be really good if they made SURE that you could get not only a backrub if you needed it, but a full-fledged massage.
That's what I do -- I'm part of Massage Den. Staff members can sign up for a real, live, full-fledged massage with a massage table and massage oil and everything. Plus, we occasionally go around to places where stress accumulates, like the Security office, Gopher Hole, and Ops, to give chair massages.
The only complaints I've ever heard about Massage Den is that maybe there aren't always quite enough massage tables to go around. We have slack time and all, but the problem is that, if you are on staff and you need a massage, there may only be one or two hours during the con that you could reasonably fit one in -- and if four people each pick the same hour, and there are only three tables, well, that can suck. But, in general, we're appriciated almost as much as hot food.
Mostly, it's a lot of fun to be part of Massage Den. I like helping people, I like making people feel better.
There are a couple downsides to it. One is that it's physically demanding, especially since most of us are amateurs. We've managed to all train ourselves well enough that we are actually really good at making people better, but we don't have the training in "How To Move So You Don't Wear Yourself Out As Quickly." Plus, if you've ever shaken hands with a professional massage therapist, you know that their hands are "Hulk" strong, while all of our hands are like "normal human" strong.
Another is that there are a few stinky people. In the three years I've been doing this, I think I've massaged only two really stinky people, but still, it's memorable. . .
Um, this is already behind a cut tag, so I can't put it behind a cut tag to warn people, but there was this one stinky guy. . . okay, we use this Biotone Massage Cream. It looks and feels a little like cold cream, but not as cold. It's like moisturizing lotion, but a little thicker, and it takes longer to rub into the skin. But it DOES rub into the skin, so it doesn't end up greasy. It's good stuff. Expensive as heck -- it's somewhere around a dollar an OUNCE -- but it's worth it. If, y'know, someone else is paying for it.
But, basically, it's like a lotion. So, I start massaging this guy. And the lotion I'm rubbing into his back turns BLACK.
Squick. But I don't show it, and I get a towel, wipe off the black stuff and my hands, and get more lotion (it's a pump dispenser, so I'm not sticking my hands into the lotion or anything), and continue the massage.
The third downside to massage den is one I hadn't really thought about, but it suddenly occured to me at one point: "Hmm. I've got my hands all over a sexy naked redheaded woman. And the ONLY form of enjoyment I'm getting out of this is the general sense of wellbeing I get from helping and healing another human being. This is just plain wrong. . . "
I mean, sure, if you DON'T think of things in that way, you probably shouldn't be doing massage den. But it's still a bit weird to notice.
Other than that: Friday night, there was a "Glories Of Steam" dance -- a Steampunk themed dance. They taught Victorian-style dances which Patri had made up for the occasion, and encouraged people to show up in Steampunk-type costumes. There were some nifty ones -- me, I just used it as an excuse to wear my Uncle Mel's tuxedo. It looks good on me. No, I don't have photos to post of it. I just showed up to pose and show off how cute I looked; I didn't dance. After I'd showed it off, I changed back onto my more normal clothes and, a couple hours later, tthere was a Dresden Dolls concert.
The opening act -- Molly Zenobia -- was pretty good, but it wasn't really the kind of music I was in the mood for right then -- dreamy, floating, almost trance-like sort of stuff. The Dolls were fun. . . demonstrating that they KNOW their audience, they opened with "Science Fiction/Double Feature" -- which I suppose only reinforces the comment that it wasn't fair to the people showing RHPS to schedule them up against the Dolls. . . they did a 45 minute set, then we dragged them back with an ovation and they did another 15 minutes. At the end of the set, the drummer yelled out, "Science fiction orgy in the Lexington room," which I think everybody thought was a cute joke. . . but the next morning, I was talking to Dave, our downstairs neighbor, and he showed me a bunch of things he'd just found in the Lexington room -- three dented and cracked drumsticks, and an Arisia badge with the name "Brian Viglione" (I suspect this artifact will truly annoy
marquisedea, who likes the Dolls, but hates Arisia with a passion). . . so we're rather upset at ourselves for not going to the Lexington room to hang out afterwards.Saturday morning, I went to the art show, and saw Arthur Ganson's work. It's amazing stuff. I can't say enough good things about the stuff he makes. Technically, I guess, you'd call it "kinetic sculpture." But what it is, it's incredibly carefully engineered and constructed things with really cool emotional impacts.
Then I watched a bunch of Higgins Armory Sword Guild demos. I try to watch them every year, and they do the same things every year, but every year, it's a little bit different, a little better. They've learned a little more, studied something new.
The afternoon was working in the massage den, then in the evening, I went to the Masquerade -- the Costume Competition. Lots of nifty costumes. Only one Junior division entry -- but the girl, who I guess was about eight -- made her hobbit costume entirely by herself, except for the feet, for which she got some help from her parents with the gluing. She also got a Workmanship award from Susan de Guardiola, for the pipe she'd made for the costume. Who doesn't just give those awards out. She's supportive of young costumers, but she doesn't think that just handing out awards willy-nilly counts as support -- I've always gotten the impression that she thinks that young costumers would rather have a CHANCE to win an award that actually MEANS something, than be pretty much guaranteed to win something that, well, you're pretty much guaranteed to win. Brian Healey won Best in Show for his recreation of Gimli. I saw it close up. It's terrifyingly good. Like most of the things he does.
After that, we party-hopped for a bit, then went to the movie room to watch "Shaolin Soccer". That was hysterically funny, but, by that time, my throat was really hurting, and I couldn't laugh very well. . . .
Sunday, I watched another sword demo, from a different group, Autumn Tree Armored Combat Company, who have also been getting better year after year. Two years ago, they were basically nothing more than yahoos who strapped themselves into armor, then bashed each other with swords. Now, they are yahoos who study medieval combat manuals, and bash each other with swords well. Much better.
I went to the gaming room for a bit, and found an incredible game called X-Machina. It plays like a cross between Junkyard Wars and Apples To Apples. One player draws a card which is some sort of invention; everyone else has a hand of components. You put down a bunch of components, and then you take turns explaining how YOUR method is the best way to create this invention. (Actual quote from the game: "First, we take our particle accelerator and . . . wait, what were we building again? Oh, yeah, a laundry folding machine. We, um, blast the clothes into submicroscopic particles. Then we sort the particles into these 55 gallon drums and. . . " Yes, he won that hand.)
After that, I went to the Ice Cream Sunday -- the Sunday afternoon make-your-own-sundae social -- and, eventually, we came home. And then I wrote this post for the last four hours or so.
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Highland games and fantasy Renaissance faires
Date: 2004-01-19 11:28 am (UTC)As for Renaissance faires, we have one that is relatively local. Some of the merchandise sold is pretty cool, as they include handmade leather masks, feathery masks, Amy Brown art, cool leather armor (Blade, anyone), chainmail, and a local company that makes sarsaparilla sold in mugs or antique style bottles. The faire also annually presents one of the better armored performance groups, whose leader actually was involved with the 13th Warrior starring Antonio Banderas. I'm speaking of the Seattle Knights, who even include bugbears, elves, and other creatures. They joust, they fight, and are always the star performers.
Of course, the other reasons for not making it to the conventions include: 1) being out of town on business trips, 2) spending my weekends working on my yard, 3) spending my weekends unpacking. The one disadvantage to purchasing a brand new house (the builder had to finish the house before I moved in,) is that the yard needs a lot of work.