Notes from not-Salem

[bironic]

The Witching Hour made Yahoo! News this morning long enough for me to print the article and come back to find that the headline had disappeared. (Here it is from the Boston Globe website.) It's a surprisingly okay piece from the Associated Press, considering the tendency of journalists to poke fun at adult HP fans and events. It had the typical opening paragraph of "Potter fans descend on [name of city] to [wry phrasing of 'discuss the books']" followed by the list of three or four paper titles and the obligatory reference to costumes, and predictably neglected to put the conference in the context of those that have been held before, both here and internationally (other than HPEF's own Nimbus in 2003). But then he got into some statistics and quotes in the second half without adopting a condescending tone. Hooray!

The Witching Hour is the first HP conference I haven't attended since reading the series in 2003 just after Nimbus. It's closer to where I live than any that've been held so far or that are planned for the next two years. Diana and Phyllis are there, as is Nathalie in all her Snape glory, and Liz from Accio co-moderated a session on the Marauders. I've never been to Salem even though I lived in Boston for four years. And as catlily and I were discussing recently, I'm the kind of person who wants a 'complete' experience for my favorite fandoms -- see all episodes, read all books, ... attend all conferences. So it was difficult to make the decision not to go. It's also an ego thing; part of me is afraid that skipping the conference means I won't know what happened, networking will occur without me, and I'll be left behind while the fandom moves on. It must be a remnant of elementary and junior high school, the fear of being ignored, only here it's by something I care about. That's part of the reason I joined their editorial staff.

Regardless, the main deterrent was size. I'm comfortable in a small, slow- to medium-paced conference with only a few tracks so I can get to know people and attend a good chunk of the presentations. TWH's attendance was capped at 1,200 -- 1,200! and I thought 300 was pushing it -- and the master schedule lists 67 presentations, 31 panels, 38 rountables, 15 workshops, four or five keynotes, Quidditch, a Hallowe'en Ball, a scavenger hunt, film screenings and other assorted activities for something like 20 hours a day over 5 days. The whole thing seemed too *SQUEE* for my taste. I get the attraction of this kind of Potterfest, but then maybe it should be called a convention and not a conference. Apologies for descending into snobdom; I'm probably being derisive to make myself feel better for having stayed home. Let's see what Diana says about the atmosphere there before making judgments.

Also tipping the scales was the fact that registration opened a year in advance, if I remember correctly, and you definitely had to register separately for meals and keynote speeches and various events that are usually included in a conference package (I guess that helped keep the cost down), so by the time I figured out whether I'd be free this weekend, some of the events had sold out and most of the town's hotels were booked. I think they were all full as of late August when I tried for the free-registration prize at Fiction Alley.

One of the benefits of holding the conference in Salem is that they got Henry Jenkins to give a keynote speech. The article mentions a forthcoming book of his that sounds great: 'Converge Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide' (which may be mistitled; his CV calls it 'Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Intersect'). I'm wondering once again whether it's a good idea to solicit something from him for Distraction. He's quoted as saying that one of the exciting things about TWH was "the total fusion of fan and academic discussions [... in] a breaking down of the walls that hasn't occurred in many other places," so I'd like to think he'd be similarly enthused about our project.

Highlights of the non-Witchy weekend included apple picking and pie-making (and filling the ground floor with smoke, but that wasn't my fault), getting a penguin-shaped gourd and naming it Gordon Glutbutton, reattaching the gutter to our house in the pouring rain, picking up a Chinese evergreen a.k.a. aglaonema a.k.a. Leon's plant in The Professional for my poor empty cubicle shelves, getting up the skeletal Sebastian Roche site so the search engines can start indexing it while I finish filling the pages, washing ONE MILLION POUNDS of produce including the world's LARGEST HEAD OF BROCCOLI (honestly -- I stood by the sink holding it up and blinking at it, feeling like I'd shrunk or landed in a sci fi film), taking a stab at the MIT application, sending a fairly stupid email to my old thesis advisor asking for advice about getting a PhD in English, and seeing MirrorMask with synn and Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit with my dad and sister.

W&G rocked. Beat out Corpse Bride and kept on runnin', and I'm not saying that just because it was fun to reimagine some scenes as occurring between Voldemort and Lupin instead of Quartermain (Ralph Fiennes, you see) and the were-rabbit. According to a family photo in the opening credits, Gromit went to Dogwarts University. You know you've poisoned your sister's mind with HP when she laughs at that joke, and when you mutter "Professor Lupin?" or "This is not you, Remus; this is not your heart - I'll make out with you if I have to!" when the were-rabbit starts to transform ... and also when she says, completely unsolicited, glancing at the sticky, littered movie theater floor, "Garden shears, Moony, GARDEN SHEARS." There were bunnies tumbling serenely in a vacuum and a man attacked with Pansy Spray; what more can you ask?

Oh yes, and Steve said I should quit my job and write a book, because "even the shittiest fantasy novels sell thousands of copies, and you can do better than shitty." What does it say about my life that that's a tempting idea?

Comments

[musicisbelievng.livejournal.com]

i figured you'd call him gourdon.

and you forgot the part where you were choppin' broccoliiii

[bironic.livejournal.com]

well i did say i washed the broccolah-hah.

i considered gourdon but wasn't sure if that would be too tacky.

p.s. the professional quote was "no roots." with a russian accent.

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

"All comedians want to be a rock star because they're so cool. They always look like dogs wiping their butts on the driveway."

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Except Mick Jagger. He looks like Sirius Black. Or what Sirius Black would have looked like if he hadn't -- well, you know. Or perhaps what Sirius Black looks like on the other side of the you know. Although, considering Sirius Black's animagus form, I guess this quote could still apply.

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I always imagine Sirius with a little bit less in the way of mouth. At this point in his life, Jagger bears a startling resemblance to Margaret Thatcher, and I just really don't want to go there ...

[bironic.livejournal.com]

True, an overabundance of mouth (though not as bad as Steven Tyler). I meant more the way he moves around & commands the stage, the pout and the general attitude. For actual casting I'd go with what's-name, Josh Hartnett, if you've seen him in Virgin Suicides for example. But anyway.

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

Eh, John Hartnett isn't hard-edged enough. My personal preference would be for the bloke who played Annette Bening's son in "Being Julia," and I've put some pictures online for you to judge:

geocities.com/picklehead82/sirius.htm

[bironic.livejournal.com]

oh, damn. he's good.

[musicisbelievng.livejournal.com]

ahh. i knew you'd eventually remember the line.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It helped that she said it again today when she saw the plant. :)

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

The conference does sound rather overwhelming - I think it would have been difficult to relax and enjoy any of the panels, for fear of missing something else. DiscCon 2006 sounds like it might be on that scale, and I'm debating whether I want to go (next summer).

But now, you have contacts who go to the conferences you're obliged to miss, and can both report back to you and talk you (and Distraction) up to people there. While I understand the worry, I doubt the fandom is ever going to ignore you or pass you by.

However, you did NOT get me any Salem-made Lemon Gibralter and now must be punished. ;)

If you prefer small, intimate conventions and conferences, you should find something (Connotations) with an average of a few dozen attendees (Connotations) and only one track (Connotations) that encourages a laid-back style of interaction (Connotations) and that you could possibly attend next year with your sorely missed, currently expat friends (CONNOTATIONS) - oh, gosh, I think I may have come across something like that once, what could it have been (Connotations!), tip of my tongue...

W&G sounds like great fun. Also can't get over Gordon the gourd, possibly because Gordon Brown looks slightly gourd-like in a sexy way.

So, what's this about MIT?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, but fandom is a massive and many-splendoured thing, and moves on without any individual, like a glacier to a pebble, or more accurately, like an avalanche to a pine needle, or perhaps like a fresh lava flow to a wildflower ... Okay, enough with the nature similes.

I don't think Diana or Phyllis will be talking up Distraction, mostly because they don't know about it; or at least, I haven't told them about it. Although I'm going to have to break the news to Diana soon so I can borrow some of her style guide/citation expertise.

I'm dreadfully sorry about the Lemon Gibralter and if I knew what that was I'd offer to find you some.

So you think that a small conference in the north of England next October might be a good idea for your forlorn American buddy? Hmmm... Could be worth it just to hear slash talk with British accents as you detailed in your weekend review. Of course if that happens at your London Slashers meetings then I could just drop by anytime and soak it in, can't I?

I'll tell you about MIT in the letter, don't worry.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

(Out of lurkdom! Hi!) Yes, actually, that could be very helpful. How's Reading?