4'33"

So, Wiscon!

Yeah, everybody's been back from Wiscon for ages and done reporting and all that.

I went to Wiscon back at the end of May! And I had a lovely time. Well, once we recovered from the excitement of a flat tire eight or so miles out of Madison (you want adrenaline? Change a driver's side tire on the shoulder of a busy highway.) Which meant, once we got to the Concourse we got a couple of glasses of wine from the bar and collapsed in a heap in our room. Also, btw? The Concourse no longer serves cheese curds. What's up with that?!

Friday night I went to dinner with rachel_swirsky and Mike and countesslovlace and her Count and Young Count and Countess. We went to the tapas place, which I cannot remember the name of to save my life, but it was delicious. It is, in fact, the tapas place that has reminded me of the whole Wiscon Experience, because I've just eaten some cucumbers and onion in a very, very light vinaigrette that tasted very much like some of the food I had there and then I thought "Hey, Wiscon!" And just after that I realized we could probably do a pretty decent duplicate of one of the tapas that Paidhi Girl and I had--the guys were off at the Bratfest, and I said, "Let's go out to dinner, just you and me, you'll love this place," which she did. Anyway, we had this thing that involved very crusty toasted bread, with a whole anchovy and capers and onion and lettuce and this vinaigrette--and I just now told Paidhi Girl, we can probably make something like it! Here! At home! Really easily, too. And now I'm wondering if I can get together a whole tapas-type supper without too much work.

So, Wiscon was of course fabulous, I met all kinds of fantastic people who I only knew from reading their journals, or who I never knew at all before, and hung out with people I pretty much only ever see in person at Wiscon.

And? I dressed up. For me, anyway. I usually don't see much point in putting on more than jeans and t-shirt--who cares, at the grocery store or wherever, how I look? I mean, you know, within the obvious parameters. But people dress up at Wiscon. If they want to. So I had this red and white dress I decided to wear on Saturday. And it seemed like, from the moment I left the room, every other person I passed in the hall said, "Fabulous dress!" and it was so...so supporting. Validating, yes, but also...I mean, I love getting compliments, who doesn't? But it also said something about what Wiscon can be like, as a community, as an experience. I was already used to how friendly a gathering Wiscon is, how much random Wiscon members often give you a sense of...of being on the same team with you even if they've never met you before. But I'd never experienced this particular manifestation of it.

Sunday night I got in the elevator, and there was a lovely, very tall woman in a lovely black dress, and glitter all over her shoulders and I thought to myself, "Ooh, pretty! She must be going to the dessert salon." And then I remembered how fun it was to have people tell me my clothes were fabulous, so I did something I would never have done in a million years before, I said, "I love your glitter!" Because I did. And she smiled and we chatted a bit until we got to the floor.

And I got to thinking, just how powerful those little positive things can be. And I wonder how much of that I can bring away from Wiscon. I mean, to some extent, you know other Wiscon members are part of a community you're also part of, you've got a presumed reason to speak to anyone there, and a cheery "Love the shoes!" or whatever doesn't generally come off as presumptuous or creepy. In daily life, the openings for that sort of thing are perhaps fewer, but I wonder, maybe I should be looking for them more often. Little things like that, they make a difference in how your day goes, don't they.

Anyway. I spent more time hanging out with people than in panels, but I did get to the "Let's Build a World" panel which was seventeen kinds of awesome, and I told Paidhi Girl later that if I'd realized what it would be like I'd have made sure to bring her, because she'd have had a blast. I hope they have it next year, because I think she'll love it.

*****

So! I've also got a brief book review. I'm a terrible book reviewer, actually. I'm the sort of person who, if you ask me what a book is about, I'm liable to feel the only adequate answer is, well, the whole book. But that's not going to stop me, I guess.

So, recently I got a Sony E-Reader, because seriously, I wasn't going to sit in font of the computer and read the entire Hugo Voters' packet. And I'd recently seen mention of a book that sounded kind of intriguing, called Happy-Snak by Nicole Kimberling.

The main character is the proprietor of a fast-food joint on a space station. Okay, this intrigued me from the start. I've done time in the food-service mines, hell, a lot of us have, but somehow you don't often see much in the way of science-fictional food-service heroes. I mean, sure, you've got your bartenders all over the place, and of course Captain Underpants fought evil Lunch Ladies--but there, you see? They're the villains!

Anyway, that bit appealed to me straight off.

So, Gaia Jones runs Happy-Snak, as already mentioned, a snack joint on a space station. One day she comes to the aid of a dying alien, who asks her to protect him. She agrees to, mostly perfunctorily, but it turns out, as a result of the aliens' customs, once he dies she's saddled with guarding and appeasing the dead alien's ghost. This strikes me as an inherently intriguing setup. So I plunked down my five bucks and downloaded the bad boy.

Happy-Snak is not hard sf. Nor is it particularly challenging reading. And there are some issues with ideas not being thought quite all the way through--some of them economic, some of them cultural, some of them linguistic--these very, so very alien aliens have a language that can be simply and directly translated to English? And their homeworld has sharks and octopusses? And clams? Really?????, and so on. A few places, things only happen the way they do because no one (including--hell, especially--the main character) seems to have asked the really obviously pertinent questions. Or even thought about asking them.

And these are very Star Trek level aliens, more or less human-shaped beings with odd appendages and everyone keeps going around saying "They're sooooo alien!" when you know, not really.

But. The aliens are really very extremely charming. The story bumps right along, and while Obvious Thing was Obvious from more or less the start, I still had a pleasant time reading it, and would read more by this author if I found myself wanting to while away some stress-free hours under the pool umbrella. Which is really a pretty good value for five bucks, and sometimes that's all that's called for.

4'33"

So, Wiscon!

Yeah, everybody's been back from Wiscon for ages and done reporting and all that.

I went to Wiscon back at the end of May! And I had a lovely time. Well, once we recovered from the excitement of a flat tire eight or so miles out of Madison (you want adrenaline? Change a driver's side tire on the shoulder of a busy highway.) Which meant, once we got to the Concourse we got a couple of glasses of wine from the bar and collapsed in a heap in our room. Also, btw? The Concourse no longer serves cheese curds. What's up with that?!

Friday night I went to dinner with rachel_swirsky and Mike and countesslovlace and her Count and Young Count and Countess. We went to the tapas place, which I cannot remember the name of to save my life, but it was delicious. It is, in fact, the tapas place that has reminded me of the whole Wiscon Experience, because I've just eaten some cucumbers and onion in a very, very light vinaigrette that tasted very much like some of the food I had there and then I thought "Hey, Wiscon!" And just after that I realized we could probably do a pretty decent duplicate of one of the tapas that Paidhi Girl and I had--the guys were off at the Bratfest, and I said, "Let's go out to dinner, just you and me, you'll love this place," which she did. Anyway, we had this thing that involved very crusty toasted bread, with a whole anchovy and capers and onion and lettuce and this vinaigrette--and I just now told Paidhi Girl, we can probably make something like it! Here! At home! Really easily, too. And now I'm wondering if I can get together a whole tapas-type supper without too much work.

So, Wiscon was of course fabulous, I met all kinds of fantastic people who I only knew from reading their journals, or who I never knew at all before, and hung out with people I pretty much only ever see in person at Wiscon.

And? I dressed up. For me, anyway. I usually don't see much point in putting on more than jeans and t-shirt--who cares, at the grocery store or wherever, how I look? I mean, you know, within the obvious parameters. But people dress up at Wiscon. If they want to. So I had this red and white dress I decided to wear on Saturday. And it seemed like, from the moment I left the room, every other person I passed in the hall said, "Fabulous dress!" and it was so...so supporting. Validating, yes, but also...I mean, I love getting compliments, who doesn't? But it also said something about what Wiscon can be like, as a community, as an experience. I was already used to how friendly a gathering Wiscon is, how much random Wiscon members often give you a sense of...of being on the same team with you even if they've never met you before. But I'd never experienced this particular manifestation of it.

Sunday night I got in the elevator, and there was a lovely, very tall woman in a lovely black dress, and glitter all over her shoulders and I thought to myself, "Ooh, pretty! She must be going to the dessert salon." And then I remembered how fun it was to have people tell me my clothes were fabulous, so I did something I would never have done in a million years before, I said, "I love your glitter!" Because I did. And she smiled and we chatted a bit until we got to the floor.

And I got to thinking, just how powerful those little positive things can be. And I wonder how much of that I can bring away from Wiscon. I mean, to some extent, you know other Wiscon members are part of a community you're also part of, you've got a presumed reason to speak to anyone there, and a cheery "Love the shoes!" or whatever doesn't generally come off as presumptuous or creepy. In daily life, the openings for that sort of thing are perhaps fewer, but I wonder, maybe I should be looking for them more often. Little things like that, they make a difference in how your day goes, don't they.

Anyway. I spent more time hanging out with people than in panels, but I did get to the "Let's Build a World" panel which was seventeen kinds of awesome, and I told Paidhi Girl later that if I'd realized what it would be like I'd have made sure to bring her, because she'd have had a blast. I hope they have it next year, because I think she'll love it.

*****

So! I've also got a brief book review. I'm a terrible book reviewer, actually. I'm the sort of person who, if you ask me what a book is about, I'm liable to feel the only adequate answer is, well, the whole book. But that's not going to stop me, I guess.

So, recently I got a Sony E-Reader, because seriously, I wasn't going to sit in font of the computer and read the entire Hugo Voters' packet. And I'd recently seen mention of a book that sounded kind of intriguing, called Happy-Snak by Nicole Kimberling.

The main character is the proprietor of a fast-food joint on a space station. Okay, this intrigued me from the start. I've done time in the food-service mines, hell, a lot of us have, but somehow you don't often see much in the way of science-fictional food-service heroes. I mean, sure, you've got your bartenders all over the place, and of course Captain Underpants fought evil Lunch Ladies--but there, you see? They're the villains!

Anyway, that bit appealed to me straight off.

So, Gaia Jones runs Happy-Snak, as already mentioned, a snack joint on a space station. One day she comes to the aid of a dying alien, who asks her to protect him. She agrees to, mostly perfunctorily, but it turns out, as a result of the aliens' customs, once he dies she's saddled with guarding and appeasing the dead alien's ghost. This strikes me as an inherently intriguing setup. So I plunked down my five bucks and downloaded the bad boy.

Happy-Snak is not hard sf. Nor is it particularly challenging reading. And there are some issues with ideas not being thought quite all the way through--some of them economic, some of them cultural, some of them linguistic--these very, so very alien aliens have a language that can be simply and directly translated to English? And their homeworld has sharks and octopusses? And clams? Really?????, and so on. A few places, things only happen the way they do because no one (including--hell, especially--the main character) seems to have asked the really obviously pertinent questions. Or even thought about asking them.

And these are very Star Trek level aliens, more or less human-shaped beings with odd appendages and everyone keeps going around saying "They're sooooo alien!" when you know, not really.

But. The aliens are really very extremely charming. The story bumps right along, and while Obvious Thing was Obvious from more or less the start, I still had a pleasant time reading it, and would read more by this author if I found myself wanting to while away some stress-free hours under the pool umbrella. Which is really a pretty good value for five bucks, and sometimes that's all that's called for.