Eat Your Heart Out, Walter Koenig

[kevin_standlee]

There are photos behind the cuts in this message. I'm posting it out of order because I didn't get the photos cropped and cleaned until after Lisa left, and I wanted to write about that while it was fresh in my mind.

At L.A.con IV, I went by the Autograph Tables one afternoon and saw Walter Koenig sitting there with not one person talking to him while nearby was a large queue for David Gerrold. I actually went and talked to Koenig for a few minutes because I felt a little bad for him, but it did seem like a funny situation to me at the time.

I figured I'd be like Koenig at my scheduled autograph session at Noon today. So people could recognize me by my picture in the program book, Lisa and I put on our WSFS uniforms, and we set up at the tables outside the Dealers Room.



Here I am all set up. The program book had a convenient space below each Guest bio for photos, so I practiced by autographing my own book. I actually feel a little bad about not getting all of the other guests' autographs -- those who could attend, naturally -- but the only place I saw most of them other than Rebecca Forstadt was at the Opening Ceremony.

After running a short errand for johno into the Dealers Room, I settled down to wait for not much to happen. Lisa came and sat next to me and we talked.

Then, out of nowhere, amazingly, an autograph seeker appeared!



It was controuble, who very kindly asked for my autograph in her program book. I was happy to oblige, after which we talked about convention issues.



Here's a photo of me, Kuma Bear, and Lisa posing with the MARCon program book, with all three of us in WSFS uniform.

My 45 minutes complete, I moved on to my final panel, where I was joined by Mark Evans and we spent an entertaining 75 minutes talking to an audience of 18 people on that old favorite subject of "Convention Disasters." We talked about the lines at ConFranciso, the 14-hour ballot count, the SWAT Team at Disclave, the DripClave fiasco (mentioning the first tends to trigger memories of the second; I freely admitted that I had been present at neither), and many others. Not all of them could be considered disasters as much as annoyances, I guess. At the end, I summed up by suggesting that the disasters were of two major types: Ones that could have avoided by better planning, and those that would have been difficult or impossible to avoid. I also pointed out that one of the reasons we tell these tales is to try and keep the memory alive so that other people will not repeat the avoidable errors.

My duties as FGOH now formally complete, I headed over to the Feedback Session, as I describe elsewhere.

Edit, 27 May 0800: Fixed an error pointed out in comments.

Comments

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

The Disclave fiasco of 1997 ended Disclave and nearly ended Science Fiction Conventions in Washington, DC. Only 300 or so people go to it's replacement Capclave. I am sometimes amazed that there are any fannish cons in Washington, DC after that fiasco. That is the greatest disaster in Washington, DC fandom. I wasn't in fandom in 1997 and knew of that incident.

Anime USA did a Shibari (Japanese Bondage) panel last year and I made a fit about because of that incident. It went off with five people in the room at 1 AM on Friday night and we are still in the Hyatt in spite of that panel.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Actually, while it's not my thing personally, I have no objection to people playing with it, as long as they don't break the hotel. I try to impress upon people that if you break the hotel, they won't let you play with it anymore. Some folks even understand that.

And I don't object to programming (including video programming such as anime showings) that include subject matter of a mature nature during late night hours, if properly identified and managed. I say this because there was apparently one person who complained to MARCon's chair this year about a mature-audiences-themed program item at 11:30 PM one night, claiming that it was detrimental to his children or something like that. I'm not sympathetic. The items were properly identified, the hour was late, the doors were closed, and no underage people were present. Young children should have already gone to bed anyway.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

Anime USA's card people to make sure they are at least 18 and identify them as Otaku Blue panels. Shibari was part of a whole late night track of panels. I was mostly worried about them doing Shibari on a sprinkler head over anything else. I agree with you on that point that adult panels can work.

No-body brought a WSFS constitution?

[ceemage.livejournal.com]

We should have arranged for someone to bring you a print-out of the WSFS Constitution to sign. Whilst you're not technically the author, it *is* the text with which you're probably most associated...

Re: No-body brought a WSFS constitution?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess so, but if you're looking for authorship, it's the Westercon Bylaws whose text is nearly all mine. Every word of it went through my hands in the mid-1990s rewrite. It's timill who has done the rough equivalent to the WSFS Constitution. OTOH, I did completely rewrite the WSFS Standing Rules in the late 1990s.

Clever idea, though, at least for a staged photo.

[controuble.livejournal.com]

Nice of you to think of me, but I was not the one who took the picture of the three of you. It was very nice finally meeting you and getting to talk for a while both here and in the con suite at the dead dog.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Right, I conflated your autograph and the photo taken later. *blush* I'll fix the main entry.