In the news in the UK today is a report produced by the Government’s Commission on the Future of Volunteering. The Government, of course, cares about such things because it is easier to persuade people to provide services voluntarily than to tax them and use the money to pay for those services. But British attitudes to volunteering have tended to be colored by the same lens through which we view charities: that is, that it must be “good work”. Ask most British people and I suspect they’d tell you that volunteering to help run a science fiction convention is no more socially useful than watching television.
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Fandom
Zine Scene Part 2
The second and final part of Jarvis Cocker’s radio series on fanzines aired today. There was no more mention of science fiction, though there was a brief mention of Slash, which we learned is written primarily by women in their 50s and 60s. Cocker also managed to trot out the tired old line about “real” fanzines having to be on paper, not online. Apparently it is properly anti-Capitalist to charge money for a paper fanzine that you sell through shops, but you are a tool of Capitalism if you give your writing away free online. And you are more in touch with your readers if you send them something through the mail than if you interact directly with them via email or blog comments. I’m glad we’ve been put straight on all that.
As usual, the program can be heard for the next week via the Listen Again service.
Cheryl Commits Fiction (sort of)
As some of you will know, I recently published a short story in Chris Garcia’s fanzine, The Drink Tank. It is a rather silly short story, and not very well written by the standards I’m used to reviewing. But it is my story, and some people seemed to like it, so I thought I ought to publish it here. The bad news is that there are more of them on the way. For some background and the story itself, see here.
Cowie on ESFS
This post is mainly for my friends in Finland. Jonathan Cowie has just put up a major update to the Concatenation web site. It includes a fairly lengthy rant about the current state of ESFS and the Eurocon. It includes a long quote from Tero’s blog, just to prove that Jonathan isn’t the only person underwhelmed by parts of the organization.
I must admit that my first experience of a Eurocon left me realizing just how good WSFS is at doing things like business meetings and award ceremonies. But I doubt that ESFS will get any better until there is a substantial contingent of European fans who are willing to attend the Eurocon every year and work on making it better. Perhaps people should go to ConRunner and talk about it. Or maybe set up a pan-European con-running convention if they think that the Brits won’t want to get involved in Eurocon (though I think actually they should, because it would help get them off the hook for running European Worldcons).
Cocker on Fanzines
Thanks to Joe Gordon, I have just been listening to a BBC Radio program about the history of fanzines. Given that is is hosted by Jarvis Cocker (he of Pulp), it naturally focuses primarily on music fanzines, but it does touch on other areas as well. In particular it goes into the history of fanzines. Trufen will be happy that it credits science fiction fandom with the invention of the fanzine, but perhaps less happy that it goes all the way back to the APAs of the 1920s (as I recall, HP Lovecraft met his wife at a fanzine convention) rather than insisting that fanzines sprang fully-formed from the SF fandom of the 1940s and 1950s. The program even manages to define “sercon”, which is pretty impressive, though it lamentably fails to mention the hectograph or Dave Langford. This being Radio 4, you can listen to the program yourself via the Listen Again service. Just go here and search for a Radio 4 program called “Zine Scene”.
Fannish Facebook Applications
I have Dave Langford to thank for this idea. We were exchanging email regarding the latest issue of Ansible and the inevitability of finding that something you wrote was accuracy-challenged, leading to furious protests from some corners of fandom. Dave commented that in the Facebook world what would happen is that you’d get a message like this:
David Langford has flung sackcloth and ashes all over you! To accept his grovel you must install…
This got me thinking. There could be a whole new business in fannish Facebook Applications. They might go something like this:
- Ted White has expelled you from Fandom. To get back in you must install…
- Ben Yalow has raised an Objection to Consideration against you. To be allowed to speak you must install…
- Dave Kyle says you can’t sit here. To get a seat you must install…
Then again, there could be author-related items:
- John Scalzi has thrown cat photos at you. To avoid dying laughing you must install…
- Jay Lake has thrown cheese at you. To avoid high cholesterol you must install…
- Jeff VanderMeer has thrown mushroom spores at you. To avoid mutating into a Grey Cap you must install…
- Kelley Eskridge has thrown gender confusion at you. To avoid having to cross-dress you must install…
You get the idea? Go forth an invent your own.
Thoughts on Facebook
I’ve been using Facebook for a week or so now, so I thought it might be useful to write a little bit about it so as to help gather my thoughts. Here are my impressions so far.
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Peter Berbegal on Fandom
I’d like to claim that my Spidey Sense (or at least Google Alerts) brought me to this one, but actually I have Paul DiFilippo to thank. Actually having a Google Alert on “Emerald City” wouldn’t work too well. But anyway, here is Peter Berbegal, sometime SF critic for the Boston Globe, musing on the subject of fandom. Money shot:
what I am seeing amongst geeks is a kind of righteousness due to their culture having been appropriated by mass culture
For those who love the ghetto, the only thing worse than being hated by the rest of the world is not being hated by the rest of the world.
Channeling the Other
One of the things I mentioned in the SMOFcon report is that a number of the attendees had a lot of difficulty with the “Words we use” panel because they tended to assume that if a word had negative connotations to them then it would have negative connotations to everyone. Marketing is, of course, about understanding how other people think, but fandom isn’t always very good at this.
We can see the same sort of thing in action in the “debate” about the Lifetime Achievement Hugo. I use the scare quotes deliberately, because while some people are talking seriously about how the award might work, many people aren’t making much sense at all.
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BASFA At Last
Kevin and I managed to attend BASFA together today, for only the second time since I got back to California. Yes, we have been that busy. The club, meanwhile, seems to have got louder. I think it is slowly turning into a parody of Chris Garcia.
I wore my fur. Kevin Roche wore his. They communed, as furry things do. Kudos to Glenn Glazer for suggesting that their offspring might be a leopardskin pillbox hat.
The quote of the night was, “If Vista sucked it would be more useful than it actually is.”
I’m not going to say anything about the reindeer slash fiction.
SMOFish Filking
As I reported last night, this year’s SMOFcon mixer event involved coming up with a filk song based around common complaints about conventions. Kevin posted his team’s efforts here. I’m not good at mixers, and I don’t write well under that sort of time pressure, but given a bit of time I can come up with filk lyrics.
The song is based on Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” (Wikipedia), which managed to be a hit in the UK as well even though hardly anyone there had any idea what summer camp was. I’m not totally happy with my version, but given that the original managed to rhyme “scare ya” with “malaria” I don’t feel to bad about some of my dodgy rhymes. Full version below the fold.
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Small Politics
Every so often Kevin and I meet people whose jaws drop in amazement at being told that WSFS is unincorporated and has no permanent officers. There are, of course, times when having such things would be terribly useful. However, watching the latest meltdown at SFWA here, here, and here (to give but a few examples) reminds me that there are good reasons for WSFS staying just as it is, because if it did have officers there is a serious danger it would turn into something very like SFWA.
Or, to answer a question raised elsewhere, SFWA is dumber than WSFS, Goddess help us!
Finnish Invasion
Well, a very small one. As Kevin has announced, my good friend Eemeli Aro has won one of the SFSFC SMOFcon sponsorships. I must admit that I was gobsmacked when I found out, but there you go. Eemeli can be very convincing at times. Finnish and American conrunners don’t always do things the same way, but they both seem to share a commitment to putting on a great show, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the two cultures interact. (Hint to Americans: the Finns are just brilliant at getting sponsorship.)
Of course I’ll also have the opportunity to introduce an impressionable young Finn to the fleshpots of Boston. Except that the con is out at Logan airport and I expect that Irma will have already warned Eemeli about Boston before he leaves.
Wildfires
Just in case anyone out there doesn’t know California geography very well, the current wildfires are around San Diego, several hundred miles south of where Kevin and I live. We haven’t even been affected by the power cuts (caused by fires burning around transmission lines).
On the other hand, we do have friends down there. Jim and Sandra (and the chinchillas) are safe. Their house may not be. No bad news on anyone else, and that’s a good thing. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
Update: Jim has posted to his LJ to say that the house is still standing. Apparently some of the chinchillas had to be left behind, but as least some of them are OK. I guess they won’t know until they count them.
More Schedule Congestion
What am I going to do on Monday night?
I could go to Moe’s Bookstore in Berkeley to see Michael Moorcock (plus Charlie Anders, Mary Mackey, Laura Moriarty, Mercedes Sanchez) do a reading for Paraspheres (7:30pm).
I could go to the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco to see Thomas Dolby.
But actually I need to be at BASFA.
Eastercon Solution
I have been thinking a lot about what to do about the collapse of the 2007 Eastercon. As most of you will know, Eastercon has no constitution. In true British style, if there is a problem with the succession, the only thing to do is fight over it. I’m therefore suggesting the following course of action.
Two rival 2007 Eastercons will be created: one to be held in Lancaster, the other in York. Both will be known as Rosecon. UK fandom will then spend the next 32 years fighting over which of them was the legitimate Eastercon. Eventually a Welshman called Llangfud Tewdr will prevail over all opposition. Rumors that Tewdr had Tim Kirk and Chris Bell murdered whilst they were prisoners in the Tower of London will persist long after his death.
David Stewart Funeral Arrangements
Pádraig now has the details. The funeral will be on Monday, which is probably too early for most of us to even get cards sent, but there are plenty of places around LJ where you can leave messages.
David Stewart, R.I.P.
Two emails within minutes of each other give me that sad news that David Stewart passed away this morning. David was a long-time Irish fan and con-runner, and in particular did a fabulous job with press relations for last year’s Glasgow Worldcon. He had been fighting oesophageal cancer for some time.
Further information, including funeral arrangements when they are known, is available from Pádraig Ó Méalóid.