ckd | Boskone 43, a shark's-eye view (part 1 of ?): Friday

Well, that was fun. Alas, that's the end of the local convention ~~glut~~ high-density time of the year. Arisia, Vericon, Boskone... ... ... ... ... ... Readercon. Bit of a delay there. Ah well, life is like that and if it's not like that, it will be. (I am so trying to avoid getting hit by post-con blahs.)

This report will be semi-chronological, semi-themed, and mostly-rambling. My posts are like that, and if they aren't, they will be.

Thursday, pre-con, I left work early to run out to the airport with

hr_macgirl who was going to visit her parents (and the dog) for the weekend in lieu of being a con widow the whole time. After that, I got a ~~slow~~ ~~really slow~~ walking speed Silver Li(n)e ride through the Ted Williams Tunnel (traffic? at 1730 on a Friday? Who knew?) followed by a much quicker Red Line ride to Harvard Square so I could spend money at

pandemonium_bks. They were setting up for a signing by

kinzel and

rolanni, which (as noted on their LJs) was sadly missing the new book. I spent money, hung around, got food, and went home. This was a nice bit of pre-con congoing, and I think is a good sign for the new location feeling like a low-intensity con all the time.

Friday I took off work completely, because I needed to. It let me sleep in (modulo the pager going off, bah) so that I could be rested before the con started. (Note that 15 hours of sleep before staying awake throughout a three-day con is not, however, a suitable way to follow the 5-2-1 rule.) I headed over and arrived at the Sheraton at 1500ish; registration wasn't supposed to open for an hour, so I headed over to the info desk to see if there was anything of interest there. Finding nothing in particular (other than the N4 restaurant guides, with a supplementary page noting all the places that aren't there anymore like Mövenpick) I sat down to go through the program and tentatively pick out program items to go to. (I had a cached copy on the Palm, so I scrolled through that and made notes.) Somewhere around there, I wandered down to the gaming area to see what was up and help a bit with setup.

They then said that registration was open, which it wasn't yet, but it opened right about when I got there...so I picked up my badge, yay for prereg, and headed back over to information to sign up for literary beers & kaffeeklatsches, at which point I encountered a good-sized chunk of my flist walking around as

matociquala's posse. Said posse decamped to the hotel bar, which had managed to take their entire draft beer dispensing system out of commission for the weekend. Great timing, guys; it's not like writers ever drink, right?

Upon arriving at the bar, we encountered

autopope; this allowed me to pass along the message from

feorag I had been entrusted with. That complete, I hung around with

autopope,

elisem,

matociquala,

truepenny, and

xiphias in an unofficial three-author Literary Beer until I left for the 1700 panel on "what not to say to your favorite author when you meet them".

That panel wound up with only three of the panelists present, which might have been a problem except that the three were Mike Resnick,

tnh, and

jesshartley as the Emergency Holographic Moderator. The topic was also one that I wasn't sure would have the legs for a full hour, but between Mike's Bob Silverberg stories,

tnh's "things not to say to editors" (which also covered "things not to say in your submission's cover letter"), and

jesshartley's additions ("can you recommend me to your agent?" Gah!) and audience management, it wound up being a really good panel. (I now know that Mike is an honorary black man in Pittsburgh, thanks to the Kirinyaga stories.)

After that, I headed upstairs with

tnh to help set up for the Tor party, whereupon I met

gtrout,

kate_nepveu, and

2muchexposition who were also involved (no, not with each other, silly person). Many sliced bell peppers, bags (and tubs) of ice, and bottles of miscellaneous libations later, I headed downstairs (along with

kathryncramer and David Hartwell WINOLJ, who were themselves heading for her Literary Beer) to the bar for

matociquala's Literary Beer. (Between the party setup and Bear's Beer I missed the panel on "internal or published chronology?"...where's my ConTiVo?)

Bear's Beer was an absolute blast.

xiphias,

cheshyre,

slobbit,

skygoodwill, and

buymeaclue were there as well, and over various drinks (from scotch to hot chocolate, but not draft beer as previously noted) we had an odd wandering discussion, which covered earworm defense (which led to a round of "pass the iPod" allowing everyone to hear the original version of "Mah Nà Mah Nà", which was written for an Italian "documentary"-by-which-we-mean-sexploitation-film soundtrack) along with many other topics. This demonstrated to me that Bear's ability to create instant clusters of interesting intelligent people is clearly one of her mutant powers, and works even at a distance as evidenced by her LJ. This was so good that we had to be kicked out of our table to make room for

red_mike_yog's Beer.

Having had that end at 2030, which meant I'd missed the first half of the "I need more bandwidth" panel and the conflicting Scottish Panel, both of which I'd wanted to go to (dammit, I need that ConTiVo) I did a bit of aimless wandering, hit the art show to say hello to

readsalot, then headed for Grim's Fairy Cabaret.

This was, to put it mildly, both well done and freakin' hysterical. John M. Ford continues to be wittier than I can imagine, and the performances from everyone involved (including, but not limited to,

kip_w's keyboards and

elisem's singing) did his material justice, indeed they did. This ended at 2200, at which time I headed upstairs to the Tor party.

The Tor party, ah, indeed. Apparently a combination of the Friday night and/or an inefficient grapevine kept the attendance down, but even so I didn't get a chance to talk to, or even see, everyone I wanted to talk to who was there. Since I wasn't taking notes, I will apologize in advance for failing to namecheck anyone; I know I had a chance to talk to

yhlee,

buymeaclue,

kate_nepveu,

kip_w,

veejane,

matociquala,

truepenny, and

alecaustin among others, and will probably remember them right after I post this and shut the computer down. The right-hand room seemed to be a bit quieter, and I saw both

autopope and Ken MacLeod wander in; Cory Doctorow and his disciples were apparently all in another part of the suite.

As the clock neared midnight and the MBTA prepared to turn back into a pumpkin, a group of us who were commuting and all needed to get back to places to the north side of the river left the party and headed for the T. (The #1 was briefly considered, but said consideration didn't outlast the first gust of really cold wind.) The conversational joys of the Tor party, and the lure of the other Friday parties, were no match for the fact that I really didn't want to have to get through 364.4 smoots (plus 1 ear) of trudgery (like drudgery, but with more walking) out in the wind farm that is the Mass Ave bridge.

We got to Park Street and saw a train heading north...on the wrong track. "Uh-oh" was the obvious (and correct) reaction; there was a "serious medical emergency" at Broadway and they were busing between Park and JFK/UMass. That meant we could get on a train, but it took a while for one to arrive, and then a long time (and about 8000 announcements) before it left again. As fans will, we simply spent the time continuing our conversations from before leaving Boskone, until reaching Kendall, where

alecaustin and I left the group. We, naturally, also continued talking until such point as our paths diverged above ground, and I went home to warm up and get some sleep before my second day of congoing.

Speaking of sleep, this seems like a good stopping point; additional reports to follow.