Lewis Powell

 I attended Scintillation!  Many events happened while I was there.  I will recap some of them.

A Man, 2 Panels, No Canals: Scintillation Day 1! (6/10)

(I never claimed to be an expert in palindromes.)

I toyed with the idea of back-tracking and talking about my extensive views on footwear, but I am not cruel.  I do have one prefatory note which is that I said I don't like marzipan, when it would be accurate to say that I last had marzipan back when I was not very good at distinguishing unfamiliar from dislike when it comes to food, so I actually don't know how I feel about marzipan.

Part 1: Registration and Raffle Table!

I had gotten my con badge earlier at the picnic—I know; it is hard to believe I have been omitting some details!—but nevertheless, I went down to registration because that is where the people were! Among them, ari who had agreed to buy my old e-reader.  ari had just arrived from a very long travel day, so my excitement at meeting ari in person and delivering the Kindle was perhaps more than ari had energy to handle.  We completed the exchange and I saw all the things on the raffle table. Or rather, I saw all the things that were at that time on the raffle table, The table continued to accrue more things over the next days!  I had also brought down my contributions, two copies of Rosemary Kirstein's "The Steerswoman" (about which more later), and which I needed to get signed at some point.  This is when I got to meet Alexis!  Alexis was organizing the raffle.  Alexis had not anticipated the amount of things which would be donated.  This is not because she expected people to be ungenerous, but because people were stepping up above and beyond! It was an embarrassment of goodies!  Registration came with one or two raffle tickets (depending on whether you registered as normal or whether you registered as a benefactor for a higher cost to enable someone else to attend), but there were going to be ticket sales also, to buy more tickets.  The raffle draw was on the last day, so you had the whole convention to peruse and set your sights on things and get very excited about what may or may not get to come home with you.  The book seller table was getting set up, the con-suite was getting set up.  Everyone was wearing masks of the appropriate calibre. at all times (at least, that I saw; I wasn't playing detective but the con policy was clear and it was very reassuring to be around people who were all taking it seriously).  A 2000 piece jig saw puzzle was begun. I am slow at jigsaw puzzles and this one looked difficult. This was my first scintillation, so maybe the idea is you just don't expect to finish it? [Reader, I was wrong! People expect to finish the puzzle!].  The raffle table was getting organized into a concept where some of the items would be bundled together, thematically. Not everything would be bundles, but there would be a handful of big prizes—the bundles—and then lots of individual prizes, so that lots of people would win, and people would have big incentive to want to win first, so they could snag a bundle! The con is just starting up, but there is a lot of milling around and excitement!  I met many more people, and then the first panel began!

Part 2: A Panel and a Reading

Scheduling a con must be a delicate thing.  I've been to many, many academic conferences in my life, some much smaller than Scintillation was, and some larger.  The fundamental problem is that you can't arrange the schedule so that there are no conflicts unless the thing is absolutely tiny, and even then, it's too much of a marathon if you arrange it where people are expected to attend every session in a row the whole time.  So, no matter what, there will be a point where the program director has someone ask them "why did you have to schedule X opposite Y?"  A harsh but true answer is always "because there has to be things scheduled opposite each other, and the program isn't built around any one attendee's personal desire to go see those two things".  And while the person asking that question probably doesn't mean it in a rude way, one must be very patient to gracefully respond to such questions as they come up.  But that doesn't mean you just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. You have to think about the group who attends and how they may divide up for things on the whole, and there are reasons to put things opposite each other. I don't know the ins and outs of this for this convention, but I will say I never felt like I lacked for something to go see; I took breaks to keep myself from getting exhausted or worn out; not because I thought "all of this seems too niche". So the program orchestration was well harmonized, even though there were times when I was torn on what to go see, and even though there were times when I went to no session at all. And if I were trying to apprentice myself as a con program director, I would need to know the ins and outs, but the important part is that it seemed well executed, and the only frustrations were ones that are inescapable as a matter of "I have not learned how to bilocate".

The first session is what academics call a plenary (I don't know if this is the terminology in con-lingo), which means nothing was scheduled against it. Note: Apologies if I get some details about this panel wrong, You will learn later that I lose a notebook and pen at dinner, and virtually the only things that were in the notebook were notes on the panels from Friday. It was a panel called "A Good Read" where Shaz,(moderating), Moti, Doug, and ari, had each chosen a book, and then they all read them, and then discussed the books individually and jointly. The books were Journey by Marta Randall, Sabriel by Garth Nix, China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen McHugh, and Version Control by Dexter Palmer.  I did not catch who picked all of the books, though I think Moti picked Version Control and ari picked Sabriel.  Here is what I retained of the discussion:  Sabriel was the odd-one out, in terms of format/structure, being a sort of straightforward linear story.  There was a lot that it did well, but the romance sub-plot was not resonating with some of the panelists.  It was noted that it does get positive feedback in the reviews, and that it may work better for the YA audience and/or in the original context of release.  Journey is hard to get one's hands on as a physical copy, but is available as e-book. It does some interesting things with shifting perspectives of narration, and [something else that I took notes on, but I could not tell you what the panelists said about it, other than I for sure wrote something else down about Journey]. China Mountain Zhang was highlighted in part because the central characters are not the large scale actors in the sci fi setting; the main character is just a person trying to live their life under the oppressive circumstances of the novel's world, and this is what drew me to it (I bought it from the book display because I liked the idea of a novel that explored the stakes at that scale, while still being science fiction). Version Control was technically-not-time-travel-but-okay-it's-time-travel, and part of the discussion was about the extent to which the social and political satire/commentary were serving the core narrative versus the extent to which they were embodied in authorial opinion digressions that could have been tightened up to better serve the interesting narrative work being done.  What was great about the panel is that I really did get a sense of what made each of the books something that a person had read and loved and wanted to re-read with others for the panel, and even the criticisms and comments about what didn't work for people were offered with generosity and left me thinking "I might read that and consider how and whether it works or doesn't work for me".  As noted, I bought China Mountain Zhang because the concept (a world in which China had obtained control of the United States and the main character has had to conceal several major aspects of his identity (race, sexual orientation) to maintain employment, and how this affects him) was a very compelling concept, and the panelists sold it's execution of the concept as well.

After this panel, I had to choose between a reading by Rosemary Kirstein and a panel on different ways to use history with a great lineup.  You see what I mean, though. You can't schedule con programming without giving people impossible choices.  But I wasn't going to miss the Rosemary Kirstein reading.  Rosemary read some unpublished material from the Steerswoman universe. It was the first couple of chapters from what may be a young adult book set (if I am pegging things correctly) after the fourth book.  I believe it was similar to this reading, [Reader, do not read if you are not already inducted into the Steerswoman series!] but I have not checked to see whether there were major revisions.  Hearing her read it was exhilarating. The jokes worked so well when read aloud. A character who is a minor character in the books and has some "screentime" here came to absolute life in this reading.  I realized how much I loved that character who I have known for all of 10 pages before and now I have known for two additional chapters.  And the reading featured a character I love to death. She had a good chunk of time left after the reading ended so we got to chat about the books. We asked some questions and learned some things, and knew that we would not learn other things, I shared the things I learned with the folks on my Steerswoman Fan Discord server [Reader, you can join, ask me how!]. I had gotten her to sign the copies of the books I was donating to the raffle—that had already been cleared ahead of time through people who, you know, knew her—but I was nervous to ask her to sign my copies. Alexis told me I should just ask but I didn't want to pester her after the reading and Alexis asked her for me, which she graciously accepted, so I now have signed copies of the Steerswoman novels.

Another very earnest digression: If I could go back and add a unifying thematic element to this series of posts, it would have been a good idea to go with dayenu. This is a Hebrew word that means "it would have been enough". If I had just gotten to spend a weekend in Montreal, that would have been a pretty nice time, and I will be honest; I have needed a vacation: dayenu.  If I had gone to Montreal, and just gotten to meet a couple of the people from this discord server that had been my counter to the really difficult isolation of the past couple years; dayenu.  If I had met those people and then just gotten to share the joy of seeing this crowd of people reunite who know each other and be welcomed into the fold with them, as they have a picnic and laugh and hug and enjoy the happiness of being in each others' company again: dayenu.  If I had been welcomed into the fold and then just been witness to the caution and care they took with each other, and the seriousness they observed with the masking policy, and each other's comfort levels with respect to eating outdoors vs. indoors; dayenu. If I had witnessed the care and concern, and then just gotten to listen as they talked about the books they love and what makes those books work for them and enjoy those recommendations: dayenu.  If I had gotten to hear the discussion and recommendations and then just heard the author of my favorite books read her work and talk about it with her: dayenu. But there is another panel, and then dinner with friends, and then: two. more. days. of convention.

I thought I would cover the second panel in this post, but I guess these wrap up posts will be in more parts than I was expecting. TO MY CREDIT: This one did actually start talking about the convention itself.