V-Con 27 Report

Arrived at about 2:30 p.m. on Sunday and bought a membership from—and took a photo of—Paul Carpentier. Then I took a photo of a nearby fan named Valerie Reese wearing a shirt that said “If You’re Really a Goth Where Were You When We Sacked Rome?” which she said was made by Warehouse 38/Steve Jackson Games. Spider and Jeanne Robinson were around the corner doing a signing.

Went to the dealer room and kept Garth Spencer company at the zine table for a while. Using line graphs we tried to come up with the formula for a well-run convention. Some anime costume players came in during this time. At the anime table was good old William Chow of the Vancouver Japanese Animation Society (VJAS; pronounced “vee-jazz”). At first glance I wasn’t sure if it was him, but then I noticed that he wasn’t wearing socks—his de facto signature fashion statement. He gave me a copy of the latest club newsletter and a flyer for their store and encouraged me to drop by. Garth also took a copy of the newsletter in the interest of keeping subfandoms in touch with each other.

Caught the end of the 2:00 p.m. panel on the late Philip K. Dick with James Blaylock, Tim Powers, and Michael Walsh. They had found a handwritten copy of Dick’s will (written while he was staying here in Vancouver) in the personal effects he had given them. I applauded when Walsh said that some conspiracies are based in reality, and the panel seemed to like that. “You have some supporters here,” said Powers, who looks like my friend Nemos. Blaylock looks and sounds exactly like Clint Eastwood. Would have liked to have gotten Ray “Dr. Media” Seredin and Blaylock together so Ray could use his video camera to record Blaylock saying something Eastwoodesque.

Checked out the art show; the best-looking thing was the person working there, who had a good punk look.

Went to the turkey readings at 3:30 p.m.; hilariously bad as usual. Involuntarily doubled over with tears of laughter at multiple points. Fran Skene has a great deadpan voice. Not one but two Buffy the Vampire Slayer slash fan-fics about Giles (I don’t watch the show, but I think that’s the guy played by Anthony Stewart Head of the infamous Taster’s Choice commercials in the early nineties). Also, a story in which the actual name of a character was “Venus Boobs.” Two artists—one of them Andrew Brechin—illustrated the stories. Saw Jean (“T’Kaeel”) Smith there and asked her if she received the photo I e-mailed her of her in her vampire costume at last year’s con. She said that she did, but didn’t reply to acknowledge because she thought her computer had a virus and didn’t want to infect my computer. (Hopefully that’s true and not the latest way of trying to spare the feelings of someone you find disturbing and don’t want to be in contact with.) Also seen at the turkey readings: Steve Samuel, Doe Poirier, Kathleen Moore-Freeman.

Brief closing ceremonies (“Why I Love the Spooky Stuff”) as Palle Hoffstein was tired. He said that the con-com had been working on the con for sixteen months!

The Elrons were awarded by R. Graeme Cameron, including the annual John Norman (“Gor”) Elron, this time for writing an angry letter to fandom (in Locus) for not wanting him at conventions (“Monothink!”). Some audience members were physically sickened by Norman’s arguments, judging by the sound effects emanating from the back row. Norman’s letter was apparently well-timed; if it hadn’t been for the letter Norman might not have gotten the Elron this year—Graeme takes more pride in his Elron selections than to award it to him “just for being John Norman” more than once. (Does Graeme actually send all these Elrons to Norman and what does Norman do with them? I like to think he looks at them and wonders who these people are that keep sending these things and then places them on a shelf somewhere with nearly thirty years’s worth of Elrons on it.) An extra-large Elron for anal insertion was given to Ray Ferry, whose ongoing legal fight with Forrest Ackerman has forced Forry to sell the Ackermansion and its contents to pay for legal expenses. (In Graeme’s opinion the reason Hollywood hasn’t seen fit to stop this from happening is that those people who were fans are now ashamed of their former tastes. “Hollywood doesn’t want to remember those old movies,” concluded Graeme, “they just want to remake them.”

I accepted an invitation from Stanley Foo (who reports that his law career is starting to go well, which allowed him to share generous percentages of his steak sandwich and shrimp with us) to go to the Jolly Alderman (new site of FRED and located in the same hotel as V-Con 27) for dinner (along with Doug Finnerty; several other BCSFAns and convention-goers were there as well). The bar was oddly understaffed considering there was a convention happening and it was Thanksgiving weekend: there was only one waitress on duty and she was very unhappy (to put it euphemistically) at having to serve the thirty of us when we all showed up at once. (Separate checks were not a luxury we were permitted.) Those are some damn fine teriyaki chicken wings—and only twenty-five cents each! Stanley also hoped his “big ugly sister” would join us so we could finally meet her but unfortunately she was a no-show.

Finally, there was the dead dog party, which was held in two adjoining rooms on the top floor. It was very crowded and I was lucky to be able to mingle for a while; finding a place to sit down was out of the question. When I arrived there was a large group of people standing on the balcony hoping to see the space station pass overhead. I did manage to catch up with Dave Langtry, Lisa Gemino, and Peter Tupper, whom I knew from the UBC SFS years ago, and chatted with Michael Walsh about his tie, which had Kenny from South Park on it. “I like to include a bit of low culture,” said Walsh. I added that it was also in Halloween colours. I also threw my last two dollars toward donation (literally—missing the target both times) and helped myself to two lollipops. The rest of the time I sat in the hallway with my friends and talked to people while they waited for the elevator. At one point Tim Powers walked by and I got the chance to tell him that he looks like Nemos, and introduce him to Purple, who also knows Nemos. Powers (who also looks like a young William F. Buckley when he leans back and chews on the end of his pen) then took the stairs down instead of waiting for the elevator; hopefully that’s not significant.

I have my photos of the convention back from the photo lab and will be scanning and uploading them to my YAHOO! Group, Michael Morbius 2000.

I enjoyed this V-Con, as I expected I would based on positive experiences at all my previous V-Cons (22, 24, and 26). This year I broke the pattern of only going to even-numbered V-Cons (which came from being broke in 1998 and 2000) but was only able to afford the one day; looking again at the pocket program I see that I wanted to see or do almost everything listed. Wish me luck in having more money next year. In the meantime, for those people who want to register early for V-Con 28:

Write to:
Main Floor,
2116 MacDonald Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada
V6K 3Y4

Phone:
(604) 737-2665

Visit:
http://www.v-con.ca/
or
http://www.backtalk.org/mailman/listinfo/v-con