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Mar. 27th, 2006 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d_aulnoyAh, so. My ICFA report, delivered somewhat late.
ICFA this year was quite good: it began with a bang and not a whimper, since I actually met ICFA people on my flight. You should note that this never happens. In five years of steady conference attendence, the closest that I had previously come to actually encountering a fellow geek in transit (FGiT, pronounced "fidget") was passing byerzebet on my way to WisCon and idly fighting down the urge to speak to her on the wistful hope that someone who looked that nifty and was traveling my way had the same concrete destination in mind. But this time, as I was wiping my eyes (allergies! ignimonious allergies!) I was hailed first by Joan Gordon, and then by C. Jason Smith and Ximena Gallardo, necessitating first the explanation that I was weeping neither tears of joy nor of fear at going to ICFA, and then that I had not actually been ignoring them, but was, in fact, really near-sighted. So once we got the introductions out of the way, we passed a pleasant few hours anticipating the freezing air conditioning and, commensurately, the strawberry margueritas by the pool.
There were no strawberry margueritas, because the hurricanes demolished what I like to fondly think of as the Idyllic Tropical Booze Hut, but the hotel promises that it will be back next year.
The second I hit the con. reception,fjm (looking quite lovely with an enormous scarf that I coveted unreasonably) hit me with a last minute moderating position covering for someone whose plane had been delayed, so I continued the "Bang!' effect opening by getting the chance to sit in on a really fantastic panel on fairy tales where the talented prosewitch talked about the effects of the fairytale pastiche in The Fairy Godmother, "Shrek", etc. (P.S. - Cabinet des Fees?) The evening tied up with the usual lovely reception, where Charles Vess thoughtfully asked me what the fliers promoting CdF looked like. After cackling hysterically, I ran off to call The Produce Bandit, who thoughtfully e-mailed erzebet, who kindly produced a flier for me by the next day. (Chains of events like these always make me think of The House that Jack Built.)
Next day, I visited the bookroom and ogled the offerings, collecting a lovely lot of items like Storm Constantine's Hermetech and the Alice Redux anthology. I also eyeballed Doppleganger but resisted purchasing it until later in the day (new releases tend to be among my least frequent conference buys, simply because I know that I can buy them at home and skip over that nasty dislocating-the-shoulder-while-traveling-home-heavily-laden-thing), but when I noticedswan_tower sporting two name tags and discovered that one of them was for her nom-de-plume, also found on the cover of Doppleganger, I abandoned all pretense of self-control. (And am happy that I did, because, damn.) Many great presentations (including the one that I participated in, I think, because listening to Thomas Inge debating Charles Vess on the interactions of visual and written art is even better with a front-row seat), and much time spent by the pool running down my paper.
Now, I practiced that paper in my room, with a boom, with a drink, by a sink, you name it, and I had it down from its original 50 minute length to a modest 20 (if you remember, this was a pared-down version of my big MoCCA thing from last October). But, apparently, I need to learn to be a less gregarious presenter, because I looked up 2/3's of the way through and found my moderator making that wrap-it-up cha-cha motion with her hands, necessitating some extemporaneous cutting. Bah. I think it went decently well, nonetheless. My co-presenter, Crystal Black, was doing an interesting examination of gendered presentations of Peter Pan through the ages (well, decades), so between the two of us I think we did pretty well: I gave the backstory of the genres and she gave the specific examples of how they interfaced. Excellent.
At the banquet, I won ... a prize. The conference has instituted a luck-of-the-draw door-prize system this year, and had previously presented two lucky randomly selected attendees with ... towels! But not me, no-sirree. No, I am special. I got the World's Ugliest Tchotchke, and I love it dearly. It's like a .... molded picture frame ... celebrating Florida. It has a palm tree! It has garbage cans! It says "Wish you were here!", and I plan to use it for my Business Card of the Week, i.e., as a reminder of who I need to get in touch with next. This prize, however, was not the only one at the table, aspythia_akrypta won the much-coveted Graduate Student award for best paper, and apparently by a looooooooooong lead, as in five years of attendence, it was the first paper that I'd ever seen the committee gush over. Go you, D.!
And on Sunday, I left lamentably early, prompting the lovely hotel lady who'd been on all night to totally screw up my bill. Sigh. Nothing's perfect ... but despite that, ICFA came close.
Other highlights:
Purchases: I bought Touched By Venom at the silent auction. Expect a review soon, unlesscataptromancer succeeds in stealing it from me for his personal viewing pleasure. I also won Widdershins, Charles de Lint's newest, and Four and Twenty Blackbird's, Cherie Priest's first, so I feel pretty fairly treated by the auction. (Both of these are wonderful. Touched by Venom, however, appears to deserve its reputation.)
People: One thing I love about ICFA? I meet new cool people every year. "New", here, is relative, since many of them have been attending for just as long as I have, but I get to meet more of them every year. Most LJ people referenced above,ninja_turbo, moonandserpent, kniedzw, I'm looking at you. I also get to see ... old cool people? ... nah, familiar acquaintances, and that's always a rush.
Only low point: Despite much planning and many attempts,savageseraph and I did not pull off our BPAL meet-up. Bah. Always next year ....
ICFA this year was quite good: it began with a bang and not a whimper, since I actually met ICFA people on my flight. You should note that this never happens. In five years of steady conference attendence, the closest that I had previously come to actually encountering a fellow geek in transit (FGiT, pronounced "fidget") was passing by
erzebet on my way to WisCon and idly fighting down the urge to speak to her on the wistful hope that someone who looked that nifty and was traveling my way had the same concrete destination in mind. But this time, as I was wiping my eyes (allergies! ignimonious allergies!) I was hailed first by Joan Gordon, and then by C. Jason Smith and Ximena Gallardo, necessitating first the explanation that I was weeping neither tears of joy nor of fear at going to ICFA, and then that I had not actually been ignoring them, but was, in fact, really near-sighted. So once we got the introductions out of the way, we passed a pleasant few hours anticipating the freezing air conditioning and, commensurately, the strawberry margueritas by the pool.There were no strawberry margueritas, because the hurricanes demolished what I like to fondly think of as the Idyllic Tropical Booze Hut, but the hotel promises that it will be back next year.
The second I hit the con. reception,
fjm (looking quite lovely with an enormous scarf that I coveted unreasonably) hit me with a last minute moderating position covering for someone whose plane had been delayed, so I continued the "Bang!' effect opening by getting the chance to sit in on a really fantastic panel on fairy tales where the talented prosewitch talked about the effects of the fairytale pastiche in The Fairy Godmother, "Shrek", etc. (P.S. - Cabinet des Fees?) The evening tied up with the usual lovely reception, where Charles Vess thoughtfully asked me what the fliers promoting CdF looked like. After cackling hysterically, I ran off to call The Produce Bandit, who thoughtfully e-mailed erzebet, who kindly produced a flier for me by the next day. (Chains of events like these always make me think of The House that Jack Built.)Next day, I visited the bookroom and ogled the offerings, collecting a lovely lot of items like Storm Constantine's Hermetech and the Alice Redux anthology. I also eyeballed Doppleganger but resisted purchasing it until later in the day (new releases tend to be among my least frequent conference buys, simply because I know that I can buy them at home and skip over that nasty dislocating-the-shoulder-while-traveling-home-heavily-laden-thing), but when I noticed
swan_tower sporting two name tags and discovered that one of them was for her nom-de-plume, also found on the cover of Doppleganger, I abandoned all pretense of self-control. (And am happy that I did, because, damn.) Many great presentations (including the one that I participated in, I think, because listening to Thomas Inge debating Charles Vess on the interactions of visual and written art is even better with a front-row seat), and much time spent by the pool running down my paper.Now, I practiced that paper in my room, with a boom, with a drink, by a sink, you name it, and I had it down from its original 50 minute length to a modest 20 (if you remember, this was a pared-down version of my big MoCCA thing from last October). But, apparently, I need to learn to be a less gregarious presenter, because I looked up 2/3's of the way through and found my moderator making that wrap-it-up cha-cha motion with her hands, necessitating some extemporaneous cutting. Bah. I think it went decently well, nonetheless. My co-presenter, Crystal Black, was doing an interesting examination of gendered presentations of Peter Pan through the ages (well, decades), so between the two of us I think we did pretty well: I gave the backstory of the genres and she gave the specific examples of how they interfaced. Excellent.
At the banquet, I won ... a prize. The conference has instituted a luck-of-the-draw door-prize system this year, and had previously presented two lucky randomly selected attendees with ... towels! But not me, no-sirree. No, I am special. I got the World's Ugliest Tchotchke, and I love it dearly. It's like a .... molded picture frame ... celebrating Florida. It has a palm tree! It has garbage cans! It says "Wish you were here!", and I plan to use it for my Business Card of the Week, i.e., as a reminder of who I need to get in touch with next. This prize, however, was not the only one at the table, as
pythia_akrypta won the much-coveted Graduate Student award for best paper, and apparently by a looooooooooong lead, as in five years of attendence, it was the first paper that I'd ever seen the committee gush over. Go you, D.! And on Sunday, I left lamentably early, prompting the lovely hotel lady who'd been on all night to totally screw up my bill. Sigh. Nothing's perfect ... but despite that, ICFA came close.
Other highlights:
Purchases: I bought Touched By Venom at the silent auction. Expect a review soon, unless
cataptromancer succeeds in stealing it from me for his personal viewing pleasure. I also won Widdershins, Charles de Lint's newest, and Four and Twenty Blackbird's, Cherie Priest's first, so I feel pretty fairly treated by the auction. (Both of these are wonderful. Touched by Venom, however, appears to deserve its reputation.) People: One thing I love about ICFA? I meet new cool people every year. "New", here, is relative, since many of them have been attending for just as long as I have, but I get to meet more of them every year. Most LJ people referenced above,
ninja_turbo, moonandserpent, kniedzw, I'm looking at you. I also get to see ... old cool people? ... nah, familiar acquaintances, and that's always a rush.Only low point: Despite much planning and many attempts,
savageseraph and I did not pull off our BPAL meet-up. Bah. Always next year ....![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-03-28 04:23 am (UTC)Whoever TPB is, I'd be glad of his help! Do please alert him to my post if you think he'd be interested. It's not that it's hard or complicated - it's just a lot of stuff. Some people seem to enjoy that. I don't.