Wiscon panel notes

I’m not going to write up each panel. Here is the excerpted Good Bits version of my panel notes.

Beyond Victoriana:

On Cultural Appropriation –

“the process by which ‘The West’ separates forms from performers, converts those forms into influences, brings those influences into the center, leaves the living sources on the margin, and pats itself on the back for being so cosmopolitan.”

– Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Making Difference,” Writings on Dance, vol 13,
(1995)

Middle Grade Fiction:

kids vs. adults
us vs. them
external conflict more than internal
examining the precipice of upcoming adolescence

Writing Rape:

emphasize complexity
more, different rape narratives — ENOUGH ALREADY with “stranger rape, violent, she cries a lot, gets over it in 4-6 weeks OR when she meets the magical healing penis.”
NO MORE magical healing penis
show process of assimilating and moving through the trauma. Show more of the aftermath.
Show different time frames — how does it look from three days after? Six months? Ten years? Twenty? How does a rape survivor deal with the rape of someone they know twenty years after their own experience?
Gay and transgender rapes are incredibly prevalent, hugely under-reported, and their narratives are entirely absent. Where is their voice?

How is Olivia Dunham So Awesome?

Red Olivia is coded in ways that are described as “more masculine.” She swaggers, she OWNS the space she occupies, she owns her sexuality, she asserts. Yet Red Olivia is also far more emotive, she smiles more, she makes eye contact, she has better relationships and maintains them better. In that way, she is coded more feminine than Blue Olivia.

However, Blue is far more damaged. “Broken” is how she describes herself in an episode. Yet she claims the hell out of this word — broken implies a state that can and WILL be fixed. She is not damaged, in her own estimation, because she can be made well.

It’s this brokenness, though, that gives her her righteousness. Red and Blue are both women of honor. But Blue is a general and Red is a soldier. It’s the righteousness that gives her strength.

Blue is coded as a father not only in relationship to Walter, but in relationship to her niece. The absent parent who works long hours but whose time is intensely valued, the one who brings the outside world in, the one who saves and rescues rather than nurtures and maintains.

Blue has great relationships with children generally — due both to her niece, and to her memories, however fragmented, of her own childhood needs and fears. Yet none of this is coded as maternal.

In short, Olivia Dunham is awesome.

Romance and SFF:

Romance demands a happy ending. But diversity in romance forces one to redefine what happy means.
“On the ebook, no-one knows you’re feeding your id.”

Paranormal and SFF Erotica:

“If you get rid of ONE fisting scene, we can pitch this as Young Adult fiction.”

Post-Wiscon bought books

Expect a LOT of short posts about Wiscon, as I unpack my bags and my head.

The books that came home with me from Madison:

Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente
Doc, by Mary Doria Russell
Before the Fallout, Diana Preston
Here on Earth, Tim Flannery
The Other Eighties, Bradford Martin
Soldiers’ Stories, Yvonne Tasker
Foreign Mud, Maurice Collis
Remembering America: A Sampler of the WPA American Guide Series
Steampunk II, ed by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer
Interfictions 2, ed by Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak
What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler
Santa Olivia, Jaqueline Carey
Deadline, Mira Grant
A Local Habitation, Seanan McGuire
Lydia E. Pinkham’s Private Text-Book Upon Ailments Peculiar to Women, published by The Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co., Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Wiscon: Whedonistas room party

Last night, y’all — I don’t even know how to say it.

Thank you.

Last night Mad Norwegian Press sponsored a Whedonistas / Resurrection Code book launch party. Mad Norwegian published Lars Pearson was in attendance, and donated even more books to the raffle giveaway. Seanan McGuire (whose name I have been mentally mispronouncing for a year and am trying to re-learn to say) was an amazing rockstar bartender. Cat Valente and Sarah Monette hosted in the early portion of the party. And Michael Thomas, Lynne Thomas, and I closed the thing down at 1:00 a.m..

From the moment the doors opened, the party was full.

I know perfectly well that many, many folks came in for the mai-tais and mojitos and then left with their drinks to peruse other parties. But many of you who walked in with that intention got pulled into conversations and stayed. That was the sort of room it was — incredibly loud, a bit too hot, jammed with people all talking and laughing and sharing their infectious enthusiasms.

It would not have been that party if you all hadn’t made it thus.

I especially want to thank The Fangirl Posse, who showed up at 9:15, got themselves fruity drinks with little paper umbrellas, and then stayed until we closed. Y’all are my people.

Wiscon, Saturday lunchtime

1. I went to the Beyond Victoriana panel, with Jaymee Goh and Ay-leen the Peacemaker as panelists. They delivered an excellent presentation on steampunk diversity outside of Victorian England. There was a handout of information, so I don’t have a ton of notes. The conversation then opened up more generally, and my notes at that point consist merely of recommendations for things I have to read.

There was one quotation, though, that I took away and will have to ponder.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION:

the process by which “The West” separates forms from performers, converts those forms into influences, brings those influences into the center, leaves the living sources on the margin, and pats itself on the back for being so cosmopolitan.

— Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Making Difference,” Writing on Dance, vol 13 (1995)

2. My panel, “What’s the Matter with Mary Sue,” was rollicking. Many, many strong opinions were voiced. The panel was largely definitional, which turned out to be just what was needed. The term means very different things to people who know it’s fannish origins and those who do not.

I may have more on this to say later, but at the moment I’m dashing off to go to another panel.

Wiscon, Saturday morning

1. The vid party was great. I can’t wait for them to get their list of vids up, so I can recommend my favorites. There were two in particular I liked — a Whedon-verse one about women and madness, and a crossover Olivia Dunham / Sarah Connor one about heroism and friendship.

2. I have already started buying books. The upside of this is that I am 120 pages into Mary Doria Russsell’s Doc, the fictional biography of Doc Holiday, and it is incredibly good. A very quick, very engaging read.

3. The Women in Comics panels last night seemed to go well, I think? We had an engaged audience who were mostly already informed of the field, the issues, and what one can expect from Marvel and DC. The panel time seemed roughly split between discussing which books we liked and recommended, and talking about the creator side of things. I.e., being a woman working in comics.

4. The Romance and SFF panel I attended was quite good, I thought. Engaging, with good panelists and lots of audience participation. Though that may just have been me, unable to stop talking.

5. I am meeting up with many people, having lovely conversations, and generally enjoying the hell out of things. I slept in until 7:30 and it wasg reat.

Wiscon, Friday morning

Nancy Clue and I got in yesterday afternoon. After check-in we went to Jennifer’s apartment to meet her and Caroline. Pizza was had, comics were discussed. We played a game, the name of which has escaped me, which involved arguing over who would win a disco dance-off, Beyonce or a hot gay San Francisco barista. (Beyonce. Despite my vehement protestations to the contrary.) After which we re-watched the movie Cruel Intentions.

My goodness, I do love that film. Ryan Phillipe is so massively out-classed by the other actors, though. Caroline remarked that it was rather refreshing to see a guy cast for how pretty he is despite a lack of talent, rather than the ingenue girl. We also discussed how this movie came out at roughly the same time as 10 Things I hate About You and She’s All That. It was mentioned that Cruel Intentions has the virtue of the Skeezy Guy Who Makes a Bet being presented as skeezy. Unlike the other two movies, in which the Guy Who Makes a Bet is presented as misguided but ultimately endearing. This led in turn to a brief contemplating of the EXTREMELY SKETCHY sexual politics of the 80s movies on which we all imprinted, specifically the invitation to date rape in Sixteen Candles.

It’s Friday morning now. Nancy Clue and I are contemplating a bit of a stroll down State Street. I then have plans for a Late Morning Lie-Down, in which I may keep my eyes open and read, or I may prop a book up on my pillow and ignore it. Lunch with friends will follow.

As for actual Wiscon things, I’ll be at or near The Gathering in the early afternoon, then probably at a panel at 4:00. Dinner with friends follows, then another little lie-down, then Opening Ceremonies and my Women in Comics panel at 9:00.

If I am still awake at that point, we’ll see what the evening holds.

In other news, I really miss my kids.

We who are about to embark

Oh, my children. They greeted me this morning with tears and Pokemon. The Pokemon, the children assure me, will miss me while I am away at Wiscon. A lot. So far K has started silently crying twice, and M has burst into tears once. That’s in an hour and a half.

Oh, my children. I will miss you, too.

I miss my family hugely when I am gone. I miss J, and my kids, and N. We have a nice house and a good life and a solid family, and I miss them when we are apart.

The kids made cards for me, and I will make cards for them before I go. Something to look at as a tangible reminder that we will be back together in a few days.

That said, my bags are packed (except for this computer) and Nancy Clue will be by to pick me up in a couple of hours.

Those of you attending Wiscon, I’ll see you soon.

One more day to get things done

1. In advance of the Memorial Day rush, we visited the Fort Snelling National Cemetery yesterday and put flowers on J’s father’s grave. I find all cemeteries solemn, but the national ones more so. All those who have served …

2. I got a new phone yesterday! The Nexus S 4G. It’s Google’s personal version of an Android phone, running on Gingerbread. So far I think it’s going to be a contest between how much it CAN do and how badly those capacities eat the battery. We’ll see.

I kept my Palm Pixi, though. If I don’t like the Nokia, I’ll go back to the Pixi. I love that little phone!

J asked me why I was getting a new phone, if I loved my old one. The thing is, I’m not an early adopter of tech, by any means. But I am in the closer second waves. There’s no one specific thing that makes me want the Adroid phone, it’s more an accretion of little bits of information about what the Android can do. After a while, I think, huh, there’s a lot out there I could use.

3. I finished Matterhorn! I won’t by any means finish all the books I wanted to before Wiscon. That’s okay, though. I still feel prepared.

4. I got NONE of the cleaning done yesterday that I wanted. NONE. Instead I ran errands and spent lots of high-quality time with my family. I’ll take that deal, yes please.

A rare Second Post in one day

1. M is sick. He’s been sick, poor woogums. But this evening, prior to going to play for two hours with his friends at Circus, he announced he felt too sick to go. He then fell asleep on the couch, holding a just-in-case bowl and surrounded by unread books. When I woke him much later he was pale and sweaty and nibbled a little bit of dinner before retiring to the couch.

2. I dropped K off at her class. She had a watch, a list of where she had to be places at what time, all of her gear, dinner — she should be just fine. J left a little while ago to go watch K’s last class of the evening, Unicycle II.

3. The Lego shelves arrived today. These are the extra shelves to be fit into the existing Lego shelving unit. We need these shelves, such are the Lego display requirements of the household.

4. I went to go check out a Nexus S 4G phone. It looks pretty good, I might go pick one up tomorrow.

5. Tomorrow I need to:

go to the bank
go to trap league
possibly get a new phone and dink around with it all afternoon
clean my enormous piles of STUFF off the dining room table
start packing, maybe

Monday’s brain is already on vacation

1. Leaving the house at 4:45 in the morning is less scary in the spring and summer. Partially it’s due to the longer hours of daylight — it’s grey-ish out instead of pitch dark. But mostly it’s due to the fact that the birds are chirping and singing. It’s hard to be afraid of The Gentlemen or The Silence when there are birds chirping.

2. I finished Allison Weir’s excellent The Wars of the Roses. I am afraid I have only the dimmest grasp on that period of English history, still, but it’s better than it was.

3. The t.v. series Hellcats was cancelled. I am trying to figure out what I want to try to say about this show. It was not free of flaws, yet I feel it was doing something incredibly important on network television. Moreover, every episode had cheerleading routines and musical numbers.

4. Speaking of musical numbers, I saw this post from Dorothy Snarker discussing how freaking hard the Glee kids work, and how now that the season is over they are taking a live show on tour. Jeepers. I concur with Ms. Snarker’s hope that, when this is all over, I hope they can each but whatever the hell they feel like. I hope they are being well compensated for their work.

Here’s the thing about Glee. It’s not really my cup of tea. I love about 50% of each episode and fast-forward through the rest, so I stopped watching it. However. However. I am thrilled to no end that this set of present-day icons for self-pride, self-worth, and self-expression are musical theater geeks.

I love musical theater geeks.

5. Work has … Ugh, I think about trying to explain how and why work has been challenging the last couple of days, and my brain gets tired just thinking about how I would say it. Work has been hard.

There is a thing, though, that happens. It happened yesterday, and this thing is so freaking awesome that it keeps me coming back for more. I was working the high-altitude arrival sector for the GEP5 arrival, sector 11, and the weather was sitting over the field and the SKETR3 arrival had been shut off. After the weather moved just off the field, planes starting coming out, deviating and diverting through the holding, deviating, and diverting inbound aircraft.

For two hours I worked that sector, and it felt like ten minutes. For two hours I completely had the flick. There is nothing that feels as fulfilling, as solidly good, as all-powerful and godlike as really good air traffic control. I got out of the sector, walked to the geek room for my break, and literally stared at nothing for fifteen minutes before I had the brain-power to watch a video.

It’s been a tiring week.

6. That said, today is the last day of my work-week before my Wiscon vacation. I’m off until June 3rd, and I am really looking forward to it.

Though, the number of things I have written down on this piece of paper that says “To-Do Tuesday” is, um, optimistic.