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sdelmonte- Cannot let the passing of the legendary Katherine Hepburn go unnoticed. She was, IMHO, the best film actress we ever saw. The list of classics she was in, the list of legendary leading men she performed with, can go on for some time. But she was always great, a charming, beautiful, intelligent, spunky and classy presence who was unique even in her day, and who has never been matched. If you want to see her at her best, I would recommend "The Philadelphia Story," one of the fienst movies ever made, "Woman of the Year," and "the African Queen." Rest in peace, Ms. Hepburn.
- So the Mets got swept this season by the Yankees. I hate to say this, but I really don't care. Not because I want to see my team lose to the Yankees. Not even because I think interleague play is too routine to be interesting anymore. But because when a team is playing as badly as the Mets, you just can't get worked up after a certain point by their total faliure. Sadly, my team is done for right now, and until the mangement decides to get rid of as many overpriced flops as possible and to let the core of young players they have get in shape at their own pace, there's no reason to invest any of my emotion in this crew. I'll still follow them, like always, and watch them when I can, but I think this is a good time to back away a bit until it's worth caring. Right now, I don't really know if management cares, so why should I?
- This weekend was the seventh annual Gathering of the Gargoyles convention. What follows is a brief overview. First and foremost, the fandom has changed. It's not the group we all welcomed to NYC five years ago. Most of those folk seem to be gone. Instead, it younger, and different. The bulk of the people there were college age or not much older. Of them, a good number were what I might call goths, or junior members of the leather/PVC scene, and a lot of them were fairly raunchy. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, and I found most of these folks to be intelligent, interesting and friendly. (I should note that it always seems odd to me to see people so young acting this way, given that my youth was misspent in the Orthodox equvalent of a cloister. But they must think we're odd, being religious Jews not writing or turning on lights on Saturday and so forth.)
But the culture of this con is altered by this crowd. For example, the con included a separate track of adult panels and art, and as best as I could tell, the majority of the attendees were interested. It got to the point that during the fundraising auction, as an incentive to get higher bids, two of the auctioneers - one male, one female - took their shirts off. (At which point I took my glasses off. Better to stop looking than to be rude to someone who is having fun.) The end result was that I felt just a bit uncomfortable and out of place at times. I know that these folk are as into Gargoyles as the Dreamer Clan, but what they get out of it is so different that I didn't feel at home.
Even more telling is that next year's con is in Montreal, where the big selling point is that the drinking and gambling age is 18. Something tells me that Greg Weisman's panels on how to make cartoons won't be the big draw. The notion is that it's all about the party. (OK, maybe a lot of cons are like that, but not the ones I tend to go to.)
So I think this is pretty much it for us and Gatherings. It's great that the fandom for this show is still around, and I hope it thrives for years to come. But it's not my fandom.
Otherwise, we did have a good time. There were a good number of shortcomigs to this event, as the con staff was made of newbies and needed to master the arts of communications and planning. A good example of this was the disappearance of a video room. For two days, the location of the video room kept chaning form con suite to a function space, but in the end, the video room fell by the wayside. If there had been planning or better communciations with the hotel, this might have been avoided. And we had some communciations issues of our own about the con suite that, whle quickly repaired, were a bit of a hassle.
For newbies, they did a reasonably good job, but if nothing else, I appreciate even more how hard it is to get a con in place. Meredith, I once again tip my hat to you and your Buffycon crew, as I see even better what could have gone wrong and that didn't.
The con suite under the command of the Dremaer Clan ran well. Thanks to everyone from the Clan who made it work, who gave their time and energy. It was - gasp! - fun. The good thing about running a con suite is that eventually, everyone comes to you. I missed a lot of the con, but I got a chance to talk to a lot of people and also got a chance to hang with the Clan. I'm not saying we should run a con suite again any time soon, but it was worth doing at least once.
Lastly, the radio play featured both Toon and I. For those who don't know, Greg Weisman - creator of Gargoyles, annual guest of honor, and part-time voice director - always brings a script for use as a radio play using con attendees who audition and make the cut. Some years, he brings something new and secret (and swears us all to secrecy). This year, he brought a Gargyoles script he chose mainly because it was written by Gary Sperling. Mr. Sperling, an animation writer for Disney for many years, died of lung cnacer last month, and this was a tribute to him.
The episode was "The Reckoning," which features the evil clone Thailog's revenge against the Gargoyles. Batya got to play Demona, and did a great job. I got to play Fang, a lesser bad guy voiced in the origianl by Jim Belushi. So while Batya got to be melodramatic and angsty and angry and mysterious, I got to ham it up. It was loads of fun, and it's nice to know that my meagre acting skills can still impress now and then. Also, if Gargoyles ever comes back, since Belushi is busy with that sitcom, I figure I've got the insde track for the role now. :)
and that's it for now. Better get to work.
- So the Mets got swept this season by the Yankees. I hate to say this, but I really don't care. Not because I want to see my team lose to the Yankees. Not even because I think interleague play is too routine to be interesting anymore. But because when a team is playing as badly as the Mets, you just can't get worked up after a certain point by their total faliure. Sadly, my team is done for right now, and until the mangement decides to get rid of as many overpriced flops as possible and to let the core of young players they have get in shape at their own pace, there's no reason to invest any of my emotion in this crew. I'll still follow them, like always, and watch them when I can, but I think this is a good time to back away a bit until it's worth caring. Right now, I don't really know if management cares, so why should I?
- This weekend was the seventh annual Gathering of the Gargoyles convention. What follows is a brief overview. First and foremost, the fandom has changed. It's not the group we all welcomed to NYC five years ago. Most of those folk seem to be gone. Instead, it younger, and different. The bulk of the people there were college age or not much older. Of them, a good number were what I might call goths, or junior members of the leather/PVC scene, and a lot of them were fairly raunchy. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, and I found most of these folks to be intelligent, interesting and friendly. (I should note that it always seems odd to me to see people so young acting this way, given that my youth was misspent in the Orthodox equvalent of a cloister. But they must think we're odd, being religious Jews not writing or turning on lights on Saturday and so forth.)
But the culture of this con is altered by this crowd. For example, the con included a separate track of adult panels and art, and as best as I could tell, the majority of the attendees were interested. It got to the point that during the fundraising auction, as an incentive to get higher bids, two of the auctioneers - one male, one female - took their shirts off. (At which point I took my glasses off. Better to stop looking than to be rude to someone who is having fun.) The end result was that I felt just a bit uncomfortable and out of place at times. I know that these folk are as into Gargoyles as the Dreamer Clan, but what they get out of it is so different that I didn't feel at home.
Even more telling is that next year's con is in Montreal, where the big selling point is that the drinking and gambling age is 18. Something tells me that Greg Weisman's panels on how to make cartoons won't be the big draw. The notion is that it's all about the party. (OK, maybe a lot of cons are like that, but not the ones I tend to go to.)
So I think this is pretty much it for us and Gatherings. It's great that the fandom for this show is still around, and I hope it thrives for years to come. But it's not my fandom.
Otherwise, we did have a good time. There were a good number of shortcomigs to this event, as the con staff was made of newbies and needed to master the arts of communications and planning. A good example of this was the disappearance of a video room. For two days, the location of the video room kept chaning form con suite to a function space, but in the end, the video room fell by the wayside. If there had been planning or better communciations with the hotel, this might have been avoided. And we had some communciations issues of our own about the con suite that, whle quickly repaired, were a bit of a hassle.
For newbies, they did a reasonably good job, but if nothing else, I appreciate even more how hard it is to get a con in place. Meredith, I once again tip my hat to you and your Buffycon crew, as I see even better what could have gone wrong and that didn't.
The con suite under the command of the Dremaer Clan ran well. Thanks to everyone from the Clan who made it work, who gave their time and energy. It was - gasp! - fun. The good thing about running a con suite is that eventually, everyone comes to you. I missed a lot of the con, but I got a chance to talk to a lot of people and also got a chance to hang with the Clan. I'm not saying we should run a con suite again any time soon, but it was worth doing at least once.
Lastly, the radio play featured both Toon and I. For those who don't know, Greg Weisman - creator of Gargoyles, annual guest of honor, and part-time voice director - always brings a script for use as a radio play using con attendees who audition and make the cut. Some years, he brings something new and secret (and swears us all to secrecy). This year, he brought a Gargyoles script he chose mainly because it was written by Gary Sperling. Mr. Sperling, an animation writer for Disney for many years, died of lung cnacer last month, and this was a tribute to him.
The episode was "The Reckoning," which features the evil clone Thailog's revenge against the Gargoyles. Batya got to play Demona, and did a great job. I got to play Fang, a lesser bad guy voiced in the origianl by Jim Belushi. So while Batya got to be melodramatic and angsty and angry and mysterious, I got to ham it up. It was loads of fun, and it's nice to know that my meagre acting skills can still impress now and then. Also, if Gargoyles ever comes back, since Belushi is busy with that sitcom, I figure I've got the insde track for the role now. :)
and that's it for now. Better get to work.
