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Odd Con
I had such a strange con experience...
I was enjoying myself at first. The con staff was organized. Dinner came off pretty much without a hitch. My panels went well, and the other panels on comic books were good. Everything seemed fine.
But it wasn't. At first, I was just feeling a little tired. Then, I began to get sensitive to the hall costumes. Specifically, to the ones that revealed a good amount of the person in them. After attending cons for six years, I thought I was used to this, but by Saturday night, I was feeling a good amount of annoyance. I am a prude, which is not a secret, but for some reason my prude hackles were at a high. Now I think that to a degree the revealing costumes were a touch more revealing than usual (and a touch more tacky than tasteful). But this is Lunacon, and this is how some people dress.
I was so grumpy that I left the masquerade once our friend who had entered came on stage. I was not in the mood for very much, and took to briefly roaming the halls with a friend. Slowly, the picture had dawned.
In years past, I was doing a lot of things at the con with friends. This time, everyone was off doing their own thing. Now so was Batya, but she always does this too. That was fine when I had my friends to essentially create a comfort zone. This time, I was on my own. And all the things that I could usually shrug off as just someone else's way of having fun seemed a lot closer to being in my face. (And please, if you are into wild costumes and making noise and roaming the halls in search of the perfect party, I am not telling you to stop. I know that most of you are not seeking to offend, but seeking to express and to have fun. You do cons to get away from prudes telling you how to live, and the day I become that bad, I expect someone to tell me, so that I remember it not MY con, but OURS.)
Add in that most of the filkers and many of the poeple I had met from groups like CUGC at Lunacons past were not there, and I began to feel like something of a stranger. As much as I love cons, I have never felt 100% at home at the big ones. Filk cons? They're small, they're not about costumes or parties, and everyone is so friendly. At Lunacon, it's hard to find a friend sometimes, amidst the small and sometimes offputting crowd in the substandard con suite and when you tend to be keenly aware that the 30something population of the con is nearly invisible.
So by the time the con ended, I had retreated to the safety zone of the filk room, where maybe I should have gone in the first place. Because the new filkers in there were working very hard to fill the void left by the missing filkers. And now I find myself wondering about WorldCon. It's not worth it to spend that kind of money to end up in the same blue funk again (and to risk harming Batya's fun again as well). I can't even say it's worth it to spend that kind of money to spend all of WorldCon in the filk room (even if the filk is great). But there's not any way to turn back the clock to the days when the Dreamer Clan roamed the halls of the Escher Hilton as a group.
So I have some thinking to do. I still enjoy going to cons, but I'm not sure I enjoy going to big cons anymore. And I would also suspect that I will react just as negatively to the inherently un-Orthodox dress code now and again. There are times when I feel comfortable straddling the two worlds I live in. But when I don't, it would be silly to pay good money to increase my discomfort.
And that's why I had such an odd con. Maybe I should just concentrate on the warmer world of the filk con. But in any case, I missed the chance to schmooze with the handful of friends I wanted to see at the con but who were either busy or not there. If you were there, and I didn't say hi, maybe I'll catch you nest time.
I was enjoying myself at first. The con staff was organized. Dinner came off pretty much without a hitch. My panels went well, and the other panels on comic books were good. Everything seemed fine.
But it wasn't. At first, I was just feeling a little tired. Then, I began to get sensitive to the hall costumes. Specifically, to the ones that revealed a good amount of the person in them. After attending cons for six years, I thought I was used to this, but by Saturday night, I was feeling a good amount of annoyance. I am a prude, which is not a secret, but for some reason my prude hackles were at a high. Now I think that to a degree the revealing costumes were a touch more revealing than usual (and a touch more tacky than tasteful). But this is Lunacon, and this is how some people dress.
I was so grumpy that I left the masquerade once our friend who had entered came on stage. I was not in the mood for very much, and took to briefly roaming the halls with a friend. Slowly, the picture had dawned.
In years past, I was doing a lot of things at the con with friends. This time, everyone was off doing their own thing. Now so was Batya, but she always does this too. That was fine when I had my friends to essentially create a comfort zone. This time, I was on my own. And all the things that I could usually shrug off as just someone else's way of having fun seemed a lot closer to being in my face. (And please, if you are into wild costumes and making noise and roaming the halls in search of the perfect party, I am not telling you to stop. I know that most of you are not seeking to offend, but seeking to express and to have fun. You do cons to get away from prudes telling you how to live, and the day I become that bad, I expect someone to tell me, so that I remember it not MY con, but OURS.)
Add in that most of the filkers and many of the poeple I had met from groups like CUGC at Lunacons past were not there, and I began to feel like something of a stranger. As much as I love cons, I have never felt 100% at home at the big ones. Filk cons? They're small, they're not about costumes or parties, and everyone is so friendly. At Lunacon, it's hard to find a friend sometimes, amidst the small and sometimes offputting crowd in the substandard con suite and when you tend to be keenly aware that the 30something population of the con is nearly invisible.
So by the time the con ended, I had retreated to the safety zone of the filk room, where maybe I should have gone in the first place. Because the new filkers in there were working very hard to fill the void left by the missing filkers. And now I find myself wondering about WorldCon. It's not worth it to spend that kind of money to end up in the same blue funk again (and to risk harming Batya's fun again as well). I can't even say it's worth it to spend that kind of money to spend all of WorldCon in the filk room (even if the filk is great). But there's not any way to turn back the clock to the days when the Dreamer Clan roamed the halls of the Escher Hilton as a group.
So I have some thinking to do. I still enjoy going to cons, but I'm not sure I enjoy going to big cons anymore. And I would also suspect that I will react just as negatively to the inherently un-Orthodox dress code now and again. There are times when I feel comfortable straddling the two worlds I live in. But when I don't, it would be silly to pay good money to increase my discomfort.
And that's why I had such an odd con. Maybe I should just concentrate on the warmer world of the filk con. But in any case, I missed the chance to schmooze with the handful of friends I wanted to see at the con but who were either busy or not there. If you were there, and I didn't say hi, maybe I'll catch you nest time.
no subject
I'd love to try Albacon, but it tends to come out during the fall holidays, and not long before OVFF.
Boskone might be worth thinking about.
no subject
One of the best panels I ever went to was at that Readercon, and the author Coffee Klatches were great. I did find that I missed the broader array of perspectives that having some of those other elements of fandom brings, but the sheer intellectual freshness was very very shiny. :)
no subject
If I ever go again, I'll be tempted (probably not tempted enough, but tempted) to hold a garage filk in my room. :)
no subject
I thought Albacon was one of those college cons where you have to sleep off-site and take a bus in (as well as always conflicting with Sukkot.)