Balticon 2002 Con Report
May. 28th, 2002 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteWhile Batya and I have attended filk cons outside the NY area, we had not been to a general SF con away from home till now. We decided to go as a bit of a splurge, and to get away for a few days. In terms of getting away, of leaving news of terrorism and war and poor Chandra Levy, and of getting a change of scenery, the con did the trick. I was quite relaxed most of the weekend. But as a con, how does Balticon rank?
The short answer is that, on the whole, it was about as enjoyable as an average Lunacon. There were many good things, and many flaws with con and hotel. As someone who had to travel a longer way on a holiday weekend, I must conclude that Balticon is not worth doing every year as an alternative to NYC cons. But as a supplement, it gets good marks. Let’s break it down.
Hotel: The hotel as a place to sleep and eat is average. Nice rooms, nice fitness room, and what looks like a relatively reasonable steakhouse for those who don’t keep kosher. (It did strike me as odd that the restaurant is named for former football coach Don Shula, who hasn’t coached in Baltimore in nearly thirty years.) As a place for a con, however, the public rooms left a bit to be desired. The room serving as con suite was totally uninviting. The filk rooms had low ceilings and were cramped. The main ballroom was OK, but smelled of cigarette smoke. Compared with the rooms at the Rye Town Hilton (home of Lunacon), it comes up short.
Programming: On paper, many of the panels sounded good. That’s why we went. But too many good panels were at the same times, on Friday before we got there, or early on Saturday while many were sleeping. Many programs were set without setting the panelists first. so that some people were overbooked badly. Of the panels I attended, two were dull and one jumped the tracks from the topic badly. The best panel? A discussion on religion and fantasy that stayed on topic. The worst: a panel on heroic ideals in fantasy – featuring John Norman - which ended up discussing time travel and killing baby Hitler.
The science programs that I got to were OK. A lecture on Mars was too technical and we walked out. A slide show of Hubble images was great, and Dr. Paul Shuch (aka Dr. Seti) gave a concise update of the SETI project as it stands now. I like that Balticon takes advantage of the presence of so many NASA techies in the Washington area. I think that NASA, in turn, knows that we are among the few left loudly supporting the space program.
Special events: We attended two special programs. One was the annual Clam Chowder concert Friday night. Highlights of this included a special performance of “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” to mark the death of the last Australian survivor of Gallipoli last week. If you can listen to this song and not be touched, you are simply not listening. They also played three Arrogant Worms songs. Batya and I got introduced to the member of CC after the concert.
The other event was a spoof of Fellowship of the Ring. Happily, the troupe responsible for this – who do spoofs at the Trek con Shore Leave – kept the humor clean and also funny. The jokes also were delightfully obscure. Saruman is busy trying to take over the Montreal Expos, Elrond remembers that Iseldor kept the ring to serve as Green Lantern of Sector 2814, and the Elvish race is rather, um, familiar. I hope they return and do the rest of the saga in years to come.
Gaming: I never set foot in the game room before this con. I always thought that the gamers were a pack of college kids playing Magic. Well, when you have a friend who is one of those kids, he helps to dispel some of that stereotype. How? He introduced me to some of the games that gamers play, games like Munchkins and Chez Geek. So when Zev Sero announced a game of Munchkins was starting, I found me way away from the pool – it was too cold to swim, back in my street clothes, and into the game room. Two and half hours later, in a closely fought battle, Steve Brinich – a Steve Jackson Games tester – won, and I had a great time. I have no idea who I was playing with besides Steve and Zev, but it was relaxed and calm and nothing like playing against close friends. I suspect that at my next Lunacon, I won’t run from the game room anymore.
Filk: This was the most disappointing part of the weekend for me. None of the New York filkers besides us came to the con. I suspect they’re saving up time and money for Contata (which is in New Jersey in a month). But the only familiar faces in the room were Sheryl Gere, Steve Brinich, Harold Feld, and Steven Joel Zeve, plus Dr. Seti, who I never met before this but has earned his reputation. Even Gary Ehrlich, who lives with Sheryl in Rockville, MD, was absent for most of the con as he went to Marcon first. I was quite surprised that none of the filkers I had met at the cons in Atlanta, Virginia and Ohio were there. While there was some good filk, there was not enough to get me to stay up till 3 am as I had planned. One filker in the room had a tendency to play a bit too much in the way of relatively mainstream music, but anyone who introduces me to two Dylan songs I never heard but now have to get – “Jokerman” and “Man of Peace” – deserves some applause.
Miscellaneous: There were no Buffy panels but the chief fannish topic of discussion was the Buffy finale. The reactions are very mixed, from out-and-out hatred to sheer boredom to grudging acceptance. The other major topic of chatting was Episode II, again with very mixed opinions. Oddly, no one seemed to be talking much about Spider-Man. While I’m sure most fans saw it and liked it, it’s clear that in the SF/fantasy fannish community comics book heroes are not a civic religion the way Star Wars and Buffy are. That Buffy has become such a key part of fannish life is fascinating. That Spider-Man, who was doing teen angst 35 years before Buffy, is not is also fascinating.
Watched “Emperor’s New Groove” again on the big screen Sunday morning. It still cracks me up. What’s more, it’s great to hear others laugh at this underappreciated gem. I told my friend Israel to come and see it, and he was happily surprised with how good it was. If you haven’t seen it, rent it today. I’ll take it ahead of “Shrek” any day.
Finally, public thanks to some who made the con doable. Thanks to our friend Liz for letting us ride down with her, and for letting me navigate. It’s been ages since I got to do that. Thanks to Yakira Blum and to Harold and Becky Feld for helping to organize kosher meals for the Jews in the crew. The shabbos meals were great, and it’s also good to get some singing going at the table.
And that’s the con report. If you read this and also went to Balticon, let’s here your POV.
The short answer is that, on the whole, it was about as enjoyable as an average Lunacon. There were many good things, and many flaws with con and hotel. As someone who had to travel a longer way on a holiday weekend, I must conclude that Balticon is not worth doing every year as an alternative to NYC cons. But as a supplement, it gets good marks. Let’s break it down.
Hotel: The hotel as a place to sleep and eat is average. Nice rooms, nice fitness room, and what looks like a relatively reasonable steakhouse for those who don’t keep kosher. (It did strike me as odd that the restaurant is named for former football coach Don Shula, who hasn’t coached in Baltimore in nearly thirty years.) As a place for a con, however, the public rooms left a bit to be desired. The room serving as con suite was totally uninviting. The filk rooms had low ceilings and were cramped. The main ballroom was OK, but smelled of cigarette smoke. Compared with the rooms at the Rye Town Hilton (home of Lunacon), it comes up short.
Programming: On paper, many of the panels sounded good. That’s why we went. But too many good panels were at the same times, on Friday before we got there, or early on Saturday while many were sleeping. Many programs were set without setting the panelists first. so that some people were overbooked badly. Of the panels I attended, two were dull and one jumped the tracks from the topic badly. The best panel? A discussion on religion and fantasy that stayed on topic. The worst: a panel on heroic ideals in fantasy – featuring John Norman - which ended up discussing time travel and killing baby Hitler.
The science programs that I got to were OK. A lecture on Mars was too technical and we walked out. A slide show of Hubble images was great, and Dr. Paul Shuch (aka Dr. Seti) gave a concise update of the SETI project as it stands now. I like that Balticon takes advantage of the presence of so many NASA techies in the Washington area. I think that NASA, in turn, knows that we are among the few left loudly supporting the space program.
Special events: We attended two special programs. One was the annual Clam Chowder concert Friday night. Highlights of this included a special performance of “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” to mark the death of the last Australian survivor of Gallipoli last week. If you can listen to this song and not be touched, you are simply not listening. They also played three Arrogant Worms songs. Batya and I got introduced to the member of CC after the concert.
The other event was a spoof of Fellowship of the Ring. Happily, the troupe responsible for this – who do spoofs at the Trek con Shore Leave – kept the humor clean and also funny. The jokes also were delightfully obscure. Saruman is busy trying to take over the Montreal Expos, Elrond remembers that Iseldor kept the ring to serve as Green Lantern of Sector 2814, and the Elvish race is rather, um, familiar. I hope they return and do the rest of the saga in years to come.
Gaming: I never set foot in the game room before this con. I always thought that the gamers were a pack of college kids playing Magic. Well, when you have a friend who is one of those kids, he helps to dispel some of that stereotype. How? He introduced me to some of the games that gamers play, games like Munchkins and Chez Geek. So when Zev Sero announced a game of Munchkins was starting, I found me way away from the pool – it was too cold to swim, back in my street clothes, and into the game room. Two and half hours later, in a closely fought battle, Steve Brinich – a Steve Jackson Games tester – won, and I had a great time. I have no idea who I was playing with besides Steve and Zev, but it was relaxed and calm and nothing like playing against close friends. I suspect that at my next Lunacon, I won’t run from the game room anymore.
Filk: This was the most disappointing part of the weekend for me. None of the New York filkers besides us came to the con. I suspect they’re saving up time and money for Contata (which is in New Jersey in a month). But the only familiar faces in the room were Sheryl Gere, Steve Brinich, Harold Feld, and Steven Joel Zeve, plus Dr. Seti, who I never met before this but has earned his reputation. Even Gary Ehrlich, who lives with Sheryl in Rockville, MD, was absent for most of the con as he went to Marcon first. I was quite surprised that none of the filkers I had met at the cons in Atlanta, Virginia and Ohio were there. While there was some good filk, there was not enough to get me to stay up till 3 am as I had planned. One filker in the room had a tendency to play a bit too much in the way of relatively mainstream music, but anyone who introduces me to two Dylan songs I never heard but now have to get – “Jokerman” and “Man of Peace” – deserves some applause.
Miscellaneous: There were no Buffy panels but the chief fannish topic of discussion was the Buffy finale. The reactions are very mixed, from out-and-out hatred to sheer boredom to grudging acceptance. The other major topic of chatting was Episode II, again with very mixed opinions. Oddly, no one seemed to be talking much about Spider-Man. While I’m sure most fans saw it and liked it, it’s clear that in the SF/fantasy fannish community comics book heroes are not a civic religion the way Star Wars and Buffy are. That Buffy has become such a key part of fannish life is fascinating. That Spider-Man, who was doing teen angst 35 years before Buffy, is not is also fascinating.
Watched “Emperor’s New Groove” again on the big screen Sunday morning. It still cracks me up. What’s more, it’s great to hear others laugh at this underappreciated gem. I told my friend Israel to come and see it, and he was happily surprised with how good it was. If you haven’t seen it, rent it today. I’ll take it ahead of “Shrek” any day.
Finally, public thanks to some who made the con doable. Thanks to our friend Liz for letting us ride down with her, and for letting me navigate. It’s been ages since I got to do that. Thanks to Yakira Blum and to Harold and Becky Feld for helping to organize kosher meals for the Jews in the crew. The shabbos meals were great, and it’s also good to get some singing going at the table.
And that’s the con report. If you read this and also went to Balticon, let’s here your POV.
