Audience of Strangers

12 percent done, 88 to go, and I feel warranties should come with an extension.

I married an eloquent, you know. Much love.

First, if I can help, please let me know. Please? I'm checking in, but I can't see everything.

Third, I am am afraid I am quite tipsy. It's a strange soft feeling, and not unpleasant. It's a bit unnerving; I am not at all used to being this tipsy.[1] I keep getting the urge to read the Ramsey Campbell-based Chaosium mythos supplement, for some reason.[2]

Last, the unicorn; The Last Unicorn. Because someone said they didn't understand the appeal, and I get that they don't get it, but that's not the point. And theweaselking and I were talking about it to them and to each other and then he played the opening music, and I cried, and it wasn't in a bad way and we are watching it now.

I do not say it is a movie immune from criticism, but for me it is not "brilliant" or "terrible". It operates on an alternate criteria stream.[3] ( Cut for... schmaltz? But okay. )

I hope you are well. I hope you and yours are well, and you are taking care and being taken care of, and I wish you only the best. Let me know if I can help.
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[1] Sample dialogue, petting the cat: "Her eyes are very green. Her eyes are green as limes, which is how Poppy Z. Brite described the eyes of the vampire Zillah in her first novel which I can't remember the name of but it wasn't Drawing Blood. Also, Z is for Zillah who drank lye by mistake in the Gashlycrumb Tinies."
[2] It sort of makes me a teeny bit sad how few people I expect to follow that statement.
[3] I have been using Leverage as a comparison point for everything from Game of Thrones to The Last Unicorn tonight. It is for me a show about handling cruelty with grace and compassion and wit, and making amends, and balancing scales. It is a good collection of stories.

Ray Bradbury's dead.

The Hallowe'en Tree was my first favourite book. Ever. Stendahl's home on Mars, the recreation of the House of Usher, still makes me grin--pretty rare, I like to think, now that I've grown past revenge fantasy mua-ha-ha. The Elliot family, Ceci, Uncle Einar; the man who walked alone at night; the Illustrated Man; Charles Halloway. Oh, damn, Charles Halloway. The Dust Witch. The woman crying when the TV was turned off and the book was read.

(I'd forgotten it was "Dover Beach" specifically.)

I heard at quarter to noon.

I really can't think of anything else to say.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here lies he where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) "Requiem"; changed to reflect my father's recollection

We were over at John's parents' for dinner. His dad is an amateur genealogist[1], and he plugged my dad's name and birth date into the program he uses. (From what I have garnered, it is a loose cloud of information floating somewhere in the intern(et)her. You build your family tree there, other people build theirs, if the two of you happen to have a common point then the data which you've chosen to make public can overlap.)

Someone else had already created an entry for someone who could have been my dad--a couple of data points met--and it included a picture, so I got called over to take a look at it.

It was him.

It was weird.

It was taken in the mid-late 40s, I guess; the scan[2] is greyscale and not very big. You can make out four candles on the cake balanced on his knees (birthday picture, is the guess), but he's clearly way more than four. I looked at it for a second, and I couldn't say one way or the other if it was dad, and then there was this realization that I'd seen that expression on his face before, that exact expression, and I felt...

I want to say stunned, but that's really not right. It's too strong. Taken aback, maybe, and pleasantly surprised.

Part of it was understanding that someone else knew about him; someone I'd never had reason to imagine existed found a picture of him and figured out or was told who he was. Part of it was that he looked happy.

(Also I have now learnt my paternal grandmother's names, and picked up a smidgen of detail about the trip she took to come over from Italy.)

It was a pretty good early-Christmas dinner evening, all told.
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[1] Do you get professional genealogists? I suppose you could, but somehow I suspect I'd default to thinking of them as historians.
[1] I had a moment of thinking "Am I sure it was a scan?" and then being slightly disconcerted to realize that yes, of course I am sure. Digital pictures were so not an option at that point, after all.

In the name of not being utterly out of it, or something...

* surgery on relative seems to have gone well, yay.
* work. So tired.
* Canada's Penitentiary Museum in Kingston got my name right. Three times. They are awesome. I have a little laminated card.
* a collection of stories about the Ivybridge family is coming out next year. For those of you who don't know them, may I recommend the Historical Lovecraft anthology?
* oh lord, I still need to turn over the laundry.

Okay. I don't actually think I can do justice to the trip, and I can't quite manage to get the pics off my phone yet, and I am tired of trying. Will deal with later.

Nonetheless, quick highlights so I know what to come back and talk about later.

* Friday night - headed to Montreal. Stayed with aunts (the house was lovely), were surprise-dinnered, went over to see jasmine_koran and snakey.

* Saturday - zoo trip! Went to the Granby Zoo. It was surprisingly cold and enthusiastically rainy and I ended up buying a poncho from the guest shop. (And then a lot of postcards and a plush snow leopard which has been named Squidgereekit for reasons that probably have to do with no coffee.) Lovely *lovely* animals, many pictures, and weirdly not as sad as I vaguely expected it to be. Watched a tiger be very sad over her lost ball, was landed on by many rainbow lorikeets, petted a stingray. Manta ray? They feel like those little "put them in water and watch them GROW!" toys. (Have some camera pictures, but batteries died. Mostly on phone.)

Headed back and went out for Indian for dinner. Stayed up moderately late talking to aunt and cousin, limped to bed with the whole "ohgod I don't usually walk seven hours straight in a day!" kicking my ass the backs of my knees and thighs.

* Sunday - breakfast with aunts, then on to Kingston! Stopped at the Long Sault for gas and discovered that there was a road connecting several of the islands which we had not previously known about. Went for a drive along it, and stopped briefly so John could be a Good Samaritan and retrieve a dog for its owner, and ended up in a small picnic table shelter that explained about the lost villages. Because a bunch of villages no longer exist, since they were flooded to create the Saint Lawrence seaway.

No, I didn't know either.

We headed out again, discovered we were going by Upper Canada Village, and stopped in. (Highlights: sawmills, so cool, cheese, doctor's office, sewing/knitting/dyeing people.) Made it to Kingston and ladybird97's place, went out to dinner at the... uhm. A place with a very great lot of beers. Then just hanging about and talking and then heading over to John's brother's to sleep.

* Monday - Kingston! Fort Henry's closed, so spent much of the morning at the Kingston Penitentiary Museum. Lunch at the aforementioned Italian restaurant. Afternoon at

* Tuesday - left Harrowsmith, drove towards and through Toronto. Stopped at Cobourg on the way, which is a lovely little place with a beach on Lake Ontario. (Fish skull of pike-y doom.) Becky sent us discount coupons for Niagara Falls hotel, so we decided to go there and checked in.

Niagara Falls is big. Really really big. Hitchhiker's Guide to teh Galaxy talking-about-space big. And it rains. And it has its own rainbow at night. And it sounds like the sky is purring. I have never seen anything like it in my life.

Puppy.

I have been mugged by giant eyes and a giddy Friday impulse. Blame John, too.

In Sault Ste Marie. This is okay. Had to wait at airport for my sister. This is okay. (This is less than as good as okay, since (half?) her flight got cancelled and she had no sleep, but right now she is catching up.) Last room had a ton of fruit flies, so moved to this one. This is okay.

The state of the hotel wifi?

Not.
Okay.

Anyway, I might be able to get a connection to stick around, if I put the laptop on the chest of drawers and hunch. Am reminding miyself that downloading and installing Fallout: New Vegas out of spite is a petty thing, and I should not do it.

Getting picked up in forty minutes. Need painkillers. At least it's a fast change.

Keep itching to fire up DW--Dreamweaver, not DreamWidth--and poke around with site ideas. Will not have time, I know. Maybe after the reception or tomorrow morning.

May drop on an episode of Mifits or something, not sure. Am torn between being comforted by and being annoyed at the sameness here. It sort of highlights the monoculture in Babbitt, which I am currently reading through and which is making me wince rather a lot.

Hoping the chance to actually be in a space that does not have a lot of other people in it will help me unwind before the wedding.

The last note on his Twitter this morning, from July 25, was "Your support and well wishes are so appreciated. Thank you. I will fight this – and beat it."

I think (pardon my inarticulation) that it is important not to dismiss that, or him, because he was wrong. In the end, a jaded cynicism is the easy bet; sooner or later everything ends. That does not mean a jaded cynicism is worth embracing.

Not sure what's going to happen now.

He wrote a letter, to be shared after his death.

I'm feeling short-sighted and selfish, because I was keeping it at something of a remove up until I read that letter. And a couple of things got to me on a personal level, and now it's all sinking in, and I'm having trouble thinking of other things.

I'm sure others will have more to say, and it will be more coherent and productive. I'm tired and sad, and I'm going home.

Apparently he died Saturday. I didn't even know he was ill.

It's slowly dawning on me how many anthologies edited by him I've read. And from what Cory Doctorow said, he'll be missed by authors as well as readers.

I have arrived! I am in Montreal. Ben is very kindly making lunch (I can notice this properly because he also made coffee). I have internet access.

(Oh dear *god*, I brought down ten books and two bottles of wine. Although at least my luggage is probably going to be much lighter on the way back.)

In future, I will be more careful about when I have nearly half a litre of coffee.

For now, in case I'm not around the keyboard once dawn breaks and sensible people start getting up... Hope your New Year's Eve rocks, and best to you all in 2011.

Laptop is still not working after being shut, but have just finished a fresh backup, so am not too worried. Need to walk Piper (and it's cold, and I have a headache I cannot shake, and I don't wanna go outside, and yes I realize all this is not relevant, because I need to walk Piper).

I put a wreath on the front door and got a glass (well, plastic) pane for the front of our porch light. And did laundry.

Kind of hoping the headache is due to Rob Halford opening for Ozzy Ozbourne[1], and not to lack of coffee. Which I have just realized I had Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday evening. So caffeine withdrawal would actually be on schedule right about now, if it was that, although I'm hoping I didn't have enough to restart the cycle...

Dammit.

Ah well. I think I'm going to grab painkillers and find socks. Furbeaste of Beasten, Noble Warriorette and Guardienne of the Backe Yarde, needs her walkies. Maybe see about Christmas gifts when I get back. The shopping is not getting any less urgent.
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[1] Thursday? Thursday was awesome. Heard about a show on the radio when the alarm went off, decided to buy tickets a bit before noon, and went that evening. With earplugs, which I sort of forgot to put in for Rob Halford. Which is okay. (Having them in for Ozzy was a bit disorienting, so I ended up going with just one of them for the encore... And two days later, the bruises from clapping and the raw throat from yelling are gone. And so worth it.)

Recent announcement.

Thank you. That is all.

Yes, that was an earthquake; yes, 5.5 I think; yes, I cannot get my cell working for love blood or money.

Fortunately the coffee-shop free connection's working.

I've got a level of detachment going for me. Partly because of the Internet, partly because I don't know the guy. I haven't sat down and read more than a short story, either (which is kind of embarrassing because I've been talking about the Crucifix Glitch concept since the end of September[1] since it is just that neat).

But. Short version. He was coming back across the border on Tuesday. There was an altercation with the border guards. He got thrown in jail, but it's okay! They let him out in Ontario in shirtsleeves on Wednesday! You guys remember what the weather was like on Wednesday, right?

Pardon, the sarcasm got away from me. Also, given the accounts I've been hearing, you have no idea how hard it was to call it something as neutral as an "altercation".

Anyway. I got sent the Boing Boing story at half past noon, and since then he's posted on his site. You should visit his site. For one thing, it has his work up free as PDFs.

For another, if you are inclined, there's a PayPal button on that page. It's mostly for his cat's food, but David Nickle suggests that if you indicate it's for his legal fees ('cause, you know, he's facing a felony charge and a couple years jail time for the crime of getting punched in the face, so there is gonna be that tiny matter of what the whole mess costs) it's currently the most graceful way to help the guy out.

(ETA: How in the bleeding hell have I not heard of David Nickle before this?)
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[1]...actually, I just remembered what October and November were like. I feel less bad now. Here, go check out his in-universe presentation on vampires.

Just some quick impressions...

The couple that found each other in the lobby after the hotel shut down the Friday night parties (apparently the CBC mentioned the parties, failed to mention they were con-only). She seemed kind of shaky, and they were just sitting in a couple of the chairs, talking to each other and to a friend, and holding each other's hand. I wished I had a camera, but at the same time it seems like too private a thing to have been taking pictures of.

=========

The guy in the panel on horror--an older guy, I'm guessing maybe late fifties, sixty, something like that. The group got to talking to about good creepy stories, and he mentioned the second story in a Jack Vance collection, where Liam the Wayfarer meets Chun the Unavoidable...

Yeah. If you just shuddered and made that shaky aaaagh sound, you know what I did.

And recommendations continued--may toss up the list of them later--and he mentioned "Evening Primrose". It's a short story by John Collier, and I agreed that it was a good one. So I went to talk to him briefly afterwards; I thanked him for bringing up a couple of pleasant memories, and he said I was the only other person I'd ever met who read it.

And I said "Really? The short story--the one with the line about lovely Ella, pearl pressed down by creatures of a paler, deadlier white--tentacles!" and yeah, we were definitely talking about the same story. And I mean... it's a good story. It was published in 1940 and collected in '51, and I can't--I'm kind of sad to think that he's never met anyone else who's read it, and I don't think I have either. (And I'm going nuts trying to figure out where I read it--I've gone through a ton of older books, but usually nothing older than late late fifties.) And mostly I'm happy we each found someone else to talk to about it, as that is kind of one of the points of a convention.

Thinking, as well, that I have no idea how many enjoyable stories are quietly crumbling away somewhere. Dammit. I wonder if Fanac has something on that, though it seems a bit outside their purview...

Sondheim made a musical of it, by the way. Gonna check that out.

========

In a similar vein, around three-thirty in the morning on Monday, post-Hugos, I'm hanging out in the con suite when a guy who might not have been old enough to be First Fandom stops by with his suitcase. And I go over to talk, and I mean, I picked up some neat stuff--apparently Fantasy & Science Fiction used to sell lifetime subscriptions for $25, although I can't for the life of me remember if he said he got it in '47 or '57. Also he gave me several manga recommendations, a description of a birthday party his local fan group had (party and then a Harry Potter movie and then stop by a restaurant with the remains of the birthday cake), the neighbourhood dog that hung around his suburbs... Just late-night rambling, mostly. Neat stuff.

I just got back to the hotel. Am sitting in the lobby looking up laundromat addresses and making an LJ post about looking up laundromat addresses. And drinking Gatorade because that last lass of wine while we were all hanging out watching bad horror was probably a bit much.

Hmh. Okay, two laundromats within 1.5 km of the hotel. May not need to ask them about the overnight laundry service. Still, it could be easier...

Four people from a wedding party have showed up. I'm pretty sure three of them are drunk. The fourth is falling asleep. The awake drunk guy has nifty socks and is being generally cheerful, volunteering to wear the high heels of the drunker of the two women.

Four more swallows of Gatorade and I love you all but I am falling right the hell over.

You know, I have a new respect for bloggers. 'cause I imagine some of them are actually going to be managing to report on WorldCon. And I have *no freakin' clue* how they're going to be coherent enough to do that.

A rundown of my day, then, in point form;

* breakfast with James
* hit a signing
* went to "Weird Tales" panel
- listened to people and was very happy
- also got to see a One-Minute Weird Tale from the site which still has me giggling
  o go watch it I will wait
* went for lunch
* and briefly
* had discussion of upcoming panel and schtuff
- which led to explaining terms like "male gaze" and "invisible knapsack"
- which led to the discussion of sexism in open source and the guys who say they do not see it
  o at which point I was told that they mean they don't see it against successful women, because it doesn't happen to women who are successful in open source, and once they clear that first hurdle of achieving professional credentials there is no sexism in the environment
    # (we love you Skud) (put down the cricket bat, Marna says she's on it)
- also it was explained that the war on sexism is over, and there is no point in making further effort
  o because really this is why third-wave feminism failed they were all being shrill
  o and you have to choose your point of attack
  o no not "education" it should be referred to "attack"
- also it was said that men are objectified in comics exactly the same way women are
  o and that any attempt to differentiate between "objectifying" and "idealizing" is really subjective and splitting hairs
    # at which point I offered a text portrait of the first picture here
  o and anyway it's a natural part of psychological development
    # and I kept an emphatic but conversational tone when explaining that while children might go through a stage when they are unable to understand that other people were not objects I did not see this as excusing the practice of perpetuating it
  o also there was an attempt to divert by discussing manga which objectifies men in exactly the same way
  o also a mention that perhaps it was unreasonable to expect comics to depict a world without racism or sexism, which I pointed out had nothing to do with my suggestion that perhaps they should quit *indulging* in it forget about depicting it
  o because anyway all comics are made for white adolescent males
  o and the few that aren't are just thinly disguised variations
    # and I did not brandish anything like Maus or do anything more than pointedly ask who the hell he thought the GoH was *anyway*
    # and I do wish I had made more of an effort to point out that I think Sandman is not made for not-white-adolescent-males it is made for *people*
  o and that people don't learn attitudes from mass media or characters and personas portrayed therein
  o and that the options were screaming at the corporations or preaching to the choir or else getting people who hadn't already picked a side
    # so I pointed out that this requires the assumption that accepting sexism is a deliberate and conscious choice
- and the conversation ended with the observation that the war on homophobia had also been won and people could just sit back
- which would be a good plan because he had seen so many people shoot themselves in the foot
- and I thanked him for his opinion on what I should do with my time and how he felt I should handle things that I saw as a problem
  o yes, politely.
* then Angela and I went to check my e-mail and get her her registration
- and I geeked *madly* in the Dealer's Room and Art show and squeed kind of shamelessly over
  o the creaturesfromel sculptures
  o the Weird Tales table where they have free issues
  o the woman who does the really smashing shadowboxes and jewelry whose link I will put up once I get back to my room
* went to "Writing the Other and Other Assumptions"
- got clue-by-foured, again. Ah, preconceptions, how we whittle you down.
- decided really need to place that order with Aqueduct Press dammit
* then I caught up with Us F5 Folk at the Future of Horror panel
* dashed out and caught the last of the Asimov panel
- and Connie Willis was talking about one time when all the stories she had out came back rejected all at once and I swear to god I wanted to hug her and make it all better
  o and I cannot imagine how much it must hurt to be a writer at times
- but I caught her after the panel and she very kindly signed *both* my books
- and if you haven't read her you totally should. Now. Because she is that good. And *funny*.
* and then I came back to the hotel and hit the Con Suite for food
* and got online for a bit
* and I *missed* the VanderMeer signing because I thought it ran for an hour but it only ran for half of one, but I will find her tomorrow
* and I wandered into Tim Hortons' and talked to Marna and karnythia for a bit
- also I have made karnythia's List, by subjecting her to "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"
  o I am really kind of proud of this
  o she promised to make it quick, too
* and then I headed back to the Delta for an internet connection
* and so I am here
* also got recommendations for *so many* books, including A Bolt of White Cloth

Oh holy craaaaaaap, so many books!

Ahem. Yes.

As you all were.

========

P.S.: I got my picture taken with Ann VanderMeer. Apparently I'm the first one who's ever asked for that outside of weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

Spent morning waking up, afternoon running around doing registration and groceries with brief stop for Dim Sum. Missed a couple of panels already; hoping this improves tomorrow.

Shoulders are *killing* me. Do not want to figure out how many pounds of stuff I have been hauling around. Feet also doing me no favours.

Miss John. Have survived dealer's room by determining am not buying anything today. Shortly due to kill for sleep, but basically happy. Have a bit of breathing room and am sitting ten feet from the Fanac tables.

...if these shoulders do not clear up I am grabbing *painkiller*, swear to god.

Okay. Going to see if I can--thingy. Brain. Wander through the art show before I go for food.

Montreal is quite lovely in the rain, with the old dead brick and the sky boiling up thick and gray. Need to take more pictures.

Quarter past four. Napped on bus, just woke up. There is a very small, very determined moth that has made it to the top of the window.

Have forgotten the alarm clock and Balthazar Brim. It's okay.

Mhm, imagine pithy commentary from me, would you? Currently I'm watch the moth march indignantly across the window. I'd disturb other people if I put on a movie--must remember headphones for next time--the bus is shaking too much to drive, and I just realized I don't have ADOM on Perfection. Need to fix this.

It really is quite a lovely moth. Unremarkable, don't get me wrong--beige and dirty-white and coffee-with-cream. But I hadn't realied their wings were quite so *thin* until I saw it against the window. I tok a picture. May take some of the scenery, too; it's unremarkable and green, but I guess it's always handy to have a reference for that.

Hour and a half left on the battery. Going to shut down for a bit.

========

Crossed the border five minutes after shutting down Perfection. Read for a bit, arrived in Montreal. Moth flew away when I attempted to rescue it from the inside of the bus. Tried calling Rachel, left a message, and looked around. Blinked a few times, decided I was in a strange city where I didn't have a map, any other phone numbers, or technically a place to sleep, so stashed the better part of my luggage in a bus station locker and then headed out in search of a Starbucks. Called John and found one, got there at 6:00.

Giggled a bit over there being fifteen wireless networks in range. Hilarity quickly faded upon discovering that Bell's hotspot was not one of the ones that worked. Snagged an ile sans file account, though. Sketchy but worked well enough to get online, for about three minutes.

Swore heavily. Tried connecting a bunch of times while working on a Sudoku, then headed out.

========

Found *another* Starbucks, and as of 7:30 I have a connection, oh mercy oh glory oh wonder I have a connection. And air-conditioning. It's one of those days when you're not too bad outside and walking, but as soon as you stop to go inside, you start sweating like crazy.

I have Rachel's address and home phone number now, as well as Metro directions. Kind of. Plan to sit here in air-conditioned comfort and make sure that this green line thing goes by Berri-UQAM. Also to recharge Perfection's batteries. Pretty pretty batteries.

I *like* being in downtown Montreal. Conveniently enough, this is pretty much where the convention hotel is, too. And there's an IGA nearby, so I can grab tea stuff tomorrow.

Can anyone recommend a better image host than PhotoBucket? It tends to cause Firefox to freeze and crash if I'm working with it too long, and I find Yahoo enough of a PITA that I am reluctant to go for flickr. May do so if no other options present, though.

Prep for WorldCon. Mutually exclusive items have come to mind. I poll because I can.

[Poll #1438384]