![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Witching Hour Report:
We rolled in to the Welcome Feast at around 9:30pm - the Sheraton Ferncroft was overflowing with attendees all dressed in their Wizard's best. We grabbed some food and sat down in the overflow ballroom (on the other side of the hotel) for some dinner. We met Jessica, Deb, and Katherine of the Lumos - 2006 team as we were wandering from dinner to the opening panel. We also saw Jeannie from Beyond Bounderies Travel. The opening panel featured a number of the special guests for the weekend.
The FictionAlley party on Friday rocked. I met a whole bunch of people, and generally just kicked back and relaxed.
Speaking of the special guests, I was disappointed that so many of them couldn't - or didn't - bring much into their presentations and panels back to HP - which was the focus of the weekend. Only a couple of the special guests could and did.
Dr. Henry Jenkins was phenominal. His keynote lunch was the absolute highlight of my experience. He was funny, personable, and could speak intelligently about his topin and HP and how they related to each other. Holly Black (author of Tithe, Valient, among others) was also gracious and charming, she could also draw parallels between her own work and HP - she was on a number of panels and she, along with her husband (I think the man with her was her husband) and friends, attended a number of things outside the "special guest circle." I even spoke to her in a room party one night (that I hear the cops broke up).
Tamora Pierce was incredibly funny. Her presentation at the Universilist Church was well attended, and she told us funny stories before her time officially began, and told us not to repress the tall, bald man with blue eyes, as he was her spouse-creature and he should feel free to heckle her to his hearts content. I guess once when she was doing one of these, the audience got offended when Tim-the-spouse-creature heckled her, so she made sure to let us know he was allowed to talk back to her. They were hysterical. It became the "Tammy and Tim show, starring Tammy and Tim!" I loved her Cinderella-esque story that took a turn for the decidedly bizarre and instead of going to the Ball, Cindrella went off to fight in the war that came to the kingdom because the royal family decided to pick a girl from the Prince's own kingdom instead of forging an alliance via marriage with a neighbor to strengthen both.
I also enjoyed the Friday dinner panel at the PEM. Although Charles De Lint nearly got himself booed when he admitted he hadn't read the sixth book. Holly Black kind of smoothed that over when she diplomatically tried to answer a fairly specific question without spoiling HBP for him. She made sure we all got what she was trying to say, and since all of us *had* read book six, we laughed at how successful she was, in such a few words.
There was so much going on in such random locations, it was difficult to get to everything I wanted to see, so I missed some things just because they were on opposite sides of Salem back to back. Lumos 2006 won't have this problem, since they are all under one roof (thank the gods!). I never made it to see the art in the Old Town Hall, and I went to the Hawthorne to drink and talk in the Lobby, but to no presentations there.
I got a call at just past nine on Saturday morning from Gwen asking where I was. I told her I was in the car on my way into Salem from our hotel. She said, pick me up on the Common, I need your car. Okay, I thought, what the hell?
I get her and she and Debbie and I are off to Loew's to get something to stabalize the Quidditch hoops. It is pouring down rain, the Common is turning into a great big mud pit, and the Quidditch hoops are fragile enough to need sandbags or something on them to help them not fall over in the wind, and by the Quaffle hitting them on the way through.
We get retaining wall rocks (~1.50 per rock) and 48 are enough to shore up the twelve rickity hoops (we set up two pitches for the games). I trot off to my first presentation (I missed the one at 10 that I was interested in, but not rabid over, but I made the 11 o'clock one I *had* to see - all in all absolutely okay by me).
Then, because of the monsoon like weather the Fall Festival on the Common was cancelled, but nobody thought to tell Gwen and I, who were running the Scavenger Hunt that it was cancelled and/or moved to the Waterfront. Crappy. You don't leave the people who are working an event, even one as small as the scavenger hunt, hanging out with no knowledge of what's going on. Especially since you have their phone number. Gwen is president of the Board, for cryin' out loud! She only has the one phone number. But we had five intrepid teams go out into the cold and three scratched right off the bat. We told them that we'd be in the Hawthorne hotel lobby having a drink and waiting on them. We met up with some fabulous people,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dancingrain, quiet_lucidity, cat_mom, snottygrrl, and shakespearechic among them, and sat around and drank, discussing the many and varied points of interest in HP - both canon and fanon.
Sunday included the Neville roundtable (bekkio, you rock!), the Percy Panel (coolness, and hopefully will re-start my Percy muse), and the Halloween Ball. OMG! We are a damn pretty fandom when we get all dressed up to go out. I was a little glassy-eyed from the cold medication (yes, I was one of many who got a cold from the cold and wet, wet and cold), but everyone was "feeling great and look spectacular" - Elegant indeed! My one - okay two complaints about the ball - the PEM had too many lights on too bright (It should have had half as much illumination) and there was no food. Cash bar with chocolate and candy could be had (for a price) but there should have been some hors deurvy things to add to the stomach besides alcohol. But a good time was had by all, and nmalfoy rocked the house down dj-ing. We boogied and partied and the very few men in the crowd were not lacking for dance partners... but most of us didn't care who we danced with - we just danced.
The Leaving feast was sad in that we were going home. I was feeling crappy, so I only ate a little bit. Needless to say I did not make it to rehearsal last night. I went home and slept instead.
I may post some more about the books I learned about from the librarians and authors that spoke.
And for those of you who were flying yesterday into or out of Logan - it was on the news that the radar equipment was having problems and giving false readings to the air traffic controllers so they thought there were planes where there weren't and weren't where there were. Or something about flocks of geese showing up on radar making them think a plane was there. Basically they slowed the whole take off and landings down, increased the time between, and delayed all flights about two hours to fix the problem. So I hope everyone got home okay, even with the delays.
We rolled in to the Welcome Feast at around 9:30pm - the Sheraton Ferncroft was overflowing with attendees all dressed in their Wizard's best. We grabbed some food and sat down in the overflow ballroom (on the other side of the hotel) for some dinner. We met Jessica, Deb, and Katherine of the Lumos - 2006 team as we were wandering from dinner to the opening panel. We also saw Jeannie from Beyond Bounderies Travel. The opening panel featured a number of the special guests for the weekend.
The FictionAlley party on Friday rocked. I met a whole bunch of people, and generally just kicked back and relaxed.
Speaking of the special guests, I was disappointed that so many of them couldn't - or didn't - bring much into their presentations and panels back to HP - which was the focus of the weekend. Only a couple of the special guests could and did.
Dr. Henry Jenkins was phenominal. His keynote lunch was the absolute highlight of my experience. He was funny, personable, and could speak intelligently about his topin and HP and how they related to each other. Holly Black (author of Tithe, Valient, among others) was also gracious and charming, she could also draw parallels between her own work and HP - she was on a number of panels and she, along with her husband (I think the man with her was her husband) and friends, attended a number of things outside the "special guest circle." I even spoke to her in a room party one night (that I hear the cops broke up).
Tamora Pierce was incredibly funny. Her presentation at the Universilist Church was well attended, and she told us funny stories before her time officially began, and told us not to repress the tall, bald man with blue eyes, as he was her spouse-creature and he should feel free to heckle her to his hearts content. I guess once when she was doing one of these, the audience got offended when Tim-the-spouse-creature heckled her, so she made sure to let us know he was allowed to talk back to her. They were hysterical. It became the "Tammy and Tim show, starring Tammy and Tim!" I loved her Cinderella-esque story that took a turn for the decidedly bizarre and instead of going to the Ball, Cindrella went off to fight in the war that came to the kingdom because the royal family decided to pick a girl from the Prince's own kingdom instead of forging an alliance via marriage with a neighbor to strengthen both.
I also enjoyed the Friday dinner panel at the PEM. Although Charles De Lint nearly got himself booed when he admitted he hadn't read the sixth book. Holly Black kind of smoothed that over when she diplomatically tried to answer a fairly specific question without spoiling HBP for him. She made sure we all got what she was trying to say, and since all of us *had* read book six, we laughed at how successful she was, in such a few words.
There was so much going on in such random locations, it was difficult to get to everything I wanted to see, so I missed some things just because they were on opposite sides of Salem back to back. Lumos 2006 won't have this problem, since they are all under one roof (thank the gods!). I never made it to see the art in the Old Town Hall, and I went to the Hawthorne to drink and talk in the Lobby, but to no presentations there.
I got a call at just past nine on Saturday morning from Gwen asking where I was. I told her I was in the car on my way into Salem from our hotel. She said, pick me up on the Common, I need your car. Okay, I thought, what the hell?
I get her and she and Debbie and I are off to Loew's to get something to stabalize the Quidditch hoops. It is pouring down rain, the Common is turning into a great big mud pit, and the Quidditch hoops are fragile enough to need sandbags or something on them to help them not fall over in the wind, and by the Quaffle hitting them on the way through.
We get retaining wall rocks (~1.50 per rock) and 48 are enough to shore up the twelve rickity hoops (we set up two pitches for the games). I trot off to my first presentation (I missed the one at 10 that I was interested in, but not rabid over, but I made the 11 o'clock one I *had* to see - all in all absolutely okay by me).
Then, because of the monsoon like weather the Fall Festival on the Common was cancelled, but nobody thought to tell Gwen and I, who were running the Scavenger Hunt that it was cancelled and/or moved to the Waterfront. Crappy. You don't leave the people who are working an event, even one as small as the scavenger hunt, hanging out with no knowledge of what's going on. Especially since you have their phone number. Gwen is president of the Board, for cryin' out loud! She only has the one phone number. But we had five intrepid teams go out into the cold and three scratched right off the bat. We told them that we'd be in the Hawthorne hotel lobby having a drink and waiting on them. We met up with some fabulous people,
dancingrain, quiet_lucidity, cat_mom, snottygrrl, and shakespearechic among them, and sat around and drank, discussing the many and varied points of interest in HP - both canon and fanon.Sunday included the Neville roundtable (
bekkio, you rock!), the Percy Panel (coolness, and hopefully will re-start my Percy muse), and the Halloween Ball. OMG! We are a damn pretty fandom when we get all dressed up to go out. I was a little glassy-eyed from the cold medication (yes, I was one of many who got a cold from the cold and wet, wet and cold), but everyone was "feeling great and look spectacular" - Elegant indeed! My one - okay two complaints about the ball - the PEM had too many lights on too bright (It should have had half as much illumination) and there was no food. Cash bar with chocolate and candy could be had (for a price) but there should have been some hors deurvy things to add to the stomach besides alcohol. But a good time was had by all, and nmalfoy rocked the house down dj-ing. We boogied and partied and the very few men in the crowd were not lacking for dance partners... but most of us didn't care who we danced with - we just danced. The Leaving feast was sad in that we were going home. I was feeling crappy, so I only ate a little bit. Needless to say I did not make it to rehearsal last night. I went home and slept instead.
I may post some more about the books I learned about from the librarians and authors that spoke.
And for those of you who were flying yesterday into or out of Logan - it was on the news that the radar equipment was having problems and giving false readings to the air traffic controllers so they thought there were planes where there weren't and weren't where there were. Or something about flocks of geese showing up on radar making them think a plane was there. Basically they slowed the whole take off and landings down, increased the time between, and delayed all flights about two hours to fix the problem. So I hope everyone got home okay, even with the delays.
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject