At ConFrancisco, the site selection was made for the 1996 WorldCon. The winning site was Los Angeles (well, Anaheim to be precise). Since this was another easy city to visit, I decided to purchase two memberships (one for me, and one for a guest) since the rates were low.
BAD or GOOD: Bozeman resigns.
BAD: I have to rush home to post something.
GOOD: At Home I read a letter from Tim asking if I wanted to meet
with him at Disneyland THAT NIGHT.
BAD: I have to rush to the airport.
GOOD: I get to the airport with enough time that my boarding card
puts me in the 3rd group (my number was 76)
BAD: I lose my boarding card.
GOOD: The counter agent is very understanding and gives me a replacement.
BAD: I tried to get a hold of Tim from the airport, but it didn't work.
GOOD: Someone finds my boarding card.
BAD: I didn't get a window seat.
GOOD: I didn't get a middle seat.
BAD: The flight attendant brang me the wrong drink.
GOOD: She said "Enjoy it anyway, I'll bring you what you wanted
It won't cost you anything."
BAD: Even though I didn't have to wait for luggage, it took me longer
to get from the gate to the hotel than the flight.
GOOD: It took less than 5 minutes to go from the hotel front door
to my room (including check-in).
BAD: It's a little late for Tim to meet me tonight at Disneyland.
GOOD: He can meet me the next day.
BETTER: I can still go to Disneyland tonight.
EVEN BETTER: Tomorrow I can get early entry into Disneyland
After Fantasmic I had no trouble going through the Haunted Mansion or Pirates. I then made my way to Indiana Jones (which I had not riden before). I have to say that the queue area is really well done. The ride is fun, but I'm glad I didn't wait in a long line for it. Unfortunately, the clock struck midnight after I finished the ride, so I made my way back to the hotel...after all I was going to back in less than 8 hours. ;)
The next morning I and about 2000 other people took advantage of early admission. After waiting in a line for about 10 minutes, I got through the gate and found out that Fantasyland was the land that was open early. I was sooo happy. Sure, Fantasyland has all of the "little kid" rides, but how many times do you get the chance to ride Peter Pan's Flight or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (two of my favorites) without long lines?
Tim said that he would arrive around 11, so I had time to his most of the rides. By the time the park opened to regular guests, I had been on all of the rides in Fantasyland that were open (and learned that you really need at least two people to get a tea-cup to spin fast enough not to stop at the edge). Between 9 and 10, I rode Roger Rabbits CarToon Spin, Pirates, The Haunted Mansion, and Splash Mountain. By the way, if you are riding Splash Mountain, and you want a better photo of you when going over the drop, turn slightly to the right just before you go over the BIG drop. How'd I figure this out? A few months ago, someone posted a collection of scanned photos called "Flash Mountain" of some people who probably got kicked out of the park after their childish stunts; the better photos had people turned towards the camera which was on their right. I even tested this out (but without flashing anyone), and it worked. It's still not worth paying the money for the photo though.
By this time it was getting near the time for Tim and I to meet. I still had time for one more ride--the Jungle Cruise. The new queue area is well done. I like the big band music, and the "news stories" which set up the ride. The let down was that my guide was pretty lame. Oh well, I still had fun thinking of funnier jokes that I've either heard or read. As I left the jungle cruise, I thought about how much time I had spent in the park, and how many attractions and rides I had been on. When Tim arrived, I realized that there wasn't much left for me to ride.
It was good to see Tim too...the last time I had seen him was at his going away party in Berkeley. So we caught up, and after we rode Space Mountain (which now has an upgraded queue area, and some "spacey" rock and roll music piped in during the actual ride) Tim took me on the "Tour of departing attractions". We went to Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the Disney Gallery, had lunch at Carnation Gardens, watched the Circle Vision 360 film, sat in the Enchanted Tiki Room, and watched the Lion King Cellebration parade.
Tim had also mentioned that the Hunchback of Notre Dame Festival of Fools was worth going to. After he took me there, I have to agree. They've done a great job condensing the story into 30 minutes and they get the audience involved. It's a definate must see, but go when it's cool.
Finally, Tim introduced me to a Disneyland fixture...Rod the piano player. Rod has been a cast member for many years, and off duty cast members and also park regulars like Tim will often gather at his piano in the Plaza late in the afternoon. By this time the programming at the convention had started, and so when Rod found out I was in town for the convention, he joked "and it was so good that you're already here, eh?" and then tickled the ivories.
Still, what Rod said made me look at my watch, and since I wanted ato attend the opening ceremonies, and since Tim had to go home, we left the park for the "worst ride at Disneyland"--the ride home. Still, we agreed to meet the next evening for more fun at the Happiest Place on Earth.
Audrey III, the flesh eating plant that disrupted Opening Ceremonies, is resting comfortably, while growing new shoots. Originally, the problem with the current selection from the Unknown Seedling From Outer Space Of The Month Club seemed to be similar to that of Audrey II from the Roger Corman-directed movie, The Little Shop of Horrors. In an astonishing coincidence, LACon happened to have in the audience Bill Warren, an expert on Corman; Takumi & Sachiko Shibano, Connie Willis and James White, who were able to help the convention out of a crisis situation. With their help, Dave Romm and David Levine, Opening Ceremony MC's, were able to determined that the relative of Audrey II was also related to Godzilla and had possibly been used by the Remake studios. Finally, Audrey III went to Sector 12 General, where she was determined that her species classification is not ARGH which requires human flesh, but an AAGH, which prefers human flesh.
Still, I did bump into some fans I wasn't sure if I would see. Actually I couldn't miss one of them. Larry was wearing his Clan MacDude garb--an outfit that combined scottish and hawaian colors in a way that just doesn't translate into words. The one item I didn't see was "The Frog". Maybe it'll be at the next Baycon.
Anyway, even though I missed the Ice Cream, I still had a chance to do other things. They had booths set up at the social with various fannish and other organizations. One group, the sponsors of BucCONneer (the 1998 Worldcon, which is in Baltimore), had a rat fishing contest. They had fishing poles with rubber bands on the ends with which you could snare plastic rats. By the time I had watched a few people fish, I knew I wanted to snag one of the big rats, which squeaked, since several people who had caught small rats whined "Hey! Mine doesn't squeek". Even though I was nervous, I managed to snag a big one. I then atteched the rat to my badge since I earned it, and walked around with it there for the rest of the con.
Use of Lasers Commercially...1975
Next breakthrough in space travel...1995-2000
Exhaustion of the World's Oil Supply...1980
Viable Fusion Power...1990
Male oral contraceptive...1975 (it was noted that the panel was
all male, and that this may have been a case of wishful thinking)
Anyway, the other panels Harlan was on were both historical review panels...of SF in the 50's and 60's and SF in the 70's and 80's. At both panels Harlan got tossed a mild jab from the other panelists and would comment "I already went through this in the morning..."
The 50's-60's panel reviewed the power that the magazine editors (Campbell and Gould) had in shaping SF; how a young writer would break into the field by writing short fiction, then slowly write longer stories, and then write novels. They also mentioned that the writing "fraternity" was much closer then than it is now. One of the best comments was how "everything got wrapped up in two to three hundred pages", unlike these huge monstrosities that are being published now.
The 70's-80's panel was a bit of a dissapointment. Even though women writers became publishable at the time, the panelists were all men. They barely talked about cyberpunk. Instead they concentrated on the rise of media tie-in novels, extended series, the growing length of books, and the near death of the short story. Some of the comments that had been made at the 50's-60's panel were rehashed. They spoke more about the decline of the editor--how now the editor is some schmoe who probably never wrote a word of science fiction rather than a succesful SF writer.
I attended one other panel on Friday--A presentation on "The Black Pearl"--a comic book series written by Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill and Eric Johnson. Mark described how the project started as a screenplay, but none of the movie studios "got the concept". The concept is that a regular guy is turned into a hero by the media... he follows a woman home in hopes to see something; instead he sees her being abducted, so he saves her, but only for himself. The media learns of the "rescue" and turns him into a hero. Dark Horse understood the concept and suggested turning it into a comic book. Hamill also described his cartoon voice-over work (he even did a few voices for the audience). I was quite happy to attend the panel.
At the same time, Tim and I also were told that the Mark Twain was no longer in dry dock. This meant that it would appear in Fantasmic that night; Tim and I had to watch. After some technical difficulties delayed the start, the show was excellent. It makes sooo much more sense to have the Twain in the show.
After that, we still had time for another ride. Because of my dissapointing experience on Thursday, I picked the Jungle Cruise. Our guide was much better this time...he told jokes, he sang, and he even gave us a brief summary of Fantasmic. It was a good experience to leave the park with.
One last note, if you want more information on the Festival of Fools, visit John's 1313 Harbor Club website.
Best Fan Artist: William Rotsler
Best Fan Writer: Forest J. Ackerman
Best Fanzine: _Voice_of_the_Imagi-Nation_
(edited by Forest J. Ackerman)
Best Professional Artist: Virgil Finlay
Best Professional Editor: John W. Campbell, Jr.
Best Dramatic Presentation: _The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray_
Best Short Story: "Uncommon Sense", Hal Clement
Best Novelette: "First Contact", Murray Leinster
Best Novella: _Animal_Farm_, George Orwell
Best Novel: _The_Mule_, Isaac Asimov
Audry III returned from Sector General at the Keep It Moving Ceremonies right before the Retro Hugos. In an astonishing coincidence, in the audience was Frank Kelly Freas, a long-time fan and observer of fandom. He confirmed that the Unknown Seedlings From Outer Space Of The Month Club had been in operation at least as far back as 1946. That year, the seedlings didn't grow to flesh-eating plants, but did disrupt the Worldcon proceedings enough that the Hugos were not awarded that year. The Retro Hugos made up for that disruption.
As Cindy and I were having breakfast, she asked me about Friday's panels (which ones did I attend, what happened at each). I started to describe what happened at the first panel (see above), and as I was describing Harlan's viewpoint on how technology has taken away freedom, I turned my head away from Cindy for a moment, and Poof! Harlan Ellison is standing next to our table. I stopped dead in the middle of a sentance. I felt like Dr. Lyman Hall (new delegate from Geogia) in the musical 1776 when he first sees Ben Franklin. While Harlan did not say Franklin's line from that moment--"What's the matter, haven't you ever seen a great man before?"--he did comment "This makes you think of that scene in Annie Hall with Marshall McCluen doesn't it?" I responded "I love that scene, when Woody pulls him out from behind the sign." Harlan then said "Do go on". So I continued to describe the banter that went on between him and Larry Niven. He followed up with some comments on Friday's panels as well, and then he said to enjoy the rest of the con. I said "Thank you." and he left us to talk to another table.
After Harlan left, Cindy asked "Does this always happen at conventions?" I answered "Well, it's the first time this has happened to me." Anyway, now that I have a Harlan Ellison story, I feel that I've gone through a "rite of passage" that other SF fans have gone through.
Panelwise, Saturday was a busy day. The most anticpated panel was the Star Wars: Special Edition preview. Without going into great detail, the representative showed some of the process of upgrading Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi for re-release in theatres next year. Much of what's going to be different has already been described on the net, so I'm going to save my fingers. One bit of dissapointing news came out though...Star Tours won't be upgraded until Part 1 comes out in 1999.
On a local note, Dierdre McArthy, whom some of you know, won "Chutzpah Award for Hairdo" for her Centauri Consort costume (for those who do not watch Babylon, Centauri women are bald).
We also had another update in the Audry III saga:
At the Masquerade, Master Costumer Kathy Sanders determined that Audrey's skin was well advanced of present Earth technology and therefore definitely not a costume. However, she was hungry.
Anyway, the Trek panel was excellent; the panelists discussed what they liked and disliked about each different version of Trek. At the same time, people who were involved with Trek also sat in the audience and told us things about Voyager that you may have already figured out--the Kazon are gone, the ship is going to do more exploration on its way back, and there won't be any separation between the Fed and Maquis crew anymore.
After the Trek panel, we opted to watch a preview of the pilot for Dark Skies (which starts this weekend). The Executive Producer for the show said that it's going to tie ALL of the UFO and conspiracy theorys together by following this one guy through history (starting in 1960s Washington) and his involvement with a goverment group that investigates and covers up UFO evidence. The pilot looked OK, but it was hurt by the video system not putting out enough light for the room. In addition, we had another raffle to attend; This one you had to buy tickets for as it benefited RIF (Reading Is Fundamental for those of you too young to remember the commercials ;). The pilot was not intriguing enough for us to stay, so after watching 2/3rds of it, we left for the raffle.
Anyway, you could buy as many tickets as you like, and traditionally, Seth Breidbart, buys a bunch of tickets, and wins a lot of prizes. Enough so that at one raffle, when Seth was picking up his 4th or 5th prize, the audience started chanting "Kill Seth! Kill Seth! Kill Seth!". This time a chair was set up in an empty plastic swimming pool in case someone won several times.
As it turned out, a ticket held by Seth was only drawn once (and he claimed that it was someone else's ticket that he was "holding"), so very few of the "Kill Seth" chants were inspired by Seth himself. There were repeat winners and in addition to chants of "Kill Seth", the two-time winners were slightly bopped on the head by one of the people with the raffle. the one three-time winner had a balloon which was filled with air popped over his head. Had there been a four-time winner, we would have seen what the chair in the swimming pool was for.
Anyway, neither Cindy nor I won, though one number was really close. One last thing, at the Hugo ceremony, which followed, they announced another raffle winner. Again, here's Spat!
Finally, the final drawing of LACon III was held. People entered their choice for who should get eaten by Audrey III. The winner, based on an overwhelming deluge of ticket sales, was Seth Breidbart. It was the only raffle he won all convention. Thanks Seth, you saved us all. Rumors that Seth has been reconstituted and can be seen roaming the halls have been unconfirmed.
One year when the con was in Australia, the winners had to have their awards taken apart by airport security (because they were hollow) and reassembled before they could fly. Another year, one winner placed his Hugo in an overhead bin. Another passenger jammed his briefcase into the same overhead bin, in a way that would have crushed the trophy. When the plane landed, the trophy didn't have a scratch of damage on it, while the briefcase had a nice dent in it. One last story involved the Northridge quake. The quake toppled one author's Hugo and it fell and smashed a vase or a lamp. Again the trophy had no signs of damage. The author commented "The awards are made by the same people who make the Jaguar hood ornaments. I don't know how well Jaguars doo in crashes, but I'm sure the hood ornaments come out without a scratch".
John W. Campbell Award (to the best *new* writer):
David Feintuch (author of The Nicholas Seifort Saga--
a series consisting of "Midshipman's Hope",
"Challenger's Hope", "Prisoner's Hope",
"Fisherman's Hope", and "Voices of Hope")
Best Fan Artist: William Rotsler
Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford
Best Fanzine: _Ansible_ (edited by Dave Langford)
Best Semi-Prozine: _Locus_ (edited by Charles N. Brown)
Best Original Artwork: "Dinotopia: The World Beneath", Jame Gurney
Best Professional Artist: Bob Eggleton
Best Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois
Best Dramatic Presentation: "The Coming of the Shadows" (Babylon 5)
Best Non-Fiction Book: _Science_Fiction:_The Illustrated_Encyclopedia_,
John Clute
Best Short Story: "The Lincoln Train", Maureen F. McHugh
Best Novelette: "Think Like a Dinosaur", James Patrick Kelly
Best Novella: "The Death of Captain Future", Allen Steele
Best Novel: _The_Diamond_Age_, Neal Stephenson
Sadly, I missed the closing ceremonies. I didn't get to find out what happened inthe saga of Audrey III, nor did I see the "baton" passed on to LoneStarCon II (next years WorldCon which is in San Antonio, Texas; I already have my membership.) Oh well, I had a great time just the same.
Now, if you actually read ALL of this, I'm impressed.