FOGcon

Hello, FOGcon friends!  I have great news for you.  After finalizing the bill with the hotel, and checking our numbers… we are definitely moving forward with FOGcon 3 in 2013!

We are still negotiating with the hotel, as well as finding Honored Guests and so forth.  Therefore, we cannot officially announce anything yet.  When we’ve signed a contract, confirmed a date, and chosen our guests, we’ll share the news by email and on our website.  Stay tuned, and thank you all for your support!

–Vylar Kaftan, Chair

There are two wifi networks. One for your room: that’s the ATTwifi, and you’ll get the password from the desk clerk. Charge it to your room, and it will be free.

The ATTwifi_meeting network is what to use when you’re in the other con rooms. That has the con name, no caps, as the password.

To gain access to the ATTwifi_meeting connection:

1. With your browser closed, select the ATTwifi_meeting connection from the list of available networks.
2. Open your browser. It should automatically go to the Marriott site.
3. At the very top of the window, you’ll see a bar that says, “ATT Wifi. Get connected to the Internet. Click the button on the far right.
4. Enter the password.
5. Profit!

The New York Public Library is hosting an exhibition about Mary Shelley and her circle.

For the first time ever, selections from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein manuscript will be available for public viewing in the United States in this exciting exhibition, which is being shown in collaboration with the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in England and will highlight the literary and cultural legacy of P.B. and Mary Shelley, and that of her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

We’ll be sharing some special content from their site in the Consuite later this weekend.

We’re sorry to announce that the Friday 3PM reading by Carol Dorf and Erin Hoffman has been canceled.

This year we have something new to do on Friday and Saturday nights: Filk-singing, a traditional fannish musical activity, usually done in groups.  It’s like singing around the campfire, if the campfire was in space.

Definitions of it tend to be circular: a filker is someone who sings, writes, and/or composes filk music; filk is music sung and played by a filker. But basically, what vidders do to movies, what fanfic writers do to texts and characters, filkers do to songs.

You may not know the names of all the tunes, but you’re likely to know the tunes, even if the words seem peculiar. That’s because the lyrics have been changed to create SF/F references. Yes, lyrics sheets will be handed out, although these days they are photocopied instead of mimeographed.

Concom member and longtime filker Michele Cox says:

The first convention I ever went to, RocKon in 1977, one of the first things I noticed was a woman carying a guitar case and a big stack of xeroxed songbooks.  I followed her to a room full of people sitting on the beds, on the floor, on the (two? three?) hotel chairs that were available, on the dresser, and pretty much any place else they could find space to sit; a couple of them had instruments and were singing songs I’d never heard before, but boy, did I want to learn them.

“Worlds grow old, and suns grow cold, and death we never can doubt; time’s cold wind wailing down the past reminds us that all flesh is grass, and history’s lamps blow out…. but the Eagle has landed!  Tell your children when — !  Time won’t grind us down to dust again!”

“There lived once two brothers, both born on Dorsai, and strong and well-favored were they; they trained in their youth for the follow the sword, the sword, the sword, and in their young manhood they soldiered away.  ….//… and never a tear he let fall in his grief, though half of his soul had been slain, and lost when his brother went into the earth, the earth, the cold earth… and never he found it again.”"Gordy Dickson, Gordy Dickson, Gordy Dickson is the one; science fiction is his hobby, but his main job’s having fun!” (To the tune of “Oh My Darling Clementine”)

“Well, my uniform’s green and my trappings are black and my distant ancestors tied Rome in a sack! We are not regulation, we don’t even try, we’re a pain in the *** of the standard Dorsai! // On a forested continent we came to fight and we found that our foe had dug in for the night; our forceleader mentioned they might not like damp, so we shanghied a river and flooded their camp!”

“I’ll sing you a song about Mary O’Meara, with stars like a crown in her hair; sing of her memory ranging before me, whatever the way that I fare — my joy is to know she is there….”

“I’ve lived my life, I’ve fought my fight, and I’ve drunk my share of wine!  From Trieste to Cologne, was nary a knight led a merrier life than mine!”

“The careful textbooks give it, in tables at the end: the stress that shears a rivet, or makes a tie-bar bend; what traffic wrecks maccadam; what concrete should endure — but we poor sons of Adam have no such literature — to warn us or make sure.  We only of creation — how much luckier the bridge and rail! — abide the twin damnation: to fail, and know we fail.  Yet we, by which sole token we know we once were Gods, take shame in being broken, however great the odds — the burden or the odds!”

I saved up for a guitar, and learned oh, at least three or maybe four chords — I started writing songs, too — even my dad wrote some (it was years before I figured out that some of what he wrote was more about the Korean war than it was about anything Haldeman or Dickson were writing).

These days, there’s more fully original filk — people like Alison Lonsdale writing amazing lyrics and melodies, and performing at a professional level — but I still love the late-night gatherings of folks who just love the music, who will play the old stuff, or their own stuff, or sing along, or listen to something new like it’s the best thing they’ve ever heard; filkers are the best audiences ever, and I’d rather listen and perform in a filksing than just about any other venue I can think of.  And I’ve finally picked up a few more chords, too.

There’ll be open filking at FOGcon in the San Jose room, probably starting around 9:30pm — if I’m there, come say hi, and if I’m not, come anyway.  Come and sing, or play, or listen — just come and have fun, and share the music.

An anthropologist friend of mine is currently starting up a project in which she is examining people’s embodied experiences as fans (of sf/f; media; etc.). She says: “I am particularly interested in speaking to people who identify as fans but who also have identities which do not fit the ‘classic’ (whatever that is) fan body — i.e., women, people of color, queer people of all kinds, genderqueer people, disabled/differently abled people, people from backgrounds not identified as ‘fannish,’ etc.

“I am asking people, are you interested in being interviewed? I would love to interview ALL sorts of fans (including those who do fit the ‘fan stereotype’). Do you know anyone who might be interested in being interviewed?

“I am happy to give more information and to discuss the project with anyone who is interested. My project is being overseen by the Harvard Committee for the Use of Human Subjects in Research.”

If you’d like to talk to her more about this or be interviewed, drop an email to dziwozony AT gmail DOT com, and they’ll pass you along to the researcher in question.

The research is not affiliated with FOGcon, but it sounds interesting, doesn’t it? And it fits perfectly with our theme this year.

Because you need to know.
Thursday 7-8pm

Friday 11am-9pm

Saturday 9am-2pm

Sunday 10-noon

What’s the Weather Like?

Walnut Creek is inland from San Francisco, so it usually has more extreme weather. Current predictions for FOGcon weekend are for highs in the mid-60s, lows in the low 40s, and a mix of showers and sun. March is still the rainy season, so bring rain gear if you plan to explore outside the hotel. April is notorious for fooling people.

What Do People Wear?

Whatever you are comfortable in; there is no need to dress up for the con. It’s wise to dress in layers, because hotel heating and cooling systems can’t always keep rooms at the temperature each individual finds ideal.

If you’re planning to explore Walnut Creek or BART to San Francisco, bring comfortable shoes, a raincoat, and an umbrella. The hotel has a gym, a whirlpool, and an outdoor heated swimming pool, so bring appropriate gear if you want to use them.

You will get a chance to deck yourself in your favorite garb—Worth ballgowns, steampunk Utilikilts, Browncoat finery, authentic Alpha Centauri tentacle jewelry—Saturday night at the Unaward Banquet. (You can also wear jeans and a t-shirt.) You may also want to bring special clothes for the private room parties.

What Else Should I Bring?

In addition to clothes, medications, and toiletries, here’s a list of some things you may find useful:

• Laptop, cell phone, camera, and whatever other electronics are essential to your health and happiness
• Cables for any and all of these
• Possibly a small power strip for your room — often useful
• A water bottle
• Umbrella, rain coat, and comfortable walking shoes
• A sweater, blazer, or shawl for layering
• A bathing suit for the swimming pool
• Gym clothes for the gym
• Something fancy to wear to the Saturday night Unaward Banquet
• A tote bag for all the freebies you’ll pick up and all the new books you’ll get signed by their authors

Friday at suppertime (6PM to 8PM) let’s put some faces to the pixels. Whether you use Facebook or Twitter exclusively or maintain an independent blog on its own domain, come and get to know your fellow social media addicts. You may meet an old friend behind the username (it has happened to me) or find new ones (that’s happened a lot).

You can add your username to your con badge or just introduce yourself. Your faithful Editor will be there with her legal name and LJ/DW/Twitter username proudly displayed. Bring your dinner, eat from the consuite goodies, or drop in before or after your meal.

Friday, March 30

6-8PM

Consuite: the Santa Monica Room

Hey, y’all! I’m currently going through the list of you beautiful people who have already volunteered to help out for a shift or two at the con. So if you haven’t heard from me yet, you will soon!

If you haven’t yet volunteered, but would like to help contribute to FOGcon’s awesomeness (or would like to take advantage of the chance to meet people and network), please write me! In addition to possibly filling in a shift helping with registration or the consuite, we’ll need some folks who can help get stuff cleared up at the end of the con.

I’d also love to hear from any of you who might be available for ad hoc requests as things crop up. I’m not going to go trying to buttonhole strangers at the con, but if you’re willing to be asked if a need arises, let me know! You can reach me at volunteers@fogcon.org.

Thanks!

Eva Folsom, Volunteer Coordinator