Deeds & Words

Everything that was good about ReaderCon30 would be a long, long list. The convention is held at the Boston Marriott in Quincy, (which might be why I was confused for a while and thought I was going to Boston). It’s larger than the Walnut Creek convention, FogCon, that I love, but it’s not overwhelming. The layout, in the hotel’s concourse and convention space, is well suited to this kind of event, and well-utilized.

I came to ReaderCon with Terry Weyna, who had been to one a few years ago. It was nice to travel with a friend!

Rather than labor through a critique, I’ll share a few personal bests (and worsts. There were some; they weren’t at the convention).

The convention started at 7:00 pm Thursday night, and Thursday’s events were free and open to the public. The Afro-futurism and solarpunk panel was enlightening, and the high point came when Cameron talked about the Green Wall Project in West Africa. It’s a reforestation project, and it is wonderful.

Since we’d arrived on Wednesday, Thursday morning I took a rideshare down to the center of town, the John Adams Commons area. The commons is lovely. About five blocks away is the John Adams house, which is a national park. I got to go inside the Adams library but I didn’t have a ticket for the entire tour. The garden, though, is open to everyone.

Personal Best Moments:

• Hearing John Crowley Read.
• Having John Crowley sign a book.
• Talking with John Crowley about his shirt with the woodpecker figures on it.

Yes, there is a theme emerging.

• Getting to visit with Ezzy Languzzi, with whom I share space in Strange California, with whom I tweet and who I had never met.
• Austin Grossman’s hilarious and educational slide presentation about how we ended up with Science Fiction and Fantasy.
• Anything Tananarive Due said.

All of the readings I attended I enjoyed. I loved getting a chance to talk to Dr. Malka Older about the statistics of book selling (no, really, it’s interesting) and her work. I liked the kaffeeklatche with Vylar Kaftan. The majority of panels I attended had good information and a few laughs.

In “The Etiquette of Criticism,” the don of SF criticism, John Clute, took exception to something writer and reviewer John Langan said, and there was… a spat. Moments later the moderator asked each panelist to name a critic they admired, and Langan said, “Well, I was going to say John Clute!” I was there, people, when that happened!

Elizabeth Hand’s forthcoming book is about “outsider” artist Henry Darger. I am really looking forward to that.

I thought the mobile app for the program was elegant and easy to use. One commenter pointed out that you could not get to the bios of the panelists from the app, and that was true, but I hadn’t noticed that until I read the comment. There was also a paper pocket-program which had the biographies.

The rest:

Some things weren’t as good. Here are some:

My Verizon mini-router (Jetpack) that I brought specifically in case the Marriott charged for interet access, which they do, decided on Thursday that it wasn’t going to function. I powered it down and paid for one day’s worth of hotel internet. The next day it worked fine. I hate that. Not the working fine part, the intermittent not-going-to-work part.

The Con committee said, “Regardless of the weather outside, the Marriott has one temperature: cold.” That statement was completely accurate.

And to continue the weather theme… can we discuss humidity, people? Who thought this was a good idea? It was never as hot here as it was at home, but the humidity was more than 50%. I had a bad few moments on Saturday when I went for a walk. I got into a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood and it was interesting so I walked farther than I realized. Then I was in a hurry to get back. Halfway up the hill to the hotel, I had to stop and drink some water, and I was pretty shaky when I got back to my room in the arctic zone.

Today was the final day. I am still in a state of euphoria. When I get home and settled, I’ll look over my notes and post something with more actual content. But for now, Terry and I are off to dinner in Braintree. In the humidity.

We’re riding along in an older residential section of Quincey, Massachussetts, on our way to the Marriott. Ed, our Uber driver, is diligently following the directions from his GPS. We drive along a narrow street lined with various ethnics diners and cafes. Looks interesting. We can see the waterfront. I reflect how odd it is that the Marriott didn’t mention they were close to the waterfront. “Continue on Water Street. Make a slight right on Water Street.”

Ed makes a sound, the kind of sound people make when they think something’s not quite right.

“In 200 yards, turn right. Turn Right.” Turning right takes us onto the shipyard, where a large A-fame sign advertises tours of the USS Salem.

“No,” says Ed. “This is not right. Where is it taking me?”

Terry, a friend, writer and fellow Fantasy Literature reviewer, and I flew out of SFO on Alaska Airlines that morning. We had to walk a gauntlet with a chemical-sniffing dog, a handsome black lab wearing a vest with the words Do Not Pet on each side. I made it through that just fine, as I expected. No, it was my carry on that made the TSA go, “Hmmm…” and pull it off the line for a hand search. The professional and patient TSA lady with the cornrowed hair said, in an only slightly weary voice, “Do you have a letter opener in here?”

“No, I don’t.” I mean, geez, I’m not that stupid.

“Well, what you have looks like a knife.” She turned the screen so I could see the X-ray. Sure enough, there was a pointy-ended thing that looked filagreed, right there, somewhere, in the luggage. I had no idea what it was. “Is it the Kind bars?” I said, thinking that the cellophane might be creating the filagree effect. (Okay, so maybe I am that stupid.)

It wasn’t the Kind bars, it wasn’t the six sets of electrical cords and connectors, it wasn’t the trio of pens banded together. I finally told her, “Open anything you have to,” and when she reached for my little fuchsia-colored jewelry roll she found my mother’s clasp, which I had forgotten was in there since I had worn it once in the last year, on New Year’s Eve.

My mother’s beautiful clip will ride in my checked luggage on the trip home.

“I’m not listening to you anymore,” Ed says the GPS. He calls the hotel, and askes if they were near the T station. When the desk person tells him yes, he drives us to the hotel in five minutes.

Ed came here from Haiti. He has two children, and a full-time other job. He picks up a few Uber drives in a week to supplement his income. At about 6:40 pm Boston time, we were his last drive of the day. And we were his only drive of the day.

We flew first class in a plane that was a former Virgin Airlines plane. (An airbus, not a Boeing Max, of course.) First class had fuchsia-pink mood lighting and the shades were down the entire trip. This created a surreal sensation for me, but Terry pointed out that every single person in first class (except me, pointy-ended-fine-jewelry-wielding dinosaur that I am) was watching/reading from a screen. It was kind of like being in a high-end, super-quiet cocktail lounge at 35,000 feet.

The Boston Marriott, in Quincey, is on a hill on a street named Marriott Drive. The hill may have been artificially constructed for the hotel, I don’ t know.

My room is a Marriott room. It’s comfortable and nicely laid out. I worry sometimes that I’m becoming an accidental tourist; all airports look much the same, all hotel interiors look similar, at least. On the other hand, I’m here for a convention. So that’s all right then.

(I wrote this in June, and forgot to post it.)

At 4:10 am it’s still dark. It’s quiet, the quietest it gets during the entire day. All the neighborhood dogs are asleep. The house no longer creaks and pops as it makes the transition from a ninety-degree day to a forty-seven degree night. If people are driving, they are doing it far from this neighborhood. Even the male mockingbird guarding his nest has not started up his song yet. There are no televisions running, no washers or dryers, no lawn mowers. The neighbor’s children are sleeping and their basketball lies quiet underneath its basket stand. Even, at last, the wind has fallen still.

I shift position and hear the sheets rub against my leg. If I lie with one ear against the pillow, I can hear my own heartbeat. The house is silent, but the bed frame rubs against the headboard with a quiet groan.

It’s dark and cool. I lie awake, but not for long. I know when I wake again the room will be filled with pre-sunrise light, and the crows will be calling.