WisCon 25

I started my vacation yesterday. I'm in Madison to attend WisCon 25, which I've gone to every year since 1995, except for 1999 since I was still adjusting to moving to California. Plus I'm taking another week to hang out and see friends. (You might recall that I did this last year.)

The flight out was uneventful, if you overlook the fact that my flight from Chicago to Madison was cancelled.

Yes, the long leg of the journal worked fine. Trish gave me a lift to the airport, which was pretty convenient for both of us since I had a late-morning flight, so neither of us had to deal with traffic. The flight from San Jose went smoothly, and I disembarked in Chicago and noticed that my flight to Madison was delayed. But that's okay, since it's only a 40-minute flight, and I'd still get there in the early evening.

Well, by the time I got to the gate for the connecting flight, it had been cancelled. Mechanical problems (i.e., the "screw you" explanation). So I got to stand in line for 35 minutes to get rebooked. Except that every flight going to Madison on every airline that night was already full. Even two-leg flights were full on one of the legs. So the only option was to take the Van Galder bus, which runs from the airport to downtown Madison.

On the plus side, the bus ticket was free (i.e., paid for by the airline). On the other plus side, I got to see an advantage of buses over airlines: The bus scheduled to go to Madison had broken down, but unlike United, Van Galder actually had a backup bus available! Imagine that! (This is the thing I find most lame about airlines; they never, ever seem to have a backup plane, which simple logic would dictate they ought to have.)

The bus left half an hour late, but got to Madison a little faster than expected, so I finally got to the apartment of my friends Charlie and Dan - with whom I'm staying - around 11:30 pm. A long day! But it beat spending the night in Chicago.

I did at least get to finish reading Robertson Davies' Fifth Business, which was pretty good. Very low-key. A bit lacking in a definitive purpose to its story, but a pleasant enough read anyway.

The convention's been pretty good. I feel like I've spent most of it just hanging out with friends - not that that's a bad thing. I also joked that many of us Bay Area fans flew 2000 miles across the country just so we could see people who live ten miles away from us. (One pair of fans literally lives five miles north of me. But we see each other at WisCon nearly as often as we do in the Bay.)

I went to my usual spate of panels ("mine" in the sense that "I go to many panels at every con I go to"), although afterwards none of them stand out as unusually memorable. Apparently there was a panel on what make hard science fiction "hard" (as opposed to "soft"), which was reportedly an excellent panel, but since I was still on Pacific time, I didn't wake up in time to get to it.

I did get a kick out of the art show and the dealer's room, and I bought some expensive artsy stuff from each.

From the art show, I bought an 8"x45" (yes, long and thin) piece by an artist named Kandis Elliott. I know nearly nothing about Elliott, but I'm going to assume that she's a she. I do know that she's a professional artist (Dan sent me this link to an article with an illustration by her). She had a number of lovely pieces in last year's art show, and I was outbid for the nicest of them. This year she only had a few pieces, but I won the one I wanted for half the going price of last year's piece.

This one is entitled "evolution march", and it features a variety of animals from throughout Earth's evolutionary history walking, flying and/or swimming from left to right, with a lone ape walking the other way at the far right. I think the medium is pen-and-ink with airbrushed color (and possibly some computer enhancement). It looks very realistic, stylistically, that is! I'll have to get it framed and find a good place to hang it on my wall.

The other piece is by a woman who carves wood jigsaws of various animals. Most of her pieces are (for instance) cats, dragons, unicorns and other animals sliced into pieces which can be displayed, or taken apart as a puzzle (usually of six-to-fifteen pieces). Any single puzzle can be picked up by listing the topmost piece, which is pretty neat.

I bought a piece in walnut called Circle of Cats, which is a 9" ring into which are placed nine individuals cat silhouettes, which must be placed in the correct configuration to all fit. They're all carved from a single block of walnut, and there's a stand to place the finished ring in. It's quite cool. I also considered buying a set of eight interlocking dragons, but decided to go for the cats.

The artist, her husband and I had a nice conversation as I was checking over her selection. She buys a wide variety of woods, some of them quite exotic and beautiful. It's an unusual hobby, that's for sure!

Her business is called "Fan Taminals", if you ever come across it. She said she'd be at Worldcon in San Jose next year.

The guests of honor at WisCon this year were not people I was very familiar with. I just read Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain a month or so ago, while Elisabeth Vonarberg is a French author living in Canada whom I haven't read. They each gave terrific speeches at the guest of honor banquet, though.

The opening ceremonies also featured a performance by Lou and Peter Berryman, a couple of very funny Wisconsin folk singer/songwriters. They went over huge at the con, I think in part because their songs involve a lot of wordplay, making fans a natural audience for them.

Anyway, that was WisCon. Now I have a week to relax and enjoy this city I used to live in...