- Dim Sum with
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gamergrrl at the Yangtze restaurant on Somerset at Cambridge. Delicious. Then we went back to Can-Con. - Went to a panel on gender issues in Speculative fiction, with people I like and admire on the panel: Shelley Rabinovitch, Julie Czerneda, J.M. Frey, and Janet Hetherington. There was much participation from the audience, took, and all of it interesting and intelligent - for all it kept veering off into orientation issues, which interest me too, so I didn't mind.
- Went to J.M.Frey's reading of a scene from Triptych - which was fascinating, now I want to read that book - and from a short story she will have coming out next year in an undisclosed publication.
I was interested in Triptych already, because Frey said that the poly/bi community had received it well - I believe it features aliens who are not sexually dimorphic, hetersosexual, or monogamous. Then on the strength of the passage she read, I'd have gone and bought it in the dealers room on the spot, except that the dealer was already sold old. There goes my chance to get it autographed by the author, which I rather like to do. Ah well. I'll put it on my Amazon wishlist. - Had a cup of coffee and half a salad with Claire at Rockin' Johnny's. Talked mostly about books.
- Went to the closing ceremonies. Everyone there seems to have enjoyed the con very much - it was a bit of a love-fest. Which was great. The rapport between guests, attendees, Con-Com and staff really did seem good. It was a small but intelligent con.
- I went home feeling all fired up about writing, and I wanted to study French. Shortly after that, I started to feel extremely dizzy and unwell. I have no idea why. Lay down for a while with a book. Eventually felt better, but got nothing done.
Kind of demoralizing.
Can-Con, day 2...
Sep. 10th, 2011 10:10 pmI got to Can-Con in time for the launching of Tesseracts Fifteen, an anthology of Canadian science fiction. The readers were excellent, so I bought a copy and got the ones who were there to autograph it. Of the stories read, my favourite so far is Fragile Things by Amanda Sun. She read part of it, and then I read the rest of it on the bus on the way home. That story, as far as I'm concerned, is worth the price of the book; if the others are half as good, I'll be happy.
I actually acquired (rather miraculously) three other books - all signed by one or more of their authors:
- An Ye Harm None: Magical Morality and Modern Ethics by Shelley Tsivia Rabinovitch and Meredith Macdonald. Shelley talked about the book, and featured a tasting of many kinds of chocolate, including bacon chocolate. I was probably the only one in the room who doesn't much like chocolate; I sampled a few, and was sorry I did. But I did rather like the bacon chocolate.
She said that she wrote this book because many pagans asked her, "What is an ethical life?" - that since pagans don't have a holy book like the Jews, Christians or Muslims. And my thought was that this is the great virtue of paganism, that religious are better off without holy books. But her book isn't meant as any kind of divine revelation, it's philisophical discussion and advice, so that's okay.
Shelley also had a 'tea reading' teacup just like I have - my mother gave it to me about thirty years ago. - Bell, Book & Beyond, ed. by P.D. Cacek.
- Defining Dianqa by Hayden Trenholm, who did a reading of excerpts from several of his books. I like the setting: Calgary in 2043.
I enjoyed a panel by StarWolf on comics from other cultures (mostly Japan and Belgium). I listened to part of a reading by Julie Czerneda, and part of a panel on language which turned out to be uninteresting, as I think I know as much as the panelists did about languages. Or more. Including their use in fiction.
And, as yesterday, I got to talk with friends I haven't seen in years, and I met a few people I've heard about but never met.
And I have some good reading to look forward to.
- Busy at work. In morning: office admin. In afternoon: mailing for co-op week.
- Took a wonderful break at lunchtime to go to Sushi 88 (one of my favourite restaurants) for a farewell lunch to someone who is leaving work with us start work on Monday in Toronto at a place called Naked Creative. There were many jokes about the name of the place she was going to.
- And then, somehow, sinking rapidly, the conversation turned to Bad Toilets We Have Known, mostly in Mongolia and Ghana.
- Amazing food, beautifully presented. I had an old favourite - Unagi Rice.
- Went to Can-Con, where I met up with some friends I haven't seen in years - and some whom I see often. Particularly enjoyed chatting with Rob, from the Comic Book Shoppe, and Tim, whom I used to be in an apazine with, and Claire, who lives in Whitehorse so I hardly ever get to see her. And Shelley, and Arcane, and others... And there should be even more people there tomorrow.
- Went to a panel about fantasy maps, and one about conspiracy theories. Enjoyed Hayden Trenholm's comments.
- Went to Heather Dale's concert.
Enjoyed it very much, especially one about a boy who threw things into the sea, so that when he was pulled in by a riptide, the sea threw him back to the shore where he belonged. And another one about Joan of Arc, about how she wasn't willing to be a wife and mother, but wanted to be herself - true enough, and a nice feminist angle on her story, but I'm not sure that I think dying for the sake of God is better than living for the sake of a family. - Walked home, because I forgot that the #101 bus would take me most of the way home. It was about 6.5 km and took me about 70 minutes. Nice night, with stars.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
