Rebecca Hb. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beckyh2112) wrote2009-06-13 10:31 pm
beckyh2112) wrote2009-06-13 10:31 pm
DucKon!
I will try to get back and talk about the rest of my trip so far tomorrow. Today, I am covering my day at DucKon because I want to get it all down before I forget and/or get off my squee-high.
For those of you keeping score at home (which would be my parents, Pux, Cyn, and Tai), I am currently staying in Springfield with the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ravynfyre and her dogs. The dogs are very friendly. Exuberantly so, but I'm more comfortable with them than I am with my grandparents' lab. I do not know why.
Today we drove the three hours to DucKon, did a one-day registration, then hit the dealer's room. It was kind of a small dealer's room, but I walked out of it with a gorgeous mauve-coral sarong and a little wooden box. Then I went to catch the tail-end of Jim Butcher's Q&A panel.
Things I found out:
- Jim Butcher was kicked out of the University of Oklahoma professional writing grad program for pissing off the dean of that program, but otherwise rocked in it.
- The next Dresden Files book will be named "Changes", and Jim expects a lot of people to be screaming at him over it.
- Jim Butcher has been cursed by a witch-doctor.
Copy-pasting the story as I relayed it to Pux:
It was, as you can tell, a very awesome Q&A panel.
Afterwards, Ravyn caught up with me, and we ducked into the dealer's room to buy some Jim Butcher books to get signed. Then I dragged her to a writing panel that had Michael Williamson, Seanan McGuire, Shannon Butcher, Seanan's agent, and Sue Blom. They had an interesting, if slightly meandering, panel about the process from submitting your book to your book actually being published. I enjoyed it. The main advice I remember is to try to limit the "we get to first-refusal rights on your next book" options to start from the time of submission/acceptance of your previous project, rather than from printing. And if you really, really want to break your contract with someone who has you in one of those options, give them dreck/something they don't publish (for example, electrical engineering texts).
After that, Jim Butcher was set up for signing, so we went to stand in line. The line was largely boring. We got to stand near the Klingon jail, which included many Barbies tied to it for no entirely explicable reason. Ravyn ran into someone on the con security staff that she knew from Gundam Wing fandom.
I got my Summer Knight audio CD signed for myself, then got two Alera books signed for Pux. Jim still remembers and loves the video promo Pux did of the Dresden Files tv series. She took the promo spots from Sci-Fi channel and put together something very awesome to "The Carol of the Bells". Unfortunately, it's not currently available online or I would link you guys.
He told me that he showed that promo to the cast and crew of the Dresden Files tv show while he was on the set, and everyone loved it. The producer said it was very well done and they needed to hire Puck, because it was a better promo than their current television spots.
Ravyn got a book signed for Cyn. ^_^
After that, we went to the ballroom across the way for the tail-end of the birds of prey display by the World Bird Sanctuary. They are a non-profit, wild bird organization located in St. Louis, Missouri. They had a very nice show. We only caught the bits with the Eurasian eagle owl, Eastern screech owl, the barn owl, and the tawny eagle.
So fascinating! The eagle and the eagle owl were huge birds. The screech owl was very tiny. The owls got to fly around the room a bit some, and I got to watch the ladies doing the presentation uses jesses. I had not previously realized that what you did with jesses was bind them around the bird's feet, then hold onto them so the bird cannot fly off.
At the end, they brought their white-necked raven out for a second time (Ravyn and I were in line during the first time) and gave us a little talk about donations. The recession is hitting them pretty hard, since they run off of donations and tighter economic times mean fewer donations.
One of the things they did was have the raven, Lenore, take donations. If you offered a bill to her, she'd snatch it up in her beak and deposit it in their donation box. She would also fold unfolded bills before dropping them in. Ravens are clever, clever birds, and it was so much fun watching her do that.
Then for a donation of $15 to the sanctuary, you could get your picture of you wearing one of the falconer's gauntlets and holding Xena, the Eurasian eagle owl. Now, while she's huge, she only weighs six pounds. So many people queued up for that. (I will scan in my picture of me and the owl tomorrow.)
One of the handlers would support the arms of the little kids who couldn't support Xena's weight on their own. She was very good about it and barely seemed to be in the pictures at all when they were finished.
Immediately after them, in the same ballroom, Vixy and Tony had their filk concert with SJ Tucker doing drums and backup vocals. Mostly drums.
SUCH AN AMAZING CONCERT.
I've never had the chance to hear Vixy and Tony live before. Or at all, really. I know them through the knowledge that Seanan likes to work with them a lot, but I am typically scatter-brained about actually looking up their music. But then I sat in that concert, and I was just whelmed. So incoherent with awesome. Vixy has an amazing voice. "Just Dreams" gave me deep shivers.
They played a mix of stuff off their new album and stuff that hasn't been recorded yet. Then towards the end, Sooj stepped up to do a brief solo with "Firebird's Child". Wild, deep drumming. So amazing.
After the concert, I had to rush to the dealer's room and buy their albums. I picked up Vixy and Tony's "Thirteen", SJ Tucker's "Solace and Sorrow", Seanan's "Pretty Little Dead Girl" (which is the only one of her currently out CDs I didn't already own), and a Michael Longcor cd I didn't previously have.
SO GLAD I PRE-ORDERED THE DUCKON CONCERT CDS.
Yes, Vixy and Tony were being recorded. Yes, I will be sent one of the CDs of that concert. Yes, I will love it very much. It will be mine, and I will play it obsessively because that's what I do with new CDs.
After getting the new CDs, Ravyn and I had a quick dinner at the hotel restaurant before returning to the ballrooms for Seanan's concert.
SO AMAZING.
I had heard the majority of the songs already, because she was mostly doing songs from her CDs. However, there were ones from "Pretty Little Dead Girl", which I hadn't had a chance to listen to yet seeing as I just got it. There were also ones from the CD she is currently poking at with her recording dude, "Wicked Girls". Including a very awesome version of the title track, which will be replacing my 'vocal roughs' version of that song as soon as I get my hands on the CD.
Yes, this concert was being recorded too. ^__^
I think I own all of Vixy and Tony and Seanan's discography right now. Rock.
After the concert, I got Sooj to sign my new CD by her, and I stammered about how awesome she was. I'm kind of incoherent about how much those two concerts affected me. I did feel very much like a Discworld elf - entranced by the music, unable to look away, just drinking it in. There were several songs that left me blinking back tears.
Sooj was very nice about my incoherence and said she was glad I grabbed "Solace and Sorrow" instead of the other CD that had "Firebird's Child" on it, because "Solace and Sorrow" has the story that goes with "Firebird's Child". (Listened to "Solace and Sorrow" on the way back to Ravyn's house. Omigod, the mice song. SO CREEPY.)
I then went to ask Seanan to sign my copy of "Pretty Little Dead Girl". She recognized my name! And hugged me! And gave me ribbons! (DucKon had a lot of ribbons for people's badges that you could collect for various reasons. Seanan had three different sets that were exclusively her purview to give out.) She was happy I could get up there to see her perform!
I am amazed I did not burst in a puddle of squee all over her.
Unfortunately, I had run out of cash by then, or I would have bought one of her poetry chapbooks. But eeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeee!
Then I went to get Vixy and Tony to sign my copy of "Thirteen". Vixy was very sweet about my incoherent love of the concert, too. ^_^ Tony told me a bit about the album art and said he was glad people were enjoying the concerts enough to be incoherent over them. ^__^ (I may be paraphrasing more than slightly there - it's been a long day.)
It was after six by that time, the technician had turned off the light to get us to leave the ballroom, the dealer's room and art show were closed, various people were heading off to dinner. Tony clapped me on the shoulder and said something to the effect of "hey, you" when we passed each other in the hall. (I am allowed to be squeeful over things like that. Being social excites me, since I have a bad habit of becoming a hermit.)
According to my schedule, there was a panel with Jim Butcher and Seanan on it at 8. However, neither Ravyn nor I had any reason to be there for Sunday, it had been a long day, and we still had a three hour drive back to the house. So I decided no, let's not do that. Cool as it might be, we really do need to get going so that we get back before midnight.
On the drive home, we listened to "Solace and Sorrow", Ravyn's new Alexander Adams's fiddling cd (Alexander used to be Heather Alexander, for those who follow filk), and part of my "Thirteen".
Then I came home and found Pux had internet again! Very awesome end to the day.
For those of you keeping score at home (which would be my parents, Pux, Cyn, and Tai), I am currently staying in Springfield with the lovely
ravynfyre and her dogs. The dogs are very friendly. Exuberantly so, but I'm more comfortable with them than I am with my grandparents' lab. I do not know why.Today we drove the three hours to DucKon, did a one-day registration, then hit the dealer's room. It was kind of a small dealer's room, but I walked out of it with a gorgeous mauve-coral sarong and a little wooden box. Then I went to catch the tail-end of Jim Butcher's Q&A panel.
Things I found out:
- Jim Butcher was kicked out of the University of Oklahoma professional writing grad program for pissing off the dean of that program, but otherwise rocked in it.
- The next Dresden Files book will be named "Changes", and Jim expects a lot of people to be screaming at him over it.
- Jim Butcher has been cursed by a witch-doctor.
Copy-pasting the story as I relayed it to Pux:
Okay, so when Jim was a teenager, he went on a mission trip to Brazil. In Rio de Janero, he'd go out with his crew to a place with the local Baptist group, they'd sing, the local preacher would give a sermon, sing, sermon, etc.
They would also go out to small towns and do something similar. Now small towns in Brazil are not like small towns in America. Here, we'd expect a gas station, a McDonald's, maybe a Wal-Mart. There, it was hours of driving through the jungle along dirt paths, until you came to a red brick square. Then the people would show up from the nearby farms.
Anyways, Jim's group was doing that. During one of the breaks, a couple of girls wanted to go buy some Coke. The trip rules were that a guy had to accompany a girl if she wanted to go somewhere. To protect them or something.
So while the girls are buying Coke, a man bursts from the jungle. He's hardly wearing anything more than a pair of battered capris. And snakes. There are snakes in his beltloops. There are snakes up his arms. There is a large snake across his shoulder. There are snakes in his dreadlocks.
Everyone freezes. The man gives a primal scream and advances towards the girls at the Coke seller.
Jim, being young and not too bright, edges between the girls and this strange guy. He's supposed to protect them, right?
The guy points at Jim, utters some loud gibberish, then stalks back into the jungle.
Everyone is still frozen. Jim is confused. "Um... I'd like to buy a Coke?"
Things go on. Jim goes to ask their native guide, Carlos, what that was all about.
"Well, you see, he is a man the locals pay to leave them alone."
"He's got a protection racket going?"
"Something like that. He is a witch-doctor. He has killed three or four people with his death-curse. Which he just put on you."
"... Oh. I was thinking of going to play cricket with those guys, but I think I'll sit here instead."
"You do that."
***
That night, Jim and his group go back to their camp. Their camp largely consists of a roof over the eating area, and then the cabins a good long walk through the jungle away from there.
After dinner, Carlos and Jim are walking back in the dark. Carlos is playing his flashlight over the ground, Jim is keeping up with him, and they are talking some. Jim's group is going home tomorrow, fortunately.
Carlos stops suddenly, his flashlight on the ground. Jim looks and spots that there is a cat print the size of a man's hand in Carlos's beam.
Carlos plays the flashlight over either side of the path. Then in the trees above.
"That is a jaguar print," he says. He grabs Jim, and they hustle to the cabins.
***
The next morning, Jim gets up and goes to get his Kool-Aid. Some guys in the next cabin are horsing around with a video camera. Jim picks up his Kool-Aid jar and turns it around, and there is a spider the size of his hand on the other side.
He gives a manly shriek and flails, dropping it to the floor. The other kids come to investigate while Jim looks for a shoe to kill it with. There are manly shrieks from them, too.
"No, dude, we've got to tape this!"
"You do that. I'm getting a shoe."
They video-tape Jim dispatching the spider with a shoe. Carlos comes along to see what all the fuss is about. They show him the tape.
He goes pale. "Jimmy Butcher, how much do you weigh?"
Jim gives his weight.
Carlos nods. "And you are sure it did not bite you? No irritation? No swelling?"
"No, it was just on the side of my Kool-Aid jar. That's all."
"Good, good. There are some spiders that look dangerous and are harmless. But this one... Well, you weigh 160 pounds, and the hospital is 45 minutes down the trail... I am not sure we would have been able to get you there."
***
Well, it is Jim's last day in Brazil. He is going to take a shower, dammit. So he goes to take a shower. He is, however, prepared to deal with further shenanigans so he carefully pushes the shower open before entering.
There is a snake in the bottom of the shower. He goes to tell Carlos.
Now this happens now and then, and usually the native guides to just grab a stick and toss the snake back into the jungle. This time Carlos looks at it, then hustles off to get some of the others to help him. They get snake-wrangling gear like you see on the shows, grab the snake very carefully, hood it, and then take it very far away from the camp.
***
Now it is time for Jim to get on the plane. Some of the guys from the local church group say "hold up, we'd like to video-tape you!"
"Um, okay?"
"To show you leaving Brazil safe and alive!"
"Um, okay..."
So they video-tape him. Jim leaves. They take the tape to the village to show the locals, who get their clubs together and either run off or kill the witch-doctor, since he'd obviously lost his mojo.
It was, as you can tell, a very awesome Q&A panel.
Afterwards, Ravyn caught up with me, and we ducked into the dealer's room to buy some Jim Butcher books to get signed. Then I dragged her to a writing panel that had Michael Williamson, Seanan McGuire, Shannon Butcher, Seanan's agent, and Sue Blom. They had an interesting, if slightly meandering, panel about the process from submitting your book to your book actually being published. I enjoyed it. The main advice I remember is to try to limit the "we get to first-refusal rights on your next book" options to start from the time of submission/acceptance of your previous project, rather than from printing. And if you really, really want to break your contract with someone who has you in one of those options, give them dreck/something they don't publish (for example, electrical engineering texts).
After that, Jim Butcher was set up for signing, so we went to stand in line. The line was largely boring. We got to stand near the Klingon jail, which included many Barbies tied to it for no entirely explicable reason. Ravyn ran into someone on the con security staff that she knew from Gundam Wing fandom.
I got my Summer Knight audio CD signed for myself, then got two Alera books signed for Pux. Jim still remembers and loves the video promo Pux did of the Dresden Files tv series. She took the promo spots from Sci-Fi channel and put together something very awesome to "The Carol of the Bells". Unfortunately, it's not currently available online or I would link you guys.
He told me that he showed that promo to the cast and crew of the Dresden Files tv show while he was on the set, and everyone loved it. The producer said it was very well done and they needed to hire Puck, because it was a better promo than their current television spots.
Ravyn got a book signed for Cyn. ^_^
After that, we went to the ballroom across the way for the tail-end of the birds of prey display by the World Bird Sanctuary. They are a non-profit, wild bird organization located in St. Louis, Missouri. They had a very nice show. We only caught the bits with the Eurasian eagle owl, Eastern screech owl, the barn owl, and the tawny eagle.
So fascinating! The eagle and the eagle owl were huge birds. The screech owl was very tiny. The owls got to fly around the room a bit some, and I got to watch the ladies doing the presentation uses jesses. I had not previously realized that what you did with jesses was bind them around the bird's feet, then hold onto them so the bird cannot fly off.
At the end, they brought their white-necked raven out for a second time (Ravyn and I were in line during the first time) and gave us a little talk about donations. The recession is hitting them pretty hard, since they run off of donations and tighter economic times mean fewer donations.
One of the things they did was have the raven, Lenore, take donations. If you offered a bill to her, she'd snatch it up in her beak and deposit it in their donation box. She would also fold unfolded bills before dropping them in. Ravens are clever, clever birds, and it was so much fun watching her do that.
Then for a donation of $15 to the sanctuary, you could get your picture of you wearing one of the falconer's gauntlets and holding Xena, the Eurasian eagle owl. Now, while she's huge, she only weighs six pounds. So many people queued up for that. (I will scan in my picture of me and the owl tomorrow.)
One of the handlers would support the arms of the little kids who couldn't support Xena's weight on their own. She was very good about it and barely seemed to be in the pictures at all when they were finished.
Immediately after them, in the same ballroom, Vixy and Tony had their filk concert with SJ Tucker doing drums and backup vocals. Mostly drums.
SUCH AN AMAZING CONCERT.
I've never had the chance to hear Vixy and Tony live before. Or at all, really. I know them through the knowledge that Seanan likes to work with them a lot, but I am typically scatter-brained about actually looking up their music. But then I sat in that concert, and I was just whelmed. So incoherent with awesome. Vixy has an amazing voice. "Just Dreams" gave me deep shivers.
They played a mix of stuff off their new album and stuff that hasn't been recorded yet. Then towards the end, Sooj stepped up to do a brief solo with "Firebird's Child". Wild, deep drumming. So amazing.
After the concert, I had to rush to the dealer's room and buy their albums. I picked up Vixy and Tony's "Thirteen", SJ Tucker's "Solace and Sorrow", Seanan's "Pretty Little Dead Girl" (which is the only one of her currently out CDs I didn't already own), and a Michael Longcor cd I didn't previously have.
SO GLAD I PRE-ORDERED THE DUCKON CONCERT CDS.
Yes, Vixy and Tony were being recorded. Yes, I will be sent one of the CDs of that concert. Yes, I will love it very much. It will be mine, and I will play it obsessively because that's what I do with new CDs.
After getting the new CDs, Ravyn and I had a quick dinner at the hotel restaurant before returning to the ballrooms for Seanan's concert.
SO AMAZING.
I had heard the majority of the songs already, because she was mostly doing songs from her CDs. However, there were ones from "Pretty Little Dead Girl", which I hadn't had a chance to listen to yet seeing as I just got it. There were also ones from the CD she is currently poking at with her recording dude, "Wicked Girls". Including a very awesome version of the title track, which will be replacing my 'vocal roughs' version of that song as soon as I get my hands on the CD.
Yes, this concert was being recorded too. ^__^
I think I own all of Vixy and Tony and Seanan's discography right now. Rock.
After the concert, I got Sooj to sign my new CD by her, and I stammered about how awesome she was. I'm kind of incoherent about how much those two concerts affected me. I did feel very much like a Discworld elf - entranced by the music, unable to look away, just drinking it in. There were several songs that left me blinking back tears.
Sooj was very nice about my incoherence and said she was glad I grabbed "Solace and Sorrow" instead of the other CD that had "Firebird's Child" on it, because "Solace and Sorrow" has the story that goes with "Firebird's Child". (Listened to "Solace and Sorrow" on the way back to Ravyn's house. Omigod, the mice song. SO CREEPY.)
I then went to ask Seanan to sign my copy of "Pretty Little Dead Girl". She recognized my name! And hugged me! And gave me ribbons! (DucKon had a lot of ribbons for people's badges that you could collect for various reasons. Seanan had three different sets that were exclusively her purview to give out.) She was happy I could get up there to see her perform!
I am amazed I did not burst in a puddle of squee all over her.
Unfortunately, I had run out of cash by then, or I would have bought one of her poetry chapbooks. But eeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeee!
Then I went to get Vixy and Tony to sign my copy of "Thirteen". Vixy was very sweet about my incoherent love of the concert, too. ^_^ Tony told me a bit about the album art and said he was glad people were enjoying the concerts enough to be incoherent over them. ^__^ (I may be paraphrasing more than slightly there - it's been a long day.)
It was after six by that time, the technician had turned off the light to get us to leave the ballroom, the dealer's room and art show were closed, various people were heading off to dinner. Tony clapped me on the shoulder and said something to the effect of "hey, you" when we passed each other in the hall. (I am allowed to be squeeful over things like that. Being social excites me, since I have a bad habit of becoming a hermit.)
According to my schedule, there was a panel with Jim Butcher and Seanan on it at 8. However, neither Ravyn nor I had any reason to be there for Sunday, it had been a long day, and we still had a three hour drive back to the house. So I decided no, let's not do that. Cool as it might be, we really do need to get going so that we get back before midnight.
On the drive home, we listened to "Solace and Sorrow", Ravyn's new Alexander Adams's fiddling cd (Alexander used to be Heather Alexander, for those who follow filk), and part of my "Thirteen".
Then I came home and found Pux had internet again! Very awesome end to the day.