WisCon Day 1: First Day, First Panels, First Supper. Firsting.

[bcholmes]

Day one of WisCon tends to start a bit late. I was up and registered by 9:30 (local time), and started hanging around some of the public spaces -- second floor (near registration) and the hotel lobby -- looking for people that I know.

And I conveniently ran into a lot of people. polyfrog, pokershaman, wild_irises, redbird, and so forth. Those first few, "Hey, what's new in your life?" moments. I had a good lunch with Ian H. at the Nepali restaurant, which is, I think, my favourite restaurant in Madison (there's something about their Dal that's tremendously tasty). After lunch, I went to the gathering. I really wanted to see hypatia's locksport table. Totally packed! Exceedingly popular event. So I wandered away, gabbed with deepforestowl and maevele and a few others. Eventually, I found a spot at the spillover locksport table, and tried to call up the information that I read 20 years ago. I managed to get one tricky five-pin lock to open, but all the others eluded me. I could feel pins "catch", but I was having difficulty maintaining the "right" amount of torque to ensure that the bottom part of the pins could drop without hindrance.

All-in-all, good fun. I'll probably look into getting a set of tools at home so I can practice more.

At 4:00, I went to the "Chicks Dig Time Lords" panel:

Chicks Dig Time Lords

There is a perception that there weren't many women in Doctor Who fandom before the New Series was launched. This is patently false. Women have had a major role in Doctor Who fandom since the inception of the show. Do women approach and experience their Doctor Who fandom (or other media fandoms) differently than men? This panel explores different approaches within an assumed male-dominated fandom. Approaches to fandom discussed will range feminist critique to costuming to fan fiction.

Mostly the panel had little to do with that write-up. There was some early acknowledgement that women attending Doctor Who conventions before the New Series were looked upon as odd creatures ("Will you be our mascot?"), but most of the rest of the panel was more "My Doctor Who squeee: let me describe it to you!" And that was kinda fun, but not really the Srus Kdemic Nalisis™ that the description made it out to be.

Quotoids:

"Our fandom is bigger on the inside..."

"The sixth Doctor has a costume that was made for radio."

A lot of the conversation had to do with whether or not anyone was having sex on the Tardis. (Were Ian and Barbara lovers? Does the Doctor have a willie?) The conversation was fun and raucous. There was only a little tiny discussion of the Matt Smith episodes (mostly because people were trying to not spoil episodes that some people might not have seen). The consensus seems to be that people like Matt Smith, that people love Amy Pond, and that people hate the Mighty Morphin' Power Daleks.

I had dinner with the crowd including bookzombie, lcohen, j00j, boxofdelights, kalmn, clawfoot, eeyorerin, epi_lj and other people and partners and so forth. I was happy to put a face to j00j, who I've seen commenting on the DreamJournal and so forth. It was great to meet the juggler and bookzombie's SO.

Then it was off to the Opening Ceremonies, in which Ellen Klages and Pat Murphy did an incredibly funny performance as libraries talking about respectability and science fiction. "You're reading a book! Respectable! But it has a rocket on the cover. Too bad."

(Ooops. Running out of time. Must finish this a bit later).

Comments

[rosefox]

Those first few, " I had a good lunch with Ian H.

Looks like something's missing behind that quotation mark.