Monday is For Travel
Posted on July 16, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 7 Comments
I’m heading back to Ohio after a nicely busy ComicCon. I have Internet on the plane but will be using it to catch up on some work rather than be here. I know, what sort of person am I to prioritize work over this blog. Even so.
Have an excellent Monday and I will catch up with you all when I get back home.
Wait? You mean this blog is not your work? You have another job you fill your days with? :)
Safe travels, John. We’ll discuss your messed-up priorities when you get back. ;-)
Good heavens, you’ve been on the road a lot! I salute your endurance. My brain would have melted by now.
Safe home, John.
I just got back from Friday-Saturday-Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con. Everything that you used to like about science fiction conventions was there but buried in bad signal-to-noise ratio of line-monitors telling my fellow professionals that NO, they might have “Pro” badges and need to get to the bathroom, but in this hallways you can only walk in THAT direction, and so please go around the corner to the right three times to go to the bathroom, and lines 8 hours long to get into a panel discussion about a minor actress from a cable TV show utterly unrelated to science fiction, fantasy, or horror.
Comic-Con has turned into an Occupy Speculative demonstration, with a 99% whose elite includes a few dozen professional novelists hanging out in the “Pro Room” sipping free coffee and lemonade, preparing for panels, such as (nice to converse with you guys, Greg Bear, John Scalzi, et al), and 130,000 people, many unable to book hotel rooms, and so actually sleeping on the sidewalk outside the convention center, in a kind of dystopian Calcutta-Con. I waited on line for only 4 events, including: Firefly, followed by Joss Whedon about Avenger, Dollhouse, his recent wrap of “Much Ado About Nothing” with Nathan Fillion as Dogberry, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog-2, and the Ray Bradbury memorial event, which was wonderful, with major genre stars who were friends of his, for which I sat through the (rather nice) Glee panel with its producer direction, two main writers, and stars of the cast, all being taped by Fox.
I did not wait on line to see my former Governor Ah-Nold, and his buddy Sylvester Stallone, with previews of The Expendables 2. I did not like the Celeb Parties thrown by major studios, and Playboy, although I mixed with many who did, who thought me cool enough to be invited. Sorry, to me a Studio 54 for Film/TV staffers and stars who don’t know the history of Speculative Fiction nor actually write anything worth reading. They have good food and free booze (i.e. Game-of-Thrones-themed drinks) but they were clearly dominated by The 1%, who don’t actually care about Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, Lovecraft, Poe, nor Shakespeare.
As I describe Comic-Con, I literally had only 3 hours sleep per night for 4 nights in a row. Not good at my age
Check out i09.com under “The biggest winners and losers of Comic-Con 2012!” and look who is first in the winners column. Congrats!