Ginger's Blog

My experience with cons is growing by leaps and bounds. Arisia is now the fourth con I’ve attended. (The others were Balticon in (guess where!) Baltimore, Readercon in Boston, and Worldcon–the granddaddy of all cons–a roaming con that in 2009 was in Montreal). They all have certain characteristics in common, but each definitely has its own flavor. Arisia is definitely the most crowded, and kept getting more so as the day turned into evening. This corridor was typical:

There were more sessions having to do with sexuality than I’ve seen before (“Swinging vs. Polyamory”, for example, or “Home Depot in the Bedroom”–a whole new way of looking at Home Depot). And ever so many sessions on diversity in SFF (or, presumably the general lack thereof and need for more). In Boston, I deduce, we are modern Victorians, politically correct on the surface and simmering between the sheets.

Best of all, there were more costumes per capita than I’ve seen before. And some of them were pretty amazing. I will confess to being disconcerted for a moment when I came across a very realistic (and charming) Frodo in the ladies room. But costumes have their perils, and so both the escalators and the glass elevators bore large signs:

You probably can’t read the hand lettering at the bottom of the last sign; someone thoughtfully added, “or kilt”. And in fact I’d say that far more kilts were in evidence than short skirts.

The sign just above “Watch your skirt” is an invitation to my friend Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s launch party Sunday night from 8 to midnight for her new book The Halfling’s Court. It’s a biker faery book (yes!). She did a reading from it today, and it was terrific! If you’re in Boston and like fantasy, check it out! It’s not an official con event, so I don’t think you’ll need a badge to get in. (But, hey, while you’re there, check out the con, too!)

“Who’s watching the Watchmen?” Dan and I are… finally… that’s who. What’s odd about this is that Dan is watching. Avidly.

Dan is not a fan of speculative fiction. He’s never picked up anything that might be called a “graphic novel”. He has little tolerance for the fantastical. Science fiction leaves him cold.

But he likes good design and he likes action. And Watchmen has these in abundance. Despite its bleak mood and noir atmosphere, it is an “up” movie. It’s hard to know, sometimes, whether we are watching the plot, the effects, or the sheer beauty of the film.

Dan won’t say he likes this movie. In fact, he doesn’t have much to say about it at all. But he was on the edge of his seat. I was the one watching the watching man. He was glued to the screen for two and three quarters hours, about as long as I have ever seen him sit still.

That movie was good!

Dan and I are driving to Montreal, where I will be going to Worldcon 67 (Anticipation 2009), and Dan will be hanging out partly working and partly on vacation. We cross the Merrimac River, and Dan says, “Did you know there used to be salmon on the Merrimac River?”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” I say. “The lobster in the ocean used to be so plentiful that they washed up onto the beaches. They fed lobster to the prisoners in the jails so frequently that the prisoners sent a petition to King George begging him to make them stop.”

“Let’s face it,” says Dan. “The planet isn’t what it used to be.”

No, it isn’t. “It’s going downhill fast,” I say, letting my pessimism get the better of me. “Time to move on. Time to get that colony ship ready to voyage out to the next planet.”

“I’ll be the first to volunteer,” says my science-fiction-averse husband.

Whoa.

Wasn’t there an article recently in The Boston Globe Magazine in which the author opines that “The baby boomers are the first generation that will… actually live too long. By refusing to expire after a reasonable number of years, the boomers are threatening the social order”? In arguing that the average lifespan of generations ago was in the forties meant that people in their forties were old, the author has succumbed to a common misunderstanding. She has overlooked the fact that over a third of the population died in infancy, in childhood, and in childbirth. And in war. It was not unusual for those that survived these catastrophes to live into their seventies or eighties or longer. But the author puts forth an argument that may be only too popular among the younger generations: The old folks have been around too long. Time to find a graceful, civilized way to get rid of them.

Well, young lady, this is your chance. We can solve the problem of the Earth on her last gasp and the overpopulation of healthy boomers growing older in one single, visionary stroke: Just pack us up in a space ship and send us off.

Hey, maybe a lot of us will go.

We baby boomers get a virgin planet where lobsters wash up on the beaches, and you get to deal with this dying Earth. Do you think you might actually do something about it before the human cancer kills the whole planet? Somehow, I don’t think so. Maybe it’s already too late.

And worse: Wouldn’t it be just like us to ruin the next planet, too?

The protagonist of many of my early fiction stories, a young man named Roderin, had the ability to Shift from one reality to another. I grew up wishing I had this talent. At heart, I didn’t want to have to inhabit the reality I was in – a characteristic that perhaps many readers (and writers) of fantasy stories share.

In the world of my bickering parents, I learned early and learned well how to get by while actually being there as little as possible. I read. When I ran out of horse stories in my branch library, I fled to the stars. When I ran out of astronomy books, I turned to fantasy and science fiction. I was light years away all the time. Alternative universes were even better.

My personal reality is a lot better now, and I don’t mind inhabiting it. Most of the time. But I can still walk down a path on a beautiful Florida campus, surrounded by grass and flowers, water vistas and gracious white buildings shining in the warm February sunshine, and feel within myself the potential to be someplace else.

Or at least, not to be here.

Not completely.

If I were Roderin, all it would take would be a focused act of will and an acceptance of a small wave of nausea that passes quickly enough. There’s always a price, after all. It’s not too bad as long as the price is not too steep.

But that’s the catch, isn’t it? For the possibility of what existence in what world in all of the heavens would I be willing to give up this world’s long-legged daughter for whose sake I am walking this campus path?

I guess I’m going to stay right here.