My post Boskone blog entry
Feb. 15th, 2009 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prusikI'm always amazed how well run Boskone is. This isn't to say that they nail everything perfect on the first try. They'd left a map out of the program. However, after they realized no one knew where to go, maps magically popped up all over the place. Once they realized that people had problems hearing in the larger rooms, they managed to get a couple of them miked for the rest of the con. It's not a surprise that the gripe session was mostly positive.
(I never had any problems hearing despite the lack of amplification. This makes me not credible to relate this gripe session incident. This large, solid guy with thick white hair was extremely insistent that everyone be miked in every room at all times, otherwise it was impossible to hear anything. What I found interesting is that he spoke with a loud, flat, steamroller like delivery. The way he spoke, not only would he have been heard in even the largest room, but it would have been hard to get in a word edgewise. However, if the way he spoke is his standard for what it means to be audible, no wonder he wants everyone miked.
I'm not as sympathetic as I should be. My hearing is relatively decent. I've had years of training in vocal projection. And, honestly, I'd rather everyone stay quiet so that we can hear rather than have the panelists drown everyone else out. Now, I know it's not nearly that simple. For one, simply telling someone with normal hearing that they ought to be able to hear just fine is simply not helpful. Being on a panel does not automatically confer you with a loud voice or the ability to project. The stamina to maintain a healthy, supported, projected sound for an entire con is hard to come by. Heaven help you if you, like I was during this con, are sick.
That's a different argument than declaring in loud, flat, steamroller tones that there must be amplification or else all will be lost. And frankly, most of the rooms were so small, that only the quietest of voices or those who are genuinely hard of hearing would have needed help.
That said, I suspect, next year, they will amplify the three largest rooms. I think that's the right thing to do, if they tune the rooms properly. Louder is not clearer. People say "louder", or "I can't hear you." Many times, what would be more helpful to say is "clearer", or "I can't understand you.")
I didn't gripe at the gripe session. I usually attend just to see what everyone else is complaining about. In any case, my only real problem was having to choose between panels. In retrospect, I suppose the only one I really regret not going to is the one on gays, lesbians and bisexuals in SF. However, it struck me that either the panel would be so narrow that it couldn't fill an hour, or so overly broad that the entire convention wouldn't have been enough time to talk about it at an interesting level. Based on the feedback at the gripe session, it was likely the latter. Hopefully, this will encourage a series of more specific panels from the glbt perspective.
My throat was kind of scratchy on Wednesday. Going to work on Thursday turned out to be a really bad idea. I ended up leaving work early and sleeping most of the day. Most of the weekend, I oscillated between "I'm not sick. I feel absolutely fine" and "I really ought to be asleep because interesting things are happening my body temperature." This left me in a very weird (yes, even for me) mood this weekend. I'll just apologize now to everyone I've alienated. I don't do the social thing intuitively. However, I'm much better at it when I'm not constantly on the verge of sleep.
[It occurs to me now that had Boskone been somewhere else, I would have had a hotel room. This would have made the constantly wanting to go to sleep thing much less problematic than it was. Like I said, one of these days, I need to go a con that's not a reasonable commute from home. Ideally though, I'd be healthy for it. If I don't get into Clarion, I'm seriously thinking about 4th Street. However, I'd rather get into Clarion. Theoretically, I could do both. Practically, I don't get that much time off in one year.]
BTW, the revelation for today is "I can breathe!" (This is good because 2 hours of improv would have been horrific if I couldn't.) I figure I've gotten past the worst of whatever it is I got.
Speaking of improv, part of Boskone's Saturday night show was this improv thing they did. I can understand why they went there. Putting together the Saturday night show is a huge effort for which there isn't enough time. Then you have to put it in a stage that really was not intended for any sort of play. What I've learned over the past 1.5 years though is that good improv is really hard. Everyone else was laughing and I'm glad they were enjoying themselves. However, I spent a lot of time thinking, "Why do the characters care enough to have this conversation?", "What's different about this night from all the other nights?", "Why aren't they adding specific, concrete, detailed information into the scene?"
[Having said that, I should add that Jen Pelland came in to her improv with a developed character and managed to draw her scene partner into a scene that actually went somewhere. Her scenes worked the best for me. It's not that everyone else did a bad job. It's that I sat there imagining what could have been happening on that stage, and that was so much better. It would have been cool if they'd actually been improvising a piece of high fantasy. However, this might be a case of "this cherry pie is an awful meatloaf."]
The Jo Walton play they also did that night was full of beautiful language. Given that it was semi-staged, it would have been better if they were off-book. However, given all that language, there was no way they had the time and energy to devote to memorizing all of that Shakespearean style text. Likewise, with more rehearsal time, they might have been able to, for example, answer the question, "Why are these two people talking to each other?" I suspect, though, that they had all the rehearsal time that they could eek out. I think it went about as well as anyone could have hoped for it to go off. Certainly, if I had been responsible for this, I would have been thrilled at how the performance had gone.
[Of course, my impression might have been different if I weren't trying so hard to stay awake. I'm pretty sure I went off to another planet during a few of the monologue. None of that has anything to do with Jo Walton or the able cast doing the best they could. I mean, they didn't infect me with disease... or did they?]
Anyway, Boskone was as fun as possible under the circumstance. If I get into Clarion [West], this does it for me in terms of con going until next year. (No, Clarion [West] is not a 6 week long con. Down that path lies madness.) If I don't get into Clarion [West], I'm thinking 4th Street, and ReaderCon. It's probably too late to think about WorldCon. As I've said before though, I'd rather get into Clarion [West].
(I never had any problems hearing despite the lack of amplification. This makes me not credible to relate this gripe session incident. This large, solid guy with thick white hair was extremely insistent that everyone be miked in every room at all times, otherwise it was impossible to hear anything. What I found interesting is that he spoke with a loud, flat, steamroller like delivery. The way he spoke, not only would he have been heard in even the largest room, but it would have been hard to get in a word edgewise. However, if the way he spoke is his standard for what it means to be audible, no wonder he wants everyone miked.
I'm not as sympathetic as I should be. My hearing is relatively decent. I've had years of training in vocal projection. And, honestly, I'd rather everyone stay quiet so that we can hear rather than have the panelists drown everyone else out. Now, I know it's not nearly that simple. For one, simply telling someone with normal hearing that they ought to be able to hear just fine is simply not helpful. Being on a panel does not automatically confer you with a loud voice or the ability to project. The stamina to maintain a healthy, supported, projected sound for an entire con is hard to come by. Heaven help you if you, like I was during this con, are sick.
That's a different argument than declaring in loud, flat, steamroller tones that there must be amplification or else all will be lost. And frankly, most of the rooms were so small, that only the quietest of voices or those who are genuinely hard of hearing would have needed help.
That said, I suspect, next year, they will amplify the three largest rooms. I think that's the right thing to do, if they tune the rooms properly. Louder is not clearer. People say "louder", or "I can't hear you." Many times, what would be more helpful to say is "clearer", or "I can't understand you.")
I didn't gripe at the gripe session. I usually attend just to see what everyone else is complaining about. In any case, my only real problem was having to choose between panels. In retrospect, I suppose the only one I really regret not going to is the one on gays, lesbians and bisexuals in SF. However, it struck me that either the panel would be so narrow that it couldn't fill an hour, or so overly broad that the entire convention wouldn't have been enough time to talk about it at an interesting level. Based on the feedback at the gripe session, it was likely the latter. Hopefully, this will encourage a series of more specific panels from the glbt perspective.
My throat was kind of scratchy on Wednesday. Going to work on Thursday turned out to be a really bad idea. I ended up leaving work early and sleeping most of the day. Most of the weekend, I oscillated between "I'm not sick. I feel absolutely fine" and "I really ought to be asleep because interesting things are happening my body temperature." This left me in a very weird (yes, even for me) mood this weekend. I'll just apologize now to everyone I've alienated. I don't do the social thing intuitively. However, I'm much better at it when I'm not constantly on the verge of sleep.
[It occurs to me now that had Boskone been somewhere else, I would have had a hotel room. This would have made the constantly wanting to go to sleep thing much less problematic than it was. Like I said, one of these days, I need to go a con that's not a reasonable commute from home. Ideally though, I'd be healthy for it. If I don't get into Clarion, I'm seriously thinking about 4th Street. However, I'd rather get into Clarion. Theoretically, I could do both. Practically, I don't get that much time off in one year.]
BTW, the revelation for today is "I can breathe!" (This is good because 2 hours of improv would have been horrific if I couldn't.) I figure I've gotten past the worst of whatever it is I got.
Speaking of improv, part of Boskone's Saturday night show was this improv thing they did. I can understand why they went there. Putting together the Saturday night show is a huge effort for which there isn't enough time. Then you have to put it in a stage that really was not intended for any sort of play. What I've learned over the past 1.5 years though is that good improv is really hard. Everyone else was laughing and I'm glad they were enjoying themselves. However, I spent a lot of time thinking, "Why do the characters care enough to have this conversation?", "What's different about this night from all the other nights?", "Why aren't they adding specific, concrete, detailed information into the scene?"
[Having said that, I should add that Jen Pelland came in to her improv with a developed character and managed to draw her scene partner into a scene that actually went somewhere. Her scenes worked the best for me. It's not that everyone else did a bad job. It's that I sat there imagining what could have been happening on that stage, and that was so much better. It would have been cool if they'd actually been improvising a piece of high fantasy. However, this might be a case of "this cherry pie is an awful meatloaf."]
The Jo Walton play they also did that night was full of beautiful language. Given that it was semi-staged, it would have been better if they were off-book. However, given all that language, there was no way they had the time and energy to devote to memorizing all of that Shakespearean style text. Likewise, with more rehearsal time, they might have been able to, for example, answer the question, "Why are these two people talking to each other?" I suspect, though, that they had all the rehearsal time that they could eek out. I think it went about as well as anyone could have hoped for it to go off. Certainly, if I had been responsible for this, I would have been thrilled at how the performance had gone.
[Of course, my impression might have been different if I weren't trying so hard to stay awake. I'm pretty sure I went off to another planet during a few of the monologue. None of that has anything to do with Jo Walton or the able cast doing the best they could. I mean, they didn't infect me with disease... or did they?]
Anyway, Boskone was as fun as possible under the circumstance. If I get into Clarion [West], this does it for me in terms of con going until next year. (No, Clarion [West] is not a 6 week long con. Down that path lies madness.) If I don't get into Clarion [West], I'm thinking 4th Street, and ReaderCon. It's probably too late to think about WorldCon. As I've said before though, I'd rather get into Clarion [West].
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 01:22 am (UTC)I wasn't there, but "loud and flat" is pretty characteristic of how Deaf people speak.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 11:43 pm (UTC)-Barbara
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 06:36 pm (UTC)I'd have never guessed. Hope you're feeling better!