So Justine and I are headed to Madison, Wisconsin tomorrow morning for Wiscon, the world’s premier feminist science fiction convention. Here’s the schedule:
Wednesday: Justine’s doing this. I’m just hanging out.
Thursday: Having lunch with the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, Wisconsin’s elite strike force for keeping books from being banned in schools and libraries.
Friday: Seeing X-Men, yo.
Saturday: Justine has many panels. I’m just hanging out again.
Sunday:
1:00PM Reading with Chris Rowe, Gavin Grant, and Richard Butner.
2:30PM On a panel called “The Death of the Panel.” (how meta, dude)
Monday: Signing at the Big Sign Out, Madison Concourse Hotel.
Tuesday: Coming home. Sleeping, even though I won’t really be that tired.
As you can see, this isn’t a super exhausting convention for me. It’s mostly to see my writer pals and talk about writerly and science fictional stuff. Plus free food. Also, really cool people will be there: Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jane Yolen, and all these people too. Yikes, what a list!
Note: These aren’t really public events. You must be a member of the con to come to the panels and readings, and it’s all sold out.
Pierre Plantard was a French guy in the 50’s that snuck fake documents about the Priory of Sion and their “holy grail” secret into libraries, and people started to believe them. Which got the whole holy grail thing started up again and “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” was written, and then “Da Vinci Code”
I watch too much of the History Channel…
right, okay, gonna try not to talk about Da Vinci Code anymore *zips lips*
Rebecca wrote:
“Dude, why don’t they have cool stuff like this in Texas? Okay, maybe in Austin there are book conventions.”
Yep. It’s called Armadillocon; this year is #28,
Aug. 11-13, 2006
http://www.fact.org/dillo/about.htm
(But I’m typing this from here at lovely WisCon)
so everyones been talking about the inconsistencies of the da vinci code, but nobodies mentioned all the wrong doings in x-men 3!!!! And i must say, that i am appaled!!! Why do they have Storm shooting electricity from her hands? Why? Dear God Why? *breaks down in sobs*
What’s wrong with Storm shooting electricity from her hands? (this is coming from someone who sadly has not taken the time to read the comic books)
“Yep. It’s called Armadillocon; this year is #28.”
Damn, right before I go back to school. But I might be able to get up there anyway. 😀 Are there any YA sf authors? (Like, um, Scott? :D)
hope you have fun in Wisconsin! woot i’m the 55 commenter! [i dont think thats a word]
ok i was wrong i was the 56 commenter oh well what can i say i failed math this year
i dont really like comic books. but i still like x-men. how come a bunch of comics have been made into movies, but not as many books? is it because comics are easier to make scripts out of??
Amy: comic books seem to be a fad lately, but books into movies have been just as popular. With the comic books, there was Spiderman: HUGE success. There was Daredevil, Batman Begins, Catwoman, Fantastic Four, and of course: X-Men. And they’re coming out with Superman (which is being called “Superman Returns” hmmm…. “Batman Begins,” “Superman Returns”…. they’re losing touch with originality here) Lately you can’t find a movie that wasn’t something else first, typically a book. Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, The Notebook, Narnia, Pride and Prejudice (Which has actually been made into a movie like a million times, which makes it even LESS original) even I, Robot was a book first, a series actually… but there are the less well known books into movies too: Timeline by Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park dude), Sahara by Clive Cussler (GREAT book), Ella Enchanted (they murdered that book, they put UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS ON THE MOVIE COVER!). Pirates of the Caribbean was based on the Disney Ride, The Day After Tomorrow was based off of a non-fiction scientific book on a theory about global warming (hard to get through, tried, didn’t manage to finish that one actually…) V for Vendetta was a comic book or something before it was a movie… Can anyone name a recent orignal movie? That isn’t animated? There are VERY few, it’s sad, it says that there’s no originality left in the film business anymore, or hardly…
And there’s my rant for the evening….
oh, lyra, i have to rant back. yes, yes, many movies ARE based off of books, or comic books, or theme park rides, or whatever. but so??? what is wrong with that? people read these books and are inspired. i suppose i see your point, that the film industry is leaning and relying on novelist and comic artist s to come up with all the material, and all the filmmakers have to do is take their ideas and fix it up for the screen. but there are so many amazing, recent movies that are real, orginal ideas. i know my argument here is pretty lame, its just that i’m an aspiring filmmaker myself and i’ve seen how hard artists work to create their own, original stuff, and then i read things like filmmakers cant come up with their own ideas anymore, andits simply not true, and i take it personally. which is why i’m arguing even though i dont have a list of titles to spout off liek you do, and you asked “Can anyone name a recent orignal movie? That isn’t animated?” ad i can, its just none of them are well-known. such as Four-Eyed Monsters, there, that s a title for you, but i doubt anyone here will have heard of it. maybe it’s something thats wrong with the filmmakers, but the audiences, or the distributors, who wont take risks with new inventive stories that haven’t already received a good review. i think Kill Bill could fit into the ‘recent succsessful live-actionfilm not based ona book oranything,” but i also know that Miramax would produce anything of Tarantino’s, he is their prodigal lovechild (a large portion of Miramax’s succsess goes back to Taratinos Pulp Ficiton). and another thing, what does it matter if a film is animated or not? does an orginal story not count if its not filmed live-action? why? it should be, animation is just a different method of filming, really. why does it not count?
sigh. i feel like i’ve made a pathetic case here, but i feel so strongly that you’re Wrong, totally. i feel attacked. and so i rant back, even though i’m to tired to make any kind of decent argument.
Ah hah.
…
So why can’t Storm shoot lightning from her hands?
I mean, she’s Storm (storm=lightning).
Hmmm… just read the school paper… uglies/pretties made the top 10 teen books of the year… they didn’t mention specials though… must not have known it came out…
ack, jane-la, didn’t mean to offend you, really! I don’t mean film makers in general, I mean the big-time “Hollywood” people. People who are inspired by books to make movies, that’s great. Like Peter Moorwood, the guy that did LOTR, he LOVED the books so he made a movie. He LOVED King Kong so he made the movie. (Another thing, a lot of old movies are being remade, which can be a really good thing because it means that kids who weren’t around when those movies came out have a renewed interest to see it, so for the most part I’m not against that, unless it was a bad movie to begin with…) But there are some big-time movie producers that only pick up a book and make it into a movie because they’ll make money off of it, that’s what makes me mad. And the authors, they make me mad. Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors, but almost all of his books have been made into movies and none of them stayed even close to the books, except for the first Jurassic Park movie. Most of the movies changed the characters (women were men in the movies, I don’t know why they felt the need to eliminate women but whatever…) any romances were blown up and “Hollywooded” (I was expecting that though) and the plots were changed…
Sorry for ranting again, but those are the things that make me mad, I’m not trying to say that everyone in film sucks, I love Peter Moorwood and M. Knight Shamylan (I have absolutely no idea if I spelled that right) who also probably gets some of his ideas from other sources, his new movie sounds like a book I read and The Village sounds SO much like Running out of Time (I think someone else here mentioned that.) But anyway, I’m a HUGE movie fan and I’ll keep watching whether it’s unoriginal or not. And I know how hard it is to make a movie, I was just in a couple of films for my friend’s film class, and that was without all of the special effects and plot twists.
😀
oops, Peter Jackson not Peter Moorwood, mixed up, sorry sorry
lyra: m. night’s new movie, lady in the water, comes from a bedtime story he made up for his kids. how cool, to have your dad turn your story into a movie!! 🙂
heh, that was how Harry Potter came to be too, J.K. Rowling made it up for her son
my dad told me and my sisters the coolest epic tlae each night when we were little, making up anew part each night. there was this valley and … well, it was cool. i’ve always wante dto write it down.
and i know you didnt mean to offend me lyra 🙂 i can tell that i’d probably like you if i ever met you, it’s just that you didnt say ‘bigtime hollywood filmmakers’ you just said ‘filmmakers’ – so i just my panties in a twist. and i was very tired.
the harry potter movies bug the hell out of me, for one. i mean, i love the books, and although the movies have imporved as they’ve gone along, the harry potter movies are evidence of lyra’s point, i think. they were not made out of inspiration, its warner bros making a profit, and thats all. you can tell by the way the movies are churned out and their quality that it’s not an ode to jkrowling genius (like peter jacksons lotr movies are clearly worhipping JRRtolkein’s books, you can almost taste it), its bigtime producers piggybacking on jkr’s success and brilliant storytelling.
and thats my minirant for the evening.
*snaps for jane-la’s mini-rant*
*joins in the snapping*
I agree with both side of the “argument” though, as they are two different views and basically about two different things.
snap snap snap snap snap snap snap! lol, this thread got really complicated really fast. The devinci code and stuff is cool and all, i plan to read the book, but like people are getting WAY to worked up about it. Its a BOOK! chill. and to top that, its a FICTIONAL BOOK! people just read it or dont , its no reason to get ur undies in a knot, just live and let live and dont be so serious all the time. I have nothing against any religion (ok i dont dig santanism, but that may just be me) but im tired of it taking over everything! its in the schools (though its not supposed to be) its part of our everyday life (by either choice or force, that includes hearing about it in the office or in school or on tv, its there) even here! this is a forum about our favorite author and its turned into a religious discussion! Its probably just me, but im just a little tired of it being everywhere. Sure beliefs are a big deal, but people get way to worked up about a book talking fictionally about a religion. that was my rant, sorry if it offended you in any way shape or form, i felt compelled to type it
ps i know this is kinda late, but
chynna: justine is scotts wife, lol, nbd, but she is not just his pretty friend, she is his pretty wife! lol ^.^
eek, sorry… I feel like Da Vinci Code was in part my fault, the over discussing of it anyway… I’m too much of a controversial-debate type person and I bring it with me wherever I go, interesting discussion about the Bible and the Legend of Gilgamesh today though… well anyway, sorry
ef, you were a bit late korbe. the disussion had moved on from religion, it was over sleazy greedy movie producers. but you’re right, it wasnt aobut the magnificaent mr. scott, so we are at fault. *hangs head in shame* ….but at least i got snaps…..
Wow, these discussions are so interesting. Well, I finally saw X-men, a little later than I had planned to, but still haven’t read Da Vinci Code or seen the movie, so I can’t really join in. I kind of agree with both sides of the movie argument. Sometimes movies are really badly done (like, my huge thing, among myriad other stuff, with Harry Potter is YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE THE SETTING LIKE THAT *gasp* and the maze at the end, oh crap, don’t get me started, and Timeline definitely got screwed) but sometimes they’re well done too. It just depends on the movie, I guess. But OMG. Ella Enchanted. I didn’t dare see the movie. I KNEW they were going to give it a gruesome death. Sooo sad. Another movie I was definitely disappointed in was Underworld: Evolution. The plot was crappy, and once again, CONSISTENCY PEOPLE! In the first one, Michael’s face is normal, if a bit green, and then suddenly in the second one he has a dog snout? Like, what’s with that?
I have now joined the illustrious ranks of the ranters. 😀 Dude, we should start a Scott Westerfeld Fans Random Discussion Forum or something. Because ya’ll are really intelligent and cool and stuff. 🙂
indeed. i would participate in many a Scott-Westerfeld-Fans-Random-Disscusion-Forum discussion, if there were such a forum. but until then i suppose we’ll just Clog up the Blog with are ranting and raving, because you know we just cant help it. i’m sure mr. scott understands.
ha ha, i think i replaced ‘our’ with ‘are’ in that last post. i havent done that in years. no, correction. i havent noticed me doing that in years.
I would join in too, even if im kind of a downer, *only girls read the following statement!* im kinda moody cause of the time of the month, ya know?*
ok guys can read now, lol, sorry. but yea, sorry bout the rant, i read it now (even though its only been a couple of hours) and i realize just how weird i was being, can u guys ever forgive me!?
No.
Lol, just kidding.
I think you’re right Korbe, it doesn’t pay to be over-passionate about things; people label you as some ‘hater’ or something. But I think it’s good to really believe in something. Not just religion, but whatever your opinions are on anything. Otherwise, if you don’t believe anything, you’ll fall for anything.
SCOTT! HURRY UP AND POST SOMETHING! lol.
Yes, it’s true. It’s all my fault for being entirely silent!
Well, not silent. I’ve been sitting around yapping with a bunch of otgher sf geeks all week. But silent on this blog. So must think of something to post . . .
Still, it’s been amusing looking in and seeing how you’re all keeping yourselves entertained. Justine said to me the other day, “Man, you don’t even have to post anymore! They’re STILL talking!”
Jess who was looking for MIDDLE GRADE FICTION for a 5th grade girl:
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (classic, dramedy, series)
Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade in Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade Can Really Kill You by Barthe DeClements (comedy)
Sixth Grade Secrets by Louis Sachar (comedy)
Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry (comedy, family, series)
The Agony of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (dramedy, family, series)
Also, at my blog . . .
http://slayground.livejournal.com/
. . . I often post booklists, organized by topic, genre, and/or age level.
http://slayground.livejournal.com/tag/booklists
If you want any more recommendations, please don’t hesitate to ask. 🙂
Scott: Guess who read BLUE NOON yesterday? 🙂
i bet half of us could be left completely alone on this blog and keep talking. “anyone there? no? oh well.. as i was saying…” commence three pages of rambling. ok, maybe that’d just be me. but somehow, i think not.. haha.
Im good at entertaining myself! ^.^
hehehe, jane-la, it wouldn’t be only you… lol
I think I could stay entertained for an hour or two just by reading everything that people say up here. Completely entertaining.
Jane-La, I don’t think it’s half the people here that could talk/ramble forever.
I’d say more like 73.9%.
I back up that percentage lauren-la!
i knew i wouldnt be the only one 🙂 but as it is, we are not alone… or are we? i mean, or am i? maybe none of you exist. maybe not even the omniscient mr. scott exists. maybe my entire life is a hallucination and i’m really just a ..a…a mushroom. a very halluncinatory, imginative mushrrom that has convinved myself i am a member of the fictional species called homo sapiens sapiens on a fictional planted named Earth, or The World, to some.
maybe.
maybe not.
:]
Unless the rest of us are fictional hallucinating mushrooms.
I do not want to be a fictional hallucinating mushroom. If I was a mushroom I could not ramble. And I want to keep rambling about random percentages and books in someone elses blog because let-me-tell-you; it is much more fun then spending time on homework.
So, book ramblings!
I finished Peeps yesterday. It was fantasmically funny. I was laughing hystericaly during some parts – so glad I was reading at home and not at school when that happened. People always look at you like you’re crazy when you start laughing when reading a book. Come on! It’s a funny book! Maybe all the books you read are dumb, but this ones funny! Stop staring at me!!
oh know what you mean. they look at you as if you were holding a rock and staring at it, occasionally stroking it, and every once and awhile giving the rock a little chuckle. which you’re not, it’s it book! not a rock. silly people.
speaking of funny books. i read Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys yesterday. i found it very very amusing. i heart gaiman 🙂 i heart westerfeld 🙂 i heart science fiction/fantasy 🙂 i heart BOOKS 🙂
yay for hearts. i’m obviously a teenage girk. ups, i mean girl. really, i’m not a girk. girllll. gfir.
New book title idea: “The Girks”. It could be about some weird girl-type creatures who have gone insane due to um something. And then they try to get why they are insane and end up in a parallel world. Um, yes, random. =/
I have to say though, i think more than 73.9% are ramblers. More like 83.9%.
oh know what you mean. they look at you as if you were holding a rock and staring at it, occasionally stroking it, and every once and awhile giving the rock a little chuckle. which you’re not, it’s it book! not a rock. silly people.
wow jane-la, that was absolutely the funniest/most random thing, i have EVER read. Thank you so much for that. but i say things like that all the time at school to my friends *needless to say, i am the strangest person in my little circle, but they all think im reasonably insane, because they dont get me, lol* but seriously l loved that. ok im done now. lol
funniest/most random… ah, dont encourage me. although, i think every little circle needs at least one reasonably insane member. for good measure.
definately!
jane-la, do u like live on this thing? i know i do, and it would be nice to have a room mate lol! jk. But seriously im on this all the time!
Actually with the rock thing, they just give you strange looks. With a book it’s more like a “shut up you idiot! I don’t care if that book is funny!!” look. *shakes fist at those people* you just need to read better books!
I think my circles don’t include anyone that in every way is normal. Everybodys quirky. Some more then others. And they are the fun ones! Resonably Insane = More Exciting Then Normal People.
oh, i love the word quirky.
do i live here? well, that depends on what you mean by live. i’m actually not alive at all, i’m dead. i’m a ghost. but what better place for a ghost to haunt then in a computer, no? still get to talk to people, and it no one knows i’m tangibly disabled.
ooo ur tricky jane-la…. So what does it feel like to be a ghost..is it hard to press the keyboard keys, or do u just take over the computer completely and control they typing with your mind.. Wow, i always wanted an expierience with the paranormal, the last thing i expected was for it to happen while on the computer..this redefines the term ghost writer, maybe its more like ghost typer! hmm…very tricky..