Worldcon, Friday

"The Remake Chronicles": Turned out to be about real movie remakes. I had expected imaginary future remakes parodying actual ones. Didactic purpose, to deny that "all remakes are bad." Exceptions turned out to be mostly new workings of the same source material, not actual remakes of earlier movies.

"Urbane Fantasies v. Urban Fantasy": Sometime when I wasn't looking, the definition of "urban fantasy" seems to have changed to "stories with vampires and werewolves in them."

"The Past and Future of Genre": Heavy duty literary discussion, with a minor in commercial imperatives. Yum.

Tim Powers GOH speech: Apparently he mostly winged this from notes, but I hope he publishes it. Lot of good stuff on the pull of the fantastic, the writer's desire to make the reader believe what both know to be impossible. (No explicit Coleridge references.) If a story doesn't take you to another state of mind, what's the point?

Edward Willett sings Swann's "The Road Goes Ever On": Disaster struck when the prerecorded accompaniment tracks on his ipod wouldnt play. Good going, Apple. Went ahead acappella. He has a good baritone voice, but without the piano accompaniment to stand on, the melodies mutated and wandered around to strange keys. And why why o why did the convention schedule an art song concert in a corner of the cavernous concrete exhibit hall?

"3 Interviews About Charles N. Brown": Connie Willis and Bob Silverberg dished funny stories depicting the late Locus editor as difficult and irascible, but insisted that he was a great journalist and a dear friend.

Book discussion of Fire and Hemlock by DWJ: Farah Mendlesohn intelligently led. A dozen people sitting around for whom this is one of the best and deepest novels ever.

Masquerade: Missed it due to dinner with friends who werent interested. (It's OK: we knew that when we picked this evening to meet.) Wandered back in time for judging, but missed that too, due to running into an athenais desperately in search of a meal, and escorting her to the coffee shop at the other end of the resort complex by the secret route, known only to the Illuminati and the geographically clever, that avoided going through the smoky casino.

Parties: Randy Smith turned 50. Happy birthday, reverend sir. Kansas City is bidding, or thinks it is, for 2016. Most of the bid staff are not old enough to remember the last KC Worldcon, though I am.