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Ok, so Worldcon happened.
Particularly given the WSFS drama leading into the con (I had drafted a proposed rework of the fan awards in order to try to sanitize the difference between the fan and pro categories, which got pilloried due to 1. People not liking the distinction being "if you're trying to make any money it's pro," 2. Due to an error if passed (it wasn't intended to pass) it would have eliminated the semiprozine category, and 3. In a process error, after agreeing we we going to draft it but not actually bring it to the floor, the subcommittee head pushed to bring it to the floor so it could be discussed (there were totally ways to propose that it be discussed but not actually bring it forwards as such, but I don't think he was thinking).
The first order of business, of couse, was to get there. We decided for low-stress, low chance of picking up COVID on the way, and took a train with a tiny sleeper car. I also packed a fiddle, but not a harp -- a good decision since "tiny sleeper car" meant there was barely room for our luggage as it was, and for convenience we checked Lisa's bag. This was the first time we've taken a roomette, and overall it was a pretty relaxing 20 hour journey; I read and napped and explored the Year 3 new land in Genshin Impact from the train, had uninspired but edible meals when meal time happened (part of the ticket), and got some sleep (although our sleep schedule wasn't super great for going out so we didn't get nearly as much sleep on the way out as we would have liked. The view wasn't amazing from the train for the most part, but then that wasn't primarily why we were doing it; it was instead so we could be in a low population part of the train with a wall between us and other passengers.
Arriving in in Chicago, we slept (for real this time), helped out a bit with art show setup, and then when enough time had passed for Reg to start up, joined the con. We also went shopping for groceries we weren't about to bring from New York, finding some at a grocery store a block away from the hotel, and more at an Indian grocery store a few blocks later, where we got our first taste of an aspect of Chicago I'd somehow in several visits remained unaware of--how utterly vertical it is, as the grocery store was by a park three stories down a set of stairs below the apparent street level. We then decided to do dinner, eventually finding (it was on the other side of the park and at the other level, so we had go to into an otherwise unassuming building and take the elevator up to the fourth floor to get to the restaurant) Ming Hin Cuisine, an interesting Chinese place that as advertised, had all hours dim sum, and also had a small solid authentic szechuan menu, with room-temperature bean gelatin in spicy sauce (yum!), organ meat in spicy sauce (likewise), and an excellent Ma Po Tofu with no capascin/chili flavor at all, instead getting all spiciness (and tongue tingles) from ground szechuan peppers. We took back leftovers and they were mostly breakfast, and I left a glowing review on Google maps.
Thursday, things were pretty light overall. We got regged, did a crawl through the dealer's room (bought a few shirts, highlight was probably Steam Chocolate which had some nice recipes and shaped chocolate that wasn't -that- overpriced, and of course book-buying), dropped briefly by the gaming room which seemed mostly dominated by scheduled games [though there certainly was an ok gaming library) then hit up a few parties (ok, but our usual favorite activity in parties, chatting, was somewhat hampered by a lot of people taking the excuse of "parties don't have to enforce the con mask requirements" to socialize without masks, and even aside from the danger, it was Thursday and there was a lot of con to try to not spread covid yet to, so for most parties, we went in, maybe got a drink and left a donation, and headed out. After that, we hit up the filking for a few hours (which also had people with the meme of "if I am singing I don't have to wear a mask" which is apparently true in some dedicated filk conventions but not actually the rule at this one; incidents of this decreased over the con so I'm guessing someone talked to people at some point. Still, once we'd headed away from the big filk room, we found a room with a good musical/larping friend, Susan's parents (who we met at a previous Worldcon that was closer to their home area whereas this one was in Susan's home town). I we hadn't planed to stay long so I hadn't brought an instrument, so instead I borrowed one and we had a merry time for about two hours, by which point most of the filk had moved into the room we'd left (a common dynamic when you start up a musical room with instruments and don't mind singing, it seems).
Friday moring was the first day of the Business Meeting -- the preliminary meeting, in theory, where debate times are hashed out, subcommittee reports are filed, and maybe a few unpopular motions leave the docket. As it was, since we'd had those unpopular proposals coming up regarding fan vs pro (and also just restructuring Best Fan Artist, which was where the idea of tweaking the category decisions to match was spawned), we spent a lot of time debating attempts to kill both proposals before even a proper debate in the main meeting (which failed), as well as an attempt (which we knew was coming) to prevent the "Hugo Study Committee" form being continued in the next year, which succeeded. Which of course doesn't mean the people in question won't work together and with other people to discuss possible proposals, but now nobody can tell us what to do (actually, the Discord we'd been using got renamed and a bunch of new people joined the newly renamed "WSFS Business Meeting Chat" server). I had somewhat mixed opinions regarding this; in previous years we'd fought against having lots of random business sent our way, but we actually did pretty good work this year and had some momentum going into the next year that other subcommittees may have ot try to keep. Anyway, as a result of all this debate largely ending in nothing, we ended up for the first time in a while running out of time and had to push some of the debate time setting stuff for the next day. For lunch we dragged a friend back to the chinese place, since we were decidedly not done with delicious dim sum and ma po with a solid amount of szechuan pepper, mixing up our order a bit as we continued to do for the next two trips to it. We also managed to grab dinner, getting a reservation at Duo's (the companion restaurant to the original Unos); delicious if not what Lisa was hankering for this trip (I ate the leftovers). On the way back from Duos, we got our second does of the noted Chicagoan vericality -- we ended up going an extra block out of our way and found we were walking underneath what looked like a sidewalk that other people were walking on, and in fact once we'd gone back over the Chicago River (one bridge too far), found that we were one level below "street" level. It felt like we'd fallen into an urban Neverwhere, and when we got near our hotel we found a set of metal stairs that would take us back to what we were used to thinking of as the street level (in fact, the hotel did have an entrance at that level, for the parking garage, and we could have taken an escalator up, but we didn't figure that out until later).
Another quirk of this Worldcon is that while it was all in one building (almost unheard of; the last Chicago Worldcon was also in a single building but the previous one was in like 3 hotels, and previous recent single-building Worldcons included DC (which was Very Small and running out of their backup hotel after the main hotel cancelled) in December, and the Irish Worldcon and the Finnish Worldcon, which had their sleeping arrangement all over the area but the function space in a too-crowded convention center the con fit into awkwardly (though Finland at least was able to eventually secure more space after they realized that far more Finns had shown up for the con than they'd anticipated). But the function space in the Regency is almost all below the ground floor, and descending into the sub-sub-sub basement one tends to lose cell access, plus the con hadn't managed to secure attendees free wifi outside our rooms, so many of us were internet-less while in most con spaces.
After the business meeting, I figured on heading back to the gaming room to see if there was non-scheduled gaming I could use to meet new people and wile away the time (and maybe relax a bit). It was in fact petty light then, but I was able to get into a game of the new-to-me trick Taking Game "Cat in the Box." This solid pick is of the classic variety where you want to make exactly the number of tricks you declared, no more, no less -- but the gimmick is where it shines. As befits the "Schrodinger's theme", the game has a strong element of ordered chaos to it, as despite their being four suits in the game, the cards themselves are unsuited, there being five cards of each rank, all identical. When you place a card, you declare what suit that card is, but beware! Every card so declared is marked on a common board, as are marked the suits you're out of, and if you cannot legally play a card without contradiction (either the card is the fifth in a suit where all cards have been played already, or the card is from a suit which you already declared you were out of!) then the hand ends immediately and all your trick for that round become negative points! It's a lovely little logic puzzle game, and it was entirely in keeping that the person who brought it (whose name I sadly didn't write down but I can hope to see him again at some future Worldcon) also had The Crew, another (very different) original trick taking game. Sadly or not so sadly, this was also the only game (other than games on my phone or tablet) I played all con.
After joining Lisa for a bit more dealer room crawling (and speed-running the art show; sadly I missed that there were also special secondary art show exhibits and never managed to make it to them), and eventually showing up to her one program item (technology and gaming, sadly not amazing at least partially because the moderator wasn't super great at moderating so Lisa had to pick up some of the slack) and spending a nice relaxing time at the Live Recording Session for Our Opinions are Correct (which was also a guest session, as the hosts, Analee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, were also the toastmasters of the con). This was like a panel, but much more relaxing, since because it was a podcast recording, the audience had every real reason to save all questions to the end as they two writers and their guest, an actor, shared their opinions and ideas regarding mental health as shown in SF and fantasy books and other media -- particularly through the lens (they were all trans and/or non-binary) of alternative sex and sexuality. Afterwards, we went about getting yet another meal at Ming-Hin Cuisine, we elected to do parties again, but this time decided we were out of time and energy and so retired without getting to the filk.
Saturday was the first main Business meeting, and after dealing with the leftover preliminary business, the group debated the first order of business -- whether to declare Worldcon's support for Ukraine, and in separate resolution, censure the China Worldcon for continue to having a guest who is a Russian Nationalist writer who has loudly declared his support for Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Of course, I supported the -feelings- behind both motions, but I felt (as did a bunch of other Business Meeting regulars) that it was bad practice for the Business Meeting (rather than, say, any given Convention Committee) to opine in politics-in-general. Nevertheless, quite a few people had shown up specifically to support this proposal (as well as four very determined Chinese young women who had clearly shown up largely to vote against it) and in the end, after much wrangling, it passed. The next major order of business was to (in the short time left) take on business passed in DC, and indeed all of it was ratified -- sadly including a confusing and somewhat badly worded measure to rename Supporting Memberships "WSFS Memberships" to try to make members more aware that they're part of a society with voting power, and also to make said "WSFS Memberships" non-transferable, which was an attempt to avoid a lot of the confusion surrounding people transferring their memberships and trying to get the -con- (rather than the person they sold or gave the membership to) to enforce the "without voting rights" part of their agreement. This is a real problem but not the best way to handle it, and we'll likely be cleaning up the fallout for the next three years or more. After that (and lunch), Lisa finally managed to drag me to some programming (I didn't complain much).
The first programming we went to was a GOH talk -- Tannarive Due and Steven Barnes in Conversation. I hadn't realized somehow that they were married, but that made it all the better, as they told an enthralling and heartwarming tale of love and career journeys, as they met as writers, went to Hollywood for years to break into television (and screenwriting), and eventually settled into a happy medium.
This worked very well as the warmup for our next programming item: "What Happened after my story got Optioned", with Adam Stemple, Fonda Lee, John Scalzi, Meg Elison, and Randee Dawn (the only item I'll list all the participants for; you can look them up if you care to but
the the possible exception of Ms. Dawn as moderator these are all published authors). This panel was -amazing-; hilarious and cynical and full of stories--with the icing on the cake being Scalzi's hilarious impression of his cigar-smoking agent and Stemple's respondent byplay. It was one of those brilliant program items you rarely get to see because they're like lightning striking in the middle of the road, and just a delight to see; if I could keep a copy without breaking at least one agreement I probably would.
After that was a program item that was sadly less good. Our friend Mendez (James Mendez Hodes) was put on "The Many Worlds of Fannish Music" with Cecelia Eng and a couple of other filkers. Sadly, this was a bit of a train wreck, as Mendez (somewhat intentionally I think) proceeded to act as if everyone is aware of nerdcore music, just as the filkers proceeded to act as if all fannish music is filk; there were some lovely hints of deeper meaning hinted at, in that both filk and rap (not just nerdcore) are folk music forms that retain a sense of music as something that's constantly borrowed, remixed, and remade, music as conversation regardless of the topic, but it was altogether quite awkward as participants talked past one another sometimes unaware of it. I managed to redirect things from the audience to a -slightly- less awkward place by asking Mendez aobut his "The Illiad of MC Homer" (google it) unfinished piece, which is simultaneously hip-hop and an amazing filk piece by whatever name, and at least made sure he got some respect for the rest of the panel -- but after the panel we found people being very unintentionally racist (I referred to it later as "being white at") at Mendez (I'm not going to break it down; basically the audience member talked as if all he'd just be able to walk up to Lin Manuel Miranda and get him interested in his work, and also as if he should drop everything and pick up his old (albeit delightful) hip hop concept piece despite his pretty ponted hints that he had a perfectly creative and remunerative job designing games) and performed what I hope was a successful rescue.
I don't remember what we did Saturday evening. I'm sure it was either parties or filk because it was certainly not both.
Sunday, the Business Meeting started with a celebration and announcement of the expected winners (there was really only one remaining entry in each category) for the 2024 Worldcon (Scotland) and the 2023 NASFIC (Winipeg). After the bid's presentations, we dealt with various business, including taking up the Fan Artist Hugo and rather than killing it outright, send it to a new committee lead by prominent fan artists. We also took up the two motions we'd come up with to try to prevent the same Series winning multiple awards and also the Series Hugo (one more strenuously across multiple years; the other just trying to prevent a series and its component parts being nominated for parallel Hugos in the same year). Sadly, the meeting killed both of them, particularly disappointing given that we have exactly the opposite rule regarding Best (short or long) form Dramatic Presentation. Why should an episode of a show and the entire series be prevented from appearing on the same ballot and a novel and the series the novel is part of not so be prevented? Pick one.
Finally and most importantly, the meeting considered the Best Game or Interactive Work new Hugo proposal (also coming out of the Hugo Study Committee) and passed it, sending it on to Chengdu for ratification. So, there's a strong chance there will be a Game Hugo starting in 2024--or even 2023 if Chengdu decides, as committees have done before for potential new categories, to add as their one added category.
After the meeting, we went to one program item: Game Mastering on the Fly, with Ken Hite (and a bunch of people I don't know). This wasn't the best panel ever, but the moderator was solid, and Ken and a couple of other good panelists kept things going despite, or perhaps in response to one panelist who for a while seemed to think the GM's job was to shut down player ideas when they just happened to conflict with what the GM already had in mind. After that, we rested for a bit and then went down to the Hugo Awards ceremony.
The ceremony was delightful, but for reasons I've already explained (no cellular or otherwise free-for-me Internet in function space, including the big auditorium where the Hugos were awarded) I didn't livetweet it unlike most recent years. Instead, I relaxed and enjoyed the show. Seanan was (for once, though against my memory she had won a Hugo for her writing for Every Heart a Doorway) the big winner, taking home Hugos for Best Fanzine (for the delightful Small Gods tumblr which I can have some visceral credit for since a bunch of people seemed unaware that it was eligible for the Hugos until I used it as an example), Best Series (for Wayward Children, the series Every Heart is part of; I was delighted for her even as I mourned that the amazing Terra Ignotta now wouldn't get one as the series is done), and also Lee Moyer's Hugo for Best Fan Artist (which, as he's the artist for Small Gods, was also in a sense also a Small Gods Hugo).
And after the Hugos, we thought of going out to parties or filking or whatnot, but...we were exhausted and took an early evening and then went to sleep.
Finally, we'd reached Monday, the last "actual" day of the convention. Of course, this started with a Business Meeting (ideally, the meeting would have wrapped on Sunday, but as there were several motions we hadn't yet disposed of including one I wrote, it was not to be). Again, the meeting surprised me by sending my Fan vs Pro motion to...the same committee that was already handling Best Fan Artist (which was the second best case result and very close to what I was planning on proposing myself), and then proceeded to spend WAY too long discussing what instructions to give that committee as we considered various and sundry proposals (which was the best case result, as considering exactly what direction to go for the fan/pro divide was exactly why we had brought this to the floor) of direction to give them. And handling whatever else was before us, we finally wrapped for the weekend. In theory, Lisa ad I could have volunteered to help out with close down, but as befitted this being a very low energy Worldcon, we instead relaxed for a bit (note how little socializing there was. Not none, but sadly, lingering COVID and inconsistent masking behavior really discouraged the kind of in-the-halls and in-the-con suite socializing we're used to at Worldcon. Then again (spoilers!) We didn't go home with COVID, so I am confident about our choices), before heading to the dead dog parties, followed by bringing -my- fiddle to the final filk of the con. This time, we did NOT have a business meeting at 10AM the following day, and DID have an arrangement for late checkout at 2pm, so we could spend quite a few hours sharing songs and stories with the filkers before what was left of the holdouts finally agreed to literally (as quite a few of us had instruments out) pack it in.
On the way back, we elected to head directly to the train station to relax for a few hours and take sips of internet until our train boarded. At which point I realized how spoiled we'd been by the New York side.
You see, while we didn't have a lot of time to kill, we'd checked in in the NEW Moynahan train hall in NYC (built undeneath the old post office building west of Penn Station) and, as our sleeper car tickets got us access to the exclusive lounge, grabbed half an hour of relaxation there, to find that it was a wonder, with lovely padded seats, and plety of free snacks and drinks, including hard boiled eggs, pastries, and the like.
But the Chicago business class lounge was nothing like that; instead, there were hard seats, inconsistent wifi (I eventually found what I think was municipal wifi that worked better), the bare minimimum of snacks (cans of soda, acceptable coffee next to a broken espresso machine, chips, pretzels) and better sodas and alcoholic drinks for sale nearby. Still far better than we get in cattle class of course, but from now on every train lounge I go to will have to be compared to Moynahan. (which a quick review indicates is disappointing to someone used to first class airport lounges that serve hot food at meal time, but I don't know anything about that!)
Finally, on arrival, we were surprised that Lisa's luggage wasn't coming off the train, but we quickly realized what must have happened--since we waited at least 3 hours for our train, it had been slipped onto a previous train and proceeded us. And, indeed, it was waiting for us at bag check.
Particularly given the WSFS drama leading into the con (I had drafted a proposed rework of the fan awards in order to try to sanitize the difference between the fan and pro categories, which got pilloried due to 1. People not liking the distinction being "if you're trying to make any money it's pro," 2. Due to an error if passed (it wasn't intended to pass) it would have eliminated the semiprozine category, and 3. In a process error, after agreeing we we going to draft it but not actually bring it to the floor, the subcommittee head pushed to bring it to the floor so it could be discussed (there were totally ways to propose that it be discussed but not actually bring it forwards as such, but I don't think he was thinking).
The first order of business, of couse, was to get there. We decided for low-stress, low chance of picking up COVID on the way, and took a train with a tiny sleeper car. I also packed a fiddle, but not a harp -- a good decision since "tiny sleeper car" meant there was barely room for our luggage as it was, and for convenience we checked Lisa's bag. This was the first time we've taken a roomette, and overall it was a pretty relaxing 20 hour journey; I read and napped and explored the Year 3 new land in Genshin Impact from the train, had uninspired but edible meals when meal time happened (part of the ticket), and got some sleep (although our sleep schedule wasn't super great for going out so we didn't get nearly as much sleep on the way out as we would have liked. The view wasn't amazing from the train for the most part, but then that wasn't primarily why we were doing it; it was instead so we could be in a low population part of the train with a wall between us and other passengers.
Arriving in in Chicago, we slept (for real this time), helped out a bit with art show setup, and then when enough time had passed for Reg to start up, joined the con. We also went shopping for groceries we weren't about to bring from New York, finding some at a grocery store a block away from the hotel, and more at an Indian grocery store a few blocks later, where we got our first taste of an aspect of Chicago I'd somehow in several visits remained unaware of--how utterly vertical it is, as the grocery store was by a park three stories down a set of stairs below the apparent street level. We then decided to do dinner, eventually finding (it was on the other side of the park and at the other level, so we had go to into an otherwise unassuming building and take the elevator up to the fourth floor to get to the restaurant) Ming Hin Cuisine, an interesting Chinese place that as advertised, had all hours dim sum, and also had a small solid authentic szechuan menu, with room-temperature bean gelatin in spicy sauce (yum!), organ meat in spicy sauce (likewise), and an excellent Ma Po Tofu with no capascin/chili flavor at all, instead getting all spiciness (and tongue tingles) from ground szechuan peppers. We took back leftovers and they were mostly breakfast, and I left a glowing review on Google maps.
Thursday, things were pretty light overall. We got regged, did a crawl through the dealer's room (bought a few shirts, highlight was probably Steam Chocolate which had some nice recipes and shaped chocolate that wasn't -that- overpriced, and of course book-buying), dropped briefly by the gaming room which seemed mostly dominated by scheduled games [though there certainly was an ok gaming library) then hit up a few parties (ok, but our usual favorite activity in parties, chatting, was somewhat hampered by a lot of people taking the excuse of "parties don't have to enforce the con mask requirements" to socialize without masks, and even aside from the danger, it was Thursday and there was a lot of con to try to not spread covid yet to, so for most parties, we went in, maybe got a drink and left a donation, and headed out. After that, we hit up the filking for a few hours (which also had people with the meme of "if I am singing I don't have to wear a mask" which is apparently true in some dedicated filk conventions but not actually the rule at this one; incidents of this decreased over the con so I'm guessing someone talked to people at some point. Still, once we'd headed away from the big filk room, we found a room with a good musical/larping friend, Susan's parents (who we met at a previous Worldcon that was closer to their home area whereas this one was in Susan's home town). I we hadn't planed to stay long so I hadn't brought an instrument, so instead I borrowed one and we had a merry time for about two hours, by which point most of the filk had moved into the room we'd left (a common dynamic when you start up a musical room with instruments and don't mind singing, it seems).
Friday moring was the first day of the Business Meeting -- the preliminary meeting, in theory, where debate times are hashed out, subcommittee reports are filed, and maybe a few unpopular motions leave the docket. As it was, since we'd had those unpopular proposals coming up regarding fan vs pro (and also just restructuring Best Fan Artist, which was where the idea of tweaking the category decisions to match was spawned), we spent a lot of time debating attempts to kill both proposals before even a proper debate in the main meeting (which failed), as well as an attempt (which we knew was coming) to prevent the "Hugo Study Committee" form being continued in the next year, which succeeded. Which of course doesn't mean the people in question won't work together and with other people to discuss possible proposals, but now nobody can tell us what to do (actually, the Discord we'd been using got renamed and a bunch of new people joined the newly renamed "WSFS Business Meeting Chat" server). I had somewhat mixed opinions regarding this; in previous years we'd fought against having lots of random business sent our way, but we actually did pretty good work this year and had some momentum going into the next year that other subcommittees may have ot try to keep. Anyway, as a result of all this debate largely ending in nothing, we ended up for the first time in a while running out of time and had to push some of the debate time setting stuff for the next day. For lunch we dragged a friend back to the chinese place, since we were decidedly not done with delicious dim sum and ma po with a solid amount of szechuan pepper, mixing up our order a bit as we continued to do for the next two trips to it. We also managed to grab dinner, getting a reservation at Duo's (the companion restaurant to the original Unos); delicious if not what Lisa was hankering for this trip (I ate the leftovers). On the way back from Duos, we got our second does of the noted Chicagoan vericality -- we ended up going an extra block out of our way and found we were walking underneath what looked like a sidewalk that other people were walking on, and in fact once we'd gone back over the Chicago River (one bridge too far), found that we were one level below "street" level. It felt like we'd fallen into an urban Neverwhere, and when we got near our hotel we found a set of metal stairs that would take us back to what we were used to thinking of as the street level (in fact, the hotel did have an entrance at that level, for the parking garage, and we could have taken an escalator up, but we didn't figure that out until later).
Another quirk of this Worldcon is that while it was all in one building (almost unheard of; the last Chicago Worldcon was also in a single building but the previous one was in like 3 hotels, and previous recent single-building Worldcons included DC (which was Very Small and running out of their backup hotel after the main hotel cancelled) in December, and the Irish Worldcon and the Finnish Worldcon, which had their sleeping arrangement all over the area but the function space in a too-crowded convention center the con fit into awkwardly (though Finland at least was able to eventually secure more space after they realized that far more Finns had shown up for the con than they'd anticipated). But the function space in the Regency is almost all below the ground floor, and descending into the sub-sub-sub basement one tends to lose cell access, plus the con hadn't managed to secure attendees free wifi outside our rooms, so many of us were internet-less while in most con spaces.
After the business meeting, I figured on heading back to the gaming room to see if there was non-scheduled gaming I could use to meet new people and wile away the time (and maybe relax a bit). It was in fact petty light then, but I was able to get into a game of the new-to-me trick Taking Game "Cat in the Box." This solid pick is of the classic variety where you want to make exactly the number of tricks you declared, no more, no less -- but the gimmick is where it shines. As befits the "Schrodinger's theme", the game has a strong element of ordered chaos to it, as despite their being four suits in the game, the cards themselves are unsuited, there being five cards of each rank, all identical. When you place a card, you declare what suit that card is, but beware! Every card so declared is marked on a common board, as are marked the suits you're out of, and if you cannot legally play a card without contradiction (either the card is the fifth in a suit where all cards have been played already, or the card is from a suit which you already declared you were out of!) then the hand ends immediately and all your trick for that round become negative points! It's a lovely little logic puzzle game, and it was entirely in keeping that the person who brought it (whose name I sadly didn't write down but I can hope to see him again at some future Worldcon) also had The Crew, another (very different) original trick taking game. Sadly or not so sadly, this was also the only game (other than games on my phone or tablet) I played all con.
After joining Lisa for a bit more dealer room crawling (and speed-running the art show; sadly I missed that there were also special secondary art show exhibits and never managed to make it to them), and eventually showing up to her one program item (technology and gaming, sadly not amazing at least partially because the moderator wasn't super great at moderating so Lisa had to pick up some of the slack) and spending a nice relaxing time at the Live Recording Session for Our Opinions are Correct (which was also a guest session, as the hosts, Analee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, were also the toastmasters of the con). This was like a panel, but much more relaxing, since because it was a podcast recording, the audience had every real reason to save all questions to the end as they two writers and their guest, an actor, shared their opinions and ideas regarding mental health as shown in SF and fantasy books and other media -- particularly through the lens (they were all trans and/or non-binary) of alternative sex and sexuality. Afterwards, we went about getting yet another meal at Ming-Hin Cuisine, we elected to do parties again, but this time decided we were out of time and energy and so retired without getting to the filk.
Saturday was the first main Business meeting, and after dealing with the leftover preliminary business, the group debated the first order of business -- whether to declare Worldcon's support for Ukraine, and in separate resolution, censure the China Worldcon for continue to having a guest who is a Russian Nationalist writer who has loudly declared his support for Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Of course, I supported the -feelings- behind both motions, but I felt (as did a bunch of other Business Meeting regulars) that it was bad practice for the Business Meeting (rather than, say, any given Convention Committee) to opine in politics-in-general. Nevertheless, quite a few people had shown up specifically to support this proposal (as well as four very determined Chinese young women who had clearly shown up largely to vote against it) and in the end, after much wrangling, it passed. The next major order of business was to (in the short time left) take on business passed in DC, and indeed all of it was ratified -- sadly including a confusing and somewhat badly worded measure to rename Supporting Memberships "WSFS Memberships" to try to make members more aware that they're part of a society with voting power, and also to make said "WSFS Memberships" non-transferable, which was an attempt to avoid a lot of the confusion surrounding people transferring their memberships and trying to get the -con- (rather than the person they sold or gave the membership to) to enforce the "without voting rights" part of their agreement. This is a real problem but not the best way to handle it, and we'll likely be cleaning up the fallout for the next three years or more. After that (and lunch), Lisa finally managed to drag me to some programming (I didn't complain much).
The first programming we went to was a GOH talk -- Tannarive Due and Steven Barnes in Conversation. I hadn't realized somehow that they were married, but that made it all the better, as they told an enthralling and heartwarming tale of love and career journeys, as they met as writers, went to Hollywood for years to break into television (and screenwriting), and eventually settled into a happy medium.
This worked very well as the warmup for our next programming item: "What Happened after my story got Optioned", with Adam Stemple, Fonda Lee, John Scalzi, Meg Elison, and Randee Dawn (the only item I'll list all the participants for; you can look them up if you care to but
the the possible exception of Ms. Dawn as moderator these are all published authors). This panel was -amazing-; hilarious and cynical and full of stories--with the icing on the cake being Scalzi's hilarious impression of his cigar-smoking agent and Stemple's respondent byplay. It was one of those brilliant program items you rarely get to see because they're like lightning striking in the middle of the road, and just a delight to see; if I could keep a copy without breaking at least one agreement I probably would.
After that was a program item that was sadly less good. Our friend Mendez (James Mendez Hodes) was put on "The Many Worlds of Fannish Music" with Cecelia Eng and a couple of other filkers. Sadly, this was a bit of a train wreck, as Mendez (somewhat intentionally I think) proceeded to act as if everyone is aware of nerdcore music, just as the filkers proceeded to act as if all fannish music is filk; there were some lovely hints of deeper meaning hinted at, in that both filk and rap (not just nerdcore) are folk music forms that retain a sense of music as something that's constantly borrowed, remixed, and remade, music as conversation regardless of the topic, but it was altogether quite awkward as participants talked past one another sometimes unaware of it. I managed to redirect things from the audience to a -slightly- less awkward place by asking Mendez aobut his "The Illiad of MC Homer" (google it) unfinished piece, which is simultaneously hip-hop and an amazing filk piece by whatever name, and at least made sure he got some respect for the rest of the panel -- but after the panel we found people being very unintentionally racist (I referred to it later as "being white at") at Mendez (I'm not going to break it down; basically the audience member talked as if all he'd just be able to walk up to Lin Manuel Miranda and get him interested in his work, and also as if he should drop everything and pick up his old (albeit delightful) hip hop concept piece despite his pretty ponted hints that he had a perfectly creative and remunerative job designing games) and performed what I hope was a successful rescue.
I don't remember what we did Saturday evening. I'm sure it was either parties or filk because it was certainly not both.
Sunday, the Business Meeting started with a celebration and announcement of the expected winners (there was really only one remaining entry in each category) for the 2024 Worldcon (Scotland) and the 2023 NASFIC (Winipeg). After the bid's presentations, we dealt with various business, including taking up the Fan Artist Hugo and rather than killing it outright, send it to a new committee lead by prominent fan artists. We also took up the two motions we'd come up with to try to prevent the same Series winning multiple awards and also the Series Hugo (one more strenuously across multiple years; the other just trying to prevent a series and its component parts being nominated for parallel Hugos in the same year). Sadly, the meeting killed both of them, particularly disappointing given that we have exactly the opposite rule regarding Best (short or long) form Dramatic Presentation. Why should an episode of a show and the entire series be prevented from appearing on the same ballot and a novel and the series the novel is part of not so be prevented? Pick one.
Finally and most importantly, the meeting considered the Best Game or Interactive Work new Hugo proposal (also coming out of the Hugo Study Committee) and passed it, sending it on to Chengdu for ratification. So, there's a strong chance there will be a Game Hugo starting in 2024--or even 2023 if Chengdu decides, as committees have done before for potential new categories, to add as their one added category.
After the meeting, we went to one program item: Game Mastering on the Fly, with Ken Hite (and a bunch of people I don't know). This wasn't the best panel ever, but the moderator was solid, and Ken and a couple of other good panelists kept things going despite, or perhaps in response to one panelist who for a while seemed to think the GM's job was to shut down player ideas when they just happened to conflict with what the GM already had in mind. After that, we rested for a bit and then went down to the Hugo Awards ceremony.
The ceremony was delightful, but for reasons I've already explained (no cellular or otherwise free-for-me Internet in function space, including the big auditorium where the Hugos were awarded) I didn't livetweet it unlike most recent years. Instead, I relaxed and enjoyed the show. Seanan was (for once, though against my memory she had won a Hugo for her writing for Every Heart a Doorway) the big winner, taking home Hugos for Best Fanzine (for the delightful Small Gods tumblr which I can have some visceral credit for since a bunch of people seemed unaware that it was eligible for the Hugos until I used it as an example), Best Series (for Wayward Children, the series Every Heart is part of; I was delighted for her even as I mourned that the amazing Terra Ignotta now wouldn't get one as the series is done), and also Lee Moyer's Hugo for Best Fan Artist (which, as he's the artist for Small Gods, was also in a sense also a Small Gods Hugo).
And after the Hugos, we thought of going out to parties or filking or whatnot, but...we were exhausted and took an early evening and then went to sleep.
Finally, we'd reached Monday, the last "actual" day of the convention. Of course, this started with a Business Meeting (ideally, the meeting would have wrapped on Sunday, but as there were several motions we hadn't yet disposed of including one I wrote, it was not to be). Again, the meeting surprised me by sending my Fan vs Pro motion to...the same committee that was already handling Best Fan Artist (which was the second best case result and very close to what I was planning on proposing myself), and then proceeded to spend WAY too long discussing what instructions to give that committee as we considered various and sundry proposals (which was the best case result, as considering exactly what direction to go for the fan/pro divide was exactly why we had brought this to the floor) of direction to give them. And handling whatever else was before us, we finally wrapped for the weekend. In theory, Lisa ad I could have volunteered to help out with close down, but as befitted this being a very low energy Worldcon, we instead relaxed for a bit (note how little socializing there was. Not none, but sadly, lingering COVID and inconsistent masking behavior really discouraged the kind of in-the-halls and in-the-con suite socializing we're used to at Worldcon. Then again (spoilers!) We didn't go home with COVID, so I am confident about our choices), before heading to the dead dog parties, followed by bringing -my- fiddle to the final filk of the con. This time, we did NOT have a business meeting at 10AM the following day, and DID have an arrangement for late checkout at 2pm, so we could spend quite a few hours sharing songs and stories with the filkers before what was left of the holdouts finally agreed to literally (as quite a few of us had instruments out) pack it in.
On the way back, we elected to head directly to the train station to relax for a few hours and take sips of internet until our train boarded. At which point I realized how spoiled we'd been by the New York side.
You see, while we didn't have a lot of time to kill, we'd checked in in the NEW Moynahan train hall in NYC (built undeneath the old post office building west of Penn Station) and, as our sleeper car tickets got us access to the exclusive lounge, grabbed half an hour of relaxation there, to find that it was a wonder, with lovely padded seats, and plety of free snacks and drinks, including hard boiled eggs, pastries, and the like.
But the Chicago business class lounge was nothing like that; instead, there were hard seats, inconsistent wifi (I eventually found what I think was municipal wifi that worked better), the bare minimimum of snacks (cans of soda, acceptable coffee next to a broken espresso machine, chips, pretzels) and better sodas and alcoholic drinks for sale nearby. Still far better than we get in cattle class of course, but from now on every train lounge I go to will have to be compared to Moynahan. (which a quick review indicates is disappointing to someone used to first class airport lounges that serve hot food at meal time, but I don't know anything about that!)
Finally, on arrival, we were surprised that Lisa's luggage wasn't coming off the train, but we quickly realized what must have happened--since we waited at least 3 hours for our train, it had been slipped onto a previous train and proceeded us. And, indeed, it was waiting for us at bag check.