TeslaCon III: Convention Report
7 December 2012 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_novel_heroIn the lead up to TeslaCon, I had a lot of things to do. I was working on an alternative history of the American Civil War for Lord Bobbins through the summer and doing that sucked up a lot of time, preventing me from working on other projects and presentations. I’ll go into more details about each of those things later but on Tuesday of the week of the convention I concluded that I simply didn’t have enough time to finish them and called off work for Wednesday.
*cough* *cough* “Sorry. I’m not coming in tomorrow.”
No, I didn’t actually lie and say I was sick. I simply said that I still have a bunch of PTO to spend, have a lot to do for the convention and wouldn’t be in. My team lead shrugged in apathy and said he’d see me on Tuesday. When I schedule time off for next year’s con I’m simply going to take the Wednesday off as a matter of course.
Having taken off Wednesday I was able to complete the things I needed to complete and pack so that when Thursday morning rolled around all I would need to do is pack the car and go.
Thursday
Not that it ever actually happens that way. If it were just me I would have packed the car and gone immediately; out of the house by 6 or 7 am. In to Madison by dinner time. Instead, the plan was to meet with my brother-in-law for dinner in the suburbs west of Chicago. Since he didn’t get out of work until 4pm, we needed to wait before leaving so that we would arrive when he was done. That delayed the whole thing.
And because I was delayed, and impatient for being delayed and not paying enough attention, the State Police found me going a little too fast on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The cop pulled his car up next to mine, putting his bumper right near my door so I wouldn’t be able to open it fully. The office directed my attention towards the radar device on his car which displayed the speed I was going and, no doubt, also got a good picture of my face on the dash cam. All very calculated and choreographed.
I’ll be getting the state’s happy little present in the mail.
With the stop made, steak consumed and on our way again, we arrived at the hotel just as the pool party, the one scheduled event I had wanted to participate on Thursday, was ending.
Instead, I got dressed in my brown vest and new clockwork fez from Fez-O-Rama and hung out at the bar. I spoke with Lady Elsie and Major Tinker who had come from England and that I had met at a photo shoot in Pittsburgh a few years back. I had seen The Steampunk Gazette in the bookstore but hadn’t realized that Major Tinker was the author until after the con. Otherwise, I would have purchased a copy and gotten him to autograph. It’s a well put together book and seems very thorough but I already have so many books that I haven’t read that I was putting off purchase of this one until I perhaps found it cheaper at Half Price Books,
Thursday night was apparently fez night. I had mine. There was another authentic Turkish one and Doctor Nautilus had a very nice Masonic fez. He had a fez tassel pin, keeping his tassel from swinging about, and I am looking for something similar. His was an original Masonic pin but, for myself, I want something unique. Or, at least, with not Masonic or historical baggage. Fez-O-Rama has a pin shaped like a tentacle that is really cool but I haven’t decided if I want to go with that or perhaps something with a chain.
The Lady Euphorbia can make jewelry so I’m sure I could get her to customize something up for me if only I was able to decide exactly what I wanted.
Friday
The first thing Friday was to check in. In doing so I discovered that Lady Euphorbia had upgraded my membership to the Balmoral level as a gift. That got me a big box of stuff including a special S.S. Silver Star place setting, a pocket watch-looking thing with Georges Méliès’ Man in the Moon and an invitation to tea with Lord Bobbins on Saturday.
I took that up to the room and came back down only to be stopped by security. Apparently the Chief of the Middleton Police Department had decided that he was not going to have any props that looked like actual guns in the convention in spite of it being private property and not really his place to say. He apparently even went into an ongoing presentation and interrupted it to make everyone take their guns out to the car. Security, acting on the Chief’s direction, had me take my guns out to the car, necessitating my going back up to the room to get my keys and having the security person escorting me the entire way.
As I was loitering in the atrium, Lord Bobbins came by and told me that I was going to be joining him for dinner that evening. It was totally unexpected and I was somewhat baffled at the invitation before I realized that dinner with Lord Bobbins was part of the Balmoral ticket package.
I went to the Bricktonian Age presentation that was about steampunk Lego builds. They had problems with the projector and since I was pre-positioning my projector for my own presentation I hooked it up and saved the day. Sort of. For whatever reason the signal from their laptop was green and not very bright. When I hooked up my own PC for my own presentation everything was fine.
In taking Wednesday off of work, I used most of that time to complete my History and Technology of Airships presentation and Friday at noon was the premier. Much of the information was derived from my Mystery Airships presentation so I had been able to prepare it fairly quickly and was already confident of the material.
My timing was ok, fitting the program into it’s allotted hour time, but I think I had too much history and not enough technology. I think I need to realign it with a little more emphasis on how to build accurate airships in fiction. “This is how airships work now and how they developed that way so that, when you make things up, you can do so without breaking suspension of disbelief.”
The audience liked that when I showed illustrations of various airships to give a sense of scale, I included some “contemporary” items for scale. For example, I had an Imperial AT-AT Walker in one illustration, Battlestar Galactica and Godzilla in another. Having those things clearly illustrates how immense airships really are.
When I rework the presentation I need to remember that I can include video in my Open Office presentation. That way I can add some nice videos of airships in flight and also throw in the dramatic destruction of the Hindenburg.
Next on my program was a Teslacon history panel. Specifically it was Lord Bobbins talking about himself and the narrative that has been ongoing with the Teslacon conventions; airships, submarines, Dr. Proctocus, Tick-Tock men and all that. I paid attention and even took some notes as the alternate history Civil War thing that I wrote (more on that below) will probably have some significant additions in the next few months.
In years past, I have commissioned Leanne Peacey at Chi Studios to do chibi artwork for me and given them as gifts. After Lord Bobbins’ presentation I gave him a cute drawing of himself. He liked it but seemed a bit reserved. I know he is not a fan of anime but perhaps he was just distracted with having so much to do in running the con. After the arrival of Dr. Proctocus and the departure of Queen Victoria event in the lobby, I went to Captain Krieger and presented him the artwork of himself. He actually squealed like a little girl and hopped up and down a little. He was more adorable than his chibi self.
I had artwork done for Dr. Proctocus but thought it was inappropriate as a hero-type to meet with the villain to give him a gift so I handed it off to intermediary to pass along. I learned that he liked it and it is now his Facebook profile picture.
As dinner time approached, I ran into Lord Bobbins again and he reminded me about dinner. I went upstairs and changed from my Union vest and shirt into my full dress cavalry uniform. When I ran into Lord Bobbins on my way to the private dining room he recognized that I had dressed for dinner and rolled his eyes a bit.
Dinner itself was actually very awkward because Dr. Proctocus was there. I know he’s supposed to be this hyper-intelligent world-dominating dictator but he really just acted like a jerk. And while dinner was supposed to be a role playing experience, I was conflicted with memories of my own childhood and the bullies who called me names and beat me up in elementary school because I was smarter than they were. My response, then as now, was to ignore it. Which, again, made a role playing dinner a bit too awkward. In character as a dime novel-type of hero, I would have simply stood up and opened his head like a canoe with a large caliber handgun, and I told him as much, but I think I would have had a much better time if he wasn’t such a distraction. In fact, once he and Lord Bobbins left, the conversation with those others in attendance markedly improved.
Perhaps if I had been informed further in advance I might have been better prepared.
I’ll be doing this again next year. Proctocus will not be in attendance.
Opening ceremonies followed dinner and the waiter took us through the kitchen to the main room. I took the kitchen staff for a job well done with dinner. I got to sit in the front row.
As things were ready to get under way, Captain Krieger made the announcement but then the video didn’t start. He walked over to the projector screen where the “start” button could be seen and pressed the screen as if it were a touch screen. It, of course, didn’t work but then the person running the pc brought the mouse pointer on the screen and this began an improve between the pointer and Captain Krieger.
It was perfect.
I am somewhat envious of Captain Krieger, Lord Bobbins, the IAPS and the others who are able to affect these fantastic larger-than-life characters. I’ve never really been able to do that. Even when I was more involved in Star Trek fandom and was dressed up in the full Klingon get-up, a perfect opportunity for such performances, I never could pull it off. I’m not an actor, it seems. Or, rather, my performance is more along the lines of Professor Vitruvius.
“Teacher mode: ON.”
Not a bad thing, though. Just different. Different in a way I sometimes wish I could more of. I think the accents help but I’m never been able to pull off that performance, either.
Finally, the button was clicked and things got under way. The ship was lowered into a canon and fired into space. Proctocus panicked and cause the ship to veer off course, running into Santa Claus. He was pissed and we are now all on his naught list. Then, we crashed on the moon and discovered Selenites, who liked Lord Bobbins (“Bobbins of Earp”) and did not like Dr. Proctocus (“Proc-ass”). They were going to help us right our ship so we could return to Earth.
And then all the gears changed when Bruce Boxleitner showed up to promote his under-development steampunk TV series Lantern City.
I know we were something of a captive audience and that he wanted to promote his show to the widest possible audience but to put him at the end of this emersion experience was a bit jarring.
The project seems interesting enough. Steampunk has been something of an occasional prop or overlay on TV and the few big budget steampunk moves have been terribly disappointing so it would be nice to finally see something that says “steampunk” at the outset. He also seems to have gotten some people from the steampunk community on board as consultants and also is getting people such as Brute Force Leather to build props. The concept art looks fantastic. The premise, with three people from our universe transported to this dystopian alternative universe, using outsiders to introduce a fantasy world, seems a bit conventional. He indicated that Mira Furlan is on board as is John Rhys Davies, which is good to hear.
During the Q&A part, someone asked about the possibility of steampunk fans writing for the show and Boxleitner responded derisively “I’ve read fanfiction.”
Wrong answer.
When someone wants to write for or submit scripts to your show, you respond with the truth; that it’s a union shop and you cannot accept unsolicited submissions.
“You suck,” is not the correct response.
The other thing that really set my teeth on edge is Boxleitner’s continuous statements that the show has a romance “for the ladies.” It’s as if female fans are only influenced by girly plots like romance. I could feel Euphorbia tense up in the seat next to me when he said that.
After that: Dinner. Well, I had dinner earlier but Lady Euphorbia had not so we went to the hotel restaurant and I watched her eat.. Service was slow but Thomas, our server, put in a good effort. He was wearing goggles and using “Sir” and “Milady” a lot more than a typical restaurant employee.
At this point it was a lot of activity for the convention only just starting. I went to bed before midnight, relatively early
Saturday
For whatever reason, my Century of the Beard presentation was scheduled for 9am. Well, with all the things going on, someone needs to get the short straw in that sense and since I have five programs to present, odds are I was going to get something early.
This was the first time I had done this presentation and went over my time. The programming tracks are set with half hour buffers between them so there was no functional problem but I will need to trim it down, so to speak.
Even for being so early, there was a respectable crowd that grew as the time went on. About midway through Captain Krieger showed up and his interjections made the program that much more lively. It’s the sort of interaction that I had wanted for this particular presentation.
Now for the big project.
At last year’s TeslaCon, Lord Bobbins was asked if he would write a book chronicling the TeslaCon narrative. He said that he was simply too busy running the con to write a book about it. Sticking around on Sunday night I talked to him about it and offered to try writing his book. I sent him some links to samples of my writing so he might judge my competence for such a project.
And then I heard nothing about it.
At last year’s Steampunk Empire Symposium, Lord Bobbins did a promo presentation on TeslaCon and said that he had been asked “What about the Americans.” His story involved world travel in airships and submarines but the United States had never really been mentioned. He responded that he wanted to involve the Americans and go into detail about the Civil War, including many photoshopped pictures. I had a quick chance to talk to him and said that I would write that for him.
And then I heard nothing about it.
Eventually I was able to talk to him more and he sent me a seven page outline of an American Civil War that went on for 15 years. I began writing with the basic idea that, come August, he would begin posting “episodes” of the story on the TeslaCon website so that when the convention came along attendees would be up on the history and would have had an opportunity to incorporate the TeslaCon backstory into their own backstories.
As summer arrived there were complications. I wasn’t finished. I had employed a few interested people who had wanted to help and they had failed to deliver, leaving me to go back and fill in those blanks. Lord Bobbins got sick. He also had a more solid idea of presenting this story in book form rather than giving it away online.
With all the delays, I was done by mid-September. 26,000 words total. Lord Bobbins put me on the schedule to do readings and talk about the history. His plan was to have an actor play the current President . He would give an introduction. Period music would be playing. Full production stuff. While I thought that was ok (it’s his convention, after all), I wasn’t sure I could do a presentation in character like that. As the con approached he let me know that the Presidential thing had fallen through. On Friday at the con, Lord Bobbins ran into me and asked if I had brought a copy of my work because his printer had broken. I said I had.
On Saturday afternoon when it was time for the presentation, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. The introduction by Lord Bobbins and the music never materialized. I had printed up a number of primers; the 26,000 word story compressed down to 3 pages, that I had left stacked around the con hoping people might pick them up (in addition to having posted it online in advance). It turned out that almost no one at the presentation had read it so I read that to them to let them in on the outline and then winged it from there.
I spoke about the history of the project (what I just described above) and about some of the things you have to do to write alternative history. How to incorporate actual history. How to set seeds for change early. When to avoid making things completely up and when to just ignore problematic threads.
Lord Bobbins dropped by about midway through to sing my praises and assure people that a book was forthcoming.
All in all, I think it went fairly well. People seemed to enjoy it.
Immediately following that was a tea that was supposed to be with Lord Bobbins but he was only able to mingle with two tables and didn’t get to ours. Instead, we talked a lot with the Airship Ambassador and one of the guys that runs the AetherFest convention in San Antonio, Mr. Saturday. Mr. Saturday had an idea for programming that paralleled an idea that I had earlier that very day.
Most programming is for an hour time slot. And while this isn’t bad, there are a number of things of interest that could fit in a smaller time slot. For example, the Great Allegheny Lens-napping of 1872 is an entertaining story that wouldn’t fit into an hour time slot. I though that we could have a programming slot where people could take 10 or 15 minutes to inform people. Mr. Saturday brought up the TED format which is pretty much exactly what I was thinking about without remembering the name.
We also talked about not having a Steampunk 101 panel. It may be ok for a general sci-fi con but superfluous for a steampunk con. We’ve pretty much already passed that course although at Pandoracon there was a good Steampunk 101 presentation that covered the history of science fiction and of the steampunk genre rather than the more typical “shop at thrift stores” advice.
The tea included ice cream from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream in Columbus. It was very good and they said that if we are able to deliver up enough “likes” on their Facebook page they will come back next year and sponsor TeslaCon, serving ice cream all weekend and creating a custom flavor for Lord Bobbins.
So, go there now. Tell them you want ice cream at TeslaCon. Trust me, it’s good ice cream.
Next I had to do my Mystery Airships presentation. I’ve done it half a dozen times before so I have it down and it went without a hitch.
Had dinner in the restaurant again. Service was better this time. I think the experience the night before was merely a glitch. Someone gets distracted and forgets a table. It happens from time to time.
I witnessed something I wanted to relate. As I stood around near the Tesla Room, a young man was at the doors trying to promote the Steampunk Guide to Sex presentation that was about to start. He was saying “Sex in steampunk panel!” A young lady in frills and affecting a French accent leaned in close to him and said flirtingly, “You want to have sex with me?” He was so embarrassed that he literally ran down the hall.
I went by the Grand Ball and listened to the 1st Brigade Band. I had purchased 2 CDs and was disappointed in “The Grand Review” disk because there is a lot of narration. I appreciate knowing the story but don’t want to hear someone talking over the music. I suppose if I had read the website in advance or talked more to the band members I would have known that.
Sunday
Sunday morning was the final of five presentations of mine for the weekend; Victorian Spacecraft. I’ve done that one a few times previously and it went ok except that I missed a few things and needed to go back. My first “script” was too long so I had rewritten it on the back of some con flyers. Then, for whatever reason, when I am presenting I will flip to the next page before I’ve covered all the items. What I need to do to get it right is to have each point or spacecraft technology on its own page.
I’ve had people ask me if the scripts are available online and while I have the Mystery Airships presentation as a complete script, the other presentations aren’t quite as organized. That is somewhat intentional because I tend to read the Mystery Airships presentation and didn’t want the others to be so stiff and formal. I’ll probably go back and find myself a good balance between those two different presentation formats and post them online so I can point people to them when they ask.
The first part of the closing ceremonies was the multi-media performance piece of getting off the moon. Before we could do that, Proctocus’s army of Tick-Tock men attacked. Then the Selenites responded with blaster canons and giant walkers. Lord Bobbins revealed that he had come to the moon 6 months previously. A fist fight erupted between Dr. Todd and Proctucus.
And then they took a break for tea.
Once tea time was over, the fist fight continued. Proctocus revealed a thermal detonator and threatened to blow up the ship but the Selenites held him in some sort of paralyzing ray and he was carried off to become part of a lunar zoo exhibit.
And then came the best part. In many ways, I think, the best and most meaningful part of the entire weekend. Lord Bobbins came out of character to tell us about what he has planned for next year. The Congress of Steam. While the dramatic overlay will be that of a League of Nations conference, what it is really all about is getting people from all over the world together to talk about steampunk.
Did you know that in South America, the steampunk community has split into two sides? Clubs broken up. Flame wars online. Friendships ended. And do you know what it’s about? Thread counts. They are actually having fractious , divisive schisms in the community over whether certain fabrics are authentic enough to be steampunk.
And so, Lord Bobbins is giving away hundreds of tickets to people overseas to encourage them to come here. He spoke eloquently and passionately about how it is so vitally important for us, as an international community, to get together to talk. And listen. I remember him talking about this last year and, with some of the drama that has gone on in the community this year, his dream has gained new relevance and importance.
He loves this so much, you can’t help but love it too and want to make it work. Not only for him but for us all.
Half of the available 1000 tickets for next year had already been sold before closing ceremonies.
He also announced the theme for TeslaCon 2014: Journey to the Center of the Earth, although all his references were from the 1976 movie “At the Earth’s Core” with Peter Cushing and Doug McClure. I have that on DVD and also “The Gilak's Guide to Pellucidar” so I should be more than set.
And even though that was the official close, the weekend wasn’t over yet. Like most cons, most people scatter once the closing ceremonies are over. With a 10 hour drive back to Pittsburgh, I had an extra room night and was going to be leaving the next day. A number of other people also stuck around to hang out with Lord Bobbins, to talk about how things had gone this year and what was next.
That took awhile to get going, though. Lord Bobbins had break-down and wrap-up things to do and also just sat down for a bit before finally coming down to go out to dinner. While everyone (Veronique Chevalier, Mr. Saturday, the Airship Ambassador and others) piled into the hotel van and someone else’s vehicle, I waited for Lady Euphorbia to come back down from the room was a warm wrap. We drove over but when we arrived the rest had all been seated and there was no more room at the table. I stood around like the goon that I am, stepping away when food arrived.
I learned about Lord Bobbins experiences as a Star War voice actor. He does an excellent C-3PO. I learned more about how this con went and next year’s con. I learned some more about the Evelyn Kriete / Goodreads kerfuffle and learned (independently confirmed) that the reason that the World Steam Expo isn’t happening next year really had nothing to do with Goodreads. It was simple mismanagement in that they brought in a lot of expensive acts (Abney Park, Sunday Driver Steam Powered Giraffe, etc) and there simply wasn’t enough attendance to pay for it.
I also learned that Thomas, one of the servers at the restaurant, has been completely caught up. Before the con, Lord Bobbins spoke to the restaurant staff and told him that, while they don’t have to play the game, if they do use “Lord” and “Lady” and otherwise play themselves up as waitstaff from the 19th Century that they will earn bigger tips. Most just did what they always do but Thomas took it to heart. As a result, he earned himself $300 a night in tips, met a lot of new friends and is now going to be involved in steampunk. He planning on going to cons, buying waistcoats, being involved in next year’s TeslaCon, the whole package.
I bet that by next year, the other wait staff will have learned their lesson.
After dinner it was back to the hotel. Lord Bobbins was planning on coming back down to the lobby to hang out, drink and talk but ended up hanging out in his room while people went up there. While I was down in the lobby talking about my alternative history Civil War, I realized that I had just talked about how, now that Proctocus was imprisoned on the Moon, the next year of history would go in preparation for the Congress of Steam. Before I forgot I wrote two pages (an outline, really) for the next chapter of Lord Bobbins’ book. I figured out how to better link Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” with the TeslaCon events and also had some ideas for the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” theme in two years involving the Channel Tunnel.
Lord Bobbins says he’s talking a few weeks off to decompress before starting work on the next con. My brain is apparently not allowing me such a break. I’m also thinking of other presentations I can add to my repertoire. I’m thinking about the luminiferous aether.
That’s not to say that I’m not going to try to take a break myself. I started reading again after building up a large stack of books that I have put off because of TeslaCon projects. I may even be able to go to bed early from time to time.
*cough* *cough* “Sorry. I’m not coming in tomorrow.”
No, I didn’t actually lie and say I was sick. I simply said that I still have a bunch of PTO to spend, have a lot to do for the convention and wouldn’t be in. My team lead shrugged in apathy and said he’d see me on Tuesday. When I schedule time off for next year’s con I’m simply going to take the Wednesday off as a matter of course.
Having taken off Wednesday I was able to complete the things I needed to complete and pack so that when Thursday morning rolled around all I would need to do is pack the car and go.
Thursday
Not that it ever actually happens that way. If it were just me I would have packed the car and gone immediately; out of the house by 6 or 7 am. In to Madison by dinner time. Instead, the plan was to meet with my brother-in-law for dinner in the suburbs west of Chicago. Since he didn’t get out of work until 4pm, we needed to wait before leaving so that we would arrive when he was done. That delayed the whole thing.
And because I was delayed, and impatient for being delayed and not paying enough attention, the State Police found me going a little too fast on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The cop pulled his car up next to mine, putting his bumper right near my door so I wouldn’t be able to open it fully. The office directed my attention towards the radar device on his car which displayed the speed I was going and, no doubt, also got a good picture of my face on the dash cam. All very calculated and choreographed.
I’ll be getting the state’s happy little present in the mail.
With the stop made, steak consumed and on our way again, we arrived at the hotel just as the pool party, the one scheduled event I had wanted to participate on Thursday, was ending.
Instead, I got dressed in my brown vest and new clockwork fez from Fez-O-Rama and hung out at the bar. I spoke with Lady Elsie and Major Tinker who had come from England and that I had met at a photo shoot in Pittsburgh a few years back. I had seen The Steampunk Gazette in the bookstore but hadn’t realized that Major Tinker was the author until after the con. Otherwise, I would have purchased a copy and gotten him to autograph. It’s a well put together book and seems very thorough but I already have so many books that I haven’t read that I was putting off purchase of this one until I perhaps found it cheaper at Half Price Books,
Thursday night was apparently fez night. I had mine. There was another authentic Turkish one and Doctor Nautilus had a very nice Masonic fez. He had a fez tassel pin, keeping his tassel from swinging about, and I am looking for something similar. His was an original Masonic pin but, for myself, I want something unique. Or, at least, with not Masonic or historical baggage. Fez-O-Rama has a pin shaped like a tentacle that is really cool but I haven’t decided if I want to go with that or perhaps something with a chain.
The Lady Euphorbia can make jewelry so I’m sure I could get her to customize something up for me if only I was able to decide exactly what I wanted.
Friday
The first thing Friday was to check in. In doing so I discovered that Lady Euphorbia had upgraded my membership to the Balmoral level as a gift. That got me a big box of stuff including a special S.S. Silver Star place setting, a pocket watch-looking thing with Georges Méliès’ Man in the Moon and an invitation to tea with Lord Bobbins on Saturday.
I took that up to the room and came back down only to be stopped by security. Apparently the Chief of the Middleton Police Department had decided that he was not going to have any props that looked like actual guns in the convention in spite of it being private property and not really his place to say. He apparently even went into an ongoing presentation and interrupted it to make everyone take their guns out to the car. Security, acting on the Chief’s direction, had me take my guns out to the car, necessitating my going back up to the room to get my keys and having the security person escorting me the entire way.
As I was loitering in the atrium, Lord Bobbins came by and told me that I was going to be joining him for dinner that evening. It was totally unexpected and I was somewhat baffled at the invitation before I realized that dinner with Lord Bobbins was part of the Balmoral ticket package.
I went to the Bricktonian Age presentation that was about steampunk Lego builds. They had problems with the projector and since I was pre-positioning my projector for my own presentation I hooked it up and saved the day. Sort of. For whatever reason the signal from their laptop was green and not very bright. When I hooked up my own PC for my own presentation everything was fine.
In taking Wednesday off of work, I used most of that time to complete my History and Technology of Airships presentation and Friday at noon was the premier. Much of the information was derived from my Mystery Airships presentation so I had been able to prepare it fairly quickly and was already confident of the material.
My timing was ok, fitting the program into it’s allotted hour time, but I think I had too much history and not enough technology. I think I need to realign it with a little more emphasis on how to build accurate airships in fiction. “This is how airships work now and how they developed that way so that, when you make things up, you can do so without breaking suspension of disbelief.”
The audience liked that when I showed illustrations of various airships to give a sense of scale, I included some “contemporary” items for scale. For example, I had an Imperial AT-AT Walker in one illustration, Battlestar Galactica and Godzilla in another. Having those things clearly illustrates how immense airships really are.
When I rework the presentation I need to remember that I can include video in my Open Office presentation. That way I can add some nice videos of airships in flight and also throw in the dramatic destruction of the Hindenburg.
Next on my program was a Teslacon history panel. Specifically it was Lord Bobbins talking about himself and the narrative that has been ongoing with the Teslacon conventions; airships, submarines, Dr. Proctocus, Tick-Tock men and all that. I paid attention and even took some notes as the alternate history Civil War thing that I wrote (more on that below) will probably have some significant additions in the next few months.
In years past, I have commissioned Leanne Peacey at Chi Studios to do chibi artwork for me and given them as gifts. After Lord Bobbins’ presentation I gave him a cute drawing of himself. He liked it but seemed a bit reserved. I know he is not a fan of anime but perhaps he was just distracted with having so much to do in running the con. After the arrival of Dr. Proctocus and the departure of Queen Victoria event in the lobby, I went to Captain Krieger and presented him the artwork of himself. He actually squealed like a little girl and hopped up and down a little. He was more adorable than his chibi self.
I had artwork done for Dr. Proctocus but thought it was inappropriate as a hero-type to meet with the villain to give him a gift so I handed it off to intermediary to pass along. I learned that he liked it and it is now his Facebook profile picture.
As dinner time approached, I ran into Lord Bobbins again and he reminded me about dinner. I went upstairs and changed from my Union vest and shirt into my full dress cavalry uniform. When I ran into Lord Bobbins on my way to the private dining room he recognized that I had dressed for dinner and rolled his eyes a bit.
Dinner itself was actually very awkward because Dr. Proctocus was there. I know he’s supposed to be this hyper-intelligent world-dominating dictator but he really just acted like a jerk. And while dinner was supposed to be a role playing experience, I was conflicted with memories of my own childhood and the bullies who called me names and beat me up in elementary school because I was smarter than they were. My response, then as now, was to ignore it. Which, again, made a role playing dinner a bit too awkward. In character as a dime novel-type of hero, I would have simply stood up and opened his head like a canoe with a large caliber handgun, and I told him as much, but I think I would have had a much better time if he wasn’t such a distraction. In fact, once he and Lord Bobbins left, the conversation with those others in attendance markedly improved.
Perhaps if I had been informed further in advance I might have been better prepared.
I’ll be doing this again next year. Proctocus will not be in attendance.
Opening ceremonies followed dinner and the waiter took us through the kitchen to the main room. I took the kitchen staff for a job well done with dinner. I got to sit in the front row.
As things were ready to get under way, Captain Krieger made the announcement but then the video didn’t start. He walked over to the projector screen where the “start” button could be seen and pressed the screen as if it were a touch screen. It, of course, didn’t work but then the person running the pc brought the mouse pointer on the screen and this began an improve between the pointer and Captain Krieger.
It was perfect.
I am somewhat envious of Captain Krieger, Lord Bobbins, the IAPS and the others who are able to affect these fantastic larger-than-life characters. I’ve never really been able to do that. Even when I was more involved in Star Trek fandom and was dressed up in the full Klingon get-up, a perfect opportunity for such performances, I never could pull it off. I’m not an actor, it seems. Or, rather, my performance is more along the lines of Professor Vitruvius.
“Teacher mode: ON.”
Not a bad thing, though. Just different. Different in a way I sometimes wish I could more of. I think the accents help but I’m never been able to pull off that performance, either.
Finally, the button was clicked and things got under way. The ship was lowered into a canon and fired into space. Proctocus panicked and cause the ship to veer off course, running into Santa Claus. He was pissed and we are now all on his naught list. Then, we crashed on the moon and discovered Selenites, who liked Lord Bobbins (“Bobbins of Earp”) and did not like Dr. Proctocus (“Proc-ass”). They were going to help us right our ship so we could return to Earth.
And then all the gears changed when Bruce Boxleitner showed up to promote his under-development steampunk TV series Lantern City.
I know we were something of a captive audience and that he wanted to promote his show to the widest possible audience but to put him at the end of this emersion experience was a bit jarring.
The project seems interesting enough. Steampunk has been something of an occasional prop or overlay on TV and the few big budget steampunk moves have been terribly disappointing so it would be nice to finally see something that says “steampunk” at the outset. He also seems to have gotten some people from the steampunk community on board as consultants and also is getting people such as Brute Force Leather to build props. The concept art looks fantastic. The premise, with three people from our universe transported to this dystopian alternative universe, using outsiders to introduce a fantasy world, seems a bit conventional. He indicated that Mira Furlan is on board as is John Rhys Davies, which is good to hear.
During the Q&A part, someone asked about the possibility of steampunk fans writing for the show and Boxleitner responded derisively “I’ve read fanfiction.”
Wrong answer.
When someone wants to write for or submit scripts to your show, you respond with the truth; that it’s a union shop and you cannot accept unsolicited submissions.
“You suck,” is not the correct response.
The other thing that really set my teeth on edge is Boxleitner’s continuous statements that the show has a romance “for the ladies.” It’s as if female fans are only influenced by girly plots like romance. I could feel Euphorbia tense up in the seat next to me when he said that.
After that: Dinner. Well, I had dinner earlier but Lady Euphorbia had not so we went to the hotel restaurant and I watched her eat.. Service was slow but Thomas, our server, put in a good effort. He was wearing goggles and using “Sir” and “Milady” a lot more than a typical restaurant employee.
At this point it was a lot of activity for the convention only just starting. I went to bed before midnight, relatively early
Saturday
For whatever reason, my Century of the Beard presentation was scheduled for 9am. Well, with all the things going on, someone needs to get the short straw in that sense and since I have five programs to present, odds are I was going to get something early.
This was the first time I had done this presentation and went over my time. The programming tracks are set with half hour buffers between them so there was no functional problem but I will need to trim it down, so to speak.
Even for being so early, there was a respectable crowd that grew as the time went on. About midway through Captain Krieger showed up and his interjections made the program that much more lively. It’s the sort of interaction that I had wanted for this particular presentation.
Now for the big project.
At last year’s TeslaCon, Lord Bobbins was asked if he would write a book chronicling the TeslaCon narrative. He said that he was simply too busy running the con to write a book about it. Sticking around on Sunday night I talked to him about it and offered to try writing his book. I sent him some links to samples of my writing so he might judge my competence for such a project.
And then I heard nothing about it.
At last year’s Steampunk Empire Symposium, Lord Bobbins did a promo presentation on TeslaCon and said that he had been asked “What about the Americans.” His story involved world travel in airships and submarines but the United States had never really been mentioned. He responded that he wanted to involve the Americans and go into detail about the Civil War, including many photoshopped pictures. I had a quick chance to talk to him and said that I would write that for him.
And then I heard nothing about it.
Eventually I was able to talk to him more and he sent me a seven page outline of an American Civil War that went on for 15 years. I began writing with the basic idea that, come August, he would begin posting “episodes” of the story on the TeslaCon website so that when the convention came along attendees would be up on the history and would have had an opportunity to incorporate the TeslaCon backstory into their own backstories.
As summer arrived there were complications. I wasn’t finished. I had employed a few interested people who had wanted to help and they had failed to deliver, leaving me to go back and fill in those blanks. Lord Bobbins got sick. He also had a more solid idea of presenting this story in book form rather than giving it away online.
With all the delays, I was done by mid-September. 26,000 words total. Lord Bobbins put me on the schedule to do readings and talk about the history. His plan was to have an actor play the current President . He would give an introduction. Period music would be playing. Full production stuff. While I thought that was ok (it’s his convention, after all), I wasn’t sure I could do a presentation in character like that. As the con approached he let me know that the Presidential thing had fallen through. On Friday at the con, Lord Bobbins ran into me and asked if I had brought a copy of my work because his printer had broken. I said I had.
On Saturday afternoon when it was time for the presentation, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. The introduction by Lord Bobbins and the music never materialized. I had printed up a number of primers; the 26,000 word story compressed down to 3 pages, that I had left stacked around the con hoping people might pick them up (in addition to having posted it online in advance). It turned out that almost no one at the presentation had read it so I read that to them to let them in on the outline and then winged it from there.
I spoke about the history of the project (what I just described above) and about some of the things you have to do to write alternative history. How to incorporate actual history. How to set seeds for change early. When to avoid making things completely up and when to just ignore problematic threads.
Lord Bobbins dropped by about midway through to sing my praises and assure people that a book was forthcoming.
All in all, I think it went fairly well. People seemed to enjoy it.
Immediately following that was a tea that was supposed to be with Lord Bobbins but he was only able to mingle with two tables and didn’t get to ours. Instead, we talked a lot with the Airship Ambassador and one of the guys that runs the AetherFest convention in San Antonio, Mr. Saturday. Mr. Saturday had an idea for programming that paralleled an idea that I had earlier that very day.
Most programming is for an hour time slot. And while this isn’t bad, there are a number of things of interest that could fit in a smaller time slot. For example, the Great Allegheny Lens-napping of 1872 is an entertaining story that wouldn’t fit into an hour time slot. I though that we could have a programming slot where people could take 10 or 15 minutes to inform people. Mr. Saturday brought up the TED format which is pretty much exactly what I was thinking about without remembering the name.
We also talked about not having a Steampunk 101 panel. It may be ok for a general sci-fi con but superfluous for a steampunk con. We’ve pretty much already passed that course although at Pandoracon there was a good Steampunk 101 presentation that covered the history of science fiction and of the steampunk genre rather than the more typical “shop at thrift stores” advice.
The tea included ice cream from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream in Columbus. It was very good and they said that if we are able to deliver up enough “likes” on their Facebook page they will come back next year and sponsor TeslaCon, serving ice cream all weekend and creating a custom flavor for Lord Bobbins.
So, go there now. Tell them you want ice cream at TeslaCon. Trust me, it’s good ice cream.
Next I had to do my Mystery Airships presentation. I’ve done it half a dozen times before so I have it down and it went without a hitch.
Had dinner in the restaurant again. Service was better this time. I think the experience the night before was merely a glitch. Someone gets distracted and forgets a table. It happens from time to time.
I witnessed something I wanted to relate. As I stood around near the Tesla Room, a young man was at the doors trying to promote the Steampunk Guide to Sex presentation that was about to start. He was saying “Sex in steampunk panel!” A young lady in frills and affecting a French accent leaned in close to him and said flirtingly, “You want to have sex with me?” He was so embarrassed that he literally ran down the hall.
I went by the Grand Ball and listened to the 1st Brigade Band. I had purchased 2 CDs and was disappointed in “The Grand Review” disk because there is a lot of narration. I appreciate knowing the story but don’t want to hear someone talking over the music. I suppose if I had read the website in advance or talked more to the band members I would have known that.
Sunday
Sunday morning was the final of five presentations of mine for the weekend; Victorian Spacecraft. I’ve done that one a few times previously and it went ok except that I missed a few things and needed to go back. My first “script” was too long so I had rewritten it on the back of some con flyers. Then, for whatever reason, when I am presenting I will flip to the next page before I’ve covered all the items. What I need to do to get it right is to have each point or spacecraft technology on its own page.
I’ve had people ask me if the scripts are available online and while I have the Mystery Airships presentation as a complete script, the other presentations aren’t quite as organized. That is somewhat intentional because I tend to read the Mystery Airships presentation and didn’t want the others to be so stiff and formal. I’ll probably go back and find myself a good balance between those two different presentation formats and post them online so I can point people to them when they ask.
The first part of the closing ceremonies was the multi-media performance piece of getting off the moon. Before we could do that, Proctocus’s army of Tick-Tock men attacked. Then the Selenites responded with blaster canons and giant walkers. Lord Bobbins revealed that he had come to the moon 6 months previously. A fist fight erupted between Dr. Todd and Proctucus.
And then they took a break for tea.
Once tea time was over, the fist fight continued. Proctocus revealed a thermal detonator and threatened to blow up the ship but the Selenites held him in some sort of paralyzing ray and he was carried off to become part of a lunar zoo exhibit.
And then came the best part. In many ways, I think, the best and most meaningful part of the entire weekend. Lord Bobbins came out of character to tell us about what he has planned for next year. The Congress of Steam. While the dramatic overlay will be that of a League of Nations conference, what it is really all about is getting people from all over the world together to talk about steampunk.
Did you know that in South America, the steampunk community has split into two sides? Clubs broken up. Flame wars online. Friendships ended. And do you know what it’s about? Thread counts. They are actually having fractious , divisive schisms in the community over whether certain fabrics are authentic enough to be steampunk.
And so, Lord Bobbins is giving away hundreds of tickets to people overseas to encourage them to come here. He spoke eloquently and passionately about how it is so vitally important for us, as an international community, to get together to talk. And listen. I remember him talking about this last year and, with some of the drama that has gone on in the community this year, his dream has gained new relevance and importance.
He loves this so much, you can’t help but love it too and want to make it work. Not only for him but for us all.
Half of the available 1000 tickets for next year had already been sold before closing ceremonies.
He also announced the theme for TeslaCon 2014: Journey to the Center of the Earth, although all his references were from the 1976 movie “At the Earth’s Core” with Peter Cushing and Doug McClure. I have that on DVD and also “The Gilak's Guide to Pellucidar” so I should be more than set.
And even though that was the official close, the weekend wasn’t over yet. Like most cons, most people scatter once the closing ceremonies are over. With a 10 hour drive back to Pittsburgh, I had an extra room night and was going to be leaving the next day. A number of other people also stuck around to hang out with Lord Bobbins, to talk about how things had gone this year and what was next.
That took awhile to get going, though. Lord Bobbins had break-down and wrap-up things to do and also just sat down for a bit before finally coming down to go out to dinner. While everyone (Veronique Chevalier, Mr. Saturday, the Airship Ambassador and others) piled into the hotel van and someone else’s vehicle, I waited for Lady Euphorbia to come back down from the room was a warm wrap. We drove over but when we arrived the rest had all been seated and there was no more room at the table. I stood around like the goon that I am, stepping away when food arrived.
I learned about Lord Bobbins experiences as a Star War voice actor. He does an excellent C-3PO. I learned more about how this con went and next year’s con. I learned some more about the Evelyn Kriete / Goodreads kerfuffle and learned (independently confirmed) that the reason that the World Steam Expo isn’t happening next year really had nothing to do with Goodreads. It was simple mismanagement in that they brought in a lot of expensive acts (Abney Park, Sunday Driver Steam Powered Giraffe, etc) and there simply wasn’t enough attendance to pay for it.
I also learned that Thomas, one of the servers at the restaurant, has been completely caught up. Before the con, Lord Bobbins spoke to the restaurant staff and told him that, while they don’t have to play the game, if they do use “Lord” and “Lady” and otherwise play themselves up as waitstaff from the 19th Century that they will earn bigger tips. Most just did what they always do but Thomas took it to heart. As a result, he earned himself $300 a night in tips, met a lot of new friends and is now going to be involved in steampunk. He planning on going to cons, buying waistcoats, being involved in next year’s TeslaCon, the whole package.
I bet that by next year, the other wait staff will have learned their lesson.
After dinner it was back to the hotel. Lord Bobbins was planning on coming back down to the lobby to hang out, drink and talk but ended up hanging out in his room while people went up there. While I was down in the lobby talking about my alternative history Civil War, I realized that I had just talked about how, now that Proctocus was imprisoned on the Moon, the next year of history would go in preparation for the Congress of Steam. Before I forgot I wrote two pages (an outline, really) for the next chapter of Lord Bobbins’ book. I figured out how to better link Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” with the TeslaCon events and also had some ideas for the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” theme in two years involving the Channel Tunnel.
Lord Bobbins says he’s talking a few weeks off to decompress before starting work on the next con. My brain is apparently not allowing me such a break. I’m also thinking of other presentations I can add to my repertoire. I’m thinking about the luminiferous aether.
That’s not to say that I’m not going to try to take a break myself. I started reading again after building up a large stack of books that I have put off because of TeslaCon projects. I may even be able to go to bed early from time to time.
