Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 10

A Bouchercon idea SF cons should steal

Though a typical Bouchercon probably has a couple thousand attendees (I don't know the exact figures, so that is a guess), these cons don't seem as determined to have a ton of programming tracks as SF cons do.  Regardless of how many tracks there are, though, every Bouchercon I've attended has followed the same practice:  as soon as panels end, all the participants head to the book room and sit at tables, where they are available for discussion and book signings.

I love this idea.  You listen to a panel, hear some writers you like, and want to know more.  That's common enough.  At a typical SF con, you might never see those writers again.  At a Bouchercon, you can go to the book room, pick up one of their books, and get them to sign it.

The plan works.  Here's a shot of this Bouchercon's book room as it is beginning to fill up a few minutes after the end of a slate of panels.

Click the image to see a larger version.
A few minutes later, the room was thronged, people were buying books at nearly every dealer table, and writers and fans were chatting away at the far end of the space (not visible above).

I don't know if the concept would play as well at SF cons, but I'd love to try the experiment a few times.

You can't tell the books from the writer--or the writer from the books

I'm always surprised by the number of times at cons that I hear something along the lines of, "She doesn't look at all like I expected."  Even ignoring the fact that you can Google pretty much any writer these days and find pics of them, it's always a bad idea to assume that a writer's appearance and their work will have anything in common.  In addition, over time many writers change the types of books they write, so any one association would make no sense at all.

Enjoy the books, enjoy the writer, and don't expect them to look at all alike.

Two things I particularly like about Bouchercons

First and foremost, everyone I've ever met at a Bouchercon loves to read.  I'm as much a media fan as most folks, so I also appreciate the many media aspects of SF cons, but it's also great to go to a con at which everyone loves to read books. 

Unsurprisingly, at a typical Bouchercon, such as this one, the dealers' room--which Bouchercons tend to call "the book room"--contains either exclusively or nearly exclusively books.  I love wandering aisles of booksellers and seeing what's on offer. 

Again, don't take this as meaning I don't like the many other types of dealers at SF conventions; I have no problem with any of them and quite like some of them.  It's just great to be in a room so filled with booksellers.

The closest analog in the SF world is the World Fantasy Convention, which I also very much enjoy.  Because I read heavily in both SF and mystery, though, coming to Bouchercon is a special treat. 

30 years ago right about now

I was in this same Toronto hotel, looking out at the city, getting ready for a long day of consulting work.  That work would take me on the last step of a journey that would next lead to me moving to an apartment here in Toronto, where I lived for 16 weeks over the winter of 1987 and 1988.  I came to love this city during that time and have come back on multiple occasions since then.

This trip, I'm here to attend Bouchercon, the world mystery convention.  I also intend to take some time to reacquaint myself with this fine city. 

I'm very fortunate to be able to be here. 

Now, though, I'm going to crash after a rough day of work, travel, and work. 

My Tesla Model S at over 30K miles

(In the interest of transparency, I should note that I own stock in Tesla Motors.)


The other day, my Tesla Model S P85+, which I took home in June 2013, passed 30,000 miles.  A lot of folks have asked me in the past four years how I like or still like the car, so I thought I'd give an update here.

I still love it.  It drives as well as the day I bought it, handles as well as ever, and is simply a pleasure to own.  It's easily the best automobile I've ever driven or owned.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea:  I still love it.

Having said that, the car has a few minor but annoying flaws.  Its paucity of cupholders is a problem for people in the back seat, though not for me.  The floor mat in the rear routinely moves around and bunches up.  Every now and again, the charge port door will pop open after I've closed it.

Getting in and out of the car has always required care, because of the angle of the roof, and tall people find it particularly annoying.  Fortunately, I'm not particularly tall, so I have no problem with it.

In fact, the car has only one real issue:  it is not the newest, top-of-the-line Model S, the 100D with all the trimmings, the one car I truly lust for.

In my opinion, if you can afford a Model S--it is very expensive--and want the best car around, you should buy one.

Blade Runner 2049

Go see this movie.  It is absolutely worth your time.  You also don't need to have seen its predecessor, and you don't need a plot summary or spoilers to help you decipher the film; you can follow the story.

In fact, the less you read in advance about Blade Runner 2049, the better your movie-going experience will be.  Yes, that includes this blog entry; feel free to read the rest of this piece after you've watched the film once.

As strong as that endorsement is, let's be clear:  this picture has a lot of problems.  Some involve science, some involve story structure, and some involve its treatment of women; no woman here is ever far from the stereotype you will immediately be able to associate with her.

Despite all of that, though, you should watch the movie.  Visually, it is stunning, absolutely gorgeous, a ride through a future that is constantly overloading us on multiple levels.  It also asks great questions, important questions, and ones we cannot contemplate too much. 

The acting is uniformly strong.  Ryan Gosling's frequently unemotional performance style meshes perfectly with this role, but everyone in the movie plays their character well. 

Go see it.

I already look forward to watching it a second time.

Picking UFC 216's two championship fights: How I did

Perfectly, as it turned out.

In the first of the two title bouts, I expected the champion, Demetrious Johnson, to destroy the challenger, Ray Borg, and indeed Johnson did.  Johnson dominated Borg in every aspect of the game for the first four rounds, and near the end of the fifth he turned a suplex into an armbar and submitted Borg.  The finishing move was spectacular, but equally impressive was how utterly and completely Johnson beat down Borg.  To Borg's credit, he never stopped trying, but he was never a match for Johnson. 

If you are at all interested in MMA, take any chance you get to watch Johnson in action.  He is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

For the second championship match, I gave the nod to Tony Ferguson, who I said would wear down Kevin Lee in the later rounds.  I suppose I technically was right, in that Ferguson submitted Lee in the third round, but I was just barely correct; I had expected Lee to last longer. 

As I also predicted, Ferguson wasted no time in calling out Conor McGregor to unify the two 155-pound straps.  I doubt McGregor will do it, but I wish he would.

Maybe I should be putting money on these fights....

Picking UFC 216's two title fights

The undercard fights are about to start, but I'm not going to choose their winners, so I still have time to weigh in on tonight's two main events.

The co-main event and penultimate fight of the night pits challenger Ray Borg against flyweight champ Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson.  Borg seems from all reports to be a nice guy and a talented fighter.  He is not, though, ready for a title shot.  Despite that, he has one, because Johnson has cleared out his division and in the process become the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.  He is going to destroy Borg.  It's that simple.  When he does, he'll also set a UFC record for most consecutive title defenses.  No one currently fighting at 125 can touch him.  Johnson is just that good.

The main event, which is for the interim lightweight title--a title the UFC created to manufacture drama and fill main events while Conor McGregor decides if and when he wants to fight in MMA again, is far more interesting.  Both contenders, Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee, are on winning streaks and looking good.  Ferguson, though, has built his run on the backs of the elite of the 155-pound division and has faced multiple far stronger fighters than any that Lee has met.  Lee hopes to counter Ferguson's experience edge with strong wrestling, so he will be looking to take down Ferguson, keep him down, and either out-point him or submit him. 

Ferguson knows that and will strive instead to make it a striking war and wear down Lee, then win either by decision, TKO, or submission in the later rounds.  Fueling that plan is the fact that Lee barely made weight, so Lee could easily have very real concerns about gassing.

This one should be a war, but in the end Ferguson's experience should carry the day.  Expect Ferguson to win either by decision or by a finish in the championship rounds, and then expect Ferguson to trash-talk as hard as he can in the hopes that McGregor decides to grant him what would surely be the biggest payday of his life.

I'll report back tomorrow on how I did.

Messages from the past

In a moment of self-indulgence, I took a ten-minute break late this afternoon to dig out the first record I ever bought, Beatles VI.  I have loved rock and roll for as long as I have memories--longer, in fact--and according to my mother I was barely seven years old when I started begging her to let me have my own records.  She told me that sometime after I was ten, and when I had the money, she would let me. 

For some months before that birthday, I went through trash cans in my neighborhood and at nearby stores and pulled out every bottle that would earn a deposit.  I hid the bottles in holes I dug at the back edge of our property and in hard-to-reach sections of our garage.  When my mom finally relented, I dug up all the bottles, washed them, bundled them into bags, and turned them in for deposit at our neighborhood Li'l General store.

I had enough money to buy an album. 

I got permission to walk to the nearest record store--about a mile away--and did so.  I studied all the albums for as long as they would let me, because the store was air-conditioned and because every LP was a thing of beauty, an arcane object of rare and shining power.  From the moment I started the trek, though, I'd known that Beatles VI would come home with me. 

It did.

No one would let me play it when anyone else was around, so the eldest boy of the family we were living with and I would sneak listens in the garage, and in the wee hours of the morning I would play it on the family turntable, the volume so low I could barely hear it.

I played that album for years and years, on every turntable I could access, until I was nearly 17 and bought my own little stereo system--the best I could afford--and I played it more.  I loved that album.  I still do, though I recognize it is not objectively great music.  Starting with "Kansas City" and moving to "Eight Days A Week," the Beatles delivered pop power I loved.  Love still.

Over time, of course, the album started to wear out.  At multiple points in "Eight Days A Week," scratches led to small skips in the music.  I remember listening to them on my hot (to me) new stereo at 17 and thinking that someday I would own a new copy, one without scratches or skips, and that someday I would own a stereo so great, so perfect, that I could hear every note of every artist's work perfectly, and that someday I would not have to sacrifice audio quality simply because I loved an album.

The album started to decay, and I used duct tape to hold it together.  A friend tried to take it, and I used a label-maker--fancy stuff!--to put my name on it.  Later, I put the whole thing in a record sleeve.

And the whole time I played it.

All of that came back to me today as I listened again to the first two tracks, as "Kansas City" and "Eight Days A Week" came to me through an amazing sound system, on which I heard every note, but also every scratch and skip, on which I could have played any of my several flawless CDs containing both songs. 

I listened again, and the music teased all of these memories from me and bathed me in them, even as I sang along and loved the music yet again.

This time, though, when the record hit the scratches and skips, the little painful bits and the moments of silence, I heard something else. 

I heard love.

I heard my love for the music, the love that led me to paw through trashcans and endure mocking from my family and fight for every chance to listen to music and to play it loud and as many times as I wanted. 

I heard that love loud and clear, and it was fine and true and filled me with joy. 

May I never lose it. 

And the winner of the oddest line at dinner tonight is...

...this reference:

All I'm saying is, think of it as nature's Fleshlight.

Some things are best with no context.  This is one of them.