Arisiac

Now that was an absolutely splendid con.

All of my panels went well, but two stood out.  Displacement in Literature went down some fascinating paths, through alienation and exile and erasure.  Not a showy conversation, but thoughtful:  unlike so many panels, it built.  If I had to miss derspatchel in The Day the Earth Stood Still, I'm glad it was for something so excellent.  And Fairy Tales and Folklore in Modern Literature was glorious, exhilarating—like the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling fire.  Sadly, rushthatspeaks had fallen ill and was much missed by all.  I think if they'd been there, we would have broken altogether with gravity and gone whirling out amid the stars.  gaudior stepped in for them, and did a beautifuland crucial job as a balance point.  I remember talking with Daniel Rabuzzi about the stories in interstices of churches, in the carvings, the window glass–"midrash in misericords" I said.  I remember sovay talking about burning the Yule Goat, a new custom which seems ancient, and about how Athena is not the goddess of war but of strategy.  She and Vikki Ciaffone vowed to learn Lithuanian.  And inspired by Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways, I mused that folktales are a web of paths laid out across the whinny moor, the tracklessness of life.  Retelling them, we mark the way for others, for ourselves returning, leaving pebbles on the cairns.

Got drunk on that one.

Some of the literary track was pure Readercon.  The Turing panel flat-out rocked.

The bookstalls weren't a shadow of a patch on Readercon.  The brilliant rabble in the hallways was a constant amusement.

Sassafrass sang!  And damned well, despite the poltergeists in the sound system.

And at Ballads of the Supernatural, nearly everyone sang.  Though alas, not sovay , whose throat was sore.  (I hope it's been soothed with tea and honey, and is feeling better.)  teenybuffalo (elegant in black velvet and an ivory shawl) gave us "The Unquiet Grave"; the irrepressible E.J. Barnes, in a purple coster's coat, did "With 'Er 'Ead Tucked Underneath 'Er Arm."  We heard "The Cruel Mother," and a fine demon lover song, "Paper of Pins," and one or two very silly things about faerie.  (Blowing raspberries at Elfland is enlivening.)  But I think the standout was my old friend negothick , who gave us a fierce "Bedlam Boys' and an absolutely stunning "Cruel Ship's Carpenter" (otherwise known as "The Gosport Tragedy" or "Pretty Polly").  Her vengeful ghost—come with fire on the salt cold sea—was bloodchilling.

I got to hang with her, and with other lovely, lively folks:  gaudior , rushthatspeaks , sovay , derspatchel (too briefly), tilivenn , the_termagant , teenybuffalo , cucumberseed , ckd , Daniel Rabuzzi and Deborah Mills, with others unknown to blogs, though dear to me.  ookpik gave me a pretty bead necklace that she'd made, seablue and beech-bronze.

A cluster of good friends and strangers came to my reading.  As promised, I did the Jacobean Revenge Procedural—which (as I now can tell you) will come out from Small Beer Press.  Huzzah!  We're hoping for this summer, and a pretty little chapbook.    Thanks to excellent advice, I did a piece of it I'd never read before, an old scene and a new.  The first is rather a pet of mine, a conversation in the Mermaid between Robin Armin and Ben, full of high-flown iambics and theatrical gossip, of shadows and snark.  The second is brief and unseely.  Caffeinated to the eyebrows, I gave it plenty of oomph, and (I was told) put it right across the footlights.  A palpable hit!

Nine