Minicon Report / A Rainy Easter Monday

[lydamorehouse]

 It's rather dreary outside, so I thought I'd take a moment or two to write up some of my experiences at this year's Minicon. 

I am one of the people in local Fandom (capital-F meaning 'those people who attend cons' as opposed to one's community based on favorite media/etc.,) who is old enough to remember the Great Fan Schism that broke Minicon into its various parts. Back in the day, the difference between the factions was roughly translated as CONvergence = media fans and their followers; MiniCON = literary snobs. I mean, I suspect that last bit was unfair even at the time, but in the hazy murkiness of memory, this is how I remember the fight being portrayed. So, like so many, many, MANY (as it turned out) others, I abandoned Minicon for the younger media crowd, to whom I felt a closer kinship to, despite being an aspiring writer.  

The first time I really went back to Mnicon was last year, when I was one of the guests of honor. This year it was, naomikritzer  So, I decided to try the con out as an attendee. 

I... had a amazing time.

Do I sound surprised? I suppose I am, in a way. Perhaps one of the reasons I am *surprised* I had such a good time is that I had an extremely light programming schedule. I was only signed up for four panels. It goes against conventional Lyda wisdom that a light load would equal a good time. Normally, a light programming schedule at a con is a recipe for disaster, in that, as an extreme extrovert (and complete diva), I LOSE energy when not directly engaged/in the spotlight. But, I found a LOT of good hallway discussions at Minicon this year, and that seems to have been the cure/the thing that put the con over the top, in terms of my enjoyment of it. 

So, a lot of what I have to report can be summed up by: "I hung out with a lot of really cool people!"

The panels I did were all very good, too. I started off with one that initially felt like a huge disaster because no one on the panel seemed particularly interested? well-versed? in the topic, which was also weirdly specific? It was called "Fae Rites of Passage" and the description made it sound like it was supposed to be very specific to Irish fairy and maybe actual rites, or maybe some specific pieces of literature that didn't end up being named in the description, so none of us knew what they were?  So, it started out very "???" but since Jane Yolen was one of the panelists, we basically just ended up talking about women's roles in fairy tales and myth, and THAT was a fascinating topic of discussion.  By the end, Jane was saying, "I could talk about this all night!" In fact, Jane kept coming up to me for the rest of the con saying, "We need to do that again. It was fun!" Which, I mean, is cool on a lot of levels, right?

The next panel was my interview of Naomi, which... I mean, the thing about Naomi and I is that we once talked the entire drive down to Chicago and back without hardly taking a breath and that is my favorite thing, so, even though I did prepare a number of questions to ask, I was NOT worried that there would be a ton of awkward silences (like the time I interviewed Sheri S. Tepper for Science Fiction Chronicle. Which was early in my interviewing career and I was NOT PREPARED for someone who would answer terse yes/no replies to open ended questions.) Anyway, a couple of people came up to me to tell me specifically they enjoyed the interview, so that was also a success.

Then, I was on a panel about Artificial Intelligences., which I'm not as convinced that I had a huge amount to contribute to other than enthusiasm and a few Alexa jokes.  With that one, I felt that the far end of the table where Eleanor and a guy who was an actual scholar in this area, hardly got more than a few words in edgewise, but it was still a LOT of fun.  I was reminded about the Saudi Arabia case by an audience member, where Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to "Sophia," an AI. (Link is to an article about what she's been doing since. The article about her also links to another case of an AI in Japan who has been granted 'residency. Interesting stuff!!)

My last panel on Sunday was "Fan Fic is Real Writing," which was very life-affirming on a lot of levels. Much squee was had. 

So, Minicon was exactly the kind of con I wanted to have. Lots and lots and LOTS of good conversation with interesting people and very good panels. I'm only sad that I missed all the opportunities to hang out with jiawen  . Boo. but, I suppose if the con were PERFECT there'd be no reason to keep going back, which, at the moment, I totally intend to do!
 
How was your Easter/Passover/Other weekend? Do anything fun?

Comments

[mindstalk]

Wow, that split sounds like the Arisia/Boskone split in Boston, some time back. Boskone got big and harassed by partying teens or something, they banned costumes or something, and by 2011 Arisia had 3000 people (younger more media, Masquerade) and Boskone 1000 (more books).

[lydamorehouse]

Wow, that *is* basically the same thing that happened here. That makes me wonder if there's some kind of natural evolution to fannish con-going communities where they hit a point (size probably, since that was also a complaint here, as well as "we don't want to become a party con") and have to split/hive off?

Now I want someone to study this!

[offcntr]

Speciation in Fannish Communities: A Quantitative Analysis

[lydamorehouse]

Perfect title! Now go get the grant to write it! ;-)

[dd_b]

The Minicon split is not in any way independent of the Boskone split; in that being aware of what happened at Boskone was very much in our rearview mirror here.

At Boskone, they saw many of the same issues we were seeing, and never found any agreement on what to try to do -- and the 1987 Boskone blew up badly enough that the hotel (and all other hotels in Boston) refused to deal with them for quite a long time (forcing the move to Springfield, into much smaller facilities, forcing downsizing and leading them to do drastic things that pissed people off trying to get that to happen). (I was in Boston from 1981 to 1985 so I watched a lot of the run-up there.)

So, our attempts to avoid that fate eventually (we'd had formal task-forces to study the question of our continued growth and obvious strains we were seeing as far back as 1991) lead us to try to do something gentler and more controlled. Which ended up working out very similarly, and not as we had intended.

We know two bad ways to deal with the problem (so far). I think maybe the freshness date on the problem is passed, and nobody else will have to deal with it (maybe), things having changed so much.

[offcntr]

Minicon was the last SF con I attended, back before I left for Oregon in 1985. Still big back then, too many things for me to catch all at once, and I think cosplaying was just beginning to be a thing. Saw a lanky teenager walking around in bathrobe and towel and wondered if the hotel had a pool? Only Monday, after I'd caught up on my sleep, did I realize he was Arthur Dent.

Easter was fun but quiet, sang at the 9 am service--small choir, but big, loud congregation--then treated ourselves to roast pork dinner, a long nap, and watched the library's DVD of Antman and the Wasp, as we'd missed it in the theatre, and it took this long to get to the top of the waiting list.

Finished off the evening with spinach-and-easter-egg salad and early birthday cake, as Denise's 65th is next Friday during Ceramic Showcase.

[lydamorehouse]

Ah, very nice weekend!

Cool memory of Minion. Shawn and I think our very first Minicon was 1988, when Frederick Pohl was one of the guests of honor. She has a strong memory of sharing an elevator ride with him, and, at the time, we were both huge fan girls for Emma Bull's WAR FOR THE OAKS and that was the year after it came out, so I suspect we stalked Emma in order to get an autograph. Some time when I have nothing better to do (or am feeling obsessive/compulsive) I should try to reconstruct which Minicons I've attended over the years. I know that after 88, I didn't go again for quite a while, though I would have had to have started regularly again once I was trying to publish....which was in the mid-90s, so maybe not all that much longer after? Like I said, I might be able to reconstruct by looking at the list of GoHs and digging through the piles of programming booklets I no doubt still have stashed somewhere.

[offcntr]

Have no recollection who was guest at Mini the year I went, but I think their program booklets are on their website so I could figure it out.

I saw Fred Pohl at CouleeCon 1 in La Crosse in 1980? 79? He'd just gotten the Hugo for Gateway, anyway, and it was a big get for a brand new event. They also had an unexpected drop-in from an up-and-coming youngster who'd just won a short fiction Hugo for Sandkings, a kid named George R. R. Martin.

[lydamorehouse]

That nerdy guy in the Greek captain's hat? What ever happened to that guy, I wonder....? *TEASE*

[lydamorehouse]

Also Google tells me this:

Minicon 20
Year: 1985
Location: Radisson South Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota*
Guests of Honor: James P. Hogan (pro), The Permanent Floating Riot Club (fan group), The White Women (musicians), Stu Shiffman (artist), Jerry Stearns and Kara Dalkey (toastmasters)

*which means there WAS a pool at the hotel, over by what became the party suites on the first floor of the south (?) tower.

[dreamshark]

For reconstructing your past Minicons, you can start with the Brief History of Minicon table here: http://mnstf.org/minicon/

Table lists Minicon number, dates, registration numbers, hotel, GoHs, and Theme. Click through on the Minicon number to get all kinds of additional detail. And yes, you are absolutely correct, Frederick Pohl was a GoH at that one (Minicon 23).

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks. I think I still have the program from that con somewhere, too.

[dreamshark]

Since I happen to have the Minicon History page up, I can tell you that 1985 was Minicon 20, at the Rad South. James Hogan was the writer GoH and the entire SF club from Houghton, MI, (PFRC) was Fan GOH. Hogan hasn't been back to my knowledge, but PFRC is still showing up and volunteering enthusiastically. Love those guys!

http://mnstf.org/minicon20/

[lydamorehouse]

Wow, still showing up after all these years. That's amazing.

[ryanf]

Yay!

I am SO an introvert so all of this sounds excruciatingly painful to me, but I can tell you had a BLAST, so I'm so happy for you!!

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, the introverts in my family stayed home. My wife, who is very introverted, went to one--maybe two?--cons with my in her entire life and said, "No, not for me." The few times where I've gone somewhere interesting and she wanted to tag along, Shawn just stayed happily ensconced in the hotel room reading until we could go take a little explore.

Mason is an extroverted introvert, so he can perform extroversion for awhile and then he's DONE. So, he can do the big crowds for about a day and a half before he announces that he needs quiet alone time. The good news is that he's learned his own limits and is very good, even under social pressure from his friends, to say, "Yeah, no, go without me. I'm conned out."

So, I get it.

[ryanf]

I love hearing about your loved ones!

Yes, I think I am very much like Mason, it sounds like. But I still struggle to set and stand by my limits. I am inspired that he does!

[bibliofile]

Yay for an excellent convention!

Didn't the Minicon split engender MarsCon, too? At least indirectly. So long ago, and so very painful at the time, but I think that the fannish community is probably better for it.

(I'm also the sort of person who thinks that there aren't too many cons in the world, and that it's perfectly sensible to start the convention you want to attend, if you & some friends are so inclined.)

Me, I skipped Minicon because the Fallcon was plenty for me (and had <100 people). Instead, I hung out with some friends' cats while the friends went to Minicon. Their cats are nice, and we like each other (they sit on me, and I pet them regularly). So it worked out.

[lydamorehouse]

Yes, I should have said. The big split started MarsCON as well as CONvergence.

I love science fiction conventions, so I agree. The more the merrier. It's also pretty clear?? This town can support a LOT of cons. A LOT. So long as they are also providing something that the community needs/wants, at any rate. Clearly Mpls/St. Paul folks just like going to cons. Anime Detour wasn't that long ago and they pull in CONvergence numbers, and they're not even the only anime con in town... so.... I mean, we LIKE cons here in this region.

And cats are always awesome.

Is FallCON a relaxicon? Where is it? Do you recommend?

[dreamshark]

I think Bibliofile is referring to the Minnstf Fall Con (as distinct from at least one other con that is officially named Fallcon). Our Fall Con for the last few years has been named DeCongestant (apparently because all the really good puns on "con" had been used already).


This year's installment in the Fallcon Train is Sept 27-29, 2019.
This year's Fallcon (Decongestant 4)

And here's the back story
History of Minnstf Fallcons

[bibliofile]

Yes, this is the one (quadong is also correct, as we talked to each other there. It was tiny, and perfect for low-energy, mostly introverted me. One very small track of programming, expandable if people had ideas and wanted to start something. There was also a bit of gaming with Rachel, once they got the connection working.

Fortunately, they have abbreviated memberships for people who just want to spend an hour or twelve. I know that a few people took advantage of that.

[quadong]

The fallcon bibliofile went to is the MNstf fallcon, which is currently named DeCONgestant. It's sorta a relaxicon, except it has a surprising amount of programming for a relaxicon. Usually we have about 3/4 of a track, but this year we're going to have about 1 1/2 tracks since we're partnering with ARCANA, the Mpls horror con.

It's in Bloomington (MN) the last weekend in September. I can't tell you in an unbiased way if it's good, since I'm chairing. :-)

http://mnstf.org/decongestant4/

[dreamshark]

Totally fun having you on my AI Panel! It was a bit challenging to moderate because the topic was way too big and EVERYBODY (panel and audience) was enthusiastic to a fault. But that's better than when everybody has trouble staying awake, right? Eleanor spontaneously told me I did a good job moderating, so apparently she didn't feel left out. And Shaun Jamison, the guy on the end, added a lot every time I managed to get the mike back and call on him, and was absolutely a good sport about the panel balance (3 authors + a lawyer). But the best thing about that panel was that it kept feeding conversations with all sorts of people for the rest of the night and even into post-con email. So I think it was a success. Thanks for your part in it.

[lydamorehouse]

If it sounded like I was complaining, I really wasn't. I had a lovely time on that panel. Like you says, it's a big topic and a lot of people had something they wanted to say about it. You DID do an excellent job of moderating. Naomi remarked on it today, actually, when we were hanging out recounting Minicon stories.

[dreamshark]

Actually, it sounded like you were apologizing, which is certainly not called for. Thanks for relaying the compliment. May we all meet again on more panels in the future!

[laurel]

I'm so glad you had an amazing time, I really enjoyed the programming items I went to that you were on (as well as the ones you weren't for that matter). I had a great con.

I was part of the team that made the Big Changes to Minicon circa Minicon 34 and it's been long enough now (20 years!!!) that I'm no longer quite so angry about the misperceptions of the change. I mean, some good cons came out of it and I like how Minicon is these days for the most part (cons have ups and downs, I've enjoyed some years more than others and part of that is me and part of that is who happens to run things and how things pan out).

But at the time, I quite enjoyed the Big Minicons even if they were a bit too big for me in some ways. The goal of the change was to make Minicon more sustainable, refocus on science fiction and perhaps jettison some of the things that were more extra and not directly SF (raves, drum jams, a lot of general geeky stuff). It absolutely was not to get rid of media SF stuff or costumers, but because an early draft of the proposal to change Minicon did suggest that, people assumed that was the intent ever after. Never mind that the Minn-StF board rejected the proposal that was to focus more on written SF and less on media SF. Never mind that myself and TNH & PNH were added to the team proposing the changes in part because we told the original folks that they were not cool to dismiss media SF the way that did.

We were added to help get the next iteration of the proposal right, to include media SF. (And that was the proposal the board accepted.) And I tried, oh how I tried. But people kept seeing me as a token media fan or young fan or something? Didn't believe me? It didn't help that lots of people involved with the changes had made personal statements along the lines that they mostly or only cared about written SF and old school fandom. That . . . wasn't the accepted proposal. The proposal didn't say we'd get rid of the masquerade, just that we felt spending $15,000 or whatever it was was too much. A lot of it was about reducing the budget and complexity of the con so that it fit better with Minn-StF and the pool of volunteers we had.

It was unfortunate that at the same time we were making these changes, the hotel management at ye olde Radisson South (if it was still that then), made it so we absolutely could not stay in that hotel. We wanted to! We felt we were already attempting enough changes that adding a hotel change to the mix would be too much. But they wanted a ridiculous amount of money compared to previous years so we had to move. Which was really a lot to deal with when we were already dealing with a ton of changes (and a ton of angry people).

And so on. I could go on and on. But! Minicon has never, in the time that I've been going lo these last 31 years, tried to exclude media SF. But there hasn't been as much media programming as I'd like because so many media fans got the wrong idea and feel Minicon is a literary con or something and so they don't show up at all or don't suggest media panels or volunteer for them. It's been very frustrating. While I was working as a TV critic I wound up being on what seemed like all the TV focused panels at Minicon for a stretch of time there and it got old (at least for me) but it was hard to find many people to be on those panels or to suggest panels. (Did I mention this was frustrating? So frustrating. Because the fewer TV panels we had, the more people thought they weren't wanted and the fewer people suggested them.)

It's also weird how so many perceive (or perceived) Minicon as a literary focused con when many of the folks I know who prefer literary cons look down on Minicon as not having good lit-focused programming. People kept saying we were trying to make Minicon into Fourth Street and we really weren't (and I think that's been pretty clear since the revival of 4th Street . . . Minicon is really not Fourth Street).

I think programming at Minicon has varied a lot over the years in focus and quality and of course mileage varies. The science programming has been quite strong in recent years from what I've heard, as has the kids stuff. I really liked the programming I saw this year and some of that was focused more on literature and some on other stuff. A pretty good mix though as ever I would've liked to have seen more media focused stuff but I can't really throw too many stones since I haven't been suggesting or volunteering for panels myself in recent years.

It really depends on who is running things and who suggests panels and what they suggest and who volunteers to be on stuff. I'd prefer it if Minicon did more recruiting of people to be on programming but it seems like more and more cons use the model where they depend on people stepping forward to ask to be on things rather than asking people to be on things.

Anyway. I didn't intend to write so much here. And yet.

I thought I used great restraint not jumping up at the AI panel to talk about Person of Interest (but seriously anyone interested in AIs should watch Person of Interest). (All five seasons were on Netflix when last I checked.)