Conference noted::sf

                                
 
"The Beginning: August 30th, 1988." 
 
12:30 New Orleans time. Sunny and in the high 80s. Humidity high. Peg and I 
land, gather our bags, and take a limo to the Marriott where we're 
staying until the 1st. As we go into town we see one of the above-ground 
cemeteries known as "Cities of the Dead" which I'm fascinated by. 
     There's no line at the Marriott, which I mention only because it will 
never occur again at either convention hotel in the following days. We 
check in and spend the rest of the afternoon walking the French Quarter, 
also known as the Vieux Carre, the New Orleans "Old City" where 
most  -- maybe all -- of the action is. Ten minutes into our walk I tell 
Peggy I could live there forever. She tells me that I say that about 
*everywhere* I visit, which is true. I'm a Travelin' Fool and the Perfect 
Tourist. I find the Vieux Carre particularly attractive though `cause it 
has this *effluvia* of decadence or corruption. Everything seems to be on 
the point of collapse or moldering away. My sort of town.
     Jet lag catches up and we truck back to the hotel. Naptime till 6:00. 
We go to an outdoor seafood restaurant named Greco's for dinner. I have 
blackened tuna for the first time. I like it, though I think the spices 
overwhelm the tuna. We engage the headwaiter, Nick, in conversation while 
we dawdle over our coffee. Nick tells us his life story, which is fairly 
strange -- something to do with a 20-year-old wife and being fired from 
most of the best restaurants in New Orleans. Nick leaves to snag some more 
people off the street, which is apparently a headwaiter's main job in New 
Orleans, at least for outdoor restaurants. 
     Peg and I take a carriage tour of the city with a mule named Shine and 
her driver. Shine's done this tour a couple of times and basically drives 
herself. As her driver says, "When I stop talking, Shine starts walking." 
And she does.
     Back to the hotel. 

"Bayonets. Fred Meets A Soul Sister." 
 
Peg and I go to the Cafe du Monde for breakfast, an indoor/outdoor cafe 
open 24-hours-a-day. Cafe du Monde is one of the places like Times Square 
or the Dizengoff in Tel Aviv. If you wait and watch long enough you'll 
see everyone in the world go by. The place only sells three items: 
cafe au lait, orange juice, and beignets. The last are sourdough 
donuts dipped in powdered sugar. The correct pronunciation is 
"ban-yeh." I think they have all the taste and digestability of 
cannonballs, and rename them "bayonets." Nevertheless, the juice and cafe 
au lait are excellent.
     I'm attending a writer's workshop today, a group of people from Clarion
`86, a few of whom I've met before. Peggy says she'll shop in the morning and 
we'll meet for lunch. 
     The workshop is like every other writers' workshop. I'm a little 
uncomfortable because these people are obviously close -- the well-known 
Clarion effect -- and I'm not particularly well-prepared to critique. 
However, I've read two stories that have knocked me on my butt, and I want 
to meet the person who wrote them. The stories are by Loren -- Lorie -- 
Rhoads. As the week goes by, Peg and I spend a lot of time with Lorie, who 
not only can write like a dervish, but also seems to be my spiritual 
sister. We're so in synch from our first conversation onward that it's a 
little frightening to me. 
     The workshop breaks at 12:30. Peg and I go out by ourselves and eat a 
dozen raw oysters each (@ $3.50 a plate). As it will be for the entire 
trip, Dixie Beer is our drink of choice. 
     Back to the workshop. Lorie and I tear into each other's stories, 
grinning all the while. I split at 3:30. Peg and I notice a sign saying Con
registration will open at 4:00. We go out street-strolling again, drink 
some wine, and visit the Mighty Mississippi, something I've been waiting 
for since first reading Mark Twain. "Hello, river," I tell it softly. "I'm 
finally here." "You're not the first, nor the last," it answers. "But 
welcome."
     Circa 5:30, we're back at the Marriott. A new sign on the door says 
registration will now start "No later than 8:00." We go out to eat with 
much of the Clarion pack. Lorie, Peg, and I walk together and talk about 
writing, working, rock-and-roll and assorted other things. I walk ahead for 
a couple of minutes, and come back to find that Peg has invited Lorie to 
come with us on our tour of St. Louis Cemetery #1 tomorrow. I stop worrying 
about how Peg might be reacting to my enthusiasm about Lorie.
     We eat at the Old N'Awlins Cookery. I have shrimp creole. It's pretty 
good, maybe a 6 on my 10 scale. Many of us have some sort of rum drink 
called a "Bench." Much of the dinner is spent speculating on the name. 
I opinion that it lays you out on one. The Clarion people take a quick 
vote and let me know that I've been made an honorary member of the 
Class of 86. This, they tell me, allows me to be abused by them at 
any time. I'm honored.
     We go back to the hotel. Registration has started and the line is 
long. Peg and I are deciding whether we want to stand in line, when 
someone comes out of the room yelling for, "B's! We have any B's?" 
"Here," I say, and we walk in. We have our registration packets in 
five minutes.

"On Beaneries. City of the Dead. Becoming Overly Familiar With The Lobby. 
Cat-Swinging as a Helpful Measurement Tool." 
 
Peg and I begin the day at a diner on Chartres named the Tally-Ho, about 
two doors down from K-Paul's. I'm a collector of diners, or "beaneries," as 
they're sometimes known. There are certain things which all good diners 
have: a counter, many locals, strong coffee, waitresses who will be calling 
you "hon" by the end of your meal, a limited menu, and large portions of 
good food. For breakfast, toast *must* come with your meal without being 
ordered. All good diners open at around 6:00 a.m. and are closed by 2 p.m. 
     The Tally-Ho fulfills all the above conditions. It's rated an early 9 
on the Balsian Beanery scale, and goes up to a 10 when the waitress asks 
if we'd like some hot sauce for our eggs. As we wheeze, tear, and gasp 
through the sauce, I tell the waitress it's great. "Um, should be, 
hon," she answers. "We made it this morning."
     Back to the Marriott. Today we're moving over to the Sheraton for the 
rest of our stay. I walked over yesterday and was told I can check-in 
at 11:00. A foul lie, as it turns out. But in our innocence, we check 
out of the Marriott and store our bags with the bell captain.
     Yesterday we made reservations to take a guided tour of St. Louis 
Cemetery #1 and invited Lorie with us. She's late arriving in the lobby, 
and as she approaches, I realize I'm in trouble. I'm one of those awful 
people who wakes up immediately and totally. Worse, I'm cheerful, 
energetic, and talkative in the morning. My wife is none of these things 
before 10 at the earliest and considers the task of waking up to take at 
least two to three hours. It would be evident to a palmetto roach that in 
the great scheme of things Lorie has more in common with Peggy in the 
morning than she does with me. I gather my grumpy Zombies and we head for 
the tour. We stop at the Cafe du Monde to pick up coffee and bayonets for 
Lorie.
     The tour is fascinating, I leave with images of a chipped, whitewashed 
wall bulging out from the gases of the bodies which have decomposed within. 
A miniature shrine that includes dime store beads, dead flowers, and two 
chalk portraits arranged in front of a tomb. An angel against a sullen sky. 
Hundreds of red "x"s on the two tombs reputed to be Madame Laveau's. Tombs 
which have fallen into themselves and are covered with a layer of new 
grass. I'm not able to take any pictures in the cemetery. The film in my 
instant camera alternately burns and washes out each time.
     We return to the hotels and head for the Sheraton. It's packed with 
hundreds of Baptists from an earlier convention and hundreds of science 
fiction conventioneers just arriving. The line to check-in is four people 
deep and extends far out to the lobby. Resigned, we take our places. About 
30 minutes later we make it to the desk. I'm given a speech about the 
Baptists staying an extra day. I resist asking the obvious question about 
how a convention composed of hundreds of people could all unanimously 
decide to stay an extra day. Did they take a vote? In any case, I'm told 
they're checking people out and cleaning rooms as quickly as possible. The 
bottom line is to come back around 3:00. They promise a room will be ready. 
They promise we won't have to wait in line again. More foul lies.
     Back to the Marriott. We go upstairs and pick up on of the so-called 
"real" program books for the con since the other, fancy program book 
in our registration packet didn't contain a schedule. As schedules go, 
this program book will turn out to be as unreal as the first. It does 
however prove to contain an extremely good, honest, and funny guide to 
New Orleans' restaurants by George Alec Effinger. Peggy wants to 
nominate Effinger's guide for a Hugo after reading it.
     A word on schedules at Nolacon. The ConComm released a flyer on the 
last day that noted of the 391 program items, only three did not have the 
date, time, room, or participants changed. I was told later that this item 
was intended as a joke. If it was, it probably flew over the heads of most 
of the people attending the convention. Scheduling was the bane of Nolacon, 
so much that you regularly had to check for news releases which contained 
revised schedules. Even then, you often found a Nolacon staffer at a door, 
telling you that the panel had been moved to another room, usually in the 
other hotel. But it should also be noted that even given the scheduling 
problems, the Nolacon staffers were the most polite and informative of any 
I've met at any con. If you stood in one place for more than two minutes 
and looked confused (my normal appearance anyway) the chances were 
excellent a staffer would ask if s/he could help you. All in all, Nolacon's 
trains may never have run on schedule ... but they always ran and the 
conductors were polite.
     We rescue our bags from the Marriott and cross the street to the 
Sheraton. The crowd has gotten even larger. I leave Peg with the bags, 
ignore the line, approach the desk from the side, and grimly wave someone 
over. I put up my hand before she launches into a speech. In greatly 
truncated format, I note my general unhappiness and recap that *since 
yesterday* I've been assured of being able to get a room without problems. 
I'm *absolutely, positively* guaranteed I'll have a room by 4:00.
     At 3:45, I cross my Rubicon. I spot the same clerk and wave her over. 
As I feared they might try to pull, I'm now told there are no rooms 
available and we'll have to be placed in another hotel, at least for that 
evening. "Do whatever you have to do," I say. "Talk to whoever you have to. 
I'm not leaving this desk again until I have a key to a room." She goes 
away. I wait. Eventually she comes back with a key. I gather up the tired 
Peg, get a bellboy to bring up the bags, and we elevate our way up to Room 
3024.
     It's not been cleaned. I locate a maid who says she'll get to the room 
as soon as she can. Peggy slumps, equally tired and angry. I walk back to 
the elevators as the bellboy arrives. I take him aside and explain the 
problem with a picture of a president. He heads down down the hallway and 
comes back in few minutes, telling me the room will be ready in a moment. I 
look down the hall, and three maids are descending on Room 3024. It's 
completely cleaned within another five minutes. It's the smartest money 
I'll spend all week.
     To the Sheraton's credit, the room is enormous, literally double the 
size of the one we had in the Marriott. Peg and I measure rooms by the 
amount of space we would have to swing one of our cats. In the Marriott, we 
would have had problems swinging Pucker, my little 7-pounder. A good-size 
room is one where we could swing Speedy Tomato, our big (fixed) tom who 
weighs out at 16 lbs. A *very large* room is one where we could swing both 
Puck and Speedy simultaneously in either hand. By cat-swinging standards, 
Room 3024 is a suite.

     "Dinner as a Balancing Act. On the SFWA Suite. Track & Kill the Pros."
 
Peg is a fan of outdoor restaurants, possibly because she grew up in 
the East where they're few and far between (imagine attempting to 
enjoy a soup on which an ice skim keeps forming). In any case, given 
her druthers, Peg will always eat outside. It's her night to pick the 
restaurant, and she takes me to the Cafe Royal, which we've passed a 
few times on our wanderings through the Vieux Carre. The Cafe Royal 
not only has outside seating, it has *upstairs* outside seating on a 
balcony. That's where we go. Like every other building in the Old 
City, the building which houses the Cafe Royal is ancient. The balcony 
slopes at a dramatic angle, not enough to actually cause concern, but 
enough to make you walk -- and eat -- carefully.
     After dinner we head back to the hotel. On the schedule is something 
called "Meet the Pros Party & Dance" which is being held in the Marriott 
Ballroom. Unfortunately, no one has apparently notified either the pros, or 
a band, or anyone with a music system. Mostly what we have here are a bunch 
of disgruntled fans doing the fan version of the Service Tic and 
clusterfucking. 
     When you're an enlisted person, you develop the Service Tic (ST) real 
fast as a survival skill. The ST consists of looking at all other uniformed 
persons' shoulders and hats the moment they come into view. That's 
important because shoulders and headgear are where officers wear their 
rank. And officers expect to be saluted. Ergo, the ST.
     At Nolacon you always wore a large badge somewhere, as the 
instructions put it, between shoulders and hips whenever you were at any 
con programming. The badge had your name, state, and country on it. 
Depending on who you were, or what you did, the badge might also have 
ribbons or stickers on it signifying various things. I'll note that I 
dislike badges. I dislike them very much. I know all the rationales 
for having them. I maintain that there are better ways to accomplish 
what badges reputedly accomplish without the fascist implications. 
Badges, to my mind, also establish a mindset which I find distasteful. 
The fan ST (FST) is one example.
     Picture a room filled with some hundreds of people. What most of the 
people are doing are slowly circling the room, gazing avidly at nametags, 
trying to find someone important. Again, this is a room filled with 
hundreds of people, many of whom have many things in common. Are they 
trying to meet new people? Are they trying to strike up conversations? 
No. They're hunting names. They're doing the FST. Many are angry because 
the names don't seem to be there. Peggy hears one person say, in all 
seriousness, that what the ConComm should have done is, "put all the pros 
in a line against a wall." Indeed. And then slaughter them afterwards when 
their usefulness was at an end, no doubt.
     There are some names. You can locate them by the clusterf**ks. If more 
than two people gather around one person, the FSTers converge rapidly, 
reminding you of bees smothering an unneeded queen (I'll let you 
extend the metaphor yourself). I accidentally prove my own theory when 
I meet some people who I know. I'm with Lorie and Peggy, and with the two 
new people we're five. All of them are listening to me expound on something 
probably quite boring (I have the normal, unfortunate writer's habit of 
lecturing at, rather than talking to, people) when I notice a growing 
number of people on the outside of our circle straining to see my nametag. 
Disgusted, I ask Peg if we can leave ...
     ... and we go to the SFWA suite. Throughout the con, we touch base at 
the SFWA suite on the 8th floor of the Sheraton regularly. We've already 
stopped in once earlier and met Greg Bear, Astrid Anderson Bear, and their 
son Eric, all of whom are exceptionally nice and welcoming, even Eric who 
I'd guess to be around 2 or 3. Bear introduces me to John Varley at that 
time -- who is one of my heroes -- and I'm shocked into total tongue-tied 
fan worship. I do manage to stutter out how much I like his work and what a 
pleasure it is to meet him.

"A Weather Report. Into the French Market. Free the Machines. Peggy Sees a 
Hero."
 
"If this is New Orleans, we must be soggy" New Orleans weather is, in a 
word, mercurial. In three other words, it's damp, humid, and hot. On the 
first day we arrived, it was sunny, dry, and hot. On the last two days 
we're there it is sunny, dry, and hot. In between those days, it was 
cloudy, humid, warm, and wet. Always wet. Wet. Three little letters which 
encapsule volumes.
     I'm somewhat familiar with Southern weather, I thought, with my 
parents living in Florida. In Florida, you have rain showers that you can 
set clocks by. The clouds build up around noon. It begins raining at the 
exact same time every day, and ends at the exact same time. Kinda as if God 
had Florida on an automatic sprinkler system.
     New Orleans is different. The skies are perpetually gray. Most of the 
time it never quite rains. Instead, the clouds *leak* on you. All the time. 
Every day. By Saturday I've christened New Orleans "The City of Post-Nasal 
Drip," a slogan which I'm willing to offer to the city fathers for a small 
fee.
     We go to the French Market, which is comprised at its upper end by a 
large number of vegetable stalls, and at its lower by a hodge-podge of flea 
market tables. We're from New England, and seldom see vegetables as large 
and as fresh as what are displayed, not even in the summer. As one for 
instance, the avocados are three times the size of any which ever make to 
the the Northeast. Obviously there are avocado banditos hijacking the poor 
things before they can make it to us. Why is there no publicity about this? 
Why were the Presidential candidates silent on the avocado issue? These are 
questions to ponder.
     The vegetable stands seem mostly for the locals, the flea market 
tables mostly for the turistas. Being one, I buy Peg a pair of fire engine 
red, dangly, jalapeno pepper earrings for two bucks. She's delighted with 
them, not least because they're so totally without good taste or any sort 
of redeeming value.
     We emerge from the French Market, relatively unscathed with the 
exception of the hot pepper earrings, and find we're standing in front of 
the streetcar named "Desire." Desire is in front of a museum which used to 
be the New Orleans Mint. The streetcar has a small fence built around it, 
forbidding approach. Desire locked up. Look, but don't touch. I guess 
there's something appropriate about that. I don't know. I feel the same 
sort of sadness as when I finally saw the Spruce Goose at Long Beach. I 
want to knock down the fences and free the machines, as if they were 
animals in a zoo. "Run away!" I want to shout. "You're the stuff of 
legends. There should be fragmentary reports that you were spotted in 
Tanzania or the Andes. You shouldn't be caged and naked to the stupid gaze 
of every bozo who comes down the street."
     I'm a strange guy.
     We wander around, and not far from the French Market discover a series 
of grungy, nondescript warehouses which are the *other* French Market. This 
is where the chefs and/or buyers from the zillions of New Orleans 
restaurants shop, and we wander from building to building, gazing in, 
listening to the arguments back and forth over the price of these fishes, 
those vegetables. The Drip is turning into a Drizzle at this stage, and we 
lift our umbrellas and turn back to the hotel. We're waiting to cross the 
street when we spy a three-wheel motorized bike, resembling a miniature 
golf cart, wheeling its way up the street and carrying a very large, 
bearded man, dressed all in chef's whites. He is holding an umbrella over 
his head with one hand and is steering with the other. It is Paul 
Prudhomme. Chef Paul is one of my wife's heroes. Peg thinks about chefs 
and cooking like I do about writers and writing. One of my better 
achievements was taking her to meet The Frugal Gourmet a year or so ago. 
I'm still working on Julia Childs.
     Chef Paul stops at the light. As we cross, we look at him. He nods 
gravely at us both. "Did you see that!" my wife squeals as Chef Paul 
continues his stately procession. "He nodded at me ... and smiled!"
     I'm reminded of Elvis and the Beatles at this point, for some reason.

"Four Panels"

Peggy and I only attended four panels during all of Nolacon. I have mixed 
feelings about panels, probably because there is no such thing as a generic 
panel. Panels are often composed of people who only met each other ten 
minutes beforehand and are in different states of both preparedness and 
enthusiasm about the subject-at-hand. Sometimes they contain authors whose 
only interest is flogging their books before a somewhat captive audience. 
Sometimes panelists have an ax to grind, whether it has anything to bear on 
the purported subject or not. I've found much depends on the interaction 
among the panelists, and the interaction among the panelists and audience 
members.
     Anyway, our rule-of-thumb on panels was to go through the schedule, 
check off the ones that looked fairly interesting and then go *if we had 
nothing else to do during the entire time period and we were in the area.* 
In other words, panels were at the very bottom of our priority list. As I 
said, we still made it to four -- two one day, and two another. Both of us 
were satisfied with that. You can, of course, also sample panels like a 
buffet, walking into one for a few minutes, getting a taste, and then 
moving on. It's acceptable etiquette at cons I guess, but I dislike it as 
rudeness nonetheless. When Peg and I did a panel, we were there to the 
sometimes bitter end. We went to: "Is There Room For Romance in Fantasy?" 
"Spies, Detectives, and Science Fiction," "Wild Cards: But I haven't seen 
`The Jolson Story' yet!," and the "Twilight Zone Promo." 
     The Romance/Fantasy panel had George R.R. Martin, Justin Leiber, 
Raymond E. Feist, and Jennifer Roberson on it. It was a typical panel, 
where fully the first half-hour of the hour session was spent defining, 
rather than addressing, the subject. In this case, the panelists came to 
agreement that "Romance" was meant in the Shelley/Lord Byron rather than 
Harlequin Romances sense. The only other conclusion of interest was that 
publishers were not all that open to either romances or fantasies which 
deviated significantly from formula. The panel dissolved into endless 
"Beauty and the Beast" questions targeted toward Martin when opened to the 
audience.
     Altogether, rated a 4 on the normal 1-10 scale. Neither Leiber nor 
Feist seemed to know why they were on the panel. Leiber noted it was 
probably due to his heritage. There was speculation in the audience as to 
whether Feist was actually alive, since he seemed as unmoving and silent as 
a lizard. Martin and Roberson are good at ex tempore public speaking, which 
is what they were doing.
     "Spies, et al;"  Panelists: Chris and Janet Morris, Joe Haldeman, 
George Alec Effinger, and someone whose name wasn't listed on the schedule 
and whose name I've forgotten. This was the sort of panel I dread; so bad 
that we do actually consider walking out, rudeness notwithstanding. Someone 
has taken that eventuality into consideration, though, and locked the 
nearest doors. No one, including us, has the balls to walk directly in 
front of the panelists in order to escape. Both Effinger and Haldeman 
appear to be suffering greatly from hang-overs. The Unknown Panelist has 
published stories in "Asimov's" or "Analog," or both, about a 
time-traveling spy. Having said that, he says little more for the remaining 
hour. Chris Morris is mind-surfing in Hawaii. There's a massive curl, and 
he disappears into the tube. Janet Morris more than makes up for Chris's 
spiritual absence however. She's one of those aforementioned authors who 
view panels as golden opportunities to flog books -- which she does, every 
book which she and Chris have ever written or will write, either together 
or separately, under their own names or under pseudonyms. Many books, genre 
and not. More books than you can shake a stick at. And you wish you could.
     Morris also insults the intelligence of her audience, having us to 
believe that she and Chris are intimates of DoD big guns and super-spooks. 
Considering that both she and Chris have the physical appearance of 
Woodstock Nation refugees and every Defense type I've known made Spiro 
Agnew seem like Abbie Hoffman, I find this somewhat hard to believe. The 
only bright moment comes at the end, where Morris is declaiming that the 
idea of "a James Bond sort of spy/assassin working alone" is ludicrous. 
"Bull," I mutter audibly, "What about LRPS?" (pronounced "Lurps") 
Simultaneously, Haldeman glances up from the fog swathing him and turns to 
Morris, "What about LRPS?" He then has to explain to her that "LRP" stood 
for Long-range Reconnaissance Patrol in Vietnam, very bad-ass loners who 
were sent out to engage in counter-terrorist activities. The line between 
terrorist and counter-terrorist activities blurring as it did, LRP 
activities -- which consisted of many nasty things -- were never highly 
publicized as Green Beret actions were. It almost makes up for the previous 
fifty minutes as Haldeman instructs Morris and concludes "that, of course, 
is another problem of writing spy fiction, when you really don't know what 
you're talking about." 
     A 1 on the scale.
     Wild Cards: A cast of thousands are the panelists, including George 
R.R. Martin, Ed Bryant, Melinda Snodgrass, Victor Milan, Walter Jon 
Williams, and Lewis Shiner. Even if you have no interest in the "Wild 
Card" book series, I commend a Wild Card panel to your attention if 
you ever have the opportunity to see one. The Carders know each other 
so well (the Santa Fe core group are intense role-players), and have 
done panels together so often that they have it down to a road show, 
complete with "applause" and "hiss" cues for the audience. Some funny, 
unrepeatable stories which literally have people laughing till they 
cry. I loved it. Peggy, who has never read a Wild Card book and knows 
of none of these people except Martin, loved it. The only true 10 
panel I've ever attended.
     "Twilight Zone": Not really a panel. A television presentation of two 
new Twilight Zone episodes overseen by writer/producer J. Michael 
Straczynski. Some brief Q&A's. The episodes are very good, much superior to 
the previous revival, and, as Straczynski claims, much closer in spirit to 
the original Serling "Zone." 8 on the 10 scale.

 
"Parrr... Tee. Parrr... Tee. Spuds McKenzie Is my Brother, uh, Sister. The 
Big Con."
 
Somewhere in New Orleans people get and go to bed at reasonable hours. They 
watch the Today Show, work at their jobs, eat at MacDonald's, mow their 
lawns, and drink Lite beer. Somewhere in New Orleans there are normal 
people living normal lives.
     These people have nothing to do with Peg and me. We constantly move 
from hotel to hotel in a continual, permanent, floating house party. We 
dance down Bourbon Street at midnight, splashing Dixie from Go-Cups upon 
the cobblestones. We listen to blues on the sidewalk, Dixieland in the 
alley, pop with our cafe au lait. We adopt clowns. We sleep in the 
afternoon and eat when we feel like it. We bay at the moon and mothers hug 
their children close to them as we go by.
     We are ... Party Animals.
     I had originally thought of noting the parties we went to 
sequentially, but they've all been mix-mastered into One Big Party. Did we 
first meet Tad at the Ace or Tor party? And where did we see Gardner 
Dozois? At which one did Tad and I bait the Fascist Briton? Was it the 
Monteleone which had the swimming pool?
     They all seemed to begin around or near the SFWA suite, and most of 
them included Tad Williams. Tad, author of "Tailchaser's Song," is the sort 
of person you want to do a WorldCon with. He attracts interesting people 
and attracts fun seemingly by his mere presence. We first meet Tad on the 
way to some party. Remembering that Chuq knows him, I introduce myself and 
Peg. Over the next three days, Tad leads on a fox hunt of parties all over 
the city. Peg and I know we're in desperate trouble when we leave Tad one 
early 2:30 morning and realize as we get into the elevator that we have no 
idea what hotel we're in. "Maybe it's the Sheraton," I mumble as Peggy 
tries to read the little billboard ads in the elevator for clues. "Idiot!" 
she cries. "We live in the Sheraton!" "I wanna go home," I whine. 
Eventually we discover that we're in the Marriott, across the street from 
the Sheraton.
     The Con parties all resemble each other. Large suites. Many people, 
lots of talk. Little hard booze. Much beer on ice in the bathtub. I'm 
surprised that there's never any music until I start thinking about it. We 
are, after all, going to parties filled with writers and readers. They want 
to talk ... and hear.
     The most heralded Con party, the Bantam/Spectra party which took place 
on Friday night, also turns out to be the most boring. As Nolacon parties 
go, this super-secret, by invitation only, river cruise party is a dud. 
     Bantam's boat is docked at the Toulouse Street wharf. The invitation 
says boarding begins at nine, and we're there a little after the hour. 
There's a crowd of perhaps a hundred people waiting. We watch a Fairly 
Well-Known Writer fondle the buttocks of a Not-So-Known Writer like a 
man measuring the ripeness of cantaloupes. The Not-So-Known continues with 
her conversation as if buttock-fondling were a variation of sign language. 
Peggy, who I doubt will ever head either writer's Fan Club, is so incensed 
that I think I may have to restrain her from kicking both of them into the 
Mighty Mississippi.
     Eventually we're allowed on the boat. No one asks to see our 
invitations. The boat is a three-decker, and looks quite capable of 
handling double the amount of people there. Peg and I find chairs. And 
wait. And wait. And wait some more. About an hour and fifteen minutes 
later, the boat finally leaves the wharf. If it hadn't, we would have 
walked. The party, such as it is, is composed of large groups of people, 
all of whom know each other, and people in ones or twos, none of whom know 
each other. This party is not conducive to familiarity or introductions. 
The one/two clumps remain one/two clumps. The large groups remain in 
protective circles. The Not-So-Known-Writer, a social butterfly, has 
abandoned the buttock fondler and attempts to penetrate the larger groups. 
She's not rebuffed, but sits a little forlornly outside the circles like a 
lamb which has the wrong smell.
     The only Bantam person I recognize is Lou Aronica, who uses most of 
the trip for conversation with Pat Murphy. I do finally introduce myself to 
Aronica at a time when he is free. He thanks me for coming while looking 
over my shoulder and quickly moves on. It's painfully obvious he doesn't 
have the slightest idea who I am.
     I see Fred Pohl and his wife. They're being ignored by everyone. If I 
were God, frightening thought, Fred Pohl would be attended by choirs of 
angels and have receptive young writers at his feet at all times. I tell 
Peg I'll be back in a few minutes and go talk to Pohl. He seems almost 
embarrassingly eager to talk, and I suspect I'm the first person who has 
acknowledged his presence on the boat. Maybe it's just because he's the 
first person who's acted friendly since we've been on the boat. In any 
case, I remind Pohl of the last time I saw him, a lecture in Maine. "God," 
he grins. "That was one of the worst trips of my life. I was talked into a 
book-signing where only one person came ... in four hours." That person was 
me. I came early.
     Back with Peg. We're looking at a lighted oil refinery which seems to 
be auditioning for the role of the Mother Ship in CE3K when an animal 
instinct makes me turn around. D- is approaching. D-, a *very* well-known 
writer, is what I could evolve into if I didn't have Peggy. D- is bright, 
interesting, and I like his writing. So do many other people. D- however 
has lost all ability to conduct normal conversations. Rather, he lectures. 
I've seen D- in action before and have warned Peggy about him. He doesn't 
fail to live up to my expectations at this meeting.
     "Beautiful, isn't it?" he asks, which we choose to take as a reference 
to the river rather than to the sound of D's voice. D- then proceeds to 
give us a short lecture about the river's treatment by the Army Corps of 
Engineers. To D-'s credit, the lecture is filled with interesting facts and 
I would have loved to *talk* about them. The lecture has a clearly defined 
cusp, though, and D- wants to arrive at it without interruption. "Yes," he 
concludes. "That's all in my next book." At this time, there is what is 
called on stage a "pregnant pause."
     As I later told Peg, either of two responses would have been 
acceptable. "Gee, Mr. D-, tell us about it." or even "Gee, who are you? And 
tell us about it." Instead, we smile politely at D- and turn back to our 
river watch. D- leaves. Later, we'll pass D- on the bow. He is giving 
another couple the exact same lecture, using the exact same words. We don't 
remain long enough to find if they're a more appreciative audience. Maybe 
it doesn't matter to D-, nor if he knew, would he probably care that I will 
buy his book anyway when it's released.
     We go down the river, we go up the river. For about an hour total. 
There's a live band on the second, enclosed, deck. Everyone has their own 
tastes. To both of us it seems faintly obscene to be inside listening to a 
band when you could be outside watching a river.
     Outside of the Con parties is the perpetual party on Bourbon Street, 
which is really the Big Con. You roll back and forth on the energy waves of 
the street, tasting the sad emotions drifting out of the stripper bars, 
feeling the bright, brassy, jingle-jangle of the hunt for action, smelling 
the slight edge of danger and fear that drifts over the crowd. The music 
flares out in jagged, sharp edges of sound from the bars. You stop and 
listen for awhile. You don't go in because each place has its own version 
of the Free Lunch. In one it may be a seven buck cover per person. In 
another there's no cover, but the booze goes for six bucks a glass, two 
drink minimum per. It's the Big Con, and they smile with the shark's grin 
as you walk by.
     We often take a late-night/early morning stroll with Go-Cups as 
nightcap on Bourbon. The Street stays very mellow whenever Peg and I are 
there. Except on Sunday night when the street is packed, filled with 
remnants of the Saints game, turistas, college kids, drag queens from an 
earlier parade, red-necks, and general bad-asses. The cops are out, but 
there's way too many people to handle if things go sour. Peg gets bumped 
hard by someone, and there's a guy in front of us clenching his fists over 
and over again as his pal tries to chill him out. You can smell the 
violence, it is a coppery-blood taint.
     I've been in two street riots in my life. That was enough. Peg and I 
go down a cross-street and walk Chartres for the rest of our stroll.

     
"The Masque Ignored. Who Do That Voodoo Like You Do? Lorie Lights Out. The 
Hugo Awards: With The Anointed and the Partially Washed."

The Masque is on Saturday night. Masques are more interesting seen than 
described. Even seen, their attractiveness can quickly fade unless you have 
an interest in costuming. Mine is minimal, so I'll pass over the Masque 
with a quick word about the Masque announcer. 
     Robert Silverberg does that job and, perhaps because he is dressed in 
devil horns, is both appropriately sardonic and sartorial that evening. He 
seems to enjoy himself -- taking neither the participants, audience, or 
himself too seriously, at least up to the point when the judges, still 
without a decision after twenty minutes, seem to expect Silverberg to 
entertain the crowd indefinitely. Silverberg demurs and walks off the 
stage. It's 11:30, and we decide to leave. Awards don't seem to play an 
important role in Masques anyway (I hear later that something like 45 
awards are given out to roughly 60+ entries), or at least are given more 
for effort than status -- a sentiment which I heartily applaud. In any 
case, we don't feel deprived that we don't see the awards made.
     Sunday is our last day with Lorie. The three of us tour the Voodoo 
Museum on Dumaine Street. The museum is alternately kitschy and weird, its 
highlight being a purported working shrine composed of an (actual) human 
skull, various totems and candles, and many photographs of supplicants 
and/or their desires. An instant photograph of a unhealthy-looking pair of 
feet becomes my major memory of the shrine. Altogether, it's an interesting 
trip. While possibly nothing more than a tourist trap, it's also certainly 
more realistic than the voodoo stores on Bourbon Street which sell among 
other things a "voodoo condom." "Don't," the instructions advise, "attempt 
to stick a pin in this while wearing."
     After the museum, we stop with Lorie at the Original Old Absinthe Bar, 
not to be confused with the *other* Old Absinthe Bar two more blocks down 
the street. Both have every open space covered with business cards, playing 
cards, graffitti and unidentifiable objects. Both are terminally Funky 
Bars, bars so decadent and awful that your mother would be horrified if she 
knew you went into one. I knew I would love it, and I did. Because I love 
Peg, I knew she would love it, and she did. And Lorie, because she had 
earlier exhibited to us a pair of sunglasses which were indescribable in 
their strangeness and, when I inordinately admired them, looked at me and 
said, "I knew you would because you're the sort of person I can show 
something like this to and I *know* you're going to see the same thing I'm 
seeing," yes, because of all that, I knew she would love this place. And 
Lorie did. 
     Thus do we discover new friends.
     We had hoped to take Lorie on one of our nightly strolls of Bourbon 
Street, an event my Spiritual Sister didn't want to try by herself but 
certainly would have dug as much as me in our company, but time has 
turned against us and Peg and I say goodbye to Lorie.
     On Sunday evening the Hugo awards are held in the Grand Ballroom of 
the Marriott. Being previously advised to do so, Peg and I have 
gone to the SFWA suite and had our omnipresent badges stickered with 
little yellow circles. Thus while not Anointed we become Partially Washed, 
separated by virtue of our little yellow signs from that Great Body of 
Unwashed which makes up science fiction fandom. 
     The Great Unwashed must wait in front of the closed Ballroom doors. 
The Partially Washed wait in comparative, albeit cramped, luxury at side 
doors with Big Names, Hugo nominees and others of the Anointed. The Great 
Unwashed must charge into the Grand Ballroom like Kansas City cattle 
prodded through chutes. The Partially Washed must push and shove in similar 
fashion, but this easily can be turned into a Con story which you can later 
dine out on. For instance, I myself accidentally kneed Robert Silverberg in 
the groin and trod upon George Alec Effinger's toes. 
     The Great Unwashed must choose seats dependent on how fast they can 
reach them -- and no matter how fast not in the first 15 rows which have 
already been filled with the Anointed and Partially Washed.
     Or have they? As the room fills, a Grand Goomba of the ConComm 
majestically strides to the stage microphone and announces, "The Preferred 
Seating of the SFWA not being completely filled is now open to the general 
public." He seems surprised and hurt when this blatant broadcast of the con 
class system is greeted with boos, hisses, catcalls, and jeers. Like most 
of the Partially Washed, Peg and I try to cover our little sunshine 
stickers as we slump in our seats.
     You've seen the Oscars, right? The Emmys, the Tonys, the Clios, the 
Country Hall of Fame Awards? The Daytime Soaps, the Grammies? One award 
ceremony is pretty much like another -- not too much innovation you can 
pull off with one. Mike Resnick is the toastmaster for the Hugos. He's 
mildly funny, which is all you can expect from a toastmaster unless he's 
Robin Williams. He moves the ceremonies along rapidly, which is more 
preferred than funniness anyway. 
     Almost every work which I think deserves to win a Hugo doesn't. Almost 
every one which I think will actually win, does. I've no problems with 
that. Hugos are fan awards and reflect popular sentiment. The one surprise 
to me is WATCHMEN, which wins in the portmanteau "Other Forms" category. 
The uselessness of the category aside, I'm pleased that the comic graphic 
novel form is now provided with some minor legitimacy by science fiction 
fandom. Perhaps someday a graphic novel will be entered into the novel 
category ... as WATCHMEN should have been. Perhaps one day one will 
win ... as WATCHMEN could have in a stronger, more caring world. I'm not 
holding my breath.
     I'm less pleased with the nit-picky fact that Resnick continually 
refers to the book as *THE* WATCHMEN (think of how sf fandom would 
react if Brin's award winner was repeatedly called THE UPLIFT WARS), and 
that the Hugo is accepted by two flacks from Warner Communications who gush 
about how pleased Alan and David (as they call them) would be if they were 
only there. Reflecting on the irony of it all, I growl, "*Sure* they 
would." Superfan Tom Galloway, who is sitting a few seats away, hears me 
and laughs aloud.
     Some award winners have little taste for class systems, apparently. 
Although repeatedly asked to seat themselves in the Anointed section, Hugo 
winners appear from all sides of the Ballroom, many emerging from the 
bowels of the Great Unwashed. It's a pleasing sight.
     The Hugos move quickly, all the winners limiting themselves to 
mercifully brief speeches. The longest, most boring segment of the evening 
is an interminable First Fandom ceremony. First Fandom seems to have been 
created entirely so that its members can give each other awards.
     The evening ends. I snap nastily at someone about the relative merits 
of a nominated story, a subject of unlikely interest to anyone -- including 
ourselves one would think. But Con Shock has set in, and we're all 
beginning to suffer ...

"Total Con Shock. On The Mighty Mississippi Again. Peggy, Let's Eat! 
Dancin' In the Aisles. Relative Cons. The Curtain Comes Down."

We wake up in the morning to Total Con Shock, an ailment where you begin to 
feel queasy if the words "science fiction" are mentioned, where the idea of 
a panel makes you rush for the toilet, and where the litter of convention 
material in your room makes you wish your Mommy was there to throw the 
whole mess out. We're lucky, it's the last day of the Big Con and if we 
must go into Total Con Shock it's the best time to do it. We leave our 
badges behind in our room and will never wear them again.
     We have a river cruise planned for 1:30. On the Mighty Mississippi 
again, now during the daytime. The river is beautiful, it's surface folding 
and rippling like a large animal's skin. Like Gilligan's "Minnow," we're on 
a three-hour tour. When the ship finally arrives back at the wharf, it's 
4:30, and I hustle the protesting Peg quickly back to the Vieux Carre and 
Chartres Street.
     The line to K-Paul's is already a half-block long. Waiting in line is 
not our favorite thing to do but fortunately we're in the middle of the 
First Annual Chartres Street Festival, organized by Prudhomme himself. 
Directly in front of our line is a flat-bed on which a good blues band is 
playing. You can buy beer, there's music, good smells wafting out of 
K-Paul's, what more can you ask for?
     How many people in front of us? Hard to tell, too many music watchers 
who also look like part of the line. 25? 30? Peg says we'll never get in on 
the first seating, and if we don't, she doesn't want us to wait in line 
until a table opens up. That might takes us to 7:30, or even 8:00. Too 
long, she says. She so very much wants to eat at K-Paul's that it hurts me 
to watch her.
     A guy comes down the line separating the eaters from the watchers, 
taking down the number of people in each party. It's 5:30, and K-Paul's is 
supposed to open. But, what? What's that? It's the miniature golf cart, 
yes! Driven by Chef Paul with K standing on its back! And some taped 
Dixieland is playing on the sound system and Chef Paul's cart is being 
followed by the entire staff of K-Paul's, all waving umbrellas decorated 
with ribbons, paint and bows. And now they're all *dancing* down the middle 
of Chartres Street as the Dixieland plays. And they're twirling their 
umbrellas and the crowd is laughing and screaming and clapping along to the 
music, and Chef Paul and K lead the procession twice around the flat-bed, 
and then they all disappear down the alley next to K-Paul's. Woof. The 
blues band starts up again and we wait till 6:00. And the doors open, and 
we're in K-Paul's just like that.
     The Best Damn Restaurant in the United States (and maybe The World) 
has an unprepossessing interior. It in fact is housed in an old bar. It has 
tables and chairs which look physically lifted from a diner, and most of 
the decorations are photos and paintings of Chef Paul.
     K-Paul's uses European seating. That is, you share tables. Peg and I 
end up with a Texan couple on their anniversary dinner. They're from 
Houston, he's an engineer on a six-month contract who's converting a New 
Orleans refinery to handle Mexican heavy crude. She flies out to see him on 
weekends and holidays. He told her she could pick out any restaurant in New 
Orleans for their anniversary. She picked K-Paul's.
     I take their picture for them. He sounds us out on our feelings about 
the Man From Massachusetts, and is overjoyed to find that neither of us are 
enthralled by the Duke. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a Texan 
in the energy business is going to fear and loathe Dukakis, so I incite him 
a bit with Dukakis stories. I realize I'm going overboard when Peg starts 
kicking me under the table as I'm describing the giant sludge creature 
which crawled out of Boston Harbor and ate half of Old Ironsides.
     Lucky for us all, a K-Paul's waitress begins to deliver wonderful, 
delicious food. Food to weep over. Food which could restore your faith in 
the basic decency of man. Good food. Peg and I start with the Cajun popcorn 
-- which, by God, has *fresh* crawfish. It melts in your mouth. Cheddar 
cheese and jalapeno rolls. Blackened tuna which you dip in a butter sauce. 
Blackened prime rib with a horseradish cream sauce. Oh my.
     We think it may be the best meal we ever had. Let no one tell you 
K-Paul's has gone downhill or is overpriced. It could not get any 
better ... and you don't set a price on ecstasy.
     I finish my meal, and the waitress makes me a member of the Clean 
Plate Club by plastering two gold stars (like the ones Mrs. Simpson in the 
second grade put on my papers) on my cheeks. *Then* the front doors swing 
open and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band marches in and around the tables 
while playing the "Saints." *Then* the waitresses grab their colorful 
umbrellas and dance around the tables. *Then* they give more umbrellas to 
people *at* the tables. My God, now *I* have an umbrella and I'm dancing 
around, following the band, the waitresses, and the other assorted dancers. 
Peg's laughing so hard tears are flying out of her eyes and the Texan is 
shooting pictures of me as fast as he can wind the film ...
     It was a good night, one that Peg and I will use on the long trips and 
the quiet evenings. "Remember when ...?" The "remember whens" are the 
punctuation marks of a marriage, defining both good and bad times.
     And that was it. We walked Bourbon Street that night, of course. And 
we went back to the room. And the next day we went back home. And now here 
I am writing about it.
     "Did you have a good time?" everyone asks.
     "Yep." we say. "That we did."

                                   #END#

    Sounded wonderfully anarchic to me.  I think the only thing to do
    with an out-of-control con like that is to relax and let it all
    flow by - preferably in the bar.  It would only be fair to point
    out that not all worldcons are quite so disorganised.  At Constellation
    in Baltimore (my only US worldcon so far) I found I could set my
    watch by the programme items.
    
    As a dabbler in conrunning myself, I would be interested to know
    what you think are the alternatives to badges.  If you know of a
    cheaper and less labour-intensive way of doing the same thing, I'd
    be only too happy to use it!                
    
    
    
    
     
    
    

    RE: .7              
    
    >As a dabbler in conrunning myself, I would be interested to know
    >what you think are the alternatives to badges.  If you know of a
    >cheaper and less labour-intensive way of doing the same thing, I'd
    >be only too happy to use it!
    
    The most preferable alternative I've run across is what's used for
    the annual Maine Festival, color-coded hospital I.D. bracelets. From
    what I understand, these have been used at least once for a Worldcon
    (the one held in Phoenix?). I don't know whether they were considered
    a success or not.
    
    Please understand that I have no idea whether these *are* either
    cheaper or less labour-intensive. But from the perspective of one
    who is almost phobic about identity badges, I find the bracelets
    much more preferable.
    
    Fred                

    RE: .8
    
>    The most preferable alternative I've run across is what's used for
>    the annual Maine Festival, color-coded hospital I.D. bracelets. From
>    what I understand, these have been used at least once for a Worldcon
>    (the one held in Phoenix?). I don't know whether they were considered
>    a success or not.
    
The con was Midamericon (the 1976 convention in Kansas City), and from
those friends who attended, I was told that the hospital ID-type bracelets
were considered an intrusion, an inconvenience, or an abomination (depending
on which friend was venting his or her spleen).

For one thing, these were non-removable bracelets.  (You wore them everywhere.
Even in the shower.  Even to bed.)  A cut bracelet, as I understand things,
was no good.  (This was the year before I started going to Worldcons, so I
can't report of my own experience.  The bracelets were, however, considered
a failure.)

Badges have the advantage of being removable, and one doesn't even have to
wear one.  Just keep it in a pocket until you need to enter a function
room, take it out to show to the nice security guard, and put it back in
the pocket.  A minor inconvenience, in my opinion, if you don't like wearing
the things.

				Andrew

PS:  Excellent trip reports.  It makes mine for my apazine look terribly
unimpressive, but since none of them will see your report, they'll never know.

       I've had experience with the hospital type bracelets at the
       Reggie Sun Splash. If we'd had removeable badges they wouldn't
       have lasted long. People would walk by and literally try to rip
       them from your wrist while you waited in line to get in. Of course
       SF cons probably don't have armed police (I've finally seen how
       a car can be "bristling" with guns, not a thing to make you feel
       warm and fuzzy) patroling the grounds. Nothing like visiting a
       3rd world vacation spot to open your eyes to reality. liesl

I once had to wear one of those hospital bracelets at a three-day
    folk-festival.  By the end of the first day I thought they'd have to send
    the men in white coats to take me away if I didn't get the bloody
    thing off.  I wouldn't inflict one of them on my worst enemy, although
    most people didn't seem to mind.
    
    I think the advantages of identity badges outweigh any intrusion
    on personal liberty at cons as they are a very easy and cheap way
    of sorting out genuine con-goers from gate-crashers.  Many people
    like them because they break down the first barrier of knowing who
    you are talking to ("Don't you think Leo Brett's books are dreadful?"
    "Can't comment, I am Leo Brett.").
    
    If it's any comfort to you, having been on a con committee I can
    tell you that the average con committee makes the Mad-Hatter's Tea
    Party look like a disciplined autocracy.  Big Brother they're not.
    
    Also, you could always hide behind a badge name like "Arthur the
    Aardvaark" - just make sure you don't forget what it is!