Capclave 2007, Friday October 12th
Well a 1 1/2 hour drive took about 3 hours because of traffic but getting to the new hotel (Rockville Hilton) was fairly easy. Unfortunately, the free parking garage was barricaded and we ended up parking in the hotel lot for $10/day. Then we learned we forgot the powercord to the wireless network router — okay we can deal; just use the card in the laptop, although that means only one of us can use the network at a time, right? Wrong again — it seems the software on the primary laptop is out of date and you must connect to the corporate website in order to download the new version. But, of course, without the software you can’t connect. Luckily the backup laptop is sufficiently up-to-date that we can get a connection, download the newest software, install it on both laptops (but first, you have to uninstall the older software, and hope the new one works), and then cross your fingers. Luck finally smiles on us and network connectivity is restored. Internet joy commences.
At the hotel, registration went swiftly and without a hitch, both for our hotel rooms and for the convention. Since traffic held us up we only got to sit in on the last half of the Guest of Honor Interview. This year the Guests of Honor decided they wanted to interview each other so Ellen Datlow and Jeffrey Ford sat and essentially talked, asking each other questions about life, writing, books, stories, and the universe. It was a totally entertaining event. It was funny and serious in turn as they bantered back and forth. Really, this would be worth coming to Capclave if that was all they had but they also have some great panels.
Next, up (for us) was “Is that a Maltese Falcon in your pocket or are you just happy to read me?” Moderator was Davey Beauchamp. Panelists were David J. Williams, Matt Jarpe, and Lon Prater. The tagline for the panels was: Neo-pulp: What is it; Who’s writing it; and where do you find it?
It was pretty much agreed that pulp focuses on plot and has a feel to it of excitement, optimism — and harkens back to the Shadow, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic not movie) and and that neo-pulp has a bit of noir feel to it. Early pulp was more black and white in morality but with noir it’s now lots of shades of grey. This panel turned into a real audience participation as the convention members in attendance joined enthusiastically into the discussion — I love it when this happens because it expands the boundary from panel/audience to a truly inclusive discussion of the topic by those who find the subject interesting.
Since it’s now late, we skipping the 11PM panel in order to take an early night and be bright eyed for tomorrow’s day long schedule of panels and events. Did I mention we had to go up three floors to find an actual ice machine in the ice machine room. The hotel is new and renovations didn’t actually finish in time for the convention, but it’s a great venue with all programming items on one floor and by next year it will be fully operational.