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"I don't know why I'm on this panel"
That's considered just about the most unprofessional thing a convention panelist can say, so I'm going to have to bite my tongue and think of something else to say for a couple of the panels I'm on at Baycon.
That's Baycon: The Convention for Bay Area People Who Have to Stay at Home Instead of Going to Wiscon, Where They Would Be if Time, Money, and Patience with Air Travel were Infinite.
Or, Baycon: The Convention I'll Show Up for if They Actually Invite Me to Be on Programming.
And we're back to programming again. The preliminary schedule had me on three panels, one of which I found rather baffling. So I wrote back and diffidently suggested that, as it had seven panelists, I'd be willing to be dropped from it, and by the way, there was another panel with only three people that I'd like to be added to.
In the final schedule, they did neither. I'm still on what is still a seven-person panel, and I wasn't added to the other one. Instead, I was added to a totally different panel that I found my presence on almost as baffling as the other one.
So here's my schedule.
Friday, May 25, 2:30 PM
The Seven Wonders of the World
Tom Saidak (M); David Bratman, Paul Chafe, Deborah J. Ross, Juliette Wade
Of the historical ones, only the Egyptian Pyramids remain. What would you nominate for the modern list?
Not a question I've given any thought to before, but worth considering. There are lots of lists; I'd like to come up with some items that aren't on any of them. The first thing to do is study the list of the original Wonders (only three or four of which I could have named offhand) and see what in the modern world they remind me of. I have a few oddball ideas already ...
Saturday, May 26, 1:00 PM
Energy Policy
Tom Saidak (M); David Bratman, Vickie Brewster, Paula Butler, John Crowley, Cris Fitch, Laura Majerus
How do we formulate it? How do we communicate it? How do we get them to enact it? Not just another "what should it be" meeting, but an opportunity to write the objectives that are to be translated into law.
No, really, what am I doing on this panel? I know nothing more about this subject than the average sod does, and when I compare what ought to be done with the complete lack of political will to do it, my conclusion is about as pessimistic as is imaginable. (I have the same opinion on environmental policy.) SF fans aren't going to like to hear that, and I don't like to say it. Besides, I avoid political panels at conventions because they tend to attract libertarians. I don't know half the people on this one. Possibly my role here will be to play Mute Guy at the Far End of the Table, a common figure on overpopulated convention panels.
Saturday, May 26, 5:30 PM
Plot Point Research
Kage Baker (M); David Bratman, Howard Hendrix, G. David Nordley
Details are vital and necessitate accurate research - how to make sure your story makes physical sense, even if the science is weird. And it's not just the hard science, either. People notice when the toll is paid the wrong way on the Golden Gate Bridge or your Ringworld has an obvious design flaw that would make it slide into the sun, or your alternate history barbarians are using a flintlock that they cannot physically operate. The era or country you use as a setting has to be accurately portrayed, even if other details of your story are invented. Panelists discuss research methods, including how the internet has changed their habits.
This gets to be one of those occasions where I'm the only person on the panel who doesn't write fiction. So I guess here I'll play the librarian and talk about how to research, or play the critic and talk about authors getting it right or wrong. Time to pull out the hoary old story of Larry Niven making the Earth rotate in the wrong direction?
Sunday, May 27, 1:00 PM
Unfinished Tolkien: The Children of Hurin
David Bratman (M); Jon DeCles, Teresa Edgerton
Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on The Children of Hurin, an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of The Children of Hurin, which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and other works, have been published before. Join our panelists as they discuss this new work and Tolkein's other works.
(Four appearances of the name "Tolkien" and three of them are actually spelled right. That's better than average.) At last, this is one panel I wanted to be on. "Can you talk about the new Tolkien book?" the program person had asked me on the phone quite some time ago, and I said, "Absolutely. Any time." I've been on Tolkien panels with both these other folks before, so I know them and feel comfortable here. I expect we'll just kick back and natter. Somewhere in there I'll see if anybody in the audience would like an explanation of the relationship between this book and The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, and that's my set piece.
That's Baycon: The Convention for Bay Area People Who Have to Stay at Home Instead of Going to Wiscon, Where They Would Be if Time, Money, and Patience with Air Travel were Infinite.
Or, Baycon: The Convention I'll Show Up for if They Actually Invite Me to Be on Programming.
And we're back to programming again. The preliminary schedule had me on three panels, one of which I found rather baffling. So I wrote back and diffidently suggested that, as it had seven panelists, I'd be willing to be dropped from it, and by the way, there was another panel with only three people that I'd like to be added to.
In the final schedule, they did neither. I'm still on what is still a seven-person panel, and I wasn't added to the other one. Instead, I was added to a totally different panel that I found my presence on almost as baffling as the other one.
So here's my schedule.
Friday, May 25, 2:30 PM
The Seven Wonders of the World
Tom Saidak (M); David Bratman, Paul Chafe, Deborah J. Ross, Juliette Wade
Of the historical ones, only the Egyptian Pyramids remain. What would you nominate for the modern list?
Not a question I've given any thought to before, but worth considering. There are lots of lists; I'd like to come up with some items that aren't on any of them. The first thing to do is study the list of the original Wonders (only three or four of which I could have named offhand) and see what in the modern world they remind me of. I have a few oddball ideas already ...
Saturday, May 26, 1:00 PM
Energy Policy
Tom Saidak (M); David Bratman, Vickie Brewster, Paula Butler, John Crowley, Cris Fitch, Laura Majerus
How do we formulate it? How do we communicate it? How do we get them to enact it? Not just another "what should it be" meeting, but an opportunity to write the objectives that are to be translated into law.
No, really, what am I doing on this panel? I know nothing more about this subject than the average sod does, and when I compare what ought to be done with the complete lack of political will to do it, my conclusion is about as pessimistic as is imaginable. (I have the same opinion on environmental policy.) SF fans aren't going to like to hear that, and I don't like to say it. Besides, I avoid political panels at conventions because they tend to attract libertarians. I don't know half the people on this one. Possibly my role here will be to play Mute Guy at the Far End of the Table, a common figure on overpopulated convention panels.
Saturday, May 26, 5:30 PM
Plot Point Research
Kage Baker (M); David Bratman, Howard Hendrix, G. David Nordley
Details are vital and necessitate accurate research - how to make sure your story makes physical sense, even if the science is weird. And it's not just the hard science, either. People notice when the toll is paid the wrong way on the Golden Gate Bridge or your Ringworld has an obvious design flaw that would make it slide into the sun, or your alternate history barbarians are using a flintlock that they cannot physically operate. The era or country you use as a setting has to be accurately portrayed, even if other details of your story are invented. Panelists discuss research methods, including how the internet has changed their habits.
This gets to be one of those occasions where I'm the only person on the panel who doesn't write fiction. So I guess here I'll play the librarian and talk about how to research, or play the critic and talk about authors getting it right or wrong. Time to pull out the hoary old story of Larry Niven making the Earth rotate in the wrong direction?
Sunday, May 27, 1:00 PM
Unfinished Tolkien: The Children of Hurin
David Bratman (M); Jon DeCles, Teresa Edgerton
Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on The Children of Hurin, an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of The Children of Hurin, which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and other works, have been published before. Join our panelists as they discuss this new work and Tolkein's other works.
(Four appearances of the name "Tolkien" and three of them are actually spelled right. That's better than average.) At last, this is one panel I wanted to be on. "Can you talk about the new Tolkien book?" the program person had asked me on the phone quite some time ago, and I said, "Absolutely. Any time." I've been on Tolkien panels with both these other folks before, so I know them and feel comfortable here. I expect we'll just kick back and natter. Somewhere in there I'll see if anybody in the audience would like an explanation of the relationship between this book and The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, and that's my set piece.
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In my limited experience helping run programming (at-con program ops often lives in the Green Room, and thus is sometimes delegated to Green Room staff, especially early in the day), if someone showed up and said they didn't want to be on a panel, we said something like "Are you sure? Okay, we'll take you off it then, thanks for coming by." The "Are you sure?" part was because it's possible that some juice, coffee, or tea, and maybe a couple of aspirin or such, were what they needed: it's the difference between "I don't know why I'm on this panel" and "I have a headache."
Having you, or anyone, sit at the end of the table for an hour saying nothing accomplishes nothing I can see.
In your shoes, I'd go to program ops and say something like "I don't know why I'm listed as being on this panel, since I already told you I'm not doing it."
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The Tolkien one ought to be fun, especially with those other panelists.
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On the Energy Panel, you can adopt any one of several strategies. "The major problem with formulating energy policy is the number of people on committees'. If this gets a laugh (which it should with the right audience), "my solution: smaller committees". Then leave.
If it doesn't get a laugh (which is won't with libertarians who take panels like these entirely too seriously), either leave anyway or pretend to take copious notes.
If you want to be a contributing member of the panel but don't think you have enough expertise to add to anything the panelists say, play Devil's Advocate. If someone says something stupid and/or hazy, interrupt, "wait, that doesn't make any sense... could you be more specific?" Get other panelists to challenge each other.
And if you want to play to your strengths, talk about Energy Policy in Middle Earth. Such as it is. Do Fire Wizards increase Global Warming? What kind of greenhouse gasses are generated by Mount Doom?
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(DavE wins this topic, BTW)
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Anyway, an irrelevant bit of Tolkien humor to perhaps enjoy.
Now to look for my missing comment. It might be downstairs.
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Checking to see what else was on that site, though, led me immediately to a Wikipedia parody that was gaspingly funny and on-target.
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The Sunday Panel does sound good. Note to pda.
Energy Policy - You carpool with someone who drives a Prius when going to ConCom meetings. :)