Mar. 28th, 2006
I had a fun weekend attending I-CON, the SF convention in Stony Brook, NY on Long Island. I was invited to be a science track guest by ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schnuder and had a lot of fun being on panels. I drove up with my good friend, L. and roomed with him and esprix and pinoyboytoy, who I finally got to meet. We stayed at a Holiday Inn that was a 20 min drive from the con, which was held all over Stony Brook University's campus. It was an unusal set up given my con experiences and it took some getting used to. There were over 5000 attendees, mostly college age fen. I felt distinctly "older" wearing my sports jacket and presenting in a classroom, but I had fun. I met a number of the media guests - I got to spend a few minutes with George Takei, who wanted to set the record straight (so to speak) that the reason that he had come out when he did was in direct opposition to Arnold not signing the CA Marriage Act, and not because he was starring in a production of Equus. He had spent his childhood in a Japanese interment camp and equated coming out about his sexuality to coming out about that experience. He was delighted to know that queer fandom had fully embraced him before and supported him even more now that he has gone public. Kevin Sorbo did a Q&A and talked about working as a Presidential Advisor on Physical Fitness. If I had gotten up earlier, I could have worked out in the hotel gym with him - on second thought, that would have probably been way too intimidating! Marc Singer, the Beastmaster, was there and seemed delighted that anyone still remembered him. Ron Glass was there getting his first taste of SF fandom for his role is Serenity. He said that this response was way more exciting than his experience on Barney Miller. Other media guests who I saw in passing included Elvira, Richard Hatch, and Marjean Holden from Crusade. Author guests included Terry Brooks, Spider Robinson, and Peter David.
Oops, gotta go work. More later...
schnuder and had a lot of fun being on panels. I drove up with my good friend, L. and roomed with him and esprix and pinoyboytoy, who I finally got to meet. We stayed at a Holiday Inn that was a 20 min drive from the con, which was held all over Stony Brook University's campus. It was an unusal set up given my con experiences and it took some getting used to. There were over 5000 attendees, mostly college age fen. I felt distinctly "older" wearing my sports jacket and presenting in a classroom, but I had fun. I met a number of the media guests - I got to spend a few minutes with George Takei, who wanted to set the record straight (so to speak) that the reason that he had come out when he did was in direct opposition to Arnold not signing the CA Marriage Act, and not because he was starring in a production of Equus. He had spent his childhood in a Japanese interment camp and equated coming out about his sexuality to coming out about that experience. He was delighted to know that queer fandom had fully embraced him before and supported him even more now that he has gone public. Kevin Sorbo did a Q&A and talked about working as a Presidential Advisor on Physical Fitness. If I had gotten up earlier, I could have worked out in the hotel gym with him - on second thought, that would have probably been way too intimidating! Marc Singer, the Beastmaster, was there and seemed delighted that anyone still remembered him. Ron Glass was there getting his first taste of SF fandom for his role is Serenity. He said that this response was way more exciting than his experience on Barney Miller. Other media guests who I saw in passing included Elvira, Richard Hatch, and Marjean Holden from Crusade. Author guests included Terry Brooks, Spider Robinson, and Peter David. Oops, gotta go work. More later...
