Solid men of Boston

After Readercon, I poked around the area around my hotel. Which by the way is The Most Depressing Building Ever:

Somehow a building from East Berlin in the

80s had been teleported to downtown Boston

I found some interesting shopping, most of it closed, and a movie theatre were I sat down to watch Transformers 3. Far far better than the second one, and worthy of an insane amount of popcorn. Which I don't eat anymore. But, you know, the whole Big Movie Where Things Explode thing doesn't work without some reference to popcorn.

The next day we braved the horrid heat and went out. We walked down towards the water and met some interesting people:

Wool? Really? In 30+ degrees? And they are able to look

enthusiastic at the same time. Surely that deserves some sort of medal.

Down towards the docks we found a sort of open mall thing, which looked interesting but turned out to be filled with tourist traps of the worst kind.

I took a picture of the street, and since I've learned that pics are more interesting with some people you recognize in them:

Dundee failed spectacularly in his

attempt to stealth out of the picture.

Then we laughed about him failing spectacularly, and I

decided to take another pic where I don't look so frikkin' serious.

Having abandoned the open air mall, we went to an actual mall and did some shopping. I picked up a little something for my brother's spawn and bought a Decepticons cap (will be seen on pics in later posts) for myself.

The mall had a Cheesecake Factory, and since Dundee is a fan of The Big Bang Theory he wanted to go, and having partaken of their cheesecake on several previous trips to the US, I was easy to convince. I may, in fact, have suggested it . . .

Some kind of brownie cheesecake, apple strudel cheesecake and

pineapple upside down cheesecake, surrounding the kick-ass Mojito I had.

Needless to say, we walked away full and on a major sugar-rush.

Later, after yet another movie - Super 8, which I had seen but Dundee hadn't, and it was just as awesome the second time - we went for lobster. Because you have to eat lobster when you're in Boston.

Grilled lobster. Nom nom nom.

And that was two days in Boston. On Monday morning I got into a rental car and headed north to Maine. Which will be covered in another post.

Readercon

On Saturday, Dundee, Barbecue Man and I got on a bus bound for Boston. Barbecue Man was flying home, to Texas, while Dundee and I would spend a few days in Boston.

While checking into my hotel I noticed my Swedish cell phone was gone. Most likely it fell out of my pocket on the bus or in the taxi to the hotel. D'oh. So I had to deal with that, without any luck (still gone gone without a trace), and then check in before Dundee and I went to Readercon.

Our intention was to sit in on a number of panels, look around and then hook up with a bunch of OdFellows. We missed the Urban (Fantasy) Renewal panel, which could have been interesting, and sat in on Location as Character with Djinni, a panel that turned out to be mindnumbingly boring.

After that, Dundee left for something else, which was his loss because the Cities, Real and Imaginary turned out to be really good.

The subject of the panel was:

Great stories have been set in cities both real and imagined. Does a real city require different writing techniques from an imagined one? How well do you need to know (and research) an actual city? If you're making one up, how do you apply your knowledge of real cities? When can you "cheat"? When do you have to?

The first panel member to speak (I think it was Lila Garrott) has some sort of academic background in analysing cities (I didn't catch what exactly) and opened by saying that whatever strange cities we come up, few if any will rival the strangeness to be found in the cities of this world.

She used Tokyo as an example. The city was built as a spiral, moving out from the Imperial Palace, with those closest to the Emperor and the most powerful living closest to the palace. The form came about because everyone wanted to be as close as their status allowed them to be. This is an example of organic growth of a city, something which the panel concluded is lacking in fictional cities, which are constructed rather than organic.

Personally I would love to create a fictional city and set a series of stories in it, especially if I could start from zero and have it grow along a timeline.

The panel leader, Leah Bobet, went on to say that cities in fiction don't break. There are no subway problems, unless it's important to move the plot forward, and the city doesn't feel like the ecosystem it should be. Because of this, a fictional rarely feels lived in, but comes off as a stage, a backdrop to the story being told instead of an integral part of it.

During the panel, China Miéville's city New Crobuzon was brought up over and over again as an example of a working fictional city. I agree that New Crobuzon has texture, almost as if the smog and dirt and drone of the city leaps up from the page, but as he does so may other times, Miéville takes it one step too far and crams one thing too many in there. Just like Ben & Jerry's. If only those frikkin' chocolate fish weren't there in Phish Food . . .

Back to the panel. They argued that a city of one thing, such as a City of Flowers, where everything is tied to flowers, is one neighborhood in a major metropolis like New York City, and not plausible as a concept for a whole city. Instead of looking at the city and applying Weird to the whole thing, authors should apply Weird to individual neighborhoods. This is something that Miéville does really well in Perdido Street Station (we all agreed), and that more authors should strive for.

As to real cities, it was quickly agreed that the author should spend time in any city he or she wishes to set a story in. This goes without saying, I think, but at the same time there is much to be said for Google Earth and other internet resources. Combined with an actual visit an author can get a clear image of the city.

Lots more was said, but this was all the notes I took.

During the coming year I will work on short stories but also see if it's plausible to set a novel in a fantastic version of Constantinople (Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it's Istanbul. Not Constantinople. Been a long time gone, Constantinople) in the 11th century. If I come to the conclusion that it can and should be done, I will probably go there next year.

Outside the panels, I bought too many books (as in more than none), found a ninja rubber duckie for a friend, talked for a while with John Joseph Adams who lectured for us at Odyssey a few days earlier, and sat down with a dozen or so OdFellows and talked about this and that.

Then we fled, Dundee and I, because the post-Odyssey exhaustion crashed down on us.

And I feel fine

Right now I am seated on one of two aircraft carrier-sized beds in my Boston hotel room. It is Saturday, it's after midnight, I am exhausted in both body and spirit, but I can't sleep.

Yesterday was the last day of Odyssey 2011. Six weeks, gone, over and out, game over, man, game over.

I don't even know where to begin to describe my experience. I have been writing over these past weeks about writing techniques we've been taught by Evil Overlord and our guest lecturers, about writing and laughing. But I haven't said anything more profound, have I?

This is going to sound totally pretentious, but I have changed over these six weeks. Yes, I have learned tools for a writer that I didn't even knew existed, and it has elevated my writing to whole new levels, but I have also been transformed as a person.

Writing is so personal, so close to who we are, that anything that changes that process, that makes me look at it and reevaluate my own relation to writing, will also change me. Has changed me.

I have pics to post and things to write about the last few days of Odyssey, but for now I will say this. The Odyssey Writing Workshop has been one of the best experiences of my life. I look back at these six weeks in awe. Absolute awe. Of the phenomenon that is Jeanne Cavelos, a.k.a . Evil Overlord, of the knowledge she imparts on her minions, of the fantastic people I have been surrounded by. There are no words, really.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Gone, for finding this class. Thank you, Work, that gave me the time off. Thank you, fellow OdFellows, for making these six weeks such a brilliant combination of learning, inspiration and utter madness. And thank you to my parents, who have fanned the flames of my imagination since the first time I played dressup as a little non-bearded fellow.

Alright. Enough of the sentimentality already. More tomorrow.

Touchdown

Today, summarised.

Hours, door to door, home to hotel: 17.5.
Signs leading me to the wrong place, at Munich airport: 7
Interesting German vending machines: 2

This from the men's room at Munich airport. What the hell?

Things missing from the airplane, Munich to Boston: chloroform. For the children.

Movies watched on the plane: The Adjustment Bureau (utter crap), Green Hornet (utter utter crap), Tangled (funny in places)

German flight attendants who had their make-up gun set to "whore": 3.

Percentage of state trooper moustaches on customs officers: approx 30.

Thing I forgot at home: the hoodie that goes outside my other hoodies.

Now in Boston. At hotel. Tired. Good night.