Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:04:40 -0500 (EST)
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Philcon report
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

I didn't know whether I'd be able to go to Philcon until just a couple
days before the con, since I didn't know whether my vacation request
(half of Friday and all of Monday) would be approved.  (From one day to
the next, work volume varies unpredictably from none at all to far too
much.)  So I wasn't preregistered, and had to pay the at-the-door price.

>From my office in downtown DC, I walked about a mile east to
Chinatown, and paid $15 to ride a Chinatown bus.  The bus starts in
DC's Chinatown, and makes stops in a "travel plaza" outside Baltimore,
Chinatown in Philadelphia, and finally Chinatown in New York City.

I found myself in the middle of Philadelphia's Chinatown.  I knew the
con hotel was next door to Reading Market, which was a major landmark,
so I prepared to ask someone where that market was, and what bus or
train to take to get there, when I happened to notice, much to my
surprise, that the market was right in front of me.  Since a cold wind
had picked up, I entered the huge market and walked around inside it
peering out through the windows until I saw the con hotel.

I had decided to leave my heavy winter coat at home, so that I
wouldn't be encumbered with it all weekend.  I wore the same
clothes outside as inside.  It turned out to be the right choice.
(Ironically, I did bring my heavy winter coat to a summer convention
in Texas once, and that, too, turned out to be the right choice.)

It was a huge hotel, and I initially saw no sign of Philcon.  When I
was starting to wonder if perhaps there were *two* Marriotts adjacent
to the Reading Market, or perhaps even two Reading Markets, I ran into
someone I recognized, and asked them where con reg was.  It was on the
4th floor.  Most of the con was on floors 3 through 7.

I saw only about a dozen WSFAns at the con:  Alexis and Lee Gilliland,
Elspeth Kovar, Bob MacIntosh, Keith Marshall, Mike Nelson, Mike
Pederson, Evan Phillips, William Squire, Mike Taylor, and Mike Walsh.
I also saw the former WSFAns Scott Dennis, Dick Eney, Perrianne Lurie,
Erwin "Filthy Pierre" Strauss, Eva Whitley, and Beth and Mike Zipser.

There was no WSFA or Capclave table, though there were WSFA and
Capclave fliers available at the Denver in '08 table and at the
Balticon party, and a solitary unexplained dodo puppet perched
forlornly among the books at Mike Walsh's table in the dealer room.
No WSFA Journals were in evidence.  Larry Smith had copies of
_Future Washington_ for sale.

I didn't see *any* fellow PRSFS members, which was surprising since
they had held their December meeting on First Friday rather than the
usual Second Friday so as not to conflict with Philcon.

To keep hotel costs reasonable, I shared a room with six other fans
(none of them WSFAns).  I slept in the closet, which was the next best
thing to having a room of my own, being darker and quieter than most
of the floor space in the room, with less chance of being stepped on.
The only real downside to room-sharing was having to wait to use the
bathroom in the morning.

I spent most of the con just hanging out in the con suite, the dealer
room, the gaming room, and of course the various evening parties.  I
only went to one panel, the one on skepticism.  I didn't enjoy that
panel much, since it turned out it was only about skepticism of
obviously bogus ideas.  I also went to the catered meet-the-pros
evening on Friday in the art show.  I would have gone to the trivia
contest, except that I somehow managed to miss it.

On Saturday evening, word reached the con that Robert Sheckley had
died.  The next morning I saw in the paper that so had Richard Pryor
and Eugene McCarthy.  Not until I got home did I learn that so had
_Liberty_ magazine editor R.W. Bradford.

Lojbab and his wife Nora were at Philcon, still touting the Lojban
language.  I hadn't seen them for years.  They told me Athelstan had
moved to Oklahoma, along with his elderly parents, and that he had
gradually improved as they had gradually deteriorated, so now he is
taking care of them more than they are taking care of him.  He still
can't hold a job, and he is no longer involved with Lojban or with
fandom.

There were no Friday night parties listed on the party board.  I
didn't look for Saturday night parties until about 4:30 pm Saturday.
I saw that the Readercon party was listed as running from 3 to 5, so I
immediately went there only to find the door closed.  I later learned
that by "3 to 5" was meant a.m., not p.m.  So I did attend that party
after all.

I saw the rasff regulars Seth Breidbart, Dick Eney, Nancy Lebovitz,
Evelyn Leeper, Mark Leeper, Andre Lieven, Zev Sero, and Ben Yalow.
I exchanged math or physics problems with Seth, with Zev, and with
Eyal Mozes.

The only games I played were Set and Zendo, a game which involves
constructing arrangements of small colored pyramids, which are then
marked correct or incorrect by the master, and trying to figure out
the rule.  It's a good game for cons, since the rules are easy to
explain, since any number can play, and since people can drop in and
out of a round without wrecking it.  Set is a pattern-recognition
game with special cards.

On Friday night at about 3 am when the con suite closed, Zev and I
walked down to the 4th floor from the closest stairs to the con suite,
which was on the 6th floor, and were surprised to find ourselves
in the closed dealer room and art show.  The room was "guarded" by
someone in a bed, sound asleep; Zev and I were careful not to wake him
up.  On Saturday morning, I informed the heads of the dealer room and
art show of the situation.

At the end of the con, I worked on art show teardown for a couple
hours.  I also helped Nancy Lebovitz pack up.  There were waits of
nearly an hour for the large freight elevator, since the hotel staff
were monopolizing it.  They had also locked off most of the regular
elevators in the only elevator bank that went to the loading dock
area.  To that hotel, the customer ia apparently a pesky annoyance.
I'm pleased that Philcon will be in a different hotel next year.
Perhaps the hotel staff will be pleased that more and more of those
pesky annoyances are going away.

I was given a ride home by Seain Gutridge, a fan who lives in Reston.

I registered for next year's Philcon, which will be in November, in a
different hotel just a few blocks away from this year's hotel.  I also
plan to attend Balticon, Capclave, and possibly the Worldcon next year.

In response to the recent shooting by a sky marshal, and the way the
other passengers were frog-marched off the plane with their hands
on their heads, I've decided I'm definitely not going to the '07
Worldcon, and will be selling my membership.  I will definitely not
be flying again until airline passengers cease to be treated like
crooks, which doesn't seem likely to change within the next two years.