Con Report: Anthrocon 2006

[lhexa]

"My first Eastercon was Seacon in Brighton in 1984 -- a huge and wonderful affair. I was 23, wide-eyed and delighted by the convention. Bumptious, gawky, ransacking the dealer's room for Lionel Fanthorpe books for Ghastly Beyond Belief, occasionally mistaken for Clive Barker (why?) and starting to suspect that I might have found my tribe. And now, 24 years later, I'm some strange old-timery creature, at an Eastercon of 1300 people that's the biggest since, er, Seacon in 1984, and, despite the worries that friends have expressed to me about the greying of fandom, there seem to be an awful lot of people here the age I was at my first Eastercon or younger, an amazing amount of enthusiasm, and a lot of people who are having their first convention, and who may even now be suspecting that they might have found their tribe." -- Neil Gaiman

That is a worthy story, but it is not my story. My story is below.

The people present in this story will recognize themselves in it, though I apologize to the two friends whom I have momentarily made into archetypes, and thereby only described insofar as they relate to my experiences during the convention. It's only for the story's duration, really. *grins* For those who can't stand reading it, pardon my style. Also, thank you, Orin, for inspiring me to write the report of my first convention, even though it is a bit late and I no longer remember the exact order of events.

***

Ah, this beautiful liquid of gestures, costumes and talk! I am enamored of you, furry fandom, and I will know you. I attended this convention because I had been promised the presence of both a guide and a sage. The sage was here with many of his students, who all wanted to learn the ways of empathy. The guide, who was to arrive on the second day, knew how to lead me to the sage, and also to other worthy people. But on the first day I was left to search these many camps for the face of a newly nomadic friend, from whom I begged and was granted a place to sleep.

Awaking within this strange mass that fluidly changed friends to merchants and performers, I had no reason to linger in the company of my benefactors, for after leaving the convention I would soon return to interacting with them normally. I wandered, and discovered the halls and the river, with everything flowing to and from them. The guide arrived and met me, then allowed me to follow as he tracked down the sage and introduced me to him. But the time of a sage is precious, and I could not yet demand any of it, so I joined all the others who were swept along in this group. I thought: Yes, I sense the patterns which surround me. In time, I can learn them. I am immersed in the element, but I am not yet of the element. Am I approaching that mythic emotion which all my friends name with awe? This individual stream of people at last flowed to a still pond, but my guide was turned away with the harshest of words at the door to the place where the sage rested. As I later realized, a student of the sage of empathy is still capable of cruelty.

The guide, though he had not achieved his central task, still had much to show me. Together, we wandered and eventually met an interesting person who, despite the rush of events, still retained time; leaving her, we dined together at a place far from the convention; and we wandered the nighttime streets of Pittsburgh in pursuit of further sustenance. Eventually I left the guide behind: to my shame, I abandoned him, though I could not do otherwise. The sage and I have never since met, nor have I or the guide since been able to lead one another. I returned on my own to the beautiful liquid, to be in the element, but not of the element. I happily observed everything occurring before me, and when my eyes were full I turned to the literal river and was alone; more, I repeated this pattern many times. I returned to the familiar discipline of alternation which defines the role of the outsider. I learned.

How gladly I thrive on the feeling of not belonging!

Comments

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had such a positive experience there. The style is pretty purple, though.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I enjoyed writing it. :)

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Which is, as the saying goes, Super Effective. ^__^

[baktre.livejournal.com]

I think I've been afraid of experiencing the same thing that everyone else experiences. I think I wanted my own experience to be different, to KNOW that I was experiencing something different than everyone else was, and to be able to prove to myself that it was a unique experience.

I think I now take for granted that my experience is unique, for better and for worse. Mostly for the worse, in a minor way, that I'm too standoffish or perverse to enjoy things the way other people do, and I feel a little bad for not playing along in more than a stilted way...peppered with smiles and vauge enthusiasm, but I'm pretty certain that it's obvious that I'm not THERE the way everyone else is THERE.

Odds are it's this way for everyone, though, particularly since people seem to take my attempts to play along in a good-natured way. It may well be that EVERYONE is doing this. :)

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

No such thing is obvious, and most people enjoy your company.

But I do find it interesting that you have a feeling of estrangement. Maybe having a certain regard for oneself, namely the desire to be unique, leads naturally to that estrangement... enough aspects of what you say are familiar to make me suspect that. I'll have to mull over the subject.

[spottylogic.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I've always found the role of the detached observer to be an unfair one to the observed. Except as a transitional state, which is what you're describing here. It's my usual role at pagan events, but not by choice, but because I can't get "in the moment." If it's a position that one adopts cheerfully and willingly, there's a risk that it privileges the viewer's position (the "well, I'm not REALLY a furry" attitude, just reading the convention for the articles). The risk is that position becoming a point of pride, rather than a simple subjective experience.

Are you drawing from a particular writer at all here? There's some elements in the "I will know you" that are ringing some sort of bell.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, mainly because the detached observer gives whatever is observed no chance to challenge the observations. But what I described is more a role of a friendly outsider than a detached observer... one who (as you've noticed with my behavior) happily immerses himself in a social situation for a time, but must regularly turn away from it, or else grow sick. I certainly am a furry, but in some regards an unusual one.

The outsider thing is a point of pride, albeit not a role I consciously maintain.

Are you drawing from a particular writer at all here?

Whitman, though I didn't realize it until after I finished. Say, from the page I just opened to randomly in "Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass: "Tenderly will I use you, curling grass". Which means I ought to make an effort to actually get all the way through that book. :P

But if you're reminded of anyone else, let me know.