S. Worthen | Weblog

Most conventions are three days long, just short enough that it's possible to get by on a little too little sleep. As Worldcon is five days long, sleep is even more important. Thus, after a full Friday, my schedule has been somewhat lighter ever since. Saturday's highlights included a docent tour of the art show, a highly entertaining rendition of "Just a Minute", the Masquerade, and catching up with andromakie at the Chicago, Swedish, George R.R. Martin, and Austrlian parties.

"Just a Minute" is a British quiz show which half of the contestants didn't know how to play either. Nevertheless, they all gamely and competitively rose to the challenge of discussing topics such as "Brides of Dracula" and "Garden gnomes" without hesitation, repetition, or digression for one minute - while aggressively stealing parts of that minute back and forth from each other. Truthfulness was optional.

SF/F convention masquerades are not big balls where everyone wears costumes (much as that would be fun). They're costume competitions, done up on stage, with the audience watching. guyelfkin co-hosted the event before being transformed into a secret ingredient for the half-time show, "Ready, Steady, Sew: Iron Costumer", along with his lovely co-host, Sue Mason. There were strikingly few group entries, but the most spectacular was, of all things, a chaos costume entry, a vignette of a soldier being struck down, with death, DEATH, Death of Rats, death by chocolate, and a good four or five other types of death all competing for him. Tom was splashily coutured in a Knave of Hearts outfit. Best in Show was a phenomenally quilted exercise in storytelling.