Long, hot, busy weekend for us with the beach and with Pride. Because of budget cuts in NYC no parade is allowed to last longer than 5 hours now, which meant that Pride felt severely truncated. On the other hand, it meant fewer commercial floats, more efficiency, fewer politicians, religious groups marching together and less boring-ness in general.
On the other hand, it made me sad, but so many of the changes in it have made me sad over the last few years The Bear and Leather contingents are very small now; the pagans barely bother to show up, if at all, the moment of silence (even with one at 1 and one at 3) doesn't work (as in, there is not silence), and no one where we were sitting seemed to have any reaction to the two men carrying the sign about the closure of St. Vincents which is of major historical significant to the gay community as well as being a general public health concern for residents of that neighborhood.
Also, Lady Gaga has replaced Madonna as the float music of choice.
Senator Robert Byrd has died. Aside from being the longest serving member of Congress and a racist (he was a member of the Klan), I personally recall him for long, rambling and only sometimes relevant floor speeches on ancient Greek and Roman history. It was a source of CSPAN fascination for me in my early-20s. More on Byrd (and his legacy of _good_ works) in comments.
Building Black Audiences for Broadway. Sadly, this strategy didn't save the superb Passing Strange, but I'm really, really glad it's working for other shows and it's keeping Fela! on stage as I'm dying to see it and haven't had time. More audience diversity means more diversity in Broadway offerings and more work for PoC performers and writers, all of which is good for everyone.
This guide was put together to answer "OMG, I've never been to a con before!" type questions for the upcoming Infinitus 2010. Infinitus may be a Harry Potter con, but much of what's there is useful to anyone with first-time pre-con jitters, although it's always best to remember that every con has a different culture and that single fandom cons tends to have very different personalities than multifandom cons.
Many thanks for posting the guide for first time con-goers. I've never been to a con before, and just this past weekend, someone I met at a wedding this weekend was trying to interest me in going to a Dragon-Con, the con that the Buffy Between the Lines people hang out at. I've also been pondering going to one of the Doctor Who ones. I think the Chicago Tardis one might be a good start since that one's in town.
The cyber-bullying article was frightening. I used to be bullied a lot when I was in grade school and middle school. In fact, my parents had me switch grade schools in the middle of the year after someone thought it would be cute to push me down the stairs. My family had legitimate concerns that I would get hurt one day. I thank my lucky stars that there was no such thing as cell phones, Facebook, and other social networking sites when I was growing up, because that would have been one other avenue my tormentors could have used to attack me.
I think smaller cons and single-fandom cons are easier for first time con-goers. Chicago Tardis is pretty small (under 1,000 people) and if it's at all like Gallifrey One, made up of awesome, awesome friendly people. Dragon*Con is huge and hard if crowds freak you out, but if you know what you're there for (a given track, which is like a minicon within a con), it's totally okay.
I can attest to the Chicago TARDIS awesome friendliness. The hotel isn't huge but it's very accommodating. (For one thing, they have free wi-fi in the lobby. That made for a very Twitter-heavy con!) Frankly, in my experience, half the fun is hanging out in the lobby between the panels you're interested in.
ChicagoTARDIS is an excellent start. It's small enough to be comfortable, self-contained enough to not get lost in, and if you announce there that it's your first con you'll be virtually adopted by most of the people there.
All this and an excellent con for guests & panels.
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The cyber-bullying article was frightening. I used to be bullied a lot when I was in grade school and middle school. In fact, my parents had me switch grade schools in the middle of the year after someone thought it would be cute to push me down the stairs. My family had legitimate concerns that I would get hurt one day. I thank my lucky stars that there was no such thing as cell phones, Facebook, and other social networking sites when I was growing up, because that would have been one other avenue my tormentors could have used to attack me.
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All this and an excellent con for guests & panels.