(1) WORLDCON 76 ATTENDANCE. Kevin Standlee blogged this first-cut attendance figure on Monday:
A tentative membership count (subject to clean up after the convention) of warm bodies on site for Worldcon 76 is 5,440 individual human beings who attended the convention at some time during the five days of the event. There are a bunch of other numbers I have, but I’m waiting for the post-con clean up before reporting them to the WSFS Formulation of Long List Entries (FOLLE) committee.
(2) PLANE SPEAKING. How did Cat Rambo convince TSA to let her on the plane after she lost her wallet and ID’s? She showed them this – her Walter Day trading card.
I made it through security and the ID that persuaded them was my sf writer trading card! pic.twitter.com/PTxPnaQKa8
— Cat Rambo (@Catrambo) August 20, 2018
(3) TOLKIEN MENTIONS AT W76. Kalimac reports on two Worldcon panels with Tolkien in them”:
The two best panels I attended at Worldcon 76 were both relatively sparsely attended, perhaps because they lacked famous names at the table. Instead, the panelists were young writers unfamiliar to me, representing a variety of ethnicities and gender/sexual identities. They were as articulate and interesting as any more famous names would have been, probably more so. The topics were intriguing, which is why I was there….
Details at the link.
(4) MOBIS AT CONVENTIONS. Seanan McGuire complimented Worldcon 76 on the number of mobis they arranged. She passionately argues for accepting them in convention space here.
We had a Worldcon! It was lots of fun! Lots of people came, from all over the world, and had a good time! I am super proud of San Jose for throwing an awesome, inclusive banger of a party! All these things are true.
Let's talk about something else true.
— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) August 22, 2018
(5) FIVE SEVEN FIVE. John Hertz shared his unpublished submission to the Worldcon daily newzine:
Science, fantasy
Joining, jostling, we’re here to
Commune if we can.
(6) BOBBLEHEAD. Major League baseball has Game of Thrones nights. The Texas Rangers have capitalized on the name of their second baseman Rougned Odor with a new bobblehead that portrays him in a scene from the series: “The Rangers’ new Game of Thrones bobblehead for Rougned Odor will bring back painful memories”.
Hold the door! Hold the door! Hold the door!
Pick up your very own GoT Rougned hOdor Bobblehead with special ticket purchase on 9/17-19 vs. the Rays.
????: https://t.co/HCddYpBlQY pic.twitter.com/Jc41csJiwD— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) August 17, 2018
Martin Morse Wooster adds, “The Orioles’s Game of Thrones promotion was one with pitcher Kevin Gausman riding a dragon. Mr. Gausman was unable to be present for his bobblehead, due to his employment by the Atlanta Braves…”
(7) AS OTHERS SEE THEM. At Poore House, Cormac’s “Hate Speech: Perceptions and Responses in the SCA” models the reasons for different levels of obliviousness, denial, engagement, and hate in connection with a Society of Creative Anachronism coronation where the king and queen wore swastika patterned garments.
…Interactions
Each of these three groups have connections to the others, and discussions quickly became heated. Team Trust felt attacked by Team Vigilance when the latter accused the organization of institutional racism, and they grew frustrated by Team Familiarity’s refusal to recognize the dangers of public perception. Team Familiarity felt that Team Trust’s outrage was driven by ignorance of historical design, and that Team Vigilance was fueling the controversy due to unfounded oversensitivity. And Team Vigilance saw Team Trust as complicit for turning a blind eye to the warning signs, and they hold Team Familiarity guilty of normalizing and defending the display of hate symbols.
Some in each group became so frustrated that they walked away from the discussion, and from the organization. Members of Team Trust felt disillusioned at what the Dream had become, and stopped showing up. Members of Team Familiarity retreated to their research, and looked for more historically accurate organizations with whom to spend their time. And members of Team Vigilance turned their energies to letting as many people as possible know that there were white supremacists in the SCA, including reporting us to the Southern Poverty Law Center….
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Mark Hepworth, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, rcade, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matthew Johnson.]