A Hive With Good Beer

Thanks to Greg Machlin for organizing tonight’s File 770 meetup at the Saranac, two blocks from the convention center.

I took a cab over — yes, it was unnecessary — driven by a cabbie who’d been on the job for only two weeks, drove a total of about five miles around the downtown network of one-way streets trying to find the place. She made up for it by insisting on confusing me with George R.R. Martin, whose photo she’d just seen in the weekly pop culture paper (because of our white beards), and asking me questions about my writing.

When I arrived at the Saranac there were about 25 fans already contentedly drinking beer and talking up a storm. I remember a lot of the names of those I talked to, but because lots of you post under a handle I probably shouldn’t blab all those names. I’ll just say I enjoyed meeting you very much. Special thanks to Daniel Dern for my yellow button that reads: “File 770, That Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy.” (The food and beer at the Saranac is good, too!)

There were a couple other unexpected highlights.

At one point I looked through a window and saw David Hartwell, in full plaid regalia, taking a table with a couple other folks.

Then, on my way out, I passed Lou Antonelli and quickly introduced myself. Talk about a small world!

54 thoughts on “A Hive With Good Beer

  1. @Meredith: I second that motion.

    Since I’d love you and Jim to be happy, I’ll gladly cease mocking people trying gratuitous, non-sequitur, extremely silly personal swipes of the ‘being aggressive’, ‘putting people into danger’, ‘Vox Day’s water carrier’, and ‘claimed professions’ varieties, whenever they switch to some other hobby. If you think the latter might be likely with Ms. Somerville, check her very long Internet record (and no, I don’t mean involving me), and judge for yourself.

    OTOH, if you seriously think such behaviour merits respectful response from such people’s targets, it’s a troubling sign you might be American.

    While I have you on the horn, one afterthought about us Sasquan staffers’ ongoing efforts to make sure that Kary English, other nominees, and attendees generally feel welcome: The obvious tools to use for any problem situations are not, some people’s assumptions notwithstanding, physically tackling anyone, or barging into conversations in an aggressive fashion, or putting people into danger. They are intelligence, low cunning, quiet discretion, and being part of a community.

    When we do have incidents (and one did happen just now), if we staffers do our job, you’lll never hear details. Enjoy the con. Or enjoy ranting onto the Web from Australia, as the case may be.

  2. If you’re not going to share the details and you don’t intend to stir things up, it would seem more productive not to hint that “an incident did happen just now.”

  3. @Lexica:

    1. An invited performer on-stage at Guinan’s sang GoH Tom Smith’s song ‘Sad Puppies’. Whereupon…
    2. A angry person rushed the stage.

    Notice how it was handled quietly? In general, I would not be giving you details, as I think the ‘handle the bullshit quietly’ conrunner approach is absolutely the correct thing to do, but the convention is now over and outsiders have already been talking about it, so I’m adding nothing new, here.

Comments are closed.