Ecclecticon 99

Ecclecticon 1999 - Steve Rogerson

Now that I've got the E-Con pix up I suppose I should write a report. Trouble is I've put it off for so long that I've probably forgotten most of it. First, the order of this report is probably wrong as things are sort of merging into one.

Starting on Thursday when I got on a plane at London Heathrow with Linda and Judith. First bit of good news was we had the three seats at the front of economy with lots of leg room, but the bad news was people started using it as a throughfare until I got a bit uppity with them. Plane reached Newark on time, or I should say the sky above Newark on time. It then spent an hour doing an Ortega flying in circles waiting for permission to land. We are greeted at the airport by the friendly faces of Val, who flew over earlier, and Deborah. Later in the hotel we tucked into Deb's ham (I think it was the whole pig, it looked big enough).

Friday morning, got up really early as my bodyclock rejected NJ time. Bumped into Linda in the hotel foyer who was having similar problems. I took a trip to Manhatten and bought some videos and a comic and got back just as the con was starting. Got the blu-tak and my roll of Redemption posters and stuck them up all over the place. Good job I did this early, cos suitable sites such as the mirrors opposite the lifts filled up very quickly.

First panel of the day was called just British TV but no one turned up to give it. As I was British, I was called on to give a round up of some of the progs we've been having lately, such as Ultraviolet and The Last Train. Part way through I saw Julia and Judith walking past outside and I called them in to help me out. As the afternoon went on, I started meeting various US FCers on the list, but I can't remember the order. I know I saw Tiger fairly early on and gave her the FC T-shirts from Harriet. At one point I opened up shop at Judith's dealers table for some of the list and Carol gave me my trib copy of Dark Fantasies 6 (my first trib copy, coo).

Judith and I discovered that our panel on Tarrant was scheduled to coincide with the FC room party on the Saturday night, so we managed to get it switched to Friday night, but first there was the B7 slash panel with Brooke, Tiger and Susan Beth. It could have done with a bit more serious discussion on the merits of Og as a slash partner, but apart from that was enjoyable.

I was very restrained I thought in our Blake v Tarrant panel, but aren't I always. Followed that by a Buffy panel, but left early cos there were too many spoilers for episodes we haven't seen in the UK yet.

Friday night was a bit of a shock as I discovered American fandom doesn't gravitate to the bar. I'm sure I was the only con member the whole weekend to buy alcohol. In fact, the only other time I saw booze being consumed by the con goers was at the FC party when someone drank one of the bottles of beer I brought. Very strange.

Went to watch to filking, as I ended up doing all three nights. The highlight was a duet by Val and Pat Carter of Judith's filk My Favourite Things out of the aforementioned Dark Fantasies 6. A sample - "Beat up and rape Avon in a long graphic story, No soppy romance, but all that is gory. Beat him and hurt him till every cut stings, These are a few of my favourite things."

On Saturday morning I decided to go for a walk after breakfast. First problem, the hotel is on a freeway. However, spotted what looked like a path to the right, followed it and it turned into a pavement (sidewalk to the Americans). Followed it a bit more and it turned into a flight of stairs down into undergrowth. Nevertheless I bravely battled through and by the process of various right turns I ended up walking a narrow towpath on the freeway that got so overgrown in places I had to walk on the freeway itself - good job it wasn't that busy. Eventually got back to the hotel and decided to give up walking for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday Vickie arrived and I bumped into her in someone's room (I think Susan Beth's) at an informal early morning gathering. I was up early again, but I'd moved an hour and a half nearer to NJ time and, yes, I did get in sync just in time to fly home.

Went to see Judith and Julia's panel on computers in SF. Then I went zine buying. A friend who is really into Joxer asked me to get her an erotic Xena zine (trying saying that), so imagine my joy at spotting one called Joxerotica. I gave it to her yesterday; she was well chuffed.

Saturday evening and I went to the auction. The only thing I bought were some Hercules CCG cards. though I bid on a couple of other things. Then it was the FC party. It was cool seeing everyone together and that's were most of the photos came from. When I was looking at the photos I realised I had already forgotten who some of the people were - that's the problem of meeting so many people in such a short time.

Sunday opened with another B7 panel, this one on het. Vickie gave us all our test papers and info sheets. These were so funny and should be on a web site for others to read - are they?

Memory fading now, though there are probably loads of things I'll remember later. I might post an inserts report when more things come back to me.


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