On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Once again, I will not be attending Can-Con in person this year. This is due to my continuing efforts to reduce my risk of COVID-19 reinfection and the consequences of it for me and other people.

Even if Can-Con went back from "recommended" to "required" on its masking policy, OC Transpo isn't even being allowed to bother one way or the other. As the public transit system is my main way of getting around Ottawa, and Can-Con is something I want, rather than need, to attend, it's one more thing I will forego.

I'm sorry about this.

Okay, I'm back.

Hosted by the Roddenberry people - yes, that Roddenberry family! - and they apologize up-front for the sound quality as it was recorded at Star Trek Las Vegas 2023. The panel title was inspired, of course, by Carl Sagan...

https://www.missionlogpodcast.com/the-demon-haunted-panel-live-at-stlv-2023/

I hope everyone involved got home safe from Las Vegas. Of course, I remain convinced that the Pandemic in Progress is not yet done with us. We need to do more work on multiple fronts, including resuming masking-up properly.

1. I've known James and Charlie as distant and friendly acquaintances going back a couple of decades. This worries me. Especially given the context as explained in the article.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/james-lucas-jones-and-charlie-chu-out-at-oni-press/

2. What Seanan McGuire describes here also worries me. The Pandemic, as many of you reading this blog understand too well already, is not over.

https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1542227819140263938

I understand from File 770 that Winnipeg lost to Chengdu.

I'm sorry.

In case it matters to you (and in several cases, I suspect that it does)...

https://apt613.ca/north-americas-largest-animation-festival-announces-official-selections-for-its-45th-year/

Passing this link along, obtained via the Canadian Conrunners Central server on Discord. Advice on things to do or to avoid doing in future. As a past member of a convention organizing committee, and possibly to rejoin such in future, I want to make a note to keep such things in mind.

As to the writer of said blog entry:

Stephen Graham Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians. He has been an NEA fellowship recipient, has won the Jesse Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, a Bram Stoker Award, four This is Horror Awards; and has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award. He is the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. His next book My Heart Is a Chainsaw will be available wherever books are sold in August 2021.

https://www.tor.com/2021/05/19/open-letter-to-cons-from-the-indians-no-longer-in-the-background-of-a-john-wayne-movie/

So this got announced today:

https://apt613.ca/animation-festival-confirms-2021-will-be-online/

I suppose I'm not surprised. Less disappointed than I might've been in years past mainly because attending this particular festival has been a "nice to have if I can afford it" thing for me. When I went to Algonquin Animation, being able to attend as a volunteer was a perk of being a student in the programme, and to some extent a career-building tool as well, or so I'd hoped. For others in my class, that worked out reasonably well.

I wish that I'd better kept in touch with the rest of my graduating class, though, but diverting into other lines of work in order to pay off the student loan helped steer me away from such activities. So keeping in touch with classmates became a luxury first. The only person I keep in touch with these days from those times is Gerry Paquette, who ran the programme in those early years. Gerry's in game design these days, but still working at Algonquin.

I hope to partake of some part of whatever this year's festival offers. I am unsure of why I want that, though. More on that another time, perhaps.

More on other topics later today...

A day and a half late with this entry. But it's here now. It doesn't feel all that different so far, of course.

Stuff I've been doing:

• Watching "Revolution of the Daleks" on Doctor Who.
• Reading The Art of Star Trek: Discovery.
• Buying fonts in Comicraft's annual New Year's Font Sale. This year: revised edition of Wiccan, along with Doohickey Lower and Ultimatum.
• Checking in with Canadian Conrunners Central on Discord.
• Grocery errands for the household.
• Sketchbook practice on actual paper.
• Assorted house chores.

More as it develops...

Just found out about what looks like an online convention/conference about type as artform, as business, as technology...if you can spare the time. Apparently, it's a free event series to sign up for?

https://typewknd.com/

Details here:

https://can-con.org/final-decision-on-cancon-2020/

Our intrepid organizing committee will just have to work out something on-line for the benefit of the region and the country (and have announced such intent). That might be more involving for more people, depending on how things go over the next weeks and months.