Conference Wrap-up

Back from the Big Easy, I already miss the whirlwind of parties, lectures, and late night craziness that was this year's Harry Potter Con: Phoenix Rising 2007. My fellow green lanyard wearing, rowdy bunch of outgoing ladies known as Zodico, came in third place in the House Cup competition. Rats! We'll get those Lumiens next year! But despite such a devastating loss, I had the best time! And did I mention I survived the Dueling? Even managed to get my target on the last day, quite by accident, with only a finger available to manage the right swish for the fenix spell. I'd make a very bad wizard, leaving my wand upstairs in my room all the time.

Patricia loved her felted wand cozy. It was shown off all weekend and got lots of admiration. Not bad for my first attempt at felting. It would have been a less than stellar attempt, I might add, if John hadn't made use of the industrial dryers at work. At 200-some degrees, that wool didn't have a choice about felting. Can't wait to get a picture of it from Patricia, so I can show it off to y'all.

It's got to be some law of the universe that, no matter what the circumstance, knitters will naturally gravitate to one another. Or, as Patricia pointed out, sit and knit and other knitters will start popping out of the woodwork. And so they did. I didn't get to schmooze with my fellow fiber lovers as much as I wanted, but I did manage to fit a visit to a local yarn shop in my plans. Patricia was amazed that I left the store without buying anything. Just goes to prove, I can practice restraint once in awhile. I just don't usually choose to

As soon as I get the rest of the pictures from the Masquerade Ball, I'll be posting a few here. Patricia went as a Cornish Pixie and I was a Woodland Fairy. That was the idea, anyway. Thanks to family bungling, I was wingless. Someone sent my (expensive) beautiful green moth wings back to the company I'd bought them from. After many tears, panic, and a few angry words, I made do without and the result was still fabulous. Maybe even more so. I twisted some silk ivy leaves and craft flowers into a hair wreath wound with pale green ribbon. The leftovers adorned the bodice of my forest green fairy dress. Thanks to a borrowed marker and an hour of artistry from Patricia, I had a swarm of ivy growing up my legs. Would have inked my arms as well, but we ran out of time. Still, it looked way cool. The both of us looked way cool. People were taking pictures of us the whole night and we got lots of complements. It was very morale boosting--can't wait to show the pictures we took, of us and all the amazing costumes surrounding us. It was three hours of dancing (yup, you heard it right, I was out there dancing) bolstered by only a single glass of rum and coke. Lots and lots of fun and totally worth all the anticipation.

Not everything was fun and games... ok, maybe it was. But I learned a lot more than I thought I would, from the excellent presentations and lectures from fans and academics. Some of the best (IMHO) included:

• Harry on the Couch: A Psychologist’s Reading of Harry Potter (Erikson’s theory of psycho-social development, augmented by Freud's id, ego, and superego--as applied to most of the major heros and villains in Rowlings' series. Very illuminating)
• The Hero’s Journey (I took notes til my hands hurt. Joseph Campbell and a list of other literary-mythic theorists. My writing will definitely benefit from this lecture!)
• Of Horcruxes, Arithmancy, Etymology and Egyptology: A Literary Detective’s Guide to Patterns and Paradigms in Harry Potter (by far the most impressively researched and put together lecture. I was deeply impressed and that's hard to do. Wish I'd come up with half of what Hilary did.)
• Midwifing the Muse (a panel on beta readers--attracting, keeping, and how to become one. There's now an official certification for betas, how bizarre is that? Fascinating discussion of authorship and when editing becomes collaboration)
• Slash: What Is It and Why Do You Write It? (Patricia went to this and reported back. I could devote a whole page to discussing the bizarre contradictions of this incredibly popular genre, and this answered a lot of my questions and theories)
• In Search of the Fanged Plot Bunny: Generating Ideas for Fan and Original Fiction (writers are all too familiar with plot bunnies. Jennifer Racek was nice enough to talk shop with me after and introduced me to her fav writing software.)
• Rising Above Situational Ethics: Raising Phoenixes in a World of Crows (Piaget and Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Gina Burkart teaches Eng and Creative Writing at the U of Iowa where she's also a doctoral student. We exchanged emails and I look forward to reading her thesis-in-progress. We think alike--scary.)
• Witch Weakly (roundtable discussion on feminism and the role of women in Rowlings' novels. Kinda scary to see how 3 different generations interpret the feminism movement both in the US and the UK.)
• “Yes, but the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.” (how bad are the bad guys, how good the good guys, and--continuing a discussion raised in Gina Burkart's lecture--where should the line be drawn in "the end justifies the means")

All good things come to an end, and now I'm back home, getting back to real life. And back to knitting again. Still working on my twisted stitch version of a wavy fan patterned shawl I'm thinking of calling Waves On A Beach. It's my first major project, that is, the first project to use a ton of yarn--6 balls. When finished, it will be just about as long as I am tall (60") and two feet wide. The yarn is a pettably soft Lavender Blue and I've gotten a lot of complements on the shawl so far, even though it's only a third completed. It's certainly a great, though unintended, conversation piece that attracts a lot of strangers--many of whom are knitters themselves. Pictures in the next day or so.