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May 12, 2006
Dale Knickerbocker Reports on ICFA27
If you download the .doc of Dale's report (click on the link above), you'll get the images he's included (a lot of fun!). For a text-only version, read on:
ICFA 27 : or:
Ever try to explain what we do here to a relative?
If a fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise...
Hello IAFA members and ICFA attendees. The following statements do not necessarily reflect the views of the IAFA, its membership, or even its author... Read at own risk (and PLEASE with a SENSE OF HUMOR)!
As IF Div-Head, I will leave the contributions of Charles Vess, M. Thomas Inge, and Kathleen Ann Goonan to other, more qualified wordsmiths, and limit my comments to IF activity, with a personal comment or two.
DAY 1: “I’m sorry Mr. Knickerbocker, but I can’t find your reservation...” [‘nuff said]
No IF sessions, but wonderful to be back and see old friends. As participants arrive at the reception desk, pulse quickens, adrenaline levels rising....
DAY2:
One of the highlights of my ICFA was being allowed to present writers: it gave me the excuse to read stuff out of my field, and the opportunity to meet more cool people. P.Andrew Miller and Mary Turzillo were as witty and inventive as I had been warned, and along with Beth Adele Long (and it’s obscene that someone as young as she is write that well!), demonstrated a mastery over the conventions of several of the genres we gather to honor each year, blending them to provide a savory textual experience. And “Santa” Rick Wilber stepped into Dr. Who’s time machine, to read one of his 1987 stories: an eerily prescient story of a government making cynical use of terrorism to maintain the docility of its populace...
However, Andrew did not explain his curious obsession with spiders, weaving and webs... nor do I understand any better the lyrics to “Mary Godzilla” (cf. her web page)......there’s always next year.....
Spotted at the Student Caucus Late Night Video:
Friday and Saturday: THE IF’s BIG DAYS, CHANCE TO SHINE :
Our first session was a good blend of old friends and new faces (despite the morbid topic: death): Aline Ferreira contrasted Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island, which presents immortality achieved through genetic engineering, and Saramago's The Discontinuities of Death, a satirical reflection on the personal, social and political consequences of the disappearance of death, which goes on strike temporarily.
Heidi Faletti presented on the indirect personification of death in Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse: “the thing itself is not to be depicted, but, instead the effect it produces”, arguing that the drama is “arguably the most essentially Symbolist in its fantastic approach to death”. Charlene Gill used a “fan systems model” in her analysis of the anti-imperial heroes of the popular French cartoon Asterix (interestingly never popular in the States—hits too close to home, perhaps?)
The panel discussion on the boundaries of the fantastic in the visual arts was a huge success (several people suggested we continue the discussion next year) due to the interesting mixture of scholarly interests and backgrounds represented (running from 18th-century prints of samurai adventures to medievalism to Hispanism, Germanism, and the Scandinavian). My thanks not only to the participants (Andrea Bell, Edward James, Irma Hirsjärvi, Robin McAllister, Sarah E. Thompson, and Robert von de Osten) but to the moderator David Dickens and the audience, whose lively participation made for an enjoyable time for all.
The first afternoon session, concerning the influence of the etchings of Jacques Callot on many artistic figures; and on E.T.A Hoffman’s "Princess Brambilla" in particular. The papers were by two veterans without whom I can’t imagine having an ICFA: David Dickens (on the former) and Edith Borchardt (on the latter). They had the foresight to plan their papers as complementary to each other, and they were as insightful as we have come to expect (but not take for granted).
I didn’t get to attend one of the 4:00 sessions as I was chairing another, but the buzz says it was my loss: Boyd Peterson presented on a bizarre work I love and you all must read if you haven’t, Villiers de l’Isle Adam’s Future Eve. Beth Aileen Dillon spoke on “Steampunk Aesthetics in Video”—I won’t pretend to know what that is—and veteran Robin McAllister spoke on The Worlds I Love by the star of our 25th ICFA, Daína Chaviano (whose work he is translating).
Saturday dawned bright and sunny...
Before our 10:30 session began, I shamed one poor soul who obviously mistakenly entered our room into staying anyway—sorry! Sharon Sieber spoke on fantastic time in Latin American authors Carlos Fuentes and Miguel Angel Asturias, and I talked about the blend of historical novel and science fiction in contemporary Spanish author Juan Miguel Aguilera’s The Folly of God. The audience was great, and discussion went about 15 minutes over—THANK YOU—you made getting up early worth it.
In our late afternoon (and surprisingly well attended—my congrats to the presenters) session, Sarah E. Thompson from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts wowed us with her analysis of fascinating 19th-century Japanese sword-and-sorcery prints. Irma Hirsjärvi followed up her participation in the “defining genre” panel with a talk about how fandom influences what is taken as fantasy and SF. K.A. Laity returned to the ICFA after an all-to-long absence with an interesting analysis of a novel about a steamy relationship between a man and his troll. Makes you want to run right out and read it, doesn’t it?
THANKS YOU ALL FOR MAKING THE 27th ICFA A MEMORABLE ONE—
AND WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!
Posted by ChrissieMains at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)