Twilight of the Cons

Posted on By admin
Image: https://images.app.goo.gl/RsQLEJ6FnBGFoPK49

Twilight of the Cons

By Ray Tabler

Anyone else out there ticked off about Pluto’s demotion from planet status? (Bear with me. This is relevant to the topic.) It happened almost 25 years ago, but the injustice echoes still. The way I heard it, a vote was taken on the last day of an astronomer’s convention, after most of the attendees had already left for the airport. A shadowy cabal of Pluto-phobic stargazers engineered things so that they would be assured of a favorable outcome. I got this from a no-foolin’, card-carrying astronomer I met on the internet (got the snazzy telescope and everything). Who wishes to remain anonymous, fearing retribution from Big Astronomy. Conspiracy theory? I think not.

Weird stuff happens on the last day of conferences and conventions, parliamentarian parlor tricks being only one example. Face it, half of the attendees are long gone, at the airport or try to stay ahead of rush hour traffic on the long drive home. Half of the ones still around are ordering a 2nd beer in the bar. Honestly, why is anybody still hanging around? The ones that are still there probably wish they were on the road, the road home or the road to inebriation.

This rule of thumb applies to speakers and panelists as well as audience. Many of the people at the front of the room are no shows when the end is nigh. And, frankly, the others in “expert” row are envious of the delinquents’ effrontery.

Well, the people who stick around do so for a reason. Typically, they’re invested in the topic of tail end Charlie panels. Often, they’re a bit too invested. At one last-day session I somehow found myself on, there was more expertise in the audience than on the panel. The only panelist who had any clue failed to show up. I suppose we were intended to be comic relief between the absent panelist’s wise guidance and pronouncements. More likely, we were just foolish enough to indicate we’d hang around on the last day, qualifications be damned. After a few minutes, we backed off and let the most fervent of the audience hash things out until the closing bell. It was savage, and entertaining for us at least. I suspect that the session which decided poor, little Pluto’s fate gave off a similar vibe.

Besides drama, there are inducements to lingering to the bitter end of a Con. Vendors in attendance start to dread packing up all of their remaining wares, and hauling them home. They typically will dramatically reduce prices just to be shed of particularly weighty and/or slow-moving items. They might even start to give away stuff, just to be rid of it. This isn’t logical, but we humans have only a casual relationship with logic at best. Truth be told, people and logic really aren’t even going steady. Makes us feel all superior and righteous when it flows our way. We hates it, my precious, if reasoning defies our desires or interests. I confess to this failure myself, upon occasion.

And then there is the lamentable, steady decline in personal hygiene and concern for proper attire as a convention progresses. But the less said on that subject the better. The likely cause is sleep deprivation. Which is also a convenient excuse for not showing up for early morning panels. Tricksy, tricksy hotel alarms clockses!

Let me just close by saying: Damn-it Janet, Pluto’s still a planet!

END.

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/

And visit my website, https://raytabler.com/, for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Uncategorized