Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Christmas display in the hotel lobby

After I finished interviewing Greg Pak Saturday night, I sought out The Gryphon, who was downstairs in the gaming room, to figure out plans for dinner. Apparently, a group was going to meet at about 8.

I was really starting to get hungry, but it was only quarter after 7, so I figured I could wait. In the meantime, I chatted with the Dormouse.

When the time came, we all met in the hotel lobby.

We were waiting for one particular person who supposedly knew of a great restaurant in Chinatown. But we gave him a good wide berth, 20 minutes, and he still didn't show. So we decided to just go.

At that point, The Gryphon and I put our heads together and suggested Serendipity, which is a great fusion restaurant where you can get all kinds of Asian cuisine. It's also got a great atmosphere, and it was only a few blocks away.

So we all walked to Serendipity. As it turns out, in addition to old friends, the other Japanese animation (anime) panelists joined us, including a voice actress from New York who has worked on dubs for various anime series. She was really cool. Something about her eyes and her gestures reminded me of my friend, The Artist, so naturally, we got along right away.

We all had a great time with some great friends. The Gryphon and I both had soup and sushi, which as it turns out, are very good for the Weight Watchers program.

After dinner, we went back to the convention to try to figure out something to do. We'd been invited to two parties, so we decided to check those out. The first one was too crowded, so we decided to hang out in the Con Suite instead, which is a place where convention goers could socialize and enjoy some snacks.

The Con Suite was run by two friends of ours who also help with Otakon. You might recognize one of them as Lizzie Borden from the Halloween party.

But unlike earlier, when I had stopped by and there were no vegetables available, this time there was a vegetable tray. So I had some carrot sticks and some mint tea.

Eventually, people started to get too tired and drifted off. The Gryphon and I hung out a little longer, because we wanted to go to an after party we'd been invited to. But we were starting to fade by that point and didn't stay very long.

As the trailers had said, the movie was "science fiction from the heart." The acting was superb, the writing was great and it was a great way to start the morning.

We finished the movie with just enough time to get out the door and make it to the hotel with a little breathing room before The Gryphon's first panel. I waited in line at Starbucks and ordered us some nonfat lattes while The Gryphon copied some things at Kinko's.

I walked him upstairs to his panel, which was a gaming panel. That didn't sound terribly interesting to me, so instead, I went to a panel on religion in science fiction. This ended up being a really interesting discussion which got heated at times, talking about ways religion has intersected science fiction movies and television.

At one point, I got into an argument with Tony over the use of religious symbols in Buffy. Someone said that the creator, Joss Whedon, was using them with no religious framework. I raised my hand and pointed out that he was simply drawing on the vampire mythos.

Then Tony tried to convince me that such symbols only go as far back as Bram Stoker and that earlier vampire mythology was different. I asserted that I had done copious vampire research and that the mythology changes according to the time and place. But nonetheless, Joss Whedon was still drawing on the most common modern ideas about vampires.

After that panel, I had to make a decision. Should I go to "Bad Anime, Bad," which I knew would be a lot of fun, or should I go to a more serious discussion in the room next door, featuring a lot of great panelists, including Greg Pak. That discussion was on the ethical aspects of extending life indefinitely through artificial means.

"Bad Anime, Bad" won out. It also ran long, so I slipped out when the other panel let out to return the DVD to Greg and thank him again. I promised to get him the rest of the questions over e-mail. Hopefully, I'll have time to do that this weekend.

And then I returned to the bad anime panel. I wish I could repeat some of the funny comments, but you kind of had to be there. It was loads of fun, watching bad anime and commenting on it.

By now, we only had about an hour before we had to leave. The Gryphon and I had signed up for a belly dancing holiday celebration which my belly dancing instructor was headlining. We had to leave around 3 p.m.

The Gryphon was downstairs playing a game with one of his friends, so I tagged along with some people to the dealer's room. I ended up browsing with the voice actress. We had a lot of fun checking out jewelry, particularly. She likes intricate but delicate pieces, and those featuring butterflies, especially.

A guy who runs a costuming shop tried to convince us to buy leather corsets.

When I told her I had to leave, she surprised me by hugging me and telling me she'd had fun talking to me. I also said my good-byes to The White Rabbit, promising to see him on New Year's.

Then I went downstairs to meet The Gryphon. I grabbed a change of clothing from the car and changed in the bathroom, since I wanted to be a little dressier for the evening. After a little more socializing, The Gryphon and I said our good-byes and left for the holiday hafla.

Another fun time at Philcon.

More from Philcon 2004:

December 14, 2004 - Friendly Philcon Morning

December 16, 2004 - Your Planet Rocks!

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):