Wiscon Saturday

Farmer's Market! The con hotel is right on the state capitol square, and the market covers the whole 8-block circuit around the capitol building. One moves counterclockwise in an agency-draining shuffle, though theoretically there are fast and slow lanes allowing people to jump ahead a bit. I suspect there are repeat vendors, but there are also a few unique ones, like the Silly Yak, where I got my bread and danish because they were the only ones I saw with gluten-free options and I wanted to support that. Also purchased: cheese curds, strawberries, salad mix. I'm always frustrated by the wide variety of garden plants available at this market and my total inability to bring them home. I didn't buy a giant cow cookie for marzipan_pig either, since it would have been in crumbs after a day of air travel.

Caught the very end of "Newspapers of the Tang Dynasty" panel, about anachronisms -- when I asked later, it turned out no one had brought up the deliberate fish and chips in Snakehead. Mostly I went by to find boxofdelights, who I knew would be there, and successfully made a lunch date.

"Politics of Steampunk" panel probably deserves its own post but is unlikely to get it today. Lots of good stuff, including pre-panel Jaegermonster impressions from the audience.

I picked nearby Nick's for lunch, since my foot was grouchy. They turn out to have very good spanakopita, and my turkey sandwich was fine too. Glad to get to see another actual friend for proper talking! Not sure if I can keep up my one-per-day rate, but I like it.

Incredible panel after lunch with Laurie Toby Edison and Mari Kotani talking about cross-culture interactions between Japan and the US, especially in the context of Laurie's work Women of Japan and Mari's activity as a founding mother (though I doubt she would say so, she clearly is) of the Japanese feminist movement.

Wound up going to the fanfic 201 panel instead of reproductive health. It was entertaining but I rather regret the other. Will have to look for other people's notes.

Skipped out on several things I wanted to see because I felt overpeopled, started reading some, and fell asleep for an hour and a half. Woke up around the beginning of dinner because people were in and out of the room, which was handy considering I didn't want to sleep forever. Very sluggish and ungrounded feeling afterward, though. Went up to the capitol park and ate farmer's market goodies for dinner. Saw: a small wild rabbit at "you're a bunny!" range, little kid learning to throw a frisbee with his parents, a couple of beautiful scenes that I tried to photograph. Gradually felt better.

The Tiptree auction was fun and hilarious as usual. Highlights included Ellen Klages having to go to the bathroom and bids taken on whether she should take the mic along or NOT, Sharyn November threatening a Klages poppet with pin-poking, impressive Tiptree/Wiscon/award memorabilia, and a bidding faceoff on stage over Ooku volumes 3-5 in Japanese. It went on forever, though, as usual, so I took off for the vid party near the end.

I had meant to leave the vid party for a panel on anime/manga teamwork, but I completely lost track of time amid the awesome. Playlists and party process previously posted. I often like vids but don't know a lot of the sources people use due to not being a tv watcher, so it was helpful to get footnotes from others around me. It didn't hurt that these were selected for being really good, either. I think the highest incidence of sing-along was for the "Don't Stop Believing" (Glee version) new Trek vid, but my favorite was to "It's the End of the World As We Know It." For once I was not the only one singing the "time I had some time alone" part! And for possibly the first time ever, I was the last person in my room to go to bed.

[ETA:] Book finished: Slow Funeral

And I forgot, there was another showing of "Neutra Face" -- this time I was just a hanger-on, and it was in public, and people were totally delighted again. Yay!