austin_dern (austin_dern) wrote,
austin_dern
austin_dern

If it's the last thing we ever do

The closing of the cancelled-programmer panel left a lonely hour or so before Closing Ceremonies and the official end of the convention. And somehow the convention was at its end already. But bunny_hugger had put together enough colored beads to make her figure, a replica of Pengo, penguin star of the ice-block-sliding game Pengo. I realized, well, why couldn't I make an Austin Dern? I scooped up coupons of all the various colors we had and found that actually they didn't care at this point how many of what bead colors you took. Still, I turned in some coupons before scooping out what seemed like a promising set of the many, many beads they had left. And over in the game room I did follow more or less the directions and construct a tolerable eight-bit-style rendering of a coati, walking along and with tail held upright. Considering I started out with an elementary mistake --- I started on the lower left corner, instead of the center, so I was really committed to the figure once I started out --- that didn't turn out badly. This could result in a new pastime.

We also went to buy con t-shirts, to learn they were sold out. The design, with animal faces as the Space Invaders, was awfully appealing and it was heartening they made an extra print run of them after the con, that we'll hopefully be able to get.

At Closing Ceremonies they read out the closing of the script, about how some force of elemental evil was opening cracks in the world and all that and only the eight-bit video game characters could rescue things. That's when I realized I had tucked my figure in the hotel room for safety instead of bringing it to Closing Ceremonies to be held up and waved around on cue. Well, maybe next year. Spoiler: the world did not end.

But there were ending aplenty anyway. The full con programming book had a farewell message from SonicBlu, who'd normally run events like Morphicon Tonight and the Atomic Spectacle of Doom and a lot of puppeteering events, and who wasn't there. He had moved out of state and couldn't make it to the convention. And Talmak, head of programming, announced that this might be his last time as head of programming at this con, because his life is doing that thing where it keeps you from doing the stuff you enjoy anymore. And then they started warming up to announcing a major change and I worried: is this the last year at the Holiday Inn? The code-of-conduct sheet we had to sign --- never explained --- came to mind.

And ... no. All they were doing was declaring that this was the last Morphicon.

The convention's continuing, at some challenge to the idea of group identities. It's just to be called AnthrOhio from next year.

And ... why? Well, changes in the staff, changing times, they said. Also it would avoid confusion with the Power Rangers convention also called Morphicon. But there's always staff turnover, and Power Morphicon has been a thing since 2007. It feels like there's a missing element behind the name change, and we haven't heard anything about why. I'd imagined there would at least be rumors. Instead it's just ... our favorite convention and the one we always go to is trying to distance itself from its name, for some reason. That can't be ominous.

Trivia: From the 28th of February, 1861, through the 11th of March the Confederate Congress met in mornings as the provisional Congress and in the afternoons as the permanent constitutional convention. The constitution was unanimously adopted the 11th of March. Source: The Confederate Nation, 1861 - 1865, Emory M Thomas.

Currently Reading: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2015. Editor C C Finlay.

PS: A Summer 2015 Mathematics A To Z: dual, one of those ideas that's just all over mathematics, everywhere you look.

Tags: morphicon
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