[SKRIVA] Imagicon 2 - a report
- From: Ahrvid Engholm <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <sverifandom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:29:42 +0200
(Testpostning. Har fortfarande problem med formateringen. Även om radfallet
"ser" OK ut lokalt, skall det gå igenom mailsystemet, en listserver och så där
och så tillstöter fel... Persondatorer har funnits i tre decennier, och man har
ÄNNU inte i programvarorna lyckats ordna smidig hantering av övergång mellan
flytande och fast radbredd. Urk. --AE)
Imagicon 2 - the 2009 Swecon (16-18/10)
"Oh Ghod, you placed this close to the South Pole!" was my exclamation to
Gunnar of Radio Futura fame, as I sweaty and in a mood to kill entered the
Skarpnäck culture centre quite delayed.
Skarpnäck is the end station on one of the southern stretches of the Stockholm
underground system and feels like billions of lightyears away. I went there on
my little scooter, and got lost on the way. The southern, Antarctical suburbs
have lots of turns and bends where everything looks the same. I finally found
an underground station without a ticket collector and it was only this way I
finally made it. And it rained too. Transportation problems had lots to do with
that I only went to the con one day, but that would be a more than full day.
(Except I missed Lars-Olov’s slide show. Hrumpf!)
Liz W and program jumping
Imagicon 2 - www.imagicon.se - was the designated Swecon 2009, with GoHs Graham
Joyce and Liz Williams, both writers from Britain.
The Liz Williams GoH interview was among the first things I attended. Except
for writing she runs a witch shop, www.witchcraftshop.co.uk, in her hometown,
we learned, and she has also been into academica (with an PhD in the philosophy
of science, and being a teacher of English as a foreign language). I asked a
question from the floor and learned that her book sales are very moderate and
that the book market is going down. (The intention of my question was to get a
grip of today's bookmarket. I told Liz she could answer very approximately
about her own sales figures.) Falling sales is the fate of many struggling
writers today in the shadow of Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson. It doesn't help
that one of them is a fan, and dead.
I did a lot of program jumping, eg at 1400 hours when I managed all three
ongoing items. First a little bit of "Did the right book win?", Hugo-evaluation
20 and 25 years back with among others Jukka Halme. Then a bit of "Is there a
chance for Swedish fantasy?" with eg Karolina Bjällerstedt Mickos (which we
recently had as a juror on the SKRIVA - www.skriva.bravewriting.com - story
competition, which we discussed a bit during a break). If I remember correctly
the answers to both panel questions were No. Last this program hour I listened
to old-time fan Lennart Svensson speaking on "The joys of self publishing". If
you know Swedish you can find his blog at lennart-svensson.blogspot.com (which
also goes for some other URLs splattered in this conrep).
I know everything about so called "small press", naturally (my own publisher
isn't exactly the biggest operation in Scandinavia - www.zenzat.com - but more
later). One thing discussed was that as a small-time writer and publisher you
want to concentrate on your art, not on filling in forms and beaurocracy. And
Sweden isn't exactly know as being light on beaurocracy. Extreme taxation
levels generate forms and beaurocrats, for instance.
People, no mutants or robots
I should say something about all the people present. Including GoHs I counted
to six Brits, twelve Finns, four Norwegians, one Dane
(Lise Andreasen, her first visit to Stockholm - I spoke to her about eg Danes
in space) and one Latvian (Martin Umants, who has published Orson Scott Card in
Latvian - his website is www.aranea.lv, but it seems at present to have the
shortest message possible). Total attendance was ca 175. AFAIK no mundane
newspapers or other media covered Imagicon, and part of the problem is probably
the far away location. Media attention is always good, attracting some
newcomers and giving a con some morale boost.
Johan Jönsson (who does eg www.vetsaga.se) has adapted a new hairstyle which
makes him a deadringer for the famous political columnist Johan Norberg. He
looked angry at me as I pointed this out (but I was *only* talking about the
hairstyle - nothing else!). Norway's PC Jörgensen had gotten himself a Navy
SEAL haircut, I noticed.
Talked to Tobes, the only Jersey fan, subjects like the Channel Island’s
history and peculiar status. Met Finnfan Karolina, who is also chairperson of
next year's interesting Åcon 4 (13-16/5, www.acon4.info).
Ancient shows
I talked a bit with Dave Lally about ancient TV shows, and later listened to
him in the panel about old sf/fantasy TV series. I tend to like *old* TV shows.
New shows have too many meaningless explosions and too little scripts. I
mentioned to Dave that I was glad to find episodes of the 1960's series "My
Favorite Martian", which I remember from TV when I was Very Young. I earlier
also found the German "Raumschiff Orion", but without subtitles (I hadsome use
for my school German, finally!). Dave had found it with English subtitles. Dave
Lally is a packet of pure energy, I think, and a lightspeed mouth.
Speaking of subtitles, I happened to fall into a debate with the Swedish
subtitling queen Brita Planck (B5 and other stuff) about the Basis of
Scientific Knowledge. But as it felt like a bit too heavy stuff for a day like
this, I soon retreated. Nils Segerdahl had lost some weight and Ben Roimola
hadn't yet had time to read my essay about the Nobel winning space poet Harry
Martinson. (He does the only Swedish language Finnish skiffy rag -
www.enhorningen.net .) The Academic Jerry Määttä is almost becoming a Regular
At These Events. He's author of the best study of sf (and to some extent
fandom) in Sweden in later years, aketsommar ("Rocket Summer"), PhD on the
subject, and I mentioned to him that I am at present taking the Creative
Reading/Writing Science fiction course at the Gävle College (part time,
distance, done over Internet).
SF DNA in the Next Generation
The new phenomenon in Swedish fandom, is that Young People you remember from
way back, now come to the conventions with their own Young People, already in
their teens and recruited to fandom (skiffy is probably in their DNA). Karin
Lundwall is the original example daughter of Sam J, who is seldom seen today)
but old news in this genre. Here here we also saw Susan Hende, John Sören
Pettersson and Tony Elgenstierna with kids. It's scary to think what these
young innocent people have ahead of them. John Sören also bought a copy of my
story collection Mord på månen, which is a good deal since I bribe buyers with
a copy of the 1940s Swedish sf pulp Jules Verne Magasinet that comes from my
publisher's surplus (and it's a good way to get rid of copies!). Saw space
journalist Anders Palm and chatted a bit with Wela publisher (and writer)
Cecilia Wennerström, www.welaforlag.se. She published eg the books by the
excellent writer (and fan) KG Johansson, who seem to always do well in the
SKRIVA competitions.
At the reception, people could sign a Get Well card to Harry Harrison, who
apparantly is ill. (I signed with a pun, "Harry varit med om det nå'n gång!",
which I won't explain except that "Harry" can be read as "Har du". Harry reads
Danish and might pick it up. The languages are close enough, except that Lise
choose to speak English to me, even if I swore I understand Danish hvergang.)
Revived dinosaurs!
Saw some unexpected people. Lena Jonsson was big in the local SFSF club 30
years ago, and I met her last year on the big literary conference WALTIC
(remember my reports from it?) but she now also turned up here on Swecon!
Didn't have much time to speak with her, but it was nice to see her. Totally
unexpected was Lars Sydolf! Now we're talking about Vintage Ahrvid.
In the autumn of 1976 or so, we used to have book circles in SFSF, which I
remember very fondly, and they were hosted by Lars Sydolf. A nice man, who this
way contributed much to the serious side of sf and fandom. I went to those book
circles for probably a couple of years.
I spent quite a lot of time chatting with Martin of Latvia who was able to
attend because he works for the Swedish telecom company Tele2, and could
co-arrange one of his regular business trips with Imagicon. One thing we had to
discuss was Swedish Banks and the economic crisis in Latvia. (Martin also
brought me greetings from our common friend Imants.) Except Iceland, which
seems close to sink below the Atlantic waves, no country has been harder hit by
the recession than Latvia. And one sour reason for this is Swedish Banks.
After Latvia's accession into the EU, Swedish Banks decided it was a good idea
to expand into the Baltic states. The way to "gain market share" is to lend
out money - huge amounts of it, with unsecure security. When real estate drops,
the banks suddenly sit there with very shaky credits, and the ordinary
population in Latvia sits there with huge loans they in many cases can't pay
back. It's devilish. The Latvian government has been forced to very tough
economic programs (paychecks, pensions etc have been cut ). Already mentioned
columnist Norberg - who in fact is a Trekkie - has written the book Financial
Fiasco, about all this. Martin also had some whiskey he secretly distributed
(don't tell anyone...except by now everyone on the Internet) and that maybe
helps through the crisis.
Nuclear scientists and prozines
The site had a free wireless network, but I didn't use it this time. I was too
occupied with talking, and walking between program items. I eg listened a bit
to the Time Travelling-panel with among others professor Jan Wallenius and
doctor Mikael Jolkkonen, the couple that surely any day now will build
Sverifandom's very own nuclear bomb (had it existed in the 80's WWIII would
have ensued). The panel recommended time-travel stories by eg Wells, Heinlein,
Lafferty, Anderson. From the floor I mentioned the not very well-known
time-goes-backwars story Segnälkab ("backwards", in Swedish, backwards) by
Johannes Ekstrand from 1930, a forerunner of eg Counter-Clock World (PK Dick).
Mikael said he didn't like backwards stories. They are highly illogical. I was
too far way to see if his ears assumed a pointy shape.
Then I rushed away to hear the end of the Nova SF (Swedish sf magazine,
www.replik.se/novasf/ ) panel. Old typesetters in the form of Bellis and Roger
told anecdotes about how they put in internal jokes in the text, because the
work was so boring. (I think such behaviour is an absolute no-no! Don't play
around with other's literary sweat!) I edited Nova SF for a couple of years and
there wasn't much news to me. The magazine re-appeared 1,5 decade later, now
perhaps more literary but much smaller in print-run, a few hundred copies. It
is soon to be the only Swedish prozine, since Sam J Lundwall has decided to
discontinue Jules Verne Magasinet – the last issue is due this month. JVM was
in its turn a re-appearance of the 1940's pulp, already mentioned.
Carlos and Cretins
Heard the Graham Joyce GoH interview, which was excellent (interviewer was
Johan Anglemark). He really had the gift of gab. He told how he began writing
in earnest, which involved quitting his job and moving to a hut on a Greek
island without heating or electricity. There he became very creative. One day
the Greek shepherds came rushing: "Carlos, you have telephone!" (They called
him "Carlos", because they couldn't say Graham. And the only Brit they knew was
prince Charles = Carlos.) After much ado when the shepherds tried to
communicate with London Graham got to the phone. It was a message from a
publisher: manuscript accepted! And they also asked: Who were those strange
guys on the line earlier? Graham answered: They were Cretins... (Get the pun?)
I didn't attend the Swecon 2010 voting, but Gothenburg won. I simply had to
listen to the talk about Sture Lönnerstrand by Bertil Falk. He runs the small
press Zenzat and has recently published a collection of short stories by Sture
Lönnerstrand. He was the perhaps most important person in starting Swedish
science fiction.
Store Sture
Not only did he write a series of excellent sf short stories in the 1940's
sort-of pulps (his market was Levande Livet, a competitor to JVM; a total of 65
stories appeared under the heading "Between Fantasy and Rality"), create the
first Swedish comics superhero (Dotty Virvelvind = Whirlwind), and one of the
first sf clubs (Futura, 1950). But he also won the big 1950's Bonniers
manuscript competion with Rymdhunden (Bonniers is the leading publisher, the
price was ca 3000 1950's dollar, a big sum at the time) but he was also
interested in Indian religion/philosophy (he eg translated ancient scripts),
wrote radio plays and was a interesting modernistic poet. He published several
collections of poetry, of which eg Den oupphörliga (incestrala) blodsymfonin
has been hailed by many as a forgotten classic.
He wrote poetry about space and time *before* already mentioned Harry
Martinson, and already mentioned Nova SF recently had a special issue about
Lönnerstrand. He died in 1999 (I met him several times before this, eg in
connection with previously mentioned Radio Futura, where he read poems and
stuff) but his daughter Annika was there and I chatted with her a bit about
that her father was a truly important person. Sture Lönnerstrand has perhaps
been a bit forgotten in fandom circles, because except being invited to
speeches sometimes (I heard him in SFSF arrangements) he didn't have active
contacts with the fans. (There was some bad blood created when some neofans -
compared to Sture they were neos! - made a coup d'etat in the Futura club in
the 1950s.)
Good speech, with nice slides, unfortunately with only half a dozen in the
audience. Sture Lönnerstrand is, as said, a bit forgotten - but he deserves
better, and Bertil does a great job in making his often excellent stories
available again.
Alvar and SFSF
I'm sorry I missed Anders Allander's speech about classic sf (I know him from
the Jules Verne E-list), but I had to non-attend programs sometime. I did hear
the announcement that Patrik Centerwall won this year's Alvar Award (the main
Sverifandom fan activity award) and heard at least the second half of the SFSF
and SF-Forum panel. The Stockholm club SFSF, sfsf.fandom.se, has its 50th
anniversary this year and their publication SF-Forum next year. We heard about
how SFSF gave birth to the today huge SF-Bokhandeln (SF Bookstore) chain in
Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Who could imagine that when we could see the
then board member and later chairman Stieg Larsson help building bookshelves
for the first SF Bookstore on Pontonjärgatan 45?
Saw only the end of the book auction (there were also many book tables, eg from
small press publishers - me and Bertil put our books there - and also second
hand books from the Alvar foundation) but the whole Jukka Halme show called
"Never mind the buzzaldrins".
Never mind the buzzaldrins
Two teams - kidnapped as they innocently walked into the room - competed in a
quiz. It was a bit confused since Jukka had instituted the rule that an answer
to *any* question received a point. When he for instanced asked a team "Are you
ready?" they got a point if they said Yes or No or anything. Later came more
traditional sf quiz questions and the whole thing was quite entertaining. Dave
Lally's team won, with a narrow margin (CD Skogsberg proved to be a walking sf
encyclopedia and Dave himself knows everything about films and TV). I'm sure
Jukka will have funny and interesting surprises for us when he fan-GoHs the
Stockholm Eurocon in 2011 (eurocon2011.se).
After this there was no Pressing Program. There was a couple of hours of
chatting and hanging around as people slowly shrunk (in numbers, not in size).
Magnus Rhedin saved my worthless life by buying me a plate of chips and sauce
(yummy!) and we talked a bit about politics. He works for the conservatives
("the Moderates") in the Swedish parliament, and I have become semi-active in
questions relating to the famous Swedish Pirate Party. Magnus as an old hacker
thinks the Pirate Party is interesting. There's a general election next year,
PP might have a chance to get Riksdags seats (they already have two
europarliament seats) but unfortunately the leading outsider are some bigots
called the Sweden Democrats (think Front Nationale, Forza Italia, Danish
People's Party, etc - pure populists, of the anti-immgrants type).
I hang out until almost the end. Around 0100 hours I joined a group of mainly
Finnish fans who intended to find any still open downtown bar many bars in
Stockholm has a license until 03) as I crashed the gate of e underground (very
discreetly, though), but since I was tired I went for he bed.
With Lally to the end
But it was not the end, not even the beginning of the end. Dave Lally is soon
turning 60, or 38 Martian years, and invited fans to his Stockholm hotel Sunday
evening. I had hoped for a real room party, but room size and too many people
(about 12) placed us in the hotel bar. Both GoHs and for instance Jersey Tobes
and Lise Andreasen (here's the Danish space program for you:
www.copenhagensuborbitals.com ) were there. Dave talked about his interest in
weird borders, like for instance the Dutch-Belgian town of Baarle (see more on
eg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog) and I talked with Liz W about
witchcraft, Stonehenge and such things.
And if you have followed me this far in my tale about Imagicon 2, outlined in
much more detail than anyone can bear, I'm sure that you are relieved that this
report is now finally over!
Eh, not just yet...
Now it is.
Over.
And out.
--Ahrvid
But let's not forget con pics! More will be come, given time, but here
are those by Hans Persson:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanspersson/sets/72157622602913878/
By Tero Ykspetäjä
http://partialrecall.blogspot.com/2009/10/swecon-is-go.html
By Nhora:
http://www.myskoteket.se/bocker/fantasy/imagicon-2
By Jim Persson-Melin:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/imagicon2/
And by various:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Imagicon2&s=rec
--
ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx / Gå med i SKRIVA - för författande, sf, fantasy, kultur
(skriva-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, subj: subscribe) YXSKAFTBUD, GE VÅR WCZONMÖ
IQ-HJÄLP! (DN NoN 00.02.07)
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