"I'd like to add a codicil to that dick."
--Funnier without context.
Monumental ConFusion. ConFusion #50.
Friends of mine have been encouraging me to attend this Michigan convention for years. However, it fell during exams, making it seriously inconvenient while I was teaching, and the Detroit region had the popular crossover nerd event, Penguicon. Quite a few people attend both; they vibe a little differently. Penguicon was, for me, more conveniently timed. But it's 2025, I no longer teach full-time, and the penguins won't be flying this year.
The pandemic and its post hit the cons hard. Penguicon survived and survives, but it needs a year to reorganize and fundraise.
So, to Monumental ConFusion went I.
"Monumental" because it's the fiftieth of its name, or, more or less, since it has changed titles a couple of times.
No longer beholden to an employer, I left ahead of busy travel times.
I had to pick up a box of books at a friend's house in Detroit, and, alas, a work situation kept him from confirming anything the night before. He thought he'd sent a reply; tech support is like that. I know how to access his house, and he knows that. I realized, however, that breaking into an NRA member's residence an hour after arriving in a foreign country seems sketchy. No harm done, though. A few arguments with Google Maps-- because in this specific case, I'd have been better off just looking at the physical map-- and I pulled up to the hotel in Novi, Michigan early afternoon. JB from Wisconsin was hanging with friendly faces in the lobby. We checked into our room and noted the unmade beds and piles of towels. The room hadn't been cleaned yet. Busy weekend: a building filled by two groups, SF fandom and the families of teen hockey players.
(That combo could be dangerous. Years ago at a now-defunct con, a party ambassador for a now-defunct publisher, a man resembling Marvel's Thor, got drunk and absconded with beer, which he handed out at the dance. The dance had been infiltrated by female teen athletes staying at the same hotel. Potential for problems there. The coexistence at ConFusion raised no such issues, save for the usual disbelief looks by a few of the hockey guests. Someone should write a novel about disparate groups sharing con space).
The hotel gave us each a free drink to apologize for the oversight.
JB's a tech guy, an SF fan, and occasionally, a writer. He has talent. Like most of us, he needs to find time.
Panels went well-- some better than others. I'm going to rework the cryptid/folklore one for next year-- assuming I will be crossing that border then-- and the organizers have tentatively agreed to put it in a final spot, so that we can spill into the next hour if people are willing.
But back to fannish clashes. Two of the panels-- I sat officially on one, and filled in for someone on another-- addressed, to varying degrees, toxicity and challenges in fandom. The subjects covered everything from deliberate trolls to people with underdeveloped social skills, from awkward nerds to skilled and occasionally famous predators. The topic returned at John Scalzi's reading because of, you know, that situation. Scalzi reminded everyone not to put writers on a pedestal, because they're just people who have weird things happen in their heads and write them down. Talent isn't morality. Roman Polanski is, objectively, an excellent filmmaker. He also had sex with a drugged 13-year-old. Good director. Terrible human being.
So about that situation. I really like American Gods. I've read The Sandman multiple times. Back when I was running a charity auction on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society, I was thrilled to get an autographed copy of Coraline, signed by the author, on camera, so that the winner had absolute proof of the signature's authenticity. A minor bidding war ensured. But my view of Neil Gaiman has changed in light of certain depressing and credible allegations, and I doubt I'll buy anything else of his in the foreseeable future.
The issues become intensified in an event such as ConFusion, which runs both a kid's track and a teen track, the latter mostly consisting of panels pitched and run by the youth themselves. I didn't see any of these events, but I'm pleased that they happened. Teach them well and let them lead the way-- a good Creed, even if you probably now have Whitney Houston's cover stuck in your head. You're welcome. Of course, social events should allow all people to be together in appropriate ways: it's called society. But any society must create safeguards.
Two young people who met that weekend stole the show at the Saturday night Masquerade. They were not contestants, though one had dressed as Athena. While judges decided awards for the participants, the helmeted white-robed goddess and newfound friend performed an impromptu adaptation of "Warrior of the Mind."
I sat at the bar Saturday for lunch. A woman approached me with a copy of The Con. "I read it last night," she said. We talked a bit about the book. She later bought a copy of Live Nude Aliens and an anthology in which I had a story. It's gratifying to meet readers.
Marie Vibbere had a drink on the rocks and talked about one of her first convention experiences, when she was in her late teens. Her guy friends told her she'd fit right in, and anyway, there'd be a lot of young men who'd be thrilled to find a young woman in their space. I would've thought so, too, but she instead encountered a real-life Eltingville Club who quizzed her on the comics and SF they liked and found her wanting.
She writes the stuff now, you fucking idiots, and people read what she writes. She has sold her works to all of the major SF/F periodicals and it has been nominated for many coveted awards. A few of these she has won.
At a convention, one meets all manner of writers and creative folk. Some have self-published books and they sell their wares at tables and booths on the con circuit. Others have serious credentials, people like, well, Marie Vibbert. And John Scazi, one of the most successful contemporary SF writers. His books are just there. So I bought one self-published book, one novel of Vibbere's (Neon Hellcats with its fierce females and neon retrofuturistic cover), and plan to purchase Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye when it hits the stores in March. His reading from the future bestseller brought forth much mirth. He performed a minor miracle with a premise that should not have worked at all. Good writers do that.
Reading any of these will have to wait until I'm no longer behind the eightball. Two, in fact. I'm currently perusing The Complete Eightball 1-18 by Dan Clowes. I've read a lot of his work before, including the graphic novels Ghost World and Pussey!, both published in Eightball, but I missed much of his early oeuvre. I'm also reading Eightball, a collection of short fiction by Elizabeth Geoghegan, whom I only recently stumbled across. Clowes lives up to his reputation for insightful weirdness. Geoghegan writes literary fiction of the sort that has fine style and fascinating characters but may leave some readers wondering if there's a missing chapter. If she were Canadian, she'd be a fixture on CBC Radio.
My box of books sold out, the last ones going after my Sunday reading, which I shared with an up-and-coming writer, Storm Humbert.
A science-fiction convention is a different creature from a Comic-Con. The videos that I make of each differ dramatically, too. One draws more cosplayers and colourful characters who actively seek out the camera. The other features a greater number of cerebral events, which don't film well. The comic-book events produce more entertaining videos. The SF ones require greater thinking to make any kind of record worth watching. And, as I am usually involved with a greater number of panels at a science-fiction event, I take fewer shots.
My Detroit friend never did make the convention, though his wife and her twin sister did. Sunday afternoon I found my way back to their house and took them out to dinner. Con-tired and unkeen of night vision, I slept at their place and left Monday morning.
I decided to eschew the usual places we eat breakfast when I visit, and check out the IHOP ten minutes away, because I've never been to one. The chain has penetrated Canada, but barely, and I felt like I was missing out on a low-rent cultural experience, perhaps one that I should know. Of course, ten minutes away in Detroit means that the racial ratio we experienced in Novi was reversed for me. Three white people, one of whom worked there. So this is me now in JB's position. The waitress was quite friendly. She suspected that I was Canadian: "We get a lot of Canadians here."* She asked what brought me to town. Turns out she reads SF, so she's going to read "Hapax Lizardman," still free at Flashpoint Science Fiction, and decide if she wants to order one of my books.
"Be safe," she said.
Storms ranged north of me, but my drive home proved uneventful. The guy at the border asked about two questions and then waved me back onto the highway home.
*From Discord:
JB:
It's probably the way you pronounce your o's 😉 It's the only real tell I've noticed. It's a lot more subtle than the Canadian stereotypes we make in the US but there's definitely a difference
JD:
The o's. Maybe that's what it was aboot.
JB:
I definitely understand. There are regional differences within the United States for standard American English as well. There's that southern stereotype of AH for I and I didn't realize that I was doing that so the stereotypes of it always seemed exaggerated to me until I moved from Missouri to Wisconsin and other people were detecting it.
JD:
On another note, IHOP was okay, food-wise. The coffee was weak, but they delivered an entire pot of it. The crepes might not pass muster in Montreal, but they were more than adequate for chain food.