Potlatch 13: Progress Report 4-----------------------------------------------------------------
POTLATCH 13 -- PROGRESS REPORT 4 -- 10 February 2004
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Where writers and readers of science fiction and fantasy
meet on common ground.
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February 27, 28, 29, 2004 + Seattle, WA
http://www.potlatch-sf.org
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Important Note
Membership Info
Hotel News
Reserve Your Banquet Ticket
Tiptree Bake Sale
WiFi @ Potlatch.con
Our Book of Honor
Nippon in 2007
The Gamboling Puppy (Thursday night pre-party)
Our Lovely Consuite
The Dealers' Room
Friday Hours
Clarion West Scholarship Auction
Program Descriptions
IMPORTANT NOTE
Whew, this PR is a biggie. You'll want to read every word,
though! There's a lot of good information herein.
HOW TO JOIN
There are several easy options to join Potlatch 13!
You can join using PayPal on our website. That URL again:
http://www.potlatch-sf.org
Or, you can use our mail in form at:
http://www.potlatch-sf.org/mailingmembership.html:
Rates currently are:
$40 until 14 February 2004 postmark or via PayPal
-- mail in memberships close at that point
$22 each for Banquet Tickets
$50 via PayPal until 20 February
-- after that, memberships are at the door only
$20 for people aged 11-17 (under 11 free when accompanied
by an adult).
$10 supporting (convert to attending by paying difference
at time of conversion.)
For our current membership list, please check our website:
http://www.potlatch-sf.org/members.html
HOTEL NEWS
Our intrepid hotel liaison was recently informed that the Best
Western Executive Inn has two other groups in the hotel on
Friday night. They're using little, if any function space,
and will be out by Saturday.
What this means, though, is that there aren't many rooms left
for Friday night, and those are going fast.
If you haven't yet made reservations, you can still get rooms
at our rate.
Here's the hotel contact information:
BEST WESTERN EXECUTIVE INN
200 Taylor Avenue North (Seattle)
Phone: 206-448-9444
Fax: 206-441-7929
Toll Free Reservations: 800-351-9444
Please call or fax in your reservation directly to the hotel
numbers listed above.
Potlatch rates are: $79.00/single or double occupancy;
$99.00/triple or quad plus tax.
And to get to the hotel, please go to our website:
http://www.potlatch-sf.org/directions.html
RESERVE YOUR BANQUET TICKETS
We still have plenty of room to attend our lovely banquet.
The menu includes Cheese or Spanish Omelets, Apple Crepes,
Bacon or Sausage, Sesame Chicken Teriyaki, Green Salad,
Spinach Salad, Pasta Salad, Cheese and Fruit Board, Bread and
Pastry Board, Rice Pilaf, Vegetables, Home Fries, Assorted
Desserts, Coffee and Tea.
The after banquet entertainment will feature a presentation
on the Science Fiction Experience Museum, set to open later
in 2004. And then, of course, is the auction.
You can mail in your banquet reservation until 14 February,
and you can use PayPal until 20 February. After that, you
must request a ticket by emailing Suzanne Tompkins at suzlet
[at] aol.com, and telling her how many you want. You can then
buy the tickets when you register.
TIPTREE BAKE SALE
Potlatch time is very near now and that means we need to be
thinking about the Tiptree Bake Sale too. The proceeds go to
support the Tiptree Award, given for fiction which explores
and expands our understanding of gender. If you want to know
more about it check out this URL http://www.tiptree.org/
The things that sell best at bake sales tend, for some
reason, to be chocolate. Cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and
muffins are all easily transportable and sell very well. Of
course, if you want to bring a whole pie or cake, by all
means! I'll have cutting and serving implements as well as
baggies, plates, napkins and the like.
So here's what you need to do
1. Email me marykay@kare.ws to tell me what you're going to
bring
2. Bake your goodies and bring them with you
3. Also, bring a list of all ingredients in your goodies
(very important to people with food sensitivities)
4. Get them to me at least 1/2 hour before the sale (which
is Saturday afternoon, 3 p.m., in the consuite.)
Then simply bask in the radiations of gratitude from me, the
rest of the concom, the Tiptree committee, and, not least,
the Potlatch attendees who are eating those yummy baked
goods!
-- Mary Kay Kare
WiFi @ POTLATCH.CON
Want to stay connected while you are at Potlatch?
The convention hotel has Wireless Internet (WiFi) service
through a local ISP. Normally this costs $10 a day per
person, so it would come to $30 for service every day at the
convention. However we have made a deal with the Service
Provider to provide unmetered service during Potlatch for a
flat fee of $250. If you would like to use the service at the
convention we will have a signup sheet and a donation jar in
the con suite. The suggested donation is $15 (or half the
regular cost of WiFi at the hotel). If you are interested in
participating please email Jack Bell (jackb [at] sff.net) and
let him know. If enough people commit to using the service at
the convention we will decrease the suggested donation even
more.
So, what do you need other than a donation? Just a laptop and
a Wireless Networking (802.11B) card. If you don't have the
card, let us know and we will see if we can round one up for
you, but you can probably find one for less than $50 at any
major computer store.
-- Jack William Bell
BOOK OF HONOR: The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner
First published in 1975, The Shockwave Rider has influenced
many a computer geek and sf writer. Unfortunately, the book
is out of print. Fortunately, you can find used copies online
at powells.com, half.com, and abebooks.com. Your local used
bookstores might have it, but either call ahead or expect to
visit a few. Read it or reread it. Get ready.
NIPPON IN 2007
We'd like to thank the Nippon in 2007 worldcon bid and its
American agent, Peggy Rae Sapienza, for their generous
donation to Potlatch 13. If the bid wins, Nippon in 2007 will
be Japan's first worldcon, an honor that's long overdue.
For more information, please go to http://www.Nippon2007.org.
THE GAMBOLING PUPPY (Thursday night pre-party)
If you're an early arrival or a Seattle resident, please join
us Thursday night (26 February) for our packet stuffing
party, starting about 7:30 P.M. at the home of Marci
Malinowycz. Call 206-763-2623 for directions. Or, email Kate
Schaefer at kate [at] oz.net to arrange transportation from
the hotel.
OUR LOVELY CONSUITE
Our consuite this year is actually not in a suite! It's a
function room very near our main programming area. We'll have
food and drink, games, craft stuff and comfy areas for
relaxing and chatting. Special food events at various times
because the hotel likes it like that -- the fruit kabobs
Saturday night are my favorite! We'll also have tempura
prawns on Friday night and seafood-stuffed mushrooms Saturday
afternoon.
-- Anita Rowland
THE DEALERS' ROOM
Once again, Potlatch brings you the dealers' room with the
highest per-attendee ratio of actual book dealers of any
convention, of any size, of any where in this or any known
universe! Among the dealers attending are:
Aqueduct Books, Book Universe, Bryan Barrett, David and Linda
K Bray, Lady Jayne Books, Talebones, Tom Whitmore, Violet
Books, Wrigley-Cross Books, WYSIWYG Books.
FRIDAY HOURS
We're still arranging our final schedule, but our Friday
hours will be: Consuite opens at 3. If you get there sooner,
you can help set up. Registration opens at 3, also. The
dealers' room opens at 5 or as soon as they finish setting
up. Friday night, in the consuite, join us for tempura prawns
and Terrascaping Jane's Head, our first programming item.
CLARION WEST SCHOLARSHIP AUCTION
This year's auction features many terrific books, including
autographed books by William Gibson, Samuel R. Delany, Donna
Barr, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. LeGuin,
and Vonda N. McIntyre. You could buy a shoe shopping
expedition with Eileen Gunn, a fabulous beaded scarf or book
opener made by Vonda McIntyre, an amazing watercolor painting
by Kathleen Goonan, or a cool one-of-a-kind garment by Kate
Schaefer.
As in the past, the auction will have two parts: silent and
noisy. The silent auction will take place during programming
on Saturday. The majority of cataloged items are slated for
this silent auction. Items with multiple bids, intrinsic
interest, or great amusement value will go to the voice
auction on Sunday, after the banquet.
Cash, checks, and credit card will all be accepted. All
proceeds will go to the Clarion West Scholarship Fund to help
aspiring SF writers attend the Clarion West Writers Workshop.
The Potlatch auction has been the largest single source of
scholarship funds for Clarion West students since the first
Potlatch in 1992. More information on Clarion West is
available at the Web site, www.clarionwest.org.
-- Kate Schaefer
PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
TERRASCAPING JANE'S HEAD
Some books cut deep crevasses and throw up new mountain
ranges in the plains of your inner landscape. A single new
idea, an affecting narrative, or a new way of organizing
information you already have can refocus your vision and make
it fresh and surprising, like the first time you put on
glasses and see the leaves on the trees. What books
revolutionized the way you think, feel, or view the world?
Come with some favorites to share fiction or non-fiction, SF
or not, -- and we'll compile a booklist that will rock the
planet.
AT THE PRECIPICE: ASSEMBLING HUMAN SPACE
John Brunner's close-knit town of Precipice is among the most
appealing and livable visions of created community in science
fiction. But the wherewithal to design human spaces, self-
selected physical and virtual communities, is available now.
Does it work? How does the reality of deliberated social
space compare to SF's vision? Are we really headed for the
franchise burbclaves of Snow Crash, and privatization of
public space as in Virtual Light? What makes real community
work, and what makes fictional community believable?
DECEPTION VERSUS TRANSPARENCY SMACKDOWN
Shockwave Rider can be read as a face-off between two
incompatible theories of information management. Most of the
novel explores a systematically deceptive regime. Then, at
the climax, a computer network infection throws open the
coffers of truth to anyone interested enough to look. Whether
the truth precipitates revolution is left as an exercise to
the reader. Contrast this to novels such as Vinge's Deepness
in the Sky, where effective deception is necessary to both
sides, and transparency is not an option. Or compare it to
the conflicts between deception and transparency in national
and global politics. SF fans may believe that transparency
should, and would, win, but how realistic is that hope? Will
the truth make us free?
SHOCK TREATMENT
Shockwave Rider, building on Alvin Toffler's Future Shock,
envisions an America where the speed of technological and
social change is so rapid that it has spawned a weird
menagerie of artificial coping mechanisms and corresponding
psychological dysfunctions in response. The loss of
permanence and connection is papered over with dizzyingly
ever faster changes in social scene, household décor, spouse,
job, or part of the country as the population perpetually
uproots itself. Meanwhile bizarre and humiliating reality
television, and betting pools based on future prediction,
provide extra distraction. This is the novel that first
posited a computer virus (or worm) and was grandfather to
cyberpunk and its uberhacker anti-heros, yet it still
inspires a frisson of recognition today. While it isn't the
business of SF to predict the future, here Brunner does so
uncannily well. What is it about this book that has kept it
fresh, over a quarter century later?
LIFE AFTER THE SINGULARITY
What happens after catastrophic change? How are societies
reformed by the Copernican revolutions? The invention of the
printing press, high speed xerography, universal
electrification, the Internet, and similar big ideas change
our realities and our perceptions of them. How do people and
societies and the fabric of life itself adjust to change so
great it was literally unpredictable before it happened?
EILEEN GUNN GOES OFF
Eileen Gunn and John D. Berry play a riff on what's on their
minds right now. It might be about the place of online
magazines and "flash fiction" and good design in the future
of reading. It might involve throwing ducks around. It's sure
to be entertaining.
SF TRIVIA FOLLIES
The exciting trivia game where everyone competes! Beware of
low-flying chocolate. You mustn't miss this!
DANCE YER SOX OFF
Returning Turbo-charged Party Animal DJ, Andy Hooper, spins
the favorites as we bop 'til we drop. It doesn't get any more
fong wa than this.
EXPERIENCE SCIENCE FICTION, IN SEATTLE AND ON MARS
Experience SF, the science fiction museum, opens in June of
this year at Seattle Center. This multimedia presentation
will provide a first glimpse at the Exploring Mars exhibit
that premieres in June, author interviews about the project,
and the latest updates on progress and plans for the museum.
-- Ulrika O'Brien
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