Stumped

[tamidon]

Adira was stumped trying to describe Arisia to her mundane friends at school today. How do you describe it. Yeah, it's a sci-fi con, but from her perspective she has little to do with sci-fi when she's there. She tried to explain what she does while she's there and fell blank. How do you or your kids explain it to mundanes?

Comments

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I usually say "a science fiction convention". I just asked Liv, and she looked at me like I was insane and said "I don't." So... I don't know!

[mizarchivist]

It's like an all-ages summer camp for geeks for one weekend. How about that?

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I was going to say "A weekend summer camp in the middle of winter."

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

I was going to ramp it up to four-day slumber party (since you can run around in your PJs all day if you want to) with lots of nifty activities going on.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

::nods at all of these explanations::

Sounds good and very accurate to me. ;-)

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

Like a regular business convention, it has panels and discussion and networking as well as freebies and vendors. Unlike a biz con, it's run by volunteers and is designed to be fun as all 2,000+ people hang out and have parties and talk about (and sometimes do) SF, Fantasy, literature, art, science, not science, psychology, sex, and anything else you might imagine. There are costumes, toys, and spaces dedicated to particular things like Harry Potter or Doctor Who. There's a big dance, an art show, and a masquerade where creators of elaborate costumes are judged by experts.

I use one or all of these sentences. Usually this either shuts them up or engenders more specific questions.

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

Josh says that boys don't much discuss what they did over the weekend. Science fiction convention pretty much covers it, and since almost every american boy spends at least one year of childhood totally obsessed with Star Wars, they think they know what that means.

For a slightly more adult conversation on the subject, I would recommend "The Archpelago of Weird" essay by siderea. I enjoy this one enough to have it stored in memories.

http://siderea.livejournal.com/201206.html

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could try explaining it to me. I've only been once, but I didn't get it and haven't gone back.

I understand a lot of people like it, (and their kink is okay with me!) but I don't get the allure.

[grovegoddess.livejournal.com]

Aurora doesn't do Arisia but she does Faeriecon. I hear her mostly describing it from the costumes standpoint but she also says things like "its about living in the other realm" when they look at her weird she'll name a book or movie with fairies. I suppose Arisia could follow the same example, you know put all the characters you like together and then see what happens?