Cultural Cuisinart

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but I had a few notes and pictures to share from DragonCon 2009 here in Atlanta.

My cousin recently expressed surprise that I'd be "one of those kind of people" - you know, a D&D nerd, the kind of person who'd dress up and go to a convention where other equally nerdy people were sporting their own bizarre and elaborate costumes. But the truth is: that's just who I am, and I'm actually pretty okay with that.

Here's what I love about nerd and geek culture: it's a break from the normal Vogue and Hollywood notions of beauty and coolness. According to mainstream culture, you aren't allowed to be larger than a size 4 and you can't express interest in things like dragons and sci-fi and fairies in mixed company. But at places like DragonCon you can dress up in a hoop skirt, strap on a leather tool belt and parade around in your finest steampunk outfit, and by god... you are hot. You are beautiful. You can make jokes that draw blank stares at home, and you'll have people shouting back the proper response and/or cracking up at the pop culture reference you just dropped.

I got to the convention this morning at 9am, stood in line for registration for almost 2 hours (unacceptable, and a blight on an other wise excellent day) and finally got to start hitting the panels and show floors. This particular convention is huge - it fills up 4 hotels in the downtown Atlanta area, and almost every ballroom is packing to capacity all day long. I spent a good part of the day running from panel to panel (sample sessions attended included a writing seminar, a panel on the upcoming Hobbit film and a Q&A with the excellent Terry Gilliam), hunting for autographs on the Walk of Fame and people watching. As you can see from the photos posted here, the costumes are simply amazing - a lot of love and creativity went into these outfits, and I can't wait to see the parade tomorrow morning.

I ended the day with a midnight screening of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The organizers arranged a Rocky Horror Picture Show style reenactment, where performers acted out the action on the screen, as the whole audience sang along and shouted at the screen. There's something simply amazing about being in a room full of fans, singing at the top of your lungs, buzzing on the collective energy and excitement of those around you. As an added bonus, one of the stars of the movie (the always lovely Felicia Day, who I've gushed about on this blog before) popped in to say hello and to introduce the film. Anyway, it was a total blast - if you ever get a chance to do something like that, I highly recommend it.