I was in Ottawa recently for a science fiction convention called Can*Con. To celebrate my weekend there, I offer the following grandparents of emoji (which are also known as photographs), with inappropriate comments as warranted.
The City
The hotel where Can*Con was held was just a stone's throw away from Parliament. Unfortunately, downtown Ottawa is so well looked after that no stones came readily to hand. And I was all set to take Ben Geisler's sage advice on the subject!
Not that the city is perfect. This bridge over the Rideau River, for example, has to be held up by bras donated by Canadian women who had undergone a sex change and wanted to give something back to the country that had allowed them to freely express their true nature. The fact that they no longer needed the bras was not relevant, although the tax credit that they would receive for their donation had to be a -
Or, umm, it could have been a fundraiser for breast cancer research promoted by a local radio station. Yeah. That's it. A fundraiser. Which is noble in its own way, I guess...
This is a photo of the lovely and scenic Rideau River, or, as Ottawa natives never call it, "Thames, Junior."
I suppose there's something to be said for a municipal government that is up front about the fact that it plans to soak you...
The recent federal election was so rancourous, I half-expected Conservative candidates to complain: "What? You want to build a monument to Confederation that contains fire and water? Seriously? Don't you know that these are tough economic times? The nation can't afford two elemental forces in its monuments! But that's the spendthrift Liberals for you! That's why you have to vote Conservative - we're ready to make the hard choices!"
Okay, not all of Ottawa is in great repair. Not to worry: in his first day in office, Prime Minister Trudeau will climb this Parliament building with a trowel in his teeth and single-handedly make all of the necessary repairs!
Ha! The Peace Tower on Parliament Hill is taller than Big Ben - in your face, London! You - what? It's not? Naah! I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by Big Ben when I visited the - you say it's 320 feet tall, and the Peace Tower is only 302 feet tall? I - that can't be right! It - really? Why, no, I don't have tower envy. I...I'm just going to go to a corner of the room and curl up in a fetal position, now. No special reason - I just feel like doing it...
The Con
I went to Can*Con in part because I had a story in an anthology called Robotica, which was launched at the convention. In this emoji ancestor, author/publisher Liz Hirst and author Timothy Carter sit at the Pop Seagull table in the dealer's room. Liz is always happy to explain where the name of the publishing company came from, but be warned: you will groan. And, you know how some mothers tell their children: "If you keep giving me those dirty looks, one day your eyes will freeze that way!"? Tim is living proof...
This is me doing my best Alfred Hitchcock impression. In, err, a homemade clown costume. Because it was...Valentine's Day. You probably had to be there...
Liz has the coolest parents! Her dad Rick, for instance, grew a beard and moustache just so he could look like his ukelele! How many men do you know who are that dedicated to their music?
In keeping with the...Valentine's Day theme, Can*Con organizers gave all the dealers a lantern for their tables. Because nothing says "You light an eternal flame in my heart" quite like the visage of Chtulu glowering at you.
Before I could even get the sentence, "Hey - look who I found!" out, Waldo decked me. I never realized how sensitive a game character could be...
The incomparable Marie Bilodeau: author, Can*Con organizer and much feared judge of the paper airplane contest. I just got lucky and took a photo of her when she was reasonably still (the inset photo is more typical). I swear, the woman must have the metabolism of a hummingbird - I would hate to be Marie's cardiologist!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Marie and Derek Kunsken for their warm, welcoming encouragement to return to Can*Con after taking a break from the convention for a couple of years. Thanks to Liz for enthusiastically accepting my short stories, for setting up another great book launch (mmmmm - cake!) and for planning the road trip to Ottawa. Thanks to Vivian and Rick Hirst, Liz' parents, for all of their help in making the trip a success. Thanks to Tim for not only being a great trip companion, but for the good sense to have been born to charming parents willing to have us all over for a wonderful dinner the night we arrived.
The arts being what they are, nobody knows what the future holds in store for any of us, but the present feels pretty damn good.
