Nine Worlds -- August 2018

Back from Nine Worlds and recovering. Of course, my plans for happily doing nothing got interrupted when I saw Earl Grey chasing a pigeon. Managed to catch it in time, but the poor thing was in shock and, well, missing some feathers, so the next thing was a trip to the local Wildlife Rescue Centre. Fingers crossed for the pigeon!

 

Nine Worlds was interesting, if exhausting—but then most cons are for me. I spent time with two people that I share agent with, each of us with a book on submission, so it was good to chat about the process. My two panels went well, I think, and I attended some quite interesting ones. The highlight was a panel on migration is SFF with Jeannette Ng and Aliette De Bodard, and another one on language comparing English, Chinese and British Sign Language.

 

The full title of the panel was Layers of Meaning: the dimensional differences between English, Chinese, and Sign Language. It was a presentation by Haplocke Sixpense, exploring how the language form itself influences the meaning it conveys. Haplocke talked about how Chinese characters are comprised of “radicals,” i.e., more basic characters that together form another meaning. Some of those are intuitive (e.g. characters for “small” + “dirt” merge into a character meaning “dust;”  “up” + “down” + “heart” = “anxious,” as in heart jumping up and down). Other examples were less obvious and hinted at layers of cultural and social meanings: for example, the character for “woman” being part for many negative terms, including a one that basically repeats the radical for “woman” three times to create a new character that means “evil” and “treachery.” o_o

 

Another interesting part was the discussion of BSL. An interesting feature of the sign language in is that, unlike spoken language, it is not sequential, i.e., it can express multiple things simultaneously. Spoken language uses sounds that have to be uttered sequentially (you can’t say two words at the same time)—but sign language uses hands, facial expressions and the whole body to convey meaning. The result is such that BSL hardly uses adjectives or adverbs because their meaning is conveyed through modifying the sign for the noun or verb. E.g., a sign for “walk” can be delivered slowly, fast, hesitantly, etc. and the facial expression will aid in explaining the meaning. Of course, there will still be signs for things that can’t easily be signed, as say, colours. 

 

Interesting part of it was also the fact that the language’s beauty then is in its theatricality, and a signing person may favour a speech that “looks interesting” and that doesn’t always translate to what hearing people appreciate.

 

Two more fun highlights of the con were Aliette’s fountain pen meetup and the “sword punk” session.

 

The fountain pen session was just a bunch of people sitting around tables and geeking out about pens and inks. I was the only one into vintage pens, so my collection got some interest. I ended up giving one pen to a random person because she couldn’t get enough of it and it’s one I never really liked and it’s just gathering dust in my drawer. Aliette brought a great glass pen, that totally amazed me. I’d never tried glass before and couldn’t quite compute how glass could make a pen, but it totally can. Also, my experience with dip pens has been mixed at best, and this one was total smooth and held an incredible amount of ink. 

 

I also got to try a Jeannette Ng’s Pilot Parallel, which I’d always wanted to try. It’s a very interesting pen, a true italic for super crisp lettering. It’d be great for calligraphy projects or journaling, but probably not for me because my handwriting is too ugly for calligraphy. 

 

The Sword Punk session was fun and really hands-on, a proper taster with actual combat exercises. Being somewhat used to the fencing weapons, I was surprised to see how big and heavy the swords were. You really need both hands to handle them. 

 

Here’s the collection laid out on the floor:

 

And this is a photo the con’s photographer got, featuring yours truly (blue shirt) trying some moves. See how far apart my hands are? 

 

The approach to the fight is very different from fencing—it’s much more physical and requiring a lot of muscle power vs “just” dexterity and stamina. It seemed both cruder and more realistic, as the aim really is to kill and avoid being killed as compared to scoring points in Olympic fencing. It was interesting to see how my burgeoning fencing skills were sometimes helpful (e.g. distance awareness) but usually detrimental, as I kept wanting to disengage with a weapon that’s too big and too heavy for the manoeuvre, my footwork was wrong and I kept trying to lunge, without much effect. I was told not to go for low hits as that would risk getting my head chopped off in exchange for a leg wound… Fair enough! And we practiced “helicopter moves” (swinging the blade over your head at the opponent) and swinging to knock their teeth out with the pommel… It was good fun, but I think I’ll stick to fencing.

After that, I strolled through the dealers room and ended up taking the Hexarchate quiz at Solaris' stand. I turned out to be a Shuos! Don’t know what to think about it… :D At least it wasn’t Vidona, hehe… They had the badges, so I took the Shuos one, and then sneaked in a Nirai as well. :D

Today was a recovery day. I hope I'll haver no more pigeons or any other "gifts" tomorrow....