Well, welcome to our voluntary insanity, yet again.
This year, we have moved location from Ramat Gan to greater Tel Aviv, for more reasons than one, but unfortunately, the place chosen is less than ideal for my purposes (being screenings).
A gaggle of gargoyles covered the entrance, to guard and oversee the main gate activities. A steady vein on volunteers flows over the venue, in one form or another, and some sort of strange order is kept in the madness.
People ask why I do it, if I don’t paid.
My response has pretty much remained unchanged over the years. “I want to meet others with similar interests, educate the younger generation on the possibilities of the sci-fi/fantasy uni-(multi?)verse. It also allows me the capability of running the show (at least my aspect of it) the way I think it should be done, instead of sitting around bitching and moaning “They suck! I could do it so much better!” Well, I DO.
Probably the most gratifying part of these sort of events is finding the cool-down times during or between events, when nobody has something particular to be at or see, or participate in.
During these times, I have always found that for some reason, a group gathers, and conversations will start, and they can follow a straight line of consciousness, but what fun is that, and more often than not, things can digress and spiral into proportions beyond your control, and you never end up back where you started.
Last night was such.
Waiting outside the venue for our food delivery to arrive, some pals and I were urged to “participate in public speaking”. I was immediately interested, as if anyone out there knows me, I love the stage, and what better stage is there that fresh young minds just sitting around to corrupt?
To my dismay, only one lass was speaking, and when I began to speak, I was hushed by the others there, not due to the fact that I was rudely interrupting the previous speaker, but due to the fact that “only she will publicly speak”.
Immediately, I began a high-energy debate, contesting the fact that they misleadingly roped us into their ideas, because all they are all doing is “public listening”! Only 1 person is speaking! I want to publicly speak as well!
Unfortunately, this group did either not have the mental capacity to bend their minds around that concept, or simply did not care to. Either way, their food came before ours did, and they ran off, leaving us sitting and waiting.
As we were left to mull the events that had just occurred, I noticed that one kid had stayed behind. When I say kid, I mean it. 14? Alone in the city late at night, with a bit of cash for transportation and his mom’s cell phone.
To his credit the kid was extremely well-viewed (as opposed to well-read. A GenY concept) and had numerous movie references, trivia and one-liners from movies that have long dropped out of sight. I was impressed, and didn’t tease him too much. After all, he’s part of the next generation of Fen, and without them, we are short-lived.
In any case, it’s early (10 am??) and I’m still tired, but have to get up and head out to another day at the Con.
Later!
