One of the cool things about this city is the extensive creative scene, too much to keep track of really. Once a year the Late Shows serves as a sort of art crawl/city exploration where venues open their doors late to the public and you can visit a range of places. The first year we heard about it late and just did a behind the scenes tour of the Tyneside Cinema, which was fascinating. Last year we were out of town, so this year we’re trying to take in as much as possible! The whole thing takes place over two …
Conventions
Despite the dearth of posts here, its been a reasonably busy few months for me. Starting with a trip to LA in February for Gallifrey One, which was as amazing as ever, followed by a week with in Santa Monica visting family and enjoying the sunshine. Then at the end of March it was time for Levitation, the 2024 Eastercon, held at the Telford International Convention Centre. I had a really great time, really should have written a proper trip report but have fallen out of the habit really. The whole convention was great, there was some mutterings about it …
Cabaret
Our main reason for going to London last weekend was to see Cabaret, currently starring Jake Shears and Rebecca Lucy Taylor. I’ve seen the movie version several times and love it, but obviously that had changes from the original show, and it seemed likely that over the years each run had its own changes as well, so it seemed probable I would like it but also tried to not go in with the movie too much in mind. Overall it was very good, photography is prohibited in the venue, to the point where they give you a sticker to cover …
London
We had a couple of days in London to go see Cabaret and visit with friends and along the way managed to squeeze in some culture. First off we went to the Barbican, which I visited in 2016 but only remember the conservatory – if I had a chance to take in the architecture at the time I have no memory of it. Our initial reason to go was the Poor Things costume exhibition, but John pointed out that it was also used as a location for The Kitchen which was a nice bonus. We had a wander, taking in …
The Holidays So Far
The holiday season kicked off for us with a trip down to London for Thanksgiving with friends, bookended by excursions in the city. Being up north now, we don’t find ourselves going throuhg the capital on our way to other places much anymore, so we try to make a point of taking advantage when we are down there. On this ocassion we visited the London Mithraeum, glimpsed the London Stone around the corner, then took the tube to Crystal Palace to see the Victorian dinosaurs basking in their ponds. Along the way we had excellent pizza, cardammom buns, salt beef …
Halloween roundup
We had a party again on the Saturday this year, I cobwebbed the hall and bookshelves as before but made the mantelpiece into a pretty decent spooky altar. Costumes ended up low-key (at least compared to original plans) reusing our sunspot outfits from a previous event, but some friends did excellent Hera and Kanan outfits. On Halloween itself we got an hour or so of trick-or-treaters before catching Metro into town to see Garth Marenghi at the Tyne Theatre. I wasn’t sure what to expect aside from him being in character, but it was great! We bought a copy of …
Hugo Nom
So I’m a Hugo finalist for Best Fan Artist! The announcement went out over a week ago and I’ve posted on the socials, but now that the initial excitement has died down I thought I’d post more complete thoughts than just “yay!”.* The Hugos and fandom are inextricably linked for me. I became aware of the existence of conventions, and therefore fandom, thanks to one of the old Hugo Winners anthologies. The introduction included some anecdote that took place at a Worldcon party. I don’t remember the story, or the names of the people involved, but the glimpse into that …
Stars
We went to see Stars: An Afrofuturist Space Odyssey at the Northern Stage on Tuesday, a one-woman show (mostly) about an older woman finding herself through her sexuality after the death of her husband. It blends pop culture, music, feminism, cosmology, and science fiction, and comes together into something special. Fair warning though, although it is indeed a “hilarious and moving mix of celebratory Black queer empowerment and arousal” it also deals repeatedly throughout with some very dark topics, quite graphically in places. The promotional materials only hint at it, but the venue had some content warnings which was nice. …
Eurocon in Uppsala
Konflikt was my second Eurocon, the first being Shamrokon nearly ten years (ten years!) ago in Dublin. It sort of felt like my first proper one though, being outside of the anglosphere this time – though everyone I met at the con spoke English, as did virtually everyone I interacted with in town. My old Bay Area friends Mette and Bryan just moved to Uppsala earlier in the year, so it seemed absurd not to attend even if my finances are a bit of a shambles at the movement. I flew Norwegian from Edinburgh and landed near midnight on the …
Satellite 8
This past weekend was Satellite 8 in Glasgow, which is now an easy trip for us, basically three hours with a change at Edinburgh. It was also my first time going to Scotland, so I was really looking forward to that too. The covid policy was similar to Eastercon, but with the additional requirement of showing a photo of a covid test taken prior to the event. They also had tests available for those who forgot, I had to ask two people to do so while working reg and they were both happy enough to do so. Masking was about …