Saturday, September 05, 2009

Maskerades

It's 11:30 p.m. in Phoenix, and we're halfway through the first North American Discworld Convention. We've found the one really good restaurant (Cafe Bao) plus the one cup of tea that isn't made with the horrible local water (thank you, Starbucks).

There was a football game at Arizona State today, and the streets are packed with celebrating students tonight, so the conventiongoers are staying in the safety of the hotel. There was an extraordinarily elaborate maskerade, a great game of Werewolves, a disco dance, and a party in the con suite to chose from -- way too much to do after a full day of panels. The highlight of today's events was the interview with Terry (another of his standing-room-only presentations). He closed by talking about his plans for dealing with Alzheimer's Disease (he was diagnosed with a rare, early onset, form of it).

"I won't die of Alzheimer's," he said. "I'll die and take the Alzheimer's with me."

There's no evidence of the disease in Terry's speech or appearance -- except that he moves a little hesitantly. He explained that he has some trouble with spacial perception.

Tomorrow the Scholarly Gentleman will be moderating the panel Publishing Terry with Terry, his agent, and his two U.S editors. Then we're both working on the auction.

I could write for hours about the extraordinary costumes people are wearing at the conference. There is one older man who dresses as the Bursar, and has the worried, delusionary character down so well that I was getting a tad worried. Many of the best costumes are simple, such as the couple who came robed as the Auditors. We found them in the lobby, frightening a fellow from the local film society who had come by to leave some posters at the conference.

I'd blog more, but the computer, disabled by the recent cat-pee incident, is a bit balky.

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