Toastmaster Speech
It’s eleven-thirty at night. We’re driving in a borrowed land rover through places like Knox City, Texas, population 342. My wife and I are wearing the same clothes we had on yesterday. The smell coming off of both of us could knock a buzzard off a meat wagon. We’ve driven and hauled our belongings back and forth across Texas a total of 1,600 miles in eight days. As we sat in the car, eyes peeled for giant wild boar, deer, and any other varmints that might sashey into the path of our vehicle, and trying really hard not to smell each other, I thought of ArmadilloCon.
I’d been thinking about ArmadilloCon a lot the past four weeks. This has been my local convention for as long as
I’ve lived in Austin. And as I packed all of my belongings up, my countless boxes of books I’d bought here over the years, and as I watched the off-duty firemen pick up tho boxes and swear at me, I realized that this wasn’t going to be my local convention any more. I’m officially an
expatriate of Austin.
Part of what makes this show so unique is the number of locals that attend, and the fervor with which we talk this show up. Everyone knows everyone. There’s an easy
familiarity (and no small amount of inappropriate touching) that goes on here. It’s nice. It’s a nice con, becau all of you make it nice. I don’t like using the word “Family”
to relate to fans, mainly since my father wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing an “I Survived GrokCon III” T-Shirt.
No, I prefer to think of us as comrades-at-arms. Brought together from uncommon circumstances, for a common goal:
the appreciation and enjoyment of genre fiction. And inappropriate touching. We all have a common knowledge ba to pull from; a shared lexicon; a communal history.
Looking around the world of pop culture, I e that the
rest of the planet has finally caught up to us. After years of folks just shaking their heads in disbelief, the “straights” are coming around to our way of thinking: Super heroes are cool, and cool for everyone, not just man-
children and imbeciles. The last three Star Wars movies sucked canal water. The Internet is not just for nerds.
This puts us in a unique position in current events. We need to step up, throw off the Jedi Cloaks, and start leading the uneducated mass to The Good Stuff. After all, all Battlestar Galacticas are not created equal. Han Solo DID shoot first. So shall it be written, so shall it be done.
For the first time ever, WE are the experts, the ones with all of the answers. We are the people they turn to in the office when they want to know what the name of Blue
Falcon’s robot dog was. We are the people who are
constantly asked about the new Conan movie, or Princess of Mars. They expect us to know, in the same way they expect that jock in accounting to know how far away the Rangers
凯夫拉尔are from first place. That’s a baball reference.
思路中文So, we should u this power for good. We’re responsible
for the continued goodwill of the Geek Nation. When asked
the questions, don’t assume the defensive stance. Don’t attack back. Don’t start the answer with, (nerd)”Well, anyone who knows ANYTHING about the X-Men would know that Nightcrawler has blue
fur…” Don’t be that guy. You don’t have to be. If Vin Diel can proudly admit that he plays Dungeons & Dragons, then it’s okay for us to step out of
俄语入门学习the shadows and be the geeked-up, action-style, chaos-math, quirk-riddled experts that we know we are.
初三数学教案We are a mercenary band, the lot of us. Knight errants, crusaders, and brigands. Some of us have swords. Some of us carry plus five swords of somethingorother. Some of us
carry Light sabers. A few of us can even u the sound of our voice as a weapon. But enough about Rick Klaw. The
point is, I’m glad to be back here amongst my comrades-in-arms, my peeps, my crew. In that spirit, and inpropet
anticipation of the drinking that will occur, I’d like to welcome you all to ArmadilloCon 28!
I didn’t come here to tell you any of that. I came with a confession. This, the Centennial Year of Robert E. Howard, will hereforth be known as the year the story broke.吻别 英文版
For the past eleven years, I have kept a cret from even my clost friends. I have been fooling you all. For you e, I am Esther Friesner.
The whole thing was a lark, really. I was at an AggieCon with Rick Klaw and Ben Ostrander, and we were discussing James Tiptree, Jr. and literary hoaxes. I thought it could be pulled off, and of cour, Klaw thought that the burgeoning Internet would kill any potential mischief.
Well, anytime Klaw says I can’t do something, that just makes me want to try harder.
I cho the penname Esthner Friesner from two sources: the show Sanford & Son, and my favorite Kitchen appliance. Thus shielded, I sat down and started writing. The short stories that I wrote were well-received. I banged out a few novels. Big whoop. But I wanted a larger project to work on.
I came up with an idea for an anthology of sword and
sorcery stories, but what I didn’t want was the same old misogynistic cliché. I mean, what’s the point of another naked barbarian, rescuing another naked princess, from a
big naked demon guarding some sort of…naked treasure?
化妆培训学校哪个好That’s when I got the idea to turn the clichés on their head and work off of them. That’s where the Chicks in Chainmail ries was born. I think somewhere, somehow, Robert E. Howard and Karl Edward Wagner are really proud of me.
我们和地球英语怎么说
Soon, the demand for Esther to appear at conventions was overwhelming. So, I opted out and hired my mother to play Esther—my mother, who had me at the young age of 18—has been acting as Esther all the years.
lumiThe hardest part of all of this was maintaining the deception of a minor, struggling writer even as I was racking up the accolades as Esther. Every time I threw a party, I had to hide my Nebula. As the foreign language editions stacked up, I hid them in “comic book” boxes so no one would get suspicious. The Clockwork Storybook guys
never knew anything. Then again, most of them were heavy drinkers.
I’m sick. I’m ashamed of mylf. But I’ve gotten it off my chest now, and for your time and patience, I thank you, and I’m truly, truly sorry.澳大利亚硕士留学费用
