El Weekend

So Mechacon was pretty boring, except the parts that weren't. Those parts were:
Meeting Mary E. McGlynn (my favorite voice actress)
and Ilaria Graziano (my favorite female singer.)

I'm in love. I can't say with whom, though. And I'm kidding. Mrs. McGlynn and I talked a lot this weekend, but she's married so she's right out. ^_-- No, she's a dear, and talking to The Major was just awesome. She loved our shirts, and that's always a plus in my book. She bought a couple. Doubleplusgood. Nah, we ended up smoking at about the same time, kind of like the way it is when Chris Ayers is at a con: we usually meet up outside several times and shoot the breeze over a quick cough and drag. Mary and I talked a fair bit about regular people stuff, and of course business. She stopped by the booth before she left. She just wanted to say goodbye, and that it was a pleasure meeting me, which I found rather impressive. I was tempted to ask how I'd go about submitting a demo tape to her studio, but since I have no demo tape, that's not a great plan. And of course, she must get that all the time. I'll see her on the con circuit eventually. She'll remember me.

That's the number one thing to meeting anyone, especially anyone whose job involves meeting people all the time: be memorable. When it comes to people at conventions, I do that by being a casual connoisseur of anime, not a fanboy. I was once a fanboy, but I long ago repented of my irritating ways.

And Ilaria, mein Gott, she's a doll. I totally fumbled my Italian when I talked to her. I was mildly embarrassed. But it's okay. She was a good sport about it.

I was one of two people who asked Ilaria a question in the panel. Most of the Q&A was devoted to fanboys asking Mary irrelevant questions about GITS plot elements, as if she were the show's creator or something. No. She played Major Kusunagi and was the ADR. There was a GITS Sage there who became visibly perturbed whenever someone said something or asked a question that went outside his expert knowledge of the canon. Aspies are a lot of things, interesting isn't typically one of them when their perseverations involve television programs. I must apologize once more for my little self-diagnosing adventure a couple years ago. My therapist and shrink at least got THAT much right. They did underestimate my neurosis, though: that's more than enough to make one believe he's worse off than he really is.

In any case, my question was totally NOT show related. I asked who Miss. Graziano's favorite classical composer was. She loves Bartok. She spoke passionately of him. I love Bartok, too, incidentally, as I'm a man of good taste. Several people seemed annoyed with this self-serving and not-Ghost in the Shell related question. I laughed to myself. It's good to connect with artists on an artistic level. When one is not an artist, one must work from one's own frame of reference.

I digress. It's also amusing how the actors and other people in the industry will include little sideways remarks about how dull the questions are. Only people who understand subtext somehow can get it. Fan-people are too superficial for subtext. I'm not the world's best with subtext (ask any of my exes), but when it's sarcastic subtext, I'm there. So while everyone else seemed disheartened that people like Mrs. McGlynn have to "move on" from their roles, I was amused at the way she phrased it, because it clearly showed how irritating it is to be asked questions about minutiae she's long had to forget for new roles.

Other than that, the weekend was boring. Sales were pretty good. I didn't buy anything except for a combat-ready sword. Yeah. It was inexpensive and it's good quality. Good enough for my purposes.

In other news, I'm saddened to learn that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has passed. God rest his soul.

I have 51 hours to prepare for Otakon. 51 hours.

My post will go live on ANF today! Read! Enjoy!