Day | Time | Duration | Room | Track | Type | KidsCat | Title | Descriptions | Participants |
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Friday |
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Fri | 3:00 PM | 9hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Open Gaming | Unscheduled gaming. Sweet! | James Pinkerton (m) |
Fri | 4:00 PM | 1hr 35min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Cutie Honey | Live Action Japanese Super Heroine saga. Over the top Live version of the classic anime. & selected shorts. 2004 PG13 | |
Fri | 5:00 PM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Blood Bowl Open Gaming | Fantasy football mayhem -- orcs and elves and whatnot take to the pitch for a bloody, bruising and fun-filled miniatures boardgame. Learn the game or just brush up on the new rules. Players who learn the game at the open gaming are welcome to join in the ArisiaBowl tournament running all day Sunday. | Maureen Reddington-Wilde (m) |
Fri | 5:00 PM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Hollow Earth Expedition Demo | The year is 1936, the world is in turmoil, and great discoveries are being made every day. You may be sitting on the greatest discovery of them all. Come try this exciting game of pulp adventure, in the style of Indiana Jones and the Mummy. See why Hollow Earth Expedition was nominated for 4 Ennie awards, including best game. "Feeding Nazis to Dinosaurs, since 1936." | Steven Hammond (m) |
Fri | 6:00 PM | 1hr 30min | Charles River Prefunction | Art | Presentation | Welcome | Opening Night at the Art Show with Marrus | Please join our Artist Guest of Honor, at her table on the 16th floor. Marrus will be available for questions about her paintings, and to review work by con membership - please limit to one piece, due to time considerations. An excellent and renowned face/body painting artist, Marrus will also be available for skin decorating at an additional cost. | Marrus |
Fri | 6:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Tales from the RPG Slushpile | The counterpart to the literary track panel -- bad ideas and suggestions, with some discussion of what RPG editors are looking for. | Elizabeth McCoy (m), Walter Milliken, Evan Jamieson |
Fri | 6:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Surviving Your First Con | So much to do. So much to keep track of. We'll tell you about some of the highlights to be sure not to miss, and how to keep from wearing yourself out the first day. Remember: 5 hours of sleep, 2 meals, and 1 shower, Every Day! | Bill Todd, jan howard finder, Jerome C Conner, John C. Watson (m), Hugh Casey |
Fri | 6:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Media | Panel | Welcome | Non-Genre Films that Fans Love | There's nothing fantastic about _Memento_, but it somehow feels like science fiction. What other realist movies are especially attractive to fans of SF and fantasy? What are the qualities that make them feel like genre? | Julia Tenney, John Black, Eric M Van (m), Adam Lipkin, Sonya Taaffe |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 2hr | 1404 | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Nominal Quiet Room/Free Play | Indoor voices, please. | |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 2hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Teen Beading: Working with Seed Beads | Beading with the little bitty beads... :-) | Sherry Briggs |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Balloon Animals | Learn how to make your own balloon art. | Ming Diaz, Mimi Noyes |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Pirate Ship Building; or Is That a Ninja Castle? | Make your own creation with our supply of paper tubes, shiny sticky papers, and homemade playdough. | Susan Levitin |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Let's Be Bad Guys: Role-playing Villains | The default assumption is to play the heroes, those few fighting against the darkness at overwhelming odds. What if you happen to like the dark? Roleplaying (& GMing) villainous PCs isn't easy. The competition is fiercer. The learning curve is steeper. Can an all-villain PC campaign work long-term or is it better as a one-shot? What are the perks? What are the pitfalls? Come talk and hear about role-playing and refereeing those characters that aren't the nicest ones in the bunch. | Jonathan Woodward (m), Walter Milliken, - dkap |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 204 | Media | Panel | Welcome | Cylons and Religion | As machines, Cylons didn't have a religion - what they had was a Philosophy of Monotheism. Being mechanical, with computers for brains, they had a set of rules/programming to follow. Once they took human form, they acquired human doubts and questions. | James T Henderson Jr (m), Aline Boucher Kaplan, JeffWarner, Tim Lieder |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Myth and Folklore in Fantasy | How do writers use myth in their stories? What are the most common myth cycles drawn from? Has traditional folklore been run out of town by urban legends? Why is the appeal of these stories so strong after millennia? | Greer Gilman, Susan Hanniford Crowley, Shira Lipkin, Catt Kingsgrave, Christopher Weuve (m), Sonya Taaffe |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Costuming | Panel | Welcome | Humor on Stage | The pros and cons of being silly on stage. How to present a humorous character or skit. The importance of broadening the scope of your humor for the audience. | Suford Lewis (m), jan howard finder |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | What is LARP, and Why Would I Want to Do It? | You have heard of LARPing. But what is it? What does the acronym stand for? Where do these things happen? Why in the world do people find it fun, and who are these people anyway? What do you mean there are many kinds? A look into LARP, what it is, how it is done by some folks, where to find LARPs of various kinds. | Rebecca L Kletnieks, Chad Bergeron (m), Michael A Ventrella, Mark Waks, Anna R Bradley, John Bacon |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Greedquest | Greed is good, and there's treasure to be won, so what are you waiting for? Race into the dungeon to grab The Hoard. Then, all you have to do is reverse direction to get out, but everyone else is standing between you and the exit! | Bill Todd (m) |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | City Building | From Ankh-Morpork to Ambergris, well-crafted cities are central to the genre's most successful SF worlds. What goes into creating a believable city and its culture? What aspects of the urban experience are universal? How can a city affect the surrounding suburban areas, national politics and identity, scientific and artistic development, and everyday life? The panelists may collaborate with the audience on sketching out plans for a new city, time permitting. | Grant Carrington, Gordon Linzner (m), Toni Lay, Sarah Smith, Melissa Scott |
Fri | 7:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Science | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | The Blood Debate | Why donate blood, tissue, eggs, sperm, organs? Why not sell? What is the current state of the science and the law, and what is expected in the near and long term? Are the laws of supply and demand applicable? Examines some good SF explorations of these topics, such as Niven's Known Space series, Spinrad's "Bug Jack Barron" and Cook's "Coma." By request, this panel will include advice for at-con blood donors -- manage your donation so you have plenty of energy for the con. | Laura Anne Gilman, Thomas A. Amoroso, Amy Chused (m), Wil Howitt, John Hodges |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Panel | Welcome | What is This Thing Called Filk? (Filk 101) | Everything you need to know about filk. What is filk music? Where do you find it? How do you filk? What should you expect at a filk sing? The panelists will answer these questions and perhaps provide some musical examples. | Ellen Kranzer (m), Kathy Sands, Jacob Sommer |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Amazing Watercolors | Wow! Discover the amazing combinations of colors when you sprinkle salt over your masterpiece. | Aimee Yermish |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Children's Games for Time Travelers | Fun games of times gone by. | Pete 'Happy' Thomas |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | How to be Healthy at a Con | From hygiene to baby-care, the panelists describe how to maintain healthy habits at a con. | Rebecca L Kletnieks, Jude Shabry, Michelle Wexelblat, MSW, Thomas A. Amoroso (m), Amy Chused |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 10hr | Guest Room 204 | Parties | Party | Welcome | Boskone Party | Come to the Boskone party! | |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 2hr 20min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Japan Sinks | Remake of the classic Japanese SF novel, where tectonic plates are dragging Japan beneath the Pacific. Subtitled. 2006 PG-13 | |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Flirting: Cyber, Real Life, or a Balance Between | Are you a bolder flirt in virtual reality -- a la Second Life -- than you are in real life? Do you flirt with friends over IM more then you would ever do at a party the next day? How has removing face-to-face flirting changed how people get to know each other? Has VR helped your RL flirting skills? | Alex Newman, KT Pinto, Solomon Davidoff, Bridget Joyce Boyle (m) |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Art | Participatory Session | Welcome | Warmer Winters: Knitting Contest | Warmer Winters provides the disadvantaged with warm clothes during the winter, by having volunteers knit hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters, and more all year round. Come learn more about Warmer Winters, learn to knit (or help others learn), and get free supplies. Show off your creations at the wrap-up on Monday. Beginners welcome. Prizes for those who knit the most during the weekend. | Judy Gentry (m) |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | When Did Society Get So Awesome? | Zombie shuffles in the streets. Talk Like a Pirate Day. Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. 5000 person Zombie vs Human games on college campuses. We have heard about the great stuff that used to happen at places like MIT and CalTech in the old days, but much of that had died down. Now, thanks to the Internet and some enterprisingly awesome people, these hacks are going world-wide. Are we entering a brave new world of awesome? Or is it just a passing fad? | Terry Franklin, Sarah Smith, Stephanie Clarkson, MaryAnn Johanson (m) |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 3hr | Presidents D | Fannish Lifestyle | Party | Only w/ Parent | Sith Charity Ball | His High Exaltedness, the Great Jabba the Hutt has decreed that you are to attend his Sith Charity Ball. Join members of the New England Star Wars community and New England Browncoats in revelry, as they raise funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Photos with Jabba and his entourage, and raffle tickets for some rare items will be on sale for this charity. DJ Johnny Zed will keep things moving on the dance floor in our 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'! | |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Looney Labs Card Games Open Gaming | Come relax and learn some groovy games. Try to keep pace with the changing rules and goals in Fluxx. Play with the 5 elements in Aquarius. Travel through time with Chrononauts. Tell some short, sweet stories in Nanofictionary. | Brian Campbell (m) |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | HorrorClix - 400 pt constructed army | Bring a 400 pt constructed army to play a game of HorrorClix. There will be three to four 50 minute rounds depending on number of players to determine championship. Prize is a Wizkids limited figure or card. | Larry Dunne (m) |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Real and Fake Religion in SF/Fantasy | People who couldn't tell Adam from Absalom can give you detailed analyses of the beliefs of Hobbits or Bajorans. Real world religions might pop in "The Dybbuk" or "The Exorcist" but often writers have trouble acknowledging religion at all. How is religion depicted in SF/fantasy books, movies and TV shows? Do writers respect the religions they create more than real ones? Which written or media depictions of religion have been most favorable? Most critical? Most realistic? | Mary Catelli, Debra Doyle, Walter Hunt, Aline Boucher Kaplan, Lis Carey |
Fri | 8:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Comics | Panel | Welcome | The Diversity of Creativity | Decades ago, comics were mostly created (80%) by white males. What does the evolving diversity of comic creators show us about modern society? | Israel Peskowitz, Mercy E Van Vlack, Woodrow "asim" Hill, Evonne Heyning |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | 100 FIlk Songs Everyone Should Know | There are many, many filk songs so where should you start? We'll sing our way through one man's list of 100 songs every filker should have in their repertoire. Lyrics provided. Come to sing, come to listen, come to learn. | Erwin S Strauss |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 6hr | Crows Nest Alcove | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | VTM: The Price of Redemptionm - LARP | Your elders have told you to represent them at an auction in Boston. You have been told that it contains several items from a recent Egyptian dig. You have traveled far and with your invitation in hand you arrive at the hotel where the auction is to be held. Strangely enough you realize that you know several of the other vampires gathering there. | Michael Dlott (m), A.D., Michael Charnitsky |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 2hr | Empress A | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Fuzion: TCS | This game is a play-test of a new plug in for the Fuzion games system. The players will be playing Space Rangers taking down the criminals plying the starlanes of deep space through boarding actions, and house to house searches. Players will need to sign a non-disclosure agreement to play. | T Christopher Davis (m) |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Mary Turzillo Reading | Reading from Dragon Soup, a collaborative work with Marge Simon. | Mary Turzillo (m) |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 3hr | Guest Room 209 | Literature | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Cecilia Tan Reading & Circlet Press Party | Come celebrate the launch of "Best Fantastic Erotica," the book of the winning stories from Circlet Press' first ever "best story" contest. Cecilia Tan and other contributors will read selections of hot erotic sf/fantasy and then host a party. Copies will be available for autographing. Circlet Press is the world's only publisher specializing in erotic science fiction and fantasy. | Cecilia Tan (m) |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Literature | Panel | Welcome | F=Fandom, P=Politics, V= Vendetta | Does "V for Vendetta" strike a chord with us as the US Government appears to coming dangerously close to turning into a totalitarian theocracy? What about "Judge Dredd," "Logan's Run," or "Aeon Flux"? What happens when self-righteous fanatics have the big guns and the legitimate power? Do we cower under the authoritarian rule for "our own good," or do we stand tall and say "no more?" | Laura Anne Gilman, Terry Franklin (m), Ken Gale, James B VanBokkelen, MaryAnn Johanson |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 4hr | Presidents AB | Parties | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Tribble Bash! | A party celebrating classic Star Trek, with music, video, games & activities (one involves a mallet!), cash bar, and giveaways! Have your photo taken with a mound of tribbles for $3, or purchase a tribble. Proceeds go to charity - the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Prizes awarded for the best classic Trek costumes! | |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Evolution Magic | A variation of Magic the Gathering that utilizes a common pool of cards from which decks are built from during the course of many games. Stresses flexibility and on-the-fly creativity over simply buying better cards or over-reliance on specific card combos. | Brennan Martin (m), Mike Beyna |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl | Life is good when you're a Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl. Enjoy a life of larceny and mayhem as you embark on one caper after another. Defeat every challenge the galaxy throws at you. Pick up toys (and the occasional Poolboy), grab more loot than anyone else, and watch your tail because the other catgirls want what you got. | Bill Todd (m) |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Superman and the Sins of Copyright | DC Comics and Disney have managed to protect their copyrights on their cash cows by quietly forcing through legislation that extends copyright law to 2019, forcing many to wonder if the next move will be for perpetuity. What are the ramifications? Why has a good law that was designed to protect creators and their immediate families become a law to protect corporations? Is copyright a necessary evil or something we should fight against? | Martha H Adams, E J Barnes, Michael A Burstein |
Fri | 9:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Costuming | Panel | Welcome | Masquerade for First Timers | Are you new to masquerades? Here's the scoop: what to expect, what all those terms mean, how to present your costume and move on stage. We will cover everything you need to know to successfully take part in a masquerade. | Karen Purcell DVM (m), Ann Catelli, Donna M Dube, Toni Lay |
Fri | 10:00 PM | 8hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Filking Into the Night - Open Filking | Hear filk in its native environment! Make music happen. Sing! Play! Clap hands! Listen! Join the merriment! No experience necessary. | |
Fri | 10:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Comics | Panel | Welcome | XKCD: How Did He Know That About Me? | Some geeks suspect Randall Munroe, the author of the webcomic xkcd, of having spies in their brain. What is this comic about, and what makes it so compelling? | Ofer Inbar, Jeff Mach (m) |
Fri | 10:00 PM | 1hr 45min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Only w/ Parent | When the Sun Was God | (Stara Basn) Polish Knights, Vikings, Treacherous Warlords and a cute Wiccan Priestess. Epic Polish Myth. Subtitled. 2003 R | |
Fri | 10:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Drumming 101 | Drumming 101, before the drum circle | Lauren Grover (m) |
Fri | 10:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Explaining Polyamory | All of us in the polyamorous lifestyle have had to face misconceptions from time to time. How do we combat popular media stereotypes and talk about our lives in a fashion that doesn’t veer off into “Too Much Information” territory? We will share some practical solutions to real world questions, and a war story or two! | Alan Wexelblat, Bey Woodward, Micah Schneider, Catt Kingsgrave (m), Brent Heyning |
Fri | 10:30 PM | 1hr | Main Lobby | Media | Participatory Session | Welcome | "Eric in the Elevator" Season7.5 Filming Session | Your 15 minutes of make-believe fame: "Eric in the Elevator" films at Arisia, and you are the celebrity that our FPGoH will chat with next! Join us in the lobby and be interviewed in our fan-built elevator set! Maybe you'll discover yourself to be on a book tour; on the other hand, you could turn out to be something completely unexpected! Two chairs, one potted plant, no script! | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Fri | 11:00 PM | 7hr | Paul Revere AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Drum Circle | Carry the energy of the night forward by participating in the drum circle. | Charles Hannum (m) |
Fri | 11:00 PM | 1hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Cow Poker Card Game | Two to four players become ranchers, rustling each others' cattle and hiring away each others' cowpokes. Recruit the wacky characters into your ranch for points and bonuses, and collect them in tricks from the roundups and shootouts. Once all the cards are taken, make poker hands to score additional points. Every card can be used at least two different ways, so there's strategy as well as luck. | Bill Todd (m) |
Fri | 11:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Media | Panel | Welcome | Rocky Horror: People Still Do That? | The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains a late night movie house staple, despite its age and obvious deficiencies. If it's so bad, why do people go week after week? If it actually has redeeming qualities, why does everyone insist it's so bad? | KT Pinto, Micah Schneider, Jeff Mach (m) |
Fri | 11:45 PM | 1hr 30min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Shogun Assassin | Live action version of Lone Wolf & Cub. Shogun sends waves of Ninjas to kill the Samurai & his family dead dead dead… 1980 R | |
Saturday |
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Sat | 12:00 AM | 3hr | Presidents D | Media | Presentation | Not Allowed | Rocky Horror Picture Show w/Teseracte | The Teseracte Players and their special guests will treat you to a unique blend of theatre, humour and outright fun at the Late Night Science Fiction Picture Show! | |
Sat | 12:00 AM | 23hr 59min | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | 24-hour Open Gaming | Unscheduled gaming. Way cool! | James Pinkerton (m) |
Sat | 12:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Alternate Lifestyles and Fandom | Alternate lifestyles of all kinds seem to flock together, especially at a con like Arisia. Why is alternative sexuality so common in fandom, and even openly talked about, when it is almost completely shunned in the mainstream world? How do we feel about all this adult discussion and behavior in our conventions? Is it appropriate here, or should they go get a room? | Bridget Joyce Boyle, - dkap (m), Lawrence Nelson, Jeff Mach |
Sat | 1:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Adult | Presentation | Only w/ Parent | BDSM for Dummies | So you've heard about this BDSM thing, and you think maybe it's interesting, but being suspended by your toes and tickled by midgets is a bit much for you. How can you get into it without getting over your head? More importantly, what must you do to stay safe while experimenting and exploring your own limits? We'll go over a few do's, and more importantly, don'ts of trying BDSM. | Alex Newman (m), Thomas A. Amoroso, - dkap, Ed Fuqua, Ken Kingsgrave-Ernstein |
Sat | 7:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Being a Morning Person in Nocturnal Fandom | Fen are generally thought of as a nocturnal bunch. Many even take this for granted, assuming that all fen are night owls. What does it take to survive as an early riser in fandom? How do you deal with noisy friends up past your bedtime and people who try to invite you out in the middle of the night? More importantly, how do you avoid violence from your sleep-addled roommates early in the morning? | Bonnie Barlow Turner, Elaine Isaak, Janice Dumas, Lisa A Ashton (m) |
Sat | 8:00 AM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Kobolds Ate My Baby | This silly little game can be a pile of fun. Bring your pencil and sense of humor. See adventuring life from the other side of the tracks. Sorry your character is not destined for greatness. There will be horrible deaths. Character creation is quick and you'll get good at it. | Thomas Cerul (m) |
Sat | 8:00 AM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Necessary Evil: A Hero is Suborned | When all the super heroes of the world are blown to kingdom come by an army of invading aliens who will save the day? Evil... The only forces left to take on the alien menace are the crafty and self serving super villains! | Robert Rosenthal (m) |
Sat | 8:30 AM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Saturday Morning Yoga | Start off a long, exciting day of con right. Join us for yoga to relax your mind and strengthen your body. | Jude Shabry (m) |
Sat | 9:00 AM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Unstructured Supervised Free Play | 1 hour before FastTrack opens. Indoor voices, please. | |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 7hr | 1404 | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Nominal Quiet Room/Free Play | Indoor voices, please. | |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Charles River Prefunction | Art | Presentation | Welcome | Visit with Marrus at Art Show | Please join our Artist Guest of Honor, at her table on the 16th floor. Marrus will be available for questions about her paintings, and to review work by con membership - please limit to one piece, due to time considerations. An excellent and renowned face/body painting artist, Marrus will also be available for skin decorating at an additional cost. | Marrus |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Kamikaze Costuming | Fabrics, Pins, Imagination! Come make your own costume. Then, show off your creation in the Masquerade. | Vonnie Carts-Powell, Carol Salemi, Aimee Yermish, Liz Cademy Pfeffer |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 4hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | MYCHIP Child ID Project | The CHIP program is a Child Identification process. Children (actually any age, as it has been found to be useful in older folks prone to wandering as well) are finger-printed, tooth-printed, DNA swabbed, and video-taped answering scripted questions. | Ross Schacher, Walter Hunt |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Catapults: Early Rocket Science? | Just like the machines in Lord of the Rings... but smaller, and all your own. | Pete 'Happy' Thomas |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Reading | Welcome | Reading from "Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere" | Award winning children's author Ann McCallum will do a reading from her newest book "Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere." | Ann McCallum |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Gordon Linzner Reading | Gordon Linzner reading one or two of his short stories. | Gordon Linzner (m) |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 40min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Targeted | Shaun the Sheep, Bernard the Bear | 6 episodes of Shaun the Sheep, a new spin off from Wallace & Gromit. Followed by Bernard the Bear. 2007 G | |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 7hr | Main Lobby | I do not know | Participatory Session | Not Allowed | Heinlein Society Blood Drive | Give the Gift of Life at Arisia! The fifth Arisia blood drive. Please consider donating. To set an appointment, go to the Heinlein Society table, find a Naughty Nurse or email blood-drive@arisia.org (pending an email reply.) Walk-ins welcome! We try to pace the timing of donors to allow the MGH staff to deliver on their expectation of one half hour per donor from beginning to end. Thank you! | |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Science | Panel | Welcome | Boondoggles We Knew and Loved | Let's look back at things that "seemed like a good idea at the time" but flopped, fizzled or just plain never got off the ground. Controlled nuclear fusion has been 30 years away for the past 50 years. Plans to build personal helicopters and auto-planes date back to the 1930s and 1940s. Remember the Picturephone and the dot-bombs? This panel will look back, chuckle, and discuss what went wrong. | Dr. Charles E Gannon, Jeff Hecht (m), Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Literature | Participatory Session | Welcome | Harry Potter: Movies vs. Books | Does knowing how the book series ends change our anticipation for the last two films? Are there actually fans of the movie series who haven't read the books? (No spoilers from book six or seven permitted at this panel. Go to the "Deathly Hallows" panel to talk about the end of the book series.) | Susan Hanniford Crowley (m), jan howard finder, Resa Nelson, Michael Sharrow, MaryAnn Johanson |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Media | Panel | Welcome | Star Trek: Remastered, for Better or Worse? | Spielberg and Lucas took lots of heat for tampering with released works. Has the team behind "Star Trek Remastered" done any better? There are lots of opinions on this one. Hear what our panelists have to say, then share your opinion. | J Clinton Alvord Jr (m), Karl T. Winkler |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Presidents A | I do not know | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Walk the Labyrinth | Come find your center in our 30'x30' Seven-Circuit Classical Labyrinth. A tool for walking meditation, use it to find a little peace during the excitement of Arisia. | |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 6hr | Presidents B | Gaming | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Dungeon Crawl with Realms | The Realms, a world where people live by wits and courage, by magic and the sword. Join us in Ballroom B, fighting with a weapon of your own making ($5 extra) or borrowing a weapon from our inventory. Either way, you're in the Realms now and you'll never be quite the same again. Abbreviated Rules of Combat: Realms uses a lightest touch system. No matter how lightly you are touched, you have to take the shot as a normal blow. Full details available at the tables outside the Dungeon Crawl. | |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Presidents D | Costuming | Meeting | Welcome | Mandatory Masquarade Contestant Meeting | Orientation and introduction meeting for the masquerade contestants before tech rehearsals start. All masquerade participants must attend. | Karen Purcell DVM (m), Donna M Dube, Dina Ellen Flockhart, Martin Gear, Toni Lay, Lisa A Ashton, Rachel Hels, Emily Skrodzki, Christine Denise Day |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Icehouse Games Demonstration | A million year old game from Mars. A logic puzzle. A game of space conquest. A chess variant. A bidding game. Robot programing. Torpedos. Pirates. Trees. What do these all have in common? Icehouse! Icehouse is a futuristic game system for playing hundreds of different board games. Come learn and play Treehouse, Zendo, Homeworlds, RAMbots, Icehouse, and many more games. Novice experience level, kid-friendly. Everything is provided, but bring your own stashes if you'd like. | Brian Campbell (m) |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Blood Bowl Open Gaming | Fantasy football mayhem -- orcs and elves and whatnot take to the pitch for a bloody, bruising and fun-filled miniatures boardgame. Learn the game or just brush up on the new rules. Players who learn the game at the open gaming are welcome to join in the ArisiaBowl tournament running all day Sunday. New players to experts welcome. | Maureen Reddington-Wilde (m) |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Clark "Superman" Kent and Bruce "Batman" Wayne | The dual identity of superheroes speaks less to comics' readership than it once did. Comic writers no longer write as much about Superheroes' secret identities. What are comics losing by dispensing with secret identities? Who would write for the Daily Planet if Clark Kent left his job to be a full-time superhero? | Jonathan Woodward (m), Debra Fran Baker, Alexx S Kay, Michael A Burstein |
Sat | 10:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Rosleyians Reading | A reading by the Rosleyians Writing Group. | Charlene Brusso, Suzanne Palmer (m), John Bowker |
Sat | 10:15 AM | 1hr 35min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Twinkle Twinkle Little Star | Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Chinese subtitled PG-13 95 minutes Slapstick SF comedy from Hong Kong. | |
Sat | 10:40 AM | 50min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Britsh Space Pirates | Animated British Space Pirates with the usual suspects. 2007 G | |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Ninjas vs Pirates Gaming Session | Come learn a new game from the game designers. | Mitchell Morris, Michael Bonet |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Crafting a Story, Criss-crossing Genres with GoH | This is a special session for our 10-12 yr. members based on the panel, "It's a fantasy, with romance, and a corpse, and no vampires, and a spaceship." | Laura Anne Gilman |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Costuming | Panel | Welcome | Molding and Casting | Creating masks, props, and prosthetics for costuming, using clay, plaster, resin, and other materials. This panel will feature a hands-on demonstration. | Garrett McCarthy, Brian Anderson, Jodi Anderson (m), Terry Becker |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Science | Panel | Welcome | The Great Ethanol Bust | Alternative fuels, bio-sustainability, and general ignorance about energy budgets, efficiencies, and economics. Examples: ethanol, algae, windfarms... | Dr. Charles E Gannon, The Marvelous MERV, Jeff Hecht, James B VanBokkelen |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | SMOFing | Meeting | Welcome | Gripe Session I | Tell us what's going wrong -- early in the con when we might be able to fix a problem on the fly. (We don't mind hearing about what's going well either.) | Samantha Dings, September L Isdell (m), Jill Eastlake |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Intro to Board and Card Games | Board and card games have gone through amazing changes over the past few decades. Monopoly is the Model-T of the board game world. New games are faster, better designed, and easier to learn than the old games you grew up with. With hundreds of new games on the market, it can be hard to know where to start. Learn about the great new games that have come out recently, and a few good starting points to get into this great hobby. | Chad Bergeron (m), Jacob Sommer, Stephanie Clarkson, Christopher Weuve |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Tesserae Demo | Inspired by ancient geometric art, Tesserae combines elements of dominoes and jigsaw puzzles to form a game of shapes and patterns. Tesserae pits players against one another, meshing colored tiles into the ever-evolving play field, each trying to exhaust their supply of tiles by completing colored regions while preventing their opponents from doing the same. Skillful strategy can pay off, but be careful -- things can change on the luck of a draw!. Abstract Strategy - Luck 30% Skill 70%. | Jonathan Venezian (m) |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Anime | Panel | Welcome | Intro to Anime | Anime is easily as diverse as any other film medium, with everything from action to romance to intrigue. How can you find what you want? And how can you find it without stumbling into tentacle wielding giant mecha driven by dimensionally dislocated schoolgirls? | Bill Todd, Neil Nadelman, John C. Watson (m), William Mui |
Sat | 11:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Robert J. Sawyer Reading | Hugo winner Robert J. Sawyer reads a new work. | Robert J. Sawyer |
Sat | 11:30 AM | 1hr 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Tempus Fugit | Spanish time travel comedy. Can you save the soccer championship, save the world, and save the girl… Subtitled. 2003 PG-13 | |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | Song Circle: Fantastic Animals | A song circle inspired by the fantastic animals often found in our artist guest of honor's work. Come to share your music or come to listen to the pictures others paint with their songs. | Gary McGath (m) |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Presentation | Targeted | What's a Comet Made Of? | Let's look at how NASA is exploring comets then see what they are made of by building our own. | Steven Hammond |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Which is Better: the Book or the Movie? | Which Shrek looked more like an ogre - the original picture book or the DreamWorks films? Come discuss your favorites. | Don Sakers |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Grant Carrington Reading | A reading by Grant Carrington of his own work. | Grant Carrington (m) |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Eric in the Elevator: A Primer | Eric "in the Elevator" Zuckerman is our Fan Performer Guest of Honor. Who is he? What does he do? And what floor will he be getting off on? Enter into the mystery and imagination of our GoH in this hour examination. Going up! | Julia Tenney (m), Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Media | Panel | Welcome | The Writers' Strike and Fandom | The Writers' Strike shut down Hollywood, and just when Joss Whedon was about to begin a new show! What does (did?) the strike mean for fandom TV favorites like Heroes and BSG? How long will it last (or is it already over by the con?) and what are they fighting over, anyway? | Steve Sawicki, John Sundman, Melissa Honig, Micah Schneider |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Science | Panel | Welcome | Homesteading in Space | As we reach out to the stars and explore the vast expanses of space between us and our neighbors, we will soon find that we need a place to stay when we arrive out there. Discuss concepts for making a home away from Mother Earth, such as biospheres, terraforming, and more. | Dr. Charles E Gannon, Ian Randal Strock, Martha H Adams, Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis, Allen Steele |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Science | Panel | Welcome | Ask a Geek | Is there something you'd really like to know? The panelists will take questions from the audience and answer them. 100% accuracy not guaranteed. | The Marvelous MERV, Terry Franklin (m), Amy Chused, Alan Wexelblat |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 2hr | Presidents A | Fannish Lifestyle | Presentation | Welcome | Higgins Armory Historical Combat Demonstrations | The Higgins Armory Sword Guild offers four combat demonstrations and arms and armor presentations at half-hour intervals. Come see what makes the Higgins Armory Museum, the only museum in the Western Hemisphere solely devoted to the arms and armor of the middle ages and Renaissance, unique. The HASG is dedicated to presenting scholarly and accurate interpretations of medieval and Renaissance combat. SF fans will have the opportunity to see techniques that have not been used in over 400 years. | |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Heat Between the Sheets: Writing/Selling Erotica | Finding markets and Calls for Submission; what editors want (or have seen far too often); general submissions protocol; erotica in speculative fiction. | Nomi S. Burstein, Cecilia Tan, Victoria Janssen, Trish Wilson/Elizabeth Black |
Sat | 12:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | The Best Science Fiction You Never Heard of | More and more you find new books in the general fiction section of bookstores that are clearly science fiction, but fans rarely know about them. Two books that come to mind are "Specimen Days" by Michael Cunningham and "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. Likewise, the best seller "Smilla's Sense of Snow" by Peter Hoeg has clear science fiction elements. What other examples are out there? | Eric M Van, Jennifer Williams (m), Mary Turzillo, Christopher Weuve, Lis Carey |
Sat | 12:30 PM | 6hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | SJ Games Tournament | Play three games, earn points based on your placing in those games. Person with the highest points at the end of the tournament wins. The games are The Good, The Bad, and The Munchkin; NinjaBurger; and Greedquest. | Bill Todd (m) |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 45min | Charles River Prefunction | Art | Participatory Session | Welcome | Art Show Tour with Marrus | Marrus takes you through the art show, sharing her perspectives on the works. | Marrus |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | Song Circle: Pithy Piratical Anthems | Yo, yo, how pirates like to sing. Bring your songs about pirates, be they traditional pirates, space pirates, software pirates, or some other type of bloody pirate. Listeners and performers welcome. | Paul "Dr. Snark" Estin (m) |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Mask Making | Masks make your personality, with costumes or not. | Elaine Isaak, Susan de Guardiola |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Welcome | Hands-On Science for Kids, Take 1 | Explore the weird world of science with the New England Mad Scientists Guild! Learn about physics and chemistry as you perform fun experiments. Be prepared to get your hands dirty! | Thomas V Gunn, Shira Lipkin |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Presentation | Targeted | Humorous Stories | Funny Stories | Don Sakers |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Giant Zendo Demo | Zendo is a game of inductive logic played with Icehouse pieces. One player - the "Master" - creates a rule and the others - the "Students" - try to figure it out by building structures out of Icehouse pieces and asking the Master whether it satisfies the rule. Come learn how it's played. | Julia Tenney (m), Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Star Trek New Voyages: World Enough and Time | With George Takei. TV Guide Award Winner for Best 2007 SF Webisode. Most excellent Star Trek fan film adventure of Captain Sulu. 2007 PG-13. Followed by Live Internet Video interview with Writer/ Director Marc Zicree or fanfilm technology in case of technical difficulty. | |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 2hr | Molly Pitcher | Science | Presentation | Welcome | The Colder Side of Global Warming© | Michael Crichton’s incredibly brilliant (science) fiction novel “State of Fear” was unusually prescient, but perhaps not quite in the way that Crichton intended. In “The Colder Side of Global Warming©” presentation, you will see some neat slides and video clips and walk away with a solid understanding of the factual complexity of Global Warming. See a bit more at http://www.colderside.com . | Tom Wysmuller (m) |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Continuity? What's That? | In the wake of Infinite Crisis and House of M, do back issues matter anymore? When long-standing storylines are ignored or rewritten, does what came before factor into the enjoyment of a title? Is continuity the sign of a well-written story or just obsolete? | Daniel P Dern (m), Larry Dunne, Michael A Burstein, Ed Fuqua, Adam Lipkin |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Morality Play | In many fantasy campaigns good and evil are clearly defined. But what about role-playing issues where there are shades of gray? What about conflicts that can't be resolved with a sword or basic puzzle-solving? Lumpley Games's "Dogs in the Vineyard" is an example of a RPG that puts characters into moral and ethical binds while they try to remain true to their beliefs and goals. | Jonathan Woodward (m), Walter Milliken, Mark Waks, Evan Jamieson, - dkap |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Costuming | Participatory Session | Welcome | Mary, Mary, How Does Your Costume Grow? | How on earth would you make that? Where you can find that missing piece and unusual fabric? What common home items can be re-appropriated as your perfect talisman? How to transform your dream into reality. | Donna M Dube, Mercy E Van Vlack, Lisa A Ashton, Catt Kingsgrave, Sara M. Harvey |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 7hr | Presidents D | Costuming | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Masquerade Rehearsal | Run through your Masquerade presentation with Tech. Requires sign-up at the Masquerade registration desk. | Karen Purcell DVM (m) |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Participatory Session | Welcome | Ninjas vs Pirates Game Demo | A demonstration of the Ninjas vs Pirates card game by the game designers. Be the stealthy ninja or the roguish pirates and lead your men to victory in the epic battle of Ninjas vs Pirates. A very quick game. | Mitchell Morris, Michael Bonet (m) |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Costuming | Panel | Welcome | Advanced Costume Weathering | Sometimes it's important for your character to look dirty to be convincing. Come learn some techniques for making your costumes looked appropriately worn, weathered or battle-damaged. Topics will include distressing cloth, tea/coffee, airbrush, rattle can, acrylics, hairspray and dirt. | Brian Anderson, Jodi Anderson (m), Bob Gouveia |
Sat | 1:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Trend? What Trend? | Led by Laura Anne Gilman. In a perfect world, your book about "X" hits the market exactly when the readership is saying, "We want a book about X!" But popularity can be a double-eged sword.... hear discussions on the pros and cons of being popular -- and why sometimes being "in" isn't all it's cracked up to be. | Jeanne Cavelos, Laura Anne Gilman (m), Robert J. Sawyer |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Pipe Cleaner Dragons | Design and make a mythical beast from pipe cleaners. | Susan de Guardiola, Charlene Taylor D'Alessio |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Presentation | Targeted | Star Wars Rebel Legion | Rebel Legion costumes and discussion. | Garrett McCarthy, Brian Anderson, Jodi Anderson, Bob Gouveia, Terry Becker, Sean Carmichael, Tim Drew, EJ Marmonti |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Beyond Hogwarts: A Young Fan's Reading List | What is out there for kids that doesn't insult the intelligence, but also doesn't fly over the heads faster than a Firebolt? | Peter Maranci, Adam Lipkin, Liz Cademy Pfeffer |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Art | Participatory Session | Welcome | Draw and Jaw | Whether you are a seasoned professional or a certified novice, come and join other artists to share your skills and works. Exchange tips and suggestions, or just chat in the way that only artists can. Please bring your own drawing materials as a selection of objects will be provided for still life. | Marrus, Rachel L Silber (m) |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Patriots Hall | I do not know | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Summit Mt. Arisia! | How many steps does it take to get to the top? Take part in the official Arisia stair climb! Use as much of the hour as you need to get yourself from the first to the 16th floor, and when you reach the summit, receive a ribbon proclaiming your achievement. No climbing gear or prior mountaineering experience required. (Meet in the stairwell at the far end of the Programming hallways on the first floor. Look for the signs.) | |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Fannish Disaster Preparedness | How to protect what's important to you from random acts of disaster. How do I protect my books from flooding? What is a good off-site email storage solution? Homeowner's and renter's insurance: what they cover and what they don't. What foods should I keep on hand, other than the Coke and Twinkies? | Terry Franklin (m), Thomas A. Amoroso, Martha H Adams, Janice Dumas |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Science Fiction About "Touchy" Subjects | SF these days is full of the moral dilemmas that the general public shrinks from. Why is science fiction good at talking about things people don't want to address? Does SF deal with such matters directly or metaphorically (i.e., coded in the language of the genre)? Are those aliens really aliens or are they standing in for someone else? | Suford Lewis, Ken Gale (m), Aline Boucher Kaplan, Allen Steele, Robert J. Sawyer |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Media | Participatory Session | Welcome | Wouldn't You Like to be a Superhero? | New shows like "Heroes," "The 4400," and "Painkiller Jane" show us that it's not always pleasant. Why has this become a popular idea? Is it that we like imagining what powers we'd get? Or is it saying something darker about losing our control of the world? | Cynthia A Shettle, Kiralee B McCauley, Terri Osborne, Jerome C Conner, Michael A Burstein |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | Salah ad-Din | Salah ad-Din is a board game set during the time of the crusades. Each player plays the role of the emir of a middle-eastern city attempting to unify all the cities behind them in an attempt to drive out the crusaders. | Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki (m) |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Battle for Cynon Refinery: CAV Demo | Try out Reaper Miniature's fast-paced sci-fi wargame! Take control of a CAV (Combat Assault Vehicle) and slug it out with opposing factions. CAV is a fast-moving combined arms battle game which utilizes Reaper's RAGE system, which accounts for damage taken by your units without bogging down the game with record-keeping. | Douglas Schaub (m) |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Not Allowed | Speed Dating | Looking for a SMRPG? a BiGLARP? FSFR? Welcome to speed dating (Single Male into Role Playing Games.. no not that kind... oh maybe) (Bisexual Girl into Live Action Role Play... eeks not again) (Female Science Fiction Reader) | Jeff Mach (m) |
Sat | 2:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Publishing 101 | So, you're a writer who's starting to think about trying to get a short story or a novel published, but you know nothing about the SF/Fantasy/Horror publishing industry. We'll tell you how the industry works, show you how to avoid scams, and give you pointers on how to find appropriate markets for your work. | Keith R. A. DeCandido, Jeanne Cavelos, Laura Anne Gilman, Elaine Isaak, Jennifer Pelland (m) |
Sat | 2:30 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Alliance by Gemal Seede | An Islamic Toned Space Opera produced by Gemal Seede, crossing Weber with Dune. 2005 PG13 | |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Art | Participatory Session | Targeted | Young Artist Portfolio Review with Marrus | Younger members (18 & under) are invited to bring 3-5 of their best pieces for a portfolio review. Marrus will answer questions on becoming & being an artist. First come, first served basis, so please be considerate of your fellow artists’ time! | Marrus |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Presentation | Targeted | Magic Show | Sleight of Hand, Illusion, and, possibly, making your best friend disappear -- come to the Arisia Magic Show! | Daniel P Dern |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Cartooning & Comic Creating | Learn how to draw cartoons and construct a comic. | Mercy E Van Vlack |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Stump the Scientists! | Come and learn how things really work. | Stephen R Wilk, Pete 'Happy' Thomas, Ken Olum, Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 2hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Defend Yourself Against the Aliens | Self-defense techniques for boys & girls. Learn to defend yourself from insults & actions. | Stephen R Balzac, Jeff Mach |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Clayton McNally Reading | A reading by Clayton McNally | Clayton McNally (m) |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 204 | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Tarot Workshop | Always wanted to learn the Tarot but overwhelmed by the complexity? An old hand looking for new ideas? This class introduces the history and artwork of the Tarot from its early roots to modern proliferation. Students will learn the structure of the deck, explore the Major and Minor Arcana and learn some simple techniques for giving great readings to themselves and others. | Sierra Black |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | First World | An Interstellar conspiracy pilot by Mark Lund with incidental Gay Characters. 2006 PG13 | |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Anime | Panel | Welcome | Studio Ghibli | A look at the legendary animation studio from its origins, starting with founders Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki working their way up the ladder as animation staff at Toei and Tokyo Movie Shinsha in the 60s and 70s. Then, there's a look to the studio's landmark first feature film, their most recent masterpieces, a peek at clips and sounds from Hayao Miyazaki's forthcoming Ponyo on a Cliff, followed by a screening of Studio Ghibli's latest film, Tales from Earthsea. | Bill "Crash" Yerazunis, Mario di Giacomo, Alicia Faires |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | The Fairer Gamer - Women and Gaming | Gaming used to be thought of as a hobby for smelly geek boys living in their parents’ basements. Though the stereotype of a gamer as a guy who can’t get a date still persists, what has changed in the last 30 years to bring more women into gaming? What can be done to make it more welcoming to women? This focused is on Tabletop gaming specifically. | Lauren Grover, Julia Tenney, Elizabeth McCoy, Anna R Bradley, Stephanie Clarkson |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Media | Panel | Welcome | "Eric in the Elevator" Show Origins & Past Tales | The Origin Story of “Eric in the Elevator”! Eric was a mild-mannered fan until he was bitten by a radioactive elevator – no, that’s not how it happened! Join Lord 'Vator himself and cast/crew members from the Elevator Talk Show’s first two formative Seasons (at least one cameraperson, and at least one Cue Card Chick) as they recount stories about the early years and the amazing set of coincidences that enabled such an unlikely animal as EitE to become a SFBay fannish tradition. | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Tossing the Dice - Luck Free Games | Not every game needs to be random. Classics like Go, Chess and Checkers have no random elements besides the players. There even exist RPGs without luck in Amber and Nobilis. Hear what other games are out there for players who want to toss their dice. | Kiralee B McCauley, Chad Bergeron (m) |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents A | Media | Panel | Welcome | The Movie Year in Review | Our annual look back at the year in SF, horror, and fantasy film. Our panel of experts will cover every theatrical release of 2007. Find out which ones are worth catching up on. Note: time for audience participation is reserved for the end of our panel's high speed review. | Michael A Ventrella, Daniel M Kimmel (m), Garen Daly, John Bowker, MaryAnn Johanson |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Charity Begins with SF | A discussion of the ways that some area fan groups have been able to use their science fiction interests to help out their communities. Groups include The Heinlein Society, 501st and Rebel Legion Star Wars Costume Groups and the New England Browncoats There is a long tradition of SF and media fan clubs doing charity work. How can your club get involved? | Melissa Honig, John Hodges, Jodi Anderson (m) |
Sat | 3:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | The Future of Videogaming | What are the hot trends in videogames now? What *will* they be in 5 years, or ten? How does advancing technology affect what we can accomplish in videogaming? | Alexx S Kay (m), James Turner, Bill Pomeroy, Evonne Heyning |
Sat | 3:30 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Short Attention Span Theatre 1 | Cartoon Heroes, Power Girl, Worlds Finest, CatWoman | |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Media | Panel | Welcome | The Living Dead | Forty years after George Romero gave us "Night of the Living Dead," his zombies still walk among us in remakes, new films from Romero himself, and astonishing recent movies from others ranging from "Shaun of the Dead" to "28 Weeks Later." Why is this SF/horror subgenre so enduring? What are its classics and which are merely the walking dead? | Michael A Horne, Garen Daly, Tim Lieder, Adam Lipkin |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Panel | Welcome | Magic How-To's | Learn the basics of illusion and sleight-of-hand. | Daniel P Dern |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Presentation | Welcome | Germs: Up Close and Personal | Hear a story about these little critters that have such an Evil Power over our lives, and do a science experiment to discover some unusual vectors of viral and bacterial contagion. | Amy Chused |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Have Space Suit: Heinlein for Juveniles | Heinlein's juvenile stories have long been admired and imitated, but are they just too dated for today's youth? | A Joseph Ross, James Turner, Liz Cademy Pfeffer |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Presentation | Welcome | Odyssey Writing Workshop Presentation | Director Jeanne Cavelos and several graduates of the program describe Odyssey, an intensive six-week workshop for writers of SF/F/H held each summer at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. Odyssey is an internationally respected program with guests that have included George R. R. Martin, Dan Simmons, Elizabeth Hand, Harlan Ellison, and Jane Yolen. The pros and cons of various types of writing workshops--local, genre, Internet, college, and residential--are also discussed. | Jeanne Cavelos (m) |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 204 | Science | Panel | Welcome | Will 3D Printing Change the World? | This winter Desktop Factory is signing up early adopters for its $5,000 3D printer. It's a major price drop (from $20,000) and it may be the beginning of the emergence of a new technology for the home. What will it do to the economy? To costuming? To ...? | Thomas Easton, Ian Randal Strock, Jeff Hecht, Sarah Smith |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Short Attention Span Theatre 2 | Intergalactic Dating, Ninja, Annie & Boo | |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Straight in a Poly World | So there's monogamy on one side of the relationship spectrum and polyamory on the other, and never the twain shall meet. But is it really that simple? Is there a middle ground? Monogamy isn't for everyone, and neither is polyamory, but how do you tell which is right for you? Join this discussion for those of us who grew up with a one to one relationship ratio worldview, as we try to comprehend relationships that involve higher-level mathematics and flowcharts. | Bonnie Barlow Turner, Michelle Wexelblat, MSW, Solomon Davidoff (m), Ken Kingsgrave-Ernstein, Shava Nerad |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Steampunk vs. Cyberpunk | We've gone from nihilistic tech-heavy cyberpunk to more light-hearted, ingenious steampunk. Is steampunk's growing popularity because we're coming to terms with the fact that we're not getting the future we expected? | James T Henderson Jr, Mario di Giacomo (m), Walter Hunt, John Kraemer, Catt Kingsgrave |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Science | Panel | Welcome | Global Warming: Fact or Fiction | What is global warming? Why should we be concerned about it? How do we know it's not just a plot by Al Gore to sell his book and movie? Is the scientific community reaching a consensus that global warming is real? What can individuals do to make a difference? | John H Costello, Jim Belfiore (m), Ken Gale, John Hodges, Tom Wysmuller |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis Reading | A reading by Dr. Landis | Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis (m) |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Criss-Crossing Genres with Laura Anne Gilman | It's a fantasy, with romance, and a corpse, and no vampires, and a space ship! How to blend, meld, and when to leave it in the blender. Led by the Writer Guest of Honor. | Nina Harper, Laura Anne Gilman (m), KT Pinto |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Salah ad-Din | Salah ad-Din is a board game set during the time of the crusades. Each player plays the role of the emir of a middle-eastern city attempting to unify all the cities behind them in an attempt to drive out the crusaders. | Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki (m) |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Battle for Cynon Refinery: CAV Demo | Try out Reaper Miniature's fast-paced sci-fi wargame! Take control of a CAV (Combat Assault Vehicle) and slug it out with opposing factions. CAV is a fast-moving combined arms battle game which utilizes Reaper's RAGE system, which accounts for damage taken by your units without bogging down the game with record-keeping. | Douglas Schaub (m) |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | About the 501st | What started as a couple of guys dressing up in Star Wars Stormtrooper armor at conventions turned into a world-wide organization of almost 4000 members. Come learn about the history of 'Vader's Fist', the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers Imperial costuming group. | Brian Anderson, Jodi Anderson (m), Bob Gouveia |
Sat | 4:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Media | Panel | Welcome | There's No Star Trek! And No Buffy! | What should fans be watching on TV these days? Battlestar Galactica? Heroes? Jericho? The 4400? What are the hot shows and how can you catch up if you haven't been watching? Will any of these shows have the impact on fandom of Trek, Babylon 5, X Files, Firefly or Buffy? | Misty Pendragon (m), Cynthia A Shettle, Nomi S. Burstein, Eric M Van, MaryAnn Johanson |
Sat | 4:30 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Coming Attractions | Trailers for 2008 Films | |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Courtyard Lobby | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Autograph Session with Laura Anne Gilman | Meet our author guest of honor and bring your item to be autographed. (Number of items signed will be determined at con) | Laura Anne Gilman (m) |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Fannish Lifestyle | Meeting | Welcome | LiveJournal Meet and Greet | LiveJournal! Come meet everyone! Get your ribbon at the Info Desk and head on in! | Evonne Heyning (m) |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Art | Panel | Welcome | Knittly, Stitchly, Quiltly | Share your interest in these growing hobbies in fandom. Love to start but don't know where? How to spin an SF theme into these crafts and thus marry your two loving hobbies. | Nomi S. Burstein, Lauren Grover, Anna R Bradley (m), Melissa Scott, Stephanie Clarkson |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Short Attention Span Theatre 3 | Grape Scented, A Lonely Sky, Code Guardian, DnD Song | |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Main Lobby | Media | Participatory Session | Welcome | Eric "in the Elevator" Season7.5 Filming Session | Your 15 minutes of make-believe fame: "Eric in the Elevator" films at Arisia, and you are the celebrity that our FPGoH will chat with next! Join us in the lobby and be interviewed in our fan-built elevator set! Maybe you'll discover yourself to be on a book tour; on the other hand, you could turn out to be something completely unexpected! Two chairs, one potted plant, no script! | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Media | Panel | Welcome | Science on the Big Screen | Movies are rife with faulty science. Who gets it right? Who gets it hilariously wrong? Is it ever reasonable to gloss over science for the purpose of plot? Does too much science get in the way of plot? | Rebecca L Kletnieks, Vonnie Carts-Powell, Barry Longyear, Eric M Van, Adam Lipkin (m) |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Presentation | Welcome | Resurrection from Eden | Dr. Rich Staats is also Colonel Staats, USAR. In this seminar, he recalls the lessons learned from his most recent command tour in Iraq. As the director for Iraqi Security Force support, Colonel Staats' responsibilities ranged from the tactical to the strategic. Come and hear his insights. His decorations include a Bronze Star, a Superior Honor award (from the US State Department), and a medal of distinction from Poland. | Dr Richard C Staats (m) |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Sexy or Sexist | What is the difference between sexy and sexist? Is there a real line in the sand, or is it up to each of us to decide? | Nina Harper, Mercy E Van Vlack, David Sklar (m), Jeff Mach, Mary Turzillo |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Tesserae Tournament | Inspired by ancient geometric art, Tesserae combines elements of dominoes and jigsaw puzzles to form a game of shapes and patterns. Tesserae pits players against one another, meshing colored tiles into the ever-evolving play field, each trying to exhaust their supply of tiles by completing colored regions while preventing their opponents from doing the same. Skillful strategy can pay off, but be careful -- things can change on the luck of a draw! Abstract Strategy - Luck 30% Skill 70%. | Jonathan Venezian (m) |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | 100 Years of Heinlein: A Primer | R.A. Heinlein was one of the most influential science fiction authors of all time. But where do you start if you are new to fandom? Which books were his best? And which can you safely skip until you start running out of the good stuff? | James Zavaglia, Terry Franklin, A Joseph Ross, Eugene Heller, Micah Schneider (m) |
Sat | 5:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | RPG 101... | What are role-playing games? How do you find good people to game with? How do you become a good person to game with? Which games are good for beginning gamers? What about intermediate and advanced gamers? | Kiralee B McCauley, Peter Maranci, Lisa J Steele (m), Jacob Sommer, Bill Pomeroy |
Sat | 5:30 PM | 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Short Attention Span Theatre 4 | The Mysterious Geographic Expeditions of Jasper Morrello | |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 2hr | Charles River Prefunction | Art | Presentation | Welcome | Visit with Marrus at Art Show | Please join our Artist Guest of Honor, at her table on the 16th floor. Marrus will be available for questions about her paintings, and to review work by con membership - please limit to one piece, due to time considerations. An excellent and renowned face/body painting artist, Marrus will also be available for skin decorating at an additional cost. | Marrus |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 3hr | Crispus Attucks | Costuming | Participatory Session | Welcome | Kids Masquerade Green Room | Green Room for children to prepare for the Masquerade. Please feed your children dinner before you bring them to the room- there will be some munchies, but no real food. | |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Dark Resurrection | A most Excellent Star Wars fan film from Italy. A Master Jedi seeks Ultimate Power. ($75,000 is being raised to produce part 2.) Subtitled. 2007 PG13 | |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Surprise Mini-story Writing Challenge | Writers are given a story element, then must write a short story in fifteen minutes based on that story element. | Keith R. A. DeCandido, Michael McAfee, Melissa Scott (m), Suzanne Palmer, Clayton McNally, Shira Lipkin, Mary Turzillo |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Media | Panel | Welcome | The Doctor Is In | How do Doctors Nine and Ten compare with the previous eight? This is NOT your mama's Doctor Who. | James Zavaglia, Terri Osborne, Jennifer Pelland, Michael Sharrow, Victoria Janssen, Hildy Silverman |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Retelling Fairytales | Folk and fairytales offer some of the riches sources for story telling. How have people adapted them into novels and films? What are great sources of these tales? Why do they resonate so with readers? | Rebecca L Kletnieks, Greer Gilman, Mary Catelli, Brent Heyning, Sonya Taaffe |
Sat | 6:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | SMOFing | Panel | Welcome | Running Cons: Are You Out Of Your Mind? | What sort of people get involved in running science fiction conventions, and what do they get out of it? Come hear speakers talk about how, and why, they got involved. Don't worry, you won't have to volunteer! | Jill Eastlake, Patricia Ann Vandenberg, Eric M Van, Anna R Bradley, Hugh Casey |
Sat | 6:30 PM | 5hr 30min | Empress ABCD | Costuming | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Masquerade Green Room | Preparation room for the masquerade contestants. Opens at 6:30pm, closes not less than one hour after the Masquerade judging ends. | |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 40min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Ideality | A superb flight of imagination by teenage wunderkind Ian Hubert (not another teen fanfilm). 2006 PG | |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Media | Panel | Welcome | The Voyages Continue -- Fan Style | The latest wave of fan-made "Star Trek" films rival the quality of some TV shows. What's available? What's coming? And how will the new J.J. Abrahms "Star Trek" movie affect these productions? Join in the discussion and tell us about your favorite Trek fan-made productions. | J Clinton Alvord Jr (m), Karl T. Winkler |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Bricks and Mortar vs. Wires and Webs | Do you always have to support your local book store? Purchasing books, games and models from the net can save you money, but lose a local store. How can brick-and-mortar bookstores make themselves centers of their communities? | Kiralee B McCauley, Sarah Smith, Stephanie Clarkson (m) |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Collateral Damage | An anime based board game, you play a gang boss trying to take over Neo Japan, using typical characters from romantic comedy anime to form your gang. You win fights to gain notoriety to take over the cities. However, in this game, your gang members can fall in love, at which point they they ignore you and try to follow their own path. | Bill Todd (m) |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Heroclix - 1000 pt unrestricted | Bring a 1000 pt unrestricted army to play a game of Heroclix. There will be three to four 50 minute rounds depending on number of players to determine championship. Prize is a Wizkids limited figure or card. | William Mui (m) |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Science | Panel | Welcome | Latest on Eco-Friendliness | There's lots of information on how to help the environment, some good, some bad. The panel separates the fads from the practical. | Ken Gale, Wil Howitt, Ken Olum, James B VanBokkelen, Tom Wysmuller |
Sat | 7:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Retro-Futurism | "The future isn't what it used to be." Fond memories of futures that used to be used in SF, and whether any of them can be used again. | Stephen R Wilk, Mario di Giacomo, Debra Doyle, Walter Hunt (m) |
Sat | 7:45 PM | 12min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Pirate Shorts | Several worldwide takes on the Life of Pirates. | |
Sat | 8:00 PM | 2hr 48min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End | Aargh, hoist the sail and raise the hotel’s anchor, we be putting out to Seas Unknown. 2007 PG13 | |
Sat | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Science | Panel | Welcome | Back Into Space -- Who's Paying the Bill? | Google is offering a prize to the first private company to create a moon rover, and several companies are competing for space tourism. Russia wants to go to the moon, and George Bush wants us to go to Mars. Is *The Astronaut Farmer* or huge government programs the shape of things to come? | Stephen C Fisher, Dr. Charles E Gannon (m), Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis |
Sat | 8:00 PM | 2hr 30min | Presidents ABCD | Costuming | Participatory Session | Welcome | The Masquerade | The Masquerade is a contest and display of creativity by your fellow con-goers. After presenting their wonderful creations, they are judged by a panel of costumers and awarded for their efforts. All entries are judged in four categories (Young Fan, Novice, Journeyman, Master) to give everyone a chance. Enjoy the display and stay for the halftime entertainment, a local Middle Eastern Dance Troupe “Bad Raqs San’e Sahra” – Dancers of the Desert Wind, accompanied by a skilled band of musicians. | Karen Purcell DVM (m), Donna M Dube, Dina Ellen Flockhart, Martin Gear, Rachel Hels, Emily Skrodzki, Christine Denise Day |
Sat | 8:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | The Realities of Setting Up a Business | In one classic SF plot, a scientist/engineer develops something in his garage, then goes on to sell it to the masses. There's a few steps missing in that plan. Here's what you need to know in case you'd like to follow that particular dream. | Ian Randal Strock, A Joseph Ross, Lisa Wood |
Sat | 9:00 PM | 8hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Filking Into the Night - Open Filking | Hear filk in its native environment! Make music happen. Sing! Play! Clap hands! Listen! Join the merriment! No experience necessary. | |
Sat | 9:00 PM | 6hr | Crows Nest Alcove | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | VTM: The Price of Redemption - LARP | A dig was recently conducted in Egypt, and a treasure trove of kindred artifacts and lore was uncovered. It has been brought out of Egypt, and is now being auctioned in Boston. Vampires have arrived from all across the country to bid on these items. This is a game of gothic horror. Each player will be provided with a character, a background and a list of goals. No experience is necessary to play. | Michael Dlott (m), Angela Dickau, Michael Charnitsky |
Sat | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Science | Panel | Welcome | Possible and Impossible in Physics | What could an advanced civilization accomplish, given the laws of physics as we understand them today, but no engineering constraints? FTL? Time travel? Immortality? Arbitrarily fast computation? This panels is about what we think is possible, not what it would mean for society. | Arnis Kletnieks, Bill "Crash" Yerazunis, Ken Olum, Bruce Mackenzie |
Sat | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Media | Panel | Welcome | Joss Whedon is our Master!!!! | Yes, we love Joss, why do we love Joss. This will be a open discussion about the appeal of the Whedonverse, his great characters, and well...his great shows | Misty Pendragon (m), Howard Beatman, Melissa Honig, Resa Nelson, Bey Woodward |
Sat | 9:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Pirates | Panel | Only w/ Parent | The Sex Life of Pirates | While their on-shore lechery was legendary, there has been some speculation that some pirate crew members paired up and acted as married couples -- including sex. There is also speculation that some crew members were secretly women (beyond Ann Bonny and Mary Reid). How much sex was really happening below decks in the pirate heyday? | Sarah Smith, Ed Fuqua (m) |
Sat | 10:00 PM | 2hr | Guest Room 204 | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | 10 Bad LARPs: Remix! - LARP | Alleged Entertainment presents "10 Bad LARPs: Remix!", a compilation of the best (or worst) moments from "10 Bad LARPs in 100 Bad Minutes," "10 Bad LARPs: The B-Sides," and "4 Bad LARPs in 40 Bad Minutes." WARNING: This is an adult game. It contains offensive themes, blatant sexuality, violence, racism, sexism, ageism, and pretty much any other "ism" that offends people. It's all in the spirit of lighthearted fun, though. | Susan Weiner, John D'Agosta, Nat Budin (m), Joshua Sheena |
Sat | 10:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | MMORPG War Stories | Come and tell people some of the fun (and not so fun) stories of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. What are some of the traps that befall gamers (and their relatives)? | Alicia Ellen Goranson, Evan Jamieson, Bill Pomeroy |
Sat | 10:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Vampires in 20th Century Fiction | From *Dracula* to *Interview with the Vampire* to Buffy, we have seen major changes in our perceptions of Vampires. We’ll be discussing the evolving role of Vampire from monster to sophisticate, and how culture and society may have affected those roles. Are they evil, are they misunderstood, or are they a bit of both? | Alicia "Kestrell" Verlager, KT Pinto (m), Susan de Guardiola, Jennifer Williams, Ed Fuqua |
Sat | 10:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Chez Geek Card Game | Take a look at the wackier side of life in a college dorm. | Bill Todd, William Mui (m) |
Sat | 10:00 PM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | HorrorClix - 300 pt constructed army | Bring a 300 pt constructed army to play a game of HorrorClix. There will be three to four 50 minute rounds depending on number of players to determine championship. Prize is a Wizkids limited figure or card. | Larry Dunne (m) |
Sat | 10:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Adult | Panel | Not Allowed | Home Depot in the Bedroom | Home improvement stores sell rope, chains, bolts, lumber -- all this useful stuff. What creative uses can you put it to around the house? Hmmm... We'll give examples, tips and tricks, and general design principles. No children admitted. | Scott Lefton, - dkap (m), Lawrence Nelson, Ken Kingsgrave-Ernstein |
Sat | 10:30 PM | 1hr | Main Lobby | Media | Participatory Session | Not Allowed | Eric "in the Elevator" Season7.5 Filming Session | Your 15 minutes of make-believe fame: "Eric in the Elevator" films at Arisia, and you are the celebrity that our FPGoH will chat with next! Join us in the lobby and be interviewed in our fan-built elevator set! Maybe you'll discover yourself to be on a book tour; on the other hand, you could turn out to be something completely unexpected! Two chairs, one potted plant, no script! | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sat | 10:50 PM | 2hr 10min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Stardust | Stardust Beyond Worlds End. Sail the skies with Captain Shakespeare. Based on the Neil Gaiman's fantasy graphic fable. 2007 PG13 | |
Sat | 11:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Adult | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Your Kink is Okay | No matter how outlandish a person's proclivities are, there are still things that they will find freaky about other people. Why is it that many who engage in one unusual behavior look down on another? We'll discuss various activities and maybe discover that "those people" aren't quite as freaky as we might have thought before. | Solomon Davidoff, Jennifer Williams, Lawrence Nelson, Micah Schneider |
Sat | 11:30 PM | 6hr | Presidents ABCD | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Saturday Club Dance | Once again, DJ Johnny Zed will bring his eclectic DJing style to Arisia's Saturday Night Club Dance. Spinning until the last dancer drops or until he gets closed down, Johnny will play music from genres ranging from the usual favorite 80s/retro, darkwave/EBM/industrial and beyond! Requests heartily welcomed, and though there's no guarantee that he'll get them all in, he'll damn well try! So get into your dancing gear, and join us for a night on the dancefloor. We can dance if we want to! | |
Sunday |
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Sun | 12:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Leather Folk, Ren Faire, Star Wars: Connections | As Margaret Cho points out, there seems to be a significant connection between alternate sexuality and fandom. Join us as we explore why that is and whether we think it’s a good thing. | KT Pinto, Vanessa Layne, - dkap, Ed Fuqua, Jeff Mach (m) |
Sun | 12:00 AM | 23hr 59min | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | 24-Hour Open Gaming | 24-hour unscheduled gaming. Magnificent! | James Pinkerton (m) |
Sun | 1:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Media | Panel | Welcome | The Rogues Gallery | Darth Vader, Captain Jack Sparrow and Dracula... the list goes on. What is it about villains that sticks with us even after the movie is over? Do we feel envious because they can get away with things we can't? Is an antagonist's struggle more meaningful or emotionally compelling than that of the protagonist? Is it the belief that they can be redeemed in some way? Come discuss your favorite villains with others and find out what makes them tick. | Ian Randal Strock, Bill "Crash" Yerazunis, KT Pinto (m), Susan Hanniford Crowley, Israel Peskowitz |
Sun | 2:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Carpe Noctum: Fen at Night | Fen are generally thought of as a nocturnal bunch, but much of the world is not. What does it take to survive as a late riser in the world? How do you deal with noisy neighbors and businesses that close before you wake up? More importantly, how does one avoid violence against perky, early-rising roommates? | Eugene Heller, John C. Watson (m), Stephanie Clarkson, Lawrence Nelson |
Sun | 3:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Convention Party Horror Stories | If you've been to convention parties, unless you are really lucky, you've probably been to really bad parties. You might have even been to really bad parties this weekend. Let's hear your worst. How bad can it be? Make the party hosts here feel better about whatever might have gone wrong with their party. | Eugene Heller, Hugh Casey |
Sun | 8:00 AM | 4hr | Crispus Attucks | Gaming | Game | Only w/ Parent | Welcome to Sunnyvale - LARP | Alleged Entertainment presents "Welcome to Sunnyvale," a short, light LARP that takes place in Sunnyvale Retirement Home. There are creepy old men, hot young nurses, and even creepy old men hitting on hot young nurses! Bad memories, bad vision, and lots of crazy. "Lots of crazy what?" I'm old! I can use the word crazy any way I want! | Susan Weiner, John D'Agosta, Nat Budin (m), Joshua Sheena |
Sun | 8:00 AM | 9hr | Paul Revere A | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Arisia 2008 Blood Bowl Tournament | ArisiaBowl III 2008 is the third annual Blood Bowl tournament to be held at Arisia. Blood Bowl is a fun, exciting and fast-paced boardgame with painted miniature figures. Orcs, and elves, and spiky balls, oh my! Hear the roar of the crowd! Stomp the opposing team into the ground! Smell the sweet scent of victory. Come take part in the original fantasy football. ArisiaBowl will be an all-day tournament starting Sunday morning. | Maureen Reddington-Wilde (m) |
Sun | 8:00 AM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Necessary Evil: A Hero is Suborned | When all the super heroes of the world are blown to kingdom come by an army of invading aliens who will save the day? Evil... The only forces left to take on the alien menace are the crafty and self serving super villains! | Robert Rosenthal (m) |
Sun | 8:30 AM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Sunday Morning Yoga | Start off a long, exciting day of con right. Join us for yoga to relax your mind and strengthen your body. | Jude Shabry (m) |
Sun | 9:00 AM | 3hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Unstructured Supervised Free Play | 1 hour before FastTrack opens. Indoor voices, please. | |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Charles River Prefunction | Art | Presentation | Welcome | Visit with Marrus at Art Show | Please join our Artist Guest of Honor, at her table on the 16th floor. Marrus will be available for questions about her paintings, and to review work by con membership - please limit to one piece, due to time considerations. An excellent and renowned face/body painting artist, Marrus will also be available for skin decorating at an additional cost. | Marrus |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 1hr 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Starship Surprise | Traumschiff Surprise, German parody. The crew of the USS Surprise hitch a ride on a Space Taxi to rescue the Empress; comedy ensues. In German, no English, so supply your own dialogue… 2004 PG-13 | |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Depression & Creativity Workshop | Depression and creativity seem to go hand in hand. Some our most significant works of art, film, music, and literature have come from the minds of people suffering depression. Names such as Van Gogh, William Faulkner, Irving Berlin, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf come to mind. This workshop is designed to provide answers and support for those suffering from depression, particularly in relation to the creative process, and to educate friends and loved ones of people suffering from depression. | Michelle Wexelblat, MSW, Jennifer Williams (m) |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Media | Panel | Welcome | Trek Travel | Do you build your vacations around conventions to get your Trek fix? This panel offers some interesting alternative Trek choices. Join us as we explore Trek TV and movie filming locations, the town of Vulcan, Kirk's Birthplace, graveyards, Universities and more. Come share your ideas and experiences, and bring travel questions for our well-traveled panelists. Cool giveaways and prizes! | Bonnie J Kenderdine, Maryhelen Shuman-Groh, Joan C. Stanley, sandi mrowka, Diane Owen (m) |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Presidents A | I do not know | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Walk the Labyrinth | Come find your center in our 30'x30' Seven-Circuit Classical Labyrinth. A tool for walking meditation, use it to find a little peace during the excitement of Arisia. | |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 6hr | Presidents B | Gaming | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Dungeon Crawl with Realms | The Realms, a world where people live by wits and courage, by magic and the sword. Join us in Ballroom B, fighting with a weapon of your own making ($5 extra) or borrowing a weapon from our inventory. Either way, you're in the Realms now and you'll never be quite the same again. Abbreviated Rules of Combat: Realms uses a lightest touch system. No matter how lightly you are touched, you have to take the shot as a normal blow. Full details available at the tables outside the Dungeon Crawl. | |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Presidents D | I do not know | Participatory Session | Welcome | Intro to Juggling | Never thrown a ball in your life? Think juggling two balls is impressive? Or are you still working on a shaky 3-ball cascade? Stop by and learn the basics, or if you can already juggle, learn a few new tricks. All necessary equipment will be provided. | |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | Traveller Table-top RPG | An interstellar adventure where you take part in an expedition to a primitive world to recover lost artifacts. | Benjamin A Pew (m) |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Munchkin Brawl | All the madness. All the mayhem. All the wanton destruction you could imagine. This features every card from every deck ever released for the game to date and uses Epic Rules. | Bill Todd, William Mui (m) |
Sun | 10:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Media | Panel | Welcome | 10 Years of StarGate | A discussion and farewell to StarGate SG1. How did it affect SF television? Will Stargate:Atlantis have similar long legs? What of other SciFi series like Eureka, Flash Gordon, Painkiller Jane, etc.? | James T Henderson Jr, Terri Osborne, MaryAnn Johanson (m) |
Sun | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | The IRS and You | From not-for-profit organizations to multi-book deals, if money is involved, you have to keep records. Who has to know what, and when do they have to know it? | Daniel P Dern, A Joseph Ross (m), Sarah Smith, James Turner, E J Barnes |
Sun | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Art | Panel | Welcome | Building More Than One | You built one, and now there's a need to make a dozen more! The panelists will discuss their favorite techniques for small production runs of handmade objects, and talk about how to estimate time and materials when doing this. | Heidi Hooper, Mercy E Van Vlack, Scott Lefton, Evonne Heyning (m), Brent Heyning |
Sun | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Presidents D | I do not know | Participatory Session | Welcome | Open Juggling | Stop by and practice your juggling, contact juggling, diabolo, poi, or other manipulation art. Swap tricks, learn techniques, practice passing, or just hang out and watch. Came to the intro to juggling class? Keep practicing and learn some more. Missed the intro class? Learn at open juggling. Extra balls will be available, and some other loaner equipment, but bring your own if you can. | |
Sun | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Participatory Session | Welcome | Ninjas vs Pirates Game Demo | A demonstration of the Ninjas vs Pirates card game by the game designers. Be the stealthy ninja or the roguish pirates and lead your men to victory in the epic battle of Ninjas vs Pirates. A very quick game. | Mitchell Morris (m), Michael Bonet |
Sun | 11:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Critiquing that Counts | Without effective critique, improvement is impossible, but sometimes our ego gets in the way. How can we critique without offending, and how can we receive advice with grace? | Grant Carrington, Gordon Linzner, KT Pinto, Jennifer Pelland |
Sun | 11:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Participatory Session | Welcome | Character Creation Workshop | How to create and differentiate solid characters that will appeal to readers. What to use, what to leave out, and how to keep track of it. We'll work with you over the course of two hours to develop and flesh out those rough ideas that are rattling around in your head. | Nina Harper, Laura Anne Gilman, Dr Richard C Staats (m), Ken Kingsgrave-Ernstein, Mike "The OnyxHawke" Kabongo |
Sun | 11:30 AM | 2hr 20min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | Sanctuary Direct to Internet | Canadian production, with Amanda Tapping as Helen Magnus in this Century spanning gothic fantasy. 2007 PG | |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 6hr | 1404 | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Nomimal Quiet Room/Free Play | Indoor voices, please. | |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Literature | Panel | Welcome | SF Mysteries: Laughs, Blood, & Technomurder | Crimes picked apart, stabbed, strangled, and otherwise discussed by perpetrators of the subgenre science fiction mysteries. | John Sundman, Barry Longyear, Melissa Scott (m), Robert J. Sawyer |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Tissue Paper Collage | Create a masterpiece of color to take home. | Susan de Guardiola, Charlene Taylor D'Alessio |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Hands-On Science for Kids, Take 2 | Have you always wanted to be a mad scientist? Bring your lab coat and safety glasses, and put your science knowledge to the test. Budding chemists and physicists can recreate some of the experiments at home. | Thomas V Gunn, Shira Lipkin |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Welcome | MonstraCity | Pint-size kaiju fans can step into the clawed, house-crushing shoes of giant alien monsters "Brontilla", "Velosamara", and "Quethra" in MonstraCity, a strategy game of monster vs. monster that actually allows you to "smash buildings" with your feet. MonstraCity is aimed at ages 9 through 14. | Nancy Peters, Ray Cote |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Aline Boucher Kaplan Reading | Reading of a short story that combines adventure, science fiction and ghost story -- on Mount Everest. | Aline Boucher Kaplan (m) |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 2hr | Guest Room 204 | Costuming | Participatory Session | Welcome | Beading Workshop | Intermediate Beading on Fabric workshop. Materials are available for purchase at the workshop. | Lisa A Ashton (m) |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Virtual Panel | Science fiction has inspired numerous advances in technology, but how have advances in technology affected science fiction and fandom and the way we communicate as a community? To fully illustrate the concept of this panel, it will be conducted both online and in person. You can join the cyber part of the panel even if you are not at the con at Network : irc.foonetic.net, channel : #arisia | Shava Nerad, Robert Hafner, Evonne Heyning |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Art | Panel | Welcome | The Art of Tarot | Many artists are creating tarot decks. Why did they feel the calling to create a deck? What are the reasons behind their imagery? Join the artists in a discussion of their crafting of a deck. | Suford Lewis, Julia Tenney (m), David Sklar, Scott Lefton, Catt Kingsgrave |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | SMOFing | Panel | Welcome | The Care and Feeding of Gophers | Whether you are growing your con from a good idea, or trying to ensure the longevity of your 8,000 member behemoth, gophers are a SMOF's greatest asset. Share tips and tales with our attendees on how to create and keep convention volunteers, and how to grow those volunteers into a staff team that will keep your convention going strong year after year. | The Marvelous MERV, Chad Bergeron, Eugene Heller, Mary Dumas |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 2hr | Presidents A | Fannish Lifestyle | Presentation | Welcome | Higgins Armory Historical Combat Demonstrations | The Higgins Armory Sword Guild offers four combat demonstrations and arms and armor presentations at half-hour intervals. Come see what makes the Higgins Armory Museum, the only museum in the Western Hemisphere solely devoted to the arms and armor of the middle ages and Renaissance, unique. The HASG is dedicated to presenting scholarly and accurate interpretations of medieval and Renaissance combat. SF fans will have the opportunity to see techniques that have not been used in over 400 years. | |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Participatory Session | Welcome | Gaming w/ Guest of Honor (Fluxx 10th Year!) | Fluxx, the card game of ever-changing rules, was released into the wild by Looney Labs (Arisia 2003 Gaming GoH’s) in 1997. We will be throwing a 10th anniversary party, with special packs of promo cards, and a dizzying variety of Fluxx formulations. Join members of the Mad Lab Rabbits (including your FPGoH, Eric “Rabbitsaurus” Zuckerman) for this celebration of 10 years of the fan-favorite card game, and other Looney offerings, (Zendo, Treehouse, Aquarius, IceTowers, Chrononauts…) | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Gods and Monsters | In a world with Galactus, the Celestials, Darkseid, Zeus, Thor, the wizard Shazam, the Endless, and on and on, what happens to human religions? | James T Henderson Jr, Alexx S Kay, Mark Waks, Adam Lipkin (m) |
Sun | 12:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Laura Anne Gilman Reading | A reading by our Guest of Honor | Laura Anne Gilman (m) |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 2hr | Crispus Attucks | Costuming | Panel | Welcome | Masquerade Show and Tell | Masquerade participants bring their costumes to show them off and get the outlook of the judges and other costumers on their efforts. | Karen Purcell DVM (m), Donna M Dube, Dina Ellen Flockhart, Martin Gear, Rachel Hels, Emily Skrodzki |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Sound Effects for Story Telling | Enhance your stories with sound effects like those heard on radio plays. | Mimi Noyes, Brent Heyning |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | No-Sew Costumes | Costuming bins open, scissors at the ready, what can you come up with? | Susan de Guardiola, Carol Salemi, Liz Cademy Pfeffer |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Science Fiction is a Girl Thing Too! | Is Science Fiction only aimed at boys? We ask a selection of prominent authors to offer us their opinions and suggestions for girls, and boys too. | Vonnie Carts-Powell, Clayton McNally |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Dragon Quest E | Mythical creatures summoned by mysterious magical cards battle using safe foam swords. | Nancy Peters, Ray Cote |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Sara M. Harvey Reading | A reading by Sara Harvey, 2007 Pi-Con Guest of Awesome. | Sara M. Harvey (m) |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Media | Panel | Welcome | Debate: Star Wars vs. Star Trek: Looking Deeper | This panel is one of the new debate panels at Arisia. It is built around the question of which series had a more profound impact on society at large and fannish society in particular. As with all such debates, the question is unanswerable, but it gives us a wonderful way to deeply explore a very interesting question. | James Zavaglia, Ian Randal Strock, MaryAnn Johanson, JeffWarner, Hugh Casey |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned From Gaming | Math, Reading, Science, History, Geography, Strategy, Diplomacy. These are just a few of the things that kids can learn from the right kind of gaming. "Educational" games teach kids, but what about lessons to be learned from "non-educational" games. | Bonnie Barlow Turner, Walter Milliken, Shava Nerad, Christopher Weuve |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Art | Panel | Welcome | Why Buy Art When You Can Get Art For Free? | Our artists share their views on being a professional artist and discuss whether art-for-profit makes compromises. How does ease of distribution (and theft) through the Internet affect things? | Marrus, Heidi Hooper, E J Barnes, Charlene Taylor D'Alessio (m), Catt Kingsgrave |
Sun | 1:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Iron Hack! | If one writer is good, half a dozen is better, right? Join us for Iron Hack! Each author will write a piece of the story, and then hand it off to the next. Of course, our writers will all leave off at nice easy points for the next one, right? | Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Sklar, Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis (m), Jeff Mach |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | Creative Interviewing with the Fan GoH | Eric will show how he creates impromptu interviews, and will coach participants to interview each other in the style of his "Eric in the Elevator" show. | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Knit One Perl Two - Fannish Fiber Arts for Kids | Knitting, weaving, finger knitting, crocheting.. | Hillary Sherwood, Liz Cademy Pfeffer |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Robots in Space | Most of us know about NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, but do you know about any other probes that are out in space right now? Do you know what they're looking for, and what they've found? What about other probes that never made it past the drawing board? What's a nanorover? Come explore these questions and more, and make your very own balloon-powered nanorover? | Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr 30min | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Learn a Bit of Karate | Learn a few basic karate moves. (No hitting allowed.) | Mark Hertel, Clayton McNally, Jeff Mach |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Nina Harper Reading | A reading by Nina Harper from her upcoming book Succubus in the City. | Nina Harper (m) |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | This Week in Brit TV | Catch up on what you have been missing. 2007-2008 PG | |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | LiveJournal and the Nature of Community | LJ has risen above all of the other blogging site to become the site of choice. Why? Community - a sense of community that was built into LJ, that the other sites don't have the programming to accommodate. And as LJ grew, the community has grown as well, with thousands of mini-communities. How is LJ *your* community? | Nomi S. Burstein, Mark Waks, Vanessa Layne, Mark A Mandel, Shira Lipkin (m) |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Patriots Hall | I do not know | Participatory Session | Welcome | Summit Mt. Arisia! | How many steps does it take to get to the top? Take part in the official Arisia stair climb! Use as much of the hour as you need to get yourself from the first to the 16th floor, and when you reach the summit, receive a ribbon proclaiming your achievement. No climbing gear or prior mountaineering experience required. (Meet in the stairwell at the far end of the Programming hallways on the first floor. Look for the signs.) | |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Advanced RPGs | You've been playing RPGs for years. Maybe you've run a few. How do you take it to the next level? What does it take to move from dungeon crawls and hack n' slash to in depth character development and interaction? What are the best systems for this, and how can you role play well in any system? | Lauren Grover, Peter Maranci, Walter Milliken (m), Ed Fuqua, Bill Pomeroy |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Pirates | Panel | Welcome | The Dread Pirate Roberts | From *The Princess Bride*, to *Rugrats*, and even *Pirates of the Caribbean* someone, somewhere brings up "The Dread Pirate Roberts". What made him so special, so dreadful? Who was he, and why is he such a popular touchstone for writers? | Mary Catelli, Aline Boucher Kaplan, Sarah Smith, MaryAnn Johanson (m) |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents D | Media | Presentation | Welcome | A New Red Shift Radio Drama with PMRP! | Red Shift, Interplanetary Do-Gooder in "Havoc Over Holowood": It's Go Time again! The Post-Meridian Radio Players bring back Red Shift and his companions in another live, original radio drama, which both parodies and pays homage to the pulp sci-fi serials of the 1930s and 40s. Join Red, Lumpy, Dr. Alberts and Penny Parker as they try to save a beloved space celebrity from his worst nightmare: angry fans with atomic weaponry! | |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Illuminati Card Game | The phone company is controlled by creatures from outer space. The Congressional Wives have taken over the Pentagon. And the Boy Sprouts are cashing in their secret Swiss bank account to smash the IRS. Players compete to grab powerful groups and increase their wealth and power. No ploy is too devious, no strategem too low, as you scheme your way to victory. | Bill Todd (m) |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Only w/ Parent | The Appeal of Evil | Explore the appeal of Drusilla, delve into the dungeons of Slytherin … Why is Maleficent so magnificent? Why did we want more of snarky Spike? Evil is supposed to be dark and forbidding. Why is it so damned hot? | Alicia "Kestrell" Verlager, KT Pinto (m), Barry Longyear, Mike "The OnyxHawke" Kabongo, Hildy Silverman |
Sun | 2:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Character & Plot for LARP & RPG | How do LARPs and tabletop roleplaying differ in terms of character development and plot development. What is different, and what is similar in planning the two genres? How can LARP and tabletop be used together to build a greater world? | Rebecca L Kletnieks, Dr Richard C Staats, Anna R Bradley, John Bacon (m) |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | Song Circle: Sea Shanties | So much science fiction has been inspired by the sailing adventure novels of yore. Go back to the future with songs of ships of the sea and ships of the great beyond. | Jeff Keller, Joseph Kesselman |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Beading is a Way of Life | Beading, with pony beads | Susan Levitin |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Face Painting | Face painting takes another dimension... Come learn the techniques of creative face painting: brushes, stencils, sponges, and your imagination. | Jude Shabry, Ming Diaz, Susan de Guardiola, Martin Gear, Mimi Noyes |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Hammers, Lasers, Mirrors Gaming Session | Another gaming session just for kids brought to you by the game designers | Mitchell Morris, Michael Bonet |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Keith DiCandido Reading | Keith DiCandido reads new works. | Keith R. A. DeCandido |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 204 | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Raising Kids in Fandom | How do you introduce your kids to SF/F? What do you do if they're not interested? How can you help them navigate between the worlds of fandom and the mundane? There are all sorts of challenges (and rewards!) to raising a child in fandom. What if you're a fan and your spouse is not? Let's discuss! | Bonnie Barlow Turner, Samantha Dings, Pete 'Happy' Thomas, Daniel M Kimmel (m), Liz Cademy Pfeffer |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Comic Books Go to the Movies | Comic books and graphic novels are showing up on the big screen, and television. Why so many recently? Are they just easier to adapt? How important is accuracy in the conversion? Is this good or bad for comics? | John Black, Howard Beatman, Ed Fuqua, Adam Lipkin (m), Hugh Casey |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Responsible Monogamy | You've found the love of your life. Now what? How do you keep love strong without stifling each other or boring yourselves? Come talk about how you can reach your golden anniversary. | Michelle Wexelblat, MSW (m), Solomon Davidoff, Debra Fran Baker, Vanessa Layne, Aimee Yermish |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Media | Panel | Welcome | DVDs Killed the TV Series | Now shows that didn't even finish a season are being released on DVD rather than being rerun. Will this trend kill syndication rights and all chance for a TV show to gain an audience, or will fan purchases of DVDs convince networks to bring canceled TV shows back? DVD saved the Family Guy but killed Serenity. What made the difference? | Nomi S. Burstein, Jim Belfiore (m), Jerome C Conner |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents A | Fannish Lifestyle | Presentation | Welcome | Belly Dancing Show | Come and enjoy belly dancing routines inspired by the great works of literary and media science fiction and fantasy. | |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents D | Media | Presentation | Welcome | Second Shift Live Radio Drama | Second Shift, the Parsec award-nominated, slice-of-life comedy/epic fantasy-adventure audio drama serial, returns to Arisia to perform an original, live episode guaranteed to delight both new listeners and fans alike! Learn more about the show at secondshiftpodcast.com. | |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Steampunk: Clockwork Minds to Goth with Goggles | There are probably as many definitions of steampunk as there are fans of this genre. Victorian fantasies, coal-fired cyberpunk, anime like the movie Steamboy, the graphic novel Girl Genius, goth bands playing with darkly romantic dirigible imagery, it’s all here. What does Steampunk mean to you and how does it power your vision of the world? | Jonathan Woodward, Mario di Giacomo (m), James Turner, Mark Waks |
Sun | 3:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | The Renaissance Man of the 21st Century | Lazarus Long's list of necessary human skills included building a house and butchering a hog; the Talmud requires a father to teach his child to swim. Despite the increasing specialization of our society, some hands-on skills are still necessary. Should we bring them back, or is education in the 21st century really based on other things? | Thomas Easton (m), Laura Anne Gilman, Debra Doyle, Patricia Ann Vandenberg, Christopher Weuve |
Sun | 3:30 PM | 1hr 30min | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Only w/ Parent | Sidekick | Canadian production of a cautionary tale that not all people with extraordinary abilities are meant to be heroes. 2005 R (language) | |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Cambridge AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | BoF (Birds of a Feather): Geocaching | Do you enjoy the idea of using billions of dollars of military hardware (GPS satellites) for your own amusement (to find Tupperware hidden in the woods)? Learn about the game of Geocaching, meet some local geocachers, swap stories, move and discover trackables. Bring your tricor.. er, GPS receiver, and any travel bugs/geocoins that you have in your inventory. With a little luck, we'll have this listed as an Event Cache, so this could be your first "find"! | Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | Song Circle: Things That Go Up and Down | In honor of our fan guest of honor. Songs about elevators and other things that go up and down. | Kathy Sands (m) |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Haiku for You | Poetry, in small, carefully chosen thoughts. | Laura Anne Gilman, Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Panel | Targeted | What Would My Super Power Be? (for Kids) | If I were to choose, what special powers would I have? | Don Sakers, Ken Gale |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | It's Storigami | Storytelling and Origami | Pete 'Happy' Thomas |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Welcome | Ninjas vs Pirates Swordfighting Game | There have long been rumors that mounds of gold are there for the taking at Snarlnock's Crag. Many have sought this gold and none have returned. A horde of pirates and a gang of ninjas are each after this gold. Pick your party and join the adventure! | Nancy Peters, Ray Cote |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Walter Hunt Reading | A reading by Walter Hunt, Arisia '09 Guest of Honor | Walter Hunt (m) |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Out and Poly: Do's and Don'ts | Being out as polyamorous isn't always easy, or necessarily advised. Come talk about the do's and don'ts of being out to friends, family, clients and/or co-workers about your many loves. | Jonathan Woodward (m), Bey Woodward, Lawrence Nelson, Micah Schneider, Lisa Wood |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | SMOFing | Meeting | Welcome | Gripe Session II | Feedback for the staff about the convention so far. | Samantha Dings, September L Isdell (m), Jill Eastlake |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Prefunction A | Art | Panel | Welcome | Juicing the Muse | Keeping the flow of ideas coming, setting up the circumstances that lets your best work be done -- it's an ongoing challenge. How do we do it? | Marrus, Rachel E Mello, Scott Lefton |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents A | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Belly Dancing Class | Come learn basic belly dancing moves and combinations after the show. Wear clothes you can move in; jinglies optional. | Lauren Grover (m) |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | Presidents D | Media | Panel | Welcome | Modern SF&F Radio Drama in New England | Join the producers of several New England-based audio theater projects in a discussion of their work and of the medium's viability for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror storytelling. The panel will include the producers of 'Red Shift', 'The Fantastic Fate of Frederick Farnsworth the Fifth', 'Second Shift' and others. | |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | NinjaBurger | You are a ninja working for NinjaBurger. Your mission is to deliver hot & tasy NinjaBurgers to your customers. Do well and you will gain honor and become the restaurant manager. Do poorly and you must answer to your ancestors! | Bill Todd, William Mui (m) |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Participatory Session | Welcome | Best Issue and/or Story Arc Ever | DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, X-Men: "Days of Future Past", the Marvel Mutant Massacre, Civil War, Identity Crisis and Cerebus' "Church and State". Come discuss what your favorite your favorite issues or arcs and why in this round table discussion. | Larry Dunne, Eric M Van, Michael A Burstein |
Sun | 4:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Underground! | Discussion of the underground as a setting for stories. Who and what's underground -- tunnels, abandoned buildings, subways, homeless populations, raves, etc. Historic abandoned cities beneath the modern ones. | Alex Newman, Alicia "Kestrell" Verlager, Israel Peskowitz, Barry Longyear (m), Sarah Smith |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Costuming | Meeting | Welcome | Northern Lights Costumers' Guild Meeting | Open meeting of the Northern Lights Costumers' Guild, a chapter of the International Costumers Guild. Come meet some of the people who ran this year's Arisia Masquerade, find out what's happening in costuming in the New England Area, and consider joining the Guild. | Jerome C Conner (m) |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | A la Ollivander: Magic Wands | Which wand would you choose? Or would it choose you? | Susan de Guardiola |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Presentation | Targeted | Marvelous Moon Rocks! | Use playdough moon rocks to learn how scientists study the real thing. | Steven Hammond |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Presentation | Targeted | Magic Show 2 | Illusion! Appearance and Disappearance of small objects! I'm pretty sure that quarter wasn't in my ear! | |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 2hr | Guest Room 201 | SMOFing | Meeting | Welcome | Pi-Con Meeting | The staff of Pi-Con, the science fiction convention in West Springfield, MA in August, is having a general meeting. All are welcome to come and help out or just see what a real life convention meeting looks like. | Michael Whitehouse (m), JeffWarner, Micah Schneider, Robert Hafner, Jeff Mach |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Haym Solomon | Media | TV | Welcome | ShameLady - 007 Fan Film | Serge Rotelli as James Bond is Bilingual in this French/British fan film. Extensive use of sports cars, castles, chateaus, aircraft and beautiful women. Opens with a bomb destroying a wing of Buckingham palace. Bond addicts, look for inside info at www.constellationstudios.org. 2007 PG-13 | |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Why LiveJournal? | Friendster, Facebook, Tribe, Diaryland, Vox, Gather, MySpace... there are so many blogging & social networking sites on the net. But here at Arisia you've probably already seen several people introduce themselves by LJ name, and might not have heard any of the other sites mentioned at all. Why is our community so drawn to LiveJournal? Non-LJ users welcome! | Laura Anne Gilman, Nomi S. Burstein (m), Marrus, Anna R Bradley, Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | SMOFing | Meeting | Welcome | Arisia Corporate Meeting | An open house of a meeting of Arisia Inc, the organization that helps the con committee do its job every year. Non-members welcome (and welcome to join us). | September L Isdell, Jill Eastlake, Nicholas Shectman (m) |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 2hr | Presidents A | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Giant Icehouse Games Demonstration | If regular Icehouse is fun, then Giant Icehouse must be 6 times the fun! Come play with our giant pyramids, which turn some Icehouse games into sports, and others into beautiful structures. Play Ice Towers, Volcano, Zendo, and more. | Brian Campbell (m) |
Sun | 5:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Set Phasers to "Stun" | Why is a “stun” weapon a good thing for fiction, particularly series or episodic fiction? Consider also fictional "stun" settings v. real less-than-lethal weapons. People are killed all the time by "non-lethal" weapons. How does the label "non-lethal" affect the wielder's attitude? | Pauline (P.M.) Griffin, Jeff Hecht, A Joseph Ross, Lisa J Steele, Christopher Weuve (m) |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 2hr | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Labyrinth & Russell Square | Labyrinth has all the essential elements of a good fairy tale with the added bonus of a heroine who manages to get through all her trials and tribulations without squealing feebly or fainting into the arms of any poxy bloke. 1986 PG. Followed by Russell Square -Fantasy in London Underground. | |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Anime | Panel | Welcome | Child-Safe Anime | Finding anime that is safe for children to watch may be difficult for parents. Selecting a child-friendly anime series may be difficult without recommendations. Learn more about popular series and hidden gems! | Elizabeth McCoy, William Mui, Mary Dumas |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | What's Cooking With Food Geekery? | From Alton Brown's "Good Eats" to new roleplaying games entirely based on cooking, this panel explores the fannish fascination with matters gastronomical. | Debra Fran Baker (m), Mercy E Van Vlack, Mark L Van Name, Stephanie Clarkson, John Bowker |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 2hr | Presidents B | I do not know | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Walk the Labyrinth | Come find your center in our 30'x30' Seven-Circuit Classical Labyrinth. A tool for walking meditation, use it to find a little peace during the excitement of Arisia. | |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 2hr | Presidents D | Media | Participatory Session | Welcome | Buffy the Vampire Slayer:Once More, With Feeling | A Family-Friendly Interactive Musical hosted by The Teseracte Players. You will sing, you will dance, you will have a good time. | |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Collateral Damage | In this anime based board game, you are a gang boss trying to take over Neo Japan and your gang consists of typical characters from romantic comedy anime. Win fights to gain notoriety to take over the cities. However, your gang members can fall in love, which makes them harder to control and can lead to all kinds of damage to the cities. | Bill Todd (m) |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | No Capes! Non-Superhero Comics | From mysteries to romance drama, almost every area of fiction seems to be represented in the comics field, so why don't these titles get more press? Brian Wood's "Channel Zero" is near future science fiction and social commentary. Terry Moore's "Strangers in Paradise" explores the life and romantic entanglement of two lifelong friends. What other non-superhero comics are out there? Bring your examples of other non-hero comics to this panel and share them with our attendees. | Ken Gale (m), Wil Howitt, Mimi Noyes, Shira Lipkin |
Sun | 6:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Writers' Workshops & Critique Groups | Participating in a writers' workshop or critique group can be like navigating a minefield. How can you tell whether a group will provide useful feedback on your work? What are the best types of groups to join? What are the danger signs of groups to avoid? How can you keep your group on track? What are the advantages of the different types of groups--local, genre, Internet, college, and residential? | Barry Longyear, Jennifer Pelland, Victoria Janssen, Mary Turzillo (m) |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 1hr | At the Pool | Science | Panel | Welcome | Panel in the Pool | What would life be like on an entirely aqueous planet? Could intelligent life evolve? What about space faring intelligence? Come discuss such questions in our own aqueous environment of the hotel pool. Swimsuits required! | Bill "Crash" Yerazunis, Amy Chused, Ken Gale, JeffWarner (m), Jeff Mach |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Jennifer Pelland Reading | A reading by Jennifer Pelland | |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 3hr | Guest Room 204 | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | "...For Art's Sake" - LARP | "... For Art's Sake" is a drama in one act on the topics of love, rebellion, honesty and self-expression. It is a "real world, serious issues" game, and actors must be willing to deal with high volumes of angst, rage, and guilt; they should be ready for anything. 18+ only. | Cynthia Wakefield (m) |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | What am I? A Fan? A Geek? A Nerd? | What is a geek? A nerd? A fan? A hardcore fan? Which one are you? What does it mean, and should you even care? Discuss how labels affect fandom and what can be done to benefit from or break down the structures that distinguish us. | Solomon Davidoff, Eugene Heller, Vanessa Layne, Jennifer Williams (m), MaryAnn Johanson |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Media | Panel | Welcome | SF Television '07 | What were the best SF programs on TV in 2007? What were the worst? What trends could be seen? Which programs were true science fiction and which were Hollywood's version ("sci-fi")? Which political trends could be seen? Is the best genre stuff on cable or do the networks still take chances? | Howard Beatman, Jerome C Conner, Micah Schneider, Hildy Silverman |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | MechWarrior - 750 pt constructed army | Bring a 750 pt constructed army to play a game of MechWarrior. There will be three to four 50 minute rounds depending on number of players to determine championship. Prize is a Wizkids limited figure or card. | William Mui (m) |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Shira Lipkin Reading | A Reading by Shira Lipkin | |
Sun | 7:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Ghosts and Vampires and Werewolves, Oh My! | An exploration of current trends in paranormal romance. The panel discusses which trends they like, which trends they hate, and which trends might be the next big thing. What are the best reads currently available? | Ed Fuqua, Victoria Janssen, Trish Wilson/Elizabeth Black, Sara M. Harvey |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 30min | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Meeting | Welcome | MASSFILC Meeting | Monthly business meeting for MASSFILC, a club that hosts monthly filk sings, publishes song books, and every few years hosts the Northeast Floating Filk Convention (www.nefilk.org for information). Contact MASSFILC at info@massfilc.org for more information. The meeting is open to all. | |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | David Sklar Reading | Various readings by David Sklar including excerpts from Shadow of the Antlered Bird. | David Sklar (m) |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 3hr 5min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Terry Pratchett's Hogfather | Based on the DiscWorld series. 'Tis the night before Hogswatch, with Susan & Death & Terry as the Toymaker. So - who's up for a bit of Magic and Believing? 2007 PG13 | |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Science | Panel | Welcome | Intellectual Property Issues | Intellectual property issues have gone from obscure legal trivia to become the concern of every person in America in the last few years. Students and grannies are being sued for filesharing. Where is IP law going and what effect will it have on creativity? | A Joseph Ross, James Turner (m), Alan Wexelblat |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | The Puritan | Solomon Kane vs Cthulhu. Journey to Africa and help the wandering Puritan vanquish evil cultists, vile black magic and a blasphemous abomination. Uses the Savage World of Solomon Kane system. | Richard Auffrey (m) |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Media | Panel | Welcome | Whose Next Star Trek Line Is It Anyway? | Come play our version of The Singing Bee - without the singing. We'll act out famous Star Trek scenes from the various series and films, but leave out key words or phrases which you have to fill in. A pretty girl or two will be presenting prizes, and your emcee promises to provide loads of laughs. Whether you join in or just watch the fun unfold, you could win a prize or have a tribble thrust upon you! | Carol London, Lora Lynn Haines, Carol Paolucci, Bonnie J Kenderdine, Kristin Waller, Nathan Alvord, sandi mrowka, Diane Owen (m) |
Sun | 8:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Media | Panel | Welcome | Hacking in SF | The presentation of hacking in movies is often woefully incorrect and cliché ridden. Often in literature it is not much better. At a time when information security is increasingly important, is there a responsibility to enlighten people or at least not misinform them? This panel will examine common but inaccurate hacking clichés and discuss why Hollywood can’t do better. | Martha H Adams, Mark L Van Name, David Larochelle (m), John Kraemer, Robert Hafner |
Sun | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | NESFA Songbook Sing-a-long | Group singing from the NESFA Hymnal, a collection of filk songs to well-known tunes. Singers and listeners both welcome. Loaner hymnals provided. Here is a chance for new filkers to learn a few songs and experienced filkers to sing some old favorites. | Erwin S Strauss (m), Mark A Mandel |
Sun | 9:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Media | Panel | Welcome | Save the Cheerleader, Save the Genre? | "Heroes" is the first network SF/F show that's connected with the mainstream in years. What does its success mean for the future of genre TV? Has success gone to its head? What's the future of "Heroes" and what does it tell us about genre TV today? | Cynthia A Shettle, Bill "Crash" Yerazunis, Bey Woodward |
Sun | 9:00 PM | 1hr 30min | Presidents A | Media | Presentation | Not Allowed | Eric in the Elevator | Featured FPGoH media presentation! Fandom’s favorite Elevator Talk Show, “Eric in the Elevator”, has its Arisia premiere screening; hilarity ensues. Footage from Seasons 1-6 (BayCon 2001-2006 – including some bicoastal faces) of the unique semi-improv comedy project. Not kid-safe. | |
Sun | 9:00 PM | 2hr | Presidents D | Media | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | The Goblin Ball | When did you last visit the Labyrinth? Jareth, the Goblin King, invites you to his grand ball. The evening will have romantic waltzes, easy pattern dances and a few moments of goblin chaos. Dances will be taught on the spot, so you need not know them in advance. | |
Sun | 9:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Secrets of the Illuminati | Remembering Robert Anton Wilson and the golden days of the geeks. Illuminati's popularization fnord brought us everything from Steve Jackson Games titles to words of questionable meaning. Discuss the Illuminati and its mythos fnord and what it means to you. | Arnis Kletnieks, Jonathan Woodward, Martha H Adams, Shava Nerad, Jeff Mach (m) |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 8hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Only w/ Parent | Filking Into the Night - Open Filking | Hear filk in its native environment! Make music happen. Sing! Play! Clap hands! Listen! Join the merriment! No experience necessary. | |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 2hr | Empress A | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Fuzion: TCS | This game is a play-test of a new plug-in for the Fuzion games system. The players will be playing Space Rangers taking down the criminals plying the starlanes of deep space through boarding actions, and house to house searches. Participants will need to sign a non-disclosure agreement to play. | T Christopher Davis (m) |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 2hr | Guest Room 204 | Gaming | Game | Not Allowed | "Clue, Impaired" - LARP | "Clue, Impaired" is a sick, twisted, evil parody of the 1985 film Clue ... and a wide variety of other fantasy, science fiction, and superhero titles. Players should be ready to have their childhood dragged down into the muck. Warning: this game is deliberately offensive. | Cynthia Wakefield (m) |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Media | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Future of the World's Oldest Profession | Gigolo Joe, holobrothels and companions, Oh my! As technology rolls on, human drives remain much the same. How does SF deal with human drives and evolving morality and technology? | Suford Lewis, Garen Daly, Sara M. Harvey |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl | Life is good when you're a Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl. Enjoy a life of larceny and mayhem as you embark on one caper after another. Defeat every challenge the galaxy throws at you. Pick up toys (and the occasional Poolboy), grab more loot than anyone else, and watch your tail because the other catgirls want what you've got. | Bill Todd (m) |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Evolution Magic | Using a variation of Magic the Gathering that seeks utilizes a common pool of cards from which decks are built from during the course of many games. Stresses flexibility and on-the-fly creativity over simply buying better cards or over reliance on specific card combos. | Brennan Martin (m), Mike Beyna |
Sun | 10:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Adult | Panel | Not Allowed | Scening and Catharsis | Many people think of BDSM a simply a way to have a good time, but for some it's a way to learn about themselves and their partner, and even to explore feelings and ideas that they might not be able to explore anywhere else. | - dkap, Jennifer Williams (m), Micah Schneider, Lisa Wood, Jeff Mach |
Sun | 11:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Literature | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Writing Sex Magic | Many cultures and mythologies recognize the power of sex and sexuality as a force of transformation, for the giving (or stealing) of energies, and, of course, for creation. This panel will discuss the uses of sexuality as a magical catalyst in fiction: what is compelling, what is implausible, and what is just plain smut. | David Sklar (m), Shava Nerad, Jeff Mach |
Sun | 11:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes AB | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Mad Scientist Laugh Contest | Let the world hear your madness. Who can be most maniacal? | Howard Beatman, Mario di Giacomo, Mark A Mandel (m), Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman |
Sun | 11:05 PM | 1hr 35min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Only w/ Parent | Epsilon aka Alien Visitor | Alien Visitor accidentally arrives on Earth and is she dismayed. Thoughtful Australian production. 1997 R (nudity) | |
Monday | |||||||||
Mon | 12:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Participatory Session | Welcome | Eye of Argon Contest | One more line, just one more line, nope you lost it and dissolved into hysterical laughter! How much of this "story" can you read without falling into a giggle fit? The panelists compete, and you judge who wins. You are also welcome to compete. | Solomon Davidoff (m) |
Mon | 12:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Literature | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Ghost Stories | Whether or not you believe that they are real or fake, you have to admit they make for some very interesting storytelling. What do we expect from ghost stories: a scare, a lesson, a sense of another world? Why do these stories attract our attention, and is their an overlap in the audiences for "real" and fictional ghosts? | Gordon Linzner, Debra Doyle, Sara M. Harvey (m) |
Mon | 12:00 AM | 16hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Open Gaming | Unscheduled gaming. Awesome! | James Pinkerton (m) |
Mon | 12:40 AM | 1hr 45min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | British SF Concert | Lush science fiction orchestrations. Followed by British shorts. | |
Mon | 2:25 AM | 1hr 50min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | TV by Douglas Adams | Douglas Adams' lost television series. | |
Mon | 4:15 AM | 1hr 35min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Only w/ Parent | Princess Blade | Ninja Princess seeks her birthright. 2001 R | |
Mon | 5:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | Blllrrrrrrgggggh | It's 5:00 AM Monday morning after 3 days of con. This is your mental state, but you are not smart enough to sleep. Come babble incoherently with us. | Israel Peskowitz, John C. Watson (m) |
Mon | 5:50 AM | 1hr 41min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Crimson Pirate | Burt Lancaster plays a pirate with a taste for intrigue and acrobatics. 1952 PG | |
Mon | 7:30 AM | 1hr 52min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Moondial | Classic childrens novel comes to life. 1988 PG | |
Mon | 9:00 AM | 3hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Unstructured Supervised Free Play | Indoor voices, please. | |
Mon | 9:20 AM | 24min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Last Ultraman | Last Ultrawoman & men save the Earth with the help of the Patrol. Subtitled. 2004 PG | |
Mon | 10:00 AM | 5hr | 1404 | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Nomimal Quiet Room/Free Play 5 hr. | Indoor voices, please. | |
Mon | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Pinch Masks | Masks with foam and hot glue. Create your own boogie monster! | Ming Diaz |
Mon | 10:00 AM | 4hr | Empress B | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Open Costuming | fabric, trim, and a pair of scissors! What more could a costumer want? (Wait, don't answer that...) | |
Mon | 10:00 AM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Welcome | Card Games | Fluxx, Munchkin, Chrononauts, Apples to Apples - stop in and have some fun! | Walter Hunt |
Mon | 10:00 AM | 1hr 54min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Welcome | Giant Robots or Contact | Giant Robots 2005 Japanese PG Live action Giant Robots in downtown Tokyo or if time allows Contact with Jodie Foster | |
Mon | 10:00 AM | 2hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Greedquest | Greed is good and there's treasure to be won, so what are you waiting for? Race to the bottom of the dungeon to grab The Hoard. Now, all you have to do is reverse direction and leave, but everyone else is between you and the exit. | Bill Todd, William Mui (m) |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Art | Panel | Welcome | Turning Pictures in a Head into a Roof Over It | How to make a living as an artist. How to work for yourself and be a success. | Marrus |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Magic: The Gathering | Play Magic.... | Walter Hunt |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Build It with Legos | Legos! Brightly colored bits of plastic...and they all snap together! | Lucy Cohen Schmeidler |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Ripping Off History for Fun and Profit | How do writers draw on historical settings, societies, and events for fiction? Are stories better if set in a real setting, or would they be better on their own? | Laura Anne Gilman, Catt Kingsgrave, Christopher Weuve (m), Lis Carey |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | Media | Panel | Welcome | Firefly: The Series that Got Away | What made "Firefly" work? Why do we love it and why didn't the suits get it? What now? Should new episodes go direct-to-DVD? How does "Serenity" fit? Is Joss Whedon too good for network TV or has he let past success carry him away? | Misty Pendragon (m), Cynthia A Shettle, Melissa Honig, MaryAnn Johanson |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Comics | Panel | Welcome | Misogyny in Comics | A statue of a scantily-clad Supergirl. Another of Peter Parker's wife doing his laundry, thong showing and breasts hanging out, a vapid smile on her face. Formerly strong women tied up on a comic cover, costumes artfully torn, cowering before a batch of phallic, goo-dripping tentacles. What on earth has gotten into Marvel and DC? How can we fix it? | Kiralee B McCauley, Debra Fran Baker, Shira Lipkin (m), Adam Lipkin, Woodrow "asim" Hill |
Mon | 11:00 AM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Parents in SF and Fantasy | Characters frequently appear to have none, and they often aren't ones themselves. What pitfalls make parents and parenthood so rare in fiction? What uses do they serve in the stories where they appear? | Stephen C Fisher, Pauline (P.M.) Griffin, Greer Gilman, Elaine Isaak, Sonya Taaffe |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | Song Circle: Magic and Mayhem | A song circle inspired by our writer guest of honor. Bring your musical tales of magic and mayhem. Musicians and listeners equally welcome. | Jacob Sommer (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress C | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Card Games for the 7-12 Set | Apples to Apples, Set, Five Kings... | Persis L Thorndike |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Empress D | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Welcome | Knight Training | Learn the basics of sword-fighting (just like in the movies!) using kid-safe foam weapons in high-energy games. At the end, participants will be knighted in a special ceremony! | Stephen R Balzac, Aimee Yermish |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Hildy Silverman Reading | A reading by Hildy Silverman from a short-story horror anthology. | Hildy Silverman (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Molly Pitcher | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Only w/ Parent | Humor & Sex | Sex can be a beautiful, poetic expression of love, or a passionate display of lust, but sometimes it can be a comedy of errors. A funny look into where you put that leg, what was that sound and satin sheets sound romantic until you slide off of them. | Thomas A. Amoroso, Trish Wilson/Elizabeth Black, Eric "in the elevator" Zuckerman (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Fannish Lifestyle | Panel | Welcome | LiveJournal & SixApart: Discussing the Meltdown | Over the past year, the popular blogging site LiveJournal and its owner, SixApart, have made some stunningly boneheaded moves, from opening the site to commercial sponsorship to deleting fannish LJ accounts at the goading of a known white supremacist group. Their PR during this matter has been lacking, to say the least, and many formerly loyal LJers are fleeing to other blogging sites. What went wrong? | Peter Maranci, Stephanie Clarkson, Shira Lipkin, Hugh Casey (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere B | SMOFing | Participatory Session | Welcome | Gripe Session III | Tell us what you really think. | Samantha Dings, September L Isdell (m), Jill Eastlake |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 4hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | Collateral Damage | In this anime based board game, you are a gang boss trying to take over Neo Japan and your gang is made up of typical characters from romantic comedy anime. Win fights to gain notoriety to take over cities. However, your gang members can fall in love, which means they start ignoring you, making it harder for you to control them and also leading to the cities taking more damage. | Bill Todd (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 3hr | Thomas Paine AB | Gaming | Game | Welcome | MechWarrior - 450 pt unrestricted army | Bring a 450 pt unrestricted army to play a game of MechWarrior. There will be three to four 50 minute rounds depending on number of players to determine championship. Prize is a Wizkids limited figure or card. | William Mui (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes A | Art | Participatory Session | Welcome | Warmer Winters: Wrapping Up | A followup to the Warmer Winters Introduction on Friday. Come by and see what we accomplished this weekend. | Judy Gentry (m) |
Mon | 12:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Gaming | Panel | Welcome | Kingdom of Loathing | Do Knob Goblins fear your Moxie? Do you dream of giant bags of unmarked meat? Come talk about this strangely popular online game. | Cynthia A Shettle, Julia Tenney (m), Walter Hunt |
Mon | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Crispus Attucks | Filk | Participatory Session | Welcome | Song Circle: Secret Ninja Songs | Songs about ninjas. Songs by ninjas. Songs so secret we'll have to kill you after you've heard them. Bring songs to share. Musicians and listeners welcome. | Ellen Kranzer (m) |
Mon | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | Origami/Kirigami 201 | Create paper animals, rockets, balls or your own creation using the ancient art of Japanese paper folding and paper cutting. | |
Mon | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Guest Room 201 | Literature | Reading | Welcome | Jennifer Williams Reading | A reading by Jennifer Williams, 2008 Pi-Con Guest of Awesome. | Jennifer Williams (m) |
Mon | 1:00 PM | 1hr 50min | Molly Pitcher | Media | TV | Only w/ Parent | Jade Warrior | Finnish/Chinese co-production - Kalevala epic mixes with Chinese myths across 5,000 years. Subtitled. 2006 PG-13 | |
Mon | 1:00 PM | 1hr | Paul Revere A | Media | Panel | Welcome | The 411 on Star Trek 11 | The latest news and rumors about the next Star Trek film along with reviews of the cast selection and anything else leaked by the time this panel is scheduled. Spoiler Warning! If you don't want to know then stay away... | J Clinton Alvord Jr (m), Kristin Waller, Karl T. Winkler, Amy J Murphy |
Mon | 1:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Science | Panel | Welcome | The Future of Cities | Growing seemingly beyond their ability to sustain, is there a future for mega-cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Mexico City? What about smaller cities? Their budgets are stretched to the point of snapping, too. What can be done to save cities? | Gordon Linzner (m), Laura Anne Gilman, David Larochelle |
Mon | 2:00 PM | 1hr | Empress A | FastTrack | Participatory Session | Targeted | How to Build a BEM | Use your imagination, scare your little sister (or your mother!) with your latest creation. | |
Mon | 2:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Science | Panel | Welcome | Is the Singularity Really Around the Corner? | Singularity: a point in history where things change so dramatically that we cannot predict what will come after. Computer capacity exceeding human brain capacity. The end of cheap energy. Many potential singularities loom on the horizon. What will become of us? | Wil Howitt, Mark L Van Name, JeffWarner, John Kraemer, Shava Nerad |
Mon | 3:00 PM | 1hr | William Dawes B | Literature | Panel | Welcome | Nazism in SF | By invoking Godwin’s Law, we mark the end of the con-versation noting the frequent appearances of Nazis in SF. “The Iron Dream” comes to mind as a SF novel specifically confronting Hitler and the Nazis. There are also multiple Star Trek episodes as well. If we broaden it to include all Totalitarianism, both historic, and fictional, there are many others such as that 80’s TV classic “V”. Our simple question: Why? | Terry Franklin, JeffWarner, Christopher Weuve (m) |