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First off, welcome to my new LJ friends from the weekend - I'm looking forward to getting to know you better next time we meet, and here in the meantime.
After a night's sleep, it struck me that at Accio it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be surrounded by fellow fans; to be able to make obscure references and in-jokes and know they would be understood; to be able to discuss my Lucius obsession and instead of cringing to here someone say 'yes, that's exactly how it is with Snape and me'. After all, now that I'm not working, I have more contact with LJ friends than RL friends, so it feels as if I'm in a Pottercentric community all the time. But sitting in my parents' house afterwards, I felt bereft at not being able to turn to someone and have a laugh, or a debate, or a coffee...
The main concept I'll take from the weekend is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ajhalluk and (I think) lexin's contention that the wizarding world operates on a patronage system. The idea that it's not what you know, it's who you know wasn't new, of course - how could it be, to a Malfoy fan? But the deeper insight - that wizards have taken the form of Muggle institutions with no understanding of how they work, just as they take Muggle artifacts like trains and cars (and radios? The WWN can't broadcast on any radio frequency known to Muggles) and make them work by magic rather than mechanics - was new. Wizarding culture, then, is not predisposed to meritocracy - it doesn't mean that the Ministry and other administrative and legal systems don't work, just that they don't work as expected.
On a more trivial note, it occurred to me that the logical thing to do with that too-small green hat of mine would be to give it to a child. And I would, if I had enough green material to make a hat for me. But as I don't I think I'll adjust it once I get down south, which will involved pretty much dismantling it - but it would be so nice to have it fit that it should be worth it. Meanwhile I've been drooling over the idea of a suitably Malfoyan robe for the next time I want to attempt to embody Lucius.
I've posted a public 'thank you' to the organisers here. If you attended Accio and enjoyed it, please add a comment and pass on the link. The conference wasn't perfect - no event is - but a lot of people put in a lot of hard work to make it as good as it was, and they are probably feeling even more post-event blues than the rest of us, and could probably do with the encouragement.
I've also posted a poll about meeting up to see the GoF movie. Please pimp this to everyone you know who might be interested in coming along.
Finally, the Guardian has posted its article about Accio. The journalist definitely went with the 'let's have a laugh at these nutters' slant, which is a pity (why can't they take subcultures seriously?) but not surprising given the paper's culturally elitist attitude to so many things (because we couldn't allow those who don't share the obsessive compulsions of the chattering classes to be taken seriously, could we, Tanya?). But that's nothing to her slurs on Steve Vander Ark. I suppose his 'does JKR have to die for us to live' quote better copy than 'she is us', but to suggest that he treated her with disdain?! Only if you think she should be worshipped on a pedestal - creating the Lexicon was sooo disdainful.
The Guardian had a point about different tribes, though, and I'd have liked to see more exploration of that - formally or informally - at the fandom. There certainly seemed to be a number of cliques who weren't particularly interested in speaking to others, and I suspect I wasn't the only one to experience occasional mild culture shock at moving out of my cosy corner of the fandom. It would have been interesting to get to grips with those differences; perhaps next time we shouldn't think about Sorting into snakes, badgers, eagles and gryffins but into het and slash shippers, plot theorisers, cultural commentators, fanficcers and...?
After a night's sleep, it struck me that at Accio it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be surrounded by fellow fans; to be able to make obscure references and in-jokes and know they would be understood; to be able to discuss my Lucius obsession and instead of cringing to here someone say 'yes, that's exactly how it is with Snape and me'. After all, now that I'm not working, I have more contact with LJ friends than RL friends, so it feels as if I'm in a Pottercentric community all the time. But sitting in my parents' house afterwards, I felt bereft at not being able to turn to someone and have a laugh, or a debate, or a coffee...
The main concept I'll take from the weekend is
ajhalluk and (I think) lexin's contention that the wizarding world operates on a patronage system. The idea that it's not what you know, it's who you know wasn't new, of course - how could it be, to a Malfoy fan? But the deeper insight - that wizards have taken the form of Muggle institutions with no understanding of how they work, just as they take Muggle artifacts like trains and cars (and radios? The WWN can't broadcast on any radio frequency known to Muggles) and make them work by magic rather than mechanics - was new. Wizarding culture, then, is not predisposed to meritocracy - it doesn't mean that the Ministry and other administrative and legal systems don't work, just that they don't work as expected.On a more trivial note, it occurred to me that the logical thing to do with that too-small green hat of mine would be to give it to a child. And I would, if I had enough green material to make a hat for me. But as I don't I think I'll adjust it once I get down south, which will involved pretty much dismantling it - but it would be so nice to have it fit that it should be worth it. Meanwhile I've been drooling over the idea of a suitably Malfoyan robe for the next time I want to attempt to embody Lucius.
I've posted a public 'thank you' to the organisers here. If you attended Accio and enjoyed it, please add a comment and pass on the link. The conference wasn't perfect - no event is - but a lot of people put in a lot of hard work to make it as good as it was, and they are probably feeling even more post-event blues than the rest of us, and could probably do with the encouragement.
I've also posted a poll about meeting up to see the GoF movie. Please pimp this to everyone you know who might be interested in coming along.
Finally, the Guardian has posted its article about Accio. The journalist definitely went with the 'let's have a laugh at these nutters' slant, which is a pity (why can't they take subcultures seriously?) but not surprising given the paper's culturally elitist attitude to so many things (because we couldn't allow those who don't share the obsessive compulsions of the chattering classes to be taken seriously, could we, Tanya?). But that's nothing to her slurs on Steve Vander Ark. I suppose his 'does JKR have to die for us to live' quote better copy than 'she is us', but to suggest that he treated her with disdain?! Only if you think she should be worshipped on a pedestal - creating the Lexicon was sooo disdainful.
The Guardian had a point about different tribes, though, and I'd have liked to see more exploration of that - formally or informally - at the fandom. There certainly seemed to be a number of cliques who weren't particularly interested in speaking to others, and I suspect I wasn't the only one to experience occasional mild culture shock at moving out of my cosy corner of the fandom. It would have been interesting to get to grips with those differences; perhaps next time we shouldn't think about Sorting into snakes, badgers, eagles and gryffins but into het and slash shippers, plot theorisers, cultural commentators, fanficcers and...?
