{"id":543,"date":"2016-03-03T13:45:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T13:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/?p=543"},"modified":"2017-06-28T20:42:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T20:42:04","slug":"odds-and-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/2016\/03\/03\/odds-and-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"Odds and Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Got back from MystiCon on Monday.  It was a fun weekend, and did much to restore my spirits.  After all the internet rancor that has dominated on-line discussion of late, it was good to be reminded of what cons are all about&#8230; and how warm, welcoming, and open fandom can be.  The Roanoke crowd seemed like good folks.  And it was great to see how many young people and first-timers were at the con (I asked for a show of hands on several occasions).  All the alarums about the demise of traditional SF fandom may be somewhat premature, I&#8217;m thinking.<\/p>\n<p>Back home, of course, I had the usual thousand new emails waiting in my inbox.  But among them, at long long last, was my Hugo PIN from MidAmericon II.  I can finally begin nominating for this year&#8217;s awards.  I urge all of you to do the same.  (And will have a few more Hugo thoughts and recommendations in subsequent posts).  <\/p>\n<p>We had a great event at the JCC with Tony DiTerlizzi of THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES.  And one last week, before I left, with Joe Lansdale and HAP &#038; LEONARD.  Plenty of signed books from Tony and Joe both are now available in the Cocteau bookstore.  If you&#8217;re an autograph hunter, strike now while the supply lasts.<\/p>\n<p>We have more fun events coming up in the next few months as well.  Magician Francis Menotti will be making a return appearance, with the trick that fooled Penn &#038; Teller, and we have booksignings scheduled with Darynda Jones, Joe Hill, and Stephen Graham Jones.  And a little further out, Neil Gaiman will be appearing with some gigantic Tasmanian cave spiders.  Go to the JCC website and sign up for our email newsletter if you&#8217;d like more details on forthcoming events at the theatre.<\/p>\n<p>Meow Wolf&#8217;s opening comes closer every day.  The gang down at Silva Lanes is working overtime right now, getting a little frantic as they labor to make sure everything is ready for opening weekend.  <\/p>\n<p>Oh, and GAME OF THRONES season six is drawing nigh as well.  You may have heard.  Before the season six debut on April 24, the JCC will be running a season five marathon.  Weekly screenings, two hours per week, of the S5 episodes on our <s>big<\/s> medium-sized screen.  And admission is FREE.  First come, first seated.  <\/p>\n<p>I am sure there&#8217;s more.  Life is busy.  Hope yours is too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Got back from MystiCon on Monday. It was a fun weekend, and did much to restore my spirits. After all the internet rancor that has dominated on-line discussion of late, it was good to be reminded of what cons are all about&#8230; and how warm, welcoming, and open fandom can be. The Roanoke crowd seemed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,89,16,15,39,25,28],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}