Norwescon is actively looking for you!

You likely know that over the last several years, I built a music festival at Norwescon, called nwcMUSIC. It’s a pan-geekmusic festival, with nerdcore and chiptunes and filk and elfmetal and seriously anything geek-friendly I could find. Here’s last year’s show report, and the year before (part one and part two), to give you a feel for it.

But it was built heavily on force of personality – specifically, mine – and I’m stepping down. So they need new people. Our sound crew is stepping down as well, so they need several new people. But there’s good news: it has momentum and all the tools are in place and everything. And it has that all-important social and political momentum; people want to keep it going.

There will be opportunities like Daytime Programming Lead, and I happen to know that Programming Head is looking for someone right now to take that slot. This kind of work is about making panels and workshops, and getting attending performers and pros onto those workshops. They’ve all been very hands-on/instructional in the past. One of the big advantages of this position is that all this work is usually done by January, so you can do this and go to the panels like usual. Sound like it’s for you? Mail programming@norwescon.org today.

They’ll also be needing Publicity and Communications Lead or whatever they end up calling it, promoting events and concerts. That’s work that will start in January and also is mostly done by convention time. There’ll like be a Special Events/Filkcircle Lead, which will have a mix of before-convention and at-con work. There will be a Concerts Lead, working tightly with the Daytime Programming Lead. This can also make you Concerts MC! That’s how I did it.

all this can be yours

There will be a Concerts Second (what I’ve called “Water Fairy,” ably managed by Anna in the past), who does stage management work at the shows, and fairly little beforehand. There will be a Concert Sound Engineer or two (replacing the most excellent Jen and John after six years), possibly a Videographer, and so on. For most of those, contact specialevents@norwescon.org – the sooner, the better.

I promise this: you will not be going in without help. I won’t be running things, and I won’t be on concom, but I will share everything I’ve done and learned because I want this to keep going. It’s built up into a nice community – one that I want to continue to be part of, as a musician. It’s a really good educational experience for the attendees, it promotes participation in your own culture, and it’s a heck of a venue for nerdy and geeky artists.

also, possibly some srsly bitchin’ gear

So someone – several someones – need to take my place and take these jobs. If no one does, it really will go away, and I don’t know anyone who wants that. So please – even if you aren’t the right person for any of these positions, cast that net wide, and pass along the news to everyone you know. Even if you’ve done it once already, do it again.

And contact Norwescon to get involved, as soon as possible. This is a big change for Norwescon, too. We’ve got a hell of a thing here. Step up. Keep nwcMUSIC going.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby

N things about yourself which are not generally known

I was tagged on Livejournal in a locked post for this one; she asked me to come up with 6 things about myself, not generally-known (the actual number was chosen by her, and could have been anything between 6 and 25).

1. I hate artificial orange flavour. Hate it. Actual oranges are fine, chocolate flavoured with orange oil is okay. Everything else is terrible and awful and no.
    
   
2. I did AI research back in ye daye, in sentence parsing and sentence generation. It wasn't published - I didn't try - and some of it has been being recreated by Google only in the last couple of years. I find that kind of hilarious, and maybe sad. But the actually amusing part is that it was being done in FORTRAN IV, a language which lacked strings of any kind.
    
   
3. Relatedly, I've written basic string handing libraries. Several times, actually. Also in FORTRAN.
    
   
4. It's fairly well known amongst friends that I don't remember childhood. But I've had these nightmares - as an adult! - of the Scary Butterfly in the Television. I didn't know what it was until a couple of years ago when I fell down a Wikipedia well. It was the CBC Butterfly logo from when they first went colour. Apparently, that thing freaked Tiny Me right the hell out. Did. Not. Want.
    
   
5. Amongst my circle of friends, I'm the one who found World War Z and said "check this out, it looks amazing" and everybody read it and thought it was awesome. Except for me. I got busy and never read it. It's still on my to-read pile.
    
   
6. I forgot a sixth thing when I posted this the first time.

Comment if you want a number!

for all the BritSF fans out there

Thunderbirds are in fact go. Supermarination lives again, the Kickstarter has met first goal, and Thunderbirds series 3 episode 1, “The Abominable Snowman,” will be produced. All original cast, all supermarionation.

Click through to Kickstarter project with details

They’re $25k away from Series 3 Episode 2, a prequel episode, “Introducing Thunderbirds.” If they make that, they’ll go for 3×03, “Lady Penelope Investigates: The Stately Home Robberies.”

While I’m more of a Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons fan myself, I’m all over this. And I’d love to see the Lady Penelope adventure. If that’s you, click through to Kickstarter to support it. They’re doing well so far and are definitely in range of at least 3×02, and 3×03 is not out of the question.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby