ReinCONation V Report

Our Honored Guests:

• Judith Merril

  Fan, author, anthologist, editor and general cut-up

• Andy Hooper

  Faanish jiant of Madison and Seattle
  Extolled by Vegans everywhere

Guest of Honor Andy Hooper, publisher of Apparatchik, valiantly carried on as the sole Live Guest of Honor, appearing on many panels and presenting his radio play, "Ten Zines That Shook the World" (a drama of time travel, fandom, and the Russian Revolution) with a cast of tens.

Check out some photos of people at ReinCONation V

Here are some things some people said about ReinCONation V:

• Betsy Lundsten (kallisti@terrabit.mn.org):
  the consuite was splendid (but i'm biased :)....i liked the panels i went to, they were great....i really adored the entire convention and had a wonderful time and am *really* glad i decided to go.

• Laurel Krahn (lakrahn@imho.net):
  A nice group of folks was at the con. Enough to counteract the horrid carpeting on the third floor. <chuckle> The Convention Hotel was the Regency Plaza Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, right across from the bus station. The Minicon held in 1973 was held there. I'm told the decor in the Viking Suite (which served as non-smoking consuite) hasn't changed a bit since then....

  The dealers room was small, with a few tables of books and a couple of tables of jewelry and a wee bit of art forming something of an art show....

  There was a cabaret on Saturday night, I wandered down to it with Reed Waller, JJ Brutsman, and Kurt and Carrie Griesemer. There was a lovely opening song (Life is a Cabaret, doncha know) or two. Elise Matthesen was hostess for the event. Kurt played and sang two or three songs. This pleased me as I hadn't seen/heard Kurt play since Minicon. I stayed to look at Lisa Freitag's slides of New Orleans, but then wandered back up to the consuite. I was too eager to talk to and see folks to sit and watch slides, even tho I'm told Gary Schulte did wonderful fiddle accompaniment to the other slideshows.

  Reed and Kurt played some music in the smoking consuite. We had ample space, it was just a few of us sitting around. Fred and Susan showed up at around 10 or 10:30 and the music party proceeded.... Nice. Relaxed. It twisted and took some odd turns towards the end with Barb and David's version of They Might Be Giants' "Birdhouse in Your Soul" becoming a strange singalong that stuck in my head for far too long. One of the last songs was Gypsy's rendition of a lovely ode to a consuite worker (to the tune of Kenny Roger's "The Gambler"). Well. It was amusing. I've worked many hours in consuites, it brought tears to my eyes. Then we closed down the smoking consuite.

  After the music party broke up on Saturday, Floyd Henderson sat in a room on the non-smoking side of the suite with myself, Gypsy, Corwin, and John Stanley. Floyd made some very pretty sounds with his guitar and his voice. And indulged in letting us play some Very Silly Things on his guitar. 'Twas a lovely chat, too....

  I attended programming! Wheee. John M. "Mike" Ford held forth at the "Ask Dr. Mike" panel at noon. 'Twas refreshing to see a room almost full of familiar faces asking all sorts of odd questions and getting all sorts of fun answers. "Ask Dr. Mike" has gotten so large at Minicon, this was nice. Mike Ford continues, as always, to astound.

  Yup, 'twas a ReinCon. Smaller than previous years, but still a pleasant thing. Would like to see it a bit bigger next year, get some more out of towners back to the con. Find a hotel without scary carpeting.

• Dave Romm (romm@visi.com):
  A major plus for the hotel is the Viking Suite, which we used as the consuite. Nicely suited for a fannish party. Long, lots of chairs, a circular couch, room for a bar, a sideboard with books in the cupboard.

• Fred Levy Haskell (falh@maroon.tc.umn.edu):
  You found the consuite a plus? I guess that's a legitimate difference of opinion. I found it too narrow to navigate comfortably in. And the smoking consuite was adequate only because so many musicians were off at a wedding instead of being at the con. I remember what it was like last year. But the windows opened, which was a definite plus....

• Dave Romm, again:
  Points taken. But the bottlenecks in the non-smoking consuite weren't much worse than any reasonably inhabited room (such as the late lamented Mr. C's), and the smoking consuite worked out to be about the right size for the number of people who were there.

• Karen Cooper (kecooper@maroon.tc.umn.edu):
  I hate to say it, but the run-down rooms, the funky decor and the nasty, nasty carpet have pretty well turned me off. What may have been fine for Minicon 7 or so no longer works. I suspect this is a creeping case of middle-aged stodginess, but there you have it.

• Steve Swartz (swartz@oasisRC.com):
  I didn't think the hotel was *that* bad.... I remember people bitching about [another local convention's] hotel, because it was so far out of town. It seems to me like you're either going to have an expensive hotel, or a far-out hotel, or a hotel like the one we were in that was a little shabby but basically functional. From our point of view down here [in Madison], of course, you could have ReinCONation in a sewer and we'd come up to it.

• Andy Hooper (FanMailAPH@aol.com):
  The production of "Ten Zines that Shook the World" was even a little more successful than the one we presented at SilverCon -- special thanks to Bill Humphries, who turned in an amazing performance as Agent Henry Lippman.... Other programs were fun as well, especially the panel on Fan Dramatics. I've just begun trying to put together some kind of database on fan plays and musicals, and I got a lot of good information at the con. Anyone who can give me names, performance dates, descriptions, etc., of fannish dramatic productions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

  ...I thought it was a lot of fun and a very solid convention. On the whole, it was my best Guest of Honor gig yet -- and the first one at which people could be seen wearing bright yellow buttons with slogans like "ANDY HOOPER hums the theme from Victory at Sea," and "Kill me now, said the Fry Monkey ANDY HOOPER," and "Who the hell is ANDY HOOPER." These were calligraphed by Jae Leslie Adams and produced by Hope Kiefer, and I was quite -- uh -- flattered to see my name on so many chests.

  Another highlight was the Saturday evening slideshow of Garth Danielson's Dead Smurf collection. I was unaware that so many of them had been produced! Garth had some for sale in the art show, and I was able to pick up two more for my collection, the chilling "On the way to Calvary" and the bravura "Tonga Room." I can see them on top of the TV set from here, a fine souvenir of a fine fannnish weekend.

• Moshe Yudkowsky (m.yudkowsky@att.com):
  I didn't make it to ReinCONation this year, but I'm glad to hear that the ReinCONation Precision Hakosot Team(*) met in the consuite as usual.
  (*) Naw, I never heard of them either, before just now.

Who Dealt This Mess, Anyway?

Program Book

[Added 2013-05-14] Here is a PDF of the program book, or page images at higher resolution: Front cover | Inside front cover (blank) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Inside back cover (blank) | Back cover.

The program book came with a single sheet insert, a "pop quiz": as a PDF or as an image.

This page last updated 4/11/97.