firecat

The last weekend of May was my 45th MIT Reunion. I flew up to Boston on Thursday. Checking in was quick. I was staying at New Vassar, which is a dorm that didn’t exist back in my day. There was a problem with my room. Namely, the bed had been raised so that the dresser went under it. But the ladder up to the actual bed was placed in a way that was way too hard for me to negotiate. The dorm staff was able to lower the bed, but it took some time. (Staying in a hotel, rather than a dorm on campus would be nicer, of course, but they sell out quickly. And they cost a lot more.)

Anyway, the first event I went to was the Class of 1980 Gathering at State Park Bar in Kendall Square. We had a private room for us, with drinks and heavy appetizers. We also got MIT Class of 1980 baseball caps (in a choice of red or pink). It was a nice opportunity to mingle and chat.

I spent Friday going to various receptions. The Hillel reception had good bagels (and other food), but was notable for my getting to see a couple of people (not in my class) who I hadn’t seen in a lot of years. One of them had been a grad student when I was an undergrad and I’d last seen him when he was passing through Los Angeles and we had lunch at a Yemenite restaurant in Pico-Robertson. The other was someone who I knew from my days in Berkeley. There was also, alas, a lot of discussion of the incident at commencement in which a graduation speaker delivered a pro-Palestine speech. The thing that didn’t get discussed enough in the news stories I saw was that she had submitted an entirely different speech for approval beforehand. I was not at commencement to see this, but the buzz in the room was that the Institute did not handle the situation well.

Conversation at the other two receptions I went to was considerably tamer. The Mechanical Engineering reception was in too small a space, but did provide an opportunity to reminisce a bit about some projects from back in my day. However, none of the professors I'd have liked to see were there. Instead, I did have a couple of conversations about theatre. The reception at McCormick Hall (the all women dorm I lived in while I was at MIT) was entirely unmemorable, though I do remember talking to the former dorm headmaster who ran the Washington summer program back in the days when I tried to find minions, er, I mean summer interns.

After that was the Tech Reunions Welcome Reception, which had some confusion about which tables our class was supposed to be at. Here’s a photo of me (in the red dress) with my friend, Robert, and his wife, Merlie.




Then we got on the buses to Symphony Hall for Tech Night at the Pops. Some friends and I had requested seating together, but were given tickets at three separate tables. We did sort that out ourselves, but it was annoying. The concert had a good mix of material, with a highlight being a sing-along to 1980’s music. There was also a version of “America the Beautiful” which included an MIT chorus. I mention that because, as we were leaving to go back to the buses, someone I know from the puzzle world called out to me. It wasn’t her reunion year, but she had been part of that chorus! Overall, it was a nice event.

Saturday is always Technology Day, which features talks about MIT research. The theme this year was From Lab to Life: How MIT is Advancing Health and Humanity. and addressed two new initiatives. The first part was on the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative and the speakers were Angela M. Belcher on Changing the Optics on Ovarian Cancer Detection and Prevention, Jonathan Gruber on Paying for Health: Insurance and the Life Sciences, Hugh Herr with On Being Bionic, and Bryan Bryson on Breakthrough Solutions for (and from) an Ancient Disease. That last one had to do with tuberculosis, which (as you may know) has made something of a resurgence. The definite highlight of that session was Hugh Herr. I had read about him some time ago and his story is very compelling. In short, he had both of his legs amputated below the knee after a mountain climbing accident when he was 17. He designed improved prosthetics, which there is no word for other than amazing. He can extend the length of his prosthetic legs, for example, enabling him to climb things that nobody else can. Just watching him walking around on the stage, you would never think of him as being at all disabled. He also showed a short film with a woman trying out new prosthetic legs and not needing any time to adjust to them. I swear every jaw in the room dropped during his talk. (I should probably note that learning about the Boston arm, which was one of the first prosthetic devices to connect to the body’s nervous system, was one of the things that drew me into majoring in mechanical engineering in the first place. But other people without that background were also talking about how amazing his talk was.)

The second part was on the MIT Human Insight Collaborative. The speakers were Lily L. Tsai on A Compass for the Digital Age, Caspar Hare on Machines That Want What We Want, David Rand on During Reducing Conspiracy Beliefs Using Human-AI Dialogues, and Eran Egozy on Good Vibrations: The Technology behind Musical Instruments and the Human Connection. I was unconvinced by Rand’s talk. Egozy’s talk was on a subject that is right up my alley, but I hadn’t gotten enough sleep on Friday night so I can’t say that I absorbed much of it. After all of that, there was a fireside chat with MIT President Sally Kornbluth. She touched on the commencement kerfuffle and sounded reasonable about how it was handled. She also talked more generally about life at MIT.

Next up was lunch and the Tech Challenge Games, which we had too small a group for. I did submit a couple of haikus, but neither of them got read out loud. The event I was most looking forward to was the Class of 1980 TIM Talks. (TIM the Beaver is the MIT mascot. He did not actually have a name back in my undergrad days, but it’s cute. Anyway, that’s why we have TIM Talks instead of TED Talks.) One of my friends was on the program committee and asked me to give a talk on travel which is, as many of you know, one of my favorite subjects. The other two speakers were Tomas A. Gonzalez on Remanufacturing and Circular Economy and David Alexander on Making Infinite Connections. I particularly liked David’s talk because he referenced the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, which has been a big influence on my life. It has to do with the decline of social capital in our times and the need to reconnect with other people. David’s examples included things like his involvement with his church, with Toastmasters, and with a book club that reads only one book - James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.

My talk was titled Reel to Real Travels. The title, which was provided by my friend, Teri, refers to my being inspired to travel by ViewMaster reels I had as a child.



Basically, I talked about overcoming lack of opportunity to travel (time and money), people who offered helpful advice, my mid-life crisis trip , and what makes me choose specific places to go to. My biggest take-aways were that: 1) famous places are usually famous for good reasons and 2) it’s not a competition though some people treat it as one. I thought it went well. I got some good questions and had some nice conversations at the dinner that followed the TIM Talks.

On Sunday morning, there was a brunch at McCormick Hall. I went back to the dorm to collect my bag and then set off to the airport. Getting home went smoothly. And then I was all ready to unpack - and pack for a trip later in the week.

I spent Memorial Day weekend at Balticon. I’d attended bits and pieces virtually before, but had never gone in person. The drive to Baltimore was slow and annoying and my GPS screwed up on where I needed to turn to get into the parking garage at the conference hotel, but I managed to figure it out. I had made my plans too late to get into the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel, but it was a short walk to the Springfield Inn, which was perfectly adequate.

It’s been long enough since that weekend that I probably won’t remember every session I went to. On Friday night, I went to a panel on The Commercialization of Space, which included a friend of mine from storytelling. The focus was really on privatization, while I’d have preferred a broader view. After that, I walked around the art show and did a quick recon of things for sale. Then I decided that I needed sleep more than I needed to go to another session so walked up to my hotel and collapsed.

I started Saturday with I am the Very Model… which was a filk panel on patter songs. I was glad to see a mention of Sondheim’s “Getting Married Today” (from Company, which is one of the rare patter songs for a woman. I found the claim that patter songs are the forerunner of rap to be rather dubious, since I am fairly sure “The Signifying Monkey,” which is based on Yoruba folklore, predates Gilbert and Sullivan. Also, none of the panelists had an actual answer to my question on why the Major General’s song remains the most popular patter song for parodies, instead of, say, the nightmare song from Iolanthe or “Tchaikovsky” from Lady in the Dark. (Or, for that matter, Tom Lehrer’s “Lobachevsky.”) It was still an entertaining session and if you disagree with anything I’ve said, it really doesn’t matter

I went out for a short walk and lunch. After that, I know I went to a talk by Alan Doctor titled Wonderful News for Vampires - Synthetic Blood (True Blood?) is Being Developed. But I don’t remember anything specific about it. After that I went to hear Marc Aabrahams talk about Improbable Research and the Ig Nobel Prizes. That was the definite highlight of the con for me. I am, of course, familiar with the publication and the prize ceremony. I expected to laugh a lot and, indeed, I did.

Later in the afternoon, I went to a panel on My Favorite Monster. I did like that the panelists went beyond werewolves and vampires. Personally, I am particularly fond of the Hastrman, which is a Slavic water sprite that lives in rivers and eats children. The charming part is that it knits sweaters to keep the souls of its victims warm. I am reasonably sure that nobody has written about it in a science fiction or fantasy book. Yet. Later in the day, I couldn’t resist a panel titled Humorous Fantasy is a Serious Business. I think that the note I wrote on my phone which reads “The Cellphone Towers of Elfland” is probably a recommendation from this session. Also, I did buy Martin Berman-Gorvine’s book 100 Curses on Trump and Musk, which, alas, proved to be disappointing.


I started Sunday with a panel on The Folklore of Space. There were some interesting stories, but not really anything I hadn’t heard before. I followed that with a panel titled Ducks and How to Make Them Pay which was about as silly as the title suggests. (Note: I do not really have anything against ducks, although I do believe that eating duck increases the net intelligence of the universe. Geese, however, are the shittiest birds in the known universe.)

After a walk and lunch, I went to a panel on Non-European Folklore in SFF. This was fairly interesting and I was particularly glad that one of the panelists talked about African folklore - specifically, Nigerian folklore if I recall correctly. I followed that with a panel on Jews in Space: Jewish SF On and Off the Page. Of course, there was some discussion of Wandering Stars, a short story anthology that was revolutionary when it was published in 1974. The basic premise of the discussion was that there are a lot of Jewish SF writers, but few Jewish characters in their work. I don’t read enough SF to know how true that is, but I suspect that it could be because many of those Jewish authors are pretty assimilated.

Somewhere in there, I did a little bit of shopping. I’d been wanting to get Jasper Fforde’s Red Side Story (which is the sequel to Shades of Grey and I also bought a memoir I know a friend will want. (He may read this, so I am not giving more details.) I also couldn’t resist a bee-hive themed game tray. There were a few odds and ends I contemplated, but I am trying to declutter my life, so I restrained myself.

In the late afternoon, I went to a Classic Filk Sing-Along. I closed out Sunday with a talk by Brent Warner on A Fannish Introduction to Runes as a Writing System That was interesting, but there was a lot of distracting fiddling around with the presentation technology.

I think the only session I went to on Monday was a panel on Creation Myths, which was pretty interesting. There were other things I was interested in, but since it was Memorial Day, I was concerned about traffic driving home. It was slower than normal, but not as bad as Friday had been.

Overall, I enjoyed going to Balticon and was able to see a few friends who are regulars at it. I had my usual issue at all events, which is my inability to be in multiple places at the same time. I did a reasonable job of balancing things I wanted to go to without getting too exhausted. I would have liked to have checked out some of the game demos and watch some film screenings, but couldn’t make that work, mostly because I wasn’t staying in the con hotel.

But the biggest problem is the Memorial Day weekend is not really a great time for me to go to something like this, since it conflicts with other things I want to do. I’m likely to be traveling next year, for example. So, overall, going virtually and going to some events after the fact will have to do.