…unsullied by spam, but I haven’t done the full upgrade to my WordPress software yet. Please email or comment if you see more evidence of spam in the posts, because rest assured that I have NOT decided that my blog would be a fine vehicle for promoting spammers’ sordid wares, or warez, as the case may be. Sigh.
Anyway.
The cognitive dissonance starts when I walk into the Moscone Center on Saturday morning. Previously, I have only been to the Moscone Center when ALA’s in San Francisco, so I keep half-thinking that there’s a YALSA meeting I’m supposed to be at, or wondering why so many librarians are cosplaying.
Cosplay, cosplay, cosplay. There’s so much of it, and I’m feeling especially pop-culture-illiterate because there are so few characters I recognize. Someone, I think, should do a Non-CosPlayers Guide to Who The People At Cons Are Dressed Up As. You could even do it as a comic. Anyone?
I stare intently at one fellow in charcoal gray baggy jacket and pants, Bluetooth in his ear. He’s wearing latex gloves, and has several backup pairs hanging out of one pocket. As I’m pondering — is this yet another character I don’t know? does he maybe have OCD? — he walks past me and I see the sign on the back of his jacket, which reads, in big block letters, FACILITY STAFF. Oh. Yeah.
I get to our table, and can’t believe our luck: we are opposite Century Guild, and they have some amazing artwork: Heinrich Kley, Alphonse Mucha, several Gail Potocki paintings.
Eventually Terri informs me that the woman in the really cool dress IS Gail Potocki, and I gush at her briefly.
Buttons aren’t cosplay per se, but sometimes people wear so many of them that they present like armor. One guy has entirely covered his jacket with buttons in rigorously exact lines, and I wonder if anyone has stopped him and asked to read all of them. I also wonder, uncharitably, if anyone wearing a FREE HUGS AVAILABLE HERE t-shirt has ever been asked for one.
One other cosplay note: I’ve done a fair amount of flying lately, and in every airport, I’ve seen armed services personnel on their way home for leave or en route to deploy. So it’s deeply odd to see camouflage on civilians, even if the army they’re supposed to be in is not from this planet.
For a minute, I thought this was somebody’s costume, too:
