Mythcon 44: Final Report
Just in case you thought Mythcon was all scholarly egghead stuff, it wraps up with silly season:
- I learned at the banquet that at Mythcon they play with their food. More than that I cannot say; you have to experience it for yourself.
- Masquerade! Costumes of characters from your favorite works of fantasy parade on stage. Everybody wins, and the cleverly phrased awards are possibly more entertaining than the costumes themselves.
- Makeshift band Where Did Our Ringo sings, the Not-Ready-for-Mythcon Players perform Watership Downton Abbey, champions of the extreme sport known as golfimbul (don’t ask) are heralded by kazoo, piquant poetry is proffered,…
You get the picture.
After a weekend together, camaraderie reigns, epitomized in a round of song sung as a group, which apparently is how every Mythcon comes to a fitting end. Exploring the creation of myth can be lonely work; it’s not a field with widespread appreciation (yet; it is the job of this blog to start fixing that). Mythcon welcomes you warmly into a society of friends who recognize the majesty of mythmaking; reason enough to rate it a rousing success. –CFC
Hey Chris, loved your take on our absurdly educational little whirrld! Enjoyed meeting you so very much. Cheezburger is he closest thing I have to a “website” at present. Cheers!!!
You know you miss attending Mythcon when you’re sitting around the dinner table with your non-Mythie family, your fingers began to get artistic with the leftover bits and your mom reminds you that she thought she got you out of that habit almost 40 years ago…. it didn’t help that I told her all the smart folks are doing it too.
Great blog. Here’s to seeing you next year. Anthony & I haven’t been to a Mythcon in a few years (much to our chagrin).
One note– you say that “Exploring the creation of myth can be lonely work; it’s not a field with widespread appreciation…” I think you’ll see that that’s not exactly true– the more you delve into the field and the more events you attend. Exploring the creation of myth is by far the least lonely of all the academic disciplines primarily because Mythies are a Fellowship, to the truest expression of the word. As a college instructor, I find academia often chock full of people who pretend to support you, only to knock you down and trample you whenever they have the opportunity.
I’ve also been told, by mainstream scholars, that Tolkien and Inkling studies is not a valid, worthy, or “real” field– and that somehow because people who study Mythopoeic fiction– ie Mythies– are by and large on friendly terms, it’s somehow less academic…. bollocks. If you are an honest person, have a true value for myth and enjoy attending something like Mythcon, then this is the friendliest, best, most socially diverse group of people you can hope to spend a raucous evening with…. and where else can you get completely inebriated while being serenaded in Elvish (albeit neo-Elvish)?
In Fellowship
Jessie
Great series of blog reports, Chris – we’re so glad you found us and look forward to seeing you next tear in Massachusetts! I’m also joyfully looking forward to seeing Jessie and Anthony again, after too many years! Yay!!!
Thanks, Lynn! Another Mythcon can’t come too soon.