Aggiecon Lives!

I'm back from College Station and Aggiecon 35. What a weekend--I never even made it over to the Monkeyhouse. I must be getting old.

This was, I was startled to realize during the "Happy 35th Birthday, Aggiecon" panel earlier today, my 15th consecutive year in attendance. It seems like only yesterday I was a know-nothing freshman working dealers' room at AC20, utterly oblivious there was anything more to the convention than gaming. The birthday panel unfortunately devolved into a little bit of "This con doesn't compare to the Aggiecons of yore" complete with gripes about the film program being stolen by other committees and the lack of this or wrongheadedness of that. But as Joe Lansdale pointed out, we all keep coming back year in, year out. Aggiecon is fun. It's laid back and the program participants and guests of honor hang out and shoot the bull with fen until the wee hours of the morning. It's a convention that invited Harlan Ellison to come as guest of honor at the very first one way back at the height of the Vietnam war (Texas A&M is known for both it's conservative nature and the large Corps of Cadets on campus). It's a convention that saw a number of up-and-coming young writers--Bruce Sterling among them--style their hair in "honeybuns" and parade around announcing "I'm Princess Leia!" in 1978, with Damon Knight, the Guest of Honor, greatly disappointed that he'd missed the opportunity to participate in the stunt. Aggiecon may not have a bar, but by golly, it is fun.

All the more reason to celebrate this year. You see, the university pulled the plug last year, using the state budget crisis as an excuse to yank funding (the reasoning was bogus, but to explain why would take a lot more typing than I'm willing to do tonight as well as a brief course in creative accounting). But the students would not be denied. They raised money by cleaning Kyle Field after football games this year. They landed a generous grant from ALAMO, Inc. and another from a Houston chapter of the Association of Former Students. They scaled back on a lot of things, but boasted two solid GoHs in Jacqueline Carey and Todd McCaffrey (McCaffrey may not have attracted a large number of paying attendees, but he was great on panels and a great guy to have around). The art show was one of the biggest ever--in terms of both quality and quantity--despite the fact there was no artist GoH this year. The dealers' room was packed and very diverse. The costume contest had more entries than ever before, with some unusually elaborate outfits--and the traditional Miss Aggiecon contest was won by a nine-foot long paper mâché Jabba the Hutt complete with prehensile tongue. The after-contest gathering and general mingling was brought to an abrupt halt by the entrance of guest relations officer Jennifer Franz. Jennifer, it must be pointed out, arrived decked out as Trinity from The Matrix in all her glossy black glory, and the abrupt silence was broken by the sound of every single guy's jaw in the place hitting the floor at the same time. And I finally found a copy of the Farscape soundtrack in the dealers' room--this was a Good Thing for me, as I absolutely love all things Farscape.

Aggiecon even managed to increase attendance over last year's incarnation, which was headlined by Virginia Hey and Lani Tupu of Farscape fame. Since this year's con didn't have to pay those large appearance fees, the bottom line is looking quite healthy. After the bills are paid, they're splitting the remainder between an Aggiecon 36 operating fund for next year and an endowment fund for long-term growth. These students have the plan to get it done. I can't express how impressed I've been with them--especially since at this time last year I figured 2:1 odds against another Aggiecon ever happening. But they've pulled it off and look set for a long run to come. Which is good, because I like the idea of attending my 30th consecutive Aggiecon in 2019.

Now Playing: Subvision and Guy Gross Farscape Soundtrack