it is wednesday in atlanta, the middle of the workweek. no different than the next or previous day, other than the ever clearer view toward the horizon that assures us all that a weekend is approaching. about the only noticeable wednesday event is the morning distribution of creative loafing, atlanta’s free weekly newspaper. every wednesday, the stacks of creative loafings are replenished in front of the restaurants on ponce, in the no-change-required bins in front of buddy’s and various other places around metro atlanta. the topics range from music scene reports to theatre reviews to pseudo-exposés. like this one. from today.
go ahead and read. i’ll be here when you get back.
finished? good. now, i don’t know the accused, not personally. and as his trial is pending and since vultures are lurking for textual flesh, i will refrain from using the accused’s name in this context. i will say that i have been to staff meetings that were run by the accused, and i saw the accused about once a day during the 2000 dragoncon, often as he was making his way across the concourse to deal with some problem or another. my impression was that he was a very busy person with little time for any social interaction that had nothing to do with the operations of the ‘con itself. his name was dropped on a regular basis by conventioneers and guests that were of a mind to escalate an issue that might be troubling them, or to get assistance that was above and beyond the call of duty. i heard his name often, saw him in passing some and never had any actual contact with him. and i do not think my situation is a rare one. conventioneers were concerned with themselves, each other, the attending celebrities and the events scheduled over the four-day span. the group was practically self-steering and self-sustaining.
the 2001 convention was different in that not only did i still not have contact with the accused, i never saw him and only heard his name mentioned in an occasional whisper or accompanied by a perplexed and slow shaking of a head. as the accusations came in the year or so between the two ‘cons, the accused was removed from the mechanics of the convention, not attending even a single organizational staff meeting prior to the event. a successor was placed in his stead, and the ‘con came and went as planned, perhaps better than any that had come before. for four days, two of the larger hotels in downtown atlanta played host to a 20,000 member freak show of stormtroopers, elves, klingons, goths and trenchcoated loners, and not just professionally, but graciously. when asked what she thought about the costumed spectacles that constantly passed her desk, one concierge replied, “oh, this is nothing, and i’ve seen worse at the chamber.”
what is most troubling about the upcoming trial is that the public will be unable to separate the accused from the convention he helped to found, though it is obvious to those who have participated that the convention can, will and does survive without his involvement. and continued support of the convention itself should not in any way be misconstrued as an automatic belief in the accused’s innocence or guilt. yet blanket assessments like the one in this article do nothing to bring focus to this blurred stance.
“For [the Dragon*Con community], a convention is more important than children,” [Nancy Collins] says. “The con geeks don’t take it seriously and now they whine that this scandal makes fandom look bad. It does, but the cover-up makes it look worse.”
actually, i believe that the benefits of the convention are more important than the apparent sins of one man. and i do take it seriously, but if there is a cover-up, i have no part in it. i know nothing to support the defendent or the plaintiff in this case. however, i do know that the continued association of the accused with this convention, the largest in the southeast, perhaps the best of its kind, can only result in the ruin of something that is very special in the lives of so many people. the geeks, the nerds, the quiet kids, the brainiacs, the freaks… the ‘con belongs to them, and for four days they have license to let their flags of allegiance fly wildly. and when it is over, they’ll go back to their classes, back to their jobs, back to the blue-glow of a computer monitor and back into their shell. these are fascinating people, and the accused is no more their wizard than harry potter is a real boy.
