We drove up from Washington to Philadelphia in the rain on Saturday morning and got to the Philcon hotel around 1:30. Parking in downtown Philly is almost as bad as DC, and we ended up parking in a public lot that gouged us for a total of $43 for 26 hours (if we had realized that we were going to get charged for the second day, we could probably have moved the car, but such is parking).

Checking into the hotel was no problem, other than the fact that all the king bedrooms were taken, so we had to take a room with two double beds (which Mrs. Immediacy likes, as that means (a) I have to sleep closer to her, the heat sink and (b) there's even more pillows in the room). Guest registration was, as always, in the green room, where we kidded around with the staff for a few moments. Looking through the pocket program, we didn't see anything that we wanted to attend until 4pm when Pam Sargent and George Zebrowski would give their principal speechs (as principal guests, standing in for Brian Aldiss, unable to attend due to medical concerns), so we of course visited the dealer's room, where we ran into the first of our convention friends, Mike Walsh of Old Earth Books (he, along with us and Pat Cadigan's college roommate, made up the Gold Saturn Club, although we have since lost our membership requirements--this was discovered when we all piled into our vehicles to eat after a reading of Pat's in Bailey's Crossroads).

The Philcon dealer's room was a good mixture of books (about a third of the tables), associated items (DVDs, games), and somewhat associated items (jewelry, sharp pointy things, t-shirts, kilts, corsets, etc.), with a few tables devoted to fan-related activities, such as pre-registration for future WorldCons.

Unfortunately, little time had been had for the convention to prepare for the guest of honor substitution, and so publicity for Pam and George's appearances was miniscule, if it existed at all. Their principal speeches were complementary views on the intersection of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds with both science fiction and the changing nature of our world. Like all good speeches, they made you more interested in the subject, leaving you with a desire to reread Wells.

We had hoped to get dinner with friends, but Pam and George were being feted, and rightly so, by the convention folks and we hadn't run across our other friends, so we went across the street to Sole Food, the restaurant in the Loews hotel by ourselves. The foyer was filled with people in suits and tuxes and I was afraid that the restaurant was booked, but it seems that this was a group destined for other places, and we had no trouble getting a table. We had garden salads, an asparagus risotto with woodland mushrooms, a mediterranean red mullet. For dessert, we had a warm apple tart with a single malt scotch sauce. A bit pricey for what you got, although presentation and service was excellent.

After a 9pm panel (consisting, in the words of Gardner Dozois, as torture for authors, who really want nothing more to do after 5pm at a convention than to have dinner than get drunk) that Pam had been a late addition to, and that ranged all over the place even though the audience (in some cases, strongly assisted by George and I) tried to encourage some structure, we retired to the hotel bar for a drink with Pam and George, wherein we discussed the realities of the writing life as well as plans for updates to her web site (which is hosted here). Around midnight, we hit the SFWA party (which had cheaper booze, but no place to sit) and went to bed around 1pm.

The next morning, we met up with them again for their readings, which were not advertised at all, so instead we continued our discussion from the previous night, then broke to both pack and check out of the hotel, then to lunch across the street at Maggiano's Little Italy. We said our goodbye's to them, as they had a 2:30 transfer to the train station, while I was off to my two scheduled panels, the first about book collecting starting at 2pm. I was surprised to find myself solo at the speaker's table, so I went ahead and started off, joined by an audience member who volunteered himself (as someone who had been buying books for fifty years), and finally joined by the moderator who had been caught coverning her husband's book dealing table in the huckster room. Although we stayed on topic, the panel wasn't anything to brag about; I was happy to finally have the chance to greet Evelyn Leeper and her husband Mark, whom I had corresponded with on the Internet since the early 90s, who were trying to figure out how to begin pruning their large collection.

The second panel, on great beginnings, was much more robust, as moderator Greg Frost and editor George Scithers and I had all brought some examples of wonderful first lines and paragraphs, which we shared throughout the hour. (There was a fourth panelist, but unfortunately she must have been a late addition, for she was unlisted in the pocket program and I didn't catch her full name; she had prepared some openings, but had forgotten to bring them.) The interesting thing about the discussion surrounding these readings was how a great first line can not only indicate what the entire book is about, but also puts forward a mystery to be immediately jumped into in the first chapter (Greg used the example of the first line from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude). (I'll put my prepared list of great first lines below.)

We left Philly immediately after the end of the panel, and were home in about three hours. While no convention has matched the heady days of the 1980s when the entire concept was new to me, I always find myself invigorated as a writer by them, for even with all the negatives, there's still something about a group of people coming together because of their love for text that warms me. This time was also special for us, as we had only had a chance to physically visit with Pam and George once before, at WisCon in 1991, and it was great to get a chance to have some extended discussions with them.