{"id":23606,"date":"2017-05-29T15:40:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T19:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=23606"},"modified":"2017-06-06T09:05:52","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T13:05:52","slug":"reminisce-about-51-years-of-balticon-as-13-guests-devour-12-donuts-in-a-lightning-round-episode-of-eating-the-fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/29\/reminisce-about-51-years-of-balticon-as-13-guests-devour-12-donuts-in-a-lightning-round-episode-of-eating-the-fantastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Reminisce about 51 years of Balticon as 13 guests devour 12 donuts in a \u201clightning round\u201d episode of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Balticon 51<\/a> ends today, but the fun doesn’t have to be over—because on Saturday, I interviewed a baker’s dozen of attendees about their favorite Balticon memories. And I did it over donuts!<\/p>\n

(If you’re a regular listener and were therefore anticipating Episode 39 to be the previously announced dinner with Elizabeth Hand, don’t worry—that’s still planned to appear on June 9. But I thought it fitting that the Balticon episode go live now<\/em>, to help assuage the sadness some might be feeling as they bid farewell to Baltimore for another year.)<\/p>\n

Since last July’s Readercon Donut Spectacular<\/a> episode of Eating the Fantastic has proven to be so popular, I thought I’d try harvesting memories about another long-running con, and so plopped myself down in a high-traffic area of the Balticon hotel with a dozen Diablo Donuts<\/a>. But first, I shared this photo on social media so the hungry hordes would know to be on the lookout for me.<\/p>\n

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Most episodes of Eating the Fantastic involve deep-dive interviews with a single guest, so for the most part, I’m in control, but with something like this, you never know what’s going to happen, because I don’t choose the guests, the guests choose me<\/em>. But I consider that controlled chaos a feature, not a bug, and think you’ll like what those who did sit down for a bite and a chat had to say about their decades—and in one case, mere hours—attending the con.<\/p>\n

Listen as 13 guests begin Balticon\u2019s second half-century with a dozen Diablo Donuts and reminisce about the time George R. R. Martin pretended to beat one of them to death with a cane, how a live birth almost ended up as part of the science programming, why it’s so wonderful to be able to make a Star Trek<\/em> joke and have people get<\/em> it, Allen Steele’s wonderful depiction of the 1939 Worldcon in his novel Arkwright<\/em>, Marty Gear\u2019s indispensable rule for self-care during convention-going, plus more. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can eavesdrop as my guests dig into their donuts—<\/p>\n

1) Subscribe over at the iTunes store<\/a>, where you’ll find all 38 previous episodes as well.<\/p>\n

2) Use the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> to download episodes to your preferred device.<\/p>\n

3) Or … simply click and listen below.<\/p>\n