ApolloCon 2007: Saturday: masquerade, hall costumes, and miscellaneous pictures
Miscellaneous pictures from Saturday, including masquarade costumes and hall costumes.
Congoer named Andromeda and an unidentified person in the ConSuite
Authors Linda Donahue (left) and Julia Mandala gave a belly dance instruction session on Saturday morning. Alas, I wasn’t there — I went to some mediocre panel instead.
A congoer named Scott in a pirate-like costume
A boffer demo. “Boffers? Soft swords for whacking your friends! Slyddur Rahbet and his Amtgard crew demonstrate boffer technique and how boffers are used for game play and conflict resolution. (Watch, but don’t touch.)” — from ApolloCon program book
John Cramer, who is a physicist and a SF writer, gave a talk about an experiment he was planning to perform that will explore a possibility of faster than light communication via quantum entanglement. That’s impossible in the conventional view. If this experiment succeeds, it will mean it is possible to send signals back in time, which creates a whole lot of paradoxes, including the Immaculate Conception paradox and the Bilking paradox, from which Cramer draws an intriguing science-fictional implication. He wrote about it in the Alternate View column for the Analog science fiction magazine. (I had a link for it once, but over time that link had gone stale. I tried to find it on the internet again, and I think it may be this article — E.)
Cramer and his students tried to perform this experiment earlier, only to find out that they didn’t have the right equipment for detecting the entangled photons, and the right equipment is very costly. So a local newspaper reporter offered to contact the right people who could raise money for this experiment. Soon thereafter Cramer started getting calls from charitable foundations and such, that wanted to contribute financially to his experiment. It didn’t take them long to raise 40,000.
The talk was rather heavy on technical details, but there were some humorous moments too. A guy from the audience asked: if your experiment in fact works, could those 40K be money you sent back to yourself from the future?
A congoer in a red and black striped and checkered costume
Another congoer in a red and black costume, loosely pirate-inspired. Or maybe it’s not a costume but a stylish outfit. The belt, especially, makes me wonder if it’s a fashion statement or a costume piece, and if so, what does it represent.
There seemed to be several congoers in pirate-inspired red-and-black costumes that hung out together.
Another piratoid, probably from the same group of costumers, but in white-and-black.
A congoer in a green Middle Eastern dance-inspired outfit, with loose pants and several hip scarves.
A costumer in a long silver dress, who I thought back then was wearing a Padme Amidala costume, although now I’m less sure why I thought that way. Maybe she told me?
A costumer with a triangular hat — possibly another piratoid costume
A congoer in a yellow-and-grey costume
A congoer in a blue sari. There were several women wearing saris at the ApolloCon, and some were not of obvious Indian ancestry.
This group costume of three Klingon women was a masquerade entry. Unfortunately, I don’t know its name, because I missed the masquerade entirely due to a silly miscalculation of time.
The fierce Klingon ladies that captured me treated me kindly. They even agreed to pose with me.
One of the masquerade entries at ApolloCon 2007. Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the costume (nor the wearer), because I missed the masquerade entirely due to a silly miscalculation of time. (I went out for dinner with some nice people instead.) This costumed woman was sitting in the hall after the masquerade, awaiting the results.
A performance of “Skip Thruster and the Murder in the Consuite”, a play by Bennie Grezlik. I came in towards the end of the play and did not get a clear idea what it was about.
This picture literally captures the behind-the-scene’ness of Kim Kofmel (right), one of the powers who inconspicuously make ApolloCon run. She is waiting behind the stage to announce the winners of the ApolloCon masquerade.
Nara in an owl costume. Or Owlet, or Owling, or something like that. If I remember correctly, she was the winner of the ApolloCon 2007 masquerade.
The second place in the masquerade was awarded to the Klingon women group costume.
The Padme costume took the third place in the masquerade contest. But I could be wrong and she could have been the 1st, and Nara the 3rd.
All the ApolloCon 2007 masquerade winners on the stage
A congoer named Jennifer with wide, crocheted sleeves.
Costumers named Scott and Crow, dressed in something generically old-timey black-and-white – but perhaps these were characters from some show? I’ll never know.
A costumer Katie in a blue Star Trek uniform
CIMG6561 Susan Calvin, who also appeared in this picture, dressed in a vaguely Middle Eastern, sequined outfit at the masquerade. I’m not sure if this was a costume or an outfit, and neither did I find out if it was her real name or if she was channeling the famous character from Asimov’s robot stories. But since I don’t think this outfit fits the Asimov’s character’s personality, I’ll go with “real name”.
A costumer in a green-and-white costume
A costume that’s almost camouflaged against the carpet its wearer is standing on. Unintentionally, I’m sure — it’s just that all hotel carpets have loud patterns.
A black-and-white costume with horns or cat ears.
A congoer in a pirate-like costume plays a stringed instrument at a convention room party on Saturday night
As he plays, T bellydances
A congoer dressed as a manga character, and Katie in a Star Trek uniform
The manga girl and Amy. The little guy-doll sitting on the manga girl’s armrest is part of her costume. This is a rare instance when she wasn’t cuddling him.
Left to right: Amy, Scott, Todd, and T at the Fencon party
Left to right: T, Katie, Amy, Scott at the Fencon party
Glitter diving
Linda Donahue in a skull costume
Shai in a sari on Sunday, after a sari workshop.
Kathy in a sari on Sunday, after a sari workshop.
Sandy, the middle one of three Klingon women pictured earlier in this post, on Sunday, not in a costume.
A water tower in Luling, Texas painted as a watermelon. Apparently Luling pins its identity to the watermelon. The weekend of ApolloCon Luling was having its annual watermelon thump, so we decided to stop and see what was going on. Things may have quieted down at 6 pm on Sunday, though, because there weren’t any festivities going on, not counting farmers’ market. Indeed, farmers’ market was selling watermelons and other produce. If anything more exciting was happening during the day, we missed it.
