Arisia 2007 in brief: Sunday

Sunday, I had time to wander through the Dealer's Room, where I bought mint fudge from a vendor who needed my singles, and the Art Show, where the artist GoH, Hilary Scott, had on display excellent life-size mounted dinosaur heads, steampunk squid-vehicles, and more. Seeking low-key entertainment, I watched most of Mystery Spatula Theater 11, a very funny fan-based version of MST3K. The movie was Dungeons and Dragons, featuring Jeremy Irons, and the riff-scripting was surprisingly clever, coming within spitting distance of Best Brains—on an off day. ;) I caught a passing reference to Devil Bunny Needs a Ham (and I think I was the only one).

The rest of Sunday involved packing, checking out, eating, staring blankly, chatting with elusiveat and herbertinc, and wandering in an aimless, sore-legged daze. irilyth and psocoptera picked me up for delicious sushi dinner and Pocky around 5PM, then I slept like log at their place near Davis Square until I had to leave for my train the next day.

I really had a wonderful time, even better than last year. Apart from meeting new people and dancing like a maniac, I think the nicest part was being in a comfortably flirty atmosphere, which I don't often find these days—it was good to be able to flirt and make risqué comments and chat with women in tight leather corsets without the specter of disapprobation lurking around in the air. There are certainly issues with unwelcome sexual behavior at Arisia, of course, but offhand references to sex in the program and invitations from strangers to find ducks in their cleavage reminded me that much of fandom has pretty healthy attitudes about sex.

Arisia 2007: a social puzzle!

So, let us say that you don't drink alcohol. At a room party, the hostess asks, "Would you like something to drink? We have ginger ale, white grape juice, red grape juice, or bubbly grape juice." Those last three are secret code for white wine, red wine, and champagne, because alcohol is verboten in open room parties. But you don't know that, and ask for white grape juice, because, mm, white grape juice!

This results in you standing around awkwardly with a plastic cup of wine in your hand, pretending to sip it. You can't drink it. You can't just set it down, because the hosts will find it later and be miffed. You can't dump it anywhere, since the bathroom is blocked off and the balcony would be obvious. And you can't leave with it, since it would be bad to be spotted with open alcohol in the halls. What do you do?

( Answer behind the cut! )