Olamot day 3

This should have been up days ago, but, well, better late than never, right?

The third day of Olamot was the one in which I actually attended lectures. Three of them. Plus a filksing!

I arrived at 15:00 (missing Guy Wiener's lecture, as predicted), and sat around for an hour with some friends before going to Joe Brown's lecture about the mythology of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. It was a fascinating lecture, with only one drawback - it was too short. Joe barely got a head of steam before the one hour alotted to it ended. This lecture needs a rerun at a later con, with a two hour slot. It was quite well attended, so I don't foresee any problem getting this done.

From Joe's lecture, I immediately moved to Gili Bar Hillel's lecture about the international translations of the Harry Potter books. As the Israeli translator, and someone who's been in contact with over 20 other transators from around the world, Gili had much to say, and as she is an excellent lecturer, it was both informative and funny. But, much like Joe's lecture, it was TOO SHORT. Again, it was a well attended lecture, so I hope to see a version of it at a later con with a longer time slot.

After that, I sojourned to my first con filking in Israel. I was at a filksing at Noreascon 3, all those years ago, and I've written an article and given a lecture about it, which helped kickstart the whole Israeli filk scene, but I've never had the time to attend one of the filksings at the cons. I did this time, and it was fun, until I got drained of singing. Also, there were absolutely no Ookla The Mok songs. This was not a good thing, as Ookla is of the good. And of the funny. I loves me some Ookla, and have recently bought their latest album off of Emusic.

I then did my usual meandering about, talking to people, messing in the politics of the Israeli Society for SF & F... the usual routine. I got it in my head that a certain person should be in the board. Said person was befuddled by this notion. We reached the compromise that she will not nominate herself, but if elected, she WILL serve. Good enough.

Then it was time for Hagit Lev's science-meets-myth lecture about the arguments in the scientific community regarding a possible Black Sea flood being a possible source of the Noah's flood myth. In case you're wondering, there's no definitive answer, and don't believe anyone that tells you differently, or Hagit WILL clobber you on the head. Really. She will. Interesting and educational lecture, though above my by then very, very tired head.

I then did more of the hanging about thing, and the talking to people thing. And it was good.

And then I left, and the con ended for me. And after meeting some friends, I went home and sank into a weekend long work binge to make up for time lost during the con. A binge from the effects of which I am only now emerging.