Friend a Day – Ishmael Williams
Photo by Peter Verrant
The first time I met Ishmael, I misjudged him. He was walking hand in hand with his partner Jules and I was disappointed to see that she’d broken up with her old boyfriend. I didn’t know they were in a poly relationship. Fortunately, I didn’t say anything. That would have been awkward!
I really got to know Ishmael when we were forming CONvergence. He brought his years of expertise working with convention hotel arrangements to us when we desperately needed a hotel to take us seriously.
He is one of the most thoughtful people I know. As conversations arguments progressed on various CONvergence topics, he would often hold his tongue the longest. When he finally spoke, he frequently managed to end the conversation because what he had to say managed to bring together all that had gone before in a way that made sense and cut through the emotion.
I make fun of Ishmael for loving just about every movie he watches. I think he has a natural ability to find what is enjoyable in almost everything. He doesn’t tell you what he didn’t like about something. He tells you what he liked about it.
After our first convention, it was Ishmael who gathered the rest of the board members together so we could take a moment to simply appreciate what we’d managed to accomplish (with a lot of help). He’s very good at taking the time to appreciate things and he’s even better at encouraging others to do the same.
Ishmael is one of the most personable people I know. He has a lot of friends because why wouldn’t you want to be his friend?
He inspires tremendous loyalty in others because he earns it. He treats everyone around him with respect and admiration for their talents and skills.
As my involvement with CONvergence has changed, I’ve found I have less time to spend with Ishmael. After board meetings, he would frequently stand in our doorway for particularly long Minnesota goodbyes.
I miss those long goodbyes. I certainly wish we had more time together than we used to because Ishmael is one of those people whose time it is easy to enjoy.
Friend a Day – Angie Anderson
Angie is someone I’ve known since High School. I think that we met on a trip to French camp. That’s what I remember anyway. I know there was a trip to French camp. Angie probably remembers it correctly because she’s got a far better memory than I do.
She’s one of those relentlessly cheerful people who simply never lets life get her down. The smile that is almost always on her face is not fake. She really is that cheerful.
She is also chatty and makes friends as easily as anyone I know. It only takes about five minutes for someone to be her new best friend.
When my kids were little, Angie was their day care mom. Most of the time my wife and I were their second or third favorite adult but it was a pretty significant drop from the top spot to the actual parents.
She has a great way with kids and with playful adults. I think that’s why she has worked so long in Connie’s Quantum Sandbox at CONvergence. When ideas like Marco Polo or dodgeball come up, she always seems game to lead them. She just seems to enjoy finding ways to get people to play.
I was talking to her this last weekend and she told me that she explained to her daughters that they would know when they were becoming teenagers because everything their parents said would sound stupid. While that statement is, sadly, accurate of all teenagers, I hope it doesn’t come to pass because her daughters should know that their mom is definitely not stupid.
A little bit eccentric, sure. But definitely not stupid.
Her eccentricity, though, is part of her charm.
She’s a great cook and has been for as long as I’ve known her. I can remember going over to her house for dinner back when we were teenagers and she was cooking meals even then.
I think the friends you keep around you for the longest time are there for a reason. Angie has a personality that makes me happy and when it comes to good reasons, that is the best of all.
Friend a Day – Kelvin Hatle
Photo by Bob Alberti
I met Kelvin during the early years of CONvergence when he was performing as a member of Soylent Theater.
Kelvin is a very quiet person when he is hanging out in a group of people. He’s a lot more likely to listen to a conversation at a party than to join in with one. You really need to spend some one on one time with him to have any real chance to know him.
He is a gifted improviser, which comes as a surprise if you know him only as the guy who is quiet at parties. When he gets on stage for an improv, he becomes a different person. Which is sort of the point, I guess.
Over the last few years, he has taken to producing one man shows at the Minnesota Fringe. So far, each one has been a little bit better than the last. He’s really grown as a writer and a performer through those solo shows.
I’d put him in everything I wrote if I could. He always finds a way to make what I do funnier than it was on the page.
He’s also very good at trivia. He worked with us on the GPS team trivia contest and he had the ability to write questions that were both challenging and interesting. When he moved on from the contest, we lost one of our best writers.
When he joined the cast of Vilification Tennis, he brought an entirely different personality to the stage. His dry delivery and his clever writing take a little while to catch on with the audience at times but with a little time to warm up, he gets them on his side.
There are several performers in the Twin Cities of whom I never tire. Kelvin is one of them. I will cheerfully go to anything in which he takes part because I know he will always be a lot of fun to watch.
I look forward to many more opportunities to work with Kelvin because he makes everyone around him look better.
Friend a Day – Jeremy Stomberg
Before Jeremy and I signed on to help create a new convention over fifteen years ago, we’d never met.
At one of the first meetings for the new convention, we needed to decide what the name was going to be. We’d been calling it Macrocon but many of us didn’t like that name. In a brainstorming/debate session that took most of an evening, we eventually settled on the name CONvergence.
In the brainstorming and debate that went on, Jeremy first felt that we should keep the name Macrocon and then voted against CONvergence again and again.
Thing is, the moment the name was decided, he was completely on board. He recognized that he’d been given the opportunity to make his argument and the rest of us weren’t convinced.
Jeremy disagreed with the rest of us a lot. But he never took it personally when a decision didn’t go his way.
I give him credit for that because I know when the situation was reversed, I did have a tendency to take it personally.
There’s something about the way Jeremy communicates that is nothing short of masterful. I’ve seen someone try to provoke him in a room full of people and he has always deflected the provocation with grace and style. He knows when it is time to argue and when it is time to defuse the situation.
He’s been an announcer with the Minnesota Rollergirls for some time now and you can tell he is really enjoying that gig. He’s naturally comfortable as an emcee and has a great sense of humor.
If Jeremy approaches me with a wry smile and starts to talk very quietly and earnestly, I know that what he is about to say is probably going to make me laugh. He knows how to tell a joke.
He also knows how to take a joke. When he is the target, he is always graceful and never takes it personally.
He has a cheerful nature and can laugh at just about anything. That’s probably why arguments don’t get to him. He just laughs it off.
The other thing Jeremy has in abundance is confidence. When he chooses to do something, he takes responsibility to do it right and he has the belief that he will do it right.
I never would have known Jeremy had CONvergence not brought us together. He’s not the only person who came into my life through the convention but he’s one of best.
Friend a Day – Michael Lee
Photo by Peter Verrant
I met Michael the back in the early days of CONvergence. He was part of a group that brought in Gary Russell as one of our first guests of honor. Mike has always been passionate about Dr. Who, fandom, and conventions.
When I stepped down as a CONvergence director, Mike was elected to take my place and I couldn’t have been happier because I knew the convention would be in good hands.
He’s stepping away from the board of CONvergence this year but in the last several years, his interests in conventions have grown to the point he is currently helping with a Worldcon bid.
Mike can be a bit quiet until you get to know him but he certainly has his opinions and is willing to share them.
In the years that he has run the convention, I’ve seen him work tirelessly to make things better when he perceives a problem. He has taken the initiative time and again to fix problems that wouldn’t have been fixed had he not made the choice to act. He seems willing to commit whatever extra time it takes to make sure something gets done right.
At the convention, he has also served as a calming influence when tempers begin to flare.
I wouldn’t say he is the biggest Dr. Who fan I know but he is a big Dr. Who fan. For the last several years, he has been the “candyman” who brought new episodes over to our house. I know that on such evenings, my kids were a lot happier to see him than anyone else. In that way, he’s passed his love of the show on to a new generation.
I really enjoy talking to Mike when there is something that excites him. For someone who is so typically laid back, his personality completely changes and he lights up like a big kid. That reaction betrays the passion that is always just below the surface.
I know that Mike will continue to be involved with CONvergence as long as the convention is around. That’s a good thing because the con needs people like him.
You can find his blog at michaell.org.
Friend a Day – Windy Bowlsby
I’ve known Windy more than half my life, I think. We met at the Renaissance Festival, helped form CONvergence, and have recently done a lot of theatrical collaborations. She is brash and self confident and filled with nearly limitless energy.
Windy and I are very similar and that means we’ve had some epic arguments over the years. It is a testament to our friendship that we have consistently managed to remain friends in spite of those arguments. Because I’m not kidding – they have been epic.
She is someone who is tenacious and will fight with all her might to achieve that which she has set out to do. Be it teaching, roller derby, dancing, singing, costuming, or being a mom, she doesn’t do things halfway. She jumps in with both feet and dares the cosmos to make her fail.
If you know Windy, you know that the cosmos would run and cower in the corner rather than cross her.
Her passion for life and for the things she does are always fun to watch. She’ll drag others along by sheer force of will. I’ve seen her come up with some crazy ideas and my typical response is “if anyone can make this happen, Windy can.”
And you know what? She always makes it happen.
If she’s afraid of failure, she never lets it show. Instead, she will focus her considerable talents on figuring out a way to get it done. If she does fail, she will never fail the same way again.
She also does an amazing Captain Kirk impression. I’m pretty sure Shatner himself would be impressed.
I’m pleased to have been able to call Windy a friend for so many years.
Windy doesn’t have a blog but you should definitely follow her on Twitter and listen to her podcast, Xanadu Cinema Pleasure Dome.
Geeks Without God and Comics
This week’s episode of Geeks Without God is with friend and CONvergence co-founder Christopher Jones. I don’t know how it came to pass that so many of the co-founders of the convention are not religious but it is entirely possible we were able to do what we did because we had Sunday mornings free.
I can’t take credit for that. Molly said that.
Anyway, Chris has been a professional comic book artist for his entire adult life and so we spent most of the episode talking about his career in the comic industry and he even told us about a very cool project that he’s got coming up.
I haven’t gotten to see enough of Chris since he and I left the CONvergence board. It was nice to have him in the house again. Enjoy the episode!
Geeks Without God Talks Mixed Marriage
This week’s Geeks Without God has our friend Windy Bowlsby hanging out and talking about her marriage to a theist. That was the idea anyway. It turns out that they have everything worked out pretty well. Instead, things ended up talking about all sorts of crazy stuff including the definition of “accepted fan moniker.”
I’ve brought it up several times in the last few months so it seems fair to finally explain what the hell I mean and why I keep bringing it up.
Windy is actually the third member of the CONvergence “founding board” who has been on the podcast. I’m not sure how it happened that most of us are atheist/agnostics as that wasn’t something any of us ever talked about in the early days.
Nor is it something that we talked about with Windy. Maybe I’ll have to bring that up when we have Christopher Jones on next month!
Anyway, enjoy our conversation with Windy!
Geeks Without God Talks CONvergence Again
OK, I know we’ve been talking about CONvergence a lot. We really like the convention. So this episode is about our favorite moments at the convention. I think the episode is fun to listen to but no matter what, it was fun to record. That has to count for something, right?
Actually, there are some fun stories that came out of the convention and we somehow managed to remember a few of them!
Geeks Without God Talks to PZ Myers
In the second of two live episodes recorded at CONvergence, we finally got to talk with outspoken atheist PZ Myers. I wanted to talk to him about evolution because he is a professor of evolutionary biology and a vocal opponent of creationists the world over. My question to him was fairly simple: what is the best evidence you can use to get a creationist to think about their beliefs?
I had no illusions that one could completely eradicate years of indoctrination with a single well-chosen piece of evidence. I just wanted to know how you could start the ball rolling.
Of course the answer isn’t nearly as easy as the question. I knew that.
Still, PZ helped us work through some of the ways those of us who know evolution is true can begin to educate those who do not. It was great to have PZ on the show and I hope we can chat with him again soon!
Grail Diary 