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My first Fur Con
16 years ago
General
So after squandering countless hours staring at my screen telling myself i had writers block I decided to play music really loud and dance with my bicycle in the middle of my kitchen.
Its like that old Seng-ts'an person said:
The wise person does not strive;
The ignorant man ties himself up...
If you work on your mind
with your mind,
How can you avoid an
immense confusion?
So you may have heard I went to my very first Furry Convention a few days ago. It was a mind blowing experience. Stepping into the Sheraton hotel on Saturday afternoon on the 25th of April was like stepping into another world. Apparently leaving this world for a few hours was exactly what I needed because I haven't felt this good in quite some time. My automobile also broke down while I was there, forcing me to sleep in my tiny little 90 Honda CRX that night in the hotel parking lot and then ride my bicycle nearly 30 miles the next morning to get home.
But while I was there I had a blast. Wandering around a hotel surrounded by people dressed in expertly crafted fantastical creature costumes seems to be one of those things that leaves one feeling a bit manic. Like I had died and gone to the kind of heaven specifically reserved for cartoon lovers. Where every geek is free of societal constraints, surrounded by people just like them, where cartoon characters aren't just something you see on a screen; they're actually in front of you occupying physical space who walk and talk and if you ask really nice you can reach out and touch the crazy fockers. Turns out crazy fockers are really soft ^_^ and full of interesting conversation.
It was unreal. There were moments where I wasn't really sure if I was dreaming or if I had fallen into another dimension. One moment I was having my sketchbook signed by an artist I had idolized since childhood, the next I was dancing to some electronica remix of the original mario brothers tunes next to a gorgeous wolf fursuit with glowsticks and smiley face balloons tied to his tail under a sky of coherent beams of light of nearly every color in the spectrum. My occipital lobe was thoroughly bedazzled, my temporal refreshingly engaged and the frontal cortex....well lets just say it had more positive stimuli than it could deal with since I first laid eyes on a giant candy coated Easter bunny.
I owe alot of my experience to 2 though, the guy really went out of his way to make sure I had a good time. The fact that someone so infamous would give me, in all of my obscurity, such treatment must have been some twist of fate. I'm glad the guy chose to stop at my gas station instead of Meijer across the street. The guy also gave a killer performance that night, he certainly knows how to make me giggle.
I have to say that amidst the presence of all these great people that the mass media continually regards as freaks I felt right at home. I've never seen so many beautifully unique expressions of individuality in one place before. There were so many open minded people all around me that it boggled my fuzzy little noggin. The chance to be around human beings who actually seemed like REAL people, for a change was a breath of fresh air.
On my bike ride home I noticed the marsh marigolds in bloom. One of my father's best paintings was of marsh marigolds. It certainly seemed like one of those coincidences seeing them there on one of the most beautiful days after one of the most memorable nights of my entire life.
Maybe its like that old coot Ralph Waldo Emerson is known to have said.
"The earth laughs
in flowers."
Though I may fancy myself a rational person when i get mechanical, I am an artistic creature and the imagination seems to be far more closely bound to the "soul."
I believe my father is with the earth now as he has always been behind that paintbrush. Looking at those marsh marigolds the other day had my mind working up the unexplainable:
the true and sacred "heresy" I had inherited was a map along the strands of significance here in this synaptic web of life resting inside my skull.
After evaluating that psychological spaghetti jungle...
I'd say
he wants me to be happy.
Its like that old Seng-ts'an person said:
The wise person does not strive;
The ignorant man ties himself up...
If you work on your mind
with your mind,
How can you avoid an
immense confusion?
So you may have heard I went to my very first Furry Convention a few days ago. It was a mind blowing experience. Stepping into the Sheraton hotel on Saturday afternoon on the 25th of April was like stepping into another world. Apparently leaving this world for a few hours was exactly what I needed because I haven't felt this good in quite some time. My automobile also broke down while I was there, forcing me to sleep in my tiny little 90 Honda CRX that night in the hotel parking lot and then ride my bicycle nearly 30 miles the next morning to get home.
But while I was there I had a blast. Wandering around a hotel surrounded by people dressed in expertly crafted fantastical creature costumes seems to be one of those things that leaves one feeling a bit manic. Like I had died and gone to the kind of heaven specifically reserved for cartoon lovers. Where every geek is free of societal constraints, surrounded by people just like them, where cartoon characters aren't just something you see on a screen; they're actually in front of you occupying physical space who walk and talk and if you ask really nice you can reach out and touch the crazy fockers. Turns out crazy fockers are really soft ^_^ and full of interesting conversation.
It was unreal. There were moments where I wasn't really sure if I was dreaming or if I had fallen into another dimension. One moment I was having my sketchbook signed by an artist I had idolized since childhood, the next I was dancing to some electronica remix of the original mario brothers tunes next to a gorgeous wolf fursuit with glowsticks and smiley face balloons tied to his tail under a sky of coherent beams of light of nearly every color in the spectrum. My occipital lobe was thoroughly bedazzled, my temporal refreshingly engaged and the frontal cortex....well lets just say it had more positive stimuli than it could deal with since I first laid eyes on a giant candy coated Easter bunny.
I owe alot of my experience to 2 though, the guy really went out of his way to make sure I had a good time. The fact that someone so infamous would give me, in all of my obscurity, such treatment must have been some twist of fate. I'm glad the guy chose to stop at my gas station instead of Meijer across the street. The guy also gave a killer performance that night, he certainly knows how to make me giggle.
I have to say that amidst the presence of all these great people that the mass media continually regards as freaks I felt right at home. I've never seen so many beautifully unique expressions of individuality in one place before. There were so many open minded people all around me that it boggled my fuzzy little noggin. The chance to be around human beings who actually seemed like REAL people, for a change was a breath of fresh air.
On my bike ride home I noticed the marsh marigolds in bloom. One of my father's best paintings was of marsh marigolds. It certainly seemed like one of those coincidences seeing them there on one of the most beautiful days after one of the most memorable nights of my entire life.
Maybe its like that old coot Ralph Waldo Emerson is known to have said.
"The earth laughs
in flowers."
Though I may fancy myself a rational person when i get mechanical, I am an artistic creature and the imagination seems to be far more closely bound to the "soul."
I believe my father is with the earth now as he has always been behind that paintbrush. Looking at those marsh marigolds the other day had my mind working up the unexplainable:
the true and sacred "heresy" I had inherited was a map along the strands of significance here in this synaptic web of life resting inside my skull.
After evaluating that psychological spaghetti jungle...
I'd say
he wants me to be happy.
Unfortunatley, I didn't go... XD
Really glad to hear you had a good time, awesome that you were able to attend!