June San Francisco mini-meet?

I'm tentatively in.

June 11-12 is out for me, and during the week, well, I work daytime hours.
Otherwise, it's a distinct possibliity.
I'm a compleat n00b with the empeg, but it'd be nice to meet a few of you guys.

I'll be there unless the wind is good! J/K. Depends when exactly but count me in if it's humanly possible for me to be there.

How is Wed @ 7pm for people?

Wednesday, the 8th of June looks good to me.
I'll be in Livermore during the day, so it will take me a while to get to SF. Should be able to make 7, though.
Location?

Hmmm - Another thread to subvert!

My partner and I are going to be in the San Francisco area (San Jose, to be precise) on holiday around the 25th to the 28th of June. I know this is way too late for the suggested mini-meet, but is anyone interested in meeting up then? We're booked on the 27th and fly up to Portland on the 28th, so the 25th or 26th would be preferable. If someone wanted to meet up to go to some of the fun things around there - redwood forests, aquaria, museums, suggestions wanted - then that'd be cool too.

I can bring mix CDs, if people would find that attractive. Just let me know before the 14th of June (when I fly overseas - see a previous thread).

Thanks in advance,

Paul

I'd like to come... I can probably make it to the city on Wed. the 8th by 7pm (traffic going north from santa clara on 101 sucks around that time)... So, where are we meeting... Somewhere around the convention center? maybe the at the Sony Metreon arcade (games + food + beer) or something similar... plus we should set up a common parking lot level to try to congregate to so I can see how everyone else's install is doing... he he...

I'll try and be there if I can. The Metreon seems very reasonable to me. They've got plenty of food options and plenty of reasonable parking.

Matthew

Wed, 7pm, Metreon arcade ... Everyone good for that?

Sounds good. I'll brave the much hated Metreon for a meetup! Just don't ask me to see a $12 movie there! =]

wow that looks amazing. I'd never heard of it. Where'd you see it?

Holy crap. Yeah, where'd you see that? I have to see it.

Edit: Wow, I really should pay more attention. I already have a rip of it, but never watched it. :P

Ah, so someone else finds Bilal interesting!

I saw an add somewhere, read around the web about it and the author, and ended up downloading a rather awful dvix of it. Visually fascinating - Bilal's background as graphics artist is obvious. Atmosphere reminds of 'Blade Runner' (but seems to be Bilal's original - his three albums this was based upon are older, I think). I finally also downloaded his two earlier works, 'Tycho Moon' and 'Bunker Palace Hotel', although they were in French without subtitles. Even without understanding the dialogue they are worth watching.

Edit: When (if) I find English-subtitled DVDs of these, this will be another example of 'downloads promote CD/DVD sales'.

Yeah, there are a lot of interesting comics guys coming out of Croatia these days. I don't really know what your local scene is like, but it must be tremendous, what with the talent I've seen working for US comics. Sadly, my favorite, Edvin Biukovic, who was one of the few artists that really made me say "wow" once I'd gotten blase to dismissive about almost all comic art I saw, died of cancer at the age of 30. He had so much more to do, I think.

And I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, and now seems like a reasonable time. Have you ever read Fax from Sarajevo, and, if so, what did you think of it?

Actually, I don't quite follow comics scene - I have to be hit in the head with something as good as Bilal's work to notice . The last time I more or less knew what was happening was in the days of "Novi kvadrat" ("New Square" of "New Frame") group in the late 70's (Mirko Ilic, Igor Kordej, Kresimir Zimonic, Radovan Devlic, mostly Zagreb-based, but with some members from all-over what was then Yugoslavia...). Some of them are nowadays successful in the USA (particularly Ilic, but as illustrator), some innactive, some do more main-stream graphics work, some are dead ... In the "Novi Kvadrat" days high-quality comics by local authors were more or less mainstream - there were several publications devoted to them, and they were featured in anything even remotely targeting younger audience. Today they are mostly ghetoized in obscure fanzines. On newsstands one will only find "Marvel" and such. As the result, I only heard of Biukovic, never read anything he did.

The situation with comics is, sadly, representative of all of our art: shift towards the most vulgar commercialization. Sigh, I suppose that's what you get with free, but very small market, lack of public funding and the fact that potential private donors are barbarians.

I never heard of Bilal (Enes Bilalovic) before, either. But then, for all intents and purposes he is a French author - IMDB bio says his family emigrated from Belgrade to France when he was nine.

I didn't read "Fax from Sarajevo". I looked it up on Amazon when you mentioned it, and, judging from several panels available there, I would say that this is an example of word being stronger than image - somehow it does not seem to quite work for me. But I will try to find it.

Edit: This is a concise summary of our comics scene history and present situation, by a guy who is a kind of premament fixture in comics as well as animated film fandom circles. BTW, Zagreb was even more of "superpower" in "artistic" animated film some two or three decades ago (this coincided with the golden era of Canadian animation - awards on animated films festivals were almost reserved either for works produced by Natonal Film Board of Canada or by tiny "Zagreb Film"). Some of authors (e.g. one of my favourites Borivoj Dovnikovic or a bit later Marusic) did both comics and animated films.

That's pretty neat. I'll have to check that out.

Fax from Sarajevo is a true story of a family in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war in '92 as told to American comics legend Joe Kubert via sporadic faxes from Sarajevo during the conflict. It's really compelling. Joe Kubert's art is not immediately astounding on the surface, but he is a master of telling a story in art, as evidenced by his caveman series Tor, which features no dialogue at all. Anyway, I was just wondering what you thought of it. It's presented as being pretty accurate to the situation. I don't know if you were even in Yugoslavia at the time, and I feel sure you wouldn't have been in Bosnia, but I was just curious.

Well, in those few sentences in Amazon blurbs and first two or three panels they have there I didn't find anything innacurate (within the limits of poetic license). More when my copy arrives.

I was in Zagreb then (early 1992); we followed developments in Bosnia closely (and I visited Sarajevo later and spoke to many people there). Croatia just gained international recognition (one third of it still occupied, but with unstable ceasefire somehow more or less holding).

Ervin's return to Sarajevo illustrates belief of many Bosnians that they could avoid the war if they don't provoke Serbs (which included, for example, turning a blind eye to months of "Yugoslav People's Army" artillery bombardment of Croatian towns on Sava river from their teritory). They were wrong, of course...

The book's introduction says: "In 1945, we told the world, "Never again". In 1992, the promise was broken into bloody shards. That was the year the war broke out in Sarajevo, Bosnia, the year that genocide revisited the planet." But the massacre in Vukovar, siege of Dubrovnik, "ethnic cleansing" of occupied parts of Croatia had already happened. And, sadly, they were not the first post WWII genocides. But, it is understandable that everybody sees the world from one's own perspective.

Interesting, I find it quite difficult to remember dates or precise sequence of events from that decade.

Well, I imagine that introduction was written by an editor somewhere. And it's not supposed to be a history of the region, but rather just the story of one family.

Of course. I just wanted to say it illustrates perhaps naive inability of people to imagine the unspeakable evil can happen in their midst, even if it is happening next door.

Well, a copy should be on its way. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Whoa! Never knew about the Metreon, but this blog was an education:
http://www.bringdown.com/issue6/metreon/intro.html
(forewarned: slow server)

This'll be fun!

I'm in.

See you there.

-Z

I'll most likely be there. So, is the Metreon the final choice? I've never been there (sounds neat), but will we find each other easily?

Hey everyone...

I can't make it, as I've recently sold my Empeg along with its stainless steel, gullwing docking sled. The new owner is an LA area music video director, so keep an eye on MTV.

Tony, thanks for the help on the install and for maintaining the best FAQ I've ever seen.

I know I'm going to wreck my new car while fussing with a click wheel.

-Christian

See ya'all there... I'll park at the very top floor of the parking garage just next to the Metreon... I'll try to get there early (or on time even), but I think if we all look for Tony and people with their trusted empegs in hand, we'll find eachother in the arcade... We should probably snag a table by the video bowling...

Count me as an 85% probability tonight.
I'll definitely try to make it.


.

Damn. I'm not in.

Something came up that I need to deal with tonight, so I can't make it.

Next time, eh?

Darn. Sorry to hear that. All is well, though, I hope?

Bummer. Was looking forward to seein ya Zandr.

So hey... should I go to the Metreon with an appetite? Or are we taking care of that need pre-meet?

- Jon

I'm not going to make it either. I'm stuck at work until at least 8pm.

Yeah... what about eating? Are we planning on eating there or ???

And to answer my own question... We ate there! Thanks guys, I had a great time. We closed out a restaurant AND a bar. Fascinating conversation as always. Good to see you all! I think Tony took some pictures with my camera... I'll post them tomorrow if so. G'night!

OH... and Jon... I'll be expecting emails about all the cool secret SF stuff you seem to know about! =]

Yeah it was very cool seeing everyone (in particular Tony, whom I've not actually MET before -- which is amazing to think of) ... As I posted on the Programming list, I'm going to officially fix soup views next weekend after getting jazzed about jEmplode again.

ms

Very cool to hang out with you guys (and 1 gal).

If anyone's up for a drive and a little rural party this weekend, I extend to you the same invitation that I have to the folks at the other BBS I frequent:
http://www.teamsolcal.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5260&highlight=
Sorry for the short notice!
(edit: added attachment for directions)

It was great to meet you guys and yak it up!

Yes, thanks all, it was a fun evening. Dittos, Mike, was very cool to meet you.

I got home safely at around 4am, so I'm running on very little sleep this morning, so I'm not going to post a long report here. Just saying hi and thanks.

Sweeet. Thanks for the links Jon! I'm gonna try and make it to the movie tonight!

And Stew... that camping/party sounds awesome. I'm going to see if I can talk the little lady into it.

Oh, that's cool. That's sorta close to Ed Levin Park... I did some paragliding lessons down there. Thanks!

Yea, it was great fun... Sorry, but I can't relive it all for you in writing right now, work has picked up a knotch... But I gotta say a big "Thanks" for the fun...