"I don't mind if you forget me"

I'm still feeling the euphoria of seeing Morrissey perform on national TV on the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. Wow! Call me crazy, but I bet Lain rocks out to Morrissey. Hey, we're all allowed to dream ^___^

This past Labor Day weekend, my wife Carol and I trekked down to New York City to attend the first ever Anime Expo New York held in Times Square in conjunction with the annual Big Apple Anime Fest. It was neither the biggest nor the best con I've ever been to. In fact, it felt like one of the smallest and least interesting cons I've been to in recent memory, but I had fun by virtue of being with good friends, staying with them at the ultra-trendy (and kind of silly) W New York Times Square (very close to the con site), and co-hosting (with Mikhail Koulikov) the Academic Study of Anime, Manga, and Fandom panel on Sunday morning of the convention.

I thought the panel was quite successful. Looking at photographs of the panel audience, I think 40 people is a good estimate of how many people showed up, which wasn't bad considering that it was Sunday late-morning, and the con itself was far from large. Just like when I co-hosted (with Sean Leonard) a similar-themed panel at Anime Expo in Long Beach this summer, the crowd was enthusiastic and eager to discuss a wide range of issues.

After the panel, I got to meet (for the first time) Wolfie from the serial-experiments-lain mailing list, which was a treat--having known him on the Wired since 1999. In addition, Raymond DiPasquale, the webmaster of the ultra-comprehensive Lain merchandise site "Distortion Gallery", introduced himself to me (we had only exchanged emails prior to AXNY) and we chatted about lain, life, and merchandise. ^_^ Nice to meet you guys in person at last. It was a pleasure meeting everyone who stopped by to chat after the panel.

In the overcrowded dealers room, I visited the Guardians of Order booth where I talked with the company's president, Mark MacKinnon (again, for the first time in person). At the booth, they were selling copies of the serial experiments lain - Ultimate Fan Guide that I provided some research for. It was neat to see how many different anime they're doing Fan Guides for these days, knowing that the lain book was the first in the series.

At AXNY's art show, I was lucky enough to acquire a gorgeous set of Yoshitoshi ABe prints, several of which were lain illustrations such as you'd find in an omnipresence in wired.

Speaking of merchandise, my Lain doll finally came in! It's packaged so nicely...I might have to buy two of them--one to play with, one to keep. Get them quick, they're only releasing 3000 of these!

That's all I have to report for now. Feel free to write me any time, and I will do my best to respond.

In the meantime, here's some more Morrissey:

I don't mind if you forget me
having learned my lesson
I never left
an impression on anyone
the pressure to change, to move on
was strange
and very strong
so this is why I tell you
I really do understand
BYE BYE