Current location:	Anaheim CA
Current mood:	chipper
Current music:	Donna Summer - "She works hard for the money"
Entry tags:	ribbons

...And my siamese twin alone within -- Mirror kisses, mirror kisses...
Being the tenth chapter in my serialized story about my ribbons.


Would you believe the Fan Gallery ribbons started it all? That, and my trip to ConFusion in Detroit. I had ordered ribbons before; specifically, "Newsletter" or "Newszine" ribbons for my staff when I was running convention daily newszines. I had a small number of purple ribbons in my luggage when I went to Bucconeer in 1998 and helped James Daugherty with the daily newsletter there, so I was able to immediately add my own stamp to the operation by giving everyone the purple Newsletter/Newszine ribbons. (I had some left over from two different conventions, so we had both words available.)

But when I was ordering those from American Meeting Supply in North Hollywood CA, it was very much a small-order, watch-out-for-that-setup-charge kind of thing. So let's fast-forward several years to ConFusion in 2003; I was representing L.A. in 2006, and also brought the Fan Gallery to be displayed. And ConFusion (at least that year when tammylc was chair) had an assortment of silly ribbons floating around, on a par with a Worldcon almost. We got to talking, and I learned that their supplier (Parker Systems) didn't charge a set-up fee, they had a modest minimum order, and later I decided their prices seemed reasonable. I decided that I really wanted to get "Fan Gallery" ribbons to give to anyone who was in the exhibit and attending the convention, plus "Fan Galley Helper" ribbons to thank the poor hapless volunteer that got stuck with helping me hang the photos.

I also swiped copied some of their ribbon ideas; Parker printed red/white "Canadian" ribbons for me, for example. But I don't run into nearly as many Canadians down here as the Michigan folk do...

I still have some of the Parker Systems "Fan Gallery Helper" ribbons, I believe, along with some of the RV Awards F.G. Helper and Fan Gallery Photographer. (By the time I switched to RV Awards, we had enough other people who had contributed at least two photos to the exhibit that I wanted to give them some kind of special acknowledgement.) I've gone through hundreds of the "Fan Gallery" ribbons, and when I started reordering them with the camera-ready art I switched to "see me in the Fan Gallery."

"Party Host" is one of those quasi-official ribbons again. Okay, what I really mean is that when I've chaired a convention, the con has supplied these ribbons to the people hosting room parties. And sometimes I've slipped a pack or two of them to Janis Olson when she's been the Party Maven some years. Unless I have many many with me, the rule is to drop off two ribbons per party. The room parties really add to the nightlife of a convention; some cons have official or unofficial "party of the night" contests. At ConFusion our party won the prize for best drinks; we had alcoholic Jell-O, a wide variety of soda pop, a small amount of Guinness, bottled water, and some other choices. The prize, though, was a free room the following year, and I wasn't heading back that way the next year... still, it felt good to get a party-hosting prize. (And I bet you were wondering how I was going to tie these two ribbons together...)

Typefaces: Clarendon and Algerian; Clarendon Extended. Algerian is the typeface that Bruce Pelz used for the Fan Gallery bio captions, and a sign that he had for the exhibit itself, so I used that.


One definition of Old Phart is a former Worldcon chair; and our chair this year for laconiv is a former NASFiC chair. (The "past Worldcon chairs" dead-dog party is also known as the "Old Pharts Party.") Of course, another definition of Old Phart is anyone who's old enough to remember when fandom or conventions were different than they are today... This is a tricky style to hand out; I need to find someone who qualifies as an Old Phart, doesn't mind identifying himself as such, and is gregarious enough to hand the rest of them out to his peers. (Otherwise we're back in the self-deprecating humor trap again.) I'm considering turning the remainder of my supply over to some suitable old phart.

I brought the plain version of "Past NASFiC Chair" with me to Noreascon 4, and handed them off to Christian (1999 chair) to hand out. I think Willie Siros was at that con, and I don't know if he got his ribbon; I reordered them in the fancy style, but I hear Christian's lost his taste for collecting ribbons (see also his article in my fanzine, A Bear Went Over The Mountain #2), and the only ones he wants to get from L.A.con IV are the one that says "Chair" and the other one that says "Past Chair." (Christian does have six styles in my big summer ribbon order, though...)

So since I stll have a few of these lying around, maybe I'll mail them up to Bobbi in Seattle...

Typefaces: Clarendon Bold, Clarendon Extended, and Clarendon Condensed. (You can see that the P,A, and T in PAST don't match the ones in PHART.)


"Plays well with others" is Pat's ribbon, no question about it. Pat Larson is our zen garden; I'm really sorry she's not going to make it down to L.A.con IV, because she makes the newsroom a much better place to work in. *Sigh*...

As katt1028 can attest to, we found another use for "Plays well with others." When our animelosangeles ops rovers ("Adult Supervision") have to tell someone to toe a line of some sort (such as, go put on some underwear), if the person is pleasant and cooperative the rovers have the discretion to give them a ribbon as a thank-you. We're slightly worried that people might start breaking minor rules just so they can cooperate and get a ribbon, but so far we don't think there's a run of fans trying to game the system yet...

And "ask me about Worldcons" ribbons don't exist. Oh, thirdworld has made up buttons with that slogan, and other similar ones; I thought about getting ribbons made, and went so far as to lay out the art for one, but never went any further. Grant, you want some?

Typefaces: Clarendon Bold and Clarendon Condensed. I really think the Clarendon works well for "Plays well with others." Gives it a schoolbook primer kind of feel, I think.