A
Anonymous
Guest
What no in-depth reviews yet? I'll get the ball rolling with Saturday.
First, I just want to say, Speakers of UnCon: STOP reading your talks out. A disappointingly large proportion of presentations featured huge chunks of text being declaimed in a fabulously undynamic monotone.
Marina Warner did exactly this in her talk on ectoplasm - it was not an auspicious beginning. While it might be quite interesting in book form, it was pretty tedious to listen to. I thought she was an academic, she must have given and suffered through enough seminars by now to get it right. At any rate, ectoplasm was conspicuous by its absence for much of her talk. I found her attempts to connect it to luminiferous ether and the clouds associated with angels and cherubim rather unconvincing. It reminded me of an undergraduate essay.
Fortunately, Lloyd Pye got us back on track. He was brilliant. Before we even got to the skull, he was laying the smack-down on the establishment interpretation of the newly discovered floriensis "hobbits" (they're actually little yetis, in case you're wondering). I don't know much about skulls, so I can't really judge how much of his comparison between the human skull and the starchild skull was important, but goddamn, the man was entertaining as he went about it. I loved his comment about Einstein's brain and the suggestion that the star"child" might in fact be several hundred years old, with regularly replaced teeth. This reminded me of a shark. All I could think at the end was "smarter than Einstein, deadlier than a shark, lives for 400 years - we don't need to worry about the starchild, we need to worry about what killed it".
Jan Bondeson's talk on the lost Dauphin and Kasper Hauser (I was expecting him to reveal at the end "that they were in fact ONE and THE SAME PERSON!", but he didn't) was as level-headed and informative as you'd expect, although he did perhaps put too much text on his slides and then proceed to read them out. He also reminds me a bit of Lieutenant Gruber from Allo Allo, but I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
Andy Roberts' account of contacteeism in the UK in the 1950s was also good; funny without being too sneery. I certainly hadn't heard of the case he described - typical space brothers from Venus fare, but with a charmingly quaint British feel. And a bit of Jesus on top.
I'd not heard the documentary or read anything else about it, so I liked Peter Lamont's talk on the Indian Rope Trick a lot - he was very very funny, as well as presenting a thorough investigation. Perhaps my favourite of all the talks.
Paul Devereux, on the other hand, was dreadful. Probably the worst talk of the weekend. An extended pointless, negative whinge about the western materialist "paradigm" and how ESP is definitely totally true, and scientists are just too scared to face up to the reality. It's got something to do with quantum physics, apparently. The evidence for this conspiracy of silence against ESP is that, er, Devereux can't get his books published. He then took a pop at "septics" like Richard Wiseman (not named, but it was obvious) at one end of the scale and other new-age investigators at the other. Apparently, their new age bilge, is, well, bilge, but Devereux's new age bilge is top class. How to tell the difference was not apparent to me. I was, frankly, insulted by how poor this talk was. In turn, I also inadvertantly insulted Mrs Devereux, who took umbrage at my complaints about the talk. Hadn't realised she was sitting next to me but one. Whoops! Would feel a bit sheepish, but then I remembered I paid good money for this.
The Richard Freeman & Jon Downes double act was as good as you'd expect. I thought Richard Freeman's account of their (unfortunately fruitless) search for the cigau and orang pendek started a little slowly, but he soon got into his stride. Basically, they spent a lot of time struggling through inhospitable conditions, then had to turn around again, but it was a very enjoyable journey. Jon Downes' speculation on the identity of chupacabras was particularly intriguing. An eccentric pleasure, as always. Someone give them millions of pounds and a round-the-clock documentary team, we are talking national treasures here.
First, I just want to say, Speakers of UnCon: STOP reading your talks out. A disappointingly large proportion of presentations featured huge chunks of text being declaimed in a fabulously undynamic monotone.
Marina Warner did exactly this in her talk on ectoplasm - it was not an auspicious beginning. While it might be quite interesting in book form, it was pretty tedious to listen to. I thought she was an academic, she must have given and suffered through enough seminars by now to get it right. At any rate, ectoplasm was conspicuous by its absence for much of her talk. I found her attempts to connect it to luminiferous ether and the clouds associated with angels and cherubim rather unconvincing. It reminded me of an undergraduate essay.
Fortunately, Lloyd Pye got us back on track. He was brilliant. Before we even got to the skull, he was laying the smack-down on the establishment interpretation of the newly discovered floriensis "hobbits" (they're actually little yetis, in case you're wondering). I don't know much about skulls, so I can't really judge how much of his comparison between the human skull and the starchild skull was important, but goddamn, the man was entertaining as he went about it. I loved his comment about Einstein's brain and the suggestion that the star"child" might in fact be several hundred years old, with regularly replaced teeth. This reminded me of a shark. All I could think at the end was "smarter than Einstein, deadlier than a shark, lives for 400 years - we don't need to worry about the starchild, we need to worry about what killed it".
Jan Bondeson's talk on the lost Dauphin and Kasper Hauser (I was expecting him to reveal at the end "that they were in fact ONE and THE SAME PERSON!", but he didn't) was as level-headed and informative as you'd expect, although he did perhaps put too much text on his slides and then proceed to read them out. He also reminds me a bit of Lieutenant Gruber from Allo Allo, but I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
Andy Roberts' account of contacteeism in the UK in the 1950s was also good; funny without being too sneery. I certainly hadn't heard of the case he described - typical space brothers from Venus fare, but with a charmingly quaint British feel. And a bit of Jesus on top.
I'd not heard the documentary or read anything else about it, so I liked Peter Lamont's talk on the Indian Rope Trick a lot - he was very very funny, as well as presenting a thorough investigation. Perhaps my favourite of all the talks.
Paul Devereux, on the other hand, was dreadful. Probably the worst talk of the weekend. An extended pointless, negative whinge about the western materialist "paradigm" and how ESP is definitely totally true, and scientists are just too scared to face up to the reality. It's got something to do with quantum physics, apparently. The evidence for this conspiracy of silence against ESP is that, er, Devereux can't get his books published. He then took a pop at "septics" like Richard Wiseman (not named, but it was obvious) at one end of the scale and other new-age investigators at the other. Apparently, their new age bilge, is, well, bilge, but Devereux's new age bilge is top class. How to tell the difference was not apparent to me. I was, frankly, insulted by how poor this talk was. In turn, I also inadvertantly insulted Mrs Devereux, who took umbrage at my complaints about the talk. Hadn't realised she was sitting next to me but one. Whoops! Would feel a bit sheepish, but then I remembered I paid good money for this.
The Richard Freeman & Jon Downes double act was as good as you'd expect. I thought Richard Freeman's account of their (unfortunately fruitless) search for the cigau and orang pendek started a little slowly, but he soon got into his stride. Basically, they spent a lot of time struggling through inhospitable conditions, then had to turn around again, but it was a very enjoyable journey. Jon Downes' speculation on the identity of chupacabras was particularly intriguing. An eccentric pleasure, as always. Someone give them millions of pounds and a round-the-clock documentary team, we are talking national treasures here.