Icon 2005

Day 1:
Hello and welcome to Icon 2005, story in pictures.

Icon this year started with a
half day, on the evening of the first Sukot holiday. My uncle, visiting
from the US, was here and we went to my grandmother’s house to meet
with him, and continued towards the convention just before it started.

Lee made these Stargates that she planned to sell at Icon

Before the convention is was a bit skeptic about those two directors
that they invited as guests to Icon. I’ve always wanted to see one of
the star from any of my favorite shows in Israel. And instead, what we
get is a bunch of boring authors, and some directors who made small
budget films who nobody cares about.

An author for example: Tim Power

But then, As soon as the convention starts and in the opening event Robert Burnett started talked, he said some stuff about Kirk, and Star Trek, and at that exact moment I decided, he’s an ok guy !

Later , I even found him to be the ultimate Trekkie. More Trekkie then most Israeli Trekkie.

After all, almost none of us remembers so many lines by heart from TOS….

Robert giving his short speech about Star Trek in the opening event.

Then Roger Nygard came on
stage and talked about himself and filmaking and the fact that he
always go everywhere with his camera. I do the same thing with my
camera. Hence the 4GB image collection i have of pictures i took….

We stood outside the auditorium and talked for a while

And took some pictures

Then we went drinking in Odeon with Robert and Roger.

After which we had to split up as we went to see Serenity.

Hagai took Robert back to his hotel by foot, since he decided we wanted
to walk around Tel-Aviv for a while. I’d had done the same.

Lee volunteered to pick up Robert from hotel and walk him to the
cinemateque in the morning, and we said goodbye and split up to see
Serenity.

While I found the movie to be good as the series is, I didn’t see why
everybody is so over excited about it, and I also don’t think it’s the
greatest movie of all times. Far from it.

And I don’t see why Joss has a tendency to pointlessly kill main
characters in his big production, like season or series endings, or
now, in the movie. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking
about… it was a pointless death that didn’t contribute to neither the
story or to character development.

It did remind me of the way Trinity died in the matrix, which in that
movie, it wasn’t as pointless since otherwise Neo wouldn’t have been
able to sacrifice himself…

Icon 2005 Day 2

Lee woke up early and went to pick up Robert and took him to Ilan’s to drink “the best coffee he ever had”.

I slept in late and met her in the Cinemateque afterwards.

She’ll write about it in her blog, or maybe as comments in my blog.

This guy went as Wolverine.

Lee with her Stargate necklace along with Reut Sorek

Computer, Arch !

This odd safari guy kept interviewing people all throughout the
convention, and might i add, he was interviewing other oddly dressed
people…

Death in the ring !

This poor kid died defending his country.

Which I’m guessing is France.

I went and got interviews by Roger to a new documentary film he’s making about Existence.

The interview was an hour and a half long and included many questions about life, god, morality, and.. yeah… existence.

I hurried up to get to the panel with Robert and Roger.

But because I was in a rush, I forgot to extend the parking meter
timer by 3 more hours, and because of that, I found an annoying parking
ticket on my car’s window when we came back to it.

Lee went on and dressed up, not only herself but also Reut Sorek.

The panel itself was nice, but I do believe that Ilan Escholi, and especially Raz Greenberg were VERY redundant.

I’d expect people in panel about Fandom, to at least BE fans, or know ANYTHING about fandom.

And in addition, I expect people to be stage worthy when the come on stage, not to be boring.

When choosing people for a panel, it would be advisable to audition them, or choose them according to past activities.

I would have made a complete different panel, if i would have been in charge…

There was a girl who fell asleep in the middle of the panel, which i
didn’t get to picture on time with my camera, but Roger gave me his
camera and there should be a picture in his camera documenting her…

After the panel we all went outside and took pictures beneath the wonderful enterprise NCC-1701 model that Daniel Bram built.

This is one with us and Robert.

Roger insisted on taking a picture with only the girls.

We then split up from Robert and Roger, and met Uri Fink, who, as
always, was working on his next issue of his comic magazine “Zbeng”.

Still dressed up, we had dinner with Emanuel Lotem, ex-chairman of the Israeli society for science fiction and fantasy

We also met Reut and Aviv, and Ofir and Lena who joined us in the middle of dinner.

And then we rushed off to see the Buffy Musical.

Sweet.

There’s nothing we can’t face if we’re together.

Except for bunnies.

They got the mustard out !

Assaf Razon as The Mustard Guy !!

I’ll never…. Tell.

Hila Alony as Marti Noxon, who doesn’t wear underwear.

Robert seemed very excited about seeing the Hebrew version of the musical.

VERY excited.

The convention managers scheduled the official dinner with themselves
and him and Roger at the same time of the musical, with disregards to
his wished to see it. It was hard believe that we wasn’t dissapointed
when we met him afterwards.

After the musical we took some more pictures…

This is Hagai, holding the ICON sign.

And then we went and got drunk with Roger and Robert in the Golden bar,
which according to the English version of Timeout Tel-Aviv, is a
“sleazy pick up bar”. Which is exactly what Robert wanted to go to.

Can you feel the sleaziness ???

Lee got REALLY drunk.

Robert got REALLY drunk.

Hagai got REALLY drunk, and then very quickly sobered up.

And I didn’t get drunk AT ALL, although I wanted to, since I was driving.

We went to bed tired but tipsy.

Icon 2005 Day 3

We woke up too early and and too tired from partying, and
hung around the cinemateque for a while before going to eat a bagel for
breakfast.

Lee bought new Star Trek earring.

We went to a Lecture by Robert about his work as a film maker.

Guy Hasson, who is an Israeli author, hosted the event.

Other then reciting some questions he prepared to Robert, we was pretty useless.

Robert is THE ULTIMATE TREKKIE !

He’s the trekkiest person I know, and he is filled up with trivia and
quotations both about star trek, and about movies in general.

It was very apparent that Guy Hasson, didn’t understand a word about
what Robert was talking about when he mentioned stuff like “The
corbomite maneuver” or “what are little girls made of”.

“The should have sent a poet”.