Got back from MileHi Con on Sunday night. The drive back was not so wonderful. One of my buddies was really sick, and I was really worried, but we all survived. So, let me tell you about all the fun parts.
I went up on Thursday with a couple of friends. Their conversation livened up the tedium of the road and we had a lot of good laughs and some serious talks about writing. I took myself out to dinner at a seafood restaurant. Next morning I got up and wrote on the 3rd Edge book, and then headed to the Denver Art Museum to see the King Tut exhibit.
I was early (of course I was, I’m always early) so I ate lunch and then began to explore the rest of the museum. It’s really world class and the building itself is a work of art. They had an exhibit of Charles Deas paintings. He was a very famous painter of the American West who only painted for about ten years before going mad and spending the rest of his life in an asylum. It was fascinating and creepy to watch the madness filtering into his art. He painted horses beautifully btw and that’s not easy.
Finally it was time to enter the Tut exhibit. I paid for the audio guide (narrated by Indiana Jones), and it was breathtaking. There were only two monumental statues. One was the famous statue of Akenhaten and the other was of Tut as a young man. The rest of the pieces were small but mind blowing. My favorite was the statue of a high priest with his two children. They are tiny figures with their arms around his legs as he is seated on a throne. The boy is a very traditional figure with the lock of hair over his forehead and a forefinger up to his mouth which was how they indicated a child. But the little girl was vibrant. Her hair curled around her face and she was canted back gazing up lovingly at her stern father. I realized I was looking at the face of a child who had lived 4000 years ago and it blew me away. The priest figure was interesting because the eye sockets had been inlaid with crystal and obsidian so there was life in the eyes.
There was a lot of jewelry, and one necklace had end pieces in gold that showed winged cobras. I didn’t know that was a figure used by the Egyptians, but it is deeply cool. They did wings so well to begin with and then you add in a cobra with its hood raised, and wow.
From Tut’s mummy they had amulets and his finger and toe protectors. A pair of gold sandals. His bed (it was very small) and a chair. There was an alabaster jar that had held perfume. On the outside were carved winged figures then another piece was slipped inside of that so the light could shine through. It was amazing and so beautiful. I lingered longer than I should have, and had to rush to get back to the tech center in time for my 4:00 panel. If you’re in the Denver area go see this exhibit.
I spent Friday afternoon doing my one panel and then had the pleasure of watching Carrie Vaughn channel her alter ego Kitty. She interviewed Paolo who was playing a zombie rights advocate, and it was wonderful. They were so quick and funny.
Saturday was a busy day with panels, a reading, and speed dating. (they needed to work out the kinks a bit, but it was fun). That evening Ian and I went out to dinner at Mataam Fez, my favorite Moroccan restaurant. As always the food was extraordinary. I had the spicy chicken, but that was only after we had enjoyed lentil soup, a variety of salads, the delicious pastille — shredded chicken, ground almonds in filo dough dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
After dinner we headed over to the Pepsi Center to see Cavalia. I had seen it years ago, and it has become even more awesome. The music is heart wrenching. There is a live singer and instrumentalists. The acrobats look like they’re made of rubber, the wire work had me believing that people can fly, and the horses were…. well, it made me want to cry it was so beautiful. There was a lady who handled _eight_ 8!! horses at liberty with nothing but her voice, a whip and hand signals. The haute ecole was beautiful, and the Roman riding breathtaking and very exciting. They begin with the birth of a foal, then come through history detailing the relationship of man and horse. They are also passing through the seasons so when fall arrived multi-colored leaves fluttered down onto the audience. It ended in winter with snow falling.
I had bought tickets that allowed us to visit the stable. 52 horses, most of them stallions and many of them Lusitanos, Andulusians and PRE which is another Spanish horse. They also used Arabs and quarter horses for the trick riding section.
Sunday I had a coffee klatch, I did follow up interview with the amazing Kollin brothers. Then there was the drive, but we’ll gloss over that.
