Michal Levinstein and Amit Oren
Once a year, to be more precise - once per Sukkot, fans of science fiction, fantasy and role-playing games flock to the Tel Aviv Cinematech plaza. If you ask them, they came to one of the biggest and most important events of the year, of those held in Israel, and maybe even the most important; This is ICON 2005 (ICON 2005). Welcome. As soon as you come to the festival, you find yourself among the dozens of people looking for their way from place to place, some even in the costume of their favorite character from any series, game or book, and many gatherings of friends, members of a club or a play group that will extend your path from the point of departure to the district of your choice. There is no moment of calm, the festival is bustling, roaring and active at any time and anywhere; Even on the stairs that will lead you to the next lecture you will come across one activity or another; From innocent card players to huge boards with military miniatures on them designed to simulate wide-ranging battles. If you manage to pass the activity peak, you will be presented with two options regarding what to do now: should you go to the activity you booked, or check out one of the many other options offered by the festival? for your decision.
an icon?
Yes, an icon. Or as described on the festival website, the icon is: "The annual festival for fans of science fiction, fantasy and role-playing games" and any other words to describe it are unnecessary. Icon is organized by three associations: the Israeli Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, Starbase972 - the Israeli club for Star Trek fans and the association for the promotion of role-playing games in Israel.
"... maybe there in dreams
The beautiful illusions come true..."
And what about the festival?
You haven't decided yet if you want to go to the activity you booked, so why not check out the many options the festival offers? The number of booths is hard to count, but their contents are easy to distinguish: rare second-hand books and role-playing and card game books up to an open-source stand on one side, and on the other side comics of all kinds and types, where the well-known Uri Fink stood and signed his writings, up to Manga posters ), anime (Anime) and second-hand books. Everywhere you go you can find a stand of second-hand books and comics, that's for sure...and the prices aren't bad at all.
And the event itself? If you have made a final decision, then you should know that every year the festival dresses up in a different costume, or in other words: every year the festival deals with a different theme. And lest this year be different from others, the festival is all about illusions. As quoted from the festival website: "Where does the fine line between reality and illusion pass? How much of our reality is an illusion, and do we want to find out? ... At the festival we will examine the illusions that reality presents to us and the ones we weave ourselves, taking the tools that science fiction and fantasy give us to deepen and delight in those illusions and refute them. We will see how writers and creators examined and used the illusion to convey a message and to bring us to see what we would never see on a daily basis."
And what are the tools they gave us to examine these illusions? Lectures, films and workshops. And in order to help us explore and understand these illusions, a number of honored guests were invited to Israel for the festival:
Writer Tim Powers (Tim Powers) –
An important and successful fantasy writer whose books deal with issues of identity, heroism, art, magic and politics. Among his books that were also published in Hebrew: "The Gates of Anubis" and "Last Chance". This is the author's first visit to Israel and on the opening night the audience gave him a long cheer for his warm words regarding his visit to the country.
Director Roger Nygard (Roger Nygard) –
A director who wrote, directed, edited and produced about 13 films and series. Among his famous films: "Trekkies", Trekkies 2″ (about the fans of the series "Star Trek", "Six Days In Rosewell" (about the alien craze in the town of Roswell), "Warped" (a horror film that won the first prize at the festival International Film Festival in Houston 1990) and more. This is his tenth visit to this type of conference in the world. On the opening night, he talked about the subjects of his films and his plans for the future and invited people from the audience who are interested in philosophy to approach him for a new documentary that started in Israel about the meaning of life.
Director Robert Meyer Burnett (Robert Meyer Burnett) -
A director who wrote, edited and produced many films and is the owner of a company that provides additional content services for DVD films and in the framework of which he worked in recent years on the blockbusters: "Lord of the Rings", "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" and is now working on "Narnia" and "Superman Returns" .
The three guests of honor walked among the audience throughout the days of the festival, had conversations, willingly answered questions and seemed to enjoy the occasion very much.
The agenda at the festival is a fairly static thing that must be determined in advance, while if you want to secure your place in a lecture or any other activity, you must order tickets in advance with a credit card, and wait a long time until you receive them.
And after receiving the tickets? Three-four, and to the festival!
Forgeries in archaeology
Even in the fields of research that seem the purest, and defined as the most important for understanding our past - there are frauds and there are forgeries.
What scams? And what fakes? Whether done for a religious reason to preserve some holy of holies, or just out of pranks or politics (are they the same?), a forgery is a forgery, a deception.
In her lecture "Heal's Wishes and Eye Catchings - Forgeries in Archaeology," lecturer Yael Abadi presented the topic of forgeries in archaeology.
Archeology is the study of man in the past. This research is done with the help of archeological excavations to find remains of man and culture (archaeological findings) from different periods, and from it - the learning of human habits in these past periods.
Many people, mostly those looking from the outside, recognize the search for antiquities as a treasure hunt - but this search is considered by archaeologists and most determine otherwise as monotonous work, often done in the blazing sun above.
The lecture presented the darker side of archaeology, which is, as noted above - forgeries, and ran from the topic of the goals of the forgery to the identity of the forgers themselves, who are still active today, giving examples from the topic of archeology (the ivory grenade, Piltdown Man, etc.).
Vampires, vampires, and the darkest organizations in the world
The Icon Festival holds many "dark" lectures every year, even the previous lecture demonstrated the dark side of archaeology. And indeed, we are not only dealing with archeology, and the opal reaches even more intense levels, as can be seen in the two lectures: "Vampire legends - myths and scientific truths" given byRoey Tsezana, and "The darkest forces and organizations in the world" given by Dr. Raz Dekal.
So what are vampires? It turns out that vampires have one simple definition: the habit of drinking blood. Hence - a tick, a leech and a mosquito are vampires for everything. The first female vampire was mentioned in the writings of Homer in 600 BC, and already in 400 BC the vampire began to resemble the vampire we know today. Throughout the following centuries, stories and manuals were written to combat vampires, and the church even declared then that vampires do exist, and in 1734 the word vampire officially entered the English language. We saw the vampires in the 19th century in books, plays and well-known books ("Dracula", "Nosperto", "Interview with the Vampire") and in recent years they have been very successful in television series such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Admittedly, the vampire myth is not exclusive to Europe, and is common in various cultures: the Aztecs, the aborigines, the Chinese, the Malaysians, the Filipinos, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, the Poles, the Bulgarians, the Germans, the Gypsies. The anti-Semites used this myth to describe the bloodthirsty Jew who uses the blood of Christian children to make Passover unleavened bread.
Guys, we are being scammed
Science fiction, fantasy - is an illusion.
Between the writer to read an unwritten contract - "the delay of unbelief"; You know about the illusion, where the opportunity is given to the writer to deceive us, to "work us" - to deceive us for a little while longer. The contract is broken when the reader does not know that the contract is being fulfilled.
And sometimes, a bit of this "suspension of disbelief" technique gets mixed up in her life and can help deceive people. In the lecture "Science Fiction and Fantasy as Cheats" Guy Viner presented the dark side of that "suspension of disbelief" that gave us examples of cheats, some of which are familiar to us and some of which are not. For example, on the subject of the "flying spaceships", it has always been claimed that the first pilot who witnessed the phenomenon reported that he saw a "new type of aircraft". In the interview he complained that he was quoted incorrectly, and from this source we can learn that the legendary report is wrong.
Another deception we all know is the signs in the grain fields: these are geometric shapes that appeared overnight in the grain fields of innocent farmers. The two natural reasons that came up at that time were - "we don't know what it is" "alien spaceships". The fields were used by charlatans who supposedly "communicated" with "strangers" through them and therefore demanded money from the innocent public. Finally, two people were caught who admitted to making the signs - with the help of a rope and a tied rope.
And finally, the example of Scientology. Scientology was invented by Ron Howard in his publication of the book "The Dianetics" in 1950. The claims: 75 million years ago, a transgalactic tyrant came to Earth and bombarded the volcanoes with hydrogen bombs. The spirits of the aliens who were killed in the bombing remained on Kadhaa, and to this day cling to human bodies and behave as mental parasites. The principle: you should go to a Scientologist in order to share your problems, and to help you get rid of the alien spirits that treasure your personal problems. In addition, every traumatic experience that a person goes through is stored as engrams, whether the person is awake or asleep, and in order to shake that engram - a Scientologist must be consulted. If the counseling does not help - approach hypnosis. Doesn't help - brainwashing, otherwise: isolation in a room until the "anagrams" evaporate. Here it should be noted that Scientologists are accused of abuse, and none of murder.
The science fiction connoisseur
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