Quills & Sofas · 3:11am Aug 13th, 2017
Quills and Sofas at the convention here has neither quills nor sofas:
It has about eight large round tables, each with eight or ten chairs as well as paper, pens, and little centerpiece cards marking each table as being part of the story creation process. You start at the first table inside the door and work your way around to the table in the back corner where eight or ten manual typewriters sit in all their ancient splendor, most of them apparently provided by RobCakeran53.
The one typewriter that drew me, however, had Admiral Biscuit's name written across it, a Smith-Corona machine almost the same green color as the one that got me through college more than 30 years ago now. So I decided that today, I would put together a Pony sonnet so I could use one of the typewriters to type it out.
Over the course of about six hours, then, Saturday afternoon and evening, I would stumble into Quills & Sofas, force myself to sit for twenty minutes or half an hour at a table, and scrawl a line or three before the figurative bugs in my brain started squeaking too loudly, and I'd have to get up and do some more wandering.
Someone somewhere once likened being an introvert to having a jar in your head. Anytime you're in a room with more than, say, three other people, that jar starts filling up. Once it fills up to the brim, it triggers a flight response, and you've got to get somewhere less crowded or preferably alone, to let that jar empty out enough to rejoin society and start the drip, drip, drip again.
Still, the semi-theme of the convention this year, as stated by the co-chairs in the convention booklet, is "sometime this weekend, do something for the first time." So I kept going back to Quills & Sofas, and while I fiddled with the sonnet, I talked with folks, some of whom knew me and some of whom didn't. And here's what I finally came up with:
I've heard them all, but "Fairy Sherbet Moose"
Remains my favorite unofficial name.
Instead of vicious monsters on the loose,
It rings of fun, of cities not aflame.
But really change it now that I'm the King?
Severely tempting. Wash away the past
And start anew without our former sting,
Restructure all we do from first to last!
I'll change our lives—! Which isn't any change.
It's what our species's done since time began.
Consistency's the challenge to arrange,
To stand in places were we always ran.
We have to learn to freeze, to stop and stay
Before our brand-new sherbet melts away.
So then horizon, bookplayer, and a couple other folks get back from dinner. Horizon asks what I'm up to, and I show him what I've typed while I'm typing up another copy to take with me. He nods, sits down at the next typewriter over, and starts typing something. I have to leave again shortly after that, but I come back about twenty minutes later to find that he's typed up the following rebuttal sonnet:
I've heard then all, but "Fairy Sherbet Moose"
Admits in stark relief our fall's great height.
A race whose name derived from our great ruse
Now sounds as though we are the ones to bite.
Sweet irony! What hunger once turned cruel,
Once sated, softens, melts, and hollows out.
Until a pony-addled rainbow fool
Holds court within my shattered hive's redoubt.
And I am left, alone, to lick my wounds,
To taste the bitter brine of my defeat
While, echoing, the mocking, sordid sounds:
A moose by other name would smell more sweet.
Let Thorax rule the ones who would embrace
Such base indignity. I'll save my face.
Which I'm not saying is the voice of personal experience speaking. Because horizon's not a changeling. I recall reading that somewhere, at any rate... 
Mike
Where are you ever
I told you. Horizon.
The lack of sofas was a disappointment, but the people are pretty cool so it works out.
I love you guys.
Oh so that was you!
4632672
Irvine, usually
So we've got an addition to your collection as well as a Never the Final Word, eh? :)
Whoa. This is like something out of the Mermaid Tavern. You know, Johnson and Marlowe and Kidd and that actual kid, Will whatsisname. All swapping rhymes and trying to top each other.
BTW, thank you for coming to the party, Aug! I know it was a bit loud and crowded but i'm glad I got to meet you!
Dueling sonnets! (Awesome ones, both of them.)
This is actually quite helpful, since I and the rest of the Canadian delegation are all more outgoing than the average brony. All weekend long, people I was talking to kept wandering off, and I kept wondering, "Was it something I said?" When I saw them later, they assured me this was not the case. I guess I'll be more prepared next time.
4632978
D'aww.
If it helps, when sitting with you and Willow and Bad Horse and Bradel last year at the cafe, I was feeling like a fly on the wall thinking very much the same thing. (Was hoping I'd get a similar chance this year, but at least I got to visit your room party!)
We must compose a Shakesponian play and perform it at Bronycon.