If you’re coming to the festival, and you haven’t registered, you need to register before Wednesday, 09/19/2012 so there can be a good head count for the meals. You can do so on this site using Paypal – or you could bring cash, but you need to make the reservation now. Including grad student volunteers, we’ve got over 100 people scheduled to attend! The size of the fest has forced us to find a new dining hall on campus for Saturday’s dinner, but we’ve secured an open bar for Saturday night and they’ll be serving wine and beer.

Updates: T-shirts will be available to pick up at the fest. If you’ve bought a shirt but are not attending the fest, send David Gill an email at thetotaldickhead[at]gmail[dot]com so we don’t lose track of your order. For those not attending the festival, you’re going to need to wait until after the festival for them to be mailed.

A .pdf with an FAQ and directions to SFSU and specifically to the Humanities building is posted. It is suggested that drivers park on Font or Tapia St. You can ignore the info. You’ll find these in quadrants G3 and H4 on the campus map in the .pdf. Over the weekend there is plenty of free parking. If you’re arriving by public transportation, the Humanities building is down campus from the main entrance at 19th and Holloway. We’ll have plenty of signage directing you. When you get to the Humanities building, follow the signs and you’ll find our registration table where we will get your name tag and program. From there you’ll move to the theater in Humanities 133. There will be coffee (decaf and regular) and tea available for free in Humanities 132. We’ll be using two other rooms for our breakaway lectures: Humanities 108 and Humanities 408.

For those of you interested in doing the walk on Friday, it’s about four miles total and it begins and ends at BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit Stations). Here’s a link to the route: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=213365519586098492513.0004c9deccb0c3a99a2d8&msa=0&ll=37.870314,-122.275343&spn=0.04045,0.048838
We’ll be meeting at the North Berkeley BART station of Friday at noon (stomachs full). The map will be made public so if you’d like to drive the route, or walk it at another time, you certainly can. The terrain is flat, no hills, and on the route you will see:
The Francisco Street House: where the light switch was actually a cord.
The Allston St House: where Dick lived with his mother Dorothy during his high school years
University Radio: the radio/tv store where PKD started his employment with Herb Hollis
The UC Berkeley Campus, including Sather Gate where all the communists talked in the 50s.
Art Music: the record store where PKD worked for Herb Hollis. Still a record store.

Please send David Gill an email at thetotaldickhead[at]gmail[dot]com if you’ll be joining us on Friday for the walk.

There have been some additional changes in the line-up: David Dufty, author of the book about the PKD android, has had to bow out. Laurence Rickels has submitted the title of his talk: “THE SIMULACRA and Post-War Integrations of Germany” and Stefan Schlensag, organizer of the upcoming PKD Conference in Dortmund, who will be giving a talk titled “Erinnerungen en gros: Philip K. Dick in the European Context.”

There will be at least one surprise guest!

We were unable to secure a block of rooms at the Days Inn on Sloat, so if you’re planning on staying there, you’re on your own. Hurry and make your reservations soon: http://www.hotelplanner.com/Hotels/122680-San-Francisco/Deal-Days-Inn-San-Francisco-2600-Sloat-Blvd-94116

Please send David Gill an email at thetotaldickhead[at]gmail[dot]com if you require any special dietary requirements for the two dinners: vegan/vegetarian, kosher, gluten-free, etc – he needs this information soon!

We’ll be sending out a packet with maps and information about SFSU and the surrounding area.

There will be a book auction at the festival. Signed books from many of our presenters will be available for purchase including Jonathan Lethem and Paul M Sammon. Precious Artifacts, the cool new PKD bibliography will also be for sale.

Several of you have ordered festival t-shirts, the demand has not been overwhelming. While we’re pretty sure people will want to buy shirts and stuff at the fest, we’re worried about getting the numbers and sizing right in a venture where mistakes can be costly. So, if you think you might like to get a t-shirt, it’s really much easier for us if you pre-order here: http://totaldickhead.blogspot.com/2012/07/festival-t-shirts-fundraising.html

Just a couple quick updates: we’re getting some good publicity, namely this piece on io9.com:
http://io9.com/5928714

And a reminder that Radio Free Albemuth will be screening on Saturday night with a question and answer session featuring director John Alan Simon.