celticdragonfly

There was a housefilk last night! It was down at the Tyras. We got there a bit latish, with much food. In addition to the Tyras, Joyslin, tmc4242 and decoy01, were all there. faxpaladin showed up a while later. The Tyras were being wonderfully kid-friendly - in addition to having a changing space set up in the bathroom, they had a big tin of tinkertoys. That was Maggie and Jamie's introduction to tinkertoys, actually, and they had a blast. Watching Karl sitting on the floor with them helping them build was fun.

Music was fun. We have to get Joyslin to sing more often, that was lovely. I sang a whole bunch of stuff, including a few things I wasn't sure I knew well enough to do, but it went okay. Rhiannon sang a filk to a Christmas carol tune, which got me onto the whole subject of Christmas carol filks - I keep wanting to have a housefilk Thanksgiving weekend and just collect all the Christmas carol filks we can find, so we'll have twisted lyrics in our mind as we have carols played at us everywhere. So I sang the vampire version of Deck the Halls, and Karl followed with the Slaver Caravan filk of Winter Wonderland, and there were more. But what really was great was faxpaladin's song "Have you caught what I caught?", TTTO the Little Drummer Boy, about illnesses passing through the family. Karl was laughing and turning brick red trying to suppress laughing and coughing. We begged for and got a copy.

( Pic behind cut for anyone with bandwidth issues )
Okay, I know it's a bit blurry, especially what Jamie's holding. That's faxpaladin on his guitar, singing. Jamie was fascinated by the guitar the whole evening - he's been doing a lot of "air guitar" play lately. Jamie came up and stood next to him and was pretending to play along on a tinkertoy guitar through the song. Left-handed, he generally has been air guitaring left handed.

This was, in my opinion, amazingly cute. My thanks to faxpaladin for his patience with Jamie's inquisitiveness. At one point Jamie was somewhat imperiously telling Joe "sit down!" and pointing at his chair, to try to get him to do a song on the guitar.

Sandy gave Maggie a child-sized green tunic dress with trim for dress-up. Maggie's wearing it now, declaring that she's Cinderella, and she's going to the ball, and Jamie will be the prince. Jamie's been dancing with her.

It was generally fun and we left earlier than I would have because we ran out of baby wipes. But not until Gerry'd played some Joe Bethancourt music, the point of which was listening to him get faster - then faster - then FASTER - and I was dancing reel steps around the room. Oh, yeah, I'm going to be paying for that all day today, especially dancing in socks on a loose rug. Wheee.

I keep swearing I'm going to write up a FenCon report. It's over a week later, I better do it if I'm going to do it at all. I haven't had my shower or breakfast yet, but I shall seize the moment and come up with something random and semi-incoherent.

selenite was there early to get us checked in and get set up for his game. I was responsible for the kids and getting the babysitter picked up and set up with them, so I didn't get there until later Friday evening. I was there for the Tom Smith and Bedlam Bards concerts, though, which was fun. And carrying Alanna around and showing her off. I was coming down sick, very stuffed head and sore throat, and this made the whole con a bit difficult for me.

Actually a bit odd on the guest panel front - I don't know a thing about the toastmaster, and I tried but didn't really care for the GoH's books, and as it turned out I ended up never seeing either one all con. Despite that, and despite being sick, I had a lot of fun.

Some highlights -

selenite coming into the dealer's room while I was there, and the people staffing the FenCon t-shirts table having fun exclaiming in surprise at seeing both Gallaghers! In the same place! Yeah, between the cons we have to split who gets to go, and the cons - pretty much FenCon - where we have a babysitter but he's gaming - people don't see us together much.

Finding pretties in the dealer's room, and selenite getting me some, and BOOKS, and selenite buying more filk CDs. I think we had some of those, but he has them for his car now, and he is happy. Bother, I never did go back for that one other CD I wanted. Enjoying the art show, and fordprfct getting me the pretty mixing bowl I wanted from those people that do the amazing ceramics, and me being sneaky to get him a present. Cons - Best Shopping all year.

I know I was in some of those panels Saturday. And listening to some of those concerts. And the Baen Books Traveling Roadshow, which ended up being all about the art. I probably wouldn't have gone if I'd realized that, but I did learn some interesting things. And the Tom Smith concert, whee.

I was getting pretty tired out by Alanna - she's HEAVY. And we'd tried getting the guys to carry her in the new carrier, but she had objected. I guess she wanted Mama. I had her on my back in the new carrier for quite a while Saturday, she had a nice nap back there. We put her in the stroller for dinner, which didn't work out so great for dinner as such, but gave us time to chat with kd5mk and jazz007. We had a cultural exchange based on questions from the Tom Smith concert - we explained Peter Lorre to her, and she explained... a nasty character from Xena whose name I forget, but that Tom Smith sang about, to us.

Went up for some rest, and when we tried to come back down to see part of the Cabaret, it was impossibly crowded and we were just in the way, so we gave up on that. ONLY bad thing about the new hotel - the main stage room is IMO way too small for Cabaret. Other than that, it's nice. And the people that run FenCon boggle my mind at what an incredibly smooth job they do.

Saturday night filk was disappointing at first. We'd tried Friday looking in on the main room, but it was too crowded for me to dare to take Alanna in, and we'd ended up in the theme filk room, almost empty, even though I had very little for those themes. The cheeriose was fun, though - a bunch of us singing Flupandemic cheerily together, I always like that. Saturday selenite had finally convinced Alanna to ride with him for a bit, so fordprfct and I had gone into the main filk room. Mistake. Okay, hearing Tom Smith sing that one silly song was great fun, but other than that, it was crowded, and chaos filk. Which means pretty much only the people with the guitars sing. Someone else was objecting, and another filker with a guitar said others could sing "just cut us off at the knees!" Oh great. So, you can sing in this room if you have a guitar, or if you're pushy, nasty and rude. Some of us don't want to be pushy, nasty, rude people.

Was it Friday night or Saturday that faxpaladin got roninjedi to come sing Superman Sex Life Boogie for one of the theme filks? Ooooooh. /fans self That man can SING

We gave up and went to the theme filk room, and wished we had earlier. Much better filk circle over there. I did sing, wishing I could have sung better, but my throat was pretty bad. Later in the evening it was supposed to be a buckyball circle, but didn't have a ball. So Alanna's toucan toy becamse buckyball for the evening.

Sunday I made sure to go to the Corrupting the Youth: Parents and Fandom panel and the Love, Fandom Style panel, those were both enjoyable. Got to hear a bit more music from the Bedlam Bards. Oh, all three days I went in and took pictures for selenite in his games.

Oh, roninjedi, story for you. I was telling selenite all about the panels, and had gotten to the part where you were discussing interracial relationships and fandom and you and Harmony. He said "They don't have a mixed marriage. They both filk." I was amused.

I would have liked to try staying for the Dead Dog parties for once, but everyone in my party was tired, and yeah, I was sick. We went out to dinner with kd5mk and jazz007, which was just lovely. We don't get to see nearly enough of them.

While poking through Pratchett looking for a quote today, I found this one, which I think pretty well summarizes me at a filk:

Lancre's only other singer of note was Nanny Ogg, whose attitude to songs was purely ballistic. You just pointed your voice at the end of the verse and went for it.

I have just finished and submitted my Pegaus award nominations ballot. Whew.

You can do it too, O Filkers, it's here
http://ovff.org/pegasus/2006/2006nomballot.html

until midnight on July 31st.

Rather than me try to explain them in my own words, I shall shamelessly steal a post on it from cadhla, which is what encouraged me to do it.

August is fast approaching, o my dears and my darlings, and when it gets here, it's too late to participate in a process that's very near and dear to my heart. And that's why I'm asking you, if you haven't already done so, to take a moment to answer this very, very important question:

Have you submitted your Pegasus Nominations yet?

Seriously, have you? Because the nomination period only runs until midnight PST on July 31st. California gets August, and nominations close. (This is so the Pegasus Committee can get the final ballot done by WorldCon, and so that people remain vaguely sane.) That means you only have five days left to get your ballot in!

What am I talking about? Well, the Pegasus awards, given annually at the Ohio Valley Filk Festival, represent the voice of the filk community. They let us say what songs, performers, and composers we love and want to honour every year. There's a brainstorming period, during which we all go 'golly, wouldn't it be neat if _____ won a Pegasus!', followed by the nomination period. After nominations close, a ballot is determined from the various votes, and is opened for all to use.

A quick note: the brainstorming poll is provided to help you become aware of songs, performers, and composers that you might not have heard of -- it's there to give you ideas and expand your horizons, not limit you. If you want to nominate someone who isn't on the brainstorming poll, go right ahead!

So please, please, take a moment to view the brainstorming results and make your nominations for this year's Pegasus ballot, either by following the links above or by using the following URL:

http://ovff.org/pegasus/2006/2006nomballot.html

The more nominations we get, the better the final ballot will reflect the desires of the global filk community, and the happier I'll be.

I feel a little funny doing it, when I've never even made it to an OVFF. I want to, oh so bad, I've been wanting to go to OVFF for a decade.

Well, at least my nominating ballot is going.

The only way I'm going to coherently get through the weekend's backlog of posts I want to make is chronologically, I think.

So, Friday evening. Off I went to meet up with fordprfct and kattelyn, with plans for shopping for pink presents, pink wrapping paper, pink ribbon, pink plates and napkins and cups, and wai!, the pinkness!, all for a certain little girl's upcoming birthday party.

I got stuck in traffic. Gawdsawful traffic, ended up getting off the fwy as soon as I could and going the long way around. However, fortunately for me, my copy of Pretty Little Dead Girl, Seanan McGuire / cadhla's album from OVFF, had arrived that day, and I'd grabbed it to take with me, as Dwynwyn has a CD player. And suddenly I didn't mind the traffic delays nearly as much. Because the last track of the album finished playing just as I parked my car in front of the house in Euless. There's timing for you.

Well. The first few tracks started off as good music, I was enjoying it, oh that was interesting, sure. But then I hit track 4. And from there on, WOW. I mean, I don't usually like live albums, but this was wonderful.

River Lies - eerie, creepy, GOOD. Fascinating. The kind of song that you want to read the story - but you know you already have heard the soul of it.

Maybe It's Crazy - I'd read the lyrics online (go ahead - I'll wait) and was looking forward to it. It's better with the music, and with hearing her wonderfully smoky sensual voice. However, it was also frustrating. From the laughter of the audience and some description I've read of the performance, I bet it would have been wonderful to have been there and seen it. But as a recording, it suffers a little, at least to me with my hearing issues. I had a hard time understanding the words in a lot of places. I am really hoping that PLEASE Seanan please, she will put it on the upcoming studio album. Please. Because I love it. It's like the sapiosexual Spark-fan anthem!

Vampire Slayer Blues - I love this song. I love love love it. It keeps getting stuck in my head. I want to finish this review so I can go play it again. I want to learn it for filksings, although I dunno if I have the lung capacity - how does she go that long before taking a breath? faxpaladin, if I learn this, will you be my Watcher? (I have to admit I don't get the spoken stuff at the end, but this is probably because I live under a rock and don't know who Christian Slater is. Or possibly it's because I'm only up to season 3 in watching Buffy.)

Modern Mystic - She has a description of various of the songs on her LJ here. She described this one as a RPG song, so I'm thinking right, some song about a character I don't know in a campaign I don't know, this one will bore me, not interested. Not paying much attention. Then the song started. Just the richness of the sound caught me the first time through - again, that sultry voice. And then I was realizing the complexity of the rhyme - the langorous slow feel of it, and the strong use of feminine rhyme scheme. I love that. She is queen of it. Ooh yeah.

Fly Little Bird - okay, wasn't I just praising her for slow langorous feminine rhyme? Now here she is coming at me with quick, dancing, almost choppy (but darn it that sounds like a negative word and it isn't) masculine rhyme and it is fantastic, complex overlying patterns and oh wow. Why don't I just go offer to have her babies now? And this was a LIVE album? OMG. It's not like this is a group - as I understand it, this is just backup singers she roped into singing with her for OVFF. Right? Wow. That's some talented people. (I wanna go to OVFF!)

Sycamore Tree - like Fly Little Bird, in that the arrangement is just amazing. That's what floors me the most about this album - it's not one person writing really good songs, it's that she writes these complicated multivoiced songs that make my brain feel all quivery good listening to them. The song had a lot of impact to me, I can only guess how it must feel for someone who actually grew up in a small town environment.

They just put up a new order page for the album. It's here:
https://www.seananmcguire.com/secure_order.php

Go. Order it. My understanding is that this will not be up indefinitely - she's only selling it this way for a short time. So be quick. You can thank me later.

Me, I'll be off here replaying mine. I've had Vampire Slayer Blues, Fly Little Bird, and Sycamore Tree all competing in my head as earworms. (Sarah Tapper loves Harry Marshall...)

Links that currently amuse me.

A good post with info on Ebooks

And let me always enthusiastically pimp for Baen Books, as mentioned in the post, bookpushers extraordinaire, ebook supplier, and source for the Baen Free Library.

A filk song I was sent a while back and finally listened to - well, the lyrics anyway
http://www.bsutton.com/Brenda/music/lyrics/costumers_lament.htm

A song I found today and like a lot
http://www.autographedcat.com/songs/keep_you_closer.html

In fact the whole collection is worth going through, as I'm doing bit by bit
http://www.autographedcat.com/songs/

And can anybody tell me anything about a comic book character called "the goddess dawn"?

It was suggested I put this up again closer to the date...

The Second Annual January Filkers Traditional Birthday Bash and Housefilk will be happening on Saturday, January 28th at the Tyra house in Fort Worth, starting at 5 pm. There are at least 5 local and quasi-local filkers with January birthdays, and what better way could we have to celebrate than getting together with friends and filking?

Link to Sandy and Gerry Tyra's place: http://tinyurl.com/8hzbt

Come and bring your singing voice, your instrument if you play one, your filk books, munchies or drinks, maybe an extra folding chair, bring a friend, but know that all of those are optional. But definitely bring yourself! Come ready to pick, pass, play and enjoy.

When I posted about the recent housefilk, and mentioned singing three of my own filks, two new, joyeuse13 wanted me to share them. So okay, I'm finally getting around to it.

( 'Admiral' Miles )
( The Alliance Unification )
( Admiral's Captain )

Okay, I got a nap yesterday, and went to bed over an hour early last night, and I think I'm starting to be reasonably coherent again. And I'm taking the pain meds regularly enough that they're starting to do some good.

So, FENCON! ( Of fun and friends and filk! )