Third book post of the year. This list got a bit longer than #1 and #2. I hit 30 books in early June, then promptly got distracted by Concertino and the last minute mad rush to get through as much Hugo Award reading as I could before the voting deadline. The sprint is fairly obvious from the list: Books #32-#40 are all Hugo-nominated novels, graphic novels, or related books, with the exception of the one Jim Butcher Dresden novel.

( Books #22 through #40 )

Yesterday was perhaps one of the most pleasant celebrations of America's Birthday we've had. As usual, we joined the hordes on the Mall for the annual festivities. The weather was perfect: mid-80s, sunny most of the day, frequent cooling breeze, and while it got cloudy later the rains stayed away. A welcome change from the usual shvitz-fest and exercise in heatstroke-avoidance, and being chivvied off the Mall due to a window-rattling thunderstorm.

A gold star goes to whoever worked out the security arrangements for this year. They reduced the security perimeters to just the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol grounds, which meant the Smithsonian Metro station could actually be used. This makes it much easier to get to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. We'd been using Federal Triangle the past several years, which means crossing Constitution Avenue in the middle of the Independence Day Parade, which is not easy.

( Follow the cut-tag for spoons and shinies )

Had a fine time at Concertino, even though we didn't get there until after midnight on Friday. My flight from Chicago (where I had business meetings Thursday and Friday) to Boston was delayed two hours due to the thunderstorms and biblical deluges that hit the Midwest on Friday. Truly impressive; even flooded and shut down one side of Mannheim outside the airport. Ended up chatting in the con suite with folks, then sitting in the filk room for about half an hour before going to bed around 1:00am.

The rest of the con was great. I always enjoy a billroper and daisy_knotwise concert. It's even more fun when there are a few people in the audience who haven't heard "Apology" or "My Husband, The Filker" yet. kbeader's Toastmistress set was also good, and hsifyppah's Intefilk set rocked. (Even if Brooke was left a bit "in the dark" since nobody could figure out how to turn on the recessed lights.) Rounding out the concerts were jhayman, Kathy Mar, and sassafrassmusic. We also caught the Children's Concert on Saturday morning with mewsic, happyfunpaul and Lady Bear.

Saturday afternoon I was part of a good Song Sequitur set along with Roberta Rogow, thnidu, and Brooke. I was crazy enough to agree to follow Brooke, but deftly managed to field the curve balls (*grin*). I sang my own "Vor Party" (a book song to follow "Acacia"), tfabris's "Comfortably Dumb" (a computer/idiot song to follow "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"), and "A Habitrail Named Klein" (a space-twisting song to follow "The Space Lasers May Already Have Penetrated My Tinfoil Helmet (Despite My Extensive Field Research)"). I was spared having to follow "Alien Salad Abduction" (although I was ready...would have done madfilkentist's "Flatten the Grain"). Also snuck in a one-shot of "Never Too Late".

We had nice dinners Saturday night at Ciao Bello with Larry Kirby and Deborah Hill, and Sunday night at Maxwell Silverman's Toolhouse with starmalachite, madfilkentist, hillarysherwood and filkosopher.

In a case of total and complete serendipity, I wound up with a song for the "Take It Back" song contest, on account of the "tale of bardic magic and media policy" I'm in the (slow) process of writing. (Aside to osewalrus: this is the story we discussed back at Darkover.) I guess these things happen when you throw a character on stage to sing a song, then promptly realize you now have to write the damn thing! Placed second, to my delight, especially after I spent the previous week being earwormed by my own tune! Which is actually quite unusual--even the songs that have become my favorites (and my friends')--like "Sedona" for example--never became earworms. (Maybe it's the E7 chord in the verse and the D6 chord in the chorus?) Anyway, here are the lyrics:

( Songs Flying Free )

Saturday open filking and Sunday dead dog were good. Didn't sing much Saturday, other than answering a request for "Iditarod" early on, and jumping in with "Sedona" later in the night. Did "Back in the Clydesdale", "Hyperion", "Come Travel With Me" and "The Other Shore: Filk Version" on Sunday night before crashing around midnight.

One fun moment happened early Sunday morning that I haven't seen anyone else mention--it turned out that one of the late night front desk staff used to play the flute and took an interest in us. She couldn't leave the desk, so around 2:00am a whole bunch of us appeared at the front desk and sang "Hope Eyrie" and "Green Hills of Earth" to her (with a few pauses so she could answer the phones and check in one very startled guest.) Filking the mundanes...always a delight.

Scored the Rosemary and Rue ARC and copy of Brooke's CD in the Interfilk auction. Go me! Now I can stop fretting about the fact that September 1st falls in one of the larger gaps between cons I see Larry Smith at. (I'll still buy a copy from Larry, of course...) I dangled the ARC in front of a co-worker (and fellow book club member) who is also an SF/fantasy reader (more fantasy, I think). She's intrigued now. She also wants to borrow my copy of Ravens in the Library. Oh yes, and I'm almost certain I'll be submitting R&R as my next book for the book club. Muahahahaha!

Great seeing everyone at Concertino! Hope to see most of you at Conterpoint next year. And, of course, at Confluence and Anticipation over the next month or two.

Got home from Concertino about 6pm. The flight home was delayed 90 minutes by ground traffic (and storms, I guess) in the NYC area, which meant the plane that was going to be our flight did not leave La Guardia until somewhere around our scheduled departure time from Logan.

Since we drove to the airport, we were therefore nowhere near the Metro System today. Although I guess my commute tomorrow will be interesting--I do take the Red Line, although I take it from the other end of the line and don't go anywhere near the affected stops.

It's worth noting I also usually try and avoid the first and last cars of the train, for exactly this reason...

So, this month's read for $EMPLOYER's book club was Revolutionary Road. As I am a loyal member of the group, I read it, as I do all the books that get picked.

Now, I have been reading books seriously for probably about thirty years now.

I've read high fantasy, comic fantasy, and urban fantasy

I've read space opera, near-future SF, far-future SF, military SF, cyberpunk, and Singularity

I've read mainstream fiction of varying sorts. Some of it good. Some of it not so very good.

I've had books bore me.

I've had books disappoint me.

I've had books, or parts thereof, squick me, anger me, or scare me.

I've had books I finished reading, put down, and basically said to myself, "Well, that was a book."

But until Revolutionary Road, I have never had a book so thoroughly disgust me and offend every fiber of my ethical and moral character to the point where I FEEL I MUST WASH THE HORRIBLE TASTE OF THE BOOK OUT OF MY MIND by immediately either going and re-reading a favorite book by a favorite author (like, say, the hardcover of Fallen Angels that's on the to-be-read bookcase) or a new read by a favorite author that I know I will enjoy (like the three Donna Leon Commissario Brunetti books also on the to-be-read bookcase).

I can't finger a single character in Revolutionary Road I liked. Except for the two kids, they were all sorry excuses for humanity. I can't even say I liked the writing; among many other faults, the dialogue felt contrived and stilted.

And yes, I know the book is trying to reflect 1950's suburban attitudes. Sorry, no excuse for this complete waste of paper.

Earlier in the year (after My Husband's Sweethearts, I half-joked to the Book Club that I was going to keep count of the number of books I liked and didn't like, and if the latter count was higher, "the next book I submit is going to have spaceships."

When I tally up the points, I will grant this book extra SUCK points. It will count TRIPLE, so great was its SUCKAGE.

Luckily, I got it from the library. It would have counted MORE if I'd paid for it.

Obviously, I'm not seeing the movie, either. I'd rather watch Manos: The Hands of Fate. Un-MST'ed.

Fairly quiet weekend here in Lake Wobegon Rockshire. (That's the name of our development. My LOTR-obsessed friends can laugh over the fact I can truthfully say I live "in the Shire"...) The major activity was the monthly FSGW Open Sing, which normally takes place on the first Friday of the month. It happened to be Saturday this month because the couple that volunteered to host it lives in Edgewater, which is a bit difficult to get to on a Friday.

This month's theme was "What's In A Name"--songs containing a name or with the word "name" in them. I scored a hat trick by singing Heather Dale's "Sedna" on the first round, then followed with Roy Zimmerman's "Song of Many Deaths" (aka "Regression Therapy") and "The Night Paddy Murphy Died" on the subsequent two rounds. the_sheryl sang "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Your State's Name Here", and "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm". It was a small group this month, which is how we got in three rounds. Much fun was had.

The rest of the weekend was mostly spent hanging around home, other than trips for lunch, library, and food shopping. I did finally get my hair shorn. Unfortunately, it had been at the need-to-cut-now point as of Balticon; couldn't really wait for Concertino. Ah well. Got in a nice brisk walk home from the shopping center (about 1.7 miles), having let Sheryl drive home with the groceries.

My other significant achievement for the weekend was succeeding in whittling down my e-mail inbox from over 100 messages to 65.

For the locals, next weekend brings the Potomac Celtic Festival at Morven Park in Leesburg. They've returned to a two-day festival this year. Acts include local favorites Tinsmith and Iona, and the Edinburgh-based Cantrip. Hopefully the weather will be decent this year. We're planning to go on Sunday, since that will leave me free to dash up to Baltimore on Saturday evening for the Balticon post-mortem/BSFS meeting.

Meanwhile, 3LF will be performing at the National Zoo's Guppy Gala on Friday, from 6pm-8:30pm. Just in case anyone happens to be in the neighborhood.

A musical thought for the day, from Schooner Fare:

Send the good news, send the word,
We, the people, will be heard,
We, the people, everywhere.

According to the Steve Romanoff Songbook, some of the students in Tiananmen Square were singing "We The People" the night the tanks rolled in.

We're headed over to Glen Echo Park today for the 2nd day of the Washington Folk Festival. Lots of good music to be had, including some good local Celtic musicians, Flory Jagoda playing Sephardic music, and a tribute to Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday.

(Yeah, know I should have posted earlier. Oops.)

The Hrab Stage mess notwithstanding, it was really a fine weekend.

( Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... )

Before I proceed with my main Balticon report, I feel I owe the entire Balticon community a profuse apology for my complete, total, and utter mishandling of the Hrab Stage this year. Among the myriad of my mistakes were poor communication, scheduling errors, failure to delegate, and at least a half dozen other errors. I screwed things up that I damn well know how to do right. Basically, I did a half-assed job. I am truly sorry for any trouble I caused for any performers, staff, or attendees.

Skipping out (again) on 3LF practice tonight. Not because we're doing something fun, like seeing Tanglefoot (that was last week), but because I have some sort of cold or flu bug beating on me. Probably has been since Thursday, really; I'd simply chalked much of the on-again/off-again ugh to lack of sleep. (No, it ain't H1N1...I'm not barfing or having respiratory issues or sore throats or fever so high I feel like I'm gonna spontaneously combust...just feelin' ill enough to be annoying.)

Other than the not-enough-sleep and the cold bug, last week was fun. As I said, we caught Tanglefoot's farewell tour as it rolled through the DC area. Hard to believe they are hanging it up, but I guess after 25 fast-fiddlin', hard-strummin', keyboard-plunkin', bass-pluckin' years I suppose they're entitled to rest on their laurels. I understand two of their members, banjo & mandolin player Terry Young and fiddler Sandra Swannell, will be continuing to make music and tour as My Sweet Patootie. I picked up their CD (though haven't gotten around to giving it a spin yet).

Wednesday night, we headed down to the Warner Theatre for Unwigged and Unplugged, which features Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer performing (acoustically) songs from "This Is Spinal Tap", "A Mighty Wind", "Best in Show", and "Waiting for Guffman". It was great fun. Annette O'Toole joined them for "The Good Book Song" and "Kiss at the End of the Rainbow". I don't know if she's a consistent fixture on the tour or only pops in for some shows, but it was cool. And of course, "Blood on the Coal" instantly reminded both us of a certain hsifyppah song... ;-)

The weekend was occupied by the Faerie Festival on Saturday and the Nationals game on Sunday. Despite the cold bug, the sleep deficit, and a bruised ring finger (on my chording hand, no less) I managed a decent set, some of it even standing. Strolled around the vendors with the_sheryl, starmalachite and stevemb. One shop had a bunch of small wooden cars, trucks, and train cars for sale. Included among the trucks were cement mixers (with a little barrel for the mixer) and lumber trucks (with three little logs on the truck bed). I bought one of each to stick on the windowsill of my cubicle.

The Nats outing was organized by a co-worker from several jobs back who I'd kept somewhat in touch with. It was a fun afternoon, even if the Gnats completely suck. (At least their pitching does!)

We also snuck in a showing of Star Trek. I think I would classify it as a "big budget B-movie". I think filkertom summed it up with his comment of "One of the best space adventures -- and one of the most MST-able films -- I've seen in a long, long time". J.J. Abrams and crew certainly know how to make a fine action movie (as any Fringe or Lost fan should be able to tell you). I was certainly not bored or underwhelmed, which is a lot more than I can say for Trek 8, 9 and 10. OTOH, I agree with a lot of osewalrus, thatcrazycajun and khaosworks' comments. More than that I'm not gonna say outside a cut-tag.

Enough rambling...will probably retire to bed shortly...

Arrived home from work today to find a handyman trying to convince the_sheryl to hire him to re-roof our townhouse. He and his crew were already working on the house next door, and claimed they'd either already worked on or been hired by a couple of other homeowners. I took over, chatted with him a bit, and got him to write us an estimate.

Of course, I'm not letting anyone near my roof or any other major element of my house without checking them out first. (Besides having common sense, I work with building codes, remember?) So of course I fired up the appropriate sites. I was not particularly surprised that I could not find a current (or any) home improvement license listed for the guy or his business.

BZZZZT!!! Thanks for playing, dude.

He probably is right that I need work done. There were things the home inspector pointed out a couple years' back that I just haven't gotten around to dealing with yet. However, I will find a real roofer to do it. A few searches in the appropriate places (like the BBB) turned up a couple of promising candidates. If any locals know a good roofer, feel free to suggest away!

Here's the second batch of 2009 books. This batch included two reads for $EMPLOYER's book club (The Sparrow and The Kite Runner), the start of the Hugo reading (The Graveyard Book and The Last Colony), and A Certain Anthology of Note. The list, with commentary below the cut:

12. Blood Rites, Jim Butcher
13. The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
14. Maus I, Art Spiegelman
15. The Year’s Best Science Fiction, 6th Annual Edition (1988), Gardner Dozois, ed.
16. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
17. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
18. Ravens in the Library, SatyrPhil Brucato & Sandra Buskirk, eds.
19. The Last Colony, John Scalzi
20. Subterranean Gallery Richard Paul Russo
21. The Traveler, John Twelve Hawks

( Setting quiet pages free )

Somebody appears to be crank-calling my cell phone. Possibly from an international source. I'm getting one of two similar numbers, either 037-972-5909 or 5-037-972-5909. They've already rung me up at least two dozen times.

Any advice out there?

Happy Birthday to my lovely wife and fellow cat-pillow the_sheryl!

Actually, her birthday was yesterday. No, I didn't forget; I just didn't get a chance to post here yesterday, between scrambling most of the day at work and hosting in-laws in the evening. And all weekend; they're on their way back from FL to CT. We all went out to a birthday dinner at Benjarong, a local Thai place, where we ran into my father, stepmother and two friends of theirs. We were much amused. We also stopped at the Gifford's over in Fallsgrove for ice cream.

I found the perfect card--on the front it says "Have A Happy Birthday" over a picture of a grey tabby with a blue feather hanging out of its mouth. On the inside, it says, "The bluebird of happiness would have wanted it that way." I could see our Nova-kitty chowing down on a bird. She's already pulled a couple of feathers off one of the cat dancers and has occasionally been seen padding around the house with the remains of the other in her mouth. (The latter is down to the wire and one little piece of cardboard on one end. Nova still bats it all around the house.)

We're coming up on the one-month-to-Balticon mark, also known as the "OMG! TIME FOR THE CON-COM TO PANIC!" point.

I'm told hotel room bookings are, not surprisingly given the current economic state, running short of filling the block. The experienced con-runners out there will realize the import of this. The block expires on April 20th. If anyone out there is planning on coming to Balticon and hasn't booked a room yet, you are highly encouraged to do so.

In the meantime, we're trying to put the finishing touches on the filk/music program. In addition to our lovely and talented Music GOH, quadrivium, we have concerts by sodyera and mrpsyclops, panels and three nights of open filk. I'm hoping to have two other concerts ready to announce shortly; I'm just waiting for folks to get back to me. For the folk-dance-minded, we have two dances: a Steampunk Regency Ball Friday night and the traditional Medieval Dance hosted by patches023 (with music by maugorn and me) on Saturday afternoon.

We also have the expanded music program on the Hrab Stage, a coffee-house style stage located off the hotel lobby near the bar & restaurant. There will be music and other performances all weekend, including Phil Rossi & George Hrab, partiallyclips and devospice, Igor's Egg, asaro, maugorn, wcg and me. There are still openings available for anyone interested in signing up for a set. Comment here or e-mail me.

Stay tuned here and check the balticon LJ and Balticon website for more details and updates.

Here are my pictures from FilKONtario 2009. The quality is mixed; I'm still learning my way around my DSLR, so shooting in dim indoor lighting with lots of motion going on was a bit of a challenge. But there are some good shots in there.

...can stop a FilKONtario from being awesome.

We drove again this year, since the average going rates on the DC-to-YYZ route were well over $400 a person. Took about 10-1/2 hours each direction. Heading up, we were cruising (including no wait at the border) until just past the 407/403 West interchange when we hit painfully slow traffic. My bad for not wanting to rack up $20 in charges on the 407 again. On the way back, we dropped in on Dr. SETI for a short visit. And much needed break too; my lower back was starting to protest after six hours in a car.

The attendance was a bit smaller than last year, I believe; not surprising given the economy. I particularly missed filkart, both because I didn't get to trade Schooner Fare songs, and because I may not get to OVFF this year due to work conflicts. On the up side, smaller attendance means smaller, and friendlier, filk circles. (Generally. The Dead Penguin got a bit out of hand, but the rest of the circles were good.) Meanwhile, also got in bunches of good conversation, notably a really nice chat with janmagic after the Friday night circle in Hawthorn D broke up. Also enjoyed chatting about TV shows and Hugos with markbernstein up in the Con Suite during the Tie-and-Tails.

The obligatory list of highlights:

-- The impressive green stuffed giant squid bunsen_h made for the Tie-and-Tails reception.

-- Toyboat's covers of "Bold Marauder" and "Hellraiser", and of course their now-famous (infamous?) take on "Banned From Argo". (The latter was ear-worming me at work earlier this week. Thanks, guys.)

-- Urban Tapestry's Filk Waif concert, including lord_korak's appearance as Jean-Luc Picard for "Neurotic Love Song".

-- Eva & Rafael's cover of "My Jalapeno Man" out in the hallway on Sunday. Eva had a really cool set of wooden spoons she was playing.

-- The always-amazing Heather Dale's concert. Somehow, "Stone Soup" always brings a tear to my eye. I also love "Sedna" and "Troubadour". And enjoyed her take on "The Farmer's Cursed Wife".

-- Rob Sawyer's reading. Also his writing workshop on Sunday. I think it gave me another short story idea. Also some hints to enhance the ones I'm already working on. That would be the sign of a successful workshop, I guess *grin*. I liked his description of SF as "the mainstream literature of an alternate reality". Also his point that one quality of a good SF story is that you "can get there from here"; i.e. the reader can logically see how history, technology, etc. can lead to the future being portrayed.

-- The performance by "Suburban Travesty". I particularly liked the "Victims of the Ohinator" poster! Also the guitar sunglasses were really cute! I had been wondering if Disco Walter would make another appearance... ;-)

-- Seeing catalana get inducted into the Hall of Fame, and getting to share a filk circle on Saturday and listening to the Hall of Fame concert. Sometimes, even when we're at the same con, I end up in different circles than Erica, so getting to hear her sing is always a pleasure. Also great to see lindaneely again too.

-- Amusing folks in the Hawthorn D circle Friday night with a cover of Mike Campbell's "Back in the Clydesdale". andpuff asked me for a copy, which was cool.

-- Rolling out a cover of "Somebody Will" (by Ada Palmer, of sassafrassmusic fame) as a Saturday night one-shot.

-- The Wenches In Black at the Interfilk auction. I did join the fray on a couple of items (the DVD from markbernstein and the Conflikt package), but didn't quite feel like bidding things up to "insane" territory.

-- Chatting with Hall of Fame banquet table-mates drfilk, ccrazy, sounddude, lemmo, and two friends of Rob Sawyer's, whose names have now slipped my mind.

-- Sunday dinner at Montana's with maverick_weirdo, chaoticgoodchic and janmagic. (And the_sheryl, of course.)

-- Getting to hear deborah_c do all of the dog-and-frozen-sweet-potato story. I'd only heard the latter part at GAFilk. Very funny stuff. And Deborah does a great job with both voices and facial expressions. 8-)

That's what comes to mind at the moment. I'm probably forgetting a bunch more. And I have pictures to upload, too.

We're home from FKO. Very tired. I have a Nova-kitty on my lap. Watching Heroes, then bed.

I'm not usually a perpetrator of link sausage. But, I do occasionally get engineering-related news bits crossing my desk which may be of interest to my readers. Here are a few that popped up in the last week or so:

I'm not first to the filk corner of LJ with this one, but if you have a pilot's license and $200K, you can have a flying car. Or, more accurately, a "roadable aircraft"; an experimental craft with folding wings that you can drive right off the runway and down the highway. It has a cargo area, but one would have to investigate whether it will accommodate three guitars and a crate of songbooks.

Next, a group of architects, engineers, designers and other visionaries who can't find decent housing in the San Francisco Bay Area (even with the housing crash) are drawing up plans for a permanent, independent floating city.

Meanwhile, a part of America's heartland may not be shakin', rattlin', and rollin'. According to several planetary scientists, the New Madrid fault system may be going cold. Using GPS to monitor movements, Purdue and Northwestern University researchers have determined the faults, which famously generated devastating magnitude 8+ earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, are moving so slowly (0.2mm/year) they are effectively seismically inactive.

And finally, something to twist the rational mind. According to an opinion column on North Dakota's In-Forum, rocket launches cause severe weather. As opposed severe storms being a result of global warming, or a result of El Nino, La Nina, and other natural phenomenon. All I can say is, WTF?!?!

(Sorry, Apple fans, nothing to do with computers.)

Our major activity last week was seeing Fleetwood Mac on their UNLEASHED tour at the Verizon center. My 2nd concert, the_sheryl's third. The show was enjoyable. Mick Fleetwood is still a wild man on the drums, Lindsay Buckingham is still hiding a few extra fingers somewhere, and Buckingham and Stevie Nicks still are in good voice. (Fleetwood owes John McVie a few drinks though, after almost forgetting to introduce him at the end!) The stage was pretty stripped down; two light panels behind the keyboard/drum riser, four suspended (and movable) light panels overhead, and one video screen on each side for close-ups. The show is billed as a greatest hits tour, so not surprisingly most of the set list comes from the FLEETWOOD MAC and RUMOURS albums. I wouldn't have minded hearing a song or two from SAY YOU WILL again (having pleasant memories of the roof-raising tour supporting that album). But that's always the problem with a big songbook to choose from.

We wound up meeting a co-worker and their wife for dinner at the Greene Turtle in the Verizon Center. I'd overheard him talking with my boss about going; apparently a last minute decision after his wife heard something on the radio. I think they ended up sitting in Section 400, two over from us (Section 402). Dinner was good, once we got a table; even with the show far from sold out (and the whole end of the arena behind the stage not sold), the Turtle was quite crowded.

Other than that it's been a fairly quiet week. I've been watching bits of the Big East, ACC, and other league tournaments on TV, in preparation for March Madness. I haven't watched as much college basketball as usual this year. So I feel like a student cramming for a test as office pool time nears. (The NCAA Tournament is usually my one foray into gambling of any sort.) In the no-cost-bragging-rights RATMM pool I've already named my bracket "Let My Cats Pick 'Em", which gives you a pretty good idea of how little sense I have of who's good or not this year.

For those locals not attending Lunacon, I found out earlier this week that folk political satirist extraordinaire Roy Zimmerman (of The Foreman fame) is playing here in Rockville! He's performing for the Moore Music (In The House) house concert series Saturday evening, March 21st, 8pm. We've missed several previous shots at Roy, but given we're not attending Lunacon we are happily pouncing on this opportunity. Space is limited, which is why I waited until we made our RSVP's before posting! ;-)

Speaking of music and comedy, we also acquired tickets for "Unwigged and Unplugged", the tour featuring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer performing songs from "This is Spinal Tap" and "A Mighty Wind". They roll into the Warner Theatre on Wednesday, May 13th. Landed great seats, no less--orchestra seats, about a third of the way back, on the center-right aisle. Should be fun, plus I can walk there from the office.

Meanwhile, this past Friday was the March FSGW Open Sing, with the theme of Hare, Hair, or any homonym thereof. I offered up "White Hare of Howden" and "Naked Highwayman" (hey, the latter does compare the poor guy to a rabbit). Sheryl sang Sue Trainor's "Golfing with Hares" and "Little Bunny Fu-Fu". Which may sound like an odd choice, but by mid-way through the second round most of the obvious songs (including "Lincoln Park Pirates") had been sung.

Other than that, it's been a quiet week at home and busy week at work. We did catch Watchmen last night. I've never read the graphic novel, so I can't comment at all about accuracy. I do agree with folks who have suggested the violence is a bit extreme in places. (Although, considering how squeamish I am, surprisingly only two scenes actually grossed me out.) But it managed to hold my attention despite its length, and definitely some nice cinematography.

Looking ahead to the week, we have Fleetwood Mac at the Verizon Center on Tuesday. Woo-hoo! Other than that, should be a pretty normal week.

Having finished a flurry of just-in-time-for-the-Hugo-Nominations reading, I have enough books (at least 10) for my first bookpost of the year. The list is below. Some commentary appears under the cut-tag.

1. Valor’s Trial, Tanya Huff
2. The Plutonium Blonde, John Zakour & Larry Ganem
3. Don’t Throw Anything Away: This Civil Engineering Life, Brian D. Brenner
4. This Is Your Brain on Music, Daniel J, Levitin
5. Escape from Earth, Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, eds.
6. The Brief, Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (*)
7. The January Dancer, Michael Flynn
8. MultiReal, David Louis Edelman
9. Mind the Gap, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
10. Implied Spaces, Walter Jon Williams
11. Best Music Hall and Variety Songs, Peter Gammond

(* denotes books read for $EMPLOYER’s book club)

( And the commentary here )

There are advantages to a lazy posting style. I commented to several folks that last weekend's Boskone was the in three years that wasn't substantially interrupted by a business trip. We were able this year to fly up Friday afternoon and home Monday afternoon, a great improvement over 2007 (when I arrived at midnight after flying in from a two-day meeting in SLC) and 2008 (when I had to leave early Sunday morning to fly to building code hearings). I realized today that this was actually the first time in all the Boskones I've attended (almost every year since 1995--'98 and '00 being the exceptions) that I've actually been present the entire weekend from opening through Dead Dog. Usually I've flown up Friday night after work. Once a long time ago I flew up Thursday night and stayed with relatives.

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

So, aside from the minor gripes about filkhogging, much fun was had at Boskone. madfilkentist put together another excellent filk program, and the main track once again had a good bunch of interesting panels. We also finally got around to registering for both Concertino and Anticipation.

I got caught up prepping for Boskone, which is why I haven’t gotten around to posting on last weekend’s activities. It was an FSGW double-shot, with an Open Sing on Friday night and the winter Mini-Fest on Saturday. Both events were in Takoma Park, both within blocks of each other.

The Open Sing’s theme was “Groundhogs and Other Animals”. Taking inspiration from Emma Bull’s concert at GAFilk, I offered up “Home on the Range” for the first round. But I went one step further and sang all five verses I found on Mudcat, though I completely rearranged them so the verses about the cities and stars came last. The second round I sang “Cows With Guns”.

The Mini-Fest was good as usual. We started with a concert from locals Suzette and Chance Shiver, doing a set of Appalachian songs. I’ve seen the Shivers around Getaways and stuff but hadn’t really had a chance to hear them do a lot of performing, so it was great to hear a full set from them. (They host a pre-Getaway sing-around I’ll make one of these years.)

After a browse of the HMT and CAMSCO tables trolling for CDs we joined the Sea Shanties and Songs workshop. I sang “Roll the Old Chariot Along.” Next up was the Doo-Wop workshop, which seems to have settled in well as a fixture at both the Getaway and Mini-Fest. (Mostly this is a good thing, although I keep getting ear-wormed with “Poison Ivy”.)

We wrapped up our Mini-Fest day with a rockin’ set (as usual) from the Chromatics. I was amused to discover that a few of their members had taken the same cruise with Great Big Sea and Bare Naked Ladies and other Canadian musicians that sposter and sexybass were on. Small world. Chatted with the Chromies a bit after their set before heading home.

Having a good time up here in Boston. The temperatures have been in the 30’s, which is positively balmy for Boskone! Full reports forthcoming, although no pictures since I seem to have forgotten my camera, among other things.