Expoundings

Contata, Take II

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:52:09 GMT

More Contata brain dumps...

-- Would any of my readers be offended if we get rid of Delaware? The drive up took about 4 hours and 45 minutes. A good portion of those additional 45 minutes were spent in Delaware, I believe. This is largely why we got to the con just in time for starmalachite's Filk Classics concert, in which I rocked my way through Frank Hayes' "Lola the Engineer". And why we split for the hotel's dinner buffet shortly afterwards.

-- Aside from the event coordinators who need to be fired, the Hilton was quite a nice hotel and excellent con space. The alcove between rooms made for lots of quick chats while passing back and forth from circle to circle, going to and from the bathroom, etc. We lucked into a sleeping room right across from mamadeb and jonbaker's fine Con Suite. Yay for Entenmann's donuts and danish and Real New York Bagels! (And lots and lots of chocolate.) I actually slept pretty well I think...or at least pretty solidly (since nobody sleeps *well* at a filk con!) Plenty of food options, the non-existant Hong Kong Buffet notwithstanding. We had enough time on Saturday to make the 0.7-mile stroll up to the Atlanta Bread & Cafe by Rtes 10 & 202. Exercise gooooood.

-- It was great seeing fleetfootmike, who handed off the Intefilk CD I'd bid on last Concertino. I'd actually totally forgotten about it. I think Mike played as many songs on my axes as I did over the course of the weekend. We listened to the CD on the way home--good stuff! Although you can probably guess what we were thinking during "Only The Innocent"...*grin*

-- Wheels come full circle...when I first started doing filk concerts back in 1993 & 1994, including at Contata '94, suecochran played guitar for me. So it was amusing that I played guitar for her at this Contata. Although it would have been even more amusing if Sue had asked me to play "Lullaby For A Weary World", which I parodied early on (along with a million other folks probably) as "Lullaby For A Weary Fan", and was the first song I asked Sue to back me on. (That and "Donuts, Donuts".)

-- I think I got batyatoon good with "Baltar's Song". She pulled her headscarf down over her face when I hit the first refrain. Yes, I'm eeeeevil... 8-)

-- I wonder if a Joe Giacoio/Pete Kennedy double bill would make the audience's heads explode? Or just smash, then burn, their guitars. (Or is it burn, then smash? I never get the order right.) Which reminds me I still need to blog on the Kennedys show a couple weeks back. Maybe together with Carla's show Wednesday (same venue, same series).

-- I should make the observation that Northeast-style Chaos sometimes annoys me. I've been in OVFF filks that weren't as competitive as several East Coast filks have been at times this year (going back to Boskone and Balticon). And that includes the famous OVFF Hallway Filks. At least this time when the main room started to annoy me on Saturday night I did take the initiative to jump to the smaller room where fleetfootmike, folkmew, edstauff, osewalrus, and gimmeahand were hanging out, among others. Even after folks started coming over from the main room, it was still friendlier.

Definitely many kudos to the con-com for pulling together an excellent con despite all the challenges. Looked to my experienced con-runner eye as if everything ran smoothly (other than the hotel idiocy, of course). The sound was great, as always. BTW, I volunteer to help mike wrangle next time. It makes sense, since I'm usually sitting in the first few rows anyway. 8-)

Contata, Take I

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:57:07 GMT

While I still have a few functioning brain cells...

I had a great time at Contata! I'm told they had about 100 folks registered not including kids or guests, which is excellent. I was much in demand as a Trained Stunt Guitarist, accompanying signy1 on "Rich Fantasy Lives" in the Tom Smith benefit, partiallyclips on "Uplift" and suecochran on "God Lives On Terra" in the one-shots/two-fers, and batyatoon on "Mornington Crescent", among other things. I quite enjoy playing for other people; it's something I'd like to have more opportunities to do. It gives me excuses to stretch my guitar skills. My axes also saw action in the hands of starmalachite and fleetfootmike. Got to spend lots of time chatting with and catching up with folks, which is always good and something I don't always manage at cons. (Although I'm getting better at it.)

The Tom Smith Benefit was most excellent, and our special guest Christine Lavin did a great job as MC. Judging from the look on his face, I would not be surprised at all to see Nate Bucklin turn up at the next con with a Boomerang. I definitely must catch Tom Paxton's next local show and find out his reaction at having Christine and all the performers sing "Peace Will Come" to him (and filkertom) over the phone.

Enjoyed all of the concerts that I made it to, even if it looked like I was asleep (or nearly so) once or twice. (I'll note I missed the two Friday concerts, that being the only opportunity to eat dinner.) Of course, it's almost impossible to not enjoy a Heather Dale concert. In addition to being talented performers and fine songwriters, both Heather (as I've noted before, I think) and Ben clearly enjoy being on stage and take great delight in performing. I have observed this to be a fairly consistent characteristic of my favorite performers across all genres.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Free Folk Links!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:06:12 GMT

(OK, there's a joke only the RATMM'ers will get...)

Inspired by a comment from merryb_esq regarding my being the man-in-the-know about local folk events, I've added links to my favorite local venues to my main LJ page. So now y'all have a place to quickly find out about the venues and concert series we like to attend.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:09:08 GMT

Just sittin' here shvitzin' (sp) through the heat wave. DC used to be a swamp; not much has changed in a few hundred years.

Catching up on musical things--two weekends ago was the Washington Folk Fest. We only went on Saturday this year. Yeah, the day with all the rain. Luckily, the music is either under large tents or inside buildings; we just had to worry about dashing between venues. Thank goodness for my nice, fast-drying REI rain jacket. We saw sets from the All New Genetically Altered Jug Band, Honky Tonk Confidential", local folkies George Stephens and Mary Lamarca (getting one of my annual Australian folk fixes--the other comes courtesy of John Huff at Darkover), and a round-robin which featured Unitarian minister, traditional singer, fine songwriter, and all-round nice guy Dan Schatz.

Last weekend was the FSGW Open Sing, this time on Saturday afternoon and in Edgewater, instead of Silver Spring-ish and Friday evening as usual. The theme was "On The Road". Small turnout--about 10 folks. We went three rounds; I hit 'em with "Entering Marion" first, then "Naked Highwayman" second, and finally my own "Ramble Wood".

Sunday we made a short trip to the 2nd day of the the Maryland Faerie Festival. 3LF kicked off the festivities with a 10:30am set. Amazingly, we actually had an audience of four or five people. I'm told this was an improvement over the audience of one for the previous day's set. It was, of course, something of an ordeal; I could feel my energy draining off even standing under a canopy--I can't begin to think of how it was for the dancers out in the hot sun. After the set we took a turn around the merchants, got lunch, and watched ilyAIMY's excellent set. At which point we were sufficiently fried and went home.

Also finally made it to a game at the new Nationals Park, courtesy of group tix from $EMPLOYER. Good seats, and another high-scoring game on both sides. This was the Cards game a week ago that the 'Nats won 10-9 in the bottom of the 10th. I've been kicking myself though. I'm usually a trooper when it comes to sports events; I'll stay to the bitter end even when my team's down by lots. But for various reasons (including my car being at West Falls Church due to a meeting) I wussed out and left after St. Louis took a 9-8 lead in the top of the 10th, since it was already 10pm. We got about halfway to the Navy Yard station when we heard the crowd erupt... 8-P

Balticon, Part IV

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:37:41 GMT

Before the weekend totally recedes over the horizon, I should wrap up my Balticon report...

They say that no con schedule survives contact with the fans. Balticon Monday was a good example of this. First, there was the discovery that UT and John Palencar both turned up for Kaffeklatches at the same time. I'm not sure whether *I* missed a memo (which is possible; there were many e-mails flying around) and gave UT the wrong time, or someone changed things at the last minute and didn't tell me. Anyway, as you may have seen in their journals, the fine ladies of UT managed to commandeer the (supposedly) closed bar area, accreted a dozen or so folks, and held a 'klatch there. I lurked for a while at a nearby table chatting with Tom, Dave & Sue.

Meanwhile, I had at the last minute moved two filk events an hour later--UT's performance workshop and an Arthur Clarke memorial circle. This was intended to clear the kaffeklatch (which I thought was scheduled against the workshop), and clear a path for Dr. SETI to host the circle (which otherwise would have been against his science program). Somehow, the information never made it to a Rocketmail, so there was a bit of confusion. But it looks from assorted con-reps like it all got sorted out.

While all that was going on, I was on a "Reinventing the Myth" panel which I was probably underqualified for but stuck with anyway. There was much discussion about Persephone and about Joseph Conrad and the hero's quest. I offered up "Lightsailor" as an example of how filkers reinvent a classic song/tale, and Esther Friesner's "Nobody's Princess" and "Nobody's Prize" as examples of reinventing Helen of Troy.

The Clarke circle was good, and Dr. SETI was an excellent host. There were more general space & science songs than Clarke songs, but lots of good stuff. I sang thnidu's "Jupiter Farewell". The circle was followed by a brief dead dog, which I left around 4pm to take UT to the airport. Since I'd loaded our car already, we split UT and luggage between our car and starmalachite's for the airport run. Traffic was thankfully light, and we got to the airport in plenty of time. Said our goodbyes, and headed for home.

One detail from Sunday I forgot--a former housemate and fraternity brother of mine, Alan Schnittman turned up at the con. The last I'd heard he was still in Chicago doing consulting work in electrical engineering. Now he's apparently in Baltimore on a contract with Maritime Applied Physics Corp. doing work with hydrofoils. He was giving a presentation at the con late Sunday evening which I'd wanted to catch but forgot about. I can blame that on the siren call of the filk. Literally. *grin* He caught me in the filk room though, and we snuck out into the hall and chatted. My friends who've me Al will be happy to know he doesn't look like he's aged a day since Chicon VI, which was the last time I saw him.

That's about it for Balticon. Schedule glitches (and one perhaps overly large filk) aside, it seems to have been quite a smashing success. It certainly ranked as one of the best Balticons I've attended--possibly even *the* best. My thanks to UT for being excellent guests, all of my concert performers (Maug, Dave, Tom, Sue & Gary), Dr. SETI, and everyone who contributed to the rockin' open filks. And of course to my fellow con-com members for making this an excellent Balticon!

(Now we all get to figure out how we outdo ourselves *next* year...)

Balticon, Part III

Fri, 30 May 2008 01:18:00 GMT

As the con-rep goes rolling along...

Sunday was another early start, with UT's Childrens' Concert up to bat first. (After a quick run to Panera for brekkie!) UT invited me, along with decadentdave, sexybass and sposter to join them. While the young-at-heart did, as usual, outnumber the actually young, there were still a good number of kids (about 7 or 8 by my count) in the room including this cute young music-lover who toddled up and jigged away right in front of us. I offered up Tom Paxton's "Marvelous Toy", the Berryman's "It's Better Than That", Echo's Children's "I Meant To Do That", and Duane Elms' "Don't Push That Button". Much fun was had.

Immediately following I was on the "Megastructures in SF" panel with Andrew Love, Richard Williams, and James Ross. We spent most of the panel talking about both low-earth-orbit and geosynchronous space elevators, and Dyson Spheres. I also brought up the Quadrail from Tim Zahn's Night Train to Rigel and it's sequel. Had an amusing back-and-forth with an audience member trying to identify a book that featured mega-tall skyscraper archologies with the contained society stratified by levels. From the initial descriptions it sounded like Robert Silverberg's The World Inside. I confirmed this by asking her if she remembered characters going from level to level having sex with other characters who were not their spouses. She did in fact remember that part of the story.

I suspect this was not what Mr. Silverberg was hoping his readers would most remember after reading his novel...

Back to Panera for lunch, went to ransom my stack of books from Larry Smith's table (Esther Friesner's Nobody's Prize, S.M. Stirling's In The Courts of the Crimson Kings, and Charles DeLint's Widdershins, then killed time until Connie Willis' talk/interview. The session was good, although the weekend caught up with me and I cat-napped in the middle of the proceedings.

Killed a little more time after the talk, then met thelongshot, katrinb and a well-behaved Robster for an enjoyable dinner at Jesse Wong's Kitchen. While the food was excellent, the service was perhaps a wee bit leisurely (compared to what I'm used to for Asian and pan-Asian places), so we got back just a bit late for sexybass and sposter's concert. (Though not more than about a song or two). Their concert and decadentdave's were both excellent. The concerts were followed by a literary-themed filk, hosted by UT. Thinking it would amuse partiallyclips and jannyblue, I pulled out my John Ringo-inspired "Postie Toasties". From what I could see, I was not incorrect in my thinking *grin*. There was much singing of Tolkein songs including merryb_esq's filk debut with "Shire Lullaby" and partiallyclips ever-popular "Narsil" (the mere mention of which is guaranteed to cause an earworm. My brain's scrolling it now as I type.)

I must stop here to note I was surprised and delighted at the turnout for Balticon filk this year. Attendance had been off for several years, stemming at least in part from the move to Memorial Day (and into competition with Marcon, Media West, et al.) In some years we've been down to just three or four performers trading songs (with maybe a dozen or so listeners). I did know going in we were getting a "bounce"--I'd heard sodyera, howmandu, kyttn and a few other folks were coming in addition to the folks I'd signed up for concerts. I still didn't expect to fill *both* Salon E & F combined nearly to capacity, as we did Sunday night. I was quite impressed!

Of course this had its downside too...the circle got a bit unmanageable; at one point we ended up trying to manage a queue of performers--three or four at a time--and still were having trouble keeping some folks from jumping in out of turn. In retrospect I probably should have had a second room available--but of course not expecting to need one I didn't ask for it. (What I expected was an extension of last year when we had 5 performers and about two dozen listeners and overflowed one Salon--which is why I had the partition between E & F opened.) With all the good music going on (see UT's comments about Sassafrass & Rin), I pretty much settled into listener mode, sat back, and enjoyed the show.

Finally crashed about 3pm, though I understand the die-hards (especially partiallyclips and mrgoodwraith) kept things going for a decent while longer.

Oh yes...speaking of Randy, he joins me in having accomplished a rare feat--attending both Marcon and Balticon in a single weekend!! (In fact I think we're the *only* two to do so.) Randy actually out-did me...he drove from OH to MD; whereas I left the driving (or, more precisely, the flying) to Southwest.

One more post to go!

It's Festival Season!

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:07:12 GMT

As usual, waiting somewhat 'til the last minute, but I'd like to take a break from reliving Balticon to post about some upcoming events in the local folk community that may be of interest to some of my readers.

First up is this weekend's free Washington Folk Festival at Glen Echo Park. It runs both days, though we'll probably only be there on Saturday. The festival presents a range of local performers and styles, from singer-songwriter to jug band to blues to klezmer to honky-tonk to storytelling. There's usually an old-time/blues/bluegrass jam going on amongst the picnic tables, and sometimes other jams here and there.

The first full weekend in June (6th-7th) brings the Maryland Faerie Festival. I'm just performing with 3LF this year, and only on Sunday (first set out of the box from 10:30am-11am). But there's lots of good music both days, including the Clams (Saturday), maugorn (both days), and ilyAIMY (also both days).

Moving on, the 15th Annual Potomac Celtic Festival rolls into town June 14th, featuring Coyote Run, Tinsmith, Maggie Sansone, and others. Hopefully I'll be less exhausted this year than last and we'll actually make it through the entire day!

Finally, deeper in the month, singingpatient will be here in Rockville on June 25th, sharing a Focus Music Concert Series double bill with Tom Neilson. The series runs every Wednesday at 8pm, at O'Brien's Pit BBQ on Gude Drive. I'll post another reminder in a couple of weeks, but we should definitely make sure Carla has a huge ~~heckling~~ cheering section!

Balticon, Part II

Thu, 29 May 2008 01:49:44 GMT

See, I promised I'd continue! Even though I seem to be coming down with con crud. Ah well, I'll take getting sick after the convention over being sick before the convention (see FKO '08), not to mention during (see Conterpoint '07).

Saturday I got an early start, getting up in time to catch the 10am "On The Use of Dogs And Ocean Liners As Literary Devices". The panel featured Connie Willis, Joy Ward, and Bill deSmedt. It's worth noting I was briefly scheduled for it--I'd picked it as one of five "ideas I'd like to see as a con panel" from a list circulated around the con-com. It was not mentioned that the suggestions would be taken as volunteering. While I like Willis' writing, I didn't feel qualified to speak and yanked myself off. Anyway, it was a fun panel, focusing mostly on the use of animals in stories as animals, rather than just another "human" character who just happens to have four legs and fur. Also there was an extended discussion of why the Titanic is so popular as a plot device/setting--basically, because there are so many facets to the story: class systems, disregard for safety, confronting mortality, and so on.

After the panel I poked my head into the Chesapeake Suite to make sure UT was safely ensconced with pafischer for a podcast. Then, while they were podcasting and prepping for the concert, the_sheryl and I headed off for lunch. We ran into lord_korak on the way and invited him to stroll over to Panera Bread with us. We had an enjoyable lunch, and it was great to have the chance to get to know Walter better. (Hey, us "Chief Building Dudes" have to stick together! *grin*)

Next up was UT's GOH concert, which was most excellent. I was particularly delighted they included "Another Story" as part of the set. I also made my debut as an Official UT Sign Holder, getting to hold the RATS! for "Interjections". I think the tech crew had jodimuse's mike level a bit too low at the start, but they got it adjusted after a few songs.

A bit later was the Medieval Dance, where I joined maugorn, albedoblue, and luscious_purple. It was quite well attended, as is typical, and much fun for dancers and musicians both. maugorn related his little stunt with kazoos and duck calls during Childgrove, but I had my own fun too. I did my usual follow-the-dancers-in-and-out-of-the-circle on Sellinger's Round, and skipped back and forth across the line of musicians during the last rep of Petit Riens. My favorite moment though was watching lord_korak dancing New Boe Peep. Somehow he got paired with a young lady (college-age) about half his height. She had to jump in order to "peep" over his shoulder, until Walter finally started kneeling down. It was really funny.

After the dance Sheryl and I joined UT for the GOH/liaison dinner at Outback Steakhouse. In retrospect trying to get dinner at an Outback at 6pm on a Saturday night was probably not the most intelligent of ideas. We ended up splitting the 15-person dinner party among three tables, with Sheryl and I, UT, and Connie Willis' liaison lucy_anne forming one table. As it happened, we did get seated at the table next to daecabhir, rayvnmaniac, Willis herself and John Palencar (and I forget the other two). But, dinner was excellent (insert darrenzieger's "Big Slab 'O Cow" here) and the conversation lively and much fun was had.

Got back just in time to line up for the Masquerade (joined in line by the_longshot. Note to someone for next year's Masquerade: make sure the Valley Room's A/C is set to "Meat Locker" before you start letting people in. It was a good masquerade--32 entries in all, and 8 or 9 children's entries, including a very cute Cat In The Hat with two "kittens", and an even cuter (and very shy) 3-4 year old in a fairy costume. Several other excellent costumes, including the best-in-show Sleeping Beauty (where Sleeping Beauty had a reversible blue-and-red bodice the Prince could "flip"), a Cassandra (with attendants) from the new Dr. Who, and an Yvaine from Stardust.

Made a quick sweep of the parties before dropping into open filk. Not too many--basically the Reno '11 bid party, Philcon '08 party, and Peggy Rae's in '10 joke bid party. Ran into partiallyclips in Peggy Rae's party and chatted for a bit. Got to the filk around 11:30pm and stayed 'til about 2pm. Another excellent filk, and my vocal chords seemed to like Salon A much better than Salon E & F.

Starting to fall over, so I'll leave off here and continue tomorrow.

Balticon, Part I

Wed, 28 May 2008 01:35:30 GMT

Recovering today from a fabulous Balticon. Got home around 6pm last night after dropping UT at the airport. Ordered pizza and took care of a few things that needed doing before bed. (Which is why we didn't go to the Dead Dog Dinner.)

Friday started bright and early; we got up around 8am and were headed northeast by 10am. Amazingly, the Hunt Valley ~~Labyrinth~~ Marriott had a room ready for us when we rolled under the porte cochere an hour later. This made life easy, as we could unpack completely into the hotel room rather than relying on hotel storage. Walked down to the Hunt Valley Towne Center for lunch at Quizno's. This would become a theme--I think we ate every meal other than Sunday breakfast there.

Con Reg wasn't open yet when we got back to the hotel, but the Rocketmail (con newsletter) person was setting up so I left her with my list of program changes. (Only some of which made it to the newsletter--Monday apparently did not.) Then ran into sexybass and sposter outside the lobby. Actually, we'd spotted a certain familiar-looking light-green Ford Escape hybrid driving through the parking lot as we were walking back from lunch. Left Sheryl with Tom & Sue and I headed for the airport to pick up UT.

Made it to the airport in plenty of time, parked and found the baggage claim for their flight. Hung out on a bench working on lyrics to a new song until bags started coming up the chute (early even--the flight was at least 10 minutes early. Actually not unusual for the BWI/IAD/DCA-to-YYZ route). At which point I stepped back out into the main corridor to find UT walking down from the International Terminal. Hugs were exchanged and all luggage including Allison's guitar gathered.

From there we headed for downtown Baltimore. Yes, I know the con's in Hunt Valley. But I'd figured I'd take UT through downtown on the way so they could actually get to see something other than BWI and the HVM. (Like maybe the Inner Harbor.) As it turned out, the Walters Art Museum was hosting an exhibit on "Maps: Finding Our Way In The World" that included several sketches from one of Tolkein's journals. So we opted to visit the museum. The exhibit was fascinating and worth its own post. I'll just say here that it's still open (IIRC) through June 8th.

Got back up to the HVM around 4:30pm (no JFX traffic?!? I'm amazed?) and checked UT into their room. There was a minor frell-up as the hotel originally couldn't find the reservation. With a little assistance from Balticon's hotel liaison, we found out that someone had managed to turn "Durno" into something that sounded vaguely like "Duomo". Oops. Got the room sorted out and UT loaded into it. (Then had to find the liaison again to get the rollaway delivered.)

Gave UT a short bit of time to unpack and unwind, then took them over to the Towne Center for dinner at Carmine's. Mmm...pizza! Then back over to the hotel just in time for our 7pm "Everything You Wanted To Know About Filk" panel. The panel turned into more of a catch-up chat than an actual panel, since for most of the panel the least-experienced filker in the audience was Sheryl who was assimilated into the filk collective in 1993. Then lord_korak arrived. The look on Allison & Debbie's faces must have been priceless, but of course I was on the panel. It took a few seconds for my brain to register; he'd walked in behind a (local?) Browncoat I didn't recognize and I focused on her first before realizing exactly who was *behind* her. Sneaky, that Walter! 8-)

After the panel was Opening Ceremonies, which ended up running much longer than I expected. The schedule said 30 minutes, but they brought in a belly-dancing duo who ended up performing three songs. So I was late to maugorn's concert, but what I did get to hear sounded good. It sounds like Maug didn't get a larger crowd until nearer the end of his set due to the Pocket Program frelling up various parts of the filk schedule. (I *thought* I had an agreement that my concerts would start at 8:30pm, even though most other tracks were on hold 'til 9pm to clear the decks for Opening Ceremonies. Apparently, whoever was laying out the pocket program put everything at 9pm. But I'd scheduled two 45-minute sets, and was also trying to keep Open Filk at 10pm.) Ah well. It's not a con without schedule glitches. madfilkentist followed with a good set of his own.

Open filk was good, though I struggled with my vocals. This was another theme for the weekend--I did better at FKO while shaking off laryngitis than I did at Balticon. Clearly did not drink enough water; also I'm generally a bit out of practice at the moment. Need to work on that for Contata. Meanwhile, there were lots of good songs. Overall this was the biggest turnout for filk at Balticon in quite a few years, possibly since the move to Memorial Day. Definitely was good to see and listen to sodyera, who I haven't been at a con with in a while. I went to bed around 2am.

To be continued...(I promise this time!)

Balticon!

Thu, 22 May 2008 22:40:23 GMT

Tomorrow we dive into what promises to be an amazing Balticon! Just having either the always-entertaining Connie Willis as Author GOH or the fabulous Urban Tapestry as Music GOH would be enough for a great con. And we've got both! Plus the spirit of Ghost of Honor Douglas Adams will be looking in on the proceedings. Make sure y'all know where your towels are!

Of course, no program survives contact with the fans (or, apparently, with the Pocket Program editor). Here's a quick rundown of the main filk program, with corrections from the pocket program noted in bold:

FRIDAY
7:00pm Everything You Wanted To Know About Filk (Salon E)
8:30pm Concert: Maugorn (45 mins)(Salon E) (not 9pm)
9:15pm Concert: Gary McGath (45 mins)(Salon E)
10:00pm Open Filk (Salon E & F)

SATURDAY
2:00pm Musical GOH Concert: Urban Tapestry (1 hour)(Valley) (correct in the grid, though missing from the Special Events list)
4:00pm Medieval Dancing (2 hours)(Garden)
10:00pm Open Filk (Salon A)
10:00pm Storytelling Circle (Chase) (not Salon A as listed in the Pocket Program)

SUNDAY
11:00am Kids Concert: Urban Tapestry and Friends (1 hour)(Chase)
7:30pm Concert: Stone Dragons (Tom & Sue)(45 mins)(Salon E & F)
8:15pm Concert: “Decadent” Dave Clement (45 mins)(Salon E & F)
9:00pm Theme Filk: Literary Songs (Salon E & F)
10:00pm Open Filk (Salon E & F)

MONDAY
1:00pm Enhancing Your Musical Performance (Salon E)
2:00pm Arthur C. Clarke Memorial Filk Circle (Salon E)
(both programs shifted an hour)

Also performing Friday night in the Main Tent (Valley Room) are George Hrab, Peter Beagle, and Rob Balder/Sudden Death, at 9:00pm, 10:30pm, and midnight respectively.

Hope to see a bunch of you there!

A Scottish Tuesday Morning

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:50:29 GMT

There's a ~~cat strangler~~ bagpiper on the porch of the church around the circle from our building. Can't tell what's going on, maybe a wedding? I'm not hearing any of the usual funeral tunes.

The Pod Filkers

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:55:40 GMT

After about two years of trying, Paul Fischer finally got me down to his VA studio last weekend to record a filk-related episode for his Balticon Podcast. The episode, titled "Filk-o-rama with Rob Balder and Gary Ehrlich", features partiallyclips and I expounding for an hour about the filk program for this year's fast-approaching Balticon. In addition to a couple of live offerings, the podcast also features cuts from Balticon Music GOHs Urban Tapestry and other featured performers.

(Note: There were a few errors in the credits. I've e-mailed Paul about them already.)

But will he ever get laid?

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:12:15 GMT

Do I want to know why there is a guy in a Super Mario suit standing outside the Westin across from my building?

(Especially since I'm sure the princess is in another ~~castle~~ hotel...)

2008 Bookpost #1

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:53:08 GMT

the_sheryl is next to me typing up a booklist and Malice Domestic review, which reminds me I haven't done a bookpost yet this year. So here are my reads from the first third of the year. It's a shorter list than one would expect given all my travel. OTOH, I've spent large portions of various flights on workstuff, and time at home catching up on newspapers after business trips, which eats reading time.

The list so far:
1. The Forest of Time and Other Stories, Michael Flynn
2. The Heart of Valor, Tanya Huff
3. Empire from the Ashes, David Weber (omnibus of Mutineers’ Moon, The Armageddon Inheritance, and Heirs to Empire)
4. Burning Bridges, Laura Anne Gilman
5. Night Train To Rigel, Timothy Zahn
6. High Steel, Jim Rasenberger
7. Remaking the World, Henry Petroski
8. Cradle, Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee
9. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
10. A Thousand Words for Stranger, Julie Czerneda

Sun, 04 May 2008 03:33:46 GMT

And finally we've come to the end of the insanity that's been the first third of 2008. Got back into town Thursday evening, after sneaking onto a slightly earlier flight home from Dallas.

The rest of the Vancouver part of the trip was good. Lots of interesting papers at the conference. I mostly caught presentations either on wind engineering or wood-frame design. I was amused that I kept seeing the same two groups of attendees--either engineers & academics from the wind engineering/wind tunnel communnity or engineers from the wood industry, depending on the presentation topics. I need to go paging through the CD of proceedings now to review the papers I heard presented and look at the many interesting papers I didn't have time to hear.

I made a delightful side trip down to Seattle for Dandelion Fluff II. The drive down took about 3-1/2 hours including the border crossing (about 20-25 minutes) and a stop to pick up some juice & fruit. It was great to see, sing with, and hang out with cflute, pocketnaomi, acrobatty and technoshaman. dan_ad_nauseum came up from Portland for the festivities. Also got to see Steve & Jody Dixon who I hadn't seen since Steve's Interfilk GOH slot back at FilKONtario in 1996. I can now put faces with a bunch of the NW Filk List folks in person and enjoyed hearing lots of cool songs from them. It was also good to see participant again. I think of Ray every time we fly to OVFF. I'm not sure if many people know that Sheryl and I were the folks who wound up bringing Ray to OVFF several years back after he spotted us sitting in CMH with our guitars and struck up a conversation.

Stayed overnight at the Green Monster. After a lazy morning which included a matzoh-brei breakfast courtesy of acrobatty, and after playing a bunch of songs for cflute et al, I headed back north around 2pm. Between border traffic and fuel stops, I just *barely* made it back to the car rental place before it closed at 5:30pm. Walked back to the hotel, rested for a bit, then walked over to Robson Street and broke Passover just a bit early with a fettucine dinner at a place called The Spaghetti Joint.

After one more night in my fine hotel, it was off to Dallas for another three days of committee meetings. I won't bore y'all with the details, but the meetings were fairly contentious, and after the first day I was up til almost midnight with a couple of colleagues updating a presentation. The hotel, a Wyndham, left much to be desired after the Hotel Le Soleil. In addition to being under construction, my room was underwhelming. The walls were paper-thin, leading to my being woken twice half-a-hour early by the alarm clock in the room next to mine. The room seemed to be lit with 15-watt bulbs--even with every light turned on it was dim. And the food choices were two hotel restaurants (the Wyndham & a Westin) and a Denny's. The one bright spot was free wireless, even in the conference rooms.

On a lighter note, a group of folks went to a Rangers-Royals game at the Ballpark in Arlington. That would be, I believe, the 13th major league stadium (10 current and 3 former) I've attended a game at. The game was definitely not a pitcher's duel--an 11-9 Rangers win with 25 combined hits (13 for TX) and 8 combined home runs (6 by TX including a grand slam). It was a messy game, with a general lack of fielding skill, and many misplayed balls. Although some of that could be attributed to the windy conditions, there were still four errors (3 by Texas) and the Texas infielders could not turn a double play to save their lives. In fact, they failed on two consecutive at-bats--got the lead runner fine but not the batter. So two consecutive plays scored as a fielder's choice. Ah well--still an enjoyable evening.

So, with these two trips done, it now looks like I won't be on the road for anything other than a con until late in the summer. Yay!

From the snowy slopes of...Seymour?

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:00:11 GMT

So far a good conference. The standards committee meetings that were the main reason for my being here were reasonably productive, I think. Nothing too hair-raising, earth-shattering, or spine-chilling. (Corresponding to any developments in wind loads, earthquake loads, or snow loads, respectively...*grin*). Thanks to jet lag, I woke up before the alarm yesterday, so I took a quick stroll along the Seawall. Found a nice pub/steakhouse next to the hotel for dinner last night and chowed down on a prime rib.

There was a reception this evening on the top floor of the Hyatt to kick off the conference. Nice views of downtown and the harbour. Can't say much for the food, which mostly involved either pasta or pork. The conversation was much better. I encountered two former JHU civil engineering grad students whose time overlapped my undergraduate studies. One of them introduced me to a colleague as "the best student I ever had." I managed not to dissolve in laughter. Apparently he managed to forget in the 18 years since I graduated Hopkins that I was at best a C+ student. Also had an interesting conversation with a guy from a company called Flextegrity, that's apparently hawking some sort of scalable, bucky-ball-like system that can be used for everything from walks to walls to (scaled up fully) entire buildings.

After the reception I was still hungry (just having nommed on some cut-up melon & pineapple, and a small piece of overcooked wild salmon), so I strolled down to Gastown. Found an Italian restaurant and had a nice dinner of veal medallions in a wild mushroom sauce. I did get to see the Steam Clock in action.

Back In Canada

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:24:33 GMT

Arrived safely in Vancouver, with luggage. The Hotel Le Soleil so far seems to be a lovely boutique hotel. I have a suite--sitting room, bathroom, and bedroom. There are bathrobes in the closet, and the wireless is free. I can see the Hyatt (where my conference is) from my room, a very short two-block stroll. I'm betting my room is nicer than my colleagues' rooms over there, and I'm paying less. (Aside to daisy_knotwise & billroper: John Duntemann was on my flight along with another guy from WJE.)

The desk pointed me at an IGA supermarket a few blocks away. Unfortunately they were sold out of Passover stuff for the moment, but I found a fruit salad and a package of Mott's Fruitsations (like applesauce, except this has mango & peach too) that'll do for a snack tonight and breakfast tomorrow (along with the fruit slices and mandel cuts I brought along) until I can get back to the IGA tomorrow.

Surprisingly I'm not completely falling over, considering it's almost 1:30am back East. Maybe it was the brisk stroll to the IGA. But I've got a long day tomorrow, so I should go to bed.

Happy Birthday Wishes

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:36:00 GMT

Wishing a Very Happy Birthday to my lovely and devoted partner in Nova- and Luna-herding, the_sheryl!!

FKO 18 -- Filkin' Down The Highway, Part I

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:08:11 GMT

Picking up from my brief post Monday with a more complete conrep. As already blogged elsewhere, the fine folks at FilKONtario put on another fabulous weekend. For only the third time in 15 years of attending, I chose to drive, rather than us paying two $450 airfares. Both drives were actually quite pleasant. It took us a little over 10 hours to get up (going the all-highways route via Pittsburgh) and just short of 9-1/2 coming back (via US-15 through Williamsport & Harrisburg). Caught up on a bunch of CD listening, including They Might Be Giants' "Dial-A-Song", a Warren Zevon collection, and the two-disc Lafitte's Return--Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music set. Having taken I-79 up, we passed by Cooper's Lake, which is about as close as you'll ever get us to Pennsic without a kidnapping involved.

It's been said many times that filk conventions are magic places. If I didn't believe that before, I sure do now. I'd come down with laryngitis (or something similar) the Tuesday before the con, and as of Friday morning still had limited voice. In fact I had Sheryl drive us across the border, since I certainly didn't want to be the one talking. And yet, somewhere between the 403 and the front door of the Delta I suddenly recovered most of my voice, and actually managed to sing a few carefully selected songs Friday night (a-capella or fingerpicked). Happily by Saturday I seemed to be close to, if not at normal. At least close enough to loose a rockin' "Sedona" in open filk. Meanwhile, I discovered that "Wishful Thinking" (or more precisely, "Healthy Thinking", my contribution to a round of medical songs) works quite nicely fingerpicked rather than strummed as I usually do it. The things one finds while compensating.

Assorted highlights and amusements of the weekend (many covered in detail elsewhere):

-- sexybass and sposter's wedding. Bride & groom were radiant, and the ceremony was lovely. Filkers clean up so nicely (*grin*). I wonder how many times it will take for my friends to stop doing double-takes when I turn up in a blazer and slacks.

-- UT's Friday night concert. lord_korak appearance during "Those Were The 70's", busting out the finest dance moves to be seen on the FilKONtario stage since it_aint_easy's Technonerdboy dance back in the mid-90's. "Magic's In The Air" and unkbar's look of mock offense at the "at least he's not a bear..." line.

-- Katie Beth Roper watching her dad's Filk Waif concert. From our perpsective, we could just see her head peeking over the edge of the stage. It reminded us of when Nova comes up to the front door when we're unloading food or whatever from the car, and we can just see her furry white and brown head peeking up over the bottom of the storm/screen door.

-- billroper and daisy_knotwise performing "Stuff". Oh yeah, we understand *grin*. And of course "Apology" is always fun.

-- Marilyn Miller's Interfilk set. We'd had a chance to see her at LACon IV, but her computer (which provides backing track and commentary) wasn't behaving. This time, any technical difficulties were ironed out and we got the full "Marilyn and Mac" show complete with onstage banter.

-- vixyish and tfabris's rockin' GOH set. "Peppercrumb" with visual aids. The well-timed tuning break that let Vixy launch her birthday conspiracy (and Tony's "Aw geez" look when the audience burst into song). "Apprentice" and "Companion" (the latter of which keeps floating across my brain). They got a well-deserved standing ovation (and looked so adorably sheepish receiving it *grin*).

And it's time to go to bed...we'll pick up the rest tomorrow or Tuesday.

Party Reminder -- This Saturday!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:24:38 GMT

As seen in this post, we're having a party on Saturday to celebrate Sheryl's birthday, starting around 2pm. (A week early, but her parents will be here next weekend, plus it's Passover.) Drop a comment here if you need directions.

We Don't Make Sense...But We Like Pizza!

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:46:39 GMT

Home from another fabulous FKO! Made the drive back in an impressive 9 hours and 20 minutes, which included getting briefly lost in suburban Buffalo. (I'll note I did stop to ask for directions.) Ordered and quickly consumed pizza. Found our bedroom trash can overturned and its contents scattered around. Gee...did someone (specifically two furry "meep"-ing someones) miss us? Tivo appears to have recorded Numb3rs and BSG. Yay.

More when I can assemble a con-rep's worth of coherent thoughts.

Oh, This Is So True!

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:51:27 GMT

Both in that I need my morning caffeine, and in that a certain Nova-kitty likes to try and drink out of my glasses and mugs.

(I'll note the kitteh in the picture looks more like Luna, however.)

I Guess They Could Go 2 and 160

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:59:19 GMT

But for now, I'm a very happy Washington Nationals fan. Watched Opening Day Sunday evening from the comforts of home. One could not have asked for a better inaugural game for Nationals Park--two runs in the first inning and Ryan Zimmerman's two-out bottom of ninth game-winning home run. Well OK, some Nats offense in the intervening seven innings would have been nice too. But I'm not a perfectionist, and the missing offense turned up Monday night at the expense of several hapless Philly pitchers. Anyway, after last year, where achieving basic mediocrity was considered a huge success, two wins are a great start for the New Improved Nationals [Now With 33% More Budget and Organic Home-Grown Owners!]

Meanwhile, I see that my Favorite Player of 2007, Jarrod Saltalamacchia (he of the longest last name in MLB, AFAIK) is starting 2008 at the Rangers' AAA team in Oklahoma. That's OK--in the meantime I can keep an eye on Cubs rookie Kosuke Fukudome, who I figure is an FCC indecency fine just waiting to befall some unfortunate broadcaster.

Elevated Engineers

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:06:03 GMT

And in a more uplifting note, here's a news story on four UC Santa Cruz students who won a student robotics by constructing a 20-foot long solar-powered prototype for a "space elevator". The contest was sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineer's Aerospace Division and the prize awarded at a recent conference in Long Beach. Granted, the students aren't the only ones out there pursuing the concept--SF fans may be familiar with The LiftPort Group, who've made presentations at Balticon--but as with the race for commercial manned space flight (XCor, Scaled Composites, etc.) it certainly can't hurt to have multiple teams pursuing the goal.

Flying The Unfriendly Skies

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:12:49 GMT

I've been meaning to post for a few weeks a rant about the latest way airlines have decided to soak their passengers. Namely, the concept of charging $25 for a second checked bag. This started with United, and has now spread to US Air, Delta, and apparently now Northwest. Of course, the airlines are claiming this is needed to cover increased fuel costs. Gee, I guess things like doubling the typical economy rate on some of their routes (like the Toronto to DC/Baltimore routes) haven't quite done the job.

The issue this creates for us is that we're three-bag people (at least) on a typical con trip. For me, I have my laptop bag, rolling suitcase, and guitar; Sheryl's similar except she has her purse too. And recently, we've given up on trying to carry our guitars on board. Not so much due to any resistance from the airlines in doing so; mainly because we were getting tired of toting both our guitars and shoulder bags down the concourse. Especially given that we typically grab food to carry on the plane. We're not octopoidal.

So now it would cost us an extra $50 bucks each to check both our guitars and our suitcases, if we do like we've been doing. More likely is that we'll probably check the guitars and carry on our rolling bags. Or the reverse, but that gets us back to the really-needing-a-third-hand to grab food. (Or showing up early enough of the airport for a sit-down meal.) Or ditch our current rolling bags in favor of the ones I've seen with detachable laptop compartments. But of course I hate to abandon perfectly serviceable luggage.

Of course, I'm not just thinking about the woes of traveling musicians. I know the airlines have been wanting for years to get passengers to bring fewer carryons. Especially now with some new remove-this or limit-that security measure popping up every year or so; the more bags people are trying to manipulate, the worse the security lines get. So of course these new fees are going result in more travelers overall wanting to bring their second bag on board and squeeze it in the overheads. A recipe for chaos. (Oh, and I haven't seen an article say what happens if you have to gate check a bag. Do you get charged if it's your second piece? Are they going to check your tickets for checked-baggage tags?)

Hmm...maybe I should just either buy a Martin Backpacker or take up the bouzouki (as Beth P. says, "In airports it's a banjo!").