Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

... to birthday twins tetralizard and geojlc!!!! Have a great one!!

FilKONtario: Saturday

Still being on West Coast time, getting up at my usual 6am meant that it was nearly 10am local by the time we got downstairs for breakfast; still, I managed to connect with ohiblather, who had spotted a good hole in the program for us to rehearse in. We'd originally planned to do it during the one-shots, except that they had the one-shots split up into 15-minute segments. But there was a break after one of those segments...

Got to Bill Roper's concert, the one-shots afterward, and Marilyn Miller's Interfilk concert. Idiot that I am, I hadn't set up to record; I'd forgotten that Marilyn likes my songs -- she sang "Paper Wings" and "World Inside the Crystal". The former gave me a perfect excuse to sing "Paper Pings" later on in a circle...

Marilyn has a fantastic voice, and performs with her "music partner" Mac (running Band-in-a-Box) for backup. Performing with a computer requires being able to get through every song in your set without making any mistakes that throw off your timing. No false starts, no repeated lines, no vamping. I sure as heck couldn't do it.

Immediately after Marilyn's concert, Debbie and I went up to my room to run through "World Inside the Crystal" for Sunday's Hall of Fame concert. It was my first time playing with Debbie -- definitely not the last. We also did "Ship of Stone" just for the heck of it. We need to get together and just jam for a while.

Missed about half of the Bedlam Bards concert. It was followed by vixy and Tony's GoH concert -- fantastic fun. Especially the part where, after singing "Re: Your Brains" in French (with Urban Tapestry holding the subtitles on posters), she segued seamlessly into asking the audience to sing "Happy Birthday" for Tony. Who had picked that moment to tune for the next song... And I'm always a sucker for "Six String Love"; she looks in my direction when she sings the line about Ovations. I have this weakness for red-haired sopranos...

After that, it was time to go upstairs and change for the Filk Hall of Fame banquet. Tasty, and some good conversation, but I was a little preoccupied.

I'd been thinking worrying about my acceptance speech all week, but hadn't gotten very far with it beyond the first few phrases. Should have just crawled into a corner for a couple of hours and worked on it, but in the end just got up there and winged it. Managed to hit most of the high points, though I'm sure I left out a few. Colleen came in at a couple of critical points, especially at the end where I referred to filk as our community, and she corrected it to "family". Yes.

Came down from the con suite early enough to get decent seats for the open filk in Hawthorn. Seemed smaller than Friday's, probably because the other rooms were warm enough for people to stay in them. Sang "Ship of Stone", hoping Debbie would join in, but she just wanted to listen. And "The River" -- it's my newest and one of my two or three best, and hardly anyone's heard it yet.

Got to bed somewhere around 2:30.

FilKONtario: Sunday

Finished breakfast just barely in time for the workshops on Sunday morning. I was torn between Vixy's performance workshop, and Bill Roper's "Forward Engineering a Song", and ended up with Vixy mainly because I could find the room. Missed the anecdote that inspired the intriguing title ("Step out of your bloomers"), but the workshop was definitely what I needed. I know how to figure out chords for a song; performance is my weak spot. And I'd been angsting over the Hall of Fame concert for weeks.

Got to Heather Bruton's slide show, which was wonderful, and a few minutes of Ju's concert before slipping out to find a quiet room to tune and practice in.

Here's the HoF Concert setlist:

"The Chicken Song" (sung by billroper and Marilisa) -- much fun.

"Bigger On The Inside" -- the epitome of a fannish/filkish household: I really had to put this one in.

"There She Goes" (sung by jhayman)

"The World Inside the Crystal" -- had to put my Pegasus winner in, and it's also noteworthy as my first serious computer song. I was joined by ohiblather on flute for this one -- it really sounds better with flute.

"Starship Unity" (Judith)

"Keep the Dream Alive" -- I choked up a little on this one; I still do occasionally.

"I Am the Destroyer" (Bill)

"The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" -- choked up a lot on the last lines, just like I usually do.

"Harbors" (Sung by allisona)

"Ship of Stone" -- Still the best filksong ever written. I get to say that because Don Simpson wrote it.

One of my better performances, I think. I nailed "Ship of Stone", which is the one I really wanted to do justice to. Probably WItC as well, but I was enjoying Debbie's flute work too much to care. It helps to practice almost every day for a month. No, I wasn't worried...

The Dead Moose and Penguin circle in the Alderwood room was a lot of fun. I don't remember everything I sang, but I did Janis Ian's "The Last Train" at andpuff's request, and closed with "The River" after determining that Tom and Sue hadn't heard it yet.