Tres Gique's concert at Baycon will be Friday, May 23rd at 10pm. We are now taking suggestions for a set list. What will you kill us if we don't perform? What will you kill us if we do perform?
("Desolation Row" is already off the list. "The River" is on. All of the songs from my concert at FKO are on except for "Bigger on the Inside".)
A random link from FKO: A good photo of me and Debbie in the Hall of Fame concert. There are a few more shots of the concert from the same stream.
Travel notes:
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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small} 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.
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.
(I'm afraid that this, like most of my con reports recently, is going to be pretty sketchy. It should be possible to get a better picture of the con through other peoples' entries, as seen through my fko memory keyword. It would be better if you could AND keywords to get just 2008, and sort in reverse. Stupid LJ.)
The hotel has a good breakfast buffet -- I had berries, bacon, sausage,
ham, one egg Benedict, and an omelette. The sausage and Benedict weren't
so good, but the blackberries and bacon more than made up for it. I like
to eat a breakfast consisting mostly of protein; after that I can easily
skip lunch. Got together with ohiblather long enough to
arrange a practice session for early Saturday afternoon.
It should be no surprise that Friday afternoon was almost entirely spent
socializing. Colleen parked herself in one of the chairs next to the
conversation pit with the piano, where a succession of con-goers including
deborah_c and Interfilk guest Marilyn Miller occasionally
entertained. Colleen, as usual, prodded me to sing as well. I really
like taking Plink to cons; the little Vagabond is perfect for lobby,
hallway, and con-suite filking.
Most of my lobby and con-suite singing involved either "Ferret Went A-Courtin'" or The River.
Tom and Sue's wedding started the evening. Lovely mostly-Celtic ceremony, with music afterward, and a desert reception. The best feature for me was, of course, not having to do anything besides show up; I wore my "Father of the Bride" costume from last month: dark red shirt under a tail coat.
The wedding was followed by opening ceremonies (which I barely arrived in time for), and the Urban Tapestry and Heather Dale concerts, both of which were a preview for next year, when UT is Filk Waif (which is what they call the Toastmaster) and Heather is GoH. I'm going, if it's at all possible budget-wise.
After that, we went up to the con suite for Vixy and Tony's release party. It was packed, but we managed to buy our four copies (one for us, one for each kid, and one for a friend). It thinned out after a while; we finally got down to the open filking around 1am, and to bed around 2:30. Since we were time-shifted three hours, this was actually pretty close to our usual bedtime.
... slightly belatedly, to tfabris and peteralway!! Was good seeing you at FKO this weekend!
flower_cat and me, in case you didn't know) were inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame; the other inductees were Bob and Anne Passovoy. (Yesterday was travel day -- pretty much a total write-off given a noon flight and a 3-hour time difference. We did manage to get dinner and hang out in the con suite for a while.
Colleen had a lot of trouble with the lack of legroom in the plane; thank goodness it was only a 5-hour flight, with no plane changes.
Forgot batteries for the H2 (and they're *expensive* in the hotel!); that seems to be the only major lack so far. The XO may not have been the best choice of computer; its "terminal" app seems to be failing to pass all of the control characters through. That makes using emacs problematic -- I'll have to see whether I can even post this. I'm *very* glad I thought to bring my Linksys travel router, though, since the XO also doesn't have ethernet.
Well, we're packed and ready to go. I decided to take only the XO, with a minimum of data -- anything else I need I can grab from the web. Then at the last minute I decided to put a copy of my working directories onto a USB drive; it'll probably take all night at the rate it's going. Grump.
I also decided not to take CDs for sale -- I know at least two dealers are going to be there, and if they don't have enough stock, well... At some point I'll have to figure out the proper procedure for taking stuff for sale through customs, but I don't have time to research it tonight.
The purchase of Livejournal by a Russian-owned company raised questions at the time of SUP's commitment to LJ's long-standing relationship with its user community, for good and ill. The recent decision to drop the ad-free Basic account is "a business decision. It is, emphatically." It may however be a poor business decision, one made in the hopes of making a fast buck off the content provided by the users without understanding the background of those users' relationship with the site. The removal, for whatever reason, of possibly controversial interests gives users good reason to worry that we are not wanted on a site we helped make so popular. The restoration of those interests, allowing us our thoughts on yaoi once more, does not immediately restore our faith in the company, especially with the clandestine removal of the primary way in which most of us first came to the site (and then brought our friends).(Emphasis mine. This is basically dead on.)
In short, Livejournal users no longer feel like customers, but product, and that's bad business all around.
My analysis of today's LJ content strike can be found at:
http://steve.savitzky.net/Doc/Web/2008/missing_the_point/
Many of the people on my flist are respecting the strike (reluctantly in some cases); many more are ignoring it either because they haven't heard about it, or because they don't believe in either its goals, its methods, or both. A few have gone on to post the reasons why they are or are not respecting it. Almost all the arguments I've seen, on both sides of the debate, are missing the point entirely. I don't think even the originators of the strike understand it fully.
Bottom line: it was never intended as an economic weapon; it's merely a simple, reasonably painless way of sending a message both to LJ's Russian overlords, the public at large, and to ourselves. Of the three, the message to ourselves is perhaps the most important:
Leaving LJ isn't really a good option right now, because there's still a community here. If we could all pull up roots and transfer our blogs, our comments, and our network of friends over to someplace better, I think most of us would do it. I think we should be figuring out how to do just that, and not by moving to another centralized service that will eventually betray us in turn, but by building a decentralized community that can keep us in touch after we all take back control of our own content and "to our scattered servers go".
Some post-strike links I like: a post-strike analysis from technoshaman, and a good economic and cultural
analysis by chipotle (by way of lysana). A striker
returns...and responds to the critics by thatcrazycajun.
(added 3/22: this post is also noted in comments to this post by beckyzoole.)
The 24 hour LJ content strike begins at midnight GMT on Friday, which works out to 5pm here on the US West Coast.
It will be a largely futile gesture; I was originally not going to
participate. But after reading this interview with
Anton Nosik of SUP (the new owners), [he provides a response here], I was
sufficiently infuriated to join in. This despite the fact that theljstaff, hiding behind a pseudonym in an obscure account, has
posted a
half-hearted apology. beckyzoole lists some reasons for
going through with the strike here.
Do I think the strike will have any effect whatever on LJ? No. But it will have an effect on those who participate, and on those who read our journals. LJ has, once again, shown its total contempt for its users. Fine. The strike is our gesture of our contempt for them. Sure, it's the equivalent of shaking your fist at the bus that just splashed mud on you as it drove by. But it feels good. See you tomorrow.
When last we left the Mandelbear, the infinitely fuzzy creature was even fuzzier than usual, and standing in the receiving line at his daughter's wedding reception. The rest of the con was, needless to say, kind of a blur.
Saturday pm:
My biggest regret of the afternoon was missing hsifyppah's
concert, where she sang "World Inside the Crystal" to the tune of
"Velveteen". If anyone has a recording of that, I'd really
appreciate a copy. I came in sometime during the Riverfolk set.
I don't think I'm going to say much about the concerts; I went to all the
rest of them, but was still a bit distracted. My Mom and my niece
(Caroline) stayed through the dead dog, and had a blast in the concerts.
The lovely and amazing judifilksign was, as usual, an absolute
delight to watch; the fan fund that brought her out (and to which I
contributed) really got their money's worth.
Sunday:
Started off the afternoon with the twofers; I sang "Stuff that Dreams are
Made Of" and "The River", with cflute; unfortunately I was
brain-fried and didn't record the set. Grumf. Again, if anyone out there
has a recording...
Missed figmo's concert, unfortunately, to handle things like
paying for the wedding guests' memberships and the family's memberships
for next year.
Went out for dinner just ahead of the Rock Jam; came back for the Dead
Dog Moose. Mom and Caroline stayed until nearly 10:30 -- I get
the feeling they like filk. Skipped out shortly thereafter for a while for
conversation, and came back to a nearly empty room. Kristoph requested
"Desolation Row"; I followed it with "Desolation, Oh No", which got laughs
as usual. Later sang "The River" -- I think it's the only time I've seen
Kristoph impressed with one of my songs.
... fortunately I've arranged to take one.
Consonance was, as usual, wonderful. But not in the usual way: this year, my daughter's wedding was at the top of the program for Saturday morning. Eek!
Let's back up a little.
( Thursday and Friday )( Saturday morning: the Wedding )
... to be continued.
... in about an hour. The plan is for me to load the van, then stay here while Colleen plays truck-driver. I get to accept delivery of packages, reload the van whenever it shows up, search for the missing con suite supplies, collect the Y.D. at school, and finally end up at the hotel in time for the rehearsal dinner.
(11:00 all supplies found, including the large coffeepot, which finally turned up under the dining table behind a case of wine. I still have to hard-boil a big pile of eggs, and of course pack, but I'm not actually moving in to the hotel until tomorrow.)
The real insanity starts tomorrow.
I got a little less than I expected done yesterday at work, but only a little. The little CGI side-project got sidelined, but the main rush job (also a CGI) was brought to a workable state in time for the other group needing it. It was down to the wire: I was sending pessimistic status emails right up until 5:15, when it finally worked. All hail Perl, the Swiss army chainsaw of programming languages.
A lot of things have fallen through the cracks. I don't think any of my songs made it into the CD-ROM "songbook", for example, and no work to speak of has been done on the next album or the collaboration/subscription website that is intended to serve in lieu of pre-orders. And taxes? Hah!
This comic strip by ohiblather is, unfortunately, right
on target for me.
Spent a lot of Sunday in conversation, and managed to miss about half of the juried one-shots. Sorry about that; the ones I heard were good, and a lot of useful advice was given.
Passed on much of the Worldcon songwriting contest, but I heard the
winning entry, which deserved it. Stayed for ASH Productions' and Merav's
concerts. By that time people were melting down all over the con after
the announcement of Greg McMullan's tragic death. I spent much of the
rest of the day and evening with pocketnaomi in full Middle Sized Bear mode. It turns out to be something I hadn't
realized I was pretty good at.
I got in two songs in the dead dog Smoked Salmon: "When I Was a
Lad" as a follower to tarkrai's performance of "When I was a
Boy" (which used up my one poker chip), and at the very end I led the
group in "The Mary Ellen Carter". I was kind of surprised it hadn't been
sung earlier, but it had to be sung sometime. Missed the second verse; I
had stupidly printed out my songbook rather than the complete collection
(including other peoples' stuff).
The rest of the Big Green Monster's household and houseguests left well before midnight; I'd kept my room, so crawled off to pack and sleep.
Saturday at Conflikt started with the buffet brunch. Unexciting; bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, french toast (which I passed on because of its high glycemic index), potatoes (tasty, but I only took a little), toasted baguette with some kind of warm dip, pastries (passed on), and a few other breakfasty items I can't remember now. The con had ordered what the hotel thought was enough bacon for the number of people; they ran out. Filkers don't eat like "normal" people; for anyone on a low-carb diet the bacon and eggs were about the only things they could eat.
Every table had a couple of slips of paper with instafilk topics; ours technological, (don't remember exactly) but I was feeling uninspired. The conversation was great, though.
I skipped the role-playing singalong; putting the songs up on a screen
with a projector was a good idea, though. Came in afterward to set up for
recording the twofers. tibicina had the first slot; I had the
second. Sang "The Toolmakers" (at pocketnaomi's request) and
"The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" (with cflute on flute).
Went pretty well; cflute noted that I still need to be capo 2
on "Toolmakers"; I was bottoming out. Plink, my little Vagabond travel
guitar, sounds awesome amplified. I'll definitely have to find
myself a small portable amp. Or hack a preamp together and use it with my
battery-powered speakers.
Skipped the songbook sing-along, and came back for the Interfilk guests' "concert". Since Steven Joel isn't a performer, this consisted of a mix of live and recorded performances by other people. Good to hear some of those old tapes again.
Went with cflute, jenkitty, pocietnaomi, and tibicina to an early dinner in the
hotel restaurant.
sooj and stealthcello's concert was wonderful. I
had no idea anyone made carbon-fiber cellos. The room, which would have
been fine for the expected 80 members, was packed; I ended up on the
right-hand end of the front row with cflute and her minions.
cflute's Toastmistress concert was next; I had a couple of
pieces in the last third, and took advantage of the setup interval to
tune. I sang "Cicero in the 21st Century" and "World Inside the Crystal"
(probably our strongest songs), and played guitar on Harold Groot's "In
Our Fathers' Footsteps" and (corrected:) Callie's "Circles of Music". We skipped
"Demon Lover" because Callie's voice was weakening by that point.
Added: cflute's complete set list here.
This was followed by tarkrai's GOH concert, which was his
usual high-energy amazingness. He ended by leading the group in "Many
Hearts, One Voice", adding Conflikt to the Worldream chorus.
I don't recall spening any time at all in the open filking; spent most of
the rest of the evening talking. I seem to do that more and more at filk
cons, and I'm OK with that. Ended the night in a long, deep, wide-ranging
conversation with pocketnaomi.
The convoy from the Big Green Monster arrived at Conflikt around 1:30 and unloaded. Ended up swapping my suite (the only room left in the con's room block when I made the reservation) for a double/double at the convention rate (they had me at a higher rate in spite of the fact that I'd been told I'd be getting the con rate).
The rest of the afternoon was spent recording some songs for the brunch CD ("Jabberwocky" and "Stuff that Dreams are Made Of", and getting a haircut from (Interfilk guest) France Andrews. She's a professional hairdresser and has been doing haircuts at cons in exchange for an Interfilk contribution for years. She trimmed a couple of inches off the ponytail, and trimmed my beard rather aggressively with an eye toward having it grown out to the proper length in time for the wedding at Consonance.
By the time I noticed what time it was, it was after 6pm, so I had a soup-and-appetizer dinner in the hotel restaurant. I haven't been eating much this trip, and I'm not complaining. Perhaps the low-sugar diet is starting to work.
Concerts were predictably spectacular -- cadhla's started out
with technical difficulties and included what she called a cursed song,
but her usual amazing stage presence allowed her to make the mayhem feel
like part of the set. Wow. jhitchen's set combined music and
stand-up comedy, and katyhh's was simply beautiful.
I never made it back to the open filking, but there was some
lots of good song-swapping in the con suite. Fun!
The only major hitch was losing track of the piece of paper where I'd
written _amethyst_fire_'s parents' phone number, which I'd
found earlier in the week and then both neglected to type in, and
misplaced. Finally found it this morning, but haven't gotten a callback
yet. Combination of phone phobia and procrastination strikes again. Dumb
bear.
