Meant to get this up earlier. Here's my schedule for Boskone:


Worldbuilding in Songs
Friday 20:00 - 21:00, Lewis (Westin)

In a song, you only have a few minutes to draw the audience into a world and tell your story. If your song is set in an original world, rather than an off-the-shelf one, you have to pack all your worldbuilding into those few minutes. In this panel, we'll talk about songs that do this well, and how they do it. Benjamin Newman, Gary Ehrlich, Ellen Kranzer (M)

Kids Concert With Gary Ehrlich and Mary Ellen Wessels
Saturday 11:00 - 12:00, Galleria - DragonsLair (Westin)

Gary Ehrlich Concert
Saturday 12:30 - 13:00, Lewis (Westin)

Song Sequitur
Saturday 15:00 - 16:00, Lewis (Westin)

Join our panel of performers for this impromptu round robin, where every song must "follow" the previous song... somehow. Benjamin Newman, Roberta Rogow, Gary Ehrlich, Lojo Russo, Lorraine Garland

Cat Songs Sing-Along
Sunday 14:00 - 15:00, Lewis (Westin)

Come sing along to some of our favorite filk and folk songs about cats! Lyrics will be projected. Lorraine Garland, Lojo Russo, Gary Ehrlich

An already sad day has gotten sadder...Larry Smith, seller of books to large portions of the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast, passed away this morning. From what I've seen posted, apparently he suffered an aortic aneurysm and collapsed at home. He was being wheeled into surgery when he left us.

I have suffered many, many cashectomies at Larry's hands over the years; most of the SF and fantasy novels on my shelves were bought from him and Sally. It got to the point where I felt embarrassed whenever I only wrote a him two-figure check. Once, on spotting me adding a copy of Adventures from the Technology Underground to my stack, he even said "I had you in mind when I picked up that one."

I believe Larry was also one of the founders of OVFF and has been running its dealer's room for many years.

I can imagine Larry sitting behind a dealer's table at HeavenCon happily selling books to all of his best customers who preceded him beyond the Rim.

Because life with a toddler means never having time/energy to post.

( OVFFCollapse )

( PhilconCollapse )

( ChessieconCollapse )

After taking a year off from Worldcon to become parents, we made our return with a trip to Kansas City for Midamericon II (aka Bic Mac2).

We had a good time at Midamericon. My only real gripe is that navigating downtown Kansas City was interesting. The Marriott we stayed in was uphill from the convention center (and two long blocks), and the Power and Light District where most of the restaurants were was downhill from both. I swear there were a couple of lunch/dinner expeditions where we managed to WALK UPHILL BOTH WAYS. Add to that pushing a stroller and I swore early on that the week was either going to kill me or get me in shape. Clearly it didn't kill me. The jury is still out on the latter.

The filk program was excellent, including concerts from Cheshire Moon, the Suttons, Kathy Mar, Three-Fifths, Alexander James Adams, and the Tomboat Reunion Concert. Parts of which I watched/listened to from the hallway so Sam could crawl around and babble without disturbing the concerts. Such are the joys of parenthood. On the other hand, at one point during the Tomboat concert when I *did* have Sam in the room and still let him go crawling, he discovered an empty jug from the water cooler, whereupon he started giving Cathy McManamon a run for her money on percussion! 8-)

Separate from the filk program Paul & Storm had a 90-minute concert, which was very nice since we haven't seen them in a while. (And when we have it's often been as openers for Jonathan Coulton, so we only got 30-minute sets.) Most of the room had not heard them before, making it particularly amusing for folks like us who've been following P&S since DaVinci's Notebook days.

I had a concert of my own that went well. A decent audience, probably helped by the fact I was "opening" for Trickster and King. And I felt like it was one of my better performances. The setlist was:

Never Too Late (words and music me)
One More Earworm (words me, music trad)
Through a Child's Eyes (words and music me)
Bridge Shanty (words and music me)
Builder's Song (words and music me)
Come Travel With Me (words and music me)

I used the scheduling to full advantage, putting "One More Earworm" in the set on account of its "My Brother, My Enemy" reference and dedicating "Builder's Song" to Ada. I also referenced Balticon 2013 and the Sundown rollout as part of the inter-song banter. Why yes, I am evil (*grin*).

My only other program item besides the concert was a panel on "The Future of Cities". Alex Jabolow moderated, Brenda Cooper, Renee Sieber and xx were the other panelists. It was an excellent panel. Much of the discussion focused on "smart cities" and how technology and "Big Data" can and is being used to improve the functioning and governance of cities. I contributed a fair amount on resilient cities, since I am spending a fair amount of my professional life these days dealing with that topic. We also talked a bit about dystopias and utopias in science fiction and why there seem to be more of the former.

In other programming, I caught readings by Sunil Patel, Ada Palmer, Rob Sawyer and John Scalzi, as well as a panel on "Cats!", which included Esther Friesner, Tamora Pierce, and the Hugo-winning Naomi Kritzer and a panel/game show on "Your Character Ate What?" with Fran Wilde hosting and Max Gladstone, Elizabeth Bear, Esther, and Scott Lynch serving as a panel offering "helpful" answers to questions about food and eating in SF and fantasy novels. I volunteered for one of the rounds and won thanks to Max jogging my memory about the race of Stone Eaters from N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. I also offered up Sam's grey-and-white stuffed kitty as a mascot for the "Cats!" panel. After finding out we hadn't named said kitty, Tamora declared it "Scoundrel".

We managed to find some time to get away from the convention and enjoy some of Kansas City's other offerings. We blew off the first few hours of the con to visit the co-located Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum. We blew off the last few hours to attend a Roysls-Twins game at Kauffman Stadium. Amusingly, this was Sam's first baseball game, which shows you how organized we are given we live within an hour's drive of two major league teams!

Several times I noted with amusement that I have a major work event right back at the Marriott and convention center in October, making this a "dry run". I now have a list of good restaurants to share with my colleagues, including BRGR, the Drunken Fish (sushi, noodles and teriyaki), and the Yard House. And Cosentino's Market if for a quick meal from the salad bar, a pre-made or fresh sandwich to go, or simply a few snacks.

So far in July I have:
-- Attended (and helped run) Conterpoint 2016
-- Gone on a 3-day business trip to Chicago
-- Hosted my in-laws for a weekend
-- Came down with a cold (possibly delayed con crud)
-- Gone on an overnight business trip to Chicago
-- Gone on a 3-day business trip to Casper, Wyoming

I believe I have discovered what it takes to achieve a state of complete exhaustion.

I'm going to bed now.

The 50th Balticon is in the books. We survived. Mostly.

As you know if you were there, and may have heard rumored if not, there were significant anomalies in the way the program was put together this year. Key people failed to delegate when needed, made decisions without consulting the affected program track head(s), or otherwise failed to communicate. (In a few cases the communication failures were mine. I certainly apologize for those.) At least six different rooms were used for filk or music-related events over the course of the weekend. Open filk was scheduled for a different room each night, though we ended up using the same room Saturday and Sunday to fix a Sunday program conflict. (So we could test the acoustics and decide which room we liked best, I was told.)

Also, not surprisingly, there were some growing pains in the first year at a new hotel, not to mention the basic challenges inherent in accommodating 2800 attendees, even given the larger area of function space available in the Renaissance. (It is noted the space has capacity for 3200 people.) I suspect next year's team will be taking a look at how we used the space and perhaps reduce the extent to which people are attempting to travel vertically up and down within the hotel. Better identification of which stairs can get you where would also be useful.

( Now on to the things that worked!Collapse )

We got home from another great FilKONtario around 4pm yesterday, tired but happy.

I had been worried my two-decade-plus streak was going to come to an end due either to Sam's adoption not being finalized or not being able to get the right papers in time. Ironically, the Canadian border security agent waved off my attempt to hand her the adoption decree and related documents. We got a few more questions on the way back, partly because I confused the US Customs agent by handing him Sam's bris certificate (which obviously is partly in Hebrew) as proof of his birth date. But no serious problems.

Even more ironically, upon arriving home we found an envelope from the agency's attorney with Sam's birth certificate. HEY THANKS GUYS YOU COULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN IT TO US THURSDAY?!?

Got to spend a fair amount of time with Cat Greenberg and her little one, including being able to sit les bébés in side-by-side high chairs at the Filk Hall of Fame banquet. (Thanks to Dave/Judith/whoever was able to arrange that.) And again at Montana's Sunday evening.

Sam was mostly good, though I had to take him out of the main room a few times. Aunties Judith, Maya, and Beth all got their share of arm time, plus we made sure he got his first Decadent Dave hug (and accompanying knee bounce). There's a possibility he may replace the penguins as FKO mascot next year. Or be co-mascot. Or at least be deemed an Honorary Canadian.

Meanwhile, he caused some amusement at the Dead Penguin. I put him down on the floor at one point to let him crawl around, whereupon he made a beeline across the floor to where Alan and Morva were sitting, knocked over Morva's water bottle, and started playing with it. Oops!

Our Sam and Cat's son are going to blaze a trail of chaos, disorder and mayhem through MidAmeriCon II this summer. It will be a wonder and delight to behold. 8-)

Meanwhile, there was a filk convention going on. Between baby-wrangling and being tired due to recent business travel, I missed parts of some concerts and others were a blur. Cecelia's was fun, and I will almost certainly have "Our Mrs. Reynolds" stuck in my brain for the next month. That or "Passion Flower". (Sorry gundo, your evil schemes fail this time.) batyatoon did well with her Interfilk set, and I was able to join her backing chorus for "Mockingjay". Leslie Hudson had a rockin' set on Friday evening, and the Faithful Sidekicks on Sunday prior to the Hall of Fame concert.

Spent a little less time in open filk than usual, but made the most of it. In the Song Sequitur filk I followed Peggi's recitation of Les Barker's "The Lemmings Reunion" with thatcrazycajun's "Lunacon Hotel". The link? Going from strange critters in a normal hotel to normal(?) people in a strange hotel. And of course swapped Schooner Fare songs with Art Warnecke.

As you may have seen elsewhere, Eli Goldberg and Mark Bernstein were this year's inductees. Both very well deserved. Mark's speech can be found here. Seeing Eli get inducted brings back memories, since Steve Brinich, Sue Cochran, Bill Wells and I used his Pittsburgh house as a way station on the way to and from FilKONtario 4. And Mark is someone whose music, shtick and conversation I've enjoyed for a long time. Speaking of conversation, the part in Mark's citation about holding court in the con suite discoursing on favorite books, media and musicals? My fault (*wink*).

The first full week of 2016 has definitely gone much better than the last week of 2015. Between not sleeping well on the guest bed in the_sheryl's parents' Florida condo, getting home late due to a 2-hour flight delay, and two nights I had trouble sleeping fretting about things I needed to get done at both work and home before the ball dropped in Times Square, I was pretty fried by the time New Year's Eve rolled around. So I had a largely unproductive 3-1/2 day weekend in terms of knocking off any of the around-the-house projects I have, with the exception of cleaning the bathroom and straightening up Sam's room on Sunday. Other than our NYE dinner and Nookery stop, most of the rest of the weekend was spent lazing around the house and watching stuff on the DVR, although we did make it to one round of this month's FSGW Open Sing.

This week has been a smoother ride. I succeeded in my two major tasks for the work week (preparing for $EMPLOYER's upcoming board meeting and readying a couple of code proposals for submission) without too much scrambling or stress involved and made some progress on a few tasks at home. So if I spend most of this weekend knocking more stuff off the DVR, that's fine.

By now all my friends who are down in Atlanta have probably realized that we have in fact skipped GAFilk this year. Even though Sam appears to travel well (at least so far), flying with a little one is always an adventure; getting strollers and formula through security, holding a wriggling baby on your lap for two hours, trading said baby back and forth with Sheryl while trying to eat dinner on a tiny tray table in a cramped airplane seat. Plus, adoption is an expensive business, and even though we're financially OK saving the cost of one con isn't such a bad thing. So we'll miss our friends and Play It With Moxie and all, but hopefully we'll see lots of folks at Boskone next month.

As if my readers needed any more proof that we are insane, we just finished attending back-to-back cons with Sam.

( PhilconCollapse )

( ChessieconCollapse )

OVFF was good, but interesting and possibly unique. This was Sam's first con, so we weren't sure quite what to expect. Other than being fussy during the Sunday dead dog, I think he did quite well. It was a smooth drive in both directions, and it only took us about half an hour longer than usual. This may bode well for FKO still being drive-able if we want, rather than falling back on the fly to Buffalo/rent a car scheme.

Not surprisingly, everyone thought Sam was adorable, and many of his Filk Aunties including Auntie Judith, Auntie Brenda and Auntie Naomi got a chance to hold him. We availed ourselves of the excellent children's track, taking him to a Kookieklatch and Storytime, and a Stone Dragons kids concert which also featured janeg, phillip2637, and honorary Canadian catsittingstill. Tom and Sue invited me to sit in for a song, so I offered up musicmutt's "Chocolate is a Vegetable". As for the Kookieklatch, I MADE SAM A KOOKIE BUT I EATED IT. And we were read books about poop (Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi, I think), farts (The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts by Shinta Cho, I think), and time zones (title gone due to Baby Brain).

Watching our friends' reactions was as entertaining as I expected. The prize for the best double-take goes to andpuff, who spotted us rolling Sam past the Lotus Grill, scooped her jaw up off the table where it landed, and came flying out of the restaurant to greet us. Honorable mentions go to unkbar and kilted_singer.

What I caught of various concerts was good. GOH's Heather & Ben performed the entirety of their new album "Imagineer". Toastmasters Kristoph and Margaret covered the spectrum from filk to medieval to Tolkien to Celtic. And it was great to hear Interfilk GOH meritmaat again. Also caught sets from Talis Kimberley, Cheshire Moon, and Joe Giacoio, and jodimuse's CD release concert. Plus sweetmusic27 and judifilksign were on hand because everything is better with fiddles and signing.

Due to the need to make sure I got enough sleep around Mr. Baby's feeding schedule to be functional, I didn't get to sing as much as I have at many OVFF's - or to hear some of the folks I usually seek out in the circles. Friday night I gravitated to one of the small rooms where mrgoodwraith, Bill Davis, and a bunch of folks whose names I didn't catch (and who were really good) but I think were billing themselves as The Usual Suspects. Crashed at around 12:30am. Friday I let the_sheryl enjoy the song contest, Interfilk auction and the early part of open filk while I went upstairs (after a stop at jodimuse's CD release party, put Sam to bed and took a nap. We switched just before midnight and I came back downstairs until around 2:30am. Hit the main room just as catalana and the Ropers were fading but in time to catch a chilling new song of Erica's inspired (IIRC) by a book about the Manhattan Project. Hung out there for about an hour until it looked like that room was starting to fade (and the mood wasn't quite doing it for me), then switched to the room where the Parodies theme filk had been scheduled and was pretty much still going. Caught a couple of songs from filkertom, markbernstein, and mrgoodwraith and got to sing "Let the Redheads Win" with judifilksign sitting right next to me. Obviously, I lived (*grin*). It was a fun little room.

The closing Jam was fun as always. Luckily gundo had a small amp I could borrow, since I'd forgotten to grab mine in the scramble out the door Friday morning. (The Squier I remembered. The amp I didn't even though IT LIVES RIGHT NEXT TO MY GUITAR CASES. Baby Brain again. Also, failure to be smart and stage my musical gear in the foyer Thursday night.) As usual, I offered up "Cover of the Rolling Stone".

Gave mneme and drcpunk a ride to and from BD's but we ended up sharing a table with Bill Laubenheimer, Carole Parker, and Cat Greenberg and her little boy. There was a bit of confusion about how many free spots there were at the table we'd staked out for us and Cat since it had more room around it for strollers and car seats than some of the tables in the area that's usually designated for OVFF. But everything worked out eventually.

All three of us were down for the Dead Dog filk, but I was too brain dead to try and get a song in edgewise in a big, competitive circle. Didn't help that Sam wanted a bottle shortly after we got back from BD's, then was a bit fussy following that even after a diaper change, so I ended up out in the hallway listening to the conversations out there, with Sam up on my shoulder. Finally decided to say goodbye to everyone and pack it in a bit after 10pm. (Which was OK, we needed to get an early start Monday morning since I wanted to be home for the first in a series of 50th anniversary events for the private Jewish school I attended from 7th to 12th grade.)

Next appearances for us will be Philcon (Saturday and Sunday only) and Chessiecon. Then life gets interesting, because our next couple of trips after that require flying. This will be a new challenge for my packing-fu.

Another Balticon has gone into the history books, and with it ends a 10 year-run at the Hunt Valley Inn. This would be the third extended run; Balticon previously had multi-year runs in the late 70's/early 80's and in the early 90's. (There was a period in the mid/late 80's where Balticon appears to have alternated between the Inner Harbor and Hunt Valley.

This was one of the more interesting years of my tenure as Coordinator of Filk and Other Musical Mayhem. There was some uncertainty along the way over whether or how we were going to be able to use some of the space due to hotel renovations. As it turned out we finally did get most (if not all) of it, but in the meantime we'd downsized some of the program. Oh well. In the meantime, some processes that had worked smoothly the previous nine years suddenly...didn't. Hopefully some of those were just bumps. Next year there's both a Balticon and a Conterpoint on my plate, so things are going to be kinda crazy in these parts. (And that's just for starters!) At least I'm not chairing or doing hotel for Conterpoint next year; I'm hoping to mainly focus on publications and website content.

The music program went pretty well. Open filk did fizzle out early side all three nights; the circle was dead before 12:30 on Friday and Saturday and looked like it was starting to lose steam when I went to bed a little after 1:00 on Sunday. That was probably due to a combination of folks being tired from Friday travel, recovering from various ailments, and getting to bed before 10am panels. Plus we're all getting older and can't stay up as far past our normal bedtimes. But we had a most excellent series of concerts, topped by Erica's GOH set and continuing through Decadent Dave, Maugorn, Sassafrass, Glyn Collinson & Andrew Marcus, Steve & Deja, and Cheshire Moon. Plus Dave, Emily, and I had loads of fun entertaining the kids (and each other) for a Sunday morning children's concert. And two people requested songs from me, which is quite unusual.

As is usual for Balticon, I didn't make it to much outside the Music track. I did get to Jo Walton's GOH talk, during which she brought out Sassafrass to sing "Somebody Will". We also got to the "Am I More Sentient Than My Cat?" panel, which featured Erica for a philosophical perspective on the question. Of course, it should be noted the panelists quickly retitled the question "Am I More Sapient Than My Cat?" (I quipped to Sheryl "are we talking before or after I've had coffee?") Meanwhile, I got to experience a panel from the other side of the table as a member of the "Engineers Can't Write" panel, where I offered myself as a living counter-example. (Both professionally and as an amateur songwriter.)

Next year Balticon celebrates its 50th year and returns to the Inner Harbor, moving into the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace. George R.R. Martin heads the guest lineup, and we have the Ropers for Music GOHs.

After reading through my friends' year-end posts, I almost feel guilty posting my own. I know that 2014 really sucked for many of my friends. Several lost loved ones (and many of those I considered friends as well). And several have had career issues, health issues, financial issues, or combinations of all three. So I know many of my friends are glad to see 2014 come to an end.

It was quite a different story in our little corner of Maryland here, where we had a rather excellent year.

Topping the good times was my EPIC turn as FilKONtario's Filk Waif back in April. With help from Art, Heather, Ben, Jason, and Gundo I delivered a rockin' set that included COVERING RUSH FROM A CANADIAN STAGE. I'm still glowing. The concom is probably still recovering.

Following that was the_sheryl's turn as Listener Guest for NEFilk/Contata in June. She assembled a fine Listener's Choice concert and hosted two theme circles.

I'm pretty sure I set a personal best for program participation. It seemed there were only a few weeks when I wasn't preparing for a concert, panel or both at some convention. The activity included a concert and three panels at Boskone; a concert, guitar workshop, and Media theme circle host at FilKONtario (plus two songs in the Hall of Fame concert); the Medieval Dance and a panel at Balticon; a few songs in the Listener's Choice concert at Contata; a concert and three panels (two of which I moderated) at Loncon; two concerts at ConChord (one of my own, plus I backed Matt & Mary for most of their 60-minute Interfilk concert); two panels and co-hosted a Classic Filk song circle at Philcon; concert at Chessiecon. No wonder I feel tired!

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in August with lots of Meat! On! Skewers! and "Guardians of the Galaxy". Because nothing says "celebration of love" like a CRAZY GUN TOTING RACCOON.

While overseas for Loncon, we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum, Hyde Park, Bletchley Park, Forbidden Planet, Trinity College, and the Chester Beatty Library. We took a relaxing train and ferry ride in between the first three and last two.

We're both still gainfully employed and reasonably healthy. (Other than the fact I should work on losing about 20 pounds.) My job continues to interest and challenge me. Between one change in assignments, one new initiative in my department, and one standard reaching the peak of its development cycle, I had a bit more business travel than the last couple of years. 2015 is likely to be busy too.

So yes, definitely a good year for us. 2015 promises to be interesting in a number of ways, also for good reasons.

Two con reports for the price of one!

Last weekend we went up to Philcon. Other than coming home with a cold that almost completely deprived me of voice for a day, we had a good time. (Me and sore throats at Philcon is becoming an unfortunate tradition.) Caught concerts from Roberta Rogow, Patricia Wake and Partners in K'Rhyme, most of the Song Sequitur session, and participated in a couple of theme circles, including co-leading the Classic Songs circle.

After going almost the entire year without writing a complete song, I finished one at Philcon and wrote another during the con. The latter one was inpsired by Robert Rogow's song "Obsession" about addicting jewel matching games. Mine is about songs that leave me with earworms.

Also threw my hat into the ring for the Jewish Folklore in SF and Fantasy panel, which was not one of my better panel experiences. Six panelists, which was probably too many, and not well moderated. It seemed to be less a focused discussion on how Judaism and Jewish folklore has been used in genre literature and more a "shout out your favorite novel/story with some Jewish element".

After a few days to rest and medicate my cold into submission, it was off to the inaugural Chessiecon, the con formerly known as Darkover. It was an excellent debut. mneme took over the music track and delivered a mix of Darkover SCA and folk stalwarts (the Homespun Ceilidh Band, maugorn, Ellen James, and various former Clams) and filkers (Roberta, batyatoon, ladymondegreen and Glen Raphael>. All topped off with a rousing, side-splitting, madcap set from Music GOH filkertom that included a hora in the center aisle during "Badger Pajamas".

Josh gave me my first-ever Thanksgiving weekend set. I wasn't at my best, between not being fully warmed up, singing too fast, and fumbling a few chords, but folks seemed to enjoy it. The set list was:

Ramble Wood (words and music me)
Operation: Winter Storm (words me, music Tom Smith)
Costumer (words me, music Heather Dale & Ben Deschamps)
Through a Child's Eyes (words and music me)
Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000
Let the Redheads Win (words me, music Devin Melanson and Leslie Hudson)
Sedona (words and music me)

Yes, that next-to-last song is exactly what you think it is. Between that and the earworm song, I am soooooooo dead.

With earlier start times and more filkers attending, the bardic/filk circles easily cleared critical mass (something which was a struggle the last several years of Darkover) and were a lot of fun.

Let's hope Chessiecon 2 with seanan_mcguire, Heather Dale, and Ursula Vernon is as much fun (or more) as this year!

Got home last night from a business trip to Wyoming to find our hot water heater was not producing hot water. After several failed attempts this morning to re-light the pilot light, I spent a good portion of the day either trying to find a plumber who was available to make a Saturday call or waiting for said plumber to arrive. Which they finally did in the middle of our just-delivered dinner of Chinese food. Ah well, at least with one thermocouple replaced and one gas line cleaned we should shortly have our usual supply of hot water.

In the meantime, a few of my plans for the day went out the window, and can't be resurrected due to the debut filk circle from 2pm-6pm tomorrow at the BSFS Building (the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series). Among other things, this means I will have to spring for the Nook edition of this month's selection for $EMPLOYER's book club, unless the hold I have on the library's e-book edition comes through tomorrow. At least I managed to sneak out and buy a new flapper valve for the downstairs toilet.

Besides racking up another state visited, the trip to Wyoming was reasonably productive, and the folks I was there to meet with seemed reasonably enthusiastic about the initiatives my employer was hoping they would be reasonably enthusiastic about. They were also nice folks who fed me well. That being said, I couldn't quite shake the feeling I was in a remake of the Sports Night episode "The Hungry And The Hunted." (That would be the one where Josh Molina's character gets sent on an ill-fated assignment to produce a celebrity hunting show.)

Got my panels for Philcon. (I was beginning to wonder if this would be another year I'd find out Thursday night what non-filk events I was on.) I've got three items on Saturday: "Getting Started in Filk" at 11am, "Jewish Folklore in Fantasy & Science Fiction" at 4pm, and "Classic Filk Songs" at 9pm. If I can get off my lazy butt and finish them I may have one or two new songs.

Home from OVFF. Tired cat is tired. Mini-con in the airport; Ellen Weingart and Mark were on our flight (connecting thru BWI to Islip), Tony Parker, Judy Bemis and Kathy Mar all showed up at the same gate just before our boarding time.

The two catnip pads made by janmagic that I picked up at the Interfilk auction have been strategically placed in the house - one in the living room, one in the computer room. Nova has already discovered the one in the living room (*grin*). Photos on G+.

Yes folks, I'm posting a con report ONLY ONE WEEK AFTER THE CON! And with that, hope springs eternal that I may actually get around to the July, August and September (and soon October) bookposts, the rest of the London/Dublin trip report, and perhaps even the full FKO report!

Into an already-crowded October, we shoehorned a trip to San Diego for ConChord. The primary reason was to catch Interfilk guests thatcrazycajun and Mary Mulholland. As some of my readers know, Matt is largely to blame responsible for Sheryl and I meeting at Disclave 1995. Plus, I have been Matt's Trained Pet Guitarist(tm) for several years. So we didn't want to miss their star turn if at all possible. Also, San Diego is a shorter trip than Swaziland.

( Finally made all the domestic filk cons!Collapse )

So, there was a Worldcon a couple of weeks ago. It was a REALLY BIG Worldcon. There were almost 11,000 registrations (including supporters and folks who didn't make the con) and over 7000 people on site at one time or another, both records as I understand.

( An EXCEL-lent Worldcon...Collapse )

We have returned from vacationing and con-going in London and Dublin. Much fun was had, despite the fact we both came down with con crud immediately after Loncon wrapped. Shared van dropped us off around 5pm, unpacked, did our best to placate Nova (Luna, of course, is off hiding somewhere), and ordered pizza for dinner. I expect an early bedtime.

My 3LF comrades will be happy to know we in fact made it to Hyde Park. 8-)

Great seeing lots of old friends from both sides of the pond and meeting some of the UK filkers who haven't made it to our side yet (and who we didn't meet at Interaction in 2005). Big thank yous to Lissa, Anna, Rick, Deborah and everyone else who helped with filk programming and tech at Loncon.

Got to see the Doctor Who premiere with 300+ other fans at Shamrokon. Very cool.

Home from Confluence. As usual, we spent most of the weekend in the filk room listening to concerts or hanging out in Open Filk. Of course we stopped by Larry Smith's table to stock up on books. I am now just one book short of completely obscuring the bottom row of one of the_sheryl's earring racks with my to-be-read piles.

Saw concerts by Copy Red Leader, Moss Bliss, Wax Chaotic, Craig Stanfill, Scott Snyder, decadentdave, Ookla the Mok, Pete Grubbs, Glen Raphael and filkertom, many accompanied by the signing of judifilksign. Another fine program from mrgoodwraith.

Confluence apparently marked Pete's retirement from gigging and running Confluence sound. He went out with a two hour-plus set of stories, songs and spoken-word pieces that included guest appearances by Tom, Dave, Pete's son Cecil, and others. We were treated to a sampling of the Tom and Pete show that has been a fixture of Confusion for many years.

Made a brief stop at the Dorsai party, where I helped John Hall remember the words to "When I Was A Boy".

Had to explain to Pete why Sheryl and I were falling off our chairs laughing when he played "Wagon Wheel" during his concert. I swear if I hear that song one more time this year it's gonna get filked!

Home from Balticon, busy doing laundry and catching up on a few things off the TiVO.

It was a good convention. While perhaps an unorthodox choice of Music GOH, Ken Anders did well. He sang us a mix of traditional ballads (including several bawdy ballads), Broadway tunes, and Renaissance Festival-inspired parodies. He made good contributions to panels, was a Masquerade judge, and did hang out with us in open filk.

Concerts included Sarah Pinsker, Darren Zieger (great to hear from again, it's been a while), Devo Spice, batyatoon (who I played stunt guitarist for on a pair of songs) and a reduced version of the Boogie Knights (Dave, John and Lynn couldn't make the con). Decent open filking, with a couple of promising new voices.

Several nice memorials for Marty Gear, including a couple of video tributes to open the newly-dubbed Marty Gear Memorial Masquerade. I performed "Costumer" twice, once during the main memorial on Sunday afternoon and again during the memorial filk circle I hosted this afternoon.

Best moment of the con: During the Saturday night filk, seishonagon and a friend premiered a new Barrayar song, about Kareen. I grabbed the next turn and asked, "Banquet or Council of Counts?" The latter won. So I sang "In the Council". I broke Irina. Completely. Even worse than I did with "Valancy's Gift" a few years back. I think her jaw left a dent in the Garden Room floor.

Second best moment of the con: Late Sunday night/Monday morning, someone came into the filk wearing a Gizmonics Institute jumpsuit and carrying a Tom Servo. We were doing Bardic. He was going to pass, but I asked if I could take his turn for him. He agreed. I played "The Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000" (i.e. the theme song we all know and love), which someone had posted to RATMM years ago. Hey, when duty calls, I respond (*grin*).

Meanwhile, no rest for the weary. Off to Chicago on business for a couple of days, then the Washington Folk Festival next weekend. (Yay! Free music!) Then a bit of quiet until Contata.

Twenty years ago today I was awakened by a 7:30am phone call from my mom informing me my grandmother had died of a heart attack the previous evening.

At the time, I was in a hotel room at the Regal Constellation just outside of Toronto, attending FilKONtario 4. I had been attracted by the opportunity to see Kathy Mar, who I'd previously met at ConFrancisco, and to meet for the first time several denizens of the Filk Category on GEnie's Science Fiction Round Table. With a chance to schedule a few days between the end of a long-term temporary desktop publishing job and the start of a permanent structural engineering position, I'd rounded up Sue Cochran, Steve Brinich and Bill Wells and driven north to the wilds of Mississauga. (With a sleepover at Eli Goldberg's house in Pittsburgh.)

So, having enjoyed a Friday afternoon and evening of introductions, fun and music, I now found myself turning to my new friends. In particular, MEW (who I'd actually met at the first Conterpoint) and Judith Hayman provided shoulders to cry on and advice on making the decision to stay, while folks like Urban Tapestry, Andrea Dale, and Dave Clement provided friendship and fine music to carry me through the weekend.

By the time Sue, Steve, Bill and I rolled back down the QEW on Sunday evening, FilKONtario and the Southern Ontario filkers had established themselves for me as the models of what a filk convention and filk community should be.

I've been back every year since. FilKONtario's one of the most eagerly anticipated cons on my schedule, and the list of memorable moments grows with every visit. (And then there was TorCon III...)

And in just over a week, I'll be joining friends both old and new for another weekend of fun, music and memories!

This year's Boskone was fun, but very busy.

I was on four program items, all perfectly timed to make meals interesting. First up was the "Rising Tides" panel on Friday evening. Inspired by FEMA projections that show sea level rise will inundate most downtown Boston, the panel featured Joan Sloncewski, Tom Easton, Vince Docherty and me discussing how science fiction writers might work such a future into their stories. The panel stuck to the technical mostly, rather than the sociological/political, so I was fairly able to hold my own (as the panel's resident structural engineer).

Saturday I started off sharing a noon concert block with madfilkentist. My namesake's concert was enjoyable, and included fun songs like "The Filking Zombie Song" (performed with an assist from ladymondegreen) and "Jalapeno", a parody of "Hallelujah" inspired by a certain Urban Tapestry classic. Attendance (for both of us) was decent for a lunchtime slot. My set seemed to go well despite my not being entirely warmed up (my having eschewed my usual routine to run over to the Seaport Hotel to grab sandwiches, and of course listen to Gary.) I could tell the difference, but folks seemed to enjoy themselves anyway. My setlist was:

"Racin' High, Racin' Free" (words & music mine)
"Vor Party" (words mine, music billroper)
"Costumer" (words mine, music Heather Dale & Ben Deschamps)
"Valancy's Gift" (words & music mine)
"Missing Part" (words & music seanan_mcguire)
"Sedona" (words & music mine)

Later in the evening I was on the "Fantasy and the Sea Shanty" panel, which succeeded despite losing two of its original panelists to sickness and blizzard. But, we found a local shanty singer to join myself and Edie Stern and pulled off a nice round-robin. I contributed "Eddystone Light", "Brendan's Faire Isle" and "Maiden and the Selkie". hms42 wants to steal the idea for Philcon, a clear sign of a successful panel. (Heck, I should steal the idea for the FSGW Getaway...)

After a quick dinner in the Birch Bar, I joined ccrazy and ladymondegreen for a panel on running filk conventions. We talked about finding hotels, picking guests, and assembling a committee, among other topics. Of course, most of the audience were veterans of NEFilk concoms. Plus runnerwolf for the Conflikt perspective.

Boskone traditionally has a strong filk program, but this year was particularly exceptional. Of course, billroper did a fine job as Featured Filker. Also on the bill (besides Gary and me) were Sassafrass, quadrivium, ladymondegreen and batyatoon, and talis_kimberley. Which of course meant a full weekend of awesome concerts as well as some fine open filk. Interestingly, despite all of the additional talent lurking about, the open filks were pretty friendly and I was generally able to get songs in edgewise when I wanted.

With four programs of my own plus all of the concerts occupying the schedule, I only managed to catch two of seanan_mcguire's events (plus the Friday Night Galleria event). We made the "Bring Back My Favorite TV Show" panel on Friday and her Q&A with Elizabeth Bear on Saturday. The Q&A was great fun, including a patented Seanan discourse on pandemics (with references to "Black Death") and the story of The Great Tarantula Migration. I did snag a copy of her new NESFA Press collection "Letters to the Pumpkin King".

Travel both directions was uneventful, other than a bumpy approach and landing to Logan. Thanks to JetBlue and its free DirecTV, we were able to keep an eye on the Olympics. On the flight up, that meant we got to catch parts of the Men's Long Program that we'd otherwise have missed. Also, I was able to get my guitar returned at the gate rather than its having to brave the luggage conveyors.

Photos from the weekend here.

Since the rest of my friends are posting their schedules for the upcoming awesomeness that is Boskone:

Rising Tides, Friday 18:00 - 18:50. FEMA is releasing floodplain data soon. Interestingly, looks like most of Boston will be underwater if climate change continues. This presents some splashy possibilities for scientists and authors writing in the "near future" space. Vincent Docherty (M), Tom Easton, Gary Ehrlich, Joan Slonczewski.

Concert: McGath/Ehrlich, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50. Double the Garys! Double the fun!

Fantasy and the Sea Chantey, Saturday 17:00 - 17:50. Songs of the sea have long included the stuff of fantasy: ghosts, mermaids, and other creatures of the "vasty deep." Share discussions and performances of some of these nearly forgotten gems of the ocean. Edie Stern, Gary Ehrlich, Jordin T. Kare, Faye Ringel.

So You Want to Run a Filk Convention?, Saturday 19:00 - 19:50. As with any other type of fannish activity, a filk convention has its own ins and outs. What are things that you need to look for? What special considerations are there? Ellen Kranzer (M), Merav Hoffman, Gary Ehrlich.

As I've noted a few other places, I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to eat! (Well, except for a nice Valentine's dinner at Salvatore's, which I've made a reservation for.) Other than that, it should be a blast!

Overall, 2013 was a good year for us.

The significant downer, of course, was Marty Gear's passing in mid-July. A huge loss for the local fan community as well as costuming fandom at large.

This was the year the stars aligned and we finally made it out for Conflikt, which emphatically staked its claim to a spot on my list of BEST! CONS! EVER! Thank yous go out to the many folks responsible for making it such a wonderful weekend, including mysticfig and kaath9 for general awesomeness, cflute for backup on "Sedona", Mr. Wiley and his Fork-estra for the shtick-up on "Beware the Sinister Salad", Team Esty for a nice turn as Interfilk guests, and the concom for throwing a great party.

And then there was Balticon. OMG SASSAFRASS!! The spectacular, ballroom-filling, multiple-ovation-earning premiere of Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok has certainly earned a place in history as one of the Top Fannish Events of 2013. Need I point out it's eligible for the Best Dramatic Presentation-Long Form Hugo? I'm just sayin'. 8-)

If that wasn't enough to whet everyone's musical whistles in these parts, we threw a Conterpoint a few weeks later. I'm still convinced the rehearsal for admnaismith's Toastmaster concert was even more fun than the actual concert. Not that the concert didn't rock itself. Overall attendance was lighter than I'd hoped, but I think guests and members both had fun.

(Making a note here: agreeing to sing emotional songs in major concerts on Sunday afternoons of cons is a REALLY BAD IDEA AND WILL END IN TEARS.)

We were originally a bit skeptical how the family trip to England and France in August to celebrate Sheryl's parents' 50th anniversary would turn out. Things largely worked out and everyone had a good time. I especially enjoyed the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and the Musee de la Musique in Paris. And the side trip to the Who Store (*grin*).

Said goodbye to Darkover and Clam Chowder in our last convention of the year. Like the Doctor, Darkover has regenerated into Chessiecon. Looking forward to seeing filkertom as Chessiecon's first Music GOH.

Professionally had a good year too, earning a promotion (though I still insist I'm too young to be "Senior" anything) and a bonus.

We'll be heading off to First Night Alexandria shortly. So, have a Happy New Year everyone, and best wishes to all for a great 2014!

Despite an always-welcome visit to New Orleans and a decent Philcon, this still hasn't been a week I would particularly like to repeat.

( And not just because a business trip and con tried to occupy the same spaceCollapse )