Month: January 2020
Sunrise in Suomi
Walkies
Paul and I took advantage of the relative warmth and glorious sunshine to go for a walk in Oakalla yesterday.
Jeff and I watched “Harriet” and really enjoyed it. Fellow abolitionist Thomas Garrett said of her, “I never met any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God.” They certainly made much of her visions in the movie, but it was used to good effect.
Absolutely loved the most recent Supernatural ep “The Heroes’ Journey” for more reasons than I can count. Anything that includes tap dancing though….
annoying stopover
the trip north was entirely uneventful, but on the way since Paul’s girlfriend lost her phone (meh, it happens) and since he already has a Yankee phone he left it at her place, so I got to sit outside her apartment building in Greenwood and contemplate the furrows and circuitous paths of my life for a while since Paul had to stop and pet cats and call her at work, of course, so I did not say a word about how long it took
Weather was fucking gorgeous in Seattle and grim in Vancouver. TWO herons on the road inbound.
I feel full of music, which is useful for FAWM.
HOTM 55277 (worked on ‘sproing’ instructions and actually sent copies to Jeri Lynn and Jeff C since he’s actually read MMCo and Jeri Lynn was much entertained by my description of the sproing).
Roger Waters This Is Not A Drill tour in Vancouver September 14 2020 any interest
Yeah, the cat’s outta the bag and this is what our health minister says. The first guy who was sick in Canada has given it to his wife. Incubation before symptoms was about 8 days in her case, although I hope to drill down and get more accurate notions of when her exposure started from newspaper accounts.
opinion, the gov of Can should ban travel from China for three weeks, which is the likely to break the incubation lag and do nothing but run down contacts until we stop getting infections from locally infected folks, BUT NO. AND I’M AWARE that I was just in a hotel for 4 days that was across the street from where the first case appeared in the US.
and the CDC says this.
OOOOOOOKAY NOW there’s a ‘warning’ about ‘nonessential’ travel. even so.
In the words of a beloved Canadian TV character, something’s fucky.
Corona Beer company really having a shitty January according to google searches
the end of a perfect day
apart from misgendering Cade Tinney when I introduced them, yesterday, for which I apologized and was forgiven by them and the con com I had the best possible con.
Thanks to my fellow judges for the songwriting contest.
Daniela Festi was an amazing choice as an interfilk guest, like flat out fucking amazing. Her musicality, professionalism and versatility was mindblowing.
Vanessa Cardui has a beautiful voice and penetrating wit and verve as a lyricist.
Rhiannon’s Lark, aka Alyssa Yeager, a zero defect singer, a great and funny lyricist, a good guitarist and hoo boy can she run a harmony looper like nobody’s biz.
Eric and Lizzie of Cheshire Moon were great guests and entertaining as heck.
Sunnie Larsen IS A GODDESS fight me.
It was so good to see Beth Runnerwolf.
Hung with Chaos for a while.
Emailed Jesse my Cthulthu Mars Bar story.
JOHN AND JEN ON SOUND my goodness HOW LUCKY ARE WE as Paul said, on both sides of the mic!!!
Ecumenifilk was great, played Lift Every Voice and Sing on the ukelele AND when I talked about how I would never sing it (just play it) the only poc in the room thanked me for my sensitivity.
BEAUTY AND HAPPY MEMORIES ALL ‘ROUND.
Conflikt 13 is almost over, and how fantastic was that
Paul and I have had a lovely time. I had a great time as toastedmaster, and apart from misgendering Cade Tinney prior to their performance (I cried for half an hour, I was alternately upset at my assumptions and weeping my face off because Cade’s a brilliant brilliant songwriter and their song about their grandad just about slew me with its stark and lovely grief, but they forgave me most kindly and gave me a sweet hug and I went around to a coupla con com folks and explained myself and they sorted me as well but I’ll have to live with my error in the livestream so O THE FUCK WELL right) everything about this con has been bordering on magical.
I am very inspired to try FAWM next month,
Many many thanks to Dave Tinney for running the hospitality suite, John Seghers and Jen!
Thomas Carlyle for class, coronavirus for AI YI
this portrait was taken in 1867 by Julia Margaret Cameron
he was someone Henry Thomas Wake admired, and he was invited to tea at Carlyle’s house, and he did graphic design for the Carlyle family
so…. the LATEST latest on coronovirus, which one might have had the sense to predict, is that you are contagious prior to being symptomatic
What this means is that, since I’ve been in a phenomenally busy hotel which is across the street from SEA, point of entry for the first identified coronavirus sufferer in the US (poor bastard is now being treated by robots in an isolation ward), I’m going to wait 14 days before I leave the house after I get home. Sorry brO you’re on your own for shopping for the next two weeks.
Also, if I do get sick please treat me with calcium ascorbate in IV form.
Also, no Alex or family visits.
Sigh.
Here I am Here I am Where are You
Fire alarm went off half an hour before my seminar was supposed to start, and so it moved to another room, six people showed up YEAH
Here’s my concert on the twitch tv stream, lots o background noise. But there it is.
My concert went well
The Tapioca Song singalong and recording beforehand went reasonably well, but I was sweating my god.
The concerts were recorded and livestreamed. I will provide links if and when I find out what they are. John Seghers has indicated he’ll provide wav files recorded from the board, which would be nice. BUT I HAVE TO EMAIL HIM FIRST hint hint I have to remember that.
Paul sat in the back and provided comment afterward. He said my stagecraft has improved and I was entertaining as hell. Also, and he was really surprised, he is used to being the first person who hears a new song (sometimes it’s Mike, but 90% it’s Paul) and he DID NOT KNOW I had learned the Lousy Cutters on dulcimer and so sat with his mouth hanging open, which was fun to hear about afterward. I COULD SEE CINDY SINGING ALONG FOR HALF OF MY STUFF IT WAS AWESOME. Also, there was some guy in the audience – new to me, youngish by filk standards, who started smirking as soon as I fired up Alexios and laughed aloud repeatedly so goodie.
I played Way up in the Sky, (everybody laughed in the right places and the ONE PLACE I WANTED TO GET A LAUGH made the whole room shout with laughter – such a lovely feeling – the line is “The sun’s hot (semi longish pause) … don’t touch it”, Gelis and Nicolas, Zero-G (the Bed), Dishing with Joyce, The Friend who Gave Me This Ukelele, The Lousy Cutters, The Anarchist Parade Marshall, An invocation to my ancestors, Alexios the Murder Hobo, Pardon me is that stool taken, and possibly one other song that currently escapes. I had a good time and it really showed, according to BL Chiffon, whom I ran into along with Frank Hayes in the Con suite after. Also I said, “I play the song of my people” and blasted the slide whistle and cracked everyone up.
I forgot to take my meds so that probably explains why I was sweating like a pig. I took them late, apparently suffered no problems.
I AM THE TOASTED MASTER.
In an hour I have to do a seminar.
I have a long long day ahead but I et my brekky and I’ve had my coffee and I’m ready to go more or less.
Vanessa Cardui’s concert was fantastic. Her song “Made it” which is an intense family history song that is completely a true story made me want to hug my fOlks and brother so damned hard you have no idea, and her song from Data to Spot was SO WONDERFUL I must obtain a copy for Jeff. She sang in OCCITAN F’CHRISSAKE don’t let anyone tell you that filk isn’t educational. Anyway wonderful guitarist and vocalist. Her only song not self written was about the Molasses Flood of Boston and despite the horror we all laughed.
AND I wrote and delivered a land acknowledgement which covered all the territory I could. I didn’t use the word unceded because this is their land, and I’d prefer to just call it what it is, stolen, if I have to.
I live upon and come to you from the shared lands of the Sto:lo and Coast Salish, and we are gathered now on the lands of the Coast Salish, Duwamish and Puget Sound Salish peoples. May our time together at Conflikt 13 be a living memorial to the values of sharing and community, and to our deep appreciation for the beauty of this land and its first peoples. May we especially honor the frogs and all the creatures of the wetlands, the salmon and all the creatures of the ocean, the wolves and all the creatures and plants of the forests, the elders and the children in all their beauty, and all the remaining Sasquatches. Dear ones, let us make a memorable festival, and let us be thankful.
awesome George Carlin / Fury Road mashup
I loved this movie by the way. Its over-the-topness was a marvel.
a view of the hotel room, shown is a cutaway acoustic-electric guitar named Smokey and Otto, my octave mandolin WOULD BE HERE if the hotel wifi would let me email it from my phone to my google account. I’ve sent it four times, NADA
christ it only took two hours, wtf Hilton
Jeff Tiedrich on twitter:
ideally, you want the President of the United States, the Mayor of Crazytown and the village idiot to be three different people
not enough sleep
Paul and I are checked into the Hilton Doubletree at Seatac. Nice room. There are a lot of instruments in it.
Trip down was uneventful. Agent at the border was a total sweetheart and told us to spend hella money. Driving in rush hour Seattle traffic which I seem to do at least once a year whether I need to or not was not eventful but in the rain it pretty much sucked a mop. Stopped at Razzi’s for pizza, which I may consume for breakfast.
Jeri Lynn greeted us at the hotel lobby (after an amusing moment which I shan’t elaborate upon) and she and Jeff C helped us get our instruments out of the car. I loaned her my octopot hat to keep the rain off Jeri Lynn’s head.
I GOT THE THREE OF CUPS as my day card today; improvement is not possible.
Today, registration and rehearsal and sound check and concert and welcome.Apparently other guests at the con have been injured or jostled or had emergency surgery on the way to the con so I guess I’m going to count myself lucky that nothing bad’s happened to me so far. Also, I will get to be ‘toastedmaster’ for the duration of the con, so YAY knowing the people who print the con badges.
Explosion in Houston may have been triggered by a meteorite! if that’s what happened it sure picked a good spot to impact at 30K kph; a polypropylene tank surrounded by oxygen tanks. The bang, whether it resulted from a meteorite or not, was heard and felt 30 miles away and showed up on weather radar. So, you know, not small.
Retweeted something critical of Bernie Sanders, four people stopped following me. LOL Bernie Sanders is not going to be president, 45 will steal the election through redistricting and purging voter rolls and fraud at the polls, plus intimidation, etc etc. Fascism and America are fuck buddies, and the last ten years have proved it.
In Paul’s honour, a pic from Instagram of a cake from Punk Rock Pastries on Hastings. The last time he was in town somebody broke into his car and stole the tool box I bought him shortly after he started working at Air Canada. It’s a good idea not to get attached to stuff.
Brynn Tannehill on the road to genocide
From twitter this am. She studies genocide. She’s moving to Canada from the US in 2021… she hopes.
What is interesting to me is watching for the warning signs:
* Rising infant mortality
* Demonizing government propaganda
* Us v. Them narrative
* Mythological past free of a minority
* Populist government
* Breakdown of democratic norms
* Politicized court beholden to party
* Removing minority from federal service
* Legally establishing that minority doesn’t have same rights as everyone else
* Encouraging stochastic violence
* Preventing access to health care system
* Preventing access to education
* Mandatory segregation from general population under penalty of law
* Requiring something that outs people as the minority (ID, worn item, name, etc) * Random arrests
* Indefinite “black hole” detentions
* Testing to see if foreign governments will move to stop abuses
*Minority groups fleeing the country
she says the last two are signs it’s too late
frens and travel
Cindy and Elias her son will be leaving this morning as well, so we will likely meet up with them in the hotel sometime this afternoon.
It’s raining, and it will rain all day, but I’ve driven down that highway ten times at least in the rain, and it’s no problem. I’ll phone Paul around ten am to find out how his preparations are coming.
I woke up at one thirty but forced myself back to sleep. I’m assuming that extra hour and a half will do me some good; I feel quite perky.
Did you know that statins can cause antisocial behaviour?
HOTM 55179
30k of fanfic published in 4 stories since the 17th, including one with polyamory elements. It’s interesting which stories collect kudos faster. Hint kittens vs polyamory….
poem
our eyes say that the sky moves
it is we who hurtle
all unknowing
as our precious ball is held
in the pachinko curve of gravity
damnation
Tom and Peggy aren’t going. I’m glad they’re apportioning their energy correctly toward their family, but damn, that’s two fewer familiar faces in the crowd for me so I’m a little sad