Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Pegasus concert

Highlights:

Toyboat doing a heavy metal (okay, fuzzy rock) version of Little Fuzzy Animals.

A beautiful audience participation version of Nessie Come Up. (Both the above songs in heavy rotation by John Caspell, so much sighing on my part).

Finding out that there’s an MP3 of the Roberta Bondar song on Judith’s website!  yes.  I can now learn it and then sing it to my mother at my leisure.

Breakfast done, quick confab with Cindy over last minute tweaks to the set list, and now I have to find a printer so I can print out our last minute embiggened lyrics, etc.  Also the chord cheat sheet for Still Star Struck.  I can haz borrowed electrified guitar.

Juanita Coulson just sang me 4 songs

and I laughed, and laughed and laughed.  It never ceases to amaze me how WONDERFUL people in filk fandom are.  How attentive, and sweet natured, and by Darwin’s beard, among the funniest.  I called mOm to tell her, and she said, “But… I have some of her books.”  Well, of course.  The circle is small….

I publicly declare Juanita my filk mom, and take her pronouncement “If it’s played in the filk room, it’s filk” as the definition.

Cindy is here and kipped out in her own room, which is PROVIDENTIALLY across the hall.  Because this hotel is big, man.  No zoo for me today, but perhaps I’ll go Sunday and come back for the Dead Dog.  (It’s called a Smoked Salmon in the PNW).

I blow the universe a kiss, and I am now keeping a filk book, in which I will write all the anecdotes and songs and provenances thereof, as a kind of ethnomusicological effort.  Also to keep things straight, because my memory sucks a Greyhound bus station Men’s room mop.  The hairy end.  Eiyeish.

I am settled into my room at the Double Tree Worthington

Cindy will arrive shortly and go straight to sleep in my room. I will find something to do with myself while she kips and waits for her room to be ready – I am thinking I might like to go look at the enslaved animals, if only in remembrance of the other Ohio animals who didn’t make it.  Besides, they have bonobos, and I ain’t never seen any.  Or I could wander down to the “German Village” room (!?) and see if anybody is filking yet.  Or maybe I’ll say fuck it and go to Macy’s.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Starbucks coffee is nauseatingly bad.  They may be proud to serve it but I’m a fool to drink it.

Gadhafi’s STILL dead, sic semper tyrannis.

So far, except for the coffee, I am loving this hotel.  The staff are really, really professional, friendly and courteous.  Room was supposed to be non-smoking, when I bleated they fixed it without a hiccup.

Weather’s like Vancouver, but windy.

I got selected for ‘special screening’ yesterday.  O goody.  I also got yelled at by every single one of the ‘security theatre’ staff, to the point that I would say “Please don’t yell at me,” not that it helped.  Note to self – travel in slip-ons next time.

“Miles Vorkosigan’s” filk of Lady Miss Banjola’s “Wreck of the Crash” MUST GET LYRICS and sing for my pOp.

It’s about the legal repercussions of losing your hotel room key, and it, like the song it’s based on is bloody hilarious.  YES there was filking last night and it was still going on when I went to bed at midnight local time.

A simply Splendid Time

A visiting English filker named Deborah, who plays splendid violin /fiddle, landed at Tom and Peggy’s last night.  The siren song of Filk and Poutine rang out across E Burnaby, and Rob W,  Paul, daughter Katie, The Bean Family (Bean is SO cute now) plus Cindy, and we all sang.  Frobisher Bay made somebody cry, I won’t say who.  Katie was hopping up and down for Ramboing, and in general it was A GOODNESS.  And it was John’s birthday, and his picture smiled down on us from the mantel…. He would have approved.

Life is good.

octopi vancouver

Care package for the demo.  2 blankies, including a hand made quilt donated  mOm; batteries, a drum and a penny whistle and an egg shaker; two pairs of socks, a complete rain outfit men’s medium, a yoga mat, reusable tie wraps, a metal portable desk with paper, a granola bar, a nice name tag, and some other little things.

Brilliant day of sunshine!  Jeff’s coming too.

Shaddyr

Shaddyr is the interfilk guest of honour at OVFF.  I am ‘assisting’ her with her concert, which means that either I shut up completely while she performs a song which needs no assistance, noodle on the mandolin, play guitar so she can really get into interpreting the song (also giving the carpals a break), or sing along with.

I talk about going to rehearse, but I haven’t said much about her, and I’d like to.  Mention should first be made that she is awesome… smart, big-hearted, hospitable, tolerant without being a pushover, funny without ever being mean-spirited, and an absolute joy to play with.  We haz fun, get better, and then there’s tea and talk.  Friday night rehearsals have come to mean a lot to me, and I’m very glad that after OVFF there’s my own concert to plan at Conflikt V because it means we’ll still have an excuse to plan.  Set list ahoy!

Interfaith Service for Homelessness Week.

The Baha’is brought food and readings.  Also, a lot of people from different ethnic groups.  The United Church people brought dance and music and prayers and guitars and beautiful wise children.  The Catholics brought a reading from Jack Layton and beautiful wise elders.  The Unitarians brought a reading from Edward Everett Hale.  The Anglicans brought a paraphrase of a Psalm.  The Sikhs brought tablas, harmonium, devotional prayers that just about pulled the heart of my body, and AWESOME FOOD. Rev Neil Fernyhough presided, and I cannot thank him enough for that brief little conversation we had at New West Pride that brought me to the most beautiful sacred space I’ve shared in a very long time.