OVFF 2003 Con Report

This year I took the long weekend, Thursday through Monday, and drove up with Terence Chua. Although others arrived Thursday, we didn’t run into each other.

The first people I met Friday were Claudia from Switzerland, known online as Shaya; and Steph, attending her first filkcon. People trickled in; I introduced Steph to the Glassers, and she proved to be outgoing enough to meet most everybody else from there. We introduced Shaya to everyone around, especially to Filkhaven people and speciously to admin Rob Wynne, who had just arrived with Larissa.

I only spent a few minutes at the Mad Hatter Tea Party, then headed for the Pegasus Nominees Concert. It’s always a highlight of the con, and this year had strong competition in all categories. Highlights of the concert for me were “A Thousand Ships” performed by Year And A Day (that’s Three Weird Sisters and auxiliary); “Bang Today” performed by the Bonhoffs; “Alien Salad Abduction” performed by Mary Crowell; and the Ropers doing “My Husband the Filker”.

More or less by accident, which is how I intended to approach the programming anyway, I joined the Sacred Harp choir practicing four-part arrangements of various filksongs. Afterwards a circle formed in the Metro room around Mary Crowell, and off we went into the open. The days blur a bit, but I believe the Bonhoffs were in this room, and Marty Fabish (she of the silk kimonos; I liked her voice and wanted to hear more).

Saturday got underway with another choir rehearsal, to which I was not late enough J. The important event for the day was the Lady Mondegreen concert, which was everything I thought it would be. (This year there were some eight or nine singers in the former trio, which enabled them to do some wonderful antiphony and staging.) I stayed in the room for some one-shots and for Blake Hodgetts’ Interfilk concert. He’s quite good, playing keyboard and singing with a well-trained baritone; the first song was a patter of TNG episode titles, and another particularly memorable one involved hamster cage topology. (Almost everything he performed is on his CD, which I picked up.)

After some time holed up in a room, I dressed out for the banquet. Myself, Terence Chua, and the concom were the only ones in suits, but I still felt comfortable. Although I was worried that the banquet would overlap the “Blue Moon” song contest, there was no conflict, and I arrived in plenty of time to enter. The quality was dazzling; Shaya made a first by entering a song with a German lyric; Renee Alper, Pete Grubbs, and Blake were among the entrants, as was Ash Productions (Blake’s teenage daughters, and my pick for best song). Cat Faber, Kathy Mar, and Kathleen Sloan judged, and all was well.

I didn’t take anything away from the auction, so I changed out of the suit and joined the open filk in the hallway by the dealers’ room (where the grand piano lives). Brenda Sutton enlisted Mary Crowell and me for her new ballad “Pole Star”, a gorgeous piece of work. The crowd grew and ebbed; among the participants were Blake, Erica Neely, Terence, Carla Ulbrich, and Joe Giacoio. While no doubt I have misspelled Joe’s name, I didn’t miss his guitar style—mostly tapping rather than strumming, using both hands on the fretboard, dancing with the guitar like a dervish. He must have remarkable kinesthetic sense.

Sunday I forgot to fall back the clock, so when I showed up for yoga (Mary told me to), I thought I’d missed it. The consuite seemed a likely place to idle; however, Mary Bertke conscripted me and Maureen O’Brien to perform in the one-shots. Gwen Knighton, Steve MacDonald, Mark Bernstein, and Barry Childs-Heston were the judges, and they had good advice to give. They said what they liked, they told us what didn’t work, and they gave us general performing lessons. Pretty much all of us had problems with too much tension in the throat on high notes, not enough dynamic contrast, and audience eye contact. Steve gave me an exercise for working on crossing the voice break, and in the combined critique I was urged to plan breaths. (At Gwen’s request, I performed “Golden Age Love Affair”, which is I think the hardest one I do; that’s a good way to reveal bad habits, which made it most instructive.) Shaya did her song (in English) about her preferred method of travel, which was a delight. Daniel Glasser did an instrumental on the same theme, based on a scene from Harry Potter.

I spent the afternoon socializing and only glanced into the jam in the main room. I do remember Dave Clement’s version of “Dixie Chicken”, and Gary played a song I’d heard but can’t title (“From the red rocks of Sedona… the power and the glory of the West”); what struck me about that was how rhythmically precise Sheryl’s harmonies were. Then it was off to the Mongolian grill for the Dead Dog Buffet, which did not disappoint. Upon returning, I wandered back to the piano by the now-closed Dealer’s Room and played some arrangements of filk songs I’d been working up. A few people came by to listen and talk, and Andy Eigel recorded some of it.

Rob and Larissa and GEM and Kyttn were swimming, which I rarely get to do, so I joined them as long as heat permitted. From there I drifted to the dead dog filk. People were trickling out the whole time; the Glassers left first after I arrived, but not before doing “Silver Wings” with Tom Jeffers and Dave Clement. I took a place between Dave and the Hodgetts. Kathleen Sloan did harmony with Kathy Mar before leaving, which was wonderful. Kathy played a nice bluesy song with a deceptively complex chord structure which I’d like to hear again; she had a song based on TNG’s “The Inner Light” (as did Blake in his concert). Phil Parker, Shaya, Terence, Erica, Steve Mac, and Gwen rounded out the late-performing crowd.

In the morning Terence and I caravanned with Gwen and Gavin back to Atlanta. By the time I got back from Athens, it was latelate and the cats were hungry.