Conreport: Arisia '04

Go Or No-Go?

I used to live in Massachusetts, and I went to the MASSFILC housefilk almost every month; son Jeremy sometimes came with me. But in August 2002 I moved to Philadelphia to take a job there, and our live filk activity dropped precipitously. Last September we bought a house in Philadelphia and moved in.

Now we're all preparing for Arisia weekend. Jeremy and I are headed for the con, he mostly for gaming & anime, I largely for filk & panels; wife Rene will drop us off and then go to stay with friends. Jeremy says, "I haven't been to a filksing in quite a while. I might like to do Manuel of the Planes" (inspired by a typo he saw online by someone referring to an RPG rulebook).

The drive from Philadelphia to Boston is usually 6 hours at best, but often much longer owing to traffic and whatnot. I have a truly godawful cold, with a horrible racking cough that only a prescription medication can stem, and no voice beyond a hoarse whisper. The night before is so frantic and hyperactive that Rene is dubious of the whole enterprise. Friday morning she wakes me around 8:20. "Are we going?" -- A moment to take stock. "I can do it," and we went. The drive proves blessedly uneventful and fast.

Friday Night

The envelope of participant's material I am given in the Green Room is supposed to include my schedule, but does not; but I have already searched the online schedule for my name and gotten it that way. [PS: Long after getting home, I found the schedule, mailed to me in perfectly good time. Ooops.]

Note: In these notes JIP is an abbreviation borrowed from one of my first jobs, at Nielsen. It means "join in progress": i.e., I arrived after the event started.

I've tried to list the singers and songs and sometimes the authors, and whether the song is the singer's own. Sometimes I give a guess at the title, or a prominent line. Corrections welcomed.

8pm: Panel: An Introduction to the Music of Science Fiction Fandom.

The official precis reads: From music tracks for TV and movies that strike a chord in the hearts of fans, to popular music beloved by fandom, to music written by fans for fans -- commonly known as 'filk' -- music has been part of fandom for a long time. Find out more about it! (Solomon Davidoff, Spencer Love, Mark Mandel [moderator], Hillary Sherwood. Spencer hadn't gotten a schedule either and didn't know he was to be on this panel, so he wasn't there.

Thanks to Solomon and Hillary for saving my moderatorial ass! In addition to having practically no voice, I had forgotten that I was to be moderating this panel and have nothing prepared. Hillary and I have been filking for years, but Sol has academic cred, having gotten his Master's in American folklife with a thesis on filk... and then, having discovered he liked it, he stuck around with us and became a filker. (Heh, heh, heh.)

We don't discuss soundtracks or themes at all, but define filk (more or less-- transitive verb, intransitive verb, noun [a song], noun [an activity], noun [an event]) and describe the great variety of musical genres and topics it comprises, and the different styles or protocols that can govern a filksing. My main contribution is to throw in verses of my The Definition Of Filk, hoarsely recited rather than sung, to add to Sol and Hillary's discussions of topic and genre.

9pm

Rest, then stroll around the Art Show. Its overall quality is IMHO well above its usual level: there is much less of the amateurish stuff you wouldn't give a second look if it weren't fannish, and much more material with real artistic merit. At some point during the con, probably on Saturday, I say as much to the divhead. He is pleased (obviously), and says, more or less, "I didn't exclude anyone. But I made an effort to invite a lot of good artists."

~11:30: Open filking, JIP

I've found that taking notes on my PDA on who sings what when not only helps me remember an enjoyable experience, but also helps me keep my mind focused on it. Part of my mind always wants to wander and doodle; this keeps it close to the experience.

My voice has been coming back through the evening. When someone remarks on it I quote my button (which I'm not wearing), "Music is my drug of choice". Still recovering from my cold and wanting to be able to filk through most of tomorrow night, I pumpkin about 1:30.

Saturday

I have the alarm set for 11 but wake up about ten. Jeremy is still asleep. At eleven I hit the Green Room for breakfast; I think I include hot meatballs in it. Real Food! Bless the Green Room staff!

11:27 - The hotel alarm sounds and strobe lights flash. As it happens, while brushing my teeth last night I peripatetically found myself facing the room door and read the notice. You know, the legalese with words like "bailment" and what gives the management the right to throw you out; but it also described, and more clearly, what emergency alarms might sound and what you should do in each case. So I'm able to reassure some other congoers that this is not an order to evacuate, but just an alert that there might be a problem, and to stay where we were and wait for further announcements. One person decides that as far as he's concerned that means it's time to take the elevator down before they're shut off, but I don't intend to step into that frigid weather without a coat, so I go up to my room. Jeremy is looking muzzily out into the hall; I tell him the same. Then the PA calls off the alert.

11:36 am: I'm in the lobby when a stentorian* voice, which I suspect belongs to an Arisia staffer, announces from the Mezzanine that it's a false alarm, triggered by a water leak.

*Look it up. The etymology will reward your effort.

12 noon: Panel: Found Filk

Who are some of the musicians whose songs people love to sing? What about parody? What music has gone "straight to filk" from the mainstream? What makes you laugh or cry or think as your mind drifts to other worlds? (JoEllyn Davidoff [moderator], Robin Holly, Mark Mandel, Ny Martin)

Unlike me, JoEllyn sent email to her panelists ahead of time and we traded ideas. We all threw in some sources of found filk, Robin (iirc) assembled them into a handout, and we discussed them. We also each prepared one or two examples to perform. I only felt up to doing one: Flanders & Swann's "First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics", with the whole audience as my straight man and echo, and Nye throwing the final punch line.

1pm: Tom Smith Concert

Someone from the audience brings him an n-pack of Smurf* Pepsi, at which he beams with delight; evidently Tom dislikes Coke and the hotel has gone thru its supply of the alternative. The gift also includes 3 buttons, which he reads aloud:

"BORN TO PUN, so I have to do Springsteen.
"THE PUN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD, so I have to do King Arthur.
"MASTER OF PUN FU, so I have to do Jackie Chan."

He picks up the guitar, does a Boss riff, and begins,

"I am the lord of a feudal land,
I have a sword in my hand...
Hey, that came out really well! I'm gonna write this song later today!"

* Short, squat cans. Tom is of similar shape and comments on the match.

(The gold lame pants story.) (Bits about The Rocky Horror Muppet Show.)

2:00

After the concert Tom is selling and signing CDs in a corner while the Tech crew set up the room for the next event. The line is long, and someone says the CDs are also available at the Arisia sale table on the Mezzanine, so I go up there and buy "Debasement Tapes"and a Sunday Sundae ticket. Then I hang around the con, running into old friends: On the Mezzanine, Rachel Kadel-García, whom I know from fandom and also through my daughter. In the Dealers' Room, Patri Pugliese with his family; Patri is a longtime co-worker from Dragon Systems who is also the Dance Master of the Arisia ball. Then back to the room for lunch and a short nap.

4pm: Panel: Future of Language

Heinlein argued that language will be more imitative, and McLuhan the opposite. Do we believe the engineer or the semantician? (Nomi Burstein [moderator], Mark Mandel, John McDaid, Catherine Pederson)

Who wrote that precis? The short answer is "neither". We talk about how social and technological changes have affected and are affecting language, and speculate on how they might do so in the future, with reference to theory and history, and some discussion of how a community of people with no common first language will, in a couple of generations, go from a pidgin with very limited structure to a much richer creole. It's happening right now with Nicaraguan Sign Language.

5:00

Hang around in the hall with 3 audience members from the panel, Susanna, Rachel Anna, and John if I have their names right, talking about language, linguistics, sf, and differences between The Lord of the Ring in book and film.

6:00

Readthrough of The Filkado, the space operetta for Noreascon 4. Come see it, it'll be GOOD! I have the role of Dr. McKoko, the Lord High Evil Genius.

7:00: Panel: Living Language

Although it was not intended to, Klingon has taken on a life of its own. How was this possible? What other SF languages could be expanded to use in everyday conversation? (Mark Mandel, Annalee Newitz, Rich Yampell [moderator].)

Rich, aka Captain Krankor <HoD Qanqor>, was probably the first human to be able to speak Klingon, and was definitely the Klingon Language Institute's first grammarian. Annalee is a journalist. I'm a linguist who's been studying and playing with Klingon for about 10 years. I think the precis covers pretty well what we talked about. But the 3 of us hung around for the next hour as well, since the room was free (there's very little scheduling opposite the Masquerade), talking about jokes built into the vocabulary and structure of the language, anecdotes from its history, <waqmey Dujmey je ngaQmoHmeH rItlh je...>

Saturday Night

10:30pm: open filk JIP

  • As I come in, people are doing songs translated from English. I make my contribution with no explanation. Many people recognize it as Tom Lehrer's The Old Dope Peddler, and someone correctly IDs or guesses the language as Esperanto.
  • ...
  • Daniel Glasser. Lullabye [demons in your bed]
  • GaryMcGath & Virginia Taylor, Dark Lullabye
  • 11:03 pm: Tom Smith arrives. Asked at some point about the promised King Arthur / Bruce Lee / Bruce Springsteen filk, he pleads that "You sure don't believe in boring your GOH", and tells us of all he's been doing today. We forgive him, but we still want the song sometime.
  • Jack Carroll says he's been persuaded that his Half a Flying Wreck is too long, so he gives us a shortened version. It's just as good!
  • (At some point I ask for a ride to Framingham after the Dead Dog, and Badger offers.)
  • Tom, his I Wish I Couldn't Read Her Mind
  • my DHMO Song
  • Tom, "Well, you just know what's gotta follow that!": 307 Ale
  • Jack follows with The Chemist's Drinking Song. Tom compliments his fluent navigation of the tongue-twistery. I ask him, "You know why he does that so well, don't you?" "He's drunk, right?" "He wrote it." Tom honors Jack with a deep bow.
  • Gary, his Lightsaver ttto Tom Smith's Hellraiser.
  • Daniel Glasser, his(?) Lovely Mary Lou.
  • JoEllyn Davidoff, Closer to Fine, Indigo Girls
  • Tom, his Sir Rupert the Swishy
  • Jack, his Gilda and the Dragon
  • Daniel, Pinball Wizard as fast bluegrass.
  • Paul Estin, his Isaac and Arthur and Robert and Ray
  • Tom, his Talk Like A Pirate Day. (Which allegedly is Sept. 19; mark the date! It's a Sunday this year.)
  • A few minutes ago Virginia asked if I knew the chords to Stan Rogers' "The Idiot", and I told her no. Now she starts a cappella on her The Alleycat, which is to that tune and which I've enjoyed many times before, and it starts to come back to me. Quietly trying out a few notes, I discover that she's singing precisely in C/Am, and I supply the simple chords to accompany her.
  • JoEllyn. If I Had A Million Dollars, BareNaked Ladies
  • ...
  • Big Slab of Cow.
  • Michael McAfee sings (some of) Roast Beef Jesus, a potentially endless version of Plastic Jesus starring dashboard JCs made of various foods instead of diverse religious symbols.
  • Jack, his North Harbor(?) Lullabye
  • Jacob Sommer, Silver and Gold
  • Tom, his Superman Sex Life Boogie
  • Nye Martin, Cat Faber's Outward Bound
  • Tom, his I Want To Be Peter Lorre.
  • A few years ago Matt Leger presented a lively plea for civilian, not to say personal, participation in the space program, Send Me Up! I commented then that that was a risky title to use to filkers. [Some people apparently don't know that it can also mean "Parody me!"] I started writing such a parody, and at Philcon last month I finished the second verse in time for the Dead Dog Filk, but unfortunately Matt & Mary weren't still around to hear it, having had to get back to Atlanta. This time, and with three verses, I don't let them get away. "(Parody)" is not just a label to distinguish it from the original, but part of the actual title, since the song is about the process of parody.
  • Michael Stem [if I read his badge right-- Stern seems likelier; large type does not excuse black on brown], Something about parodies.
  • Daniel. [ a change coming soon ]
  • Jacob. Green Hills of Earth, "not [Mark Bernstein's] prettified version" but his own tune and (expansion of Heinlein's) lyric, which he feels are more in keeping with the fragments of lyric in the story and the way the song is described-- ending with Mark's tune for the last verse and chorus.
  • Tom, his 12 Days Of Star Wars
  • Matt, his Ivanova Blasphemy Song
  • my Riddle of Threes. A recent song that I premiered at Philcon, ttto the lackeyfish Threes.
  • Paul E. The Last Saskatchewan Pirate, Arrogant Worms
  • ?. The Love Song Of An Irish Warrior (recit)
  • Tom. 500 Hats
  • Daniel. Caroline
  • JoEllyn. Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell
  • Jonathan Baker. When I Was A Boy (Keith Lim's take)
  • Daniel. His? About the astronomical and geological history of the earth
  • Joshua Kronengold, Fins of Human Knowledge, by Ben Newman ttto Cat Faber's Wings of Human Knowledge
  • Jacob pumpkins with his Where Have The Leaves Gone?
  • (At some point Badger leaves, feeling unwell. Later we realize that she's left her walking stick. I promise to take it for her, since I expect her to be driving us tomorrow.)
  • my Winterfair Gifts, a short non-spoiler teaser for Lois McMaster Bujold's story of the same name, due out for Valentine's Day in the collection Irresistible Forces, edited by Catherine Asaro, containing stories by 3 romance authors and 3 sf authors, and originally to have been released on Valentine's Day 2003! (Amazon says Feb. 3; some Barnes & Nobles, and BooksAMillion [bamm.com], have it now, in trade pb.)
  • Mary Mulholland, her "I dreamed of you" (a poem)
  • my ose sf sonnet "Those are pearls that were his eyes"
  • Daniel, his There Goes the Moon ttto the Beatles' Here Comes the Sun.
  • my Jupiter Farewell
  • Nye. Mark Bernstein's Green Hills Of Earth .
  • Daniel. Sam's Song (Zander Nyrond)
  • ?. [time for living]
  • my Harley's Angels Adventure Theme
  • Nye, The Harley Bears A Maiden
  • Eugene somebody, Schrödinger's Cat, by Cecil Adams
  • Daniel, his Pavement's Groovy
  • Paul Mangan asks for Your State's Name Here by Lou & Peter Berryman, but the only one who admits knowing it doesn't want to sing it.
  • my An Appeal to Lou & Peter
  • Mabel Liang, the Berrymans' February March
  • Bob Leigh, Wintertime ttto Gershwin's Summertime
  • Nye asks for my Your Seasons, New England, so I oblige.
  • Joellyn. Something of hers untitled ("like a stone")
  • Harold Feld. It's Not My Fault! (Ivan's song, based on the Miles Vorkosigan novels of Lois McMaster Bujold)
  • +Joshua, his followup verse for the same
  • my Ivan's Grumble, a "one-verse wonder" or minifilk
  • me, Aral's Nightmare by Lee Gold. Paul M started up the chorus, and I pulled up the lyrics and led it.
  • Daniel, ("did you say...?")/[Rain on the roof], by Harry Kitchen
  • ?, [ the merry side of hell]
  • Daniel. Demons In Your Bed, a repeat from last night, by request
  • To change the mood, I give warning and sing my (instantiation of Terry Pratchett's) The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All.
  • ?. There's a splinter in my rowing bench
  • me. Widdicombe Faring
  • Bob. Ron of Dreams, a filk of John of Dreams, a complaint by the less-known brother
  • my Thinking-Brain Dog (Pratchett's Feet of Clay)
  • Joshua, his Play It Low
  • me+Joshua. Play It Slow, Cat Faber's original
  • me. How's It Go?, Ben Newman's filk of the above
  • Joshua, his & Batya "the Toon" Levin's Eat It Slow
  • me, Lee Gold's 1-verse The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buttered At All
  • Bob, All God's Critters Got A Place In The Fire. (Don Duncan & Sarah Fried)
  • me. Nobody's Moggy Now, Eric Bogle
  • Joshua. I Am The Black Kitty-Cat
  • Malcolm Skerry. Kill, Ye Warriors, Kill
  • Lisa Padol. [Take me as I am], Heather Dale
  • me. Nobody's Heather Lands, another mini
  • Bob. Heard it thru the bovine
  • Joshua. kipplefish Natural Theology
  • me. New Days, a Chanur filk of Michael Longcor's setting of Kipling's The Irish Guards
  • me. Don't Pick On The Librarian (Discworld, ttto Frank Hayes's Never Set the Cat On Fire)
  • Joshua. Talis Kimberley's X Libris ("Come on, baby, read my pages")
  • my Under the Whip and Leash.
  • my Men of Good Fortune, by request. (The Gaiman story, about Hob Gadling and Dream.)
  • Joshua, Midsummer, Heather Alexander
  • my Scumble.
  • my Millennium Toast, another song referring to drink
  • (Somewhere around here, about 5:10, someone asks if it's dawn yet. Sky doesn't show it; my PDA's Luach program says that Jewish ritual dawn will be at 5:41.)
  • my Hallways of Bucconeer
  • Joshua, his Many Words, One Vice, ttto Steve McDonald's Many Hearts, One Dream
  • me, A Few of the Difficult Bits, Phil Alexander -- a song about the proper and improper uses of apostrophes that I got from amiright.com.
  • Joshua, Cat Faber's She Is Gone. I know this song but I can't join in because Joshua's arrangement has a different rhythm and style than Echo's Children's own. It has a very different feel to it; not better or worse, just different. Joshua says Cat said the same thing about.
  • Since I couldn't join in on She Is Gone, I stayed with the same composer and theme: Black Molly
  • my Editors' Waltz, ttto Leslie Fish's Witnesses' Waltz, about editing and mistakes in English.
  • me. An unfinished song abt the saga of renovating our new 80-year-old house, ttto Tom Lehrer's Pollution.

    Dawn has come, by the clock at least, although what we can see of the sky doesn't show it. Honor satisfied, we return to our crypts. I take Badger's staff.

    6:10 am back in room

    ... ~7am in bed

    Sunday

    1:35 pm: Future of Freedom theme concert, JIP.

    No one signed up, so it's open mic.
  • me. Annie's Luck, Cat Faber
  • Lois. Fire in the Sky, Jordin Kare
  • Bob Rosenberg. Rolling On a D4 ttto Leaving On a Jet Plane.
  • me. That's How the Dendarii Free, Greg Slade, ttto The Lincoln Park Pirates by Steve Goodman.
  • Mabel Liang. Hot Frogs On The Loose. Fred Small.
  • my The Campaign Volunteer's Lament

    2:00

    Hang around and talk with Matt Leger

    2:20 pm

    I go looking for Musical Rad Libs in the filk room (Whittier), but no one's there; I misread the schedule, and this took place yesterday. Across the hall to a panel that seems interesting, From One Medium To Another: "Can story elements from comics, books, games, etc. translate to television and movies? What works and what doesn't." Well, this panel works for me.

    3:something

    The Sunday Sundae ice cream social. By the time I get there they have out of bowls, but they find a few more. And then they run out of ice cream, just a little after we get ours. "Cabot's had a different idea of 'serving size' than we did." -- "To some of us, this is LUNCH!"

    3:51 pm Dead Dog Filking JIP

    Jeremy is already here. As I enter someone is singing or talking about moving, so...

  • I sing my Throw me out!, ttto Be Our Guest! from the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast", about obsolete books.
  • Paul Estin, Weird Al Yankovic's(?) Star Wars filk of American Pie, "Chapter One"
  • Gary McGath. Darth Mall (request), Tom Smith?
  • (a woman whose name I missed), Get drunk with dignity
  • Jack Carroll, Mary O'Meara, by Poul Anderson / Bonnie Goldsboro, set to this lyric by Ann Passovoy
  • Rivka Watkins premieres something she's been working on this since she was 12 [When Superheroes Fall]
  • Bob Leigh. [Just Because You're A Parricide],
  • me. Never Set The Cat On Fire. Frank Hayes
  • Bob Rosenberg. His Smashing Jet Planes Up In New York, ttto Tom Lehrer's Poisoning Pigeons In the Park. Bob felt he couldn't perform it before this because it was too close to the reality of the subject matter: 9/11.
  • Jack Carroll. Rolling Down Through New Jersey
  • Paul E. You Can't Chop Your Mother Up In Massachusetts.
  • me. An Irish Ballad, Lehrer, inserting my own penultimate verse ("Here's the filk part") -- a horrible pun.
  • Daniel Glasser. I Still Want It All The Time.
  • Gary. I Wish They'd Do It Now (software industry version)

    It's time to leave. I ask Jeremy to do Manuel of the Planes. He points out that it's unrelated to the previous song; most of the others have been, too, and I invoke pumpkin privilege. So Jeremy asks the crowd for percussion support in a tango rhythm and sings it, much to my gratification and everyone's enjoyment/

    At last we leave with our ride, Badger's Jeremy (Parsons), looking unfamiliar with short hair and no beard. Badger stayed home today. We manage to fit the three of us and all impedimenta into the car, with guitar in lap and similar accommodations to limited space. Jeremy P. drives us to his and Badger's place, where he goes in and she, more familiar with the route, takes the wheel and drives us to the hotel on the Natick-Framingham line where Rene and soft beds are waiting.

    After the Con

    We spend Monday visiting with friends [having lunch with our daughter! Blame post-con amnesia] and making a pickup from our kosher butcher. Tuesday we get breakfast at Stephen Anthony's on Route 20 in Marlboro, then I get a haircut from the family barber shop I've been using since Jeremy was a baby [I'll have to find one in Philly sometime]. Then the highway and home.

    Afterthoughts

    (Feb. 2)

    At some point Jack Carroll played "Julian of Norwich", and many of us joined in chorus, harmony, and round, and I wondered aloud, "How does he get a full peal of bells into that instrument?!" 'Cause it sure sounded like it. (Yes, it's a 12-string, as someone said, but that doesn't explain it.)

    First line of "After the Con".

    First paragraph of "Friday Night".

    (Feb. 11)

    filk of "When I Was a Boy" on Saturday night.

    / back to my home page

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    last modified 2004-02-11