What's new on my Web site

March, 2008

• Secondhand Smoke. Death pushers.

February, 2008

• Morning Has Splattered. The cat gives her owner a bad morning.
• A new email address

December, 2007

• Don't Throw That Missile!. Loki and Baldur.

November, 2007

• You're A Kitty. The girl can't help it.
• A new verse in Trolls, insta-ed by Roberta Rogow in open filking at Philcon with kibitzing from about half a dozen of us.
• Seventeen Nights Drunk In Adrilankha. A Dragaeran version of an old song (Child #274) called "Five Nights Drunk", or "Seven Drunken Nights", or ....
• The Perilous Gard. At the end of The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, the minstrel Randal is beginning to make a song about the events in the story. He's only written one verse so far, and I wanted to hear the rest.

October, 2007

• I'm doing some updating of content and appearance in the interests of finding a job.

May, 2007

• The Wolf Within. Based on Lois McMaster Bujold's The Hallowed Hunt. With sheet music and a MIDI file. To appear on the Conterpoint 2007 songbook CD.

November, 2006

• The Uniform. Facing peer pressure in adolescence. Completely fictional, but inspired by a high school classmate's integrity.

April, 2006

• The Addict. Reading material... reading immaterial... reading, rereading, rereadinging readingreadingrereinigngginginggn...
• The Real(?) World Temperance Union. Some topics you don't have to make up: South Korea's baseball authorities have banned a star pitcher from wearing frozen cabbage leaves in his cap to keep cool during games.
• The Seven Days of Creation. An old, old story.
• wa' voDleH. A Klingon counting song.
• New stuff on Cracks and Shards, my Steven Brust fan page
• A new verse at the beginning of Nancy Buttons
• Northeast Passage. After living in Massachusetts for twenty years and filking with M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. for eight or ten of those, it was a wrench to have to leave the area. (Printed in M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C.'s songbook Northeast Passages)
• Bound for Argo. Those spacers sure put a lot of strain on the liquor supply, and everything else in town. Somebody's got to bring in the goods.

February, 2006

• Mongol Burger Dirge. Wage slaves of the fast food industry.
• Swing. Everyday magic.
• Fugue for Resurrectionists. Igor, Doc, and the Monster give 'em that old razzle-dazzle.

January, 2006

• NancyButtons. An addictive lady, rather as in the original song... though less dangerous to the health, and with much more personality.

December, 2005

• a new verse ("tigers") to "The Darwin Awards", based on hot news from the AP
• The Pixies o' the Wildwood. This lady did not go of her own free will.
• The Good Ship "Manatee": The Real Story. Deb Sanders & Leslie Fish told the story of "the strangest ship to sail the starry sea". Ah, but that's the story the crew want you to believe.
• Leslie Fish's Ghost Is Haunting Argo Port. Doing what she sang about while living and on Earth.

October, 2005

• B Movie. So bad you can't stay away.

August, 2005

• Dolly Boxes. They're taking over, and they aren't even alive! ... are they? A familiar story from another kind of fandom.
• Rude Awakening. Oh, our wired world. A case of felony music abuse.
• Somebody's Moggy's Clone. At Genetic Savings and Clone in Sausalito, Calif., you can have your cat cloned for $32,000, not counting cell sample, preservation, and vet fees. (The New York Times, 2005-05-28, p.C5)
• The Two Towers. Not what you're thinking. ... ... Not what you're thinking now, either.
• Dr. Whom has added a small section on Language Abuse.
• A new metacategory of my filks, Groupings: Sets of songs grouped by some common theme.
• Little Fuzzy Lunatics. Not H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy (IMHO one of the sanest characters in SF) and his kin, but about another little fuzzy race, Poul Anderson & Gordon Dickson's Hokas.
• La Drogvendisto. Tom Lehrer's "Old Dope Peddler" in Esperanto. Why? Why not?
• Yielding to Temptation. Those little distractions that run through every day (and night) of our lives.

July, 2005

• Listed my LiveJournal blog, "Occasional kvetch"

April, 2005

• Added letter links to the alphabetical title index to my filk songs, so you can go straight to L if you really want to.
• Added Hilary A.'s great page of parallels between Paarfi and Dumas
• My Grandfather's Hat. Frank Hayes wrote a version of "My Grandfather's Clock" involving the old gentleman's cadaver and its obstinate container. Garrison Keillor wrote "My Grandmother's Cat". See what comes of thinking of two such things at the same time.

March, 2005

• Eight Days of Luke. Based on the novel of the same name by the ever-original Diana Wynne Jones.

December, 2004

• My Philcon conreport; and in the process of writing that up I've webified another 14 songs, some old, some new:
• The Bree West-gate. A Bree drinking song, from sometime after the Travelers returned with their tales of walking trees who were looking for their wives.
• Every Wrong Turn In the Book. Written for a friend.
• The Harkonnen Conscript. Based on Frank Herbert's Dune. Perhaps the first filk I wrote.
• Lieder of the Banned, or, Banned from Everywhere. You just can't keep them away from "Banned from Argo".
• Lightspeed is Easy. I wrote this for a theme concert at Concertino '99, but fortunately did not submit it.
• Little Man. Written for a really twisted event devised by Randy Hoffman at Confluence 2004.
• Prehistoric Science. Written for the ConCertino 2003 "Rocket Science" theme contest.
• Riddle of Threes. A compound riddle for the SF/fantasy fan.
• Rocza's Song. An imagined look inside the mind of a Steven Brust character we seldom hear from.
• Teddy Bears' Breakdown. Dedicated to Loiosh.
• Trolls. Yet another ttto Threes.
• Vingean Heroes. Minimally speaking, a "one-verse wonder". Bibliographically useful.
• Winterfair Gifts. Based on the Lois Bujold novella of the same title.
• You Don't Mess With Sethra Lavode. Not if you value your life and/or your soul.

October, 2004

• Would you believe, an Esperanto version of "Miles's Effervescence".

September, 2004

• Valse Macabre. In invading Iraq, the Bush II administration has whirled America into another dance of death and brought the word "quagmire" back into public discourse.
• Filkoda. An offstage coda to The Filkado, a Filbert & Sullivan space operetta first presented at Noreascon 4. (The 100th song I have posted here!)

July, 2004

• Our housefilk in Philadelphia

• This Road. At the opening of The Curse of Chalion, Cazaril is walking down a road.

March, 2004

• Noman's Plan. Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus, based on Book IX of The Odyssey. (Formerly titled No Man's Island.)
• Beast Of My Kind. Encounter in the pasture.

February, 2004

• Boskone 41 con report.

January, 2004

• Arisia 2004 con report.

December, 2003

• My family and I are now living together, in Philadelphia!

• I have a domain of my own. My home page is now accessible as mark.CracksAndShards.com

June, 2003

• Little Fuzzy Mineral. A teaching song to a familiar (to filkers, at least) tune.

• At The Seventeenth Cycle's End. Based on Steven Brust's Five Hundred Years After.

May, 2003

• Lots of Cracks & Shards stuff for Steve Brust fans.
• The Wiggle-Waggle Chippendales. It wasn't the gypsies a-come to my door this time, and my lady didn't run away with them; quite the reverse. (Bawdy)
• Dr. Whom has a new peeve.

April, 2003

• Fen, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to be Mundane. No one expects the fannish obligation!
• Chap Shtick. Now is the winter of our discontent ...
• Seldom In Chicago. Old Macintosh users remember how impressive the "Chicago" font was in comparison to the dot-matrix-y typewriter-y stuff that had been standard on most computers till then.
• _he _issing _etter. At cons, MASSFILC members often ornament their badges with a yellow ribbon bearing the club name and a dandelion graphic. You wouldn't want to accidentally cover up the first letter of the name...
• Wings In Flight. Lee Gold and I independently wrote followers to and ttto Cat Faber's "Wings" that fit together with the original to make a single larger story. Lee published both followers in Xenofilkia #84, August 2002.
• Piggie Chow. A Very Hungry Guinea Pig.
• My wife Rene's new doll costumes, including some from The Curse of Chalion

March, 2003

• Widdicombe Faring. A Viking ghost ship song begun by, and completed in memory of, Bill Barton ("Vilhjalmur Song-friend").
• Mister Sandman. A song of survival support services in winter.
• The Sounds of Consonance. My linguistic Evil Idea for my Interfilk Guest Concert at Consonance 2003.
• Speaking of which, I've also put up my con report.
• The Fan Of The Rising Sun. A repentant otaku's confession.
• Feet Of Cambreadth. An autologous teaching instafilk.
• So Long, And Thanks. In memory of Douglas Adams.

January, 2003

• I've joined the Filker's Bardic Webring and the Dragaera Webring.
• You can now buy any of Steven Brust's Dragaera books from Amazon through my website at no additional cost.
• Dr. Whom has found a trenchant comment on the serial comma.

December, 2002

• My new job at UPenn in Philadelphia.

November, 2002

• A Small Snarky Voice. Those who have met me at cons or filksings have seen my familiar, Loiosh.
  This is not the first time he's been in my songs; see verse 3 of Con From Argo.

October, 2002

• Now working at UPenn! Further info and major update soon!!

• New Days. Based on C.J. Cherryh's Chanur trilogy. The humans are here, and the Compact is changing.

August, 2002

• A Civil Campaign Suite. Six new short songs for characters in Lois McMaster Bujold's comedy of biology and manners, arranged with the two older ones into a suite.
• An Appeal to Lou and Peter. Please, O great and funny singers...

sometime early in 2002

• Posted resume

December, 2001

• Laid off. Change in email addresses.

September-October, 2001

• Worldcon report
• September 14, in the wake of nightmare: The Interfilk pishka signs up for the Red Cross.
• How Can I Keep from Screaming? (A Dilbertiad). The subtitle says it all about the point of view of this cri de coeur from cubicle-land. Posted at the request of the author, who wishes to remain pseudonymous.
• When Cons Come To New England. It's all Gary McGath's fault. In October 2001 he wrote, "The leaves are changing color, and it's heading toward that time again -- con season." That started me on this.
• No Safe Ground. September 11, 2001. Life is not the same.
• Split main filk index into two pages.

July, 2001

• Cha-os. Into every life a little disorganization may come. Or a lot. All at once.
• Don't Pick On The Librarian. Some useful advice for visitors to the Discworld.

May, 2001

• A King in Krothering. An episode from E.R. Eddings's* masterly heroic fantasy The Worm Ourobouros.
  * Not "Eddison".
• The Definition of Filk. I decided to express my opinion on the matter in the appropriate form.

March, 2001

• Added explanatory footnote to The Ballad of Lois Mangan.
• Me and Brennan Out On the Warpath. Larry Niven's Protector, as not sung by Paul Simon.
• The Interfilk pishka.
• Posted the retired verses from "Video Heroes".
• Father's Little Helper. How Daddy makes it through the day. (Not really. What, never? Well... hardly ever.)
• Insomnia Suite. How Daddy makes it (or fails to make it) through the night.
• The Waffle Song commemorates the American Great Electoral Mess of 2000.
• The Campaign Volunteer's Lament. My wife and I actually met in a political campaign long, long ago.
• The Fanboy. The convention experience familiar to any con-goer, as seen by an otaku (Japanese-animation fanboy).
• Jupiter Farewell. On June 27, 2000, the New York Times Sunday Magazine had a long tribute to Stanley Kubrick. One week later the TV broadcast of the Boston Pops Independence Day concert had a commercial for vacation cruises on Holland America Lines with a toll-free number: 1 800 SAIL-HAL.
• A Chat With Your Teenager. In behalf of one of the most maligned minorities in today's society.
• Zander's Little Filkbook. I bought Zander Nyrond's book of filksongs last year and promptly misplaced it. I still haven't found it.
• Men of Good Fortune. A retelling of Neil Gaiman's story of the same name.
• Editors' Waltz. Misuse of language can be hazardous. See also Dr. Whom's Peeves.
• Ko-Ko's Great-Great-Grandson. If the Lord High Executioner from The Mikado had a twelve-year-old male descendant, can you doubt that he would be as insufferable as his illustrious ancestor? Now imagine the brat as a computer gamer...
• The Hallways of BucCONeer. Con hotels are bureaucracies, and therefore especially vulnerable to Murphy's Law. A nearly-true story from the 1998 WorldCon.
• Al Amarja (Fiddler on the Edge). Life in Al Amarja is lived On the Edge... and in The Edge, and Over the Edge.
• Branches on the Lawn. A small suburban tragedy.
• Body Art in Jewish Law. The halakhic take on tattoos, piercings, and similar adornments.
• Admonition in Unseasonable Weather. Early December, 1998, brought some remarkable days to the Boston area

February, 2001

• MAJOR REORGANIZATION of my filk page.
• Billboards. A light-hearted look at advertising for one of America's drugs of choice. Frankly tendentious, and possibly not for the queasy (but only because of its subject matter).
• Last year, when I posted My Grandfathered Plot on rec.music.filk, Lynn Gold told me that things in Houston aren't really as they were rumored to be. So I wrote another verse, and I finally got around to putting it up here.
• Dark and Light. Not the Force, not even duct tape: it's laundry! Other people's laundry. My teenagers' laundry. I can run, but I can't hide.
• Under the Griping Beast. Note, that title has just one "p"; Cat Faber's title has two. The beast itself has plenty.
• The Wreck of the ConCertino '99. Gary McGath swore a mighty oath before East Coast filkdom that ConCertino '99 would have full one hundred registered members. Whom the gods would destroy they first make proud... but we made it. In some other universe we didn't, and that must be where this song came from.
• An HTML-formatted version of my story Pachinko to Pisces, whose origins you may recognize if you're a filker, and which I hope you enjoy even if you're not.
• Added a skeleton key to "Con From Argo".
• Video Heroes (v2.0). Animation! Action! Adventure! "Daddy, daddy, let's get that one!" (Revised to be not too many years behind.)
• Enrique's Lament. Poor Enrique Burgos in Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign. His genetically-engineered insect creations produce a perfect foodstuff, but nobody wants anything to do with them, let alone it.
• The Dutchman and the Lady. A story that Poul Anderson never wrote, but I think it's in character for this hero.
• Scumble. A potent beverage of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
• Virgin Blood. Whoso would command a greater power had better be damn sure of the rules.
• To the Tune of... What?. The Web and the Net are a mighty tool, but they are mostly visual and textual. This sometimes leads to a problem when a filker posts a song "to the obvious tune", which isn't always as obvious as one might think.
• The Roadkill Song. Waste not, want not. Be warned by the title.
• Mark's Jingle. Dendarii maple mead has been called "the most disgusting, gut-destroying, guerilla attack-beverage ever brewed by man". But once Mark Vorkosigan starts thinking about what he can do with it, we might get a distillery and an ad campaign such as this.

January, 2001

• Filker's Insomnia, a literally autobiographical song: i.e., it describes its own composition.
• La Belle Dame Sans Merci is about Erica Neely, a beautiful, melodious, and very dangerous woman.
• Filk It Yourself: You can write a filksong from the things you find at home. Created during a group mind-meld on rec.music.filk... or should that be "mind-meltdown"?
• Count Vorvlaceslav What the folk process might do to "Good King Wenceslas" on Barrayar, in Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan novels. Eric Oppen started it on the lois-bujold list and I finished it.
• A couple of scribbles:
  • A fanfic called "Pachinko to Pisces"
  • A Barrayar Feghoot
• A new verse in my song about the Darwin Awards.
• Truth compels me to change the bridge in "Junk Mail".

June-July, 2000 (Boy, I've been occupied, haven't I?!):

• My Grandfathered Plot: A meditation on zoning regulations.
• An Odometer Toast: Written to welcome the new year 2000. (Not the new millennium; that came 366 days later. If you don't believe me, start counting from the Year 1 of the Common Era* and see how many it takes to complete two thousand. Little Dennis, the monk who [mis]calculated the year of Jesus's birth, didn't know about zero.) Chosen Best Humorous Song in the "Looking Forward, Looking Back" theme contest at Conterpoint Three.
       * Or "A.D.", if you like.

What was new in 1998-1999