post-FKO

For those interested, I've updated my Saturday and Sunday Blatherings with photos from FKO.

The figures above were an Interfilk donation from Michelle Bottorff ("Lady Lavender"), who designed and made each figure to represent Jodi, me and Allison. I love the fact that my figure is playing a flute and Allison's is playing her guitar! The bidding went higher than we could afford (which we were happy about, of course, since all the money goes to a good cause), Kathleen Sloan won the final bid. At the end of the convention, she surprised us by giving each us our own figurine as a gift.

Happy Birthday, Rand! As those who attended FKO probably know, our new Secret Song was actually called "Library Boy", a surprise birthday song for Rand (whose birthday is today and whose photo is at the bottom of this Blathering.) The last photo and the one below were taken when Rand, Allison, Jodi, and I were taking a break just before heading downstairs to attend some more programming.





Just a few of my personal FKO highlights (more coming later this week), in random order:

- Gary McGath's Lord of the Rings parody related to "Waiting For Frodo" (he says he'll send me the lyrics)

- Performing "Saxophone In Spring" with Andrea, our first songwriting collaboration. I played flute and even sang some harmonies (my first non-Urban Tapestry harmonies!). Andrea says she wants me on her recording of this song for her upcoming CD...yikes! I've never recorded my singing on a CD before (except when UT live performances were taped).

- Paul Kwinn's surprise attendance!

- Having Ellen Weingart call me a bitch (in an affectionate New York sort of way :-)) because I kept taking stealth photos of her. It became a ritual through the weekend, much to Dave Weingart's amusement. ("Hey Ellen, look at the photo I just took!" "Bitch.")

- Hearing Katy and Ju perform "Play Me" (I think that was the name), a song they had written after a visit to my place, and seeing Talis play my harp. Beautiful piece, it made me cry. :-)

- Dinner with Allison, Jodi, Tom, Dave, Katy, Ju, and Rika on Thursday night.

- Andrea's contribution of a particular t-shirt with my photo on it. The photo was taken at Reid's and Luisa's watergun party last July. Clark Weirda won the bid. I must seek revenge on Andrea somehow, of course. >:-)

The photo below was taken in the hotel lobby. From left to right: Margaret, Allison, Jodi, Terence (who might be moving to Toronto!), Andrea, Melissa, Daniel.





Wonderful to see so many attending from Germany and Britain, like Rika performing her one-shot concert below:





Many thanks to Sheryl for buying our Interfilk package! The photo below is of Sheryl and Gary, in the hotel lobby just before leaving the hotel:





Heather did a wonderful job of running the con suite (Heather's on the left, photo below):





Dave Clement is coming to visit for a couple of nights. Looking forward to that, since we didn't have much of a chance to hang out during FKO. I find filk conventions like FKO both wonderful and frustrating because there are always so many friends I want to talk to, but there's so little time.

FKO Sunday

Top photo: Allison, Paul, Kathleen, Jodi, Rand.

Margaret Bumby giving me a "I'll kill you if you take that picture" look reminiscent of the one that Allison gives me in the same situation:





FKO's Special Guest was Tanya Huff (Michelle Sagara West wrote her bio in the program book). Tanya's donation to the Interfilk auction set a new record for the amount of money raised by a single item. If someone remembers the exact amount (around $700?) and person who purchased the item, could they please post the details in Blatherchat? Thanks. The person who bought Tanya's item would be a regular character in her next three novels, and they'd also be able to specify certain characteristics about that character:





The photo below is of Joey and Jodi. Joey Shoji was the Guest of Honour at FKO. I've never seen Joey in anything other than shorts. He does have cute knees, doesn't he?





Joey's workshop was an open rehearsal on Saturday morning. The photo below is of Allison and Jodi rehearsing "Star Sisters" with Joey:





Anke Teschke was the Interfilk guest; her presence had a lot to do with the attendance of the many Brits and Germans, I'm sure. :-) Here's a shot from her concert:





Very cool to see Lyanne at FKO! I first met Lyanne at one of our children's concerts, when she was about nine years old; we've been penpals ever since. She gave me a red t-shirt with "GET FILK" on the front that she had stencilled on herself for my birthday. I wore it in our Canadian concert. :-) Lyanne's attending university now:





Excuse my bedraggled appearance. It was taken on the last day of the convention, and I had only had a few hours sleep the night before. :-)

FKO Saturday

I was offline during FKO, but thought I'd share a few photos from the weekend instead of my regular Blathering. One of the big surprises of the weekend was the surprise attendance of Paul Kwinn, from California (see photo of Allison and Paul, above). Beckett, we missed you!

The photo below was taken in the main lobby of the FKO hotel and is of Paul, Melissa and Andrea.





One of the con highlights for me was getting to meet Mary Ellen's and Ed's young son, Corwin (see photo below). VERY cute and cuddly. He had obviously passed "Baby Cliche School" with flying colours...he cooed and gurgled, squirmed happily when being held, smiled at perfect strangers without reservation. There's nothing like a baby's devastatingly open and trusting (and toothless) smile to make one turn into complete mush inside:





Thanks to Tom Algeo for volunteering to take the picture!

The photo below is of Terence, asleep in the con suite on the first night of FKO. Probably recovering from his flight from Singapore! There is a rumour, by the way, that Terence may be moving to Toronto. Fingers crossed...





And the last photo is of Ellen Weingart, who became my favourite photo subject on the weekend, mainly because of her highly entertaining reaction whenever I brought out my camera. :-)

pre-fko

Major snow in Toronto right now. Guess the weather is making up for the mild winter up to now. To those of you making your way to FilKONtario right now: drive carefully!

Went to the Sheraton Four Points last night with Allison and Jodi and had dinner with Tom and Dave (whose Web site will be moving to dandelionwine.net soon), Rika, Katy and Ju at a nearby Kelsey's. Martin, Andy and Glenn arrived soon after and took a nearby table...very cool to see them again.

Allison asked to see some Euro coins, so Ju obliged with a sampling from her purse:





We dropped by the con suite afterward for a brief visit. Things were just getting set up, but it's pretty clear everyone's hyped for the convention.

For those interested, Jodi, Allison and/or I will be participating in the following concerts or panels (times are tentative! check your program book when you get to FKO):

Canadiana panel - 9:30 pm tonight

Tanya Huff request concert - 11:30 pm tonight

Joey Shoji concert - 4:30 pm Saturday

Dave Weingart concert - 1:30 pm Saturday

Filk Hall of Fame concert - 2-4 pm Sunday

Last jam (?) - We've been asked to sing "Home To FilKONtario" at the end of the convention again this year. :-)





Got back home in time to hang out with Scott a bit (he and Jeff went out for his birthday), though I probably wasn't very entertaining; I fell asleep on the couch. Scott was amused.

I'll be leaving my laptop at home, but will catch up on entries on Sunday or Monday.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and hope to see some of you at FKO!

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Jodi, Allison & I clowning around with Tom Jeffers at the FKO hotel. We've always been big fans of Tom. Here's the Tom tribute I wrote a while back (we performed it on his radio show, much to his embarrassment :-)).
	Euro coins from Ju's purse.
	Howard Scrimgeour decorating the con suite.
	Dave Clement & Katy Dröge.

Guest Blather: Andrea Dale

Happy Birthday to Scott Murray today!

Blatherpics were taken yesterday. The top photo is of Andrea, who stayed over last night. In the bottom photo, Jeff is talking to Allison and Jodi, Graham is cooking in the kitchen, Andrea is on the couch reading an article I wrote about Ruth for the April issue of ArtCalendar magazine (which came in the mail yesterday).

And here's a...

Guest Blathering from Andrea

Well, once again I am at Jeff and Debbie's apartment in Toronto. The sky is a clear, light blue outside, and the morning light is seeping through the blinds of Debbie's office.

I arrived around 2:00 yesterday afternoon, driving from Lansing, Michigan. When I stepped into the apartment, I found Debbie and Graham :-)

For the rest of the day and evening I caught up with those two, as well as Allison, Jodi and Doug (a friend of Graham's who came to dinner). Graham cooked up a delicious chicken stir-fry meal, which we inhaled . .And the rest of the evening was full of conversation and music :-)

It's great seeing Debbie again. She is as spastic, uh energetic as the last time we visited together (before OVFF last fall).

It's time for me to take a shower, before meeting Graham at the Royal Ontario Museum . . .

See ya!

Andrea

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Debbie again...

An explanation of Andrea's "spastic" comment. When I get excited or enthusiastic, I don't tend to hide it very well. I would majorly suck as a poker player. Andrea was highly amused during a music session yesterday when we were working out an arrangement of a song we recently collaborated on.

Some of you may think this personality trait of mine endearing, but you should remember it also extends to everything else as well. If I'm mad about something or at someone, I don't hide that very well, either. And when watching horror movies, this trait often manifests itself in a tendency to dig my nails into the arm of the person next to me. :-)