FKO highlights

Michelle and me. Photo by John. This picture was
taken especially for Joey Shoji. :-)


So it turns out that my lunch with Michelle at Fune was a small surprise gathering of friends in celebration of my birthday, organized by my sister (Here are some birthday photos taken by Reid and Here's his blog entry about it). I was totally clueless until about ten minutes before, when Michelle became nervous about arriving too early and began asking me questions about the historical background of a neighbourhood building in an obvious stall for time.

I had my suspicions confirmed when we arrived at the restaurant and was greeted by Jeff, Luisa and Reid, Parki, John and Kristen, and Ruth. :-D Rand called during lunch to wish me a happy birthday (Turns out he knew about the surprise as well).

Yesterday's birthday phone messages included ones from Andy Beaton, Cathy Rutland, Dave Weingart and my sis-in-law Debbie & family. I was especially amused by Andy's: "I was calling to wish you a happy birthday but you're not there, so I'll try again next year." :-D Thanks also for everyone's Blatherchat/ LJ message board posts and birthday e-mails.



Gray, Allison, Dave and Ruth. We feasted on Dave's chili,
garlic cheese pita, chocolate-covered strawberries.


The other photos on this page are from FilKONtario weekend. Feel free to post the URL of your FilKONtario report in Blatherchat.

Other people will be covering concerts and the other public convention events, so here are just a few of my personal highlights. I enjoyed myself at FilKONtario far too much to list every single highlight or enjoyable conversation...



Allison, Sally Headford, John Hall, and
Lloyd Penney at registration table @ FilKONtario.


A few personal highlights from FilKONtario weekend:

- Dave Clement's visit. His chili, his conversation and music, his friendship. I was so glad that my sister finally got to meet him! She also got to hear Allison and Graham play music live for the first time (as opposed to recordings), and bought CDs from both Dave and Graham.



Lunch with Andrea Dale.


- Seeing our Urban Tapestry DVD sell for $575 in the FilKONtario auction! Many thanks to Donald Clark for supporting FilKONtario. The top-selling item was from John Hall, a remastered CD of the 1980 Dorsai Thing; it went for about $800 to Ellen Kranzer.

- I bid for a WETA tote bag (radio station, not the Lord of the Rings special effects company, but hey, it still looked cool!) in the auction, then got so excited that I immediately proceeded to outbid myself without realizing it. Fortunately Dave Alway rescued me from complete humiliation by winning the bag. Shortly after, he presented it to me as a gift! Thanks, Dave. :-)



Tanya Huff in concert!


- Talking food with Mary Ellen, Judith and Kathleen. I want to watch food movies with Mary Ellen someday. Movies I have added to my "must see someday list" (not all food movies, but still): Dim Sum, Tokyo Pop, Diva. I want to visit Zingerman's in Ann Arbor someday, too.

- Tanya Huff's new hobbit lust song, which she wrote DURING THE CONVENTION. I am amazed at Tanya's progress in just a few years since she was first introduced to filk. We are both working on Michelle Sagara West to come to next year's FilKONtario. In fact, I hereby officially launch the rumour that Michelle *will* attend next year.



Mary Bertke and Erica Neely.


- Being able to spend a little extra time / conversation with Andrea, Tom Fenton, Erica Neely, Dave Weingart, Dave Clement, Kathleen Sloan, Mary Ellen, Michael Longcor, Pat & Andrew, Jill Grubbs.

- Accumulated lack of sleep made me more braindead than usual on Sunday, with embarrassing results such as me asking Mary Bertke whether she was planning to attend OVFF (she's on the concom) and accusing Allison of not returning a beaded bracelet made by Kathleen Sloan only to find that I was *wearing* it. Duh!



Howard Scrimgeour doing soundstuff.


- Singing the Hockey Monkey Song in the hallway on Sunday (thanks to Rachel and Heather M.!)

- An unusually sentimental song by Randy Hoffman.

- Sunday brunch with Rand, a ritual we've gotten into whenever we are attending the same convention.

- Seeing/hearing The Fibs again.



Heather Borean...


- Performing "Der Fluss" with Dave Weingart.

- Beading workshop with Kathleen Sloan. Kathleen was convinced that only a few people would show up on a Sunday morning. In the end, nearly 20 people attended and she had to scramble to figure out how to make her limited materials last. Early on in the workshop, Joel Polowin handed Kathleen a sheet of paper with a new song on it. :-)

- Singing our musical tribute to Kathleen with Allison and Jodi while sitting beside Kathleen. :-)



...and again. :-)


- Juried one-shots. I was on the jury along with Mary Ellen Wessels, Michael Longcor and Juanita Coulson, but I ended up learning a ton about musical performance myself. How it worked, for those of you who have never attended: each participant had a maximum of 3 minutes to perform a song, after which ensued 15 minutes of discussion with constructive comments from the jury and sometimes other participants. Emphasis on constructive... this was not meant to be an "American Idol" sort of thing.



Gary Erlich in concert.


- Seeing Karen Linsley perform in concert again. She was accompanied by Freddy Brown and Jodi.

- Mini birthday celebration with Allison and Jodi (with Rand observing in amusement). Among other gifts, Allison gave me a POWERPUFF GIRLS MUSICAL JEWELLRY BOX!! How cool is that?



Me and Merav.


- Learning some "Southernspeak" from Larry Kirby at the Thursday night get-together before FilKONtario in the consuite.

- Congratulation to this year's Filk Hall of Fame inductees: Karen and Poul Anderson, Valerie Housden, Katy und Ju, and Gary McGath! Urban Tapestry was honoured to be asked by Katy and Ju to help represent them in the Hall of Fame concert by singing Phil Allcock's "Precious Moments".



Dave Weingart, Kathy, Andrea and Jodi.


- Doing an a capella David Francey song with Dave Clement called "Torn Screen Door". Dave introduced me to the music of this amazing Canadian vocalist during his visit, and convinced me to learn and perform the song with him in open filk. I was incredibly nervous, but I figured it's good to push my boundaries every once in a while to keep from getting too complacent. :-)

Which brings me to one of the wonderful things about the filk community... the encouragement and support for those who may not have spectacular voices. Not being able to play flute, guitar, or even a tambourine lately has been disappointing, so I've been starting to sing more. Not just with Urban Tapestry, but with other friends as well: collaborating with Dave Weingart and Dave Clement at this convention, for example.

For me, the joy in making music with friends more than makes up for the frustration of still-healing arms. The latter is going quite well, I'm pleased to report... I've started on strengthening exercises in physiotherapy instead of just pain management. Fingers crossed.

(Note: still not able to keep up with LJs/blogs regularly, so please do not be offended if I don't know everything in your LJ. I never assume people keep up with mine, either. :-)



Downtown Freddy Brown doing a one-shot with Allison and Jodi.

March 2004 comments: Read | Post | LJ