poll: sad songs

A bizarre bug I saw in Austria. Anyone know what it is?


I've always wondered at the power music can have over us. How can a mere arrangement of sound vibrations make us so happy? Or so incredibly sad? For me, it's a combination of the lyrics and music and personal associaton. What's sad for me may not be sad for you.

A poll for all of you:

What are the saddest songs you know? Or that you've written?

Anyway here's my partial list; I may add to this during the day:

Somewhere Over The Rainbow: by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. One of the happiest and saddest songs I know.

The Queen and the Soldier: by Suzanne Vega. Joey Shoji does a great version of this.

Cranes Over Hiroshima: by Fred Small. I first heard this song when Joey sang this at a convention many years ago, and I bawled my eyes out. When my Mom was dying of cancer and I was in the hospital waiting and feeling numb and helpless, I found myself unable to read or do anything more than simple crafts like origami. When Allison and her husband John heard, they folded origami and mailed their pieces to me in support; soon our living room was filled with colourful origami made by friends and family. Later, a friend in Japan and her mother folded strings of origami cranes for my mother's grave. Jeff learned how to do origami during this time, and still does it for our nieces and nephews.

Drowning - by Joe Jackson

Go On - by Rand Bellavia and Adam English (on their album Oh Ok LA)

Elektra's Song- by Chris Malme.

Monday - by Allison Durno (one of my favourite Urban Tapestry songs)

Forever Young by Alphaville. Was one of my brother's favourite songs. I include a reference to it in the song below.

Song For Jim (see bottom of entry): song I wrote a few months after my brother and his wife died in a car accident.

Your turn.

October 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

meeting Sal Towse, OVFF, Filkcontinental

(Updated to include important chocolate bar info from Lyanne!)

Had to interrupt my trip report to say how delighted I was to finally meet Sal Towse, my markets editor from Inkspot days and well-known personality on misc.writing. We had e-mailed back and forth quite a bit for years, but never met in person.

I was supposed to meet with her back in March, but had to cancel my California trip because of my sprained elbow. Then I thought I wasn't going to meet her this time either, because the mystery convention Bouchercon was scheduled for the same weekend as Canadian Thanksgiving. But it turned out that Jeff and I would still be around on Thursday after all, yay! (To Gary: Sorry I was too late to hook up with you...hope you're having fun at the convention)

I was concerned about how we were going to recognize each other on the street, but when I arrived at our meeting place, she was wearing the Inkspot.com jacket I had given her for Christmas way back. :-)

SO great to finally chat with her in person. I embarrassed myself by frequently interrupting the conversation to suddenly exclaim, "I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE HERE!" and hugging her way too many times. Sal was so incredibly helpful and supportive during Inkspot.

To you writers out there: be sure to check out Sal's wonderful link resource for writers, which was selected by Writer's Digest last year as one of the best sites for writers.

Speaking of the Internet, I'm doing a chocolate bar swap with Rand's New Friend Erin (check out Erin's entertaining post about the quandary of romantic relationship terms), whom I hope to meet in person someday. She's sending me Fast Break chocolate bars for Jeff (which we can't get in Canada), and in return I'm supplying her with Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut bars. Thanks, Erin! :-) (Later note: Lyanne has pointed out that Fast Break bars are available in Canada as Sidekick. This means, of course, that Jeff and I have to do a careful taste test of both types to compare.)

Had fun hanging out with Allison and Jodi last night at the Frog & Firkin, celebrated their birthdays. We're looking forward to attending OVFF in a few weeks! Some people have asked me if we're going to be performing. We'll be doing a children's concert with Ookla the Mok, which should be fun, as well as performing "The Lady" in the Pegasus Nominees Concert (Jodi's song was nominated, and we've been nominated as Best Performer). And of course we'll be in open filk on Saturday night and probably Friday night. Unless we're guests, Friday night at filk conventions has always been a "catch up with friends we haven't seen in ages" time. :-)

And of course we talked about how great it is that WE DON'T HAVE TO HIDE THE FACT THAT WE'RE GUESTS OF HONOR AT FILKCONTINENTAL IN GERMANY NEXT YEAR ANYMORE, WOOHOO! I am -so- hyped. Now the agony of waiting for the actual convention begins. I hope my head doesn't explode before next October. (I was going to post a cartoon of this, but it looked far too gruesome (though my friend Andy would find it funny, I'm sure))

Phil Allcock recently posted some photos of the convention and area and Kirstin Tanger has posted lots of photos in her Let's Filk About page. Wow, gorgeous scenery. Here are some of the Filkcontinental reports I've found, in case any of you are thinking about going but want to know more:

Phil
Lissa
Zander (one of the Guests of Honor this year):
  Part 1 | Part 2
Ju


And thanks for all the interesting comments about travel, everyone. Fascinating to compare different travel outlooks and strategies.

October 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

hero, pegasus awards

Chris Conway and Jodi. Any suggestions for a caption?


Went to see Hero yesterday with Mark Thompson and Jeff and found it visually breathtaking, with stunning landscapes and rich colours. I will likely see it again just for the visual feast. However, I have to admit that for me, the movie didn't have as much emotional resonance as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In Crouching Tiger, I cried for the characters. In Hero, I pitied them but found myself more fascinated by how their costumes blended gorgeously with their surroundings, their postures, the cinematography.

I was surprised and honoured to be informed recently that I've been nominated as Best Writer/Composer in the Pegasus Awards, one of the awards given out in the filking community. Urban Tapestry has also been nominated as Best Performer (and Jodi's "The Lady" has been nominated in the Best Song category!). I feel especially honoured when I look at the other nominated performers/songwriters in these categories.

I was hesitant about mentioning this in my Blatherings (reason to be discussed below), but wanted to acknowledge the honour as well as the hard work by Steve Macdonald, who has devoted an incredible amount of time and effort into supporting and promoting the Pegasus Awards. One recent change, for example, is the fact that people can now actually listen to MP3 excerpts and usually read the lyrics for ALL songs being nominated, not only helping to make the voting process more fair but also helping to share the music of these individuals with those who may have not heard of them, and promoting filk in general. Bravo, Steve!

Reason I was hesitant about mentioning my nomination on Blatherings: I'm worried that some loyal Blatherings readers or especially non-filk friends may think it a Good Thing to rush over to the online ballot and vote for me (and/or Urban Tapestry). PLEASE DON'T. Do read the rules, especially the rule that you -must- be a member of the filk community to nominate or vote.

Even if you can't or don't want to vote, however, I do still encourage you to go over to the 2004 Pegasus Awards nominee page and listen to some of the nominated songs and performers in the filk community in the current as well as past years of the Pegasus Awards. You'll find a wide variety of musical styles and a good sampling of filk music, new and "classic". Links are provided to all titles and performers, in case you'd like to hear an MP3 sample or find out more about a particular filker (thanks, Steve!).

And if you like what you hear, consider coming out to a filk gathering yourself. :-)

Related links:

Where can I find filk conventions?

Housefilk resource maintained by Andrea Dale.

The Dandelion Report: a filking resource I maintain, includes answers to questions like "What is filk?"

Pegasus Awards FAQ

August 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

more confluence pics

Performing "Three-headed Woman" in Chris Conway's concert
at Confluence. Thanks to Dave Alway for the photo!


Not much time online (only one dial-up telephone line), hence the dearth of Blatherings.

The cottage seems to be good for my tendinitis, probably because I spend far less time on the keyboard. I'm able to type for longer periods at a time and did more paddling than last time during a canoe paddle to Adaskin's Bay tonight. As Jeff pointed out, it's a long way from me being able to do a canoe trip, but I still figure it's much better than I was able to handle a year ago. :-)

Spent a couple hours in the hammock this afternoon, listening to an audio novel ("Grass For His Pillow" by Lian Hearn) but fell asleep partway through; now I have to figure out where I dozed off.

Question: Does anyone out there have suggestions on how to handle a kitchen ant problem without chemicals?



Confluence photo: Jodi, Andrea, me, Allison, Michelle and Tom. Thanks to Dave Alway for the photo!

August 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

travel prep & concert pics

Urban Tapestry in concert at Confluence. Thanks to
John Hall, who took all the photos on today's Blathering.
From left to right: Jodi, Allison, me.


Many thanks to John Hall, who gave me permission to post some of the photos he took at our Urban Tapestry concert on the weekend.

Allison's coming to OVFF! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! Jodi and I are pretty darned happy about this. :-) :-)

Our friends Scott and Anita are visiting from Germany starting today! Time to practice some of the German vocab I've been learning lately!

There are way too many exclamation marks in this Blathering but I don't care!

In this Blathering, I thought I'd give list of some of the online services I've been finding useful while traveling, or in travel prep. Most of these were selected after much online research, and I welcome comments and other suggestions from anyone using these or similar services.

Audiobooks:

I can't stand being on a long flight (or even in a line-up at the bank) without something to read. The problem with taking a regular book on a longish trip is that once you've finished the book, it's dead weight. I've found my iPod wonderful this way because I can just stick on a couple of audiobooks and it doesn't add any bulk.

I use Audible.com, which has two levels of membership (one or two audiobooks a month). So far, I've listened to Lian Hearn's "Across The Nightingale Floor" and Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." The only downside so far seems to be that although you can sign up online, you need to phone to cancel.

If you do decide to sign up, please do list me ("ohi") as the person who referred you; I think I get some kind of credit, not exactly sure.

Internet access while travelling:

When using dial-up access while on the road, I use MaGlobe, which has dial-up access numbers around the world. I used it on our Arizona/Nevada trip with no problem, and it saved me a pile of money/hassle.

Long distance phone charges

My dad was the one who told me about Goldline, which I use at home as well as elsewhere. You can put as much or little into your account as you'd like, and then use a special access number when making long distance numbers. Thus I can call from pretty much anywhere with lower rates (e.g. calling the USA for 4.5c/minute, Japan for 6.2c/min, Germany for 4.9c/min, UK for 4.5c/min). Calling from a payphone adds an extra .80 at the beginning of the call.

But there are also access numbers around the world, with varying charges. In theory, for example, I could make calls from Germany back home to Canada for .09c/min. I used this service on my Nevada/Arizona trip generally with no problem, though I had trouble accessing the local number in Las Vegas with my cellphone (using the hotel and other phones were fine).

If you sign up for this service by phone, please do mention me as the person who referred you.

Airplane seating

Picky about where you sit on an airplane? Check out Seatguru.com, which lists seating plans for many different types of planes, along with comments about which are good and bad seats.

July 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments