FKO highlights (part 2)

FKO highlights continued from Part 1, in no particular order...

- Getting to know Sibylle Machat better. Sibylle and I never really had a chance to chat at Filkcontinental when we were in Germany so when I found out she was coming to Toronto a week early for FKO (yay for Livejournal!), I figured it was a good chance to get together one on one as well as with Allison.



- Seeing Adam English draw caricatures in open filk Saturday night, for anyone who was interested. Jan di Masi, a professional massage therapist, wanted a caricature of her working on someone, so recruited me to be part of her drawing...I was somewhat reluctant (it's a CARICATURE) but agreed (hey, I get a Jan massage!), as you can see from Allison's photo. Here's the finished drawing.

Adam drawing Franklin:



Adam's drawing of my friend Walter:



- Thanks to Mary Bertke for my birthday package, as delivered by Cat Faber. Inside: a squirrel shaped cookie cutter, and homemade sugar cookies shaped liked squirrels. REALLY yummy. Jeff hoovered quite a few, too!



Speaking of demon squirrels, I've noticed that lovely crocuses and other early spring flowers are already blooming in my neighbours' front yards. Wondering if any survived the squirrel onslaught of late 2005, I checked out the small plot of ground where I planted my crocuses.

NO sign of any life. In fact, there was a FRESHLY DUG HOLE with a pile of fresh dirt beside it. And on the top of the small pile of dirt...a mothball. Obviously the squirrel had just dug down, found one of the mothballs I had assumed would deter them, pushed it out of the way, and eaten my last crocus bulb. !!!!! GRRR !!!!! Next year, I'm using chicken wire to cover my bulbs.

Sigh.

Dave Clement arrives this morning, via Heather Dale!

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Post-FKO

Walter and Urban Tapestry!
Thanks to Franklin for taking this photo.

Back from FilKONtario...what a wonderful weekend. The guests were all fantastic. Many, many thanks to the FKO concom for making this event possible.

Didn't get much sleep and have a ton of work to do before Dave Clement arrives tomorrow, so I may not be posting a report for a few days.

The biggest highlight of the weekend for me, though, was when Jeff showed up for the Franklin-Urban Tapestry concert(!). I had no idea, though Walter did. Jeff hid in the back of the room until the concert began, then sat in the front row with Walter. I didn't even notice him until partway through the second song, and then almost fell over in shock.

Jeff had never seen Urban Tapestry perform at a filk convention before, and it was also his first time at a filk convention. He had already met some of my filk friends, but I'm pretty happy that he got to meet some of the other people I've been talking about over the years. Thanks to John Hall for the photo below; you can check out some of the other pics that my talented photographer friend has taken in his Favorites page. It was great that Jeff finally got to meet Erin!

It was also my friend Walter's first convention...thanks so much to everyone for making him feel so welcome. He enjoyed himself so much he wants to come back next year, yay. :-)



I'll be writing more about the weekend later and posting some more pics in Blatherings. Meanwhile, I'll be gradually uploading photos to this Flickr set over the next few days. If you have FKO photos or reports online, I'd greatly appreciate you posting the URL in my LJ comments section; I'll also post any I find on my own, of course, but I may not be able to catch up on LJ friends' list until the weekend.

I'll be listing any FKO Livejournal reports/photos I find below:

My FKO pictures (being uploaded over next few days)
Allison's photos
Walter's photos
Jennimi Ookla concert report and photos

At this point I realized I couldn't possibly hope to keep this list up-to-date. Please see Eloise's LJ list of FKO reports instead! :-)



Allison and the Germans:

Katy, Allison, Franklin and Sibylle

Hey, I just noticed that Franklin is wearing the new n'MC fundraising t-shirt! I drew the pictures, Judith did the design. n'Early Music Consort will be the GoH at next year's FilKONtario!

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Sibylle visit

Had a great time with Sibylle and Allison yesterday; you can see Allison's LJ report here. Found out, by the way, that her name is pronounced with a slight emphasis on the second syllable AND you pronounced the "e" at the end, sort of like "sih-BILL-eh." But again...she says she's fine with just "Sib."

Here are a few pics from the day...

Sib helps with dinner, a recipe from my Sofra Cookbook (Modern Turkish & Middle-Eastern Cookery) consisting of chicken, tomatoes, honey, almonds and cinnamon:



Notice the towel over the shoulder in the photo above. This is EXACTLY what Jeff does when he's cooking, and the same shoulder, too! Jeff and Sibylle got along scarily well during yesterday's visit. :-)

For dessert, we had baked pastry shells filled with fresh raspberries, drizzled with Devon Cream as well as a Ben & Jerry's peanut butter and chocolate cookie dough ice cream that Sib bought for us. Yummmm....

Sib signs our graffiti book while Cora observes from above and Allison looks on in amusement:



Jeff offers Sibylle tips on where to go in Toronto:



Sib sings her Evil Eyeball Song:



One of things we all talked about yesterday was the whole Livejournal phenomenon. If it wasn't for LJ, for example, I would likely never have known that Sibylle was coming to Toronto a week before FilKONtario and therefore wouldn't have approached her about getting together. I'm not able to keep up with my LJ Friends list regularly anymore, but I happily did see an early entry of Sibylle's announcing her intention to visit Toronto.

And of course we wouldn't have been on each other's LJ friends' lists at all were it not for Filkcontinental, the convention in Germany where we met. I'm still amazed (and immensely grateful) for all the friends we've made and music we've discovered as a result of that convention.

Anyway, I -loved- the fact that Sibylle took pictures in our local grocery store; this is so much the kind of thing I like to do in a foreign country. In fact, during the past couple of days I've discovered that Sibylle and I are alike in many ways; I'm very glad we were able to get together during her visit.

Only five days until FilKONtario!

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Sibylle's in Toronto!

VERY much enjoyed hanging out with Sibylle Machat last night. Sibylle (whose name, by the way, is pronounced with a slight emphasis on the second syllable, but she says "Sib" is also fine) was remarkably cheerful and alert considering she had just flown from Germany.

We had dinner at Queen Mother Cafe on Queen Street, the restaurant where my friend Parki and I always have lunch, then hot chocolate at a restaurant on King Street whose name I always forget because it used to be a Shopsy's but changed. Sibylle didn't mock me for ordering rice pudding like Allison and Jodi usually do. Or maybe she was, but just not out loud like they do. :-)

Sibylle's pretty amazing, and I'm not just saying that because she brought me German chocolate (Camille Bloch Pure Malt Whisky - a dark Swiss millk chocolate with a Whisky syrup centre...mmmmm). If you're craving German chocolate, be sure to check out the Interfilk auction at FilKONtario, because she's donating a bunch of German chocolate bars, and they all look pretty scrumptious.

We talked about everything from how we both got into filk to German desserts to pottery, and I found out important stuff about her, like the fact that she has two guinea pigs named Rimsky and Korsakov. FilKONtario is going to be her very first North American filk convention, so if you're attending the con, please do make her feel welcome. And before I forget, I should mention that Sibylle's going to perform her infamous Evil Eyeball Song as a one-shot concert at FKO, so don't miss it!

Looking forward to hanging out with her and Allison today. :-)

And thanks so much to all those posted in response to my plea for microphone advice in LJ! I'll respond to it after I've had a chance to go through it as well as talk with Jeff and about what we should do.



Ok, so perhaps Sibylle WAS affected by her
long flight after all...
:-D

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monkey moves

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Column topic - Freelance writers & e-mail: Part II.

Hockey Monkey news

As some of you know, the members of Urban Tapestry like the Hockey Monkey Song quite a bit; we tend to sing it in both our adult and kids' concerts. One of our goals has always been to eventually get everyone in filkdom to learn this song, or at least the chorus. Happily, we've managed to infest some of the Brits and the Germans with the song when we've performed overseas. We picked up the song from Ookla the Mok, who got it from James Kochalka. Our version is very different from Ookla's, as those attending FilKONtario next weekend will see.

Anyway, Jim Poltrone discovered that a new FOX tv show called "The Loop" is using it as its main theme! Here's an article from the Burlington Free Press about the show and James Kochalka that Allison found.

But meanwhile, here are the lyrics to the chorus so that you can sing along at FKO:

And it's 1, 2, 3...kids love the monkey and it's
4, 5, 6...monkey's got a hockey stick and
7, 8, 9...havin' a good time
YEAH!

You can hear the song by going to Ookla's MP3 page and clicking on "Hockey Monkey Song." For those who are (shockingly) not familiar with Ookla The Mok, Rand is singing lead in this song. Ookla the Mok, by the way, will be performing a concert on the Friday night of FKO from 8:45-9:30 pm, and rumour has it that their set list includes the Hockey Monkey song.

Lord of the Rings musical follow-up

A while back I posted a review of the Lord of the Rings musical. Well, here's an updated review from Sean, who saw it more recently. Sean tells me that an usher claims the show has gone through a major revamp since I saw it.

FilKONtario anticipation

Only a week and a half until FilKONtario! Here's a programming schedule, for those interested. Our concert with Franklin is from 4:15-5:15 pm on Saturday. There is a day membership available for those who aren't able to attend the whole convention.

Hey, and don't forget to welcome my friend Walter when you run into him at FKO! It's his very first filk convention. He has family obligations during the weekend so may only be able to attend part of Saturday. Here's what he looks like:

Those crazy Korean girls...

Thanks to my friend Ray for sharing this online video, which is highly amusing and disturbing at the same time. Hey Jodi & Allison, we should find a way to work some of this choreography into our performances, dontchathink? I especially like the monkey move by the girl on the left near the end.

If anyone reads Korean out there, I would love to know their real names.

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