Post-OVFF

(Above: Toastmaster Paul attempts to rehearse before the official launch of the convention despite distraction from friends.)

I went to the very first OVFF with my friend Reid (my first boyfriend, now married to one of my best friends, Luisa). This was waaay before Urban Tapestry, and I attended on my own for several years as well.


The filkers out there can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that OVFF is now one of the biggest and longest-running filk conventions.

One of the advantages is that the convention tends to attract some great musical talent from around the world, though I did notice this year that there weren't many Europeans. One disadvantage is that because of the size and multiple programming tracks, it tends to be an intense and hectic convention, especially for newcomers.

The filk circles also tend to be big and competitive, which is one of the reasons I quit going to OVFF for many years. I strongly recall the end of one convention when I saw a woman playing flute in the hallway.

Delighted to see another flautist, I greeted her and said I regretted not hearing her earlier in the convention. She turned to me with a scowl and snapped, "How could I do any playing with YOU always around?" Then she turned and walked away without giving me a chance to say anything.


The intensity of the woman's resentment shook me, and I didn't go to the convention for years after that. I became paranoid whenever I took my flute to a filk circle...was I scaring away other flautists? Was I "filk-hogging"? Was there some unwritten rule that forbade more than one of the same type of instrument in a circle?

OVFF is now 22 years old. I've started attending some years again, this year with Allison and Jodi. I'm more confident as a musician and an individual than I was 22 years ago, but I still find the convention intense and hectic, often with competitive personalities...but I have fun anyway :-). I go into the convention better prepared. I don't have to attend ALL the programming, for instance...believe it or not, it took me years before I realized this. I don't even have to go to the open filk circles if I'm having more fun just chatting with friends in the hallway. I make sure I get enough sleep; I used to be able to survive with very little, but these days I need more else I get punchy and oversensitive, plus I want to get back into productive workmode as soon as possible after the weekend. I take more frequent breaks, finding quiet time in our hotel room.



I want to emphasize, of course, that the rules all change when Urban Tapestry is a guest of a convention...in that case, we all know that our duty is to be accessible as possible, and our focus is to keep the attendees happy. If I'm paying my own way, however, my time is my own. There's an interesting discussion going on in Eloise's Livejournal about filk circle dynamics, by the way. I've noticed the discussion has spawned other LJ posts and discussions as well.


At OVFF this past weekend, however, I was paying my own way. I attended much of the concert programming this time, and was impressed by the calibre of talent. The main guests: Mary Crowell (Guest of Honor), Judi Miller (Honored Listener), Tony Fabris (Interfilk Guest) and Paul Kwinn (Toastmaster) gave excellent concerts, as did Brooke Lunderville, Tom Smith and Kathy Mar. Allison, Jodi and I had fun participating on one of Tom's songs with Seanan...yay for Seanan being there, since neither A nor J nor I had heard the song before when we got up on stage!

I especially enjoyed Paul's concert. I remember how quiet Paul seemed when I first met him...quite the contrast to the confident performer he is now! More on Paul at OVFF in an upcoming Blathering.



I was delighted to hear more of Brooke Lunderville (who goes by "hsifyppah" on LJ); I was blown away by one short insta-song Brooke performed at GAfilk some years ago but hadn't had the opportunity to hear much else. Kudos to the OVFF concom for giving this talented young woman a concert of her own. Brooke was ably assisted in her concert by John Caspell, an ex-Torontonian (see photo above). Brooke also did a wonderful job of performing Talis Kimberley's "Archetype Cafe" in the Pegasus concert. My favourite of Brooke's songs: her Livejournal song (can't recall the exact title), which I had missed hearing her perform at FKO. Very funny and accurate. :-D

Brooke's concert was definitely one of my personal musical highlights of the weekend, and I'm very glad I was in the audience. She has an appealing stage presence with good audience rapport...I'm looking forward to seeing more Brooke performances. She also has a wonderfully twisted sense of humour and drawing style; check out this Tetris analogy she drew after I posted in Eloise's LJ discussion about how difficult it is sometimes for a trio to find a place in a filk circle. :-D

Another highlight: being able to get to know Cat Faber better. Allison, Jodi and I went out for dinner with Cat and her friend Donald on Sunday night and actually had a real conversation with each of them! As opposed to the snatches of conversation once usually gets at a busy convention like OVFF.




This is one of the reasons I tend to steer clear of dinner outings involving more than six people during con weekends. Though the idea is fun, with bigger groups you only tend to get to talk with people beside and across from you at the table anyway.

More highlights in future Blatherings.

Livejournal comments

Back from OVFF

Above: Becca and me at OVFF. Photo by Allison.

Just got back from The Ohio Valley Filk Festival; I was able to catch a stand-by flight home with Allison and Jodi. We all had a fantastic time. HUGE kudos to the concom and guests for making this event such a success.

I have to unpack plus have lots to catch up on before I make any attempt at a convention report, but feel free to check out my OVFF pics on Flickr for now. I took a zillion photos but have ruthlessly culled out any that were unflattering to the subjects, blurry (unless I liked the blurry effect), repetitive, or just didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.



Livejournal comments

Will Write For Chocolate updated

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Thanks always to Joey Shoji for being my WWFC Chocolate Consultant.

Off to OVFF tomorrow morning!

Too much to do today and too little time, hence this short Blathering. Meanwhile, please do check out this highly entertaining LJ entry by Tanya Huff about the filming of her Blood books. It starts off:

"Previously in lj land, I told of how the five Blood books had been optioned for television by Kaleidoscope Entertainment, that 22 episodes had been purchased by CHUM TV, that I was thrilled about the casting (Christina Cox as Vicki, Dylan Neal as Mike, Kyle Schmid as Henry), overjoyed with the show runner/executive producer (Peter Mohan) and the writing staff (Shelley Eriksen, Dennis Heaton, and Mark Leiren-Young) that I was totally chuffed to be given the chance to write episode number nine (where totally chuffed should be translated as nearly hysterical with joy), and that Allan Kroeker who directed Ariel -- my re-watch episode of Firefly -- was directing at least two episodes.

I hope I made clear how incredibly fortunate I am to be allowed to be even a small part of this production because this doesn't usually happen. Optioning a book is a little like buying a car and letting the author of that book have anything to do with the subsequent show is then like taking the guys off the auto line out for rides in said car..."

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Livejournal comments

Postcards from Germany!

(Above: I took this photo during our concert at Filkcontinental last year.)

Last year, the members of Urban Tapestry were invited to be guests at Filkcontinental in Germany. As you probably could guess from my online report (Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 ), Allison, Jodi and I had a ton of fun and enjoyed making some new friends as well as seeing old ones.

The three of us were kinda wistful a few weekends ago when Filkcontinental reconvened for its annual bash because we wanted desperately to be there (!). We'd all love to go back to Germany someday. Especially NEXT YEAR, when our pals Dandelion Wine are Guests of Honour, woohoo! (or "Juhu" in German I think (?)) Sounds like this year's convention was a huge success, and I'd be surprised if the last few memberships left for NEXT year haven't already been snapped up.

Anyway, in the middle of reminiscing (and rejoicing that Franklin has just agreed to help perform "Wo Ist Der Bahnhof" in our GAFilk concert in Atlanta next January) . . . lo and behold, a package of postcards arrived this afternoon from the castle in Freusberg via Sibylle snailmail!



Allison, Jodi and I are incredibly touched...THANKS, YOU GUYS! (*insert weepy sniffle here*) I'm going to bring the postcards to show A & J at OVFF this weekend. And thank you, Sibylle, who was apparently the fiendish mastermind behind these community postcards! :-)

Hopefully we'll be seeing some of you at some North American conventions to give you hugs in person (like GAFilk, when Summer and Fall are Interfilk guests...yay for Interfilk!), but we're each hoping to make it back to Filkcontinental someday.







And just 'cuz I'm feeling all sentimental, here are a few photos from Filkcontinental LAST year. Also be sure to read Allison's Filkcontinental Nostalgia post in LJ. :-)












Livejournal comments

busy lives and priorities

CRAAAAAAZYbusy week since I'm leaving for Columbus on Thursday morning. Lots to do before I leave, so be warned that Blatherings will be sporadic between now and next week.

Despite the crazybusystuff, I spent most of Sunday afternoon doing musicstuff, and it was wonderful. Like the novel writing process, I find it incredibly satisfying to submerge myself into the songwriting headspace, when the world outside fades away and I'm only aware of lyric, melody, and harmony...and how it all fits together.

It's been ages since I've made a solid chunk of time (e.g. more than 30 minutes or so at a time) working on songs, and Urban Tapestry currently has two new songs scheduled in our GAfilk concert which I haven't yet finished writing. :-) I say "MADE" instead of "have" time because in the end, it's all about priorities, really. Whenever someone says "I didn't have time for xxx," it really means "I chose to do yyy instead." Which is fine, of course, as long as you purposely chose to do yyy (watching a tv show, checking your LJ Friends list, whatever) instead of letting it suck up your time accidentally.



Two-thirds of our new Harry Potter song is finished! Allison, Jodi and I brainstormed on a private Writeboard about Harry Potter stuff, and I put together a lyric from all our ideas. Then I played around in Garageband to find a melody. Strumming a guitar for longer than a few minutes at a time is too hard for me...this has made songwriting more of a challenge since we no longer have a piano (and I haven't yet had a chance to rearrange my office so my MIDI keyboard is easy to use with the recording set-up).

In Garageband, however, I can use MIDI instruments to provide accompaniment as I work on a song, then e-mail the mixed-down MP3(s) to Allison & Jodi to learn, including individual parts as well as how everything should sound all together. The songwriting session also taught me more about recording level tweaking, and I feel better prepared to give Seanan's flute track another shot...I realized my first recording attempt was way too quiet. One problem with Garageband, though...extracting the individual tracks to send to Seanan's engineer in an uncompressed state. Turns out Garageband isn't really meant for that sort of thing, so I need to find another solution. Meanwhile, however, Jeff Bohnhoff has kindly volunteered to help me since he's also doing work on Seanan's CD.

BLOG READING SURVEY RESULTS

Out of 64 respondents, 30% say they read 1-5 blogs a day, on average. 27% read over 20/day, 25% read 11-20/day, 19% read 6-10/day. I realized too late that my question was poorly worded, however, since some people counted their LJ Friends' list as one blog.

30% of respondents have no blog of their own. 27% do, and 25% maintain MORE than one blog.

There were a ton of interesting comments on blog-reading habits; I'll summarize these in an upcoming Blathering.

"A SIMPLE LIFE" SURVEY RESULTS

Wow, interesting discussion after yesterday's Blathering! It's clear that a lot of people out there feel that their lives are way too busy, and many actively seek out "alone-time." I also discovered that Chris Conway wrote a song called "Simple" on his new CD; I've posted the lyrics, with permission, at the bottom of this Blathering page. Do read the lyrics...they tie in so well with what I talked about yesterday. If you'd like to a listen to sample soundclip, go to his CD page and click on the MP3 link for "Simple." After hearing the soundclip, I ordered his CD. :-) Jodi had also played me some tracks from Chris's new album a couple weeks ago and I loved them.

Anyway, here are just a few quotes from the "finding your own time" discussion:

"It would be so easy to buy into the life that many people lead, which is working to *support* doing the things you love to do, and then trying to satisfy many interests and "obligations" instead of finding ways to do what you love to do to make a living, and saying "no" quite ruthlessly to anything that doesn't fit your work and true, heart-desired interests." -- zencuppa

--

"Heh, being single until the age of 40, I am now paying for all those years of slacking off by working at home and helping to raise two young children. Not to mention studying for a CS degree and vainly attempting to learn Japanese. Ah well, it'll get easier soon. Right? Right?! Please tell me it will. Somebody PLEASE!!! :) :)" -- David Goulden

(David was the sound engineer for our Myths and Urban Legends CD! I was surprised and tickled to see his post.)

--

"We spent two weeks of just us and our four suitcases (should have been three, but for special stuff). We used everything we brought, and missed nothing from home (food and replacing broken items aside). To me, this was a call to simplify in a truly dramatic way. We were content, we exercised a lot, ate healthy and lightly (both of us lost weight) and felt good. It's time to change." -- jhayman

--

"One thing that has helped this year is building in time at the beginning of the week (usually an hour or so) to clear my head and do nothing but look at various tasks to do and prioritize. I've also dedicated the first four days of the week to specific areas of my job (journal editing, union work, teaching, research), which guarantees that I can get to at least the top things in each area. I know I'm not going to get to everything I'd like every week, and I'm pretty much at peace with that, as long as I have a handle on what's on my plate and can pick what gets done first. Knowing what's on my plate makes it much easier to say no to things I really can't add to my load. I still say yes to too many things! But to fewer, these days." -- sdorn

--

"I try hard to take a walk every day -- at work I do this by eating a quick lunch at my desk. It doesn't always work; I often end up deep in a conversation or caught by a blog post or a bit of debugging. But most days I get at least half an hour to an hour of walking by myself." -- mdlbear

--

"I ask my husband and my children for help when I need some selfish time. Then I mostly leave our flat and go to have a walk or visit friends. They can't involve me again when I'm not there! ;)And afterward I'm much more relaxed and patient with my family, so that's no bad deal for them either. :)" -- kinder1of5

--

"Sometimes I think my job gets in the way, but sometimes I think that even if I had money enough not to have to work, I still wouldn't be able to do all the things I want to. I think I'm just greedy. There's *so* *much* out there in the world! Even the creative things alone choke up my time, and then there are the chore-like things that have to be done, like cleaning.

Sometimes I do feel like I don't have enough alone-time. (Though that's balanced by the fact that I'm alone at work most of the day-- but then that time isn't mine.) Reading is one of my great escapes-- I always make time to read, even if it's just on the bus or just before bed or just at lunch time. I usually read while eating.

Sometimes I just stop, take a deep breath, and give some of those things up for a while. Most of the time, I deeply wish that I didn't require sleep. :)" -- vixyish

--

"Oh, I understand the need to simplify. It was the driving force behind us moving to Lincolnshire. As time goes on, we strip more and more of the dross out of our lives, only leaving the quality that we cannot live without." -- stevieannie

--

"My life is definitely too busy. I do get selfishtime, usually just after the kids have gone to bed I come online and do a bit of netsurfing, but it's nowhere near the amount of general free time as I got pre-kids. Other amounts are highy variable. The only way to get regular time for me to do something was to book myself onto a course (the stained glass one, which is still ongoing).

The problem with being a parent is that even when one programs in a 'free weekend' one is still normally very busy and snatches the time at home to do tidying and laundry and sundry such exciting activities. It gets easier as the kids get older and more capable of self entertainment :-)" -- oreouk

--

"The idea of people who are sustaining rather than draining...that just triggered a flood of memories. (But I should use my own journal instead of turning this one into a vehicle for self-psychoanalysis.)" -- phillip2637

--

"I just got done packing a lot of stuff out of my "Current hit list" file into the "Consolidated To-Do List" file because I was feeling overscheduled....The next step needs to be prioritizing activities within the Consolidated list (right now they're alphabetized...) and pick out projects for a couple of the other nights in the week. When I get to the end of any project area, the whole what-on-what-night allocation gets reconsidered and probably shuffled some." -- msminlr

--

"John has Jamie out for a walk, giving me time to check LJ and relax a little while Liam sleeps. This is my selfishtime for today. If I don't get a little every day, I start to get crabby and snappy, which isn't good.

My life too busy? Hell, yes, but I also feel like I have large stretches of time full of activities that don't seem to accomplish anything. And my house is too full of stuff. Something snapped recently, and I have boxes in the dining room full of stuff that I'm preparing to give away. Books, clothes, old toys, and the contents of scary boxes, where I realize that I haven't used the contents for years and years, and why do I have this in the house, anyway? It's exhausting, but it's going to be worth it." -- kchew

--

"I definitely need my own space and time for my self when I can just BE myself. It's that what I love so much when being on holiday with kinder1of5...We definitely need this time off, from both work and family. Sometimes we just need to be ourselves and nothing more." -- Aryana

--

"I absolutely need time on my own. A lot, really. I know some people who do a lot to not be alone, to always be surrounded by people ... I am the opposite. I love people, don't get me wrong, but I do reach a threshold at some point where I just need to be by myself for a while. And it's not a hard point to reach. Like, if I know that I will be seeing people every evening for, say, a week, that's probably too much for me already, if I don't have time during the day to be 'on my ownsome'. So I try to avoid scheduling that. Or conventions - I love conventions, but I usually go away to be on my own for some time every day, otherwise I would get antsy and bad tempered etc ... doesn't have to be long, but when I get people overload ... I just need five minutes away." -- sibylle

--

"I need a lot of "me" time to do the various projects I have to do -- computer work, housecleaning, etc. It's difficult to do when there's a little one around and/or underfoot. We've had to wait until M was asleep before R and I could do what we wanted to do." -- poltr1

--

"Naps? Children have naps? Oh, why didn't someone tell my children that? They had/have a habit of napping in the car (hard to make the most of your "alone time" while you're driving home from the supermarket!)

I sometimes feel that I have scheduled too much activity for the children and for myself, to the point where I wonder how much time I would have to do class prep, etc, if I were to go back to teaching right now. I tried cutting out some of the children's extra-school activities, but it was like digging a hole in dry sand - something always slipped along and filled the gap.

Simplicity is being away on holiday with only three changes of clothes and a few books - how come that makes us so happy? :-)" -- fifona

--

Simple

By Chris Conway, recorded on his new CD, "Close The Circle"
(Hear a song clip on his CD page)

I used to want to be clever
Smarter than all the rest
Took a while to discover
That keeping things simple was the ultimate test
I used to want to dazzle
Like a lighthouse on the shore
But ships all know the light just warns
Of rocks on the old sea floor
It's the



chorus
Simple things I'm still learning
A little bit like this song
If you sing your life too complicated
Nobody can sing along
With you

I used to want to get noticed
Grab my slice of fame
I wanted to know everyone
And for everyone to know my name
Then I saw it coming
I saw I was in danger
Of being the only one that I knew
In the hall of a thousand strangers
It's the

chorus

I used to want to be mysterious
Wanted folks to try and figure me out
And if anyone got too close
I would vanish in a cloud of doubt
Like a kid playing hide and seek
My plan soon ran aground
Coz If you hide too well, you just might find
You secretly want to be found
It's the

chorus

(bridge)
And a notion, an emotion, leads me far astray
From the straight line I spied to point B from A
And this action, this distraction takes me to the sky
Before I fall I must recall - I need to simplify
My life

Sitting in my little green room
All kinds of gizmos at my side
Computer screens and DVDs
But I could not be satisfied
In the corner I saw my guitar
Like it hadn't been touched in years
Before too long a new little song
Lit a fire against my fears
It's the little song you now hear
About the

chorus



Livejournal comments