GAfilk highlights (part 3)

As promised, here are some more highlights from GAFilk, in no particular order:

- Getting a chance to finally have a real conversation with Sherman Dorn on Friday night.



- Swing dance workshop with Mark Osier. It was great to see my friend MarkO again, but even more fun to see him in dance instructor mode. :-)

- Meeting Karen Anderson.

- Seeing Carolyn Brown as Interfilk Guest. Yay for Torontonians! She certainly did us proud. Jodi and I also got to hang out with her and Marie in the airport on the way home.



- New buttons from Dave Alway. Thanks, Dave!

- Chatting with Sheryl just before MarkO's swing workshop started.

- Talking comic-making with Adam English.

- Going drinking with John Hall. Ok, so maybe I had half a glass of white wine spritzer. That's a lot of booze for me. And I stayed awake for at least a couple hours afterward!

- The wonderful con suite courtesy Cris Schoenborn. She had chocolate fondue again! And some really amazing chocolate truffles! And some non-chocolate stuff, of course... ;-)



- Having my first real conversation with Tanya Huff, at the Waffle House. Shortly after, I saw in the hotel hallway and didn't recognize her; I don't think she's going to let me forget about that one. :-D

- Sue Posteraro's red socks. Plus Sue's smile, and she was always smiling whenever I saw her at the convention this past weekend. :-)

- Getting a cool penguin tea-maker from Crystal and Steve. I've already tried it out several times, and it works wonderfully!

- Seeing several people (including Crystal, Deborah, Adam) try out my new rollable keyboard.



- Seeing Katy and Ju in horns!

- Wireless Internet access in the hotel! The connection in our room was pretty flakey, but it was good enough for me to pick up e-mail and it was FREE, so I can't really complain.

- Opening ceremonies.

- Seeing Josh and Naomi relaxing on the couch in GAfilk function space in nearly exactly the same positions (on the same couch!) as when I saw them for the first time last year. :-D



- Blueberry muffins from Mary B.

- Seeing the Suttons again. It's been way too long.

- Posing for silly pictures in the hallway with Tanya, Michelle, Jodi and Mary. (Photo link courtesy Rob Wynne)

- Hearing Dandelion Wine! I can never get tired of hearing Dave and Tom sing.

- Chatting with Myra Hunter at the registration desk again. This year they had coloured markers which also happened to be fabric markers; I used these to finish off my Dandelion Wine square for the Interfilk Quilt.

- Chocolate cake from Mary C.



- Finally getting to meet/hear Michelle Dockery. Lordy, what a voice that gal has! She was kind enough to sing "Mal's Song" for me in open filk; I'm sure she was requested to do this song many times.

- Being attacked by the Toastmaster (blackmail photo courtesy Rob Wynne).

- Seeing/hearing Tony Fabris again! Thanks to Tony for being Urban Tapestry's stunt guitarist for Library Boy. We wanted to sing it for Rand's girlfriend Erin, who had never heard the song before. Here's a photo that Rob took (tho I think we were singing "Closer to Fine" at the time).

- Brenda Sutton winning my Interfilk package. Thanks, Brenda!

Photo courtesy Erin.

- Singing Hey Tom early in the weekend. It was the first time I had ever sung a song by myself in an open filk (i.e. without Allison and/or Jodi). Many thanks to the local filkers for letting me practise solo singing on them first. :-) More about this in a future Blathering.

- Watching Margaret Middleton in action, fixing up my Dandelion Wine quilt square so it could be added to the others. Thank you, Margaret!

- Seeing Erin and Rand again.



- Last filk circle (photo link courtesy Rob).


- Not having to be up on stage in "My Filk." I humiliated myself a couple years ago, not even being able to remember lyrics from Jodi's song "The Lady." MUCH more fun to be in the audience! :-D Rob, as usual, was an excellent gamehost.

- Dave Rood as Toastmaster.

- Irish music session on Friday night. I was so happy I nearly exploded; it was INCREDIBLY fun. Lots of participants, including Bill Rintz, whom I hadn't seen for years, as well as Mary, Dave, Tom, Helen, Phil, Sherman and Kathryn. I was actually able to play some tunes from memory this time. MANY THANK to Mary B. for organizing this event! Here's a pic that John Hall took.

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- Kathleen's amazing dragon bead necklace.

- Bellydancing workshop with Sharlene. This wasn't an official part of the programming, but put together on the fly because enough women at the convention were interested. It was WAY fun, with lots of giggling and joking. I also really enjoyed Sharlene's singing with Kathleen Sloan and Kathy Mar in open filk.

- Playing flute in Dandelion Wine's concert. Here's a pic that John Hall took.

- Saturday afternoon conversation with MarkO.



- Getting a postcard and lyrics from Marilisa via Deborah. After seeing Marilisa and Mich do their "Home" parody at Filkcontinental, I asked Marilisa for the lyrics. I showed them to Rand and Adam during GAfilk, and Adam liked the lyrics so much he said they were better than the original. :-D

- Seeing people in their fancy duds on Saturday night.

- Talking Celtic music with Bill Rintz.

- Being introduced to Woodchuck cider by John Hall. I don't like beer, and had just started liking Strongbow after being introduced to it by Jodi. I like Woodchuck even more, probably because it has a lower alcohol content. :-)

- Seeing Jodi in her "Canadian chanteuse" role with the GAfilk House Band. I -love- hearing her sing jazz.



- Getting some more nMC headshot photos: Deborah, Kate.

- The GAfilk songbook, put together by Mary Crowell. Wow, what a project that must have been; it looks fantastic and the hefty volume makes a wonderful (and useful) souvenir of the weekend. Thanks, Mary!

- Seeing Sue Posteraro win Dandelion Wine's Interfilk contribution, an hour-long private Stan Rogers tribute concert. Sue generously opened up the concert to the entire convention on Sunday.



- Another first for me: singing with Dandelion Wine in their Stan Rogers concert. I sang with Dave Clement on the a capella "Torn Screen Door" (David Francey tune) as well as with Dave and Tom on "Saints and Sinners" (another David Francey tune). Yes, I was terrified, but I think it went okay. :-) More on this in a future Blathering. If anyone has a recording of this, I would very much love a copy.

- Meeting David Glasser for the first time. What a sweetie!

- The GAfilk banquet/dance, of course. See this Blathering.

- Seeing Daniel Glasser menace Adam English in open filk while singing his now infamous "Close Your Eyes."



- Having Juliane Honisch as our Honourary Urban Tapestrite (since Allison was sadly not able to attend GAfilk this year). We performed "Another Round" in open filk, a piece that Ju wrote and that we had performed in Germany.

- Getting together with filkers, sometimes accidentally, in the Atlanta airport on the way home, including: Ju, Katy, Steve, Michelle, Tony, Carolyn, Marie and Kathy Mar.

- Katy and Steve providing dessert at the airport. ;-)

I know I'm missing some highlights; there were so many at GAfilk. :-) Rob Wynne has collected a number of GAfilk online reports. You can see my Flickr photo set from Gafilk, Rob's photos, and John Hall's photos.

THANK YOU so much to the concom and guests for all your hard work!

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Dancing at GAFilk (GAfilk Part 2)

(Update: Do check out Allison's LJ entry about dancing and GAfilk!)

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated; the strip will be updated every Wednesday. In my column under the strip, I offer a few tips for those considering a freelance writing career, and encourage other writers out there to add your own suggestions and advice in the comments section.



GAfilk was very much a relaxacon for me this year. I don't think I've had as many leisurely (more than the usual 60-second conversations that you usually get at filk cons) one-on-one conversations as I had this past weekend. I did end up missing the mini-concerts in the afternoon, but the trade-off was that I got to catch up with my friend Mark Osier, and also got in a desperately needed nap.

For anyone who has never attended a GAFilk, I highly recommend this convention. Each filk convention has its own personality, I find, with different pros and cons. For me, things I especially like about GAfilk include the following:

- Only one track of programming at a time, so chances are much better that you'll get to have conversations with people.



- Frequent breaks of 10-15 minutes between major programming items, giving people a chance to get up and walk around, use the restrooms, etc. This encourages people to actually WANT to attend the next item of programming.

- Programming rarely (never? more experienced GAfilk attendees can confirm this) occurs in the morning. This gives everyone a chance to sleep in OR have leisurely breakfasts, more conversation and hanging out.

- Local laws mean that the hotel bar and attached lounge are now non-smoking.



- A fantastic songbook (courtesy Mary Crowell) that you get with your membership.

- The GAFilk Interfilk quilt project. Even non-needlework people like me can have fun contributing. This year, Quilt Queen Margaret Middleton provided quilting materials to play with. If you wanted to contribute at the con, for example, you could work on your square while sitting in the audience listening to concerts.

And of course now I must rave about the Saturday night banquet. This is always one of my highlights at GAfilk. The GAfilk house band is amazing, and the dancing is fun. As I've mentioned in previous Blatherings, I used to hate high school dances...partly because I knew I wasn't a good dancer, and partly because I knew the "cool" kids were on the sidelines critiquing everyone's technique. I'm still not a good dancer but I don't care, as long as I'm having fun...and I've found that's always the case at the GAfilk banquet.



There's also never pressure to dance if you don't want to; another thing I always hated about high school dances was the "come on and DANCE and have some FUN" attitude, with the ridiculous implication that you weren't enjoying yourself if you weren't out on the dance floor. In keeping with its relaxacon philosophy, the GAfilk banquet/dance is for both dancers and non-dancers. And unlike most dances, the music is never too loud for conversation, both on and off the dance floor.

Plus it doesn't matter if your partner or partners are male or female, whatever type of music. Bottom line: if you enjoy dancing, you'll be able to find people who will dance with you. And if you don't want to dance, there's no pressure to do so.

I know I'm going on about the dance part of GAfilk, but I know that there are those out there who might avoid this part of the convention because of nervousness about the whole dance thing. Please don't! If you do, you'll miss out on a lot of great music and conversation. :-) But be sure to sign up for a banquet membership early; it always tends to sell out!



This year, Mark Osier offered a swing dancing workshop on Saturday before the banquet. It was so popular that MarkO had to start turning away people at a certain point. It didn't matter if you came without a partner (I didn't have one, for example); we all rotated partners every dance. This also had the advantage of breaking the ice for asking workshop partners to dance during the evening.

On the dance floor later that night, of course, I forgot most of what I had been taught. BUT I did remember enough to use at least some of my newfound knowledge, especially if my dance partner had also attended the workshop. Thanks, MarkO!

This year's GAfilk house band consisted of:

Liz - George Powell's daughter did a wonderful version of "Jabba's Good To You" (photo link courtesy John Hall)

Andrew - George's son, played sax and keyboard

Teresa - Teresa Powell of Three Weird Sisters, sang and played bass. I loved her rendition of "Trust In Me" with Jan di Masi's live snake draped around her neck (!) (photo link courtesy John Hall)



George - Teresa's husband, plays bass and sax

Dave Rood - Toastmaster at GAfilk this year, plays trumpet (also plays numerous other instruments outside of the GAfilk house band)

Brian Richardson - drums and percussion

Jodi Krangle - my music partner, described as the "Canadian chanteuse" in the GAfilk program book :-)

Mary Crowell - vocals and keyboard, sets the pace

To members of the house band: if I have any details or names wrong above, please let me know!

More GAfilk highlights soon...

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Home from GAfilk!

Mark Osier and Jodi.

Back from Atlanta! GAfilk was wonderful; many, many thanks to the convention committee for its hard work in making this convention so successful. Dandelion Wine, Dave Rood, Carolyn Brown and Karen Anderson were splendid guests.

I'm tickled to announce that Urban Tapestry will be Guests of Honour at the convention next year! Linda Melnick will be Toastmaster; do check out this LJ entry of Allison's about Technical Difficulties. And we were also thrilled to hear that Summer and Fall are going to be Interfilk guests, yay! Allison, Jodi and I were all blown away by this immensely talented female duo in Germany at Filkcontinental.


Bill Rintz, Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers

More on GAfilk later when I've had a chance to unpack and catch up with work. Meanwhile, I've posted posted some photos from the weekend in my 2006 GAfilk Flickr set.

I'll also be gradually collecting URLs of online reports and photo collections and listing them below. If you have one online not in the list, feel free to post the URL and I'll add it.

PHOTOS:

My GAfilk photos
John Hall's pics
AutographedCat's pics

ONLINE REPORTS:

Update: I've decided to point to Rob Wynne's Gafilk 2006 list of reports instead of duplicating the effort. :-)


Teresa Gibson-Powell, Jodi, Dave Rood, Mary Crowell.

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GAfilk bound

Doing some final packing for GAfilk, so this entry has to be short. The photo above is of the package I've put together for the Interfilk auction. It consists of:

MAGIC TAILS - Daw fantasy collection published last year containing a short story co-written by Michelle West and yours truly.

Fridge magnet containing the first strip of my Will Write For Chocolate comic, which officially launched today through Offpanel Productions!

Special guest appearance of the package buyer (or buyer's friend :-)) in My Life In A Nutshell.

Custom-made Livejournal icon.

A copy of "Me and My Sister", a children's picture book written and illustrated by my sister. Features my nieces!

Thanks to Patricia Storms for the mention in her Booklust post, The Glamorous World of Women Bloggers. :-)

I recently raved about 90 Seconds of Dave. If you haven't already checked this Vlog out, I urge you to take a peek at his latest video entry, What Remains. The little girl is adorable, and I love the interaction between her and Dave at the end. :-)

If you're planning to participate in the Irish music session at GAfilk, by the way, you should check out Mary's tune list, which was compiled by Mary the Braider, Dave Clement and myself. From Mary: "The tunes played at the session will by no means be limited to these. However, this is a 'starter set' so that we all have some tunes in common that we can play." Mary has kindly linked each tune to a page where you can get sheet music as well as sometimes sound files and other info about the tune. Thanks, Mary!

Must finish packing now; I leave for GAfilk tomorrow. Hope to see some of you there.

Below: ornaments from Lissa. The one on the right was handmade by Lissa.

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A New Year's Resolution

Strange to think I've been blogging nearly nine years now. NINE YEARS. Blatherings started out as a way to keep in touch with friends. I have since started to incorporate more graphics and have grown more cautious about the information I post, aware of a larger readership than before. Check out this post from 1998, for example, when Jeff and I celebrate my first banner advertiser for Inkspot, and I posted my (now-inactive) ICQ# at the end of the post.

Of course, back then there weren't nearly as many people on ICQ. As Inkspot grew in popularity, I became (slightly) less enamoured about online communication as I started receiving hundreds of e-mails a day (NOT including spam), most of them asking me for things.

Now I keep in touch with friends mainly through phonecalls and visits, and sometimes checking various Livejournals and blogs. Please note the "sometimes." Here is my annual reminder about my feelings re: Livejournals/blogs.



One of my New Year's Resolutions is to spend less time in Livejournal, more time focusing on my writing and illustrating projects. I was getting to the point where I was checking my LJ Friends list several times a day, and my e-mail far more times than that. :-) Those with full-time jobs can likely get away with this, depending on their work situation. As a freelancer, however, I need to start being more efficient with how I spend my online time during the workday.

At this point I can imagine some people on my Friends list bristling with indignation. "She doesn't really CARE!" "Who does she thinks she IS, anyway?" And those people should probably re-read my LJ policy. I'll still be blog-browsing, but just not as fanatically as I have been. And I'll continue to trust that close friends will tell me important info they want me to know themselves instead of assuming I'll read it through their blogs; I'll do the same.

Only two more days until I leave for GAfilk! Lots of things to look forward to at the convention including:

- The Guests! Guests of Honour: Dandelion Wine, Toastmaster: Dave Rood, Interfilk guest: Carolyn Brown (from Toronto, woohoo!), Super Secret Guest: Karen Anderson

- Meeting/hearing Michelle Dockery of Escape Key for the first time. Seeing Tony Fabris again (it's been AGES...!).

- Irish session being planned by Mary the Braider. Too bad I don't have my new whistle yet.

- The Banquet, always a highlight of the convention for me because of the fantabulous GAfilk House Band (including my music partner, Jodi!)

- Donating my first quilt square ever to the GAfilk Interfilk quilt. I just hope Margaret Middleton isn't too horrified by the terrible sewing job I've half-done so far.

- Swing dancing lessons from Mark Osier. I think he's giving a workshop on Saturday.

- I just found out that Tanya Huff is coming to GAfilk, yay! I hope she brings her little black dress. ;-)

- Just hanging out and enjoying the convention. I have zero commitments in terms of performing, etc. so plan to happily wander about quite aimlessly this weekend.

Not sure if I'll be posting again until next week. Hope to see some of you in Atlanta!

Here are a few pics from last year's GAfilk. Click on any image for a bigger version:

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