Balticon report (part 5): New friends

Above: Rob Balder performing with Geordie Keitt. I enjoyed hearing Rob perform at Balticon last weekend. Rob is the creator of the comic strip PartiallyClips and is also author of the webcomic Erfworld; the latter was listed in Time Magazine's 2007 Top Ten list of graphic novels (!).

Anyway, Rob talked a great deal about filk and the filk community in his performance with Sudden Death, and did a fantastic cover of Andy Eigel's Uplift as well as encouraging those who considered themselves filkers to vote for the song in the Pegasus Awards. Andy's song, by the way, has been nominated FIVE times before but hasn't yet won.

Below: Rob in the open filk circle with Abi, Roberta Rogow and Dave Clement.



Continuing with my other personal highlights from Balticon...

As I've mentioned before, I found everyone at Balticon to be super-friendly and welcoming, and very much enjoyed meeting new people like Linda Taggart:



Photo by Allison


Linda was Naomi Novik's guest liaison. Linda and I kept running into each other at the convention and we start greeting each other with hugs and "It's been so LONG!" Definitely a kindred spirit. :-D You can read her Balticon report here.

Linda decided to check out the open filk that night and I love her description of her first-time experience:

"I headed back to the room, but something really neat happened to sidetrack me. I heard singing and was reminded of the Open Filk and that Urban Tapestry would be there. I'd missed their concert, so I'd hoped to hear them sing. Little did I know that I wasn't walking into a simple meeting room in a hotel. I was walking into The Court of Miracles.

There was a quiet but sizeable group of people there. Their ages varied from young teenagers to people many years my senior. They held harps and guitars and mandolins. They took turns at sharing songs funny, sad, beautiful and joyful. It was magical. Someone would start a song and others would join in, playing or singing along after having heard only a few bars of the music, creating lovely harmonies.

I felt like I'd walked into something secret and magic and beautiful. These musicians (some of whom I've known for years like gorgeousgary, starmalachite and the_sheryl) blew me away with their talent and their sense of community.

I headed to bed after a while there, feeling like I'd stepped out of a fairy circle."

How cool is that?



Above, Urban Tapestry with John Jude Palencar. Even if you're not familiar with his name, you've undoubtedly seen his artwork (a few samples below). I found John very friendly and approachable, with a wry sense of humour. I met him at one of the Meet and Greets as well as on Monday, when we discovered that our Kaffeeklatsch was scheduled at the same time and in the same room as his. You can see more samples of John's artwork at Johnjudepalencar.com.






We let John use the Kaffeeklatsch room; no one had signed up for ours anyway, but we decided to hang out in the hallway for about ten minutes just in case anyone showed up. Glad we did, too, because we ran into author Jean Marie Ward, who said she hadn't realized she was supposed to sign up.

Photo by Allison

We headed down to the lobby area, where we ran into more people who wanted to attend our Kaffeeklatsch. Some had gone to our workshop room; our workshop had been rescheduled because of a conflict, but the sign hadn't been changed and the old time was still listed in the main program book. The others hadn't realized they were supposed to sign up.

To make a long story short, we ended up with far more people (and had far more fun) in our Kaffeeklatsch than we expected. I talked with hotel staff and they kindly let us use part of the bar/restaurant area that was supposed to be closed off. We found the hotel staff at the Marriott to be incredibly helpful and friendly, by the way. Including this fellow, who said he was going to try to drop by the open filk:


Photo by Allison.

Jean Marie, Debra Baker, Sue and others have convinced me to try looking up the TV series Highlander.

Also very much meeting Miranda Mason, who was Connie Willis's guest liaison. Sadly, I didn't get a photo of her. :-( While chatting with her at one of the con-arranged meals (the con organizers took the guests out for dinner -- didn't I say they treated us well? :-), I discovered that we have a surprising amount in common. I hope our paths cross again soon.

Dan Guy Fowlkes, Balticon 42 Coordinator, was someone else I enjoyed meeting:



Wish we had had more time to chat. Funny, smart, interesting guy -- super organized and very hard-working; it always seemed like he was everywhere at once, making sure things were running smoothly. He's also Neil Gaiman's Webmaster.

Dan gave us each a package of Berger Chocolate Cremes. Yummmm....



Allison, Jodi and I had fun doing a podcast with Paul Fischer:



Photo by Martha Holloway

Paul was a great podcast host. We were a bit nervous (or maybe I should be specific -- *I* was terrified! I'm terrible at public speaking!) but his humour and mellow demeanor helped calm us down. We did lots of talking and also sang "The Friendship Song" in the studio after a quick run-through.

The podcast will be posted on The Balticon Podcast site at some point, I think.


Above: with Naomi Novik.

I also enjoyed meeting Badger and lordlnyc, who won the item we donated to the Reading Is Fundamental auction. One of the items was the Companion Cube we used in our concert; thanks to my husband Jeff for helping me put that prop together!



Other items in the bag (which I sewed!) included various types of yummy Canadian chocolate, a Canadian pen, one of my mini-paintings ("Alien Dude"), and a set of my Letterpress and writing-related cards. We weren't able to attend the auction but I've been told that several people were bidding on our item, yay!

More about Balticon soon....


Photo by Allison

Above: gorgeous roses, presented to us by our friends Tom and Sue after or concert last weekend.



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