One week until FilKONtario!

Above: a quickie photo I took on my iPhone during Urban Tapestry practice last night. Only a week left until FilKONtario. Our concert is currently scheduled for early Saturday afternoon.

Every time I get together with Allison and Jodi, I marvel at how lucky I am to be part of Urban Tapestry. We've been together for about 16 years now, and we still have just as much fun now as we did when we first got together. More fun, actually. :-)


We recently co-wrote a song based on Robert Sawyer's book, Flash Forward, and will be debuting it during our concert. It's the first serious song that all three of us worked on together (Jodi wrote most of the music), and I'm VERY happy with how it came out.

Robert Sawyer is one of the other guests at FilKONtario this year. We were guests with Robert back in 2001 at Ad Astra (see poster below, which we're adding to our Interfilk package). Robert is one of only seven writers in history — and the only Canadian — to win all three of the world's top Science Fiction awards for best novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.



And yay to Interfilk for sending Gerry and Sandy Tyra to FilKONtario this year! Also, many thanks to Gerry for his help in putting together our package for Interfilk this year, with a special Urban Tapestry CD not commercially available. More info on this soon.

As for the Guest Of Honour, if you haven't seen Heather Dale perform live, you NEED to come to FilKONtario:



I was recently on Second Life around St. Patrick's Day and was wandering around a Celtic theme area when, much to my delight, I discovered Heather's music playing full-blast during a virtual celebration(!).



You find out more about Heather and her music at Heatherdale.com, and hear samples on CDBaby. If you come to FKO, you also get a bonus: Heather's extremely talented music partner, Ben Deschamps.

Hoping to see some of you at FilKONtario. Allison, Jodi and I don't tend to perform as much in public as we used to; we all have so much going on in our lives. Anyway, it looks like our concert at FKO will be OUR ONLY PUBLIC PERFORMANCE IN 2009 and the only convention that all three of us will be attending this year. Our next mutual convention will be -next- year's FKO.

So please do come. It's going to be SOOOOOO much fun...

Counting down to FilKONtario...

Above: Urban Tapestry keychain figures, created by Michelle Bottorff and given to Allison, Jodi and me by Kathleen Sloan, who bought them in an Interfilk auction.

Less than two weeks until FilKONtario (April 3 - 5, 2009)! As I've mentioned before, the members of Urban Tapestry have been invited to be the Filk Waifs (Toastmasters) this year. Heather Dale is the Guest of Honour, sf author Robert Sawyer is the Special Guest, and Gerry & Sandy Tyra are the Interfilk Guests.



Allison, Jodi and I have co-written a song based on Flashforward, a book by Robert Sawyer, and we'll be debuting it in our concert. We're also participating in a Children's Concert as well as giving a workshop on how to build your confidence in filk.



I am absymally behind in e-mail right now. Because of various trips (all fun, of course) and a pulled jaw muscle (now recovering, happily), I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'll be posting more trip reports and photos when I have a chance.

FilKONtario prep plus a movie trailer

TMS The Trailer! - watch more funny videos

Above: trailer for a movie that Allison's husband (yes, the fellow with whom I did my one and only karoke stint last year) has been working on. Can't wait to see the full feature. :-)

Allison, Jodi & I weren't able to get together in person last night for our Urban Tapestry practice so we got together in Gmail Chat instead. Our virtual meeting was surprisingly productive as we exchanged music files, worked on a couple of new songs together, did more prep for our Toastmaster/Filk Waif duties at FilKONtario this spring. It's going to be sooo fun!

You ARE all going to FKO, aren't you?