We got our rental car (I hate Fords) they gave us a full-size Ford for the price of the medium Mercury I’d wanted, which was nice of them, but I wanted the Mercury … oh well, at least I didn’t have car trouble. In fact it came in quite handy, which I’ll talk about later.

Jon and I crashed at his friend Ethan’s house in Sunnyvale, and watched Freakazoid episodes and talked about the culture of fandom as portrayed in the media. Staying up really late the first night helped me adjust to California time. It was also fun watching Jon react to Freakazoid. I hadn’t realized that he’d never seen it before.

Friday:
We spent the morning buying groceries at Mollie Stone’s which has a great kosher section, getting lost in and around the area, seeing really gorgeous vistas, and visiting a music shop, where I bought a clip-on capo, and was tempted by a huge Tascam board.

We got to the con at about 3 or 4, and the first thing that happened was that I got an urgent message to call home. It turned out to be nothing, but I almost had a heart-attack about it before I found that out by calling my home voice mail. It was already Shabbat on the east coast, so I couldn’t call my folks to find out what was wrong, thankfully it was just about a snafu with my sister’s impending trip to Japan.

I was quickly ambushed in the lobby by Eloise Beltz-Decker and a few others, and greeted by Steve Macdonald (hi!), who was his usual busy self for most of the con. I went to registration and we got settled in our large-sized room, which was very handy for the evil plot I had brewing later in the weekend. More on that later.

I got to spend time hanging out in the con suite, which was run by Mama Colleen Savitsky and Devon, whose last name I regretably did not learn, and with a bunch of other cool people, including a guy with very long, wicked looking silver claws and a blue full-length tail coat, complete with fox tail.

Jon and I spent a pretty low-key Friday night. We went to the Bonhoff’s CD release party for a few minutes, and then went down to hear the concerts.

Friday night had a really good batch of concerts. Memorable highlights were as always Barry Gold, who’s got a way with a lyric (as does his very capable wife Lee), Steve Savitsky’s The World Inside the Crystal and getting to hear Jordin Kare live for the first time. I also liked Leslie Fish’s songs about Estrella war, particularly the one about the tent going up in flames, and the one about the lady in winter garb who goes to the privy, ttto There Was an Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly.

I also got to hear Cindy McQuillan and Dr. Jane perform on Friday night, and that was a huge treat. I've been waiting for Cindy to make it to a filk con since ConterPoint II, which was my first filk con. Cindy says she's going to try to start coming to more cons now. :)

Tuppance (and I know this is horribly out of order) did a really gorgeous version of Nancy Louise Freeman's The Broken Goddess, and now I want her albums, all of them.

After the concerts was the WorlDream rehearsal, and it turned out, the recording too. I had already been through the rehearsing at GaFilk, and I used the time that was spent setting up the sound equipment to quietly go over to people and recruit them to my evil scheme. More on that later.

The recording went well, though the turnout was low. The publicity was minimal, mostly because the program books were with Lynn Gold until late on Friday night when she made it to the con. It was also Steve’s first time introducing WorlDream on the west coast. Still, we had a pretty strong sound, and though the process was rushed, there were enough of us who’d been at GaFilk that we didn’t need to rehearse a lot. I hope it comes out well, because there was some very nice instrumental work done on the track, including extemporaneous flute by Callie Hills, about whom more later.

Late on Friday night after the WorlDream recording was over, Steve snuck up on me and started playing his latest song, which I believe he’s calling Merry Meet. It has a nice round-like quality, and talks of meeting friends, leaving friends, and finding them again. I started harmony on the chorus, and pretty soon we had a small choir around us, joining in and creating lovely harmony. (hi Jordan and Seanan!) Steve dropped the guitar part out on the last chorus, leaving it with a sweet a cappella sound.

I suspect it will wind up as a track on his semi-mythical (and as yet un-named) fourth album. Whether it comes out before Crossroads, or Live at Bilbo’s is anyone’s guess. But there’s always WorlDream to worry about first.

Steve also performed Merry Meet it as the last song at the short concert set he did with Callie on Sunday. More on that later.

Friday night circle was a lot of fun. Jon was out in the lobby tapping away on Carson Gaspar’s computer (thank you Carson!) chording an evil song, so I went and sat with Eloise, and we played with harmonies. My high school sweetie, and good friend Jordan Mann sat with us and chimed in too. Callie and I kept hitting the same harmony bits from across the room, which we do often, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other. At one point when Tony Fabris did When the Lights Go Down on the Server she and I and Maya Bonhoff did a girl-group formation to do woah-oh-ohhs, which we also did for the Bonhoff’s parody Knights in White Satin which is one of the better cross-dressing songs I’ve ever heard.

Steve pulled out the evil crossover that he and Daniel Glasser wrote of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to the tune of Stan Rogers' Hauling Away, and someone mentioned that doing it at FKO might get him lynched. Very good circle over all, with Callie peppering flute parts here and there, and Jeff, Maya, Amanda Weinstein, Eloise, Jordan, Steve, and Tony doing lots of harmony.

Saturday:
Saturday morning was the event I was most nervous about at the convention. My concert. I’d had short concerts before. One and two shots at Arisia and ConterPoint III, and I certainly perform in the filkroom often enough, but getting up and doing a set was a new thing for me. Thankfully I had a receptive audience, even for 1 p.m. on a post-filking-binge morning. I did an eight song set, six on guitar, and two a cappella, and stayed under time, which was nice.

The set order was The Miller’s Daughter, Clothing Time (which someone later suggested I should post to the costumer’s guild mailing list), A Song for Arbonne, Invitation, Beggar at the Feast, Elder Gods, Closer to Zen, and Sleep on the Ledge. It was all well-received, and Debbie Ridpath Ohi took pictures, so keep an eye on Debbie’s blatherings and you might see pictures (and I think Eloise took some shots too, but I was trying _not_ to look into the flashing lights). Jon’s got a video of the concert (taken with my video camera, Sally), so if you missed it and you want to see it, e-mail me and I’ll see about getting you a copy.

Now I have to find a new motivation to practice every night. :) Maybe I can get a concert at ConterPoint IV, or MillPhil.

After my concert was Carla Ulbrich’s concert. If you weren’t at GaFilk, or Consonance, you probably haven’t seen Carla, unless by coincidence you’ve been at one of the festivals she’s played. She has a wickedly funny way of looking at depression, obsession, and unhappiness. She manages to twist the concepts around into evil, bouncy songs with cheery choruses. I particularly like What If Your Girlfriend Was Gone and Please Do Something Stupid. She’s got that rockin’ chick with a guitar bit going too. And do go out and buy Her Fabulous Debut.

Gorgeous Gary played a concert, that started with a song about a volcano blowing up Temptation Island (yay!) and went on to warn the west coasties about the curse of Gary, which is currently bringing a snowstorm to the northeast as I type. As a result my office is nearly deserted, which is good, ‘cause I didn’t get in until 7:45 a.m. on the redeye.

NB: That was written yesterday, and the snow was highly over hyped. -- editrix.

There was also a concert by Echo’s Children, who are Cat Faber and Callie Hills, Cat does a lot of the lyric and melody writing, and Callie does gorgeous stuff with flute, voice, and harmony lines to make the songs sound really lush. Cat also plays a variety of stringed instruments, and does a great deal of expressive acting, especially when they sing I Meant to Do That, their cat song. In fact, Callie did a bit of schtick during this song, because Cat sang the melody line “’cause you’re just a human, and I am a cat,” and every time she said “cat”, Callie would point at her.

They did a half-hour set, back to back with Bob Esty, who you may know as a the member of Clam Chowder with the harp and penny whistles. Bob’s also a talented singer, and did quite a few numbers with Callie and Cat, and they did a bunch with him. (If you haven’t heard it, you really do have to hear Bob do Cows with Guns.)

It was essentially one long concert, (especially for Callie who had a sinus infection, ouch! Feel better soon, eh?) which is rather what the next act, the Divas of Chaotica did too. Each of three of them booked a half-hour concert, giving them an hour and a half slot. Tricky that. I did however, miss the entire hour and a half, because I was hanging out with Callie and Bob after the show, swapping stories and backrubs. I'm told I missed a really good concert, but I wouldn't trade the hour and some of peace I had with my friends.

And then it was time to put my evil plan into effect.

But first, some background: Steve Macdonald has a dream about a CD with the voice of every filker in the world singing one song. I’ve been hearing about this dream since ConterPoint III last year when Solomon Davidoff mentioned it to me in passing and offered to make me an “I’m avoiding Steve Macdonald” helmet. (Solomon, I might mention here, has just gotten engaged to the lovely and brilliant Elka Tovah Menkes, which was another evil plot I was in on … but that story will have to wait for another time.)

Conterpoint III was also the con where I was asked to impersonate Steve, but you can read about that here.

The central song in the WorlDream tour, which is taking Steve to three countries outside the US, and encompasses the filk-con cycle of a whole year, is called Many Hearts, One Voice, and was written to be simple to sing and play. So of course it was begging to be filked.

I waited carefully until Steve was off in the UK for Conthirteena and then I cooked up my parody. I showed it to Jon, and my friends Batya and Meredith (thanks!), and I decided that I was going to spring it on Steve at Consonance. So I carefully made up an HTML copy of the webpage where he has the lyrics displayed, and brought with the standard chord sheet that he’s put out. Then I went to a bunch of friends, including Eloise, Interfilk guest Dave Weingart, the three members of Urban Tapestry, Callie (who did lovely extemporaneous harmony on the actual WorlDream), Carson Gaspar, Jordan Mann, Steven Joel Zeve, and his SO, France, whose last name I have yet to learn. UT had to back out at the last minute, due to a conflict with the rehearsal, and Callie nobly distracted Steve with a practice session for their Sunday concert while I rehearsed my WhirledNighmare choir. Of course, we were just lucky that Callie and Steve had to rehearse anyhow … unfortunately because things got frazzled near the end of the evil plot, no one went to get Callie, so Callie gets the first video of what went on.

Everyone assembled in my room around 6, and once they’d stopped laughing at the lyrics we got down to the business of creating harmony. My thanks go to Carson, who has a great ear for these things, and to Jon, who did all the work of chording the lyrics so that Eloise could play along. Jon spent a good chunk of Friday night tapping away on the computer in the lobby because he couldn’t get wireless internet in the filkroom, so he missed a lot of the Friday night open filk.

Jon also made copies of the song (thanks sweetheart!), which we distributed around, and the rehearsal went pretty smoothly. Most of the folks went to dinner, and then we just had to wait for the time to be right.

Then there was the big delay.

Mike Stein’s concert was pushed back an hour by equipment troubles, or somesuch. I took some time to catch up with Jordan, whom I rarely see, ‘cause we’re on different coasts these days. Then, after what seemed an eternity, the programming got back on track. Mike gave a really good concert. I wish I had a set list written down, because I enjoyed a lot of it, especially his song about the son of Christa McAuliffe the teacher who died on Challenger, and the follwer he did about going back to space in the wake of the disaster. Very affecting.

Mike’s concert was quickly followed by the event that had originally sparked my interest in the con. Dave Weingart’s concert. Dave’s a good friend, and it was great to see him finally get some recognition as a performer by being asked to be an Interfilk guest to the west coast. Dave gave IMHO a great concert, equal parts serious and funny, and though I know all of his songs (except the new one about the dopplegangers) I still enjoyed the concert. Dave used a reverb box to create some really great effects that we’re probably going to feature on Dave’s album, tentatively titled Spitting into the Solar Wind. Highlights included UT coming up to join him on The Gift I Would Give and the audience reactions to Ghost Piggies in the Sty, The Battle and Leftover Hell.

I also liked watching him blow a kiss to Ellen, who always says that she can't get Dave to play for her. Ellen is Dave's lovely and tolerant wife.

The concerts were running really late, and there was still the second installment of the Interfilk auction. I donated two raspberry oranges, the leftovers from the batch I brought to swap with Allison Durno who brought me Canadian candy in return (yay Allison! Thank you for the coffee crisps and rosebuds, they're making friends with my cupboard, little do they know ...) I really wish I was going to FilKOntario this year, but Icon conflicts.

UT did a great concert, starting with the Hockey Monkey Song (which I was singing almost all weekend, alternating with Carla’s I Have to Kill You Now, and Steve’s Merry Meet. Odd combination that ... They also did the Jean Luc Picard song, which as Harry Chapin once said about John Wallace who sings the break in the classic song Taxi, “someday I think [s]he’s going to be knighted for that.” Allison and Jodi were spectacular as always. I’m always amazed by how well they blend. They also did The Lady, and Lloyd Landa’s I Am Stardust. I hope someone who got a tape will mail it to Karen Linsley, who would be thrilled to hear someone doing Lloyd’s music. They closed with ‘Cause He’s a Guy with Paul Kwinn as the clueless guy. NB, Paul and Beckett have really cute kids now. I just hope the rhyming appellation doesn’t stick. It’s hard enough to be twins. UT also did an encore of It Said What? also known as the talking chocolate bar song.

After the UT concert was over I went to wake Jon, who was taking a well-deserved nap. It was time to put the evil plan into action.

Things were just breaking up downstairs in the concert room. The Interfilk auction had raised money to show a really early video of Urban Tapestry from the days when they still had a (very unremarkable) male member. It featured Jodi wearing horns and Allison in a straw hat and lots of other weirdness, and just proves how far the trio has come.

We started circling up the chairs when Cynthia McQuillan wheeled in to say goodnight and goodbye to the circle. Steve started to play Many Hearts, One Voice but Eloise and all of us told him, “no Steve, we have a surprise for you." Amanda Weinstein was nice enough to lend me her fur vest, and the bunch of us launched into my parody of Steve’s song about friendship, freedom, and song, with my lyrics about death, destruction, and fire. Amanda also kindly taped Steve’s reaction, which was to cringe, and hide, and eventually start singing along. Pictures were taken and tape rolled.

Someone else was video taping and got the beginning, which I would love to have, as my own video camera was playing pranks on me by not filming at the outset. The audience reaction was great too. Afterwards we let Steve do the original for Cynthia, and then we bid her goodbye with a chorus of the Hockey Monkey Song.

Right after that, Kathy Mar asked if I was the person who’d done the If I Had a Million Dollars parody at GaFilk. The story behind that is that my clone, Batya found a version of a parody called If I Had a Million Ducats on Napster, and she and I tweaked it and added bits about saint’s remains, crewel cloaks, and greensleeves, as well as a Sir Walter Raleigh joke and some other stuff, including the punchline, and then we performed it at GaFilk.

I wound up singing it with Jon and Jordan backing me up, which was fun, but not terribly well timed, ‘cause we hadn’t practiced it.

Then the filk went chaotic and I was out of the room for a while. When I came back the mood was quieter, then it got doity for a while, and then quiet again, and the circle broke up around 4, 4:30.

Sunday:
Sunday started with the mini-concerts, which got interspersed with the one-shots. Steve and Callie were up first. They did quite a few nice flute and guitar duets sometimes with two voices, when Callie put down the flute, and sometimes with Callie’s flute lilting above Steve’s voice. I’m afraid I made Callie cry though, ‘cause I was sitting in the audience crying during Merry Meet, sorry Callie … *hug* Steve also did I Am Filker which got a lot of laughs. It’s a great “cheer you up” sort of song, in fact I found myself humming it on the way to the airport.

One of the highlights of my weekend was the concert that my friend Jordan Mann gave on Sunday. I haven’t seen Jordan perform in years, except for extemporaneous bursts of Sondheim at parties when we’re on the same coast, or usually over the phone. For my east coast friends who will doubtless read this, understand that Jordan was suave, polished and utterly confident on stage, and was a huge hit.

He opened with I’ve Got a Hunch which was really well received, and then he sang Solitare which I think made a few people weepy. I have a terrible feeling that Bob Kanefsky might filk it, ‘cause he had this big evil grin on his face while Jordan was singing it. Way to go Jor!

Jordan also did his Quills song which is a Disney song parody, and that’s all I’ll say about it, I don’t want to spoil the surprise for the people who haven’t heard it. It just reminds me of the most unintentionally scurrilous line in a children’s film to date: “I wonder what the leash and collar set do for fun?” which is said in speculatively wistful tones by Tramp in Lady and the Tramp (and yes, I’m horrified that they’ve made a sequel).

The last song in Jordan’s four-song concert was a song about multiple personalities, which had me putting my hands over my mouth to stifle very loud laughter, because he referenced a certain violent character that was created for a group-written fanfic. For those Dreamer Clan members reading this, let’s just say that Jason made an appearance on stage.

Jordan was terrifically well received, and I was quite pleased to hear him publicly blame me (and Batya in absentia) for dragging him into filk and in his own words “warping and twisting a three-generation-old tradition of performance.” Talking to Eli Goldberg after the show, I got the impression that Jordan will be going places in the west-coast filk world.

I was also extremely proud of him. I’ve been watching Jordan perform since we were both in our teens, and I’ve never seen him do better.

Right after Jordan’s set I ran into Steve in the lobby. Most of us who were flying to the east and the middle kingdom (oh, I mean the midwest) were getting panic reports about huge blizzards hitting our destination cities. So Steve was calling ahead, unfortunately the hotel air shuttle was by reservation only. This is why my car was handy. I almost forgive it for being a Ford. But not quite.

(The long and short of it was that no flights were canceled, but Carla got stuck in CA, ‘cause she remembered her flight arrival time as her departure time. Ooops! But it meant more time hanging out with Carla, so I can’t complain.)

After the programming was over -- and I got back from taking Steve to the airport, and my subsequent slightly-lost drive around the San Jose area. (I was really geeked to hear Free Falling come on the radio as I was driving, because it’s about California, and my friend Miri always talked about growing up Californian with that song, and living rather like the girl with the freeway running through her yard.) -- I got to hang out with Eloise for a few hours, and we sat around jamming with our guitars on some folk tunes, some new to me, and practicing strum styles, chord changes, and a little harmony.

Then Eloise and John went off for dinner, and I hung out in the lobby with Amanda, Tony, Rebecca, and Jon. Strangely enough Tony started playing Free Falling and I stared singing along. Then he said something about how he’d always wanted to filk it. So the group of us sitting there did so. The lyrics can be found here.

We performed it in the con suite, and Lee Gold and Leslie Fish both requested copies. It’ll probably be in the next Xenofilkia, or the one after that, if one of us remembers to send it in.

Amanda and I went and hung out with Carla and played with my guitar, I got Carla to play I Have to Kill You Now for Amanda, who hadn’t managed to hear it at Carla’s concert. We got into a long discussion about bad relationships, mishaps in brothels as immortalized in story, and classical bawdy songs. Dave Weingart came in after I was explaining to a bunch of the west-coasties and Carla (who’s new to filk) about what happened at Disclave. So Dave played his Disclave '97 song, Idiot! What Were You Thinking? complete with sing-along chorus which evoked a lot of smiles.

Jon and I had to leave to catch our flight, but before we went UT sang me a chorus of the Hockey Monkey Song so I wouldn’t be sad. Thanks guys! *hug hug hug* (well, there are three of them!)

I wanna go to FKO … *sigh* The bad news is that Icon, which is very local to my parents house is the same weekend, and much cheaper, and the week before Passover, so no FKO for me. The good news is that MEW and Ed Stauff, as well as Kathy Mar and her very cool daughter Casie (Cacie?) are coming to Icon. So the east-coasties who can’t make FKO won’t be lonely at Icon.

Besides, there’s really only so many times I can be on WorlDream.

The last story of the con involves Jon and I stopping to gas up the rental car on the way to the airport. Having left the con in my outfit from the day, I was still wearing a long black, slinky, cotton sundress with a long black wrap, with all my hair down. I caused quite a commotion walking into the attached variety store to buy Jon and I a snack. Oops, I forgot that people aren’t used to that. Lots of people commented on it. I guess I thought it wouldn’t be as out of place in California. Oh well ...

In the airport, I got that sad, familiar feeling that each and every face was someone I should know, and then the same realization that hits every time I leave a filk con, of just how few of us there are, and how far apart we live. The people I spent the most time with this weekend live as far away as Georgia, Chicago, Detroit, Portland, Los Angeles, and Toronto. I get to see them a few times a year, if I’m lucky, which I know I am to be able to get out to the cons at all.

For my further comments on that, look here

I can't wait for ConterPoint IV.

Other con reports: Dave Weingart, Carla Ulbrich, Seanan McGuire, Allison Durno, and Paul Kwinn