“I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant. Ultimately, the message of gospel music is that everything’s going to be all right. If you listen to millions of gospel records – and I have – and try to distil what they all have in common it’s a sense that somehow we can triumph. There could be many thousands of things. But the message… well , there are two messages… one is a kind of optimism for the future rather than a pessimism. Gospel music is never pessimistic, it’s never ‘oh my god, its all going down the tubes’, like the blues often is. Gospel music is always about the possibility of transcendence, of things getting better. It’s also about the loss of ego, that you will win through or get over things by losing yourself, becoming part of something better. Both those messages are completely universal and are nothing to do with religion or a particular religion. They’re to do with basic human attitudes and you can have that attitude and therefore sing gospel even if you are not religious.”
—Brian Eno
Month: January 2010
So, some more random thoughts from Gafilk weekend.
Thursday:
Since I had actually taken Wednesday off to get some last minute stuff done, Thursday was remarkably unstressful; a first for me. I had to go drop my car at the shop in the morning to get the side mirrors fixed (long story), but aside from that, we had everything pretty much ready to go. hawklady showed up around lunchtime with her pickup truck, we got the sound equipment and other bulky stuff loaded in, and then she and kitanzi headed down to the hotel, with me behind in the car. We got checked in, settled, and started checking on flights. The weather forecast was for winter weather, so we were naturally concerned about people’s travel. Several people had their original flights cancelled and had to reboot earlier or later, including bedlamhouse & ladyat‘s flight, which was early, and Ellen and Delia’s flight, which was delayed. Poor Alexander James Adams had his flight cancelled entirely, and ended up flying in on a crack-of-stupid morning flight on Friday instead. Poor guy. I let other folks have the perk of meeting the guests at the airport this year, which left me free to go and take museinred to get a new cell phone, as she’d lost hers somewhere in the wilds of Manitoba. After stopping for dinner, I got back to the hotel, peeked in briefly on Play It With Moxie, who were rehearsing in the main room, and then went off to relax before the big day.
Friday:
Friday morning started out pretty normal. We got the dealers room open so the hucksters could go ahead and start setting up, made sure registration was good to go (which, being run by Myra, it was), and then headed off with bedlamhouse to pick up some of the last bits we needed for the sound gear. Last year, we had to hire sound equipment, which is frightfully expensive, so this year we’d started buying our own kit, but we still didn’t have everything we needed for the weekend, so a bit of shopping was in order. We got most of what we needed at Guitar Centre, and then set off to look for a Radio Shack….
…and found ourself trapped in an episode of the Truman Show.
The first Radio Shack my GPS directed us to turned out to be a newly constructed block of apartments, which wasn’t terribly useful, so I looked up another one that was nearer the hotel and we set off again. As we got close to where the place was, we were directed to turn down a particular street, but were thwarted by a cop parked behind a set of orange cones. Undaunted, we began plotting an alternate route, which brought us out and around down a side street, then told us to turn……down a short connecting street that was being dug up by a construction crew, who forced us to turn around. We were starting to get the feeling we were stuck on the set and couldn’t get to the store, but finally we made our way around all the obstacles to get the last few things we needed. We stopped at the Chinese restaurant near the hotel for lunch (Note to self: your first meal of the day should not be at 3:30pm)
Back at the hotel, it was time to do the usual “bounce around and make sure everyone has the things they need”, before going up to the room and finalising the questions for the My Filk panel. I had gotten questions from both our SSGs and our Toastmaster this year, but the Second Line category I always write myself. Once that was done, there was nothing to do but get dressed up and prepare for opening ceremonies.
Friday night is always “showtime” for me at Gafilk. I almost never have anything to do on stage during Saturday, but Friday night is opening ceremonies, meeting the guests, and then hosting My Filk. Sunday afternoon is closing ceremonies. In between, most of my duties lie behind the curtains. But we got everything kicked off, introduced the guests, and sang Auld Lang Syne. I only got some of the events out of order. (Next year: lists!)
Once the party was underway, Bill and I began trawling the audience for panellists. we managed to find a good cross-section of people, but this year’s question set apparently was brutal, though I can think of people who might have had an easier time with it. (telynor would have aced the folklore section, for instance.) The insta topics this year were “poker and escalators” and “nuclear hot sauce and snakes” The judges had a spirited consultation afterwards, and then declared they were a hung jury, and appealed to the audience to clap for their favourite. The sound board declared that Team 1 eked out a victory over Team B.
The Friday Night concert this year was the very talented Dene Foye. I’ve enjoyed Dene’s music for a few years (and besides, he covers *two* of my songs. How can I not like him?), so it was lovely to hear him do an entire set. (I grinned madly when he did “Naked Ambition” in his set.) The concert was well received, and after it was over, open filk started. I found myself wandering about a bit, spending some time in the bar, and then heading to bed reasonably early.
And this is getting long, so I’ll finish up the rest of it later.
Another year gone by, another GaFilk.
I will post some more thoughts on the weekend later, but I did want to let everyone know that I am once again collecting con reports here:
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?keyword=Gafilk2010&user=autographedcat&sortby=des
Please let me know if I have missed any.
(Note: Some of these posts are friends-locked. I cannot promise that every link you see in the list will be a post you can view. If you want to see someone’s locked post, please contact the author directly, as I cannot control the settings of other’s journals.)
Well, the badges are printed, the lists are made, the bags are packed. Tomorrow, hawklady comes by about lunchtime with her truck to carry the big bulky stuff to the hotel for us, and we head on down.
Everyone who will be there, see you soon! Everyone who won’t be there, we will miss you.
It’s gonna be a great weekend.
This is such a horrible thought, surely someone’s done it already:
Superman/Moby Dick crossover: “Call Me Ishma-El”
This was sent to me in the from of a typical “forward this to all your friends for good luck” e-mail. Of course, it was sent to me be someone I love dearly and who is not prone to sending me random forwards, so i took the time ro read it.
As the new year starts, there’s some good stuff here to ponder (and some of it is stuff I’d already learned the long way around), so I’m going to share it with all of you.
1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
3. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
4. When you say, ‘I love you,’ mean it.
5. When you say, ‘I’m sorry,’ look the person in the eye.
6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
7. Believe in love at first sight.
8. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.
9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.
10.. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
11. Don’t judge people by their relatives.
12. Talk slowly but think quickly.
13. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, ‘Why do you want to know?’
14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
15. Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze.
16. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
17. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.
18. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
19. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
20. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice
21. Spend some time alone.
(source is allegedly the Anthony Robbins Foundation, though the e-mail did not give a specific citation.)
Due to the timing of the holidays this year, I have three long weekends in a row, of which this is the middle one. Last weekend, of course, was Christmas, which featured a lovely Orphan’s Dinner at Alice’s (where, I have it from reliable sources, you can get everything you want — excepting Alice), which featured marvelous food, and great conversation. It did mean we skipped out on our Christmas Day tradition of going to see a movie, but that’s ok. I need to work on being more social anyway, and this was a lovely way to do it.
This weekend is even more quiet. Ever since bedlamhouse and ladyat moved to Indiana, we just haven’t felt drawn to any of the varied New Year’s gatherings. So we spent New Year’s Eve at home, watching TV and playing video games. We’ve just recently wrapped up season one of NBC’s marvelous police drama Life, which my darling sweetmusic_27 turned me onto some while ago and we finally got around to watching. Today, i went for a haircut and a massage, and then dropped by Fry’s to pick up season two (alas, the final season…sometimes, I think it’s better if shows get canceled *before* I really get into them. I feel less guilty that way). So that will probably fill our spare viewing time coming up.
Next weekend is Gafilk, and I’m both ready for it to be here already and panicking that there’s just not enough time. Truth told, pretty much what can be done has been done, and there’s nothing left to do now but show up and play the music. I’m really looking forward to it!
So, one of the things that I seem to have done in the last few months is stop posting here. I did not intend to do this, but for a while my thoughts were largely consumed by things I wasn’t comfortable talking about in public, and then I just kinda fell out of the habit.
So my New Year’s Resolution is to post something to this journal every day, until I get back into the habit of writing again. I won’t promise it will always be profound, and I’m sure I will sometimes resort to memeage to make the quota, but it’s something to strive for, and that ain’t nothing.