Secondly, Phil Mills has kindly granted Urban Tapestry the permission to post a recording he made during our FilKONtario concert where we covered his wonderful song, Heart of the Mountain. You can find the recording in the FilkArchive.
To find out more about Phil Mills and his new CD, "Rain On The Sand," please visit his website.
I’ll be attending the annual summer conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators so won’t be able to attend Worldcon this year, but for those filkers out there who -are- going, here’s a message from Peggi and Judith:
Post/read Wordpress comments | Blatherings homepageThis is a tough year to be thinking about a Worldcon. Money’s tight, time is tight and we all have more important things to think about. However, those of us running the filk track are trying to decide whether to cut the planned track to 2 or 3 days. Open filk will run the full con. Right now we just don’t have enough people to run that full track. So….. If you were thinking about Worldcon, planning on Worldcon, absolutely certain of Worldcon, AND you’d be interested in filk programming, please let us know asap.
If we’re cutting the track, it needs to happen now. We have room space to cancel, sound equipment to cancel, etc. That asap really means ASAP.
Many thanks from Judith and Peggi
hayman at mountaincable dot net
peggiwl at rogers dot net
(Photo I took of Brooke and John at OVFF in 2006)
Brooke Lunderville (John’s music partner and close friend) has posted an update about what happened yesterday. She says that if people post happy memories of John in her journal, she’d print them out to show his family.
Here’s what I posted:
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(Above: photo of John and Brooke by Alisa Garcia)
Just heard about the sudden and unexpected passing of John Caspell; I mentioned a few days ago that he was in a motorcycle accident, but he seemed to be recovering well. Thanks to those in the Filkhaven IRC for additional info.
The filk community is in shock. I last saw John (also known as Dr. Filk) at FilKONtario last month. I can’t believe he’s gone.
John Caspell and his music partner Brooke Lunderville were scheduled as Interfilk Guests at Concertino next month. [Update: madfilkentist says that Brooke will still attend the convention as the Interfilk guest: "By convention tradition, a guest who dies before the con is still a guest. Brooke said she's still coming, and honoring John's memory will be an important part of the con."]
My deepest condolences to Brooke, John’s family and his close friends.
Info being posted at:
Brooke’s LJ
Filk LJ community
Pondside’s LJ
Above: John and Brooke at FilKONtario.
Ack! Just found out from Allison that John Caspell was in a motorcycle accident a couple of days ago. Apparently he was hit by an SUV running a red light. :-(
He has broken some ribs, a tibia, and his foot; he’s waiting for foot surgery right now, I think.
You can find out more info in Brooke’s journal.
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As Jeff said last night, it was the best concert we’ve seen in several years.
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Woohoo! Jeff and I are meeting Jodi and James at the Lula Lounge tonight to see Jonathan Coulton perform. I’ve never seen Coulton live, so I’m pretty excited. Thanks to Tom Jeffers for giving me the heads-up about this show — he and others are going to see it this weekend.
Paul and Storm will be opening for him. From their JoCopedia page: “Paul Sabourin and Greg ‘Storm’ DiCostanzo are an Arlington, Virginia-based comedic musical duo. They had formerly been half of the a cappella group Da Vinci’s Notebook. When that group went on hiatus the two struck out on their own, with Paul playing keyboard and penny whistle and Storm on the guitar. ” You can find out more about them on their blog.
I got hooked on Jonathan Coulton’s songs after hearing Tony Fabris perform Skullcrusher Mountain at a filk convention.
Post/read Wordpress comments | Blatherings homepageAs I mentioned before, my music group (Urban Tapestry), were the Toastmasters at a local filk convention called FilKONtario. Part of the convention is devoted to “one-shots”, which are basically mini-concerts by anyone who wants to sign up, singing one song.
One of the sign-ups was a mysterious “Esty”, which turns out to be “S.T.”, short for Suburban Travesty. Apparently Dave Clement, Tom Jeffers and Walter had been conspiring for a while. The little sneaks.
Dave was Jodi, Tom was Allison, and Walter was me. Well…Walter carried out his threat of putting this on YouTube, and you can also find the lyrics to “Pretty FIlkers” (words by Walter! his first filk song!) at this YouTube page as well as on Flickr.
To Dave, Tom and Walter: you guys are SO doomed.
>:-)
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Photo by Gary Ehrlich.
Being a guest at FilKONtario (and forgetting my camera for the first part of the convention anyway), I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I usually do at a convention. Plus I didn’t think there were nearly enough blackmail photos of Walter publicly available, so I went looking.
Here are a selection of photos from other people instead. Click on any photo to be taken to the source image.
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Above: a spectacular screen crash on my external monitor.
A question for anyone who attended our concert at FilKONtario: if anyone has a good full-length shot of Walter in his Jean-Luc gear, I’d love to have a copy. So far I’ve only found two photos of Walter in his costume, taken by Phil Mills. With all the camera flashes going off during that song, I can’t help but think there must be more out there.
If you’ve posted pics on your blog, please do post the URL. Thanks so much!
Post/read Wordpress comments | Blatherings homepageI’ve spent most of the past week recovering from a flu bug I picked up at FKO. Symptoms (if you caught the same, we can commiserate, eh?): overwhelming need to sleep ALL THE TIME, plus it feels as if someone has stuffed your head full of Elmer’s Glue and cotton. Starting a couple of days ago, I was conscious for periods long enough to (1) post more about FKO and (2) briefly browse Blip.fm and Twitter on my iPhone from time to time. Not terribly productive, but I did find this Twitter song:
as well as discover that Ingrid Michaelson wrote a short Twitter song as well:
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Photo by Walter.
Above: one of my con highlights — Heather Dale in concert, with Ben Deschamps and Jason Sonier. I love watching Heather performing. She always sings with such joy, and I love the way she sweeps the whole audience into her music.
Continuing my somewhat incoherent list of surprises and highlights from the weekend…
Post/read Wordpress comments | Blatherings homepageWhoa, this flu bug has really hit me hard. I’ve spent more of the past 48 hours unconscious than conscious. My head still feels stuffed with hot cotton, but I may actually be able to finish unpacking from FKO tomorrow.
Photo by Walter.
So much for catching up and getting back to a normal schedule. I seem to have picked up some kind of bug, ugh. Jodi has, too. Fortunately, Allison hasn’t, so you can read her FKO reports online. You can find links to other FKO reports and photos here, courtesy Occam’s Pyramid.
It SNOWED in Toronto yesterday. What’s the deal with that?!??
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Got home from FilKONtario last night…dead tired but happy. What a wonderful weekend!
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Allison, Jodi and I are off to FilKONtario later today, but I wanted to post about our donation to Interfilk, for those attending the convention. Our package includes:
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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. :-)
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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.
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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?
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So on Friday night, I went with my friends Cathy and Ardelle to do some English Country Dancing at Historic Fort York, Jane Austen style. Cathy’s been part of the group there for years but I only became interested after attending a dance workshop at Balticon.
The regulars were all dressed in historic costume. The women were lovely in their gowns, their skirts swirling around. And though I felt a bit sorry for the men in their wool suits, I have to say they all looked quite dashing and Colin Firth-like. Don’t believe me? Check out the photo on the left that I took of my dance partner, Joel.
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