OVFF XVII

Thursday:
It was unseasonably warm in New York on Wednesday and Thursday.
However the nice folks on #Filkhaven had warned me that it was
going to be chilly in Ohio, so I packed up my velvets and my tights
on Wednesday night, and at about 4:30 Thursday afternoon Jon and I set
off for the Midwest.

We got to the airport and checked in, and all was well until we went
through the metal detectors. My hair clip was setting things off, as
was the button on my jeans. Jon had a slightly larger problem. You see,
Jon habitually carries that most useful of tools, the Swiss army knife
in his backpack. Airport security took him back to the check-in counter
and helped him jump the line so he could check his backpack (which also
contained that most deadly of personal grooming elements, the nail file)
and eventually they returned him to me. I spent the time sitting between two
largish unsmiling men with guns, reading Connie Willis short stories.

The plane was a surprise. It was a really small one, and Jon actually had to
bend his head to one side to keep from clonking it on the ceiling. I was
brushing the top of the plane and I'm only 5'6". The stewardesses bustled
us on, and then we sat for a bit. Eventually we took off, and I discovered
the joy that was the in-flight magazine. Why was it a joy? Attache
turns out to be an award-winning magazine, and it featured articles on such
topics as the history of brewing in America, historical cooking, odd
football trophies, where to eat in New York (a few even I hadn't heard of)
and best of all an article by Sandi Kahn Shelton. Now I can tell that a
lot of you are shaking your heads saying, who is this Sandi with the two
last names? Well, it goes like this, my friend Amy getting married in March
(the same weekend as Consonance *sniff*), and the man she's marrying is
Sandi Kahn Shelton's son (and my friend) Ben Kahn. So on the plane
on the way to OVFF I got to read about Ben and his sister at a much
younger age, spitting graham crackers all over an unsuspecting friend
of Sandi's while they were on an extended car trip. Of course we kept
the magazine.

We landed in Ohio with no mishaps, and disembarked onto the roll-away
staircase. That was the instant that my scarf blew away in the strong wind.
I'm glad that I'd been warned about the temperature shift. It was cold!
We found our luggage and our shuttle and made it to the hotel about 10.
As we were walking in, I heard a shout of "Clone!" and spotted my clone,
Batya Wittenberg, and her husband Alex sitting in the lobby with Gwen
Knighton, Terence Chua, Rob Wynne Larissa March, and Melissa Glasser.
We dropped our bags and ran over to hug people.

As a direct result, we didn't wind up checking in until much, much, later, but
that's another part of the story. We sat and chatted, I rubbed Melissa's
back, and Batya rubbed mine. Terence played Dar William's The Pointless,
Yet Poignant Crisis of a Co-Edwhich became something of a running gag
for the rest of the weekend. And what kind of name is People Against the
Treacherous Use of Fur anyway?

Gwen had her lap harp, and seemed to be writing something. Rob was perfectly
content to sit on the couch with one arm around Larissa and one around
Gwen, a situation which Batya termed "a kitten pile". Daniel Glasser showed
up and so did Dave and Ellen Weingart, fresh from their plane. Dave
began once again telling me how I had to go see The Field of Corn, and that was
about the time that Seanan McGuire and Jinny Eigel showed up. Jinny
was our con chair, and I have never seen her look so tired as she did that
night, _before_ the con. Seanan had cooked dinner for Jinny and her husband
Andy, making her starting-to-be-infamous pomegranate chicken. Jinny told
me later that after his first bite they'd had to wrestle the rest of the
chicken away from Andy who was stubbornly saying "mine!" We're hoping to
get Seanan to make it when she come for New Year's when she comes to
visit.

Slowly but surely people drifted off in the direction of bed. Alex went first,
having gotten up at o'dark early in the morning. Eventually everyone else
drifted offhaving consumed the Krispy Kremes that Daniel had brought and
re-cased their instruments. Batya and I went upstairs to get some food and
while we were in the alcove over the lobby we could hear the #filkhaven
circle singing Dar Williams' Iowa, which Terence had just learned to play.
We chimed in on the chorus from above and then went to raid the cooler. By
the time we got back downstairs the crowd was dispersing. I sat in the
lobby for a few moments alone, while Batya and Jon fetched drinks from the
vending machine, which to our delight, featured uncaffeinated diet Coke.
On the way back, Jon and Batya acquired Renee Alper, who came to share her
company with us while we ate. Renee told us the story of her meeting with
Ray, her SO. Ask her to tell you sometime if you don't already know, it's
a sweet story. Renee also gave us a preview of her later-contest-winning
song, called Deer John Letter which detailed the grievances of a
young deer whose buck just can't keep his nose out of the clover. Poor
deer.

Soon after dinner we went to bed. But Jon stayed downstairs to officially check
us in. Batya and I were just about to go down and check on him when the
phone rang. Apparently the hotel wanted to confirm that we knew that this
gentleman was trying to check into our room. We reassured them that yes,
it was indeed fine, but in hushed voices, as Alex was stirring in his
sleep.

Friday:
We woke up at about noon, with the exception of Alex who'd been up and about
searching for signs of civilization (and coffee) from about 9 a.m. Alex is
a morning person, but we love him anyway. As Batya said over the weekend,
"Only Alex would come to a con -- a filk con! -- to catch up on sleep."

Once we were awake and fed, we met up with Seanan McGuire for our run to the
Bexley kosher market. Seanan had in tow her friend Chris, affectionately
known as Chris the Taxi Whore to readers of Seanan's column. Due to a
mix-up with the rental car place, Chris had a mini-van large enough to fit
not only Batya, Seanan, and I, but also Alex and Jon. We all squeezed in,
with Seanan and Jon sitting on the floor where the middle seats had been
removed, and Alex sitting up front with Chris.

On the way we put in the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, which Batya hadn't heard before,
because Seanan had filked one of the songs (no, I'm not saying which,
that's for Seanan to say) and I'd brought it along. So as we drove we got
to watch Batya's reaction to the love duet which strings together whole
bunches of popular love songs with musical-theater-like patter sung by Ewan
McGregor and Nichole Kidman. It's fun, if anachronistic in the extreme.

We also sang rounds, insta-parodies, and Seanan's version of The Hockey
Monkey Song, the Hockey Mummy Song which goes, "and it's one,
two three, the dead love the mummy, and it's four, five, six, he's got the
book of Annubis, it's seven, eight, nine, they're bringing the end times,
yeah!"

We finally got to the market, and proceeded to tear around, terrifying Seanan
with esoteric Jewish foods. Seanan is officially terrified of gefilte
fish, and she isn't too sure about knishes either. Still,
we're adapting to each other's cultures. We're teaching her about Judaism,
and she's teaching us about Romany living, which included a really
interesting discussion of how one goes about getting pregnant in Romany
culture. It's similar to Jewish Leverite marriage, but whereas Jewish tradition
would have an impregnable (yes, that's the word I want) woman going to her
next unmarried male relative to produce an heir only in the case of her
husband's death (this by the way is no longer practiced in modern Judaism)
a Romany woman can go to her sister and say "my husband has not made me
pregnant, will you lend me your husband?" Apparently if that doesn't take
she can go to her next sister until she runs out of sisters with husbands.
Then she can go to her husband's sisters, and thence outward on the family
chain until she has run out of what Seanan calls "brother lines". If she's
still not pregnant, then she can appeal to the people who are close to
her.

Isn't multi-culturalism fun?

Back at the hotel we put things into our mini-fridge, and then it was time to
head out to the airport to pick up Amanda Weinstein. Jon and Batya elected
to stay behind and rest up. I got into the car with Seanan and Chris and
off we went. Discussion turned to the reason for having a van, and I
learned that the first thing we had to do when we got to the airport was
return the van, because the van wasn't useful. The only reason Chris had
it was because there'd been a glitch with the reservation. Still it was
very useful for shopping. So we got to the airport and pulled up to the
Budget rent-a-car, where we returned the van, and stood in line for what
was about to become a repeating motif.

After a few minutes, Seanan looked at her watch and announced that we had
to go get Amanda. We weren't sure what airline or what flight she was
coming in on, but we figured that Columbus was a small enough airport, and
that we'd find her. I went with Seanan to act as the breadcrumb trail for
Chris. I'd accompany her as far as the gate and then go back to get Chris
who would hopefully have the car by then. I went back and found Chris
already halfway down the moving sidewalk (did I mention Seanan's uncanny
ability to walk, at speed down a moving sidewalk that's going in
the wrong direction?)

Chris was having a problem getting a car, and so we went to find Seanan, and
that's when I spotted Jodi Krangle. I ran over to say hi and distribute hugs
Seanan and Chris came along and we all hugged Jodi. Jodi, it turned out, was
looking for Eloise Beltz-Decker so they could share a shuttle. We also ran
into Seanan's housemate Alex, and at that very moment I spotted Eloise, and
grabbed Seanan so we could go and pounce her, all unexpected, because Eloise
wasn't expecting to see us until the con. So we pounced, and then all of a
sudden, there was Amanda. Lots of hugs were exchanged, and Jodi and Eloise
were offered a ride by some other filk fen who happened to be passing by.

Amanda, Seanan, Chris and I trooped back to the car rental where, we sincerely
hoped, that they would rent us a car. Chris and Seanan went through the
line, and then discovered that the renter had to have a driver's license,
so Chris grabbed Amanda, who volunteered her license and we were able to
secure a car. "That'll be in spot 38" they told us. So we went outside into
the frigid lot in search of space 38, which was empty. "Oh look," said
Seanan when our initial consternation had worn off, "they gave us an
invisible car." Seanan then went to try the doors of the invisible car,
while the rest of us huddled for warmth. "It's locked," she called back, and
came to huddle with the rest of us.

Chris went in pursuit of another car and came back with the attendant who
finally showed us to a nice compact car and blissfully let us leave the
airport.

On the ride back to the hotel I caught up with Amanda who is a physicist working
on her PhD in California and (at least Seanan and Batya are convinced) a
clone of me. Which generally means that we finish each other's non-sequitors.

We got back to the hotel, got Seanan and Amanda settled in their room, which they
were sharing with Eloise, and Chris, and then we went down to registration
so I could get a badge signed and paid for before Shabbat started.

On the way over to registration I ran into the hotel bar to hug Rand Bellavia,
who I hadn't seen since the previous OVFF. He introduced me to his band-mate
Adam English who is a quite decent sort, and was the only member of Ookla
that I hadn't met.

Registration was crowded but efficient, and they did a particularly clever thing
by offering free Halloween candy to people who gave them their room numbers.

Mike Stein grabbed me at registration, and we went off to his room so I could
hear the song he wanted to do at the one-shots. It was a Buffy song called
After Life, which featured verses for Dawn, Willow, Spike, and Buffy. He asked
if I could find people to sing the parts, and I came up with Batya and Seanan
who eventually wound up singing Willow and Buffy respectively. Mike was later
able to pull in flute goddess Callie Hills, and keyboard aficionado
Gary McGath to fill in the arrangement. But that all happened later.

I ran back to the room to light candles with Batya at the beginning of Shabbat.
The two of us went to 297 where Zev Sero was staying so we could light
our candles in a room where we'd be eating dinner. Sue Cochran, who I only
ever see at cons *sniff* was there making up her son Matthew's face with
camouflage make-up. He was dressed as a soldier, complete with bowl-shaped
hat, which nicely complimented the bowl cut that he had. I also saw Ben Newman
who was sitting on the bed tuning his Seagull guitar, which Jon said must
be a Siegel guitar because it was in a room with so many Jews. We lit, left
Zev to daven and went back to our room to hang out for a bit. I debated
putting on my costume for the mad hatter's ball, but decided it was a bit
much for Shabbat dinner.

Before dinner, Alex, Jon, Batya and I made a run to the consuite where we got
soda to take with to dinner. In the consuite I ran into Luke, Renee, and
Josh Macdonald who I hadn't seen in nearly three years. I was very happy
to hug and twirl them (well Renee anyway, Luke is too big to twirl these
days) and I was happy that they all remembered me. I also got to catch up
a bit with their mother Susan Mordyk, who was dressed in her usual
devastating black.

Dinner was fun. Zev played host, I made kiddush, Mike brought God's own quantity
of pastrami, and there was lots of stimulating conversation. Batya and I ran
out to get ready to go down before the party ended. She already had her blue
wig on, and she just had to put her bunny ears on. We pushed open the
connecting door when we heard voices coming through and found Seanan and
Eloise in full bunny garb. Eloise was wearing a Speedo swimsuit and had six
breasts, her ears were a full foot high.

With Eloise and Amanda's help I got into my playboy bunny costume which I'd
spent the last couple of weeks making. I grabbed the pomegranate that I'd
brought for Eloise to eat (she'd never had one before) and took it around
carried in one hand like a tray, because it was exactly the same shade as
the red velveteen in my costume. Just wait until my friend Andy sees what
I did to his old, red bathrobe ...

I believe that Debbie Ohi took pictures, and I think there's probably one up
on her Blatherings already. *stops writing for a minute, goes and looks*
yes, there's a picture of all of the ose bunnies, I'm the one in the middle
holding the pomegranate and trying to keep my ears on with one hand. They
just wouldn't stay on.

After the party I ran and put on something that didn't require ears, and came
back for the Pegasus nominees concert. At the concert I ran into Mary Bertke
who was braiding people's hair, which has earned her the nickname Mary the
Mad Braider. She's adorable, have I mentioned that? She's also got phenomenal
gobs of talent, in addition to being able to braid just about anything
that grows hair, she also plays the banjo, sings, and writes amazing songs.

After the concert, which featured Terence Chua singing Wendigos, the Weird
Sisters doing a full orchestration version of Strangers No More and Judith
Hayman haplessly attempting to sing Nessie Come Up while being
surrounded by shtick, including my stuffed Nessie (Jon brought it
back from his trip to Scotland) popping up over her shoulder, courtesy
of Bill Sutton and the others on stage, who delighted in making it disappear
the minute she looked to see what it was.

Matt Leger sang A Simple Country Doctor and Rob Wynne sang Con Spent
in a Circle, and there were many other performances, including Bill Sutton's
Stray Dog Man. I was wandering in and out a bit catching up with
people, so I missed quite a few of the computer songs.

After the Pegasus concert there was a run on the ballot box. I got pulled off
into the Ose circle which was remarkably short-lived. The people from
#filkhaven came and invaded at 11, which was nice anyway, and that in turn
became the alternative open filk. Before I got dragged away to rehearse
After Life with Mike, I got to hear Cacie Sears play her new song
Naked which is a poignant tribute to waking up with one's lover, and
Eloise played her filk of Brown Eyed Girl, Red Haired Girl which is
her tribute to Charles Schultz and Charlie Brown.

We all went around and introduced ourselves by our #filkhaven nicknames, so that
people could put names to faces.

Rehearsing with Mike was fun, but somewhat stressful for me, as I've never been
good at this-line-stays-on-the-same-note melodies, which After Life is in
a few spots. Rehearsal was fun because I got to hang out with Seanan, Batya
and Callie.

After rehearsal Seanan and Batya went to bed, and I went back to the filksing
where Jon was waiting for me. Highlights of the filk were hearing Joe Giacoio
sing God Knows a song about the reason that the answer to prayers is
sometimes no. We also got to hear Rand and Adam play stuff from their new
album. I liked the song about the hysto-ray. And I got to hear (and got
on minidisc, finally!) Andy Eigel doing Uplift his Pegasus-nominated song.

Our minidisc player, dubbed Lazarus by my friend Bryn, because it keeps rising
from the dead, is working spottily. It's eaten all the minidiscs it recorded
at Confluence and Worldcon, but we're hoping to get another MD player
that will be able to play back what Lazarus records.*

*(Editorial note: The minidisk lives again! It started playing the stuff from Worldcon,
maybe it didn't like being defamed. -- Ed.)

At some point during the evening I wound up having a really long talk with Adam
and Jon and Steve Macdonald about polyamory and why it works for some
people and not for others.

At about 7 a.m. I got to bed, after at least one really long stretch of making
Jon run around trying to find me after the filk circle broke up.

Saturday:
I slept through most of the workshops, and did Batya and Jon. When we finally got
up Batya and Seanan and I went into Seanan's room to practice Haven, which
was the song that she and Batya wrote which I set to music. We'll probably
have an MP3 of it sometime, but when that will be, well, we'll figure
that out later.

We went downstairs just in time to miss the Echo's Children concert. I'd
thought that it was going to be at 2:15, not 1:15. Augh. I did get to hear
some really great one shots, including one that Lee Billings did to the tune of
When Giants Walked, and Steve Savitsky did In the Light of the
Millennium's Dawn. I watched Steve Macdonald's concert, and
realized just how much we still influence each other. Steve did Dan Bern's
Jerusalem, and Snitch Ball Wizard from his upcoming
rock opera, Harry. Yes, you heard me right. You see a bunch of
months ago on #filkhaven we were bandying about a Pinball Wizard
parody based on Harry Potter, and Steve went and wrote the whole damned
opera, cursing us and all our unborn children. As far as I know they're
planning to perform it next year. Rand has apparently agreed to play
Harry. I don't know about you, but I'm scared.

And of course it wouldn't be a Steve concert if I didn't cry at least once,
though oddly enough it wasn't Merry Meet, I was already through it
by then (well okay, I've discovered that if I don't try to sing along with
that one then I don't bawl) it was Silver Gilt that got me, the one
that Steve wrote for Tim and Annie Walker. Damn it Steve, did you have to
make me cry right before I had to sing?

And of course right at that second I had to get on stage and sing Dawn's part
in After Life, which was well received. There seemed to be a lot of
Buffy fans in the audience. After a few more one-shots Seanan took the
stage and proceeded to knock the socks off the collected filk fandom with
songs like the one she wrote because someone told her she couldn't rewrite
the Tempest as a 1930's style musical. "What's a faithful servant to do?"

Right after Seanan's concert, I had to get up on stage again. It was time for
us to drag Seanan back onto the stage so that she and Batya and I could
sing Haven. I think it went over pretty well. A lot of people came
up to me later and told me they liked "that song you did" which is ironic
because it was untitled for the longest time. We only decided on Haven at
the con after long weeks calling it by different names.

Batya and Seanan helped me haul stuff off the stage, while people heckled Moonwulf
for getting my name wrong. We were followed by Mark Bernstein who said "I'm
so glad that I'm not following that one with anything serious", and proceeded
to tell us in his usual spoonerish manner about the Soovies of Mummer. Katy
Droge got up and did an absolutely gorgeous song about Helen of Troy,
that she said was written by Ju. Wow, I always forget just how good they are.
It's called A Thousand Ships and if I can ever play that well in
the future I will count myself lucky.

After the one-shots there was a short break and then Terence was up for his
concert. Right around that time Mary kidnapped me and braided me into what
someone dubbed "Celtic Princess Mode" with a five strand braid and many little
accent braids which are still in my hair as I type this, making me quietly
happy.

Kathleen Sloan did a wonderful song that she attributed to one Raoul I. Benefiche
who also wrote last year's just-as-heartbreaking A Dog and His Boy.
This year's heartbreaker was based on Don McLean's Vincent and was a tribute
to Charles Schultz. I'm beginning to suspect that Raoul Benefiche is
a quietly talented genius.

Terence gave a phenomenal concert, my favorite part of which was the Halo Jones song,
because I'd wanted to hear it again since I'd finished reading The Ballad
of Halo Jones just a few weeks before the con. I was very happy
to see that Terence has succumbed (just as I did) and bought a baby Taylor
. Melissa Glasser tells me that it's already named itself, precocious thing.

The Three Weird Sisters were up next, and I never get sick of hearing them, despite
having played Rite the First Time over and over again. And besides
they did Dancing Like Their Feet Have Wings which isn't on the album
and they did a tribute to Terence Chua, which I missed because I slipped
out of the concert to catch up with a friend.

I spent a good portion of the con chatting with Heather Munn, who I haven't seen
in literally years. Our friendship has been conducted largely over e-mail,
so it was good to finally be together in person. She brought with her a small,
knit, finger-puppet lion which attached itself to me and went around the con
terrifying people.

After the Weird Sisters concert Moonwulf got back on stage, as his morning concert
had been cut down to half an hour due to time constraints, so we danced
to Hooters and I hung out in back and admired the WorlDream Quilt which
has grown quite large.

Then it was time for the Pegasus banquet, which I largely skipped, but I went in
to hear the awards announced. Cat Faber wasn't in attendance, so she didn't
get to hear her Pegasus winning song announced as The Least of My Mind.
I'm sure someone's written it already. I ran into her later in the lobby
and congratulated her, sure that she'd heard already, and wound up breaking
to her the news of her win, and of the typo. Is this going to be a running
gag? Last year we wound up with 301 Ale. Maybe if you drink 301 ale it
gives you the least use of your mind?

Talis Kimberly who wasn't at OVFF due to having to move house while pregnant
still managed to pick up two awards, for best performer and best songwriter
if you haven't picked up her CD Archetype Cafe, run do not walk to your nearest
friendly filk dealer and buy it. Brenda Sutton took the Best Song award
for Strangers No More, and Best Computer song went to Tech Support
by Jeff Hitchins.

After the banquet we went to do havdalah in our room, and then changed to go
the songwriting contest. Randy Hoffman won with Lag, and notable
entries included one by Naomi Rivkis sung by Erica Neely, which reminded
me of a Julie Miller song that I really love, and Seanan's entry which
placed second in the contest, but which I don't have on minidisc, and
I therefore don't have the title.

After the contest we drifted outward to theme filks. Naomi hosted a folk-themed
circle which I stuck my head into a few times, but eventually I gravitated
--with a very brief stop at the WorlDream party-- to the Monkey themed filk
which featured quite a few non-monkey songs, and at which Batya got to sing
99 Dead Baboons which made her very happy. I realized very belatedly
that I did know a monkey song. Jack the Slob has a chimpanzee in it.
Oh well.

After the time change, Rand and Adam declared that it was once again 1 o'clock
and therefore time for the Monkey Filk. Again. However, the Ose Bunny Filk
asserted itself rather forcefully in the form of many young women with
oversized ears singing yet another Ose Bunny theme song. During the song
contest, Eloise, Batya, and Amanda sat in the back writing, this one is called
Tragedy Tonight with the usual apologies to Stephen Sondheim.

The Ose Circle was a lot of fun. Despite the fact that we managed to clear the
room almost immediately just by being an Ose Circle, but we had sublime
harmonies, and the majority of the songs were cheery ose, and not truly
morbid. Eventually it devolved into a game Batya made up that involves taking
Once Upon A Time cards, which have story elements on them. The game worked
rather like Encore. You had 20 seconds in which to think of a song to perform
on the topic from the card. I got "stupid" and "orphan" (thankfully
not in tandem) before I folded my hand and went to bed.

This description really doesn't do justice to the sound that was in this circle.
Alyssa Latham did an October Project song at one point and the harmony levels
in the room were just as dense and as tight as on the album if not more so.

I spent some time out in the hall very late at night jamming with Dave Weingart
and Rob Wynne and singing parodies of classic rock songs with Ellen, Jon
and Becky from Boston, whose last name is escaping me at the moment.
Becky and I danced and we all sang at the top of our lungs.

Unfortunately all good things must end. I went to bed, and the circle went on
without me. Not for too much longer though, as it was already about 5 a.m.

Sunday:
Sunday was too short. I firmly believe that there supposed to be more hours in
Sunday that I just put in the wrong compartment of my luggage, otherwise
they would have been there. I spent half the day hugging people goodbye and
I still missed hugging Eloise and Steve, and any number of other people
that I meant to hug.

Speaking of Steve, I didn't go to the WorlDream. It would have been my fifth
time, and I figured it was time to give some other people a chance to be
in the pictures. Steve, if you're reading this, I'm proud of you.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. I remember packing frantically, and lots
of hugs and plunking down more money than I had for CDs I wanted, and a new
Connie Willis collection.

I spent some time hanging out with Mary, Becky, Seanan, Eloise, and Batya, who
were in the end the people I'd really come to the con to see. And I hugged
all my #filkhaven friends, though I know I missed a few, and thought of
them all at the airport. Seanan had to leave early to take Batya to the
airport, and I wandered the con and wound up in the lobby with Jodi Krangle
Dave, Cacie Sears. They passed my guitar around for a while, and Dave tried
to teach Jodi D, Em, and A.

Pretty soon it was time to leave, and get out into the windy October weather, and
thence to the airport. I spent a good half-hour getting teary-eyed, and
then felt better, and was able to sleep on the plane.

Right before I left, Gary Ehrlich finally caught up to me and played one of the
two songs he'd been trying to play for me all weekend. It was a sea shanty
which he'd worked together with the T.S. Elliot poem Grizabella the Glamour
Cat, by way of the Broadway musical, CATS. And at the end he threw in a reference
to Sleep on the Ledge, which is one of my songs. Have I mentioned I love
my self-referential community and everyone in it?

October 30, 2001