BeigeJournal

DucKon was this last weekend, in Lincolnwood, Illinois. This will be the first pass at a con report, another will come in a few weeks when I get the many slides I took back from the lab and scan some of them.

The filk was great, of course. The concerts were great. I missed the Friday night concerts due to our late arrival, but the open filk was great, as were the rest of the concerts. Riverfolk were great, as always. They’ve taken to performing Ookla the Mok’s Home, which they do very nicely. As others noted, it is easier to hear the words when Becca and Chas sing it. Susan Urban has an amazing collection of strange, spooky songs. I don’t think I’ve seen Sandy Andina before—she and Susan performed together, and did so very well. Naomi Pardue sang a somewhat eclectic assortment of songs. I’ve seen Eric Coleman at OVFF [must have been last year’s Duck], and he was his usual energetic self. Steve Macdonald, of course, is a spirited performer, and played for a packed room at his concert. He broke his G string during the concert. The old string was auctioned off later, and now my lover is the proud owner of Steve’s G-string. He broke the A string later, during the filk, but that’s just not as interesting.

The Sunday concerts were by Graham Leathers and by Rob Middleton. I’ve seen Graham before, but this was my first extended listening experience. I first heard Nantucket Sleigh Ride many years ago, and, at least once I learned who wrote it, it has been the song I associate with him, but he sings many other songs, as well, of course. I was not familiar with Rob, and I enjoyed his music.

People like hearing my flute, apparently. I always get some positive comments. Filkers are a welcoming bunch. It is particularly nice to hear encouragement from the sort of people who are invited to give concerts.

I also achieved a more important filking goal: I sang Kanefsky’s Right Stuff Rising, which is set to Mad Scientist Guest of Honor Mitch Burnside-Clapp’s Red Star Rising. I’d been hoping to do that ever since I heard Mitch was going to be there. Art, of course, sang his Red Star parody.

There was a Harry Potter theme filk Saturday night. Milwaukee’s Art Warneke has a few and Steve Macdonald has way too many. Eloise had a few that she didn’t actually know the tunes to, so she talked Susan Urban into singing one which she knew the tune for.

There was too much at the filks for me to report it all, or remember it all. Dave Alway read some poems. The ever-energetic Eloise sang a number of songs, in particular some by Blake Hodgetts, including A Habitrail Named Klein and Hot Point, Warm Heart. Phil Parker showed off his finger picking ability. Becca and Chas of Riverfolk played a bunch of songs. Susan Urban had more of the weird and creepy. The other Susan sang some songs. Jason had some death and depression for us. No Harry Potter songs, of course, because there’s not enough death there. Mitch sang some funny stuff. Andy Anda added fiddle and Mandolin for us. Barb and Carol got Richard to sing with them. He always seems a bit reluctant, though he has a great voice. Bill and Gretchen Roper sang a deeply hilarious song about, well, husbands screwing up (“You almost volatilized my kitchen!”).

If I left you out, that’s either because of sleep-deprivation or else I just haven’t a clue what your name is. We had a nice rendition of Lullaby For A Weary World from…someone. That came just before Art and I did…things…to Red Star Rising.

It’s always nice to see people in person. It’s good to have some connection with people beyond LiveJournal. I spent a good bit of time chatting with Eloise, which was very nice. She showed me lots of photos on the little screen on the back of her digital camera. I need one of those. The delay for mailing Fujichrome out for processing isn’t so bad if I’m usually the only viewer of the photos, but it would be nice to get things onto the web faster, let alone show them off right at the event.

Backrub parter Jason was good to see. Sweetie Kitten was there, back from her long trip to Alaska, along with the entire clan. We have a Milwaukee housefilk scheduled for next week, so I’ll be seeing some of the crowd again real soon.

The GT people set up a Tesla coil and destroyed AOL CDs with high-voltage. That was really cool. I did not attend build-a-blinky, but my girlfriend did. These blinkies, they keep getting higher-tech. In the old days, the world’s simplest timer circuit blinking a diode was good enough, now we have really tiny general-purpose digital computers blinking the diodes.

Thanks to all the hard-working people who make the event possible.