BeigeJournal

I am back from the Ohio Valley Filk Festival, after much fun and much driving. This was my second OVFF and I’m hoping to make the trip to Ohio many more times.

I really enjoyed the concerts, particularly Lady (Ladies?) Mondegreen, a group of, um, eightish (they move so fast it’s hard to count) women who sing some wickedly funny stuff. The Interfilk guest, Blake Hodgetts, was fantastic. Eloise was right, after I heard him I just had to buy his CD. The songwriting contest was also fun to see, Particularly Renee Alper’s, er, Renee-like take on the Once In A Blue Moon topic. She was a Chambanacon regular way back when and it is nice to see her again.

I liked the chance to meet people who I’ve long heard of, who’s songs I’ve enjoyed, who’s songs, in some cases, I’ve learned to play, or who I just haven’t seen in a long time. Terence Chua, who strongly implied that he wouldn’t be there, nonetheless was. Cat Faber was there, enabling her to say “wow” in person at the Pegasus Awards ceremony. Renee, Ray, and Star. Batya “The Toon” Wittenberg, who is a Lady Mondegreen and was delighted to find her evil influence spreading when I told her I was learning to play her parody Under The Kitten Beast. It turns out she has a Play It Slow parody, so I now have a third song to sing to that tune, along with the original and Benjamin Newman’s.

I also had the chance to sing “The Wreck of the Lady Fitzgerald”, which incorporates bits of Robin Nakkula’s Asteroid Ore, in front of Robin, after she had sung Asteroid Ore. That was fun. Dave Clement described the song as “sick.” That might be a compliment. In my own sick mind, anyway.

I found I did surprisingly well in the circles stage-fright-wise. I felt very comfortable, and hardly felt clumsy at all on the flute. I was a fairly clumsy guitarist compared to how I play at home alone but better than I’ve often been in public and I still felt calm and was able to continue on smoothly after fumbles without getting into that escalating cycle of panic.

This was really only my second experience in chaos circles, since we do bardic at the Milwaukee housefilks. There is a whole set of skills for getting a turn in which I have not practiced and never even thought to observe before I started performing. I may need a little assertiveness training.

This was also my first time at a con banquet and the first time I saw the Pegasus award ceremony. The food was good and the shocked expressions of the award winners was a joy to behold. The Grim Roper said that a few decades he would not have expected to win the Pegasus for best humorous song. Gretchen refused to say anything. Cat Faber could hardly say anything. Dave Clement said that he was going to do as he did in music when the going gets tough, and turn things over to Tom Jeffers, who in turn was too overcome to say much, and the two hugged.

All in all I had a wonderful weekend. Even the rain was nice enough to fall only when I was indoors anyway, leaving nice weather for the two long days of driving. Hope to see you all again next year, plus those of you who couldn’t make it this year.