CONFLUENCE

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Originally uploaded by Looly Huheet

As it's nearly two weeks past by now, I really should get around to posting about Confluence, the science-fiction convention in Pittsburgh that pretty much always ends up one of my favorite weekends of just about any year, this year being no exception.

A large part of that is due, of course, to the tireless efforts of mrgoodwraith, who has built the filk track up to the point where, to me and many others, Confluence is for all intents and purposes a filkcon that just happens to have a really good literary track (and good booksellers, not that I could afford any). All the way around, it's a well-run con -- still small enough not to be daunting; large enough that there's always at least three somethings happening; a generally relaxing vibe; and a first-rate con suite thanks to Greg (blanking on surname).

So ... a few highlights from the weekend:

* Hearing Rin Barton for the first time. She's an excellent songwriter with a lovely voice, and enough presence that she was able to counteract a number of moments of forgetting lyrics and turn those moments into charming schtick. The accompanying photo shows her "initiation" into the filk community by markbernstein -- yep, she got Madiera'd. I think it's great to see younger people, like Rin or the women in Sassafrass, coming into the filk community -- since the vast majority of filkers of whom I'm aware are my age or older (and I've officially hit Middle Age, turning 40 right before Confluence). Good to see it's going to continue to be a vibrant, and evolving, concern.

* While John Scalzi's GOH hour wasn't all that Meaty and Profound, as these things go, it was a fun, enjoyable hour of hearing Scalzi's stories about his family, his early writing, living in rural Ohio, etc. Kind of like a live "Whatever" column.

* Toyboat! I love this group's bar-band take on various classics of filkdom, such as "Uplift," "Mary O'Meara" and, of course, "Banned From Argo" -- they've made that latter song listenable again. It was great having them in open filk as well -- the Saturday night open filk had a wonderful panoply of excellent musicians, with them, maugorn, Cedric from the Bedlam Bards, T.J. Burnside-Clapp, lemmozine and others in the room at various times (and a pretty fair a cappella contingent as well, with Rin, Mark, Randy, almeda and, I suppose, me, among others.

* mrgoodwraith's efforts to bring the various streams of fannish music together make for a highly eclectic, and much fun, filk track: He managed to put together a weekend that reunited members of a classic traditional filk group, Technical Difficulties, as filk GOH ("More Difficulties") and had a lineup featuring FUMP/dementia (Power Salad), Celtic/world (Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps), filk-friendly acoustic covers of Yes, Donovan and such (maugorn, who does a lovely rendition of Yes' "Wondrous Stories," a song I'd kind of bypassed before); rock & roll (Toyboat), other veteran trad-filkers (Clif Flynt -- whose concert I sadly missed; same with almeda). There have been a few dust-ups on LJ about divides and conflicts between these various streams; Randy is doing as much as anybody, it seems to me, to stitch 'em together.

* Some lovely open-filking both nights, plus the dead dog Sunday and the undead-dog housefilk. It was good hearing stevemb a couple times; he sings all too infrequently. And markbernstein broke quite a few brains with "Punfinished Symphony," including mine -- even if you've heard it before, it still sparks groans and whimpers in all the right places. I trotted out a few things I hadn't done in a while, like my Fablesfilk "Let Me In," or ever, like Joel Polowin's "Flies," which I happened to have in my book after once printing it out on a whim. There was this one perfect moment at the Saturday night open filk: Someone did a Muppet-themed song, and immediately thereafter, someone did a parody of Stan Rogers' "Lies" -- which meant "Flies" was a follower on two fronts and could not go unsung.

This is the second straight convention in which someone has complimented me on my voice -- it happened at Concertino as well -- which probably doesn't seem like much to some of the more veteran or accomplished performers among ye; but for someone who's still something of a neophyte, who only began singing in public a few years back and whose delivery has occasionally shown it ... that was a big deal. I think I have improved markedly, in that I've taken seriously input people have offered about breath control, staying within key, pitch, volume, etc. (Sometimes I still do silly stuff like launch into a hard song like Julia Ecklar's "The Phoenix" with no practice or much of any vocal prep, like I did at "Confluence ... or write a song with key shifts and lyrical twists that are beyond my vocal abilities. I once wrote a song that included the line "... while fat and pasty tourists drink tequila by the pool." That line is impossible to sing without it coming out "fat and tasty purists.") Anyway, to quote John & Paul, "it's getting better all the time."

* Anecdote Time: At one point, when looking at starmalachite's "Doctor Mews" shirt -- depicting 10 cats garbed as the 10 incarnations of the Doctor from Dr. Who -- I tried to make a reference to the feline representing the Eighth Doctor ... but instead of "Paul McGann," it exited my lips as "Gary McGath." Which raises mental images of madfilkentist manning the TARDIS. I mentioned this as the undead-dog housefilk, which, of course, started a brief exchange about what filkers would make a good incarnation of the Doctor. Names tossed out included gorgeousgary, thatcrazycajun and, most intriguingly, talis_kimberley. Though, as filkferengi noted, "Bin there, dun that" -- mrgoodwraith had ably portrayed #10 the night before at the PARSEC play. Still and all ... I could see, say, Rand Bellavia in the role. For that matter, though I've never really interacted with him, from everything I've heard, gfish actually is the Doctor.

* In a sheepish moment after the con, I read a post by an LJ friend, amergina, who I know mostly through her efforts co-modding the christianity community ... and realized we were at the same con and didn't know it. Whoops. Had I remembered, I could've told her to keep her eyes open for a big guy with a big beard, but then again in fandom settings that doesn't do too much to narrow things down.

There are assuredly other highlights -- like Randy's sister Wendy just plain rockin' as River Tam in PARSEC's mashup of Firefly, Dr. Who and Annie Get Your Gun; it'd been too long since I'd seen Wendy -- but it be late. As ever, a wondrous weekend.