This is a test to see if content I post on Dreamwidth will properly repost to LiveJournal.
Actual content will follow.
Category: Blog Page 19 of 141
Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time…
I had the oddest dream last night. I was helping with the launch of a new line of IKEA BDSM equipment. They had it all set up in the showroom in the usual fashion, and we were arranging it all just so and trying to figure out what to name each of the pieces. The cross, of course, was Andrew, and the wheel would be Catherine, and there was a small bench that for no apparent reason we decided was named Julie.
I have no idea what it means.
Our Super Secret Guest is…
Elise Matthesen
by Brenda Sutton
So let me ‘splain…
We’re not superstitious, no…but the thriteenth GAFilk experienced a series of unsettling circumstances, starting with Seanan McGuire losing her origianal backup band, and culminating with a wallapalooza of an ice storm that kept many at the con for two extra days. In the middle there, our Super Secret Guest, Patrick Nielsen Hayden and and his wife Teresa found themselves unable to attend, and therein lives our tale.
Not only was GAFilk going to be Patrick and Teresa’s first filk con, but it was going to be their friend Elise’s first filk con, too. We all met “for real” in Australia at the WorldCon. (I say “for real” because I’d been communicating with and following Elise’s Live Journal since the tragic and untimely death of her dearest dear, John “Mike” Ford in 2006. Elise wrote a hauntingly beautiful love poem about their relationship that she graciously allowed me to publish in the Mythic Passages e-magazine. I urge you to go read it here, but take a box of tissues when you do. Since then, I’d been lurking over her website, watching her bravely wrestling with grief and gracefully getting on with life.) When GAFilk chose Patrick as our Super Secret Guest, he mentioned that Elise might be coming along, too. I was over the moon!
We were all looking forward to a bang-up GAFilk, hearing Patrick’s music with The Deaftones, Teresa and Elise, backing him up. Elise flew out from Minneapolis to NYC, and the three of them planned to travel down to Georgia together. Then on Wednesday night Elise suffered a stroke. Fortunately, Teresa recognised the symptoms and they rushed her to a hospital, spending the weekend and then-some at her bedside until she was well enough to travel home. Naturally, we were all worried sick, and so very sad that they weren’t coming to GAFilk, but grateful that Patrick and Teresa had been there to help. We were also very glad to learn that, because of their swift efforts, Elise suffered no lasting side affects from the stroke, and recovered swiftly. We were even happier when Patrick volunteered to come to GAFilk this year.
SO…when we started hunting for this year’s Super Secret Guest, it seemed to us that Elise was the perfect choice. The Deaftones will ride again, and you’ll finally get to meet the charming and talented Elise Matthesen. She is an exceptional jewelry artist. (Elise designed the famous tiara that graces the heads of John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award winners, including our own Seanan McGuire.) (Digression: She brought all her jewelry-making equipment Down Under for the Worldcon in Australia but, because of Customs restrictions, was not allowed to sell any of her beautiful pieces. So…she gave them away. This speaks miles to the character of this lovely woman. Not only was she just handing out her exquisite work, but, as is her custom, she was also naming each piece. At this year’s GAFilk banquet I’ll be wearing a lovely pair of amethyst crystals with silver full moons named “That Second Drink With the Man in the Moon”.)
Not only is Elise an accomplished artist, but she’s also a talented poet who writes quite a bit of parody filk, too. Check out Elise’s Live Journal for many delightful examples. She’s a fine singer, as you’ll all soon find out. When we asked her what she’d like to do at GAFilk, Elise suggested group a capella singing, and started right in compiling a songbook for us all to enjoy. What can we say…perfect fit.
I have taken certain ideas — notions, if you will — and put them into motion and released them into the universe.
Let’s see how they come back to me.
Tomorrow is December 1st, and that means the membership price for Gafilk goes up. Get your membership in the mail today, or send it in via Paypal from our website, http://www.gafilk.org/
We have Vixy & Tony, Scott Snyder, Pug and Shaya, and a super secret guest whom we will reveal tomorrow. 🙂 Plus, the release of Play It With Moxie’s first CD, and all the usual festivities!
Looking forward to seeing everyone in January!
Ran across this while looking for something else:
“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”
~Jan Glidewell
I’m not sitting in front of it, so I don’t know what specific picture is up this precise moment, but it rotates through a set of some of my favourite photos of my sweeties. That way whenever I show my desktop, I see a picture of someone I love who makes me happy.
When I was sixteen years old, I bought my first guitar. It was a 1982 Rickenbacker solidbody electric, and I got it for a steal of a price. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to really teach me how to play it, and I was pretty useless at teaching myself. A couple of years later, in need of quick cash, I sold it to a friend right before I moved to Georgia.
I had always regretted this, and said one day I’m going to get another guitar and learn to play it. But I put it off, and I put it off, and I put it off some more. Sooner or later, I said, there will be time and money for it.
In 1998, a near-death experience reminded me that there won’t always be time to get around to things, and I might want to think about not putting off those things I really want to do with my life. So once I was adequately recovered, I went out and bought a new guitar, a Fender DG10/12 12-string acoustic. And I signed up for a group class at the nearby MARS music store, and learned to play it well enough, and set about learning to play songs I liked and actually performing at filks and filkcons. 13 years later, I’m an adequate if unexceptional accompanist.
(While I was there, I also test drove a much more expensive acoustic: a Taylor 8-string baritone. It took an immense amount of willpower and a reminder of what I’d already committed funds to over the next few months not to change my plans, because dear lord I sounded good playing it. But I digress…)
I’ve been playing around with it for the last 12 hours. First impressions: I love the sound of it. I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with it. Good grief, I don’t know how to play it. 🙂
It’s a whole new ride. Let’s make some noise.