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OVFF 2018

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On October 27, 2018

In Blog

Seventeen years ago, I went to my first OVFF. It was a magical experience, and I met many of my dearest friends that weekend, and started a relationship which has become the foundation of my world, so I have a lot of strong feelings about it. I haven’t missed one since, and I was thrilled last year to be asked to serve as Toastmaster for this year’s convention.

I kept trying to figure out a way to write a more comprehensive con-report, but there was so much going on and so many people to see and spend time with (and never enough time with any of you) that I fear leaving something or someone out. But in true awards show fashion, I’m going to try until the orchestra plays me off.

Much thanks to the entire concom for the invitation, to Eric and Lizzie, Julia and Lady J, Cam3, Twill and Osiris of Wreck The System for being an awesome group of folks to share a bill with, and with whom to judge songwriting contests. Thanks to Steve, Erica, Trace, and Kathryn for late night Pegasus shenanigans. Thank you very much to Bill for the wonderful and humbling words in my program book bio, and for the years of friendship that made it possible.

Special thanks to Steve Macdonald and Merav Hoffman for implausibly last-minute assistance with my concert set. Those last two numbers couldn’t have happened with your help, and they’re both songs I’ve been wanting to do on stage for a long, long time.

My concert set was as follows.

0. The Folsom Connection
1. Anthem (cover)
2. The Madonna of the Midway (cover)
3. A Con Spent In A Circle
4. Thirteen Chord Songs
5. Son of a Son of a Vor Lord
6. Pass the Sage
7. The Ironforge Song
8. Party Of Four
9. Lawyers Guns and Honey
10. The Muppets Take Manhattan

(Lyrics for all songs by me except as noted: “Party of Four”, “Lawyers, Guns, and Honey”, and “The Muppets Take Manhattan” lyrics by myself and Jeff Williams. “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen. “The Madonna Of The Midway” lyrics by John M. Ford, music by Emma Bull. Tunes to all the parodies by their respective original composers; see my website for credits to specific songs. As always, these songs and others I’ve written can be found at https://www.autographedcat.com/songs/)

Thank you to everyone who attended my concert and who told me afterwards they enjoyed it. It was an honour to sing for you.

Thanks to Andrea and Lauren for the late night ice cream run, to Eric Distadand Jen for many long conversations, and to Elise for endless kindness.

Thanks to Kat for unexpected magic.

And finally, always, thanks to Larissa, who is my rock, my foundation, and my partner. You make everything possible.

OVFF 2018 was a blast, and I’m already looking forward to seeing everyone next year.

Wasn’t This Supposed To Be A Musical?

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On November 4, 2013

In Blog

This whole first year that we’ve been in Seattle, I’ve managed to attend the local filk convention within days of arriving,1 and I’ve been to a couple of conventions out of state2, but I really haven’t attended any of the local or regional conventions.  So next weekend will be my grand entrance onto the local fannish scene when I am at OryCon 35 in Portland, Oregon.

I was pleased and flattered to be asked to participate in the programming, and I have quite a busy weekend lined up, including a concert on Sunday afternoon, so if you’re going to be there, I hope you’ll come and see me.

Here’s what I’ve got lined up:

Friday, November 8

3:00pm

4:00pm

6:00pm

11:00pm

Saturday, November 9

11:00am

2:00pm

3:00pm

4:00pm

9:00pm

Sunday, November 10

12:00pm

12:30pm

1:00pm

3:00pm

I hope I’ll see you there!

  1. Like, literally, we arrived on Wednesday and unpacked the car, and went down to the con hotel on Thursday. ↩

  2. Nerdtacular, in Salt Lake City, and OVFF in Columbus, Ohio ↩

You can call, but I probably won’t hear you…

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On June 2, 2009

In Blog

Following up to the concert, some musing on a specific song. On Twitter, sfeley writes:

One concert annoyance: why do people laugh and shout out during “Shop Vac?” That song is TRAGIC. It’s a tearjerker. Does nobody else get it?

Which got me to thinking about the song, and the nature of comedy…or, more specifically in this case, satire.

“Shop Vac” is a very bouncy pop tune, with a catchy sort of Fountains of Wayne vibe to it. It tells the story of a couple who has moved into their little suburban castle, with their two kids and the yard and the basement workshop and the convenient shopping nearby. But if you listen closely, its obvious that they are utterly miserable. As Steve notes, it’s a tragedy set in a pop song.

I’ve complained in the past about songs where the emotional centre of the song and the tenor of the tune felt at odds to me. Most famously, the Beatles “Ticket to Ride“, which I’ve always thought was a terribly jaunty tune for a song about losing love. (I much prefer The Carpenters’ melancholy cover.) But sometimes, the dichotomy is part of the point — it creates a dissonance between what we’re feeling and what we’re being told.

“Shop Vac” is satire, and it’s target is the American DreamTM — or at least the ideal of it presented by our current culture. The couple in the song has everything that we’re all told we’re supposed to want, but everything we’ve been told we’re supposed to want turns out in many cases to be empty and unsatisfying. Somewhere on the way to “success”, they’ve found that along the way they’ve lost their dreams. Lois McMaster Bujold expressed it best: “The one thing you cannot trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.”

So….why is this funny? For some, it may be a measure of shadenfruede, because the person laughing may think “Ah-hah, but I didn’t fall into that trap! I reject that lifestyle and all it represents!” (This is a very geek attitude, and geeks are Coulton’s primary audience.). For others, it’s the hollow laughter of recognition. Coulton is certainly not the first to mine this notion for humour. Erma Bombeck wrote a dozen best sellers by extracting comedy from the soul-crushing ennui of suburban life. In the 1960s, The Monkees had a huge hit with Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Pleasant Valley Sunday“, which had a slightly more detached air, but lampooning the very same ideals.

This is why it’s one of my favourite Coulton songs, and why I requested it. Because it’s complex, and thought provoking, and more than meets the ear on first hearing. I don’t think that it’s funny because I don’t get it. It is funny (and tragic) because it is revealing a truth in a way that only the court jester can. Dry black humour, indeed, but humour none the less.

Jonathan Coulton Takes Atlanta by Storm (and Paul…)

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On June 2, 2009

In Blog

The last time Jonathan Coulton swung through Atlanta, I bought four tickets, expecting we could find someone to go with us. I figured if we failed to find someone free to go, I would just gift the tickets to a couple of random people standing in line (probably based on my perception of their cuteness, but that’s another show…) Unfortunately, the night the show came up, I came down with the flu and ended up unable to attend. I forwarded my tickets to thatcrazycajun, who had planned to attend, and told him to give the tickets away to anyone who wanted them, either that he knew or just to people on line.

So, as you can imagine, I was excited to learn that he was doing another show at the Variety Playhouse. sfeley asked if we wanted to join up with a big group of folks attending, so of course we said yes.

Saturday arrived, and we headed down to meet up with our party at Front Page News, a nearby restaurant. We were the first to arrive, so we set about getting a table arranged for 12, and sat down to enjoy some appetisers. It was right about then that I had a sudden horror-struck realisation. I had forgotten to print the tickets!

I did what I usually do in such situations, which is quietly panic and then look for solutions. I could drive home and get the tickets, and with no complications from traffic get back in time for the show, but that would meant missing dinner and the company that went with it, which I didn’t really want to do. A call to the theatre suggested they might be able to work something out with me, but not until we actually arrived there, which would be too late to enact a plan B should one become necessary.

So I asked our waiter, who was a rather nice young fellow, if they by any chance had an Internet capable computer and printer on the premises. He told me he would check, and came back to inform me that while his manager had one in her office, customers were not allowed into that area. However, if I were willing to give them the necessary login information, they would print my tickets for me. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I wrote down the necessary details on a piece of paper and handed them over. He returned 10 minutes later with the printouts that would get us in the door, and we gave him a 50% tip when it was time to go. The food was also excellent, and outside of heroic measures above and beyond the call of duty, the service was outstanding. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in the Little Five Points area.

Once the crisis was resolved, we were able to settle in and enjoy dinner. Present were myself and kitanzi, sfeley and afeley, rslatkin and vatavian, joyeuse13 and abovenyquist, and some folks who may be on LJ but I don’t know their handles. (Cross connecting the members of these couples to their respective poly OSOs (where appropriate) is left entirely as an exercise to the reader.)

We finished dinner, and set out to move our car to the venue’s parking lot, since we were sure the restaurant really wanted their parking back, and headed inside, where we ran into other friends and enjoyed a great deal of conversation while waiting for the show to begin. Finally, the lights went down, and Paul and Storm took the stage.

Now, I’m not unfamiliar with Paul and Storm, and had even seen them before, way back when DaVinci’s Notebook was still touring. But this is the first time I’d managed to catch their live show, and let me tell you, I laughed my ass off. “Opening Band” is *still* in my head (and I’m re-listening to it on YouTube. Thank you, YouTube), and the rest of their short set was just as entertaining. The faux-Gregorian “NunFight” song was hilarious, and the banter with the audience was rapid and witty. If you get a chance to catch these guys, don’t pass it up.

Jonathan Coulton then took the stage and was pretty much spot on all night. He played his hits, he did requests that he had solicited on Twitter (including two of mine, though I don’t know if it was *my* requests that got them onto the set list, but it made me happy anyway). One of the things I like about Coulton, both here and in every interview I’ve ever seen with him, is how utterly down to earth he is. He seems pleasantly bemused that he took a huge risk with his career and it’s actually paid off for him, and genuinely appears to love everything about what he does. It’s also a reminder that while you can do a lot of gimmicks with lighting and special effects to spice up a live show, you can still go a long way with just one guy, a guitar, and some fiendishly catchy and intelligent songs.

The show was led off with “Ikea”, my two requests were back to back (“The Future Soon” and “Shop Vac”), and of course he did all the big hits like “Skullcrusher Mountain”, “Re: Your Brains”, and “First of May”. My favourite moment of the concert may well have been his cover of Billy Joel’s “Pressure”, which was a very interesting and different interpretation and I completely want a recording of it right now. Paul and Storm joined him for a few songs, and everything was pretty much spot-on through the entire set.

At the end of the night, we staggered out into the warm night air, found our car, and drove home to fall into bed. I had an awesome time, and I don’t doubt that I will be first in line to buy tickets the next time either act comes to town.

Being a Gentleman of Leisure – Part 1

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On July 1, 2008

In Blog

Since last week was my birthday, I decided to treat myself to a small vacation, and took Wednesday through Friday off to enjoy some leisure time. A mental health holiday, as it were. It I had quite a good time doing it, too.

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Just my luck..

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On August 7, 2006

In Blog

I almost never win contests or drawings. And on the rare times when I do, I usually don’t win something I really want.

So, for once, I did. Someone in our office got concert tickets for tonght’s Steely Dan show, and I won the drawing.

And today I am sick, and I’m not up for going. Bother!

I’ve called the HR manager who ran the contest to see if one of the other people who entered would like to pick them up at the last minute. Shame for them to go to waste. But dammit, I really wanted to see that show.

Catching up…

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On May 9, 2006

In Blog

So I’ve been procrastinating catching up the state of things, and I’m currently stuck over the at our colocation centre waiting for a RAID rebuild that should have been finished by now, so I may as well drop a note here on some notable events of the last couple of weeks.

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Now I know what you get when the getting gets good

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On April 27, 2006

In Blog

Last night, I got to drop an entire entertainment centre off of a third story balcony. But you don’t want to hear about that. You want to hear about the recent musical events I’ve attended.

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