Eventful week! Lots I could write about- FKO, St. Joseph's Public Speaking Competition (which I ran this morning), the sobering changes happening in the school due to the SARS scare. Perhaps I'll get to them all as the week goes on. We'll start with FKO, though, while it's still fresh in my mind.



-Karen Linsley's one-shot
Karen isn't able to play guitar right now due to tendinitis, so I had played guitar for her on five songs last week at Ad Astra. We agreed we'd do the same thing for FKO. When some one-shot slots opened up after the songwriting contest Saturday night I suggested we should go for it. Karen was really scared, it's the first public filk performance she's given since Lloyd's death in 2000, but she decided it was something she wanted to do. She sang "The Dragon and The Maiden" and it was a very emotional moment for everyone who was in the room. Deb has a photo of the performance in yesterday's Blatherings.

-Filk Hall of Fame concert
The Hall of Fame concert has become one of my favorite parts of FKO. Several excellent filkers on the stage honouring the new inductees (and often the inductees themselves), some of the best songs in filk and Sunday afternoon mellowness make for a winning combination. It was great to hear old songs from Barry and Sally, wonderful interpretations of Chris Malme's songs by Erika and Katy, twisted songs from Ookla, Mark and others at Bob Kanefsky's request. Just a great concert.

-Chocolate port
Joey Shoji gave Debbie a bottle of chocolate port for her birthday. It was all consumed in our hotel room at various times over the weekend :).

-Chocolate dinosaurs
Dave Clement gave the three of us chocolate T-Rexs from a chocolate specialty shop in Winnipeg. Yum.

-Singing old songs with Pat
Pat Williams and I met at my very first filk back in 1985. I was really happy to see her at FKO on Friday night. We sang old songs like "Forever Autumn" and "Lessons" at the open filk and I looked through her photos albums over drinks. Pat and Andrew have recently adopted a second little girl from China and they had gone to China to get her.

-UT/Ookla Confusion CD
Ookla and UT donated a copy of our joint Confusion concert from a few years back to the Interfilk auction. Gary Ehlrich bought it for $150. Thank you, Gary!

-Breakfast with Barry and Sally
Barry and Sally joined UT, Lyanne and Rand for breakfast on Saturday morning. "Just for a few minutes" they said. Two hours later we were still there talking :).

-Troll socks!
Andrea Dale greeted me on Friday night by giving me troll socks :). No, not the kind that attacked Frodo in FOTR, the fuzzy hair doll kind. They are way cool. I wore them on Saturday.

-Final Filk Preserve
This was the final blow-out jam Sunday afternoon of the con. High energy, lots of sing-a-longs, beyond fun. SteveMac, Pete Grubbs, Barry Childs-Helton, Gary Ehlrich and Echo's Children kept the room rockin'. There was also an amazing fiddler whose name I don't recall. UT was honoured again to close the con with Debbie's song "Home to FilKONtario".

-Helen Marshall
I first met Helen at Ad Astra last weekend and I was delighted to see her show up at her first FKO. Helen writes wonderful poetry and wonderful songs and very late on Saturday night at Ad Astra I discovered she has a lovely voice, too! She hung out with us a lot at the con and sang in the Saturday night circle and i think she's going to be a great addition to our local filk community :).

-Balcony Singing
One of the secondary open filk rooms, the one where I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, was a nifty multi-level room with a balcony that runs around the perimeter. On Sunday night everyone got it into their heads that they wanted to sing from the balcony :). Joey, Jodi and I sang "Star Sisters" up there, Joey and Kathleen sang "Starship and Haiku" and Cally and Cat sang "Where The Shadows Are".

-Pete Grubbs and Steve MacDonald singing "Wish You Were Here" on Friday night.

- Rand and Adam singing "Columbia" on Saturday night.

- Erika singing "Electra's Song" at the Hall of Fame concert.

- Dave Clement's mini-concert of Stan Rogers material in honour of the 20th anniversary of Stan Roger's death.

-Having Sunday brunch at Kelsey's with Dave, Pete, Jill and family.

-The phone message from Paul Kwinn's phone call we weren't around to get. We missed you, Paul!

-Confirming our plans for ConCertino in July, which will be our next filk convention! With guests like Jeff, Maya, Erika, and Rika how cool will that con be??

Exercise log: Only walked a mile yesterday (to and from school) and sadly, I'm getting sick today and winter has returned to Toronto, so my route along the road to Rivendell might get delayed a few days longer than I had expected. I've walked 20.5 miles so far.