OVFF Report, Part 2
Here are more random thoughts on OVFF:


I was damfool enough to sit in on the Irish Trad session. Boy, was that a humbling experience. I thought that the fact that my poor little ginger was tuned DAA that I could add somthing. Well, Ginger was up to it, but I sure wasn't! Fortunately Ginger is quiet enough that nobody could hear how lame I was. Just a reminder that although I am not as totally musically talentless as I had been led to assume in my younger days, I'm still just a low-level intermediate on a backwater instrument when I'm in a room full of fin musicians such as those (Dave Clement, the other Dandelion Wine guy(Tom?), Amy McNally, and a bunch of people I didn't know but who clearly knew their stuff). I did notice too that there were a number of better musicians than I who had the sense to hang it up on a lot of songs, too. Usually, I was just trying to keep droning on the tonic or dominant as well as I could figure. I should have had the sense to enter pure listening mode.

The dead dog was a highlight for me. "Frenobulax" seemed to go over well, with a lot of good-hearted Argle-Blargles, concluding with a competitive argle-blargle-off with Amy. Heather Dale and Dave Clement sang wonderfully, and others sang wonderfully amusingly.

My last song was "Barfy the Seasick Hedgehog." There was some satisfying joining in from the crowd, and off in the corner was persis holding up a toy Hedgehog and dancing it around in the air. A little girl can up to ask me for the words--I lent her my songbook to copy the words, but she came back up saying she'd just get them off the web. And she handed me the toy hedghog. What I hadn't realized is that she was Talis, and that her mum had been knitting hedgehogs in quantity. So now I have my own little Barfy. It was a real high point of the weekend.

And for some odd reason, I had to play scrabble with almeda and a friend whose name and username escape me. Even if she greeted my winning word with disapproving tuts.

It was a wonderful, magical place, ful of wonderful music and magical people. You, anach, were there, at the hallway filk late Saturday night, singing and then listing to my late-nght dulcimer improvizations. An you, autographedcat, were there in your giant man suit, just like in Pinky and the Brain, but probably *chasing* a mouse. And you, beige_alert, were there--I hope you like the CD. You were there, too, catsittingstill though all we exchanged were hellos. And you were there, janmagic along with your friend without magic fingers, or arms or legs, for that matter. And jerusha, you were there, too, but I didn't get to hear you for more than a moment, singing to catsittingstill, though some day I would love to work out a recorder-dulcimer duet of sorts, and you were there, ohiblather, making such nice flute sounds, and doing such a splendid job with the pointer in the Math song. Someday I'd like to actually meet you rather than just see you in passing. And you were there, too, tigertoy singing, and at least once making sure I had a chance to be heard. Sorry that I never to play you the Mermaid song. And you, sweetmusic_27 I think I'll miss you most of all. I hope the wizard is able to get you that heart--er, brain, er--courage....Uh, wait, you seem to have all those things--what were you going to see the wizard for? Oh yeah--time. Time to play on all those songs that everyone wants you to play on. For all eternity...over and over...BWAHAHAHAHA.

It was so sad, the morning after the dead dog. The hotel was taken over by men in trim business suits and women in professional looking blazers or whatever you call them. And in the afternoon, all these young students who could be filkers, if they were only filkers. Sigh.

I am a Zombie and should go home. Not a very homey home anymore. My marriage ends tomorrow--court date in the afternoon. Riin won't move out for a while, but I am so alone there. I need somebody to make music with.

Thank you to everyone who made me forget all about that for two solid days. Thank you to every filker who ever sucked in my presence, for giving me the courage to perform, knowing that I, too, would be forgiven. Thank you for every filker who ever gave a good performance for entertaining and amusing my brain. Thank you to every filker who has made great music in my presence, for you have transported my heart. And thanks to every filker who has been friendly and welcoming between performances, making me feel at home.

There's no place like home
There's no place like home
There's no place like home....