Rich and Strange Aeons

I haven't abandoned the parking book, I've been busy going to Boskone, and that book masses at least 1150 grams (the max my food scale can measure) so T reading has been _Empires of the Indus_ instead.

Personal highlight: I sang four times in open filk: "Bridal Shower", "Galadriel's Lament", "Gimli's Lament", and the One Ring poem, and got praise for all, especially from Heather Dale, professional singer. She's also professionally encouraging, so my self-critical xNTP side is quite capable of discounting her praise, but I'd like to think it adds up to something positive. Especially a spontaneous "your performance tonight was really good, particularly the first one" (Gimli). Tonight I was standing up, which did help volume and delivery, and also trying to act/gesture along with Gimli's words, inspired by Heather's Friday open filk of "Maiden and the Selkie", which in ways was even better than her stage performances. No Ben on guitar, but also no drums in her hand, instead her in the middle of the room miming out parts of the song. So, yeah, this morning I was imagining how to 'annotate' Gimli. Hope it worked.

Other personal highlight: I ran into akashiver, whom I haven't seen in a few years.'

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The previous weekend -- June 29th -- I went to Concertino, a filk convention held in Boxborough this year, off the South Acton commuter rail stop. Rather off: supposedly 5 or 6 miles, but the cab charged me and someone else $15 each, and I don't know if that was a split of $30 or just charging both of us.

What happens at a filk con? Concerts, mostly, from 1 hour ones for the top guest of honor, to 20-30 minutes for people arranged in advance, to 5-10 minute slots one can sign up for at the con. I could have gotten one of those, had I more trust in my a capella singing. There's also intermittent panels, on musical exercises and songwriting and on fannish music that isn't filk; that last is the only one I went to, and not for the whole time, but I learned dementia exists, and got a big list of names, including but not limited to Weird Al and Jonathan Coulton and Luke Ski.

One thing was clear: when filk gets defined as the folk music of SF fandom, we don't mean just geeky songs set to folk tunes, but a living folk tradition of musical participation and exchange, where the core experience is not "I bought their album" or "I went to their concert" but "I sang their song." Or "I parodied their song." And core experience is also of a circle of filkers singing at each other in turn, even if not always very well, rather than the dominant producer and mass consumer model.

That said, I didn't do much individual singing. Thing about a filk con is that everyone else is a filker too, so in the large bardic circle Saturday night it took two hours for the turn to go around once and a half times, before I went to bed. I got one in there, a song or two in Sunday's dead dog filk (after the con's officially over) and that's about it.

But! After Friday's chaos filk, where I was one of a few people who hadn't put ourselves forward to sing, a woman said "I didn't get to hear you sing". Non-participation got noticed and invited to participate. Probably helped that I was sitting between one of the best singers and one of the most prolific, rather than hiding in the second row of seats.

The dealer room had more filk CDs than I'd ever thought about existing laid out for sale, and rationally they'd only be a fraction of what's out there. That was intimidating; even this tiny tiny niche subculture has produced more stuff than I'm likely to ever own or even hear.

Con hotel was the Holiday Inn, which had what I thought was a really neat garden court. Third story skylight roof, containing not just a swimming pool but lots of trees and some fountains and a couple of gazebos. One of those "indoor outdoors" things that I love. Especially in last weekend's heat wave. Location sucks though; beyond the distance from the train station (there's a hotel shuttle, but it was already booked for the time I wanted to come; did take it outbound), there's about nothing in walking distance. The hotel restaurant is ok, with slightly crappy service; there's a take-out pizza and sub place a mile away, and then one gets into multi-mile distances.

Hmm, Arisia and Boskone aren't in top locations either. (Lot easier for me to get to, though.) Westin Waterfront Hotel is a decent hotel in its own right, but it's got somewhat expensive restaurants scattered around, and the South Station food court 20 minutes away. Not like Anime Boston, in the Hynes right in the middle of Back Bay. Of course, you pay more for locations like that.

A couple were cosplaying Harry and Hermione from the Methods of Rationality.
I introduced some people to Ghost Stories. Game went decently, cut short by Masquerade Ball.
Also played 3-player cheap Seafarers. Not a huge fan of the gameplay, though I won.
Got intoduced to Sixes, a dice game with more strategy than Yahtzee.
I've seen two eps of Paranoia Agent, one of Future Boy Conan the Miyazaki you never heard of, most of King of Thorn, and Summer Wars again. I don't think I need to see more of PA. Summer Wars is still both sweet and utterly ridiculous.
I read a bunch of Ayako, another Osamu Tezuka manga.
I watched part of the Masquerade Ball, chickening out of dancing due to a trifecta of no costume, not knowing anyone closely, and knowing I was older than most people there. Shy with rationalizations.
Anime showing had more trouble with MKV files today. Fortunately Not My Problem.

Masquerade Ball played a lot of geeky music: Eat Your Brain, a couple from Doctor Horrible, some They Might be Giants, a galaxy song, Portal Song, something with Utena "no yami" embedded in it, I'll Make a Man Out of You which got a lot of interpretive dance and which I know only from a Gurren Lagann AMV.

Later I realized that with my bandanna I'm probably an eyepatch away from a cheap pirate costume.

Like half the size of Arisia, older, and no cosplay. Apparently it used to be big, over 4000, "the Winter Worldcon". Too big for them, so they shut down the Masquerade and banned costuming panels. So everyone who wanted that formed Arisia, and Boskone's this quiet literary thing.

Fun panels though, and filk is filk. First panel was about Stross, second had Stross and was about Lovecraft. Fantasy was declasse before Tolkien, so you had lots of fantasy in SF drag. "Our hero leaves the spaceport and loses his blaster so must use his fists and sword against Martians too proud to use guns," Now fantasy sells twice as well as SF and Stross wrote Merchant Princes as SF in fantasy drag, though partly to avoid an option on his next SF novel. I find myself wondering if we'll see more SF in fantasy drag, like Scrapped Princess? (Reminds me that I have yet to see a Rosemary Kirstein book in person or in a library system.)

Nice thing about smaller con: much more compact. Con Suite with its free food is far more accessible, in a big room on the bottom floor, rather than on the 16th floor behind a long alley of vendors.

Could have more notes but I want sleep.

Only 30 minutes back. This is why good transit has to be every 5 minutes or better; if you have to wait 10 minutes, then another 10 minutes for a transfer, that adds up.

Met a few cute girls tonight, none I felt up to asking for contact information from, even though that probably makes more sense at a con where you won't see people again easily. Most were from an SCA dance -- I popped my head in, and got shanghaied. I'd had panels to go to, but if a girl is dragging me off to dance I know my priorities. A later one was rather chatty. Later I went to get a ($16! frigging hotel, but good, burger) and started chatting with someone at the bar in costume. Though she doesn't read much (eye problem) and is gay.

SCA had a neat dance, pinwheel, sort of like Simons Says Musical Partners. Outer ring of partners moves forward and back on command, people without partners try to steal in. At one point I solved the problem by stepping into the star myself -- males were on the inside -- and waiting for a female to grab my free hand.

I kind of feel I should get into costuming, somewhat. Partly to fit in, partly so people are more likely to talk. I don't have any great sense of "I want to look like that" though.

Went to a panel Bujold-Paula was on, though I didn't introduce myself. (Had to leave early.) Went ot a bunch of interesting panels, due to my habit of weaving in and out; I think "how to run great games" was the only one I've sat through, and I was late for that one too. Don't feel like typing up panel descriptions now, though. 1am.
Didn't do as much filk as I'd expected. Panels! I did sing Galadriel's Lament, or Eldamar Song.

I bought a cheap box of Noein... then left it somewhere. Wasn't sure if I'd go back tomorrow, given when I get up vs. 3:30 closing, but if they report finding it I'll have to.

Arrived, Red-Silver lines, regged, got organized. They're good with the maps and handy schedules to circle things in, much better organized than say A-Cen. Went to part of a taboos in SF panel, with Barry Longyear and others (should I know that name?), I was attending to the schedule more than them. Popped into contra, early filk, then sat in on "so, your first Arisia?" which taught me some things, like what a Con Suite was. (24 hour hang-out lounge.

You can totally tell, visually, that you're among a bunch of geeks. Even before costumes show up. T-shirts and glasses and hairstyles and beards.

Went back to Best of Filk, which had gotten past set-up, and heard some nice songs. Watched the end of contra. Bought some food, took it to the con lounge, where I met a Dutch fan and her 8 year old daughter, both face-painted. From the Netherlands, probably lives in the US now, probably not Boston. The daughter rubbed my head when they left.

Pick pass play filk circle, re-met Mark Mandel, sang "Soldier Ask Not" and "Three Rings for the Elven-kings". I managed to forget the words to the latter in the clinch, very embarrassing, but smartphone came to the rescue. There were multiple math songs, mostly about Aleph-Null.

Then I went over to some Doctor Who audio show with Nyarlathotep, to meet Michael, a guy from my elementary school, last seen at the end of 6th grade, and we caught up. First person from Bell I've seen since running into Jenny in high school, though I've had electronic contact with a couple of the girls, and that mutually silent Facebook friending from a bunch of others. Dropped in on a party Samson had told me about to try to meet his friends, though we were overdressed (pajama party), back to filk, then Michael went to live Rocky Horror and I took the T home while I could. He'd offered a ride, but I figured I didn't want to be up that late.

Doesn't sound like much but 7 hours. I guess welcome panel, filk, suite, and Who/Michael were the bulk of it. So much for all those panels I'd circled!

Oh yeah, and before all this I saw 3 apartments. Hadn't meant to start looking already, but that rental agency I stopped by yesterday talked me into it. Figured I'd at least get some idea what's on the market.