Ohio Valley Filk Festival 19 Page 2
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Saturday breakfast
   I actually got about 5 hours of sleep. The breakfast buffet was included in the room package, so I wandered down there to see if anyone else was as incorrigible a morning person as me. They were. I had a neat conversation with Shaya (Claudia Mellenthin), who I recalled from rec.music.filk; Sue Cochran, who I recalled from the previous evening's TwoFers; and Sue's gent, whose nametag I never quite focused on. A lot of the talk was about the culture shock experienced by tourists presented with unfamiliar breakfast options while visiting other countries.
   After breakfast I spent some time picking the final cut on my concert set, and some possibles for the themed filk later. Then I went shopping in the dealer room.
   Whereas I wound up at breakfast about, oh, 9:15, I think, and then went to Blake Hodgetts' songwriting workshop at 10. Lunch out of the consuite, then the concerts...

Saturday noon EDT
   This was the start of my main Toastmistressing responsibilities.
   Ookla the Mok (Rand Bellavia + Adam English, right) were up first. I'd heard OF Ookla, but had never caught them in person. After hearing their sound check I went back to the dealer room and bought one of their CDs for Sharon.
   I followed Ookla, introduced by Bill Roper. The concert went well and I got a lot of favorable "blast from the past" responses on it afterward.
   Next up were The Fibs, who I had again heard OF via r.m.f. I had to ask the guys, though, whether their group name was pronounced "fibs" as in "small lies" or "feebs" as in "total doofuses". I was assured it was the former, though mention of the second option brought a general laugh. I went back to the dealers after THEIR concert, too. These guys are right up the same alley as "Trout Fishing in America".
   I missed the first batch of one-shots, and Lady Mondegreen, due to being at the Themed Filk: The Songs of My Neofandom. The concom had taken me very literally when I suggested the topic, and listed it in the proramme description as being focused on the time when I entered fandom in the middle 1970s. I had announced at the concert that I was pre-empting THAT narrow definition for the concert theme, and that when we got to the group filk I wanted to hear the songs of EVERYBODY's neofandom-time. We actually spent as much time reminiscing about the gestalt of fandom-as-we-had-met-it as singing, I think.

   I got back to the main room in time to introduce the second batch of one-shots, followed by Interfilk Guest Blake Hodgetts (left). This man is intimidating. He's talented, trained, and raising the next generation of filkers in the persons of his daughters Angelica and Athrylis (jointly known as ASH Productions, right). He's also cute, single-again, and a really nice guy. Happy hunting, ladies.
   There were more one-shots between Blake's concert and Jordan Mann's. One of these involved a parody of one of Jordan's songs, perpetrated by Batya Wittenberg and Merav Hoffman, with connivance from Blake on keyboard, and a couple of other filkers I didn't recognize, and Rob Wynne providing narrative-vocal on the lyric.
   Jordan is yet ANOTHER filker I had only known from r.m.f. He's brasher than Blake; kind of the difference between Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (or maybe Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis...). In the first draft of this report, I could only recall the silly stuff from Jordan's set, but he has some knockout serious material in his bag, too. He's going to have to be careful, though, or the live-theater scene in Chicago will steal him from us and graduate school both.
   I was out of mad-money by then, so I'll have to wait to get Blake's and Jordan's CD's. I heard them on the way home, though, because Gerry and Sandy bought them.
   Another group of one-shots followed, and then Bill Roper's concert. At last, I got to introduce someone I had known for years! Bill is considerably less grim now than back when he first entered fandom, for which he gives total credit to his wife Gretchen. He has a new CD out, too, which I had bought on my original shopping run through the dealer room. Here he's singing with Dorotha Biernesser and Steve Macdonald on backup.

Saturday 6 p.m.-ish EDT
   I bailed out on the last fifteen minutes or so of Bill's concert, to go change for the banquet and call home to give Morris a progress report. The banquet food was just as good as the restaurant food had been that morning. Then came the Pegasus awards, announced by Steve Mac. I think there were a few surprises among the winners. The Peggy committee has decided to expand the category menu , adding a "classic filk" category. To be eligible for this category, a song must be at least 10 years old and not have won any category of Pegasus already. The committee selected the first winner, at least partly to set an example of the kind of song the category was designed around: "Banned from Argo".

Saturday 8:30 p.m. EDT
   The first song contest, with the theme of "Once in a Blue Moon". The percentage of entrants that I actually KNEW was higher here for some reason.
   Blake won the contest with his song "Night Shift" while his daughters scored an honorable mention with their song, which I unfortunately forget; second place was "Blue Moon Blues" by Pete Grubbs and third was Renee Alper's "Blue Moon Saloon." My song, a filk of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," probably placed last. - jwa
   The Interfilk auction followed, but I missed most of it this year (I wanted to catch the Bujold theme filk to help get ready for ConDFW next February, where she's GoH). I did get to watch the pro auctioneer in action for a little bit, though (Ohio law requires auctions to be run by a licensed auctioneer; OVFF only found out about this before last year's con, I gather. They had the same guy who called it for them last year). The Interfilk wenches were supplemented by Bill Sutton, Dan Glasser, Rob Wynne et al when it turned out to be a female bidder who needed convincing...
   Again, afterwards the room devolved into open filking. I did a bit of wandering a couple of times; there were four puddles of filkers identifiable. Besides the group in the main function room, there were groups in the Metro room (where the banquet had been), the function room where the themed filks were held, and out in the hall around a grand piano.
   I caught about half or so of the Bujold filk after the songwriting winners were announced, then a groups filk highlighted by Dandelion Wine and A Year and a Day (the latter being what Three Weird Sisters becomes when you add two fairly-odd-as-well husbands). After that I tended to wander.
   This is the open filk session that runs right through the "fall back" repeat of the 1-2 a.m. hour. I lasted about one more hour after the time warp, crashing somewhere around 3 a.m. Eastern Adjusted Time.
   The time change from Eastern Daylight to Eastern Standard meant, of course, that the recorder I didn't know how to reset was telling the correct time again...
Click here for photos from the Saturday night filk circles

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