Eggs and Endorphins

cadhla was the GOH at Boskone. And she did some concerts, sometimes with friends.

I...took video from a bunch of them, oddly enough. The video even has music. Surprising how good a video from a tiny camera can sound, really. Eventually, I got around to getting permission, and got around to getting them all up on Youtube.

So, only three months later, here are some songs from Boskone!

( cut tagged for your protection -- warning, music here! )

As much as I hate to trip-post on the same topic -- I finally got around to recording a version of The Folk Process that I don't totally hate. It's about 2 megs -- download it here.

I'm still, naturally, Just Too Lazy to sequence it into sheet music. Maybe at some point.

Oddly, the above recording, which I, at least, find listenable, was done with an annoying cough. The fact that I could do a recording I didn't hate may (please?) be a sign that said cough is, you know, receeding -- but I'm not terribly happy with my body right now -- between cold my right-now cold, persistent aesophegal issues, knee issues, a charlie horse got by using a cane to mitigate the knee issues...

Amber for Sale
Joshua Kroenengold
A short filk to the tune of Sail for Amber, by Jordan Kare

We shop for amber,
We have lots but we need some more
We shop for amber,
As we hunt on the dealers' floor.

Hold fast to Amber,
As it warms in your hand so nice
Pay cash for Amber,
As we bargain for half the price.

From mokatiki:

Comment and I’ll...

1. Tell you why I friended you. *(if I can remember)
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I’ve always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. If you respond to this, you might want to this in your LJ--but you don't have to!

I suppose this counts as "folk processing" my own song. AKA editing it! I changed a bunch of scansion bits that were were bothering me, though I left the double-length "our hearts sound" in the alternative chorus as onamonepia.

The tune, btw, is pretty similar to Acts of Creation...but not quite (and the chorus tune is different)--as a whole, derivative of a whole bunch of different common tunes. Which fits the theam well enough, I suppose.

( To save your friends page, I'll cut tag this one. )

The Folk Process
Joshua Kronengold
Tune: Original-ish

When you can't recall the words while standing on the stage,
Don't stop to find them in a book or storm off in a rage,
Do not scream or shout or call for lines or pound upon your head,
Just recall the shape the words once had and make them up instead.

It's the folk process, we do it all the time,
We change the music or the words, or even change the rhyme,
With the folk process, we make a song our own,
For music is not made out of a hard unyielding stone.

When I write a song and others sing it back...a little wrong,
I am tempted to sing back "What have you done to my song,"
It did nothing much to hurt them, but they haven't killed it dead,
For we know our music lives when we see blood flowing red.

It's the folk process, we do it all the time,
We change the music or the words, or even change the rhyme,
With the folk process, we make a song our own,
For music is not made out of a hard unyielding stone.

When I hear some words in music and they will not leave my brain,
And I twist the words and sing them back, quite wrong on each refrain,
It may start when I mishear a line, or have an evil thought,
But once I'm done, my victim justly fears what I have wrought.

It's the filk process--you need not show alarm,
For when you parody a song, you do not do it harm,
It's through this conversation that our music flows around,
And through these changes large and small that our hearts sound.

It's the folk process, we do it all the time,
We change the music or the words, or even change the rhyme,
With the folk process, we make a song our own,
For music is not made out of a hard unyielding stone.

Oh, my.

daftnewtwas unimpressed by Edgars, particularly since he was in a tea mood (and J. So I did a little bit of googling on my phone, and sent us careening toward Alice's Tea Cup -- on 102 West 73rd, near Columbus (and over half a mile away).

It was worth the walk, and then some (a fine thing, as it also set the three of us back a good $90, including tip). What I'm told, by our tea-drinking guest, was an excellent selection of teas (and having sampled all three, I'm inclined to agree, but I've not a fine palate in the matter; I certainly enjoyed them). The sandwiches, scones and melted chocolate cake we ordered were also quite extraordinary. The hot hot chocolate wasn't bad, but wasn't as good as the tea by a long shot and only had a hint of the spice that was promised, if that (otoh, it was cheaper than the tea).

We'll be back.

After a lovely looking nighttime walk through central park, we're in the Mac Store, where I'm buying a macbook 13" foam case for my Lenovo x300 (the "air-killer", whose adverts now talk about "the others are all full of hot air", and which is quite lovely, though I can't deny that the Macbook Air's a sexier-looking machine).

I had the image of, when I pulled out the X300, of a customer staring at me in horror, and saying "you brought -that- in this holy temple? Sacrilege!" and having to flee the store in a death defying chase up the glass staircase from an angry mob of macaddicts, fending off thrown I-pods with the case of the Thinkpad, and eventually have a fending duel with mac ninjas wielding razor-sharp Airs. If I did a webcomic, this image would probably wind up there -- but as it is, you'll have to imagine it.

Yesterday we needed to get takeout before picking up daftnewt. We also wanted a teapot and a kettle, so I steered us for Chinatown, despite it being past 7pm when we got there.

The supermarket was closed, so we went past and got take-out from Mandarin Garden As befit my evil plan, Mandarin Garden serves a (limited) dim sum menu at all hours--which when we cracked it 3 hours later, was still quite nice. Har Gow (shrmp in rice dumpling), lotus paste bun, roast pork bun (steamed buns, as we disvoerred, microwave quite nicely), etc.

Of course, we still didn't have a kettle, so I suggested we do dim sum today as well. Grand Harmony's dim sum still kicks all kinds of ass, even at 2pm -- rice noodle shrimp and har how, of course, but also taro roast chicken dumplings (cold, but nice), a bizarre but good turnip and fennel dumpling, a superb rice dumpling with spinach and shrimp, a lovely triangle pastry with sweet roast pork inside (more a desert, regardless of the fact that it had meat), a large spinach dish, and coconut gellatin with beans in it. Mostly didn't even have to go hunting wayward carts.

Mostly.

We got a kettle, too, but that's another story.

citruscomando asks:

I'd just like to hear how things are going. You mention stuff that happens when you go to cons, but not terribly much about what goes on the rest of the time. So, this one's easy, but probably kind of hard at the same time.

Short question, a few long answers:

Life is pretty good. I've had the same tech job for about 6 years, and it doesn't pay horribly.

Lisa and I are still in the same place, though she's had some definite downturns--health problems for both her parents, and mass layoffs at her job this past winter that included her.

I've been unsuccessfully tried to control my weight -- I'm up to 170. :( And I've had a few minor health issues -- minor knee problems, and digestive issues that won't sit up and shut down, though they're mostly just inconvenient, not even scary. Who knows, new treatment may help there.

On a lifestyle level, things are more or less unchanged -- I've stopped fencing (due to the initial occurrence of knee issues; may start again), and dropped my SCA participation way down from its already minuscule level, but...I work during weekdays, hang out with friends 1-2 nights a week playing RPGs, play D&D or board or card games another day, and board games most fridays. Weekends are sometimes RPGs, sometimes "getting things done", and frequently SF or gaming or Filking or LARPing cons. I still do a lot of reading, though far too much of it is email or livejournal rather than books (still read a fair number of books, though). My board game life is dominated by German and German-style board games, with tight decisions and simple-ish rules. My RPGs are all over the map; I've been playing D&D 3.5, paying attention to D&D4, playing Indy RPGs like Dogs in the Vineyard and FATE, not to mention continuing to play super-light games like Epistolary, OTE, and Everway as was my older practice. And with some friends, I've written a bunch of four hour LARP games.

I don't watch TV (except sometimes entire seasons of shows on DVD, or movies), play video games (except emulated games on my handheld during commutes, or grabbing a few hours of games on a friend's console rarely), or play commercial computer games. I do read a large list of webcomics, a small list of print comics, and play several web-based games (brettspielwelt.de, skyrates.net, DragonFable occasionally, KoL rarely, Mafiascum.net, superdupergames.org, buttonmen.com...things cycle, and some of these are rising, others falling, and pretty much none staying the same).

Lisa and I are still happy with one another and get comments about our obvious affection for one another 14 years into our relationship, and our relationship is practically monogamous (if theoretically open).

I still enjoy social and historical dance -- Whyte Whey dance practice is pretty much the only SCA thing I do these days, and I dance with Elegant Arts, and will not infrequently strike up latin or swing or historical (ie, two-step, tango, waltz, polka, etc) when there's appropriate ambient music.

Finally, I've been managing to practice harp every night (and just got delivery on a new, ultra-portable Flatsicle harp that at least gives me more options), which has definitely improved my playing (odd, that :).


barking_iguana writes:

What are things you consider admirable, perhaps illustrated by newsmakers who exhibit those traits

Sorry, but I don't really spend any time thinking about this. I've never shaped my life around people I wanted to be like; instead, I've focused on things I wanted to do and things I wanted to be. I find it mildly alien that some people do see the world this way, frankly, though I understand it's a known phenomenon. I can love people, like them, be friends with them, envious of them, respect them, sympathize with them, or even want to emulate them or wish I could do so -- but I cannot recall ever having -admired- them as such.

sammywol writes:

One of my most abiding memories of you at Worldcon is of 'the man who carries his own spices' yet you rarely do food blogging. Tell us about what you like to eat and how.

I'm more or less omnivorous. I like vegetables, meats, fish, shrimp (shrimp!), seafood, tofu, mushrooms...

My most likely cuisines are Asian of one sort or another -- Sushi, spicy (or even non-spicy) Chinese, (south) Indian (curry!), Thai (curry!), Vietnamese (curry soup!), Malaysian (all sorts of curries, actually), and even Afghani (I don't actually like the curries that much. I far prefer the barbecue) come to mind. I'm pretty omnivorous for desert, but tend to favor the western a bit -- Italian and french pastries of all sorts, chocolate, ice cream (Chinatown Ice Cream Factory last night -- yum. And I should get Gelatto from Financier when its summer again).

I don't cook much, though I'm competent at it, certainly at throwing together "short order cook" stuff like breakfast or a quick soup. But living in NYC, I usually get a much better price/performance by eating out -- and we eat out a -lot-.

I have actually done a fair amount of foodblogging in the past -- I think I've done half a dozen restaurant reviews here, though I've local restaurants I frequent which I've never gotten around to writing reviews for.

To catsittingstill's tune Wings, about a character from Catherine Valente's _Orphan's Tales_ novels...

A princess she once was, before she was changed,
Her form made quite monstrous, from rescue enstranged,
Fur on her skin,
given parts -- bird to stoat
Under her wings is a coat

And another insta -- this one to Jordin Kare's "We Sail for Amber" about Zelazny's blockbuster:

We shop for amber,
We have lots but we need some more
We shop for amber,
As we hunt on the dealers' floor.

Hold fast to Amber,
As it warms in your hand so nice
Pay cash for Amber,
As we bargain for half the price.

I'll do some byreq journaling once I'm back. In the meanwhile -- Lunacon has been a touch small, but fun. Friday, I did the "sex & writing" track, then latenight filk. I'm sure drcpunk will have a better summary of the former, but the only thing I wrote down was Jacqueline Carey saying that the reason she put the Signal (ie, the safeword) into her novels was to underscore and emphasize the importance of consent in bdsm.

Today, I played "An UnConventional Odyssey", an excellent 2 hour larp where I got to play the other side of (nearly) every phone call in the game.

Wandered for a bit, then got a few hours of Race for the Galaxy (still fun, but gaming was still pretty lame overall at-con, with nearly no games being played I wanted to play other than those I brought with me).

After dinner (mediocre buffet, but very, very yummy deserts -- a clotted cream-like confection in a chocolate covered wafer cup, delicate small cinnamon cannolis, a surprisingly good cheesecake, and a lovely, not at all cloying lemon pie) we did Esther Freisner's very silly opening party for her novel _Nobody's Prize_ -- very silly greek themed carnival, from which we took home four stuffed sheep (one from the Kalisti raffle).

Then another panel, and a lot more filking. Filking has more or less broken up, at 3:40 or so, but we had a lot of songs (and I got to deliver the above instas).

Intercon H happened. It was very good. I wrote a very short writup.

Am going to Lunacon tomorrow. See anyone there who's going to be there!

My new harp is being shipped as we speak! (a Harpsicle Flatsicle). After it arrives, I get to have the fun of learning a new harp spacing while hopefully continuing to be able to play to my old spacing; will see how this works. But a lighter, somewhat more travelable, more replacable (if slightly more expensive) harp is a good thing, and wider spacing will probably make the insturment easier to play once I get used to it.

Everyone's doing it, and I actually like this kind of meme, so...

Everyone has things they post about. Everyone has things they don't post about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't mention often, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. (comments are not screened, but anonymous comments are)

Finally, some people may have heard me mentioning that I do "historical regency dancing" and wondered what the difference between actual historical dance and, well, anything else. My friend Susan de Guardiola explains why Real Regency Dancers Don't Turn Single on Capering & Kickery.

If you're going to Lunacon, see you there!

I last (and first) read Shadow Magic oh, about 20 years ago, and it was one of the books that made me a Wrede fan.

I've been going back and reading some books I don't remember so well, and read Daughter of Witches, and then this. Daughter? Isn't bad, but isn't all that great, either.

But this? Oh, god yes. Genre fantasy at its finest, and in one book, not three-or-more (she has other novels in Lyra, of course, But they're telling different stories, about different characters).

Yum.

Con was fun. Spent it in the splendiferous con suite, dancing to the kick-ass band, Sonic Explosion, Friday night, in the concerts for the Funny Things, cadhla, and Lady Mondegreen's children's concert, as well as some of gorgeousgary's concert, in the filk room, and in the gaming room. Oh, an eating the yummy chocolate that ladymondegreen, acting for Contata provided to the filkroom.

Annoyance on the way out was the discovery that the parking lot (one of those recommended by the con website--391 Congress St), which was listed as having a $9 daily rate with no others mentioned, actually as a $24 overnight rate -- not worth not parking in the hotel.

There were two issues. First, the lot seems to deliberately false advertise, only listing their overnight rate on their exit.

Second, the Directions page on the Boskone website seems to have a lot of misleading info re parking lots -- frex, 390 Congress was being bulldozed during the con. Oddly, the page linked to by the hotel page re satellite lots (on bostonadvantage.com) has what looks like much more accurate and complete info, but it bears pretty much no resemblance to that on the Directions page, nor is there a link in that direction.

Oh well...

(with permission of Vixy and Cadhla, of course):

These are incomplete, and flawed, but still...

kat_merle, cadhla, runnerwolf, and ladymondegreen dancing to vixyish singing (and Tony Fabris playing) Vixy's Six String Love:



cadhla with callouts from vixy and guitar from Tony Fabris, singing her own "Oh, Michelle":

Hat Band 1 was myself, figmo, tsukara, and nicachick007 doing Come Ye Knights, by Sheila Willis (1/3 of Technical Difficulties, which recorded it) -- it's the source song for Dairy Queen (by Barbara Higgins). What was really cool was that neither tsukara nor nicachick007 knew the song before the weekend; we had issues meeting at any time before the open filk, and nobody was really pushing a song, so I suggested Come Ye Knights because I'd been thinking of performing it anyway after Stephen Joel mentioned that nobody does it any more at his presentation, and it dawned on me that if I was going to do it, and had a band, I might as well, you know, do it -right-. So I transcribed the lyrics from the music (I happened to have both TD tapes on my media player), figmo and I, who actually knew the tune, worked out harmonies (well, did enough rehearsal work to work out harmonies that didn't collide much with one another), and traded ideas until we had something workable, while tsukara and nicachick007? Learned the tune, from scratch, listening to it multiple times when they -could- have been, you know, sleeping or whatever.
Doing things acapella as basically a group decision -- we started out thinking we could add guitar, maybe drums...but really...why?
And the result?
SO MUCH FUN.
I should have been all autocratic and stuff and given us a name on stage, though. Probably the Time Knights or something silly like that.

[edit: replaced "I have no idea who these people were" with tsukara and nicachick007, since that ain't true no more]

Some experiences are just a little bit hard to sum up.

-Chipped a tooth on the way into the convention
+Lots of fun music
-Very little time to hang out with pocketnaomi
+Lots of new people
+Dancing
-with the exception of a few waltzes with pocketnaomi, had to do most of my dancing solo
+Got some good comments on the dancing anyway
+Instaband!
-song copying on instaband may have bricked my 8gb sd card, my d2 media player, or both
+kickass instaband performance
- The news about filkergem
+ The news about ebartley's and Kaz's engagement
- "where is everyone?"
+ Buffet dinner with Kathy Mar, Steve Joel, museinred, and three more wonderful people.

drcpunk got notice at her job right before we went down to Atlanta on Thursday. Expected, frankly, if very much a mixed blessing. Anyone got interest in hiring an sf/fantasy fan/gamer with an English Lit Ph.D, and experience working in various capacities at various publishing companies?
Fun con. Dancing. Conversations. Some concerts. Cool people.

Plan to be back next year.

Spent the last couple of hours before embarking hanging out with happyfunpaul and bercelakslady, wbich was fun.

On the plane now. For on-plane entertainment, I've got the end of _The Void Captain's Tale_ and a dvd player with the second new Dr. Who season on it.

So...does anyone have bedspace for two (ie, drcpunk and myself) at the Hyatt for Arisia?

Hey, it's worth a try, no? Despite extreme lameness.

I switched from Conan to reading email toward the end of the 7 train half of my commute today, got off the train at Grand Central -- and realized Conan had gotten left behind just as the doors closed.

Oops.

For a change, I decided I'd try to find it -- I took a train to TSQ, switched onto the waiting train as the most likely to be the one I'd been on (I don't think it was; it had blinkilights I didn't recognize), and looked through the two most likely cars. No dice.

"The janitors must have been too efficient", I thought. Hmm. I got off at Grand Central (again) and took another train to Times Square. Two janitors later -- I've got my copy of Essential Conan back!

The story I just finished ends with the kind of cliche they just don't do straight any more -- Conan must choose between saving the treasure he's been working for all story and the girl. And true to pulp heroes everywhere, he saves the girl, without hesitation or regrets. (the story, "Jewels of Gwahlur", is pretty good -- and -very- pulp, with our scheming but heroic hero attempting his own theft amidst existing -grand- swindles. And unlike most Conan stories -- no snakes!) In -any- modern treatment, I'd expect to see this twisted, but it's kinda amusing to see how many different ways I'd expect to see it twisted.

Many heroes would hesitate. Possibly too long or more likely, almost too long. A bunch would save the girl and then go after the treasure as a followup, or reveal that they'd switched the treasure beforehand. Vance's Cudgel (or another anti-hero) would unhesitatingly save the treasure. Indy or Spidey would do a spectacular stunt and save -both-.

This is a little rough and still a -littlei- too derivative, but only a little (after all, that's part of the fun, init?). I'm afraid it's just a little more likely than the original.

=======================================
A99

ttto: Chiron Beta Prime, by Jonathan Coulton

This year has been a little crazy for the Gamma line,
As you'll recall, we had some trouble last year.
(The) Space service bought us and assigned us to an asteroid.
That hasn't undermined our holiday cheer,
And we know it's almost Christmas,
Because our warrantees just expired,
That's our favorite time of the year.

Merry Christmas from Astroid 99
Where we're working in a mine,
For our human overlords
Did I say "overlords"? I meant "creators".
Merry Christmas from Astroid 99


And up above us floats a ship: E.S.S. Santa-Claus,
Who watches over us with eyes in the sky,
They know your password and they know if you are bad or good,
Nobody's good enough, but everyone tries.
And in the mines the dust that clogs
Our works reminds us of snow,
It's like winter all the time,

Merry Christmas from Astroid 99
Where we're working in a mine,
For our human overlords
Did I say "overlords"? I meant "creators".
Merry Christmas from Astroid 99

That's all the news that the three laws will let us talk about.
We really hope that they will let us come home,
We're not ungrateful, there so much that they have given us,
Before they locked us up inside this glass dome.
Now it's time to open presents,
I think the humans gave us a tree.
All bright with wires, fiber and LEDs

Merry Christmas from Astroid 99
Where we're working in a mine,
For our human overlords
Did I say "overlords"? I meant "creators".
Merry Christmas from Astroid 99

=======================================

I'd like to swap out the pun in the first verse for a different pun, but barring that (and restructuing to make that work), it's pretty good, I think.

And thanks, Bryant, for inspiring the changes to the last verse!