... it's really more a collection of dissociated babbling. Perhaps my standards for something deserving to be properly CALLED a 'con-report' are too high, but they're mine, and I like them. :-> So I'll just tell you about my weekend and we'll see what happens, shall we?

I attended FKO this past weekend, and I enjoyed myself. I took Amtrak to Ann Arbor on Thursday, spent the night at peteralway's house (starting the convention early by staying up until well after 3AM geeking about sheet music and dulcimers and whatnot! Silly us), and carpooled with him across the border Friday afternoon.

Apparently we were suspicious, as immigration wanted to pay special attention to our papers. Ahh, well. So we spent about 1.5 hours in a glass-walled waiting room while they ran things through the computers and whatever else goes on in such situations. However, we checked out, and went on our merry way ... until The Traffic. Apparently, there was a fatal traffic accident on a particular stretch of the 401 Friday afternoon. We spent over 2 hours going roughly 25km, only to have the traffic jam apparently evaporate into nothing by the time we reached the end of it.

I have very few specific memories of songs I sang or things I did or people I spoke to (aside from 'everybody'); this is more due to me and the way my brain works than to any of the people or circles I participated in. :-> A few particular highlights that do come to mind, as special times for me this weekend:

• Tony and Vixy's concert: specifically, some wonderful songs off their new CD that I hadn't heard before, but also her lovely rendition of Jonathan Coulton's zombie memo song in French ... followed by her asking the audience, in French, to prepare to serenade Tony with Happy Birthday in unison! Word to the wise, Tony: don't let her say things in front of you in a language you don't understand unless you want her to pull devious surprises on you! I'd love to have a recording of the whole French portion of the concert to show to my Canadian-born husband, if anyone has one I may have.


• Heather Bruton's slide show: FKO often brings a non-filker, filk-friendly, fannish guest in, and this year it was artist Heather Bruton. She gave a lovely presentation Sunday with blow-ups of lots of the very diverse, highly skilled paintings and sketches she has done, and it was wonderful. Check out her website; buy her stuff.


• My Sunday dinner run, with three East-Coast Jews, three British filkers, a German, and me, at Montana's Steakhouse. An amusing and informative venture into comparative food anthropology, among other things.


• Peter and I wrote a song! About 2 hours before the songwriting contest concert, as it happens. Still, it's a really neat song. We performed it into his Zoom player before he flang me on the homebound train, so you can hear it too. Phil Mills got a photo of us singing it in the contest. (mp3, lyrics)


• Spending time with Marilyn Miller, the Interfilk guest. I'd met her at some California con or other, but barely got to speak with her then; this weekend I had a good long lunch with her and several sit-next-to-in-circles. That woman has an amazing repertoire, even aside from her performing skills (and the witty repartee of her bandmate, Mac!). Someone not to be missed, should she ever be at a con in your neck of the woods.

I think most of the rest of my fanac around this weekend will be in comments to other people's journals and entries; I'll link 'em in below as I find them and comment.

---

Other FKO 2008 Entries:

• Lots of pictures on Flickr: tagged 'FKO' and '2008'. (So if you tag YOUR Flickr photos with those tags, they'll show up automatically!)


• peteralway: 1, 2, 3, 4.
• hsifyppah: a quickie
• shaddyr: 1, 2
• vixyish: 1, 2, Part 1 for real, Part 2
• ldwheeler: a quickie
• mdlbear: He's now in the Filk Hall of Fame.
• andpuff: a quickie
• tfabris: 1
• jodimuse doesn't write con reports.
• markbernstein, briefly.
• billroper: 1
• avt_tor: a quickie
• blank:
• blank:

---

Footnotes
1. Or are con-reports feminine? Babelfish says masculine, but who knows. :->