GAFilk 2009, Day 2 (delayed report)

Saturday 10 January, 2:40P: Finally, a chance to sit down and plug in. The layout has changed somewhat from last year, owing to the shift of most of GAFilk's function space to the basement level (the street-level rooms closer to the lobby that we used last year were booked by another group). The new Main Programming room doesn't have its electrical outlets as well-placed as the old one, so it's harder to find a place to log on without draining the battery. And there is no normal elevator access from street level, only stairs and the ADA-compliant wheelchair lift and ramp from outside in back of the hotel.

Another unwelcome surprise from last year: I drove to the hotel yesterday to find that the Crowne Plaza Airport Atlanta has decided its parking lot is too valuable a resource to remain unmonetized, and installed auto-ticketing gates and fence posts around it. (A warning on the con website would have been nice; con chair autographedcat has claimed responsibility for this oversight.) The good news: GAFilk members are comped for the entire weekend; you simply obtain a free validation sticker from the con registration desk for each exit from the lot. More bad news: This exemption will end after this year, and members of GAFilk 12 (2010) will have to pony up like everyone else, even if staying in the hotel.

But enough negativity. Last night's Opening Ceremonies went off without a hitch, with champagne and sparkling fruit juice, toasts and glittery confetti and party favors we'll all still be pulling out of our clothes six months from now. (Well, okay, one hitch: the lyrics for the traditional full-length singing of "Auld Lang Syne"—even more crucial than usual in light of this year marking the 250th birthday of its author, Robert Burns—went missing from the con songbook, and an old one had to be rustled up and the lyrics hurriedly photocopied and distributed.) This was followed by the usual Friday-night game show, "My Filk," which was won by Team B with an instafilk by its three female members about a beeper put to rather lascivious use. billroper and daisy_knotwise entertained all and sundry for an hour afterward with the con's first concert, and then open filk happened in the same room. The con's Guests of Honor, Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, were there along with the Suttons and Ropers and many others, and much merriment was had until we left around 1:30 AM to go crash at home.

Today, we woke up late (my fault for not setting an alarm) and arrived back at the hotel around one-ish. The Songbird was able to get a lovely Interfilk-benefit haircut from museinred and we checked out the dealers' rooms (yes, plural; there are two this year) and listened to 2x10s (sign up and do two songs or ten minutes' worth of your material). Tonight: the banquet, Interfilk auction and more concerts. Will hopefully have a little time for further posts before sleep again and then getting SB to the airport for her Sunday-afternoon flight home to Kenya (sigh).

Happy birthday from the GAFilk site to one of our own

A very happy birthday today to harmonyheifer, and we all heartily wish you were here. (One of your group's CDs is on sale in dealers' hall here at the con.)

Unnecessary Remake #256: McGoohan's The Prisoner gets a (dry and sandy) makeover

Sci Fi reports here on American Movie Classics' having had the effrontery to remake Patrick McGoohan's 1960s cult-hit TV series The Prisoner as a "re-imagined" six-hour mini, with a new cast (Sir Ian McKellen's presence therein being one of the few redeeming features revealed so far), a new desert location and an utter lack of shame. I heard they were doing it somewhile back, but apparently the thing is now in the can and awaiting airing.

Now, maybe I'm biased, having been a huge fan of the original since I first watched it late Sunday nights on my local PBS station as a geeky teenager. (I even bought Dean Motter's surprisingly good DC Comics sequel, The Prisoner: Shattered Visage, back in the 1980s.) And having sat through the inexcusable cinematic defecation on the memory of the late Robert Wise that was 20th Century-Fox's remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still last year, I'm even more irritated than I might be otherwise. And as I did with the latter, I will likely at least try to watch a bit of this in fairness, if only to confirm my deeply suspicious expectations.

And yes, I know that not all such "re-imaginings" have to turn out bad (cf. Battlestar Galactica). But this is just one more remake that screams "Let's cash in on a popular established brand!" to me. Someone needs to find out where these entertainment-industry suits who can't recognize a classic that was done right the first time are coming from and nuke the place from orbit. "It's the only way to be sure..."

The world's single largest currency denomination has been issued

We knew the African nation of Zimbabwe was in deepest, direst trouble, owing to the misrule of its current president, a megalomaniacal, corrupt piece of excrement that walks like a man named Robert Mugabe. But this is how bad it has gotten: his constituents now need a 50-billion-Zimbabwean-dollar note to buy two loaves of bread. Yes, you read right: the currency has become so nearly worthless it takes 50 billion units to buy subsistence food.

What a hellish way to get into the Guinness book. Kenya has severe problems, all right...but at least it's not Zimbabwe. Pray for the peoples of both countries, if you believe.