GAFilk 10, Day 2 report

[thatcrazycajun]

Had tons o' fun yesterday, with great concerts, the banquet/dance and Interfilk auction followed by open filk. Our Interfilk guests, the Brobdingnagian Bards did an hour following our Toastmaster's audiovisual presentation, giving their usual rousing performance including both of their famous Star Wars drinking songs (only one of which is actually their own composition; thanks, hms42). This was followed by what we like to call "2 x 10s": people sign up to perform for 10 minutes or the duration of two songs, whichever ends first. I performed a set myself, along with several other people (the full list is on the filknews community page here). My selections were "Re: Your Zombie Ass!" and "The Writers' Strike of 2007," which appeared to be decently received. (Zombies seem to be a recurring—or is that "resurrecting"?—theme this weekend; cadhla would be pleased.)

The banquet began at 6:30 and I had to sneak in after discovering I had lost my ticket (I assume they had a list and my name was on it, since I did in fact buy a ticket Friday). A roast chicken dish was accompanied by courses of veggies including salad and steamed greens; there was also stir-fried tofu for the vegans, plus pasta and breadstuffs, sweet tea (this is Georgia, after all) and several types of cake and cheesecake for dessert. The OVFF house band, Play It With Moxie (featuring quadrivium [keyboard/vocals], weirdsister [vocals], jodimuse [vocals] and surrdave [trumpet]) entertained us in between us guy types having to shove the portable dance floor back into place (the floor of the function room had a slight slope to it, and the heavy traffic had the effect of pushing it dangerously close to the sound station a few times). Choice moment: ladyat brought a disco-style mini-mirrorball device to spread that 1970s club ambiance, and I held it up off the floor at one point to put the light over the dance floor; then bedlamhouse and several others spotted me and started doing their best John Travolta impressions with finger-pointing-upward dances. Right after the last number, the Bohnhoffs performed their Guest of Honor concert, which was suitably filled with metric buttloads of win and awesome. (My fave number was their parody of "I Am The Walrus" about a certain infamous global discount retail chain: "I am the big box / I am the Wal-Mart / Cha-cha-cha-ching!")

All three of the candy items singing_phoenix and I submitted for the auction (two hand-carried chocolate products from Amsterdam and an Aunt Sally's Bananas Foster Praline) had bids, but none went to voice auction. Quite a few interesting items did, however; my personal favorite was the Power Squid®, a black plastic device ("Calamari Surge Protector" is the manufacturer's descriptive) intended to provide more flexibility than standard power strips. I suspect it was in there largely for the geek-cool factor. billroper, markbernstein and bedlamhouse served as auctioneers, and the_sheryl, runnerwolf, kbeader and even both of the Brob-Bards performed item-runner ("wenching") duties. (Alas, neither wore kilts, although Marc had great fun swirling his long flowing hair for the female bidders.) Great hilarity ensued, and a fine time was had by all. (I was forced, alas, to leave the bidding to those who actually have money in their checking accounts. Great Ghu, I'm glad that first paycheck from the new job is coming Wednesday...!)

The evening finished up with open filk in three rooms again, one of which was graced by one and eventually both of the Brob-Bards as well as filkertom and his amazing repertoire of funny songs, both his own and those of others (his acoustic version of wormquartet's "Great Idea For A Song" is not to be missed!) and which kindly received my own attempts at Da Vinci's Notebook's "Magic Kingdom in the Sky" and Emerald Rose's "Danny in the Jar." (The Bards were even nice enough to accompany me on autoharp and ukelele for the latter.) Along about 3 AM mrgoodwraith and I headed out to the Palatial Leger Manse™ for some Zs.

After sleep, we had French toast (or as we Cajuns like to call it, "pain perdu" ["lost bread"], so named because it was usually made from the last day-old remnants of a loaf; for you foodies in the audience, a recipe is here) and returned in time for a cuppa and the start of the EcumeniFilk. I set up the laptop so the Songbird could chat via Skype with some of our friends here for a few minutes, and she reassured everyone she is safe and things are calm in Nairobi for the moment (the planned demonstrations did not go off yesterday). Will post one final update probably late tonight after the Dead Dog when I get home.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Power squids are great when you've got a whole bunch of wall warts to hook up... if I didn't already have traditional strips coming out my ears I'd probably get a few. mdlbear uses them in his home office, to good effect... he hangs them from hooks deskside...

Cha-cha-cha-ching!

*LOL* leave it to the Bohnhoffs to burlesque something that big...

Was Andrew in a kilt? :)

I'm glad your Birdie is safe; may it ever be so.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

WRT pain perdu... baked, eh? How does that affect the flavor? I'd always fried'em in a big skillet, just like pancakes...

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

I use a skillet myself; there are several extant recipes. (There is no uniform standard for Cajun cooking; everything has at least four or five versions depending on the cook's taste and available materials.) Wikipedia has a description here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_toast#Pain_perdu) which is closer to what I grew up with.

[cellio]

I bought two squids recently (power and USB) and they are both big helps! So yeah, geek-cool factor, but it's also really useful.

Mind, it would be much more cool if the "head" had googly-eyes on it. Hmm... :-)

Starwars songs from The Brobdingnagian Bards

[hms42]

'Jedi Drinking song PREQUEL' is theirs. 'Jedi Drinking Test' actually is by the 'Dust Rhinos' who have at least 4 albums and are worth getting. http://www.dustrhinos.com/

The bards are at http://www.thebards.net/

[filkferengi]

I'm glad you had such a big time. I spent the banquet hanging with other friends I only see once a year, so it was nice to hear some details. I've heard a rumor of recording too; it's long past time--for both them *and* you. ;)

It was great to be able to do the Skype-chat; you need to get me her address, so the music transfusion can begin.