Conterpoint, in brief
I just said I probably wouldn't do a Conterpoint report. Which would be shame, as my Conterpoint was Packed With Things. So this is a small (probably) con report. I will miss things! I will skip things!
Also, it's not actually that short.
Friday, afternoon, we arrived at Conterpoint, significantly after my big harp, Clio did (Clio had taken a ride down with
hms42; we, by contrast, took the 11:30 train). We had hugs, and I talked a few times with Andrew Ross (who had invited me to help with this concert, along with like a dozen other people), and had a confab with the people in the listener concert (wherein we all got a better idea of what was going to happen). I met with
gundo for a quick run-through of our version of Aint Got Rhythm we'd planned to do as a one-shot to see what we had to work with. I then went and danced at a few concerts, had dinner with happyfunpaul, and afterwards went to the 11pm rehersal for Andrew's concert. Which was a -blast-, and two hours long, but no, we didn't do any open filk that evening; open filk had ended by the time the rehersal was done past 1am.
Saturday, there were many, many concerts, but also more rehersal -- Libajome (or River God's Daughter (hmm. Metope?), or whatever we're going to call the as-yet unnamed band that sometimes forms out of
ladymondegreen,
batyatoon,
drcpunk, sometimes
akawil and myself when we've done this strange thing called rehersing) was doing final musical/magical rehersal for my (originally; Lisa and Merav have had a lot of input, including making up new verses) Magical Life, and I met with
gundo for a real rehersal of Aint Got Rhythm (and pulled some friends in to help with one line plus leading the audience part). Then, after the early afternoon concerts, there were, in quick succession, the last two one-shots (me+gundo doing Ain't Got Rhythm and Magical Life with magic tricks), followed by Andrew's concert, where I helped out on the last 5 songs. Then dinner break (we had 6 people for a nice authentic Sichuan meal; me and Lisa, of course, plus
ultimatepsi,
hms42, Zeborah, and, um, one more? Brain frying over here. Then there was the interfilk auction (I did my part, but didn't win anything) and the open filk (everyone crowded into the alternate filkroom, since they'd started when the Interfilk auction was going on; getting the harp in there was challenging, but it was fun; I sung a few things and mostly played/sang along, and Lisa kept the queue for a few hours.
Sunday, I mostly took memberships. The thing being, of course, that this was the con where we launched Contata 7, which will be -fabulous- (and which I'm chairing). And while I'd been very subtle in plugging the con, the Listener Guests, John and Debbie Baker, are on our con com, so they did help out at various times. However, I'd devoted Sunday to taking memberships -- so I skipped most of the programming before and after the Listeners Request concert and instead just took and entered memberships (and built a spreadsheet to hold memberships in, and built a form to enter memberships into the spreadsheet which can also be user facing -- because I'm like that). I grabbed the mike right after the Listeners concert and told everyone why our guests are completely awesome (they are) and that we'd be happy to take their money, and we picked up over 15 memberships by the end of the con. I did catch a bit of the Space concert, since there was -nobody- outside at the time so I let Lisa nap outside and be ready to take people's money while I entered forms into the spreadsheet and used the concert as background noise. The dead dog filk was also lovely -- I performed a bit more than I did at the Saturday night filk (although I was still nicely relaxed, having had plenty of stage time) but mostly just improvised harp or voice harmonies. This reminds me; I need to tune Clio more, as she stays in tune much better when she's tuned regularly; I was -really- unhappy with how fast she was going out here (also, need to remember to not close the pedal tuner except when it's being stored/transported, as I want to take the battery out when it's not being used; it -burns- through batteries).
On Monday, we went home. This was, perhaps, more complicated than it coudl have been. The original plans had been for
hms42 to take the harp to Marc, who could drive it in a van (along with several people and their stuff, including
hms42) to Conterpoint. However, hms42 was delayed, so the van left without him (and Clio) and he drove both down alone. Thus late Sunday night, I talked to the interested parties, and brokered a deal whereby Clio would ride back with Marc, and we'd ride back with hms42 (and we'd either abandon our train eticket or try to return it, depending). This worked better than I could have expected -- the trip back hit a bit of rain, but was very smooth, and I was able to get an e-refund (which strangely, only works for tickets you buy at the box office -- a bit of gap there; not sure whether you can buy etickets at an Amtrack box office) 2 minutes after my train left the station. After returning home (nice door to door service, would ride again!) I dropped off Thalia (the lap harp I'd brought along as a backup, just in case) and hit the city to have a lovely New Holland Herring dinner with
ebartley and
drcpunk, then arranged to go down to Brooklyn and pick up Clio from Marc (which, 3 hours later and two bus trips, we had!)
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where there are
comments. Comment there or comment here below.
Also, it's not actually that short.
Friday, afternoon, we arrived at Conterpoint, significantly after my big harp, Clio did (Clio had taken a ride down with
hms42; we, by contrast, took the 11:30 train). We had hugs, and I talked a few times with Andrew Ross (who had invited me to help with this concert, along with like a dozen other people), and had a confab with the people in the listener concert (wherein we all got a better idea of what was going to happen). I met with
gundo for a quick run-through of our version of Aint Got Rhythm we'd planned to do as a one-shot to see what we had to work with. I then went and danced at a few concerts, had dinner with happyfunpaul, and afterwards went to the 11pm rehersal for Andrew's concert. Which was a -blast-, and two hours long, but no, we didn't do any open filk that evening; open filk had ended by the time the rehersal was done past 1am.
Saturday, there were many, many concerts, but also more rehersal -- Libajome (or River God's Daughter (hmm. Metope?), or whatever we're going to call the as-yet unnamed band that sometimes forms out of
ladymondegreen,
batyatoon,
drcpunk, sometimes
akawil and myself when we've done this strange thing called rehersing) was doing final musical/magical rehersal for my (originally; Lisa and Merav have had a lot of input, including making up new verses) Magical Life, and I met with
gundo for a real rehersal of Aint Got Rhythm (and pulled some friends in to help with one line plus leading the audience part). Then, after the early afternoon concerts, there were, in quick succession, the last two one-shots (me+gundo doing Ain't Got Rhythm and Magical Life with magic tricks), followed by Andrew's concert, where I helped out on the last 5 songs. Then dinner break (we had 6 people for a nice authentic Sichuan meal; me and Lisa, of course, plus
ultimatepsi,
hms42, Zeborah, and, um, one more? Brain frying over here. Then there was the interfilk auction (I did my part, but didn't win anything) and the open filk (everyone crowded into the alternate filkroom, since they'd started when the Interfilk auction was going on; getting the harp in there was challenging, but it was fun; I sung a few things and mostly played/sang along, and Lisa kept the queue for a few hours.
Sunday, I mostly took memberships. The thing being, of course, that this was the con where we launched Contata 7, which will be -fabulous- (and which I'm chairing). And while I'd been very subtle in plugging the con, the Listener Guests, John and Debbie Baker, are on our con com, so they did help out at various times. However, I'd devoted Sunday to taking memberships -- so I skipped most of the programming before and after the Listeners Request concert and instead just took and entered memberships (and built a spreadsheet to hold memberships in, and built a form to enter memberships into the spreadsheet which can also be user facing -- because I'm like that). I grabbed the mike right after the Listeners concert and told everyone why our guests are completely awesome (they are) and that we'd be happy to take their money, and we picked up over 15 memberships by the end of the con. I did catch a bit of the Space concert, since there was -nobody- outside at the time so I let Lisa nap outside and be ready to take people's money while I entered forms into the spreadsheet and used the concert as background noise. The dead dog filk was also lovely -- I performed a bit more than I did at the Saturday night filk (although I was still nicely relaxed, having had plenty of stage time) but mostly just improvised harp or voice harmonies. This reminds me; I need to tune Clio more, as she stays in tune much better when she's tuned regularly; I was -really- unhappy with how fast she was going out here (also, need to remember to not close the pedal tuner except when it's being stored/transported, as I want to take the battery out when it's not being used; it -burns- through batteries).
On Monday, we went home. This was, perhaps, more complicated than it coudl have been. The original plans had been for
hms42 to take the harp to Marc, who could drive it in a van (along with several people and their stuff, including
hms42) to Conterpoint. However, hms42 was delayed, so the van left without him (and Clio) and he drove both down alone. Thus late Sunday night, I talked to the interested parties, and brokered a deal whereby Clio would ride back with Marc, and we'd ride back with hms42 (and we'd either abandon our train eticket or try to return it, depending). This worked better than I could have expected -- the trip back hit a bit of rain, but was very smooth, and I was able to get an e-refund (which strangely, only works for tickets you buy at the box office -- a bit of gap there; not sure whether you can buy etickets at an Amtrack box office) 2 minutes after my train left the station. After returning home (nice door to door service, would ride again!) I dropped off Thalia (the lap harp I'd brought along as a backup, just in case) and hit the city to have a lovely New Holland Herring dinner with
ebartley and
drcpunk, then arranged to go down to Brooklyn and pick up Clio from Marc (which, 3 hours later and two bus trips, we had!)
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where there are
comments. Comment there or comment here below.