Jan. 13th, 2007

patoadam: Photo of me playing guitar in the woods (Default)
Anything I might say about GaFilk is overshadowed by the death of Dave Alway. It is one thing to know intellectually that sudden death is possible; it is quite another thing to find out that an apparently healthy person I saw on Sunday died on Tuesday.

I'll really miss Dave. I have fond memories of how we shared with each other our mutual love of poetry and music. I was reading his song in the GaFilk songbook just a few minutes before I learned of his death.

I will remember his many kindnesses and acts of friendship. I will proudly wear the two personalized Duchy of Filkhaven buttons he made for me, and I will think of him whenever I do so.

I had a wonderful time at GaFilk. It was great to see so many of my friends, only a few of whom I can mention here. I reminisced with T.J. and Linda about meeting them at the 1986 Worldcon. It amazed me to see how T.J.'s daughter Jessie has grown, no matter how inevitable that was. I was delighted to see how healthy Bill Rintz is now. I had last seen him at OVFF more than a decade ago. Since then, he has overcome many heavy duty health problems. I had a great time with my German friends, singing and/or dining with Eva, Rafael, [livejournal.com profile] crystalfall, [livejournal.com profile] realfranklin, and [livejournal.com profile] shannachie.

There is no room to mention my many friends whom I see annually. Nor will I say anything specific about the concerts. They were all wonderful. My only regret is that my mp3 recorder failed to work properly.

On second thought, I've gotta say *something* about the concerts. But if I say "that song was great and *that* song was great and *THAT* song was great" I will quickly bore my readers.

Let's see. Summer and Fall sang and performed beautifully, using 14 instruments. I didn't count, but other people did. They sang in four languages: English, French, Russian, and German. They provided a helpful booklet with all the lyrics, and translations into English.

Linda and friends (Technical Difficulties, The Next Generation) did many great old songs, including my own "Wishful Thinking". Jessie, like her mother, sings beautifully. Unlike her mother, she is not a tenor.

Urban Tapestry performed beautifully, as always. They wrote several new songs for the occasion.

[livejournal.com profile] musicmutt and [livejournal.com profile] chirosinger are wonderful individual musicians, and together, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The filk community has become a fantastic international and inter-generational conspiracy. UT performed at least two songs by German filkers, and one song partly in German. UT and Summer and Fall sang together. [livejournal.com profile] realfranklin sang with UT. I sat with Americans, Germans, and Canadians at the banquet. As I already mentioned, Jessie and her mother sang together. Proud father [livejournal.com profile] billroper showed me photos of his eight-week-old daughter.

Special thanks to Eva, [livejournal.com profile] crystalfall, [livejournal.com profile] braider, [livejournal.com profile] realfranklin, Rafael, and [livejournal.com profile] musicmutt for singing this version of "Good King Wenceslas" with me, and thanks to [livejournal.com profile] edstauff for making the harmony arrangement available.

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patoadam: Photo of me playing guitar in the woods (Default)patoadam

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