And The There was Music

[howeird]

Filkers started arriving this morning, but there was no official program for the con until 6:30 so I took the skybridge to light rail and headed for Chinatown for a dim sum lunch.

I got to the top of the escalator to the train just as it was beeping that the doors were closing, and the man ahead of me tried to keep the door from closing by using his cane, but the door was having none of it, and he extracted the cane just in time for the train to pull away. The drivers don't open the doors for anyone - I saw this rudeness several times on my trip.

I almost got off at Othello in S. Seattle, where there is a nice dim sum place right at the light rail station, but since I had the time I stayed on.

Used to be, King Street was where all the better dim sum places were, but I guess that has not been true since they built the Kingdome, which process evicted a huge portion of the International District. That was mostly good news - it got rid of some seriously scary slums - but it also pushed out a lot of Asian businesses. But not too far - they are now a few blocks south, and I suppose part of their current prosperity is due to the Kingdome being imploded and the baseball and football stadiums being built closer to the waterfront.

I walked around a bit, finally found a huge restaurant which had a sign about dim sum and walked inside. Sat down, no dim sum in sight, just the usual lunch plates. I was in the wrong half of the building. They had sub-let the left side, what had been the bar, and the dim sum was on the right side. Except the right side was closed.

So back into the cold and found a place which was jam packed and had dim sum carts galore.Honey Court Seafood Restaurant. They offered me a shared large table, but I said I could wait for a single. After 10 minutes they offered me a whole large table, but I said the wait was okay. Half an hour later a couple of singles opened up at the same time and they sat me at one. I had not even taken my coat off when a cart came up. I got the three dishes I wanted to start with right away, and worked on those. One was a bean-filled thing which I ate one of, didn't like it. When I was almost done one of the staff came by to collect the empties, I told her she could take the bean ones, I didn't like them. She gave me sesame balls for free to make up for it.

Good fast service, reasonable prices, not as noisy as most packed dim sum places. Win!

On the way back to light rail, there was a shop called A Piece Of Cake, and it had lots of pieces of cake. I got a napoleon and a slice of black forest to go. The server looked as delicious as the cakes. And she was kind enough to throw in a fork and put the box in a plastic bag.

Back to the hotel, got my Saturday lunch ticket, took pix of famous filkers in the registration area. Somewhere in there Frank Hayes brought Seanan McGuire a box of Voodoo donuts, which she shared with Brooke Lunderville. Someone placed a diet Dr. Pepper on the bench Shannon was sitting on, next to the donuts. When she reached for it, it flew off the bench and Shannon managed to trap it on the floor - she had been pranked, someone had tied a string to it and was waiting around the corner. Much insanity ensued.

Took a tour of the con suite, which is three adjoining rooms (2 for food & chat, one for prep). Looks promising.

Opening ceremonies were mostly announcements, only 5 minutes to introduce the guests. Then we recorded a song for the CD by the distaff half of the GoH couple. It took three tries. The words in the program, which had been taken from her web page, did not match the words she was singing. It was not an intuitive tune and the lyrics did not lend themselves to quick memorization. And IMHO adding clapping to the repeat of the final chorus was not an improvement. It was just not a clap-along tune.

Two concerts followed, Charlene McKay, sometimes aided by the GoHs, with content which did not grab me until the last number which was an ode to Twinkies. During the final chorus her husband and helpers threw Twinkies into the audience.

Next up was a duo called Lookinglass Folk. I left after the first number, could not stand the voice of the woman half of the duo.
Walked to Denny's for dinner, then back to the open filk, which was huge. Judy Miller and two other signers were sitting on the floor near the center having way too much fun making up signs for the songs. They went completely mad when lemmozine launched into the piano rag on his uke. Or at least it looked like a uke from 20 feet away.

Left a little after midnight, peeked in on the small open filk down the hall, but it was breaking up. Ended up chatting for an hour or more with lemmozine, Kathy Mar and Ann Prather. It was very nice to get to know Kathy a bit. I'd always been too shy. The other two I'd chatted with a bit in the past.

Plans for tomorrow:
Try to make it to Ann's concert at 11. I hope she brought her harp. She's local, so there's a good chance she did.
Lunch at noon, it's always a highlight.
Two-fers
Not sure about the interfilk concert, it does not seem to be a filk duo as much as a folk duo.
Interfilk auction for sure
Not sure where to go for dinner
Talis Kimberly concert at 7:30
Brook Lunderville at 8:30
GoH concert may be skipped for the same reason as the interfilk concert
Open filk, hopefully Kathy Mar will sing.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Notes: I was playing a Kamaka 8 string tenor uke. Anne with an E. Naomi may not be a polished singer, but she is a fascinating and delightful human being, and the part where her daughter sang which you probably missed was delightful.