[3WS-discuss] CONduit Report (finally!)

[<wireharp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Disclaimer: this is my view of CONduit. For the viewpoints of others, you'll have to go to them. :)

THURSDAY, MAY 17

We all flew out on Thursday afternoon and made it into Salt Lake City late afternoonish, where we were met by CONduit's Jonni Davis and her friend Helge (sp?). They helped us load all our stuff into a van and a car, ferried us over to the convention hotel, and helped us unload and get to our rooms as well. 

We felt really well taken care of when we noticed that we all had individually chosen bags of snacks  on our tables. The flowers were beautiful, too.

We had two or three hours before dinner, so Brenda and I snacked, unpacked, searched for a screwdriver so the legs could go back on my harp (it travels legless), and made sure our laptops could be connected to the Internet from the hotel room.

Then, we met Charlene and Randy MacKay downstairs in the lobby with George and Teresa. After a quick stop to pick up their adorable son Ian, we all headed off to a really good Chinese restaurant in downtown Salt Lake called Xiao Li. The food was terrific, and Ian had a great time banging spoons together and generally being adorable. On the way back to the hotel, Brenda, Charlene and I had an adventure and began our tour of airports of the greater Salt Lake area. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to finish the tour; our schedules were so busy that it was difficult to find time to eat. But the Skypark airport in Bountiful, UT, is definitely worth seeing-- if you can find it. We determined that only people who aren't looking for the Skypark Airport will be able to find it, but that's a hypothesis only. If you do any experimentation, please let us know, and we'll add it to our airport research notes.

We got back to the hotel and crashed, since it was really late for us and we knew that tomorrow would be a busy day.

FRIDAY, MAY 18

I woke up early (because I was jetlagged, not because I'm a morning person) and showered, tuned the harp, all that stuff. We went down hoping to register early and found that registration wasn't open yet. Our first panel was at noon, so we got instruments down and tuned, then found ourselves talking about parodies with Kathy Mar and Charlene (whose last name I don't remember). It was a fun panel. We sang some parodies, talked about parodies, and then headed off to lunch in the hotel restaurant with Kathy Mar and a whole bunch of other people whose names I don't completely remember. Brenda's percussion panel was at four, so we got in a little bit of practice before dinner. 

I should note here that we all owe a huge debt of gratitute to Randy and Charlene MacKay, who gave us a key to their room for the duration of the con and let us use it as a practice room, first because the Green Room wasn't open yet and then because there was lots of food and stuff in the Green Room and not enough space for us and all our gear. We practiced there before they ever checked in, practiced while they changed costumes, while they took naps, and they never complained once. We can't tell them how happy we were to have a place close to the programming space, yet quiet and private, in which to practice. Thanks, guys.

Then we came down to catch the last of the Tri-Destiny concert and set up for the Friday night filk concert.

The Friday night filk concert is a pretty cool concept. All the filkers show up, and anyone who wants to perform a set, long or short, signs up with the mistress of filking at the beginning of the evening. She calls the next performer. After the list is cleared, the evening moves into open filking. It was kind of fun, because you got to see more than just one song at a time from a performer's repertoire. Three Weird Sisters kicked the concert off because we had more equipment than anybody else. ;) We were followed by Kathy Mar, Kathleen Sloan, Charlene MacKay, a foursome of people who were all delightful, but whose names I cannot remember (I am awful at names, but I will try to remember faces and details), and filk mom Julia West (Wow, I remembered someone's name!) and her two daughters.

We did the baby song, Iowa, My Karma Broke Down, and I don't remember what else. Kathy sang three or four songs, ending with Santa Monica Pier. Then Kathleen Sloan sang a couple of songs, one of which is longer than the story it's based on. Charlene MacKay sang her beautiful "Bride of Ashes" song. I remember her singing "Shapeshifter," too, but my memory may be wrong. I just love hearing her sing that song so much. The foursome of people whose names I don't remember included two women who sang in a Unitarian choir, and the third woman was the daughter to one of the first two. The man had a lovely voice and a twinkle in his eyes. The two older women (older, ha--no way they were over 40) obviously had experience with early music groups, and their unisons were wonderful. They sang a capella rounds and some twisted pagan chants that made me howl. Julia and her daughters sang Tom Smith's Dr. Seuss song. Open filking was relaxed, small, polite, chaos. That's the only kind of chaos I am any good at, friends and neighbors. ;)

The Friday night filk broke up early, around 4:30 am or so, and everybody had a great time, or it looked like they did anyway. 

Then, I slept.


SATURDAY, MAY 19

Brenda got pulled out of bed very early, but for a good cause-- she got to be the model at a massage demonstration. I vaguely remembered her leaving and woke up sometime around 11, just in time to get showered and run downstairs for our harmony panel. The harmony panel was fun-- we had lots of great singers in the room, and we taught a couple of our songs and explained different kinds of harmony. George was instrumental in offering a quick theory lesson, something we'll have to integrate into future explanations of how harmony works. 

Opposite the harmony panel was the all-important election for the ruler of the known CONduit Universe. As guests, we got to cast our votes by proxy beforehand, helping to insure that Captain Ma'am, portrayed in all her glory by Charlene MacKay would rise to be the undisputed ruler of the known CONduit universe. She ended up with more votes than all the other hopefuls combined. I'm sure Randy can remember the totals. ;) What I can tell you is that Charlene was absolutely stunning as Captain Ma'am. I'd heard the legend at Chicon, but seeing the true force of nature that is Captain Ma'am was almost more than my little heart could take.

After the harmony panel and election, we went to grab lunch in the hotel restaurant, at which point the sole bad thing that happened all convention happened. We know that hotel service is never fast for large parties, but we go to lunch and dinner with large parties at conventions anyway, because we want to spend time with our friends. I am sorry to say that the service at the hotel left a lot to be desired, and Saturday's lunch was the worst example. I won't go into details except to say that Randy and Charlene ought to be nominated for sainthood, along with Teresa, George, and Brenda, and that luckily there was no violence.

After lunch, we went to the dealer's room and found very nifty jewelry by Amber Lights. T and B and I all bought earrings, T bought a bracelet, and B and I bought necklaces, too. These are lovely pieces, and we hope to have some contact information for this jeweler soon; our friends at Oakspring will go ga-ga over this stuff! Then, Brenda had another panel and Teresa and George spent some time with friends of Teresa's who'd come in from Idaho. I bummed around with the intent of finishing a song, but ended up tuning the harp and practicing quietly before the rest of the gang came in to practice for awhile. T started a rumor that George was working on a song, and we worked on putting together a performable version of "In a Gown Too Blue" until-- well, until we had one. 

Brenda went out to dinner with her daughter Mary and Mary's fiancee. Teresa and George went out to dinner with Teresa's friends from Idaho. I went to the filk choir rehearsal and had a great time trading puns with people whose names I don't remember. We had a two-hour workshop and learned choral arrangements of three filk songs, to be performed during Saturday night's masquerade. We even had good seats reserved for us. For a small masquerade, there were some great costumes. The one that sticks in my mind was the Klingon belly dancing troupe. They were great! The choir performed during the judging break, and then I slipped off to have dinner with Kathy Mar, Kathleen Sloan, and a couple of other people. We had a good conversation over dinner and dessert (I was having dinner, they were having dessert), and we made it back to the bellydancing just in time to see a wonderful troupe of dancers who were improvising everything and having a great time. They were all beautiful and vibrant, and their drummers included Randy and Charlene. 

Once the bellydancing was done, it was time for the Saturday night open filk. So much good stuff happened at the Saturday night filk, I can't possibly remember everything, or even all the highlights. Randy brought Brenda and me coffee, which made me his best friend. George debuted his song, full of Scottish puns (nobody would ever guess that George would write a song full of Scottish puns, eh?). I guess my favorite part of the filk was when Randy MacKay got up to go to bed and requested that Kathy Mar sing Charlene's song "Shapeshifter." Charlene wasn't feeling well and was sleeping back in their room. Well, Kathy started the song, but everybody sang it. In harmony. It was a really nice moment. Did I mention I love that song?

At about 7:30 in the morning, several of us trooped off to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, where we were rewarded by the best, fastest, most cheerful service we'd gotten all weekend. And breakfast wasn't half bad, either. Sometime during breakfast I realized that my panel was at 11:00 on Sunday morning. Heh.

Then, I slept.


SUNDAY, MAY 20

I managed to wake up and get all my gear out without disturbing Brenda, or at least without disturbing her much. I was running out of free  cash, so I skipped breakfast in the hopes of finding something in the green room for lunch, and went on down to the beginning vocal panel.

One good thing about having a panel scheduled for 11:00 on Sunday after an all-night filk is that there is not much pressure. Everyone knew I'd been up all night. Tamara, who is on the concomm and spent the entire weekend in beautiful historical garb, read my mind and brought me coffee, thus making me her best friend (and I even remembered her name!). There were only three or four people there for the panel, so we talked about breathing and different kinds of singing, and we learned a couple of songs together. 

Then, lunch and a quick rehearsal before the GoH concert at 3pm. Whee!

Wow, the room was packed. We played for two hours with a break in the middle, and people came back to hear the second half. =) I think we may have played the strongest version of "Rite of Passage" we've ever performed, and "In a Gown Too Blue" was the perfect closer. The whole concert felt great. The audience was responsive and there, and things went very smoothly. At the break, we were all presented with CONduit T-shirts and plaques so that we'd remember coming to Salt Lake City. As if we could forget-- what great hosts they were, and what a great time we had! Another highlight of the concert for me was Teresa's grandmother, who'd traveled all the way from Idaho to see us, asking us all for autographs. =)

After the concert, we stayed around to be on the panel for the Mike Show, where we got to sit at the same table with Alan Dean Foster and Larry Elmore (oooooh!) and answer questions about ourselves and our arts posed by the audience. It was a lot of fun to listen to Alan and Larry; we'd been so busy that we hadn't had much of a chance to talk to either of them. 

Sunday night, we all went out to Rodizio, a Brazillian concept restaurant. If you haven't been to one of these before and you're a vegetarian, don't bother. If you're a carnivore, be prepared to stay for awhile. There's a similar restaurant in Atlanta called Fogo de Chao, so I was prepared. There's a cold salad bar with lots more than salad on it, and then waiters come around with different kinds of meat on sword-shaped skewers for your to sample. It's all you can eat. And we at it a-- we ate a lot. The desserts were great, too. 

Whoo, two hours of sleep, a very busy day, and a really filling dinner, and what are we all ready for? More filking at the Dead Dog Party? Most of us, anyway. Brenda was mighty tired and went on up to bed. Brenda is the sensible Sister, in case you hadn't already guessed. Teresa, George and I headed down to the consuite to partake of dead dog filking. The latest any of us stayed up was about 2am, but it sure was a lot of fun. We had time to thank everybody for having us and making us feel so welcome and special while we were there. There was lots of hugging.


MONDAY, May 21

Our plane lifted off at 10:10 in the morning, and we arrived back in Atlanta, safe and sound, around 5:30 in the afternoon. 

I know I haven't mentioned very many names, but it's only because I don't remember names well, and to mention the two or three that I actually do remember would be unfair to everybody. So I've only mentioned the names of people I knew before I came to CONduit, and I'll remember everybody else from their faces, email we exchange on down the line, or songs I hear in the future.