thank you greenwood

Thank you, Greenwood Faire, for the welcome and the fantastic first experience at a renfaire – and thanks also Leannan Sidhe for bringing me onboard for the series! And also to Zinger and Royal Magic for letting us stow equipment and showing such hospitality. And to pirates and supervillains, yet!

Fun. Exhausting, but fun. We ended up doing eight shows, not six, not counting ‘gate sets,’ which are kind of open-mic length. Since I was filling in for so many people that meant four-instrument setup/takedown per show; I got really fast at that by the end of Sunday. So the whole thing is kind of a blur of setup-play-takedown-setup-play-takedown until dark.

That didn’t stop me from staying up late Saturday night with the Tri-Cities Drum Circle, tho’. They have a facebook page but I can’t find it – if you guys come find me, give me the group name again and I’ll link you! Thanks for being so welcoming, playing with you was really cool.

High-drama weather: 3am hour-long thundersquall with continuous lightning and nearly-continuous thunder, all experienced from a tent (which, thankfully, held out the water just fine); a mid-morning reprise the next day, scattering everyone but providing a desperately-needed reprieve from the sun. The heat was pretty brutal late Sunday, but the Faire itself is extremely well situated, in a little cool pocket by the riverside, sheltering us from the worst. It’s a fantastic site for it.

Have some pictures – I have to finish unpacking.

No more than 10 minutes after that morning squall

Jousting ponies at sunset

Ponies! The chestnut in front is pretty friendly. The grey in back, despite appearances, is not an Arabian. I was totally surprised by that; I knew an Arabian who could’ve been his twin, years ago, except the one I knew had slightly more mottled/patterned fur.

Saturday night is the big performer potluck and little groups all get together and play and hang out all over the camp; after the potluck, I found the aforementioned drum circle – which wasn’t, as they say, difficult. :D

Also that night:

All Hail Roadie Matthew!

And Matthew’s golden backlit hair. Matthew’s golden backlit hair has a posse.

Leannan Sidhe Without Me

Despite best attempts, I wasn’t on every song, and when you’re not playing, you don’t stand there like a dork, you sit off to the side or front, depending. One set, I was out for two songs, and they were back-to-back, so I had time to grab my phone and snap a picture.

Bards of a Feather

Leannan Sidhe (official) gave way to Mickey and Wednesday’s band Bards of a Feather for the final set, appearing only at the end for one song. And they, in turn, let me open for them as Crime and the Forces of Evil, for one song. Shortest opening set evar! It was hilarious. :D

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

all that swfa fail

Remember all that SFWA fail I kept posting about? White supremacists using the SFWA promotions twitter account, the rampant sexism, all that? The discussions are still ongoing on the SFWA message boards, and, whelp, looks like somebody has decided to leak them, via screencaps. This isn’t the best one, I just like it because it’s talking about the importance of voting for the White Supremacist:

Oh my. No wonder Scalzi made a big deal out of the end of his term as SFWA president.
 

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eta2: Welcome, Radish Review readers! You may wish to look at a follow-up post, Power and Supervillainy, about harassment at conventions and online, if you’re following this topic closely. The SFWA Twelve only part of the problem.
eta: Welcome, visitors from James Nicoll‘s LJ and Dreamwidth blogs! Nice to meet you. I’m a musician who is also a long-time F&SF fan; I run nwcMUSIC, the pan-geekmusic programme at Norwescon; and I invite you to poke around the site a bit and listen to my work. Thanks for coming by!

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby