Brasklapp

Back at Finncon, I managed to secure two copies of the Finnish fannish songbook Scifistin malja, roughly "Science fiction toast". It was first published in 2003, and included songs that were sung at dinner parties organised by Tutka, the science fiction and fantasy club of Turku University. These dinner parties ("sittning" in Swedish and "sitsit" in Finnish) are a staple of Swedish and Finnish student life, where eating is combined with frequent singalongs and toasts.

( Continue )

I will send over one of the copies, together with some other filk-related material from Sweden, to Interfilk for auctioning when I get back from traveling.

For a very long while, I have tried to write a proper filk about the redshirt. I first had my eyes on Evert Taube's "Balladen om briggen 'Blue Bird' av Hull" in the Star Trek environment, but never could get a suitable scenario.

Then, a few days ago, the fate of Cedric Diggory and Dan Andersson's masterpiece "En spelmans jordafärd" (Youtube, and an English translation) met each other, and this was the result.

( As the evening sun is shining on the tower of Ravenclaw )

There are some passages that could need future polishing and are slightly tricky to sing, but I think I've hit diminishing returns right now.

ETA: I found the notation for Dan Andersson's melody at a local library, and have fixed most of the scansion issues now.

I found out that I had written another filk song based on Princess Holy Aura, which I had managed to forget. This one is to the classic Swedish Christmas song Lusse Lelle (Youtube).

( Holy Aura, Holy Aura )

While traditionally connected to the Swedish Lucia tradition, the original song pre-dates the connection of Saint Lucy with the Swedish tradition of lussinatta (Lussi Night), and instead connects with the tradition of youngsters visiting farms to ask for food and drink on 13 December.

On November 19th 1915, Joe Hill was murdered by the State of Utah for the crime of filking.

While listening through a few more of Joe Hill's songs and trying to decide on this year's Joe Hill filk, I decided to read a bit on the history of Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay, and promptly fell down a rabbit hole of high-class St. Louis bordellos, early ragtime music, and minstrel shows. Given the continuing discussion about appropriation and racism within science fiction my choice became simple: just write the history of the song, but there was no way to include it all.

( A smart and stylish song is due… )

My previously posted Joe Hill filks: 2014, 2015, 2016.

Another quick new Swedish filk, but one that isn't only an instafilk. It's based on Främling (YouTube), the #1 Swedish hit during the 80's. The LP sold more than one million copies, and is still the best-selling album ever in Sweden. As comparison, for platinum a record needs to sell 40,000 copies here.

( Alien, hur kommer du till mig… )

ETA: Made a change for better scansion

In an association chain in the kitchen I somehow managed to cram together "Oh boy" (Youtube) by Peps Persson with the oboe. About half an hour later this was the result:

( Oboe )

Apart from Fantastika 2016 (where I edited the con newsletter), I have only had light duties at most cons I've been to recently. At Worldcon 75 I was the Area Head of childrens' programming. To make matters worse, my co-Area Head (and wife) thette had been battling exhaustion due to work for the year before the con, and busted her knee the Friday before the con started, so she had to strictly ration her work.

I'm not even that good with kids, especially when they are excited and in a group. Luckily, I had some excellent staffers, who did most of the work with keeping the kids happy, while I did most of the behind-the-scenes jobs. So this report is dedicated to Silja Lampela, Mia-Pia Asomäki, Katherine Catchpole, Marie Engfors, and Therese Norén, my excellent staffers. (Technically Katherine was "only" a volunteer, but as she joined our security briefing, I thought it simplest to just declare her a staffer as well.)

( Pre-con travel and work )

( Wednesday )

( Thursday )

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

( Post-con )

My honorary nephew Alex had posted the meme with an opossum going "Summer lovin', happened so fast; summer lovin', he scream at own ass" over on Facebook. For some reason, I put "Sumer" in there. This was the result.

Naturally based on Summer Nights from Grease.

( Sumer lovin', we did well mesh )

My wife has been a fan of Supernatural for several years now, and has been very excited by the noises of the Wayward Daughters spinoff.

With the strong themes of family, justice, and feminism that I get from her corner of Supernatural fandom, it meshed with Battle Cry of Freedom and also with "There Is Power in a Union" by Billy Bragg (YouTube). I've stolen liberally from both of them.

( Wayward Daughters )

Note 1: Line 3.3 was originally "like our brothers gone before", referring to Sam and Dean. My wife asked me to change it.

Note 2: "There Is Power in a Union" by Billy Bragg is to the tune of "Battle Cry of Freedom", and should not be confused with "There Is Power in a Union" by Joe Hill, which was written in 1913 and to the tune of "There Is Power in the Blood", and which I've also filked as "There Is Power in a Fandom" (yes, I've had the idea to do a filk of Bragg's song for a while now).

While doing my Hugo reading I came upon the scene in Seanan McGuire's An Artificial Night where Toby is suffering from an arboreal mishap. It inspired the following, to the tune of Monty Python's Eric the Half a Bee.

( Toby the (spoiler) )