Saturday
The other day we took it easy (once I’d managed to drag myself out of bed and had to admit that I’d had a good night’s sleep and felt refreshed) with a leisurely American breakfast at the diner round the corner. More fried potatoes for me, heaps of meat, bacon and sausages, the whole lot drowned in hollandaise sauce – after all, it had to last until the evening – accompanied by a fantastic vanilla iced coffee. Things didn’t look so good for Silva and Kjenjo: anyone who values healthy eating, let alone vegetarians, is out of luck in an American diner favoured by truck drivers. And as the two of them had already been in the country for a few days, the novelty of the foreign fare had long since worn off for them and given way to an annoying feeling of constantly putting on weight (I haven’t dared step on a scales since my return, but there were still plenty of American breakfasts in store for me!). Our waitress was Donna, and to me she looked as if she’d stepped straight out of a TV series, so artificial was her permanent smile and the sweet tone with which she addressed each of us as ‘Darling’ – I felt sorry for her. I wouldn’t want to have to share her working conditions. But perhaps I’m doing her an injustice, and she’s simply like that without anyone forcing her to be? Be that as it may, by the time we left the diner, I’d been called ‘Darling’ often enough to last me ten days without Peredar.
Back at the hotel, we barricaded ourselves in our room to rehearse – just a run-through, nothing serious, everything went to plan – and I showed Silva and Kjenjo the note I’d found in my guitar case: A statement from the US Department of Homeland Security explaining that the guitar had been searched on the basis of a blanket suspicion of terrorism. Oh yes, and if I’d locked the case, they would have been forced to break it open, and no, they can’t be held liable for that, but on their website I can find information on how to pack my luggage correctly for my next flight, thank you very much… Just one small instance of harassment among many. My mandola had to travel, padded with vast quantities of laundry (roughly three times as much as I could possibly need for a ten-day holiday), inside a hard-shell case, because I was only allowed to take two larger pieces of luggage and the mandola could not, as originally planned, be carried in my hand luggage. Suspected terrorism: the instrument has steel strings that could be misused as garrotes to kill the pilot and take control of the plane… Oh yes, we would be singing ‘Paranoia’ that evening. And we probably knew why. All in all, it’s astonishing that they let us into their country so readily after all, without even asking exactly how many of our CDs we were planning to smuggle across the border – but who cares about smuggling when it comes to the fight against terror?
Unfortunately, we missed one or two concerts during the rehearsal, and I didn’t catch much of the workshops either – at this con, everything seemed to be happening at the same time; I would have had to split myself in several to see everything whilst still getting some sleep and food! – but there were a few things we simply couldn’t miss, including Sassafrass and Dr Seti.
I’ve mentioned the latter before: the friendly host who’d sent Silva and Kjenjo into the heart of the Pennsylvania woods the day before had now arrived himself. He’s a professor of astronomy, a former NASA scientist and co-founder of the Seti@Home project. And that’s what his songs were all about: stars, aliens, Seti. Some of it still sticks in my head as an earworm, but that’s not a bad thing: on his website, the Good Doctor has all the lyrics with sheet music for singing along, and in some cases MP3s too. Highly recommended, especially for people who like to combine filk with education, and you can tell that this man really knows what he’s singing about. Luckily, he doesn’t sing directions!
With Sassafrass, on the other hand, it’s a bit harder to follow the lyrics: when different groups sing a cappella against each other, you’re far too busy marvelling and enjoying it – I, at least, only realised afterwards that I’d barely understood a word, and if I did, it was thanks to Judi’s sign language, which accompanied one voice with one hand and the counterpoint with the other. A cappella, then—at first glance, that doesn’t sound all that spectacular; after all, we’re all familiar with the NMC and have our own annual filk choir. But Sassafrass is somehow in a league of its own. It’s a group of what feels like forty young women (the number varies between their two CDs and their website), five of whom were at Confluence. They’ve been singing together since their college days, and you can really tell they all have an academic background—I enjoyed talking with them just as much as I enjoyed their music, and since (at least) two of them are librarians like me, we had no shortage of things to talk about. I sincerely hope they make it to Germany one day, and I’d be more than happy to put up the whole group (all 180 of them, if need be) in my apartment. On top of that, we also share an interest in Norse mythology, with a focus on Loki, and we’re role-players—Sassafrass, whom I’d never heard of before, were the absolute highlight of this con for me, and are a reason to fly back to the U.S. at the next opportunity (well, one reason among many…).
Our concert took place in the evening, during prime time and on the best stage—that’s one of the perks of being a Featured Filk Guest. There are three types of guests of honor at Confluence: Joe Haldeman was Guest of Honor, Kathryn Cramer was P. Schuyler Miller Critic Guest, and we were the Featured Filk. The panels, performances, or concerts by these guests of honor always take place on the main stage, and without any other program items happening at the same time—so we had the honor of having a lot of non-filkers in the audience as well. To my shame, I must admit that we unfortunately missed the other two guests of honor due to our preparations; at least I was able to chat a bit with science fiction author Kathryn Cramer afterward, but I never got to see Joe Haldeman.
To give our audience something visually appealing as well, I used the ironing station in our well-equipped hotel room before the performance to spruce up our costumes—tasteful robes in shades of red and purple—and the guitars were polished to a high shine, and then we headed down for the soundcheck. While we were there, we got to see the second half of the play: A regular feature of Confluence is that the Pittsburgh SF community puts on a play. It was titled “So long, Doctor Sarcophagus,” and Randy Hoffman cut an exceptionally fine figure in the title role as an alien TV host—when I told him afterward that he had reminded me of Peter Lorre in “Arsenic and Old Lace,” he was visibly flattered, and it turned out that we also share a favorite actor. Our concert followed immediately afterward, and it really added to the atmosphere that Randy, during his introduction, was not only still wearing Doctor Sarcophagus’s flowing black cape but also had his third eye on his forehead. And the black-draped stage backdrop with skulls and cobwebs was also perfect for a Lord Landless show.
Yes, and then it was our turn. Kjenjo introduced us, reading from a cheat sheet, in broken English with a heavy accent; after that, we continued in our best English (and were apparently so convincing that Joe Haldeman later referred to us as British in his blog, which I take as a compliment). We were supposed to prepare about an hour and a half of material, give or take—it could even be a bit longer: In the end, we played for a good two and a half hours, and it was fantastic. Not a trace of fear or uncertainty, tiredness or exhaustion: We had a wonderful audience that was really into it, laughed at the right moments, and even sang along, even though we’d always heard that American audiences were supposed to be much less enthusiastic about singing along than German ones. But if you encourage them, they’ll join in on any fun.
In between, we flirted with Pete, the sound engineer, who was constantly cursing at us: constantly rearranging the set, switching instruments, playing musical chairs on stage… In reality, he was clearly having fun, and we did our best to tease each other.
We delivered a sweeping overview of our repertoire: dark, funny, sad, more dark. During instrument changes between songs, I entertained the audience with wordplay and anecdotes, while Kjenjo and especially Silva spiced up the songs themselves with zany pantomimes and theatrical interludes. During “Daffodil the Highwayfairy,” she swung her glockenspiel mallet like a sword; during “Paranoia,” she crawled into a paper bag—with this wealth of comedic talent, it’s almost a shame that she always writes such serious ballads, but they were also important for catching our breath in between: You can’t laugh for two and a half hours straight; otherwise, it stops being funny.
We even included a handful of German-language songs in our setlist: If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right, and if I had a foreign-language guest of honor anywhere, I’d be disappointed if they didn’t have at least a few songs in their native language. Everything was accompanied by Judi Miller’s sign language, including the German lyrics: I had written down rough translations for her beforehand, and Judi’s German is good enough to follow the lyrics and know where she was in the translation. The audience laughed when I suggested that if they had trouble understanding, they should just look at Judi, but I was serious; after all, I already knew from personal experience that it works (it was just a shame that we ourselves could see so little of Judi—only now and then could I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye and enjoy it).
In any case, we were very surprised by how many of the Americans in attendance knew at least a few words of German or had been to Germany before: Despite all the stereotypes about uneducated Americans and the experiences I’d had on a trip to Illinois in 1994 (people showed me a refrigerator and asked if we had such things in Germany, or asked if the talk of reunification was actually true), the average audience at a science fiction convention does, after all, possess a different, significantly higher level of education. And when we sang “Fairy King,” our translation of “Erlkönig,” an enthusiastic murmur rippled through the hall: so many knew who Goethe was and were familiar with the poem itself from high school or college. In the end, we received a standing ovation, which, as we were told afterward, was by no means a given. And we, completely overwhelmed with excitement, dismantled the stage together with the Concom and took down the equipment before heading over to the filk circle for an hour or two.