Mermaids and Filk

WesterCon – as you might have guessed is the West Coast Con which seems to cover a goodly part of the Western US (today Portland, next year Tempe, Denver in 2018). The Con actually dates back to 1948 with its origins in the LA area. It first moved out of California to Seattle in 1959. From reading the history – WesterCon has been held in Portland before (84,90,95, 01).

Besides the kids track (there is always a kid’s track). There are also Mermaids –

who are running classes on how to be a mermaid. I am not sure what magic they are using to revert to their two legged forms.

on land

on land

 

I met them early on, having volunteered to work program participant reg and the Green Room. Where else do you find sea colors and tons of waterproof makeup?

And then there is the phenomenon of Filking. For those of you who are not familiar, just follow the link to Wiki. Think music, song with fantasy, nerd, SciFi themes often parodies on popular music. By best estimate – the name came from a corruption of folk music and stuck. It forms a solid portion of most conventions programming. Alexander James Adam is the Filk Guest of Honor. The lead off performance was PDX Broadsides, a local Portland group (duh) who are both good and extremely funny. They restricted themselves to songs which can be sung when children might be around as it was 1500. Except they did do Nathan Fillion – please take …..  (if you don’t get the reference – Firefly, also starring role in Castle).

 
The Con – (which also includes GearCon which makes for great entertainment and hall costumes. Steampunk for those not familiar what a track at a Science Fiction would have to do with gears….)

I spent a good portion of the day volunteering while she went out to explore Portland with her find of the day being Powell’s Books

keeping alive the tradition

keeping alive the tradition

of floor to practically ceiling books

of floor to practically ceiling books

About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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