More water under the bridge

Following up on the discussion of CD-Rs in car CD players, I took Water Under the Bridge with me to Chambanacon and played it on the way over.  My car stereo is the best sound system I own, and I really enjoyed the experience.  Given that I mentioned that Nate's voice is the weakness in the sound of the album in my review, one might think that hearing it on a better sound system would make it worse, but in fact, the opposite was true.  Nate's voice sounds better on the car stereo than on my boom box.  In fact, as I was just letting the first track play while I was driving, I was really struck by how much it sounded like Al Stewart.

Chambanacon

I have made it home from Chambanacon.  I am really tired now and I want to go fall over in bed, so I don't think I'll try to write a complete account of the con, but I do want to mention that it it was a very pleasant time in spite of all the people that weren't there.  My thanks to Mike Brim, Phread, Kim, Lonie (however that's spelled), and all the rest who did the work, and to all the people who helped make it a good weekend with their presence.

I didn't sell any art, but since I'd already realized that very few people would be coming this year, I'd lowered my expectations enough that I'm not too disappointed.  Several people took the time to tell me how good they thought my photographs were.  I can't stop myself from feeling that if they really thought they were that good, they would buy them.

I performed more at this con than I have for a long time, since Juanita, billroper, bedlamhouse, ladyat, tnatj, and I were the only people who did much performing, and not all of them were there all the time.  I did a number of songs that are supposed to be very solid repertoire with somewhat mixed results, and also some things that I haven't played at all in years with somewhat mixed results, but for the most part I wasn't too unhappy with myself.  On both material I thought I was solid on and material that I knew would be rough, I made more mistakes than I wanted to, and was sometimes fumbling for the basic groove of the song, but I always felt like I was doing OK with some mistakes, rather than sinking to the level of crap with occasional accidental glimmers of adequacy.  One high point was that Bill Rintz did a few pieces on the fiddle, and while he's still nowhere near where he was before his stroke, he's definitely getting better.  I also thought that tnatj was in rare form; he sang more songs than usual, and sang well,, and did many fine recitations as well.  The other performers did not exceed my expectations, but since my expectations were that they perform to their usual high standards, they certainly did not disappoint either -- except for the part where nobody had the endurance to filk past two either Friday or Saturday.  I tried to make a running joke about billroper's hope for homeless chords, in relation to the odd stuff that finds its way into almost all of his songs (starting with major seventh chords and quickly wandering off into things I can't name), and in retrospect I think I overdid it; I hope I wasn't being obnoxious about it and I apologize if I was.

I usually don't pay much attention to the guest of honor at a con, but this year was an exception; it was a treat to see Tim Zahn again after so long, and nice to hear that he seems to be solidly set for the next few years as an author, even if he's not getting the wealth and fame he deserves.

Our room was on the 6th floor, which is a little higher up the tower than I wish it was, but since we only had a two-bed room at all thanks to the intervention of the con committee, I wasn't going to complain.  My calves, however, are complaining vociferously about the fact that I actually took the stairs frequently during the weekend (down more often than up, but up several times).