Melissa Tatum interviewed Brenda Sutton, Teresa Powell, and I when Three Weird Sisters were guests at FENCON back in October of 2008. Here’s our podcast. *bounce* Thanks, Mel!

Forgive me please, those of you who may come upon my website between February 2010 and now. It has indeed been long between updates. There will be a face lift soon for this website — mainly the addition of a blog that is easily updated. But, I would also like to change the color scheme and the focus of the information. I am ready to record a new album. I have so many songs that I have written during the recording of Courting My Muse and since its release. There are just a few things left for me to do on Third Thyme’s The Charm, our upcoming Three Weird Sisters album, and of course the Play It With Moxie live album.

Other recent items of note: Two Pegasus nominations! One is a Best Performer nomination this year for Play It With Moxie, and the other is a Best Magic Song nomination for my song, “Magnus Retail.”

To quote the Pegasus Awards Description Page: The Pegasus Awards were founded by OVFF to recognize and honor excellence in filking.
Any member of the worldwide filk community is eligible to win. Past Nominees have hailed from the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Singapore as well as the United States.

The nomination and ballot procedure is similar to that of the Hugo, except that one does not need to be a paid member of the convention to nominate or vote. Anyone with an interest in Filking or Filk music can place a nomination and/or vote. The results are tabulated, the winners determined, and the award is presented at the Pegasus Awards Banquet on Saturday evening at each OVFF.

And I know I will get to see some of you there, and that makes me all kinds of happy! (Even though Gary McGath tells me it gets cold in Boston during February. Really? *grins* I need to pack carefully. Snow shoes and such.) So here is my tentative schedule. Things always change, so don’t be surprised if this does:

Friday 8pm Filk Circle: Mythology Bring your songs about ancient myths and legends, or just come to listen. Open circle format; anyone can sing!

Saturday 10am Morning Yoga If you have some stretchy clothing, wear it. That works better than loose jeans. If you can get your mat to the convention, please bring it. I don’t think I’ll be able to take mine, but I am going to try.

Saturday 4pm Filk and Education Mary Crowell, Paul Estin, and Mary Ellen Wessels. Can filk music be used as an educational tool? Songs about science can be used as teaching songs, and new lyrics to old tunes can help to teach the craft of writing lyrics. Are there other educational applications of filk? [I think MEW and I should sing every Mary song we know -- just for fun.]

Saturday 8pm Featured Filker Concert (That would be me.) Is the winter weather getting you down? Come in for some hot southern-flavored blues and jazz, about mathematics, elves, magic, and dangerous women

Saturday 9pm Saturday Night Award Presentations
Lois McMaster Bujold
Mary Crowell
Bob Eggleton
Jim Mann
John Picacio
Alastair Reynolds
Tom Shippey
Vernor Vinge
Michael Whelan
Jane Yolen

On Friday there is a Zombie Casino! ‘I’ll bet three brain stems and a cerebellum that you’re not bluffing!’ Afterwards they’ll have the Art Show Reception and a jazz band.

Saturday night, in addition to NESFA’s Award Ceremonies, there will also be a musical production, “Godson” based on a play by Roger Zelazny.
Sweet!

For more current information, please check my Facebook Page I also have a Facebook Fan Page where I update my upcoming performances regularly.

Let’s see I am . . . busy! Yes. As always. But I am very excited about the busy: 1) Play It With Moxie has a working playlist and has mobilized. Fear us. You will dance!

2) GAFilk Songbook entries seem to be mostly all in. Guest entries tend to trickle in a little late, but I have a few of those in as well. Sometimes I allow others in late if there’s room and they beg prettily enough. (You can beg even if you don’t want a songbook entry in. I just like the begging. ;-D Kidding. No really. No REALLY! Believe me please, so I can finally type the close parenthesis.)

3) I have decided to do my utmost not to hibernate in the spring. To that end, I have made prior arrangements to go to a convention or house filk once each month until the end of May. (I need to post I’m going to MARCON. *makes note*) Here they are so far: GAFilk, Boskone, Consonance, Sutton’s rockin’ house filk, MARCON, and there may be one in September and maybe even in July. I’ll just need to look at the family budget a little closer in.

4) Oh, here we go: I’m going to MARCON this year!!!!!!! I was very kindly offered a concert, and I like MARCON, and it’s within driving distance, so there I go on Memorial Day. I want to go back to BALTICON too because that’s made of awesome as well, but that will have to wait until another year. (If we had transporter technology, I could try to transport somewhere . . . and be split into Good Mary and Bad Mary. And they could each attend a different con.)

5) I’m playing a number 4 reed on my clarinet. That’s probably not cool to anyone except me, but it does mean I can play high notes without making listeners get that lemon-juice-in-the-eye expression.

6) I love my theory class and theory students!

7) I’m doing some really fun recordings for Adam Selzer and Jeff Bohnhoff that I need to get back to working on.

To that end . . . good bye for now.

Hah! So now that I have plugged my two Facebook pages, what has been going on? I have not updated this website since May? Well, first of all Balticon was fabulous! It is an awesome, well-run convention with a host of volunteers with super powers. They also happen to be extraordinarily nice people! I had two concerts — one on the main stage where I got to debut several new songs and one kid’s concert with Gary Ehrlich, Decadent Dave Clement, and Robert Cooke. I often teach yoga at science fiction and filk conventions, but not this time. Instead I assisted Melissa L. Tatum with her panel on Identity and authenticity in the filk community. (I performed the examples.) You can find her study published online here in the latest issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009). I also led a workshop on riffs and fills. Best of all, I met several wonderful musicians, writers, and artists and learned quite a bit about the world of podcasting. If you ever have a chance to go to Balticon, I highly recommend it. It is held every Memorial Day weekend in Baltimore, Maryland.

I have two upcoming performances in September. On Monday, September 21st, I will be singing and playing the piano for Literary Tastes, a fundraiser for the Athens-Limestone Public Librar. The music selections will be a mixture of jazz standards and my own material. Then that Thursday, September 24th, I will perform at the Donnell House on the front porch. This music will be more understated and come mostly from the 19th century, as I will be part of the ambiance of this historical home. I’ll be bringing my clarinet too for this one. Important note for the Donnell House: the deadline for obtaining tickets is Monday, September 21st!

I hope to see you at Literary Tastes and the Donnell House: Dinner and Music on the Lawn!

And here is another piece of news: I have been nominated for a Pegasus Award in the category, Best Writer/Composer! The Pegasus awards are intended to recognize and honor excellence in filking. They are awarded every year at Ohio Valley Filk Festival which is held every year near the end of October. This is the 25th year, OVFF has been held, so they are celebrating by inviting back several previous guests of honor! It will be held an extra day this year just to accomodate all the extra fabulous performances we will get to enjoy.

How can it already be May? I think I must have hibernated through spring. BALTICON is coming up extraordinarily quickly, and I am very excited! So far I will be doing a Guest of Honor concert on Saturday and be in a children’s concert on Sunday with “Gorgeous” Gary Ehrlich and “Decadent” Dave Clement. I’m on a panel, “Pushing the Boundaries of Filk,” doing a workshop on fills and riffs, and ‘hosting’ a theme filk on myths and legends. I hope to see you at BALTICON. Mary is going to Maryland!

I have joined FACEBOOK, because apparently I did not have enough online pages and communities to keep up with. You may find me there as Mary Carolyn Phillips Crowell. I am selling COURTING MY MUSE through CDBaby.com as well as Amazon. If you live near the Athens, AL area you can purchase it at Pablos on Market in downtown Athens, AL. Several filk dealers sell COURTING MY MUSE at the conventions they attend. And if I am performing at a general science fiction convention I get copies of my CD to one of the dealers there or sell it myself. Feel free to contact me via MYSPACE or FACEBOOK about COURTING MY MUSE if you’d like!

I always have to pause and take stock before writing up a January report because January is all about GAFilk. And how do I do GAFilk justice? It was my first ever filk convention, and therefore the venue I met several of my best friends and found family. Filk allowed me to try my wings as a composer, performer, and writer.

This GAFilk featured Barry and Sally Childs-Helton as Guests of Honor. Both of them are extraordinary musicians and wonderful people. Harry Feld was our toastmaster. And Larry Kirby was our toastmaster and a very funny man. I had a lot of fun checking out his parodies in the GAFilk 2009 Songbook. Speaking of the GAFilk Songbook, I am editor and primary music transcriptionist, and I am already taking submissions for the 2010 GAFilk Songbook. Here is our guidelines page.

Will Shetterly and Emma Bull were invited as Super Secret Guests, but Will was not able to make it. But (SQUEE!), I finally got to meet Emma Bull in person! I loved reading her novel War For the Oaks, and I’ll have to check out Bone Dance. Emma gave us a great concert on Saturday and was a lot of fun to play along with during the late night filk circles! She is mentioned here in surrdave’s livejournal in more detail.

This year at GAFilk’s Saturday night banquet, Play It With Moxie played several numbers by Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Crosstime Bus” by Bill Roper, an assortment of jazz standards, and many other fun things including, yes, the Cantina Band song from Star Wars! Check out our new FACEBOOK Page and become a fan! I got to play my clarinet, “Silver” on a couple of things which was a whole lot of fun. You can check out some of the pictures from the banquet at GAFilk on my flickr page.

December 9th I played for the December meeting of our local Delta Kappa Gamma chapter. We all brought food (I brought my foccacia bread. See I fed others this time!), and talked about what it means to be a teacher, potential budget cuts in education, and Christmas. I have really enjoyed getting to meet other teachers in different disciplines through Delta Kappa Gamma.

Also, on December 13th I played again at the Donnell House — this time for their Boston Tea Party. Again the food was excellent! I mention this because you can actually reserve the Donnell House for various events and they will give you a list of caterers, photographers (and musicians — hint hint!) I was in the foyer with the immense Christmas tree this time. Among other numbers, I performed several Vince Guaraldi arrangements I had from A Charlie Brown Christmas. I think I bought my copy back when I taught piano at Andy’s Music in Mobile, Alabama.

And right before Christmas, our jazz band, Play It With Moxie rehearsed at my house. We have a myspace page thanks to Teresa (vocals and bass) and now a facebook page thanks to Brian, our drummer. Dave Rood (trumpet, vocals) does most of the arrangements for the horn section and he knocked it out of the park this year on several Squirrel Nut Zippers numbers. George (bass, vocals, tenor sax) has decided that he, Dave, and Andrew (vocals, alto sax) shall be henceforth known as ‘The Top-Shelf Horns’ as in “Play It With Moxie, featuring the Top-Shelf Horns.” I approve. Carly (guitar, vocals), debuted her new song “This Is Me” for us, and it was added to our playlist. (She blew people away with it when we performed in January too!) We didn’t have our Jodi Krangle for this rehearsal because it is quite expensive to fly down from Canada to Alabama. We missed her tremendously. Our friend, Amy, got some great pictures of the band rehearsal you can check out here. Thank you so much, Amy!

Everybody starts taking their Christmas shopping and decorating very seriously in November. It’s a fun time for me because I get to pull out my collection of Christmas jazz arrangements for the piano. My favorite new one this year was A Thrill of Hope: Carol Settings for Jazz Piano arranged by Matt Hyzer (Hal Leonard Publishers.) While the link I’ve included is to its Amazon entry, I actually found and bought this gem of a book at Emiron Music in Decatur, Alabama. The arrangments in Hyzer’s book are advanced, sophisticated, with several key changes in most songs. They also have a heavy gospel influence. Do go check it out next year if you want a really good juicy challenging (and other adjectives as well) set of Christmas songs to play!

In November I played again at the Donnell House for their Festival of Trees Preview Party Each room of the Donnell House was decorated in a different theme. One was clocks (several different types of clocks displayed,) and I played in the ‘camera room’ which featured a table-top history of photography and equipment. The food was extraordinarily good! They feed their guests (and their pianists) well. I also played inside Pablo’s On Marketon November 23rd (It was too cold to play outside.) as part of the Spirit of Athens Holiday Open House. Everyone was cheerful and busily shopping for Christmas, and the latte afterward was delicious!

October was extraordinarily busy! For me it began with FENCON in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Three Weird Sisters were the music guests of honor and we played two concerts – one on Friday night and one on Saturday night. Then we participated in the Saturday night caberet with Bill Sutton (picture by Gerald Burton, fan guest of honor.) We followed the belly dancers. No, we personally didn’t belly dance, but if you want to see the belly dancers you may go here. It was during this caberet that I debuted my song about a certain kind of underwear. It sounds like I’m lisping, but I’m not. Joyeuse13 recorded the performance on a handheld video recorder, and the room was loud! I decided as I was flying home from FENCON that I had better write some more songs, because I do not want this one to be the last song I am ever known for. *grins*

Also, Teresa Powell and I performed on Sunday as our duo, Birds of a Feather. There was some lovely participation from the audience, and we debuted Teresa’s song “Home is Where the Heart Is.” We also caught a performance by a duo called Ghost of a Rose. Here they are performing “Song of Awen.”

Joyeuse13 (pictured here as Jessica Rabbit, photography by Neil Cajuin Dronet) also caught some of our Three Weird Sisters’ concert. This is a snippet of Brenda Sutton’s song, “These Two” which will be appearing on our album, Third Thyme’s The Charm. Anyway, the concom runs an amazing and well-organized convention at FENCON, and I definitely want to return. Next year’s musical guest is Carla Ulbrich, a wickedly funny comedienne and excellent musician.

Let us continue with this most eventful October. As of October 16, 2008 I am a member of Art On The Square in Athens, AL. I had a great time playing for their membership drive! They fed me well, and were a delightful bunch to play for. (Have you noticed I always mention the food? Once a starving college student always a starving college student.) The drive was held at Athens Gyro, which is on Market Street beside the railroad tracks in downtown Athens, AL. They have excellent gyros and salads there!

October 19th I was privileged to play in a couple of piano ensembles with the Decatur Music Club in Decatur, AL. It was challenging, a tremendous amount of fun, and quite unlike anything I have ever done. I am used to playing my own solo material on my own time or performing with small ensembles of mixed instruments in which we work mostly from leadsheets. Even band performances do not feel like a piano ensemble, perhaps because there is a conductor. Anyway, it was delightful to participate in and hear the other ensembles. Some very young pianists turned in excellent performances!

Finally, we have OVFF which I consider to be my second “Home filk convention.” (GAFilk is my first.) Last year at OVFF, I tied with Seanan McGuire for Best Performer. It was lovely to come to OVFF this year and just relax. Does that mean I had nothing to do? Oh, no. Friday night, for the Pegasus Concert I performed Chris Conway’s “Alien Salad Abduction” (Best Comedy Nominee,) Mich Sampson’s “The Hunter” (Best Tragedy Song Nominee,) and then Three Weird Sisters performed “Like Their Feet Have Wings” (Best Song Nominee) by our emeritus member, Gwen Knighton. Saturday was fun too because we do our own version of Whose Line Is It Anyway, and I am (you guessed it!) the pianist. I transcribed the “Hoedown” before so we could finish the session with it. Lot’s of fun with friends and music!