Ad Astra
Ad Astra, Toronto's science fiction convention, has always been a very significant con for me. It was the very first convention I attended back in 1985. It was the convention where I first discovered filk music. Urban Tapestry was invited to the con in 2001 as the Fan Guest of Honour. And, at present, I am preparing the filk programming for the 2003 con, the first time I have ever prepared a filk track for a convention.
I first learned about Ad Astra back in 1985 through a flyer I found at Bakka, Toronto's sf bookstore. I was familiar with sf conventions through books and magasines, but I had never attended one before. Being that I was fairly new to the Toronto area I decided I should satisfy my curiosity and go to attend the convention for an afternoon. My main goal for the day was to go and buy Star Trek fanzines and tapes of this new music I had read about called "filk".
I went to the convention on my own and spent Saturday afternoon wandering through the displays, sitting in the video room watching "The Point", and exploring the things to buy in the Dealer's Room. Didn't find any ST fanzines, but I did find someone selling filktapes. I got talking to him and though he sold me a filktape (Julia Ecklar's "A Wolfrider's Reflections") he assured me the best way to experience filk was to attend a live filk circle and that there would be one happening later that night.
Well, I hadn't expected to stay around until evening, but I was intrigued by the idea of a "filk circle", so sorting out my time I figured I could attend this circle for an hour before catching the buses I needed to get home. I found the room and sat down quietly in the circle. A woman with long dark hair and a magnificent multi-coloured velvet cloak swept into the room with her guitar and sat down and began singing wonderful songs that combined the folky sound of the guitar with lyrics about fantasy and space flight that just spoke to every instinct I had ever had. It was magic, it was love, it was exotic and familiar all at once. It was a music I had never heard before, but it was as if I had always known it. The woman was Christie Baillie, now DeSousa, who was very involved in Toronto filk at that time. The songs she was singing were from a filktape called "The Horsetamer's Daughter". Many other people in the room knew the songs and sang along with her. The faces of people who would soon be good friends, Pat Cooke, Juanne Michaud, Teri Neal, Steve Horvath, still stay clearly with me from that night when I first met them. The music went on and I didn't want to leave and before I knew it four hours had gone by leaving me with an interesting dilemma. All the buses for the night were stopped and I couldn't get home. What was I going to do? I assumed I would probably wander the halls for the night waiting for the morning buses, but just as she was leaving the room Pat Cooke asked me where I was spending the night. Hearing my story, she offered me a place on her hotel room floor (there were 3-4 people staying in the room) and company for breakfast the next morning. I accepted.
Looking back it's astonishing to me that I accepted Pat's offer and even more astonishing to me that she'd make such a generous offer to a stranger in the first place. I woke up struck by how surreal the situation was to me, I'd never done such things before. I'd gone to Ad Astra to buy fanzines and filktapes and go home, but events turned out quite different. I joined Pat and Steve and a few of their friends for breakfast and by the time I got onto the bus for home I already had a flyer in my hand for the next filk event happening at Christie Baillie's house on Lake Ontario a few weeks later.
Without hyperbole I can say that that trip to Ad Astra was an outing that changed my life forever. That first filk circle is still a very powerful memory and Ad Astra became a con that I've been very fond of ever since.
More adventures at other Ad Astra cons tomorrow.
Exercise log: I did 45 minutes of weights by candle-light on Tuesday (we were having a black-out and it was one of the things I could do with no power :)). Did 20 minutes of weights yesterday and then ran out of energy- the freezing rain also kept me from walking. Did 50 minutes of winter walking this afternoon. Four days until the start of the Idita-Walk challenge.
I first learned about Ad Astra back in 1985 through a flyer I found at Bakka, Toronto's sf bookstore. I was familiar with sf conventions through books and magasines, but I had never attended one before. Being that I was fairly new to the Toronto area I decided I should satisfy my curiosity and go to attend the convention for an afternoon. My main goal for the day was to go and buy Star Trek fanzines and tapes of this new music I had read about called "filk".
I went to the convention on my own and spent Saturday afternoon wandering through the displays, sitting in the video room watching "The Point", and exploring the things to buy in the Dealer's Room. Didn't find any ST fanzines, but I did find someone selling filktapes. I got talking to him and though he sold me a filktape (Julia Ecklar's "A Wolfrider's Reflections") he assured me the best way to experience filk was to attend a live filk circle and that there would be one happening later that night.
Well, I hadn't expected to stay around until evening, but I was intrigued by the idea of a "filk circle", so sorting out my time I figured I could attend this circle for an hour before catching the buses I needed to get home. I found the room and sat down quietly in the circle. A woman with long dark hair and a magnificent multi-coloured velvet cloak swept into the room with her guitar and sat down and began singing wonderful songs that combined the folky sound of the guitar with lyrics about fantasy and space flight that just spoke to every instinct I had ever had. It was magic, it was love, it was exotic and familiar all at once. It was a music I had never heard before, but it was as if I had always known it. The woman was Christie Baillie, now DeSousa, who was very involved in Toronto filk at that time. The songs she was singing were from a filktape called "The Horsetamer's Daughter". Many other people in the room knew the songs and sang along with her. The faces of people who would soon be good friends, Pat Cooke, Juanne Michaud, Teri Neal, Steve Horvath, still stay clearly with me from that night when I first met them. The music went on and I didn't want to leave and before I knew it four hours had gone by leaving me with an interesting dilemma. All the buses for the night were stopped and I couldn't get home. What was I going to do? I assumed I would probably wander the halls for the night waiting for the morning buses, but just as she was leaving the room Pat Cooke asked me where I was spending the night. Hearing my story, she offered me a place on her hotel room floor (there were 3-4 people staying in the room) and company for breakfast the next morning. I accepted.
Looking back it's astonishing to me that I accepted Pat's offer and even more astonishing to me that she'd make such a generous offer to a stranger in the first place. I woke up struck by how surreal the situation was to me, I'd never done such things before. I'd gone to Ad Astra to buy fanzines and filktapes and go home, but events turned out quite different. I joined Pat and Steve and a few of their friends for breakfast and by the time I got onto the bus for home I already had a flyer in my hand for the next filk event happening at Christie Baillie's house on Lake Ontario a few weeks later.
Without hyperbole I can say that that trip to Ad Astra was an outing that changed my life forever. That first filk circle is still a very powerful memory and Ad Astra became a con that I've been very fond of ever since.
More adventures at other Ad Astra cons tomorrow.
Exercise log: I did 45 minutes of weights by candle-light on Tuesday (we were having a black-out and it was one of the things I could do with no power :)). Did 20 minutes of weights yesterday and then ran out of energy- the freezing rain also kept me from walking. Did 50 minutes of winter walking this afternoon. Four days until the start of the Idita-Walk challenge.