A File of Memories
It's astonishing what you come around when you're packing to move. You end up unearthing things you often haven't seen in several years. When we were cleaning out the garage before Christmas, anticipating a move, I came across all kinds of old photos and letters and convention flyers and ticket stubs, etc.. Many of them stopped me in my tracks, I had to relive the memories they brought back to me.
Today I was cleaning off a couple of shelves of music books and I came across a file folder of letters that struck me the same way. I ended up sitting at my desk reading through the saved letters in the file amazed at the events and correspondences they all brought back to me.
Among the items in this file folder I found:
1. A self-edited book of poetry by Rand Bellavia. The cover and one of the poems inside were done by Adam English (Haydn Seek, which eventually became an Ookla song) and there are little explanatory notes written throughout the book by Rand. There also a letter of liner notes for a tape Rand must have sent me at the same time. Sadly, there's no date on it, but it must have been really early after I met Rand.
2. Several letters of correspondence (including photocopies of my replies) with Pat Cooke , who you may recall from an earlier entry was the woman who let me crash on her floor at my first Ad Astra. They are all dated 1986 and they almost all discuss early filk parties/cons we went to in those days, plus a running commentary on the earliest filk music I bought or was given in those days. Fascinating to read my impressions as a very new filker. I ended most paragraphs about filk cons by saying, "Maybe I'll work up the nerve to take my guitar this time!" :).
3. Two responses from Paramount Pictures when I wrote to complain that they had taken Gates McFadden out of the second season of "The Next Generation" :). There's also a letter signed by Gates McFadden thanking me for sending her a letter and photo of our Star Trek club at that time. It's a form letter with a hand-written signature and a written message that reads "The photo was great! Thanks for the support.". OK, so I have no idea if Gates McFadden actually wrote that message, but I'd like to think she did :). Those letters were dated 1988.
3. There's three Skydome tickets for a showing of the last episode of TNG- Wed. May 25, 1994. The tickets are untorn and I'm pretty sure John and I didn't go to that show.
4. A handful of letters exchanged with people at "Off-Centaur Publications", one of the first filk studios. I had sent them a tape of my early Elfquest songs and they sent me back some critique and some compliments on my songwriting and my voice. As they were working on a second EQ project at the time they asked me to send them more songs. I was pretty happy about that. They also sent me an EQ lyric and asked me to set it to music, but I've long forgotten what that song was. The letters are all dated 1986.
5. There's a photocopy of a newspaper article talking about a lecture done in town by Harlan Ellison that I attended with a friend. No date on the article, but it would have been late 80's. I still read the article with chagrin because Ellison stopped his lecture in the middle to single me out of a crowd of 500 people and chastise me for chewing gum (I -rarely- chew gum, but the friend had given it to me just before the lecture). I was even -more- bemused to pick up the Toronto Star the next day to read this quote in the reporter's review: "Occasionally, he stopped to offer a good natured reprimand ('What a great head of red hair you have, but get rid of the chewing gum')". Great head of red hair, chewing gum, um, that would be me. Well, it means I've had my own story to tell in sf circles ever since when the conversation turns to the notorious Mr. Ellison.
6. Half a letter from a woman whose name I've forgotten (no second page or signature) that really moved me at the time. She had written an original story set in the ElfQuest universe that I liked well enough that it inspired me to write a song. I had sent her a tape of the song and the lyrics. The first sentence says," I don't know how to tell you how deeply your letter and filk tape touched and thrilled me. (Sorta confused my husband, Al, though, when he came home from work last Friday to find a strange filk tape in the boom box and a weeping wife sitting on the living room floor.) I -love- the song about Verrin. Thank you so much.". Her letter made my day.
7. The last letters in the file are a correspondence I had with Julia Ecklar back in 1986. Now, back in 1986, when I got this first letter, Julia Ecklar was my -filk idol-. Not only had she heard my songs (by fluke, I'd sent them to a friend I knew through ElfQuest fandom and she played the tape for Julia), but she was singing them and she was interested in recording them. I was thrilled beyond belief by the correspondence. The new ElfQuest tape never materialized, but Julia did eventually sing one of my songs, "Desert and Forest", on a live convention tape. It was the first filk tape credit I ever had and I'm still proud of it.
Debbie was talking in her journal the other day about the textile connection paper letters give us to the past and I was so aware of that as I went through this file tonight. I'm glad I still have these letters. I know, due to the archivist spark in my blood, that I have other little caches of letters and souvenirs squirreled away that I've kept from as early as childhood. No doubt some of them will re-surface as I continue to pack. I hope so.
Exercise log: 50 minutes of winter walking yesterday, but I was lazy today... (well, if you call packing lazy). Idita-walk challenge begins tomorrow!
Today I was cleaning off a couple of shelves of music books and I came across a file folder of letters that struck me the same way. I ended up sitting at my desk reading through the saved letters in the file amazed at the events and correspondences they all brought back to me.
Among the items in this file folder I found:
1. A self-edited book of poetry by Rand Bellavia. The cover and one of the poems inside were done by Adam English (Haydn Seek, which eventually became an Ookla song) and there are little explanatory notes written throughout the book by Rand. There also a letter of liner notes for a tape Rand must have sent me at the same time. Sadly, there's no date on it, but it must have been really early after I met Rand.
2. Several letters of correspondence (including photocopies of my replies) with Pat Cooke , who you may recall from an earlier entry was the woman who let me crash on her floor at my first Ad Astra. They are all dated 1986 and they almost all discuss early filk parties/cons we went to in those days, plus a running commentary on the earliest filk music I bought or was given in those days. Fascinating to read my impressions as a very new filker. I ended most paragraphs about filk cons by saying, "Maybe I'll work up the nerve to take my guitar this time!" :).
3. Two responses from Paramount Pictures when I wrote to complain that they had taken Gates McFadden out of the second season of "The Next Generation" :). There's also a letter signed by Gates McFadden thanking me for sending her a letter and photo of our Star Trek club at that time. It's a form letter with a hand-written signature and a written message that reads "The photo was great! Thanks for the support.". OK, so I have no idea if Gates McFadden actually wrote that message, but I'd like to think she did :). Those letters were dated 1988.
3. There's three Skydome tickets for a showing of the last episode of TNG- Wed. May 25, 1994. The tickets are untorn and I'm pretty sure John and I didn't go to that show.
4. A handful of letters exchanged with people at "Off-Centaur Publications", one of the first filk studios. I had sent them a tape of my early Elfquest songs and they sent me back some critique and some compliments on my songwriting and my voice. As they were working on a second EQ project at the time they asked me to send them more songs. I was pretty happy about that. They also sent me an EQ lyric and asked me to set it to music, but I've long forgotten what that song was. The letters are all dated 1986.
5. There's a photocopy of a newspaper article talking about a lecture done in town by Harlan Ellison that I attended with a friend. No date on the article, but it would have been late 80's. I still read the article with chagrin because Ellison stopped his lecture in the middle to single me out of a crowd of 500 people and chastise me for chewing gum (I -rarely- chew gum, but the friend had given it to me just before the lecture). I was even -more- bemused to pick up the Toronto Star the next day to read this quote in the reporter's review: "Occasionally, he stopped to offer a good natured reprimand ('What a great head of red hair you have, but get rid of the chewing gum')". Great head of red hair, chewing gum, um, that would be me. Well, it means I've had my own story to tell in sf circles ever since when the conversation turns to the notorious Mr. Ellison.
6. Half a letter from a woman whose name I've forgotten (no second page or signature) that really moved me at the time. She had written an original story set in the ElfQuest universe that I liked well enough that it inspired me to write a song. I had sent her a tape of the song and the lyrics. The first sentence says," I don't know how to tell you how deeply your letter and filk tape touched and thrilled me. (Sorta confused my husband, Al, though, when he came home from work last Friday to find a strange filk tape in the boom box and a weeping wife sitting on the living room floor.) I -love- the song about Verrin. Thank you so much.". Her letter made my day.
7. The last letters in the file are a correspondence I had with Julia Ecklar back in 1986. Now, back in 1986, when I got this first letter, Julia Ecklar was my -filk idol-. Not only had she heard my songs (by fluke, I'd sent them to a friend I knew through ElfQuest fandom and she played the tape for Julia), but she was singing them and she was interested in recording them. I was thrilled beyond belief by the correspondence. The new ElfQuest tape never materialized, but Julia did eventually sing one of my songs, "Desert and Forest", on a live convention tape. It was the first filk tape credit I ever had and I'm still proud of it.
Debbie was talking in her journal the other day about the textile connection paper letters give us to the past and I was so aware of that as I went through this file tonight. I'm glad I still have these letters. I know, due to the archivist spark in my blood, that I have other little caches of letters and souvenirs squirreled away that I've kept from as early as childhood. No doubt some of them will re-surface as I continue to pack. I hope so.
Exercise log: 50 minutes of winter walking yesterday, but I was lazy today... (well, if you call packing lazy). Idita-walk challenge begins tomorrow!