It Can Now Be Told
Apr. 22nd, 2012 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
persisSo now it can be told. I have been inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame. Tonight, Spencer accepted for me, as I was busy being Dance Performance Chair at NEFFA. Thank you all, it is a great honor, and I am honored, surprised, totally floored, that my filk family/community thinks enough of what I do for Interfilk and the community in general to give me this award. Wow!
I wonder if the following cut-tag will work the way I want it to...
Persis was introduced to filk by being pushed into the deep end. Fortunately, it turned out she could swim pretty well.
I have known Persis since 1974, before she turned 16. It's been a while. In 1994, we'd been out of touch for about 10 years, during which each of us had had expensive, painful learning experiences, but that's two other stories, which I won't tell now.
We met again at the New England Folk Festival in 1994, which by the way is where she is this weekend. There are several more stories for other days, but she has become a department head there and couldn't get away during the festival this year, which is why I'm the one giving this speech.
Back in 1994, couple of months after NEFFA, I was planning a recording trip for my accepted proposal to release an album of Pegasus Winning songs at OVFF 10, also in 1994. I invited Persis to come along, because driving over 7,000 miles alone was pretty daunting to contemplate (gas was cheaper then), but she couldn't come. She'd been working for 9 years at the job she had then, and the company had just been sold by its founder; she felt couldn't get away.
A couple of days before I left, my phone rang. Persis told me she could come on the recording trip. "You lost your job?" I asked. Yes. They figured she'd had too many raises in 9 years, so she was costing too much, but we found out later that it took 5 less-experienced employees to do the work she had been doing alone. Meanwhile, she came on the trip, and I had the benefit of their mistake.
On that trip, she met a lot of filkers well known to people in this room. She also went to her first science fiction convention in Los Angeles. That was the third of four recording trips. The first, without Persis, had been to Atlanta, recording Bill Sutton, driving my Mom's car back from Florida that year. The second, also without Persis, was to nearby Connecticut, recording Duane Elms. The fourth was to Winnipeg, catching the final songs for the album in Pittsburgh on the way home.
When we got back, Persis started going to our monthly M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. meetings, where she was accused of name-dropping when she talked about our recording trips. Tom Smith, Clif Flynt, Bill Roper, Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, T.J. Burnside Clapp, Leslie Fish, Kathy Mar, Bob Laurent, Julia Ecklar, just to mention some of them, and their families, both chosen and by birth. She hadn't a clue; she thought they were all just friends of mine. They were all, after all, REALLY NICE to us. It took Persis a while to get oriented within our community. I'm pretty sure OVFF that year was her third con ever.
She has been franticly busy for the last few weeks, but here are her own words, e-mailed to me yesterday while I was driving here with friends:
I am totally floored, honored, surprised; thank you all, for thinking that what I do is special and worthy of being nominated and inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.
I am so sorry that NEFFA conflicts this year and that I cannot be here with you. I am the International Exhibition Dance Performance Chair, with responsibilities on Saturday and Sunday, that is, today and tomorrow.
It is all Spencer’s fault that I came into the filk family, back in 1994, when Spencer and I took that cross country road trip, 21 songs in 18 days. Clearly I have survived. [I'd say, blossomed, flourished.]
My first convention was WesterCon in 1994, part of that first recording trip. My second convention was ConAdian, where Dave Clement was running filk, and introduced the concept of Instabands, and we recorded the filk track at that WorldCon. At OVFF, I experienced my first Interfilk Auction. Spencer went out of the room, and we ended up with Harry Hemp. I met all kinds of people on those trips who have mostly become part of my extended family. I guess I’ve never stopped going to cons and filking, although I have missed more conventions lately because of my current job.
All I do for my filk family, and Interfilk, is what I do for my own family and local friends; take care of people (and things) and make sure that things that need to be done get done. I guess that includes sitting at the Interfilk table, inventorying and caring for the archive of filk recordings that Spencer made, getting Interfilk's initial 501(C)(3) paperwork completed and filed with the state of California, and feeding my family, both blood and found. I’m just doing what needs to be done.
Thank you all so much.
Let me add a few more words to what she wrote.
We often talk about the filk community when we talk about the Filk Hall of Fame.
We all do things for many different reasons. Some are to accomplish our own goals, or goals related to our immediate families, jobs, and so forth. We do what we think needs to be done. Sometimes we get it right; sometimes not so much. In many cases, we are told what to do.
But we are also connected to people in other ways, such as by a church, our friends and the things we do with them, such as conventions or housefilks, and organizations we are members of: concomms and Interfilk come to mind. Much of the work that makes those things happen is done by volunteers.
Persis volunteers a lot. In addition to the things mentioned in the citation, she has long been involved in the folk/contra/square dance community, and those are just the two largest categories. There is never enough time to get done those things she thinks need to be done.
Doing what needs to be done is what at least some members of every communities and organization does. None of them could exist for long without the service of those who see those tasks as needing to be done. It's a choice; each of us has limited time and effort to distribute. Today we honor those choices that support our community.
I wonder if the following cut-tag will work the way I want it to...
Persis was introduced to filk by being pushed into the deep end. Fortunately, it turned out she could swim pretty well.
I have known Persis since 1974, before she turned 16. It's been a while. In 1994, we'd been out of touch for about 10 years, during which each of us had had expensive, painful learning experiences, but that's two other stories, which I won't tell now.
We met again at the New England Folk Festival in 1994, which by the way is where she is this weekend. There are several more stories for other days, but she has become a department head there and couldn't get away during the festival this year, which is why I'm the one giving this speech.
Back in 1994, couple of months after NEFFA, I was planning a recording trip for my accepted proposal to release an album of Pegasus Winning songs at OVFF 10, also in 1994. I invited Persis to come along, because driving over 7,000 miles alone was pretty daunting to contemplate (gas was cheaper then), but she couldn't come. She'd been working for 9 years at the job she had then, and the company had just been sold by its founder; she felt couldn't get away.
A couple of days before I left, my phone rang. Persis told me she could come on the recording trip. "You lost your job?" I asked. Yes. They figured she'd had too many raises in 9 years, so she was costing too much, but we found out later that it took 5 less-experienced employees to do the work she had been doing alone. Meanwhile, she came on the trip, and I had the benefit of their mistake.
On that trip, she met a lot of filkers well known to people in this room. She also went to her first science fiction convention in Los Angeles. That was the third of four recording trips. The first, without Persis, had been to Atlanta, recording Bill Sutton, driving my Mom's car back from Florida that year. The second, also without Persis, was to nearby Connecticut, recording Duane Elms. The fourth was to Winnipeg, catching the final songs for the album in Pittsburgh on the way home.
When we got back, Persis started going to our monthly M.A.S.S. F.I.L.C. meetings, where she was accused of name-dropping when she talked about our recording trips. Tom Smith, Clif Flynt, Bill Roper, Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, T.J. Burnside Clapp, Leslie Fish, Kathy Mar, Bob Laurent, Julia Ecklar, just to mention some of them, and their families, both chosen and by birth. She hadn't a clue; she thought they were all just friends of mine. They were all, after all, REALLY NICE to us. It took Persis a while to get oriented within our community. I'm pretty sure OVFF that year was her third con ever.
She has been franticly busy for the last few weeks, but here are her own words, e-mailed to me yesterday while I was driving here with friends:
I am totally floored, honored, surprised; thank you all, for thinking that what I do is special and worthy of being nominated and inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.
I am so sorry that NEFFA conflicts this year and that I cannot be here with you. I am the International Exhibition Dance Performance Chair, with responsibilities on Saturday and Sunday, that is, today and tomorrow.
It is all Spencer’s fault that I came into the filk family, back in 1994, when Spencer and I took that cross country road trip, 21 songs in 18 days. Clearly I have survived. [I'd say, blossomed, flourished.]
My first convention was WesterCon in 1994, part of that first recording trip. My second convention was ConAdian, where Dave Clement was running filk, and introduced the concept of Instabands, and we recorded the filk track at that WorldCon. At OVFF, I experienced my first Interfilk Auction. Spencer went out of the room, and we ended up with Harry Hemp. I met all kinds of people on those trips who have mostly become part of my extended family. I guess I’ve never stopped going to cons and filking, although I have missed more conventions lately because of my current job.
All I do for my filk family, and Interfilk, is what I do for my own family and local friends; take care of people (and things) and make sure that things that need to be done get done. I guess that includes sitting at the Interfilk table, inventorying and caring for the archive of filk recordings that Spencer made, getting Interfilk's initial 501(C)(3) paperwork completed and filed with the state of California, and feeding my family, both blood and found. I’m just doing what needs to be done.
Thank you all so much.
Let me add a few more words to what she wrote.
We often talk about the filk community when we talk about the Filk Hall of Fame.
We all do things for many different reasons. Some are to accomplish our own goals, or goals related to our immediate families, jobs, and so forth. We do what we think needs to be done. Sometimes we get it right; sometimes not so much. In many cases, we are told what to do.
But we are also connected to people in other ways, such as by a church, our friends and the things we do with them, such as conventions or housefilks, and organizations we are members of: concomms and Interfilk come to mind. Much of the work that makes those things happen is done by volunteers.
Persis volunteers a lot. In addition to the things mentioned in the citation, she has long been involved in the folk/contra/square dance community, and those are just the two largest categories. There is never enough time to get done those things she thinks need to be done.
Doing what needs to be done is what at least some members of every communities and organization does. None of them could exist for long without the service of those who see those tasks as needing to be done. It's a choice; each of us has limited time and effort to distribute. Today we honor those choices that support our community.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 12:51 pm (UTC)