Dragon*Con pt. 2 the filk and the furries
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008This is part two of a three-day journal that I kept while trying to make sense of Dragon*Con ‘08
Day 2
Sun., Aug. 31.
Filking. It sounds like a ridiculous and disgusting porno term, but according to Wikipedia, “filk is folk music, usually with a science fiction or fantasy theme. But this definition is not exact. Filkers have been known to write filk songs about a variety of topics, including but not limited to tangentially-related topics such as computers and cats. The other common definition is anthropological (and recursive): Filk is what is sung or performed by the network of people who originally gathered to sing at science fiction/fantasy conventions. Yet another definition focuses on filking as a community of those interested in filk music and who form part of the social network self-identified with filking.”
Of course I am duty bound to look further than Wikipedia’s suspect entries. So when I learned that a filk concert was taking place Sunday night. I hopped on MARTA after dinner. I stopped by Aurora in L5P to grab a coffee first and bumped in to CL staff writer Thomas Wheatley. Thomas said he was at Dragon*Con the night before from about 11:30 p.m. until 3:45 a.m.
“What’s Dragon*Con like at 3:45 in the morning?” I asked. Then I remembered seeing a video the day before. It featured a woman passionately kissing a Storm Trooper under the words “What happens at Dragon*Con stays at Dragon*Con.”
I didn’t pry any further.
