Surprises while cleaning (Merry Winter Solstice)

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

I was cleaning yesterday and found a beautifully addressed envelope with no return address and a Minneapolis postmark dated Jan 20 2005. Enclosed was "Grim's Fairy Cabaret, A Musical Extravaganza Featuring Old Beats in New Meters". I shall share a short excerpt here... (#6 of 7)

Putting' on the Gander
If you're down
Your mind is slack and you're a clown
Why don't you pack and go to town
With a golden goose
Keep your feet,
Don't mind the danger, those you meet
Each passing stranger can't get loose
From the golden goose
You'll cause quite a scene with your procession
Where a princess suffers from depression
Court's in session
Make her laugh, you'll get a ring and roughly half
Of daddy's kingdom for your use--
Tell me who's the goose?

with due respects to "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Irving Berlin
Copywright Author John M. Ford from "The Holiday Missive 2004-5" A Speculative Engineering Production mmv

There are reminders everywhere, which is a good thing. I wish I'd gotten more of those holiday missives, but we were out of touch for years.

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

It was a pleasure to accompany that number, and others (about half the show). Afterwards, I met Mike for the first time. He was kind of busy, so I figured I'd catch up with him later.

I did hear him say that this was the hardest song for him to write, because of the rhyme scheme. I wish we were doing something like that this year.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

So this was performed live where and when???
I kinda figured as much but never asked. Of course he often would burst into song. He didn't have what I'd call a stellar voice, but he made it work.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

February 2005, at Boskone. It was all part of his "Grimm's Cabaret," which was, um, eight or so numbers (I'd look it up, but my daughter is pressing for me to get off the computer so she can continue playing games at the Disney Channel site). Gary McGath accompanied the other half of the numbers.

[damascene.livejournal.com]

Er, actually February 2006, at Boskone 43. I had that holiday card the year before last too, then a note from Mike early this past January (a scant seven weeks before the con, oy) which included:
"...Had an odd thought, which you might mention to Chip, of doing a performance of "Grim's Fairy Cabaret," maybe with one or two new songs. Wouldn't need a chorus, just a few singers, piano if at all possible, and a modest room. Elise was interested in singing if it happens.
"Yes, I know, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (a division of Mongolian Group Dynamics LLC) specializes in asking for large mobilizations of talent on no notice."

So I took that notion along with me to the next-day program team meeting and found myself, surprise, hah, producing another Mike musicale. (The first was Another Part of the Trilogy for Boskone 34 in 1997, at which he was my GoH; then performed again at the 25th WFC in Providence in 1999 but I didn't produce that one.)

For GFC we had the holiday card songs, with some alterations to better fit them to the actual scores, and a couple more that Mike wrote in January. Kip and Gary were accompanists; singers were Tom Courtney, Dave Grubbs, Chip Hitchcock, Ellen Kushner, Suford Lewis, Elise, and Delia Sherman; and Mike, of course, was the MC. It was a mad scramble* but great fun and greatly enjoyed.

*which is why my footnote at the bottom of the back page of the programme credits was, in little teeny type, "Production logistics and Mr. Ford’s travel arrangements by Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, a division of Mongolian Group Dynamics LLC." Of course he noticed.

[crookedfeet.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this-it's a lovely Christmas thing.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, I thought so too.