Brenda Sutton, of the filk group "Three Weird Sisters," wrote a song called "Mama's Hands." It's a pretty song about a woman who realizes that as she grows up, she starts to sound a lot like her mother--and maybe her mom was wiser than she thought as a teenager.

I was thinking one day about whether that song could be gender-swapped...and realized that it could, and what it would be. This came out.

I just now performed it on the main stage at OVFF, with Brenda and her husband Bill in the audience. They (along with most of the room) were in stitches.

“Father’s Words”
by Will “scifantasy” Frank
ttto: “Mama’s Hands” by Brenda Sutton

( Today while commuting some moron cut me off... )

I came up with this a few weeks ago, and demonstrated it at yesterday's Jersey City housefilk...

I have developed what can only be described as the Neutron Bomb of Filk: it gets rid of all the people but leaves the building standing.

I would ask for forgiveness, but Leslie Fish is on record never forgiving, and Richard O'Brien probably doesn't care.

( And if you know who both of those are, you'll get the joke... )

I didn't spend all that much time at Arisia with shadesong this year; she was busy, I was busy, and that's the way things go. I'm given to understand that she continued the spread of the Gospel of the Y.T., though.

In one of the few times I did see her, Sunday or Monday, this popped into my head. I came up with the first verse, and she asked me (and slipjig, but I don't know if he did) to run with it.

This is dedicated to everybody who has to ask, "is there gluten in this?"

"Celiac"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Cecilia" by Simon and Garfunkel

( Celiac... )

mina_de_malfois has posted the end to her stories, and so with it comes the finale of Case's.

Which isn't to say that I'll never return; Mina has left the possibility of side stories or alternate-universes open, and so shall I. But for the foreseeable future, we leave our observation of the fictional Case here.

I've been writing Case, off and on, since August 2007. A lot's changed for me in those two years. Maybe, if Mina writes that detective alternate-universe story she suggested was a possibility, maybe I'll do a Case-as-lawyer story to match...

But in the meantime, enjoy the finale. And remember what Case said--everything is circular.

( Case Study, Part 15 )

...a new filk. This one came to me recently.

Quick backstory: in the last few years, the waning economy has caused some upheaval in the anime licensing and distribution industry, especially here in the US. A year or two back, Geneon Entertainment shut down its US operations entirely. They're still a major force in Japan, mind. Then, last month or so, A.D. Vision Entertainment, one of the first and biggest US operations for importing, licensing, and distributing anime, sold its assets to five other companies in a complicated deal that sounded like a switcheroo on its creditors (since the five buying companies were ones in which ADV's owners had stakes).

Most of the anime properties licensed by those two companies have seen their licenses bought by another company, Funimation Entertainment. If anybody can be said to be the big winner here, it's Funimation.

Hence, the song. "NGE," for the record, refers to the infamous anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was one of ADV's first and biggest titles...but whose "rebuild" series has been licensed by, who else, Funimation.

"ADV (Now Funimation)"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by Nat Simon (original words by Jimmy Kennedy)

( NGE is now Funimation's... )

In the coming days, expect more actual content (behind the normal friends lock, of course), including an expansion of something I said on Twitter:

"Perfect 10 Magazine is the zombie mine canary of copyright law. When it comes alive (files suit--it's sued Google and Visa), the law is bad."

At long last, my companion piece to mina_de_malfois story 3.11, "...and the Class War." With this, I'm back up to date with Mina (since I only post to full stories, not parts such as "End of Summer" part 1). Which is good.

This one, I have to admit, is weak. I couldn't figure out exactly what to do with the May 1 story. Finally, I fell back on an old trope--"Case weighs in." I also threw in a bit of what was happening to other characters, as best I could. (It doesn't help that right now, I'm in the middle of a job search...)

I have to be honest...right now, pleasure writing is not exactly high on my priorities.

But anyway. Maybe by the time 3.12 finishes, some creative juices will be flowing again.

( Case Study, Part 14 )

I almost feel too embarrassed to post this. (Almost) It's literally been over four months since the corresponding mina_de_malfois story went live. All I can say is, the end of April wasn't a great time for me for obvious reasons, and then I was caught up in other things. But with Mina returning this week, it's only appropriate I try to play catch-up.

So, this story and one more are due (this one corresponding to 3.10, and the next to 3.11), and then I'll try to get something going for when Mina finishes 3.12.

Amusingly, the first line of this was the same one I'd thought up back when I first read 3.10, freshly thought up this time around.

( Case Study, Part 13 )

I didn't post my first two legal filks, because they're frankly not very good, and were written more specifically for the NYU Law Revue, and didn't get used anyway.

But this one was written for me and the filkers. I realized last night that I didn't have anything recent for the housefilk today--and that the most recent thing I had, three months old, didn't work well for me to sing. So I dusted off an idea I'd been thinking about, started trying to write it...and it flowed very easily indeed.

"Sixteen Hours"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Sixteen Tons" by Merle Travis (or George S. Davis)

( Some people say a lawyer is a dirty snake... )

This went over pretty well at the housefilk, I must say.

So, my friend Seanan McGuire has a song called "Pretty Little Dead Girl." It's an urban-legend tale about a '40s-era car-racing ghost, available on her album "Stars Fall Home."

Seanan is also a huge Doctor Who fan.

So, some time ago, when I misheard "It's the tale of Rose Marshall" as "it's the tale of Rose Tyler," I started planning this.

I tried performing this one at Baycon 2009, but it really needs production value, or at least an accompanist. Maybe if I had a karaoke version of the original...but in the meantime.

(I gave Seanan a copy of the lyrics at the con. She read a stanza before telling me she was going to kill me.)

"Time-Traveling Blonde Girl"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Pretty Little Dead Girl" by Seanan McGuire

( It's a very sad story... )

This is late, by the standards of when I post relative to mina_de_malfois. I blame law school.

( Case Study, Part 12 )