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Sitting Shiva in Flushing ...

SwitchHitter Oct 28 2018 08:17 AM

I don't have words ... these are Tim Griffin's from Facebook-- In any kind of fandom, there are the completists who show the rest of us what real dedication looks like. For professional sports, we have the wonks who track player stats with the discipline of hedge fund analysts, the ones whose genius shines in the fantasy leagues. For movies, there are fans who know every actor, every director, and every degree of Kevin Bacon. With Pokémon, there are the ones who actually DO catch ‘em all. In filk music, we had Harold Stein. To him every voice, every performance, every song was worth hearing, recording, and archiving for later reference. If you wanted to know who sang what in a casual filk circle at some convention a decade ago, Harold knew what went down and probably had a recording of it. As Alan Lomax was to the Library of Congress, so Harold Stein to filk. Conversing with Harold was easy: his mind was a bubbling cauldron of ideas and connections, and he would share them all. I once changed the strings on two guitars (one of them a twelve-string) while having an extended discussion with Harold without needing to say a word, just nodding my head once in a while as he carried the conversation. I wish I could remember what he talked about, but what sticks is the enthusiasm he brought to everything on his radar. One thing he did not talk about much was cancer, I knew it had reappeared but not how fast it was progressing. When Harold could not make it to OVFF this year, some of us made for him a video of a very silly get-well song we wrote, “TTO” of course. I do not know if he got to see it. The filk music community grieves the loss of Harold Stein, along with a large part of our collective memory. My turn ... if you ever wanted to find anything filk, Harold knew. When I needed the perfect 25th-anniversary gift for my beloved -- a copy of the filk tape from the con where we met -- I knew Harold would be able to get me a recording of it without violating the rights of the creators. I never met him in person ... I'm in Texas and he was in NY. The funeral's in Flushing. I don't know if any of you knew him -- but sometimes the world is smaller than we expect -- so I'm sharing here. May his memory live on.

MFS62 Oct 28 2018 09:19 AM Re: Sitting Shiva in Flushing ...

Olevai Sholom. Later

Edgy MD Oct 28 2018 02:45 PM Re: Sitting Shiva in Flushing ...

I knew there was a subgenre of music that did what filk does, but I didn't know it was called filk. I've written a filk song and didn't even know it. My condolences.