Bob Kanefsky interview cont'd

Acts of Parody

How did I write “Acts of Parody” ? Well, it's a shame to begin the interview by airing dirty laundry, and very stale dirty laundry at that, but since you ask...

Except for the chorus and the ending, this was one of my less pleasant inspirations. The chorus of the song came about positively enough. It refers to the fact that Cat's tune resembles Kathy's "Drink Up The River" tune, although Kathy considers it an independent and original tune. I started with the last line, just to use as a spoken wisecrack the next time I heard Kathy Mar sing "Acts of Creation". Later, I decided to expand it into a formal parody of the chorus. I'd heard that Cat was concerned that it resembled "The Gambler", though I don't see much resemblance. I wanted to make the point that all acts of creativity borrow from others. But mostly, I wanted another chance to rhyme "parody" with "charity".

I wrote the verses in one sitting at a "WorldCon of hate and anger". That was my personal reaction to it; every other filker who expressed an opinion loved it. It had an extensive filk program that was especially designed to make everyone feel included. Much like the Borg. It was perfect for performers and for anyone who'd always wanted to be a performer, because everyone got to join a band and spend most of the weekend practicing for their concert set. I liked that about as much as someone else might like having everyone hole up in their rooms writing new songs instead of having a filk circle. I don't mean to say this was forced on anyone; those who resisted being assimilated into a performance collective were left alone, so it was no worse than having the Borg come and scoop up everyone else, leaving you alone on your planet. I fled to the nearby Planet of the Science Panels, which was good because I heard a fascinating talk by Jack Cohen on the same subject as a song I was working on, “Mutant Generations” and he made a point about antelopes and kangaroos that gave me a great line.

Although there was very little filking going on due to everyone being busy practicing, there was a big hospitality suite especially for filkers, so I tried hanging out there and talking with friends. Unfortunately, while I was doing that the room was assimilated by one of the performance collectives. They found it disruptive to have an "outsider" around, especially when I made what was intended as a helpful comment about they way they were singing "Acts of Creation" -- I don't remember what, maybe that they were singing it to the tune of "Drink Up the River" or maybe that they needed to do something to distinguish the choruses from the verses. So they threw me out, and I returned to the Planet of the Science Panels. I was feeling like the whole sharing-and-inclusiveness theme was not working very well for me, but any hope I had for sympathy was futile, because I had had a chance to join a collective just like everyone else.

On the night everyone performed, they followed "Acts of Creation" with my "Acts of Parody" chorus. Normally I'm pleased when someone chooses to sing on of my parodies, but in this case they messed up the scansion. They announced up front that they had no idea how it scanned but that they hadn't been able to find me to ask. Of course they couldn't find me! They'd thrown me out of the filk suite an hour before, and they didn't think to look for me on the Planet of the Science Panels.

So I went and holed up in my room and wrote the rest of the song, which cheered me up immediately. I'll bet you can't tell that the song is mostly sublimated anger. It's probably one of my more light-hearted songs. I have this theory that as a parodist I'm meant to be on the edges of the community, almost shamanistically; if I were comfortably at its heart I would lack the perspective to comment on the songs. If so, this was the perfect experience for making me feel like an outsider. Maybe that's why it resulted in a song that's good enough that you chose to ask about it, and not the dozen other songs I've written that begin with the letter "A".

Once I got that out of my system and felt better, I had two lines left to go. I used them as a tribute to two people whose famous interactions were what got me started, even though it happened before my time and I hadn't seen either of for years. I'll get to that later. I'm glad it was selected as the first song on Roundworm , because of that ending.

A strange thing happened when I sang the song later at that con. Well, the fact that I sang it at all is strange enough, since I rarely sing. (In fact, most of my parodies have probably never been sung by anyone, outside of my shower, and many have never been sung by anyone outside my head.) Anyway, I decided to sing this one in the chaos filk, if only to set the record straight on how the chorus was supposed to scan, and made up my mind to jump in right after the person who was just getting ready to start a song. The song she sang turned out to be "The World Inside the Crystal", which the first verse of “Acts of Parody” alludes to. I took this as a sign that the gods of filking were pleased that I'd written the song, and that this was the right moment to debut it.

And it did go over amazingly well. Maybe it helped that I sounded mad enough on the "If you don't want to hear one" line that everyone really expected the rhyming line to be different than it was.