What is Filk?

By GEORGIANA COHEN  |  March 20, 2008

Proud, happy souls
Back at the Westin hotel, a couple dozen people have gathered in a circle and begun taking turns with songs. Some wield instruments and binders full of sheet music; others carry only a tune. One man wears a red cape adorned with pins, another a Coneheads tie. Some are knitting, some are text-messaging.

New York filker Joshua Kronengold, a balding man with a crown of long, disheveled locks and a purple tie-dye shirt, has been playing a small harp up to this point, but now, it’s his turn to sing. And the selection, his song “Little Song Virii,” says it all . . . or, at least as much as can be said.

At a filksing there are humor songs that make you laugh aloud.
There are songs of war and honor that will leave you feeling proud.
But beware, for from a filksing you may never come back whole,
For those harmless-seeming filking songs will eat your soul.

Georgiana Cohen, whose favorite filk song is "Uplift,” by Andy Eigel, can be reached at georgy.cohen@gmail.com.

On the Web
MASSFILC: //www.massfilc.org
The Filk Archive: //www.filkarchive.org.uk
Interfilk: //www.interfilk.org/

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