The Dandelion Conspiracy

by Kathy Mar

The following article was created as a flyer and circulated by Kathy Mar at Chicon and other conventions, along with the dandelion stickers and buttons. It has been posted on FidoNet via Stormgate Aerie. Feel free to re-copy and distribute it wherever you are -- Kathy Mar wants it to get the widest possible distribution. Originals suitable for reproduction are available from Kathy Mar or The Filking Times.

There seems to be little understanding in fandom at large of the changes that have occurred in filk music since its inception so many years ago. This is not helped by the way most filkers react when we interact with other fans. We are very intense, we tend to be blind to or enamored of those aspects that non-filkers find most annoying, and we are inclined to be very vocal (no pun intended) and obnoxious in our protests when we feel we are being mistreated.

In an attempt to find a way to communicate our views to others more effectively, I have decided to form what I call the Dandelion Conspiracy. This is meant to serve many goals at once. In taking the dandelion as the filker's symbol, I hope to convey, as gently as the flower-power movement did, that filk is almost impossible to root out. If disturbed, it tends to proliferate. It can be beneficial at times, and it can even be beautiful in spite of its weedy reputation.

Most ConComs fail to realize the real advantages of treating filkers well. Most filkers take hotel rooms so that they can crawl off to bed at whatever impossible hour the filk ends and to provide a secure environment for their recording equipment and instruments. They are perfectly content with any large quiet room that is done with programming for the day, and are almost always finished before programming starts again. They give their money, then put very little strain on the daytime programming because they are usually asleep through most of it. The more professional performers are happy to entertain at the masquerade during the judging intermissions. They don't mind if people talk or stretch while they play. If treated well, they will tell other filkers and all their friends good things about the convention; so their numbers increase as the years go by.

Because there is no organization of filkers to lobby for better treatment and to approach Con committees in our behalf, we are at the mercy of people who understand us very little if at all. In order to make them aware of our increasing numbers and to make sure they recognize not only the better known singers, but all those who just love to listen, I will have available dandelion stickers and dandelion buttons at this convention and any others I attend. The stickers are free and the buttons will be at cost. Anyone is welcome to copy the dandelion and distribute it on their own. With time and luck, ConComs may come to know in a gentle yet insistent fashion just how many people are in favor of this special science fiction art form in all its diversity and joy.

I hope to see a lot of dandelions at this convention and at other conventions in the future. Like the weeds we are, we will grow in numbers and colorful profusion until we are taken seriously by ConComs. From the smallest root, we will grow back. If disturbed, we proliferate. We may be weeds, but we're beautiful just the same.

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