Welcome.
Lynn Maudlin, singer-songwriter, painter, producer, editor, and author was born in Los Angeles back in the last century and
studied piano at the USC School of Preparatory Music as a child. She began writing songs at the tender age of 12; if you ply her
with fine red wine, she may play you some of those questionable early efforts, but probably not (we all have our pride, after
all). An art major through high school and college, favorite areas of expression include oil paints, ceramics, intaglio, silk
painting, and pen & ink; water color remains a distant dream. Lynn has been performing as a singer/songwriter for some 40 years
("hey, I started at 13, okay?!") in venues as varied as colleges and conferences, nightclubs and coffee houses, science
fiction conventions and concert halls in England, Germany, and the U.S.A.
Music Overview
Mythopoeic Society
Lynn has a grown son (highly recommended) from a high-school marriage (not recommended) who married in 1997 and has kindly made
a grandmother of her (shocking and WONDERFUL!) and inadvertently gave up 17 years in a second marriage to an L.A. studio musician
(also not recommended - who knew?!) to find herself with an unexpected new life at a time her contemporaries have finally settled
down to raise their late-born kids. In 1996 Lynn produced an extremely low-budget movie called
The
Magazine with writer/director Sallie Seltzer and worked with writer/director Martha Cotton on her AFI - DWW (American Film
Institute's Directors Workshop for Women) short in the summer of 1997, followed by a teaser for a television series.
The rock doesn't roll in Lynn's life is Jesus (when everything else comes crashing down around your ears, you gotta hope the
foundation's sound). "It's great to finally be at a place where I can agree with the psalm: I was glad when they said unto me,
'Let us go unto the house of the Lord.'" Since 1994 that house has been St. Jude's, a charismatic Episcopal church, and now
happily home of priest Fr. Chuck Mitchell and Seiko, his beautiful and wise wife. Lynn also recommends highly the discipline of
Bible Study Fellowship as a way to increase knowledge of the Bible.
Lynn's first album project is still available on cassette (Dolby B,
"At Long Last Lynn," a collection of ten original songs, including the oft-requested "If You Can't Live Without Me, Then Why
Aren't You Dead?") and will one day be re-mastered for (do not faint!) CD. You can read more about it at
Truly
Maudlin Music and her publishing site,
Moonbird Music.
The St. Jude's worship team put together a semi-spontaneous collection of songs in support of a friend's out-of-the-country
wedding, including Lynn's
Shepherd Me, a worshipful and personal take
on the much-loved 23rd Psalm. Lynn also wrote
House of Bread, a
song cycle based on
the book of
Ruth from the Bible.
In the meantime, Lynn gives the occasional 'filk concert' at science fiction conventions, usually regional events like
Loscon,
Condor, and
Conjecture, and
occasionally Westercon.
but in 2006 Lynn gave two concerts at
L.A.conIV, the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon).
In November of 2009, Lynn performed two songs for the
75th Anniversary of LASFS
(Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society).
Lynn has been involved with
The Mythopoeic Society since 1982, served nearly 10 years on
the non-profit organization's board of directors and, after a break of about 12 years, is once again serving on the Council of
Stewards. One of the joys of the MythSoc, as it is fondly called, is its
annual conference
and the joy of a Mythcon is the chance to play with far-flung friends. A not-too-far-flung friend is Eleanor Farrell and the two,
in a Mutt & Jeff pairing (large blonde and petite brunette) started a spoof of Siskel & Ebert's film reviews (anybody remember
Gene Siskel?!) for the 1992 Tolkien Centenary Conference (sponsored by
The Tolkien Society
and Mythcon 23) "ents" held at Keble College, Oxford. Lynn "Egrets" Maudlin and Ellie "Sizzling" Farrell reviewed the three
(mythical) film productions of Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings allegedly released in the previous year, directed by Woody
Allen (!), Oliver Stone, and Ingmar Bergman. The Bergman version used CGI to cast Gerard Depardieu as Frodo and Arnold Schwarzenegger
as Sam; Sizzling Egrets presented a "clip"... Ellie lay motionless (except for the occasional spasmodic heaving of her rib cage
as she stifled laughter), playing Frodo after Shelob's attack, while Lynn performed Ahnold-as-Sam's "I'll be back" scene - check
the novel - the dialogue is appallingly appropriate! Despite the international attendance (Finland, France, Russia, Italy, Australia,
Norway and more were represented), the audience roared with appreciation.
It was amazing to see how Peter Jackson's frustrating but visually wonderful interpretation of
The
Lord of the Rings utilized CGI in a more major way than we'd joked about, less than a decade earlier.
Sizzling Egrets wrote a "con report" for
Mythprint, the monthly newsletter of the
Mythopoeic Society, and reprised the 1992 performance for
Mythcon 24 in
Minneapolis. Sizzling Egrets came up with a new bit in 1995 for
Mythcon 26 in
Berkeley. SF author Tim Powers was the GoH and the dissing duo reviewed non-existent movies made from
The Stress of Her Regard
and Dinner at Deviant's Palace with the ever-popular "film clip" from
Last Call. Sizzling Egrets also appeared at
the
C.S. Lewis Centenary in July of 1998 at Wheaton College in Illinois. You had
to be there. Skewered were
The Screwtape Letters: The Movie (purportedly edited together from outtakes of "The Devil's Advocate"
with voice-over by John Cleese...),
The Wreck of the Dawn Treader (imagine "Titanic" meets Reepicheep - oh, the humanity!),
and the now infamous "film clip" from Ed Wood's long lost last film, discovered and finished by Tim Burton for release in glorious
black and white:
Malacandra Attacks!, complete with descending spaceships made of paper plates and wind-up animals...
Definitely you had to be there (or get Arden to show you his videotape; of course, it shudders real good when the spaceship
appears because he still hasn't learned how to laugh and shoot at the same time...). Lynn was the treasurer and registrar, which
kept her extraordinarily busy.
Sizzling Egrets: Back From The Grave made an appearance at
Mythcon 32 during
the interval before masquerade awards: "welcome the return of the intrepid film reviewers, Sizzling Egrets, who will analyze impossible new releases
based on the works of Charles Williams." Their next posthumous appearance is overdue.
Then there's the
Mythcon food sculptures... just see what
Mythcon 35 Guest of Honor
Neil Gaiman had to say about Mythcon
food sculptures... If you can handle the thought of Mythies in Hawai'i, you'll find an example near the bottom of
this page.
C.S. Lewis pen & ink drawing copyright by Patrick
Wynne; used with his kind permission.
