science fiction – Malvena Pearl's Emporium

Events in 2016

Our Proprietor has been so busy, this year, she realized that she hadn’t taken the time to enter a proper Update for this season’s events.

The first photo is from the Blind Baby Foundation’s Beeper Egg Hunt, a few years back, with the pictured pals Kenny and Kate, plus Costumer’s Guild members (Helena, Lynne, Dawn and the Proprietor) creating the costumes and helping out. We had an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party for the young guests; and gathered contributions of tea, cookies and all sorts of raffle prizes from kind Oakland vendors. That day at the BBF Beeper Egg Hunt was much fun. So, this year, our Proprietor remembered that she might borrow the Alice costume that Helena created and is wearing in the photo for a similar event at the Camron-Stanford House! In the next photo she’s wearing the Alice dress, standing next to the amazing docent training officer, Molly (on her right) as they both admire the handiwork of Dragonfly Cakes in Sausalito. “Eat Me,” the cake told Alice.

IMG_20160312_134234749 — March Hare Tea at the Camron-Stanford House, Oakland, CA with Molly (right)

IMG_6371(1) — 2016 Edwardian Ball, San Francisco

Here are some other photos from events we attended. The black, silk, beaded shirt was a gift from Sara, who received it from a design teacher. It was apparently beaded in Paris in the early 1900s, so the Proprietor wore it to the Edwardian Ball in San Francisco.

And here is evidence that the Emporium’s Proprietor does a fair amount of community work on behalf of women and girls. She’s performing the monologue called “The Flood,” in Eve Enslers’s Vagina Monologues. This year, with a cast of 9 women, they were able to raise $1,200 to give to Oakland Elizabeth House for women and their children who are homeless.

Flood 2 — V-Day at the Uptown Lounge. “The Flood.”

Fires of Wisdom 2011 Tea at Lovejoy's in San Francisco — Fires of Wisdom 2011 Tea at Lovejoy’s in San Francisco

We recently learned of the passing of our dear friend Jane Cudlip Coblentz King, Mills College class of 1942. She is pictured, above, at the center of our group in the grey and black jacket. Jane was 93 years old when she passed last fall. She retired from tutoring just the year before and boy howdy, could she tell jokes, stories and remember Shakespeare, line, act and scene! She is dearly missed by our group of volunteers in Fires of Wisdom, the Mills College Oral History Project, pictured above. We miss her so much, some of us made a gift to the American Heart Association in her memory.

~~ Malvena Pearl’s Emporium staff also witnessed the glory that is/was the Pan Pacific Exposition, entitled Jewell City. There are many images, including a lot of stories, here. ~~

Finally, the Proprietor started off in January of this year assisting some clients with their outfits for the NOIR CITY Film Festival at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. Here are some happy film goers!

From our friends over at Shear Madness

From the Stuff We Love files, here is another “competition” for the most crafty, beautiful, clever and creative entries we’ve seen in costuming – this is focused on Embellishment of costumes. This from Shear Madness, The Joy of Impractical Costuming

“The Shear Madness Mascot is heavily embellished. Embroidery and trim on her boots. Embroidery, beadwork, trim and chain on her skirt. A faux-mechanical fronts-piece with findings, gears, copper strapping and copper vent-covers. Embroidered lapels. Hand-beaded silk sleeves. Bloomers covered with lace, trim, beads and cording. A copper beaded ruff with copper mesh. A beaded crown on her knit and crocheted wig. I don’t think there is a single piece on this that isn’t embellished, other than the pre-made gloves.”

And here is the Malvena Pearl’s Emporium Proprietor dressed as the First Doctor (can you spot her hiding between Glynnis and Nell?) in this group of Doctor Who(s) plus Cindy Lou Who:

Update: Malvena Pearl’s Emporium has moved!

Good day to you, adoring fans. Our proprietor would like to make the official announcement that we have had a major transition. The Emporium is now set up in a house in the lovely village of China, Maine. Some of the House Elves are calling it “the future Command Central” of the Emporium. In fact, ur new location is just a few doors down from The Albert Church Brown Memorial Library in China, Maine.

What’s that you say? You don’t see a link describing the namesake of said library? Or anything about it? That’s because the Emporium’s Wikipedia House Elves need to get their butts in gear and research that and update Wikipedia with that vital, missing information. WOOT!!

In other news, Please note that our committee was only able to bring four bags with us on our journey here. We only had room for basics because we stopped off to join the lovely and talented hi-jinks ringleader, Laura Ulak, along with Renaissance Seamstress Arte Moltabocca, Saharazara, and The Cheap Chick in Edina, Minnesota, for CONvergence 2013. For more details about that now-lost weekend and all of our preparations, please see Arte’s blog, Diary of a Renaissance Seamstress, entry here. For another version of our Costume Sorority week at Chez Ulak, please see Laura’s blog, Rocking the Frock.

So, as we return to the topic at hand, let me remind you that we do not yet have access to our paper library, which was amassed previously by our proprietor. Aherm. We currently only have the digital resources, which while they are very helpful are not what we are Accustomed To. Nor do we have — ulp — our major tool, the sewing machine handed down to our proprietor by the proprietor’s mother, that once belonged to Grammie Robbins, aka Malvena Pearl herself. We are also in need of a real ironing board and iron. But that will come with time. We do have a functioning washer, dryer and internet access. And our phone number has not changed!

Please bear with us as we complete our set up of our new diggs. We are available for design, hand-sewing, repair and other consultations.

Our new address is: Malvena Pearl’s Emporium, 809 Lakeview Drive, China, Maine, 04358

For driving directions, please email the proprietor as the exact location is just down the road from the mailing address.

SIDE NOTE: Our friends and allies from BIBLIOMANIA Bookshop in Oakland, California have given us an Ephemera mission, to aid them with their collection of postcards – only of LIBRARIES. So that will be one assignment that our Ephemera Elves (a sub-set of the House Elf Committee) will be taking on this month. Dear readers, if you find any inexpensive vintage postcards of libraries in your area, do please drop us a line! The folks at Bibliomania want old postcards in good condition – no matter if they have already gone through the mails – that is usually a bonus.

inspiration

I am going to attempt to make something that resembles this to wear at Gallifrey 2013.

What is Gallifrey?

I escaped my work for a few days last week with a visit to the 23rd Annual Doctor Who convention hosted by Gallifrey One Network in Los Angeles. I was in my role as “minion” to my Wench Posse team members and boy, did we ever have fun! I got to meet two members of the Wench Posse, Alisa and Nell, who live far outside of California. And I also got to spend time with the lovely Glynnis, whom I met at Costume College in 2009, when I met the lovely Laura Ulak.

We all got along so very well it was our first time, ever, at this particular convention. We had a fabulous time. Alisa has written a nice summary of her Gallifrey experiences here.

I enjoyed meeting other Doctor Who fans from Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Pittsburgh, the greater Los Angeles area and even a few from San Francisco to whom I gave my card. Hopefully we’ll connect through the Bay Area Browncoats (Joss Whedon fans.)

Some of my favorite times at Gallifrey were sitting with the Wench Posse in the audience at panels and feeling what actor Mark Sheppard described so well: the shared love of the creative process that makes Doctor Who. You can tell that it’s really a labor of love on the part of the production folks, actors/writers, etc. That they become like a family and have all these in-jokes. It’s fun to see them banter together and to share these moments. The shared love and gratitude for the show that brought us together was so much “in the air” during the last couple of panels, it was almost overwhelming. It was like going to a really good concert or a wedding, where the entire room was having fun. Even when the question was awkward or silly, it kept moving and somehow, some of the youngest questioners inspired some really great discussions on the part of the panels.

The gratitude — or whatever it was — was a third entity, apart from the speakers (actor/director on stage) and the fans in the audience. I could especially see it/feel it when the eldest cast members encouraged each other, with humor and kindness, during panel discussions. It was there when Mark and his father Morgan and Camille Coduri (who played the character of Jackie Tyler) talked about being recognized while walking down a street in London, and kidding each other about being tough. And when Louise Jameson (actress who played Leela in the 1970s Doctor Who series) shared about her near-death experience, it was really amazing. I got a little teary.

The journey home for me was pretty unremarkable except that a very generous convention-goer named Mike helped me out with the shuttle transfers from LAX to the “Fly Away” bus that goes to the downtown Central train station, and then helped me find my way to the Gray Hound bus station. We shared our experiences of conventions, Doctor Who episodes, the writing of PG Wodehouse and travel. Since I haven’t heard from him via e-mail, Thank You Mike for giving me a hand in a city that was strange to me and for being a friendly and generous non-stranger.

Keep Calm and Have a Jelly Baby.

giving thanks for good company

I joined a friendly group of pals for Thanksgiving this year in Berkeley. We had a feast beginning with barbequed oysters and appetizers in the backyard garden and moved indoors as the sun went down and it got chilly. My costuming pal Lady Heather joined us and brought a lovely salad. Other delicacies included wild rice salad with green apples, sweet potatoes in a handmade sauce and the bbq turkey with mole’ sauce. I made and brought Indian Pudding, a recipe from my grandmother. (it involves a lot of milk, molasses and a bit of cornmeal, baked in the oven for 3 hours – delicious with vanilla ice cream.) We also had a wonderful homemade chocolate torte with ginger snap crust, covered in raspberries. Our group of diners included friends visiting from Colorado, Michigan and various parts of the SF East Bay. I hadn’t seen our hosts in quite a while, so it was good to get caught up with them and to enjoy their warm hospitality.

I met this morning with some friends from my D&D role playing group for brunch, which was a real treat; we usually get together about once or twice a month. We brainstormed about settings for upcoming campaigns, story ideas and characters we’d like to create. We are a gaming group of made up of some designers, an inventor, a scientist, and some writers who are also crafty folk who love science fiction. We’ve been meeting for years as a group, taking turns being the creator/referee of the games. We had one campaign in which our Dungeons and Dragons game took place in outer space, using the same rules as a “regular” game, but with advanced technology and all sorts of new classes of characters. Our game creator made a web blog for our “space opera” characters to log in and make comments: The Gathering Dark. It’s also where we’ve put artwork, related articles and photos that inspired us. We’ve moved on to another game now and our “scribe” uses the Gathering Dark blog site to post notes of our current game. For the latest game, we have a new game master who is using the Fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. We play “old school” style with pens, paper, miniature figures, and dice. It’s really fun because it lets us be as creative and silly as we want and inspires all sorts of other projects. It’s interesting to see the changes in the rules with the new edition, since popular computer games have been developed to such a great extent since the original D&D came out in the late ’70s.

Playing Dungeons and Dragons is what originally inspired me to make costumes. I’d play with a group of students from my brother’s high school and our game masters were instructors there. We had several “live dungeons” and I started designing and making costumes for these games. So, it’s great to be with a group of people who really relate to the creative process and can participate on a regular basis.