social activities – Page 3 – Malvena Pearl's Emporium

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.

the Lemon Lady dilemma

Re: costume event-goers who insist on arguing with other attendees about the costume that they are wearing, right at that moment

I have met a number of the species of hyper-vigilant, hyper-critical costume-event-attendees. I have worked at Lacis – the Lace Shop and Museum in Berkeley, part time since last fall. At Lacis we have a column by Miss Manners (aka the succinct and hilarious Judith Martin) posted on the wall in the staff kitchen. The article is about the rudeness of a stranger approaching another guest at the event and verbally lambasting her outfit. The reader had gone to a costume/historical event and was shocked by this other person’s level of audacity and rudeness regarding her costume. Said reader had screwed up her courage to put together an outfit to the best of her ability and to go to one of these events, although she knew No One at the event.

I call hyper-critical people, such as this reader encountered, Lemon Ladies. Some call them the costume police. I like Lemon Ladies because that is what one of my classmates called the rather difficult-to-deal-with staff members at school in the Registrar’s department who always looked as if the world was not to their taste. If there was a thought balloon over their head, it would most likely be filled with variations of the word “Euuew.”

Lemon Ladies seem to enjoy (1) confrontation (2) criticism and (3) arguing, in or out of character. They seem to quickly fall out of character at events in which the attendees are attempting to be in character (Renaissance Faire, Dickens, PEERS events – I’ve seen this in many settings, sadly.)

Finally, they are people who would rather be Right than be Happy. And they want EVERYONE TO KNOW IT. Now, you and I both know, when one argues about who is Right about a subjective topic, all we end up with is who is Left standing there, tolerating a sharp environment of hostility, when we still disagree, minutes or hours or days later. Sigh.

What an utter waste of time! One could be dancing, or singing, or sewing, or watching a perfectly good baseball game, DVD, theatrical production; or writing a letter to a dear friend on a piece of paper art; or polishing the silver jewelry; or researching a costume or article; or writing a letter to one’s congressperson; or protesting a military action; or brushing one’s pet cat or doing the ironing, or babysitting for a neighbor or making cookies! SHEESH!

I go to costume/historical events to Have Fun. When it stops being fun, if I am under no obligation to anyone else present– to my hostess/host or if I need to share a ride with someone — then I leave. Period.

I also use the strategy of taking along a posse of other fun-loving, good-natured people! If I don’t, then there is a risk that I may end up as this reader did in the Miss Manners article.

The Response: Miss Manners indicated that it is appropriate in Any historical Era to be offended by a stranger who critiques the bejeebus out of your clothing, in public, which is to say in front of other human beings, and to respond accordingly. She relays to the readder that One might say in response– in a detached way if possible — “You have Offended my Honor” and turn away from the offending individual, as if he or she did not exist.

I learned about costuming by shopping for found objects at thrift stores. I’ve only recently learned about pattern drafting and pattern re-sizing. It’s a COSTUME. It’s there to clothe me for the duration of the event. It’s not supposed to be “correct”, although the research is fun. The creation of the costume, I have found, is actually more fun than wearing it. So when I find FUN events to attend, I put together my posse. This is my approach.

My mantra is: “It Doesn’t have to be Perfect. It has to be DONE. DONE IS GOOD.” Yes, that means that sometimes I’m pinning things at the last moment, which is ALSO HISTORICALLY CORRECT! And so is using fake hair.

My little sub group of costumers talks about this all the time. We chat on and on about it, as well as being supportive of Any Creative Effort that we each make – that is the Goal. To be creative, in whatever way we can fit that into our crazy lives!

Okay. I’m putting my little blog-sized soapbox away. Carry on.