Because the 2022 program was fantastic, the proprietor and her friends will be visiting the Grand Lake Theater again, soon. In December, there will be a special showing by the Film Noir Foundation. This one is in 3-D!
Yours Truly and pal KG at NoirFest, Castro Theater, San Francisco
The virtual flyer provides more information:
SAVE THE DATE: NOIR CITY returns to Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre January 20 – 29, 2023, celebrating 20 years of the Film Noir Foundation’s flagship festival! Festival program and details to be announced December 13 at NOIR CITY Xmas and on NoirCity.com thereafter.
Happy 20th Anniversary!
Passports Now on Sale for NOIR CITY 20
NOIR CITY 20 passports (10-day/24-film all-access passes) are now available at Brown Paper Tickets for $200, a savings of $40 over the regular ticket price for 24 films. The NOIR CITY 20 Passports will also be available for sale at the FNF’s merchandise table at NOIR CITY Xmas. Remember — the NOIR CITY Passport makes a perfect holiday gift for the noir lover in your life!
The Emporium Proprietor continues to do a lot of Volunteer Activities. When presented with a volunteer opportunity, our Proprietor asks herself, “What would Grammie Do?” The answer is always clear.
We support the following non-profit organizations and awareness building campaigns in our communities:
Seasonally, we offer Discounted Tickets to theGreat Dickens Christmas Fair,with special rates for groups of people who are in school, and for elders and seniors. Please contact us with these requests!
And we are also please to introduce a place for you to express your interest in doTERRA Essential Oils ~ From there you may also request Wellness workshops or private consultations. As our friends over at Mrs. Greenbalms Healing Salves tells us, “the plants remember Paradise.” And as musician Laurie Anderson tells us, “Paradise is exactly where you are, right now, only much, much better.”
We are also continuing to offer our Letter Writing workshops at libraries and bookshops around the San Francisco Bay Area and on the East Coast. Stay tuned for upcoming class schedules and ways that you may participate or purchase supplies.
Just prior to the Afternoon at the Bellevue Club, our Proprietor attended a dance with friends in Alameda, CA that was a Hogwart’s Reunion Ball, hosted by PEERS. Evidence of her attendance is below.
We are getting sponsors for this event, and the most prominent is the San Mateo Public Library, where last year’s event was held and was a huge success. So that’s on Saturday, March 25, 2017, from Noon – 4:00 PM at 55 West 3rd Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94402. Many of us will be dressed up in our Regency attire, which is in no way required. There will be presentations, dance instruction, lectures on various Jane Austen related topics and of course hands-on workshops like this one on Letter Writing, entitled, “Creating Regency Letters with the Tools of Jane Austen’s Time.” Who knows? There may even be tea served!
As foretold by our guest blogger, Lady V-Jay Jay, the fund-raising performance of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues will be held on Wednesday March 14 and Thursday March 15, 2012, at the UPTOWN NIGHTCLUB on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, CA.
2012 Vagina Monologues Performance, Oakland, CA
Come on by the UPTOWN on Thursday night for a chance to bid on some great Silent Auction items from these local businesses and individuals
slient auction table, all proceeds go to Bay Area Women Against Rape
Jan brought her amazing, costume jewelry to our table and Ais helped us out a great deal with set up and customers. We had caramels from Bequet Confections, lots of printed inspiration, some hats, The Tarot of the Tailors and a nice selection of Mrs. Greenbalm’s products.
The other vendors were friendly and as always, gracious and fun to work with.
A hearty “Thank you!” to everyone who helped us out and who stopped by to say hello!
Greetings fellow earthlings! The Proprietor of Malvena Pearl’s Emporium has asked me to do a “guest blog” for you tonight.
I’d like to tell you a little about V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. Why would you talk about that? Well, I’ll tell you. V-Day is held during this time of year. It’s a time when groups of women get together to volunteer their acting skills, their production skills, their fund raising skills and their sense of humor to make it possible for women’s stories to be shared and for awareness to grow among many people. They raise funds for local non-profit groups who help out women and girls who may have no resources available to them and who need help. It starts with one woman’s story.
As the poet Muriel Rukeyser once asked, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open, show it’s anger and call her a lunatic.”
Writer and performer Eve Ensler interviewed a very large number of women about their lives, their bodies and their experiences. She created The Vagina Monologues and many groups all over the world perform these pieces and raise money for local non-profit organizations. We raise awareness of women’s experiences, specifically, awareness of violence against women. We believe it must stop.
I participate by dressing up in a giant, pink suit that I made, and I call myself Lady V-Jay Jay, or Lady Vagina. I talk to people and tell them where they can find out more information. In this role, I am a “lady” who wears pearls, sensible shoes, gloves and carries a purse. I hand out free condoms and dental dams. I ask local merchants to donate prizes to our raffle and/or silent auction. Here’s yours truly posing with the directors of the 2011 show at Brava Center for Women in the Arts:
2011 Vagina Monologues show in San Francisco
I know what some of you are thinking. ‘What’s a nice girl like you going around doing, talking to women about DOWN THERE?!’
“V-Day’s mission is simple. It demands that violence against women and girls must end. To do this, once a year, in February, March, and April, Eve allows groups around the world to produce a performance of the play, as well as other works created by V-Day, and use the proceeds for local individual projects and programs that work to end violence against women and girls, often shelters and rape crisis centers. What began as one event in New York City in 1998 today includes over 5,800 V-Day events annually.
Performance is just the beginning. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women” — V-Day web site
If you would like to attend a local production of this show, or would like to support efforts in your area, please e-mail me, visit the V-Day web site, get in touch with us on Facebook. I will be at two performances in my area:
It is on the same day as the all-day NOIR CITY Dashiell Hammett film screenings at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. Mr. Acorn and I will be going in our retro outfits, as we did last year. So, we’ll be meeting early in West Oaklandia to power shop with Lady Heather (minion of Pig) and then head over to the film festival. Here’s one of the coolest posters for a 1932 film that’s on their program web site.
My friend Laura is an inspirational seamstress with a great sense of humor. This photo above was taken at Costume College in 2009, when we first met. She’s on the right.
The Costume College experience was overwhelming to me. It was the first time I’d attended and the folks I knew there were all caught up in different aspects of it: the classes, the events, preparing for the events and taking day trips to local museums and schools around Los Angeles. I didn’t know I was going until the last minute and most of the classes were filled by then, so I sat in on several workshops and presentations and met lots of new people.
I met Laura in a board room in the hotel that was set aside for Costume College attendees who needed to complete a sewing project. We needed space outside of the room we were sleeping in to “make it work,” as they say on Project Runway. It was also a place to show up and get help, if you needed help. It turned out that we spent hours in that room and stayed up very late. There were many people sitting around the table. I was assisting a young woman who had talked her mother into flying in from Canada to go to this weekend-long event. She needed help with a lovely 1870s-era dress (a la Anne of Green Gables) for the Gala the next night.
Meanwhile, Laura was sitting down the table from us, making very funny remarks and completing a truly amazing outfit. Laura’s outfit was a Tudor era woman’s costume made in modern fabrics out of camoflage-patterned parachute silk trimmed in reflective tape. She said she had a posse back home that usually offered a lot of help and I think she was missing them. I would have been missing them, if I were her. So we ended up in this room, working side by side with other costumers. I really liked her approach and her friendliness. That feeling of “we are all in this together.” If it isn’t fun, let’s find a way to make it fun, or heck, just move along. Let’s remember why we are here. She looked great at the event the next night. But the best part was the process: making something and sharing that experience with someone who laughs with you, is willing to help and share stories while you sew.
We kept talking all weekend, into the wee hours. She even let me crash in her room and we found that we shared a love of science fiction. It turns out that Laura had been making costumes with –and for– her friends for many years. They had a regular “Day of Wrong” tradition at their Renaissance Fair:
Laura said her group also attended the Dickens Fair in their area and were active in organizing costume events. She said she’d been making a living sewing Santa Claus outfits and called herself the “accidental seamstress.” I met a lot of people that weekend but Laura and I kept up our dialogue.
After Costume College we kept in touch via e-mail, shared our stories and tales of what was happening in our costuming and creative lives. She made me an “honorary member” of her posse, even though I live several states away. She and her husband came to visit California and we got to have dinner and enjoy a great visit. Her blog is called the Eleanora Project and she’s documenting her birthday and all the creative hoopla leading up to it, as well as her ongoing costume projects.
Here’s the latest photo of one of Laura’s recent creations for a holiday Steampunk event:
Now that I no longer have a Feline Overlord named Roo, I am an official Minion of the Wench Posse. We have found that we have a lot of fun talking, planning projects, sharing materials by mail and just egging each other on. Through Laura, I’ve gotten to know several other incredibly creative, weird, fun-loving and fabric-obsessed people. In 2012, we have plans to meet up at two different costume conventions where I will get to meet several of Laura’s Wench Posse in person. I plan to assist them them with the assembly of a project or two. I am so looking forward to that!
Laura is a kindred spirit. And I am very grateful for her friendship. Happy Birthday, Laura!
This bonnet is for a dancer who is doing workshops to perform in Fezziwig’s at the Great Dickens Fair in San Francisco. I built it from buckram, millinery wire and cotton fabric. I’m sewing it by hand. For inspiration, I used several sources. The Dickens Fair folk provide guidelines for costuming for their event here. I also found many books to inspire me at Costume College, two years ago. One is a British publication entitled, “Hats and Bonnets” by Althea Mackenzie with photography by Richard Blakey, published by The National Trust, London, UK, 2004. The photos and descriptions of hats and bonnets are wonderful. I’m looking forward to embellishing this bonnet with ribbon, trim and lace, to match the dancer’s dress, that I embellished for her earlier this year.
