Lizapalooza part Deux

Saturday dawns, bright, sunny, warm…in short the antithesis of a Seattle morning in April. Stephanie and I manage to find our way to a Starbucks, which proves surprisingly more of a challenge than one might think given that we are in the Pacific North West and the “Death Star” of Starbucks is within Tractor-beam range. But we manage, and a quad-grande-vanilla-latte never tasted so damned good! So off to the conference site we head. As an aside, I am a bit mystified that a college campus (be it a state school, a community college, or a large ivy league) can exist without an embedded coffee shop of some sort if not an actual outpost of one of the large caffeine purveyors! The parking lot of the college is marked poorly and we make a wrong turn or two, we nearly plow into a group of guys taking motorcycle driving tests in a back parking lot (they were not visible from around the corner, so fortunately Stephanie’s car has good breaks.).
Once in the lecture hall and Dre and Stephanie and I have selected seats close to center and pretty close to front ( I am now flashing back to my Constitutional Law 101 class and my Art History in Review Lectures….and trying to hide the nervous tick these two overtones spark) and take I nthe crowd then. I ma pleased to see a goodly number of people from my home Barony (Madrone…which covers the metro Seattle area) are present. This tells me my secret (well ok not so secret as it has become the open joke within the Barony and Antir) plan to drag first Madrone and ultimately Antir kicking and screaming into late period clothing one farthingale/ doublet at a time if I have to! They wear far too much early medieval/ and Viking/Norse attire up here for my comfort….so we are slowly tempting them one by one out of their frumpy frocks and plopping them into faboo toggs much prettier to behold!
We settle in to the first lecture and that’s when it happens. “Annoying Woman” (from here on to simply be referred to as AW) raises her hand and in a reedy annoying nasalish tone admonishes everyone to please turn their celphones off so as not to bother HER! I immediately wonder if we are going to have a chance to vote her off the island at the lunch break. Now mind you, we are about to talk about Elizabethan Middle Class/ Peasant class working woman’s attire…….AW raises her hand again to ask if Drea has information that speaks specifically to the tradition of ordering a daughter’s wedding dress at the time of her birth!?!?!?

1-this is a GENERAL OVERVIEW discussion
2-that is not really a middle to lower class of society type question
3-this is a GENERAL OVERVIEW discussion
4-the question is asked in a tone that clearly announces to us all “aren’t I wonderful for being a font of such erudite pedantic academic information and curiosities?....the resounding silent answer was an emphatic NO! Clearly legible in the sour expressions of all in the room. I noticed two ladies try to skooch a bit away from her on either side trying not to be tainted in the public calumny fest by proximity to her

**an aesthetic note**-AW is wearing a long caftan sort of frock, whitish in tone, with wonderful late 70’s retro woven banded trim, a skirt slightly longer than the caftan (which is belted in with another chunk of 70’s retro-banded-coarse weave trim….and coincidentally she has opted for an eco-friendly statement on the evil fashion industry that doubles as a throw back to feminism rallying cry by eschewing a bra in favor of letting the belt act as quasi support for her busticles which would otherwise have easily been able to say hi to her waist were it not for the high riding band of trim that effectively blocked their passage southward. Furthering the crackly granola look was a lack of makeup, and long Cher (while she was still with Sunny and still had her actual nose) hair thus completing her fresh off the commune ensemble to perfection

Every particle of AW’s being screams light me on fire and beat it out with a bag of hot nickels! I curb my instincts and do not answer that primal call to action and instead force myself to pay attention to the lecture instead. At a break in the geekfest, as dre has noted, we were subjected to AW’s “apprentice” who is a wiry “people-jerky” woman who looks like she has lived the last century on a widows walk having every iota of excess flash buffeted away by a strong ocean wind so she is a skeleton wrapped in tough leather. She is Bragging about her limberness by demonstrating that she can hoist her leg behind her head while standing up. See, I am of the opinion that no human needs to retain that skill at her age, and even if they do by some strange confluence of circumstances involving yoga, drinking water bottled in near Hanford Nuclear facility in eastern WA, and brief exposure to “Chemical X” of power puff girls fame……we the poor unsuspecting and delicate genteel viewing populace need NEVER know that the skill has hung on that long!
Then comes the corset class. This is exceedingly informative and reshapes a few of my views on the process of creating one of these little gut rearranging confections. The practical session where some of us get to draft out a pattern based on the system that Drea has come up with for interrupting one’s measurements into a simple pattern was a great help too. I was partnered with a woman, who I am sure is a very nice person, but WOW…..I really hope she didn’t drive to the event. Her inability to manage a simple distinction between left and right was dumbfounding, the fact that she was bested by a scotch tape dispenser that didn’t have to put out any effort to effectively have her in the equivalent of a half-nelson trying to figure out how to undo her mistake, and her basic inability to manage simple math all made me desperately hope she is not in possession of a state issued drivers license from any state in the USA! Fortunately I was able to tap the able hands of a woman not actually in the class to do my measurements for me so that the woman next to me who was a muzzle-loaded mind in a 357 caliber world could muddle through her own little problem set and not tax my ability to hold my tongue and comment by forcing me to deal with her!
I took photos of many books I want to buy and made sure to get snaps of their title pages too, I am so going to regret making that wish-list since it represents a sizeable chunk of income if I do manage to lay hands on them! Next comes an evening out with costume Geeks.

My weekend of geekdom
An essay
By Joel

If it makes this all seem more grade-school-ish imagine me laboriously fretting over each word of this as I engrave it on a piece of low quality elementary school green paper with the blue and red lines to guide young hands in the formation of their letters. Further, if you really want the whole image then picture the paper being marked up with a very fat #2 pencil……..thick enough that it could be mistaken for a Lincoln Log were it not for the flaking blue paint on the exterior of the pencil. Having set the image of academia, it’s somewhat difficult to know precisely where to begin writing about the weekend in Eugene for Lizapalooza. No this was not some weird girl-band folk music fest……though I am sure Oregon has no short of hippy dippy crystal toting patchouli drenched music fests throughout the year……this happened to be a gathering of geeks. Not just any geeks, but Elizabethan Period Clothing Geeks! That should send some readers running for the door pretty fast. I absorbed so much information, so many observations that had previously hovered on the periphery of my consciousness that just needed to be prodded into fully formed thought by a catalyst like the talks this past weekend featuring the wonderfully informative Drea Leeds.
Now first off there was the “getting there”, which if you look at a map of the west coast and follow the shortest route between Seattle and Eugene OR you will see is about a 5 hr drive. I had decided to be travel buddy/navigator for my friend Stephanie who also had registered for the weekend. It was an excellent chance for the two of us to talk since we had 5 hrs each way to gab. I had on many occasions at various events had passing conversations with Stephanie, but as we each had differing responsibilities at these events we never had great length at which to “geek out”. So the car ride was ideal. And to my great pleasure my suspicions were confirmed that Stephanie is a true kindred spirit and as interesting in conversational detail as she seemed in passing previously! Not to mention I learned quite a few accounting and book keeping ins and outs that are going to make my fiscal 2008 far less headache inducing than 2007 was at times, Stephanie is an excellent accountant with that rare quality of being able to articulate business terminology in a language us artsy types can understand and assimilate! SO we drove. And drove……and then drove a bit more, and just for giggles we also drove.
To escape Portland rush hour traffic, and to give us something pretty to look at, we stopped at Millend Fabric Outlet. This was both a wonderful and a terrible idea all neatly wrapped in one. I had resolved at the start of the year to renew my efforts this year to not go on “OOOOOOH……Shiny, Pretty!” fabric buying sprees. My sewing room is filled to the gunnels with fabric that needs to be used for some project or another, so more fabric is as useful to me as a screen-door on a submarine or a drag queen in a bar fight….ooops scratch that last one, I forgot Trannies can fight meaner than real girls so they might be useful. Anyway, you get the idea; more fabric was the last thing I needed. SO Millend was my waterloo. Far, far too many pretty options. I caved. I can at least console myself that I only bought two cuts of fabric, neither of which was larger than 2 ½ yds. And since they were both ends of bolts I got them at an uber discount…..so damnit I am going to stick by my purchases….rationalization is a wonderful hobby by the way!
Now once back on the road, Stephanie and I noticed something that Dre mentions in her Blog about this weekend…….Oregonians of the past were exceedingly unimaginative. Thy boosted names from towns in WA and CA and Nevada (I can’t remember Nevada’s abbreviation and am feeling lazy so I’m not going to bother looking it up). We drove through Portland, Vancouver, and several incomprehensible Native American named towns whose spellings I will not attempt/slaughter that all exist in WA as well as in OR. The other curious thing we noticed as we got further south was the great number of inexplicable accidents (single car) on the sides of the road. It was as if all of a sudden drivers just decided that it was “their time” to just up and drive off into a ditch on the side of the road with no provocation. I am beginning to think that maybe all those episodes of X-Files that were filmed in the OR, WA, Vancouver BC area might have left some sort of weird lasting imprint on the populace and the locals are just not real clear on the fact that the cameras have moved on and there’s no need to give the TV crews “set decoration” any longer.
So we arrive. The Motel 6 we are staying at is mercifully easy to locate, right off of I-5. We go into the office to register for our room and get the keycard(s). It is at this point that I discover that one of the Stygian Witches moonlights as the desk attendant at the southern Eugene OR Motel 6…….who knew?! She has badly dyed red hair….and by red I mean the shade of Wendy’s hair from the restaurant chain advertisements. She has about 10, possibly 15 teeth in her head, but most of them are NOT in the front. She has a disturbingly pleasant demeanor that is regrettably given to much open mouthed smiling while observing on the distance Stephanie and I have driven, and no doubt she is trying to make her mind jump through several hoops trying to figure out the odd couple Stephanie and I represent (an obvious “mom” and an even more obviously gay man) registering for a hotel room together. That’s when it hits me who she looks like…err, well whose image I have constructed in my head that she would be a good “reality stand in” for……..Batilda Bagshot. If you don’t catch that reference dear readers then clearly you are not a devoted Potter-ite and the explanation would take a bunch of pages of tangential material to clue you in……read the Harry potter books (Particularly Deathly Hallows….if you want the Batilda Reference) matching the description of Batilda’s wispy white coiffeur, she could be cast as Batilda in a heart beat!
SO we reach our room, make not of the eye wateringly busy bed spreads ( that we debated boosting to take home and make Tacky-tourney garb out of….but ruled it out as too easy…there’s be no challenge in it). That’s when I call to check in on Dre, because that’s the other great part about this weekend. Not only do I get to geek out and add to my storehouse of trivia about Elizabethan Clothing and it’s evolution…..I get to met face to face Dierdre and hang out with her while geeking out. I am in History Snob heaven!
Once Dierdre arrives and we are appropriately exuberant, despite all having just driven long distances, we ooooh and ahhhh over Dre’s Queen Elizabeth Dress and Bella Crown. I can honestly say they are as lovely in the “flesh” as the images in Dre’s profile imply. And its ever so much more fun getting to talk to Dre and not have to type, the wit flies fast and furious and I now have the timber of a voice to attach to her words when I read them on the screen! And one thing I took away from getting to spend some time with her, any of you out there who have the chance to meet her in person, see her perform at faire, or attend a class/symposium she is speaking at….DO SO! You will be heartily pleased!
Ok, so I need more coffee and to collect my thoughts about the talks themselves before I deconstruct, so I am going to stop here and carry on later once my thoughts are more in order.

again, I should not have clicked the link....I really shouldn't have.

now I'm going to share

people.tribe.net/8376d06f-...c709ada55a

so here is why I have not been doing as much blogging...well this plus the fact that my computer at home needs a complete wipe and reconstruct since a virus killed it.

I still have a hangaing sleeve and an inner sleeve to make, but from the first of each I now know the patterns will work. more to follow

so I am listening to NPR talking about the Olympic Torch in Paris and all the trials and tribulations the torch bearers were encountering protesters .........and the commentator/news presenter in all seriosness spoke asertively about "French Police on ROLLERBLADES....."!!!! having been to paris and seeing the way that the drivers treat the road there (Princess Di being run down tragically there is not so great a stretch once you have suffered the ministrations of a Parisian Sky Cabby) I know that putting the police on rollerblades is merely the first step in creating a new chapter in the Grand Theft Auto franchise where participants are instructed to pick off as many of the parisian constabulary as their citron will allow them to. And if French men's dancing ability is any indication....the police might just as well start playing russian roulette with guns fitted out the 6 bullets in the chamber...it'd be more merciful that way at least!

my 2 cents