Ye Olde Renaissance Pleasure Faire

We got up super-early so that we could get out there in
time for the opening ceremony. Here I am in my full garb!

On Saturday, Elaine and her fiance, Mu, came with me to the Ren Faire in Irwindale. Mu is a real faire person, having worked at the faires in both NorCal and Tucson, and he got Elaine into it, and she got me into it, and The Dreamstress made me believe that I could make my own costume, and that is how I ended up at the faire in my own home-made garb! It was seriously so much more fun (and accurate) than my first Ren Faire dress-up experience.

Oddly enough, my black unlined unfinished-seam polyester fake suede bodice from last time (which was really so many kinds of wrong) was made using the same pattern that I used for my kirtle. This time, though, I have three additional years of sewing experience under my belt, and more knowledge about historical costuming thanks to many hours of research. Last time, I thought one could just throw things together in a generic, vaguely historical fantasy wench sort of look; knowing what I know now, I look at my uncovered, unsecured hair and crimson tiered skirts with a sort of cringe-face. I have to say that Mu was incredibly gracious last time in lending me a hat to cover my head and a belt for my pouch and generally helping me make the best I could of my thrown-together costume. This time, I still had to borrow his belt (not having located a suitable one in my thrifting adventures), but I felt much better about my whole outfit.

It was pirate weekend at the faire, so there were many, many people in generic pirate-y things, and I have to say that I was very tempted to just go as a generic pirate queen, but I'm glad I went as I did. We had lots of fun wandering around looking at the wares (I did indulge in a tiny working brass spyglass), eating overpriced faire food (a surprisingly tasty cottage pie), admiring the nobility's costumes (and wondering how they could stand so many layers on a sweltering day), watching various naughty minstrel shows (I especially enjoyed the Merry Wives of Windsor and the Poxy Boggards), and watching demos and learning about various artisanal crafts (leather stamping, quill pen making, blacksmithing, weaving, and blackwork embroidery).

One of the first things we did was make little stamped leather necklaces at the kids' table. Yup, that's right, and of course I chose a triceratops horned dragon. I'm just a kid at heart, what with dressing up an all.

With a "real" dragon.

Don't drop the Queen! The procession was very grand, and the costumes incredible.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, with some incredible stripe-matching to make the chevrons in their bodices.

The very nice lady at St. Ives who showed us how to clean, temper, hollow out and carve feathers for quill pens.

Blackwork embroidery on a standing frame.

Spinning and weaving.

Totally random: there was a Nazgul wandering around! I snagged a picture with him and his incredible armor.

We came home hot and dusty and tired, but it was so much fun. To cap it all off, Elaine and I indulged in all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, thereby adding another layer of smoky smells to our wandering-around-sweating-in-crowds smell. All in all, an excellent day. I'm so glad that Elaine and Mu were willing to drive out from Tucson to go to the faire with me!

And because I've been forgetting to post poems, for this last day of National Poetry Month, one of my absolute favorite geeky poems:

The Day the Saucers Came, by Neil Gaiman

That day, the saucers landed.
Hundreds of them, golden,

Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,

And the people of Earth stood and stared as they descended,

Waiting, dry-mouthed to find what waited inside for us

And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow

But you didn't notice it because 

That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,

Was the day that the graves gave up their dead

And the zombies pushed up through soft earth

or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,

Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,

But you did not notice this because

On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was

Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us

A ship built of dead-man's nails, a serpent, a wolf,

All bigger than the mind could hold, and the cameraman could

Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out

But you did not see them coming because

On the saucer-zombie-battling gods day the floodgates broke

And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites

Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities

And charm and cleverness and true brave hearts and pots of gold

While giants feefofummed across the land, and killer bees,

But you had no idea of any of this because

That day, the saucer day the zombie day

The Ragnarok and fairies day, the day the great winds came

And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day

All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the

Computers turned, the screens telling us we would obey, the day

Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,

And all the bells of London were sounded, the day

Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,

The fluttering capes and arrival of the Time Machine day,

You didn't notice any of this because

you were sitting in your room, not doing anything

not even reading, not really, just

looking at your telephone,

wondering if I was going to call.

And if you wanted to hear it read aloud, I like this version because it sounds so grave and important. Thanks for bearing with all the random poems this month!