I Am NOT an Old Fossil: August 2008

Saturday, August 30, 2008

TESTING THE PATIENCE OF A JEDI

What does a petticoat have to do with the Dark Side? There's more there than (doesn't) meet the eye....

This is Dummy-Wan. Or Dummy for short. She hardly deserves the "wan" designation, since she's evil. I tend to think of it as a "she" since she's my evil twin. Evil because she can lose six dress sizes in 5 minutes. Evil because she can grow taller, but refuses to stay at whatever height I set her at. Evil because no matter how big or how old she gets, she never has to wear a brassiere.... But that's beside the point....

Dummy has delusions of grandeur. She's dressed as a Jedi Knight, a Jedi Master, Mara Jade Skywalker and Princess Leia. She's even been seen in Jedi underwear. And, most scandalously of all, in a cloak with nothing on underneath. Shameful!

But, you're here to find out how a petticoat can be steeped in the dark side of the Force...

It seems like a simple project, a black petticoat with an elastic waist. Easy. I even found directions online and didn't have to buy a pattern. I did the math, even the geometry... heck, I got A's in geometry, I can do a trapezoid with no problem. I measured and snipped and tore the fabric in perfectly straight edges...

I hemmed and gathered the hundreds of inches of ruffles. I stitched the sides with neatly finished off seams. Then I tried it on Dummy-Wan. I fought to get it on past her bosoms, yanking it down around her hips, twisting and turning the fabric... all of which ended up with the petticoat stuck on the dummy, me fighting it, desperately trying to reach through the fabric to adjust the dials to a smaller size to get the fabric unstuck, forgetting there's two sets of dials....

I fought Dummy-Wan to the finish, her torso separated from her stand, lying on the floor with her waist extended enough to fit the costume of Kaminoan... where she stayed until Grampy-Wan came home and put her back together... I'm not mechanically challenged by any means, but my plan involved a sledgehammer and thought it wiser to wait for someone with more patience...

So what went wrong? Did the inches of my tape measure shrink? Was there a shift in the space-time continuum that caused my fabric to get narrower for no apparent reason? Or were the directions written for someone with a derriere the shape of a ten year-old....

No, I think dark forces were at work here... because to finally finish the garment I had to cut more fabric, cut and make more ruffles, and pick black stitches out of black fabric... over and over.... and the first ruffle I made got stuck under the throat plate of the sewing machine, I ran out of thread, I hemmed the wrong ruffle.... And I picked a helluva lot of black stitches out of black fabric... I'll be blind for days... did I mention I picked black stitches out of black fabric????

On a side note... while researching this project I googled "petticoat" and got lists of bridal shops... when I googled "black petticoat" I got cheesy costume shops and sleazy lingerie sites... interesting...

The moral of this story is, of course.... Be mindful of the Dark Side, even if it's your underwear...

Friday, August 15, 2008

A Summer Storm Brings Us Up to MIDNIGHT!

It was like thunder and lightning... oh wait, it WAS thunder and lightning when we got to the theatre. A summer storm was brewing up, and the wind made my Jedi cloak billow out behind me and I felt like a kick-butt Jedi Master as I walked across the parking lot, lightsaber in hand.

Then there was the biggest-honkin-screen-in-Arizona of the Cine Capri. The only place I'll go to see a movie anymore, I'm so spoiled. Stadium seating, rocking seats with lightsaber holders (some people were using them to hold their drink cups), 400 speakers and 35,000 watts of Dolby Digital.... Yes, I'm a techno-junkie... so send me into exile... this is only the second time in two years I've even BEEN to a movie!

Last weekend we spent two evenings there in costume, raising money for Phoenix Children's Hospital. The local 501st set up a photo booth, and we good guys from the Rebel Legion supplied plenty of Jedi, a Padme, a Tusken, a Rebel pilot.... The bad guys supplied a Vader, and Darth Nilihus, some stormtroopers, a couple of clones who didn't know what side they were on...

We even got some good press out of it... with a slide show! Don't worry, I'm not in any of them...

This brings me up to last night.... We hung out and about in the lobby waiting for the midnight show. Jedi, stormtroopers, Sith Lords, Clones, Tuskens, a Wookiee, Yoda, Princess Leia and Padme...a whole family of Jedi came in...

We were supposed to play with the folks in line, and there was no line! They opened up the theatre at 9 o'clock and everyone was inside... and I can't say that I blame them, since the AC inside was much better than that in the lobby area...

But I digress.... Sweating in full Jedi garb tends to do that.... You're all waiting breathlessly to hear what I have to say about The Clone Wars.... And I say, GO SEE IT! Don't let other peoples' opinions sway you, judge it for yourself.

No, it isn't Star Wars: A New Hope revisited, it won't give you the chills and thrills of 1977, but it's FUN! Lots of action, lots of humor, some nice artwork. I would have preferred a more realistic style of animation and real John Williams music, but those are just personal preferences.

One guy in his mid-30s, who must have visited the bar across the mall before entering the theatre complex, asked me if he could have my lightsaber.... "No, I don't think so!" I said. "OK, can I have you?" He replied.

Forget it, my heart belongs to Obi-Wan, but don't tell Yoda.

At least the Force was with me long enough for no one to see the Jedi in full vestments putting out the recycle bin at 2:30 in the morning..