sleepyWhen I woke up,
drarwenchicken asked “Do you want to go to a skating and gymnastics extravaganza?” Even with comp tickets, I was a bit dubious. Still, I was going out later to the party, and she was having no luck finding someone for the second ticket, so I said I’d go. I’m actually glad I did. I’m usually only interested in these sports during the Olympics, but I liked that the performers could relax and have fun with the show. They also could do things that aren’t permitted in competition, like using props for the skating routines. They alternated between gymnastic and skating, and there were a number of times I was stunned by strength or dexterity of what I was seeing. Years back, Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett did a series of photographs of Victorian-era, steam-powered robots. Although lots of people want Boilerplate the Robot to be real, he’s just a fiction, artfully photoshopped into real pictures. They finally got a write-up in the Oregonian, which led to a publishing deal for a coffee-table book. I’d seen their work, so Friday at SCF, I made a point of going by their table, and talked with Anina. She mentioned that Paul was into 1/6th scale figures, so I came back around on Saturday when he wasn’t busy. We discussed our respective use of action figures, and he invited me to their costume party that night.
Well, when a Famous Person invites you to a party, you don’t pass it up lightly. So on our way home from the Skating show, we stopped at the party. We were some of the very few people NOT in costume, but were greeted warmly and went in to check out the toys. Paul has a room of various comic figures and highly-detailed WWII figures (including armored vehicles).
drarwenchicken and I looked about, admired a guy dressed as Vincent VanGogh (he looked just like the self-portrait where VanGogh wears a bandage over his ear, and his own beard was the perfect color and cut) and his girlfriend as Moaning Myrtle (they were both impressed that I could correctly identify their costumes). But it was late, so we scampered off. You'd think that I'd be all done with being social for like, a MONTH, but there was more on Sunday...
