My wife at Smith

[fbhjr]

My wife agreed to do the Higgins Museum demos at the ConBust Science Fiction convention out at Smith College yesterday.
Although she and I had both spent some time that morning ironing her costume, sadly it got left behind.
But, Mark had extra so she wore his extra dress.


Although not one of her usual demos there, she did join in the halberd line.


It was only just about freezing and windy. Not a whole lot of people came out to watch.


But, once they started letting other people play with the halberds, more braved the cold.


The dog was sad it was humans only.


Then we went over to the Smith College art museum. It isn’t a big museum, but they had some pretty nice stuff. And, they are very friendly.
As has become a habit, I notice what art museums provide for people to sit on.



When we came back to the front to exit, the guy working at the front desk asked if I had pictures off all the benches. I said “no, some are in galleries where it says no photos.”
He agreed that the guards wouldn’t have liked it.
I mentioned I had looked for some books in their gift shop on the exhibits they had, but didn’t see any good ones.
“You want some for free?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said.
So, he called down to the curators room and said “there is a guy here who wants some books on our exhibits. You told me you wanted to get rid of some of yours. So, why don’t you bring them up to him.”
A guy came up and handed me two books on the museum exhibits.
I had already thought it was a very nice museum. But, free books makes it extra cool!

When we got back outside they were doing their pirate demo and mark was wearing his styling pirate hat.

(I will point out that Phoenix Swords did not do any of the pirate demos there because our costumes didn’t meet Mark’s standards. While this hat is vastly more historical then the stuff we wear, it is not at all what people expect for pirate. Of course, that is part of what the museum is teaching, right? Bullshit. Only 4 people stayed for free pirate sword fighting lessons. That was the lowest turnout of any of the demos...)

I was very surprised at the amount of people in Doctor Who costumes at this convention. I saw young women dressed as various Doctors, daleks, companions and villians.

I have to say there is part of me that wishes that 30 years ago when I was in college there was a women’s college full of people who thought my favorite tv show was that cool. How times change.

The sword guild has also does “Jedi” demos. I like the guy who leads them a lot, but he really needs some help with it. To do the blaster bolt deflection he was going to throw plastic cups at people.
So, I brought him the Nerf gun that we use at Phoenix Jedi shows.
He wasn’t sure it would work out. But, as soon as he tried it, two young women with light sabers jumped the rope and started trying to deflect them.

He agreed it was better then cups.

Then it was time for my wife’s sword demo.

Apparently a lot of people had been waiting for “a real sword demo”. A woman in the dealers room said as much to me, and left her table there to come see my wife’s demo.


My wife is pretty serious doing it.


But, is always nice enough to hand back what she takes away when done.


It was still cold and windy, so a lot of people watched from the building.


But, once they offered to let other people try, they all came out.


They gave more lessons at this then anything else all day.


Some of the other guild people helped my wife give the lessons.


Some of the kids there were really into it.


Then it was time for the lightsaber demo.

The folks doing it kept breaking down in laughter while doing it. And, not evil laughter for the sith. So, not so much audience retention.

After the show we went to a very nice restaurant there in North hampton. We had a very nice dinner then went home and went to bed early.

Comments

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

Looks like it was a pretty good (though chilly) day!

The weeping angel costume still gave Laura and me the creeps - still one of the scariest episodes, IMHO!

[morgan-lafaye.livejournal.com]

Free books on art,yay.