SATURDAY
Annie and I got up “early”
Saturday morning and headed downstairs to audition for the Radio Play. We were some of the first people to arrive,
so we were at the head of the line. I was
a little nervous about the audition, but I’ve always been more comfortable
reading and voice-acting than acting on stage, so it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t have the nerve to try growling or
snarling in public, though, so I shied away from the gargoyle parts in the
audition scripts. I read some of Elisa’s
lines from an old draft of Awakenings, and they were pretty close to the final
draft but not exactly, which made it easier to read them by myself instead of
trying to mimic Salli’s performance.
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Morning in |
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A rainbow colored
building we were never able to identify. |
After that we wandered out into
We headed back up to our room to
work on our wings. Last year I’d had
this idea that I could make wings that could be caped appropriately but that
would spring open when they were released, the way the gargoyles do when they
go into battle-mode. We’d been working
on them off and on for months, trying different constructions, and we still
weren’t done. I spent several hours
sewing in the car on Friday, attaching the claws at the tips of the wings and
the clasps to hold them shut. We hadn’t
tried them on since, so we weren’t positive the clasps were in the right
places, and we still had some problems with the straps to hold them on. The maid was in the bathroom, and we didn’t
really want to interrupt her, but we only had a little time in between
activities so we decided to just stay out of her way as best we could. (We tried to tell her not to bother making
the beds, etc, but she didn’t speak any English). So we tried to be unobtrusive in the back of
the room, me in my leotard with my five-foot wingspan and Annie trying to make
the wings stay flat on my back…
Eventually we decided we could probably use the brute force method and
tie them on with the loads of extra fabric we’d brought with us.
We gave up and went downstairs to
check on the Radio Play. We’d both been
cast, but we wouldn’t know who we were playing until the auditions. So we decided to poke our heads into the
auction, which was just starting. I
didn’t intend to stay, knowing I had no money to play with, but it was more fun
than I expected watching us all go crazy for obscure Gargoyles
merchandise. (The auctioneers were
really fun, and they egged us on with reminders that the bids were all in
Canadian dollars. “They’re practically
worthless!”) I bid on a few little
things and then discovered they had one of the Disney pins. I’d been looking for one of those since June,
when I went down to Disney World and learned about pin trading. I had decided to get pins for the things I
really love to display on my backpack at school, and the only one I was still
missing was Gargoyles, but no one seemed to have those anymore. I was determined to win the one in the
auction, and I spent more than I intended to, but I did win. Of course, once I realized it was still
sealed in the packaging I decided I couldn’t possibly put it on my backpack and
have it lost or stolen. So now I’m back
on the market…
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The Gargoyles auction |
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The Basilique
Notre Dame de Montreal |
After the auction we rushed to
the Radio Play auditions. I was cast as
Fox and Annie was Angela. (We were a
little disappointed that Keith wouldn’t make it, but the cast was great and we
had a lot of fun even without him. The
guys that played Vinnie and Jon Castaway stole the
show, but everyone was good. And it was
fun to have such a large, diverse cast!
I would definitely try out again next year. Afterwards, I got Greg to sign my script and
the oversized promo card from the series one trading cards.
Annie and I ran upstairs, changed
our clothes, and then headed to mass at the Basilique
Notre Dame. The church was beautiful,
although my pictures don’t do it justice.
The downside was that the entire mass was in French. Annie and I both took Spanish in high school,
so the service was completely incomprehensible to us. (I tried to keep track of where we were in
the service, but I’m Lutheran so I don’t know the structure of Catholic mass
particularly well anyway, except where it’s similar to the Lutheran service. At any rate, they seemed to have a few extra
sections in there that I didn’t recognize, so I got lost pretty quickly.) The only parts I could recognize were the
creed and the Lord’s Prayer, just from the rhythm of the words. I was proud of myself just for staying
awake.
After mass, we rushed back to the
hotel and went to the banquet. We sat
with Alan and Carolyn, our friends from MGT3K, Brenda/Kaylee,
and two other people whose names, I’m sorry to admit, I’ve forgotten. At any rate, we all had a lot of fun talking
and laughing and making fun of various foods.
We had some vegetables shaped like
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Kaylle and
Annie’s banquet table. |
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Alan and Carolyn’s dancing silverware, and Keith David
and Greg Weisman answer questions at the banquet. |
Keith arrived towards the end of
the banquet and was a great sport about answering questions while he ate
dinner. I was taken aback by how down-to-earth
and friendly he was. (Not
that I expected him to be unfriendly, just that, like Greg, he wasn’t an aloof
guest-of-honor, he was a friend).
I could have sat there all night listening to the questions and answers,
but we had less than an hour to get ready for the masquerade, so Annie and I
beat a hasty retreat to our room.
Annie was going as Fox, so her
costume was fairly simple to assemble.
That meant she could help me get mine together, which was good because
mine was a lot more elaborate. Silver leotard, silver makeup, pointed ears, skirt, bodice, belt,
shoes, jewelry... and wings. (The denture cream ended up being completely
ineffective, so I had to skip the fangs).
Annie helped me paint my face, neck and shoulders and then we started
wrestling with the wings. When we were
done, my shoulders were killing me but the wings were staying on.
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“Real gargoyles shop at Target…” |
I finished painting my arms and
legs while Annie got dressed and painted on her fox tattoo. We’d dyed her hair Thursday night, but it
still didn’t come out really red. I
liked the costume anyway; she looked so sophisticated in her gown and long
gloves.
I ran out of makeup (despite the
fact that a stick was supposed to be enough to do five or six faces, and I’d
bought two of them) so my hands and arms ended up a little spotty, but it was
the best I could do. By this point we
were already half an hour late, so we took a few quick pictures and ran
downstairs.
We'd had to come up with a name for
me on my entry form (I was tempted to put "our kind
don't have names" but I decided being a smart-aleck wouldn't win me
very many points). I had originally
planned to go as Demona, but I’d gotten some very
cool silver fabric on clearance, and silver had been a color that was readily
available in both makeup and dye. So I’d
become “generic silver gargoyle with spring-loaded wings,” and I didn’t have a
name picked out. We finally settled on Argenta, because we thought we remembered argentum or something similar was Latin for silver (turns
out, luckily, we were right).
When we got out of the elevator on the convention level, there were a bunch of
people waiting outside the door. “You! Are you in the
masquerade? Argenta? You’re on right now!” I had been under the impression that the
masquerade was a party, a masked ball. It turned out it was more like a
fashion show. And my name had *just* been called. So I ran onstage and showed off my costume
for the judges. I walked nervously
across with the wings folded down, flicked them open (Annie claims people
cheered for that, but I honestly don't remember anything), walked up to the
judges and asked if I was done yet. By now I was feeling more than a
little foolish to have driven 13 hours and painted myself silver! They said no, I had to "strut"
(amid catcalls from the judges, which was amusing and
rather flattering!). So I walked back and forth for a while with as much
attitude as I could muster and then retreated to a chair on the side of the
stage.
I was sorry I’d given the camera
to Annie, because it meant I couldn’t take any pictures of the rest of the
costumes, but after the masquerade we had a brief intermission to take pictures
while the judges voted. We reconvened
after 15 minutes for the awards. There
were several of them, not all of which I remember. Becca Morgan, who
looked really great as Bronx, won for best junior costume. Revel won the Thom Adcox
Memorial award; not having met Thom, I’m not sure what that entails, but I
imagine it has something to do with losing your pants… Korul’s costume was
amazing, and predictably won Best of Show (I’m only sorry I didn’t see his
“Rubber Ducky” performance!).
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Annie as Fox, Becca Morgan as |
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Titania,
Ophelia and Korul |
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Alan as Thaliog, Kaylle as Argenta, Keith David
and Greg Weisman as themselves <g>. |
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I won 1st prize for an original character, which floored
me, but I was flattered and happy and Annie was thrilled (“We didn’t spend the
last three weeks building spring-loaded wings for nothing!”). I got a lot of compliments on my wings and
costume, and Annie got a lot of remarks on her Eye of Odin necklace. I had my picture taken with Greg and Keith,
who were both really wonderful and complimented me on the costume. I was really surprised that Keith didn’t mind
having his picture taken while holding the baby; I couldn’t imagine any other
celebrity who wouldn’t go crazy at the idea of having his children
photographed. But his whole family was
down in the ballroom, playing and listening to the karaoke and having a good
time, and Keith himself sang for us, so this was just another demonstration of
how friendly and comfortable he was.
(And it was a thrill to hear him sing… wow, wouldn’t the Gargoyles: The
Musical episode have been fun?)
Annie and I were downright
exhausted at this point, and as much as we love karaoke we were mindful of the
fact that we had a 13 hour drive ahead of us the next day. So we decided to call it a night and
retreated back upstairs. It was
surprisingly easy to shower and get off all the silver paint (for which I was
incredibly grateful!), and then I collapsed into bed.
SUNDAY
I had to work on Monday and Annie
had class, so we had to head home Sunday.
I was sorry to miss the third day’s events, but I was glad to come at
all, so I was willing to make some compromises.
We got up at 8:30 (we thought it was 9:30, actually, due to some weird
alarm clock malfunction that occurred sometime in the middle of the night),
packed up our huge mess of costumes and fabric and makeup, and sneaked out to
our car before the bellhops could catch us.
When we went back in to check out, there were a few other con goers in
the lobby, but I think most people were still sleeping. We stopped at the dealers’ room just to see
if anything was open yet, but it wasn’t, so we headed back down to our car and
said goodbye to the Gathering 2004.
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The
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I drove us to the border and then
Annie took over. It was only slightly more
difficult to get back into the US; the customs officer did ask to see our
driver’s licenses and then asked us how we knew each other. We were tempted to tell him Annie was
smuggling me over the border as a mail order bride, but we decided getting arrested
wasn’t such a great idea so we told the truth (we met in high school) and he
let us through.
After that the trip was mostly
uneventful. I got out my laptop and set
up some fanfic to convert to audio to take to work
with me the next day; Merlin Missy’s All Through The Night, since I had it on
my hard drive (one of the best crossovers I’ve ever read, and I don’t know
anything about half the shows involved!).
I then proceeded to talk Annie’s ear off in an effort to stay awake,
waxing philosophical about all things Gargoyles, but eventually I gave up and
took a little nap. We saw a car
somewhere in
We got back to
See you all next year!
Kaylle
Why
Gargoyles?
| The Road to
Montreal | Thursday/Friday
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