Event Debrief: 17 March 2018

As a borderline hermit, meeting and conversing with celebrities isn’t something I have a lot of experience with. So when I learned that the prodigal Dr. David West Reynolds was going to be returning to his hometown library for a screening of his film-archeology documentary “Journey to Tatouine’ and that the event was being advertised as ‘Star Wars Day’, I knew I was going to have to make an appearance.
This would be my second ‘Stars Wars at the library’ event, and since the first, I’ve had several other events with the public to help me focus and refine my approach. This time, I knew what to expect and was somewhat prepared with a rudimentary engagement hook—a thick stack of facsimiles of the Declaration of Rebellion to distribute.
Unfortunately, due to procrastination and last minute sewing machine issues, I wasn’t able to head out until the time the event was set to start (and I already live an hour or so away), so I didn’t arrive until about halfway through the main public event. However, I made the best of my time, and bravely represented the under-represented Rebel Alliance, passing out Declarations to ‘recruit’ interested children. Really need to write out and practice some ‘talking points’ ahead of time, still…my improv game is a little rusty.

Also, I think I have finally ‘made it’, because someone asked me—as I was taking a sip from my canteen—if I was drinking “real water”. I don’t care if I’m portraying a fictional setting, if I’m dressed in non-modern clothing and someone asks me a silly question, I think that makes me an official Reenactor. Hashtag isthatarealfire?

Other costumed attendees included eight Tuskens, two Jawas, two? TKs, a TIE pilot, a Mando-something, an Imp officer (black outfit), a (lady) Grand Admiral, one Rebel technician, and a remote-controlled R2.

I’ve met a small handful of other famous faces/voices/artists, and I have learned that it always goes better if you have something to talk about, rather than just get tongue-tied while trying to gush about how much you like their work. (My apologies to Dave Dorman c. 2005).
As the late great Mitch Hedberg said re: meeting Peter Frampton, “When you meet a legend and you don’t know their body of work, you have to divert from that fact.” Thankfully I am very familiar with Dr. Reynolds’ contributions to the GFFA, so I didn’t have to resort to asking him if he liked toast, too? and I was able to chat with him for a few minutes about my other ‘period’, late Third Age Middle-earth, and my efforts with the Middle-earth Reenactment Society to legitimize ‘fictional living history’. I was filled with pride to hear that he was intrigued by and heartily approved of our endeavors.
Naturally, I also dropped a mention of this very blog for him to peruse.

DWR was then gracious enough to autograph my SW Complete Visual Dictionary (unfortunately I gifted my copies of the various individual volumes to a nephew last year), pointing out the various masked characters that are really him in original costumes. I even got a photo with him!

Note to self: while having business cards makes it much easier to advertise one’s various ventures, I should probably print out some stickers with this site’s web address to put on the back of my cards, instead of printing separate cards, and handwriting is kind of sloppy.