GimletBlog

Part the Second: In which Team Tilney Explains It All, including the mystery guest mentioned in Part the First.  Mojo, voodoo, mist and magic abound!

Friday morning Team Tilney met in the hotel ballroom, instructed our Extraordinary Gentlemen to bar the doors, and rehearsed in earnest with our mysterious guest panelist:  a local Portland actor we hired to play Henry Tilney.    During a brainstorming session, the idea was tossed around to have a “real” Henry join our panel.  Team member Lynn Marie got in touch with her Portland theater contacts, and in short order we had our Henry on board and familiarizing himself with our presentation.

As he would be sitting in the audience prior to his introduction, Maggie warned him that as a young man in costume at the AGM, he would be an unusual sight and the other attendees would be drawn to him. (“They will come up and pet you.”) But despite this, and despite overhearing at least one very shocking assessment of his charms, what followed after the presentation was a surprise even to Team Tilney.  But that is getting ahead of the story just a little.

After Team Tilney introduced themselves, Maggie announced that we had a special guest.  As she read Mr. Tilney’s bio, the audience realized what was about to happen and, as Lynn Marie’s husband described it, a great wave of estrogen surged forward, engulfing the room.  Henry stepped up to the stage and launched into his opening monologue, a parody of the popular “Old Spice” advertisement I composed for the occasion.

Here’s a video of the Old Spice parody, which Lynn Marie and Joe filmed later:

One of the great things about our actor is that he really understood Henry Tilney, and he played the Regency Old Spice character to the hilt, charming the bonnets off his audience in the process.  Amidst cheers and applause he joined our panel, where he bantered with us and acted out several scenes from the novel and Lynn Marie’s excellent stage adaptation of Northanger Abbey.  I had asked him to read the “Fashions for Gentlemen” report from an issue of Ackermann’s Repository in defense of his knowledge of muslins.  I was concerned that it would be boring to have him just read aloud, but by that point the audience would have listened to him read the dictionary, so asking Henry Tilney to read about fashion (Kerseymeres!  Waistcoats!  Tight leather breeches and boots!) was just fuel to the fire.  Speaking of fire, we had fans at the ready whenever Henry said something particularly swoony, making us true Tilney fangirls.

We had planned after the presentation to grab a quick group photo before Henry changed back into his street clothes, but as we concluded, a sizeable group of ardent admirers rushed the stage to meet Mr. Tilney, who was definitely not expecting such a huge response to his performance.

He obligingly posed for photos and signed autographs.

At length Team Tilney was able to get our turn, and we thanked him profusely for being such a great part of our team.  We may have imagined it amidst all the camera flashes, but we thought we saw that the presentation was being recorded.  However, we’ve been unable to track it down.  In the event that a video doesn’t exist, we would like to record the Henry Tilney Old Spice monologue on a stage and post it online for all Janeites to enjoy.  We had a lot of fun with our presentation and would love to have a recording of the monologue as much as those who saw it, so never fear, it will happen.

(ETA 11/13: The video has been found!  Check out part of the Old Spice monologue and other great Henry Tilney lines, thanks to The Little White Attic.)

Now that the work was over, it was time to play.  I attended a lively breakout session on the history of magic and use of muslin to create “spirit photography” illustrated with magic tricks throughout the session.  I also attended breakout sessions about fashion information available in Jane Austen’s day (magazines, fashion dolls, pattern making); the history of English abbeys, and how they were transformed into country houses, schools, and gardens; and finished out the sessions on a high note with the very informative “Rules of the Assembly” which covered all elegancies of the Upper and Lower Rooms in Bath.

While I attended breakout sessions, The Gimlet and the Fashionista Dogsbody found their way to Voodoo Doughnut and brought back a box to share with the ladies.

Voodoo is best described as our local Top Pot’s hallucinogenic cousin, with lots of unconventional flavors and toppings to choose from, and they were really tasty!  (I drew the line at the breakfast cereal-topped varieties, however.)  In fact, all the local cuisine we were able to sample was delicious; from lunchtime delis and tiny pizza parlors to elegant restaurants featuring local produce and fresh seafood, Team Gimlet and Team Fashionista certainly ate well during our stay in Portland.

With so much good food to enjoy, a long walk (or two, or three) was in order.  A group of us who like to play with string found our way to Portland’s Fiber Arts District Friday afternoon.  Special mention must be made of the set of guides found in our AGM goodie bags:  recommendations for dining, shopping, and sightseeing offered by the characters of Northanger Abbey.  These extremely clever, funny and delightful pamphlets informed us where we could find John Thorpe’s favorite brewery, a fine dry goods shop for Eleanor’s gowns, restaurants fine enough to satisfy the picky General Tilney, and of course Henry and Catherine would buy their novels at Powell’s City of Books.

Saturday afternoon we resolved to visit the Japanese Garden, rain or no rain, so of course it rained.

There were very few visitors to the garden, so we enjoyed the quiet serenity and explored the five gardens at our leisure.

While the mist obscured the view of Mount Hood, it brought out the gorgeous intensity of the fall colors.  What a beautiful, relaxing place.

We stayed in the Japanese Garden as long as we could, and then it was time to drive back to the hotel and get dressed for the grand capstone event of the AGM:  the banquet and Bal Masque.

Next:  Muslin

See more photos of the Japanese Garden and the AGM in the Gimlet Gallery, and read AustenBlog’s behind-the-scenes peek at Team Tilney’s presentation.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 at 9:58 am and is filed under jane austen, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.