1 shirt donated
1 clip-on lamp donated
Total: 2 riddances
Grand total: 21 riddances

Paypal only [unless you’re local and want to pay cash]. Shipping included for U.S. Foreign shipping is more.Continue reading BJD clothes for sale, some FREE, most

How Stuff Works provides an overview of zombies, including some interesting info about Clairvius Narcisse, supposedly a verified zombie, and the ingredients of Haitian zombie powder, which may have ingredients scientifically proven to produce feels of paralysis and disorientation.

How Stuff Works also has an overview of vampiric creatures around the world, with an especially interesting segment on ancient Assyrian and Babylonian creatures.

The same site also discusses werewolves and the influence of Hollywood on traditional beliefs about these shapeshifters.

1 double-headed lamp donated
1 blank book donated
1 pair pajama pants donated
1 blouse donated
1 pair novelty gloves donated
1 pair too-small underwear trashed
1 package expired body gel trashed
1 windbreaker donated
1 skirt donated
1 long-sleeved shirt donated
2 history books donated
1 movie DVD resold
1 set TV show DVDs resold
1 children’s book donated
1 non-fiction book donated
1 BJD wrap dress trashed
1 BJD miniskirt trashed
1 BJD shirt trashed
Total: 19 riddances
Grand total: 19 riddances

I decided on the way home to get rid of 100 of my possessions in 100 days, primarily because there’s useless stuff hiding in the nooks and crannies of my house, and I don’t need it. All items will be registered in this blog under the tag "riddances" for motivational purposes.

I should hunt some up and scan them [mostly from the end of 2007]. None of them are online because they were short book reviews in the print editions. Anyway, the main branch of Cambridge Public Library has back issues. Now I need to find out where the main branch is temporarily housed….

Associated Content

• Labyrinth Special Edition DVD: Worth $50? Published October 27, 2005.
• Film Adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia A Pleasant Surprise. Published December 8, 2005.
• Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls: Collecting These Dolls Is a Great Hobby. Published January 18, 2006.
  

Clarion Reviews

• Camille Claudel: A Novel, by Alta Brown. Reviewed winter, 2005.
• Past the Line, by E.T. Milligan. Reviewed winter, 2005.
• An Unchaste Life: Memoir of a Tudor Queen, by Anne Cato. Reviewed spring, 2006.

Curve Magazine

• Page Turners [various short book reviews]. Published April, 2007.
• Page Turners [various short book reviews]. Published, May, 2007.

Dollicieux

• Dolls With Souls: The Power of Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls, Part I. Published January, 2006.
• Dolls With Souls: The Power of Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls, Part II: Published February, 2006.
• Dolls With Souls: The Power of Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls, Part III. Published April, 2006.

The Fix Online 

• So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction, edited by Steve Berman. Reviewed October 13, 2007.
• Heroes in Training, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Jim C. Hines. Reviewed October 21, 2007.
• Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Ellen Datlow. Reviewed December 7, 2007.
• Petits Fours, Scrimshaw and Training Bikes: Metaphors for Fiction — An Interview with Ellen Klages. [Includes discussion of Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages.] Published March 15, 2008.
• The Duke in His Castle, by Vera Nazarian. Reviewed June 15, 2008.

Out in the Mountains

• Spring Fire, by Vin Packer. Reviewed October, 2004.
• Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks, edited by Emily Pohl-Weary. Reviewed January, 2005.
• Light Before Day, by Christopher Rice. Reviewed April, 2005.
• Beauty and Darkness: An Interview with Susie Wizowaty. [Includes review of A Tour of Evil, by Susie Wizowaty.] Published November, 2005.

Tangent Online

• Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2006 issue. Reviewed December 29, 2005.
• Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 2006 issue. Reviewed January 30, 2006.
• Modern Magic: Tales of Fantasy and Horror, edited by W.H. Horner. Reviewed June 25, 2006.
• The Fair Folk, edited by Marvin Kaye. Reviewed August 17, 2006.
• Escape From Earth: New Adventures in Space, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. Reviewed November 15, 2006.
• North of Infinity II, edited by Mark Leslie. Reviewed November 15, 2006.

I would apply to be a freelance reviewer at the Horn Book Guide if I could just stay awake zzzzzzzzzz….

In other words, these books provided an entire weekend of mindless entertainment. But my vampires are better.

In which we learn about the improbability of Anneka and Will’s attraction. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=87

In the late 1930s, Massachusetts flooded four little towns — Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott —  to make a reservoir so that Boston metro could have even more drinking water. The resultant Quabbin Reservoir, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the world, now contains both natural, wild beauty and the rather ghostly remains of the 2,500 lives it displaced. Old foundations and overgrown roads still appear above the water line, and, apparently, if you look down into the water, you can see old houses!!

It’s an incredibly eldritch and fascinating place, from what I’ve heard. I’d love to go there. I bet vampires hang out there… The public radio documentary Haunting the Quabbin gives a detailed, personal view of the creation of the reservoir, as viewed by former residents of the displaced towns and others involved in the project.

I just discovered a tragicallly truncated series, cut down in the bloom of youth as was American Gothic: Journeyman. It’s about a man who involuntarily time travels to the recent past, no earlier than the 1960s, to fix people’s lives gone awry. Guided by his fiancee who supposedly died but really disappeared because she’s a time traveler too, Dan tries to figure out his powers and keep his family together. His wife and son find his unpredictable disappearances rattling, to say the least, and his cop brother suspects him of being mentally unstable. Meanwhile, a rogue FBI agent and an astrophysics professor may know more about time travel and others like Dan than they are letting on.

Grounded by a performance balancing both grit and heart from the understated [and very hot] Kevin McKidd, Journeyman derives much of its power from the tragic irony inherent in the protagonist’s situation. He is surrounded by a close-knit group of loved ones, including his cool, smooth and sexy ex-fiancee Livia [played with calm and witty competence by Moon Bloodgood], his on-edge, brittle, but still devoted wife [played by Gretchen Egolf], his pig-headed cop brother Jack [Reed Diamond, successfully doing a jerk with layers who has a weak spot for his brother], nauseatingly cute son Zach, his boss at the paper, etc. Dan bounces to the past to bring together old flames, protect siblings, reunite parents and children, etc., but all of his exertions to keep families together end up tearing his own apart. In the present, all of Dan’s friends and family forgive him again and again, but his new vocation forces rifts open between him and others. The series starts slow, but, around ep 5, all the plot threads start coming into play, rewarding viewers with an emotionally involving, increasingly suspenseful ride of 13 eps.

Okay, I lied. While canceled due to the 2007 writers’ strike, Journeyman ultimately does not suffer from its abortion. I would have liked an entire season to wrap up all the promising, thrilling interconnections, but the eps we do have stand on their own as engaging, high-caliber TV. Watch it on Hulu because time travel is awesome!!!

The Victorian Spinster and Colonial Emigration: Contested Subjects by Rita Kranidis.

The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880-1930 by Sheila Jeffreys.

Women, Marriage and Politics, 1860-1914 by Patricia Jalland.

On November 14th, Let The Right One In is coming to the Kendall!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also the book comes out in paperback on October 28th. I will read it.

EDIT: Let The Right One In has already been issued in paperback in 2007 under the title Let Me In. The upcoming release represents a title change and a tie-in to the US release of the film. Anyway, I’m getting Let Me In through interlibrary loan!!

http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=81 

In which Anneka goes to work to escape thoughts of death, but they sneak up on her anyway.

Comments: Bristlecones can live for up to 4,000 or 5,000 years!

A picked-on little boy falls in love with a vampire girl. Winter, ice, moodiness and death result. Looks good. Based on a novel?!

Using an automatic generator of informative and aesthetically pleasing tag clouds, I ran some seasons of LHF through Wordle…just the dialog, though.Continue reading Tag clouds for LHF

So I made up two minor characters for LHF tonight for two beautiful Integrity/Barbie combos that Andrea sold me. One Integrity head went to Cory, my manananggal, but I had two dolls left over without personalities, names or even clothes. Now they have names and clothes, maybe even some personalities.

The one on the left is Maria de Sao Jose, otherwise known as Zaezae. She is a young member of the Irmas de Maria, a clan of Portuguese-American female vampires who live for several hundred years and have healing powers. She is about 50, which is the equivalent of 20 or so human years. She is flamboyant, somewhat dramatic, prone to exaggeration and bubbly. With her zest for life, she is enjoyable to be around.

The one on the right is Angelie Kim, a Korean-American who died in the very early 1990s [hence the outfit]. She’s a quiet, rather intense person. She has an unhealthy obession with aerobic exercise and can often be seen doing Jazzercise, step aerobics or jogging [in neon gear] around Boston metro. She is peripherally associated with both the Plainsfolk and the UUUs, but she also feels attracted to the Hun, in part because she has a crush on Chow. She also finds the Plainsfolk and the UUUs too liberal for her tastes, so the Hun represent a more palatable conservatism.Continue reading Minor LHF characters: Zaezae and Angelie

In which Alexandra, Anneka’s mom, catches Max, Anneka’s dad, using the toilet for an unusual purpose. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=74

Comments: When we last left Anneka’s parents, they were on edge because of the declining health of Minerva, Anneka’s grandmother and Max’ mom. Alexandra tried to diagnose everyone’s emotional distress and forcibly promote family togetherness, while Max preferred to hide behind the Burlington Free Press. Apparently they’re still disagreeing, as evidenced by this, their yearly dispute over Max’ antidepressants.

This Meanwhile actually comes from the previous iteration of LHF, but I’ve updated it and moved it to the current version for several reasons. 1) I like the character development and details of Anneka’s parents’ relationship. 2) It gives me an excuse to show off my new kitchen set/backdrop. 3) Ever since the first version of this ep debuted 2 and a half years ago, I’ve wanted to get a Max doll to go with my Alexandra doll. Now both exist in doll form, and Max even has a wheelchair! 4) If I hadn’t linked to it, you wouldn’t have remembered the original anyway, so there.

Why yes, the Max doll does differ from the 3-D rendering of him. I rationalize this by saying that the 3-D rendering of Max portrayed him as inaccurately hairless because I couldn’t find an appropriate hairstyle or beard for him. The doll of Max accurately shows what he is supposed to look like. No, I don’t know why he has a dorky-looking hat on, but it runs in the family….

The kitchen is a Barbie My Home kitchen base customized by me. I added the paper towel roll, pot holders, tongs and towel rack. Many of the kitchen utensils are made by Re-ment, although I made the stuff in the pitcher [potato masher, bottle brush, scissors and wooden spoon] myself.

I’ve wanted to see this movie since I saw the preview.

Back in 2005, Sideshow did a 12" version of Jason from Friday the 13th 7. As I see from Michael Crawford’s site, the Sideshow version looks much gaunter than the Mezco upcoming version [mentioned previously], so I think I will try to track down a Sideshow version of this dude for Ethan. Anyway, amazingly enough, the Sideshow Jason 7 has a relatively relaxed, neutral expression for a man in the process of decaying.  Hooray! I’ve been looking for a sculpt like this for some time…The Sideshow sculpt looks great, except for those white things on his face. At first I thought they were grains of rice [hahah!], but I think they’re supposed to be maggots.

Okay, I laminated my fake donor label and hot-glued it to my fake blood bag. Looks pretty convincing, if I do say so myself. I have to figure out some way to duplicate these in 1:6.Continue reading Realistic fake blood with realistic fake donor label

Yay! My dolls are back! In the beginning of season 3, Anneka goes to work early and Will is left with his teddy bear. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=67

freak42  found me a bag of blood for my Halloween costume. Apparently he dug it up in a humungous suburban Walgreens for, as you can see, $1.99. I now seek a realistic label for a blood bag that a hospital might use. Then I can put it on my vampire juice box.

I really like the detail on this cheap novelty candy, including the heavy plastic of the bag itself and the clip at the end of the tube. You can’t see it, but there’s a lanyard under the label so it can be hung around one’s neck.

Continue reading Vampire food in the drug stores! Blood bag for my costume…

One of my hardest LHF characters to capture in plastic has been Ethan Stuart, the oldest known vampire in New England. Born at the tail end of the 1500s [!!], he’s just over 4 centuries. He was old in the first place because he was turned when he was 91, but the years are really taking their toll on him. Furthermore, he’s wasting away, so he basically looks like an exhausted skeleton with skin.

I considered several possibilities for his 1:6 form. I thought I might use a cheap 12" Halloween skeleton with basic articulation, but that would require lots of building UP with Sculpey, and a) I only do well with simple building up, like hair and b) I’m much better at carving AWAY.

I thought I might like to get a Peril Unlimited zombie, as reviewed here, but a) he looks pissed, rather than tragic and b) he’s sold out. Most zombie figs I’ve seen look pissed and/or stupid [like Zinnia Pascale, who looks like she’s permanently pained by the lack of intelligence exhibited by humans]. [No zombie figs ever look depressed to be dead. I wonder why.]

Now I think that I may have found a good base for Ethan in Mezco’s upcoming 12" Jason Voorhees as seen in Friday the 13th part 9,000,000,000 7. As you can see in the linked review, he looks skeletal and aged without appearing too stupid or annoyed. This is probably because he does not have enough face left to be expressive with. I could sand his head to give him a more even distribution of skin, since Ethan is not wounded, just really old and etoliated. I’d also repaint him as less putrefying and more aged. It could work!!

I watch TV shows exclusively online because a) I’m not tied to a specific airing time and b) I can stream them in the background while working. Interestingly enough, I find that many TV shows work perfectly fine without the images as radio shows because the clearly differentiated voices and the overdetermining music provide enough clues as to what’s going on so that actually seeing the screen isn’t necessary. Forthwith, my current slate:

Bones. I watch this primarily for the great chemistry between David Boreanaz [Seeley] and Emily Deschanel [Bones]. After a flaccid, frankly  boring start to season 3, the quality has picked up, both in the writing and in the mysteries. Though I find the increased prominence of the earnest, lonely, overanalytical and geeky psychologist Sweets charming, I’m still bitter at the writers for dispensing with Zach at the end of Season 2. His out-of-character departure ruined the wonderful rapport between the "squints" on Bones’ team.

The Colbert Report. Amusing mild parody. I enjoy watching how much fun Stephen Colbert has with his character.

The Daily Show. Amusing mild parody. Jon Stewart’s straight-man mugging STILL hasn’t gotten old for me.

Fringe. Painfully stupid, chronically incoherent and blitheringly underpsychologized, this simplistic show is one that I love to hate. I also like listening to it because it’s so anvilicious that I don’t even need to look at the pictures. Will never be forgiven for its mangling of the "Boston" setting.

Heroes. You know, back in season 1, I used to like this show. However, I think it hit its peak with the season 1 ep, "Company Man," focusing on Noah Bennet and family. Since then it has imploded on itself repeatedly, reformatting character development multiple times, introducing and dropping characters at alarming speed, creating plot holes so large that they could expand and engulf the universe and, msot criminally, turning all the characters into impetuous, stupid morons. Like Fringe, it requires no brains or even eyeballs to appreciate its schlockiness.

House. I actually really like this show, mostly because I really like watching Hugh Laurie act like an arrogant genius bastard. Brilliant comedy!

The Office. I watch this not for the plot or even the characters, but because its small moments accurately capture the combination of zealotry, awkwardness and puzzlement characterizing white-collar at-work interactions. The characters’ strange antics aren’t so amusing as the other characters’ often deadpan reactions to said antics.

Psych. I’m conflicted about this show. It’s a comic detective show about a guy who pretends to be a psychic for a police department. It would be a slight, silly diversion, except for the fact that the fake psychic’s reluctant partner and best friend is a black dude who suffers slapstick indignities and gets ordered around by the fake psychic all the time. Very Stepin Fetchit. No new eps until January, by which time I will probably have conclusively determined that it’s a racist cesspool and therefore left it alone.

Supernatural. Even though this show suffered a largely plotless third season and even though it suffers from such misogyny that it kills off all female characters or makes them disappear, I’m still a loyal fan of this show who will be watching it through the bitter end of season 5. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that I will be watching JENSEN ACKLES AS DEAN WINCHESTER through the bitter end of season 5. Ackles and co-star Padalecki consistently use their nuanced portrayals of the brothers to turn the occasional mediocre script and hammy line into a sincere, layered portrayal of fraternal devotion. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, I think Ackles is hot. With an angel charging Dean with aversion of the Apocalypse, there seems to be an interesting plot for season 4, so I’m excited about the show on a structural level again, which I haven’t been since the end of season 1. Let’s hope that the Apocalypse doesn’t fizzle like the demon war that was supposed to happen after the Winchesters opened up the gate of Hell.

I’ve always been interested in Aishah bint Abu Bakr, youngest and favoritest wife of Muhammad, ever since I wrote a biography of her during my sophomore year in high school. This Slate article discusses some modern titles about her.

In which we learn what the LHF cast’s diets reveal about their personalities. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=62

Comments: I’ve been amassing quite the collection of 1:6 foods — a seemingly useless endeavor since most of my 1:6ers run on bloods. However, LHF vampires CAN eat food, although it’s about as nutritional for them as celery is for mortals; my vampires prefer blood, but eat mortal food for nostalgic reasons and because they like the taste.

Anyway, this ep exists primarily to show off a very small fraction of my mini edibles. Will is eating a soft-serve chocolate cone eraser from Iwako. Iwako is an awesome importer of Japanese erasers in the shape of food, household items and animals. Anneka is eating an Iwako sandwich, disassemblable to reveal tomato slices and lettuce. Janet is drinking out of an Iwako coffee cup. Velvette has a plate with an Iwako corn cob and some veggies I made myself. The carrots are painted toothpicks. The cucumbers are painted slices of a glue stick. Rori is chugging from an Iwako carton. Andrew is eating an Iwako burger, disassemblable to reveal separate patty and lettuce. Davry is making orange juice with an orange, juicer and pitcher from a Rement set. Baozha is eating Iwako soup. Chow uses a functional clay teapot that I picked up in Chinatown. Materyllis is tasting some food that came with the Barbie My Home Kitchen [seen in background]. Mark holds an Iwako canteloupe. Zinnia Pascale’s can of brains is made by me with a reduced picture of the label pasted on a length of gluestick.

Zombies can’t always get fresh brains, you know!

Because my Boston area grocery store does not carry canned pork brains in milk gravy D: , I am approximating this 1:6 label with images that have been circulating on the Net. If I ever get a can of pork brains for myself, I will redo this 1:6 label, assuming I don’t vomit copiously and render myself unable to complete this vital task.

If anyone wants to take one for the team and get me a can of pork brains…or at least send me the label, I’d pukiferously eternally appreciate it.

This should print at about 0.75 inches high x 1.5 inches long, but I haven’t tested it.

EDIT: In order for this label to print at the correct size, save the picture to your computer. Then open it with an image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp. You need the imaging program to read the correct sizing information embedded in the file. Otherwise, the label will print out too big.
Continue reading 1:6 zombie chow

I got a box of about 8 dolls from Andrea today: 3 arti Barbie bodies, each with an Integrity Toys head, a Candi head, plus 4 or 5 Eversparkle male figs.

I picked up the Eversparkles so that minor male characters can have basic bodies. I also intend to modify one so that Margie, my fat doll, can use it for her body.

I picked up the Integrity Toys dolls because all of their playline headsculpts are extremely hot, but unfortunately out of print. I also thought that the strong, stylized lines of the Integrity sculpts might give me a basis for a doll of Cory, my manananggal.

These are the Integrity Toys dolls I bought from Andrea as they came to me. Andrea took this picture.Continue reading Cory, my manananggal in progress

I want to read this book, The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed, about the family that was both enslaved by and related to Thomas Jefferson and his family.

I got a pair of fangs from W**-M**t a few weeks ago for a dollar. I’m very surprised that anything can be purchased for just a buck these days.

Just now I ordered my gravestone shirt from Gravestone Artwear. It’s a black long-sleeved T-shirt with as many emblems of mortality as can possibly be crammed onto one headstone: a skeleton with laurels [=Death victorious] and a scythe holding the sun and the moon, an ouroboros [=eternity], angels and bats. In case that’s not enough death-related imagery, the sleeves have running borders of crossed spades and mattocks, coffins and little death’s heads. If you want to see a picture of the design, go to T-Shirts, then New England Gravestone Rubbing section, then look for the Susanna Jayne stone. It’s beautiful!

I WAS going to order a fake blood bag, but the list price is about $7.00 + the same amount for shipping, and I’m NOT paying that much for a glorified juice box. I think I will try to make my own. If I can do so, then I can miniaturize the pattern and make blood bags for my 1:6 vampires too.

Since I have black pants, the basic parts of my costume are now pretty much set. I’m looking for some more "civilized vampire" accessories, however. I think I’m going to make a button that says "Vampires do it in cold blood" at Zazzle.

In which the funeral is held for Anneka’s grandmother.

Comments: In the season finale, Anneka quotes the elegy of Ovid that Minerva mentioned before she died. And she tries, really tries, to find some meaning in her grandmother’s death. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=60