Exactly what it says on the tin. Zooooom zoooom zoooom weeee-ooooooooo! [Insert TARDIS noises here.]

Grimm is such a procedurally stupid show. This episode showed the detective and his Blutbad friend breaking and entering in their investigation. Hey, it's no problem if the police bend the rules, right, as long as they get the right suspects, right? Wrong. This show is so sloppy. Yet I still keep watching it.

So I'm doing a split with someone [outside of DOA] for a human magenta Aenigma [no fangs or pointy ears] with human legs, outfit and wings. Her name will be Ginevra, and I don't know what I'm going to do with her, but she will be so awesome!!

Oh GAWD, look at the little 1:6 scale fairy with magenta skin and cobweb wings and little pointy teefs!! I really want her. She's the first of Soom's Faery Sprite line that I've really wanted right off the bat. A 1:6 vampire! How cool!

In ABC's Once Upon a Time, which debuted last week, fairy tale characters are trapped in Storybrooke, Maine, unaware of their true identities. Bail bond person Emma Swan must accept her destiny as mother of Henry, who she gave up for adoption as a baby, and Snow White's daughter to reverse this evil curse. On her side are Henry [her kid], Henry's teacher [Snow White] and probably the sheriff. Against her are arrayed Regina [the evil queen], Mr. Gold [Rumplestiltskin] and Henry's therapist [identity not known].

While I don't think Grimm is making much of the fairy tale concept, I think Once Upon a Time has the capacity for greater insight into these stories, as it's showing how they act out in characters' lives, forming sort of primal motivations. So I like the concept, the jewel-toned cinematography and Jennifer Morrison's sarcastic expressions as Emma. I find Lara Parrilla's evil queen broadly overplayed, though she did gain some interesting backstory during ep 2, and Jared Gilmore's Henry borderline annoying. So far I'll keep watching because I think the quality is slightly above average.

In NBC's new procedural/fairy tale production, Grimm, Nick Burkhardt is the last in the line of the Grimms, apparently NOT collectors of fairy tales, but instead people with the gift to see folkloric monsters as they truly are, though they walk among us looking like humans. Nick develops his new abilities when he senses a wolf-like creature dismembering women wearing red sweatshirts. His skeptical fellow police detective is along for the ride, while his police chief appears to be in cahoots with the monsters. Shenanigans ensue.

This show has very little to recommend it, besides its concept. Even then, the concept isn't much good. If the first ep is any indication, Grimm will use fairy tales as sources of monsters without plumbing the psychological hold and resonance these stories still have over us today.

Furthermore, I find the plotting in this ep jarringly ridiculous. While on the trail of the killer, Nick and his partner are about to give up the search until they realize that the killer was humming the same song that was playing on the first victim's music player. This coincidence causes them to turn back. Fortunately, their hunch that a connection exists between the killer and the first victim is correct, but it's a pretty huge stretch to call a guy humming a popular song a real clue. That's just silly.

Additionally, when Nick and his partner turn back into the house, guns drawn, to find the second, still living victim that the killer has hiding in his house, the killer rushes both Nick and his partner, throwing each of them to the ground. As the wolf-like creature runs away, Nick's partner shoots the man several times in the back, killing him. I do not understand why the creature was shot in the back when fleeing from the scene. I was under the impression that police aren't supposed to shoot to kill unless they are imminently threatened, which they were not at the moment. If a story follows the form of a procedural, it shouldn't be sloppy with the basic rules of the genre. Bad idea.

With nothing original about it and no actors that rise above the level of competency, Grimm is a waste of time.

Today I ordered 2 more Lumedoll Lumelights, a small bust Elin for Avery and a large bust Arine for Mazzy. Yay, 2 more characters to paint! I love Lumedoll so much!!

…getting a resin BJD for Avery, Ellery's older sister, in Me and My Muses. I just realized that she's the only character besides Ellery who appears in every single season. She deserves inresination, if I can find a form for her.

Canst thou tell by his smirk?

I erased one side of Lucian's smirk in an effort to make his mouth seem smaller.Continue reading A devious man

• Bones. I'm rather worried for the start of this season, which is the last one. Now that Brennan is pregnant with Booth's child, I fear that the season might do away with all her character development and just show her as a mindlessly joyous mommy-to-be, in the way that the previous season was all about Angela and Hodgins having a baby, blech.
• Fringe. Previously extolled.
• Haven. In this summer SyFy series, FBI agent Mary Sue Audrey Parker investigates people with unusual powers, who all live in the small town of Haven, Maine. Helping her in her quest are police chief/ love interest Nathan Wuornos and the guy who just hangs around being a lovable scoundrel, Duke Crocker. Intriguing hints of an overall conspiracy or mythology rise above thoroughly mediocre acting and predicatable mysteries of the week.
• Sanctuary. One of my friends turned me on to this Sy Fy show last year. It's about an immortal genius, Dr. Helen Magnus, who preserves, studies, rescues and allies herself with "abnormals," or paranormal, mythological, folkloric beings. Amanda Tapping, as the indefatigably capable Magnus, is an exemplar of feminist heroism, besides being really sexy. The constant time-traveling, season-end cliffhangers and whammy-like game-changing twists [Magnus' daughter dies! Her supposedly dead father comes back! There's a Hollow Earth inside this one! It's invading our Earth!] provide mindless entertainment. It's a silly series, but I keep coming back, even though Agam Darshi as Kate Freelander is a character so annoying and useless that she needs to go away.
• Supernatural. Why do I even bother with this misogynist drivel? Must be my crush on Jensen Ackles, whose portrayal of the long-suffering Dean continues to attract my eyeballs. Since it burned out its universal apocalypse storyline at the end of season 5, this show has had nowhere else to go, instead just preferring to hang around into irrelevancy. I only watch occasionally.
• Warehouse 13. This SyFy series concerns two Secret Service agents, Myka and Pete, who happen across a warehouse filled with magical, semi-historical artifacts. They join the quest to snag, bag and tag artifacts when the artifacts are wreaking havoc across the world. Repartee between the two agents, the silly Pete [played by Eddie McClintock] and the more tightly wound Myka [played by Joanne Kelly], provides chuckles, as does curmudgeonly leadership from Warehouse head Artie [played by a dry Saul Rubinek]. Add a computer genius in her 20s, Claudia [played by Allison Scagliotti, who is way hot], always ready with a slick phrase, and you have a low-key, good-natured series.

Lucian!!!
Continue reading Our lovely Lucian!

Ellery with a redone mouth and darkened eyebrows looks no less messy, but infinitely improved, to my eyes.
Continue reading Our lovely Ellery!

I have come to the decision that Ellery's mouth looks blotchy and too dark. I will find some pale pink paint after work and maybe a smaller brush. I really like living so close to an arts and crafts supply store!!

How do you think Ellery looks with long blond hair? She doesn't look right to me…too severe….. [Wearing a dress by an42!]
Continue reading Ellery with “test hair”

Ellery and Lucian came today. They are so beautiful. The Lumedoll resin has a solid, chalky quality that I really like, with delicate tones and a nice tooth for scribbling on with watercolor pencil.
Continue reading Ellery and Lucian arrive!!

Andrea finished up Ellery's clothes recently and sent me pictures of the final products.
Continue reading More clothes for Ellery: T-shirts and sleeves

Right here!

I just bought Canon EOS 30D Digital Field Guide to help me in my pursuit of DSLR photography too. For $4.00!

Andrea showed me Ellery's underwear and one of her many pairs of sleeves today. "Semper ubi sub ubi…." Tee hee hee!
Continue reading More clothes for Ellery

Headline says it all! I hope to have them in my possession soon!

I made Jamisia some wings out of fake maple leaves glued back to back, then pinned to the back of her dress. I'm not sure if I will keep these or make different ones. I do like the ragged edges though. They seem in keeping with her character.
Continue reading Wings for Jamisia???

I may add wings to her if I can find some, but, for now, she has eyes and hair and a dress and underwear, so here she is…Mismatching apron is for when she bakes!
Continue reading Jamisia mostly done

Now with 23 gauge brass wire in her arms, Jamisia poses much more effectively. In the second picture, she shows off Lucian's blouse and vest, nabbed from a Mattel Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow Ken doll.
Continue reading Jamisia with wire and also Lucian’s clothes

Just did Jamisia's messy, messy faceup with my new watercolor pencils. They behave much better than chalk pastels, but I still wish I could find some medium that would apply to resin as easily as colored pencils to paper.Continue reading Jamisia’s messy, sketchy faceup

Jamisia arrived today! Here are some pictures of her box opening. I was mistaken — she did not come with wings, but that's okay. She's still a fairy princess with beautiful soft pink-colored skin, little pointy ears and a nicely sculpted smirk. See?
Continue reading Jamisia’s here!

Just some large beautiful pictures of Lola Paprika sitting on the sill of my condo.
Continue reading Lola Paprika on the windowsill

I just ordered an outfit from a Mattel Jack Sparrow [pirate] Ken doll for Lucian. The vest separates from the blouse, but the blouse and pants are sewn together, so I have to remove the blouse and hem it, which I think I can handle with my limited sewing skills.

Lucian's clothes, courtesy of a June Planning Captain Hook Taeyang doll, arrived today. Overall, it's too big, better suited to fit a Cy Girl [see Frank modeling the jacket below] or a male action figure than a slightly built, slender male figure as Lucian.

Furthermore, much to my disgust and annoyance, all elements are well-made of soft, lined fabric, except for the dang shirt. The blouse is made of a sleazy pink fabric more appropriate for cheap playline Barbies. When I pay a lot for a doll or its outfit, I expect high-quality fabrics, not something that I can find on a $5.00 doll in the department store.

I don't know what I'm going to do with these clothes. I like the jacket; it's well-structured, form-fitting and nicely lined, along with being a deep dark red. But I refuse to offend Lucian's [and my] standards by dressing him in the blouse that I thought would work so well for him. Back to the drawing board…
Continue reading Lucian’s clothes arrive

Well, apparently Jessica Jamisia, Ellery's third created muse, will be coming home before Ellery, Lucian and Mazzy in the form of a Soom Faery Legend Rose Sprite Princess in rose pink resin, bought on the DOA Marketplace. As you can see on the product page, she comes with a human body and optional rose-shaped wings and pointed-blossom "faery feet." I plan to give her wings, but leave her barefoot with human legs.

Of course, there originally was no particular justification for Jessica Jamisia to be a fairy, but, now that she is, I really should work an explanation into my story. Hmmmm…

Just some pictures of Janvier Jett against the brick wall of my house. I used some watercolor pencil to enhance the yellow eyeshadow, making it more greenish and blending it with the blue. I think it looks more striking this way. She' s such a happy character! Continue reading Janvier Jett against the brick

Just saw the latest ep now. While, at first, I derided the show for being a rip-off of the X-Files and making a mess of the Boston area setting, I have now come to really enjoy it. The mythology of the show has slowly built over each successive season, creating a rich tapestry of "fringe" events, shapeshifters, Observers, alternate realities and a whole coherent system that we viewers still have much to learn about. The way in which the show builds tension and engagement with each following episode keeps me entertained, as does the vast collection of mythology that the show seems to have only suggestively scratched the surface of.

Anna Torv as Olivia and her other-world alternate shows nuances of talent playing two versions of the same character, both hardened in different ways. I used to think that Olivia had all the personality of cold tofu, but, as the show has gone on, I have realized that much of her character is repressed, but Torv plays the depths beyond that repression very well, with an American accent even.

Usually, I do not really care for main-character romances in TV shows, but I really like the slowly developing relationship between Anna Torv's Olivia and Joshua Jackson's Peter. I assume there must be a lot of underplayed angst because the characters have been thwarted by so many things — not knowing if the other reciprocated, Peter having sex with Alternate Olivia instead of Real Olivia, Peter's erasure from the main timeline — but the actors do a good job of downplaying their emotions so that their actions speak loudly than any maudlin score.

Speaking of Peter, I am very distressed that he hardly appeared in this ep, only as "the man in the mirror," and I hope that he becomes reintegrated in the cast soon. I really like the way that Olivia, Astrid, Walter and Peter work as a family-like unit and as a Fringe team, and I wish that Peter would be back to sustain that group chemistry.

Andrea is making some of Ellery's clothes. Here's what she has so far. Look at the incredible little patchwork skirt!!
Continue reading Some of Ellery’s clothes

According to VPR, the US Postal Service proposed closing 3,600 post offices across the US, including 14 in Vermont. Meanwhile, Obama backed a plan to cut out Saturday delivery! None of these plans have been approved by Congress, so they remain only ominous threats for now.

These ominous threats lurk on the horizon because the USPS is losing money for several reasons. 1) People are purchasing fewer post office products than they used to. The USPS depends on consumers' money because it funds itself. 2) The USPS recently overfunded its pension plan billions of dollars. 3) Also the economy in general is in the toilet.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I tend not to care about the USPS because so much of what it brings me is either useless [junk mail] or redundant [bank statements]. I suppose I'm a little agitated now because I'm in a phase of amassing things for Me and My Muses, which means depending on the USPS, and I WANT MY MAIL. But, overall, the USPS to me looks like an institution that needs to make sacrifices because it is not keeping up with the times, unfortunately.

Here are Ellery's desk, end table and bookshelf as I begin to add to them from my store of Rements and other small items. I'm leaving some space on her desk and bookshelf for the small hordes of Homies that should be coming soon…

Out of all of these, my favorite piece is the Rement end table, featuring a working lamp with a shade that has animals all over it!Continue reading Working on the details in Ellery’s room

I substituted the carpentry scrap boosters for little pieces of dowel to raise up the rolltop Batchix gave me. Now it looks much better!Continue reading Improved rolltop desk from Batchix, now with little legs

I just glued the loose pieces of the rolltop desk together and added some boosters on the bottom, then put a few of Ellery's dolls around the desk to see the effect. Pretty nice!
Continue reading Rolltop desk from Batchix, now 1:6, with some dolls on it

My rolltop desk came in the mail today! This is Ellery's desk. As you can see in the first photo, it needs some help. As you can see in the second photo, with Frank for comparison, it's also a little small, probably closer to 1:8 than 1:6. However, I can make this work. I think that I will add some legs, if I can find any, to boost the height, which will make the scale seem more agreeable. It's a nice little piece, and, for $5.00, I can't complain. It has a lot more character than the plastic Barbie desk that I was planning to use.
Continue reading Rolltop desk from Batchix!

More pictures from today's doll meetup. From left to right: Janvier Jett, Mousey's Customhouse Ai Ange Gaby in lap, Mousey's Asleep Eidolon Jiao Jr., vermont chick's Kaye Wiggs Layla Fair Elf.Continue reading Doll meetup, 09/17/11: Janvier Jett and others

This fountain, presumably located at Osaka City Station, Osaka, Japan, sprays the time, the station name, floral designs, stripes, etc. Think about the engineering that went into this…

I found some weird 1:6 things in my collection that went to Goodwill today. I took pictures of everything, but I don't want to post them in case I get nostalgic and want them back. I got rid of some music-playing stairs that had a wreath on them, 2 chairs with metal frames, a couch shaped like lips, a wooden Chinese table, a shopping cart, a shampoo bottle shaped like a water cooler, a round end table, a set of three drawers, a folding baker's rack, a washer and dryer combo, an ATM machine, a lamp, a mini fridge and various clothes that no one would ever wear. No, nobody can have any of it because I already dropped it off at Goodwill. I feel better now that I have gotten rid of two boxes of 1:6 stuff.

The Nosferatu Taeyang I wanted got damaged in last weekend's flooding, so I can't get it. I have a refund and no clothes for Lucian. Maybe Andrea can help?

EDIT: I got him an outfit from a Taeyang Disney Captain Hook doll, featuring lots of reds and pinks, very flamboyant. Best of all, I just paid for the outfit, no doll!

Speaking of muses, here's a poem that I read in my junior year of college about an exchange between the Poet and his Muse. It's called La Nuit de Mai…and the Poet and the Muse definitely have a romantic relationship!Continue reading La Nuit de Mai par Alfred de Musset

Batchix is sending me a 1:6 wooden rolltop desk with a working rolltop and different nooks and crannies for papers…just for the price of shipping! Even though I have way too much 1:6 furniture, I couldn't resist this piece. I think it will be Mazzy's vanity in Me and My Muses.

News from D7ana. Apparently Stardolls, a pixel fashion dolls Web site, and Mattel are collaborating to bring out some dolls based on fashions from the Web site. From this collage created by a fan, it appears that the new Stardolls Barbies may have new headsculpts. Look, for example, at the redheaded doll in lower left. I swear I've never seen that headsculpt before. Trying to find some larger pictures of these dolls…

Here are larger pictures of two of the Stardoll dolls. Even the one on the right looks unfamiliar sculpt-wise. It could just be her paint job, though…Continue reading Mattel Barbie/Stardoll collaboration dolls feature new headsculpts?

From my parents' house I also brought two tapestries, bigger than I thought they were, for use in making Lucian's castle set. Frank provides scale [and a really large dildo!].Continue reading Haul from parents’ house II: tapestries

I went to my parents' house today to unpack and bring back those things from my 1:6 amassment that I will need for starting off Me and My Muses. First off, here are the tertiary characters that I brought home. From left to right, Jo, MacKenzie, Melinda, Avery, Kristen. Everyone's wearing something by an42!Continue reading Haul from parents’ house I: dolls

AP Collectibles is selling a desk and chair, billed as "for Joseph Goebbels," as well as desk accessories, including a working green-shaded lamp! There's also a 1:6 furniture set of a chair and a swastikaed side table, with an awesome 1940s vintage telephone, "for Hermann Goering." Both furniture sets and the accessories come from Dragon in Dream [DID], and they each cost $60.00 on AP's Web site. They are mostly sold out already.

The "for Goebbels" desk and chair set is very tempting, especially because of the working lamp, but I just can't justify spending that type of money on only 2 pieces of furniture [and a Hilter bust :/ ] unless they appear in every single episode of a multi-arc photostory, which they wouldn't.

Because you can't see the awesome detail in AP's dinky little pictures, I've nabbed some pics from Crossroads Diecast to show you.Continue reading Impressively detailed 1:6 furniture for your little Nazis

So Creazione blog has a tutorial for how to make a stone wall backdrop for 1:6ers without spray painting anything. This will be perfect for Lucian's castle! I just have to find a sheet of appropriately thick Styrofoam!

EDIT: Or I could just be really lazy and find some fabric with a print of a stone wall on it, which I did. I think I'll be lazy. It's cheaper than buying Styrofoam and paint, actually.

lilac shoes x 1 pair @ $1.79
black heeled shoes x 1 pair @ $.99
green binder x 6 @ $.39
Japanese French book X 1 @ $1.49

If only I could find the ADD TO CART button!

I do not understand the appeal of Blythe dolls. I think they are ugly and disturbing. I'm totally fine with Pullips, however.

Thinking ahead to future dolls and sets for Me and My Muses, Mazzy needs some high femme accoutrements for his set. One definite item is a vanity. I looked around on Ebay for one, seeking, in particularly, a vanity with lily-shaped lights. I found one.

As you can see, this 2004 piece from the Barbie Silkstone collection is exactly what I was looking for, although, actually, I would have liked a nice violent pink color on this particular set. However…Continue reading Tale of two 1:6 vanities

My mom is letting me have two small square tapestries, maybe 7" x 7", so I will use those affixed to a foamcore backdrop to simulate tapestries insulating a stone wall.

I also just bought a black fainting couch jewelry box and a black wire jewelry holder that looks like a bookshelf or display shelf. I will fill the jewelry holder with books and knickknacks appropriate for Lucian.

Then all of these pieces together will create the impression of an opulent [if chilly] castle. Pictures below. [Polybag-Monster is the Ebay seller for both items, if you're interested.] Further bulletins as events warrant!
Continue reading Lucian’s castle is coming together.

Well, dang. Ellery and Lucian just wrote themselves into Lucian's castle, where Lucian is showing her his illuminated manuscripts. I guess this means a castle set and some 1:6 illumination supplies.

Searching for "blythe sports shoes" on Ebay brings up a selection of footwear <$10.00 a pair that will accommodate Lumelight fems' feet.

Andrea [who is God] tells me that Momoko and Pullip clothes will very likely be too small for Ellery and Jessica, so I have commissioned someone [=God] to make a stylistically clashing wardrobe for Ellery.

My ideal wardrobe for Ellery would be

• a tiered skirt of mismatching layers
• some underwear [bra and briefs]
• a T-shirt that says FEMINIST
• a T-shirt that says GEEK
• a pair of jeans that go up to her waist
• a long-sleeved shirt to wear open over the T-shirts [i.e., doesn't need fasteners] and
• as many as possible pairs of sleeves with all different patterns and colors.

Meanwhile, I have given up on my search for a French maid outfit for Jessica Jamisia. I will just use a dress [Ebru's] and apron [Materyllis', shown under her felt apron here] from Andrea that I already have, and I'll leave it at that. I'm already laying out quite a bit for the 4 main dolls themselves and Ellery and Lucian's clothes, so I'd like to save where possible.

So the 2010 Harley Barbie and Ken giftset is on sale at barbiecollector.com for ~$40.00. This brings me the thought that I could get the set for the Ken doll and make him into one of Ellery's girlfriends as a trans character.

Here's Janvier Jett all duded up and ready to pose. I thought she would look fierce, but she actually looks pretty cute and a little geeky. Look at her little pointy teefs!!Continue reading Janvier Jett says, “Rock on, dudes!”

I just picked up Janvier Jett at the post office and quickly opened her, though I'm at work, to make sure that she had the appropriate body and faceup. She did! Her only flaw is that a little chip of thin resin is missing out of the bottom of her head hole, but this does not affect the poseability of her head on her body.

She's so cute and snarky, even with no hair or eyes or clothes. Her pointy little teefs are wonderful. More in a few hours when I have time to play with her!

I think Ellery might need her clothes. They're not very dykey, but they are atrociously mismatched. Unfortunately, again, as is the case with Nosferatu Taeyang, a doll comes with the clothes. Poop.

P.S. She has blue shoes!!

Continue reading Lusting after Picasso Street East J-Doll for her clothes

A Jun Planning Nosferatu Taeyang [the male counterpart to Pullip] nobly made a sacrifice to make his outfit possible. Irritatingly, I had to purchase a doll along with the clothes. Anyone want a naked Nosferatu Taeyang?

I know it's hard to see, but please note floofy, lacy shirt, sparkly black pants, dramatic black vest and tailcoat the color of dried blood.Continue reading Lucian has clothes!

"I don't have any Momoko outfits, but I've heard they fit (small bust).
Also most Barbie clothes can fit except those made for the new Basic
line which is very slender (Liv dolls clothing, Pullip, and some action
figure female clothing fit too!). The Barbie Basic line male clothes
look like they might be a good fit for the slim Lumedoll body (Liv dolls
have a new boy out that looks slim enough as well…and he can be found
at places like Target!)."

Lumedoll fems

Blythe shoes
Lati Yellow shoes

Lumedoll males

http://stores.ebay.com/Mimi-Collection/1-6-Male-Outfit-/_i.html?_fsub=391211319&_sid=108903569&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

made for male action figures by TTL/Toys City and Triad Toys. Apparently TTL pants are skin-tight on the v.2 body and loose on the original body, which is just what I need all around! (She also says that clothing by the Crazy Owners company is too large.)

shirts, pants, shoes: http://www.gijoeelite.com/f_display.asp?strDisplayName=ACIWildToys

ACI jeans
ACI shoes

both
wigs: http://www.mudoll.com/index.php

Today I just ordered a Lumedoll Erine, large bust, and a Lumedoll Lucas, regular body! I didn't get the aforementioned Soom Uyoo after all, so I went ahead and got the two chronologically first characters in Me and My Muses: Ellery and Lucian. In 6 to 8 weeks, I should have them!

Also Janvier Jett is here, a mere 1.5 miles from me, but waiting at the post office till Monday. Bleh.

Even smaller than my 14 cm Elfdoll tinies, I have a 3.5" Takara Microman/Microlady figurine with no face and no name. I keep her casually posed on the bookshelf right next to my chair…

Check out the fidelity in my new photo studio setup! Two lights really add to the crispness of the results.Continue reading My smallest doll

I think it should be easy to find a French maid outfit to fit a 27cm fashion doll, without having to resort to the ridiculously expensive and unattractive French Maid Barbie Doll. Silkstones are so unappealing, and they're not even articulated well! This complaint is in reference to Jessica Jamisia, Ellery's third muse, who should be dressed in a French maid outfit.Continue reading Complaint about doll clothes: no French maid outfits

There's a beautiful Soom Uyoo on the DOA marketplace now, and I waaaaaant her. Scratch my plans about having a Lumedoll Arine for my Muses protagonist and doing the faceup myself; this Uyoo is perfect.

I've long had a crush on Uyoo. I love her big eyes and her full lips. Her mouth always seem slightly open, as if she's about to speak.

I used to have one with a default Soom faceup that I loved; she was the first incarnation of Jennifer, but I sold her, which I shouldn't have done. I eventually got another to provide the body for Absinthe and the head for Little Anneka, but I never liked that one as much because she had a non-default faceup. This one currently on the MP has sweet, arched eyebrows and a delicately done mouth, very close to the default. WANT WANT WANT WANT.

EDIT: Inquired to see if she was still available. If all goes well, I will soon on the road to HELL, no turning back, since I'm now buying dolls for Me and My Muses.

My earlier plot of putting a Lumedoll Lucas [male] head on a Lumedoll fem body will not work for Mazzy, so he needs a different headsculpt. I may just get another Lumedoll Arine and paint it differently, emphasizing the link between Ellery and her muses by similarity of features. In that case, maybe Jessica should be an Arine as well with a small bust?

Dolls, updated

• Ellery: Lumedoll Arine, large bust
• Lucian: Lumedoll Lucas
• Mazzy: Lumedoll Arine, large bust
• Jessica: Lumedoll Elin, small bust, or Souldoll Jandi, or Souldoll Metel
• Avery: ? [the doll formerly known as Cutey Honey?]
• Kristin: ? [the doll formerly known as Cory?]
• Melinda: ? [the doll previously appearing as Maybe?]
• Jo: ? [the doll formerly known as AJ?]
• MacKenzie: ? [the doll formerly known as Tamsin?]

I just got a tracking number today for Janvier Jett’s EMS package: EM068874069KR.

I hope she ships quickly and that everything is perfect with my order. I ordered her with Hyang’s body and the faceup as shown on the order page, and I hope both of those requests are successfully granted.

Sarah sits by Lake Champlain, Oakledge Park, Burlington, VT. Actually the first one is just in the front yard of someone in my neighborhood.Continue reading Sarah by Lake Champlain

Ellery: Find something in clothes bin.

Lucian: open white collared shirt, jeans, black boots

Mazzy: ridiculous underwear

Jessica: French maid outfit

Avery: Find something in clothes bin.

Kristin: Cory's clothes

Melinda: Maybe's clothes

Jo: AJ's clothes

MacKenzie: Tamsin's clothes, shoes

So if there was a town that made a deal with death that the town would enjoy health and good fortune in exchange for everyone who was born there having to be buried there and made to keep from walking by a hereditary Graveminder and an Undertaker, and then the dead started walking and eating people because of a reluctant Graveminder, that would be a pretty cool story, wouldn’t it?

Such is the conceit of Melissa Marr’s Graveminder, in which Bekka, shocked over the death of the previous Graveminder, her grandmother, resists her fated role as stalker of the dead until it’s almost too late. Throw in a preordained romance with an equally unprepared Undertaker, and you have the makings of a supernatural romance that might explore determinism vs. free will in an interesting way.

Sorry. No dice. Marr succeeds at fleshing out an original mythology, sustaining a mood of slowly increasing creepiness and making the walking dead scary but also kind of pitiable. Unfortunately, Bekka, the main character, who should be sympathetic or at least interesting, is nothing more than a dishrag who spends over half the book insisting that she is not in love with the Undertaker. Multiple scenes go by in which she and Byron, the Undertaker, dance around the subject of their mutual attraction and complicated past, then stall out. I keep wanting to yell at Bekka: "Stop it! You’re preventing the plot from moving forward!" Alas, she does not heed me.

Yet, despite my objections, I am finishing the book because I want to see what happens.

Labeled "vampires" because it involves people coming back from the dead and eating other people.

EDIT: Well, things picked up toward the end when more dead people started going on a human-chewing rampage, and there was a bit of a conspiracy going on, but, all in all, this book was destroyed by repetitive conversations and poor pacing.

This trailer for Twixt is of the sort that obviates watching the actual movie. Based on the trailer, this movie looks overlong, overdone and overacted. A pity because I think there’s an interesting idea rattling around in there somewhere.

Dolls

• Ellery: Lumedoll Arine, large bust
• Lucian: Lumedoll Lucas
• Mazzy: Lumedoll Blaze head on large bust fem body
• Jessica: Lumedoll Elin, small bust
• Avery: ?
• Kristin: ? [the doll formerly known as Cory?]
• Melinda: ? [the doll previously appearing as Maybe?]
• Jo: ? [the doll formerly known as AJ?]
• MacKenzie: ? [the doll formerly known as Tamsin?]

Check drawer of heads and doll parts for parts for other characters.

Names

• The protagonist: Ellery 
• The first muse: Lucian
• The second muse: Mazzy
• The third muse: Jessica
• The protagonist's sister: Avery
• The protagonist's long-distance girlfriend: Kristin
• The protagonist's first actual girlfriend: Melinda
• The protagonist's second girlfriend: Jo
• The protagonist's third girlfriend: MacKenzie

The plot goes something like this:

• Introduction. The protagonist creates the first muse, tending him with all the frustrated energy of her muddled sexuality and her loneliness. They have lots of fun.
• Uh Oh. Because she spends so much time on him, the first muse becomes realer and realer to the protagonist. She wonders about the nature of his existence and also her own sanity.
• Cracking. Things come to a head. The protagonist’s sister expresses worry about the protagonist. The protagonist’s long-distance girlfriend delivers an ultimatum: me or him.
• Banishment. The protagonist chooses her long-distance girlfriend over her first muse. He tries to reason with her and come back. She refuses sadly. All is desolate.
• Substitution. The protagonist, unable to live without muses, substitutes the first one for the second and third ones. Frolicking ensues. Meanwhile, the protagonist has a mentally stimulating, sexually unsatisfying relationship with her first actual girlfriend.
  
• Coming Back. After breaking up with her first actual girlfriend and moving on to the second, the protagonist decides to bring the first muse back.
• Rage. The protagonist and the first muse fight.
• Coexistence. The protagonist and the first muse reconcile. Meanwhile, all three muses get used to each other. The first and the second muse fall in love!
  
• The Boot. The protagonist and her second girlfriend fight because of their temperamental differences and because the protagonist won’t tell her second girlfriend about her muses. The protagonist and her second girlfriend break up.
• All By My Selves. The protagonist swears off romantic relationships for a while. She becomes closer to her sister. She feels less dependent on her muses. She writes stories that aren’t about them and thinks about them, but doesn’t talk to them all the time.
• Beginning Again. The protagonist meets her third girlfriend. From the outset, the protagonist tells the third girlfriend about her muses. Everything looks promising…

Last night I came up with the next obvious storyline for creation in a 1:6 doll drama format: the story of a young woman and her relationships, emotional, sexual and otherwise, with her three muses. "Me and My Muses" is its title. Is it based on my life? Why certainly.

There are four main characters:

• The young woman. A morbidly introspective and self-analytical person, she is, as the series starts, a college student who is confused about her sexuality and increasingly disturbed by the robustness of her muses. She writes and plays with dolls.
• The first muse. Also morbidly introspective and lonely, he combines playfulness, pushiness and seduction in a threatening and irresistible combination. He writes in his diary and makes paper.
• The second muse. Sunny, buoyant, extroverted and confident, he is an androgynous, polymorphously perverse hermaphrodite [mythologically speaking]. He invents things and designs fashions.
• The third muse. Quiet, conscientious and punctiliously correct in all things, she is the second muse’s servant. She rides her mountain bike and sketches human figures.

There are also a limited number of secondary characters, including, but not limited to:

• The protagonist’s long-distance girlfriend. Passionate, loyal, insecure and possessive, the long-distance girlfriend is going through her own difficulties in college. She resents the closeness between the protagonist and the first muse.
• The protagonist’s sister. Creative, imaginative and similar in temperament to the protagonist, the sister used to be very close to the protagonist, but going to separate colleges has driven distance between them. Succeeding socially and emotionally at school [in contrast to the protagonist], the sister worries that the muses are driving a wedge between her and the protagonist.
• The protagonist’s first actual non-long-distance girlfriend. As a struggling poet, the first actual girlfriend, who is signifcantly younger than the protagonist, is attracted to the protagonist’s mind and creativity. She and the protagonist break up over the protagonist’s lack of sexual confidence, among other things.
• The protagonist’s second girlfriend. Extroverted, high-strung and enthusiastic, the protagonist’s second girlfriend is much different temperamentally than she is. This contributes to their relationship’s downfall, as does the protagonist’s unwillingess to talk about her muses.
• The protagonist’s third girlfriend. As a vampire lover and fan fiction writer, she is involved in sci fi and fantasy conventions. The protagonist tells her about her muses up front, and the third girlfriend thinks that they are awesome.

Blogger supplies multi-paragraph examples of bad writing that he has written. Tee hee!

For example:

"She looked into his eyes and saw them grinning at her. But was there something else there? A hint of trepidation, perhaps? Behind their apparent delight, what were his eyes really feeling? It was impossible to know what was going on in those eyes’ head. Was their heart truly in it?"

I bought my Souldoll Zenith Shiva G with the express purpose of making her look like Jennifer Connelly’s character, Sarah, in the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth, which is my favorite in the whole world. My Sarah is not exactly the same character as Sarah in the film, but she is bookish, fantastical and quiet, like her film inspiration. Anyway, I wanted to give her the outfit that Sarah wears for most of the film when she is questing through the Labyrinth to rescue her baby brother Toby.

Arianne02 did the faceup to look like a young, freckled Jennifer Connelly, while the talented Isabeau made Sarah’s blouse and vest as accurate to the film as possible. The wig is a size 7-8 "brown black" from Monique. Soom supplied the Mecha Angel jeans [yes, I know they are sparkly], while the inaccurate [but still cute] stripey socks came from Obitsu, the black loafers [should be brown] from Dollmore. Just for an in-joke, I gave Sarah a button with a picture on it of Jareth, the Goblin King, who seems to be in love with her and who serves as her antagonist throughout the film.Continue reading Souldoll Shiva G as Sarah from Labyrinth

I’d like to get one of those frothy dresses for my dolls, probably Sarah, since she is the only one who would wear it. It would have petticoats and panniers and ruffles, lots of ribbon and lace trim and a resemblance to a classic wedding cake, only much! pinker! So far all the dresses I have seen are too dark in color or not froofy enough. Tsk tsk.

Supernatural mashups are a thriving subgenre in which a modern-day author grafts supernatural elements — most frequently vampires — onto a classic of American or British literature and then watches the profits roll in. These books really owe a debt to the Internet renaissance of fan fiction, where people write stories in another author's universe, with another author's characters, for the sheer enjoyment of it. Just like fan fic, supernatural mashups provide clever and diverting amusement, illuminations on the themes of the original, if done right, but frustration and hebetude if done poorly…and they're very easy to do poorly. I am sad to report that, in my travels of YA fiction, supernatural romance, sci fi and fantasy, I have so far not come across any truly good specimens of supernatural mashup, though they must be out there….

Mashups I would like to see:

• Emily Dickinson and vampires…"Birds, Hours, the Bumblebee…and bloodsuckers!"
• Charles Dickens and vampires…I think Great Expectations could use some.
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman and steampunk
• George Eliot and vampires…Middlemarch could be a great, sweeping portrait of vampire society and mores.
• William Makepeace Thackeray and vampires…would certainly make Vanity Fair less of a boring slog.

So my Dikadoll jointed hands for 60cm fems arrived today! Lola Paprika got the right one; Janvier Jett will get the left. You can see the increased realism of Lola Paprika’s hand as she surreptitiously uses Janvier Jett’s guitar again….Continue reading Lola Paprika’s articulated hand

…but Janvier Jett plays it on her curly guitar! I just got her a black [with some bits of white] wig with Jarethian hair, you know, spiky all over the crown and then long and ragged elsewhere. She has the perfect hair for hair metal!

After more than 8 months of owning Sarah, I’m finally getting her default hair, a straight, dark brown, bangless wig with a center part, made to resemble Jennifer Connelly’s hair when she played Sarah in Labyrinth. Then I can dress Sarah up in her Labyrinth-going clothes: custom blouse and vest with swirlies, blue jeans and loafers and take some pictures. Sarah will be so happy…if I can get her nose out of a book.

My favorite part of Ms. Magazine was always the last page, showing a collection of sexist ads sent in by readers.

I got some awesome knee-length, white, faux fur leg warmers for Janvier Jett, as well as some thigh-high black-and-white checked stockings. I figure that her outfit will look more striking if it’s not just black, but black and white with interesting textures.

Janvier Jett, being the guitarist for the band Flaming Hot Pussy, insisted on having a real guitar, not just an air one, so I bought one for her. Some of my dolls have dolls; she has a guitar, apparently.

Lola Paprika hyangs out at a little park on Shelburne Road in the South End of Burlington with some sphinxes.Continue reading Lola Paprika and the sphinxes

I just ordered Janvier a black fur wig with a kind of mullet style and also some cat’s-eye glasses [2 pairs, in case I break one]. Catty glasses for my Cat Avatar, hee hee hee!

Longform.org aggregates long-form, non-fiction journalism about a variety of fascinating topics. Most of the stories it links to have been published in the month in which they are linked, but sometimes older stories appear in the lists as well. Bonne lecture!

ABC Radio National in Australia has a weekly program called All in the Mind described as "a foray into all things mental." I’ll have to check it out.

I ordered Janvier just now! She should come in 1-2 months. Woo hoo, a "Hooray, you moved!" present to me! Come on — yellow and blue eyeshadow!!!

As much as I like Soom’s dolls for their fantasy parts [hooves, claws and wings], I think I might be the only person who thinks that the headsculpts [for me, one of the most, if not the most, important parts of the doll] are uniformly generic and blandly pretty.

I mean, compare Migma’s "hollow head," the one with fangs, to that of, say, B&G Doll’s Burrysa sp, another vampire doll. With childlike, rounded curves and a demurely opened mouth on her headsculpt, Migma with her "hollow head" looks a lot like your average Asian BJD. That is to say, there’s nothing distinctive about her. On the other hand, there is no doll quite like Burrysa, who’s all angles and who has a mouth far more open than any other ABJD I’ve seen, with the exception of AOD’s Fenris.

Of course, I’m also biased because I own a Burrysa and like her very much, and I do not own a Migma. However, this example does illustrate that there’s more than one way to make a vampire ABJD, and Soom chooses the safest way of modifying the headsculpt. I do like Migma; she’s attractive, but she doesn’t have a lot of character in the way she’s presented as a default.

In case you haven’t heard, Radiolab publishes weekly radio shows of about an hour around a certain provocative theme, such as Talking to Machines, about humans and robots meeting in the uncanny valley. Less pretentious that This American Life and always interesting, Radiolab mixes science, history, pop culture and psychology into an intriguing combination.

Angelsdoll Ieseul Cat Avatar comes with a weird body without ball joints. But I asked the company if I could get her with a body like Lola Paprika’s, and they said yes! I just need to note it in my order. That clinches it. I’m getting Ieseul Cat Avatar with default faceup when I have the money. She can wear the outfit that came with Lola Paprika, and she will be a punk rocker!! Meow!

I’ve decided that her name will be Janvier.

Lola Paprika hyangs out in the Mountain View Cemetery, Essex Center, VT.Continue reading Lola Paprika a la cimitiere

Lola Paprika and the pink peony.Continue reading Les pivoines a la vase

Oh my God, I think Angelsdoll [whence Lola Paprika] just permanently lowered their prices on their 60 and 70cm BJDs!!! As you may recall if you care about these things, I got Lola Paprika at a 30% discount + eyes + outfit + shipping, all for $309.00. And that was a special sales event. Now, though, it looks like the base price of their lovely ladies has gone down to $220.00 for a doll only, no eyes, faceup, outfit or shipping.

Just to test the new pricing, though, I threw in my cart a Cat Avatar Ieseul [who, with that faceup, obviously needs to have a silver tinsel fright wig and play in a hair metal band], then added faceup and shipping. She came to $316.96, just a few dollars more than my Lola Paprika.

Clearly I need to get one, using the outfit and eyes that I got in the Hyang renewal event when I purchased Lola Paprika. She would have tinsel hair and an air guitar!

—

I know that Angelsdoll has an ambivalent reputation. On the minus side…

• Sculpts have thin, breakable resin in places.
• Elbow and knee joints look blocky; they don’t blend in very well with the limbs.
• Some people have reported long waits to resolve customer problems.

On the plus side…

• Headsculpts are beautiful!
• Dolls are relatively inexpensive.

I’m willing to accept the lower quality and aesthetic appeal of the bodies as a trade-off for the beauty and character of the heads, not to mention the inexpensive price of the dolls. Plus I note that Angelsdoll is constantly improving, having come out recently with an upgraded female body [shown on their new release Rin] that addresses both the shape of the joints and the thin resin problem. I like Angelsdoll myself.

Lola Paprika hyanging out by the bars on the side porch.Continue reading Lola Paprika behind bars

Lola Paprika shows us all the flamingos in my parents’ backyard. Continue reading Lola Paprika visite aux flamants.

Shots at 25% to show the beauty of her and the fleurs, which are peonies. Continue reading Lola Paprika aime les pivoines.

Lola Paprika!Continue reading She’s such a gentle soul.

Gentil miroir,
Dites-moi qui est la plus belle?
Continue reading O miroir…

This type of lilac blooms much later than mid-May [when they usually do around here].Continue reading Lola Paprika stops to smell the flowers

See what I did there? I made a pun!

Here she is, in all her tacky, mismatched glory!!Continue reading Lola Paprika [Angelsdoll Hyang] hyanging out amongst the lilacs

I haven’t done one of these since my first BJD back in 2004! Forthwith…here’s the box opening for Lola Paprika, my Angelsdoll Hyang.
Continue reading Hellooooooooo, Lola Paprika! [box opening]

Dorothy says hello to the Johnny-jump-ups in the yard of my apartment. They are taller than her.Continue reading Dorothy parmi les fleurs

Sarah wears a yarn wig that I got today from Lynn Nexus on DoA. I like the color and wriggliness of the yarn. Continue reading Sarah’s yarn wig

Sarah has a nifty new outfit with a shirt with reverse leg-o'-mutton sleeves and a double-tiered skirt. Look!Continue reading Sarah’s new outfit

Dorothy surveys her domain in Vermont outside my parents’ house this weekend.Continue reading Dorothy in spring

Lola Paprika’s hair on Sarah’s head.
Continue reading The hair is here [Lola Paprika’s, that is]!

So I got the Dollzone outfit today, removed the fur from one of the armholes and the mesh holding the two sides together, thus turning it into an asymmetrical vest with silver leather and studs. Bluish or greenish, patterned underbust corset coming to finish off the outfit. Sarah just looks weary with the whole proceedings at this point.
Continue reading Lola Paprika’s vest

Finally Dorothy has clothes that fit!Continue reading Dorothy’s correct outfit is here.

Now she can sit down without getting a wedgie or having her pants fall down.Continue reading Junebug got new overalls today!

These had better catch the light well when they're in her head — dammit — or else I won't be very happy. Note the subtle gradations of pastel yellow, pastel blue, aqua green and whitish pink. Continue reading Lola Paprika’s Captured in Glass eyeballs

The pink hot pants and yellow stockings came in the mail today, along with Junebug’s armbands. Sarah looks increasingly worried about the tackiness of this outfit, while Junebug thinks she is awesome for having bright pink armbands.

Regarding the status of this outfit, I think I’m slowly achieving meretriciousness. Needs more necklaces and some sort of belt, though.

EDIT: I have [hopefully] commissioned a waist cincher somewhere in the neon green to turquoise section of the spectrum. I have also purchased the Dollzone outfit at the link here [secondhand, so as not to support evil cheating BJD co.] with the intent of modding the top into a beautifully overdone vest.

Continue reading Sarah in Lola Paprika’s outfit so far, minus shoes, with bonus Junebug!

Dorothy skating.Continue reading Dorothy boarding in the sky

Just a little sequence of my doll taking pictures of her doll…

I got a new 1:3 camera today, a keychain actually, so voila my messy bed as a photo studio.  Continue reading Sarah takes pictures of Dorothy.

Today I designed a custom fur wig for Lola Paprika. The left half is light pink, the right royal purple, with a stripe of hot magenta dividing the two. See diagram below. That should amp up her OQ [obnoxiousness quotient] quite a bit!Continue reading Lola Paprika’s hair

Sarah: "This is humiliating."
Me: "It’s only for as long as I need to take a picture."
Sarah: "Please return me to my NORMAL clothes."

Thoughts: Needs more yellow, green, layers, stripes and patterns. Wig is also a bit too big.
Continue reading Sarah models Lola Paprika’s outfit so far.

So I got Junebug some pants recently from the horseriding outfit set put out by Karito, but I really dislike the pants. They’re very tight, and they keep slipping down when Junebug is sitting, which she does most of the time. I’ve been looking on and off for a maker of clothes for Karito Kids, but I haven’t had much luck, since KKs are 21", not 18" like the hideous beasts from the depths of Hell American Girls. But I just found a maker who works with Karito Kids: Doll Clothes by Carole!! Look at the patterns available for overalls; I think that Junebug would find the red curduroy print simply fabulous! I just E-mailed her to see if she would make a pair of overalls for Junebug with extra-long legs, so Junebug can cuff them. Junebug will be so happy when she’s not getting a wedige AND her underwear is not falling out.

So today I went to Claire’s Accessories, your neighborhood purveyor of tacky shit, and picked up some hair clips for my dolls and a necklace for Lola Paprika. Unfortunately, Junebug was a little too enthusiastic about modeling it.Continue reading Lola Paprika’s jewelry

Some more shots of Sarah outside, NOT reading.Continue reading Sarah’s hair gets in her face

Okay, here’s what I have gathered so far for Lola’s outfit. The only definite items so far are the shirt and the shoes. I’m disturbed by the amount of matching going on between the wig and the shirt, so the wig may be replaced for a light pink mohair, even though I truly adore the violent magenta. The existence of the skirt depends on how loud it looks compared to the multiple layers of legwear and armwear. Right now it’s clashing nicely with the stockings, which may or may not be in the final ensemble. Further bulletins as events warrant, say, when the yellow polka-dotted slouch socks and the pink leggings come in. Excelsior!! Continue reading Lola Paprika concept 2.0

This is my concept of Lola Paprika as of last night. Please ignore the long arms, short legs and other misproportions. Unfortunately, the concept has problems with it:

Colors are not accurately represented.
Patterns are not shown.
Outfit is not tacky enough. Not enough clashing patterns.

I’m working on all three of the problems as we speak. The result, I hope, will be very LHFy.Continue reading Lola Paprika concept

Where the company used to have more dinners, lunches, appliances, accessories and furniture available, it now seems to be reverting to its reliable standbys of candy and desserts. A lot of uninteresting things with various Disney and Hello Kitty themes are also appearing.

When new, interesting sets do appear, they recycle pieces from old ones. For example, the Teddy Bear’s Housekeeping set, which I like, includes dishwashing, soup cooking, and doughnuts, all of which Rement has done before. http://www.re-ment.co.jp/products/teddy/index.html  Even Rement pendants are boring this year, with the new panda pendants recycling the old set of Panda Kindergarten. http://www.re-ment.co.jp/products/animal_panda/index.html

I’ve also noticed a trend: the reduction of the size of Rement sets. Instead of a complete place setting with individual pieces of food, a single package of Rement might now contain just a cup, a saucer and a cookie. Compare #2 of the aforementioned Teddy Bear’s Housekeeping – a bear, a spatula, a pan, a pancake, a plate and a pile of pancakes – to #2 of Fun Meals, a set that came out a few years ago. Fun Meals #2 contains a waffle iron, a plain waffle, a waffle with syrup and berries, a plate, two crates of berries and a syrup dispenser. http://www.nrfbqueen.com/rement/lgpics/funmeals.htm Fewer pieces for your money in Teddy Bear's Housekeeping.

I look at Rement with an eye for diversity, usefulness and quantity in 1:6 scenes, and I’m not seeing much of any in the past year or so.

I love to take pictures of Sarah. She’s very photogenic. Sometimes the pictures actually come out well! I think this set is particularly nice. The increased file size of my photos and the accuracy of where I want the focus to point both seem to improve the photos.Continue reading Sarah in the sky

I realized that I had drawn Dorothy’s new eyebrows different colors of brown, so I went over them with black. In my attempt to do so, I made them thicker. I like them this way. She looks even more supercilious.Continue reading Dorothy’s new eyebrows

This is what Dorothy is doing right now, hanging out on a table to the right of my computer armchair. [Look — I read a lot of young adult books!] Continue reading Dorothy hangs out.

Two mohair wigs on Sarah. She looks good in any color hair, light or dark, I think. And the lines of her neck are so elegant!Continue reading From the hair of the wild mo: Sarah in two wigs

I told her not to. She didn’t listen.Continue reading Don’t skateboard in the library!

So I redid Dorothy’s eyebrows and managed to shove her into her too-small overalls [a temporary measure]. I also glued her middle finger back on. She remains cool and blase about the whole experience. Continue reading Skateboarding while dressed

My latest doll, Dorothy, an Elfdoll tiny Dodo, poses in a characteristically inimitable way. Her cute little outfit of T-shirt and denim overalls is too small, sniff sniff, so I have to get a replacement. I also want to redo her eyebrows to make her happier looking. And I already broke one of the fingers on her "peace" hand. Ah, the joys of doll ownership!Continue reading Skateboarding while naked

Noodge hangs around atop my Tarot cards.Continue reading Some pictures of Noodge

1. The Cowardly Lion is so gay in this interpretation. All his mannerisms are stereotypically swishy.

2. Despite Dorothy’s fervent proclamation that "There’s no place like home," her home pales in comparison to Oz. Let’s see — at home, Miss Gulch tries to kill Toto; her guardians, Em and Henry, dismiss her constantly and talk over her; even the hired hands pay no real attention to her. To top it all off, the place is in boring sepia and infested with tornadoes. No fun at all. By contrast, Oz contains Technicolor glory, magic and Dorothy’s acclamation as a hero just for being the rather nice, forthright, polite, unassuming girl that she is. No one in Kansas accepts Dorothy for who she is, but, in Oz, everyone valorizes her character. Why does she wish to return to a place that’s so actively hostile toward her?

3. Wow, that movie version is looooong. Takes about 50 minutes to collect all 4 companions together. I’m sure it could have been done in half the time, but many of the songs, if not all, would have to be cut.

I had never watched Die Hard (1988), with Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman [yay!], before, so I watched it streaming last night. ‘Tis a silly film – are we really supposed to believe that Willis’ character, John McClane, routs the baddies while not wearing any shoes? Come on now!

I also noticed that Die Hard seems to share with Fatal Attraction a reactive misogynist hatred of the independent woman. The specter of independence raised by Holly, John’s estranged wife, who dares to use her maiden name and separate from her husband for her career, is ultimately subsumed into the patriarchal family mode. In fact, the whole movie sets up a situation wherein the wealth and success of the Nakitomi Company, where Holly works, brings the terrorist attack upon itself. Therefore, we can see Hans Gruber [Alan Rickman, yay!] and co. as narrative punishment for Holly’s proto-feminist attitude. She’s so uppity, being a successful career woman and having a Rolex, that she deserves to be smote with the degradation of victimhood at the hands of the terrorists. But she learns her lesson; by the end, she’s using her married name again, happily signifying that she belongs to the manly-man action hero of John McClane. What a load of sexist crap.

Also this weekend I watched a weird three-part miniseries, Tin Man, the SyFy Channel’s story inspired by The Wizard of Oz. I really liked looking at the world, a combination of majestic Vancouver forests and glitzy, vaguely 1930s cities where everyone wears weird hats. Grey machinery mixed with verdant landscape in a cross between steampunky dystopia and wildlands utopia. However, I felt that the pace was rather draggy, especially in the middle episode [middle episodes of trilogies almost always suffer from sluggishness]. I liked the fact that a sisterly bond between the Dorothy equivalent and the Wicked Witch equivalent redeemed the Witch equivalent’s character, but I disliked the fact that monkey bats came out of the Witch equivalent’s heaving cleavage. That was just SILLY.

Sarah poses for moody shots in the various windows in the house.Continue reading Sarah in the window again

And yet I have watched the trailer a few times. Something about it appeals to me. Probably James Franco and Natalie Portman making fools of themselves.

The concept of Daybreakers is: When everyone’s a vampire, who’s the lunch? In the near future, humans are becoming extinct as more and more of them are turning into vampires. Hematologist Ethan Hawke pairs up with humans Claudia Karvan and Willem Dafoe to find and propagate a cure. Many car chases, scenes with evil businessvampires, dramatic washed-out shots in mostly colorless tones and scenes with portentous music result, but I find it hard to be sympathetic, even if Ethan Hawke can’t stand to drink human blood and feels pity for humans. Something about these vampires, indeed, this whole movie, is remarkably bloodless. Entertaining time-passer, though.

P.S. Also the slow-mo gore is unintentionally hilarious. Oh the humanity vampirity!

Watched the first two eps of the BBC’s Sherlock the other night, starring Benedict Cumberbatch’s lips and cheekbones as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson. The three-ep first season transplants the crime-solving duo from Victorian/Edwardian London to present-day London, where the two act as “consulting detectives” to Detective Inspector Lestrade and the rest of the new Scotland Yard.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes really reminds me of David Tennant and Matt Smith as the Doctor. With a spectacular intellect that moves much faster than the brains of mere mortals, Cumberbatch’s Holmes astounds people with his rapid-fire deductions in the same way that Tennant’s and Smith’s Doctors shock people with their free-associating intelligence. Additionally, both this Holmes and those Doctors take a self-conscious, performative glee in their superiority, enjoying the way that they befuddle people. Just as Smith’s Doctor is an adventure junkie, gleefully shouting “Geronimo!” as the TARDIS speeds toward a crash, so Cumberbatch’s Holmes enjoys living on the edge, dancing near suicide in the first ep just so he can get the buzz of adrenaline. I attribute some of this similarity to the fact that Sherlock was co-written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, both writers of eps for the New Who. Also interesting to note is that Cumberbatch has something of the Doctor – or at least the Doctor’s potential in him – as evidenced by the fact that he discussed taking over for Tennant, but never did. 

Needless to say, I love Sherlock for its strong characters, its Doctor-like Holmes and its stellar lead actors. I dislike it for its pointless exoticization of Chinese people as demonstrated in the ep The Blind Baker. From the minute the eerie stereotypical bamboo flutes start playing in the first scene as a clay tea set is ceremonially laid out, we know we’re in for Chinese stereotypes. The stereotypes continue throughout the ep, including a scene in which the Chinese tea set-laying-out character speaks to her brother in unsubtitled Chinese, reinforcing the idea of foreign characters as strange and incomprehensible.  This ep’s main villain, General Shan, leader of a gang called the Black Lotus, even delivers, as her first line, a supposed Chinese proverb in halting English [something about a book being a magic world in your pocket]! [I also noticed that General Shan’s English started out broken in her first scene and markedly improved throughout the rest of her scenes, making me think that she was directed to speak in stereotypical stilted English.] I condemn such lazy, thoughtless characterization as racist.

Remember "Identity," that SVU episode that I’ve been harping on for several entries now?[ Here’s my plot summary. Here’s my analysis.] Not only is it ridiculous, melodramatic and bigoted, but it’s also scientifically wrong.

The identical twins in the ep commit a supposedly "perfect crime" at the end of the ep by murdering the doctor who molested them. Actually, only one of the twins murders the doctor, but no witnesses, including the security camera, can discern which twin it was, and the twins aren’t talking. Furthermore, there was DNA from one of the twins left in the form of spit on the doctor’s corpse, but DNA tests, according to the ep, will not point to one twin or the other, because, as Stabler says, "Identical twins, identical DNA."

WRONG! Identical twins have been long thought to have identical DNA, but recent research suggests that their genes are very very similar, but not the same. See the New York Times "Really?" column for details.

In all fairness, though, the SVU ep "Identity" did come out in 2005, three years before research about identical twins’ different genes was published, so it was still within a period during which identical twins were thought to have identical DNA. Granted, but I still fault SVU for sloppy, stereotypical thinking about the similarity of identical twins, making us seem like magical duplicate halves of a single entity, instead of two very similar, but separate, people. >:

I got my Seed Dolls Inkling late last week and finally had the time to work on her today. I painted her in my usual messy style, gave her a dress by Spampy Stuff and glued pink yarn on her head for hair. Then I gave her some pancakes [Rement], which I think puzzled her.
Continue reading Petula, Seed Dolls Inkling, painted, wigged and dressed

So I was reading reviews of Return to Labyrinth, volume 4, a shitty manga predicated on Jareth naming Toby as heir to the maze. As I did so, I said to myself, “Some movies just shouldn’t have sequels.” And Labyrinth is one such. It creates a convincing and immersive world that wraps up conclusively at the end of its time frame and needs no embellishment in the form of further adventures. [That said, I will not censure fanfic writers for doing their damnedest to prove me otherwise. :p ]

As I scanned the reviews, a thought occurred to me: the sequels to Labyrinth stink for many reasons, one of the major ones being that they expand on the human population of the Labyrinth. The Return to Labyrinth series, for example, brings in Mizumi, Queen of Moraine [what?!], her two daughters, a mysterious girl named Moppet, etc., etc., etc. These additions negatively affect the original, true population of Labyrinth, i.e., just Jareth.

In order to prove that more humans in the Labyrinth is a bad idea, I should probably tell you why having only one is a good idea, no? As the sole human in the Labyrinth, Jareth provides a 1:1 correspondence to Sarah. He matches her. He becomes her complement in a way that clearly identifies him as a central figure of fantasy fulfillment, undistracted by other people. His symbolic appearance as the flip side of Sarah [hello there, Jareth, walking on the underside of the Escher maze while Sarah runs along the top!] is obviously telegraphed in his solitude. Jareth as sole human makes his symbolic role and his connection to Sarah crystal-ball-clear [nyuk nyuk].

Jareth’s aloneness also highlights another important aspect of his and Sarah’s character: their loneliness. Just in case you weren’t convinced by his pre-Magic-Dance boredom that Jareth feels lonely, his sad isolation also comes through in the sheer numbers. That is to say that he’s outnumbered by Muppets. He sits in his castle, spinning idle fantasies, in the same way that Sarah roams the park alone, practicing her lines with no one. Jareth’s singleness underscores the dangerous estrangement that Sarah suffers when she’s too immersed in her daydreams.

Having more people than Jareth in the Labyrinth depersonalizes the whole adventure for Sarah by diffusing Jareth’s symbolic heft and downplaying his twinship with her.