In a sea of dispiriting news, there remains a minuscule atoll of good tidings. LHF is publicized every ep on Men With Dolls, Fantasy Net, this here blog and, when I remember, my Facebook page. Some of them I put on Pukey’s too. From what I can tell, people like it. Right now I have 45 eps up with 207 comments, which averages to 4.6 per ep. This is not counting the anonymous kudos that the eps get on MWD. [Much to my frustration, I don’t know WHO leaves the kudos.] I should count pageviews on MWD and FN and get some rough stats.

Sideshow’s upcoming entry in the Dead line is a zombie priest entitled The Harbinger. I must say that, while Sideshow’s record for 1:6 likenesses stinks, they do a great job on The Dead. I love my Dead Babysitter [who became Zinnia Pascale], and I really like the Harbinger too. His hand sculpts look arthritic and bony, and his drawn face and rolling eyes accurately reflect a despair that I think much more pertinent to zombies than slavering rage. Sideshow really has to start making their zombies lose ears, though. I don’t understand how this guy’s brain became exposed without him getting an ear or two torn off.

I’m tempted to get this guy for Ethan [the poor man is having such a problem being immortalized in plastic!], but I’d rather not wait an untold number of months before he comes out. His release date is Q1 2009, but toymakers are never on time.

I’ve been contemplating the creation of my own Ethan, but my current materials always daunt me. I don’t have an appropriate sculpting medium, just the remnants of some peach Sculpey and some rotten air-dry clay that won’t adhere to existing heads. I have a resin skull that could conceivably be the base for Ethan’s cadaverous visage, but that involves building up features, and I’m much better at scraping out features by using an Xacto knife or sandpaper.

Maybe I should just get an unpainted resin sculpt and shave it down. The prominent brows, sunken eyes, dour mouth and narrow cheeks of Hugh Laurie could work, as seen in this sculpt by Wanted Action Figure.

On the subject of Wanted Action Figure, maybe I should get a Johnny Depp head too. I’ve been toying with the idea of remaking Will with an appropriately scrawny body, but that would require getting him a new head, since his current one is already way too fragile. The Depp sculpt approximates his features best. Now if I could just find a body that’s as etoliated as the Obitsu Slim Male, but with slightly broader shoulders… Jesus Christ, it’d probably be best just to modify a PB or a CG 2.0!

I STILL have a hard-on for Medicom’s Young Indiana Jones because my mind thinks River Phoenix=Will. I wish I weren’t so interested in it, because I’m sure that there’s something disappointing about the sculpt that the prototype photos don’t show.

Hot Toys is issuing a beautiful 1:6 Edward Scissorhands soon. I want its clothes. The fact that I could probably get a likeness of Will out of the head doesn’t hurt either.

Sekiguchi’s Momokos continue to tantalize me. I draw very close to purchasing one, but then I always cheap out because I don’t have a designated character for such a doll, who costs a lot, even on sale. That said, I have found Miracle Party Girl, Wild and Sexy Tune, Dash After School, Sweet Poodle, Lovely Folklore and Berry Hunter for <$100 with s/h. Too bad I want Sea Maze/Blue Labyrinth/whatever the hell she’s called.

In which a psycho ex returns, and Zinnia Pascale kicks some butt.

Comments: Just in case you weren’t convinced from his rendezvous with Zinnia Pascale, we now see blatant evidence that Thomas has no redeeming characteristics. What did Anneka ever see in this dastardly dude? Find out next season….

Also please note that Will has changed. In the past, he would have acted like Zinnia Pascale, kicking Thomas’ ass across The Nightcrawler. But, as he said to Anneka in 1.1, “Domestic Vampires,” he’s learned that stomping people into the ground ain’t that effective, despite how good it makes one feel.

"Zombies enflesh our anxieties about the disintegration of our personhood on the political front, the occupational front and the medical front."

Some dude is singing a song while his hair blows violently, and fantasy cliches of the 1980s, all starring him, roll across the screen like a mash-up of several movie trailers. The music has nothing to do with the images, yet the mixture remains strangely compelling, if only because I’m trying to figure out who this guy is and what story, if any, he’s trying to tell. Also he’s kind of hot when he’s not wearing that stupid little goatee.

The dude’s IMDB page. The dude’s official site. An interview with the dude. Bonus: He explains the "plot" of the music video in the interview! Also he’s a complete nerd with a huge emotional investment in the music video characters, whom he wants to develop into a manga series. He seems like a nice guy, but why…why…WHY is his hair twitching like that? WHY?

In which Will tries to get Anneka drunk…in an entirely therapeutic manner, of course. 

Comments: Originally, Zinnia Pascale was not in this ep or the next one. However, given her animosity toward Thomas [see last frame], she horned her way in despite my authorial intentions.

You can tell that Thomas, first seen in Meanwhile 8: “Zombie in the Diner!!,” is an idiot because he walks around with his collar popped.

I’ve always thought that, if there were any more than, say, 10 vampires in the world, that they would form some sort of para-society, parasitic to, but somewhat independent of, human society. Vamp society, in my mind, would include an organization of power and some set of rules. Let’s look at some vamp societies in recent TV shows: Continue reading Vampire hierarchies in TV shows, with a close look at True Blood

I watched season 1 of True Blood yesterday and found it engrossing, entertaining, mordant, frothy, sly and lightweight. I enjoy the twitchy, brave, perky performance by Anna Paquin as Sookie and the dry, subdued performance by Stephen Moyer as Bill Compton. I especially appreciate his concentrated stillness and the way in which he projects an absence of movement appropriate to a non-living creature. He makes a wonderful foil for Sookie, instilled by Paquin with an almost fidgety sense of movement, brightness and sensitivity. Even though I have the most investment in Sookie and Bill, I’m curious about the rest of the characters and will probably follow their storylines whenever I get the chance to watch season 2 in one fell swoop.

That being said, the unrelenting amount of sex had me bouncing forward until such scenes were over. Every time anyone had sex, which was frequently, the story’s forward momentum halted to linger on the characters flailing away. Then I had an epiphany about the reason that almost all sex scenes in modern media are so incredibly dull. Continue reading True Blood, a.k.a. The Sex & Vampires Show, or, Why Sex Scenes Bore Me

Absinthe, Submit and the antique girl went to doll club today, but I didn’t take any pictures. The antique girl did, however, get some more appropriate hair, thanks to two members, Judy, who supplied the fuzzy fabric, and Anne Marie, who quickly sewed me a simple wig. I gave Absinthe a braided headband this evening to keep her hair out of her eyes. As for Submit, well, she still thinks she’s the awesomest thing ever! Continue reading My Kathlen-based dolls

A New England Girlhood by Lucy Larcom http://books.google.com/books?id=nQgBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover

Women in America 1820-1842 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/FEM/home.htm

Now that some shows I watch are on Christmas break [?!] apparently, I thought I'd update my opinions on them.Continue reading Thoughts about TV shows: Bones, Fringe, Heroes, Pushing Daisies, Supernatural

I can’t find anything with it, even when I type in exact phrases that I know I put in certain entries.

In the most recent Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan writes about "What Girls Want." Basically, she says that all girls want steadfast male devotion, like she did, which is why the Twilight series is so popular among teen female readers. She makes the horrible logical fallacy of assuming that her particular experience is universal; in doing so, she erases all possible variations of sexual maturation — due to race, class, gender, socioeconomic status, size, disability, etc. — that young girls experience. She especially erases variations in young girls’ sexual preferences, assuming that they’re all heteronormative. We ain’t no monolith, you dipstick, and we don’t all want slavishly adoring masculine suitors.

Here we go. Lucretia Maria Davidson (1808-1825) was one of the Beautiful, Virtuous, Dead Teen Poets I was talking about earlier. Margaret Miller Davidson (1823-1838), Lucretia’s younger sister, was another. Margaret Jr. was named after her mother, Margaret Sr. (1787-1844), who acted as teacher, agent and career manager for both daughters, who, depressingly enough, she outlived. All three of them exploited and were further elevated by the aforesaid Soggy Cult of Tuberculosis, which romanticized the disease that both LMD and MMD Jr. died from. Seriously, there was a whole strain of early Romantic thought linking death by tuberculosis with great sensitivity, poetic skill and tragic beauty.

Interesting information and commentary about these individuals can be found in the following places:

Robert Southey, then the British poet laureate, wrote a very laudatory article (1827) in The Quarterly Review that gave the Soggy Cult more gushing power, but I can’t find a copy of it online.

The Poetical Remains of the Late Lucretia Maria Davidson (1857) contains poems by LMD, but, more pertinent to our investigation into the Soggy Cult, a short dedication by MMD Sr. to Washington Irving, in which MMD Sr. reconstructs LMD’s life so that it might conform to the lineaments of the Soggy Myth. There is also a very long biographical sketch by Catharine Marie Sedgwick that appears to draw on familial reminiscences, unpublished poems and LMD’s letters. Amid the constant tendency to romanticize LMD, there appear many interesting details of her everyday life as a middle-class girl of the very early 1800s. These details are very important! Oh yeah, there’s also some poetry in there.

Biography and Poetical Remains of the Late Margaret Miller Davidson (1850) contains poems by LMD’s sister, MMD Jr. In service of the Soggy Cult, Washington Irving wrote a long biography, ostensibly of MMD Jr., but also encompassing much about MMD Sr., who provided the notes on which the biography is based, and also about LMD, who of necessity enters into any discussion about the MMDs.

"Margaret Miller and Lucretia Maria Davidson" (1850) represents Edgar Allan Poe’s critical response to the Soggy Cult’s libations of praise for LMD and the MMDs. He thinks Sedgwick and Irving too effusive in their evaluation of LMD and MMD Jr. Apparently, Poe will employ the tropes of the Soggy Cult for horrific effect in his fiction, but he has no use for it in real life.

I need books about life in the Boston metro area in the early 1800s, which is when Absinthe was active. I find a plethora of material about Puritan Boston [when Ethan was active], witchcraft Boston [when Tituba was active], late Victorian Boston [when Will was active] and 20th century Boston [when Materyllis was active], but I have a huge gap in my historical knowledge, except for Fire and Roses, by Nancy Lusignan Schultz, which is the story of how Absinthe’s school, a convent school run by Ursuline nuns in Charlestown [now Somerville!], was burned by anti-Catholic rioters in 1834.

I think I need to find some of those soggy Romantic reports of the two young women who were poets in the early 1800s and who lived and died in Plattsburgh, NY. The lavish detail surrounding their portrayal, lives, deaths and poetry gives me a primary-source sense of the Romantic Cult of Tuberculosis, a disease that strongly affected Absinthe’s life. [She died of it.]

The next time I have $400.00+ just bonking around, begging to be spent, I’m going to commission DIM’s Minimee project to do a custom head of Juniper. She’s an original character that I created in Daz back in my electronic modeling phase. Of all the experimental 3-D renders I did, she captured my heart the most. I was going to release her as a character, meaning a custom morph and textures, with several custom poses, but I never got around to it. She reminds me of Sardonix, only much more feral.Continue reading Juniper says, “NYAH!”

So I’m poking around on Amazon, looking for comprehensive reference books about vampires, and I realize the sheer number of books devoted to critical analyses of BTVS. In no particular order, here are the ones I found, excluding those that focus primarily on shows other than BTVS:Continue reading I cannot indulge your multiverse.

3 books swapped on Paperback Swap
1 old shirt trashed
Total 4 riddances
Grand total 136 riddances

Step aside, all post-apocalyptic last-man-on-earth sci fi scenarios. Richard Matheson’s 1954 novella, I Am Legend, did it first and best. A simply plotted but viscerally effective work, it focuses on Robert Neville’s efforts to stay alive, kill vampires, research the vampirism plague and retain his humanity in the face of crushing loneliness. Matheson writes with a gritty compassion about Robert’s messy desperate days, his horrific flashbacks about his wife’s death, vampiric resurrection and death again at his hands.

The best parts occur when Robert thinks he’s found other plague survivors: a dog, then a woman. Despite his best, most patient, grovelingly desperate advances, the dog dies after only providing a moment of tender respite to Robert. At this point in the novella, the reader feels about as broken-hearted as Robert; while Robert still stubbornly forges ahead in his habits of survival, the more emotionally astute reader begins to suspect that Robert’s world has no hope for humankind. The vampires are taking over. By the end of the story, Robert has the hardest, most chilling realization of all. The vampires rule the world, and they regard him as a murderous relic, a frightening aberration in their new society. He is the monster, not them. I strongly recommend this book.

So I just finished watching seasons 1 and 2 of the BTVS rip-off British supernatural soap opera Hex.Continue reading Hex, seasons 1 and 2: an orgasm of tackiness

Since I have problems finding this, here is my books Amazon list and my one for DVDs.

In which Will wakes Anneka to have an urgent discussion about their [lack of a] relationship.  http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=132

Comments: I feel bad for both characters here. Both of them are obviously in pain, and both of them aren’t really listening to each other. Hmmm, that’s the story of their life together.

Anneka’s ability to fall asleep in the middle of heart-wrenching discussions unfortunately parallels my own.

1 package of Tarot cards exchanged in Holiday Wishlist meme

Total 1 riddance
Grand total 132 riddances

3 riddances were exchanged in the Holiday Wishlist meme:
2 picture frames
1 set season 2 Supernatural DVDs

2 riddances were trashed:
1 collection of rags
1 dead rug

Total 5 riddances
Grand total 131 riddances

I discovered Paperback Swap, and it is the BESTEST site ever!! You can post books you don’t want, which other users can then request of you. You send these books for the price of postage, in turn receiving credits that you can redeem for books posted by other users. I’m very excited because I posted the requisite 10 initial books that I wanted to get rid of, and, already, within hours, 5 of them have been claimed. Good riddance!!!

1 copy of Breaking Dawn
1 copy of The Spanish Pearl
1 copy of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
1 copy of Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England
1 copy of Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess Worshippers and Other Pagans in America Today

Total 5 riddances
Grand total 126 riddances

Fly little books! Fly to new appreciative owners and GET THE HELL OUT OF MY LIFE!

Available from Zittaw Press. I’m very keen on their scholarly edition of Varney the Vampire, or The Beast of Blood.

This beautiful collection of ads, centering on U.S. ads from the 1930s through the 1950s, portrays the tobacco industry’s cover-up of their drug’s deadly effects on users. Note how the manufacturers target especially vulnerable populations such as teenagers, college students, women and people of color. Bastards.

As you can see, I’m participating in the Holiday Wishlist meme, but I come off as too greedy and picky, so I’m not going to get anything off my list. That said, I can make others happy by scanning the lists in the Holiday Wishlist community and sending items to those who desire them. The following riddances have been sent off to a far better life with people who requested them on their wishlists:

1 copy of The Phantom Tollbooth
1 copy of Red As Blood: Tales from the Sisters Grimmer
1 package of origami paper

1 riddance was donated:
1 comforter
Total 4 riddances

Grand total 121 riddances

Gotten from Andrea.
1. New readers [and COMMENTS!] of my weekly Web comic, a sarcastic melodrama about vampires in Boston, Love Has Fangs.
2. Repeal of California’s Prop 8 and other anti-gay props that recently passed in other states…or at least support of organizations working to overturn such legislation and promote marriage equality around the US.
3. A new digital camera with at least as much power as the Kodak Easy Share Z712.
4. A 5-drawer, non-Ikea dresser.
5. A fat 1:6 female action figure.
6. Sideshow Friday the 13th VII Jason 1:6 action figure.
7. Doctor Who Clockwork Droid 12" action fig.
8. Donations in my name of perishables and/or your no-longer needed clothes, books, etc. to non-religious charities.
9. Vampire schlock broadly construed!

Cross-posted here to be glossed over by the masses because I think I missed the appropriate bouncy, generous tone.

Send me an LJ message if you need to get in touch with me.
Continue reading Holiday list, I guess — Holiday wishlist meme keyword spam LQQK! NRFB MIB NR

1 fleece glove lost 🙁
1 hat with ear flaps lost 🙁
1 pair of BJD hands sold
1 BJD blanket sold
1 pile of papers shredded and recycled
Total 5 riddances
Grand total 117 riddances

I suppose I should explain my ideas about riddances. No matter how large/small the space I live in and no matter how many/few things I think I have, I accumulate more things than I expect. These things collect in nooks and crannies of space, such as bookshelves, hobby drawers, closet shelves, under the bed. Basically, they stack up anywhere that it is possible to stash something and forget about it…or at least ignore it for a while. Continue reading Recent riddances and my philosophy about ridding

So I’m getting another Kathlen from Dolls & Friends. No one seems to be buying her [except me], though the price has hit rock-bottom, and she’s so adorable. I felt sorry for the unpurchased Kathlens and yearned after them, mostly because the open-eyed face reminds me of a more mature Submit. Thus I made an offer to Dolls & Friends so low that I didn’t think they would accept it, but they did, so another is coming my way, along with some miscellaneous Rement cosmetics and bakery items!

Anyway, each Kathlen comes with 1 body, 1 head back and 2 face plates. 1 head back + 1 sleeping face plate went to Absinthe. Since she is on an action fig body, I have 1 open-eyed face plate + 1 Kathlen body left over. I’m not sure what to do with the leftovers; they might become a Very Young Will, or they might become an original character. Anyway, I dressed the extra Kathlen and gave him/her the open-eyed face just to see what he/she would look like. Antique girl with purple eyes below. Awwwww….Continue reading Antique girl with purple eyes

I haven’t been ridding myself of things for a while, but I just sold Jennifer’s body and some clothes, so I’m recording again.

11 BJD clothing items
1 BJD body
Total riddances 12
Grand total 112

Anyway, now that I have sold Jennifer’s body [for a vastly reduced price, due to the stains], I can get Ethan! [That’s Ethan Stuart, the 400-year-old walking skeleton who acts as unofficial king, judge and police of Boston vampire society.] Now I just have to find a place that sells that version of Jason for a reasonable price….

Well, normally, I don’t follow BJD news much these days, but I’m ecstatic to see the news mentioned in the subject line. [Here’s a product page which, as of yet, has nothing remotely resembling doll pictures on it.] Before this, all we had for commercially produced centaurs were the anatomically questionable [centaurs do not have 4 human feet!] Domadoll Kkotmus at about 12". Hopefully, Chiron [named after the wise teacher centaur, the only virtuous centaur in Greek mythology, yay!] will be a regular release, beginning a long line of therianthropic dolls including merfolk, general issue satyrs [as opposed to Soom’s beautiful but limited ones], nagas, sirens, et hoc genus omne.

What do you think of these ads over on SocIm? Frankly, they creep me out. This is what I said over there:

People of color as backdrop! Gun as penis! Murder as victory! YAAAAAAAY!

Beyond these things, I’m trying to articulate why this series is disturbing to me, perhaps because it brings cartoon characters into the non-cartoon world and gives them realistic remains. Most of the characters shown are heavily anthropomorphized, which adds an extra layer to their death. The trope of “big game hunt” doesn’t really fly for me when I see a tree with a sad humanoid face with its limbs amputated. What do other people think?

I’d like to hear opinions from other people.

http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=126

In which a mad scientist and a robot meet in the cemetery.

In our parallel plotline so far, the aforementioned two sisters, Velvette and Janet, have been bickering. Janet suffers migraines, during which she wants Velvette to wait on her. Naturally, Velvette chafes under these demands. Meanwhile, Janet’s creation, the sexbot Viktor, suffers maltreatment at the hands of his owner, Sibley, who keeps pushing him away. Viktor has already explained his problems to Velvette, but now he decides to take his complaint to the top: his creator, Janet.

This ep marks the reappearance of Viktor’s most popular ability: vibrating. Pity that no one ever actually wants him to use it. :p

I’m selling my Obitsu Friend Gretel with head, faceup and eyes. Continue reading FS: Nude Obitsu Friend Gretel, $210

By any standard of the imagination, it’s still quite tacky, though. Nevertheless, he looks very pleased with himself. I always imagine him dressing kind of like Oscar Wilde during his life, only with less panache and more clash.Continue reading One of Will’s less tacky sartorial choices

• United Parenting Publications: 2004-2005
• Out in the Mountains: 2004-2005
• Associated Content: 2005
• Clarion Reviews: 2005-2006, 2008-present
• Tangent Online: 2005-2007
• Dollicieux: 2006
• Curve Magazine: 2007
• The Fix Online: 2007-present
• Sociological Images: 2008-present
• Kirkus Discovery: 2008-present
• Trends: 2008-2009

Hmm, not bad for a side interest spanning 4 years. My work at Sociological Images has been the most enjoyable, since I get to dissect bits of pop culture whenever I feel like it.

While trying to banish several fur wigs from my life, I reexamined the pictures I took of Jennifer modeling them. The pictures are not that great because she has a little peanut head, so most of the wigs are too big on her. Nevertheless, I was struck by the glowing contrast of her electric blue eyes with her milk-colored skin. She photographs very well in full-spectrum light, and I should take more pictures of her.

I finished my reincarnation of Absinthe last night. You can’t see, but she has a pair of jeans on that are the perfect height and width for her size. [She is 23 cm.] The jeans have no label, but I strongly suspect that they are Bratz Boyz clothes, which means that I have a character who can fit into Bratz clothes! She does not like Bratz girl clothes, though, so I have to find her some schlumpy casual wear among the Bratz Boyz stuff.

Speaking of Bratz Boys, I need to get some Bratz Boyz shoez and some screws. Then I will drill the screws up into the ankles of some of my dolls who don’t have feet [a surprising number], and they can have shoes! Unfortunately, Bratz Boys stuff is not as easy to find as the girl stuff.

5 books donated
2 BJD wigs sold

Total 7 riddances
Grand total 102 riddances

Well, I met the goal of getting rid of 100 things in 100 days. I am too motivated for such paltry limits! Fear my ridding skills! I still have many things to get rid of, though. I have some BJD stuff that is not moving, even though I am giving it away. I’ll try reposting. I also have 1:6 stuff, especially doll heads, in my parts bin. I need to post those too. There are a few things in my closet that I can purge as well….

So basically she’s an action figure with a resin head. The thing I like best about her headsculpt is the small serene smirk.Continue reading Absinthe all done!

Natalie Angier writes a New York Times article about non-human organisms that subsist wholly or partly on the blood of other organisms. Most illuminating for my purposes is the commentary here:

Moreover, even though we rightly cherish our own blood as the indispensable elixir of our lives, it turns out that, as a foodstuff for others, it is surprisingly thin gruel. Blood is more than 95 percent water, with the rest consisting mostly of proteins, a sprinkling of sugars, minerals and other small molecules, but almost no fat. Tiny creatures can do fine on such light fare, which is why the great majority of exclusive blood eaters are arthropods…. For larger sanguivores, though, it is as much of a challenge to survive on blood as it is to acquire it.

Small wonder that wholehearted exclusive blood feeding is rare among vertebrates, and that two of the three species of vampire bats are found in such low numbers they are at risk of extinction….

The moral of the story is that blood, while rich in symbolism, is impoverished in actual food value. Therefore I suspect that most attempts to make an exclusively sanguivorous vampire biologically convincing are pretty silly insofar as they ignore the basic fact that a human-sized biped that runs solely on blood would have to be drinking it constantly [and pissing out all the watery plasma constantly, HAH!]. Much more believable to create an opportunistic sanguivore that likes blood and drinks it whenever possible, but does not get more than, say, 25% of its diet therefrom. Maybe like the LHF vampires, who are all united by their taste for human blood, but who also eat omnivorously??

P.S. Here’s Angier’s general paean to human blood, a "marvelous fluid tissue…that not only feeds us and cleans us," but also tastes delicious.

As Margaret Oliphant argues, the terms in which "superfluous" women are discussed in Victorian discourse are very telling. In her analysis, the "problem" with unmarried women was not in they themselves but in their treatment by the many who held opinions on the matter.

–Rita Kranidis, The Victorian Spinster and Colonial Emigration: Contested Subjects, p. 42

I need information about the cultural perspectives on and opportunities open to unmarried Victorian women, since Mary, whose diary I transcribed, remained single all her life [1864-1938]. Thus I’m reading the aforementioned title, about the massive export of single British women to British colonies, holdings and territories in the Victorian era.

While a lot of this book concentrates on how both the women and the colonies are equally portrayed as dangerous goods to be literally marginalized so that they can benefit the center [= Great Britain], some of it is relevant. I need a general discussion of the middle/late Victorian views on unmarried women; this book is not a foundational source of information, but it’s a good supplement to those I have already amassed.

His rebus dictis, what is going on in that second sentence I quoted?!! "The problem…was not in THEY themselves?!" It should be "them themselves." I assume Kranidis was overcompensating for the odd-sounding semi-redundancy of "them themselves," but gah! She’s a scholar! With editors! Either she or her editors should have caught this mistake.

I loathe hypercorrections such as these, cases where people mistakenly use subjects instead of objects because they think the subjects sound more formal and correct. Even Barack Obama, despite being The Shining Prince Of Hope Who Will Bring Peace, Prosperity And Hypoallergenic Shelter Puppies For All, perpetrates such language abuses. In a press conference on November 7th, he said, "Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to — to meet with him and first lady Laura Bush." NOOOOO, it’s supposed to be "Michelle and me!" I hate it when people can’t grammatify correctly.

I really liked the aesthetic choices for the elven characters. All of them had yellowish white skin, like spoiled milk or dead cheese. Their lips were dark if not black, their irises glowing yellow, their hair the color of thin piss. They had no eyebrows, which made their eyes extra striking. They looked sickly, corpse-like and vampiric, appropriate for a race of characters going extinct.

I made Absinthe a headcap out of plastic wrap and tape. Last night and tonight I glued wefts of white mohair to it. Here is the untrimmed result. I don’t think I’ll trim it, but I do need to get it out of her face. She looks so serene and wild, which is good, because both those traits are aspects of her character. Continue reading Absinthe and her cloud of hair

10 1:6 clothing items donated
5 1:6 accessories donated
Total 15 riddances
Grand total 95 riddances

Yay, I finally saw Hellboy 2, in which Hellboy, Abe Sapien, Liz the firestarter and Dr. Strauss the ectoplasmic comic relief race to keep an insane elf, Prince Nuada, from activating mechanical warriors and destroying the world. Meanwhile, Hellboy and Liz have domestic disputes, which are magically resolved when Liz gets pregnant with two devil/human halfbreeds, and Abe goes gooshy and loses all dignity for the insane elf’s twin sister, Princess Nuala. Cigars are chomped; monsters are dispatched; quips are tossed off, and everyone has a silly good time.

This movie is amusing, diverting and charming, and it could be even better with a reduction of romantic goop, which is out of character for all the characters, and a greater focus on Nuada and Nuala. They’re actually interesting, since they know they’re part of a dying kind; even though Nuada fights back, both he and his sister seem to know that the elves and all the magical creatures that they represent are doomed. Thus the film argues for a manifest destiny sort of colonization of the imagination, with Hellboy et al. in especially weird positions because they’re on the colonizers’ sides. But the film ultimately prefers to wallow in sluggish love songs, rather than this interesting thematic tension.

There was going to be a BTVS tarot once, but it, in the manner of all good things, got cancelled. Saddened at the abortion of a promising artistic project, I collected the highest quality images I could find of the cards that had been previewed. Please take the links to admire the files in their full glory. The existence of almost half the Major Arcana makes me think that the art for the entire deck was completed, and we will never see it, sob sob sob.

• 0. Fool. Here is the first Slayer at the beginning of her kind’s fateful journey.
• 1. Magician. Buffy wields stupendous magic power in the first female interpretation of this card I’ve seen.
• 2. High Priestess. Willow is the feminine magical principle.
• 6. The Lovers. According to an interview with deck designer Rachel Pollack, this card shows Buffy and Angel.
• 10. Wheel of Fortune. The Master rules the cycle of judgment, death, transformation and undeath.
• 11. Justice. According to Pollack, this card shows Willow.
• 13. Death. This looks like the ritual that created the first Slayer.
• 14. Temperance. Angel in vamp mode represents a balance between all desires and duties.
• 15. Devil. Buffy and Spike [in vamp mode] are tempted to sick carnal delights.
• 16. Tower. This looks like Buffy sacrificing herself at the end of season 5.
• 19. Sun. The death-dealing, life-saving power of the Slayer smites the evil vampire.

2 pairs of glasses donated
1 glasses case donated
3 sets of Rements sold
Total 6 riddances
Grand total 80 riddances

My 6-year-old stepkidsy enjoys watching us go to icanhascheezburger.com and reading the LOLcats out loud to her. She asks to see "kitty pictures" regularly. While she certainly enjoys pictures of adorable animals doing amusing things, she has yet to grasp the inherent humor of LOLspeak, as evidenced by her hypercorrect name for icanhascheezburger.com: "mayipleasehaveacheeseburger.com." She has requested this much politer and more grammatically correct site several times on the past visits. ^_^ She also tries to make up her own LOLspeak jokes. Sometimes we can hear her trying them out: "O hai is u my kidsy?" Or, "Sleeping cat is sleeping!"

http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=97 In which Will can’t get no satisfaction, but Velvette and Gemini can!

Comments: Welcome another character to the cast: Gemini! She’s not really new, so much as she is newly appearing. Those of you who have very long memories and attention to this sort of detail may recall the story of how Anneka’s best friend Pippilotta was turned into a vampire. It was a sordid affair in which she was exploited by one Gemini Beaumont purely to make Gemini’s squeeze jealous. Gemini comes from the wild and self-destructive End of the World, a clan based in Provincetown, so her reputation as a dangerous agent of chaos precedes her. She and Velvette seem to get along well, though.

It may be difficult to read, but Janet’s white board has lots of helpful messages on it, like “Order stem cells” and “Kraftwerk rules! <- So does Velvette” and “Remember – Velvette = sister. <- That’s not funny! <- That’s because you have no sense of humor.”

1 pair old socks trashed
3 old 1:6 food items trashed
1 pair BJD shoes sold
1 BJD wig sold
1 BJD outfit sold
Total 7 riddances
Grand total 74 riddances

FS: Elfdoll Kathleen Winter Fantasy LE outfit + wig for 20cm/8" dolls, $25 with domestic shipping included. Out-of-U.S. shipping is more. From the Dolls & Friends LE 20 Winter Fantasy Kathlen [same size, 20cm, as Elfdoll Hana and Doona Soah/Ryung]. Includes dress, capelet, muff, tights, shoes and wig. Never put on doll, taken out of package only for photo, then put back in. Picture of outfits alone is mine. Picture of Kathlen modeling outfit from Dolls and Friends. Doll not included!! Continue reading FS: Elfdoll Kathleen Winter Fantasy LE outfit + wig for 20cm/8″ dolls, $25

Free lot of Re-ment: drinks, mugs, foot stool, watering can, bowling stuff — pay shipping. Will not split. Shipping is $1 in U.S., more internationally.
Continue reading Free lot of Re-ment: drinks, coasters, stool, watering can, bowling stuff — pay shipping

3 pieces 1:6 food trashed
Total 3 riddances
Grand total 67 riddances

Here’s a mock-up of how I want Absinthe to look. I pasted a picture of her sleeping head onto a picture of old Absinthe, who has the type of hair that I want. She looks so sweet!

I decided to make Absinthe a hybrid with the Kathlen head and an Obitsu body. I’ll order it tomorrow; tonight I need some sleep!Continue reading Mock-up of the new Absinthe

5 books resold
1 document box recycled
Total 5 riddances
Grand total 64 riddances

NOTE: I’m doing pretty well generating some extra money to cover Kathlen. Plus shipping, she was $231.50. I’ve done 2 Clarion reviews x $50.00 a review, so there’s $100.00. I have also earned $58.58 so far from the sale of BJD items. [It would be more, but for damned Paypal fees.] Anyway, that’s $158.58. I’m on the deck for at least 1 more Clarion review x $50.00 a review and 1 Kirkus Discovery review x $50.00 [less taxes] a review, so those two assignments should bring me up around the price of Kathlen.

About Absinthe — as I mentioned earlier, she’ll either be an Obitsu/resin hybrid, which will be cheap, or a hybrid of two types of BJD, which will be costlier. I did a lot of comparisons earlier this week and narrowed down potential resin body donors to the following:

Not Doll/Roxy Pandora/Miriam/Yohimbin. Pluses: Appropriate height, appropriate color, double-jointed arms. Minuses: Single-jointed legs, "droopy" headsculpt. [I might as well try to get another 1:6 kidsy out of this with a headsculpt that I like.]

Soul Doll Soul Little Jandi. Pluses: Beautiful sculpting, double-jointed arms and legs, cute headsculpt. Minuses: Not pale enough, a bit too tall, quite robust.

Orientdoll Joong. Pluses: Inexpensive. Minuses: Too short, just 20cm, no double joints, apparently not being made any more.

This is not anything new. I’ve been writing it for about two years now. To be fair, I should more accurately say that I’m collaborating with Mary Elizabeth Collins, an ancestor of mine [1866-1938]. She wrote a diary of her high school years in Plattsburgh, New York between 1884 and 1887, which I have transcribed. I’m in the process of annotating it. Since she writes a lot about her various courtships [and repeatedly turning down marriage proposals!!], most of my introductory material concentrates on dating and marriage in the late Victorian era.

Anyway, for my book, I was reading Nancy Cott’s Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. It’s an overview of marital practice and law on both state and local levels in the United States from colonial times to 2000. A cursory scan of the book shows American marriage as a fluid concept that steadily expands to include people of different races, married women’s property rights, no-fault divorce, parties of the same sex, etc. Though I’m still hurting from the fact that 53% of Californian voters personally hate me, I take heart from the long view proposed by Cott. Using the U.S. as a case study, she shows that marriage is an almost infinitely elastic institution. Those who campaign to stretch it always, always, always win out over those who try to keep it restrictive.

Even though Public Vows is not very relevant to my book, it’s relevant to my life, so I feel a tiny bit better.

1 BJD coat sold
1 BJD sweater sold
14 books resold
Total 16 riddances
Grand total 58 riddances

Thanks to Sociological Images’ post about makeup for men, I found the KenMen Web site, where appear many types of makeup and skin care products for men. Or, at least, they are aimed at men, with language that connotes machismo and aggression. The defensive deployment of language all over the site — in a strident attempt to convince consumers that the products are not coded either feminine or queer — is enthralling. Interestingly enough, despite KenMen’s exertions to heterosexualize and masculinize makeup, it still sells foundation with the name Cream Me Face Base. To me, at least, the phrase "cream me" says "ejaculate on my face," which, if the implied consumer is a man getting ejaculated on, sounds rather gay.

P.S. Someone needs to take an international poll about the associations of the name Ken. My first association is with Barbie’s boyfriend, who is connoted as an anatomically incorrect, bland, largely useless and even outright stupid character. Therefore, I don’t find KenMen an auspicious name for a men’s makeup company. But perhaps the name has different associations elsewhere around the world.

Hey hey hey and welcome to MW’s Please Get It Out Of My House Sale, where you benefit from ridiculously low prices, and I benefit from less stuff in my life.

All wigs shown on my Obitsu Friend Gretel, whose head is somewhere between SD and MSD size. All are $2 apiece, except for the mohair, which is free. Shipping is $1 in the US, more internationally. Paypal only, unless you’re local.Continue reading Fur BJD wigs for $2, MSD/SD/Dollshe/Mecha Angel — and some free mohair

8 books resold
1 BJD wig sold
Total 9 riddances
Grand total 42 riddances
Not bad for only 7 days.

Sadly, Dolls and Friends is closing early in December, so the U.S. loses another reseller of Asian BJDs. Happily for me, all remaining stock is deeply discounted, so I got Elfdoll Kathlen, a 20cm BJD with 2 faceplates [awake and asleep], outfit, eyes and wig, for $221.00 without shipping.  Her original price was $340.00, so that’s 35% off. Continue reading Hi there, Absinthe!

Obama won the presidency, which is good, assuming that a) he actually delivers on some of the liberal tendencies he’s been talking about and b) no one tries to assassinate him. Also, Massachusetts keeps its income tax, decriminalizes small amounts of marijuana and bans dog racing. That’s also good.

More depressingly, California passes Prop 8 to outlaw gay marriage; gay marriage bans are also passing in Arizona and Florida, while, in Arkansas, unmarried couples are now banned from being foster or adoptive parents. Ah, the good ol’ USA, home to lip service of equality and practice of segregation. Why do these country’s institutions hate people so much if they’re not straight, white, rich, non-disabled men? No…seriously…why do this country’s institutions so venomously and murderously despise most of its citizenry? I’m exhausted.

Assignment: Convert hatred to understanding and acceptance. Prognosis: Doubtful.

1 old toothbrush trashed
1 BJD skirt sold
1 BJD shirt sold
1 pair BJD pants sold
Total 4 riddances
Grand total 33 riddances

So I just watched a Youtube version of Zydrate Anatomy, a song from Repo! The Genetic Opera. Murky and full of visual hiccups, it featured Alexa Vega and Paris Hilton and some guy who looked like he was out of a steampunk Liaisons Dangereuses. I am reminded favorably of Marilyn Manson and the New York Dolls in both concept and costumes. Perhaps this would be an interesting movie to see, although, of course, it’s probably not showing anywhere near me. [Trailer here.]

In which Anneka avoids her grief by partying with friends. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=93

Comments: Time for some new characters! Davry previously appeared in Tale of Two Sisters 2 “Fighting the Robot,” but here we learn a bit more about him: namely, that he’s a rather annoying progressive. I think Andrew purposefully highlights her red-blooded manliness just to annoy Davry. Hee hee.

I took pictures of Central Square for the backgrounds on a cloudy early fall morning. Anyone who says it’s too light out for vampires will be summarily ignored. :p

3 paperback books donated
Total 3 riddances
Grand total 29 riddances

Yesterday’s riddances
1 pile shredded mail recycled
1 pile 1:6 related papers recycled
1 flat cardboard recycled

Today’s riddances
1 pair dress shoes donated
1 doll magazine recycled
1 BJD dress sold
1 pair BJD shoes sold

Total 5 riddances
Grand total 26 riddances

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 

In which we learn how Will died. 

Comments: Previously, in LHF, Anneka and Will were up in Vermont, struggling in their own ways with Anneka’s grandmother’s death. Disturbed by flashbacks of the deaths of himself and his parents, Will finally reveals to Anneka what’s on his mind. We find out how Will was turned into a vampire and just how stupid his first clan was.

Again, both Anneka and Will are in distress and, again, they aren’t touching. This does not bode well.

 http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=58

I got a round plastic lid from an industrial-size jar of pretzels at work. The lid, besides being bright red and therefore fabulous, is just the right size for the cafe table I need for the Nightcrawler [or dining room scenes]. I can use some of my carpentry scraps to make a pedestal for it. It will then fit in beautifully with the rest of my furniture made out of cardboard boxes, wooden crates, music boxes, etc. I should take pictures of some of my "lazy furniture" and "lazy decor." While I have purchased some things, about 50% of my furniture and accessories are things that I have assembled myself.

Size 4-5 Erika wig from Monique looks about right. $13.50. [Also in the same general style are Andrea, Bernadette, Breanna and Clarissa.] Goddamn…at the rate Little Will is going, he is going to get his own storyline because I have sunk a lot of money into him trying to get him to look appropriately Victorian. >:

Andrea sold me the Antique Dreaming Momoko outfit for Little Will. Here’s a link to the doll displaying the outfit. Unfortunately, the doll is not included in my purchase. However, the outfit includes a long-sleeved, somber dress, a pinafore and BLOOMERS! [Also socks and shoes.] I’m very excited about the bloomers, which make the outfit that much more stupendous. I really should take a whack out of Little Will’s legs and make his hair more Victorian [e.g., ringlets].

In which Velvette and Viktor frolic in a cemetery…

Comments: In the last Tale of Two Sisters,  we watched as Viktor, a sexbot created by one of said sisters, Janet, fought with his owner, Sibley. Now we watch the fallout of Viktor’s fight with Sibley as Viktor takes his master’s commands to heart…

http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=52

Here: http://www.theriomorph.com/

The much-vaunted Fringe is an X-Files knock-off concerning FBI agent Olivia Dunham, mad scientist Walter Something-or-Other and his annoying genius caretaker son Peter. They run around Boston and environs investigating things like synthetic diseases that dissolve your skin and murderous psychopaths who feed on the pituitary glands of dead prostitutes. They get regular help from a band called Massive Attack company called Massive Dynamic and regular encouragements from their director, who thinks that these "fringe science" events are all part of a weird Pattern.

All the characters neglect to notice the most sinister evidence of the Patten. Namely, it has messed up the very fabric of the Boston metro area! Suddenly, Harvard allows mad genius’ labs to a) take up the whole cellar of a building, b) remain untouched for 17 years and c) house Holsteins without special permits! Creepy ornate mental institutions appear on pastoral grounds in Essex County! The Fenway suddenly boasts an elevated highway! Stoughton apparently has a riverside or seaside warehouse section! And viewers across the state hurl their TVs or computers across the room in frustration!

Did I mention that I don’t care about any of the characters and I don’t know why they’re so interested in this Pattern?

Verdict: It’s a third-rate X-Files with no sense of place. May stave off boredom during really slow days at work, but don’t expect anything truly interesting.

In which Anneka discusses with Pippilotta the difficulties of death. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=51
Comments: When we last checked in with our undead protagonists, Anneka and Will were up in Vermont with Anneka’s dying grandmother. While Will has flashbacks to his own death, Anneka also takes her grandma’s illness hard and tries to console herself with help from her best friend.

Zinnia Pascale heads to the library to find hors d’oeuvres a quiet spot to read. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=50

Preachers, Patriots and Plain Folks, sold by the Association for Gravestone Studies, covers the Granary, King’s Chapel and Central cemeteries in Boston. Chow is buried in Central.

The Log of the Union is a log of a global circumnavigation by Chow’s employer, Captain John Boit Jr., in 1794-1796.

Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem Village is an educated reconstruction of Tituba’s life before, during and after the Salem witch trials.

Food for the Dead is about rural New Englanders’ folk medicine against the threat of tuberculosis. Absinthe’s corpse was burned in this tradition.

We might be going to a Halloween party this year. If I go, I think I’ll be a vampire, you know, like an LHF vampire, only slightly more conspicuous, with…

Black outfit, including T-shirt with a headstone on it
Plastic fangs
IV bag with blood in it attached to pants [vampiric equivalent of a water bottle]
Button with a garlic bulb on it and a line through it [NO GARLIC]
Button with VAMPIRES DO IT IN COLD BLOOD
Coffin purse to carry things in
Sunglasses [or flip-down sunglasses attached to my glasses]
Something to protect myself from vampire killers

The good news is that all of this is easily procurable, except for the IV / blood bag.

I found a blood bag!

Also beautiful gravestone T-shirts with Massachusetts stone designs on them. Or I could design my own.

Every time I’m in Arlington Center, I stop by Henry Bear’s Park, an independent toy store that stocks a pleasing array of Japanese food erasers. Besides the erasers, I also like to admire the dolls, especially the Only Hearts Club and the Groovy Girls. Recently, I’ve been ogling the Karito Kids.

These newcomers to the doll scene are about 22" high, their minimal articulation compensated for by their friendly, engaging faces [they all have slight half-smirks] and high-quality clothes. In another bonus, they span different ethnicities, with slightly different sculpts for each doll. I’ve only seen Gia up close, but I can attest that all the dolls are cute and very huggable, with a pleasing heft.

There’s some painfully hipsterish charity option attached to the purchase of each Karito Kid, but I don’t really care because they are awesome, and I want one. They are about $100 each, which is cheaper than your average high-end 1:6 action figure [I’m looking at YOU, Hot Toys Young Indiana Jones] and much cheaper than anything in resin.

A bike photographer, Ray Dobbins, describes his simple, inexpensive set-up for taking clear photos with realistic color balance. His secret weapon is HALOGEN WORK LIGHTS. He uses 2, pointed at the ceiling, and apparently this sheds enough white ambient light all around to provide sharp, detailed pictures with relatively accurate color. Obviously I need some of these before I get so frustrated with all my yellow fluorescents that I launch them out the window.

The comments about this page on BoingBoing add some alternatives to the main set-up.

Pierce is a young woman whose talent is making tunnels in inanimate objects. She discovered her power when she was shoveling the driveway of her childhood home and she got trapped under an avalanche of April Vermont snowbanks. She dug herself out and discovered that her talent for piercing things extended to materials beyond snow.

Pierce is, of course, heavily pierced, as are her clothes. Her interests incude confetti-making and needlepoint. For extreme thrills, she practices self-suspension. She makes her best holes when she is really angry, excited or turned on. For this reason, she keeps a cordless drill on her at all times. There are lots of holes in her crafting table and her bedstead.

Pierce lives in the Boston area, where she moved because she is the only person in the region who thinks that the Big Dig is fucking awesome. She works as a document technician for Boring Investments Transnational, located in the Financial District, which means that she prints and binds documents. She likes her job because she gets to punch holes in things.

And I am really really not, no never, going to make a doll of her, despite the fact that she could have all these little piercings and beads dangling from her clothes, and her accessories could be a little cordless drill and a bag of 1:6 confetti, and I could take pictures of her next to various parts of the Callahan Tunnel and other parts of the former Big Dig, and she could be saying, "Wow!" and everyone else would be rolling their eyes….

Oh, who am I kidding?

I've always enjoyed looking at Tonner's 1:4 offerings, though I've never had sufficient incentive to branch out into YET ANOTHER scale. Tonner used to be all dull, baby-faced fashion dolls with ridiculously foreshortened skulls, but they've really grown up and improved over the past 10 years. They now boast a wide variety of desirable licenses and original characters. DeeAnna Denton, with a figure reminiscent of a voluptuous 1950s pinup, caught my eye just now. Both her facial features and her physique remind me of Bettie Page. I think someone could use a DeeAnna as a perfect base for Page.

In other news, I still have a crush on Hot Toys' Medicom's forthcoming 1:6 Young Indiana Jones doll, in part because it looks like Will and also because all their celebrity sculpts are so detailed and realistic. Damn $150 1:6ers. 🙁

In which zombies plot the destruction of stupid people. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=49

In which our main character dies! [Hint: It’s a flashback.] http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=48

In which zombies smite annoying moviegoers. The introduction of Zinnia Pascale. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=47

Zinnia Pascale arrived Tuesday. I took pictures of her for a pictorial review, as no one on the Web has done so for this Sideshow fig. So, forthwith, a review of the Sideshow Toy The Dead Babysitter 1:6 action figure. 
Continue reading Review of Sideshow’s The Dead Babysitter, aka ZINNIA PASCALE IS HERE!

Okay, I know all zero of you were on tenterhooks, waiting for the final installment in my epic examination of the kick-assitude of modern pop zombies, so here it is. After reviewing several reasons for the pandemic of modern pop zombies in parts one, two and three, I gave my own explanation in part four. Zombies are extreme vampires. I explain what that means here in part five.

Continue reading “Here’s an F.Y.I. You’re all gonna die screaming”: the awesomeness of zombies part V

As of this weekend, I’m a member blogger at Sociological Images, a blog staffed mostly by people with advanced sociological degrees who collect pop culture images for sociological commentary and analysis. In my inaugural post, I discuss the sexist "McCain/MILF ’08" crap that’s already being marketed mere seconds after the news that Alaskan gov Sarah Palin is McCain’s VP pick. I’m looking forward to blogging there; I think it will be a lot of fun.

When we last left The Tale of Two Sisters, said sisters Velvette and Janet weren’t getting along. Janet’s creation, the cyborg Viktor, is also not getting along with his master Sibley [who has a potty mouth!]. They’re even taking their fights out in public, much to the distress of mild-mannered bookstore owner Mark.

I got some beading elastic, fake fur and pompoms last night. New developments in decora include elastic bracelets made of small glass beads and FURRY LEGWARMERS WITH POMPOMS!!!! The more that I photograph Frank in this style, the more I see how its loud, bright flourishes of pattern and color are perfect for his flamboyant, cheerful personality. I fear it will be difficult to pry the clothes away from him when Zinnia Pascale arrives….Continue reading Decora V: Am I tacky yet?

Following Andrea’s advice to eschew unpatterned solids, I removed the white arm sleeves, pink stockings and red pleather vest. Now the stockings are multi-colored stripes. The vest is purple with silver glittery spots. I subbed the origami choker for a ruby/diamond ring and a lock pendant with rhinestones. Still to do: Make hair doo-dads. Make eyepatch [as Zinnia Pascale is missing an eye]. Make one earring [or two, depending on how many ears she has].
Continue reading Decora four-a: more stripes! More glitter!

Medicom is releasing a 1:6 version of River Phoenix as Young Indiana Jones. He looks like Will, but I’m not sure how much because, the last time I thought a doll looked like Will, its head ended up being too fat [HT Leon S. Kennedy].

My fantastically fascinating essay about zombies in modern pop culture continues, trying to find out why we think zombies are so rockin’ awesome. Parts I and II looked at political parallels between us and zombies, while part III looked at the links between the administrative industry and zombiehood. None of these aforementioned theories about the prevalence of zombies are my original ideas, but I do have some speculation of my own about the origins of our collective zombiephilia.

This is my interpretation: Part of the reason we like zombies so much is that, as portrayed in modern pop media, they are extreme vampires. They are perfectly modern monsters in that they threaten humans at the essential seat of their humanity — the brain — thus updating the cannibalistic implications of the vampire for our current scientific state of knowledge.
Continue reading “Things are okay, except that I’m a zombie now”: the ubiquity of zombies IV

I don’t think so. I think I need ribbon and seed beads for hair doo-dads. Made some more origami bracelets and sewed the flowers onto the vest and the belt. They remind me of squirty flowers for clowns.Continue reading Decora III: are there enough patterns at work in this outfit?

In the past two sections, I’ve been answering the question: Why are zombies so popular here and now?? Section 1 proposed that they are a good metaphor for biological terrorism, while section 2 noted that zombies are perfect metaphors for the American climate of fear and recent governmental hawkishness. Section 3 looks at zombies as embodiments of the white-collar workplace.
 

Continue reading “I’m not a monster, Tom. Well, technically, I am”: the niftiness of zombies part III

I’m exploring the current trendiness of zombies. In a previous section of this essay, I proposed one reason for their current prevalence: They are great metaphors for biological warfare, about which the American populace has been pretty freaked ever since 2001. There are more interesting thematic currents in the zombie bloodstream, though…

Related to my first reason, zombies may also be so popular because people perceive them as an accurate metaphor for the general mental state of the populace: one of loose-brained anxiety. Continue reading “I’ll report back to my colleagues who are chewing on the door”: why zombies are so awesome part II

I’ve been singing Jonathan Coulton’s "Re: Your Brains" for the past few days as I wait for Zinnia Pascale [who shipped today!] and contemplate the intriguing question: Why are zombies so prevalent in pop culture right now?

Frank models the latest in 1:6 decora duds in the absence of their true owner, Zinnia Pascale, who is in the mail [woohoo!]. Changes include a new skirt, bracelets and choker out of origami paper and the felt zinnia belt buckle that I was talking about [currently attached with a pin because I don’t want to sew it just yet]. I still need some more hair doodads [to be made when I actually get Zinnia Pascale] and some decoration for the backpack. Maybe something cute and dead…

After my decora zombie told me yesterday that her name was Zinnia Pascale, I went to see what zinnias actually look like. Some of them have very bold, rich colors. I think I’m going to reproduce this one, for example, on Zinnia’s belt buckle. Zinnia turned out to be a much more appropriate name than I expected! 

EDIT: I’m going to make her belt buckle out of felt, I think, and her bracelets out of some origami paper. The origami paper has different complicated patterns on each side that will contribute to the cacophony of Zinnia Pascale’s outfit.

I am pleased to note that the headsculpt that comes with Triad’s Lola also appears in the much cheaper Caucasian Otaku fig. Since the Otaku is $30 without shipping, I’ll be picking up her, rather than Lola. As much as I like short skirts, all I really want is that headsculpt.

I was going to say one of my LHF characters, but most of them would want to drink my blood, which would not be helpful. Therefore, I would have to say JSK because he’s pretty much omnipotent, and we wouldn’t be stranded for long. Instead, we would just be having an unexpected vacation that could instantly end at his discretion.

Frank shows everyone what a Fruit[s] he is by helpfully wearing my decora outfit while I go get a zombie to put in it. Please note that the outfit is a work in progress; I still have to add a belt [craft foam?], various felt or craft foam hair decorations [hearts, teddy bears, kitties, smiley faces, etc.], a purse in the form of a stuffed animal and FUZZY LEGWARMERS!!! That said, I think it looks pretty damn good for having been scrounged entirely from my drawers of spare clothes.

A Fruits zombie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

EDIT: Technically, a decora zombie.

Fuzzy legwarmers, patterned skirts in layers, stripey socks, hair full of barettes and clips, T-shirts with cartoon characters, purses and backpacks with cartoon animals and Very! Bright! Pink!

I’m usually not much for the kawaii aesthetic, but I must admit that this heart pendant filled with rainbow sprinkles is incredibly cool. I would get it and wear it forever and ever, but I’m already wearing a heart pendant from my wife. <3

Up in Vermont, Anneka, Will, Anneka’s parents and Anneka’s sort-of grandmother visit her dying grandma, Minerva, in the nursing home. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=45

Well, Sabik’s pending. The buyer is paying for him in money and commissioned clothes for 1:6 dolls. I’m currently brainstorming a list of horrors in which to clothe Anneka, Will and their groupies.

The entire back catalog of Jump Cut, an analysis mag of pop culture, is online. Ooooooh.

In another one of his flashbacks triggered by being around Anneka’s dying grandmother, Will remembers the time over 100 years ago when his old girlfriend, Absinthe, tried to vamp him. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=44

Rori spreads gossip about the vamp vs. robot fight. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=43

Will discovers how hard it is to meet Anneka’s family. Eeeeee! http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=37

Tonner’s Alice in Wonderland doll runs 11″, and she has some perfect choices for 1:6 Little Will’s clothes. Classic Alice is always an option, but I’m particularly keen on Victorian Stripes. I wonder if Tonner’s clothes for their 12″ dolls [Marley, Alice, etc.] would fit 1:6ers?

NOTE: The always awesome Agnes Dreary line has 2 dolls of ~12″: Agnes and Victor. Grargh I wish I knew if their clothes fit 1:6ers!

 Involving Mark Twain, Satan, mini version of creation and the Angel of Death. Endearing models of characters, very creepy storyline.

Pippilotta reads bad vampire fiction! Anneka gets naked! Good times for all! [This is one with the dolls in it!]

…that the Loch Ness Monster is involved in Breaking Dawn. Wow. If that’s the case, I might need to actually purchase a copy of this train wreck for my very own, instead of just signing it out from the library.

As a follow-up to my earlier diatribe against the philosophical concept of J.K. Rowling’s Tales of Beadle the Bard, I would like to mention that it is being published for the unwashed hordes as of December, 2008. Hissssssss. I stand by my earlier arguments.

bellatrys

 rambles intriguingly about Labyrinth in an entry from November, 2007, and why it’s so powerful…because of the final showdown. In the final showdown, where Jareth grovels and Sarah stares him down, we receive an example of a climax so rarely according female protagonists: the direct confrontation with the evil and the rejection thereof. Sarah sees through Jareth’s bullshit; she acknowledges her equality with, indeed, her supremacy OVER, him. She rebalances her life by asserting herself to be the stronger character. I agree with bellatrys’ comment that the movie should have ended there, without the puppet party afterward. [Found via The Hathor Legacy.]

All of this makes me think that, even though I no longer actively work on Jareth’s Realm, Labyrinth remains the dominant narrative template through which I live my life. It keeps infiltrating all of my own artistic endeavors.

I’ve been having trouble with two of my historical dolls, Little Will and his mom Leonora. Both of them are from the 1870s, so they should be wearing historically accurate [or historically approximate] hair and clothes. To add to the fun, Leonora should be in some sort of wheeled chair. To make the fun even funner, both of them need to be more slender than my usual robust CG base because they are sickly, scrawny characters.

After a frustrating consideration of many possibilities, in the end, I’ve decided to modify articulated Barbies for both of them. I’ll just masectomize one and drastically reduce the legs for Little Will. *ominous sounds of hand saw and Dremel revving up*

I found a historically approximate outfit for Leonora. It’s from Victorian Lady Barbie. I am, however, having a hell of a time finding something for Little Will. A detailed investigation of Ebay and barbiecollector.com demonstrates that Barbies are not a reliable source of historically accurate dress, especially not for children’s fashions. I thought I’d use an “Alice in Wonderland” dress + pinafore combo, but Mattel doesn’t produce any; Azone is out, and I really don’t feel like importing one from Japan for $30.00. GRAR!

In which Will dreams of the past, back when he was human. http://oddpla.net/lhf/?p=35 

As suggested on this recommendation thread on Amazon.

Continuing in a long tradition of mediocre remakes of classic films [Psycho, Wicker Man, War of the Worlds, King Kong, et hoc genus omne], MTV and 20th Century Fox are apparently retreading The Rocky Horror Picture Show movie. Like most remakes, it will be weak, pointless, dull and did I mention POINTLESS? Useless, pathetic remakes always make me roll my eyes in disgust; my eyes are revolving especially hard in their sockets now because Fox and MTV are messing around with a movie that I like. Blech. WHY???

In the latest Batman reboot, Batman has to deal with both the Joker and Two-Face, all while contemplating whether he’s any better than the ends-justify-the-means dudes that he fights. Movie portrays a consistently murky, satisfactorily melancholy vision of Gotham in which it’s always night and no one is quite sure they’re doing the right thing. New ass-kicking technology, including wings for Batman and a muscular Batmobile with LOITER and INTIMIDATE modes [and the ability to eject a Batbike], provides spectacular pyrotechnics to distract from the fact that most of the acting is serviceable but not exciting. 

Should be telling that the audience cheered and laughed only when the Joker was on the screen. While everyone else is repressed and dire, Ledger’s Joker capers in his own manic world, creepy, unpredictable and much more interesting than Bale’s Batman, who we know is dull enough to eventually do the right thing [supported, of course, by moralizing from Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon].

The movie’s strengths are its action scenes, special effects and the Joker. Weak points are the otherwise complete lack of humor, frequently ponderous script and lack of psychological realism, especially in the character of Gyllenhaal’s Dawes. Why does Rachel like Harvey Dent? There’s no chemistry and no interest. After all those resentful looks she passes Bruce Wayne, why does she insist that his penthouse is the safest location in Gotham? Who cares? This is not a movie about female characters. Screw the female characters. We have no need for them [even though the mayor, some Mob players, Lau and Gordon could be female characters without any problem at all]. This is a movie about MEN and MORALS. Also BIG FUCKING EXPLOSIONS. At these three things, it succeeds.

Three and a half out of five stars!

Dolls I currently have

Apparently Amok Time is doing LE 1:6 figs of Blacula. I have no interest in Blacula, but I think the prototype dolly looks stupendous, especially the 3 included heads. The ones with flesh on them evince a particularly fascinating combination of sleaziness and seductiveness.

I initially created Davry purely as an experiment in rendering a person with achondroplastic dwarfism. Because I was successful with my digital model of him, I naturally progressed to the idea of a 1:6 version of him. After discovering the perfect head and amassing other parts and clothes, I now have a Davry doll!

I can’t tell whether this is a miniseries or an open-ended series, but HBO has True Blood starting in September.

Pros: Vampires, Anna Paquin, created by Alan Ball who did Six Feet Under.

Cons: Based on an incredibly boring paranormal romance, on cable which I don’t think I have.

Truthfully, I would be more interested in a second season of Moonlight because it’s so baaaaaaayud, but apparently someone put a fork in it because it’s been cancelled.

Today’s LHF adventure goes off on a side plot as Velvette trips over Janet. 

I ordered last night from War Toys, and they’re shipping out the order today! Wow, that was quick.

I ordered a nude Hermann Miller for Davry’s body. It’s an 11″ DiD body that’s supposed to be a young boy. I’ll have to hack out the upper arms, upper legs and torso in order to make a convincing example of a person with achondroplastic dwarfism. As a bonus, the Hermann head that comes with the body is attractive, possibly usable in future for another character.

I also ordered a nude US Navy EOD by Soldier Story for Sibley. He looks prissy and disapproving [it’s the mouth], which is how I always imagine Sibley: better than you and cognizant of it. Poor Sibley…He irritates me so much as a character that I don’t want to have a doll of him, but I have scenes planned involving him, so I need him. He’d better stop acting like a dipstick soon, or else he’ll antagonize the entire cast. Wait…he already did.

I also ordered some atrocious clothes for Will, including a tropical print shirt, a white mesh tank top and an olive tank top. I think I ordered some normal jeans too.

My wife is helping me order Chow’s body and a jukebox for my 1:6 Nightcrawler. I should work on dolls tonight, sculpting Chow’s hair and taking some pictures of Absinthe, who is now done, and my 1:6 scenery in progress.