Blythe!

I've been fascinated with Blythe, the doll, for oh, about 17 years. I remember in the early 90s seeing a picture of one at some kind of art show and I loved it immediately. Blythe dolls are an early 70s creation. They stand about a foot tall and have these super large eyes that blink and change direction when you pull the cord attached to the back. They weren't really popular when they first emerged in 1972. Their production only lasted about a year. Some 27 years later, the doll has had a resurgence in popularity and Hasbro allowed a Japanese company to make the dolls again. And they took off like wildfire. Originally inspired by the art work of Margaret Keane, who painted kids with big eyes, Blythe now has a whole army of people who are fascinated by her.


Original Blythes from the 70s are rare, but sought after, and can be worth hundreds of dollars.
The Takara remakes are also worth a pretty penny. Ashton Drake, the US company that is replicating them, charges about $60 for their Blythe. All of them have slight variation in skin tone, shiny-ness, and eye color, but the basic shape of the doll is the same.

Here is a 1972 Kenner Blythe:
I think she struck me as interesting because most dolls are happy faced, and she seems to be kind of pensive. Also, I loved Margaret Keane and mod 60s style, so she fit into a lot of my design requirements. What has happened since the resurgence in the 90s is a total explosion of Blythe. People who are into Blythe not only buy the dolls, they remake them, which is amazing! They not only buy clothes, accesories and wigs for her:


They make them over completely, changing eyes, sanding the faces to reapply makeup. Here's goth Blythe:


To do this, of course, you have to kill Blythe. Some models easily come apart with a little prying. Others require cutting open her head! There are tons of websites devoted to helping you figure out what doll requires which kind of surgery to get apart. And then, what you can do is limitless. Some go as far as to resculpt the face, to give lips a new shape.


Eye chips allow you to play with eye color, and with an airbrush, you can change little white Blythe into any number of skin tones.

There's a number of Flickr groups devoted to Blythes of color with names like Black Blythe is Beautiful.
This is one of those beautiful cultural moments where people take something aimed at one group of people and totally transform it to fit their own needs and desires, ignoring the intentions of the creator. A whole subculture has grown out of this. People who make and sell clothing, wigs, trade techniques and post images on Flickr and Blythe websites like This is Blythe, What's Blythe. There are tutorial sites like the Pucci Collective, and YouTube has tons of videos explaining how to customize your doll. But...well, most of the big Blythe aficionados don't refer to Blythe as a doll. It's not like they think she's a real person, like they are divorced from reality (at least not most of them), but they seem to participate in the fantasy of her realness. They call her "my girl" and sometimes name her, giving her a personality. Some photograph their Blythes in tiny dollhouse like settings, like kitchens or living rooms, as though she has her own life. She has long days at work, has to get ready for tonight's party, that kind of stuff. And though Blythe is definitely big in Japan, and probably has a few fans under 18, most of these websites seem to be by middle aged women. Fascinating.

Oh yeah, I'm one of them now. I don't call her "my girl" nor do I play with Blythe, but the idea of a customized doll was right up my alley! I had a fantasy of transforming her into a mini-me, but that didn't happen. Once I found a cheap enough doll, I did what I could with what I had. I didn't want to cut it and open up the skull, so I decided to just do minor adjustments. Here's my original doll, the Aztec Arrival Blythe:

I, being me, made her all gothy. I cut her hair, painted her face (girl needed some eyebrows, for sure), and made her a tiny little dress.



I think these would be great dolls to give a kid who doesn't see herself in the dolls at the store. You could make a really beautiful gift for someone by customizing the doll to look like a kid or just look like they could be related!

If I have time and money, maybe one day I'll get more of these babies. But for now, Vampire Blythe will be my little companion. I don't have the heart to pack her up yet, so she might be the last thing to get boxed up before our move.>var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
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Give

Even if it's just $20.

Doctors Without Borders

Red Cross

And while you're at it, check out the amazing history of Haiti, which Wikipedia declares is "the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion."

Lady's Night

M. is off with friends watching some sort of muscley guy competition on pay-per-view. So what's a gal to do but spend an evening doing single lady stuff like soaking my feet in my foot spa (it only bubbles these days, as the other components don't work anymore), eating 100 calories worth of chocolate graham cracker goodness, and watching the sequel to Underworld. It's kind of on in the background actually. I painted my toenails after the foot bath and you know you can never really watch anything else but your toes when that's going on.



If I had two more cats and a tea cozy I'd be the perfect picture of a happy spinster. I am settling for one ornery cat and a cute lapdog. My house is immaculate, my grading is almost done, and I think my TMJ is almost going away. Since I'm only on my first cocktail, I'd say I have about an hour until I'm golden.

I got some pretty nice thoughtful gifts this year. I also managed to get some good deals at the mall. YES. I went to the mall the day after Christmas with my friend Brande. Not just any mall, but South Coast Plaza, the Hell Mall. This sign was right underneath the escalators and it pretty much sums up the beast that is SCP:


Pretty amazing outfits going on there, by the way. People dressed head to toe in new obnoxiously overpriced clothes they just got. Young men in all-over-print lavender hoodies, scarves a plenty, and sunglasses (dark sunglasses) on indoors. Also, everyone was walking (and I use that term loosely) around staring down at their iPhones texting. It was insane, but I knew it would be. We are total warriors for going and coming back with good deals. For one thing, I got two of these babies at Williams Sonoma:


Now I can take my cupcake to work with my lunch and the tops don't get smashed. I'm all about plastic cupcake carriage, apparently. But hell, all the icing gets stuck to the foil! It's a fool who takes a cupcake in their lunchbox wrapped, I say.

Some of my "best of" gifts this year:

The reproduction princess phone. Not as cool as a still working rotary dial, but this is new and shiny and cute. It's in my kitchen. And yes, it has that "pprrriinngg" ring that sounds like the original.



Brande gave me this vintage book, which is totally amazing.

All kinds of sex advice and articles from Sexology, the first American sex magazine (well, the first one that pretended scientific authenticity). Some really great stuff in here.

I got various baking pans that are cute, including this one:



Mini-cake castles. I also got mini-cake snowflakes and the star of david bundt pan I was hoping for. I don't know how to frost these things, but they will look heavenly.

Mostly I got books. Good ones. The Annotated Dracula, a book of Mutter Museum photographs, a book on sideshows, and the third installment of the Russian Prison Tattoo Encyclopedia. I also got new bath towels. How old am I that the new bath towels elicited the "oh my god" Christmas present feeling?

I love all my gifts and the generous people that gave them to me, but my favorite part is giving other people gifts. I wish I could have done more this year, but I was able to help a little bit with a gift for my mom. My brothers and I got together to get her a new pillow top mattress to replace her old one which she had for an unspeakable number of years. I got my cousin these amazing socks that look like converse shoes in different colors. She squealed with delight.


I got M. a bunch of books on black metal, which is his latest obsession. I was looking through my Mutter Museum book and he was looking through a giant photograph book on Norwegian Black Metal and we both looked up and commented that we'd be having bad dreams that night.


Anybody get or give anything good?

Friday!

I still don't have my correct lens for the glasses, but I'm doing less reading/computer stuff. Yesterday was a productive day in all sorts of ways. Got a lot of work done, made a lot of headway with research for the dissertation, and then in the afternoon, I took some inspiration from the gloomy marine layer that's still hanging over Long Beach and got crafty. Pictures over at Flickr for those interested.

As much as I love the Internet, there is something to be said for getting real, honest to goodness mail in the mailbox. Yesterday I received an awesome belated birthday gift from Tiny Heat! Check it out:
You put the stickers on a regular deck of cards and use it as a sort of tarot deck. Only it is way easier because you don't have to learn the symbolic meaning of 75 tarot cards by heart. Instead, you just read the fortune off the sticker! There are two stickers for each card, so that if it is inverted, there is a different fortune. I totally love it! Thank you Tiny Heat.