Locket Rings

I love hiding places that are in plain sight, like books that are hollowed out or fake rocks that hold keys. My mother used to have a couple of locket rings. Several of them held a gel-like perfume that you presumably would dab on your neck and wrists over the course of the day. I noticed that some fellow Etsy members are making these still and started looking for other ones. Yes, I am aware that these are totally cocaine rings, but I prefer to think that you could store other things there, like poison, or a picture of someone you love, or lip gloss.

This locket ring is only $14.50 from Sweet Simple on Etsy. I love the etching!

This neo-Victorian mourning locket ring is a bit pricey at $35, but it's nice and big, like a cocktail ring. If Victorian women in mourning were allowed to venerate cocktails, that is.

This one is actually a bit see through, but can hold a little note or something! I love it.
You Stole My Heart Locket Ring from Milkmoneyshop, $14.



People still make the perfume rings, including Marc Jacobs

It's a bit much, no?

Kat Von D also makes one:

I used to be a fan of Kat Von D, but damn she's just not smart at all. Her show is a diagram of how not to be smart. Don't get me wrong, she's successful and an excellent artist, but she would be a good silent film star, if you know what I mean. Damn I like her Sephora stuff, though...

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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gothic tacos

Yes, for the month of October, Taco Bell has come up with their "Black Jack Taco"

seriously!

Gothic Care Package

Ever have one of those days when things just don't go right?

Like you worked really hard on your powerpoint presentation to go along with your lecture and it's finally perfect and then the stupid computer doesn't work in your classroom. So of course, because you no longer have your slides, your pacing is all off and the board looks like a mess.

Or when you have to tell a student that the classroom is not the stage at the Improv, so can it with the jokes and take this shit seriously already.

Or when because of stupid budget cuts, your classrooms are all at about 78 degrees. Add in 60 warm bodies and you get somewhere around 85 degrees. Ugh.

Plus it's the first day of your period and all you want is to drown in a sea of chocolate and wear something drapey and beltless.

Yeah, well Monday was that kind of day. Geez. But, sometimes the Universe gives you a little pep talk. In addition to M leaving the driveway open for me and cleaning up the house (which made coming home stressless), it just so happened that my friend K, who lives in Germany, had sent me a package of goodies that arrived that very day.



So many good things! Where should I start?! The awesome chocolate eggs for one. They are milk chocolate on the outside, white chocolate on the inside and just shells in egg form. Inside each shell is a little toy. Nutella dipping sticks, in addition to another chocolate hazelnut combo treat. Hazelnuts and chocolate are pretty much the most awesome combination. Around Christmas, I roast shelled hazelnuts in the oven and dip them in melted chocolate. Soo good.

Also part of this amazing care package was a bag of Jumpys. These little paprika chips are shaped like kangaroos and were pretty much what I lived on when I visited K in Germany nine years ago (has it really been that long?). We were addicted to them and bought them whenever we got the chance. On a train ride from somewhere in Germany to somewhere else (Berlin to Hannover?) we debated what kind of drug they were laced with, because what else could inspire such immediate devotion?
I got this care package because a few months ago I sent K a tiny painting of her as a vampire.


Her daughter Cleo is also into vampires and the fantastical, and she called my house and left the cutest message on my machine asking me to do a painting of her as a vampire. I thought I'd up the ante a bit and send her a little package of goodies. Handmade stamp with her name in Calavera font:


And two paintings, one of her as a mermaid, because she has super mermaidy hair. And one of her as a vampire:
So not surprisingly the vampire exchange program is still going!
They sent me these amazing vampire gummy bears.


The center of the vampire bat (the body) is black licorice flavored, and the wings are traditional gummy. Yums.

Plus I got a tin of gothic band-aids.

The band-aids were wrapped in this super cute wrapping paper as well.

I indulged in a couple gummy vampire bats, had a chocolate egg, sampled a few Jumpys and forgot all about my bad day. So thanks K! Excellent timing and a really great care package.

Martha Stewart Halloween!

It's getting started people, and I couldn't be happier. I don't even have an "inner Halloween freak." My freakery is totally on the outside year-round. So, of course, Martha Stewart's Halloween magazine is one of my favorite things. It heralds the coming season. I dutifully wait until October 1st to crack open my Halloween decorations bin and set our apartment ablaze (out of respect for my husband's sanity), but until then, I look at all the new stuff. I'm gonna loose my shit at Target when their Halloween goodies come out, I just know it. Anyway...

Martha loves Halloween as much as I do. She dresses up on her show, for her magazine, and to go to Halloween parties, like this picture from Bette Midler's party a few years ago:

A more recent costume is her Medusa costume, which I LOVE.

One year her covers were Bad & Good:
Her Halloween magazines have been really good the past couple of years. She still has a lot of kid-friendly decorations, but it's the adult, creepy and classy stuff that I like best. Here are a few from years past that I was into:


She sells these pompoms ready-made, but they are super easy to make yourself with tissue paper and scissors. Visit her site to learn how to make them yourself: DIY Pom Poms

These lab specimen party invitations sold out super early last year. I was going to buy some just to have in case I ever have an apartment big enough to have a decent party, but they were already gone.

These severed finger invitations are also totally amazing:


For any kind of decent party, liquor bottles are everywhere. In true Martha fashion, these labels make everything part of the theme:


A lot of this stuff was available on her online craft store, but there's not really much there. Her website has templates and instructions for some of her projects.

This year's magazine has some good stuff too!



Pumpkin punch bowl with little mini-pumpkin cups.

Plenty of black cats and spiders, but also owls. Here's a baby owl costume that's too cute. Love the mask.
And a way to make mishappen pumpkins owly.
Buying cheap plastic skulls and bones and covering them in green glitter does class up the joint.
I'm actually into the idea of these chocolate caramel apples with stick handles. I may make them. She provides the recipe in the latest issue.

So, like, obviously, this isn't the last Halloween post. But you knew that, right?

Rejuvenique

Remember this? I was so frightened by it when I saw the infomercial in the late 90s. It looked like a 1950s beauty gadget. I also vaguely remember an interview with Marilyn Manson in which he is casually holding one as if it were a normal accessory. So it haunted me on both counts.

Manson just announced a new album and tour, and has reunited with Twiggy (the best one). His website has thankfully gotten rid of the crappy fascist/Disney/Burlesque theme and is much more disturbing, glam, medical oddity, which is what he really did best. His music will probably not be much better than it has been the past few years, but I bet the rejuvenique mask did wonders for him. I'm sure he looks 10 years younger.

This is from before Dita, Mansinthe, and Columbine:

Los Angeles Love

This was in a store window on Melrose Ave. today.

Everything was not on sale for love, but for desperation. M. and I took today (the day after my last lecture of the semester) and decided to treat ourselves. We went to Canter's for lunch and then took a walk up and down Melrose Ave. Every store had super sales. The kind you'd see after the holidays. And many of them weren't there anymore. Stores that I had seen for years and years were boarded up and gone. It was sad. One store we had kind of planned the trip around wasn't there. Combined with the low traffic on a Thursday afternoon, it made for a depressing experience. We didn't even really want to buy anything.

How best to cap that off? Well a trip to Necromance, which is still there (thankfully). It's the gothiest shop on Melrose. And not like Hot Topic goth, but real blood drinking, head shrinking, coffin owning goth. And I think that it is still there is saying something. Not only is it still there, but there are two now, which is proof that it is, in fact, in league with the devil.


The older store was filled with more "natural history" type of things, like animal skulls, taxidermy, and butterflies pinned to cushions in box frames. It had new swirly Victorian carpet and light blue walls. Very much an upgrade on the dusty hovel thing they had going years ago.

The new store a few storefronts down held all of their gothy freaky paraphenalia. Skull things, conjoined twin things (I was in heaven over this glass), 19th century side show books, 19th century metal speculums (speculi?) which intrigued me greatly, and a few really nice cards that I absolutely had to have. I almost bought the 2009 Mutter Museum calendar, but I decided it would probably be cheaper online. It is. I will have to get it soon. But by far the most ridiculous product was the roll of black toilet paper. You could also buy red toilet paper. This, to me, was heinous. I mean, if you are going to all the trouble of pretending you are undead or whatever, why acknowledge you do anything at all in the bathroom besides floss your fangs?

Canter's was the high point of the day. We both ordered sandwiches, and they are so huge that they served as lunch and dinner.


I got the Brooklyn Avenue, which is smoked turkey on rye with cole slaw. It was heavenly.


M. asked me out on our first couple of dates, but I asked him out on the third (if I remember correctly). He had never been to Canter's and I felt it was a total rite of passage, so we had dinner at Canter's and then went to the Improv for comedy. He was impressed. He might not have known it consciously then, but that was probably when he fell in love with me, because it is a totally great date idea!

We knew we couldn't pass up the bakery on the way out. I got a black and white cookie, some powdered sugar cookies, the mini chocolate chip cookes, and M. chose a few too.


On our ride down Fairfax, we passed my favorite little piece of LA history, the naughty cake store that is right next to a "classy" regular cake store. Apparently these two stores are in some kind of feud. The owners have been known to come to fisticuffs! If you are a classy cake shop, I'm sure it just yanks your chain to have the dirty store move in next door. They even have a window display!

You can get a cake that is just boobies with a red bra on them.


Even on weak legs, I love you Los Angeles.

All the Young Dudes

So I have been grading like a fiend. It's that time, when all the papers are turned in and the Final Study Guide gets created. I love this time, but it is super hectic. I finally know my students names, we've gotten to the point where we can all joke together in class. Yesterday I was freaking out because I had lost the printed out copy (the only remaining copy) of a lecture I haven't had the time to re-type. I had lost the digital file somehow, but I've shuffled this lecture semester to semester. And now, it's lost! I was so busy finishing with grading that I didn't even let myself get too pissed about it. I just jotted down what I remembered in bullet form and took a one page sheet of notes to class. Can you believe I had a good time? Me!? Overly prepared, meticulous me went in with one page of bullet points. I had the shit down, too, with just the right timing. Very rewarding.
Today was also my Evaluations day, and I always get nervous when giving Evals because this is their chance to complain about me. But a couple of students came out and asked me what else I was teaching next semester and how they enjoyed my class! Such a mood lifter!


I have been watching/rewatching good flicks lately. What We Do Is Secret, about the Germs was worth buying on DVD, if you are into LA punk and the Masque and all that late 70s early 80s beautiful uglyness. I thought the actors did a good job, and it had Tina Marjorino (from Napoleon Dynamite and Veronica Mars), whom I love, as Pat Smear's gal. Her character has a gem of a scenen in which she refuses to pay a cover charge at the Masque. Watch it.

I rewatched Juno for the third time. I heart that movie. So pretty and messed up and amazing. I have a soft spot for Diablo Cody. She rules. Mott the Hoople was a favorite of mine in high school, and it is always nice to see and hear All the Young Dudes given some kind of emotional place in a person's story. Did you know that hamburger phone sales have tripled since the movie? That's a made up statistic, but I bet if you asked somone in the know, they would totally agree.

Last night, while I was grading, M. and I had Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, the documentary of metal music by Anthroplogist and metal head Sam Dunn, on in the background. What a great documentary. I may use it next year in my section on music. The Metal Genealogy Chart alone is worth the viewing. But really the best part is the interviews with the Norwegian black metal guys who totally support burning churches and are interviewed in dark chambers while sipping wine from fancy goblets! Like, these are serious satanists people! According to Wiki's entry on Norwegian black metal, they popularized corpsepaint. Yeah, go check the link. It's a thing.

Anyway, what I found interesting in the documentary is that bands like Venom really scared people:

Not too scary in retrospect, but apparently they were like "oooh the devil"

My generation is supposed to be shocked by Marilyn Manson, but I never really was:

I always found Twiggy and Marilyn kinda endearing. You know, like, "Aww, you are such a scawy widdle guy! Yes you are!" Maybe it's because of the inherent nerdiness that lies in the heart of the goth. Especially the kind that wears makeup. I mean, if you have a powder puff in your bathroom, you just aren't evil enough, dude. Sorry.

Not sure if I'm scared of Norwegian black metal guys. I probably should be. But M. and I agree that this...


...is actually kind of nightmarish. Kids from Iowa with leatherface masks actually make me kind of wonder if I should give out Ds and Fs at all.