Blogger Tag: 10 unusual things

Today I'll be doing the 10 Unusual Things About me tag! I was tagged tagged by Anne Carty, whose post on it can be found here and by Ruth Skelley, whose post can be found here. I really enjoyed reading their answers and seeing the unusual facets of my friends and fellow bloggers that I didn't know about and sometimes wouldn't expect!


Here are mine: 




No. 1- different colored eyes




This is called sectorial heterochromia iridium. It made me feel weird as a child and it's not  really nice embracing something that people's first reaction is "Oh, like a dog?" (although it was better than "four eyes") 

But over the years I've learned to accept that it makes me unique and special, which is why I'm considering it one of my nicest qualities and putting it first! Although I still mostly see it referenced talking about David Bowie (not heterochromia) and animals. So I'm still in competition with white cats and sled dogs :/


My eyes often pass as blue but are sometimes more pronounced depending on what color I'm wearing.



It usually doesn't photograph well but I once during my career of having better cameras I managed to catch a pretty high res picture of the coloration- but it's a gooby-eyed picture that freaks me out a little to look at.

No. 2- I knit like a grandma

Okay, so this one is partly because it was my grandma taught me how to knit and sew when I was little, but also largely because I'm a huge fidget and I discovered a while ago that knitting allowed me to fidget while also feeling productive and I could end up with wearable things after.

Over the years I've gotten better at it and it's become a big hobby of mine and although it feels a little vain to say, I've gotten good at some things and I get compliments from older ladies when I'm seen knitting in waiting rooms and things like that.





No. 3- Too many hobbies

After starting to go to school for photography and then painting, I didn't jump into a specific art career so I've spent the last few years trying avariety of hobbies- linoleum stamping, fluid pouring, knit and crochet, digital illustration, abstract art, portrait drawing, card making, sewing. This means my apartment is full of all sorts of odd things at any given time (but somehow I always end up having to run out for something).

No. 3- Graduating in a barn

Yep, I graduated in a barn where the town/state holds horse & tractor pulls (an event where horses and heavy machinery compete to drag concrete blocks across the floor).

No. 4- Country Roads






I grew up on dirt road with stone walls across from a field that used to be a sheep farm. There was a gate that at one point latched closed into a hole drilled into a big rock beside it that my brother told me a snake lived in that would bite my finger if I poked one in there so I never dared to.











No. 5- My Autoimmune disease


I have been taking artificial thyroid hormones for poor thyroid function since the age of 7 (along with both my parents and my brother having low thyroid function as well) and when I was 17 I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune disease that affects endocrine function. Because the endocrine system regulates the hormones that the body uses for mood stabilizing, temperature control, skin and hair health and much more, my Hashimoto's affects other areas of my health and causes me to rely on an often-changing regimen of daily medication for my whole life. This past year I began the process of controlling my autoimmune disease through diet & exercise and started on the Autoimmune Protocol diet, and working with a nutritionist. But it's a long process, and I will still need to take my thyroid meds and specific supplements to avoid vitamin deficiency, especially as winter approaches. 

The meds I have to take. This selection is actually pared down from the 9 I had to take daily in the past few years.

No. 6- My Travels

I am always amazed and at least a little jealous when I visit travel blogs and see my fellow bloggers write about their adult travels, because I have never been financially stable enough to do that sort of traveling on my own.
I have traveled to 26 states and to UK and Mexico, but not through having a lot of money or independence (though I have been privileged in my life and don't deny where I have benefited from it). Growing up, I went on many road trips and was able to travel through church missionary aid, family friends living abroad, getting bumped on flights, and trips my mother was able to take us on. A little while after my parents got divorced and we didn't have a place to live, my great aunt died and left my mom some money in stocks, which she was able to use the to buy us a house and take us on a few trips, which is how we began getting double-bumped and being offered free travel vouchers. Because of this, we were able to go to the Grand Canyon, Disney World, and San Diego. So, by the time I was a teenager I had been on many planes and had 2 passports, which I still have and giggle at my silly younger faces.

Apaxtla, Mexico 2005

No. 7- Frission

Frission is the ASMR-like response to strong emotional stimuli that causes tingling sensations and goosebumps down the base of the neck and the arms, and in some people the legs, and causes the hair to stand up on end.
For me it's always been from music and a big part of why specific songs mean so much to me, but recently also happens when writing poetry or reading a particularly awe-inspiring piece of writing.

No. 8- Cat Ladyship

This one's not so unusual, especially if you've met me and seen my personality and discovered my love for cats and mostly useless store of cat trivia.
I've always adopted cats, the ones I had growing up were either re-homed from neighbors and friends whose cats had kittens, or rescued from somewhere (in my case from beneath the woodshed where they had been stashed but mumma cat hadn't come back to in a while... there were fisher cats and coyotes around 😢)

Both of the cats I have now are adopted, and my fiance and I didn't know what color they were before picking them up. After seeing the first one in person, I laughed and said it figured that a heathen like me would end up with a black cat, and when we arrived to pick up the second one and it was a little black kitten we just embraced it and became the black cat family.

No. 9- My love for cacti/cactuses/cactopodes 😝

I've always loved the warm atmosphere of a sun room, and I think this stems from spending time at my grandparents' house when I was a child. They had a big garden and sunny windowsills lined with different types of cacti and houseplants, and a sun porch with comfy 80s patterned chairs and a wicker basket of picture books- some nursery rhymes and some books of wildlife photography. 

I have a love for all cacti, hope to one day have a succulent garden with cacti of every color of the rainbow, and desperately want to visit the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.

No. 10- The Pink Glasses


Although I do look absolutely awesome in these, the pink glasses not just a style choice. They're for blocking out some of the light for migraines that trigger photosensitivity. While these are just sunglasses frames with the heaviest tinting option and UV/polarizing coating (Thanks Zenni!) there are some places you can get red tinted lenses specifically for migraine photosensitivity. Here are two links on the topic
https://www.theraspecs.com/blog/tinted-glasses-for-migraines-research-shows-fl41-tint-is-better
https://www.axonoptics.com/

Who's Next?

I tag these amazing bloggers to share 10 unusual things about themselves!

thepatchworkfox.com

nicoleeloise.wordpress.com

imogenchloe.co.uk

ellieslittleworld.com

NavigatingDarkness.com

prettystyleofliving.wordpress.com

Blogtober: A Summary

As we near the end of October, I want to sum up my participation in Blogtober and explain why I didn't complete my goal of reviewing spooky themed movies, TV specials, and animated shorts every day throughout October.

As this blog also covers mental health topics, I hope you readers will understand or at least sympathize with my reasons for stopping early, and why I don't feel that bad about it. Because it's life, some stressful events happened, and with juggling appointments after breaking my foot it was hard to squeeze in time for watching full movies, and then the process of drafting my posts, editing, setting up the pictures. I thought being down one foot temporarily would be a good reason to focus on Blogtober, but I didn't factor in how much time I'd have to dedicate to the subject as I'm not usually a movie reviewer.

To be honest, I also kind of burned myself out posting on a subject I don't get into often- the horror genre, but I tried to be true to myself and write about lots of spooky themed things that I do enjoy like Tim Burton films and spooky comedies.

Maybe I should see this as a failure but really I don't feel that badly about it right now. It's my first Blogtober and my first time with this type of undertaking after only recently getting back into blogging and adopting a weekly posting schedule. I made it 20 days and covered a lot of things which I had fun doing.

I really love October for many reasons, but a big one being that people are more free about expressing their love for spooky and macabre things that they might otherwise deny. Doing Blogtober has definitely allowed me to embrace that, just look at the aesthetic I'm rocking on my insta right now!

So overall, although I didn't meet the hope that I had for this month, I'm not that upset and I'm still hopeful for this blog's future. Posting has been fun, I've been able to highlight classics that I watched growing up and loved, like the Abbot and Costello movies, and I've gotten to see some really awesome animation by artists I didn't know about before by seeking out and reviewing animated shorts.

I'm super excited for November and all the topics that I've been holding back. I'm talking more art, book reviews, talk of my own book, skincare and lifestyle posts, and blogger tags that I've been tagged in and I will be tagging other wonderful bloggers to do. I hope you guys will enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy writing about it!

Thank you for following me through this Blogtober!

Blogtober Day 20: Tamako Market

I love Blogtober! Don't you? It means we get to delve into spooky and haunted-themed movies and TV shows every day for all of October, and I've included Halloween specials from popular shows as well as episodes that aren't necessarily Halloween or October related but still fit the spooky theme.


This one's from a show I've been watching lately that's really keeping my spirits up and to be perfectly honest, giving me a lot of feels I wasn't expecting when I started watching. Really, I only knew it as "the birb anime" before but now I'm hopelessly into it.
Of course now I'm almost down to the bonus episodes, having binge watched over the course of a few days, but it's probably something I'm going to re-watch periodically as a mood booster. I mean, just look at that aesthetic. 

It revolves around a middle-school student named Tamako who lives and works with her family in their mochi shop in a vibrant and lively shopping plaza, the Usagiyama Shopping District. While the plaza is lively with those that run the shops, friendly and caring people who are always popping their heads out of the shops to greet Tama on her way to and from school and offer her a fresh-baked good or a flower, there is always a struggle to keep new customers coming by, and Tama is always coming up with fun new ideas to draw customers in. 

The community within the plaza is very tightly-knit. Though they don't openly talk about their feelings much, they try to be observant of their friends' moods and circumstances and help where they can, sometimes getting in the way or stepping on someone else's toes in the process. It's also a beautiful look into Japanese life within such a community, with many scenes of people visiting the bath house, stopping into the coffee to shop to hear a record (or the record shop for a coffee, I'm still not sure which it is), and interacting as they stop by this place and that for fish, vegetables, and so on.

It's at the incredibly aesthetically pleasing flower shop that Tama meets the notorious talking birb of this anime, Dera Mochimazzi (though he's a trim and small bird to start out with). Living above a mochi shop with such generous people as the Kitashirakawas, he quickly turns into a round birb with an adorable and simple design that screams "Draw me in fan art!!"

   
In this episode, Ep, 6- "I Felt Chills Down My Spine Too",  it's summer and since everyone would rather stay inside fanning themselves and trying not to move, business is slow and Tama wants to find a way to bring more people to the plaza while also cooling everyone down. 

Apaxtla, Mexico

Tama visits her neighborhood shrine on her way to school, another beautiful look into Japanese culture and reminded me of the little Catholic shrines I saw on almost every street and in the sides of buildings and drainage holes unexpectedly in Mexico. Here's a picture of a rather nice one.

As an American it's both neat to see, because having such a strong community element evokes a warm feeling, and thought provoking in contrast to what we have because it reminds me that here, at least on paper, we aim to separate church and state and while that means less communal support of one specific thing and the absence of such shrines, it means there is or at least should be an option for those who don't feel comfortable with, drawn to, or even just interested in those beliefs.



Explaining Japanese beliefs and superstitions to to Dera gives Tama the idea of spooky curses. According to Tama, scary things are fun because they're chilling. And chilling things are just what they need to bring in customers!

So Tama and her school friends decide to set up a haunted house in the shopping plaza, and the local shop owners are all excited about the idea and offer what they can to help make it. But after some spooky events happening, the shop owners become more concerned about an actual curse and offering Tama ritualistic gifts to keep her safe from evil spirits.

The haunted house is a huge success, and it's because of the curse hysteria that so many people are interested in the plaza. The lines for the haunted house are out the door and it's swelteringly hot out, so as customers wait they trickle into the other shops for a bite to eat or for some flowers, and visit the bath house after their fright to get rid of the sweat and scares. Tama's plan worked, and everyone is happy! 

Blogtober Day 19: Invisible Man Mayhem

I'm back with another Abbott and Costello movie, because the black and white aesthetic and the spooky monster themes are so perfect for Blogtober. 


Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made 36 movies overall, often spoofing already-popular themes like here with The Invisible Man,  the novel by H. G. Wells.

They made this one in 1951 and it's always a really lovely experience for me to see the style of the late 40s and early 50s, the things in the shops and especially the phone calls, which were put through by a switchboard operator physically connecting a line.










Abbot and Costello always start out in some sort of average role, usually recently out of or in between jobs and looking for work. This time they've just graduated from detective school and they're looking for a case. 

They get a case from Tommy Nelson, who they learn from overhearing the police scanner is a boxer currently on the run and, if they believe his story, being framed for murdering his manager. He asks them for a ride to his girlfriend's uncle's house and laboratory, where as a method of getting away from the police he's made the bizarre choice to be injected with an invisibility serum that the mad scientist uncle has been developing.

However the uncle has some sense and is hesitant about using the serum, because it has a history of turning the user insane- either due to the compound itself or likely the dysphoria of not having a visible body. But there's no time for common sense, the police have arrived and Tommy makes the choice to inject himself, gradually fading to invisibility and stripping naked, leaving Lou in the room to explain to the police what has happened. I chuckled when they asked him how Tommy got away, and he answers "In installments."

Part of the duo's bit is that Bud is always made out to be the smart one, and acts like he is, but it's often Lou that catches on first and it's a groan to see him try to explain what's happening to a stubborn and disbelieving Abbot. 

Their detective work has gotten them tied up with Tommy Nelson, now the Invisible Man, and they agree to help him prove his innocence and catch the real killers- the managers of his boxing rival Rocky, who had arranged for Tommy to throw the fight and killed his manager when it didn't go according to plan. Lou joins Tommy's gym as Louie the Looper and throws fake punches while Tommy stands behind him and invisibly throws real ones. 

What's fun to see are the early SFX that's used to show clothes moving around seemingly without a body, and to make a cigar float through the air, but also this comically bad "hidden" recording device. 

There are some head-scratching moments, though. The inspector comes by when Tommy is in a robe, and instead of removing it they cover him with a sheet. Another time, Lou pulls the trigger on a bad guy but ends up shooting water out of his pistol, but then the second time he squeezes he fires off a real bullet. It's some slapstick comedy I guess, but outside of invisibility it's definitely one of the farther reaches they make.

Anyway, they concoct a plan to catch the bad guys by having Lou fight Tommy's old opponent, Rocky. They do, and the same guys try to fix the fight as before, only this time Tommy will be invisible and he'll be fighting for Lou. Or at least, that's what he promises them. But as the fight approaches he becomes more and more difficult. His firecracker personality and possibly boxing CTE make him do some risky things that get them strange looks in public and the eye of the Inspector on them.

Fight night comes, and while they begin the night not knowing if Lou will end up facing Rocky alone in the end, Tommy does show up in the end (You'll see what I did there, and there..). The fight isn't thrown and Rocky's shady managers do show up for Bud and Lou but our heroes are saved by Tommy, who gets injured but is saved by a quick blood transfusion from Lou and an injection that reverses the effect of the invisibility. Aaaaaaand that's where I stopped being able to enjoy the movie. 

I'll note here that obviously public perception of non-consensual physical contact was different when this movie came out. I understand that. I can enjoy the inventiveness and cartoon physics in Tom & Jerry while also being aware that the depictions of Mammy, the African-American housemaid look like something you would find in your grandma's attic and convince her to get rid of. But it still makes my skin crawl and these days it's not a bad thing.
There's a lot of controversy over the appearance of sexual assault in TV & film because of how uncomfortable and triggering of a subject it is. But it's also real life. If you want to read it from someone who puts it better, Kirsty at Through the Looking Glass put it super well and you can find all that here.

So, at the end of the movie, Lou starts to go a little invisible because he received a little of Tommy's blood during the transfusion. I'm no doctor so I can't say if that's supposed to happen but it sure sounds messed up. Lou takes off with Bud chasing after, yelling about becoming the best detective. Naked, he hops into an elevator full of nurses and gropes them all during the ride downstairs, where he flees the elevator and leaves Bud to deal with the angry, slapping nurses.

 He's about to leave the hospital when he realizes he hasn't made the most of his invisibility around unsuspecting nurses yet, and grabs one to make out with. But the invisibility starts to wear off and the nurse opens her eyes to see a naked Lou grabbing her and kisses her, so she screams and hits him, because when he's visible is where it's creepy. She runs off and Lou is in the process of covering up his crotch with a towel when he realizes his feet have been put on backwards, making the blood transfusion even more questionable. He runs away in the wrong direction, and that's the whole weird, uncomfortable end.

I'm off to go find a bigger grain of salt to take this with, see you tomorrow. 

Blogtober Day 18: Break Day & Paintings

Hello! I want to thank you guys for following my posts as I make my way through Blogtober. Today's not exactly the halfway point, but I'm picking today as a mental health day and not going to push myself to write up something in a hurry.

Blogtober is a big undertaking and while I don't regret choosing to do it, the task of reviewing movies and TV specials means the process of one post involves usually an hour of watching something and making notes, then writing up drafts and either finding or creating the photos I need in between them.
Yes, it's not a lot to have to do in a whole day, but to have to do every day when I often have other things to do like get to appointments, hobble to the laundromat, send out art pieces/packages means that often it's left til late at night and then I either have to write up a quick tired-brain draft to edit in the morning or I leave it and sleep, and hurriedly write up the post the next day and hope it doesn't come out too late in the day where people won't see the tweets and notifications about it in the rush of other things to look at.

I would start early in the morning, but as it's New England in the fall and I'm a very stereotypical starving artist and broke spoonie, I'm a little at the mercy of when others want to wake up as we only have one heater that we move from room to room throughout the day. 

Plus, while I'm enjoying Blogtober and the topics I get to write about, I do miss posting about my art and coming up with posts that tie in art to the rest of my life and interesting facets that I think will be fun to read about, so on my sort-of day off I want to show you some recent paintings I finished.

Yesterday I went and got some new supplies, some for painting and drawing commissions and some for commissioned knit pieces (I'm busy this Fall!), and was able to get in some practice with swirl pours. Currently these are the only pieces I have from experimenting with fluid acrylics-


This one is my first & favorite. The white and black swirls are in a matte paint but the silver is a metallic paint that gives this painting a cool shimmer when you see it in the light.

I'm not sure how I feel about the two checkerboard pieces, as I think where I went wrong was going into it having expectations of what I wanted the end result to be. Neither of them are really as I envisioned this project, but neither of them are really failures at drip/pouring art. They're funky and they were pretty fun to make.

Blogtober Day 17: Witches & Wonderful Illustrations

If you never had the chance to run into a Roald Dahl book when you were a child, I urge you to go look them up and find one or several to settle down for a good night of reading. Today for Blogtober I'll be talking about a movie that was released in 2009 based off of one of these books called The Witches.

The books are the perfect type to capture a kid's imagination. I loved to read the kind of books you'd find from Enid Blyton or in the Chronicles of Narnia, where fascinating things happen to ordinary children. As a child it gives you another world to peer into and sometimes escape to, and also gives you hope that the future can be interesting and full of fun things.

As a kid I loved Roald Dahl's story writing, and the books were made especially fantastic by the illustrations from artist Quentin Blake. I don't think I knew what it was that made me love the illustration as a child, but today I love them because they're natural, not dependent on being exact or realistic. They're simple and perfect the way they are. I love art that can be enough on its own, and I hope to reach that with my own art someday.

But today I'm talking about the movie, which is reminiscent of Home Alone, as it stars a little towhead boy who goes off on mostly solo adventures. It has its own spooky aesthetic which I'll let speak for itself.

The story is that there are witches in the world among the regular people, but they're evil and hate all children and want to kill them. They have no toes, and are bald, and have long claws so they dress like very prim church ladies with long gloves, wigs and hats. The main character, a little boy named Luke, is hearing about the witches from his grandmother, who knew of witches during her childhood in Norway and is missing a finger from a close encounter with the Grand High Witch herself. She tells Luke stories about witches and puts him to bed while his parents are out on the town, but his parents don't come back and Luke begins to live with his grandmother, who gives him two pet mice that he begins to build a circus for.

They go on holiday to the seaside to treat Grandma's diabetes, but who else should be staying at their hotel than all the witches in England, and some from even farther. They have a big meeting at the hotel, and take off their disguises to reveal their horrible selves underneath. The scene is pretty great and the makeup is well, monstrous. But in the right way.

The Grand High Witch

The Grand High Witch addresses them all (and unwittingly addresses Luke as well, who is hiding in the room behind a screen divider), and in what could be described as the world's most deranged infomercial, explains her master plan to eliminate all the children in the United Kingdom by opening sweet shops and selling candies tainted with her latest and greatest potion, Formula 86! The formula takes two hours for one dose to take effect, but once it does it will turn whoever ingests it into a mouse.

Just as the witches are about to leave, they sniff out Luke and hunt him down. Luckily for him, for a bunch of child-murdering witches they're terrible at actually catching children. He gets away temporarily, but not before they catch him again and give him 500 doses of Formula 86, turning him into a mouse immediately. The catch is that he's a talking mouse, so after getting away he's able to come up with a plan with his grandmother and steal the formula to turn the plan back on the witches. Successfully spiking their soup, Luke and his grandmother turn all the witches into mice and head home victorious.

Something I don't think happened in the book, at the end of the movie the one remaining witch, a good witch, visits them in the night and turns Luke into a too-naked-for-screen human boy again, and restores his pet mice and also his glasses. In the book I think he went on living as a mouse, with special things built for him like Stuart Little. 

Blogtober Day 16: Hill House Horror

Today's post is on a Netflix original called The Haunting of Hill House. It plays with the timeline, so be warned there is some putting together to do with the plot, but not much. It's the story of a family that lived in a haunted house and the experiences of seeing ghosts and nightmares creeping into the real world carrying into adulthood. In the modern day, the children are grown and mostly live spread out over the country, leading their own lives but staying in contact if something goes wrong.

And something does go wrong, because the horrifying memories they all have and try to repress aren't done bothering them, and they can't keep pretending they were only childhood nightmares. Only two of them are willing to talk about it, one who capitalized on the stories and became a writer (and caused some tension within the family having their stories used and represented in ways they don't like), and the youngest, the one who originally saw the ghosts at night. Each of the siblings gets a call from their youngest sister, worried about something and mentioning the ghost that used to haunt them and caused them to flee their home and lose their mother, which became a big story in their local papers and continues to follow them in their current lives.
It's a great mix of horror and sibling relationships, honestly I'd say it's This Is Us with ghosts. Really good timing for Netflix to have a scary ghost-related series. 



On a personal note

In other news, I've got an important appointment today so I got some relaxing self care things to pamper myself after. I absolutely love all kinds of candles, this is a soy candle that smells deliciously vanilla-ey. Also got myself a face mask for my upset and dry hormonal skin. I know it's a little early but these fuzzy Christmas socks were on sale for $1 and my fiance pointed them out for me saying I should treat myself to some new soft socks for the poor broken foot, and I wholeheartedly agreed.

In the spirit of October and in preparation for Halloween and Trick- or -Treaters I got this black cat sign with rainbow LEDs that flash and alternate in a way even better than I was expecting. It'll be turned on during Halloween facing out the front windows so kids know we'll be giving out candy in our pumpkin-shaped bowl. We're a black cat family so I can't really resist black cat themed decorations, and October is the perfect season to snag them on sale.

Certified Black Cat Approved!

Blogtober Day 15th: ParaNorman

Happy mid-October everyone! I hope you've been enjoying Blogtober and all the fun Halloween things I've been writing about.

This time I'll be looking at a fairly recent movie called ParaNorman. It's about a kid getting through elementary school with the ability see ghosts, going through that both around and sometimes despite his family- his airheaded but determined sister and his parents- the stereotypical macho non-understanding father and the simpy mother who doesn't stand up to her husband and waits til he's gone to say what she thinks. While I don't remember any specific dates for setting, the mood is very late 90s-early 00s and is added to by the existence of flip phones. The invention of sliding was a somewhat dumb mechanism in some phones but it definitely did help in dating old media.

As you can imagine, being able to see and speak to ghosts doesn't land Norman in paradise. It gets him ostracized, called a freak and put exactly in the wrong spot and multiple times when he is able to see spots of another world creeping into his own and feeling haunted by something that he doesn't understand.

But it turns out that there's been someone able to see ghosts in this town before, back in the days when witch accusations were the rage in Massachusetts and innocent men and women were put to death over gossip and possibly hallucinogenic compounds. There was a girl put to trial for witchcraft and executed, and she cursed the judge and her accusers who have lived in the town as zombies ever since.

Since Norman can talk to the dead, he's the only one that can speak with the zombies and with the witch herself, who it turns out was only a child herself at the time but in the town is remembered as an old witch. It's sad but very true that we do that as a society, we remember children whose deaths sparked a movement as martyrs and activists but or for some instigators and criminals, but they were really all just kids.

While a fun and engaging watch, this movie made me a little sad because it's a kid who sees ghosts but in a community that doesn't believe in them he's basically a child exhibiting schizophrenia symptoms who is being treated with contempt and blame for what he's experiencing instead of concern and help. Multiple times he's told by his father to "stop being weird" and that he's the source of the problems because of his experiences. It's very obvious that the characters are boiled down examples of behaviors that real people have in the world and the callous nature of people boiled down into one person, and it makes me really despise his father through most of the movie. And while I understand the subservient nature of the 90s housewife who couldn't really have it her way, the fact that the mom only speaks up when he's gone just makes her look like a pushover in front of her children and they lose the ability to trust in her.

But I do mean it was a fun and engaging watch, because it's set in our world and therefore has unsavory people that you can't allow to ruin the whole experience (and in this case are there on purpose to point out that kind of personality). What made it so captivating was the animation, which was beautiful and so like stop motion, almost tangible with the clay textures. The characters have bright and shiny eyes and cartoony proportions, all the scenery seems to move and breathe throughout the shots.

It's definitely a perfect Halloween watch, with zombies, ghosts, dark creeping forests with twisted trees and branches, graveyards, and witches.

Blogtober Day 14: Butt-O-Ween

Following the theme of animated specials this is a Beavis and Butthead special. If you didn't know Beavis and Butthead was a cartoon that aired on MTV in the 1990s and focused on two characters that were basically every teenage boy in your high school at some point or another.

In this one they are, as usual, on the couch watching music videos. It's Halloween night and the doorbell keeps ringing and they decide one of them should check it. After learning the hard way about trick or treating, B+B make a plan to do some trick or treating of their own. Finding costumes is an adventure, eventually they settle on makeshift costumes that do more to make one themselves laugh than disguise. But once they start knocking on doors, they learn that most people think they're too old to be trick or treating and are turned away, so they resort to stealing that delicious, delicious candy.

Unfortunately they get a hold of too much candy and the sugar rush turns Beavis into a sugar-hungry goblin who manifests himself into The Great Cornholio, who needs TP for his bunghole (which he does not have).

I've been watching back through Friends again (like recent brands snapping up the Friends costuming look I too gather artistic inspiration from the outfits on Friends) and this reminds me of the episode where Ross eats too much maple sugar candy and goes squirrely.

Beavis, hopped up on candy, hunkers down in a graveyard as The Great Cornholio til his stash of candy runs out and need forces him to venture out to steal candy from families. He then notices a forlorn and spooky field across the way where, while this has been happening, Butthead has been kidnapped by a zombie farmer who found him in the middle of a field and invited him into his barn (kind of like how Bob Mortimer began his craft beer brewing journey according to this latest Would I Lie To You, bizarre story!)

The show is nostalgic for some, though I didn't watch it while it was airing. It's a fun watch and does provoke a good point of discussion- I think it's silly to turn away older kids for a harmless and fun tradition. Out of what, stinginess? Wanting to preserve the holiday? It wasn't yours to begin with. There are a ton of other things teens could be doing and obviously already do on Halloween that are destructive and potentially dangerous, why would you rather have that than just allowing them to still participate in something fun?

Blogtober Day 13: Old School Disney

Today I've chosen some animated shorts that Disney produced called Disney Silly Symphonies. They started in 1929 with the now-popular Skeleton Dance and stopped making them in 1939 with The Ugly Duckling.

Today they can be enjoyed, albeit with scratchy audio, in all their glory. Some are black and white, and some from later years are in beautiful color. 

It's a highlight of one of the parts of cinema I enjoy the most, the ability of the music to do explain what's happening without need of dialogue. The noises suggest & narrate movement by use of a variety of instruments and by playing with rhythms and sounds that mimic real life actions.

It's reliant on collective understanding, and it's now built into how we enjoy cinema. We know music in minor keys means something scary is approaching and we respond to it biologically. The quick tempo causes our hearts to race, the deep unnerving tones cause our muscles to clench, and it's all very intentional to build on the overall experience of what you're watching.

It reminds me of listening to books on tape when I was younger. As a child, it's hard to keep your attention on just words, but with lots of different character voices and sound effects, it builds an imaginary world that's easy to get lost in and follow the story.  It also reminds me of some records my father had. I think one was called Jack and the Wolf. It told a story with just an orchestra, like a ballet without the dancers. It's one I used to ask him to put on for us to listen to, along with the Baby Elephant Walk and the Pink Panther sound track. 


The animations in these are very recognizably Disney. The crows are familiar of what's seen in Snow White and Dumbo, and something very noticeable is Disney's notorious capitalization on their ability to get away with re-using animation cycles. In The Cat's Out, the scarecrows dancing uses the same sequence that's in the more widely known and often  memed Skeleton Dance, and the same rooster signals the morning in each one.

For each of these, I've included one snapshot that I think most represents the theme of the short, and I hope they inspire you to watch the originals.

The Cat's Out

A cat is put outside along with the empty milk bottles for the night (despite the cat's scorned and very loud protests). But he's right to want back inside, as everywhere he looks for shelter he encounters frights, from swarms of bats to giant ravens, ghosts, and living scarecrows that revel and dance in the moonlight.
After narrowly escaping all the horrors of the night the tired cat makes its way home, weaving in between the fenceposts just as cats do, and reaches its home as the sun comes up to be greeted by its owner bringing in the new milk bottles. But just as he goes into the house, he's turned out again to find some way to spend the day. Isn't that just life!

Autumn

The scenes of nature in autumn. Porcupines, skunks, and squirrels stash away prized chestnuts and acorns, some even daring enough to swipe apples and corn from a nearby farm. 
This bit reminded me of a Chip & Dale special where they border on hoarding and fill a tree to bursting with acorns.
But in this short the crows are just as opportunistic and steal all the food right back to fill a scarecrow which they later hide in.
Then the cold wind comes and the ducks scarper, the beavers hurriedly build their homes and settle in, and everyone finds their burrow to escape the snow, with some minor disputes and relocation.