House of the Unusual

I are in heaven.

If you're old enough, you might remember the old Johnson-Smith catalogs of 'Things you never knew existed' (or something like that). I would get one in the mail from time to time and pore over it and read every one of the "amuse your friends, be the life of the party" each gag promised. Same thing about the ads in comic books, I used to love looking at the ads and wanting all the cool stuff offered (which I never got, my parents, probably rightfully so, refused to send off the money for me for 'that junk'. This explains my Ebay addiction).
Enter House of the Unusual, your store for all that useless stuff you always wanted. I haven't ordered anything yet, but today I'm going to order the Boney the Skeleton poster with glowing eyes. Uber cool! Will let you know the speed and quality when I get it.

We do live in a good time, do we not?

A Quickie Movie Review

No, this doesn't have to do with Hallowe'en or props or a disemboweled zombie chewing the top of your skull off but it does involve blogging, something near and dear to my heart and fingers.
Go see Julie and Julia. I saw it last night and it was fun, charming and left you feeling good and saying 'awwwwwwww' when you left the theatre. It is also inspirational since Julie is a blogger (this movie is a combination based on 2 true stories, the life of Julia Child and Julie Powell, the former you are probably familiar with, the latter, a cubical rat who has no purpose or direction in her life until her husband suggests she start blogging. She undertakes an ambitious task...prepare every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking": 541 recipes in one year while blogging about her experiences and life along the journey. 541 recipes in 365 days, she's a better woman than I am! Meryl Streep is flawless, the whole cast and settings are flawless, and although I am not inspired to start pulling out the pots and pans quite yet (maybe the box of Raisin Bran), it does give me a renewed passion for blogging and hopefully providing you, my kind and gentle readers, something from time to time that might enrich and bring a bit of happiness to your lives.

Three words...it's worth seeing.

Haunted Book Review Thursday

Animatronics: A Guide to Animated Holiday Displays

Edwin Wise, author

I am so mixed about this book that I don't know quite where to begin. On one hand, it's a great resource for adding motion to a haunt. This book shows you how to do things correctly, how a prop should be safely and sanely constructed. How you should correctly size up a motor to a prop and the formulas for each thereof...

EEEEEYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! IT HAS MATH IN IT!!! MATH BAD!!! MATH REAL BAD!!! NO LIKE MATH!!!

I actually like this book but it is indeed how to do stuff RIGHT. As a resource book, it is indispensable; you have every motion that you can imagine laid out with how to do it electrically or pneumatically (with MATH), it shows you linkage diagrams and examples of different movements that can be achieved with each (with &%$#* MATH), and even goes into trigger mechanisms and programming basics (with &%$#*@*&%###!!! MATH!). But on the downside, there is a lot of MATH. If I were making a dark ride, working for an amusement park company or wanted to construct professional quality props for the public, then I would definitely do things by this book. Things are made solid, a bit over engineered but you would never have a problem.
Problem is, I'm a haunter and a lot of my props are by the seat of my pants. I made a ************* prop today that I haven't seen anywhere before and I did the mechanism with trial and error until it worked (sorry, I'm proud of this one, I'm not going to unveil it until I'm through with it). A lot of these props are made with advanced techniques like welding that would definitely put off the novice quickly. It does have a tutorial on the Flying Crank Ghost, but it was rather confusing, and I have built several of them.

In short, this is a good reference book that has a lot of good information that has saved me some time. On the bad side, if you constructed the props as instructed, you would be broke and it would be over engineered even by our standards. The REAL bad news is that this book is about 40.00, which is really high (I think that I lucked up on mine used on Amazon).

Bottom line, get it if you can get it cheap and you're serious about animation. Otherwise don't worry with it.

And one last thing, this guy didn't have pictures of his haunt! If you write a book on holiday displays and you don't even show your work, that's shameful!

Random thoughts on past props...

I'm usually alone all day in my work, which can be either a good or bad thing at times. Sometimes a neuron will misfire with an errant synapse and I'll remember something that I long forgot. For some reason today I remembered the first time that I became enamoured with Hallowe'en animatronics. It wasn't Disneyworld's Haunted Mansion but a simple county fair when I was around 8 or 9. I remember seeing this very simplistic witch prop on top of the haunted house ride (which mainly consisted of ear-shattering klaxons and some road-worn ghouls that the horror of lack of maintenance was the only scary thing), and all she did was rock (or rather bow from her waist) at the top of the ride. I don't know why I was so fascinated with her, maybe it was because she was a more attainable goal rather than attempting something like a grim grinning ghost. I remember my sketches, the thinking of how to make her bob back and forth via a motor. I never made her, I couldn't figure out the mechanics at the time. Now I would probably roll my eyes or look at her with a nostalgic sentimentality like some of us would do a 45 rpm record.
Fast forward to the 9th grade, my first real scare, unfortunately it was on my mother. I had made a short framework out of some giant Tinker Toys (the coolest gift I ever got as a kid) and put a rubber skull mask on it and draped a blanket around it. I hid it in the basement closet because my mother really didn't approve (and still doesn't, but I'm 45 and I will do what I dang well please now) of Hallowe'en. She opened the door one day while I was at school and found my little friend which did his job well...scared her silly. It was a good thing I was at school because she would have killed me if she could have gotten hold of me. I got away with mounting skeletons on plywood to pose them in the yard which was actually cutting edge back in the 70's I guess. I suppose that is one reason that I collect paper skeletons, remembrance of those projects back then.
There were other ghouls here and there around Hallowe'en but nothing special until the 90's where I was introduced to the Internet. Of course my first project was a flying crank ghost and it was poetry in motion to me. I would fill the front yard of my trailer with jack o' lanterns to an unappreciative audience, have bowls of the good candy waiting for the trick or treaters that never came (and I got to keep all the little bags of M & M's for myself). I was just the weird guy on the hill. Then I moved to where I live now and vowed to bring back Hallowe'en to kids that never knew the joy of it to now be greeted by being a "tradition" of many families to visit the "Halloween House" each year.

And it probably all started with that one rocking witch on top of a cheesy fair ride.

Getting a head in life, or death or other...

No, it didn't really make sense but I couldn't think of anything wittier. I have seen a lot of haunts and notice that a lot of them have a little trouble with heads and faces. I by no means am an expert but I have found something that might help some of you out there.
Consider the wig head form...
This is basically a head but what we usually need to do is to start from the inside out to make a different shape for a character's head. You have to dig out the eyes to insert eyes, cut and glue back to alter the shape of the face and adjusting the angle of the neck is usually difficult. Some people can do it, I can't. I suggest using a skull... The one of the left is a Bucky from Ebay. It's a 4th quality and more anatomically correct. Unless you're doing skeletal work or animation where you need to have the cranium to mount motors, I wouldn't use these; they're heavy, expensive to buy (the shipping is what gets you) and too pretty for overlaying clay or mache'. The skull on the right is from Kmart, or Michael's. It's styrofoam, reasonably anatomically correct and light as a feather. And cheap, I think that they're going for 5.99 at Michael's this season. I use these with great success. If you need an open mouth, simply saw between the teeth and the jaw connectors and re-hot glue it back where you want.

Now for the eyes, I found that Monsterguts sells small balls quite inexpensively that are the size of eyeballs. If you want, you can use small deodorant balls from roll on deodorant, they're the same thing.

Here it is painted with Krylon Fusion paint ready for gluing a retina and cornea. Here is a page of wonderfully diverse eyes for all occasions. I would recommend that you download and save this page on your hard drive, you'll always need eyes and you might forget the URL.

Now that we have our eyes, let's talk sculpting. Always keep in mind that beauty is infinity harder to create than a grotesque. Lucky for us, Hallowe'en is full of grotesque possibilities. I have a fondness for Model Magic by Crayola. I first saw Mike Fox use it with his creatures in the Fox Haunt and I was hooked.

It's fairly inexpensive, easy to use, extremely lightweight, dries overnight and paints wonderfully. I love playing with paper mache, but I'm not that good at it in getting smoother skin textures with it. Some people are artists with it, I'm not. I take a chunk and roll it through a pasta machine to make "skin". It works best to run it through several times to get it smooth. Glue your eyes in and then lay the skin on top and start to work...This is a prop that I'm working on to hide my fog machine and chiller. Smoke blows out his mouth and rolls along the ground...





A little paint and distressing and we're done!

Here's some of my other little friends that are ready to come out and play...

Haunted Book Review Thursday (Ok, so today's Friday)

The Big Book of Halloween: Creative & Creepy Projects for Revellers of All Ages

Laura Dover Doran, author

I've had this book for a number of years and it's one of those books that just has a good "feel" to it. This lavishly illustrated book has a menagerie of varied projects, recipes, articles on Halloween aficionados, and a several projects that are actually cool. My personal favorite things are the rural ghost stories that are interspersed throughout and the abundance of trivia. I'm a nerd that way. Yes, there's some things in there that will make you roll your eyes but they are few and far between. Ms. Doran has done a wonderful job of making a family-friendly book that isn't hokey.

If you're looking for a hard core project book that will turn your house into a scream fest or blood bath, this isn't it; this is the book that you look at between making batches of decaying flesh in which you just say ahhhhh, that's nice. It's one of my favorites.

Haunted Book Review Thursday

Dressed For Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costumes & Masquerade

Phyllis Galembo, author

If you read on the right side of my blog some of the things that I remember about Hallowe'en, you would notice that I mentioned picking out Collegeville and Ben Cooper costumes at the dime store. Of course, things have changed, I usually start constructing my costume around July and it's usually a unique creation. But I still remember those boxes stacked up high in the store and making the impossible decision of what to be for that one night. The polyester or nylon jumpsuit with the thin plastic masks with the tiny rubber band stapled to each side that usually came off would transform you to anything you could ask for for that one magic night.

What Ms. Galembo has done is beautifully document commercial Halloween costumes from the last 100 years. The photography is misty, highlighting the pieces in a sort of dreamlike state that emphasizes the mystery of the masks, jumpsuits and accessories. A few pieces are from an era where racism was acceptable and those pieces are presented with dignity and sensitivity.

Overall the only complaint that I would have is that there isn't another edition of this book, it leaves you wanting more, at least it did for me. It's fascinating reading and the documentation of the interpretation of fictional characters into wearable costume is truly delightful. Some are whimsical, some are beautiful, some are primitive, some are scary but all are a work of art. It's a beautiful coffee table book, full of glorious photography bordering on artwork.

Don't sell the kids to buy this book if you don't have to, but maybe a little indentured servitude wouldn't be too bad.

Sugar Coated Willie Wonka

NOT!

Get ready for GOBSTOPPER!


For the record, Christopher Lloyd could very well be my absolute favorite actor of all time, bar none.



I think that this is a parody btw!

For Ghoul Friday--Boogers on a Stick

Disgusting snack idea!

What's Up With Mr. Macabre?

I've had a couple of people ask me where I've been lately and what's the matter. I've been under a great deal of stress lately and haven't felt all that great so I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was in his words "terrible". "Bad" was 150 over 100 so "terrible" must mean I'm on the verge of being a walking stroke victim. That would explain the headaches. A couple of new meds including upping my antidepressant (have taken them for years without an increase in dosage so I think that I've done pretty good so far) and hopefully in a few days I'll be feeling more myself, because I hate whomever I've been feeling like lately.

Went to the shed and started Hallowe'en props officially today. I'm redoing my flying witch, she's needed a facelift for a long time. I've enjoyed seeing how my abilities have progressed and changed over the years.
Before...

After...

I've also been doing some fun stuff with glitter that is coming along nicely. I have a lot to do before the sacred day but I think that I'll make it.

Invisible Visitor

Last night marked the third or fourth time that I have had a visitor in my room and who jumped on my bed and walked around. Last night I was awake, in fact, I had just gotten into bed. The visitor always is around the foot of the bed, I can feel it jump lightly up, take a few steps and then it's gone. I wish that I could say that I am making this up but I'm not; I truly believe one of my deceased cats has come home. Maybe it is Samantha, who was always the demanding one wanting to be loved, or it could be Elvis, the big gray longhair who was a bit skittish. It could be Trouble or Little Bit or Serena but probably not Serena because she was almost feral.
Maybe they have come back looking for their skull that is kept in my curio cabinet, or maybe they finally realize that they can jump on my bed any time they want without being shooed off. I see fleeting shadows often in the house, something running from room to room, about the size of a cat, maybe they want to check up on everyone.

Or maybe they just want to say hello.

Christmas fail, Hallowe'en succeed...

Saw this Christmas ball in Tuesday Morning. Obviously someone wasn't paying attention or has a wickedly fun sense of humor on the paint line.

Nope, didn't buy it. Too expensive for what it was.

Haunted Book Review Thursday

Halloween Tricks and Treats

Author: Matthew Mead

It's hard to tell whether this is a book or a magazine, but at 11.99, it's definately a book to me at that price.

Three words, Martha Stewart Wannabe, without the cult following, or the staff of 350, or the multibillion dollar empire, or the smart&^$$ daughter with her own show making fun of Mom. I looked at this book for weeks at Hobby Lobby last October and that's unusual for me since I make it a habit to swoop down on any Hallowe'en book. I usually can find some sort of inspiration, some sort of redeeming quality that will keep me from saying the fateful word...

Bla.

That's all I have to say. Bla. No redeeming hint of an idea, no matter how I tried, nothing to ignite the home fires of Hallowe'en, nothing to spurn on the dark muses that whisper mystical ideas in my ear. Just bla. There was one project that was kind of cool, but it's for someone who has mastered the art of 'sculpting wool roving'. What the %$#@??? I really can't find too much to say about this book; it's the color beige in a paint store, bla.

If you dot your i's with a little heart or spell cute with a k, you would probably love this book. For the rest of us that keep looking for coagulated blood recipes and how to make entrails glisten in the moonlight, this book is of little use to us.

And while I'm at it, I went to Michael's today to look at their Hallowe'en stuff, such that it was, and I give them the same review as I give this book...

Bla.

And you thought that I couldn't be a b&%#$.

Tomato Pie Receipt

Did you know that back when they called a recipe a receipt? I ain't got the faintest idea why. The only receipts I have are the drive thru receipts I get for food that get lost in my truck (oh look, that's the Big Mac from 1994 that gave me heartburn for 2 days).
For some danged reason, everyone thinks that I need tomatoes. Don't get me wrong, I like tomatoes, a lot, but I don't know how to nor have the equipment to can them all and there's just so much spaghetti that I can stand. I went looking through some cookbooks and found something from Paula Deen (ate at one of her buffets, all the servers had tee shirts that said "I'm your cook, not your doctor" on them. Hysterical, unfortunately they didn't sell them). This effectively takes the healthy, wholesome goodness of a ripe tomato and neutralizes it with mayonnaise and cheese.

Problem? I didn't think so.

Tomato Pie
4 ripe tomatoes, sliced
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, shredded finely
1 prepared deep dish pie shell
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
1 cup Swiss cheese, grated (can use any kind you want, I used Swiss)

Layer tomatoes in bottom of pie shell, sprinkle 1/3 basil on top, repeat tomato and basil layer and finally one last layer of tomato. Salt and pepper. Mix cheeses and mayonnaise together and spread on top. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until crust is brown.

Tastes better the next day after it sets and the flavors marry. Went well with the meatloaf that I had (although this was my first attempt at meatloaf and it turned out to be meatbrick).

Belch!

Zombie Soap

Either you know or know someone that knows a zombie. Carl, who lives 4 doors down, is the nicest zombie that you ever could want to meet. He's good with kids, loves animals, has 3 cute little zombie kids and volunteers at the local soup kitchen. But as you may or may not know, zombies have notorious bad hygiene. Someone approached Carl not too long ago and he said it was his diet (brains) and said it was also sensitive dead skin and regular soap irritated it. Then he ate their brains.
I gave Carl a bar of Chris Merritt Zombie Soap from The Left Hand Handmade Herbal Soap Company. The description is:

"Feel like you’ve just survived a brisk, shrieking run through a zombie infested forest! Cedarleaf, Frankincense & Oakmoss thrill the senses and keep any good zombie clean and happy."

Well, Carl tried it and was delighted, and more so, it's made by:

"a small batch, independent worker's collective dedicated to quality, natural and organic body care. We created the company as an outlet for our creative energies, to provide an alternative to petroleum based skin care, and to promote environmental consciousness by example. We strive to have a positive relationship with our fellow workers, our customers, our community and our environment through quality craftsmanship and responsible business practices."

and they're local folks here where I live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to boot! They have many many other scents and products that Carl wants to try as well as myself (the sage/peppermint lip balm is to die for, Carl loves that joke). I bought myself several bars of different scents including Zombie Soap and they are wonderful. They have a great light natural scent, are long lasting, lather well and rinses cleanly.

Carl recommends them highly and so do I. He said he would eat my brains if I had any, we both love that joke too!

Alexander Henry Halloween Fabrics

For those of us that like to sew, it's usually hard to find fabrics that fit our particular darker and spookier lifestyles. Alexander Henry is one of the only fabric company designers that I know that consistantly comes out with really fantastic prints. This year he has graced us with a skull arabesque which I will definatly grab a couple of yards and something for the ladies (or gentlemen, dependant upon your tastes) which is the Halloween Hunks fabric.

Just Google Alexander Henry Halloween fabrics for a retailer. I have used www.Virginiaquilter.com as they have always given me good service and pricing. I would have offered up Hancocks but the employees at my local one act like it's a chore to wait on you and that it would be a privilage to you if they should stoop so low as to answer a question.

Oh, don't think that I can sew? Don't think a guy can run a sewing machine?



This was an 18th century wedding dress for Ms. M I made from scratch in '92. I think it had an internal corset as well as side 'pillows' at the hips and a 20 foot train. It's not as pretty as she was (and is) but it was my "rite of passage" garment. I'm working on a wool frock coat right now for myself as Mr. Macabre needs one to complete his creepy ensemble.

Mysterious Implements and Mysteries....

We got a weekend trip to Memphis two weeks ago courtesy of Mrs. Macabre's insurance company and one of my favorite things to do is shop. I love to go through all the fun stores, all the tourist traps but especially counter-culture stores...and then sometimes I get lucky and find something a little on the 'mystical' side.
I've always been fascinated with magick although never have practiced any other than playing with a Ouija board when I was younger (I always pushed the pointer so I don't think that counts). I've always been fascinated with ghosts, the paranormal, and all the trappings thereof. I found in this odd tourist store in the middle of Beale Street that looked like an old dry goods store that displayed a row of paraphernalia that was, well, strange (and they ONLY took cash, there was an ATM right by the register, no debit, no credit cards). There were bottles of powders, like sulfur, saltpeter and charcoal as well as many dried herbs in little bags, some I readily recognized, some I had no idea what they were. So many fascinating things right there that I chose some of the more interesting of the lot:

Across the bottom is a row of soaps (I had to throw them away, they STANK!!! I kept the boxes), that promised protection from harm, uncrossing, fast luck and helping hand. Across the top is Black Cat incense with a prayer on the back and instructions to burn it every day and read the 23rd Psalms. Then we have 7 Holy Spirit Hyssop Bath Oil, again with instructions on what Psalms to read and have to use it. Strange thing is, I don't really think it says what the end result is to be, whether it is purification, healing, whatever? The little green bottle 0n top of the Black Cat stuff is just a cool bottle of bergamot (citrus orange) perfume. I should have burned the whole box of the Special Fast Luck incense BEFORE I went to Tunica Mississippi to the casinos!!! The Showers of Gold I can only guess that it would mean some prosperity inducing incense. Again, it has instructions on reading Psalms while the incense is burning.
Lastly....This. This is 'Special Oil'. No instructions, no explanation, no nothing. What is it? What does it propose to do? What do you do with it?
It has a distinct citronella scent. You shake it up and it separates again. A mystery.

All these things are a mystery to me. Do they work, do they not? Who is Dr. Pryor? What is in the Special Oil bottle and how is it used? Who would buy these things to use them in a solomn manner? To loosely quote Kevin Spacey in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil when John Cusack asked him why didn't he have a particular painting x-rayed to see what the underpainting was, he replied "I rather enjoy not knowing". Would I want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts do or do not exists? I don't think I would. Would I want to know the existence of aliens or not? Probably not. Would I want to know that I was truly alone in a dark graveyard in the middle of the night?

Damn straight I would!

I am curious though, if anyone can shed any light on the implements, I would love to know about them!

Mr. Macabre's Giveaway...

And the drawing out of the hat brings..........
The Captain from The Captain's Ramblings! Congratulations! No, wait, there's another one! Ghoul Friday of My Ghoul Friday! These two wonderfully vile creatures will have a strange and bizzare concoction of sinister and wonderous things headed their way.

Two second place runners up? Well, ok, if you insist....
Pumpkinbrain from Pumpkinbrain.com! Dixie from Nickols Manor! These two persons of delightful but questionably wicked motives will also have a prize pack headed their way.

Thank you all for your participation! Next giveaway...the High Holy Day...Hallowe'en!

Day Late--haunted video review Thursday

Halloween: The Happy Haunting of America
Hosted by Daniel Roebuck and Bob Burns with Chuck Williams

I never saw this video when it came out the first time in 1997. I don't really know if it was either on television or in the theater although I suspect it was a television special. I still don't know who Chuck Williams is but I did recognize Bob Burns as the gorilla in the old Saturday morning show "Ghost Busters" and not the photon plasma packs one. What I do know is that it is a fun and informative romp through the Halloween season with interviews with such greats as Robert Englund (Freddy Kreuger), Alice Cooper (one of my favorites), Tom Savini (pioneer of makeup artistry) and a host of others recollecting their Halloween memories from their childhood. It starts out as a creature feature type setup in which Dr. Shocker, Igor and the gorilla host a pseudo horror show before the main event begins (which is corny but fun). Interspersed are tours of haunted attractions from around the country, some I have seen and some totally new to me, but all intriguing. This 2 disk set contains the main movie and a bonus features disk (to which I truthfully haven't gotten through yet, mainly because they just kind of sit around and talk about the first movie, the only thing I remember is that they all gained a little weight over 10 years).

Overall the movie is fun, a welcome diversion. There's no how-to's but there's a bunch of inspiration from other haunts and attractions featured and just good fun seeing your favorite murderers, sadists and demons in jeans and tee shirts talking about how they went trick or treating as a kid. Except for Alice Cooper, he was in full leather and makeup, which is fine with me because I wouldn't expect any less from him. It's a fun video, I'd recommend it if nothing else for the haunted houses that are featured.

iPretentious

People with iPhones are so pretentious. Just because they have the cream of the crop technology, they think that they are all that and their rear don't stink. They go around with their little headphones, playing with their little touch screen, listening to their little iTunes on their little white headsets like they're Paris Hilton or something.

I got one yesterday after my phone died. I am now one of those obnoxious people. I have had to eat many many words lately from Sausage Von Trapp whose family are Mac followers and the fact that I have always lauded the glories of the PC.

My iPhone's name is Bob.