Easter Greetlings

Creepy Easter everybody!

Click the bunny

Black Spider Blues

Ladies and gents, it feels like Spring is just about in the air, and here's a little music to put that spring into your step, eh?

Black Spider Blues

Me and the Devil Blues

Canned Heat Blues

And this one shared by the Halloween Nut. Hooey, that's the blues alright:

 Dark Was the Night

Merry Christmas to you!

Merry Christmas, and a jolly Yule to everyone. It's been a very rough Yuletide around here, but we had a happy Christmas, with our strange little patchwork family all together for the holidays. We had a Christmas feast, and even a few Christmas presents under our tree this year.

This Krampus tree bauble came from my mother. If you can make it out, he has a rather chastened looking child in his krampus sack.

This baroquely ornamented dragon hourglass came from my dear father. The Christmas card there is of my own design. My brother and I are thinking of selling them next year.

Absinthe mints from my mother. People who have read this blog for a few years may know that I am a minor absinthe aficionado. I still haven't done a blog post on the subject.

And my mother also gave me this Guy Fawkes mask. After all, I did need one. He's looking suitably Anglophilic in my British pith helmet.

Another gift from my old man. He lives in southern Cali.

Anyway, these are trying times, but I hope that all of you have at least had a warm, comfortable, Christmas time. And to start the new year off right, I'll leave you with one of my favorite Yuletide carols:

Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy, and bountiful new year!

Snow ~ Creepmas? ~ and a visit from the Krampus?

I woke up to snow yesterday. More snow than we're used to here in Eugene.

I've just left this guy up since Halloween. I was going to stick a deer skull and some jingling bells to Creepmas him up a little, but I never got around to it.

Now he's a snow ghoul I guess. Snow Ghoul!

Also, I noticed that there appear to be two cloven hoof prints on our roof. I do seem to recall hearing something up there last night. I think the Krampus must have passed over our house in the night.

Household Deities

I know that some of the folks who follow this blog are into the paganism, wicca, kemetism, and other old time religions, so I thought I would ask if anyone knows how to invite a household deity into your home.  Our poor house really needs a helping hand.

The Harsh Vérité of Secret Dreams

...Or the life and works of David Firth. Anyone who has been online for a span is likely to have encountered the work of David Firth, particularly his "Salad Fingers" series of cartoons. Firth's work have an unnerving, dream-like quality, surreal in the truest sense of the word. They are filled with images of bodily corruption, the madness of contemporary social mores, and the latent perverseness of human temperament. None of it makes any sense, but there is something chillingly relatable, in it. Firth's work is like a mish-mash of Edgar Allan Poe, Tim Burton, and William S. Burroughs.

I invite you to experience some of Firth's choicest bits:

Three Skins Without Men

The Original "Salad Fingers"

 

And an interview with the artist.

All Done

Evening folks. Well the day has come and gone once again. I've taken down the haunt for the evening, and tomorrow I'll pack everything away again for another year.

Class of 2013

I was thinking back this evening to a summer afternoon when I was 8 or 9 years old, sitting at the drafting table in my father's studio. I was looking over a mask catalog, and calculating how many Halloweens I could have in my lifetime. 80, I thought, 80 is the average, probably somewhat less than that now, for my generation. 80 Halloweens. It seemed like such a meager number. I wonder how many Halloweens I have left now?

I was working out on a slip of paper what I would be for Halloween each year. Corpse, ghoul, alien, etcetera, trying to make it all fit.

Now, I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm sleepwalking through that oh so ephemeral life time. The season comes, but I barely notice it, my senses are dulled to it. There is no time for it, or will to enjoy it properly. Every so often I get a snitch of the old season, in the taste of a candy bar on a crisp day, in the familiar cadence of a well loved cartoon. But these are but reminiscences. It seems I am always chasing nostalgia.

But am I forging new memories? Do I sincerely enjoy each of these precious new Halloweens? Do I cherish individual moments from them, as I did when it was all new to me, when the shape of life, and indeed this Halloween thing itself was still a mystery?

I don't know, I don't know.