HALLOWEEN PICTURES / GIGANTISM

Gigantism in animals always seemed creepy to me. The creepiest are the species I normally consider benevolent and non-threatening...birds, for example.

But really, I should know better. Giant birds were some of the most formidable predators on Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs. They'd show us no mercy if they had a size advantage.

For some reason gigantic humans don't seem menacing at all. Maybe that's because I used to lech after tall girls when I was in High School. 

Animals, on the other hand, are a different thing. When they're big it seems like a Biblical plague. It feels like a sign that something cosmic has gone awry, that the natural order of things is out of whack. 

The only horses I know of that are still bred for height are Clydesdale's (above). Everybody wants to see how big they can get.

Of course, tiny creatures can be creepy too.

And, talking about tiny creatures, is that (above) really Shirley Temple? 

CHEAP HALLOWEEN MASKS

Well, they were cheap when they first came out. They're probably expensive collector's items now. Here's a bunch that Steve Worth turned me on to. It includes paper masks (mostly from cereal boxes, I'm guessing), and plastic masks, some of which required buying the stupid costume that came with them.

No expensive latex masks here. They're great too, but I'll save those for another day.

Among the plastic masks above my favorites are the imaginatively painted ones like the one on the top row, extreme left, and the bottom row, second from the left.

I like the color do-rag on the pirate mask on the bottom row, extreme right (above). Of course you need the grimacing mask and the red devil to set it off.

That Little Lulu mask (above) and the wide-eyed mask next to it are real treasures!

Man, I love Halloween!

HALLOWEEN MOVIES / DAISY DOODAD'S DIAL (1914)

Here's a terrific short film I just discovered on David Cairns' site, "Shadowplay." It's called "Daisy Doodad's Dial," and it's a hundred years old. "Dial" is English slang for face.

That face belongs to Florence Turner, an American actress who, at the peak of her popularity, moved to England.

I think she wrote and directed the film.

I read that Turner got good reviews for a 1911 film called "Jealousy" where she was the sole actor, and appeared in every scene. The film is sadly lost now.

And here's the entire short.

P.S. The film doesn't consist of close-ups on Turner' face. It's a short story. Go ahead...try it. You'll like it.

HALLOWEEN FILMS: DR. CALIGARI

No doubt everyone knows about the Expressionist film, "Dr. Caligari" (above).  What you may not know is that a monumental new restoration has been done which will soon be on sale in America. I saw it over the weekend at Steve's and it was an experience that I'll never forget. 

The architecture in the film is shown to such advantage in the restored print that I think I'll confine myself to talking about that. The film's planted a fantasy in my mind that a real town could be made to look like the place where Caligari lived. I'd consider living there. Wouldn't you?

For starters, how do you like this staircase (above)? The patterns of light are painted on. In a real house you could achieve a similar effect with tiles.

The sets were full of diagonals.

Of course diagonals are only a theatrical effect but you find yourself wondering, could a town like this actually be built?  Would you be able to find people who would live there? I think so. It would be a town with a unique character.

I'm not a fan of sheer concrete exteriors but I have to admit that they might work in narrow, conspicuously designed corridors like this one. The Futurist wall detail helps, as does the costume Caligari is wearing. Humans crave complexity and embellishment and if they find themselves in flat environments my guess is they'll dress flamboyantly to compensate.

I like the bridge (above) in Caligari. The film reminds us that bridges for foot traffic, tunnels, terraces, balconies, towers, solariums, awnings... all belong in architecture because they're fun.

How would you like an office (above) like Caligari's? In real life the atmospheric cones and pillars would take up a lot of room and so would need some purpose to justify them. Maybe they could be book shelves.

Of course you'd want to retain the cluttered look of the books in the film. That wouldn't be hard to do, in fact in recent years it's been possible to buy ready-made "clutter"  shelves. Above is a clutter shelf used in the film "Don't Look Back."

The spaces are deliberately odd-shaped to retain the appearance of clutter. They're nice halfway containers for books and papers that haven't been organized yet but will eventually end up on neater shelves elsewhere in the house. Caligari's cone shapes could become "clutter cones."

Even the Expressionist trees could be made real. Lots of trees look that in the Winter when they've lost their leaves.

When I researched this post I stumbled on lots of student projects that were inspired by the Caligari film. Here's one (above) by "Starchild 07." Hmmm... do you suppose something like that could be a porch decoration for Halloween?

Here (above) a contemporary artist has added to Caligari's famous rooftop layout.

NEW ASTRONOMICAL PHOTOS 2014

Here's two photos taken by the Curiosity Rover on Mars. What are those small stones on the ground? One is a ball and the others are star patterns of some sort.

Above is a picture of the four habitable moons of Jupiter and Saturn. It's not impossible that life may be found on these worlds, though in the case of Titan it would have to be life that could exist in liquid methane.

If you're surprised to see Ganymede on that list, that's because interior seas have recently been detected there.

 Here's (above) surface detail on the Comet Churyumov-Gerisimenko. The Rosetta probe continues to map it in an attempt to find a suitable spot for its lander. This picture was taken only a few weeks ago.

 Hubble took this picture (above) of the Bubble Nebula. It looks tiny in this photo but actually it's immense. The bubble you see is 10 light years in diameter and was ejected from a giant star that's visible inside the nebula.

Here's (above) a galaxy that's visible with the naked eye. It's a little galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud. It's in the process of colliding with our own galaxy, as is its  namesake, The Large Magellanic Cloud (not visible here). Our galaxy is larger and older than many and has likely absorbed other galaxies in the past. Maybe that's how the Milky Way got the bar in the middle of the pinwheel.

I never heard of this (above) til recently but evidently it's something enthususiasts have known about for a long time: the Zodiacal Light. It's dim but you can see it with the naked eye on an unusually clear night. It's a disc of dust that surrounds the sun on the same plane as most planets and asteroids. We see it edgewise because we're on the same plane.

The Milky Way has recently been identified as a member of a cluster of thousands of galaxies called The Laniakea Supercluster. That's a computer generated image of it above. The white dots in the green areas are all galaxies. The wispy white lines track the paths of galaxies toward Laniakea's center.

White dots outside the orange line belong to other super clusters, even though the picture makes it appear that they belong with us. I have a feeling there's an interesting story behind that.

BEGINNING A STORY

I've been reading some pulp-type stories and I thought it might be fun to discuss the first paragraph of one of them. I liked it so much that I whipped out an index card and quickly wrote my own bad version of it so I'd have something to compare it to. I say "quickly" because if I'd taken time to think about it I'd likely have repeated what I'd just read. I wanted to see how my own brain spontaneously organized the same facts the pro had to work with.

So here's (below) my clunky version.....

"Jane startled to wakefulness when she heard sounds on the staircase outside the bedroom door. 'Bill! Wake up! Someone's in the house,' she exclaimed, but her husband wasn't there. Could it be him making the sounds? Hesitatingly she got out of bed and pressed her ear to the bedroom door." 

I know, I know...it sounds like an accountant wrote it. Okay, here's (below) the pro version....

"Laura Standish blurted out her husband's name before she was fully awake. "Frank!" But there was no answer. Even before she realized just what it was that had awakened her, a chill little quiver of dread brushed her spine."

That's it...simple and elegant! So what are the differences? Exactly how did the pro make me look so stupid?

Well, for one thing he gave the woman a likable, dignified name that made me care about her. For another the pro had her utter only one word: "Frank." There was no need to go on about somebody being in the house. It was implied.

There's also no need to have her reason out that Frank might have made the sounds. It's too early for that. Her first thought after calling for her husband and getting no answer would be one of animal terror. Besides, terror creates a better mental picture than sleuthing does.

Last but not least, is the issue of euphony or whatever you want to call it. I had the woman "exclaim." The pro had her "blurt out." I also like the sound of "little quiver of dread that brushed her spine." This writer is alternately lean and ornate. It's a combination that works. And "brushed her spine"...what an interesting image!

Hmmm...did I leave anything out? If so, let me know.

IDEAS FOR HALLOWEEN MASKS

Here's (above) some examples of Pre-Colombian Inca sculpture. So far as I know the Incas were the world's first funny cartoonists, only their medium was pottery and sculpture, rather than paper. The L. A. County Museum has a terrific collection of these funny sculptures but it doesn't get much attention, maybe because the items are so tiny...pocket-size in some cases. Even in the Inca Golden Age officially sanctioned art was serious and large and the funny art that people actually enjoyed was small and portable.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: If the samples shown above are authentic then a major re-assessment of Inca art is in order, but I don't want to mislead anyone. I got these images from the internet by searching for things like "funny Inca art." The internet being what it is, it's possible that my sources threw Mayan and Aztec pieces into the mix without proper attribution, or that the time of origin was screwed up. I accept the pieces above as authentically pre-Colombian Inca because they're consistent with the humorous style of the curated pieces I encountered at the County Museum Inca exhibit.]

The reason I mention the Incas is to demonstrate that major trends in art are still, even today, neglected by historians. Even when good art is created under their noses historians fail to notice. Why isn't the Smithsonian beating down John K's door, begging for drawings?  Why is the work of recent Mexican folk artists ignored?

I don't know about you, but I find Mexican masks like this one (above) to be hilarious. Artful, too.

Haw! Why aren't museums collecting these!??

Wow! I can't believe how nuanced the expressions on some of these masks are! 

Some of the latest Mexican masks suffer from being too slick. Even so, they're not without interest. I'm guessing they're made to sell to tourists, but they succeed in spite of that.

For comparison here's (above) a recent African mask. It's technically well done, but it's bland and looks like it was made solely to fit the taste of black intellectuals in New York City.

I like this recent one (above) a lot better. It's funny and manages to capture the awesome vitality of youth. It also looks like it would appeal to tribal Africans, and not just to tourists.

I wish I could say the same for this recent Polynesian mask, above. Am I imagining it or does it show an anime influence?  It just doesn't feel authentically Oceanic.

New Mexican masks on the other hand, seem comfortable in their own skin. They're a bit slick but large numbers of them still manage to comment on the human condition.

I can't help thinking that Central and South America are destined to become serious cultural powerhouses in the not-too-distant future. Mexico will be a big player in that. As soon as architecture drops its silly bias against ornamental buildings the old Aztec and Mayan traditions of that country may come into play again, only in modern adaptions.

ADDITIONAL HALLOWEEN PICTURES

Vintage magic posters make great Halloween decorations. Here's (above) one of my favorites. The paniced audience has been driven mad with fright.

This (above) is for Theory Cornerites who prefer simple, easy to read faces.

Is this (above) a detail from a book cover? I'm not sure. It would make a great stage set. 

Robots (above) are a popular subject for porch decorations. IMO they're twice as effective if they're giving grief to a dummy.

This (above) is one of the all-time best magic posters. It's of Kellar and the date on it is 1894...120 years ago!

This looks like an old carnival sideshow banner, but it's rendered so beautifully that it might have been a poster.

Here's (above) another rendered sideshow banner, this time of a spider woman. I've seen this kind of thing before. I guess that was a common attraction way back when.

DonB sent a link to a site that featured plenty of women in sideshow spider outfits. I'll hazard a guess that the carnival made money by selling Polaroid-type photos of audience volunteers in costume.