NERD ZOMBIE

Above, a nerd zombie. Nerds can be zombies too.

Above, another brilliant Don Heck cover. That guy was a national treasure!

Above, a reprise showing one of my all-time favorite masks. I've had it for years and it hasn't degraded much. I supplied the cardboard eyes.

Aaaaargh! I want! I want! I'd love to have this hotdog couple on my porch this Halloween!

Above, me as a mad scientist. I liked this photo so much that I gave it a permanent place on the Theory Corner left sidebar.

Wow! Whoever shot this deserves an award of some sort. The bag design, the color, the background...it's a perfectly realized picture.

Above...I have no idea what this drawing (woodcut?) was made for. Maybe a production of Hamlet showing the scene where Hamlet's father was murdered?  My guess is that it was created to publicize a traveling 19th Century stage show. Text would be added as needed.

Yikes! Why do people take chances like this (above)? 

Boris Karloff, of course.

A simplified version of something like this (above) might make an interesting Halloween bookshelf decoration. You could design it so it does double duty at Christmas. I wonder who did this.

NIGHT DESCENDS

Lately I've paid more than usual attention to what happens in the sky. I guess the Fall provokes those kind of thoughts. In Summer the night and day are separated by beautiful sunsets and slowly unfolding twilights, but by Halloween the transition can be abrupt and violent. 

By the end of the day an otherwise sunny sky is cupped in the hands of dark clouds (above) and snuffed out. At this time of year the day no longer reliably evolves into into night; it's as often as not suffocated under a blanket.

As soon as darkness takes over the scenic beaches become traps for ships.

Suicides seek out high places.

People out for revenge seek their targets. 

Fanatics plot with their followers.

Fires are tended in military camps, prayer vigils are held in temples, the shadowy underworld is patrolled by the police. 

Eventually the night stretches out to the point where day becomes inevitable. High winds rip apart the clouds. The first delicate glow of morning appears. Here's how Emily Dickinson describes it:

MORE MASKS 2014

Gee, this (above) is a nice mask. It's probably plastic but it I've seen similar effects on plaster and clay.

Polynesians used to have Halloween every day.

This (above) reminds me that I should buy whole coconuts around Halloween time. There's so much you can do with the shells.

The two mache masks on the right  (above) cover the whole head. I wonder how you make something like that?

At first glance I thought this (above) was a mustachioed Edgar Allen Poe mask then I looked closer and discovered the mustache was a nose and the red on the bottom is a mouth. It's a gorilla!

Haw!

Above, a yuppie mask. Not bad, not bad. 

Around Halloween time cereal boxes used to have printed masks on the back.

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Now they don't. I wonder why. That's (above) the back of the box I used this morning. Yikes! How bleak!

  

Nice (above), very nice.

If I understand right this (above) was an old seldom-used mask which the owner rehabilitated with a new paint job and some Styrofoam balls.

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.