Author: Head Candy Corn

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Penny’s from Heaven (Mike Penny on DAY 3)

Mike Penny, that is, with DAY 3’s very turbulent and supernatural account of a bizarre trip on a helicopter! You’ll see some of your favorite personalities from “the other side” or what some people have deemed “the great beyond.”

This short film stars Jean Natalia of Wig Out fame, Jean also recently hosted SparkleBlob’s Spooky-tacular Autumn Gala at the Bob Baker Theater in Los Angeles. Wig Out is a monthly club featuring cabaret presentations by an entirely wig-clad cast of performers. Both patrons and those who brave the stage are clad in wigs, it’s always a night to remember, and it’s always lots of fun, nightclub glamour with edgy wigs, what else could a person need in Los Angeles?!?

So what’s that crazy Japanese banjo-type thingy Mike’s playing at the end of the video? Well, that’s called a shamisen, a three-stringed fretless instrument that you play with something that looks a lot like what you’d use to scrape ice off the windshield (a plectrum or bachi.) It is believed that the ancestor of the shamisen was introduced in the 16th century at port Sakai near Osaka, Japan. As you might guess, an instrument like this has some seriously detailed and highly-studied types of playing, and even the instrument itself, and it’s plectrum are divvied up into different thicknesses and lengths, so that there is an exhaustive amount of shamisen information should you want to buy one or get started playing one.

This video from 2010 shows you how the shamisen and banjo are similar, but different!

And here’s Mike doing the Tennessee Waltz on three strings, with improvisation included!

I have no idea how long Mike Penny has been playing the shamisen, but I can tell you that he can shred out an incredible version of “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns-n-Roses on that thing, it’s mesmerizing to watch him play. Mike is not the only shamisen player following “non-traditional genres” but he does have a style all his own when he plays it. If you’d like to see/hear more Mike Penny, visit his YouTube site and the Mike Penny Orchestra site today!

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Fly Away with Gothtober DAY 2

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Here is a still of hearts particles in space.

Ah, we are now only 30 days away from Halloween!

Cristin Pescosolido, brings Gothtober DAY 2, the first airplane-themed piece to the calendar. Every year, Gothtober picks a “theme” and participants are invited to either follow that Gothtober theme, or the general theme of Halloween. This Gothtober piece marks the first to choose the latter, and it’s made using a series of linen-style vintage postcard ephemera!

To celebrate her launch today, Cristin is wearing her Martin Ontiveros designed gothtober.com shirt, her orange/black glasses, brown cargo pants, and orange socks with spooky black cats on them.

About her piece, Cristin says

This film was made entirely with Nuke, using its 3d particle systems as well as standard 2d tricks. Lots of vintage postcards were mangled and twisted to make propellers spin, airplanes move, and eggs conveying. The postcard’s linen and screen patterns were matched carefully using a combination of Furnace grain tools and cheating use of Nuke’s scannedGrain node.

The song by The Magnetic Fields is sung by the talented Ms Claudia Gonson, who introduced me to The Magnetic Fields when we took an animation class together in college.

This piece is a very joyous way to celebrate hearts, rainbows, postcards and queer rights.

And speaking of rights, as you may or may not know, Gothtober’s launch also coincided with the shut-down of the United States Government! This means nobody’s getting courthouse marriages right now, the Statue of Liberty is closed, The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is closed (don’t spill anything, anyone!), The Library of Congess is Closed, if you want to see the totally frightening list of what’s open and what’s not, here it is. 

While Gothtober has a different theme every year, there’s no way we could’ve thought up something this scary for October!

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Gothtober Socks it to You! DAY 1

goth_1_sox_002Gothtober 2013 is LIVE!

Lady Winnifred Robarts heralds in the new Gothtober 2013 Season with a wonderful assemblage of Halloween socks! To celebrate her launch, she is wearing orange Halloween pumpkin and cat socks with black pants and a lime green shirt (see photo.)

Here is a secret factoid about the very first pair of socks in the Gothtober DAY 1 Video: 

At the end of last season (2012) I cleaned out my sock drawer and finally let go of them – both pairs had holes in the heels and I decided it was time.  I was such a busy headcase that I didn’t remember my plan to feature them in a Gothtober 2013 submission.  So this Fall when I went to get them all out of the sock storage, I couldn’t find the most important pair of the collection!  Aaaahhh!  So I scoured the web trying to find some – Talbots, Ebay, every purveyor of online socks imaginable, and even a local sock store called “The Sock Drawer”.  Alas I could not find an exact duplicate of the original socks, so I settled on a close facsimile.  The originals were described as “pumpkins on vines on tan trouser socks” but they also had little red berries too.  The stand-ins are described as “pumpkins and gourds on heather trouser socks”, so not *too* different.  In the course of my search, I found so many other great pairs of socks that I kind of went wild and bought at least 7 pairs.  These are featured in the photos but don’t necessarily have their own unique slides.

So you see, dear reader, Gothtober artists go to EVERY POSSIBLE LENGTH to do realize their creative vision. Currently, Ms. Robarts is working on her front yard Halloween display, and if anyone reading the blog wishes to share photos of their yard and it’s Halloween decoration, send ’em in, we’ll be showing photos of some of the crazy yards you can find in Los Angeles!

One more thing about Gothtober DAY 1: You might also find it interesting that Ms. Robarts seems to have lost one of the Halloween cat socks.  So the photo on that slide is of just one sock.

 

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The sock models for Winnifred Robart’s “Halloween Socks” piece, featuring many many fabulous fall feet!

 

 

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Strong Emotions About S’Mores Flavored Candy Corn

smore_candycorn There are passionate feelings about traditional candy corn. People either like candy corn, or they vehemently despise it, and getting them to try even weird hybrid candy corn flavors is a bit of a chore.

I’m a candy corn purist, can’t deal with super strange “Easter Corn” or “Valentine’s Corn” I don’t even know what those flavors are, freaks me right out.

S’mores are generally associated with summer and camping, but because of the chocolate and burnt marshmallow factor, they can  overlap into Autumn as an acceptable Halloween candy concept. This means that candy corn offering the facsimile of s’mores is much more decent than, say, Christmas candy corn, which probably tastes like pine needles or gingerbread and… just… no.

The picture of the bag here looks much brighter and delicious than the actual bag I bought at Target, the real bag looks dull and decidedly inedible. The little triangles of brown, cream and orange could almost be rootbeer flavored, and they all look about 2 years old. But I’m all into the hype, so I got ’em, dumped in a bowl at CraftNight and recorded my observations.

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“Kind of tastes like a Tootsie Roll. Meh.”  Julie (who kept trying them over and over again through the course of the evening)

“That’s the stuff! It tastes like frosting, and marble chocolate cake!” Cynthia

“THIS should be candy corn, I hate candy corn!” Melody

“It’s not horrible. It still has the candy corn consistency.” Thomas

“They’re O.K.” Terry Lee

“YUM” Andy 

“Pretty darn GOOD! I’m gonna have s’more!” Elaine

“Delicious!” Sarah 

“It’s a mature flavor” Grace 

“I tried each segment, and when you eat the segments separately, they don’t taste good. But when you eat the entire candy corn at once, it tastes better. The tip of the candycorn is supposed to be caramel, the middle is supposedly the marshmallow part, and the bottom is chocolate flavored. I don’t like them.” Veronica 

Overall, the reaction was one of positivity, with a couple of “so-so” and one or two absolute disapproval ratings from people who don’t like candy corn in ANY flavor, or just couldn’t handle the taste.

These grow on you, they look rather unremarkable, but then, over time, you just keep going back to investigate the character of this candy again and again. Perhaps this is the mark of a good candy? It’s complex in that it really does have three distinct differently-flavored segments, all artificial, all vying for your attention. The taste is about 1,000 miles away from the combination of actual graham cracker, chocolate and marshmallow, but just the fact that a candy corn would have the audacity to believe in itself enough to inform you that it is evocative of s’mores makes  you want to eat it.

Some people are going to get religious about these and seek them out and buy all of them, and some people will just eat them because they are there. The most dangerous aspect about them seems to be that even though many of us felt “so-so” about s’more flavored candy corns … we couldn’t stop eating them.

Thumbs up, get a bag for the party!

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Skull-n-Bones on the Shelves at Folklore Salon!

When getting one’s hair did at Folklore Salon, it’s impossible not to check out the wonderful potions and products purveyor, master hair artist and salon owner, Pony-Lee decides to display as a gentle recommendation for how  you might add quality to your life. The shelves change seasonably, with the whim of Pony-Lee, and therefore, it must be inspected often, because you just might just miss something! 

The Autumnal Equinox shall occur on September 26th, and over the summer, (if you were having summer fun) your skin has also taken a bit of a beating from our closest star, the sunscreen that protects us from the closest star, insect repellent, sand, wind and other stuff that can leave your skin feeling drab and dullsville.

Autumn is time for MOISTURIZER because the air is going to continue to get more dry dry dry! Thus, just in time for Gothtober and all the spiders, newt claws and deep-fried kitten hearts of the season is Bare Bones Moisturizer made by “a Girl in Her Kitchen” and there’s nothing in this stuff that is artificial or funky. The inventor was getting bummed out from skin allergies, and decided to make her own line of products that are vegan, 100% animal cruelty free and super-duper great for your epidermis! I spied this stuff on the shelves because of the skull and crossbones (always on alert for anything even remotely Halloweenish) on the jars. Nice gift for someone who loves spooky skincare, or nice gift for you, because your skull will thank you.

So if you want to do something really nice for your head, walk, bike or drive it over to Folklore and arrange an appointment! Pony-Lee, Sparrow Fox and Maddin will coif your noggin into a great-feeling, great-looking do, and you’ll walk through the streets proud and sassy. I’m speaking from experience, by the way…

 

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Gothtober Candy Review • M&Ms Pumpkin Spice

mms-pumpkin-spice-candies Gonna admit something: Pumpkin-flavored things usually make me want to skip in the opposite direction. It’s not because pumpkin isn’t awesome, it’s because all those cheap imitations of pumpkin flavor are usually so disappointing in a myriad of ways!

Pumpkin “flavor” tends to be cloying and overpowering, unlike the personality of most pumpkins. It’s either pumpkin FEVER where you can’t taste anything else, or it’s dusty pumpkin or it’s non-starter pumpkin, where you’re not sure what it is… but it isn’t pumpkin.

Thus, when I brought the product to CraftNight and spilled its contents into a bowl, I was ready for the outrage. But funnily enough, there was no outrage, but there were raised eyebrows. Here are some of the reactions I got:

  • Layers of flavors!
  • I feel like I’ve arrived at Fall!
  • Not bad.
  • Can I have a few more? Mmmmm!

If you’re looking for “pumpkin in your face” you’re not going to find it here. It’s like they somehow knew that last year’s white chocolate candy corn M&Ms were too far into the stratosphere to really be understood. Somehow we have a candy that shows restraint. When you try it, there are multiple avenues for your mind to visit as they melt in your mouth. There’s pumpkin… but there’s also cinnamon, obscure hints of other spices, and mostly chocolate. And I think it’s a good idea that they are chocolate, and that M&Ms stayed away from the white chocolate for this one. Not every new flavor has to make you do a backflip and a fist pump, some flavors can just be mellow and complex. In the world of artificial flavors, it seems like they never know when to ease up on the throttle, and this time somebody decided to mellow out.

Anyone who grew up eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos will not understand or be able to comprehend the subtleties of Pumpkin Spice M&Ms. They will think that Pumpkin Spice M&Ms are a penultimate experience, because their taste buds are dead. They will shrug their shoulders and walk away. They will feel like the illustration of the bewildered pumpkin M&M on the bag.

People are all up in arms arguing that these things taste more like red hots than pumpkins… and as a person who dislikes red hots pretty vehemently, they don’t taste like red hots. But they don’t overwhelm you with orange squash flavor either. There are three colors in the bag: Dark Brown, Orange and Dark Green, a hilariously awful set of colors, it’s like they’re trying to convince children to stay away from them. Even sports teams don’t go near this trio of colors! I’m sure that ©Mars had 19,000 focus groups before they developed these, I’m thinking it’s a small miracle this product ended up on the shelves.

This pumpkin idea is trying to get distinguished, it wants to be respected and well-received. It’s reaching out to people who like potpourri and crisp air and scented candles. It’s for square metal candy bowls in offices,  and houses with a lot of square footage and reflective surfaces. Kids will think they are boring. Eating these and liking them might mean you are over 30. It might even mean that you are retired.  If you have just ONE, and wait for it to melt in your mouth for 10 seconds, you might be pleasantly surprised.

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Gothtober Has Ordered its Trick or Treat for Unicef Boxes!

Okay! Gothtober applications are over, Gothtober artists have been chosen (to be revealed to the public soon enough) and while the Gothtober artists toil away, we prepare for another tradition: Trick or Treat for Unicef! My Grandma Bautista would take part in raising money for the United Nations Childrens Fund, and as a kid, I thought that was really cool. I liked being a kid who could help other kids around the world. Here is an awesome PSA from Elizabeth Montgomery (of Bewitched) from 1969, asking you to Trick or Treat for Unicef, but the address on it isn’t correct, so don’t use that if you want more info, go here instead.

 

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The Great Gothtober 2013 Call for Artists!

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Dear Vicious Vile Vampiric Virtuosos,

The sluice gates have opened, and the Official Gothtober Call for Artists begins RIGHT NOW. 

  • APPLICATIONS ARE DUE AUGUST 9th, 2013 >>>> Apply HERE 
  • Participants will be notified of admission on August 12th
  • Upon acceptance, a $25 registration fee is required.
  • Theme: Airport (Gothtober Airlines)
  • Get explanations for just about all of this by visiting the (newly revised!) Gothtober FAQ

Maybe you’ve decided it’s time to share that super secret pumpkin bread recipe after all. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to wear a giant papiér maché head and sit in a tree? Your dog talks to you in a calming and reassuring voice, and you finally captured it on camera? We want to know more! Don’t be shy, don’t sit on those laurels, shove those laurels to the side! Apply for Gothtober and welcome the fire under your ass that we will surely stoke with each creative gory deadline!

This is an opportunity to roust your creative spirit and shake out the mulligrubs. Break out the popsicle sticks, the bubblegum and the fake blood! Get busy with something you want to share for all the world to see. If you don’t think of yourself as an “artist” well, we don’t care. Because you’re not an “artist” you’re an ARTIST and Gothtober is here to prove it. We don’t care if you’re Little Sally Nobody or the Dalai Lama, you both probably have really interesting things to say.

Seriously. Apply for the hell of it, what could possibly go wrong?

Crunchy lost souls with butter and slug slime,

JP Head Candycorn