100 Years of the T-Shirt

I needed something lighter after yesterday.

Back in July I had a week of posts with anniversaries of certain books. That was somewhat coincidental. I happened to read articles about them, and while one had been from the previous year (which is why we had 51 Years of Silent Spring), it was just something that seemed kind of cool. It led to me reading two that I had always meant to read anyway, and re-reading one.

At about the same time that I was reading those articles, I also saw one on the anniversary of the T-shirt, and I had thought about writing something there, but I ended up focusing on the books. Now the T-shirt gets its chance.

There is not a hard creation date. Somewhere between the Spanish American War and 1913 they started being made, but 1913 was when they really took off, when the US Navy started issuing them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War

My first big T-Shirt memory was reading in a history class that T-Shirt sales plummeted, after Clark Gable takes off his shirt and reveals a bare chest in the 1934 film It Happened One Night. I found that fascinating, and wondered how long the impact lasted. I later found out it took about a year for sales to recover, but it took me a long time to find that data. Before that I joked with my teacher that it probably required James Dean. My teacher paused for one beat, and then retorted that Dean just needed some place to keep his cigarettes.

The transition to outerwear was important, and it was around that time period (50s and 60s) that you start getting designs and messages so that T-shirts become souvenirs and statements, and band merchandise.

That's a big part of why I thought I might write about T-shirts. A lot of these kids are really into wearing these. Some of them do have pretty cool designs, and it works as a statement of affiliation. This is what I like and this is who I am. Sadly, I cannot wear them.

Well, I can - I just look horrible in them. They do not suit my body at all. They feel constrictive (it's the round neck) and confining, and it's hard to make me look any dumpier, but somehow they do. No matter how much I want to support a band, this is just not the way for me. However, it is not just bands that use T-Shirts, and thus I have a large collection.

This could be much worse, because I have cleared out a lot. When I was working at Intel, it seems like every product launch resulted in a new T-Shirt. They would fill up my closet until it reached critical mass, and then be donated.

It is still the premier way of easily marking volunteers. I have let a few Blues Fest shirts go, but I still have two here. This was my first year of volunteering at Stumptown, but I expect to repeat that. And while that one Regence volunteer shirt looks pretty similar to the one I had the year before, I will probably be required to wear a new but really similar one for this volunteer thing I am doing next month. I get it; when you are herding volunteers at a large event, it helps to have them all dressed alike. Now I have a new way of acquiring shirts, via crowdsourcing.

I will probably have a few posts on crowdsourcing itself later, but right now you can see one Veronica Mars T-Shirt (that says it is large, but clearly is not), one for Reggie and the Full Effect, and a hoodie for Dear White People.

I don't really do well in hoodies and sweatshirts either, probably through the same principles. In this case, I'm not sure it matters. They did say. realizing that it is a little "in your face" to tell people not to worry, it's just a movie. That sounds reasonable, but I feel in my case, being very white, that I would not only look aggressive, but also like a total poser. Also, I would look dumpy and feel confined, so there is that too.

I'm just hanging on to them for now. I know someone who combined her love of running with her love of quilting and turned race shirts into quilts, but that's not really me. (I did not put my Shamrock Run shirt in the photo, because it's kind of a different style, but it looks bad on me too.)

It's strange to observe this change in me. My yearbook picture one year in junior high had me wearing a pullover vest that I had gotten at the A-ha concert with the dog tag I had gotten at the Charlie Sexton concert. To be fair, the vest wasn't particularly flattering either, but I still wore it, because I had been to concerts! Both my favorite acts in the same summer!

I guess now I feel like the way I show my affiliation is putting in the volunteer time, or making the pledges, and it's important to me to not look worse than I absolutely have to. So, I feel like I really don't need more shirts, but I am pretty sure I am going to get them.

Halloween costumes

My first Halloween costume that I really remember was the Disco Dazzler. I had no idea whom she was, but I found her later in a comic book. It stands out because I remember looking at the row of plastic suits with masks at K-Mart (that used to be the standard), and not finding anything else that wasn't male or bad. Some kids like being monsters or witches, but it was very important to me to be a good character, and ideally, something pretty and feminine.

I think I gave up on the store bought costumes after another year, and then I remember doing a rich lady costume, putting rhinestones onto a collar for my stuffed cat, and a princess carrying around a frog in 4th grade.

There were some hand-me-downs and things in there too, but I remember in junior high I started moving more towards the weird and unique. One year I borrowed a family friend's uniform, and went as a pilot, and one year I got this idea in my head of taping a flashlight to a hard hat and being a coal miner - which no one else ever thought of doing, because why would you?

The most amazing thing to me is how few pictures we have of any Halloween costumes. I cannot go back and build a visual record. The only picture I know of is from my senior yearbook. It was a nightgown and wolf mask with some curlers in the hair, representing the Big Bad Wolf disguised as Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. They captioned it "Gina Harris woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

This is mostly memorable because I had sort of encouraged some people to nominate me for Homecoming Court. This was stupid of me. I was caught between that desire to be pretty and popular, and also with this injustice that you can only be recognized that way if you are pretty and popular, and having recently done a report on the founding of our high school and seeing that it was set up to be pretty progressive. I'm not even sure how seriously I took it, but I did end up on the ballot.

The nominations for the ballot were announced at an assembly on Halloween. The girls who ended up making the court were dressed in pretty dresses of the kind that one might wear to a homecoming dance. I'm not sure if they were just really confident they would be nominated, or they had student council connections, or what.

I had no idea I would be called up, and even if I had, I didn't have any dresses like that. They looked like princesses; I looked like a joke. That is my candid photo for my senior year, and you don't even see my face.

As I was writing about Halloween, I was thinking that it's kind of weird that I don't get into dressing up. I had written it off as the hassle. I don't sew, and the things you can buy aren't always satisfying. That's partly true, but also, there are size concerns, and I realized my real issue is that I still don't really want people looking at me. A costume asks people to look, and I am not down with that.

I don't think the yearbook photo was intended to be anything cruel. It could easily have been because it was funny and creative, and I was. I worked at being funny and creative because I couldn't be pretty. I tried really hard to divorce myself from that side of things, except it's everywhere. There is this constant undercurrent that if you aren't desirable nothing else matters. I'm not always thinking about it, or even usually thinking about it, but it's always there.

Next year I am going to need to have a costume. I don't know what that means even. I don't know if I need to try and be pretty and like the way I look, or if I need to go ahead and be monstrous because looks don't matter and I'm going to play by my own rules.

I'm still working on that reading list for helping troubled teens, which is certainly part of why I am thinking about this, and influences how I think about it. I have found that I can't even finish sentences. There are so many contradictions and problems with it that it leads to a kind of inertia. Well that thought is not going to work; this one? No. Wait, I...

It's not surprising that I don't know what I need to do for a costume, but I know I need to do something. I need to face it head-on. Maybe after a few more books I will be able to sort it out.

Concert Etiquette

The AFI show was a good concert. There were great bands who were into it, they had enthusiastic fans there, and hey, it was Halloween. There was just one detractor, in that some people are asses.

I know, that's a little vulgar for me. It seems to be the most appropriate word though, so I'm going for it.

Lately, Roseland and Crystal Ballroom have become two of my favorite venues. While they do have seating on the upper levels, they are basically general admission dance halls, and so you are in the middle of it. You feel the energy of the crowd more than you do with assigned seats.

(The Wonder Ballroom would fit in here too, except it is much more of a chore to get there and back if you are taking public transit from the suburbs.)

There are frustrations. Standing for a long show can be physically tiring, but it can also be exhilarating, because you are a part of something. The energy of the crowd washes through you and over you.

It can also be dangerous. I remember at Fall Out Boy the band asking everyone to take a step back, because it was starting to get crowded, and they didn't want anyone crushed. That worked; everyone was still having a good time.

Also, sometimes you get cute little girls who need to make their way to the front, past everyone who got there earlier, thus snagging spots closer to the stage, because they are so special. This is irritating, but not particularly harmful. The problem at AFI was several people doing it, shoving hard. There were more big guys than little girls.

I don't love moshing, but having been at a few places where it was allowed (and a few where it wasn't but kind of happened anyway), if you don't want to participate you stay out of the area and it works. The boundaries can shift a little, but still, the overall system of no enforced participation seems to work.

This was something completely different. It wasn't even that many people, but they made a difference. The worst shove was probably the one that sent me about two and a half feet to the right, but maybe the ones with less distance were worse, because the reason I wasn't moving farther is that I was being pushed into other people.

That wasn't just me. At one point a girl was pushed into me and I supported her for a moment, and I couldn't tell you if that was just to keep her from falling or also to keep her from killing the person who knocked her into me. And I would totally understand, because I was thinking of striking out several times, but it would only escalate the issue and it would be way too easy to get the wrong person.

I did not actually see anyone lose their footing, but there have been trampling deaths at concerts before, and it wouldn't be hard for that to happen.

I eventually moved out of the crowd (I was in about the middle) and stayed in the back for a moment. One of the staff said if I had ID she could let me upstairs. Technically those are different tickets, so that might have been a little bit of rule-breaking there, but it was a kind offer and I appreciate it. I ended up staying in the back, but moving a little more right, towards merch.

And I left before the encore. I regret it, and I feel like a loser for it, but I was worn down and I just wanted out of there. I don't think the big bruise on my calf is from the show, because I think all of the blows were higher up, but yeah, it took away from the show, and I hate that, because it was a good show.

This is not being a fan of the band. Is it being punk rock? Maybe, but I just read a piece on how Miley Cyrus is totally punk rock now, and they made good arguments for it, but that does not make her suck any less.  (To be fair, it was a Vice piece.) They were just being asses.

I think it is ultimately going to have to be a venue-based solution. If everyone is pressing in, the band can ask them to step back. If the entire crowd begins to go crazy, bands can change the tone or stop the show. For a few asses, that has to be the venue's job.

At first I did not see how you could even get to these people, because the crowd was so thick, until one of them hit me twice. I don't know how close he got to the front, but he nonetheless worked his way around to the back and started over. That's when I realized it was not about getting closer; it was about being obnoxious. That's not for the band.

My recommendation is expulsion from the show, and keep a record so if they do it again they get banned from the venue. Put a real cost on it.

That's important for safety reasons, but it's more than that. There are people who are instigators, but there are also people who could go either way.

One group pushed in front of me, and I was mad already, but then they parked themselves. There wasn't really anywhere to go at that point. Anyway, now I had a tall (and rude) person in front of me. As I was glaring at the back of his neck, just about to tap him on the shoulder and demand he give way, he turned around. Maybe he felt the glare. I said "I think you need to move."

To his credit, he let me in front of him, and I think it was him who, during another bad wave, put his hands on my shoulders to steady me. He had been participating in the problem, but he was capable of rising above it.

A lot of people were really good there, in terms of looking out for others, and not being jerks. Some will always be like that, and some need reminders, but they have it in them. The asses ruin it for everyone.

Concert Review: AFI

I like a lot of bands, but sometimes there are bands where I keep stopping and marveling at them, because they are just so good. AFI is one of those bands.

It would be easy to focus on lead singer Davey Havok's unique vocal qualities as the source. That is certainly part of it, but it is not the whole story.

Although part of my concert prep involved going to Everyday Music and clearing out their AFI section, I did most of my listening, both before and after the concert, via Spotify. One thing that worked well for that was a set of brief commentary tracks for each song on the new album, Burials.

It was nice to hear the individual voices: Havok, Jade Puget on guitar, Hunter Burgan on bass, and Adam Carson on drums. However, you can get that through a few "making of" videos on their Youtube channel as well. This was more. They were talking about the music and sometimes it was about the composition or the inspiration or the performing, and sometimes it was talking about developing their part or their appreciation of someone else's part. I really don't feel like I am doing that justice, so it's probably best to just listen to it for yourself. Mainly, it highlighted their depth, their passion for the music and for getting it right, their commitment, and their unity. It was a beautiful thing.

And it was not surprising at all. Bands don't get that good accidentally. It is as easy to fall into a rut with rock as with any other line of work. With AFI, they just keep going other places, and so they are always surprising, and always reaching somewhere new, and I can't imagine them ever being boring.

I first became aware of AFI on Sing The Sorrow, with the "Girl's Not Grey" video. I remember being amazed by the emotion of the album. "Miseria Cantare" especially just shook through me. It felt like anguish with some resentment; I could never describe how I thought it felt without using a scenario involving vampires.

I did not know at that time that they had been around for long enough to release a retrospective album the next year (2004), and then I lost track of them, like I did with most bands, and did not know they had continued to do interesting things. I found out just in time to get a concert ticket.

On a shallow note, the band does not look like they have been rocking for over twenty years. It makes no sense that Jade turns 40 this month. Together, they are probably a pretty good advertisement for straight edge/veganism/vegetarianism.

Davey is probably the most different. From 2003 I remember him with long flowing hair and his clothing and demeanor all worked together so that the overall aspect was that of some ethereal creature of the night. The hair is short now, and he is still dressed in black, but it's not the same. He looks more mortal now, and yet, there are moves that he does at times in concert where I remember that skater waif. Then he walks on the crowd and seems not mortal in a completely different way, and yet he still politely thanked the audience pretty much every time we applauded after a song.

I would love to give a few songs that would give a good idea of the band's breadth, but it's kind of too daunting. There is too much to choose from. It is also unnecessary, because just listening to any one album gives a pretty good idea of their depth and versatility. Things they do well are guitars, drums, bass, vocals, and choral style bits on the chorus. Really, what they do well is music.

They're not necessarily for everyone, as there is a bit of a dark side to them. I feel like there's a thread of casual cruelty through most of their videos, though I think that's more reflective of a worldview than an attempt to perpetuate it. For all the ugly things in the world, they keep extracting a lot of beauty.

Actually, I'll go back to the commentary track for that. Listening to that sent me to the lyrics, and combining both of those, it felt like a lot of the material was from the past. I don't know that it was blatant, but it seemed to be dealing with the pains of youth: first loves, first betrayals, and first times coping with how callous people can be. And yet, from the commentary, there also was a sense of a lot of confidence. It's okay to look back at that now. We're ready for it.

This is, of course, possibly way too much extrapolation, but maybe that's the point. You aren't likely to get the same kind of yearning for understanding from mediocre music.

I'm very glad I went to the concert. There were some issues that were not the band's fault, so that will be a separate post on Monday. Also, by the time I got off work and made it downtown I missed the first act, Coming. I feel bad about that, but I bought some of their music and will review them Thursday. I knew Halloween week would bleed into other weeks, and that's okay. Somehow it seems appropriate that it does.

http://www.afireinside.net/

https://www.facebook.com/afireinside

https://twitter.com/AFI

http://www.youtube.com/user/AFIVEVO?feature=watch

Concert Review: Touché Amoré

There is a band out there that I am reluctant to review, or even listen to, because I have heard that you don't really get them unless you see them live. I don't think that would apply to Touché Amoré, but seeing them live adds a lot.

It's not that their recordings don't sound energetic, but watching them thrash makes everything more vibrant and alive. There is so much that is kinetic that you can only guess at if you are only listening.

And, this will not apply to most shows, but they totally won my heart by coming out in costumes. It wasn't even just that they were dressed up, but they had a theme going on. Singer Jeremy Bolm was a hot dog, drummer Elliot Babin was a hamburger, and bassist Tyler Kirby was bacon. For guitar, I am pretty sure Nick Steinhardt was the taco and Clayton Stevens was the fried egg, but I could be wrong about that. I can say that the bacon and egg played near each other, so it was like breakfast was stage right and fast food on stage left. I have some pictures, but they are not great.

The costumes could not have made performing easier, but the band was still so into it, and they were having such a good time that it was impossible not to like them.

I am not good at picking up on the nuances for, well, I guess "screamo" works; post-hardcore might be more accurate. So, I am not the best person to say whether they are doing it right or not, but I know the crowd response was amazing. They were not the headliner, but this was not just polite acceptance of the opener. There were people in the audience who were singing along and knew every word. This is clearly a beloved and effective band.

For listening, I have listened to their most recent release, Is Survived By, more. Standout tracks for me are "Non Fiction" and "Steps" musically, but there is something in the lyrics that speaks to me on "To Write Content".

They get some interesting textures. Having gone through the entire catalog, I love the intro on "Sesame", from Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me. They played that at the show. I also recommend "Crescent-Shaped Depression" for the guitars (great sound) and "Gravity, Metaphorically" for the drums. These two appear to be singles, and recent ones, but I am not sure how they fit in.

Touché Amoré doesn't seem to have many videos, but the ones they have can be found via Facebook and their website. I can't see that they have their own Youtube channel, but they are featured on the label's channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Deathwishinc?feature=watch

Having a label - Death Wish Inc - should put their music pretty widely available. They are definitely on Amazon, but I was running into some gateway issues looking for other things.

And, if you get a chance to see them live, go for it.

http://www.toucheamore.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ToucheAmore

https://twitter.com/ToucheAmore

Halloween videos and Misfits songs

So many of these musical things end up coming back to Lisa in some way. We were chatting and I told her that I was doing a week of Misfits songs followed by a week of Halloween songs. I wanted her to know because she introduced me to the Misfits, but also, she loves Halloween. She had shared my original frustration from last year, that people get stuck on the same two Halloween songs over and over again, when there are so many.

She has a Halloween playlist of 170 songs, which is amazing. That was one thing that became very clear this year; I can afford to be choosy. There really is a lot out there, and I can reject ones that I don't particularly care for, and if I want to do it again next year, I can do it without repeating.

In an ironic twist, I did end up using "Monster Mash", but the Misfits version instead of the Pickett one. I have nothing against the Pickett one, but it gets overplayed, along with "Thriller".

One thing that was important to me was that for Misfits week I covered every lead singer, so we had Danzig, Graves, and Only. With "Monster Mash" I am not sure who was singing, but there is a good story here.

There was a Rankin/Bass (speaking of things I love) Halloween special, Mad Monster Party. It was released on video in the late '90s, and the Misfits did a "Monster Mash" promo. That should have been Michale Graves. It came out on an album, Project 1950, in 2003. That should have been Jerry Only. I'm not sure where the video I linked to came from, because it used clips from Mad Monster Party, but I suspect it is Only.

I know Glenn Danzig is the more iconic one, but my favorite songs are from the Graves period, and I gravitate towards him. Looking for which songs to include though (so many options!), I feel like they all sound pretty similar. Some of that may be a conscious decision to perform in the same style. I do think it's worth appreciating how such a distinctive band is so much more than any one singer.

So "Monster Mash" was probably Jerry Only, and "Land of the Dead" definitely was, and Danzig was "Astro Zombies" and "Die Die My Darling". For Graves I used "Helena", "Descending Angel", and "Saturday Night", but he was also featured on one other song, which leads to a key transition.

Snow White's Poison Bite may be the most logical successor to the Misfits, based on content and tone and so many factors. Most of their songs are Halloween appropriate in one way or another. They also have a song featuring vocals by Michale Graves, "Zombie Romance". Listening to it, there are ways in which it reminds me of "Saturday Night" and ways in which it sounds like "Will You Meet Me In The Graveyard". Therefore, it became the perfect bridge.

I ended Misfits week with "Saturday Night", which is a natural because it was the song that first brought me to them, and is still my favorite, and started the videos with "Will You Meet Me In The Graveyard", and "Zombie Romance" was the bridge. Perfect!

And then it was truly more Halloween videos than songs. Many of them were songs that I resisted last year, because while the videos had Halloween themes, they worked independently of the songs.

For a Halloween video mix, it would totally make sense to include Fall Out Boy's "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me", with its vampire turf wars; "Doing It All For My Baby" by Huey Lewis and the News, with its send up of old school horror movies (especially The Bride of Frankenstein); "J Train" by Reggie and the Full Effect, which shows Dracula's Bachelor Party; and Keane's "Disconnected", an homage to Giallo films. However, you would probably not choose those songs for a Halloween party where it was only audio. For my purposes, they worked.

Working on both levels was "Dracula's Tango" by Toto Coelo, which I found after last Halloween, and was sorry to have missed. That was this year's "Werewolves of London", where you wonder why DJs don't pull it out every single year. Finally, we ended with the live version of "Dead" by My Chemical Romance. The Black Parade costumes are meant to look military, but somehow the jacket decorations remind me of a rib cage enough that when pale guys with dark eye makeup wear them, it is just skeletal enough that if they are singing a celebratory song about death in Mexico, that says Dia de los Muertos to me.

(And, if you want to go with a death theme, we can keep coming back to this band over and over again.)

I had thought it could be good to finish up with an AFI video, because I was seeing them that night, but none that I saw felt right. My final list felt great.

I don't know if I will do this next year. I may not need to, or I may be doing something else because I am keeping up the songs of the day. I had sort of been thinking about it anyway with the bands I review. I want them to get more exposure (usually), and maybe people who didn't read the review might still click on a song or video.

Also, I am really proud of my Guitar Sampler playlist, and yet there were still songs I left out when I was listening through the comments, that are worth listening to, and perhaps obscure, but I needed the one playlist to be manageable.  

Right now I am going through the guitar sampler and adding the three bridge songs that did not make the list will get me right through December 1st. I may methodically work through the other blog posts from the Greatest Guitar Songs comments, or start mixing in just whatever strikes me. I'm not sure exactly how it will go, but there are so many good songs in the world, and I know so many of them. I want to share them. So that's what's happening.

Misfits Week - October 17th through 23rd

17 - Monster Mash - Only/Graves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcOQduHEv08
18 - Astro Zombies - Danzig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pR7S6lpAjk
19 - Helena - Graves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHVrkuf2uO8
20 - Descending Angel - Graves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJpaqOFjJME
21 - Land of the Dead - Only http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feAX3pWXbSE
22 - Die Die My Darling - Danzig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyd8dY8rRtA
23 - Saturday Night - Graves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XobHupqgNu4

Transition
24 - Zombie Romance - Snow White's Poison Bite featuring Michale Graves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Ik0nLml5c

Halloween videos - October 25th through 31st

25 - Will You Meet Me In The Graveyard - Snow White's Poison Bite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulxrw6bBABM
26 - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me - Fall Out Boy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew6x6sHiFaw
27 - Doing It All For My Baby - Huey Lewis and the News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpdZvewjwJs
28 - J Train - Reggie and the Full Effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIM1LxhJWRo
29 - Disconnected - Keane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfUHkPf9D9k
30 - Toto Coelo - Dracula's Tango http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5wLEvFDOrs
31 - Dead (live) - My Chemical Romance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPq1mRORMTA

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/06/band-review-snow-whites-poison-bite.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2011/07/halloween-videos-and-also-rans.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/04/non-annoying-love-songs-and-alternative.html

Carving pumpkins

I started getting the idea for how I wanted the pumpkins to look shortly after ordering the mini-comic bundles. I wasn't sure if I could make them work, but the ideas had been percolating for a couple of months. When the time came to execute, there were issues, but there always are, and it helped me realize more about why I cherish this tradition so much.

The first problem was one I had last year too, in that the pumpkins were less than fresh. There were already some soft spots and mold. That is gross to work with, but also it is an issue with the structural integrity of the design. I have always just gotten my pumpkins from the grocery store, but maybe I need to start getting them at the patch. Also, I need to light them up and get pictures that the first night, because they may not be the same by Halloween.

Otherwise, they came out pretty well. I was most worried about the My Little Pony, but I am friends with a Brony, and he and his family approved. Mainly, I needed to make the mane bigger. I thought I was done, and then realized she needed more mane. Ponies are all about the mane.

Finn and Jake were recognized right away, and I think they came out pretty well. That was the most popular of the comics too. I have never even seen Adventure Time, but related things show up a lot on Twitter and Tumblr, and I know people like it.

Itty Bitty Hellboy was the most minimalist design, which could again be a cause for concern, but Scott Allie of Dark Horse re-tweeted the photo, and I was stoked.

Overall, they came out about right. I made one foolish mistake, which was that I cut a frame all the way around Jake without leaving anything attaching him to the top of the pumpkin. That might have been less of an issue if the pumpkins were fresh, but he started shrinking and falling back. It sort of provided its own solution. By Halloween I was able to push the top of the pumpkin down below it and kind of rest him against the top, but that was not ideal.

I kind of wished for a do over, and I could have bought another pumpkin, but I regard jack o' lanterns as a one time deal. Last year I could not make the Misfits logo work, but that was last year; by this year I had moved on. It is not impossible that I might try again some time, but there is always something new to do. Right now I have no idea what I will want to do next year, but there will be something.

I realized that everything that goes wrong with carving pumpkins is what makes it right for me.

Pumpkins are imperfect raw materials. They have scratches and scars and flat spots, and even if there were none of those the natural curvature of the gourd will often sabotage the line you are cutting. If you cut too deep or too far, you can't fix it. There are no do overs. And pumpkins are ephemeral. Even starting with the freshest pumpkins ever, they will still rot and need to be disposed of. So I will make something imperfect, and it will not be a lifelong commitment.

I thought initially it was just that I liked the chance to be creative, and I liked my abilities with them. In truth, I am not that great. Some people do very elaborate things, where all the orange is stripped away and you get this sculpture with lips and eyebrows and grotesque detail. There are classes so you can learn to do that, but I think those are ugly. I have my own method, and I like it.

Because as much as I can see what I should have done differently, I still end up liking the pumpkins. That failed Misfits pumpkin was still a good pumpkin! I see the errors, and I feel them while I am carving, but then I look at this flawed seasonal art, and I like it, and I feel a sense of satisfaction that I made it. Someone told me once that oil paintings take on a look of perfection from a distance; well so do jack o' lanterns.

It's a totally temporary thing, and that's fine. A friend was telling us about her daughter getting one of those artificial pumpkins for carving, because if she was going to put all that work into it, she wanted it to last. Not for me. Next year I will want something different, and I will want to try again.

I will have learned some things. I will probably never omit an anchor to the top of the pumpkin again. I will probably still have lots of bad cuts or thin spots, or realizations after it is too late. That's just how it works, and I embrace it.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/11/halloween-follow-up.html

Post-Halloween wrap-up

It was a pretty good Halloween. There is enough content here for over a week's worth of blogs, so that's what we will be doing. That's largely because some things need their own post, so this post is for the things that can be combined with other things.

First of all, yes, we handed out comic books and candy. Sadly, we were over-prepared. We had 60 mini-comics, and I think it was a 150 piece bag of candy. We had fifteen trick-or-treaters. I know there is a lot of movement towards doing harvest festivals or trunk-or-treats instead, but there's something cool about going around the neighborhood. Maybe we just need more children in the area.

Adventure Time was the biggest hit, followed by My Little Pony. Maria took the leftovers to her kindergarten class. She did not take the leftover Itty Bitty Hellboy, because she thought parents would find the name off-putting. I get that, but he's so cute and spunky! Personally, I think the My Little Pony one made the most interesting choice by ending on a cliff-hanger.

Anyway, if you want some Itty Bitty Hellboy comics, hit me up. They can be traded in for full-size comics if you go to Things From Another World in November. I love that so much. I hope lots of kids go into that store, and get comics, and then get more comics. I hope they do this every year.

Dinner was the mummy hot dogs as planned, and sweet potato fries. I experimented with different types of wraps, more around the head, wrapping twice in different directions, and so on, but they all came out about the same. I did splurge and get the all beef hot dogs, but you know, I am so used to the chicken/pork/miscellaneous ones that I prefer those now. Chili or pizza actually feel like my preferred Halloween meals, but it is good to branch out.

I did not end up making the truffles. I think they would have looked good, but the texture would not have been great for eating, and I always choose function over form in cooking. The chocolate sprinkles work because they are soft and not gritty. The sugar crystals would just make it weird.

We did put up our skeleton flamingo, and the photo on Facebook got many likes. I do like it, but I would like for it to be bigger, and I would love for there to have been two facing each other. This is one-sided, so even if we had purchased a second, they would be facing the same direction, which would not have the same visual impact. 

It did lead to me thinking about more animal decor. For example, if you had a crocodile with an open mouth facing the porch, that could be cool. That led to me thinking if we could have a pair of vultures on the roof. I did find some, but they seem a little small for rooftop duty. I'm not ruling it out, but yes, I am looking towards the animal kingdom for future frights. I think that might be more me.

I never did finish that one craft project, but I sort of knew that wouldn't happen this year, and I am okay with that. I would like to have it done next year.

I have gone back to my regular Twitter handle. I was going to just reload the old photo, and then I decided to do something more current. I posted one from Chicago, which was a photo of my reflection in the Bean, but it was too dark, so I just did that time-honored thing of taking a new selfie. I thought it could be one taken with my camera phone, and I did take one, but without a data plan, I can't get it off the phone, so I took one with the regular camera.

Anyway, those are the basics. Everything else Halloween-related was more complex. The concert I went to that night will provide the weekly band reviews, but in addition to the two I saw, there was a band I missed. I feel bad about that, so I bought their stuff and will review them next week.

Carving pumpkins gave me a lot of insight, so that's it's own post. I posted two weeks worth of songs and videos, and that changed something, so that's it's own post.

I also realized something about costumes, and I may write about that a little next week, or I may hold off. It will probably be the thing I do most differently next year.

Band Review: Jocelyn

There is a musical refrain in "Consider It Done" by Jocelyn that is very similar to a bit in "Love Drunk" by Boys Like Girls, which I find interesting. Boys Like Girls is basically pop, but often sounds pretty country. Jocelyn describe themselves as pop/rock, but sound very country a lot of the time, with the occasional infusion of blues.

I find that interesting, because listening to older songs via newer songs, I'm trying to figure out if there is a transition in place there, where they are moving more from one style to another. I can't actually confirm that one way or another, but I am kind of hoping that there is some change going on, because I was frustrated by a kind of monotony in the listening.

I feel bad about that. There's not really anything wrong with any individual song, and if you pay attention, there are differences between the individual tracks. Still, it feels unchanging, and a bit whining, maybe like they are caught in the same place and not moving past it.

I don't believe that is irreparable, and their newest track is what gives me the most hope. "Miss America" is inspired by a girl the bass player ignored who went on to become a beauty queen. He talks about the incident with refreshing candor, and the video doesn't shy away from painting him as a jerk.

That ability to glean from the past, and to self-assess honestly, is valuable, especially for moving forward. I believe they can be more.

Music is available via Amazon and iTunes.

http://www.wearejocelyn.com/

http://www.youtube.com/wearejocelyn

https://www.facebook.com/WeAreJocelyn

https://twitter.com/WeAreJocelyn

Band Review: Atlantic Aftermath

I am very afraid that Atlantic Aftermath is no more. There have not been any Twitter or Facebook updates for months, and the main page is a bunch of SQL errors. However, they are still listed as following me on Twitter, I believe it happened more recently than their last tweet based on their position in the queue, and I listened to them, so I am going to review them! Fortunately, they were pretty good.

They describe themselves as heartfelt pop punk. I'm not arguing that, but I feel like it falls more on the punk side. I say this because listening to them made me suddenly want to listen to the Dead Milkmen. Also, there is that spirit of punk that I first started thinking about with the Ramones. Things suck a lot in the songs, but the music feels good. The anger may be there, but the humor wins and goes all literate.

The lyrics are smart, and yet with titles like "Expand Your Brocabulary", they don't seem to take themselves too seriously. My only real objection is to the use of "whore" in "Johnny X-Treme", as I have been uncomfortably aware lately of how the word is used as part of the patriarchal suppression of women, but I will concede that it makes sense in the context.

Musically they are powerful, with strong guitars, aggressive percussion, and frequent singing in unison. "Save The Breakdown, Save The World" and "Bi-Curious George" are good examples of this. I often feel like there are multiple levels going on in the songs. That is true of "Hey Arnold" which may work as an homage to The Warriors, but not as only that.

So, I hope that Atlantic Aftermath is in fact still around, if for no other reason than that surely a band with a song called "Never Say No To Panda" really should do some version of Buddy Holly's "True Love Ways".

Either way, music is available via Amazon and iTunes.

https://www.facebook.com/atlaftermath

https://twitter.com/atlaftermath

The Horror

I imagine that disrespecting 50 Shades of Grey on Monday, then praising Monsters University on Tuesday casts me in a certain light. I will not be helping my case at all today by saying that I don't really care for horror.

It's not a hard and fast aversion. I have liked a lot of movies that could probably be classified as horror. I don't make it to nearly as many movies as I would like to, though, so I have to prioritize, and that's pretty much never what I end up choosing. I am most likely to make the effort on my own for documentaries or foreign films that I think might be hard to see later. I also end up at things my sisters want to see, but which are usually comedies, kids films, or art films, because they have someone else they go see action and espionage movies with.

I mention this because what I am going to write about horror is largely second-hand. It's not my thing, but I know a lot of people who love it, and the complaint I keep hearing, over and over again, is that the movies are not scary.

Talking about it with one friend, my theory was that it was because of the lack of novelty. Every thing that comes out is a sequel or remake or a reboot, which is essentially a remake with the promise of sequels. The familiar tends not to be that scary. Even when you have a new film that breaks the mold, it quickly gets sequels and imitators, diluting its effect. The Blair Witch Project did scare some people. So did the first Paranormal Activity. It sounds like its been downhill from there.

I read a piece I really like on Unwinnable, for their Fear Week:

http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/10/29/power-of-fear/

One thing author Brian Bannen points out is that the older horror films often had some subtlety to them. You didn't always see the creature, but also, he points out some distortion and visual tricks used by John Carpenter for The Thing. That's going in a completely different direction. Not only is the danger something unfamiliar, but even the things around you that should be familiar aren't quite; something is off about them.

That works because you are unsettled. Studios don't seem to trust that anymore. Everything is big and in your face, but that doesn't automatically translate to more frightening. Instead it ends up being more gross, or more sadistic. That desensitizes the audience, which again, is not a way to frighten them more.

It also tends not to be a way to get the audience more invested in your characters, which could be a source of anxiety. If I am fearful during a film, it is because I have become invested in the characters. Making the characters toys for your twisted manipulations may devalue them to the audience, and making them horrible people who deserve it still doesn't help.

Bannen ends on an optimistic note, believing things will come around again. My optimism varies, depending on the day. I mean, my own potential success as a filmmaker pretty much depends on someone gambling on doing something original, focusing more on making a good movie than on building a blockbuster.

But you know, there are no guaranteed blockbusters. Sometimes good movies languish in obscurity, but sometimes they find their audience and they are hits. Sometimes movies with huge budgets and all the key formula ingredients tank.

I want to make movies, but I also want there to be good movies. There's nothing quite like one.

And if my friends want those good movies to include scary ones, then I want that to happen too.

Things I love about Monsters University

Obviously, this is a cute movie with amazing animation. That probably wouldn't get its own blog post. Also, that it is out on DVD / Blu-Ray today is not the reason for the post. I had been thinking about this one for a while, and then with seeing the commercials for the release, and with writing about movies yesterday, it seemed right.

The animation was great. They talk about Sully's fur, and they are right, but there is so much more to it than that. The attention to detail was important, and that led to one of the things I loved - it felt so much like college.

I had just driven through my old college town the day before I saw it, so I was probably feeling extra nostalgic, but yes, that feels like a college campus at the beginning of the term, that feels like a dorm - not just looks, feels! Even, well technically I did not go to school with any monsters, but some of them were so familiar! That girl monster running the Scare Games reminded me of a girl I worked with at the Science Library, except that Roy would never have done something with the fraternity system. (I think her real name was Melissa, but I would not recommend calling her that.)

On that level the movie was very satisfying. It was also surprisingly touching, because it went somewhere important.

(Spoilers will follow.)

Mike got the scaring bug early. The kindness of the one scarer (and the cap) may have cemented his desire to work the scare floor someday, but he was gung ho before that, or he would not have ended up on the scare floor on the field trip.

It is worth noting that his enthusiasm and good nature did not make him at all popular. Maybe people found the constant focus on scaring tiresome, or him being little and maybe a little oblivious made him easy to marginalize, but he was underrated and under-appreciated, a true scare geek. And he was not at all scary.

If the power of positive thinking was solely sufficient, there would have been no stopping Mike, because no one was as relentlessly positive as him. It was kind of a blind spot, actually.

If hard work was enough, there would have been no stopping him. No one studied harder or trained harder. It was not enough to make him scary, but he helped other monsters be scary - other monsters who frankly seemed unlikely to ever succeed at scaring. He helped create a record breaking scream by creating all of the build-up, which he could do because he understood fright.

It was also not enough to keep him enrolled, but that didn't stop him either. He ended up working at Monsters Inc, he ended up on the scare floor as an assistant to the top scarer, and he then became an incredibly successful laugh-getter when the industry changed.

You may not be able to do everything you set your mind to. There may not be any level of work that is enough for that thing you want. But there is so much that is available. You can accomplish so much, and help so much, without maybe even having that in your sights. So do set goals, and be enthusiastic and kind. Don't give up at the first sign of resistance. But be ready to change too. Know that there is more than one good future.