Soulless TV

Happy Halloween!

Hope you have all enjoyed your day. We paid Halloween more attention than usual… decorated a little bit, wore something colourful (but not spooky or dressy), and had a family Halloween dinner. We have a ceramic pumpkin from Aldi’s, in which we burned cinnamon and orange tealights. We had no guisers and are having to eat all the sweets ourselves. That’s why I suggested Mum get monkey nuts and apples, but it went in one ear and out the other.

TV was kind of boring… Harry Potter was on, but it was the dull, dark one where the Ministry of Magic takes over Hogwarts. Hermione in the book is one thing, but I never liked the one in the film. Mum said she’s never been keen on either her or Harry, but we both like Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint). While watching, I kept considering the words of a friend who has noticed a particular trend in books and films… people get what is considered their just deserts, no matter who else is hurt along the way.

If we take Harry Potter…. we don’t want Voldemort to win, but, as far as I could make out from the film (not having read the book), Harry is supposed to have looked into his mind and understands something about the way Voldemort thinks. And, I suppose, he’s strong enough to reject Voldemort’s way of thinking, otherwise he would become like Voldemort himself. At one point he tells Voldemort something like: “You will never have any friends or love. And I feel sorry for you.”

I’ve seen that kind of comment before, coming from the good guy and directed at the bad one… but it has never struck me as “I really am sorry for you”… but more as “you’re a bad guy to think that way, and you deserve to be lonely. We will leave you to your misery, and be happy that things have worked out better for us.”

When I was younger, I was totally on board with evil getting his just deserts, but I’m increasingly uncomfortable with these stories… both old and new. I don’t want evil to win, or the (relatively) innocent to lose, but in some stories it seems that even marginally weak characters end up with some quite nasty things happening to them. “Well, he wasn’t worth that much to us; it doesn’t matter if the dinosaur eats him! Serves him right for spilling Hero’s coffee and then giving him the wrong change.”

Of course, it’s the story itself that is ruthless. Probably Hero stands helplessly out of reach, watching with sadness… and then he shrugs, and turns away, and gets on with saving the people he actually cares about, including some cross and outspoken female. But it still means the audience is supposed to take satisfaction from the fact that Mean Coffee Man is getting paid back for having got out of the wrong side of bed that morning.

Another thing I’ve observed is that strong and decisive qualities triumph in films, whereas gentler, more anxious souls tend to be treated with contempt. Particularly so in women. Even nicer women turn out to have a soul of steel or a black belt in judo! Or they’re being heralded as some mother protecting her children, in the face of whose fury any childless person (male or female) is as nothing.

Hmm…  me not relating, right at the moment.

Bally Times

Was looking at a rack of Halloween costumes today, and found:

Luscious Lady Bug
Fairy Tale Princess
Cleopatra

Eh?? Strange Halloween selection, but it all points at the fact that it’s an evolving holiday.

It seems to be on our minds a lot… Mum pointed out some shiny black curtains, and I said “Halloween curtains!” Then we went into another shop and found some plain black gift paper and Mum said “Halloween paper!” Then we went to Starbucks and had cold mocha and cold cappuccinos (they weren’t supposed to be cold).

Anyway, the thing that made me sit up today: Wooster (in ‘Jeeves and Wooster’) proclaiming “The bally balliness of life makes everything so bally bally.”

Halloween Elements

I have to confess the reason I started thinking more closely about what makes a Halloween scene or image was that I made a desktop wallpaper for the Halloween part of a site — it was promptly booted out into a more general category.

Oooops. Part of me really hates that…. being wrong, and having to be corrected. It hurts my pride. But it got me thinking about the traditional and not so traditional elements of Halloween.

I’ve been looking in the shops at Halloween window displays, and at the Halloween paraphernalia they have on sale. In previous years I didn’t care two hoots… but last year I looked at the desktop wallpapers on deviantArt after Halloween was already over, and got angry with myself for missing the whole thing! I always rather wanted to make a Halloween wallpaper, and there were some good and imaginative ones.

Anyway, the following were in the Halloween displays of local shops in the UK:

Strictly traditional elements:
Witches, broomsticks, witches’ hats, cauldrons, black cats;
Ghosts, ghouls, ectoplasm;
Vampires;
Skeletons, skulls;
Tombs, tombstones, fangs;
Spiders, cobwebs;
Bats, full moons, spooky trees, haunted houses;
Carved pumpkins.

Traditional but less common:
Carved turnips… actually none of these were in local shop displays.

Acceptable but slightly less traditional elements:
Owls, rats, toads, cockroaches, toadstools;
Zombies, mummies, monsters in general, gibbets.

Elements I’ve seen included, but not especially traditional:
Poison bottles, old bottles with melted wax;
Snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs, scorpions;
Aliens, Chewbacca, gremlins, Furbies.

General decorations:
Glow sticks;
Uncarved pumpkins, autumn foliage and flowers, conkers.

Not quite sure how to categorize the following! Probably ‘daring’?:
Weaponry, shackles and irons, dungeon signs, torture implements;
Body parts, blood, eyeballs, violent maniacs;
Pirates, highway men, mad scientists.

Things you would think would be included but weren’t (perhaps out of some basic Scottish unease):
Horned devils, dragons.

Presumably body parts and suchlike are there to symbolize those who have died violently… who are now wandering spirits having their last night of fun. But I was disturbed by the presence of a masked maniac who had costumes in some of the local shops. Who is Freddie with the boiler room? Do I really want to know?

Spiders aren’t ghosts, so why are they so traditional? Why are they more Halloweeny than snakes? Actually, I had this question answered only yesterday, when Mum said it’s a good job she’s not afraid of spiders. There she was, driving along, and a spider suddenly jumped on her. Then tonight I opened the kitchen door and looked out, and there were silvery spider webs on both corners, with the black night sky as their backdrop. This is a very spidery time of year, I guess… whereas presumably snakes are a bit past their best! (I don’t actually know that; it’s a stab in the dark!)

Anyway…. would you say a row of living, glowing test tubes was suitable Halloween fodder, or a bit borderline? It occurred to me to type in ‘Halloween test tubes’ and a surprising number of hits showed up. They’re all tied in with the mad scientist idea. I was saying to Mum “look at the glow sticks; they’re like my test tubes,” and today I found somebody out there asking if you could put the contents of glow sticks into test tubes for Halloween decorations, or would that be dangerous? (Answer: very probably).

And perhaps the real answer is that Halloween is still evolving in people’s minds.

Halloween Test Tubers

What is Halloween About to You?

Trying to figure this out… what Halloween is about? Is it always pumpkins, witches, bats and ghouls, or is there something more? Can it be about anything surreal or spooky? Provided there’s a big moon in an image, or a black cat, is it Halloween? If there’s no big moon, does it stop being Halloween?

I’ve been looking around the internet, and so far I’ve seen the following perceptions:

If it’s a scary face on anything except a pumpkin, it’s not Halloween.

It’s a holiday of the imagination.

It’s a bridge between the spiritual and the physical world.

It’s about dressing up and having fun.

It’s about ghosts having a last-night fling.

It’s about stealing sweets from kids.

It’s about everything negative, scary and evil.

I think I’m going for a lie-down — I’ve had too much coffee.

The Halloween category at deviantArt.

Coffee Shop Mumble

I’m still away on Planet Zog, but I’m sending a quick postcard.

Since the students came back, we’ve been finding it harder to get ourselves a place in a coffee shop. There’s one place in particular we’ve not been in for a while. Mum is still mumbling that she doesn’t know how students can afford it, as none of us older students never used to! Even in the 90s, there was a student I knew who couldn’t afford instant coffee after the price rose. I suppose a good cup of coffee is now seen as a necessity… and laptops and mobile phones may have changed the student culture altogether.

I’m reading the book Starbucked now that Cleopatra has finally died — she was with me so long in the novel Memoirs of Cleopatra that it was like losing a family member! Starbucked is extremely interesting, particularly in its history of coffee and coffee shops, though I still have a rooted dislike for the corporate world….

Anyhoo, we finally found a couple of seats in a local coffee shop today… Mum went to the counter to order, leaving me to hold the seats. There were dirty plates and cups so the seats looked recently vacated. There was also a newspaper on the seat, and two students sitting opposite us.

I used the newspaper to swat a few crumbs off the couch, and sat down with it, then a woman suddenly turned up with a coffee and said something. I didn’t know if she was saying “do you mind if I sit here?” or if she was saying it was her seat in the first place. I said my mother would be sitting in the other seat, but she didn’t say anything… just took the newspaper from me and plonked her mug down anyway. Well, they say actions are louder than words, and that’s when I knew she wasn’t asking to sit there; she had bagsied that spot beforehand with the newspaper!

If Mum had already bought our coffees, we would have been up Shit Creek without a paddle, as there was nowhere else for both of us to sit down, but fortunately she hadn’t reached the head of the queue yet. I rushed up there and stopped her, and we went somewhere else for coffee.

The next place we went to was Costa’s, where we love the coffee anyway, but it was very crowded there too… so stuffy that my specs were steaming up!! Again we left…

Finally we got a little table in a gift shop. It seems incredible now that one of our coffee shops in this town had to close down during the quiet summer months because nobody was visiting it. We missed it before, but we’re missing it even more now.

Over our coffee in the gift shop, I was talking about how the woman in the other place had bagsied the couch with nothing but a newspaper. We both assumed it was left by whoever had just gone away from the used coffee mugs on the table. Mum said, “we don’t do that in this town. I usually leave a coat and a daughter.”

I couldn’t help thinking “yes, but they didn’t work this time, did they!”

Growing Confusion

I started up Firefox to search for something on the internet… and then when I got there, I couldn’t remember what I meant to do.

Gazing at the Constellations…

A portrait of my favourite dragon, Stargazer.

I did it in Photoshop Elements today. I cheated by having the photograph on a bottom layer as a guide, but the actual painting (by mouse) is mine. It’s a bit rough, but it all takes practice.

Stargazer says his dad was as big as the container lorry in The Transporter. I’m not sure what I’ll do with him if he grows that big.

Passing Impressions

I’m sorry I’ve not been blog-reading much lately… it’s because I was spending time in Apophysis and Photoshop again! Those projects take up a huge amount of my attention, but things go in cycles… before you know it, I’ll be having a break and catching up with the blogs again.

For now, here are some random snippets from my ‘private journal’. I’ll just stick a pin in it here and there, and we’ll see what comes up.

Yesterday I asked Mum if Bella was the same as she was before, or if she had changed at all since going into hospital. Mum said with a broad grin: “oh, the same, definitely! Cantankerous.”

Moral of the story: your friends prefer you to be as cantankerous as you ever were… it’s a good sign, meaning you’re full of life.

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It was so windy today it almost whipped away my washing, but I used dozens of pegs and brought them in again at night. The peg bag blew away three or four times while I was hanging the stuff out — went halfway across the lawn, scattering pegs everywhere. Eventually I had to lay it at my feet.

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Kept thinking I heard a humming spaceship this morning (the way the engine fades in and out)… then by pure chance I caught sight of a bright blue tractor through the trees. It was mowing the grass on the hill. The ‘fading in and out’ sound is from the way it circles round. I started to tell Mum about my discovery, but as soon as I described the sound, she knew what it was. I was quite annoyed at having my story spoiled! But it reminds me how others are more aware of what goes on around them, and are less mystified by certain sounds.

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Saw a bit of the Antique Roadshow — they had Sindy dolls and clothes. Mum said “you and E didn’t like dolls, but you were very keen on our friends’ Sindy collection. It was a great collection!”

It was permanently laid out on the playroom floor, and I always made hotfoot for it when we visited. I was smiling in memory, and said we liked it because it was an entire world on its own. E had a Sindy at home, and I had Patch and Ken. Sometimes we had friends playing with us, and nobody wanted to play with Ken… that was like drawing the short straw. I said to Mum it was as though we felt a man’s life was no life at all.

Utherworlds

On DeviantArt I saw the announcement of this site: Utherworlds by Philip Straub. See the paintings, read the message.
Lovely way to start the day.

PS I should have mentioned that Utherworlds is ‘a new kind of’ graphic novel (see here). I know some of you like graphic novels, though not necessarily the term itself. I like the fact that this one is described as ambitious… I love ‘ambitious’ when it looks like this. 

Apple Keyboards

When following instructions or tutorials, it’s always irritated me that I’m told “use the command and the option key on the Mac,” as neither key is marked as such! I can never remember which is which, and always have to guess, trying different key combinations till it works out.

The sharp key is another such… it’s accessible — again can never remember how — but isn’t marked.

A specific instruction wasn’t working for me this time (and might never, as Photoshop Elements 2 is so old), so I looked up ‘Command key‘ in the Wikipedia. It says:

“The Apple symbol was removed in the keyboard’s 2007 redesign, making room for the key’s name to appear. In the US, the keyboard now uses the word “command”; in Europe, the word used now is “cmd” printed on the key. The removal of the symbol triggered a small storm of online protests by Apple aficionados who felt that a unique design feature of the Macintosh was being dropped without a compelling need.”

Typical. I am all for them marking the keys properly, as for absolute years my heart has dropped into my boots whenever someone said “and now press Command-Option!”

(It seems the ‘Option’ key is the one marked Alt).

Ah last… it works!! (I was trying to reset my Photoshop preferences at the startup of the application, and had to hold Option-Command-Shift down and wait, not just press it and let go). Photoshop Elements 2 is old, but not that old.

Meanwhile, I found out this about the Mac sharp (hash) key: to get the sharp symbol, one must press the keys Option and 3 (sinking heart syndrome again) on a UK Mac keyboard. Apparently the US keyboards have it, as Americans are judged to use it more often than us tea-drinkers and porridge-slurpers.

OK, I’ll try to remember that. Which one’s the Option key again…..?