Recollections of Childhood

I spent yesterday at the beach, and couldn't help but remember a tragic stuffed animal story from my childhood (actually, 2). My mother had carried her favorite stuffed animal through her life to the point of my sister being 7 and me being 5. We took said bunny, Squeaker, to the beach, promising to take good care of him (he was so cute and raggedy). We proceeded to bury him in the sand with just the ears peeking out, and went swimming. When we came back, we couldn't find him! My mother still cries when we mention Squeaker. Worst thing I ever did as a child.

Second sad stuffed animal story... my crazy aunt Ginny gave me and my sister each a teddy bear. My sister's was called Apricot Bear and mine was Chocolate Bear. I loved this bear so much it breaks my heart. The only person who could ever find him when I lost him was my sister, so I began calling HER chocolate bear. This bear was played with for so long and so intensely, I wore him down to just a paw. My mother had to sew this paw up again and again until it was just a gross little brown stump, but I still adored him. One day I came home from kindergarten and the maid had thrown out Chocolate Paw thinking it was trash. God how I cried. And still cry. I've gotten to calling my husband Chocolate Paw since he has a knack for finding lost things. I can't let chocolate bear go!

So, in honor of all the brave animals that have been beaten down by childhood, today is about stuffed animals, and the most wonderful I could find on the web.

From the genius Christiane Cegavske:

Ann Wood's sweet birds...




And my much-adored Fadeeva!

Hoorah for the animals!

Oh Morbid World!

Why have I always been so fascinted with the morbid? Maybe because death as depicted for the living (taxidermy, in particular) is so bizarre we almost WANT to believe that animals in the afterlife will wear hats and frogs will conduct orchestras and rabbits sit at school desks learning French (in fact, if this were true, I would believe in the afterlife!). Every child in the world has found something mummified in some field and stared at it with a kindness and sympathy that the living don't always get. I myself just found a pair of mummified mouse pants in my closet, clearly ripped from his torso by one of my cats but they were so sweet I almost sent them to my sister for her collection of taxidermy. So today is about taxidermy - the sweetest I could find.

"Oh that this too too solid fur would melt!"

From the geniuses at Idiots NL:

From the Deyrolle Museum in Paris:



These following from Jessica Joslin:



From Gwen Roch:

And a special call-out to my fave blog Morbid Anatomy who inspire me daily.

Decorating for the Sky

Since we just got our Galileoscope and have been poking at the moon with it, viewing her luscious craters, I am on a "sky" kick and have found some wonderful things for the home to make you look heavenward!

Beautiful hot air tea lights that safely fall to the ground when burnt out.

The solar-powered executive desk toy.

A super-reasonably-priced armillary.

A Luminglas plate.

Edible Holographic cupcake glitter!

Hilarious vintage movie posters from Atomic Pinup.

DVDs to watch for

I've developed a new appreciation of Roman Polanski's work, due in large part to his astonishing photography. Recently saw "Knife in the Water" and every frame deserves to be hung on a wall in a museum.

Equally excellent is his version of "MacBeth".

Another fascinating DVD is the one of the original Frost/Nixon debates - Nixon calmly obfuscates with the classic "Why don't you read the next line of the transcripts?" As if this would put everything in context and mark him "not guilty". Frost adeptly corners him and the tension is wonderful to watch.

On the whimsical and divine, Christiane Cegavske's work is so astonishing and heartbreaking, you will get lost in her world quickly.

Super creepy dolls

OK, it's such a cliche to show pictures of creepy dolls - we all got at least one from some crazy aunt who never got married and wore 5 pairs of sunglasses because the sun was trying to kill her, or who hired you to exorcise Satan from her closet, or who had a weird fixation with Japan where her one true love got beaten up by her father so she wouldn't marry him and so she wore only kimonos....oops, that's MY family!

This one beats them all - a robotic bride! By way of Pink Tentacle, a great blog!