This is a brilliant idea for kids who are having trouble with bad dreams. With a little bit of storytelling setup, your child can fall asleep easier knowing that Snargle (the black one) and Fribbler (the white one) are good monsters who love to gobble up their nightmares. Have them write and/or draw about the things that frighten or worry them, and by bedtime they will be devoured, never to trouble them again. You might even go on to explain that each Nightmare Snatcher is handmade by an artisan, just for them. With their soft faux fur and odd googley eyes, Snargle and Fribbler look tough enough to handle any nightmare without being too scary themselves. Their attached tales also double as a bookmark.
For those of you without nightmare worries (hopefully the vast majority of you), you might see these handmade journals in a little different light. Their design is so eye-catching and lends itself to a variety of unique uses; personal journal, teacher’s notebook, guestbook, or a piece of spooky decor for Halloween (a little reminiscent of the Necronomicon, yes?). The hand cut, tea dyed pages along with the furry covers make this a tactile pleasure as well as a fun little work of art.
It may be a little early for some of you, but we’ve got a couple spooky listening suggestions to put you in the Halloween mood. Music and broadcasts with a creepy, horror theme to them are part of a small but growing genre. Rue Morgue Radio claims to be “the world’s original all horror broadcast”, and at just over 2 years old it appears to still be leading the way. From their parent company, Rue Morgue Magazine (around since Halloween 1997), RMR features music, film and other art with a horror theme. Every Friday you’ll hear music from the likes of the Misfits, Barnes & Barnes, Alice Cooper, and Midnight Syndicate and interviews with notable horror movie makers and writers. There are also excerpts and trailers from movies (both new and old), and reviews of horror movies from a duo called The Caustic Critics. Like any podcast, some episodes are much better than others, but it’s an overall excellent broadcast that we tune into every week.
One of the bands featured several times on RMR is Creature Feature, a 2 piece band from Ventura, California that makes us squirm with delight! The first thought that popped into our heads as “The Greatest Show Unearthed” began playing was an easy, if incomplete, comparison. Creature Feature sounds like the soundtrack to a Tim Burton movie. Their lyrics read like one of his poems, and the mood and tone are of the same casual insanity. But beyond the lack of pretense and seemingly perfect aptitude for all things macabe, Creature Feature posesses a greater flexability. Of the 4 songs available on their MySpace page (their website is in the works), we hear promises of dark fun with a price, light-hearted nursery rhyme style obituaries, a tense zompocalypse narration, and a first person kidnapping plot with some genuinly creepy moments. Needless to say, we’re in love. Creature Feature will be playing in October in San Diego and we’re planning on doing a blog post about the show, so tune in next month for more on Curtis Rx and Erik X, aka Creature Feature.
September 1st is a beautiful day. Some welcome the great respite of Back to School or look forward to Fall or Labor Day partying, but for a select group of Halloweenies it means something else. As our friends at Ghost Droppings so eloquently said: “With the days of August now dead, we usher in the month of September. September is the month where hidden things begin to stir in their dark places. It is the month where Autumn more fully rears its head before the sun. It is a time where our Halloween activities become more focused and obsessive. September is that time before the month of months with the day of days, Halloween.”
In the US, Halloween is the 2nd most popular holiday, but around here it’s THE holiday. We wait anxiously all year for the chance to put together fantastic costumes, watch endless stretches of spooky movies, carve our Zombie Pumpkin stencils, go to haunted houses, see the new retail offerings, visit pumpkin patches, make freaky themed food, and generally just roll around in the cool, dark feeling of the season.
In this spirit, today kicks off our Halloween Countdown at the 365 Halloween blog. We will be blogging about Halloween topics everyday until October 31st. We’ve been working hard on our Halloween Costumes section at Mable’s, but have lots more spooky spirit left over. If you enjoy this deliciously dark “holiday of holidays”, be sure to subscribe to our Halloween RSS feed for a daily dose of the good stuff.
If given a single piece of string and told to create art, the average person would probably tie some bows, do a spinoff of cat’s cradle, or maybe give up and wind it into a ball. Three architecture students aimed higher and came up with 4 very unique, handmade, little spooky dolls. I’m always drawn to toys or dolls with a creepy, gothic, living dead feel, and I love the simple, raw style of these little guys. They are decorated with satin, felt and bead accents, and are actually made from 1 continuous piece of string. They also have ball chains on top so they can be attached anywhere you want a teeny monster companion. Choose from the green Frankenstein monster, ghost pirate, black zombie, or red devil with pitchfork. Or get them all and form your own teeny undead army. (It’s far easier than voodoo, trust me.)
