Have you been feeling okay? Visit Gothtober.com and click on Book 6, the one titled Tom Slayer. If you’re not feeling quite right, you might want to check out this informational pamphlet that gives you some useful tips on the symptoms you are experiencing this Halloween.
Saida Staudenmaier has quite the touch with the makeup brush, her site has some other Gothtoberesque photos on it, plus stuff from many of her other professional endeavors, check it out! Saida is quite fond of zombie makeup, she actually did a series of portraits based on the dearly departed, everyone looks a tad “stale” in an alluring yet repelling way that only Saida could truly master.
Hat’s off also to Jennifer Wenzlaff, the “main zombie” in this piece. Gothtober is powered by SparkleBlob, a multidisciplinary arts and performance collective, your Head Candy Corn is Executive Director. Jen is on the SparkleBlob Board of Directors, and we think that this photo of her really shows you what SparkleBlob is all about, doesn’t she look great? Most importantly, she looks like she’s recently eaten brains, so we can breathe easy… for now.
Look over there… wandering… slowly walking… bloodthirsty… ZOMBIES!!! Click on Gothtober Pumpkin #11and experience the thrilling dismay and scintillating misgivings of Pinkee Lee Estrange and Lenore Colina’s “Trick or Treat” an old timey movie starring some very hungry corpses in need of BRAINS!!! What would normally be a pretty standard errand for a pair of zombies, however, turns out to be more arduous than expected, as you will see from watching the film.
A Gothtober merit award goes out to the actors (Aubrie Davis and Brian Grover) who played the zombies because they consented to ACTUALLY BEING BURIED IN THE GROUND for the opening scene. This puts them in league with many fine method actors, but especially Sissy Spacek who insisted on being stuck in a box and buried in the ground in order to film the super creepy end scene for “Carrie.” Brian DePalma refused to bury her himself, and got her husband to do it.
I had her husband bury her because I certainly didn’t want to bury her. I used to walk around and set up the shot and every once in a while we’d hear Sissy: ‘Are we ready yet?’ ‘Yeah, Sissy, we’re going to be ready real soon.”
Pinkee said that she dug the first grave in the front yard where the zombies live and she accidentally ran into some REMAINS! The previously existing plot held the skeleton of a family pet long buried quite awhile ago from the look of it. Pinkee apologized profusely, put the remains back and dug in a different spot! Gothtober would like to thank the ghosty dog for being an inordinate part of the artistic endeavors of our Gothtober contributors. The film involved two days of shooting, and every scene was shot in Silverlake or Echo Park in beautiful Los Angeles, CA.
I asked Pinkee if there any hazards associated with directing the undead and the response was surprising:
Mostly I was just really worried about fingers getting slammed in the door!
I’m sure the zombies would just think it was finger-eatin’ good.
It’s true that after awhile, even something as exciting as an entire plate of fresh brain curds can get tiresome. Yuki steps in today to steer you gently away from the same old boring gourmet brains to try something a little different, even, dare I say, refined. You see, Halloween doesn’t have to be all foil-wrapped mini candy bars, nor does it have to be triangular-shaped tri-c0lored candies masquerading as maize.
Halloween can get highbrow, it can be nimble like pointy spider legs or the claw of a rat’s foot. No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still mystery meat and it might as well be delicious. Zombies might at first be a little confused by this sumptuous dish, but give it about 30 seconds, and their senses will be overcome with this delectable alternative to the customary brain dish they usually demand.
This recipe is actually vegetarian, but very far from vegan, it involves seasonally appropriate ingredients suitable for placating your Jekylls or your Hydes when hosting gatherings. If you enjoy decadence, this is your jam.
The recipe also calls for a “sugar pumpkin” which is different from your everyday pumpkin that you see in the bins sitting at the entrance of your local supermarket. The main difference is that “carving” pumpkins are grown specifically for that purpose, and are more hollow inside. Sugar pumpkins, on the other hand, are grown for their taste, thus they are smaller, sweeter, a bit darker in orange color and packed with pulp to be used for things like soups, muffins, pies and breads.
You can find GREAT sugar pumpkins out at Lombardi Ranch, which is a trek, but worth it for the petting zoo, bands, scarecrow alley and all of their other seasonal produce. Take a look at their calendar, and get there early if you decide to go on a weekend, it gets pretty crowded. You should also make sure you have a “corn on a stick” there, as they serve possibly the best I’ve ever eaten at their farm stand. I discovered Lombardi Ranch in 1990, and it’s my go-to pumpkin patch for family fun.
Another favorite, from what I’ve heard but not seen, is the Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch out in Santa Paula, which has hay rides, pony rides, face painting… and something called a “Pumpkin Chucker” which sounds very intriguing.
Other possible locations to find sugar pumpkins could be Trader Joe’s, Bristol Farms and Whole Foods. There you have it, now go get your sugar pumpkin and get cookin!
I don’t know what your brain is up to, and sometimes I don’t know what mine is up to either, but now you get to decide what brains are doing in Oonstein’s “Horrors of Demography.”
Shannon Dedman invites you to interpret for yourself some intriguing little dioramas featuring small sculptures of cerebral matter in mostly domestic settings.
There isn’t a “wrong” or “right” way to look at these scenes, which is kind of refreshing, no? In the day and age of everything being so darned “spelled out” all the time, having room for imagination is pretty special.
Feel free to tell us any stories or ideas you come up with from looking at these scenes, Shannon likes hearing what people decipher from them. Maybe the pictures will inspire you to write brainy songs, or leave extra long and poetic answering machine messages that sound smarter than ever before. Maybe you’ll channel your inner algebra teacher and suddenly be able to solve bizarre polynomial equations!
The lil’ brains are made from Sculpey, the larger brain in the “kitchen” scene is about the size of a golf ball. Shannon (aka “Oonstein”) built all the little environments/props herself, and as you can see, they are rather detailed little worlds. It is Dedman’s great hope that there will be more exciting brain pictures in the future, the Gothtober blog will keep you posted should they become available on an internet near you.
Have you been feeling okay? Visit Gothtober.com and click on Book 6, the one titled Tom Slayer. If you’re not feeling quite right, you might want to check out this informational pamphlet that gives you some useful tips on the symptoms you are experiencing this Halloween.
I don’t know what your brain is up to, and sometimes I don’t know what mine is up to either, but now you get to decide what brains are doing in Oonstein’s “Horrors of Demography.”