Sooo…this was meant to be for Good Friday for maximum inappropriateness. But I got swept away in the frenzy of carrots. Mea culpa.
Bunnies–they pretty much symbolize innocence, right? If you ignore the “making more bunnies” angle, which, rest assured, the bunnies do not–they’re cute, they wiggle their noses, rarely pirate DVDs, seldom run for office.
So it’s sad when you catch them sacrificing their own in some sort of disturbing mountain-top ritual. But it happens. Apparently.
Call it context, maybe contrast, but those bunnies in the background really don’t look like nice characters. They’ve got those scary zombie eyes you get in certain kinds of ceramics, and coats that would do a lion proud. But mostly, they’ve somehow rammed a wick into a stunted, malformed smaller rabbit and have started rendering him. This, I think, makes them Not Nice Bunnies.
The poor thing :( Did you know it would end like this, little lumpbunny? Wick through your heart, vital fluids oozing down a cliff, as larger lagomorphs cavort fiendishly behind you? Of course, you are a weird fetal blob, like some reject from a Dr. Who casting call.
As the creamy nougat center of the rabbit slowly set in the west, we left the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with a sense of bittersweet insouciance, knowing next year we’d return to Alberta, but would probably leave our cameras at home next time.
The Christmas it snowed blood, oh, what a year that was. Grandfather would often tell us stories about those long-ago blood-christmasses, how the world was covered in a thick carpet of red gore, and when the moon shown on it just right, late at night, it was kinda…kinda horrible. We thought those special Christmasses were long long past, possibly entirely fictitious, until we got our own bloodfall.
What fun we had, throwing bloodballs at each other, the sound of children laughing, or screaming, it’s hard to tell sometimes. But I’m sure they enjoyed it, except for ma, who had to wash the clots off our warm winter clothes.
Nobody’d ask where the blood came from. Grandpa would always say something kinda vague, like “looks like the angels are playing hockey!” or “We said that’s what happened when Santa made a reindeer roast for Christmas Dinner,” or “when can I get out of this place and go home?” Some of us tried to skate on Newfield Pond, but that was doomed from the beginning. Kind of like trying to slide through a frozen pudding. You really didn’t want to try a double-axle, you’d get a face full of something pretty nasty.
So we contented ourselves with playing silly blood games, decorating the christmas tree with sparkling clumps of gore, you know, what everyone would do on a magical day like this.
I think someone may have skinned my 3rd Grade teacher to get this sweater. There must be a special catalog they all shop from.
This next guy isn’t really a horror, per se, but he is awfully stupid. And very, very excitable.
You have to imagine him either trampling through the snow yelling “Santa! SANTA! Can I help fly the sleigh this year, pleeeeeease?” the other reindeer–even Rudolph, and he’s had more than a few lumps of coal in the stocking of life, muttering…just keep flying, please don’t turn around, don’t turn around, don’t turn around…”
Apparently, this was a candle holder of some kind? Which is a little terrifying. Kind of like a festive Yuletide “Wicker Man,” or some nightmarish way to torture a reindeer that managed to fuck up one Christmas too many…”Oh god, it burns, just…kill me, Santa…” (Arms flail wildly, maybe a little festively)
Something from the “minimal effort Christmas” family, I think. If it’s the thought that counts, maybe someone should think a little harder.
I assume this is Christmas, it’s got a sprig of holly on it. I also assume these are horses, because tube socks don’t have ears and a mane.
If my sister had ever said, “I want a pony for Christmas,” this is probably what she would have gotten. Or else something that Mrs. Corleone might have embroidered for Jack Woltz as an extremely creepy Hanukkah gift in the Godfather Christmas special, the one where Vito Corleone is visited by, like, eight ghosts and learns the true meaning of Christmas. “I’m going to stitch you an ornament you can’t refuse” sort of thing. We’d watch that one every year when I was a kid.
I think this guy escaped from the little-known Rankin/Bass Christmas Special, “Jack Frost Vs. the Angry Snow Gods.” A lot of the dynamic duo’s later work just didn’t make any sense at all, I didn’t think it could get weirder than “The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus.” (or Thundercats. Did anybody else know that? I didn’t know that.) But, no, things can always get weirder in RankinBassland.
Tremble before the Snowflake King and his 5.7 million subjects!!
Honestly, I don’t think I would have been quite so cavalier about snowball fights if I’d known that the snowflakes had little tiny faces, and probably little tiny hopes and dreams (very tiny ones that melted at 33° f, but still, dreams nonetheless.) Thankfully, we only have snow in Austin, Texas one year in seven. I don’t know how people in Minnesota live with themselves. So much blood on their hands. Particularly during those three-foot-high bloodfalls I’ve seen sweatervests about.
This one was from another little-known Christmas special, they’d only run it past 10:30 so. I never got to see it when I was growing up. Now that it’s been released on The Warner Archives, I’m not sure what all the fuss was about.
“Mad Monster Party” was a lot worse. Seriously, Phyllis Diller vamping it up will leave scars that Frosty showing us his snow face never would.
Now, Frosty would like you to put his sordid past behind him, and just have a merry Christmas, okay? Forget all about his “Blue Christmas” special and move the hell on.
Or he’ll club this poodle.
Fields of Snowblood Sweater from Goodwill’s Blue Hanger, which is always a magical wonderland no matter what time of year it is. Flailbot Reindeer from Goodwill on 183 and Metric, horses needlepoint from Savers on South Lamar, Snowflake God from Goodwill near 183 and I35 behind Goodwill Computers, “Snow Job” from Goodwill on Parmer near I35, and “Merry Christmas or I’ll club this Poodle” from Goodwill near 620 on 183, all Austin. And a Christmas “Thank you” to our stunt model, Dierdre! I’m sure I misspelled your name again :)
I really think the “wet loops like a soft serve” look just never quite works. Particularly with the sparkles. The overall effect is as if one of Santa’s elves had a little emergency, right in the middle of Savers’s housewares section. Really, he should have tried to hold it until he got to the romance novel section, it would have been funnier, but with elves frankly you’re lucky if you can even train them to go on a newspaper in the corner.
I hope this wasn’t a scented candle. It probably was, I don’t remember. I can’t even imagine what it would smell like, the aftereffects of all those sugerplums, possibly. What’s a sugarplum, anyway? Probably what Santa shovels into the elfpit every night.
…Release the Christmas Hounds!
I like this a lot better than the camels they usually ride, because black Labrador puppies are frankly a lot cuter than a camel any day of the week, but this really lacks a certain dignity. Puppies just don’t command that special “We Three Kings” grandeur that goes with the song, which I remember as being “slow and stately,” if my fading and frankly port-addled recollection of the church Hymnal is accurate. Labrador puppies are more “frenetic and spazzy.” Less “Pomp and Circumstance,” more “Theme from Benny Hill.”
Maybe it was so they could sneak out of King Herod’s lands with a little less post-epiphany hassle. The border guards would have melted. “Awww…puppies!”
Hmm…maybe they weren’t going for “Stately and Dignified” after all. If they were, they should have washed their faces after snorting shoe polish. I’m just saying. And why did the guy at the left chrome his robe?
On that note, did someone CLONE a magi? That’s got to be illegal somehow. “Lo, three kings came from the west, though two of them were genetically identical, you could tell them apart because one of them had his robe spray-painted gold. And the angel of the Lord said unto them, ‘daaaaw, puppies!’ And gladly they went to Bethlehem, except when they passed by squirrels or a cat.”
Really, I wouldn’t want to be a nutcracker. I’m not sure I could get the job, if the principle requirement is “must brake nuts with teeth.” It’s no wonder there are so very many nutcracker failures at Goodwill. But this one’s special.
I really hope that, when this guy cracked his last thick-shelled walnut, there was an amazing “BOIOIING!!!” sound as the top of his head popped off. Maybe it landed in the punch, and just floated there, like a disturbing Christmas mole. “Woah, watch where that thing landed, we’ll probably need it later.”
After the operation, he wasn’t a very good nutcracker anymore. Not only were the nuts, well, uncracked, but they were covered in drool too. It really wasn’t very festive.
This next guy…well, he’s not really very CHRISTMASSY, unless in your part of the world everybody gives each other foxes for Christmas, which would be AWESOME, except for the smell. And…well, maybe it’s funnier in my head, I’m still a little sleep-dep’ed and tryptophan-addled.
But I thought it was funny. It’d be funnier with sound effects. Bleah!
I need a caption for this next one. Maybe “Take one house, and add a half cup of milk.” Or “You will be visited by three ghosts…really BIG ghosts.” Or “I’m not sure that the baby Jesus is going to be in this one, it’s kind of small.”
I do know I’ve seen a LOT of nativities, and clearly, none of them were to an accurate scale. Giant 15-storey wise men striding across the land, leaving devastation in their wake and scaring hell out of shepherds is a much more interesting story than yadda yadda frankincense yadda. Go, you awesome monster wisemen, go.
…I think I snowed up on myself a little.
Big steaming pile of Christmas and broken nutcracker from Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Christmas Hounds and stamp-licking fox from Goodwill on South Lamar and Manchacha, monster Wise Man from Savers on South Lamar, “snowed up on myself” from Texas Thrift near 51st and I35, Austin.
First off, and off-topic–for those of you that are jealous of eight days of Hanukkah, the 12 days of Christmas begins December 25! And we have 12 bazillion santas, snowmen and nativities that we have been saving for the occasion. So if you have an office mate who enjoys Christmas Crapola, the “12 days” tag below should link to the festivities. For a limited time only, here’s last year’s link, which will be subsumed into the broader category of “Christmas” soon. Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s…uh…more rambling.
Clearly, this is a candle, or at least candle-related phenomena. After all, it’s covered with a thick layer of old wax. Of course, by that extension, my oven, which has not been cleaned since short shorts were cool, is clearly food.. But while this was definitely in Goodwill’s “candle” section, I rather think it’s some sort of pink and frothy altar to the god of slaughter and coffee. Look, there’s even bits of gore plastered to its sides. Another way in which it resembles my stove.
Why do these presumably master craftsmen insist on keeping “intestinal pink” in their color palates? It’s not a nice color. The effect is like someone decided to use an antique coffee mill to make tasty lamb sausages. It’s a mess of coffee beans and a greasy pink froth. Yum!
The jury is still somewhat unclear on the concept. We see wax. We see coffee beans. We see…drainage holes. Not very good drainage holes, as whatever basin might be tucked underneath the terracotta platform would fill up after two or three (select one: [A] candle burnings, [B] tasty lamb sausages, [C] small, fussy offerings to the god of caffeinated carnage). Plus, it’s round, so candles would fall over. I suppose it might be an incense burner–and the category of things which might be incense-burners is pretty inclusive–but that seems like kind of a stretch.
“I made you a foamy pink latte incense burner! You don’t have to thank me!”
“Well, that prevents a possible conflict of interests, good.”
When you’re dealing with clowns, you have to give up on a lot of what you, as a sane, rational human, view as “normal.” “Don’t wear size 38L shoes when you’re sized for a size 10.5.” “Don’t soak your boss in seltzer water.” “Don’t put cream pies down your pants, in someone’s face, or, indeed, anywhere except a refrigerator, table, kitchen counter, or manufacturer’s suggested pie caddy.”
And “Don’t do that there.”
Though in point of fact I’m not entirely sure what he’s doing. It’s clearly biological. And he clearly derives no small amount of enjoyment from it.
Okay, so, I do know what he’s doing, I do. This is obviously a candle holder. Obviously. And he’s, just as obviously, warming up his clowny little backside. And yet, it’s hard not to imagine that he’s performing some sort of clown-science experiment, “Let’s see what color methane burns,” or some such. Because that’s how clowns do things, particularly how clowns do science. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any other clown experiments, except for testing the amount of carbon dioxide that could be dissolved in seltzer water under temperature and pressure extremes.
In fact, Clown College is actually combining these two bold experiments to create methane-based seltzer water, which wouldn’t, properly, be seltzer water, but something altogether less pleasant. Even with the high-level security clearance I get as a blogger, I haven’t been allowed to see the methane-pressurizing process, but I’ve been assured that it’s both very funny and a little bit embarrassing. More for me than the clowns, though, they don’t actually have that emotion.
There is a trend—a weird one—in the Austin thrift stores. Someone, somewhere, has been pushing “DIY Diorama candles.” At least, I THINK that’s what’s happening–some sort of kit that you can use to create open-faced display candles, with bits of things glued to them, or parts of the wax scraped away in a relief carving sort of effect.
The trend, of course, is people dumping the damned things at Goodwill as soon as they get one for Christmas. And I’ve been seeing about one a month for most of the year. It’s a Bad Thing.
Take this crime against Arts and Crafts. Please note, it is not to scale. An the elephant-like thing hiding behind it in terror is not a part of the actual product. How do I know? Because the elephant thing isn’t the color of entrails at sunset.
Puckered, scarred, and oozing, this is a cornucopia of ick. Like a carbuncle on the cheek of a Victorian begger terrifying you into giving him every bit of spare change you have, the artist has added a nice, purple bubo on the side of the thing. No idea why. Perhaps it’s meant to be the part of an adobe house where the dryer vents its steam. No clue.
The weird, cow-tongue structure dragging its way out of the saguaro cactus is only a little less off-putting than the poorly-stitched scar running along the side. If this is some sort of primative dwelling, why go through the trouble of stitching up its battle wounds? It’s only going to get into more fights, you’d hardly need to bother.
Oh look, honey, more deep wounds. This time, they’re actually oozing. Let’s buy one for grandma!
So…I don’t know an awful lot about coyotes. I’ve always assumed they were, you know, pretty much like a scrawny sort of wolf that lives on a diet of voles and housecats. Kind of doggy. I didn’t know they could increase their temperature to 1215° to melt dens out of sandstone and Texas granite. They’re pretty clever and adaptable, but not blast furnace adaptable. Note the tail eating itself into the rock behind him, and the molten pink lava flow around his feet. I’m surprised the cow skull hasn’t burst into flames yet—but not TERRIBLY surprised, as Texas summers are pretty fierce and sometimes the rock gets a little melty even without the coyotes.
For those of you that got an early start on Friday night, we at Thrifthorror want you to wake up to this. We think it will add to the experience of being hung over.
Oh, hi, how are you?
Imagine if you will, a colorblind madman sculpting a pigeon in the style of Edward Gorey. But because he is, after all, a madman, his artistic media are limited to beeswax, melted chocolate, and red gumdrops. And because he is a madman, his interpretation of a pigeon has a gaping, hungry maw where its stomach might, in a normal bird, be.
Thankfully, because of the miracle of 21st century technology, you no longer have to merely IMAGINE chocolate-and-beeswax Gorey pigeons with gaping chest-maws. You can SEE them. If you’re in Austin, and wanted to really go crazy with $.97, you could even BUY one, but we do not recommend this, nor do we condone lumpy wax bird things.
Well crap, now I made it sad.
Maybe it’s a kiwi? Or a coconut? There is the smallest chance we’ve misunderstood the artist’s intent, but we hope this is not a damning offense.
I didn’t really have the heart to light it, though in a technical sense it is a candle of some sort. I was about to, but I had this horrible vision of the thing dragging itself around in a sad circle, dribbling brown wax and making a horrible, low squawking sound. I put the ligher away and cried inwardly.
Fly free, noble birdlike wax product. Fly free, to whatever horizon your heart carries you.
Lumpy waxish bird-type thing from the Savers on South Lamar, Austin
I really try to avoid the more bibulous holidays. The fear is not that I might blow all my money on some stupid useless purchase that I couldn’t even begin to explain the next day, or say something I’ll totally regret and have it come back to haunt me for years, or even that I’ll swerve off the road and hit a nun. That’s pretty much every day stuff there. No, it’s that after enough green beer, anything starts to look pretty good.
But you have to take a few steps back occasionally and say, “No, not even on St. Patrick’s Day. We have our pride.”
While I do think that it’s…interesting…that this fellow has so much magic in his pants that it’s escaped its bondage and crawling up his not insubstantial Guinness Storage Unit, I don’t like what he’s done with his hair. What I don’t like about it–well–
–what I don’t like is that he seems to have sculpted it out of an unwholesome mixture of egg yolk, mucus, and Aquanet White. At least he wore protective gloves. But he didn’t take them off afterward.
I do not like Green Hands and Beard. I find them odious and weird.
And if you’re so incredibly, bizarrely distorted that even on St. Patrick’s Day—even when there’s so much booze sloshed around that green beer starts making a strange sort of sense and “Kish me I’m Iris” actually works as a pick-up line—you STILL are going home alone, consider covering your hat in wax and setting it on fire. You never know. A lot of the girls I know really like candles.
Weight of the world got you down? Think you have problems? Think you’re job’s not worth two thin dimes? Cat crawl into your car’s exhaust pipe, now it backfires hairballs and the mice are getting into the salad? Wife left you for some guy in advertising? Some girl in advertising? Doctor look at your x-ray and say, “huh,” and then reach for an actuary? Friend, whenever I have one of those days–and I have a lot of those days, friend–I’m glad I have my duck.
Because when you’ve had one of those “they’ve cut a pancake-sized hole in my head to use me for a candle-holder and now my eye’s full of wax” days, you’ve got to have a duck. Friend, you don’t want to face that kind of day without a cinnamon teal, a black-bellied whistler, or at least a mallard.
And I don’t rightly know what kind of duck I’m facing this particular day with–fact of the matter is, after the procedure, a lot of things don’t make much sense, my guess is it’s some sort of merganser, but it might be a sock with some orange beanbags stitched to it–I know that, gaping cranial hole or no, I’ll face the day with my chin high, the wind blowing through my parietal granular foveolae, and I’ll proudly, proudly show my duck. And in some small way, the day’ll be a better one for it.
