< the sum of its parts

Spent the week tooling with various combinations of media. Just how many combinations of layered gunge can I devise? Seemingly limitless, but four to be precise. Each looking more bedraggled than the last. The result has been a massive repapering of the walls of every wastebasket in the house. In a thousand glorious shades of grey.

Creeps and Peeps

He is risen.

Back into your cupboard.

Sliced and diced.

What happens when you reach too fucking far.

Trapdoors that you can't come back from.

Gravid women at windows. It's a Grimm specialty. Rapunzel's mother. Rapunzel herself, if you want to get squeamishly literal. Snow White's mother. There's something in the image. Women being consumed from within, battered from without. Not technically indoors, not technically out-of. And not at all in possession of themselves while they stand between the two. Shades at doorways. Or doorways themselves.

The End.

Because Smokey's got nothing better to do than watch an empty coffin.

Not fair.

Brutal honesty is what you get when you don't feed your mirrorgod.

Do-ray-me-fa-so-la-Heigh-Ho.

Little known truth that dwarves are master singers. Of course, it would be silly romanticism to assume that the song is the product of joyous spirits--they're a stony-faced, hardhearted bunch and that is well documented. Fact is, it has everything to do with stones. Turns out that the rare gems have an affinity for music. A well-tuned song will work its way into the inner lattices of a stone and set its crystal structure to vibrating. A few taps on a surfaced vein to establish pitch and the worker can hum-hum his way along all the truest faultlines of the mineral--singing while hammering out the finest, most unblemished product. Harmonic mining. And dwarves--with their bellow lungs and their mobile mouths and their unmatched perfectionism--are the best. A practiced miner can winnow out his quarry--while aboveground--simply by emitting a series of sweet, high-pitched shrills*. A stone will practically dance from its mooring at the sound of dwarfsong. Which in actuality, is all very romantic, and the closest to a love affair that these small, grim men can get.

*Gives a whole new meaning to "whistle while you work".

Quick. Grab a beer and your DS.

The animal in his natural habitat.

Knew that, inevitably, things would devolve into ten-'til-midnight portrait sessions.

Bird Maiden

Locks of love...

...that clearly did not keep intruders out. Themely, if unseemly--especially if you've seen Alex's newly shorn pate.

Sacrificing quality for speed.

Not a swift wit, Snow White, but someone should have advised her to look down. The shoes make the man. No common peddlar woman would have the funds for Seven League Boots. And no sorceress worth her salt would travel without them.

Falling Short.

Oh, who the hell knows? I could fudge some things, but the number five doesn't really figure prominently anywhere that I know. Maybe I should check the Eastern logs.

Heartless.

Disney pretties things up, but it was actually the liver and lungs of Snow White that the witch demands, pickles, fries, and consumes. Provided instead by an obliging fawn.

There will be blood.

Really, this time.

A little Daniel for your Day. Maybe it's the rise of the mustachioed man that led me to it. Or maybe years later I'm still smarting over the gross miscast of a role that should have been Lewis's. Either way, it seems he's my hunter of choice.

March Forth!

Throwing common sense--and a healthy haunch of salted pork--to the winds.

Where the Laboratory meets the Vanity.

Something from Snow White. Don't know why it never occurred to me that the Mirror-Mirror might be less looking glass and more scrying glass. My horizons needs broadening--quite literally. I suppose that's the risk you run when operating constantly on the verticle. Turn the paper ninety degrees and utility takes on a different meaning

Eat right off your golden plate.

Missing: One sceptered amphibian. Behind the curtain? Seated observer? Already tucking in? Victim of a tragic misunderstanding in the palace kitchens? The serving platter indicates as much.

Odd Coincidence:

Best Gift--East of the Sun, West of the Moon--Mayer's gorgeous riff on the Frog Prince.

Day One, Part Two

A bit of sheepishness for the story that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.