Articles In the Spotlight Mackie Monsters Meet Maximum-sized Mini Men: Happy Halloween!
| Mackie Monsters Meet Maximum-sized Mini Men: Happy Halloween! |
| Written by Stephanie Finnegan |
| Friday, 28 October 2011 14:43 |
 Halloween is the second most celebrated holiday in the country—only Christmas trumps it. So, naturally, dolls of a ghoulish silhouette levitate and mummy-step down the runways in October. Bob Mackie—the genius stylist behind Cher and Carol Burnett, two contrasting personalities and personas—has a “Countess Dracula” doll available for adult Barbie collectors. It’s a rather unusual vision of what Dracula’s wife would look like—or maybe it’s Drac’s mom? In that case, it’s one spicy and sexy mama.
The doll definitely has a Vegas vibe, and given its undead nature, it is the perfect spirit to haunt a casino or after-hour club. This countess doesn’t have to worry about getting up early for work or missing a couple of hours of beauty sleep. With its mound of red hair, which looks sort of like Gary Oldman’s coif in Francis Ford Coppola’s vampire film, and its spangled showgirl costuming, this is what Ann-Margret might look like these days is she hit the stage at the Mirage. Or, perhaps, Lindsay Lohan in a decade or two. I think Elvis might be leaving the building with this deadly dame. Seeing vinyl vamps and porcelain “Princesses of Darkness” has become part of the Halloween pageantry. It’s definitely expected. However, encountering a larger-than-life Lego man is a run-in that can raise eyebrows. Either the ultimate Halloween prank—or an April Fools gag that is six months late—an 8-foot-tall, 100-pound Lego man purportedly Apparently, the giant plaything has been fashioned by a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein, of sorts, named “Ego Leonard.” A Dutch artist (http://www.egoleonard.nl, he has been credited with also creating other Lego men that have been marooned on beaches around the world. (The photos shown here are from its Brighton, England, arrival. The knit hats and winter jackets are so crisp-looking and perfect for fall.)
The sight of the Lego wash-up made me smile because there has been so much bad news this past week. Living just miles away from the original “Occupy Wall Street,” I felt elated to see an “Occupy Seawall” photograph. It was a distraction from a lot of confrontational rhetoric and headline-grabbing exploitation. Now, the only thing that could turn my grin upside down would be if a mob storms the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, liberates the
Much more physically ambitious than “Flat Stanley,” it has the same far-reaching effect: connecting people around the globe, making folks wonder how the heck it got secreted onto a beach, and tantalizing would-be artists with their next big vision. And this Halloween 2011, I am personally ready for as many fiberglass fellows as Ego Leonard can crank out. Consider me “Swept Away,” but not the Madonna version!
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Trackback(0)TrackBack URI for this entryComments (3)
... Most unfortunate that anger erupts on a doll making site. I did not find your piece to be offensive but humorous. Yes we are all adjusting to a different lifestyle. But seriously, this is life get on with it and get over it. I for one would have loved to have found that treasure.
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November 12, 2011
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Wow,
what a judgmental piece you wrote, with you obvious disdain for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The continual loss of jobs in the U.S. is affecting all of us, doll makers, doll collectors, doll enthusiasts along with everyone else. These brave souls are actually trying to do something, to make a statement, to hold people those accountable who are destroying our way of life...lives once comfortable enough that people could afford to collect dolls and purchase magazine subscriptions...tell me, how is your readership doing? Are subscriptions up or down? But then of course, your snipes at labeling people who are different than you as being "pagan-ish", or "mobs" may illustrate your apparent realization that your readership came from many different types/groups of people. I wont be back and I wont be renewing my subscription.
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November 11, 2011
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washed up on the shores of a Florida beach. As of this posting, the “man” was rounded up by law enforcement and brought into the stationhouse for protective purposes. (The local cops said that they would release the Lego figure if its creator comes forward and claims it.)
The police in Sarasota look at this public artwork as an annoyance, and have the character comfortably confined. I’m sure it’s squired away in their property room, but wouldn’t it be funny if they had it in a jail cell like Otis, the pesky drunk, from the old “Andy Griffith Show”? That would be hilarious—just envision a Lego man waiting for his bail to be posted, with its little clawlike yellow hands locked onto the cell bars. Priceless!
Lego offender, and then storms the beach with it. I shudder that a pagan-ish soiree—sort of like the finale of “The Wicker Man”—could be the Lego man’s fate. Think of it as a Sunshine State version of the Burning Man alternative festival that takes over the Nevada desert annually. Honestly, it’s nearly impossible to separate the two denouements: fiction has become fact for many of these festival attendees.
I hope the Lego castaway becomes the first of many unexpected bright spots that blip up on our pop-culture radar screen.
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