Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)

[neon_jellyfish]

Ooh that sounds like a great magazine to be able to read. It does look delightful with that cover. And she looks so proud of it.

It was, although I only really read this one, plus some I've seen second-hand but didn't buy because I wasn't interested in the topic or they had missing pages.

The Knights who say Knih?  

Thank you for the additional coronavirus in Eastern Europe info. Very glad you're not "afraid."

And your previous statements about having fun with masks has helped change my attitude. I usually wear my "cowboy bandana" when I need a mask, and imagine I'm riding with Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang. Or I pair it with my long-billed fishing cap and pretend I'm meeting up with Ernest Hemingway for a fishing trip.

Neither 'k' nor 'h' are silent, though, you have to pronounce all of it.

That's one of the advantages of being mentally 11, you have fun. My latest 'mask cosplay' favorite is Kuchisake-onna.

I guess we have to do the best we can with making all of it tolerable....  I'm not much into making fashion statements with masks, but I will likely eventually get around to painting vampire teeth on the one dark-material one I have.  Sorry to hear things are getting squirrelly again there, neon, but, I think yours is far from the only nation that's being 'painfully stupid'.  Seems to be a worldwide thing, that once restrictions were eased, tons of people went out and packed into places without being careful, and now why are we surprised?  School started last week here; I haven't heard much about how it's going other than that maybe there are colds going around already.  I wonder if I'd like a "cowboy bandana" style better than a mask.  Hmm...

Anyway, the magazine looks like a nice souvenir to have from ... a more sophisticated era...?  

I'm devoid of fashion sense (I do like pretty clothing, but I don't have what people usually call taste, and seasonal trends seem downright ridiculous to me most of the time), so I can't put together a nice outfit, and if I wanted to make a fashion statement, I'd want for the whole outfit to be involved in that, so no fashion statements from me. But I do like sewing masks and then play-pretend all sorts of silly stuff when I'm wearing them.

'Painfully stupid' seems to be a hot trend across the globe, doesn't it?

I'm afraid 70s weren't sophisticated at all... All of the communism was the worst, but 50s and 70s were the two most hellish decades, when the regime was at its peak cruel. They were decades of intense 'normalization' - awful process that I don't want to get into because a) it's sad and b) I have a migraine and don't want to make it worse, but basically, it was elimination of anything that differed from what the Party set as a standard even just a little bit, through all accessible means from psychological manipulation, brainwashing through media, to actual physical elimination. Everybody was put into their place, and those who dared to stick out were dealt with accordingly.

However, it did, as an inadvertent side effect, lead to some good things (which in no way, shape or form make up for the evil caused by the monstrous process). Not all 'bad apples' were considered a threat to national safety, not everyone had to be downright eliminated (usually by being sent to mines without much protective gear and being slowly worked to death), sometimes, when people had 'dangerous' opinions but not much energy to cause noise, it was enough to put them somewhere where they couldn't ex°press those opinions, but otherwise they were allowed to live. For example, some writers couldn't publish any works, but they could translate or do editing work, which lead to amazing quality of language in books of the era. Fields that were focused on technology or craft didn't really provide much opportunity for political statements, so a lot of brilliant people were shoved there, so that they can be useful without inspiring anyone to commit treasons against the people and the regime by thinking for themselves or some such nonsense. Children's literature and TV production (aside from having brainwashing programs, of course) also provided this sort of 'safe space'.

And so some fields got a huge boost in brainpower, because regime was focused on silencing people who didn't need to be downright killed. This magazine was one of those things that benefited from this weird effect.

Similarly, kids in our family weren't allowed to go to college (that side of family was 'problematic', they weren't members of the Party, and used to run private businesses - like a pub, how imperialistic), but my mom and my uncle were allowed to study a technical major. Luckily, that was what they wanted.

That's a great magazine, sounds very interesting indeed if it's aimed at the "serious" hobbyist.

I wish it was still around.

I love the dolls hanging about the place with these publications.

I'm having fun with this, I think I'll do dolls and books more often.


Day 265

Sick shelfie, because migraine.