davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2023

[Alliecat]

Article # 1: OMG LOL no freakin clue
They seem to have been confused about a past actual strike. I was ex-pecting a reheated version of mainstream media’s slant; instead the bot seems to have a complete blind spot.

Article # 2: wrong mayor, wrong street name and village, wrong date. Yes to Internet issues; the rest is pretty generic.
Fun exercise though.

It’s quite alarming to think that if these kinds of programs are writing the “news“ that this is what people are consuming and what is shaping their perceptions of current events.
I recall hearing in passing about the Dr. Seuss fuss.

Does Empire Commando Girl have any better aim than the average stormtrooper?? 

[davidd]

  I know, right? That "trucker strike" article seemed like a generic article that could be applied to any labor strike.

I suppose one might "generate" an article and then use it as a template -- correct the names and dates -- for a cursory article. The bank article might lend itself to that approach.

Wearing lighter armor, Empire Commando Girl can run faster than the average Star Wars storm trooper, giving her slightly better battlefield odds of survival than her slower but equally vulnerable heavily-armored brethren. That Star Wars armor seems to be impressively ineffective against rebel laser blasters.

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29 January - A Doll A Day 2023:

29 January - Bratz Selfie-Snaps Yasmin at Da Beach

[Alliecat]

I would love to have my toes in the surf there.

[davidd]

30 January - A Doll A Day 2023:

Selfie-Snaps Yasmin Dries Out on the Back Patio After Her Beach Day

[Alliecat]

Glad she got home safely from her adventure
Did she get a freshwater bath?
I worry about getting the Pullips wet at the beach because of the metal screws.

[davidd]

Did she get a freshwater bath?

Yes.

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31 January - A Doll A Day 2023:

How To Be Weird

Taking photographs of little plastic statues of half-naked mermaids in front of the book one recently read and then posting those images online in public forums was, somewhat surprisingly, not one of the suggestions in Eric G. Wilson's How to be Weird: an off-kilter guide to living a one-of-a-kind life (2023, Penguin Books).

Among the 99 "lessons" featured in the book, only one was doll or toy related: "Lesson 39: Consider a Victorian Doll."

Rather than actually doing anything with a doll, Victorian or otherwise, Professor Wilson's suggestion (Eric G. Wilson is a university professor of English at Wake Forest University in North Carolina) is to consider a "thought ex-periment" –– imagine you are a Victorian porcelain doll who has grown weary of your existence in an elderly collector's guest room.

Stereotype muchly, me-thinks? The pretentious son-of-a-sea-biscuit, or should I specify "highly educated white male East coast professional in his mid-fifties," takes great pains in other "lessons" to present himself as culturally and socially sensitive, even decrying the portrayal of non-American and non-European cultures as "exotic" in 19th-century Cabinets of Curiosities, but he thinks nothing of promoting a long-held stereotype about doll collectors.

The "thought ex-periment" involves considering three options for the Victorian doll: remain as you are, become a puppet on strings who knows who is controlling you, or become an automaton who has freedom of movement but who is programmed to exist in a constant state of fear that every action might be wrong. Journal your thought processes as you consider the options.

Consider the options! Journal about it! Truly off-kilter, that is!

Dammit, dude! How about you take your Victorian porcelain doll to the local history museum, take a photo of her (or him, if you can find a "him" Victorian porcelain doll) with each Victorian-era exhibit, and then "imagine" your dolly friend's reaction to seeing their normal, everyday life enshrined in a museum and "curated" to present it in a "culturally sensitive social context." Post your photos and your commentary -- I mean your doll's commentary -- on Instagram so everybody can see it. Jiminy Christmas, privately journalled thought ex-periments? Who do you think your readers are, a bunch of twelve year old girls?

(Yeah, now I'm stereotyping 12 year old girls -- who are far less likely to keep a diary these days -- because it's not 1959 anymore -- and far more likely to post every single thing they do online... but not on Instagram, because that's for old people, so probably on TikTok or some site or app I've never even heard of.)

In a "lesson" on creating your own made-up words (that's weird?), the author smugly references various made-up words from literature -- prominently featuring examples from "non-white" authors, of course, because after all, he's culturally, socially, and racially on point -- but he left out ætetaurian by Michael Chabon, so I got to feel all smug and superior because ætetaurian is way better than the examples he used. Nor did he mention possibly the most widely-known made-up word: supercalifragilisticex-pialidocious.

The closest suggestion among the 99 offered in this book to doing anything overtly weird in public -- hang on to your hats, this is really out there -- is to paint cryptic or nonsensical phrases or sentences on rocks and surreptitiously leave them in the yards of your neighbors.

That's edgy stuff, that is.

Although it's not really "public" because you're being surreptitious and trying not to be seen doing your weird rock thing. Like, if you're weird in the forest and nobody is around to see your weirdness, are you truly weird?

Most of the suggestions are "thought ex-periments" -- imagine something and then write down how you feel about it. In your journal.

I wonder if the journal should have a cute little padlock on it?

Because seriously, another suggestion is: write the name of somebody you dislike or had issues with in the past in the center of a sheet of paper and then... doodle around it.

You wouldn't want anyone to see that, so the journal had darned well better have a lock on it!

The author claims you can make ink by soaking copper pennies in vinegar for a few weeks. I wouldn't exactly categorize that as being weird, but it sounds kinda cool, so I had to look it up.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/h...-inkmaking

https://leahmccloskeyart.com/2021/02/02/...oxide-ink/

I don't know if pennies would work. They won't work for our Canadian friends or our English friends because pennies aren't a thing there anymore. (So much for your multi-cultural sensitivity, Professor Pretenti-pants!) Pennies in America are mostly zinc with a thin copper coating, so I don't know if there's enough copper in a penny to make ink. You'd probably have better luck with an old copper pipe elbow, if you can find one. But I digress.

The one -- out of 99, the one -- suggestion in the book that I thought was actually kind of weird was to go stand on a window ledge high above the street, or on a rooftop, or on the edge of a cliff, and see if you felt an urge to jump.

I kinda was feeling an urge to jump off a window ledge after reading this book and seeing how prosaic were most of the suggestions for "living a one-of-a-kind life." Are people really and truly as constrained by social norms as this book would suggest? Are the options to either be a raving lunatic living in your own feces on a street corner or to be exactly like everyone else in a world where it is radical to -- gasp! -- imagine everyone around you is a robot! Write down how you would feel!

I did find something WEIRDly coincidental about this book. Last week I learned a new-to-me word on The Dal House doll forum, a word I had never seen or heard or read before: petrichore.

The word petrichore appears in How To Be Weird.

That... was weird.

[davidd]

1 February - A Doll A Day 2023:

Very Interesting!

The interesting thing here is that I found inex-pensive (cheap) artificial plants at the local Dollar Tree store today. Artificial plants are often somewhat pricey. All the ones I've had previously I've scrounged from dumpsters and rubbish bins. Now I have some fresh, non-graveyard-used plastic and silk plants to use in action figure and dolly dioramas and scenes.

[Alliecat]

I had to go back and check the publication date because it sounded like you were reviewing something from like, the 1800s. 
Dude doesn't sound very weird to me.  Did you wade through the entire book?  I had a quick look on Amazon; I see suggestion #4 is "turn this book into a shovel" (??)...on the face of it, it sounds like something you might like to do.  I kinda like the idea of sipping tree-made water though.  I'm all for communing with the universe, and it sounds like there might be some useable meditative ideas here, but not particularly "weird".

I like your "jungle" setting but am amused that in the tropical wonderland I envision you are currently in, that you need artificial greenery 

[davidd]

Dude doesn't sound very weird to me.  Did you wade through the entire book?  I had a quick look on Amazon; I see suggestion #4 is "turn this book into a shovel" (??)...on the face of it, it sounds like something you might like to do.  I kinda like the idea of sipping tree-made water though.  I'm all for communing with the universe, and it sounds like there might be some useable meditative ideas here, but not particularly "weird".

I like your "jungle" setting but am amused that in the tropical wonderland I envision you are currently in, that you need artificial greenery 

The need for artificial greenery in Florida was not something I was anticipating, but it's been a while since I lived in a "neighborhood" where houses are close together. The trend among the surrounding neighbors is to have those bright white plastic fences, so it's difficult to frame a photo in the yard without having a glaring white fence in the background. There are a lot of power lines, too. And there's been a bit of a drought for a while, which is odd. There's not a water shortage, because of natural springs and lots of low-lying landscape, but the foliage looks a bit sparse and dry. Plus, this is northern Florida, and it's winter, so most of the deciduous trees have lost their leaves. Things are not nearly as lush here as I would have ex-pected.

Turn the book in to a shovel is another thought ex-periment: imagine what else you might use the book for rather than as a book. I used to play this game with my 8 year old special education students. I'd pick some object, usually something simple like a playground ball, and tell them, "this isn't a ball. What else could it be?" Kids today, and not just special ed kids, have a difficult time imagining. They are very literal. Their online games and phones do all the "imagination work" for them.

If this book is any indication, it's not just kids who have that problem. People have become accustomed to being spoon-fed "imaginative stories" in video format set in the Marvel Universe. Thinking outside the box isn't happening much, and the box keeps getting smaller.

The tree-made water ex-periment sounds interesting and I might try it this spring or summer. The claim is that trees respirate most of the water they consume, and that if a plastic bag is sealed around the end of a branch (during the growing season as opposed to mid-winter), the water "ex-haled" by the tree will accumulate in the bag. I suppose it's the same mechanism that leads to moisture building up on the glass of a terrarium, although some of the terrarium moisture likely evaporates from the soil as well before condensing on the glass.

Yes, I read the entire book. It was a quick read, and mostly at least moderately interesting. There just weren't many suggestions that I would consider "weird," and what weirdness there is is a "closeted weirdness," in which you conduct little ex-periments and record your weird thoughts and impressions in a private journal. There were no suggestions to do something that was overtly weird to the point where friends or co-workers might look at you askance, not even anything so benign as a suggestion to try a new hairstyle, or wear an outdated necktie, or put colorful laces in your shoes, or... spend the day talking like a pirate. The author doesn't even suggest sharing any of your weirdness anonymously through online forums or platforms. I suppose the secrecy aspect could be interpreted as being a little bit weird in itself.

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2 February - A Doll A Day 2023:

Little Big Fan

I found these little fans that look like big fans in 1/6 scale at the same place I found the plastic plants yesterday, for super cheap, so I purchased two of them. One was pink and one was purple, which was cute, but a dash of spray paint allows them to better fit my standard mise-en-scène, which is dark, greasy, rusty, and grungy.

[Alliecat]

It's cool how you repurpose stuff for your settings. They make perfect "big" 1/6 fans.

Interesting about things not being very lush & green, but yeah, makes sense. Plus now you can set up scenes wherever you want.

Yeah, transpiration. A key part of the water cycle.
I've occasionally seen one or 2 of my plants exude little droplets when their soil is particularly wet and the air is particularly humid. I didn't drink them though! Maybe next time I will

[davidd]

I've occasionally seen one or 2 of my plants exude little droplets when their soil is particularly wet and the air is particularly humid.  I didn't drink them though!  Maybe next time I will  

I bet exotic orchid water would be brimming with health benefits.

Or possibly it might be extremely toxic.

Keep us posted.

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3 February - A Doll A Day 2023:

Dynamite Girls Doll with a Gashapon Miniature Tabletop Radio

[Alliecat]

It's amazing how many doll accessories there are, just about anything you could think of. Nice detail on the radio. Dynamite Girl is pretty.

The orchids don't transpire droplets; it was 1 or 2 of the terrestrial plants.
I think the only way transpiration water would be toxic would be if the plant itself was, and some toxin from the leaf surface got into the droplet.

[davidd]

The orchids don't transpire droplets....

Have you tried suffocating sealing them in a plastic bag?

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4 February - A Doll A Day 2023

4 February - Another Pinky Street Beach Day

Gotta get in as many beach days as possible, because time here is running short!

[Alliecat]

Well, you couldn’t really bag a leaf on a branch with an orchid. You would have to bag the whole plant, and you would get yummy clay-pot-and-bark-flavoured water. 

Yes, get all the beach days you can! Then you can enjoy the pictures when you are sitting miserably in the cold back in Utah waiting for spring 
Cute photo, lovely colours. Do you take shells to the beach for the pictures or do you always find them on the scene?

[dargosmydaddy]

Going from Alliecat's most recent photo to yours is kind of whiplash inducing...

Beautiful beach!