Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog

Doll Museum: Dolls and Doll Makers

2012-02-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

Doll Museum: Dolls and Doll Makers: I want to thank the author of my first comment; it was very encouraging. A great source for graphics and information about Medieval dolls i...

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: Broken for You

2012-02-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: Broken for You: This is a wonderful book, written in parts as if it were a memoir, with Margaret, the main character, reviewing her life through her collect...

The River has Dolls!

2012-02-07T19:33:00.001-08:00

Watching the ABC minis series "The River," and they took a page from the Isla de las Munecas, or the Isle of Dolls. There are trees full of dolls, of all types, so-called spirit trees that feature prominently in the film. I also saw another doll, floating in the NY sewers, on "Monk!"

The dolls uses are mainly hard plastic and vinyl baby dolls, but I saw a comp doll in one scene, apparently from the late 20s. Creepy Dolls indeed! I thought it was awesome, and would love to be there to "pick a few." Wonder where you can get the props?

Gingerbread of the Middle Ages

2012-02-06T13:58:00.000-08:00

A Link with medieval recipes>. http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/neweboke.htm

Early dolls were often edible, and gingerbread dolls and houses are no exception. They are wildly popular even today, and Thomas Hardy wrote about gingerbread cathedrals in Jude the Obscure. Here is some history with some pictures.

Recipes:

Take a quarter of a pound of Almonds blanched, put them into a morter, put to them a quarter of a pound of sugar beaten, and halfe a score of dates cut small, beate all these together untill they be as small as for Marchpain, put thereto an ounce of cinamon, an ounce of ginger searced and a little sanders. beate all these together one houre after you make little cakes of it, and lay them upon your mould to print, and cast of the powder of cinamon and ginger between the mould and it so it doo not cleave, dry them before the fire till they be hard, and so lay them up in boxes and they will keep all the year.

From Lady Barbara Fleming's Manuscript Receipt Book (1673)

To make another kind of gingerbread
Take a quart of honey, put it into a great skillet on the fire and when it begineth to seeth, put thereto a pint of strong ale, & scum it clear, then put soo much grated bread as will make it like unto dow and put thereto halfe a pound of Liquorish, as much Aniseeds, and a quarter of a pound of ginger being finely searced with two ounces of graines, then take it out of your skillet and worke it on a table as you doo flower to dough to make it stiffe, then make it in cakes, put powder of Liquorish and Aniseeds upon your moulds so it cleave not and so lay them upon a board till they be dry, then lay them up in boxes.

From Lady Barbara Fleming's Manuscript Receipt Book (1673)

Note, there are also recipes on line and books of Laura Ingalls Wilder's recipe. These recipes are from the Historic Food Blog.

Take a quarter of a pound of Almonds blanched, put them into a morter, put to them a quarter of a pound of sugar beaten, and halfe a score of dates cut small, beate all these together untill they be as small as for Marchpain, put thereto an ounce of cinamon, an ounce of ginger searced and a little sanders. beate all these together one houre after you make little cakes of it, and lay them upon your mould to print, and cast of the powder of cinamon and ginger between the mould and it so it doo not cleave, dry them before the fire till they be hard, and so lay them up in boxes and they will keep all the year.

From Lady Barbara Fleming's Manuscript Receipt Book (1673)

To make another kind of gingerbread
Take a quart of honey, put it into a great skillet on the fire and when it begineth to seeth, put thereto a pint of strong ale, & scum it clear, then put soo much grated bread as will make it like unto dow and put thereto halfe a pound of Liquorish, as much Aniseeds, and a quarter of a pound of ginger being finely searced with two ounces of graines, then take it out of your skillet and worke it on a table as you doo flower to dough to make it stiffe, then make it in cakes, put powder of Liquorish and Aniseeds upon your moulds so it cleave not and so lay them upon a board till they be dry, then lay them up in boxes.

From Lady Barbara Fleming's Manuscript Receipt Book (1673)

Doll Museum: Medieval Toys you can Make

2012-02-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

Doll Museum: Medieval Toys you can Make: Here is a link for a class on making medieval toyhttp://dollsfromtheattic.blogspot.com/2010/02/medieval-children.htmls. From Stefan's Flor...

Doll Museum: Dolls of the Middle Ages Part I

2012-02-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

Doll Museum: Dolls of the Middle Ages Part I: Here is a link from the Benaki Museum in Greece. There is a large toy collection there, and a large collection of Coptic art. Marai Argyri...

Doll Museum: More History

2012-02-04T07:44:00.000-08:00

Doll Museum: More History: We have just about finished with Ancient dolls, and I am ready to enter the Dark Ages. We don't know much about toy dolls from the 1000+ ye...

Fond Websites and Favorite Collectors Gone By

2012-02-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

When things are bad, as they have been, I turn to the dolls. Another way to put it is, when the going gets tough, the tough "play" with dolls. I started thinking of websites of the past, which are under reconstruction or no longer active, and that got me to famous collectors of the sixties and seventies, who are no longer heard of.

One of my favorite sites was Lee's Cheap Doll collection; these were not cheap dolls by any means, but unusual foreign costume dolls, fifties and forites hard plastic dolls, and folk and handmade dolls that the collector found in odd places, tag sales, thrift stores, The Salvation Army, etc. I loved her attitude, and the way the dolls were showcased. She knew each individual story, and it was clear that Lee loved the thrill of the hunt. I can no longer find her site.

Me Dolls was a great site that featured the author's collection of black dolls. She had a few things for sale, too. It was nicely arranged, and the collection was carefully thought out and arranged.

The Doll Garden was a site for handmade dolls, but also had links, doll history, informatoin about artists and antiques, etc. She played beautiful music when you visited as well.

JnJ dolls, run by my friends Jim and Joan Radke. I miss Jim and his doll advice, and the great photos. I also miss hearing from Joan as "liveware" on AIM. Jim was great with advice, and they also were selling the doll collection of a friend who had died. They were also on the old AOL Hobby Central, which had folders for all types of collectors. I had interaction with Pat Smith, Jim, Florence Theriault, Dorothy McGonagle, and others. I always started my morning with a few minutes on The Doll Collectors Folder exchanging ideas, and then went on to the Book Report to read. AOL doesn't have these sites any more.

The Shelter for Misfit Dolls, hosted by The Little Dead Gyrl. Cached since 2004, and I've tried to contact her. She has wonderful "linkies," and dozens of primitive art dolls. Her own collection of "monster" dolls really made me laugh, and she really inspired me. Her Edward Gorey miniature scenes using Kelley, Barbie's little sister, were just awesome. Site is still up, but no one knows where The Little Dead Gyrl is.

By the same token, no one knows what happened to Margaret Whitton, or Blair,her husband. They had legendary collections of antiques, such variety, and were always in books. Kay Desmonde of England passed away, but her All Color Book of Dolls, with the dolls arranged in scenes with furniture, will always be a favorite. Barbara Whitton Berger was Margaraet's daughter, and we exchanged letters over my book of metal dolls. Her mother also was curator of the Margaret Woodbury Strong museum when it was just dolls.

I think EJ Carter died, and she had the most amazing Jumeau protrait of I believe Eleanor of Austria. I would like to know more of Laura Treskow and her scary, glass eyed, double row of teeth china head with a wig. Now, that was a creepy doll! My friend R. Lane Herron still writes for Doll Castle News, and his Much Ado about Dolls is one of the best guides for collectors. Anne Rice had one of his price guides, which I bought, and I have one with photos of my dolls. He also worked with The Wallace-Homestead price guide to dolls. What happened to those editors?

Doll Castle News goes on, even after their founder and all doll collectors' mom, Edwina Mueller died in 1996, but Bernice's Bambini and The Raggedy Ann Doll Museum are gone. With Rosalie Whyel closing, and two museums in Europe being auctioned off, one wonders about the future of dolls and museums.

Carl Fox never wrote about dolls after The Doll, but I would love to find anything else he wrote. The National Doll Library Foundation is apparently gone, along with Sam Pryor himself. Where did the dolls go? Where is the catalog for the collection of Dorothy Dixon, last owner of the Metal Huret?

And Bonnie Mox of California, where is she now? Her collection and her mother's were featured in Eleanor St. George's books. Where is the daughter of Janet Pagter Johl, who was beginning to collect, and trying to piece together her mom's collection? What of Faith Eaton?

There was also the Charles Bowers Memorial Doll Museum in Santa Ana, CA. No one hears much about it, either.

I'd welcome informaton about these, or other doll palces/authors of the past. Maybe Mona Berger will write back? Or, Valerie Jackson Douet? And Nadia, where are your dolls?

I'd be interested to know.

Dolls That Played Hard to Get, Wuthering Heights, and Houses of Sand and Fog

2012-02-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

I stepped out this morning and looked back at my little brick house shrouded in mist and fog. You could barely see its gables, even a few feet away. For a moment, I felt like a time traveler standing on the moors of Wuthering Heights. If Cathy, or Emily B. herself had stepped out of my front door, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Weather like this makes me muse, and ponder, and day dream. Last year we had a blizzard, now we have 60 degrees and foggy mornings, sort of like my days in grad school when I took a backroad past an abandoned insane asylum, in daily mist, where car lights barely shown like fairy lamps.

I am reading Broken for You and Sing them Home, both by S. Kallos, and in each, objects and their stories play prominent roles, even becoming characters. Of course, this line of thought leads me to dolls and their stories, so here are some of mine with tales of why they were hard to get.

1. General McCarthur. I first saw him in Lolly's in Galena, and another also in Galena, in a restaurant that had dolls in a display case. My whole family has been in the military, and I bonded instantly. My mom used to say when I was a toddler that I ran up to any man in uniform and cried, "Daddy!" because mine wore an airforce uniform. Must have been fun for the men. I've loved toy soldiers every since. I got him 40 years later after I made an offer on eBay. I'm looking for boots for him.

2. French Fashion; many fine replicas and bits and pieces of Frency dolls later, I found my first FF at a doll show in California, from the friends of Jim Fernando, legendary dealer/collector in all things French. His friends even put her in a French bag, which I still have. 23 years to find this one.

3. My first antique bisque, a German bisque Floradora, dressed now in remnants of my grandmother's French wedding gown came from Saratoga, CA, from the Marionnette Doll Hospital. I was 14, and it was July 4th. Nine years for this one.

4. First ship's figurehead, a doll-like figure discussed in Leslie Gordon's early books on dolls, same summer of '74, Monterey Bay. Two years since I first read about them.

5. Ivory Doctor's Lady from China; I saw her in the early 80s in a miniature show. I wrote to the owner after the show, and she mailed me the doll on the honor system. I sent her a check right away. She was a lovely lady named B.J.Huston from Texas. Sixteen years to find her.

6. Ashanti doll from Ghana; my first came from Sausalito, CA. It took me 4 years to find her, but it was 28 years before I found another one. Now, I can find them in various manifestations in import stores.

7. Japanese Festival Dolls; I first read of these in R. Godden's Miss Happinesss and Miss Flower. I have a pop up card my Uncle brought from Korea, but I didn't get my first one till 15 years after I read the book, at the same miniature show I found my Doctor's lady. Now, I have bought several in California, in local museums, and in antique stores. I don't pass them up if I see them reasonably; they are disappearing again.

8. Good black, French doll; 43 years from the first time I read of them in John Noble's Dolls, my first doll book.

9. Acupunture figure; first heard about when Barbara Walters showed one she bought her daughter in China, around 1969 or 70 when President Nixon went. Nineteen years later, I found my first one. A local chiropractic clinic ordered her for me after I saw her in one of their displays.

10. Miss Barbie; 25 years. I found her in San Jose, purchased from Mr. Franklin Lim Lao.

These are just a few of the dolls I have that were "hard to get." There are more, including the pewter Huret, and the photos of the zinc boided Steiner that is key wound.

I am still looking for a pair of dressed Mexican fleas. I would like an autoperpatetikos and an Edison phonograph doll. I would like a Vincent Lake all Steel doll, and the rest of my Lil Abner Piano. I did manage to find Mammy Yokum again. Also, always looking for giant jointed and not jointed bears of the 1940s, and Peter's little ward from Bachelor Father, a paper doll. Also, a hand knitted sweater with Henry VIII and his six wives, and hand knit sweater with Scarlett in front of Tara, and a black, sleeveless dress sold at Emporium in 1972,with antique dolls printed all over it. Any help is much appreciated!

Miss Charlotte Bronte meets Miss Barbara Pym: I'll be Back

2012-01-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

Miss Charlotte Bronte meets Miss Barbara Pym: I'll be Back: Too sick to write, but I'll be back. Look for a new blog, soon. I miss you all, please take care

Anti-Piracy Bill Shelved

2012-01-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

Here is the link for this piece;
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-20/anti-piracy-bills-halted/52698192/1the

For anyone who uses the web or maintains a blog or site, take note. Write your congressional representative and voice your opinion re any compromise, and remind them of The Fair Use Doctrine, found in Title 17 of the United States Code, dealing with Intellectual Property and Copyright.

For now, we are all safe, but this bill is just an excuse to censor and limite freedom of speech and freedom on the web.

I don't often voice my political opinions, because I believe that there really are two sides to every story, but this one was too much.

Research of any kind takes us into areas sometimes controversial, and even unsavory. Only by knowing and studying can we erase ignorance and prejudice, and only by a Free Press and free inquiry can we truly educate ourselves.

My love of dolls and collecting has led me into all types of research media and writing, and I would hate to see anyone limited because of this bill, or anything like it.

Good luck, everyone, and long live Freedom of Speech and Press.

Rosalie Whyel Sale Reminder

2012-01-11T11:06:00.001-08:00

Just A Little Reminder...

Our Thank You Sale!

EVERYTHING In the Museum Store IS ON SALE!
30% OFF (40% for Members)!

ALSO- Our So Sew Sale in the Museum Atrium!
Featuring all things sewing- trims, laces, fabrics, magazines, books, patterns, tools, and more!

This Thursday through Saturday at the Museum!
10am to 5pm each day
-Members Always Receive 10% off

Our Family and Staff Thank You for all of your Support and Friendship! We look forward to seeing you at the Museum and Museum Store in our final two months!

Museum Final Day- March 1st, 2012

Shelley Helzer
Co-Director
Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art
Ph 425-455-1116 Fx 425-455-4793
www.dollart.com

Doll Museum: The Doll Book by Laura Starr (1908) and Asian Doll...

2012-01-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

Doll Museum: The Doll Book by Laura Starr (1908) and Asian Doll...: I plan to spend some time and several posts on this subject. Asia is rich in doll history, and early doll collector and historian Laura B. S...

Asian Dolls and Web Doll Museum

2012-01-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

On our Web Doll Museum, I will be featuring asian doll, from ancient to modern times, in keeping with our informal chronology of doll history. Showcased will be Laura Starr's The Doll Book (1908), obtainable on Kindle for 9.99. Chapter VI talks about Asian or Oriental dolls in particular.

Writing Raw

2012-01-09T14:58:00.001-08:00

See below;

Let's help these folks!

Looking for something special?
Try our internal WritingRaw Google search.WritingRaw is a monthly literary magazine dedicated to new and emerging writers. Our goal at WritingRaw is simple - to serve the literary community with the opportunity to have their work online and out in the world. In this world of disappearing literary magazines, WritingRaw is providing the blank pages for writers to fill. To view someone's writing, click on the link and a pdf version of the piece will open in your browser.

Besides the New York Writers Workshop providing a column, we are starting two new ones this month: Self-Publishing: How We're Doing It by Martin Willoughby and Book Awards Column by Mary Greenwood. These columns are sure to provide some valuable information concerning how a writers group formed their own publishing company and a description of many book awards won by Mary Greenwood in her amazing career. We are always up for more… drop me an email and let's talk about starting your own column, weeb@writingraw.com

Drop Us A Line: Let us know what you think of the site, or about something you've read, or promote something through a letter to the editor. Next month we would love to start a "Emails to the Editors" section of WritingRaw. In the subject line, write "Letters" and send to weeb@writingraw.com

FLASH FICTION REVIEWS: Send us your flash fiction book reviews - no more than 250 words per review. Send to weeb@writingraw.com

The Staff of WritingRaw.comDaniel M. Annechino

Alan Bradley

Colin Cotterill

Julie HyzyArtist of the Month:
by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Chemical Neutral by Rick Bailey

Fat Sex: Alice in Cyberland by Rebecca Jane Weinstein

Satan Speaks by Christopher Nagle

The Silent Lion by Elaine Rosenberg MillerBroken Room, Fixed Photo by Kristopher Miller

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Peter Fraser Macdonald

Lost Words by Jason Anderson

My Eyes Are Full Of Tears by G David Schwartz

Poetry Of Dead Things by Denny and Maya Hoffman

Red by Denny and Maya Hoffman

Riding the Rails by Mike Berger

She Walked Through The Door by Juliette Beswick Pokletar

The Cuckoo's Nest by Michael D. Brown

The Idol on the Square by Kristopher Miller

Tracking The Blues by John McKernan

Will-yng by Marrilynn Ready

(Segment 8)

It seemed there were far more steps than necessary for a police station. I reached the top and turned to look back down where the little people walked, those who were not above the law. They all walked in one direction or another, going about their day to day. At the moment, I realized how much I was irritated by humanity.
"You all have the right to remain silent!" I yelled from my perch above the street.
Most of you just don't exercise that right nearly enough, I thought to myself.
A few lost souls looked up at me and shook their heads. Most kept on walking, eyes to the ground and passing me off as just another crazy bum. They may have been right, but that did not lessen the rudeness. Exasperated by the insolence of my fellow citizens, I turned to enter the police station. I grabbed hold of the door handled and paused before pulling. I did a mental rehash of my plan... it was definitely crazy, but I knew I could pull it off.
I pulled the door open and stepped inside. The precinct was like a beehive. Men and women, some in uniform and some not, all scurried about like there was much to do and no time to do it. I walked up to the desk sergeant and placed my Macy's bag on the counter.
"Can I help you, Sir?"
"Why, I hope so. I have a bit of a problem and I thought someone in here might know the number for 9-1-1."
"Wow, never heard that before. What is the problem, sir? Boredom?" replied the cop.
"Nope, never bored, least of all today. I woke up, went for a walk in the park, played fetch with a dog, walked some more, followed a man in a suit, found a bag of cash and got smart with a couple of mafia thugs. I have to say it has been a rather eventful day and nowhere near boring."
"So, what's the problem then?"
"I just told you, weren't you paying attention?"
"You expect me to believe all of that?"
"No, sir. But I thought these five large bricks of one-hundred dollar bills might help convince you that it's somewhat true. The mafia guys may be an exaggeration, but they sure looked the part."
The desk sergeant seemed to change his tune as he saw the neatly stacked and packed hundred-dollar bills. He tried to reach out and grab one but I got them back into the bag too quickly for him. Guess he was behind the desk for a reason.
"I want to speak to the top hog please."
"Um, well, sir, I can take your statement."
"What did I just say?"
After a few more minutes of useless chatter, I was escorted to a room with a large mirror on one wall and a solid metal table in the center of the floor. They sat me down and I placed my sack of cash in front of me, right where I could see it. They left me alone for quite a while and I got bored for the first time today. So, I got up and began to prance around the room. I even checked myself out in the large mirror. Well, to tell the truth, that large mirror was about to have my butt print on it.
"Blue's moon, keep on a shinin'" I sang has I rubbed my bared cheeks across the glass.
Yes, I am well aware of the fact that someone was on the other side of that mirror and able to see me perfectly. Had they not been, it would have been a wasted effort and nowhere near gratifying. Feeling satisfied, I went back to my chair.
Moments later a couple of detectives and one uniformed officer entered the room. The young man with the dress blues stayed by the door while the detectives sat across the table from me. They were all read faced and looked as though they were hiding smiles. This told me that my assumption about observers had been quite accurate.
"So, Mr. Blue? Is that correct?" asked one of the detectives.
"Ummm, no. I told the man at the desk my name was Blue, never did I say I went by Mister. That would be an arrogant first name don't you think?"
"Okay, well, we don't have all day so why don't you just tell us what the problem is?"
"Boy, you just cut to the chase here don't ya fellas? You're not even gonna offer me a beverage to help calm my nerves, you know, ease the tension a little. Are you gonna jump straight in to 'good cop, bad cop' as well, or you gonna give me a chance to talk first?"
"Tell, ya what... Blue, why don't you just start talkin' while Officer Chumbley goes for coffee?"
"I suppose. Could I get two coffees though? Two creams in each, two sugars. And how about some pastries? Two jelly-filled and two fritters."
"Have a thing for the number two, or do you have an imaginary friend?" asked the other detective.
"Well, could you define imaginary? It would be silly to bring donuts and a coffee to someone who is not going to be able to enjoy them."
Officer Chumbley left the room, choking back laughter while the two detectives pulled up seats on the other side of the table from me. I showed them the cash and began to tell my story. I was about to the part where Ritchie and Bruno showed up when breakfast arrived. I began to laugh hysterically when Chumbley sat the tray on the table.
"What's so funny?" the uniformed man asked.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." I said as I grabbed a my pastries and java.
I proceeded to tell the rest of the story and even asked Chumbley to drop a few more quarters in the parking meter for me. They offered to wheel my cart around to the back of the station for me instead. After some thought, I agreed to let them do it.
"So, what is it you want from us exactly?"
I had given the answer to that question a lot of thought on the way over. I had to play my cards very carefully. I was hoping that, in the long run, I could make myself a very lucky man. So, as I prepared to give my answer, I rounded up the second serving of coffee and donuts.
"What about your friend, Blue? Aren't those his?"
"Well, first and foremost, you are detectives. However, even willing to overlook that, don't you think you guys are a little too old to believe in imaginary friends?" With that, I finished off one hell of a morning meal.

(to be continued... )

© 2011, Jason P. Henry
www.jasonphenry.com
facebook.com/Author.Jason.P.Henry

WritingRaw.com: Evolution Taken To The Next Literary LevelPage Content |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

auto insurance
Quote of the Day
To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father.
Virginia Woolf
(1882-1941) Discuss

Quote of the Day provided by The Free Library Fire is Greedy by Eleanor Leonne Bennett, © 2011

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 15 year old photographer and artist who has won contests with National Geographic,The Woodland Trust, The World Photography Organisation, Winstons Wish, Papworth Trust, Mencap, Big Issue, Wrexham science , Fennel and Fern and and Nature's Best Photography.She has had her photographs published in exhibitions and magazines across the world including the Guardian, RSPB Birds , RSPB Bird Life, Dot Dot Dash ,Alabama Coast , Alabama Seaport and NG Kids Magazine (the most popular kids magazine in the world). She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010.Only visual artist published in the Taj Mahal Review June 2011. Youngest artist to be displayed in Charnwood Art's Vision 09 Exhibition and New Mill's Artlounge Dark Colours Exhibition. eleanorleonnebennett.zenfolio.com

CLICK HERE to see more of Eleanor Leonne Bennett's artwork on the WritingRaw Assorted page.

Eleanor Leonne BennettThe week before Christmas; New Orleans, Louisiana 1972

Spotlights came on to reveal the simple structure and props that represented the manger in Bethlehem on the stage of Briarwood Elementary School. Two bales of straw were arranged diagonally from a sawhorse affair. A baking pan was nailed atop it and draped with a blanket. An A-frame of light wood was nailed together to give the impression of the stable roof over the scene below which included some large, papier-mâché "rocks." The entire background of the stage was covered with dark blue material dotted with glittered stars.
Soft organ music played as the narrator, a rather tiny boy dressed in a bathrobe, approached the podium. His name was "Dwayne," according to the handwritten program, reproduced on the office mimeograph machine and individually colored in crayons by the members of the cast. "Welcome to the Story of Baby Jesus… written by and starring… everyone in Mrs. Wilson's first grade class," he said, his voice hesitant and squeaking with fear into the microphone he held a little too closely to his mouth.
He was met by applause from the parents and relatives filling the room to over capacity. Many guests were forced to stand along the sides and at the back of the auditorium, tilting their programs in the dim light to look for familiar names. A few bulbs flashed as the play began and cameras were made ready for the entrance of the cast.
A little girl named "Bonnie Jeanne Cowgirl Butterfly O'Neill" (according to the program), played the part of Mary. She entered from the wings dressed in a long blue gown and a shawl that covered her hair and flowed to the bottom of her dress. Several blonde ringlets escaped the shawl presenting the visage of a little Red Riding Hood dressed in blue. She looked out at the audience and announced in a loud voice, "I am the Virgin Mary… Mother of Baby Jesus. He will be a teacher when He grows up. He is a very well-behaved Baby." The audience began to chuckle then broke into applause for "Mary," who smiled brightly.
Bonnie approached the baking pan. Lifting a doll wrapped in a blanket and holding it up high over its meager bed, she brought it down and kissed it. Then, holding it to her chest, she sat down on one of the straw bales and began to rock the doll, humming loudly.
This was the cue for the next set of actors. All manner of animals began to appear, crawling on all fours from both sides of the stage. Mrs. Wilson evidently had done some serious shopping at one of the many costume emporiums in New Orleans. Each child wore a head covering representing an animal. There were several sheep and pigs, one cow, two donkeys, a bull with horns and even a cat and dog. They moved out to stage front for audience viewing; then were to find locations among the rocks, all the while making their respective noises. They milled about on the stage making snorts, oinks, mews, barks, moos and ba-a-as. A few hee-haws screeched above the cacophony of sounds and the audience, again, fell into laughter.
Mrs. Wilson loudly instructed the children to hurry and find their designated spots as cameras flashed; but a few of them got up and waved at the audience as if to make sure they could be identified under their costumes. One little girl dressed as a pig shouted, "Grandma! This is me-Lois!" Now the audience was out of control.
Mrs. Wilson's hushing finally settled both the animals and the audience while Bonnie, who had been waiting patiently for her cue, reached for a bottle on the floor behind her bale. Another chuckle arose from the audience which built to a roar as she fed the Baby Jesus from the bottle, cooing and rocking Him, then throwing Him over her shoulder to pat Him soundly… until a loud burp erupted (which Bonnie produced with gusto).
Suddenly, a flash of light brightened the back of the stage and a girl named "Cynthia" appeared through a split in the background material. Applause accompanied her walk to the front of the stage which quickly quieted as they anticipated another comical scene. She was draped in a bed sheet cut out in the center to go over her head and flowing in folds to the floor. Here and there, the bottom of the sheet was pulled up and pinned with one of the stars from the background. Silver gift wrap ribbon tied to a necklace around her neck, fluttered all around her, catching the light as she moved. Two metal foil wings were tied to her back with a strip of material around her middle. She held a yardstick high above her, topped by a huge cardboard star covered completely with silver glitter. As she moved, the glitter sprinkled down to the floor, sparkling in the spotlights.
She turned to Mary and yelled: "Virgin Mary! I am the angel sent to tell you of the North Star. This is it!" she announced dramatically, shaking the star and loosening glitter all over Mary. There was laughter and applause as the glitter fell. Then she shook it one more time, for good measure. The glitter had obviously just been applied, to excess, to achieve this effect.
Mary answered, solemnly. "This is the Baby Jesus," she said, putting down the bottle and holding the doll out to Cynthia.
"I know that! And this star-the North Star-will always shine over this place-forever!" Cynthia shouted.
The children surely did not understand the term ad lib; but used it in profusion and with proficiency, throughout their performance. Cynthia evidently realized she couldn't manage holding the doll and shaking the yardstick at the same time; she gave up the Baby Jesus for glitter, on the spot.
Bonnie responded, "That's good… because… this is a very dark stable."
The audience roared and then Cynthia raised her star again. "And you will have visitors…with gifts-so get ready!" She swooshed her wand in front of Bonnie then moved behind the manger and stood with it held up high, ready for shaking if the need arose.
The robed narrator stepped up to the microphone again and said, "Here comes Joseph, the husband of the Virgin Mary." The program listed the part as being played by "Joey."
Joseph went directly to Mary and, obviously, forgoing his lines, took a snatch at the
doll. They struggled a bit as the audience craned to see what was happening. Finally, Bonnie demanded, "Joey! I mean-Joseph! Say your lines!"
Joey as "Joseph" had his own agenda. "But I wanna hold the Baby Jesus, too!" he whined while Mrs. Wilson whispered prompts from behind the curtain. She probably checked her watch, too, as she attempted to hurry her little brood along through the production that seemed to be taking unexpected sidetracks. Joey ignored her while the audience chuckled and hooted and Bonnie finally relented.
"Okay. But just for a minute… and you hafta sit down to hold Him." Joey eagerly took a seat on the other bale and Bonnie handed him the swaddled doll. "Now, be careful," she said, staying close to keep an eye on him. "Don't drop Him! My Nana just bought Him last week at Kmart!"
That was the end for the audience and they roared with laughter as Bonnie attempted to wrestle the doll back from Joey. Mrs. Wilson's children were out of control and she realized that she would have to step in and take charge. But she didn't need to go on stage. Just then, the bull ("Charles") meandered over to Joseph and began poking at him in the back with his horns while, evidently, giving him a harsh ultimatum. More laughter from the audience accompanied the action as Joseph turned around in annoyance to swat at the bull. But the bull persisted until Joseph got up, resignedly, and returned the Baby to Mary who immediately laid Him on her bale of straw to readjust the swaddling clothes while giving Joseph a scowl.
Mrs. Wilson prompted Mary from behind the scenes and she sat down primly on her bale as Joseph walked to the front of the stage. The audience quieted down only after Joseph raised his hand-a technique that Mrs. Wilson had thankfully taught her students-then he continued: "I am Joseph, the husband of Mary… and the father (he put emphasis on that word) of the Baby Jesus. I promise to protect my Baby (he turned to Bonnie with a matching scowl), and make Him very pure." He was met with thunderous applause to which he reacted with a smile saying, "I told you so!" to Bonnie. Then, taking an ad lib bow, he joined the angel at the manger.
Cynthia stepped forward and added, "And the Baby Jesus will be King of the whole, entire world!" Then, with a shake of her stick, she sprinkled glitter over the manger and Joseph-who swatted at his head to fend off the falling glitter-garnering more applause.
Now, three boys appeared wearing bathrobes and gold paper crowns. There were evidently three redheaded boys in Mrs. Wilson's class. The narrator announced, "Three wise men followed the star to visit Mary. They brought pricey gifts… I mean priceless gifts," he reiterated after a loud whisper from Mrs. Wilson. Again, the audience could not maintain control and the laughter continued as the first boy (Kurt) approached the edge of the stage. "I have brought gold for the Baby Jesus," he said, loudly, holding up several net bags of gold chocolate coins then placing them at Mary's feet. The second (Jake) announced he was bringing "franks and cents" from a faraway land as he swung a florist vase off the stage from which issued the smoke and smell of burning incense. And a third (Jimmy) brought a cigar box to the front of the stage and threw handfuls of what he called myrrh before closing it and presenting it to Mary. A footnote on the bottom of the program alerted the audience that "myrrh was replaced with parsley flakes since the children couldn't find myrrh anywhere in New Orleans." After each presentation, Cynthia shook her star… and the animals became increasingly agitated.
Now Charles, having gotten away with butting Joseph earlier, began to butt rocks and other animals. And the baaing, oinking and mooing began all over again, in earnest. But Mary had one last line and she stood and raised her hand to calm the audience which was, again, out of control. Mrs. Wilson whispered loudly to the animals; but they did not heed. Finally, Mary stamped and feet and shouted. "All you animals! Hush up and lay down! I'm not finished yet!"
The animals stopped and dropped in their tracks, with one last bark; and the audience held back all but a few uncontrolled giggles as she spoke. "And the Baby Jesus grew up to be a teacher… just like I said. And the angel was right, too. He became the King of all men. And Joey-I mean Joseph… was His father… 'til the end."
At this point, Cynthia went wild with her stick as she walked among the animals, throwing glitter everywhere. Some of the animals began to sneeze as Mary gently placed the Baby Jesus in the baking pan. The spotlights faded and went out as the audience showed their appreciation with applause and cheers. The Christmas holidays had begun with laughter and joy, in a little corner of New Orleans.

This story is an excerpt from Book III of The Sensuous Disciple, an unpublished novel by Beswick.

© 2011 Barbara A. BeswickAway In A Manger, A Baking Pan For A Bed by Barbara A. Beswick NEW Every 15th,
Season 3, Episodes 2: Nothing In His
Life Became Him Like The Leaving It

"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not;
and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."
~ Henry Wadsworth

The candle flickered... then died
So I sit here now in the dark, an old man
The weight of years pressing down upon me.
Brought to this drafty space by age.
Where now I sit, amongst empty rooms.
concerned with I know not what.
Looking out upon the stark landscape.
Through the thin frost that gathers on the panes
All out doors looking darkly back at me.
Remembering what it was that brought me here
A weight as heavy as the snow upon the roof
Gazing at the icy trees, the cracking sounds of branches
One aged man can't keep a house alone
Can't live a life filled with only ghosts
And if he tries, it's thus on a lonely wintry night.

© 2011 Denny and Maya HoffmanCold by Denny and Maya HoffmanThis month's winner is Denny and Maya Hoffman!

The following is the winning piece based
on the first line: "The candle flickered... then died."

January Contest: Write a 500 word or less piece using the following prompt: Write a fairy tale based on a top news story from the last 3 months. The deadline for this will be December 25. The winner will receive a $20 gift certificate from Amazon.com and be posted on WritingRaw.com. writ·ing ('ritiNG), Noun: The activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text; The activity or occupation of composing text for publication

raw (rô), Adjective: (of food) Uncooked; (of a material or substance) In its natural state; not yet processed or purified
Join the conversation Ditch Weeb Rib

New Writing World; free to Share

2012-01-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

W R I T I N G W O R L D

A World of Writing Information - For Writers Around the World

http://www.writing-world.com

Issue 12:01 12,974 subscribers January 5, 2012
*****************************************************************
MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: See the bottom of this newsletter for
details on how to subscribe, unsubscribe, or contact the editors.
*****************************************************************

IN THIS ISSUE:
=================================================================

THE EDITOR'S DESK: Where Did 2011 Go? by Moira Allen
THE INQUIRING WRITER: What I would have changed in 2011,
by Dawn Copeman
NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WRITING
FEATURE: How to Create Your Writer's Brand Online,
by Gail Kavanagh
COLUMN: Free Stuff for Writers: New Year's Resolutions?
by Aline Lechaye
THE WRITE SITES -- Online Resources for Writers
The Author's Bookshelf

*****************************************************************
Writing.Com is the online community for writers of all interests.
Create your free online portfolio and start writing today!
---> http://wwx.Writing.Com/ <---Become a fan on Facebook: http://facebook.com/WritingCom Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/WritingCom****************************************************************WRITERSCOLLEGE.COM has 57 online courses. Prices are low. If you can reach our web site, you can take our courses. http://www.WritersCollege.com*****************************************************************WRITE FOR CHILDREN. Achieve your dream of becoming a publishedauthor. Writing books and stories for children is a great place tostart. Learn the secrets 1-on-1 from a pro writer. Train onlineor by mail. Free Test offered. http://www.writingforchildren.com/H0597*****************************************************************THOUSANDS OF WRITERS USE FANSTORY.COM FOR:* Feedback. Get feedback for every poem and story that you write.* Contests. Over 40 contests are always open and free to enter.* Rankings. Statistics will show you how your writing is doing.http://www.fanstory.com/index1.jsp?at=38*****************************************************************DON'T GET SCAMMED! Choose the right Self Publishing Company foryour book. What you need to know before choosing a self publishingcompany and the questions you should ask.http://dogearpublishing.net/self-publishing-companies.aspx*****************************************************************FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK - read on for a special gift!=================================================================Where Did 2011 Go? ------------------Where did 2011 go? That's the question I've heard from friends,family, fellow writers, and just about everyone else I talk to. It's also a question I've been asking myself since around October,when it became apparent that the year was drawing to a close and Ifelt as if it has barely begun.

Where did it go? Wasn't this the fastest year you've ever
experienced? Didn't it go by in a flash? I used to think that was
a comment one made as one got older, but this year I'm hearing it
from people of every age. My sister, a teacher, says she hears it
from teens!

Of course, I have my theories. "Busy-ness" ranks highest on my
list. These days, we're bombarded with ads for devices that let us
text our friends whilst conference-calling our relatives whilst
surfing the web whilst updating our Facebook page whilst recording
our favorite shows whilst... whatever. Whatever you want to do,
apparently, there's an app for that. The trouble with so-called
labor-saving devices is that they seem to lead to MORE labor, not
less. When it takes an hour to accomplish one thing -- such as
washing the floors -- that hour seems to crawl by fairly slowly.
When one uses that same hour to accomplish twenty-five things, time
vanishes in the blink of an eye -- and one looks up at the end of
the day to wonder where, exactly, that day went, and what we did
with it.

And that, I realized, is a big part of my problem. While I don't
text and only rarely update my moribund Facebook page, I DO end up
wondering, quite often, what happened to my day and why my to-do
list looks very nearly the same in the evening as it did in the
morning. The reason I don't know where my YEAR went is because I
don't know where each DAY went.

My husband likes to quote the business axiom, "you can't manage
what you can't measure." So I decided, for 2012, to find out just
where my time is going. I may not be able to "get back" my time
this year, but at the very least, I can find out why I never seem
to have any. My resolution, if you will, is to become a dedicated
time-tracker.

I thought it would be simple. Knowing there are datebooks and
planners on the market that let you schedule or TRACK tasks in
quarter-hour intervals, I bustled to the office-supply store,
filled with good intentions. There I discovered that such planners
are clearly NOT designed with the freelance writer in mind. Most
start the "workday" at 8 a.m. and end it at 5 p.m. -- and allot a
scant quarter-page to weekends, when, they clearly assume, the user
is not "working." Hah! I also discovered that they were rather
expensive.

So I decided that the first step in tracking my time was to develop
my OWN time-tracker -- one that took into account the hours and
concerns of a WRITER. My day, for example, doesn't end at five;
quite often it ends at midnight. Saturdays and Sundays are just as
likely to be "working" days as any other day of the week. I also
wanted to track more than just "what I did when." I wanted a way
to note my accomplishments each week -- tasks completed, projects
begun -- a way to remind myself that even when time seems to
vanish, I really AM getting things done.

About halfway through the resulting spreadsheet, it dawned on me
that such a tool might be useful to other writers. So I decided to
add a bit more to my "tracker": A weekly column for a to-do list,
upcoming deadlines, and goals. And to dress it up just a bit more,
quotes from famous writers to keep the inspiration flowing.
Finally I threw in a submission tracker at the end.

The result, I think, is a powerful tool for writers who want to
manage their time more effectively. It provides a means, not only
of recording time spent on actual writing projects (which is a
vital part of setting rates or determining if a project is
worthwhile), but of recording all those snippets of time that go to
OTHER tasks. This is the place to note that you spent three hours
reading other people's blogs, or an hour updating your Facebook
page, or two hours on your favorite game, or an hour on the phone
with your sister. Because what my husband says is true: You can't
manage what you can't measure, and if you can't measure where your
time goes, you'll never be able to manage it more effectively.

But while I regard this as a tool, I also regard it as a source of
inspiration and encouragement. It's all too easy to fall into the
trap of believing that we have "wasted" our days -- that hours and
days and weeks go by with no "real" accomplishment. And that,
quite often, simply isn't true. Instead, our accomplishments --
the tasks we finished, the steps that we've completed, the things
we've learned along the way -- get submerged in the greater flow of
events. By the end of the week, they're forgotten; by the end of
the month, we feel as if we've done hardly anything worthwhile.
That's why I built in the "achievements" section -- to remind us to
take a moment to jot down those things that we DID accomplish,
before they are forgotten.

This planner is my gift to my readers for 2012. You can download
the electronic version, in PDF format, absolutely free. I am also
providing the Excel file, with instructions on how to tailor it to
match your own schedule (I know that many writers DO get up at 5
a.m. and write for two hours before breakfast; I just don't happen
to be one of them.) Or, you can order a gorgeous hard-copy
directly from Lulu.com. (BTW, Lulu is having a sale, so if you
order by tomorrow and use the code "ONEMORETHING" you'll save 25%.)

I don't know if this tool will make 2012 go any more slowly than
2011. But my hope is that, by the end of it, you will be able to
say, "My time went quickly, but at least it was well spent!"

Happy New Year from Writing-World.com!

Moira Allen, Editor
http://www.writing-world.com

How to get your planner:

PDF file: http://www.writing-world.com/admin1/planner.pdf
(Right-click the link to save it to your hard drive, or click the
link and then select "save as" to download it.)

Excel file: http://www.writing-world.com/admin1/planner.xls
(I don't actually have this loaded yet, so please give me another
day or two before trying to download the Excel version.)

Hardcopy from Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/a-writers-year-2012/12402589
(Again, use the code ONEMORETHING to save 25% through January 6)

And while I'm on the subject of time and books, I'm afraid that the
2012 edition of "Writing to Win" is still not finished - so I am
extending the pre-order offer through the end of January.
Pre-order this book by January 31 and save $6 off the cover price!
Just go to http://www.writing-world.com/admin1/contests.shtml to
place your order. When you do, I'll send you a PDF file of the
January contests so that you don't miss a deadline!

*****************************************************************

YOU WILL NETWORK WITH 30+ EDITORS Over 400 editors contribute their
unique news and views each year. That's news and views to improve
your chances to get published. Monthly newsletter. Get 2 issues
FREE. http://www.thechildrenswriter.com/AK254

*****************************************************************

The Inquiring Writer: What I would have changed in 2011
=================================================================
By Dawn Copeman

Happy New Year!

And the first thing I want to talk about this year is what you
would have changed about last year if you could.

So I think it's only fair to tell you what I would have changed
about last year first. If I had a time-machine I would go back and
give myself a big kick up the butt in January last year to do more
online promotion and hunt down more and varied clients on the web.
I finally got around to doing this in August, branching out into
new writing territory, and it has gone very well. If only I'd had
the nerve to try it sooner.

In fact, many of you would give yourself prods to get more work
done, such as Dianna Whillet, who wrote: "I would have started
submitting work earlier on in the year, instead of putting it off
and putting it off. I was so nervous but it wasn't until November
that I bit the bullet and actually submitted a query. Imagine my
joy when it was accepted! The sad thing is I'd been sitting on
that query for months. This year I will get my queries out there!"
Good for you, Dianna.

Shauna R. Hess Viele has a similar retrospective resolution. She
wrote: "Looking back over the past year, I've practiced and
polished, but no submissions occurred because I focused on
completing assignments in a writing course I was taking. (Mainly
because I wasn't forward-thinking enough.) I am pushing forward and
taking the next level in the program (it is through Jerry Jenkins'
Christian Writers Guild), and by the time I am done with this
course, I plan on having a good start on a manuscript for a novel.
In the meantime, I also plan to do serious market research in 2012
and start writing articles.

"What would I change about the past year? I would spend less time
on social network and game-playing sites! The social networking and
reading blogs can be inspiring, uplifting, and downright fun, but
therein lays the rub--before I know it, two hours have flown by,
and my intended time for writing is gone. I have enjoyed
reconnecting with classmates from years past, and have learned a
lot from writing blogs that I read, but I need to curb my online
time and just get BUSY. Money isn't the only thing I need to
budget!

"Speaking of which, my time is up for today! Thanks for the
question, it definitely made me stop and take notice of what
I need to do."

You're welcome, Shauna. That was the purpose of the question.

A. Elizabeth Westmoreland is another one who would make better use
of her time. She wrote: "The one writing-related thing I wish I
could change in 2011 is that I wish I had been better organized
with my time, so I could have worked on my current book more. The
poor thing hasn't been touched in a while.

"This is definitely something I can fix in 2012!"

Sarah from Canada is a new writer and she also wishes she had spent
more time writing in 2011. She wrote: "If I could go back in time
and give myself more motivation to work on my novel, if I could
actually write as many words as I had wished, I would most
certainly do it. I am very passionate about my story; however, I am
a grade case procrastinator, like many people, I am sure."

Well, yes, Sarah, many writers are, but thankfully we do have lots
of articles to help you with this. Try this one for a start:
http://www.writing-world.com/life/procrastination.shtml

Isadora Daystar, however, would do some particular research in one
area if she could go back in time. She wrote: "I'd be more careful
to check on rights when I self-published for the first time this
year and would have taken more time to make a list of reviewers,
past and potential, so that my confusion (and many times theirs,
lol!) would be better manageable! Oh, and I'd give myself hard, way
early deadlines!"

If you are thinking of self-publishing this year, be sure to check
out Sue Lick's advice on rights here:
http://www.writing-world.com/publish/lick.shtml

Jonah Brown, however, our one male respondent, said he wouldn't
change a thing about 2011. He wrote: "I finally found my writing
stride in 2011. I have managed to write for one hour a day, five
days a week and while that might not sound much, it has enabled me
to work on my novel, submit articles to magazines and even pick up
a monthly column in the town newspaper.

"In previous years I'd tried to do too much. I work a full-time job
and I couldn't, in all honesty, get up at 5 am to write for three
hours before setting off to work, although one year this is what I
set myself to do. This year I settled for what I knew I could
realistically achieve. I write for one hour a day when I get in
from work. I can think about my writing at odd moments during the
day, coffee breaks, at the water cooler, lunch break etc., but I
save up the writing for that one precious hour. I write as soon as
I get home before dinner. What can I say; less is, in my case,
more."

Thanks for that, Jonah; I hope your experience can help others who
are struggling with their writing targets and goals. If you are,
or if you've never set yourself goals for your writing, then check
out our articles on how to build a writer's plan here:
http://www.writing-world.com/rights/plan.shtml and
http://www.writing-world.com/dawn/dawn08.shtml

Okay, this month's question is from a new writer, Sarah in Canada.
She wants to know about writing short stories and posting them
online. She wrote: "If I were to write my story, but when I
reached the story's end I then decided to rewrite it so much that
it would, in effect, completely change the plot, should I make
these changes? Would it be weird if I was to post the first version
on my web site and then change it in the future?"

Can any of you short story writers out there help Sarah? Or do you
have any burning issues to put to our writing community? If so,
then e-mail me at editorial@writing-world.com.

Until next time,

Dawn

Copyright 2012 Dawn Copeman

*****************************************************************

WIN PRIZES AND GET PUBLISHED! Find out how to submit your stories,
poetry, articles and books to hundreds of writing contests in the
US and internationally. WRITING TO WIN by Moira Allen is THE
one-stop resource you need to find contests around the world.
SPECIAL OFFER EXTENDED THROUGH JANUARY: Pre-order the 2012 edition
for $6 off the regular price - order by January 31 by visiting
http://www.writing-world.com/admin1/contests.shtml

*****************************************************************

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WRITING
=================================================================

Record Number of Books Downloaded on Christmas Day
--------------------------------------------------
Harper Collins has announced that over 100,000 of its eBook titles
were downloaded on Christmas Day in the UK, Australia and New
Zealand. The company hasn't yet calculated the number of US
downloads of its books. This represents an increase of 600% on the
average daily number of downloads. For more on this story visit:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/hc-christmas-day-downloads-top-100000.html

Kindle Has Most Successful Day Ever
-----------------------------------
Meanwhile in the US, Amazon reported that following the purchase of
over 1 million Kindles per week in the US in the run-up to
Christmas, Christmas Day saw the largest-ever number of Kindle
downloads. Interestingly, two of the most popular downloads that
day were self-published titles. For more on this story visit:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/christmas-day-biggest-ever-kindle.html

And Traditional Book Stores Enjoy Successful End of Year Too
------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the first two news stories this month, traditional brick
and mortar book stores across the US did much better than expected
in December 2011. In a survey for Publishers' Weekly, most said
that they had seen increased sales in December. The closure of
Borders is given as one of the main reasons for their increase in
sales. For more on this story visit: http://tinyurl.com/6ty89kf

*****************************************************************

EVERYHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SETTING FREELANCE FEES! Find out
how to negotiate agreements, choose pricing strategies, define
tasks, deal with difficult customers, and much more in the award-
winning "What to Charge: Pricing Strategies for Freelancers and
Consultants" (2nd Edition) by Laurie Lewis. In print and Kindle
from Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/setyourfees

*****************************************************************

Writing Jobs and Opportunities
=================================================================

Punchnel's Open to All Sorts of Submissions
-------------------------------------------
This online magazine has a wide variety of departments and is open
to an impressively wide range of submissions from recipes to
reviews, to travel essays, to poetry, to serialized fiction and
graphic novels. They pay $10 on acceptance for first electronic
rights. http://www.punchnels.com/guidelines/

Crime Stories Wanted
--------------------
OverMyDeadBody.com publishes all sorts of crime stories from cozy
to hardboiled as well as nonfiction pieces such as interviews with
crime writers. They pay $0.01 a word and up to $25 for unsolicited
fiction. For more information and to see the complete guidelines
visit: http://www.overmydeadbody.com/wg2011.htm

Romance Publisher Open to Submissions
-------------------------------------
Decadent Publishing is open to submissions of romance novels for
its many imprints. Visit the site for detailed guidelines:
http://www.decadentpublishing.com/

****************************************************************

HIRE AN AWARD WINNING DESIGNER/AUTHOR TO DEVELOP YOUR WEBSITES.
Celebrating a decade of designing websites for authors that reflect
their unique style and personality. Other design services include
book designs, marketing materials, and email campaigns. Contact
Shaila Abdullah for your design needs at http://myhouseofdesign.com/

*****************************************************************

FEATURE: How to Create Your Writer's Brand Online
===============================================================
By Gail Kavanagh

Are you doing everything you can to promote your writer brand?
Many writers don't even think about themselves as a brand, they
think of themselves as just writers. But most well established
writers are, in fact, a brand. Think of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman,
and Jan Karon. Each has a strong Internet presence, and a definable
print presence -- a brand.

These days, everything and everyone is a brand, from rock stars to
celebrity bloggers. Promoting that brand and keeping it fresh in
the public mind is what makes the difference between success and
failure. Writers are no different. When you go online, everything
you do is creating a brand, in the minds of publishers, potential
clients and readers.

So what are the guidelines to making sure you are a recognisable
writing brand, as unique in your own sphere as Stephen King or Jan
Karon, with a big following attracted to and interested in your
brand? You need to sit down and think about who you are, and what
you are writing, as well as your personal goals, and how you can
create a recognizable brand.

On the Internet, brands are associated with keywords. These
keywords not only include the name of the brand -- like Coca-Cola
-- but also elements associated with that brand. Think 'horror' and
'thriller' for Stephen King, 'Mitford' and 'Father Tim' for Jan
Karon. Keywords like 'vampire' and 'Lestat' will lead you to Anne
Rice. Keywords are vital for defining who you are and what you do
online.

Use keywords to identify your brand elements. Think about yourself
as a writer and what you want to communicate to publishers and
clients. Does your list include words and phrases like 'trendy,'
'controversial,' or 'on the cutting edge?' Are you linked with
genres like horror, romance, or science fiction? Or does it include
words and phrases like 'reliable,' 'consistent,' 'attention to
detail?' Are you linked with concepts such as 'content,' 'editing,'
or 'journalism?' Can you use keywords such as 'experienced' and
'print published', or would keywords such as 'fresh approach' and
'new ideas' work better for you?

List the keywords that describe you and your personal brand and
keep that list handy. You really need to accent the positive in
your keywords. Don't use words or phrases like 'amateur', 'newbie'
or 'old hand.' These give potential clients a pre-set impression of
writers who don't know all the ropes, or who know too many and are
set in their ways.

As many writers are well aware, a big part of success in writing is
finding your niche, what is special about you as a writer. J.K.
Rowling is a megabrand with her Harry Potter series. Note that the
name of the instantly recognizable character she created is in the
title of every book and movie. You see those words, you think J.K.
Rowling. You see Twilight, you think of Stephanie Meyer. Both these
writers, while so different in following and ability, know the
value of their brand.

You may not be a fiction writer -- you may enjoy writing about
crafts, cars or politics -- but so do thousands of other writers.
Your brand consists of the unique perspective and personal
experience you bring to your niche. You need to list what you bring
to your brand that no one else has. Maybe it's your background,
maybe it's the fact that you have often had to find solutions or
solve problems on your own. No one else has quite your approach or
your experience, and that is a big part of your brand.

In promoting your writing skills online, you have to make that
brand recognizable and appealing to consumers who you hope will
choose you for assignments. Who will buy your product? If you write
about rock bands and concerts, you may be aiming at the youth
market, or the nostalgic baby boomers who want to hear all about
your personal experiences at Woodstock. If you write about
collecting rare items, archaeology or history, the market may be
wealthier and more conservative. You will brand yourself
accordingly, coming across as someone who is in the know in these
fields. Above all, you want to create a brand that can be trusted.

Many of use associate brands with logos, and logos are important.
McDonald's Golden Arches are recognizable anywhere in the world.
But what does having a recognizable logo mean if you are a
freelance writer? If you have a company with a carefully chosen
name that includes services like editing and proofreading, you will
already know that a logo is important. It should be eye-catching
and relevant, not boring, and it is well worth getting a
professional to design one for you.

But freelance writers should give some thought to their logo too.
If you write articles, fiction or self-help books under your own
name, your name is your logo, and how you present that name to the
public is part of your brand. If you have a website, do you stop
and consider how to present your name as your logo? The font, the
size of the font -- even the colors you choose -- are all part of
your brand. You need to sit down and think about the styles and
colors that will support your brand.

When you design a webpage or a header for a blog, keep your brand
firmly in mind. Decide on a color scheme and use that where you
can. If you are using a free blogging platform, choose a background
that ties in with your brand, or one you can customize. Choose your
fonts accordingly. A plain Roman font gets the message across that
you are down to earth and reliable. Other fonts suggest different
brands -- a Gothic romance writer may use a fancy Old English font,
whereas a science or political writer may use something strikingly
modern, internationally recognizable and sans serif, like Helvetica.

The image you present to the public is also part of your brand. You
need more than a blurry snapshot as your bio pic. You need to be
consistent with your image across all your Internet activities. Do
you have different images uploaded at every website and blog? Get
one good image taken of you, a clear head and shoulders shot, and
use it consistently across the web.

Plan your bio image before it is taken. Pick out the main color you
have chosen for your brand, and match what you wear and the
background to the colors you are using as part of your brand. Use
your brand keywords and match the image to suit, so that publishers
and clients will have a visual image of your personal brand. When
they see those elements, you want them to be reminded of your brand.

Think of all the places you can promote your brand online -- not
just your website and blog, but Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and
others. Twitter can be a very good conduit for your brand, but
don't over promote on any of these outlets. Offer snippets of
advice, useful links, and random thoughts as well. As you gather
fans and followers in your social networking activities, you are
promoting your brand to them and their friends and followers.

Once you have created a consistent brand for all your Internet
activities, you will have your brand in mind wherever you present
yourself to the public, on forums or social networking sites. The
entertainment blogger may have a bubbly persona everywhere he or
she goes, because that is the brand. The archaeology and history
writer may only show up where there is some information on the
subject to be shared, and do so with restraint, because that is the
brand. Of course, both can log in anywhere under other identities
and not affect the brand.

Your personal brand is the key to marketing today. Knowing who you
are, who you want to aim your product at, and how to fix yourself
in their minds so that they go back to you time and again, is all
part of your brand. Whether you are planning to start writing
fiction or content, publishing eBooks or blogging, take time to sit
down and work out your brand.

>>--------------------------------------------------<>--------------------------------------------------<http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?LEyszKyMtCwcrMxs7GwMtEa0jEyczMwMLOw=

Actions Flag Clear flag Create a Filter Print Message Show Message Status View Message Source --------- Move to: Old Mail Sent IMs Spam Recently Deleted Saved Mail Go to the previous message control+alt+pagedown Go to the next message control+alt+pageup Close message escape

Spooky Dolls

2012-01-06T08:56:00.001-08:00

Below is an essay, Uncanny Dolls, by Eva Marie simms:

Access provided by Northwestern University Library
Uncanny Dolls:
Images of Death in Rilke and Freud

Eva-Maria Simms
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We pulled our dolls along behind the bars of our crib, dragged them into the heavy folds of illness. They appeared in dreams and were tied up in the disasters of feverish nights. They did not make any effort of their own; they were lying at the edge of childhood sleep, maybe filled with rudimentary thoughts of falling off, and they let themselves be dreamed. Just as they were accustomed to be lived tirelessly through someone else's power during the day.
Rainer Maria Rilke, "Dolls" 1
I. "Pulling her from a pile of more sympathetic things . . ."
The doll, although featuring prominently in many female children's lives, has found little attention from the academic community. In the history of psychoanalysis, as in the history of traditional psychology, the doll has not been found worthy of examination. Freud dismissed the doll in his discussion of the uncanny because she did not symbolize Oedipal issues very well. 2 Psychoanalysts since then who have worked with children discuss dolls in the context of play therapy, where they, like other toys, allow the child to project unconscious processes and facilitate the resolution of conflicts which the child is unable to articulate. 3 Once in a while, we find a case history where a female child uses a doll in an aggressive manner (CS 226-27), which is interpreted as a substitute for the absent penis, or where a little boy is brought to the therapist because he plays with dolls, 4 which is interpreted as his pathological identification with the mother. Yet here, too, the phenomenon of the doll is not explored but taken for granted as a symbol within the oedipal struggle of the preschooler.
D. W. Winnicott groups the doll together with teddy bears, blankets, and other soft toys as transitional objects which make the gradual separation from the mother possible. 5 The attachment to the consistent, transitional object allows the child to shift the cathexis away from the mother and so gains the child a certain amount of independence and [End Page 663] control. In the attachment theories, the doll is not differentiated from other toys, and her particular symbolic place in the world of the child is not discussed. And like other transitional objects, she represents the erotic attachment to the mother.
In the history of psychotherapy the doll of play therapy has become the "anatomically correct doll" in recent years, and the controversy rages over whether these dolls are an appropriate tool for discerning sexual abuse in children. 6 Here the focus is on the doll as a representation of the sexual body which allows the child's play to enact (or imagine?) sexual relationships symbolically, and allows the therapist to discern precocious and disturbed sexual knowledge in the child. Yet no particular attention is paid to the nongenital, symbolic function of the doll, which comprises most of her significance in the young girl's life.
With the rise of feminism, a revisiting of the girl's toy corner is in order. Through the recent inclusion of the female subject in psychological theory and practice the world of the female child attains new prominence, 7 and the doll as a key carrier of female childhood fantasy needs to be examined. The presence of the doll in the girl's life is more, though, than a patriarchal tool for socializing the mothers of the next generation. She profoundly attracts the child's desire, evokes passionate love and hate, and fulfills needs that are difficult to articulate in any other way than through play.
In short, the doll barely exists in psychological theory. Dolls are not distinguished from other toys; they are identified either with the erotic field of the mother or seen only as the girl's substitute penis (doll= baby=penis), and their symbolic significance has been limited to the sexual/genital representation of the human body. Together with the psychology of the female child, they have been dismissed from the history of psychology.
In the following essay, I would like to invite you to follow the poet Rainer Maria Rilke through the psychological world of the doll as he reveals it to us through poetry, short story, and essay. Rilke will show us that the doll in the symbolic universe of the child is a human body, but that its meaning goes beyond its sexual/erotic signification. He will draw the line that separates the doll from the rocking horse and the teddy bear, and will lead us into the dark and deadly reaches of the transitional object, showing us the uncanniness of the doll at home in its pre-oedipal playground. And even though Rilke's perception of the doll is tinged with aversion, and he makes no attempt to represent fairly all aspects of the doll's impact on the child's life, his work nevertheless can shed new light on the psychological reality of dolls and their place in the experience of the child. [End Page 664]
II. "The big blue thing"
There is nothing ambiguous about Rilke's relationships with dolls: he despised and hated them with a passion that is surprising to anyone familiar with Rilke's usually reverent and gentle concern for the world of things. The image of the doll had haunted Rilke for a long time, and we find in his writing various attempts to cope with the terror which the doll had inspired in him since his childhood. Witness, for example, the following fragment which did not make it into the Duino Elegies:
If there is a dead body in the room--
cover it,
that it does not become the gruesome
doll of the (childish) house
that he does not play with it
erecting it, against. . . . 8
The essay "Dolls," written at approximately the same time as the fourth of the Duino Elegies (which also tries to come to terms with pup-pets and dolls), gives us Rilke's reaction upon seeing a collection of dolls in Paris. It is a scathing critique of the doll's existence, addressed to the doll itself and written like one of those letters young adults sometimes write (but do not mail) to their fathers in order to even an old score, to understand the emotional entanglements of the past, to free themselves from a still haunting presence. When faced with images of angels, Rilke's terror is aesthetic and beautiful. When faced with dolls, Rilke's terror is urgent and real, and his emotions lie barely under the surface.
At the root of Rilke's hatred of dolls lies his encounter with the dolls of his childhood. For the first years of his life Rilke's mother raised her son like a little girl and, like a doll, dressed him in curls, dresses, pinafores, and bows. He was named Rene, which is a boy's as well as a girl's name, and his mother called him Sophie for a while. He dusted the piano and played with dolls. 9
In "Dolls," Rilke struggles with the gender confusion of his early childhood by contrasting the doll with the more masculine rocking horse:
Oh, how you lifted one up, soul of the rocking horse, up and further into an irresistibly heroic being, where one perished, hot and gloriously, with his hair most terribly messed up. Then you lay next to it, doll, and you did not have enough innocence to understand that your holy George was rocking upon the animal of your dullness, the dragon, who let our most flooding feelings become matter in you--a perfidious, indifferent, unbreakable thing. (W 3:540)
[End Page 665]
In this fantasy, the heroic boy almost violates and crushes the doll as he assigns her the role of the dragon to his St. George. But in her dullness the doll does not respond. She overcomes the "hero" in the end by her very unresponsiveness. The doll is indifferent to the existence of the child, and therein lies her power.
It would be possible to further analyze Rilke's gender confusion, to point out the equation of doll with woman, to reveal Rilke's idealization of women and his inability to respond truly to them with love. We could study his disturbed relationship with his mother and the ensuing metamorphoses of the mother image in his unfolding work. But I would like to suggest a different direction. When the doll appears in Rilke's work she is "lying around in our earliest uncanny loneliness" (W 3:534), she reveals herself "as something unknown, and everything familiar with which we had showered and filled her becomes suddenly unknown in her" (W 3:539), and she is generally accompanied by images of emptiness, death, and futility. The aura of uncanniness surrounding the doll penetrates Rilke's works, even the mature work of the Duino Elegies. And on the level of his work, the image of the doll becomes more than a vestige of his disturbed childhood. Rilke perceives something true and truly uncanny about the very existence of dolls.
In 1899 Rilke wrote a strange, uncanny, and very "un-Rilkean" short story called "Frau Blaha's Maid." In a detached, almost journalistic style Rilke tells the story of the murder of an infant. The maid is a simple country girl who lives her life inside the grey, dark walls of a kitchen in the city. Unnoticed by anyone, she gives birth to a child whom she strangles, wraps in a blue apron, and then hides as her "big doll" in a trunk. During one of the next days, she measures the corpse and proceeds to buy a puppet theater with a king, a peasant, and a tower but which, alas, are much smaller than her "doll." She sets up the theater in the kitchen, and the neighbors' children come to watch her perform little dialogues and stiff movements, "but they never turn out to be a real play." 10 She tells them about her "really big doll," and they press her to show it to them:
Anushka went to the back to her trunk. It was already getting dark. The children and the puppets faced each other, very quiet and alike. But from the wide open eyes of the punch, which were as if they expected something terrifying, a sudden fear swept over the children so that without exception they began to scream and run away. Anushka came back with the big blue thing in her arms. Suddenly her hands trembled. The kitchen had become so quiet and empty after the children had gone. Anushka was not afraid. She laughed softly and kicked the theater over with her feet and broke all the thin boards which were meant to be the garden. And then, as the kitchen was completely dark, she went about and split open all the dolls' heads, also the big blue one's. (4:629)
[End Page 666]
This is the sudden end of the story. Anushka can only transcend the confines of her life through an act of violence. The puppets never truly come to life; they stiffly bow before each other and knock each other over. This strange and ritualistic limitation of imaginative possibilities, this inability to truly enter into play is deeply linked to Anushka's act of violence. The puppets fail because they are nothing but the receptacle of Anushka's imaginative creations. She does not know what to do with them, as she does not know what to do with the newborn. Imprisoned in the kitchen, alienated from the social and cultural life of the city, she has no reference system for making sense out of her life in the act of playing. Even her own biological identity is undisclosed to her, and she bears a child without knowing that she is pregnant and murders the newborn without any emotional or moral response. Violence is the ultimate answer to a world which does not respond.
The coldness and absurdity of her actions, which are not explained by the story, lead to the uncanny and depressing effect of the tale. Her coldness, though, is not premeditated, and we even feel pity for this human beast, who is homesick and longs for music, companionship, and the splendor of a king's life as she, almost in passing, murders her child. The logic of the tale is like the logic of the dream: meaningful but inconsistent, senseless on the surface but pointing toward a deeper, unconscious order.
Examined critically as a piece of fiction, "Frau Blaha's Maid" does not work because the character of the maid is not convincing. Could a woman have sexual intercourse on various occasions without knowing that she does, especially if she grew up in the country and watched the procreation of animals? Could she be pregnant for nine months and not know it, bear a child as if it suddenly fell out of her? Could she strangle the child because it cries and then go into the parlor and serve Sunday morning breakfast--all a few minutes after delivery? And furthermore, while the character of the maid is drawn without conviction, it seems that Rilke also does not care about the logic of the plot of this story. We are never asked to understand Anushka or to identify with her. As she wraps the corpse in the blue apron, converts the dead child into the big blue doll, and finally destroys the puppet theater and all the dolls, we find the progression of the story arbitrary and baffling. Rilke's language remains cool and detached. He does not convey to us an understanding of the girl's feelings and motives, and makes no attempt to reveal the psychological motives for her gruesome deed.
However, the failure of the tale should give us pause for thought, for we have to admit that despite its literary inconsistencies it still conveys a certain mood of strangeness, depressiveness, and uncanniness. While poetically it may be a failure, psychologically it seems to work. The [End Page 667] narrator gives us the impression of distant objectivity as he retells the surface events of the story. The style of storytelling, though, is too indifferent to be convincing, and whenever we notice an indifference that seems to be out of proportion to the traumatic content of the story told, we suspect an overcompensation of extremely disturbing emotions. Something has been repressed.
III. ". . . spreading herself like a boorish Danae . . ."
For a psychological reading of this tale, let me turn to Freud's work on "The Uncanny" which discusses some of the haunted and uncanny qualities of dolls (SE 17:217-52). Through a careful study of a series of uncanny images and tales from the stories of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Freud examines the production of uncanniness in literature. He explores the psychological structure of the uncanny, which has as its core function a very particular and paradoxical relationship to the repressed: it conceals and reveals it at the same time.
Freud refers to the uncanniness of dolls in the context of an argument that he has with E. Jentsch, author of the study Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen. Jentsch claims that the key element of uncanniness is a confusion between animate and inanimate processes, which leads to an intellectual uncertainty in the reader. Referring particularly to Hoffman's character of the doll Olympia, Jentsch writes:
In telling a story one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton; and to do it in such a way that his attention is not directly focused upon this uncertainty, so that he may not be urged to go into the matter and clear it up immediately, since that, as we have said, would quickly dissipate the peculiar emotional effect of the thing. E. T. A. Hoffman has repeatedly employed this psychological artifice with success in his fantastic narratives. (quoted in SE 17:227)
Freud wants to push our understanding of the uncanny beyond Jentsch's notion of intellectual confusion and introduce a dynamic model which includes conscious and unconscious processes. And although Freud quotes at length from Jentsch's book, he plays down his argument by introjecting: "But I cannot think--and I hope that most readers of the story will agree with me--that the theme of the doll, Olympia, who is to all appearance a living being, is by any means the only element to be held responsible for the quite unparalleled atmosphere of uncanniness which the story evokes; or, indeed, that it is the [End Page 668] most important among them" (SE 17:227). Discarding the doll, Freud moves on to discuss a different, and according to him more terrifying, figure, Hoffman's Sand-Man, who repeatedly threatens the hero with barely disguised castration. At home at last with the Oedipus complex, Freud is on familiar turf and continues to explore the uncanny through the terrifying but forgotten childhood wounds of eros.
Yet we are still in need of understanding Rilke's uncanny dolls, and Freud seems to deny us his psychological insight by refusing to take the doll seriously as an uncanny character. Yet Freud's abrupt dismissal of the doll and the quick turn toward the familiar castration issues make me wonder if there is not an unconscious undercurrent at work which disturbs the smooth flow of Freud's thought. Maybe the kind of uncanniness the doll evokes has to do with the refusal to entertain her seriously? I agree with Freud that Jentsch's argument is not sufficient to penetrate the dreadful nature of the doll experience, or better, that Jentsch touches a certain level of psychological experience which is still tied to the function of consciousness. Through Rilke's "Frau Blaha's Maid," we can affirm Jentsch's observation that one of the technical elements which support our experience of the uncanny is that the story distracts our attention from the intellectual uncertainty whether we are dealing with a doll or a corpse. Rilke euphemistically calls the dead child/doll "the big blue one," and the story gives us no pause for reflection on the cruel transformation between the living child and the inanimate doll. But Jentsch still leaves the "particular emotional effect of the thing" unexplained. Our dilemma is that Freud refuses to look at the doll, while Jentsch's glance only touches the surface. It is almost uncanny: both authors either repress or rationalize the emotional impact of the doll.
IV. ". . . the doll, she was the first to inflict
this larger than human silence upon us . . ."
Since Freud denies us a quick answer, we are forced to take some detours, and those lead us through the labyrinth of Freud's other insights into the uncanny. Hopefully we will come out at the other end with a deeper understanding of the doll's uncanniness. Let us begin unraveling the thread by looking at the doll's rival, the Sand-Man/castrator. The image of the Sand-Man is uncanny because he touches upon a fear from our early childhood. Freud generalizes from this insight to say that a fear or a wish from the Oedipal scene is evoked by an uncanny image. The fear or wish can also have its origins in infancy, [End Page 669] namely in the fall from the grandeur of the infant's early narcissistic world, which is evoked through the image of the double in uncanny tales. Freud writes: "The other forms of ego-disturbance exploited by Hoffman can easily be estimated along the same lines as the theme of the 'double.' They are a harking-back to particular phases in the evolution of the self-regarding feeling, a regression to a time when the ego had not yet marked itself off sharply from the external world and from other people. I believe that these factors are partly responsible for the impression of uncanniness, although it is not easy to isolate and determine exactly their share of it" (SE 17:236).
Regression is the key word in this passage, and it implies a disturbance in the ego's sense of time. The ego regresses to an earlier identity formation which is marked by a relationship to reality different from the adult's ego, namely to a developmental stage where self-perception and perception of the world are not clearly distinguished.
With respect to the doll, these reflections of Freud lead us to the following questions: what is the nature of the repression concealed by the uncanny atmosphere of Rilke's dolls? Or, to ask more directly: what stage of infantile ego development is reactivated through Rilke's description of the doll? "Frau Blaha's Maid" conceals the regression, but the essay "Dolls" gives us many clues as to the psychological presence and function of the doll in childhood development. In the lives of many children, as in Rilke's childhood, the encounter with the doll is of primary importance and set apart from the play with other toys. As we saw before, part of the terror the doll inspires in Rilke comes from her lifelessness and her indifference and unresponsiveness to the child's emotions. Things, too, are without life, but they, as Rilke says, almost acquire a heart by being the silent companions and memorabilia of human existence. They are "thankful for tenderness" and, although fading and vanishing with use, they come to life under the "demanding caresses" of the "hardest wear":
If we would become aware of all this, and at this very moment would find--pulling her from a pile of more sympathetic things--one of our old dolls: she would almost upset us by her terrible, thick forgetfulness. The hatred, which unconsciously has always been a part of our relationship with her, would flare up, and she would lie before us, finally without disguise: as that gruesome alien body for which we have wasted our purest warmth; as that superficially painted drowned corpse, lifted and carried by the floods of our tenderness until it dried out and we forgot it somewhere in the bushes. (W 3:535-36)
Here, again, we see the confusion between toy and corpse, and the rage and hatred which this image inspires. If the doll is this unresponsive, [End Page 670] thickly forgetful, hate-inspiring alien body, why do we give such a toy to the child? Rilke asked himself the same question, and his answer is startling and reveals a deep psychological insight: we give the doll to our child because the soul of the child would get lost in a human presence. "The simplest exchange of love far exceeded our understanding" he says, and so we, as children, practice our existence and our loving with the unresponsive, unloving doll (W 3:536). The doll exists on the threshold of ego-identity, where subject and object are undifferentiated and merge in an erotic fusion. At a certain point in the child's development primal narcissism poses the threat of self-annihilation in the narcissistic union with the mother. While the child would "get lost" in the other by "pressing itself into her" (W 3:536), the doll does not respond to the child's cries and other outpourings of emotion. She does not mirror the young self, does not smile, does not affirm good or bad, does not take the infant into her arms. In fact, she is usually smaller than the child and her function is to be an object against which the child must assert its own identity. She stands at the threshold of narcissism, forcing the child to assume an identity of his own, and to distinguish between I and the world: "We were forced to assert ourselves against the doll, for if we gave ourselves up for her nobody would be left over. She did not respond, and hence we found ourselves in the position of taking over tasks for her. We split our slowly widening being in part and counterpart, and kept, so to say, the world at bay through her, which before was unlimited and merged with us" (W 3:536).
In terms of regression, the doll in Rilke's work evokes the period of awakening self-consciousness in the child. Self-consciousness comes with the severing of the narcissistic, symbiotic union with the mother, and is a painful and terrifying process which brings with it feelings of helplessness and limitation. Where before was the engulfing love of the mother who was the world, there is now an absence, an abyss. And the doll can never take the place of the mother. I think that a large part of the rage, hatred, and aggression against the doll is the memory of the lost union with the mother, for which the doll is merely a poor substitute.
The position of play in Freud's work is central to his understanding of desire and the psychological mechanisms for coping with loss. The child, as Freud points out in the discussion of his grandson's "Fort-Da" game, fills with fantasies the space of the absent mother and symbolizes the fulfillment of his wishes. The doll, as do other toys, offers itself as an object for the attachment of the child's erotic and aggressive fantasies. Her very unresponsiveness, although it does not gratify the child's desires, leads to a continuous effort on the part of the child to invent an imaginary world and to hallucinate satisfaction: [End Page 671]
Like in a sample glass we mixed in her what happened to us before recognition, and there we saw it change color and boil up. That is, even this we invented again, for she was so bottomlessly without fantasy that our imagination became inexhaustible in her. For hours, for whole weeks it might satisfy us to drape the first feathery silk of our heart into folds around this quiet mannequin, but I cannot imagine it otherwise than that there were certain endless afternoons when we grew tired of our doubled ideas and when we suddenly faced her and expected something. (W 3:536-37)
But why is it the doll, and not the rocking horse or any of the other toys, that functions as this primary entry into the world of the imagination? The answer, I think, lies in the fact that the doll, among all the toys, comes closest to imitating the child's own body. Because the body of the doll resembles the human body it lends itself to an imaginative representation of the human world. The child plays family, school, grocery store, and so on. During play the doll can assume the child's place in the adult world, while the child plays all the others: mother, father, teacher, grocer. Through the doll the child can explore some of the parameters of the adult world.
Rilke would agree with this sociological explanation of the doll's function in the child's universe. In "Dolls" he expresses a very similar idea: "We found our orientation through the doll. By nature she was lower than we were, and so we could gradually flow down into her and collect ourselves and recognize, although somewhat dimly, our new surrounding world" (W 3:539). But Rilke also reminds us of another, less optimistic aspect of the doll which does not fit into the slick picture of the child practicing to be an adult with her doll. What about those "endless afternoons when we grew tired of our doubled ideas and when we suddenly faced her and expected something" (W 3:539)? What when the fabric of the child's fantasy world tears apart and she suddenly recognizes that through the web of fiction she is faced by a lifeless body? It is in those terrifying moments, Rilke thinks, that the child glimpses an aspect of human existence even adults find difficult to accept. When the imagination ceases to perpetuate itself, when boredom sets in, the world that we had taken for granted suddenly takes on dark and unfamiliar hues. Behind it we sense a threatening emptiness which begins to permeate the solid floor, the walls, the chair, the rocking horse, and the doll:
When nothing was lying around to captivate and change our train of thoughts, when that idle creature continued to stupidly and heavily spread itself like a peasant Danae who did not know anything else but the infinite golden rain of our feelings: I wish I could remember whether we started up in anger and told that monster that our patience was at an end? Whether we did not face her, [End Page 672] trembling with rage, and wanted to know, post for post, what she was doing with all our warmth and what had become of all this wealth?--Then she was silent, not because of arrogance, but silence was her continuous excuse because she was made of a good-for-nothing, completely irresponsible stuff--was silent and did not even think to be proud of it, although it provided her with great importance in a world where fate and even God himself have become famous for facing us with silence. At a time where everybody made an effort to give us quick and soothing answers the doll was the first who made us suffer this immense silence which later on would often breathe at us out of space whenever we stepped on the limits of our existence. Facing her as she stared at us we experienced for the first time (or am I wrong?) that certain hollowness in our feeling, this pause of the heart in which one would perish if not the whole, soft, far-reaching Nature would carry us like a lifeless thing across the abyss. Are we not strange creatures that we obey and let ourselves be instructed to invest our first tender inclinations where they must remain unsatisfied? (W 3:537-38)
Suddenly the doll has become a harbinger of a universe unresponsive and indifferent to the human cry for meaning. In her the absurdity of life finds its first dark abode. The "hollowness in our feeling" and the breathless "pause of the heart" bespeak an instant of utter terror. A sense of futility and helplessness interrupts the newly found identity of the child and threatens to annihilate all boundaries--yet not in a blissful union with the motherly universe, but through a sudden ceasing of the meaningful structure of reality. The great fear which the doll inspires is the fear of a silence and emptiness at the heart of our existence. It grasps the possible absence of transcendence, the possible unreality of a spiritual invisible realm, the possible meaninglessness of our life beyond the fragile clearing of the present. While in Rilke's work the angel affirms existence beyond and without human beings, the doll, in her small and silent way, denies being itself.
V. ". . . that superficially painted drowned corpse,
lifted and carried by the floods of our tenderness . . ."
But in more than one way the doll is a harbinger of the death principle in Rilke's work. We already saw how her unresponsiveness supports and destroys the imaginative reality of the child's play. We examined how nothingness glares at the child through the doll's glassy eyes in moments of boredom. But there is another connection between the doll and death, one which we have hinted at and which is so obvious that it is easily overlooked. The doll is a dead body, an inanimate child, an unresponsive, rigid corpse.
This morbid sense of the doll can clearly be seen in the fragment from [End Page 673] the discarded early fifth Duino Elegy which we mentioned before. It gives a warning to the adult to be aware of the child's naive confusion of the corpse and the doll, and the advice to cover the dead body lest the child play with it like she plays with her doll. The gruesome picture that Rilke paints here of a child playing house with a corpse and erecting it against an unspecified surface comes to a sudden stop in mid-sentence, as if the poet suddenly became aware of the absurdity and terrifying importance of this uncanny, dream-like scene.
Let us return to Freud at this point and remember his psychodynamic explanation of the uncanny. The uncanniness inspired by a dead but seemingly alive object is that it reminds us of a primitive period in our personal and cultural development where the boundaries between the I and the world were less clearly defined. He summarizes it in the following way: "An uncanny experience occurs when either infantile complexes which have been repressed are once more revived by some impression, or when primitive beliefs which have been surmounted seem once more to be confirmed" (SE 17:249). The child of the above fragment does not distinguish between the doll and the corpse, and neither does Anushka in "Frau Blaha's Maid." Both of them cross the boundary between life and death and break the taboos surrounding the human corpse out of ignorance and simplemindedness. For us as observers this failure to respect and understand the nature of death is extremely uncanny because it reminds us of a developmental stage where the distinction between life and death was not as clear cut as it seems to be to the adult mind. Yet to blur the distinction is a threat to our continuous effort to keep death at bay through technology and medicine.
In one of the papers developing the concept of the death instinct, "The Economic Problem of Masochism," Freud expresses the thought that at an early stage of human development the death instinct is actually the primary instinct ruling the organism, and that the desire to regress to an inorganic state expresses a fundamental tendency of all life forms:
In (multi-cellular) living beings the libido meets the instinct of death, or destruction, which is dominant in them and which seeks to disintegrate the cellular organism [composing it] into the state of inorganic stability (relative though this may be). The libido has the task of making the destroying instinct innocuous, and it fulfills the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards--soon with the help of the special organic system, the muscular apparatus--towards objects in the external world. The instinct then is called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power. A portion of the instinct is placed directly in the service of the sexual function, where it has [End Page 674] an important part to play. This is sadism proper. Another portion does not share in this transposition outwards; it remains inside the organism and, with the help of the accompanying sexual excitation described above, becomes libidinally bound there. It is in this portion that we have to recognize the original, erotogenic masochism. (SE 19:163-64)
Ultimate regression would be a regression to a state of primary masochism, which is characterized by the absence of Eros and the desire to level all tensions through "inorganic stability," that is death. As primary narcissism is the first stage of erotic development, primary masochism represents Eros's primordial counterpart, the death instinct, in its early and unsublimated form.
Through Freud's concept of primary masochism we have come a step closer to understanding the uncanniness of the doll. Through her "thick forgetfulness," her unresponsiveness, her coldness, her inanimate body we encounter an image of the human form in the ultimate realization of the death instinct: inorganic stability.
Prior to the threat of annihilation of one's gender through castration--which Freud mentions as a major cause of our sense of the uncanny--comes the threat of the body to annihilate itself. The uncanniness of the doll in Rilke's work has its roots in this regression to primary masochism, which is a regression to an even earlier stage of development than the love triangle of the castration complex.
As Rilke's child stares at the doll through the window of boredom, he unconsciously faces the final futility of Eros's imaginative constructions. The undercurrent of destruction from within the world, within the body, slowly hollows out the heart of his world and threatens to render meaningless the work of Eros. The child's response to this threat is hatred directed against the silence of the doll and rage against the waste of affection and imagination on a being that assumes the human form but is ultimately without love.
The aggressive response, though, directs the destructive impulse away from one's own body and toward an object "out there." Remember the sadistic scene of the little boy with the tousled hair phantasizing about crushing the doll under the rails of the rocking horse, or Anushka destroying her puppets and splitting open her baby-doll's head in the darkness of the deserted kitchen: both acts seem to say that if the image, the representation of the human form, does not fulfill its promise of warmth and companionship, it will be destroyed. Better to rip the comforting fiction and bring about an absolute and unthinkable darkness that knows no pain than to suffer the futility of one's own creative act. Especially with Anushka we get the impression that her final act of violence is not just a destruction of a puppet theater, but the symbolic [End Page 675] annihilation of everything that gives comfort and meaning to her life. She destroys her world. And although directed against the object, the destructive impulse seems to have the ultimate aim of self-destruction by abolishing the world necessary to human survival.
There is an absurd element to this rage against the world. The doll, experienced in itself and apart from the world of play, reveals that there is a limit to life, that brute matter cares very little for human feeling, and that death is everywhere. It also shows that our involvement with the material stuff of the universe constitutes its meaningful structure. Without the child's compassion and imagination, the doll is a corpse. Rage denies this participation in the meaningful structures of the world and tries to raze the limits of our imagination and the boundaries of our life. It tries to overcome death and destruction by willingly killing and destroying the very harbingers of death and destruction.
In a strange and disconcerting way Rilke's doll seems to share an inhuman space with the figure of the angel. The angel is the idealized, pure form of Eros prior to organic involvement and differentiation into sexes--the archetypal image of primary narcissism. The doll, on the other hand, embodies the victory of death and destruction over the life of the organism--the archetypal image of primary masochism. While the angel is the ideal, unattainable achievement of perfect being, the doll is the grim threat of nonbeing. Both can paralyze the imagination: the angel by luring the soul into dreams of paradise, and by revealing our human fallibility, insufficiency, and ultimate dependence on the material world; the doll by inspiring a petrifying fear of death and meaninglessness. The one leads to narcissistic dispersal of the self in search of the impossible ideal, the other to masochistic depression and a doing away with the terrifying human body.
Our reflections on Eros and Thanatos through the images of angel and doll pose the startling question whether the goal of both instincts is not the same, namely narcissistic union with the universe--which is first the fusion with the mother and then the fusion with the earth in death. In terms of Freud's work we can understand now that primary masochism comes prior to primary sadism, for sadism already presupposes a distinction between body and world. The self-destruction of the organism, on the other hand, comes before the awareness of the world as separate. It attempts to restore a state prior to "organic instability," or life, and is retrogressive toward a narcissistic wholeness void of tension and movement. Masochism is the shadow side of original narcissism, the dark side turned away from the blissful smile of Eros. We could call masochism by another name: narcissism of the death instinct.
The uncanniness of the doll is a reminder that primary masochism is still familiar and present, albeit repressed and forgotten. Although [End Page 676] dismissed by Freud, the doll can show us the vicissitudes of an instinct other than Eros. Its uncanniness reveals and conceals the dynamics of the death instinct.
Duquesne University
Eva-Maria Simms is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University. Her background is existential-phenomenological psychology, and her writings encompass the psychological study of literature, as well as the development of children. She has written about Rilke in German and English.
Notes
1. Rainer Maria Rilke, "Dolls," in Werke (Frankfurt a/Main, 1966), 3:534; hereafter cited in text as W by volume and page number. All translations from Rilke's works are mine.
2. Sigmund Freud, "The 'Uncanny,'" The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey (London, 1953-1966), 17:219-52; hereafter cited in text as SE by volume and page number.
3. See Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York, 1950), hereafter cited in text as CS; Melanie Klein, Narrative of a Child Analysis (New York, 1961); Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment (New York, 1975).
4. E. Kirsten Dahl, "Fantasies of Gender," Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 43 (1988), 351-65.
5. See D. W. Winnicott, The Family and Individual Development (London, 1965); and his Playing and Reality (London, 1971).
6. See Sue White and Gail Santili, "A Review of Clinical Practices and Research Data on Anatomical Dolls," Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 3, no. 4 (December 1988), 430-42; Alayne Yates and Lenore C. Terr, "Anatomically Correct Dolls: Should They Be Used as the Basis for Expert Testimony?" Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27, no. 2 (March 1988), 254-57.
7. See Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).
8. Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, in Sämtliche Werke (Frankfurt a/Main, 1965), 3:461; hereafter cited in text as SW by volume and page number.
9. Wolfgang Leppmann, Rilke: A Life, tr. Russell M. Stockman (New York, 1984).
10. Rainer Marie Rilke "Frau Blaha's Maid," in Sämtliche Werke, 4:629; hereafter cited in text by volume and page number.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v027/27.4simms.html.

Photo Key wound Metal Steiner Body and Metal Head Huret Wanted

2012-01-05T17:45:00.001-08:00

If anyone has these photos, I would be forever grateful. I need them for my book on metal dolls. I had a photo of the Steiner body, but it was lost; it originally came from Dolls in Wonderland, St. Augustine, Courtesy Vera Kramer. I would appreciate any help. Thanks.

Origins of Jenny Wren?

2012-01-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

This is a link for Google Books for Londohttp://books.google.com/books?id=3XIvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA480&lpg=PA480&dq=our+dolls+ourselves&source=bl&ots=zW6EanzGbc&sig=W8Of7ylDPmFSEo-eCOKHiXQt3is&hl=en&sa=X&ei=l0wGT_GZBoeugQexvJSfAg&ved=0CE8Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=our%20dolls%20ourselves&f=falsen Labour and The London Poor, an Encyclopedia, by Mayhew, circa 1850. You can download for free the entire book. Pp. 480-482 talk about the doll sellers who sold dolls on the Streets.

I think the street sellers may have inspired Jenny Wren. The entire book is fascinating; I wonder how much of it Dickens Read.

Tonner Update

2012-01-03T12:36:00.000-08:00

For Tonner Fans; follow the link to a beautiful site:

Having trouble viewing this email?
Click here
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=b8clxgcab&v=001QYDB14zrJ485C0_hZtL3JS6TwmqU79Eh0YX-M8XTOejoi2frpAsDBASuVRNNrBR8J2lZz3wk2I6wM-wdr922RbyBFEs4DRrH0SlaMP5g5UNR9q7Ka1rTNx0hF4PqFKQD0LnrMNseVarem1n6JGLYoSaU9osnmtPqWdLy43Q8hA71TyrN2MnuhFgRF0wkmkAHALCdWH1DbcGFkzaBG_otvlbDTPtkQXlJGn6Dw1-Fb0o4yBU0xjBhN31JbMyQ8NRTGjeSlq6cVzo%3D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 3, 2011

Dear Collectors,

It won't be long now: the NEW TonnerDoll.com site will make its debut TODAY at
4PM EST!

We will be closing down TonnerDirect.com at 2PM EST in preparation for this
debut,
so please be patient (we thank you in advance!) during the two-hour period from
2PM to 4PM!

Trust us, it will be worth the wait!

Thank you for your continued support,

Team Tonner

P.S. : Link to the new site: www.tonnerdoll.com [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109036883043&s=14814&e=001BgcJrWN7LLHFKi40oyFvHLmFjYvCX6Za-GDek64HzsOQ5Ct-I3Ptt5Bry6Ls_Mwbo8vWlBeE9nzV4wjK2_EfV7lhPTpJ2Vfq85RE_TlhMMm6vrSgowqXAg==]
... (now, please be aware that this link will NOT be active until 4pm EST).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Find us on Facebook [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109036883043&s=14814&e=001BgcJrWN7LLEDZMCuQyeTRDqnV-xeT6uhewIRcMmniO6JrAmRjqH0HIFLkKoqaALdlEFkcbKNQGjimS281stte6xti_XTnh49wLSHjx6M8qbyij6zTtdwDrlSPfN8kl8M]
Follow us on Twitter [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109036883043&s=14814&e=001BgcJrWN7LLGxbxGqBO2SeNgjPGAU1JHYwfRYnCYJEqKNVuYaZKYxgy7L_0uavkV4c_Tmfx-g24IZJmqnvlIkcg8YxNqh1HVLU71CF3da3qKqNaG8LViKjbdV2zF61uroXxClQseFuio=]
View our videos on YouTube [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109036883043&s=14814&e=001BgcJrWN7LLH91xJg5mGsLzuEkbyB0W6-RNuhpMvBKmMdBvYg4JexJb2JTjJoaBrO4NPXZqlRU0LuDGFYC15uU9r3d1aFClOBuXLyBvgV0uXhdv9RL4F3TcmrAkQCNysMkyTmarzO3xdnK6lRleYmcDRm0jMzLHlKsRjjcQbYzEw=]
Visit our blog [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109036883043&s=14814&e=001BgcJrWN7LLF5cAjV4uSQV__eSeKN2_gM9aW9qMZ-bP5mGpGwd9d2hYGVf2XwuJmiB36f1aTSuQ_xHyrKWNE8Q7WYi-wY-_5XavKfv-alKlKGRHAPIGkUIK75i6j23oX7]
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and our Tonner Blog!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forward email
http://ui.constantcontact.com/sa/fwtf.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&m=1101884918625&ea=etsag1998@aol.com&a=1109036883043

This email was sent to etsag1998@aol.com by info@tonnerdirect.com.

Update Profile/Email Address
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?p=oo&mse=001P3AZIpApn2BdrvJb1dNyIhic73CtXuXAOKRYvxfL3FU%3D&t=001xkmbxIkFjDN5x0UdmDezog%3D%3D&reason=001IqezpQbqEsU%3D&llr=b8clxgcab

Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe(TM)
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?p=un&mse=001P3AZIpApn2BdrvJb1dNyIhic73CtXuXAOKRYvxfL3FU%3D&t=001xkmbxIkFjDN5x0UdmDezog%3D%3D&reason=001IqezpQbqEsU%3D&llr=b8clxgcab

Privacy Policy:
http://ui.constantcontact.com/roving/CCPrivacyPolicy.jsp

Online Marketing by
Constant Contact(R)
www.constantcontact.com

Tonner Direct | 301 Wall Street | Kingston | NY | 12401

The Last Rosie's Too and a Newsletter

2012-01-03T12:31:00.000-08:00

We will miss the Roaslie Whyel Museum:

Just A Little Reminder...

This Saturday is the final day for Rosie’s Too!

SATURDAY December 31st from 11am to 3pm

EVERYTHING IS ON SALE At Least 50% off
60% off for Members!

Rosie's Too
221 106th Ave NE
Bellevue WA
425-455-0363

Our Family and Staff Thank You for all of your Support and Friendship! We look forward to seeing you at the Museum and Museum Store in our final two months!

Don't Forget our Thank You and So Sew Sale at the Museum
January 12 - 14 (Thursday - Saturday), 2012
-Members Always Receive An Additional 10%

Museum Final Day- March 1st, 2012

Shelley Helzer
Co-Director
Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art
Ph 425-455-1116 Fx 425-455-4793
www.dollart.com

From Strong National Museum of Play

2012-01-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

Meet Dorothy and Friends at The Wizard of Oz Exhibit Opening!
Follow the Yellow Brick Road to The Wizard of Oz exhibit opening Saturday & Sunday, January 21 & 22.

In the exhibit, journey from the Gale Farm to Oz and explore Munchkinland, the Crossroads, the Witch’s Castle, and Emerald City. Visit Professor Marvel’s wagon. Create your own tornado in Dorothy’s bedroom. Explore vibrant munchkin houses and learn more about Dorothy's friends, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. Enter Emerald City and create a “Horse of a Different Color" and more!

During opening weekend, meet, greet, and pose for photos with Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, and join local actors for an interactive theatrical experience including songs from the film.

Local media sponsors: Democrat and Chronicle Media Group and Time Warner Cable.

Join the Berenstain Bears' Birthday Party
The Berenstain Bears are turning 50! Join the party on Saturday, January 14 from 11 a.m.–3 p.m. and meet the entire Berenstain Bear family. Enjoy a story reading of The Big Honey Hunt, the first Berenstain book published in 1962. Make a party hat, sign an over-sized birthday card, and play favorite party games. Enter for a chance to win a Berenstain Bears prize package.

D&C Readers Recognize Museum for 10th Year
This fall, Democrat and Chronicle readers named the National Museum of Play Rochester’s Choice for best museum for the 10th consecutive year.

Barbie is back!
The Barbie doll house and dress up area have moved to the When Barbie Dated G.I. Joe display on the museum's second floor. The interactives were removed so construction could begin on the upcoming America at Play exhibit.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE WIZARD OF OZ Children’s Educational Exhibition was created by Miami Children’s Museum and SPARKS, in conjunction with Warner Bros. Consumer Products.
Judy Garland as Dorothy from THE WIZARD OF OZ.
THE WIZARD OF OZ and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Turner Entertainment

Barbie Mouthwash and Some Doll and Toy Memoirs on Kindle

2012-01-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

OK; I've seen it all. I bought Barbie Listerine Smart Rinse, complete with a photo of herself. I love it! It is one of many products of the Great Doll I've spied in stores. I don't buy them all, since I can't be Mrs. Burkhalter, but I love to notice them. These are great accessories for Barbie displays and collectors. It tastes like bubble gum, what else?

Kudos to our friend Nancy McCray of Cedar Rapids who was doing an appraisal on Antiques Roadshow tonight.

Also, Kindle is a wonderful place for books about dolls, both entire books, and those to sample. I recently downloaded for free A Talke of Two dutch Dolls and a Golliwog and The three volume biography of Eugene Field, whose house I was privileged to visit last Nov., an item on my bucket list.

Sorry for typos; hand still bad; it isn't going to get better, I fear.

But, not to digress, on Kindle, also Laura Starr's book on dolls, 1908, and two memoirs by Madonna Dries Christianson, Dolls Remembered and Toys Remembered. One is a complilation of women's memories of their dolls, the other of men and their toys.

I like both very much. There are also websites given for the authors, including Virginia Heyerdahl who writes articles about dolls and who also had a prestigious political career in D.C. Each book is 9.99 on Kindle, and mine were gifts of my mother in law.

Also, There is Flanagan's Dolls, a mystery by Warren Adler, and many novels about doll and toy manufacturers, as well as a history of, yes, kids don't look, Sex Dolls!

You can sample any of these for free. There are also books about collecting and about Barbie and specific dolls in particular.

I have been very lucky in my finds, and able to get out a little despite this pestilence/cold/perpetual allergy attack I've contracted. I was able to add six vintage Sasah dolls to my collection, as well as a porcelain Midge, Burberry Barbie, several artist dolls, and an Annette Himstedt. Santa brought others, including a mint A/M 390 head, a topsy turvy doll with compo head masks, a few little dolls including a celluloid, a book about Living Dead Dolls, and several interesting Goodwill finds, Barbies I'd never seen, Bratz and My Scene that were unusual, two beautiful bisque dolls, handmaded with gorgeous dresses. All were about 90% what they would normally cost. I got a barette that is "doll art" by DollFace, a self-made folk artist that does assemblage locally. Very nice, and a porcelain cheerleader wearing a copy of my old 7th grade uniform during a brief stint as an intramural cheerleader. Still have my red/black pompoms!

There were some good after Xmas selections at Target and Hobby Lobby, at 70 to 80% off, including many small dolls made of wood and mercury glass, with wigs and real clothes.

Part of our friends' travelling Xmas display is a pair of realistic looking rattle snakes rearing up, and wearing a knit red skating outfit, and tiny Kelly pink plastic coat with white faux fur cuffs and collar. They are visiting me at the time, but will move on, only if the rest of the gorup promises to protect both snakes and outfits. We need a little whimsy, if gnomes, frogs, bears, and dolls can travel, why can't a couple of fake snakes?

Enough for now. Happy 2012/! Remember, we love comments!

Tonner Happy New Year

2011-12-30T08:30:00.001-08:00

For those who love Tonner; enjoy!

Having trouble viewing this email?
Click here
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=b8clxgcab&v=001SbPU0nO9dPDvhIounHha8CfZMhC5kKSzdL1bDUKn1rmvCyOTmQk88n2zKi7ADyWTb5eBq-XatNjR5p-0IvIKkN_OaEBeUBLnT7ndlQ5BIK5Z2pGW78_LFg_NF1jahUBxBfE6fgJoh5St60lWNo9xLeyEda6BYiJfFchhUuExWhHIhYKUFpjSB_uWf00VZz5Yo0A1ezG2qWWpmbEeC5BzSSu0Vjdc8b3G6IM0o5nlyOmZyQHYrXLS3AArIFejRBfXGIeWlhHOT5s%3D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 30, 2011

Hi Collectors!

Start the new year right with our BRAND NEW site! The countdown to our new site
has begun: Only 4 more days to go until January 3rd, 2012!!

We've compiled some very important Tonner Tidbits for you, so print this out
and
hang it on your fridge (no seriously!):

* The new site will live here: www.tonnerdoll.com [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ6iGNmqVmLKzXsJu-KF7HZ53E6UXi2Vye4-4TOXENM4IKRdDVV_wZAvKE-Ra7rbVrZMtDLl1mcxK9sbqjzrMUrI54F25tAOi35WVJE0SA_CuQ==]
.
* You will get to choose a new password on our new site, even if you're already
registered on our current site. It's super-duper easy! Follow these
instructions:

* Go to our new site: www.tonnerdoll.com [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ6iGNmqVmLKzXsJu-KF7HZ53E6UXi2Vye4-4TOXENM4IKRdDVV_wZAvKE-Ra7rbVrZMtDLl1mcxK9sbqjzrMUrI54F25tAOi35WVJE0SA_CuQ==]
(on or after the Launch Day, of course!)
* In the upper right hand corner near the TD shopping bag, click LOG ON.
* Enter the email that you use to sign on to the old site.
* Click I FORGOT MY PASSWORD. Now, an email will be sent to you with a link
that
you must click. Clicking this link will take you back to www.tonnerdoll.com,
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ7Q-Zdstaef9E_ZIl9Mq_8Lo7yof12DNpNg0-SJ6F6ssgBV8mDrYrnbOGIoFwIJXWufMGSfz0CBcqZ1VGuxuZjpVsL4DABKtlBHSCTdrFk0eg==]
where you'll get to reset your password! Easy as 123!
* Now, peruse the new site, enjoy the brand NEW hub for all things Tonner, and
shop
your little vinyl heart out!

* Please note that any bookmarks you have saved on your web browser will not be
valid, as the data will no longer live at that spot on the internet! Don't
worry,
it has a much better home...
* The first time you visit our NEW website, please allow it a few moments to
load
on your screen. You see, your web browser will be so ecstatic to show you our
NEW
site that in it's excitement, there may be a slight delay before it gets itself
together and displays the page. We blame the machine.
Tune into Facebook and our blog to join in the countdown fun!

Best,

Team Tonner

P.S. If you haven't checked out our brand new doll photo-sharing site yet, get
thee
to www.dollduels.com [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ7gpBkIOt45kBIrLfJzdGOjp6yU0uc7l1O1bUVzREunbenHmkJ_LVQJlR6kJUKvkGkYAlRATfZvOMNq2ph8hfV_cZyfTJp6EG4KylbD5yIEiQ==]
and get inspired!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Find us on Facebook [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ71SMb0mHxw23Xf9dY3peURCvkZrggFvTUSbfffWs1EojMqNLROCxQQ--dkw6g_NPgVWC5N4gO7rmMY85Zm3lsS8KNaTL-ZbPQWDCgjnvo5HuYVSXYxGDZV]
Follow us on Twitter [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ6GIwY7BD_kARy1VneSNCk7v2WqMjDaF8JmPSx8RA2gx0ATsg05Maizzv3ursDk8PlHBppXXubGsIYBwut9F1w-0pvTWDnoMB-xZyRiGwnn0h75YKXiDDCdwekaookhH1E=]
View our videos on YouTube [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ6A1htBgi4BRH9F3F-pxDB480-LT-PmFAz-Muu4_zmRkNAw02C0tjbsawSAQa9AMF-MbdpckExHVgUA0nZYAHYgfRYez9_Ao611CQBtAksLOupu-gD2NBrTOxbR1PT6g8HtQGzYoPjYOCluZLnAjFOaQN-356iMwho=]
Visit our blog [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1109023635061&s=14814&e=001MMfoXZRkAQ6Hg5G6GNHpsRxkgC9NZgG8MSx744ctN6htpKdt7g_cmkfxfbb8rnfsNya7l1Dgs54wxZGP4u6KdjooZ4Z0sFUM5CCkMIuSkyLq2NpkX3gcDYp46aqmkt3t]
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and our Tonner Blog!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forward email
http://ui.constantcontact.com/sa/fwtf.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&m=1101884918625&ea=etsag1998@aol.com&a=1109023635061

This email was sent to etsag1998@aol.com by info@tonnerdirect.com.

Update Profile/Email Address
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?p=oo&mse=001P3AZIpApn2BdrvJb1dNyIhic73CtXuXAOKRYvxfL3FU%3D&t=001XEBHgsNq5ES-CMEvaUCJtg%3D%3D&reason=001IqezpQbqEsU%3D&llr=b8clxgcab

Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe(TM)
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?p=un&mse=001P3AZIpApn2BdrvJb1dNyIhic73CtXuXAOKRYvxfL3FU%3D&t=001XEBHgsNq5ES-CMEvaUCJtg%3D%3D&reason=001IqezpQbqEsU%3D&llr=b8clxgcab

Privacy Policy:
http://ui.constantcontact.com/roving/CCPrivacyPolicy.jsp

Online Marketing by
Constant Contact(R)
www.constantcontact.com

Tonner Direct | 301 Wall Street | Kingston | NY | 12401

Haga Dockan

2011-12-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

Looking for information about a 15 in. Swedish celluloid doll in her original box. This is the informaton on her box. Here are some photos of other dolls of this type. The first is of the doll and her box:

Repair tips

2011-12-29T18:56:00.000-08:00

From an online newsletter with a link for the rest of the article:

http://collectdolls.about.com/library/weekly/aa081800a.htm?nl=1

Restoration tips:

"DOLL RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW" > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
Doll Restoration and Conservation
What you need to know
"Conservation differs from restoration by aiming to preserve and clarify what survives, rather than replace what is missing."

"Conservation is a race against time"

"Do nothing that cannot be undone" (Bettyanne Twigg, UFDC President)

There is an epidemic in doll collecting--an epidemic of doll restoration. This epidemic has been fostered by the easy, open market of eBay and other online auction houses, which has allowed collectors to easily sell items from their collections (as well as their garage sale and estate sale finds). Naturally, a vintage or antique doll that is photo-ready with a perky dress, bright painted features and a neat hairdo is going to sell quicker than a doll with aged-looking clothing, faded paint and flaws. So, collectors by the thousands are taking their vintage and antique dolls that are not in mint condition, and they are doing everything in their power to make the doll and its outfit more perfect--they curl and style the hair, they wash, bleach and starch the doll costume (or replace it entirely, whether it is original to the doll or not), and they repair tears and repaint facial features.

Now, I am not NECESSARILY saying there is anything wrong with this....what I AM saying is that there is a right way to restore a doll that preserves its originality, historical value, and that does not damage a doll. On the other hand, careless restoration can actually damage the value of the doll, and also destroy any historical value it might have. I agree strongly with, and cannot emphasize enough, the importance of the UFDC motto on doll conservation and restoration: "Do nothing that cannot be undone."

Additionally, a vital aspect of doll collecting is often overlooked by eager doll collectors--conservation of their dolls. To conserve dolls is to preserve them--to fight against the damaging forces of temperature, light, insects, dirt, dust and time. Conservation, properly done and understood, will help your treasures last your lifetime, and hopefully to also last for generations to come.

This multi-part article will help you navigate the topics of doll restoration and conservation. There are sections on conservation/restoration of bisque dolls, vinyl dolls, doll costumes, doll wigs and paper preservation. There is also an extensive bibliography, and links to sites with further information on these topics. I have taken the information in this article from many sources--my own experience, the experience of my husband who has taken an in-depth course in porcelain and composition repair, and courses on restoration and conservation taken at UFDC conventions given by well-known doll conservationist (and UFDC president!) Bettyanne Twigg, and also given by the conservator at the Strong Museum in Rochester, NY.

DEFINITIONS

The following definitions are not necessarily the ONLY ones--some people would call preservation and conservation the same process. I will use preservation and conservation interchangeably here.

Preservation: Protect a doll from destructive forces--heat, light, insects, dust and dirt.

Conservation: Treat something which already happened and HALT the problem (string a doll, treat an insect infestation, re-set eyes that have fallen out, stop further melting of silks, etc.)

Restoration: Replace or fix something NOT on a doll, or improve something on a doll. Cleaning dirty outfits, add a new finger, restyle/add a wig, repaint a doll.

General Principles of Doll Restoration

How Severe Should The Restoration Be?: I've mentioned it in the introduction, and I'll mention it here again--do NOTHING that cannot be undone--at least to any vintage or antique doll with historical value--most antique dolls, vintage dolls with original clothing an presentation, etc. Now, obviously if you have a vintage Barbie that is a basket case--no face paint, vinyl splits, hair a mess, no original clothing--the doll has little or NO historical (or other!) value, and that is a perfect candidate for no-holds barred restoration including perhaps treatments and repainting that cannot be undone! The only caveat I have here is if you DO restore a doll that is a total basket case, PLEASE employ the proper ethics and make sure that all such restoration is disclosed upon the sale of the doll.

Wash Your Hands! Wash your hands quite a bit while you are working with vintage or antique dolls-or wear gloves. Oils from your hands transfer to dolls and doll clothing. You don't SEE the oils, but the oils attract bugs, mold, and dirt. Some people use baby wipes to clean their hands--I use plain soap (such as ivory) and water only since I am worried about types of residue that baby wipes may leave on dolls and their clothes. Another reason to use gloves when working with dolls is to protect yourself from substances that can be ON new, unfamiliar your dolls--You should use gloves to protect yourself when working with unfamiliar dolls (you don't know if pesticides have been used, etc.) I will admit that I have a hard time following this advice, as I hate to wear gloves when I am working.

SEE What You are Doing: Use white cloths to clean dolls so you can SEE what the effect is--are you lifting just dirt from the doll, or also paints, too? And, only work in a very well lighted area; if you have daylight corrected bulbs, that is ideal.

Be Prepared: Have everything before you (tools, materials, etc). set out before you start. Don't eat/drink while you are working (bad things from the doll can get in your food and drink--bugs, chemicals, even pesticide residues--you DON'T know what treatments/problems a doll ahs before you get it!) AND, trust me, coffee spilled all over a composition doll or body you are working on WILL damage it.

Ventilation!: Only repair dolls with proper ventilation--some of the items that are used for cleaning and restoring dolls can give off harmful fumes.

Keep a Trail....If you take a doll completely apart, sketch things before you do this so you can get them back together again (this is particularly important for dolls with complicated bodies that need restringing).

Ethics of Selling a Restored Doll: If you sell a doll, you MUST disclose any changes made to the doll--any repainting, repairs, added materials (new eyes, wig). For certain vintage dolls such as vintage Barbie, even restyling the hair effects the value and should be disclosed; so does washing the clothing. However, you do not have to disclose basic conservation measures such as cleaning dolls. For antique dolls, washing of clothing and restyling of wigs is generally not required to be disclosed.

Don't miss the rest of the articles (below!) in this series--find out everything from how to clean a composition doll, to how to repair a split in a vinyl Barbie doll, to how to clean doll clothes safely, and also where to find LOTS of additional information!

Second Page > General Principles of Doll Conservation: How To Make Your Treasures Last! > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Third Page > Tips For Successful Doll Restoration > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

New Newsletter

2011-12-29T18:52:00.000-08:00

From Denise Van Patten, your Guide to Doll Collecting
Happy New Year to all! Hard to believe that this is 2012, and will be my 14th year at Doll Collecting at About.com! This week, we take a look at New Year Resolutions for doll collectors, and also our series on doll repair and display. Until next year! Denise

New Year Resolutions for Doll Collectors

Its the start of a new year, which means its time to review everything in your life--including your doll collection. Here are my New Year Resolutions that every doll collector should make. ... Read more
See More About: doll insurance doll display doll shows

Doll Repair - Everything You Need To Know

If you take stock of your doll collection when taking down your decorations and makking your New Year resolutions, you may glance over at a stack of dolls needing repair, If so, you'll need to read this series on doll repair and conservation... Read more
See More About: doll conservation doll restoration doll repair

Doll Stands for Display

If you collect stamps, they sit in a stamp album. If you collect cars, they stand on their own four wheels. If you collect quilts, they hang on a wall. But, what about dolls? Dolls need to be displayed...and generally, that means that they need to be standing in a doll cabinet. Sure, you might... Read more
See More About: doll display doll cabinets doll accessories

New Series of Barbie Dolls of The World Just Released!

The Barbie Dolls of the World is one of the longest-running and best-selling Barbie doll series ever! The newest Barbie Dolls of The World series has just been released! Highlights... Read more

For Quilters

2011-12-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

Something I love but don't get to do much of due to time contstraints; I am sharing my latest quilters newsletter. Enjoy! PS: The local quilters guild features a show where I've bought handmade cloth dolls, art dolls, and supplies, as well as quilting materials. Just another place to find dolls!

I recently attended Fall Quilt Market in Houston and saw previews of new and exciting products in the world of sewing and quilting notions. There are a few items coming out soon that will be of interest to you, and some current products that are so great, they deserve a second look. I have found that a great product is sometimes overlooked for a few markets before it is "discovered." Here are a few products I feel are worth checking out ...

In the Quilting World
Notions for Quilting

Quilt Market can be overwhelming. I usually have to walk the whole floor first, before I can actually see what's there. I am first and foremost, looking at the color trends of textiles so that I can bring you, our reader, the newest in quilting fabrics and design. I look for great designers I feel will be of interest to you, and I try to be ahead of the pack. My mission is to keep you inspired and to keep you quilting. Read more »

Tips & Tricks
Letters From Our Readers

It seems that our Tips & Tricks section has become the most popular part of our newsletter. If you have something you would like to share with your fellow quilters, please do. We will try to publish as many as we can. Read more »

Free Pattern
True Lover's Knot

True Lover's Knot is the perfect traditional pattern to explore a two-fabric quilt design. Working with two fabrics can be a lot of fun if you have the right contrast. Contrast is what makes the design "pop." Light and dark can be a striking combination. Read more »

Let's Bind It!
I hope you find the information from our readers helpful, and I hope you give some thought to some of the notions and sewing products we have mentioned in this newsletter. Some of the products may make your quilting much more enjoyable ... Read more »

Table of Contents
In the Quilting World
• Notions for Quilting
Tips & Tricks
Free Pattern
Let's Bind It!

Click here to browse through every page of the Clotilde catalog!

Follow Us On ...

Do you know someone who would enjoy receiving this newsletter? Forward it to a friend by clicking here.

Did you receive this message

Things we Like for the Holidays

2011-12-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

1. Lights and displays of all types
1a. Oyster Dressing
2. Buying bell bird feeders for the birds
3. Christmas cards, sending and getting
4. Homemade gifts
5. Cookie Walk
6. Delivering presents

7. Department store windows, past and present, and books about them
8. Yes, fruitcake and plum pudding
9. Xmas mysteries and books
10. Decorating trees
11. Rotating ornaments and hanging new ones
12. Shopping all year, especially ornamnents
13. Christmas dinners
14. Baking mom's recipes
15. Decorating the doll houses
16. Remembering my mom and her traditions
17. Carols and Xmas music on the radio
18. Xmas at school for hte kids
19. January Xmas with our friends
20. Scented candles and pine
22. Church memories singing with the choir and making choir books
23. Candy canes, and later, candy canes in hot cocoa
24. Walking dogs on Xmas morning and greeting everyone else on the street with Merry Christmas!
25. Wrapping last minute presents
26. Opening presents, though for me, that was years past. I don't get any now.
27. New toys and dolls on display
28. Xmas historical open houses
29. Xmas walks and hot chocolate
30. Memories of Xmas past at Macys, Dobbs, Famous Barr, Marshall Field and Yule Log
31. Full stockings on Xmas Morning
32. Hiding and hanging small presents to be found through the 12 days of Xmas
33. Mateus at dinner
34. Lobster and shrimp for dinner
35. Trips to see Xmas lights
36. Dropping money in Salvation Army Kettles
37. Making Donations to the Salvation army and Goodwill over the Holidays
38. Hannukah Lights
39. After Xmas ornament sales
40. Kwanzaa ornaments
41. New Years night with our Friends
42. Going out on Christmas Eve for lunch to catch the last minute shoppers
43. Candy Cane pie
44. Holiday Lattes

Toys Soldiers

2011-12-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Chapter 2
Toy Soldiers

In the First World War soldier dolls and tin
soldiers sometimes served in the chauvinistic and militant training of the young. The spirit of war
entered the nursery.
Manfred Bachman
Dolls the Wide World Over

Millions of children throughout the centuries have enjoyed fighting mock battles with toy soldiers. Little boys and girls have long saved their pennies and pocket money to buy small figures of lead and tin with which to people their dreams of heroism nd glory. In fact, the Brontë children's earliest literary endeavors were stories that they wrote about a set of toy soldiers that belonged to Branwell Brontë. Much has been written about the dangers of war toys, including soldiers. Yet, all the criticism does not seem to quell interest in them. One wonders why this is so; recent films including Apocalypse Now, The Killing Fields, Platoon, and Saving Private Ryan have accurately, perhaps too accurately, portrayed the horrors and senselessness of war. In the same light, many novels like Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum" have also done much to debunk the romanticism of a soldier's life. Yet, children still adore toy soldiers. Some may claim that playing with war toys is cathartic because such play allows children to act out their aggressions in harmless settings, while others may seek to foster courage and patriotism through soldier play. One need only think of Lovelace's famous poem, "To Lucasta on Going to War" and its famous line, "I could not love thee so, dear, loved I not honor more."
At least one teacher I know who is an expert in children's literature has implied that war games, and even violent play, are an innate part of childhood. She has observed that, even if one takes away all toy guns from a little boy, he will chew a peanut butter sandwich into a gun, point it, and shout, "Bang! Bang!" Whatever the reason for their existence, however, toy soldiers, particularly of metal, are here to stay, and are more popular than ever.
The earliest model soldiers were probably made of wood. They represented Prince Ensah's guard and date to the twelfth Egyptian Dynasty, 2000 B.C. Like other dolls, the early toy soldiers were not meant to be toys. Rather, they accompanied their deceased owners to the underworld. One historian has said that model solders were not really popular in the Ancient world, (Alberini 5), but he then cites a Roman legionary made of tin from the Imperial Epoch (6). Also, a fifteen inch bronze model of an equestrian survives from ancient Greece. Flat lead soldiers existed in Rome in the third century A.D. The most famous model soldiers of recent times are probably the life-sized army of Chinese figures which numbered in the thousands and once adorned an emperor's tomb. These are currently reproduced as clay miniatures and may be purchased in many import and specialty stores.
As toys, model soldiers first appeared in the Middle Ages (Fawcett 215). Of these, Leslie Gordon has said that "[e]xcept for the ancient 'magic' doll, it is possible that the toy soldier, who made his first appearance in Europe in Medieval times, was the first doll to be made of metal" (43). Some of these soldiers may have had model accessories and buildings. For example, there is a four inch wooden model of the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London which may have belonged to the Little Princes murdered there. One author speculates that this model had little figures, perhaps made of metal, to go with it (Garrat 12). Such a concept is not hard to envision; even ancient dolls had tiny dishes and other accessories with them, and companies like Playskool and Lego, manufacturers of educational playthings, make toy castles complete with knights and guards.
Interest in toys that teach is not unique to our centuy. In the fifteenth century, historical model soldiers first appeared. Marie d' Medici is supposed to have had silver toy soldiers made for her son, Louis XIII (Alberini). As an adult, Louis supposedly melted them down to fund his wars (6). Bronze-cast tournament toys existed as early as 1490 and the Kunst Historiches Museum in Vienna has several examples. Also, the toy museum in Salzburg has a large collection of toy soldiers and model figures. One group represents five members of the ski patrol. They are complete to their clubs, rifles and ski poles.
Another group from the Salzburg Museum represents an open carriage with two, well-dressed passengers. The driver and his groom wear plumed helmets and the horse are white. The entire piece is well- painted and appears to be beautifully preserved. Still another interesting arrangement represents a group of jockeys. Part of the display includes dice, coins, and other paraphernalia of gambling. In the background is a flier explaining the steeple chase.
Some of these early soldiers and models were breathtaking in detail. One incredibly intricate lead musketeer is French and dates from about the time of Henry IV. It stands three inches (Garrat 13). At Cluny are two Medieval knights made of tin. Some of the Cluny soldiers were worked in gold and silver decorated with enameled bronze (Harris 8). A similar ship with soldiers in the Victoria and Albert Museum is German in origin. One of these ships represents Charles V and his court moving on deck (8).
By the early sixteenth century, some model and toy soldiers were on rollers and held miniature lances. The eighteenth century discovery of alloys facilitated the manufacture of toy soldiers (Alberini 7). Now, other metals could be mixed with the inexpensive tin to make a variety of goods. Standardized uniforms also came into use. As a result, the figures could be mass produced. Early boxed sets were sold unpainted by military unit in wooden boxes. They came in weights of 1 lb, 1/2 lb and 1/8 lb. Each kit contained from twenty to 150 soldiers (7). It is difficult to determine which manufacturer made these early soldiers because they were made before registration laws existed. Some manufacturers, however, marked their figures with initials (White 58).
Apparently, Frederick the Great inspired the creation of model soldiers in England (Hillier APOT 70). One early version was a "flat soldier," 30 mm in height (70). This height became standard for one maker, Henrichsen of Nuremburg, and was gradually adopted by others (70). Heinrichsen's sets included well-written histories to educate children (70).
In France, Ronde-Bosse created solid, three-dimensional soldiers in the eighteenth century (Alberini 7). Lucotte produced lead soldiers in 1789. Other sets came in elaborate boxes with the trademark CBG for Cuberly, Blondel and Gerbveau. This trademark is still used today. The Napoleonic sets wrapped in cellophane are popular.
Interesting and amusing stories about toy soldiers abound. the most famous is, perhaps, Hans Christian Andersen's "The Brave Tin Solder." Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi mentions toy soldiers as does Ben Jonson's The Devil is an Ass. Furthermore, in her memoirs, Catherine the Great discusses how the Czar Peter played with his model soldiers when he was Grand Duke (Harris 12). Some of these were lead (12). Supposedly, Napoleon used toy soldiers to plan battle strategies (Wenham Museum Collection 81). Some of his soldiers have been exhibited at the Coopers Union in New York. Also, a goldsmith named J.B. Odfiot is said to have made toy soldiers for Napoleon's son in 1812 (811).
Because of their popularity in the nineteenth century, old sets of soldiers were often forged. There is one anecdote of a dishonest shopkeeper who threw new solders made in the Medieval style in the Seine, then fished them out to sell as antique
(Alberini 6).
The historical archives of Barcelona, Spain, have a variety of metal figures and soldiers made from nineteenth century molds. These include dancers and figures in costumed, religious figures, etc. They are platy, painted in bright colors (Galter 498). The Salzburg Toy Museum has a large collection of unpainted, flat figures.
In 1820, William Britain devised hollow metal soldiers. This development was quite an innovation because now, more and cheaper soldiers could be produced, and more could afford them (Alberini 8). The United States contributed to the popularity of hollow soldiers by beginning to sell kits with molds and ready-yo-paint soldiers (Wenham Museum Collection 81). American poet Robert Lowell describes an amusing childhood incident were he convinced a friend with a fantastic collection of model lead soldiers to trade whole battalions of them for his own crude, papier maché models.
A variety of metal soldiers are still made. Several years ago, the television show "Falcon Crest" even had a character with a whole collection of them. A 1965 Hauser catalog shows of variety of soldiers, animals and fairy tale figures done in the style of the older, three-dimensional models. All, however, are plastic. The cover of the catalog shows a smith hammering with a red-hot iron on an anvil. The latest movie to star Robert DeNiro, Ronin, features an enviable collection of Japanese samurai lead soldiers.
Furthermore, Helmet Kranks of Salzburg has created an incredibly detailed model of an armoured general, circa 1580, in papier maché, wood, leather and metal. Every feather in his helmet is in place and his real sword rests properly in its tiny scabbard (Garrat52). The author's favorite model soldier are those of English artist Russel Gammage. His Gauls, Celts and Barbarians are complete with long hair awash in lime, long moustaches, breeches and colorful tunics. The Gauls lean against their long shields, arms crossed in defiance. They look as if they are awaiting further orders. These life-like figures are interesting to compare with the original Celtic bronze idols made centuries before. Gammage is a trained artist who used to design figures for the firm of Graham Farish (89). These lead models have influenced current action figures like the Spawn series by Todd McFarlane. Many of these are also created in cold cast resin, but are painted in the colors and traditions of the old metal soldier. McFarlane Toys also insists on paying great attention to detail, so that figures like Cosmic Angela are near-perfect miniatures with life-like dimensions. These "soldiers," however, recreate in three dimensions characters from old comic strips based on Celtic and Medieval Epics. Hence, the Spawn figures, and other dolls like them, allude to the Celtic Warrior Queens like Cartimandua and Boadicia.
If warrior queens and women soldier figures are popular as collectibles, one has to observe that many of the artists who design and create them are also women. Women also collect toy soldiers. Two are Kathleen Ball Nathaniel and Mme. Fernande Metayel, Paris. Mme. Metayel is an outstanding artist who took-up painting models after the deaths of her husband and father. She has won many honors for her work (Garrat 77). Margaret Cruikshank, who started the Mystery Doll Club, a mail order club where girls received a kit for dressing dolls from foreign countries, collects dolls in military dress. The author, too enjoyed toy soldiers when young and remembers playing nurse to the fallen plastic models of a childhood friend. He relegated her to this position because "she was a girl." A noted collector and doll author, Mary Hillier, has similar memories. Another time, the author rescued and reclaimed a number of tiny, red plastic revolutionary patriots from t he gravel of a friend's drive way where they had been abandoned. Aramis men's cologne offered lead British guards as a Christmas promotion in 1988. Other figures in lead were made by the same companies, but they represented other people besides soldiers. The author has figures dating from the forties which once belonged to her uncle. One is of a tiny farm woman. In her molded left arm, she holds a basket, but her right arm is separately jointed and swings back and forth. The author also has older figures representing comedian Charlie Chaplin and Abraham Lincoln. These remain unpainted. Many painted models from the forties and fifties of this century represent Native Americans of various tribes in different poses, horses, Civil War soldiers, and Arabs and their Steeds, the latter, perhaps, in tribute to Lawrence of Arabia. All these are marked "England" in embossed letters underneath their stands. For awhile, British companies painted the skin tones of their soldiers according in various shades of brown and tan, so that African soldiers were dark brown, but Greek and Turkish soldiers were light brown.
Toy soldiers, then, were among the earliest toy dolls and metal dolls. They are a colorful source of history for everyone and continue to be created to the delight of children everywhere.
Since the days they were made in metal, they have been recreated in many materials. One unusual doll in the author's collection hails from Hong King. He is a china head doll with china limbs, dressed as a British soldier. What makes him interesting is that, while his dress and painted blonde hair and blue eyes are European, his sculpted features are Asian. To the people of Hong Kong who created him, he is their portrait of the British who colonized them. Also, besides the famous G.I. Joe still made today, their are companies making historical soldiers of plastic representing Napolean, Civil War Generals Lee and Grant, George Washington, and others. There is even a set raising the flag at Iwo Jima. G. I. Joe by Hasbro has several series of soldiers, including one representing Generals Patton, Colin Powell, and MacArthur. Another doll fittingly represents Bob Hope, who entertained American Troops so many years overseas. Women are not ignored, either. Israel produces female army soldiers, and the G.I. Joe nurse is among the most desirable Hasbro figures. Recently, the company created a special edition G.I. Jane, after Demi Moore's movie. (Ms. Moore, it will be remembered, is also an avid doll collector). That dolls often echo social and political trends is apparent in the history of G.I. Joe. Betty O. Bennett writes that G.I. Joe's sales suffered during the height of the Vietnam War because of the outry against war toys (78). Before that time, G.I. Joe and his buddies were bringing Hasbro thirty-five to forty million dollars in revenue.
For those with more exotic tastes, there are female warrior figures including Lady Death, Xena Warrior Princess, The Golden Girls by Galoob, and She-Ra from Mattel's Masters of the Universe series. Ironically, many of these soldiers are static; that is, they are not mechanical, though they represent men and women who needed to be agile and in constant motion to survive in battle. The next chapters describe dolls from all "walks of life" that not only portray certain characters, but also move and even speak like them. They are the "uncanny dolls" of which Rilke and Freud wrote, and the muses of both nightmares and dreams. In short, the next two chapters discuss automata and mechanical dolls.

Newsletters of Interest

2011-12-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

Museum of Childhood: Delveinto the realms of fantasy, illusion and enchantment with our major new exhibition revealing how magic has been embraced for hundreds of years.

'Dragon', children's poster, Wayne Anderson, England 1974 (click image for larger version)
Enter here for a chance to win bags of Magic Worlds goodies from the Museum shop.

Magicians were and are held in high regard, some as popular entertainers and some as higher beings. From the Indian rope trick to Derren Brown’s modern take on illusion, adults and children alike have always been in awe of magic and its practitioners.

Magic Worlds explores the world of fairy tales and fantasy literature, the history and origins of magic and how themes of magic have influenced many artists and writers. The exhibition takes the visitor on a journey into miniature magical worlds, complete with witches, wizards, fairies and magical creatures. Objects on display include costumes, tricks and illusions, film merchandise, optical toys, paintings and ceramics, otherworldly dolls and puppets and illustrated books, together with interactive hands-on activities.

Fantasy
A world of marvellous tales and exciting adventures. To enter a fantasy world is to step outside reality and expect things to be different. Fairy stories are pure fantasy. These are old tales passed down originally by word of mouth and later collected together by people such as Charles Perrault and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Fantasy literature started in the mid 19th century. Some of these stories are about completely separate worlds - some that exist in their own right, like Middle Earth, and some, like Narnia, that ordinary people step into. In others, the real and fantasy worlds exist side by side, as in the Harry Potter books, operating for the most part exclusive of each other.

Illusion
This is a world where you cannot believe your eyes. People have always been fascinated by illusion and trickery. Optical devices, particularly in the 19th century, used scientific principles and were designed to both educate and entertain. They are still as intriguing today.

Magicians and magic have long been associated with Eastern countries. The tricks of Indian street markets were brought back to England during the 19th century and quickly gained a foothold in the world of variety theatre. Magicians became the film stars of their day and performed to the highest in the land. Today magic as spectacle has become commonplace and magicians appear regularly on television.

Enchantment
This is a world of magical creatures and beings. It is above all a place of the imagination.

People can experience wonder in everyday life but still actively seek it out in the worlds of fantasy and magic. Fairies and other magical figures inspire artists to produce work that can be beautiful or sinister, or both, reflecting the different aspects of enchantment.

Fairies, elves and pixies are usually regarded as kind creatures associated with the natural world. Witches and dragons generally belong to the darker side of magic. Other figures, such as wizards, mermaids and unicorns, lie somewhere in between.

Tonner:
Having trouble viewing this email?
Click here
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=b8clxgcab&v=001zcvTRfzfKBE8d8nPEySSPM8LneHdqAo9LBXGBfT8NIxSUWB6Bah1pPY_TVJNRLMgZ1lf6hzX0Y3DRMjhClnhow6QOWZx1HE417XON3iZrLEAXYgrz1vfT2EruZhsQH6NfprfszuEnvb7G7Ik4IqLzzArXQ1aVYUZ-A8IDgbTH4umHTmcyEc5gUCHha-hFL2XXEhCoJHjpbUBn9-ta_F5sfoI9L99_edQXFp6hpdJZ7Mi3cwkcL-07vwtf84DnXSpAyvVyqa-Azk%3D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 13, 2011

Dear Collectors,

Please find the new pics of Jon Wigged Basic - Too below! Thanks for you
patience!
To shop Jon now, click [HERE [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1108956275410&s=14814&e=001G2vogmRMI_K_S_iHZ5mXYZ3HRm6NuEHpBHJr_qIxtyJnTm_OQNI3qyBjlm_JL4HC95AaDAWKMJ4e71h65-ITBmvOsm5tSX6m_LWb-KuXVOo5K4ZOlggphOFJOHxsfXsrgb9x7qWl4-OP94r9-OEN2xzkaQwuwQzeUdjUA8PHSWsSqsJQGDPPbI7L9q3rXHKtAV0Buzh9g6U=]],
or call 1.800.794.2107!

Best,

Team Tonner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Find us on Facebook [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1108956275410&s=14814&e=001G2vogmRMI_KhADndkW_5GQ_A-X0sraUuoI9BpwH952qqnexFBjVrjdCh_U_CjG8ZSd2fXafGluGVCivPAAVASriJkhrPbTUEvv2j8Bec0BSEKggdwVc3EU01llQbDjQ-]
Follow us on Twitter [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1108956275410&s=14814&e=001G2vogmRMI_Lt6jbiuuwyUn26zxful6dS0XCNXfEosyBNF8Y8bWjgE1ZQvxlQmo0HdLIB-PBdE790-gUVsYySGuljlSQMr2cN6XcIF4ExVtlHUUlfm7Ps4UyAB6clkXHJCHFcyUM--3c=]
View our videos on YouTube [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1108956275410&s=14814&e=001G2vogmRMI_L98geIURMCMreUL5pSpTpOzbWa4LyrIP1vKGjdXql9ZAjdDrRnewVLD8Vjp7X3ns0OABlEEYCzFNqMZmKt_ZohCX5PwKhRYimg-c4QghUrEpWNOSSak9NdiwC8l8f9mW3r8KwLeArE_psPhQbuCTq-eAnFkQDktpQ=]
Visit our blog [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&et=1108956275410&s=14814&e=001G2vogmRMI_LJp5ZNsiL4Tn7nGADOv8sZV_DlFRhkmFSUFOvMQD6ydvto-D328IajTDnoRcPRbq8Ev506ZbC_SeG4xcpPs8vu8wg3LvVEIZep6iYU_88bl9_VsDemDmWs]
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and our Tonner Blog!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forward email
http://ui.constantcontact.com/sa/fwtf.jsp?llr=b8clxgcab&m=1101884918625&ea=etsag1998@aol.com&a=1108956275410

This email was sent to etsag1998@aol.com by info@tonnerdirect.com.

Update Profile/Email Address
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?p=oo&mse=001P3AZIpApn2BdrvJb1dNyIhic73CtXuXAOKRYvxfL3FU%3D&t=001mWvcspV2lF-yQuHa4LkUyg%3D%3D&reason=001IqezpQbqEsU%3D&llr=b8clxgcab

Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe(TM)
http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?p=un&mse=001P3AZIpApn2BdrvJb1dNyIhic73CtXuXAOKRYvxfL3FU%3D&t=001mWvcspV2lF-yQuHa4LkUyg%3D%3D&reason=001IqezpQbqEsU%3D&llr=b8clxgcab

Privacy Policy:
http://ui.constantcontact.com/roving/CCPrivacyPolicy.jsp

Online Marketing by
Constant Contact(R)
www.constantcontact.com

Tonner Direct | 301 Wall Street | Kingston | NY | 12401

Doll Museum- A Web Museum on the History of Dolls

2011-12-14T14:58:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to one of my other blogs which features the history of dolls. We are on religious dolls, Santos, Santons de Provence, and nativities:

http://dollmusem.blogspot.com

Merry Christmas!

An Avid Collector; I feel a book Coming On!

2011-12-09T11:07:00.001-08:00

See, below!

Recently, the media has been having a field day with the mysteries surrounding the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, who died at age 104 on May 24, 2011. She was the heiress to a $400 million copper fortune left to her by her father United States Senator William A. Clark, who died when she was only 21. She was married only once, briefly, in 1928 (a marriage that lasted only 2 years, until August 11, 1930 ) and the last known photo of her was taken in 1930. Although having lavish mansions in Connecticut and California plus several appartments on Park Avenue in New York, she spent her last 20 years living in a hospital room (and by some reports, never even once set foot in her Connecticut properties). She seems to have two wills, and there seems there will be an intense estate fight between her relatives and some of her advisors.

Hugette Clark Had A Huge Doll Collection

I found all of this vaguely interesting....but I didn't really sit up and take notice until MSNBC wrote an article that detailed some of Ms. Clark's spending in her last years, and the information clearly showed that Ms. Clark was a major doll collector! According to the very first words of the MSNBC article, Ms. Clark spent "More than $3 million dollars on dolls." The article further goes on to detail her spending on dolls as follows: MS. Clark spent $2.5 million at Au Nain Bleu, a well-known and historic doll shop in Paris, in 110 separate payments from 1997 to 2006. The largest payment was for $82,513 in February 2004. She also spent $729,000 at doll auction house Theriault's (which holds the world record for most expensive doll ever sold at auction), in 21 payments from 1997 to 2009. The largest payment was $232,680 July 2007.

If Hugette Clark Spent That Money on Art or Cars, It Wouldn't Seem Eccentric or Strange

The entire tone of the MSNBC article was a bit snarky about how Hugette Clark spent her money--the title was "The 1 percent of the 1 percent: How Huguette Clark's millions were spent." They also called her $43 million checking account a "magical bottomless checking account." Well, if she had over $400 million, then that is about 1/10 of her wealth. How is that odd if you look at it that way? Sure, we'd all like a magical bottomless checking account with a few ten million in it, but hey, it was her money and her wealth, not ours.

As for the way her spending on dolls was portrayed--you know what? I'm sick of doll collectors being portrayed as strange and eccentric and culturally irrelevant. To me, perhaps Ms. Clark's doll collection was the only thing about her that wasn't eccentric. Ms Clark was a very wealthy woman, and if she collected dolls, the $3 million spent on dolls seems reasonable. Very wealthy people often spend many, many millions more on one impressionist painting for their collection. $3 million would not buy very many cars for a wealthy man's car collection like Jay Leno's. Remember, that $3 million was spent over a period of roughly 10 years, or $300.000 per year. If Ms. Clark's passion was dolls, given her wealth, how was that even of note? The only way that this would be of note is if Ms. Clark herself did not purchase the dolls, or did not get to enjoy them or see them. No information to that effect has yet come to light, in fact the MSNBC article quotes a friend of Ms. Clark's (um...how was she a recluse if she had a friend?)as saying that "dolls were "her closest companions."

Antique Dolls and Childhood Memories

Obviously, I didn't know Ms. Clark, but I can speculate a bit about her doll collection. At Theriault's, she was probably buying fine antique dolls of historical importance--dolls that can be several hundred years old, scarce and rare. I would love to see that collection! As for the dolls from Au Nain Bleu, it should be noted that Ms. Clark was born in Paris. Au Nain Bleu has been selling fine dolls and toys since 1836. It is not much of a leap to suppose that Ms. Clark's father bought her dolls from Au Nain Bleu when she was a child. If so, like many doll collectors, perhaps buying dolls from Au Nain Bleu was helping Ms. Clark remember her father and what it was like to receive dolls from Au Nain Bleu as a child, much in the way that my collecting vintage Barbie dolls brings me back to happy childhood times.

What Will Happen To Her Dolls Now?

It is unclear what will happen to Ms. Clark's beloved dolls now. I wish that she had made provisions for a doll museum in her will, much the way she made provisions (in at least one of her wills) for an art museum in her Santa Barbara home. One of her wills seems to have left her doll collection to her main private nurse, Hadassah Peri. I hope that Ms. Peri, if she does receive these dolls, can do something with them that would help the late Ms. Clark share her passion with the world.

Rosalie Whyel and Rosie's, Too Sale December 10th

2011-12-09T08:51:00.001-08:00

Just A Little Reminder...

Rosie’s Too Sidewalk Sale

SATURDAY December 10th from 11am to 4pm

EVERYTHING IS ON SALE 50% off
60% off for Members!

We are always adding new things and refreshing inventory (and will be until the day we close, December 31st)!

Rosie's Too
221 106th Ave NE
Bellevue WA
425-455-0363

Shelley Helzer
Co-Director
Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art
Ph 425-455-1116 Fx 425-455-4793
www.dollart.com

ROC at the Strong Museum

2011-12-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

inShare0

ROC the Day and
make a difference.

On December 8, the Rochester
community will come together
to ROC the Day and we invite
YOU to join us.

It’s 24 hours of unprecedented
giving. And it’s your chance to
make a real difference right here
in our community.

If The Strong experience matters to you,
please consider a gift to

Choose. Give. Matter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of Moby Duck and Rubber Duckies

2011-12-05T17:11:00.001-08:00

See, below. This is a wonderful memoir of an English teachers' journey, and is also a book for those who love to live green, collect, care about working conditions, etc. I have started it on Kindle and am fascinated. Sometimes, writing a memoir of a trip or personal journal is far better than writing an entire biography. I loved his chronicle of how people found the types of ducks and beach toys and saved them all over the world. It is the Hunting/Gathering instinct Marilyn Gelfman Karp describes in In Flagrante Collecto coming to live. I give it five stars.

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2011
Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year
A revelatory tale of science, adventure

New Writing World; Free to Share

2011-12-02T11:54:00.001-08:00

W R I T I N G W O R L D

A World of Writing Information - For Writers Around the World

http://www.writing-world.com

Issue 11:23 12,825 subscribers December 1, 2011
*****************************************************************
MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: See the bottom of this newsletter for
details on how to subscribe, unsubscribe, or contact the editors.
*****************************************************************

IN THIS ISSUE:
=================================================================

THE EDITOR'S DESK: Deck the Halls... and Clear the Decks,
by Moira Allen
THE INQUIRING WRITER: Using another Writer's Ideas, by Dawn Copeman
NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WRITING
FEATURE: Mining the Rejection File for Gold, by Ann Brandt
COLUMN: Free Stuff for Writers: Spreading the Cheer,
by Aline Lechaye
THE WRITE SITES -- Online Resources for Writers
The Author's Bookshelf

*****************************************************************
Writing.Com is the online community for writers of all interests.
Create your free online portfolio and start writing today!
---> http://wwx.Writing.Com/ <---Become a fan on Facebook: http://facebook.com/WritingComFollow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/WritingCom****************************************************************WRITERSCOLLEGE.COM has 57 online courses. Prices are low. If youcan reach our web site, you can take our courses.http://www.WritersCollege.com*****************************************************************BECOME A FICTION WRITER.Get published. Get paid. Create manuscriptsthat are ready to submit to editors and publishers. Learn thetechniques from an experienced professional writer - online or bymail. Free Writing Test offered. http://www.breakintoprint.com/W1729*****************************************************************THOUSANDS OF WRITERS USE FANSTORY.COM FOR:* Feedback. Get feedback for every poem and story that you write.* Contests. Over 40 contests are always open and free to enter.* Rankings. Statistics will show you how your writing is doing.http://www.fanstory.com/index1.jsp?at=38**********************************************************************************************************************************DON'T GET SCAMMED! Choose the right Self Publishing Company foryour book. What you need to know before choosing a self publishingcompany and the questions you should ask.http://dogearpublishing.net/self-publishing-companies.aspx*****************************************************************FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK=================================================================Deck the Halls... and Clear the Decks!--------------------------------------It was rather disconcerting to munch on Thanksgiving turkey andrealize that, within the next four or five days, I needed to writemy "Christmas" editorial! Somehow, even though I've now wrapped upmy fall decorations and dragged FAR too many boxes of "Christmasstuff" out of the closet, I'm finding it hard to get into the"Christmas spirit."Possibly it's because, as everyone seems to comment, this yearseems to have flown by. I used to believe that this was simply asymptom of "aging" -- the older one gets, the faster the years seemto pass. Forget about how "time flies when you're having fun."Time flies when you're getting old. But this year, I've heard thesame complaint from people of all ages. (Well, adults of all ages;I haven't conducted interviews of anyone under age 10.)I suspect that it's not a matter of getting older, but of gettingbusier -- and we are ALL getting busier, no matter how old (oryoung) we are. It seems that the more "time-saving" gadgets weacquire -- handheld devices that enable us to simultaneously talkto three different people, surf the web, set up tonight's TV showsto record and, quite probably, wash the dishes and walk the dog --the less time we have. If we can now do five things in the sameamount of time that was once required for one, we now feel we MUSTdo five things instead of one. And so, following that logic, we'renow doing twenty-five things where once we did five, or fifty wherewe once did ten, and so on. Time flies when you haven't any!Which perhaps explains the spirit that I do find myself "in," whichmay or may not be precisely a "holiday" spirit. While I absolutelylove Christmas, I always find myself just a little bit impatient toget it out of the way so that I can move forward, into the year tocome. This is a time of year when I start to feel like "closingout" the old year so that I can start fresh.This year, I find this mood expressing itself in a desire to "clearthings out." On the home front, I'm cleaning clutter from closetsand cupboards. (Wow, did THAT turn out to be an alliterativephrase...) Books I no longer want are going into the "sell onAmazon" pile; books that have sat far too long in that pile aregoing into the Goodwill box. Tasks that have gathered dust formonths -- file this, scan that, sort the other -- are being clearedaway. I can actually SEE the surface of my computer desk!I'm also clearing out my project lists. I found not just one butTHREE "to-do" lists on my computer, and spent an afternoon sortingthrough them, striking off the things that either had been done ornever WOULD be done. I now have one, admittedly rather long, list-- but instead of looking back at all the things that HAVEN'T beendone yet, this new list looks forward, at the things I genuinelyWANT to accomplish in 2012.And this, I think, would be a good way for any writer to addressthis turning-point of the year. Take a day, or two, or howevermany you need, and take a look around. Look at the piles ofclutter that have gathered around your workspace. If there arethings that seriously need doing, get them done so that they nolonger continue to "loom" into the new year. If there are thingsthat are more in the "I should probably do this, but I'm not surewhen" category, consider tossing them straight into the recyclebin.Do you have a stack of books that you feel you "should" read,because, surely, they'll make you a better writer or a betterperson? Think about how much good they might do someone else --and how relieved and refreshed you'll feel when their presence isno longer a guilty reminder of something you think you "ought" todo. Do you have an inbox full of e-mails that haven't beenanswered in months? Anyone who hasn't heard from you in that longhas undoubtedly figured that they won't -- so start deleting.Take a look at your project list, and take note of those that havebeen on the list for months, if not years. If you haven't gottento them by now, chances are that you never will -- but as long asthey stay on your list, you're going to feel guilty about them. Sotake them OFF the list. If you have projects that just need a tinybit of effort to finish up and tidy away, see if you can get themoff your plate altogether.In short, grab a broom. Make this holiday season a time to do theproverbial "clean sweep." Sweep out the odds and ends, theshoulds, the maybes, the sooner-or-laters, the one-days. Trim theto-do list as well as the tree. Deck the halls and clear thedecks.And maybe, just maybe, next year won't seem quite so cluttered.Happy Holidays from Moira and Dawn at Writing-World.com!*****************************************************************Gifts, Offers and Administrivium*****************************************************************What's a holiday newsletter without a gift? (Well, shorter, forone thing...)OFFER #1: in the spirit of clearing out my cupboards, I've decidedto give away ten copies of my book, "The Writer's Guide to Queries,Pitches and Proposals." All I'm asking for is the cost of shipping($3). To make this simple, the FIRST ten folks who respond to thisoffer (AND fork over the $3) get the books. If you live outsidethe U.S., let me know in your e-mail where you live, and I'll letyou know what shipping will cost. To get your book, send an e-mailto "editors@writing-world.com" with "FREE BOOK" in the subjectline.OFFER #2: I am in the midst of updating "Writing to Win: TheColossal Guide to Writing Contests" for 2012. Writing contests area wonderful way to get your work noticed -- and this book is themost complete compilation of contests anywhere. It lists at least1000 competitions in the U.S. and around the world, for poetry,short fiction, nonfiction, books (published and unpublished),children's literature, screenplays, and translations. I expect tohave the new edition finished by the end of the month, but I doubtit will be available until mid-January, so... anyone wanting to getin on the action before then can pre-order the book for a discountprice of $10.95. (I plan to make the book available in Kindleformat as well, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any wayto set up a pre-order for that.) To order your copy, go tohttp://www.writing-world.com/admin1/contests.shtml. And as abonus, I'll make sure that anyone who pre-orders gets the Januarylistings electronically, so that you won't miss out on anycompetitions.AND NOW A CORRECTION: In the last issue we incorrectly indicatedthat our feature article, "Preparing a Fiction Grant Application,"was written by Kathleen Ewing. It was actually written byElizabeth Creith. Kathleen's article will appear in a couple ofmonths. Sorry, Kathleen! However, this is a reminder to ALLwriters out there to PUT YOUR BYLINES ON YOUR ARTICLES!Finally, remember that, in the spirit of "clearing the decks" forthe holidays, we only publish one newsletter in December... andthis is it!*****************************************************************YOU WILL NETWORK WITH 30+ EDITORSOver 400 editors contribute their unique news and views each year.That's news and views to improve your chances to getpublished.Monthly newsletter. Get 2 issues FREE.http://www.thechildrenswriter.com/AK213*****************************************************************The Inquiring Writer: Using Another Writer's Ideas=================================================================By Dawn CopemanLast month we had an interesting question from Amanda H. Geard.She wrote: "I read a story by a writer a while ago -- one of thestories I critiqued on a site called Critters.org -- and the writerof thisparticular story had a cool idea I'd like to use in an upcomingstory I still want to write, although I won't write it the same wayhe used it in his story. Is that an acceptable thing to do, useanother writer's idea, but changing it in your own story? Or willit be better if I ask the writer for permission to use his idea inmy story before I write it? What's the right thing to do here?"Please advise, as I'm in two minds about it, and don't want tostart the story before I know what to do.""To provide an answer to Amanda's dilemma," writes JanisHutchinson, "She needs to be more specific about what 'kind' ofidea it is. If it's something you find happening in life already,then it would probably be okay. If she spelled it out a littlemore, it would help other writers facing the same problem."Other writers also feel that they would like to know a little bitmore about Amanda's dilemma before being able to give a completeanswer.Katherine Swarts emailed to say it is "Hard to answer this withoutknowing the nature of the 'idea.' Reuse of items that could bedescribed by that word range from such basic plot points as'boy meets girl--boy wins girl' (definitely not copyrightable) tothe duplication of multiple characters down to their names (aninfringement suit waiting to happen)."I'm going to guess that the point under consideration here fallssomewhere between, such as an ingenious solution to a mystery; ifI were in that spot--or if I had any doubt at all--I woulddefinitely check with the original writer first, and add a notethat I will consider lack of response a 'yes.' All you can everlose by that approach is a few days.Kate Ashby is of the opinion that Amanda should not use the idea atall, but if she does, she should definitely get permission. Shewrote: "I assume if the writer had it on the site Critters.org forcritique it hasn't been published yet. Please ask any writer ifyou can use his/her idea. It's their idea and not morally right foryou to take it even after a considerable length of time. I wouldwant you to ask me if I was that writer. It is frustrating and notfair, to find out later, that someone who saw your work on a sitefor critique stole the idea."Of course if that writer has already had the idea/story publishedand it's out there then it's still stealing but less of a crime.They have pride in being first. You and others will know that youhad it second."Christine Venzon advises Amanda to proceed with caution. She wrote:"Regarding Amanda's question about using another writer's idea forher own story, I would say it depends on how much she values heronline relationship with this writer (they can get pretty personal)and also how similar her idea is to his. But also consider that hemay have borrowed his concept from another source, and wasdoubtlessly influenced by something he read, saw, overheard, etc.in forming it. Ideas, after all, can't be copyrighted. No one canclaim an idea as truly and wholly his own."That's a very good point, Christine. I know that in the world ofnonfiction we all seem to come up with similar ideas at the sametime and it's often a case of who can get their query to the editorfirst as to who gets the commission. If there are only seven, 37 or101 basic plots (the numbers vary according to different sources)then having a truly original idea is very, very rare.Tunji Ajibade wonders whether Amanda wants to borrow the idea orthe voice of the writer. In which case there is no problem at allas that is how many writers start out and then move on to developtheir style.But Leona Wisoker thinks that Amanda does want to borrow the ideaand has some excellent advice concerning this for all writers offiction. She wrote: "This hits a common misunderstanding amongbeginning writers. Many people are afraid to submit to writinggroups, online or off, precisely because they're afraid of theirideas being stolen. The reality is: in most instances, ideas aren'tprotected. As long as your method of expressing that idea issubstantially different, your language, characters, plots, etc,then it's no problem."For example: 'horses can talk.' There's an idea that's been done azillion times over and never raised a protest. A character whosemother is a psychopathic nurse and father is a pot-smokingcarpenter, and they move from America to New Zealand to Alaska, andhave certain life-changing adventures along the way--that isn't anidea, it's a plotline. That's not steal-able, even if you rearrangeit into New Zealand to Spain to Russia (unless that differencesignificantly changes the actual events of the story). Any onesegment of that plotline is an idea: a character whose mother is apsychopathic nurse, for example, is not a protected item. As longas the actual character is different (for example, if the originalnurse appears cold and snooty and the 'stolen' one appears warm andbubbly, which changes significant aspects of the plot line in andof itself) -- you're safe.Also, it largely depends on how generic or specific the idea you'reconsidering 'stealing' is; there are surprisingly few really, trulyoriginal ideas. If you dig a bit, you'll probably find otherpublished examples of that idea being used in fiction (or evennonfiction!), at which point you're totally safe swipingit -- again, as long as you make sure you're not just copy andpasting his work into yours (which is plagiarism)... and as forasking permission, I see that as having two possible results: he'sflattered and says yes, or he gets paranoid and starts watchingyour work like a hawk, ready to haul you into court on the leastsuspicion. The risk from the latter, given that you won't be doinganything wrong, outweighs the benefit of the former. It isworthwhile, though, to contact the author, compliment him on hisingenuity, and ask *where* he got that idea from, to see if hepulled it from real-world research or personal events or such. Justbe sure to phrase the question with care to avoid sounding like youwant to steal his idea... and of course, I'm not speaking as onefamiliar with legal matters, just as a fellow writer. So I make noclaim to infallibility."Thank you to all who answered in response to Amanda's query. Ihope that helped.Now onto this month's question, which comes from me. It's the endof the year and if you had a time-machine and could travel back andchange one thing about this past year, one writing-related thing,what would it be? Would you go back and tell yourself to submitthat query? Would you sit yourself down and make yourself stick toa word limit on your novel every day? Would you have backed up allyour work and thus not lost it all when your computer crashed?I want you to think about the one thing you wish you could changeabout last year, or the things you are going to do differently in2012. What would or will your change be?Email me at editorial@writing-world.com.Until next time,DawnCopyright 2011 Dawn Copeman*****************************************************************WIN UP TO $500 FOR WRITING A POEM OR SHORT STORY!Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest. Write a poem, 30 linesor fewer on any subject and/or write a short story, 5 pages max.on any theme, single or double line spacing, neatly hand printedor typed for a chance to win cash prizes. Deadline: 12-31-2011Visit http://www.dreamquestone.com for details and enter!*****************************************************************NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WRITING=================================================================Book Sales Rise in UK but are mixed in US in run-up to Christmas----------------------------------------------------------------Black Friday weekend saw sales of books in Britain increase by£5.5m last week as British shoppers finally started to buyChristmas presents. In the US some stores saw sale rises of up to40%, whilst others had flat sales or even a dip in sales. For moreon this story visit: http://tinyurl.com/d3zl5rp andhttp://tinyurl.com/bwrdtp7Self-Published Authors Not Impressed with Penguin Imprint---------------------------------------------------------For many it might seem glamorous, getting your book self-publishedby Penguin, but many self-published authors are not at all happywith Penguin's new self-publishing imprint. They say that BookCountry is expensive and takes too much in royalty fees. For moreon this story visit: http://tinyurl.com/c4saqblBritish Library Gives Digital Access to 18th Century News---------------------------------------------------------If you are planning a historical novel, need to do some researchfor a nonfiction piece of are just plain nosy, then the BritishLibrary's digitization of part of its collection of 18th and 19thCentury newspapers will be of interest to you. The Library hasdigitized 4 million pages of news coverage from all sorts ofnewspapers. Searching the archive is free but there is a charge toview the content. For more information visit:http://tinyurl.com/c66csnp*****************************************************************EVERYHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SETTING FREELANCE FEES! Find outhow to negotiate agreements, choose pricing strategies, definetasks, deal with difficult customers, and much more in the award-winning "What to Charge: Pricing Strategies for Freelancers andConsultants" (2nd Edition) by Laurie Lewis. In print and Kindlefrom Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/setyourfees*****************************************************************Writing Jobs and Opportunities=================================================================Calliope Open to History Articles---------------------------------Calliope is a magazine aimed at children aged 9 - 14 and coversworld history. They have a regularly updated editorial calendar ontheir site and are on the lookout for a variety of articles,stories and activities. Pay is up to 25cents a word.http://www.cobblestonepub.com/guides_CAL.htmlScience-Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy And Mystery Stories Wanted--------------------------------------------------------------Earthbound publishers are open to submissions of short stories upto 500 words max, for which they pay 5c a word, and also stories ofup to 3000 words for their anthologies. See site for fullguidelines:http://www.earthboundfiction.com/submissions#!__submissionsThe New Writer Magazine-----------------------Welcomes "forward-looking articles on all aspects of the writtenword that demonstrate the writer's grasp of contemporary writingand current editorial/publishing policies. This may includeinterviews and personality profiles but we are not looking forintrospective pieces on 'Why I Write...' or how to come to termswith writer's block and the rejection slip, biographies or opinionpieces. Articles should be 500-1,000 words although features up to2,000 words and mini-series would be considered if the idea issubmitted initially by letter giving a brief outline." £20 per 1000words.http://www.thenewwriter.com/guidelines.htm****************************************************************WRITING CONTESTS. The ten best entries from each will bepublished in 2012 Fish Anthology. *Short Memoir* ($2500):Judge David Shields; Ends 30 Jan. *Flash Fiction* ($1300):Judge Michael Collins. Ends 20 March. *Poetry* ($1300): JudgeBilly Collins. Ends 30 March. http://www.fishpublishing.com/*****************************************************************FEATURE: Mining the Rejection File for Gold===============================================================By Ann BrandtSaving your rejected manuscripts can provide a chance to look atyour work from a greater distance in time, allowing opportunity forrevision or rework. Sometimes these documents offer topic ideas,other times new angles on a topic. Often you will see how you couldhave written the piece better or with more care. Occasionally youmight find a manuscript that has been rejected and is almost goodto go. This process of mining the rejection file can be stimulatingand lucrative -- worth the time spent -- but you need to accomplishthis task in steps.Step 1. Sorting and Evaluating:-------------------------------When looking at a manuscript in your rejection file, consider wherethe piece has been sent, how many times it has been rejected, andwhat you were trying to convey to readers. Think about the topicaddressed in this piece. Then ask yourself these questions: What were you trying to give to the readers? Is there any part ofthis piece that you could use now? Has your writing style andmastery of grammar improved since you last viewed this piece? Ifyou were to use this article today, what would you do to it?Years ago I got quite a bit of mileage out of an inspirationalpiece. Eager to sell more in that genre, I accumulated a sizeablecollection of rejected manuscripts. During the last miningoperation I clipped them together and slipped them into the back ofthe file with a note to pursue that endeavor some time in thefuture. The time it would take to revitalize content and contactsis not worth it to me at this moment, so the whole batch of papersremains relegated to a file I call "Some Day." In my rejection file is one story I have written in many differentways -- long, short, three or four different angles. Finally Ichopped it mercilessly and sent the shortened version to aparticular Christian publication, saving all the articles with thecopious amount of paper that had been used to come to that point. Icouldn't quite bring myself to discard all those thwarted efforts,so another batch went into the Some Day file. When considering future use of a particular rejection, ask yourselfif the topic still holds your interest enough to keep writing aboutit. Is the topic outdated or no longer relevant in today's market?One example is a dog magazine that had published a couple of myessays. Not only did the magazine cease publication just after Isent in a third essay, but I noticed other publications for petowners had begun offering stories requiring extensive research andinterviews. In my last rejection file mining operation, I set asideall my dog essays for future use in my blog.Conversely, is this topic hot on the market now? After tryingsporadically to peddle an article on acupuncture, I recently hadsuccess. Everything I have read lately about markets indicates thatreaders want more information on health. With extra and updatedresearch on a couple of health related topics that were rejectedyears ago, I plan to mine that section of my file vigorously.Have you gained additional knowledge or expertise that would helpyou refine and market the piece? Most of us progress both inwriting style and in creating topics, gaining a better idea ofwhich editor expects what kind of subject and how he or she wouldlike it handled. Going through the rejection file can be anexercise in sorting ideas for querying or submitting to editors;their needs sometimes change with time. This sorting process is beneficial both for creating ideas and forgauging your progress as a writer. For example, things that youwrote years before might not be considered in your publishing plannow. However, all the items in your rejection file offer somethingto build on as you read and sort.Step 2. Selecting topics.-------------------------Is a topic in greater demand than when you first sent it out?Perhaps its day had not yet arrived. Set aside manuscripts withthis topic to examine and consider further. If the material in arejected piece contains information that you may need for somethingin progress at the moment, mark or highlight and set it aside. Anoteof caution: If you had researched a topic expressed in a rejectedmanuscript, check the sources to be sure the piece is stillrelevant and accurate before you mark it for future use. Are you still interested in this topic? Do you have more to say onthis topic? Have you gained further information? Do you feel moreconfident in handling this topic now? Does this topic tie in withanything you are presently doing or thinking of doing? Have youthought of different angles to handle this topic? Have you found amarket appropriate for this topic, one that you would query orsubmit material? Step 3. Discovering reasons for rejection.------------------------------------------This part is tricky and involves a bit of guesswork. Sometimes thereason for rejection has nothing to do with your writing. Timingplays a big part in whether your writing is accepted or rejected.Perhaps your material has been covered at length in the targetpublication. If you are fortunate, the editor has commented on thereturned piece and offered that information. (Hopefully, yousubmitted something else to that editor ASAP.) In any event, duringthis mining process, make a special note of that editor and how heor she delivers rejections. Another possible reason for rejection was that your approach to thetopic missed the mark on what the editor wanted. Again, you mighthave been fortunate to receive a sentence or two regarding thisproblem. Bear in mind, however, that workloads in most publishinghouses are increasing while staff is decreasing. If you have filedyour rejection without submitting further, now is the time toreconsider and take a fresh look at your writing. Many editorsrespect perseverance in their writers, and you can establish a goodworking relationship by exhibiting willingness to produce whateditors need. If a manuscript has landed in your rejection fileunder these circumstances, by all means pull it out, redo itaccording to what is needed, and resend it. If a lot of time haselapsed since you have corresponded with this editor, include abrief note. Sometimes, though hopefully not often, you have misread or failedto read the publication's guidelines. In some cases this can befixed by reformatting or tweaking of verbiage. In a highlycompetitive freelance market, you need to follow directionsclosely. Check the current guidelines for any changes. Put yourselfin the editor's place: If two excellent pieces are underconsideration and one has not been submitted according toguidelines, the correctly submitted piece will be accepted. Step 4. Gathering material.---------------------------After you have chosen what is immediately useable, what you want toput aside for future use, and what you need to discard, get startedon the topic that interests you the most. Think of your rejectedpiece as a rough draft. Now we come to the gold in your files. Pickout two or three of the most promising pieces, chosen according towhat you want to write about next. You might find yourself usingcontent from more than one rejected piece to create a newsubmission. You might want to submit something to an editor who haspublished some of your material since rejecting a story and withwhom you have established a rapport. Rejected manuscripts contain a wealth of content waiting to bereshaped and resent. They can inspire, inform, and -- best of all--earn money in their new incarnations.>>--------------------------------------------------<>--------------------------------------------------<http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?LEyszKyMtCwcrMxs7GwMtEa0jExsjEzMnJw=

Actions Flag Clear flag Create a Filter Print Message Show Message Status View Message Source --------- Move to: Old Mail Sent IMs Spam Recently Deleted Saved Mail Go to the previous message control+alt+pagedown Go to the next message control+alt+pageup Close message escape
© 2011 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved Standard VersionTerms of ServicePrivacy PolicyAbout Our AdsContext Sensitive Shortcuts

etsag1998@aol.com

Of Dolls and Stamps

2011-12-01T12:33:00.000-08:00

I'm thrilled to be at 10.083 views on this blog alone! What a great Xmas gift! Thanks to all. I wanted to touch on a piece of interesting historical information linking dolls and stamps. Col. Max Johl, pioneer in philately and legendary collector, was the husband of Janet Pagter Johl, writer, Christian Science Monitor reporter, and inspirational author and doll historian for many collectors. Her books, Your Dolls and Mine, More about Dolls, Your Dolls and Mine, and The Fascinating Story of Dolls are full of great photos and information, oncluding pre-espionage references to the infamous Velvalee Dickinson.

Rock Hudson even had a copy of one of her books in his private library. Go figure.

See, Below:

Max Johl:

Birth: Oct. 26, 1900
Death: Mar. 31, 1957
Connecticut, USA

Col. Max G. Johl (1900–1957), of Connecticut, was an American philatelist who specialized in the collecting of, and writing philatelic literature on, United States postage stamps. Johl's stamp collecting interests consisted of 20th Century postage stamps of the United States. Along with Beverly Sedgwick King, he co-authored "United States Postage Stamps of the Twentieth Century" (Vol. 1, 1932; Vol. 2, 1934). Co-author Beverly King died in 1935, and Johl continued the work on "United States Postage Stamps of the Twentieth Century" and completed volume 3 in 1935 and volume 4 in 1938. He revised and enlarged volume 1 in 1937. In 1947 he published his work "The United States Commemorative Stamps of the Twentieth Century, 1902-1947" in two volumes. Johl served as an officer at the Collectors Club of New York and was an officer and judge at CIPEX (Centenary International Philatelic Exhibition) in 1947. Johl received numerous awards and honors including the Crawford Medal from the Royal Philatelic Society, London, as well as the Luff Award in 1950 and, in 1957, he signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists. He was named to the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame in 1957.

Col. Max G. Johl
(October 26, 1900 – March 31, 1957) Connecticut

Johl was an expert on the 20th century issues of the United States. He was co-author, with Beverly S. King, of Volume 1 (1932) and Volume 2 (1934) of The United States Postage Stamps of the Twentieth Century and sole author of Volume 3 (1935), Volume 4 (1938), and Volume 1- Revised and Enlarged (1937). Johl also wrote The United States Commemorative Stamps of the Twentieth Century, 1902-1947 (two vols., 1947). He received the Crawford Medal of the Royal Philatelic Society London in 1938 for these works.

Johl also served as officer in the Collectors Club of New York, and was an officer and judge at the 1947 Centenary International Philatelic Exhibition (CIPEX). He received the Luff Award in 1950 for Distinguished Philatelic Research and signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1957.

Burial:
Elm Grove Cemetery
Mystic
New London County
Connecticut, USA

Created by: K
Record added: Oct 15, 2010
Find A Grave Memorial# 60139283

Strong National Museum of Play Latest Newsletter

2011-12-01T11:55:00.001-08:00

See below. Check out, in particular, the post on fashion dolls and Barbie's ancestors. It's great.

Keyboard Shortcuts Help Toggle. control+alt+hKey combinations and the actions they invoke. Key Combination Action
control+alt+N Compose
control+alt+M Check Mail
control+alt+H Show or hide the keyboard shortcuts table
control+alt+A Contacts
control+alt+C Calendar
control+alt+I Go to New Mail Folder View
control+alt+O Go to Sent Folder View
control+alt+pagedown Go to the previous message
control+alt+pageup Go to the next message
control+alt+D Delete
control+alt+F Forward
control+alt+U Mark Unread
control+alt+R Reply
shift+control+alt+R Reply All
escape Cancel

AOLMail ToolbarMake AOL My Home Page
etsag1998 Sign Out

Search the Web Whole Web
enhanced by Google Context Sensitive Shortcuts Settings Help Search Mail
MailSubjectFrom/To----------------Contacts
List of Folders Today on AOL New Mail4930New Mail Folder View control+alt+i Old MailDrafts (9)SentSent Folder View control+alt+o IMsSpam (3)Recently Deleted
Contactscontrol+alt+a
Calendarcontrol+alt+c My FoldersManage Folders

Actions Flag Clear flag Create a Filter Print Message Show Message Status View Message Source --------- Move to: Old Mail Sent IMs Spam Recently Deleted Saved Mail Go to the previous message control+alt+pagedown Go to the next message control+alt+pageup Close message escape Message ViewDecember Events at the National Museum of Play
From: The National Museum of Play
The_National_Museum_of_Play@mail.vresp.com To: etsag1998
Date: Thu, Dec 1, 2011 12:18 pm

December 2011

Thursday, December 1
After-Hours Shopping Event in the Everything for Play! shop
5–8 p.m.

Saturday, December 3
Pirate Toy Fund Drive Celebration

Saturday & Sunday
December 3 & 4
Literature Live: Meet Tacky, the eccentric penguin

Mondays, December 5, 12 & 19
Toddler Book Club: Wintery Stories

Friday, December 9
Eastman School Family Performance

Saturday & Sunday
December 10 & 11
Winter Wonderland Weekend

Monday, December 12
Monday Kicks for Ages 2 to 6:
Winter Wonder

Saturday & Sunday
December 17 & 18
Winter Wonderland Weekend

Saturday, December 24
Museum closes at 4 p.m.

Sunday, December 25
Museum closed for Christmas

Monday, December 26–
Sunday, January 1
School-Break Week

Saturday, December 31
Museum closes at 4 p.m.

Visit the online calendar
for more information
about each event!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That Dress Is
So Last Century!

Discover the fashionistas
who pre-dated Barbie
in the Play Stuff blog!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rock the High Score, Amadeus.

Learn how classical music takes video games to the next level in the CHEGheads Blog.
The museum will close at 4 p.m. on
Saturday, December 24 (Christmas Eve) and
Saturday, December 31 (New Year's Eve).

The museum will be closed on
Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apply for the 2012–2013 Year at
Woodbury Preschool
Families with children who will be three or four years old on or before December 1, 2012 are invited to apply for admission to the 2012–2013 school year via the preschool's lottery system.

Information and applications will be available online beginning Thursday, December 1.

Attention Scout Leaders!
Looking for a way for your Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, or Cub Scouts to give back during the holiday season while earning service hours? Register now for Scouts Give Back offered on Saturday, December 10. Call 585-263-2700 for more information.

The museum also offers facilitated workshops, self-guided backpack experiences, and other programs for scouts. Learn more.

Enjoy the Spirit of the Holidays
at Winter Wonderland Weekends
Holiday fun awaits at the museum during Winter Wonderland Weekends on December 10 & 11 and 17 & 18. Join woodland animals in an interactive performance of The Mitten, a Ukrainian tall tale about a boy who loses his mitten in the snow. Performances take place on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 2:30 p.m., and on Sundays at 1 and 2:30 p.m.

While at the museum, mail a letter to Santa in the North Pole mailbox and check out Miller Manor, a gigantic 19th-century-style dollhouse decorated for the holidays.

You can also drop off new mittens, gloves, scarves, hats, and socks at the museum through December 19 to benefit Hillside Children‘s Center‘s Special Santas Program (part of a collaborative effort with the Monroe County Public Library System).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Great Savings in the Shops in December

December 16–24 ONLY
Earn a FREE
museum shop gift card with purchase!

FREE $20 museum shop gift card with a $100 museum shop purchase.
FREE $15 museum shop gift card with a $75 museum shop purchase.
FREE $10 museum shop gift card with a $50 museum shop purchase.
FREE $5 museum shop gift card with a $25 museum shop purchase.

Offers do not apply to previous purchases and
may not be combined with other discounts and coupons.
Follow the museum!

www.museumofplay.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this message with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or simply click on the following link: Unsubscribe

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Museum of Play
One Manhattan Square
Rochester, New York 14607
US

Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy.

Actions Flag Clear flag Create a Filter Print Message Show Message Status View Message Source --------- Move to: Old Mail Sent IMs Spam Recently Deleted Saved Mail Go to the previous message control+alt+pagedown Go to the next message control+alt+pageup Close message escape
© 2011 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved Standard VersionTerms of ServicePrivacy PolicyAbout Our AdsContext Sensitive Shortcuts

etsag1998@aol.com

Thank you! We Did it!

2011-11-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

WE did it! Thanks so much! We are at over 10,046 posts on this last day of the month!

Hurray!!

Joan Holub's New Book!

2011-11-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

To our friend Joan, author of the Doll Hospital series, Congratulations!

Ancient Dolls a Hint to Early Man

2011-11-21T13:03:00.001-08:00

I used this in 2003 for a class I was teaching on dolls. The link is http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/tech/main589095.shtml

Hand is still bad, but the article talked about thel ion man, and other small figures carved from mamoth ivory over 30,000 years ago. Some were one inch, others one foot. An author named Nicholas Conard was quaoted. There is a lso a 2 inch bird discussed, one of the oldest bird figures. Note that there are ancient Greek dolls with owl-like faces also in museums, and these appear in Mary Hillier's dolls and Dollmakers, too.

An interesting quote is "The researches belive the figurines were created by early anotomically modern humans, and not their Neanderthal predecessors." The little figures were as old as the French Cave Paintings, where an ancient owl figure was also found.

Though it was suggested in the article these were shamantistic objects, the article also states that the little dolls may have been teahcing aids, or even toys, according to Archaeologist Anthony Sinclair. It is also interesting that the title refers to these artifacts as "dolls" unequivocally.

Sorry for typos, and Happy Thanksgiving. More later, but what interestng points to make.

Small Business Weekend and Rosalie Whyel

2011-11-21T09:30:00.001-08:00

Join us for Small Business Saturday on November 26th.

American Express is encouraging Americans to "Shop Small" again this year on Saturday, November 26th and the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art Store and Rosie's Too are participating. If you have an American Express card be sure to register your card before the 26th. If you spend $25 or more at a locally owned business like ours you can be eligible to receive a $25 statement credit on your American Express bill. Get all the details and register your card at www.americanexpress.com.

We will see you on the 26th!

Just A Little Reminder...

Rosie’s Too Sidewalk Sale

Saturday December 10th from 11am to 4pm

EVERYTHING IS ON SALE Members Always Receive An Additional 10%

Rosie's Too
221 106th Ave NE
Bellevue WA
425-455-0363

Rosie’s Too Final Day- December 31st, 2011

Thank You Sale and So Sew Sale at the Museum
January 12 - 14 (Thursday - Saturday), 2012 10am to 5pm
-Members Always Receive An Additional 10%-

Museum Final Day- March 1st, 2012

Shelley Helzer
Co-Director
Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art
Ph 425-455-1116 Fx 425-455-4793
www.dollart.com

Writing World Free to Share

2011-11-17T11:37:00.001-08:00

*****************************************************************

W R I T I N G W O R L D

A World of Writing Information - For Writers Around the World

http://www.writing-world.com

Issue 11:22 12,825 subscribers November 17, 2011
*****************************************************************
MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: See the bottom of this newsletter for
details on how to subscribe, unsubscribe, or contact the editors.
*****************************************************************

IN THIS ISSUE:
=================================================================

THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR'S DESK: Thinking and Thanking, by Dawn
Copeman
THE WRITING DESK: Resumes, by Moira Allen
NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WRITING
FEATURE: Preparing a Fiction Grant Application, by Kathleen Ewing
THE WRITE SITES -- Online Resources for Writers
WRITING CONTESTS WITH NO ENTRY FEES
The Author's Bookshelf

*****************************************************************
Writing.Com is the online community for writers of all interests.
Create your free online portfolio and start writing today!
---> http://wwx.Writing.Com/ <---Become a fan on Facebook: http://facebook.com/WritingComFollow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/WritingCom****************************************************************WRITERSCOLLEGE.COM has 57 online courses. Prices are low. If youcan reach our web site, you can take our courses.http://www.WritersCollege.com*****************************************************************PURSUE YOUR WRITING DREAM. If you've ever dreamed of writing andseeing your words in print, this may be your best chance to testthat dream. Learn to create the kind of stories and articles thatwill sell to editors. Train with an experienced pro author. Freetest. http://www.breakintoprint.com/W1679*****************************************************************WRITE CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Ever dreamed of being a published author?Writing for children is a great place to start. Learn thetechniques from an experienced writer. This unique program hashelped 1000's like you become published. Free qualifying testoffered. http://www.writingforchildren.com/H0555 *****************************************************************THOUSANDS OF WRITERS USE FANSTORY.COM FOR:* Feedback. Get feedback for every poem and story that you write.* Contests. Over 40 contests are always open and free to enter.* Rankings. Statistics will show you how your writing is doing.http://www.fanstory.com/index1.jsp?at=38**********************************************************************************************************************************DON'T GET SCAMMED! Choose the right Self Publishing Company foryour book. What you need to know before choosing a self publishingcompany and the questions you should ask.http://dogearpublishing.net/self-publishing-companies.aspx*****************************************************************FROM THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR'S DESK=================================================================Thinking and Thanking---------------------Being a Brit, Thanksgiving normally passes me by. It doesn'tfeature much in British life and we don't really understand it muchapart from what we see in movies. It seems to us to be like amini-Christmas, a big celebratory meal with family and friends and,from what I've seen in films, a stressful time too - a lot likeChristmas.But this year, my daughter is studying an American 5th Gradecurriculum, to stretch her. Incidentally, we've found the Americanmath and language arts far more challenging and useful than theirEnglish curriculum counterparts and the sciences are amazing!We're also learning lots about American history and geography andof course, Thanksgiving.You know, I wish we had Thanksgiving in the UK. I think the idea oftaking a day to be thankful is a wonderful idea.And whatever stage we are at in our writing career, we do have areason to give thanks. We are doing, even if only as a hobby,something that we love to do; something that inspires us, somethingthat fires us up with enthusiasm, something that is a passion forus and something that hopefully will help to pay the bills.I've been reading a book recommended to me by Cecily Mahoneyfollowing my last editorial about reading positive books, called"The Other 90%" by Robert K. Cooper. This book, again aimed atmanagers, is proving to be quite thought-provoking. At least, it'scertainly making me think.For example, one thing that Cooper believes makes for happy humanbeings is if they take time to indulge their passions at least alittle every day. He believes that just by doing what we love todo, just by writing, a little, every day, we are freeing up ourmind for happiness. Not only that, but we are also, apparently,boosting our immune system too!So you see, that need to write that you've always had is actuallyreal! It's a real physical need! Own it and enjoy it. If you needto write, you are a writer!But what about publication? Isn't it hard to get published thesedays, what with new media and international competition? Sure, itis hard to get published these days.But then again, it has ALWAYS been hard to get published. The worldchanges, publications spring up and die, magazines come and go andwebsites blaze then fade. It is easy to get discouraged, to letnegativity win, to give in. But remember this, for everypublication that closes, another opportunity comes along. Thereare new media, new outlets, and new ways to earn a living fromwriting. In fact, there are now more ways to earn money fromwriting than there have ever been before. I currently write fortwo businesses in Australia, one in Hong Kong and one in Ireland,all thanks to the power of the Internet and the introduction ofsocial media.We need to be more creative, not just with our words, but in how welook for work and the type of work we do. This is, despite what allthe gloom merchants say, a good time to be a writer and I amthankful that I live and write now.-- Dawn Copeman, Newsletter EditorAnd a quick message from the Editor...For those whom Thanksgiving doesn't pass by (and those whosometimes wish it would), remember - it's not the turkey. It's noteven the pumpkin pie, though in my house, that's pretty much anessential. It really IS the "thanks." I firmly believe that"counting your blessings" actually frees your life to RECEIVEblessings. The more I see of folks who focus entirely on thenegative things in their lives (the "you won't believe what anawful day I've had!" sort of person), the more I get the feelingthat by focusing on negativity, one is INVITING it. And remember -here at Writing-World.com, we're immensely thankful for all of YOU!-- Happy Thanksgiving, Moira Allen, Editor*****************************************************************YOU WILL NETWORK WITH 30+ EDITORSOver 400 editors contribute their unique news and views each year.That's news and views to improve your chances to getpublished. Monthly newsletter. Get 2 issues FREE.http://www.thechildrenswriter.com/AK171*****************************************************************CURIOUS ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING? Learn how to self-publish your bookin 3 formats (print, e-book and audio) by downloading the InfinityPublishing self-publishing guide. Download now and be on your way toself-publishing your book and achieving the success you deserve:http://blog.infinitypublishing.com/newsletter*****************************************************************The Writing Desk: Resumes=================================================================By Moira AllenDo you need a resume as a freelance writer?-------------------------------------------Q: As a freelance writer do you use a resume and if you do whatexactly do you put on it? Do you just list your writing credits ordo you have all of the other positions on there that you've everheld even though they are irrelevant to your writing?A: I would only use a resume if I were applying for a "real" job inthe area of writing -- e.g., an editorial position, or somethingsimilar. It is not necessary (or even advisable) to include aresume when submitting freelance material to a publication.I have, on occasion, included a "publications list" when querying apublication. I have a "master list" (for my own use) that listseverything I've published. When submitting a query, however, I'mlikely to tailor the list to reflect the interests of thepublication itself. For example, if I were querying a writingmagazine, I'd focus on my credits related to writing. If queryinga pet publication, I'd focus on my pet-writing credits. Ifquerying a "major" publication, I'd focus on "major" credits,regardless of the topic (e.g., a big-league magazine will be moreimpressed by the fact that I've written for Entrepreneur than thatI've written for Inklings, regardless of the subject area). If applying for a writing job, you should focus on your writingcredentials. However, other job experience is also important --not because of the qualifications it may give you, but becausehuman resources personnel look at resumes for your employmenthistory. If you have gaps in that history, or what appear to belong periods of unemployment, those need to be explained. Thus, ifthose "gaps" are really just non-writing jobs, you can solve theproblem by listing your non-writing experience in yourchronological employment history section.For writing, I prefer a "skills" resume over a "chronological"resume. A skills resume focuses on the writing skills that wouldbe relevant to the position. Then, one's job history is listedtoward the end of the resume, but given a place of less prominence. A "chronological" resume focuses on job history -- this job, thatjob, the job before, etc. For more information, see "Creating a Writer's Resume" athttp://www.writing-world.com/rights/resume.shtmlCopyright 2011 Moira Allen*****************************************************************HIRE AN AWARD WINNING DESIGNER/AUTHOR TO DEVELOP YOUR WEBSITES.Celebrating a decade of designing websites for authors that reflecttheir unique style and personality. Other design services includebook designs, marketing materials, and email campaigns. ContactShaila Abdullah for your design needs at http://myhouseofdesign.com/*****************************************************************WIN UP TO $500 FOR WRITING A POEM OR SHORT STORY!Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest. Write a poem, 30 linesor fewer on any subject and/or write a short story, 5 pages max.on any theme, single or double line spacing, neatly hand printedor typed for a chance to win cash prizes. Deadline: 12-31-2011Visit http://www.dreamquestone.com for details and enter!*****************************************************************NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WRITING=================================================================Newspapers See Sunday Sales Increase------------------------------------Sales of paper editions of newspapers are increasing on Sundays,according to the latest figures released from newspapers. This isleading many to launch Sunday editions or to expand current Sundayofferings. For more on this story visit: http://tinyurl.com/csyln65Penguin Launches New Digital Short Works Series-----------------------------------------------Penguin Shorts, to be launched on December 1, 2012, will featurenine short digital works each month, with each eBook being pricedat around £1.99. The Series will launch in the US in 2012. Tofind out more about this story visit:http://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-digital-short-works-series-penguin.htmlNew Service Launched for British Freelancers--------------------------------------------A new service has been launched for freelancers in the UK that aimsto put them in touch with features editors looking for stories.The service, Case Study Link, costs freelancers £12 a month tojoin.For more on this story visit: http://tinyurl.com/cogzdqj*****************************************************************EVERYHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SETTING FREELANCE FEES! Find outhow to negotiate agreements, choose pricing strategies, definetasks, deal with difficult customers, and much more in "Whatto Charge: Pricing Strategies for Freelancers and Consultants"(2nd Edition) by Laurie Lewis. In print and Kindle from Amazonat http://tinyurl.com/setyourfees*****************************************************************Writing Jobs and Opportunities=================================================================SoulMate Publishing Open to Romance Submissions-----------------------------------------------We are actively seeking authors who can tell an exciting story andaren't afraid to venture into new territory. We encourage novelsthat are original and blur the genre lines.Soul Mate Publishing is a royalty-paying publisher currentlyaccepting submissions for the following Romance Genres:Action/Adventure, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Erotica, Fantasy,Historical, Inspirational, Novellas, Paranormal, Sci-Fi/Futuristic,Suspense/Thriller, Time Travel, Urban Fantasy, Women's Fiction.Blending of genres is allowed and encouraged. Varying levels ofsensuality are welcome, however all stories should have an upbeatending.http://www.soulmatepublishing.com/pages/Submission-Guidelines.htmlLiterary Traveler Open to Submissions-------------------------------------Literary Traveler seeks articles that capture the literaryimagination. Which writers and artists inspire you? Have you takena journey or pilgrimage that was inspired by a work of literature?Literary Traveler focuses on literary artists but we welcomearticles about composers, painters, poets, songwriters, andstorytellers. Show us what you are made of and what you arepassionate about. What excites you and would excite our readers?The articles we publish highlight the beauty and struggle of peoplewho create, and the places that nurture them. Articles are notnecessarily limited to their writers' experiences; some may beinformative of place and artist.Payment is $50 per article.http://www.literarytraveler.com/contact/writers_guidelines.aspxGoNomad.com Wants Travel Features---------------------------------GoNomad.com is on the lookout for more travel features ranging from800 to 2000 words in length. They pay $25 per feature article.Full guidelines are given on the site. It is a good place to startgaining travel writing clips.http://www.gonomad.com/corp/writerguidelines.html*****************************************************************HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST STORYThis inspiring, practical new book will help you writeyour best story and improve your chances to get published.These are the most durable, successful, and time-tested tips,techniques and examples of best practices used by great writers.http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Your-Best-Story/dp/1933987146*****************************************************************HOW TO WRITE MORE, WRITE BETTER, AND BE HAPPIER!If you're sick of writing in a vacuum and crave insights andinspiration, you need the acclaimed book: Toxic Feedback: HelpingWriters Survive and Thrive by Joni B. Cole. "Strongly recommended,"by Library Journal. http://www.toxicfeedback.com/*****************************************************************FEATURE: They'll Pay Me to Write my Novel?Six Steps to Help You Win a Fiction Grant===============================================================By Kathleen EwingThe purpose of a fiction grant is to fund the completion of a work;that is, the grant pays your expenses so that for a month or six,or more, you can work on your writing without wondering how to paythe phone bill. In the last year I've had three fiction grants. The first time ITHOUGHT of applying for a grant, I broke out in a sweat. What if Idid it wrong? For a first-timer, writing a grant application cansound intimidating. Where do you start? Where do you look? What doyou do? First, breathe. Bear in mind that these institutions want to fundwriters. In fact, they often have a mandate to distribute a certainamount of money to writers. And guess what? The money isn't for howwell you can fill out an application -- it's for how well youwrite! Who gives out these grants, anyway?----------------------------------- Arts councils, universities, private foundations and authors'associations (such as PEN and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writersof America) are all sources of grants. Some are grants for artistsor writers in financial distress due to illness or emergency, butmany are to fund specific projects, intended to pay a writer'snormal living expenses while she finishes her work. Many granting organizations state specifically that the money isnot for the purchase of equipment. Grant funds can usually be usedfor living expenses, travel and research associated with theproject, and printing and postage costs. Eligibility is more likely to revolve around residency and workthan financial need. Arts councils fund only artists residingwithin their province, state, region or country, and also requireproof of professionalism. The granting institutions want to know they're funding someonewho's likely to produce good work. They need to see a track record.The Ontario Arts Council requires a writer to have published aminimum of one book or three paid essays, poems or stories. TheIsherwood Foundation wants applicants to have published one novelor collection of short stories. The Minnesota State Arts Boardrequires that the applicant be a professional artist. There are a few grants for unpublished writers. In most cases,however, without something to prove you're a serious workingwriter, you're not likely to be eligible. Create a track record with short fiction, poetry, even newspaperarticles. Don't give your work away -- for many granting agencies,payment is the thing, and the amount of payment less important.Radio work, online publications, that local gossip piece for yoursmall-town paper -- if you place it, get paid. Depending on thegrant, you may not even have to have sold fiction. Got your trackrecord? Then you're ready to go. Here's how to prepare an entry that gives you your best chance.Take it one step at a time, and you can do it. Breathe. 1 - Find a grant that fits your writing.---------------------------------------- There are writing grants, and there are specialized writing grants.Are you writing fiction or poetry, young adult or fantasy ormainstream? You have a better chance if you can narrow your field.First, you'll be competing in a smaller group. Second, when all theentries are the same genre, the judges won't be trying to decidewhether to fund the sex-and-shopping novel or the sword-and-sorceryone. There are grants solely for women as well. How do you find grants?----------------------- a. Start with your region, state, province or country and Google"writing grants fiction" or "writing grants poetry".b. Check out writers' resource sites and subscribe to newsletters.c. Ask other writers if they know of any grants.d. Contact past winners. Granting institutions publish the winners'names on their websites; call a past winner and ask about thegrant, and the writer's experience.e. Don't be shy -- most writers are willing to help another writerwith information.f. Look at writers' magazines; most have a section on grants in theback.g. Look for writers' organizations in your genre, like the SFWA orthe Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.h. Read the information on your area arts council's websitei. Network with other writers on writing sites like Zoetrope andShow Us Your Lits2 - Know your grant: visit the website and read the requirements.----------------------------------------------------------------- When you've found a grant -- or two, or six -- that you areeligible for, you need to read everything you can find out aboutit. This is a no-brainer and an absolute must.Some things to look for are these: is the submission date areceived-by date or a postmarked-by date? Will the granting bodyaccept applications by email? How will you know your applicationhas been received? Do they want a publishing history -- that is, alist of what you've published, when and where? (Almost certainly!) Do they want to see some of your work? How much? Ten pages? Asample chapter and synopsis? The whole manuscript? How many copies?If you don't get funding, can you re-apply with the same work to alater deadline? (Usually, yes.) Do they want identifyinginformation on the work, or not? (You can be disqualified if theydon't, and you leave your name on the piece somewhere.) Don't skimp on reading time or skip over anything. Make notes. Irecommend a notebook with a page per grant so you can compareeasily without skipping among websites. Mark deadlines on yourcalendar.3 - Give yourself time.----------------------- A last-minute entry is probably not your best work, unless you'vebeen polishing for several months. I'd suggest starting work onyour support materials at least one month ahead of the deadline. Ifyou haven't got a month, perhaps you need to wait until next year,or find another grant with a longer deadline. Don't waste time,paper, postage and stress for anything but your best.4 - Prepare your support materials.----------------------------------- This is the big step, the one that's going to take the most time.Support materials can include any or all of: a publishing history,an artist's statement, a synopsis of the novel and pages from thework, or the complete work itself. Your publishing history is simply the list of what you've published(and been paid for), where and when. Make sure it's up to date. Ichange mine every time I publish something. Don't worry if thefirst one looks sparse; keep working on it. An artist's statement tells the granting institution about yourconcerns and work as an artist. This is where you tell them aboutyour major influences (but briefly) and what direction you want totake with your work. Tell them what themes and motifs recur in yourwriting, and why. For example, part of my artist's statement says"A recurring theme in my work is the transformation of human toanimal and back, and the blurring of the lines between human andanimal." The synopsis is just that -- a brief retelling of the story. Itusually take two or three days to write a good synopsis. Instead of"blow-by-blow", think "back-cover blurb", something to make peoplewant to read the work. Here's a line from the synopsis for mynovel-in-progress "Under the Skin," whose hero can take eitherhuman or dog form. "Now he's locked in the pound, nine hours fromhome with no memory of how he got there. And he's due to beneutered Thursday."5 - Send sample pages to wow the judges---------------------------------------You will probably be asked to send only a portion of the work youwant funded. Make it the very best part, the one that will keepthem turning pages. Don't worry about showing only a portion of theplot. The judges may not care whodunnit or whether the guy gets thegirl in the end, but they WILL want to know you can write. That'swhat you want to show them. Start by choosing what you think is the best section of the work.Find some people whose opinion and honesty you trust, and ask themto read it and comment. This is not a time for warm, fuzzyfeedback. If your opening paragraph is boring, you need to know.(If you can get them to help with your synopsis, all the better!) Often several members of my writing group apply for the same grant.When that happens, we hold "application binges." We all read eachother's pages, then meet for an afternoon to make suggestions. I'vealways made improvements to my entry after one of these critiquesessions, and I wouldn't think of making a grant applicationwithout one. Judges often read entries on a tight deadline, or in the timearound their full-time work. One told me that he had over a hundredentries to look at, at forty pages per entry, and less than sixweeks to read them. If a writer didn't grab his attention early on,he didn't finish the entry. You MUST grab the juror's attention inthe first two pages, and preferably on page one. If one of yourreaders says something doesn't work, ask for the reasons, andlisten to them. Then rewrite, trim, rearrange, or perhaps pick awhole other section and start again. See Step 3. It's not cheating to ask for this help; if you publish a novel,you'll be working with an editor who'll have suggestions to make,too. Thoughtful, critical readers can vastly improve yourapplication, and your chances. Before you mail your entry, double-check the rules and make sureyou've complied. I once was actually on the point of mailing myentry when I wondered if I'd left my name on the cover sheet. Iripped open the envelope to check. I had. Five minutes and five newcover sheets (and a fresh envelope) later, I sent in my entry. If Ihadn't checked, I'd have been disqualified. 6 - Finally, if at first you don't succeed, hit them again.----------------------------------------------------------- The bad news is that there are more excellent entries than there ismoney to fund them.But take heart; most grants allow people who miss the first time --or second, or sixth -- to apply again. I applied five times forgrants before I got one, and four of those applications were thesame novel, the same pages. One writer I know applied eleven timesbefore he got a grant. The second application is a lot easier. The good news is that winners usually can't re-apply for a statedtime, which gives other applicants a better shot. Judges and juriesmay also change between deadlines, and your work may be more to thetaste of another jury. Perhaps on a new jury, your entry will bethe one that someone will fight tooth-and-nail to fund. They can'tfund it if it's not in there. There's more good news. Although published writers are alsoapplying for those same grants, a less-experienced writer can win.I've yet to publish a novel, but I won a grant when someexperienced published writers did not. The quality of thesubmission told. If I can do it, you can do it. And there's still more good news -- there are lots of grants. Keeplooking, because you won't find everything the first time around. Yes, it's time, paper, postage and stress, but if you really have agood story, it's worth trying, and trying multiple times. If yousucceed, you'll be paid to write your novel. And you'll still havethe novel to sell.>>--------------------------------------------------<http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?LEyszKyMtCwcrMxs7GwMtEa0jEwsbJzMTBw=

Actions Flag Clear flag Create a Filter Print Message Show Message Status View Message Source --------- Move to: Old Mail Sent IMs Spam Recently Deleted Saved Mail Go to the previous message control+alt+pagedown Go to the next message control+alt+pageup Close message escape
© 2011 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved Standard VersionTerms of ServicePrivacy PolicyAbout Our AdsContext Sensitive Shortcuts

etsag1998@aol.com

Michael Jackson's Doll and the State of The Collection

2011-11-14T08:08:00.001-08:00

A little trivia is always a good place to start. The Today Show featured the upcoming auction from furnishings of the house where MJ died. In a shot taken after his death, the camera showed a doll on the bed where he passed away. I find this sad and touching; the doll looked like a late fifties, early sixties vinyl doll, and it could well have been a favorite toy from his childhood. He was controversial indeed, and the jokes can abound, but though he was not my favorite anything, I do feel compassion towards him, and I hope this toy was a comfort to him. And, as my friend Mary Hillier used to say, Dolls are Where you Find them!

I was at a doll show, where old dolls in various states were in abundance, at very low prices. Many booths had signs that said "down-sizing," or "going out of business," and many of my friends who were dealers were downhearted. It was a buyers market, and since I'm not a dealer, I was able to buy dolls that I wanted, and had to make choices. But, I hate to see the interest wane. Much of the issue is that young collectors are more into art dolls, and ball-jointed dolls, high priced and trendy. I love them, too, but history lies with older dolls.

Met with my friend also writing on metal dolls; we are planning a collaborative project, so keep reading.

More Doll News

2011-11-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

Doll Collecting

Doll Collecting
Get Started
Buying / Selling
Types of Dolls

From Denise Van Patten, your Guide to Doll Collecting
This week, we take a look at a favorite doll from the late 1960s and early 1970s that has recently gone back into production--Flatsy! Also this week, a peek at two really, really old wood dolls being auctioned at Bonham's in the United Kingdom. Until next week...Denise

Flatsy - She's Flat and All That!

If you grew up in the 1960s or early 1970s, and you watched children's television, you'll remember Flatsy and her catch-phrase, "She's Flat and All That!" Flatsy dolls were... Read more

Bonham's Doll Auction On November 15 To FeatureTwo Wood Dolls

A Bonham's doll auction on November 15 in the United Kingdom is featuring two very old and fascinating wood dolls. The first doll is a George the II wood doll that... Read more

Top Harry Potter Character Figures by Tonner Doll Company

There are so many fantastic dolls in the series of Harry Potter dolls (also called character figures) by the Tonner Doll Company, it's hard to pick favorites. All of the... Read more

Free Doll and Vintage Art

Art of dolls, vintage dolls and clip art for all your doll and victorian projects! Dolls, Victoriana, children, animals, holidays and more. One of the best selections of free doll-related art on the Inernet.

Doll Collecting Ads

Auction
Old Dolls
Vintage Dolls Doll
Porcelain Dolls
Collectible Dolls
Featured Articles
Antique Dolls 1800s-1920s
Dolls By Type: Plus Doll Profiles and Dolls by Material
Dolls 1960s-1970s
Dolls 1930s-1950s
Collectible Dolls 1980s-now
Barbie - Modern

More from About.com

What is ADD?
Learn more about Attention Deficit Disorder, a condition that affects approximately 2 million children in the United States. More>

Living with ADD
Distractibility, restlessness, and difficulty organizing oneself are just a few of the issues individuals with ADD must learn to cope with. More>

This newsletter is written by:
Denise Van Patten
Doll Collecting Guide
Email Me | My Blog | My Forum

Sign up for more free newsletters on your favorite topics

You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to the About Doll Collecting newsletter. If you wish to change your email address or unsubscribe, please click here.

About respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy

Contact Information:
249 West 17th Street
New York, NY, 10011

Happy Halloween!!

2011-10-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

Have a safe Trick or Treat Day!

Haunted Dolls?

2011-10-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

One of the most haunting things I have seen recently was a story on Chernobyl, and the surrounding towns evacuated after the disaster nearly three decades ago. I think of Pompeii, and all that took place there. The children let their dolls and toys where they fell; they look as sweet as before, but more like something out of Coraline of The Shelter for Misfit dolls. It is voyeuristic to see them, and to know could just walk on someone's house, and see life cut off there this way. I wonder what these kids felt when they had to leave so quickly, and I wonder how long the dolls will stay there, part of a haunted museum indeed, because they are contaminated and cannot be moved.

Are Dolls haunted; in a way. They are symbols of childhood, and the confidantes of the children who loved them. They keep memories and are keepsakes, and they are often the first things grabbed in a disaster, and are even buried with children, as the ancient and not so ancient cemeteries tell us. Happy Halloween!

Dolls of Autumn

2011-10-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

Quick List to return to:

Nut dolls
Cornhusk and corncob
Raffia nd wild grass dolls
Jack O' Lanterns
Scarecrows
Monster High
Witches
Living Dead dolls
Emerald Sabrina
Gourds, squash and painted pumpkins
Decorated with seeds
Pilgrims
Native American
Wood
John and Prisiclla Alden
Turkey Dolls
Miniatures, Lemax and Dept. 56
Halloween Animatronics
Zombie Babies
Trolls
Living Dead Bears
Vampires
Universal Monsters
Vampirilla
Dracula
Frankenstein's Monster and Dolls
Our friends at Uneek Dolls
Creepy broken dolls/Skellington Manor
The Vampyre Doll Collector
Anne Rice, her dolls and books
Fetishes
Voodoo dolls
Ritual and Magic figures
Puppets of the Devil
Devil Dollies
Pet Monster
Where the Wild Things are
Halloween Barbie
Halloween furbie
Animatronics
Hanging Mary
Guillotine dolls
Dia de Muertos
La Calavera Catrina and Frida
Mandrake Roots
Witch dolls
Dolls of House of Seven Gables
Mummy dolls
Corpse Bride
Spawn and McFarlane Toys
Mego Monsters
London after Midnight
Dark Crystal
Gollum
The Golem
Bathory dolls
Gurley wax candles
Witches and Wizards from India
Haunted Mansion
Anaotmical models
Mme. Alexander
Wizard of Oz
Wicked
Dr. Who

Excellent Doll Reference Site

2011-10-28T11:39:00.001-07:00

See Below; doll links;

http://dolllinks.blogspot.com/#C

From the Strong Museum

2011-10-28T07:04:00.001-07:00

FYI:

From: National Museum of Play at The Strong
To: etsag1998
Subject: LAST CHANCE! Join Today and SAVE $10
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 9:10 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only 5 days left to SAVE $10 on membership!

Don't miss the only Rochester stop for these exciting touring exhibits:

Football: The Exhibit (NOW OPEN) Get in the game, armchair quarterbacks! Toss the remote on the coffee table and visit the museum to explore the science, technology, and history behind one of America’s favorite sports.

Wizard of Oz (January 21–May 13, 2012) Embark on an interactive family journey from Dorothy Gale’s farm to the colorful Land of Oz. Along the way, experience the tornado in Dorothy’s bedroom, speak like a Munchkin, build a Scarecrow, oil the Tin Man, and groom the Cowardly Lion.

Design Zone (June 2–September 3, 2012) Hands-on interactives and computer-based activities reveal how video game developers, music producers, roller coaster designers, and others use math to do amazing things. Produced and toured by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

To redeem this $10 SAVINGS offer:
Purchase online, use special offer code DESIGN when prompted,
call 585-263-2700 and mention this special offer,
or print and bring this email to the admissions desk by Monday, October 31, 2011.
This offer is only valid on Family, Grandparent, and Patron-level memberships. Offer not valid on current membership renewals, may not be combined with any other offer, and may not be applied to past purchases. Membership is non-refundable and non-transferable.

Football: The Exhibit is a traveling exhibit organized by the Arkansas Museum of Discovery, Little Rock, Arkansas. Wizard of Oz created by the Miami Children’s Museum. Design Zone produced and toured by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

This offer expires October 31, 2011!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click to view this email in a browser

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this message with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or simply click on the following link: Unsubscribe

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Museum of Play
One Manhattan Square
Rochester, New York 14607
US

Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy.

Just 216!

2011-10-27T11:55:00.001-07:00

Two hundred sixteen more viewers, and we reach 10,000!!!

ALiterary Shelter for Misfit Dolls

2011-10-26T10:09:00.001-07:00

A Literary Shelter for Misfit Dolls; Exploring Doll Play in Wilder, Dickens, Little Women, Burnette, and Eliot

Ellen M. Tsagaris, Ph.D.

When you loved the people of the world, you loved their dolls . . .
Anne Rice, Taltos.

Dolls have existed since the Stone Age and appear often in literature, but the literary signifcance of doll play has not been addressed. “Literary Dolls” are often bedraggled examples of their kind that would be at home on Rudolph’s Island of Misfit Toys. Yet, children love them because, like them, their dolls are imperfect. Laura’s doll in Little House in the Big Woods, a handkerchief wrapped corncob, is both an object of pity and a beloved toy. Dicken’s Jenny Wren repairs dolls to find the perfect form her own crippled body denies her. Beth’s dolls in Little Women, especially Joanna, are surrogate children and confidantes. Painfully shy, Beth can relate with her dolls as imaginary companions in ways she cannot interact with real children. Sarah Crewe’s proverty and privation as an orphan are shared by her doll Emily, her only companion when she loses her fortune and is reduced to being a servant at Miss Minchin’s Academy. Maggie’s doll in The Mill on the Floss is a “fetish” that takes all of the abuse the frustrated Maggie cannot heap on her oppressors, yet remains a faithufl confidante and compantion. If dolls are made in the images of their makers, they are also extension of their owners, and the image magic they recreate is often found in extensions of their owner’s lives, fears, and dreams.

Baudelaire: “A Philosphy of Toys”: Baudelqaire writes that “ the whole of life exists” in a “great toy shop” and it is “far more highly sparkling and polished than real life.” Those who love films like Mr. Magorian’s Wonder Emporium would probably agree with him. Dolls and toys represent life in miniature, brought to a scale and level that children can understand. A child’s life extends through the life of her toys, and her imagination animates them, as Andy’s does in the Toy Story Films. For a child, her dolls are her companions, portraits, actors in her plays, and scapegoats for her miseries.

Little Women, 1868, one year after my Great-Grandmother and Laura Ingalls Wilder were born: Nowhere does the doll represent an extension of her owner than in Alcott’s Little Women. Since the book was written, there have been hundreds of doll representations made of the characters, in paper and 3-D form, in all media. There are also many other works or art, both serious and kitschy, that immortalize them, as well as several films and TV series. Alcott herself was 13 when Charlotte Brontë died, and was aware of Jane Eyre. There, Brontë writes of the importance of dolls as companions to children, and the orphan Jane only has her doll to comfort her in the desolation of the Reed house.

The March girls do not have many toys, but they have their games, pastimes, and theatrical play. Beth is the only sister described as having dolls. Thirteen year-old Beth March is the shyest of the four March girls. She loves her pets, her six misfit dolls, and her music. Anne K. Phillips writes in “Toys, Games, and Play in Little Women” that given the family’s poor economic status, six dolls seem “ a surprisingly large number of toys” (407). Beth is a juvenile “Angel of the House,” and at thirteen, is her mother’s best companion. He helps with household chores, but is still very much a child who cares for her sisters bedraggled, broken, and cast out dolls. She often saves them from the trash or ragbag. The following description describes the relationship Beth has with her dolls:

Beth was too bashful to go to school . . . She was s housewifely little creature . . . not lonely nor idle, for her little world was peopled with imaginary friends . . .There were six dolls to be taken up and dressed every morning, for Beth was a child still, . . . not one whole or handsome one among them; all were outcasts till Beth took them in; for when her sisters outgrew their idols, they passed to her . . . Beth cherished them all the more tenderly for that very reason, and set up a hospital for infirm dolls. No pins were ever stuck into their cotton vitals; no harsh words or blows ere ever given them, no neglect ever saddened the heart to the most repulsive, but all were fed and clothed, nursed, and caressed, with the affection which never failed. One forlorn fragment of dollanity had belonged to Jo; and, having led a tempestuous life, was left a wreck in the ragbag, from which dreary poorhouse it was rescued by Beth, and taken to her refuge. (Alcott 35).

Alcott goes on to write that the poor doll has no top “to its heard” and “both arms and legs were gone, she hid these deficiencies by folding it in a blanket, and devoting her best bed to this chronic invalid. (35). Beth lavishes more love on this doll than on the others, and brings it “bits of bouquets,” reads to it, takes it for walks, “hidden under her coat,” and sings it lullabies, kissing “its dirty face, and whispering tenderly,” I hope you’ll have a good night, my poor dear” (35). Significantly, this doll is named Joanna. Later, when Beth is terminally ill, Jo will care for her as tenderly as Beth cared for the bedraggled Joanna. As Phillips observes, none of Beth’s play is “orchestrated by Marmee: Beth chooses this activity, and her dedication to the dolls is supported by her sisters” with Jo making sure there is a clear path, even in winter, so that Beth can take Joanna on her daily walks (408). Doll play suits the nurturing Beth, who is, ironically the most motherly of all the sisters, though she will never experience motherhood herself (408)

Indeed, there are many Victorian and Edwardian stories of dolls that have lead rough lives, only to be saved in some manner and given a new lease on life. Raggedy Ann manages to keep her smile “despite entanglement in laundry wringers, entrapment in drainpipes, and entombment in snow banks” (Eberle 180) . Rachel Field’s Hitty “survives many scrapes,” Miss Hickory of Miss Hickory loses her nut head but is reborn as part of a living tree, and Tottie of Godden’s A Dolls’ House is “proud to be made from the good wood of a strong tree” (180) ; her strong constitution helps her to give the other dolls, and herself, strength through some very difficult times in the doll house. There were many doll hospitals, and Jenny Wrens abounded all over the world. Antique dolls were sturdy, yet sometimes made of fragile materials, and even Burnett writes of having to replace a doll’s head. Parts were for sale everywhere, and the Alexander doll company got its start as a doll hospital. The New York Doll Hospital was famous for many years and was featured in at least two books and many articles, and even today, there is a “clinic” for American Girl dolls. Even the Cabbage Patch Kids got their start in a hospital setting, Babyland General Hospital, where the staff dressed as doctors and nurses. Well-loved dolls are often preferred by children [and collectors; there is a trend to collect played-with Barbie dolls, not MIB, see Lord]. My favorite dolls were the one’s completely worn out that “needed me,” and I frequently made and played with “crippled” dolls or paper dolls. My favorite part of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was The Island of Misfit Toys. I still like to save or salvage them, and many of my friends give me worn out specimens of “dollanity” that others might consign to the garbage can. I always save them. Even today, there is a brisk market for dolls that need TLC or doll parts on Etsy, eBay, and other auction sites.

Alcott herself tried at one point to support her family as a dolls dressmaker, reportedly chasing the neighbor’s chickens for feathers with which to decorate fancy doll hats (See review of McDonough’s The Life of Louisa May Alcott, 1).

If worn out dolls are preserved lovingly in Alcott’s books, they may also be sacrificed to ward off evil bogeymen of the nursery. In Little Men, in the chapter “Pranks and Plays,” Grover Smith, Jr. writes in his essay ”The Doll-Burners . . “ that Daisy and Demi, Rob, and Teddy, create a ritual to rid the “local bogy,” aka, “The Naughty Kitty-mouse” (Smith 28). The “nursery set” decides there must be a “sackerryfice” where “There must be a fire behind the big rock at two o’clock, and we must all bring the things we like best, and burn them!” (Alcott, LM, quoted in Smith 29). The last words, “burn them,” were said “with an awful emphasis on the last words” (29). One of the sacrificial victims must be a “venerable doll” named Annabella (29). After a fire is started on a flat stone, a dozen paper dolls, lead soldiers, etc., are all burned. Next comes a miniature village of wood. Finally, “comes the climax,” and Teddy “planted poor dear Annabella on the funeral pyre. Of course she did not like it, and expressed her anguish and resentment in a way that terrified her infant destroyer. Being covered with kid, she did not blaze, but did what was worse, she squirmed . . .The unexpected demonstration startled everyone and frightened Teddy half out of his little wits. He looked, then screamed, and fled toward the house roaring “mama,’ at the top of his voice” (29). Jo laughs as any adult might when she hears of the cremation and the reasons for it, but to children, the scene is truly horrifying. It is the stuff of horror movies like “Doll Graveyard” and has cultural roots in the Doll Temples of Japan where worn out dolls are cremated. So like us are dolls, that when they are destroyed this way, there is something horrific that stays with us, the same feeling one gets when a live person is burned in effigy. And, it is fitting at this point to keep in mind that among the first dolls were those that were buried or sacrificed with the dead to take the place of life people. Later, in Sons and Lovers, in Chapter 4 “The Young Life of Paul,” Smith writes that Lawrence also makes a sacrifice of Arabella, a doll which his sister is very fond of. Paul has broken the doll, and his way of atoning for his sin is to burn it. Perhaps the children are more cavalier with their toys because at this point in history, they have more than their mother and aunts would have had. Anne K. Phillips writes of the last part of Little Women, that “Later in the novel, Meg’s children Daisy and Demi are depicted as having more plentiful and more diverse kinds of toys” including a cooking stove and a group of wooden bears (408). As families became more prosperous in the 1870s, the toy market grew and grew, and there were more store-bought toys available. One sees the same effect in The Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In the early books, Laura’s doll is a corncob, later replaced by a rag doll her mother makes, who is named Charlotte. Mary has a rag doll, and both girls make paper dolls. They use the ragbag to dress their dolls and make others out of twigs and dolls’ teacups out of acorn caps. Later, Nellie Olsen of a more prominent family has a china doll and an expensive wax doll, and Grace, Laura’s baby sister, has a china headed doll as well. And, Lawrence writes that Annie was disturbed by the destruction of the doll because her brother “seemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it (Lawrence 70-71, quoted in Smith 30). Smith calls the breaking of Arabella [note the similarity to Alcott’s Annabella; they would have been similar dolls] “a deliberate . . . assertion of bravado . . . [Paul’s] effeminate shame gives way to masculine pride. Dolls are also treated badly in Beatrix Potter’s “A Tale of Two Bad Mice” where Hunca Munca literally takes a doll house and its inhabitants by adverse possession until the dolls can be rescued and restored.

Jane Eyre:
Dolls play a role in the works of Charlotte Brontë, too, particularly Jane Eyre. Of her doll, the Orphan Jane says, “To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise (Brontë______________).
Charlotte and her sisters and brother had many toys, especially given the time. One biographer tells us they had wax dolls with wardrobes and hats, painted wooden blocks and a lion, a toy barrel, a set of ninepins, a dolls cradle of wicker, dolls; tea sets, a toy iron, at least three sets of wooden soldiers, two sets of Turkish musicians and a set of Indians (Barker 150-151). They invented stories about their characters, particularly when they were tucked into bed at night and found solace in each other’s company, much as Jane did in her doll. From the soldiers, especially, came a troupe of The Young Men, and the children made up exciting and action filled plays about them. Later, they were to handcraft painstaking miniature books filled with the exploits of these characters based on toys. (Smith 31).
Shelter for Misfit Dolls: This is one of my favorite places on The Internet, though there has no new material since 2004. It is hosted by “The Little Dead Gyrl,” and has good information about outsider art dolls and primitive, homemade dolls. Artistry, not monetary value is stressed, creativity is celebrated. The doll now is showcased for the role the worn poppets of Brontë and Alcott exemplify, and a few are the fetish, punishment bearing toys, exemplified by Eliot.

The Shelter for Misfit Dolls illustrates by example several themes explored at hand. For one thing, it acknowledges that childhood is not all sweetness and light, and even as the Victorians would have us believe so, terrible things were happening to children in literature and in the real world. We need only to revisit the aforementioned Fairy Tales, Strupwelpeter, and Gorey’s cautionary tales like The Dwindling Party to know this is so. In fact, The Little Dead Gyrl features a series of vignettes that illustrate the tales and mishaps that befall luckless children by using small members of Mattel’s Barbie family, redressed to suit Gorey’s texts.

Furthermore, The Shelter is a place for artists to explore their own emotions and anxieties, and as the host writes in response to objections to her site: “We artists have found a constructive outlet for our anxieties, and we have become better people because of it. If you prefer to keep your denial and your neuroses and feel that everyone else should be denied their right to express their feelings, then by all means, stay off my website. “Love, Little Dead Gyrl

Moreover, the dolls featured are often grotesque, themes include “dolls and rot,” and adjectives that describe them include “grunge,” and “primitive.” Some are monster dolls or deformed dolls, like conjoined twin babies, and others sport taxidermy animal heads on conventional hard plastic and vinyl doll bodies. Others are vampires, witches, or Goth figures.

Some of the dolls are featured from the author’s collection, and a few are dolls by other artists that are collaborative efforts. The site truly exploits and explores the definition of what the dolls I, and her role in childhood. There is also a fondness for less-than-perfect dolls, homemade dolls, and worn, well-loved dolls. They seem to be preferred to valuable antiques and collectors’ items, and clearly, at The Shelter, condition is not everything. Some of the artist dolls are pricey, but there are “linkies” to “free doll stuff,” and a lot of sharing of links, patterns, and ideas for other craft sites. The Shelter seeks to encourage doll creativity in the spirit of Beth March, and Laura Ingalls’ corncob doll. There no “doll snobs” here and the status of these dolls is that they are not status items. “Shelter” and “misfit dolls” imply emotional attachments similar to what children have for their toys, and similar to what are explored in the Toy Story Films. The dolls, like their owners, need love, and indeed, represent their owners emotions, even if they are not life-like portraits.

The Little Dead Gyrl’s mission for The Shelter reads as follows:

Why Misfit Dolls??All ugly smelly chewed up dolls deserve a second chance at love. Many of them have a head start by already having become REAL (see The Velveteen Rabbit for definition of "real"). The official definition of a Misfit Doll is any doll which, due to any circumstances beyond its control (including but not limited to: bad luck, bad posture, bad parenting, chew marks, mysterious stains, homeliness, homelessness, musty odor, cloying saccharine sweetness, missing body parts, terminal illness, or lumpy stuffing) is UNLOVABLE by its owner. This site is a tribute to Weird Gyrl Artists who love to make weird creepy dolls! But this site is also a shelter for misfit dolls, so they will at least have an orphanage to live in while they are waiting for new parents.

“Just dolls to love” in Dolls, by Bettina Ehrlich, 1963: In this watercolor child’s picture book, made in miniature doll size, but five inches high, the author discusses dolls from around the world, old and new, from the perspective of a child. Each dolls is made of different materials, and at the end of the book, the child is asked which one she likes, and she answers, “Dolls, just dolls to love!”

Laura Ingalls Wilder:
The dolls featured in Wilder’s books are, for the most part, well-loved and homemade. Susan in LHBW is a corncob wrapped in a hankie. Laura, the younger sister, cannot have a doll more elaborate doll like Nettie, the cloth doll Mary owns, till she is older. Yet, Laura loves Susan and thinks enough of her to name her and clothe her. She has empathy for the simple doll, and the narrator expresses Laura’s sympathy by stating it is not Susan’s fault she is just a corncob; she still deserves to be loved. Here, the doll brings out nurturing qualities in children.
There are buckskin dolls mentioned in the LLHP books, and figurines, and dolls as Christmas ornaments as well. Dolls are often used as props in the television series of the 1970s as well, and there have been many dolls created in the image of the Ingalls family, and also in the images of the actors who played them on TV.
Their other toys are not elaborate, either. She and Mary must make doll cups out of acorns, and twig dolls and paper dolls out of bits and pieces. Their balloons are pigs bladders left over from butchering, and they play a lot of games and make snow candy or help with household chores as part of their games. Play is instructive for the Ingalls girls, literally playing house to learn skills befitting their later roles in life. They have few, if any store-bought toys. Laura is entranced with Charlotte, a doll her Mother creates from the ragbag, because she has eyes painted with homemade dye, and black hair, and real clothes. A special gift through Laura’s childhood is to have a new outfit made for her. Laura and Mary also play with paper dolls their mother cuts for them, and they create their own outfits.
Dolls mentioned in the later books are more prosperous, just as their owners are, so that Carrie and Grace have China or porcelain headed dolls, and the rich but spoiled Nellie Olsen has a wax doll that seems as if it were alive, and a porcelain doll. Unlike Laura and Mary, she has little regard for her toy, expensive as they are, and takes them for granted, even as she spitefully forbids Laura from touching her wax doll.
Realistic wax dolls and dolls of bisque and porcelain were at their height in the golden age of European doll making, especially in France and Germany. Wax dolls were being made in England by the firms of Pierotti, Montanari, Vargas, and Marsh that had each hair inserted into their heads with a hot needle. They had class eyes and realistic coloring. Bisque dolls had entire stores and trousseau devoted to them and innovations were made by firms like Huret and Rohmer, founded by women entrepreneurs, Jumeau, Bru, Gautier, and others. Dolls and their elaborate trousseau were popular charity items to be auctioned at Charity Fairs and Sanitary Fairs to benefit the Crimean and Civil Wars. Earlier, Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton played nurse to their dolls and pets as preparation for their future professions.
As with the March girls, the Ingalls girls could have bought tiny dolls and doll parts at general stores and through catalogs to enhance their dolls. They chose not to.
Dolls were their children and confidantes, but not their scapegoats. Unlike Maggie, and real children like Helen Keller who loved dolls, but who took out her frustrations on them and broke several as the rambunctious charge of Anne Sullivan. Keller writes in her autobiography that she first remembered sorrow and remorse after her breakthrough at the water pump when she remembered the doll she had broken. The doll was repaired; it may well be the doll she holds in the now famous, rediscovered photos of her and Sullivan.

Burnett: A Little Princess:

When told Sara is told she ought to play more with dolls, she replies, “You see, if I went out and bought a new doll every few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be intimate friends. Emily is going to be my new intimate friend” (Burnett 7-8). When the sanctimonious and villainous headmistress Miss Minchin asks who Emily is, Sara solemnly says, “She is a doll I haven’t got yet. . .She is a doll papa is going to buy for me. . .. I have called her Emily. She is going to be my friend when papa is gone. I want her to talk to about him” (8). It is not, however, easy to find Emily, and there were a number of disappointments and visits to many celebrated toyshops, and there were at this time many, some dating to the 1700s. Of her search for Emily, Sara explained, “I want her to look as if she wasn’t a doll really. I want her to look as if she listens when I talk to her. The trouble with dolls, papa” . . . is that they never seem to hear” (9). In light of the Last Doll with her fantastic wardrobe, it is ironic that Sara is not looking for ostentation or cosmetic appearance in her search for Emily. She clearly wants a companion and confidante, not just a toy. Such an approach has been used as an advertising pitch to sell countless dolls for hundreds of years, along with an appeal to a love for realism, either in the children or the parents. At the time Burnett was writing, dolls were becoming more and more realistic, and were mechanical dolls that ate and drank including Bébé Teteur and Bébé Gourmand by Bru, the Edison talking doll by Thomas Edison with Jumeau heads, the mama doll invented by Maezel, the walking doll, Autoperipatetikos, and many more. Bisque heads now had real teeth, sleeping glass eyes, wigs of human hair, angora, or mohair, that could be combed and styled, jointed bodies that could be posed realistically, etc. Automatons that breathed, drew, danced, and sang were popular as well. And Sara looks at a fair variety of these, “they looked
At big ones and little ones—at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue—at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed,” and Sara even decided the doll if undressed could go to a dressmaker and have her things fitted, as Sara herself did, because “They will fit better if they are tried on” (9).

Finally, Emily is found. Burnett writes “as they were approaching a shop which was really not a very large one, Sara suddenly started and clutched her father’s arm. ‘Oh, Pap!’ she cried. “There is Emily!’” (9). Sara is flushed and “there was an expression in her green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was intimate with and fond of” (10). She is actually waiting of us!” she said :Let us go in to her.” Captain Crewe is startled a little and states he thinks they should be introduced. Sara replies they will introduce each other, but there is something uncanny in their meeting, “But I knew her the minute I saw her—so perhaps she knew me, too” [cf, Dollie Dearest, my Candy, and how collectors choose dolls].
Emily’s’ description is as follows: “Perhaps she had known her. She had certainly a very intelligent expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms. She was a large doll, but not too large to carry about easily; she had naturally curling golden-brown hair which hung like mantle about her ,and her eyes were a deep, clear, gray-blue, with soft, thick eyelashes which were real eyelashes and not mere painted lines” ( 10). Sara goes to a child’s dressmaker and Emily outfitted with wardrobe duplicate to hers, and says she wants Emily to look like a child with a good mother, but then says, “”I’m her mother, though I am going to make a companion of her” (10).

When Sara despairs after her father dies and she is reduced to being a servant in Miss Minchin’s cruel household, she stops believing in Emily; she knocks her off her chair and despair and rage crying, “You are nothing but a doll! Nothing but a doll-doll-doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a doll!” (Burnett 124-125). Yet, the narrator tells us Emily looks at Sara with “glassy -eyed sympathy” (124).
Captain Crewe had made wonderful preparations for Sara’s birthday; [A]mong other things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her wardrobe was to be , indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection. When she had replied to the letter asking if the doll would be an acceptable present, Sara had been very quaint. “I am getting very old, you see, I shall never live to have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There is something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure a poem about ‘A Last Doll’ would be very nice. But I cannot write poetry. . . No one could take Emily’s place, but I should respect the last Doll very much; and I’m sure the school would love it. They all like dolls; though some of the big ones –the almost fifteen ones—pretend they are too grown up” (Burnett 62). The author would have known about dolls with extensive wardrobes; they were popular in her childhood, and are mentioned in other types of fiction. There were lawsuits and elaborate stores devoted to them and to their accessories. Burnett herself was a doll collector, and she often mentions dolls and toys in her books and has written about them.
Jenny Wren: Our Mutual Friend: Jenny is a an adult in a child’s body, and certainly both Madeleine and Claudia of Interview with the Vampire. She is a handicapped child who must repair and dress dolls for wealthier children to support herself and her alcoholic father, the perpetual child she calls Mr. Doll. She treats him like a doll, or naughty child, and he timidly submits to her domination; parental and child roles are clearly reversed: “How’s my Jenny” said the man , timidly; “How’s my Jenny Wren best of children, object dearest affections broken-hearted invalid?’ To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in a n attitude of command, replied with irresponsive asperity: ‘Go along with you! Go along into your corner directly!’” (247). Her father-child then leaves to sit in the “chair of disgrace” (247), a sort of 19th century time-out. Jenny continues to scold him in what the narrator calls “this dire reversal of the places of parent and child, but is a pitiful expostulation to be let off from a scolding” (247). Jenny continues to scold with “I know your ticks and your manners . . . I know where you have been to! Oh, you disgraceful old chap!” (247). Doll making and dress making for Jenny is a chore, and she calls herself a “slave from morning till night” and angrily threatens to call the police and have her father “transported for life” (248).
It is soon clear Jenny is the responsible “parent, “ and she makes him count out wages, then, after threatening to give him the cats’ leavings, basically sends him to bed without his suffer (249).
At the end of the chapter, Dickens writes, “Poor dolls’ dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hand that should have raised her up. How often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little dolls’ dressmaker!” (250).
a. [Write a novel from pov of Jenny W and a poem on Sarah’s The Last Doll].
(cf Claudia IWTHV); when she pays a visit with Riah, miss Abbey asks “Child or Woman? ‘Child in Years’ was the answer; ‘a woman in self-learner and trial.’ “(Dickens 454).
Dickens reproduces her calling card, which elevates Jenny in social status, reads “MISS JENNY WREN, DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER. Dolls attended at their own residences” (453). Jenny knows proper manners, and makes Riah stop the oral introductions while she gives her calling card to Miss Abbey.
Jenny takes pride in her work: “ . . . as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly lighted toy shop window and said, ‘Now look a t ‘em. All my work!’ This referred to a dazzling semi-circle of dolls in all the colours of the rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going to balls, for going out driving, for going out to get married, for going to help other dolls to et married, for all the gay events of life (451). Jenny gets inspiration on the streets from great ladies she sees, and form other sources, and makes dolls in their images. Jenny is proud of the perfection of her dolls; unlike her own twisted form, their bodies are perfect and in proportion. In them, she reproduces the self she would like to have.
Jenny is introduced in the following way “The person of the house, dolls’ dressmaker and manufacturer of ornamental pin-cushions and pen-wipers, sat in her quaint low arm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back. The person of the house had attained that dignity while yet of very tender years indeed, through being the only trustworthy person in the house” (Dickens 239). As Pym says, we all need something to love, a passion in our lives, but Jenny, like countless little girls who worked in the shops of Jumeau and others, made dolls they could not afford to have. The same is true today of young girls who work in doll factories making Barbies and other dolls they cannot have. Jenny has beautiful golden hair, and reminds the reader of Beth March, or Carol, of Kate Douglas Wiggins’ The Birds’ Christmas Carol.
Jenny’s real name is Fanny Cleaver, but she early on renames herself Jenny Wren (Dickens 239).
As she works, Jenny imagines the scents of flowers and listens for the songs of birds, for she cannot get out herself very often (244-45). She is wise beyond her years, and no doll is her companion; instead, the heroine Lizzie, comes to her with news of the outside world. (241). Yet, all the dolls are her messengers to the world she can’t inhabit, and a part of her goes on with them to new adventures. She scolds another character who wants to buy a doll from her admonishing, “you had better not . . . You are sure to break it. All you children do’ (244). Poor Eugene replies, “But that makes for good trade, you know, Miss Wren” (244). Jenny is a contrast; she is careful and aware of money, but her art seems to mean more to her than “good trade.”
Eliot: The Mill on the Floss: Jenny Wren’s dolls are symbolic if cultural trends; in fact, she is inspired to create them by watching the latest trends in societal and fashion trends in her Victorian world. Certainly, dolls “enculturate” children into social mores, and as Bado-Fralick and Norris point out in Toying with God: The World of Religious Games and Dolls, dolls also “enculturate children into a religions’ values (7 quoted in Norcia’s review in The Journal of Play 269). Maggie’s doll play in Mill explores further the thesis of Bado-Fralick and Norris, “whether dolls are empty vessels or objects freighted with meaning (Norcia 269). Maggie seems to offer the next question Norcia presents for the authors of Toying with God;” what happens when children go off script and subvert the play narratives that religious toys encourage?” My answer is we have Maggie and some of the children in Alcott, Godden, and the Toy Story Films who ritually abuse toys to take out their aggressions or to “sacrifice them.” We also have the Evil Doll Horror films, where abused dolls often come back to take revenge, e.g., Doll Graveyard or Dolls.
The attic is Maggie’s favorite “retreat,” and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her misfortunes. This was the trunk a large wooden doll, which stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks, but was now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie’s nine years of earthly struggle’ the luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion had represented aunt Glegg.” But immediately afterward s Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort I, and make believe to poultice it when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to be her niece’s pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the wooden hear again the rough brick of the great chimneys . . . (Eliot 20).
The doll is a Queen Anne or Georgian, very rare today. Also, note again that Helen Keller and other children, including those in Alcott’s works and in Toy Story I, take out their frustrations on dolls. Children often bury dolls or use them as scapegoats, which is why they are important today in therapy for abused children.
Of fetishes, legendary doll historian and museum curator Max von Boehn writes, “Ancestor image, idol, fetish, talisman, amulet, depend in their general conception upon the idea that the presentation of a god or a demon or a man confers upon the person who makes the image and who calls by the name the thing represented the power to make use of its strength or to influence it. On these grounds the law Moses forbade, as idolatry, the making of images. . “Thus it is that the doll, both among ancient and among modern peoples, plays an important part in magical practice” (Von Boehn 56). He also defines the fetish in this way; “By the term fetish is understood a natural object or an object of art with which a cult is associated and to which its possessor ascribes supernatural powers . . . Any object can become a fetish, but generally human forms are preferred” (51).
Rice and Claudia: Anne Rice often uses dolls in her work, and they figure prominently in The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos, as well as in Belinda, Interview with the Vampire, Merrick, and Queen of the Damned. She was, herself, a long time doll collector, and I am fortunate to own two of her former dolls and several of her books about dolls.
In both the novel and film of Interview, dolls are companions, portraits, and representations of corpses. In the film, the vampire child Claudia, who keeps growing intellectually but not physically, receives a doll every year for decades from Lestat, who just doesn’t get it; he has created for himself and Louis a perfect “doll” who is immortal, but who becomes a monster because of her frustration. The dolls covering her bed in the film become a grave or hiding place for the real “doll” she wants; the corpse of a real woman whose body and form she covets. Later, Claudia befriends Madeleine in Paris, a lonely doll maker who recreates dolls over and over in the image of the child she has lost. (Remember, Raggedy Ann was originally created in memory of a dead child, the artist’s daughter, Marcella). The two become close because they become each other’s living “dolls.” Madeleine can create an adult French Fashion doll of the type described earlier, which pleases Claudia, and Claudia can be Madeline’s living doll, a kind of consolation for her lost child. Claudia herself is a sort of tribute to the six year old little girl Rice lost to leukemia; she is the child who cannot die, but she and Madeleine are ultimately destroyed by the players of the Theatre de Vampires. A large Bru French doll is featured on the back cover of several edition of Interview. Last year, the doll was sold at auction for over $30,000.00.
In Taltos, Mr. Ash is a doll maker with a fantastic collection, and here Rice shows her knowledge as a collector by mentioning the fantastic makers Bru, Huret and Jumeau, and by showcasing their dolls. His mission is to create beautiful dolls in the style and quality of the antiques for little girls everywhere at affordable prices. And, as Rice notes, dolls represent the people who make them in a positive way, and she states that when you love the people of the world, you love their dolls.
Children like Sara Crewe and others, both real and fictional, often are attracted to dolls that remind them of home or some other comfort. Nona, the little Anglo-Indian girl sent to live with her English cousins in Miss Happiness and Miss Flower identifies with the ex-patriot Japanese dolls forced to live in a strange land without friends and family. She builds them a Japanese doll house, and in the process, makes friends who help her to recreate the beautiful miniature world the two Asian dolls must have missed. While the theme of Godden’s The Dolls’ House includes betrayal and even violent doll death by an interloper doll, it is clear that the Plantaganet family appreciates the care of the two little sister, Emily and Charlotte, [nee Bronte!] who rescue them, restore their house, and protect them from further damage and harm. The youngest sister identifies with the more damaged of the dolls, Mr. Plantaganet, who wears a bandage on his damaged china hand, and with Birdie, the fragile but loving celluloid mother doll who sacrifices herself to save her doll baby.
Edith the Lonely Doll, Corduroy the Bear, The Velvateen Rabbit, Miss Flora McFlimsey, Sethany Ann and Nicey Melinda, Pinnochio, The Nutcracerk Prince and many of their doll/toy counterparts can tell similar tales of having lived as children companions, confidantes, and even scapegoats. There are Victorian tales and poems written for children, and famous books like The Little Wooden Doll, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, and The Memoirs of a London Doll that weave stories just like these, where dolls are mourned, loved, abused, restored, and loved by the children who own them. There are even poignant stories of dolls comforting children in slums, in concentration camps and prisons, in hospital wards, and other disconcerting places. The most poignant symbols left in the abandoned communities around Chernobyl are the dolls left behind, now forgotten lost prisoners, and the last artifacts of the children who loved them. Dolls are the other, but they are also extensions of humanity, miniature portraits of us who inhabit microcosms of our world, and inspire writers to recreate childhood their their doll characters as well as their human ones.

Creepy Horror Dolls and Movies

2011-10-26T09:41:00.001-07:00

My Paper; Read at a Conference:

Ellen Tsagaris, Ph.D.
May 28, 2011

“Antique Haunted Doll. Health, Wealth and Good Fortune.” http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220824235795&assPageName=AD …

Creepy doll blog for conclusion:

“They Want to Play with You;” Cinematic Demonic Dolls and Demonic Child’s Play in Stuart Gordon’s Dolls; Interview with the Vampire, Toy Story III, The Bad Seed, The Chucky Films, Dead Silence, Koontzs’ Intensity, and The Tommy Knockers.

Play often rewards us with a thrill or a sense of wonder. But, just over the edge of play, uncanny objects like dolls, automata, robots, and realistic animations may become monstrous rather than marvelous. . . . Play is surely difficult to define, but demarcating its porous boundary—where what one moment creates joy can in the next, cause dread—is a useful step toward describing this shifting phenomenon.

Scott G. Eberle, “Exploring the Uncanny
Valley to Find the Edge of Play”

If there Is a dead body in the room—
Cover it,
That it does not become the gruesome
Doll of the (childish) house
That he does not play with it
Erecting it,
Against . . .
Rainier Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies

Dolls are “The Other.” They can appear alive, yet are peculiarly “dead.” They can be a child’s confidante, or a portrait of depravity and cruel weapon as are voodoo dolls and certain talismans. Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” and Rilke’s essay “The Dolls” foreshadow how dolls are appropriated in horror films to become weapons of terror or animated small corpses, intent on evil acts. Children can also be monsters; depraved creatures that, along with their demonic toys, are the antithesis of idealized childhood innocence. In fact, books like the recent Creepy – Ass Dolls and websites like The Haunted Doll Museum , Headless Historical Dolls, and The Shelter for Misfit Dolls exploit the darker side of dolls and child’s play to the delight of thousands of fans. There is even a haunted dolls category on eBay, where the dolls sold have a “haunted history.” One recent offering says that the doll, a bisque doll made in the late seventies or early eighties, “promotes a long healthy life for her owner as well as bestows great amounts of money to her owner and their family” (Antique Haunted Doll 1). For example, her owner might find money on the ground. The description on eBay goes on to say that there is a short chant or mediation to get the doll to work. (Ibid). Dolls in horror literature of all media do want to play with you, but not in the safe, innocent, or productive sense we usually associate with doll play. Horror dolls don’t encourage nurture; they encourage self-defense. This paper will explore how little girls and their most traditional of toys, dolls, are appropriated in the horror films named above to create a particularly grim and terrifying experience for film audiences.

Intro: Dolls were not meant to be toys for children, initially, but were ritual objects, tomb figures, representations of deities [The Goddess figures or Venuses of Willendorf], ancestor images, fetishes, Santos, objects d’art and utilitarian objects. Both Carl Fox [The Doll] and Max von Boehn [Dolls] explore the darker ancestry of what has now become a children’s toy and popular collectible. In some ways, doll horror films hearken back to the time when dolls were more than trivialities and ephemeral childhood entertainments to explore their darker side, and the uncanny effect these miniature human portraits have on us in a cinematic context.[The cult classic Trilogy of Terror exploits the darker side of fetishes and ritual figures when one comes to life and wreaks mad-cap havoc on Karen Black].

So sacred were dolls or figurines to Stone Age people, that they lacked facial features, for it was taboo to look on the face of the deity or God [similar to current religions, both Islam and Amish, that do not portray human faces on dolls, statues, or paintings, or photographs; it is an ancient prohibition against graven images]. Doll “murders, burials, and executions” are an integral part of play; witness Frances Glessner Lee’s miniature doll murder scenes in The Nutshell Series of Unexplained Death and the Lincoln boys’ doll Jack, which was repeatedly court martialed and executed. Dolls are often given to abused children not only to comfort them, but to encourage them to discuss their own physical and mental abuse. Funerary dolls were common in the ancient world, and dolls are cremated in temples in modern Japan.

Both Louisa May Alcott and D.H. Lawrence write of dolls being burned on sacrificial, childish altars, (Alcott, Little Men, 29; Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, 70-71). Maggie Tulliver abuses her dolls as a “Fetish” in The Mill on the Floss” when she is upset and frustrated (Eliot, Mill, 20). One of the props in a recent production of Jane Eyre (2011) is a burned doll. The doll is a good replica of the so called Milliner’s Models of the 1830s, made in Germany with elaborate molded hairdos of papier mache with papier mache limbs and kid bodies.

Today, we have circled back to the idea of dolls as fetishes of sorts; we have only to review the numerous publications devoted to dolls, especially Barbie and ball-jointed Asian dolls. There are national and local doll clubs all over the world, and the rise in creation of artist or collectors dolls as burgeoned since the 1980s. Dolls are often status symbols, and I have seen young women carrying Blythe dolls, with their enlarged heads and oversized mechanical eyes, and Japanese ball-jointed dolls with their interchangeable wigs and heads, down the street. American Girls fill the same need for young girls, and it is not unusual to see the well-dressed pre-teen taking her American Girl with her to shops and restaurants, especially the American Girl Place shops created just for them. As Eberle writes, “Monstrosity and oddity gave way to a fascination with the cute” (189). “Eva-Maria Simms has written of dolls that “[s]he profoundly attracts the child’s desire, evokes passionate love and hate, and fulfills needs that are difficult to articulate in any other way than through play” (Simms 664).

Children not only enjoy burying and abusing their toys, as exemplified by the examples above and by the Toy Story Films, they often abuse them as sheer acts of aggression. Not all children who abuse toys are frustrated and upset themselves. Also, :”grossology ” or racy children’s rhymes and cruel jokes are a fascinating part of childhood. As the Baby says in Rugrats when asked why babies are so fascinated with “poop,” “Where do we start!” Noted author Brian Sutton-Smith discusses in” Play Theory, A Personal Journey and New Thoughts,” how he collected 155 kids’ jokes from local school which he and his staff dubbed “ Cruel Jokes, Bloody Marys, Hate Jokes, Ivy League Jokes, Sadist Jokes, Gruesomes, Grimmsels, Sick Jokes, Meanie Jokes, and the Comedy of Horrors” (Sutton-Smith 92). Sutton-Smith then created the following subcategories Murder, Cannibalism, Corpses, Beasts, Excrement, and Indifference to the Young.

Why do children love such “malodorous” and antisocial jokes and play? Sutton-Smith notes that many experts call this “intentionally contrary type of play” ” flexible, divergent thinking, . . anarchism . . . desire, interdeterminism, psychic masochism, dark play, inversion . . subversion, mockery, willfulness, illicit play, cruel play, masks, festival hazing, disorderly exaggerative, irrational powers, grievance syndromes and grotesque realism “ ( 93). He notes that of the 155 jokes he collected and studied, nearly all illustrated “disrespect of conventional behavior or conventional thought or good manners” (96). Sutton-Smith observes that the children he studied in 1959 and 1981, the jokes constituted “rebellious expression”, and imply that “play allows children to overcome the stuffy and bossy adult world they encounter”(96). Horror movies featuring demonic toys and dolls allow filmmakers, and their audiences, to do the same. They, too, are a reaction against the “stuffy norms” of society, and maybe film making. They incorporate the doll’s early history shrouded in magic and ritual, if not outright witchcraft, and use the doll and her history to rebel against traditional notions of play and entertainment. As with many horror films, the demonic doll films show some form of “good” triumphing over evil.

As Stephen King writes in his essay, “Now you take Bambi . . .” [I]t’s been
suggested again and again that such entertainment offers us a catharsis – a chance to enter
for a little while a scary and yet controllable world, where we can express our fears,
aggressions, and possibly even hostilities. Surely no one would suggest that children do
not have their fears and hostilities to face and overcome; those dark feelings are the basis
of many of the fairy tales children love best.”

Stuart Gordon’s Dolls- Defining the Uncanny - Still, good triumphs over evil through some very uncanny effects. Cute dolls who come to life as murderous demons are the uncanniest evil effect of all, perhaps because dolls are images of ourselves.
But, why are among all toys are dolls constantly used as the evil elements in horror film and literature; why are they the most uncanny? Since Freud, and even earlier, writers have explored the thesis that dolls are uncanny through a definition of their own creation. Freud writes in his famous essay, “The Uncanny,” that “the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with what excites fear in general; yet we may expect that a special core of feeling is present which justifies the use of a special conceptual term (1). Freud discuss the work of Jentsch, and states that the latter “quite rightly lays stress on the obstacle presented by the fact that people ‘vary so greatly in their sensitivity to this quality of feeling” (1). [The study Eberle writes about concerning the two different baby dolls bears out Freud’s comment; some found the dolls charming and wholesome, others found them nauseating and creepy, too real, odd, and unsettling. (Eberle 185-187.]

Scott G. Eberle calls the word “uncanny” itself “peculiar” in this article “Exploring the Uncanny Valley to find the Edge of Play” (168). He describes an uncanny feeling as one that “lies just astride the boundary of play. This disquieting, unnerving, spooky and somewhat sickly sensation contrasts with the pleasure and ease we feel at play” (168). Though, I might add, it does thrill us in a cathartic sort of way. “Uncanny” is also discussed in connection with the German, unheimlich, from the root, heimlich, or homely, to the negative, unhomely or unheimlich, as adjective, das Unheimlich, “the unhomely”(168). Eberle argues that uncanny, when on par with “the beautiful” or “the sublime” “describes an odd sense that arises from an encounter with an object that looks real enough to be real, or that moves realistically enough to seem real,” but is not (168).

Eberle refers to clockwork figures and various automata, [which include Japanese Karakuri], and mechanical toys, made by the famous firms Lambert, Jaquet-Droz, Vichy, and others. These early doll/robots could draw, breathe, sing, imitate human sound and movement, transcribe poems, dance, etc. They were popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries, too, Eberle is correct that popular gothic tales of the time contributed to the eerie impressions created by automatons;”[s]tories of the day were filled with ghosts, the revivified dead, vampires, mysterious doubles, and evil automata” (168). He further notes that difficult times [Wars, the French and American Revolutions, European political upheavals and other reigns of terror inspire such gothic horror tales and reflect the times. As the Marquis de Sade himself said in defense of his gruesome works of psychosexual terror, “You accuse me of writing horrors;” but I can’t begin to compete with the real horror that is going on all around us.” In the 20th and 21st centuries, we have tales of wax museum figures coming to life in films and in anthologies like Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Eberle talks of Jentsch’s writings about the uncanny, and notes that the French craftsmen were making these figures 100 years before him, but in reality, automata date to ancient and medieval times as well. Collections of automata still exist, and their progeny are the Disney animatronics, which inspired and are nodded to in The Stepford Wives. Indeed, the first time I saw the Lincoln animatronic in Disneyland’s “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” I was sure it was an actor playing the president, and I was very disconcerted to be told it was an elaborate robot, or if you will, mechanical doll.

Freud, a collector of ancient figurines, dolls, and small art objects himself, was prompted to write “The Uncanny” by tales written by E.T.A. Hoffman, creator of “The Nutcracker.” Hoffman write also “Die Automata,” and the story which inspired Freud, “Olympia,” an Orpheus and Eurydice tale where a man falls in love with an automaton that seems so real that he mistakes her for being alive, when she is not. The problem with such super-realistic figures and dolls is that they are “too much” like a human being, “yet not enough” like them. For one thing, while these objects can move and even sound like human beings, their creators have not perfected the art of human facial expression; their faces hardly ever change, and if they do, as in the case of some of the dolls, the expressions are disconcerting and not believable. Also, the eyes seem to stay fixed; witness the effect, though comic, of the marionettes in the film Team America or the Don Quixote puppet in the PBS commercial to cuts his strings, or the statue Chac Mol in the Carlos Fuentes story of the same name who comes to life and takes over his owner’s existence.

Mashihiro Mori, a Japanese robot expert coined the phrase “the uncanny valley” in 1970 (Eberle 175). He wanted to describe the “relationship of familiarity and similarity in human likenesses and the positive or negative feelings that they engendered” (175). Automatons are lifelike machines, but they are flawed, and they “jar our beliefs about how living things should look and move” (175), and indeed, this is the feeling engendered by the animatronic Stepford Wives, Dollie Dearest, and other such creatures. It is the reason my two dogs ran from Julie, the Living Doll, an animatronic doll that responded to questions, light, and dark, and to Baby Secret, a late 60s talking doll that moved its lips.

Ranier Marie Rilke had very specific opinions about dolls. Rilke was horrifically thrilled by dolls, in part because his mother made him sleep in a room inhabited by the large, 19th century glass-eyed bisque dolls that looked like real children. At night, he could make out their outlines in the shadows, and he writes many years later that they terrified him because they seemed so alive, yet were not. In fact, Rilke wrote in his essay “Dolls” that Dolls “appeared in dreams and were tied up in the disasters of feverish nights. They did not make any effort of their own; they were lying at the edge of childhood sleep, maybe filled with rudimentary thoughts of falling off , and they let themselves be dreamed. Just as they were accustomed to be lived tirelessly through someone else’s power during the day” (Rilke quoted in Simms 663).
So thrilled was Rilke by doll horror that he even wrote a story about a corpse/doll called “Frau Blaha’s maid” where a baby’s body is hidden in a trunk as a “big doll” that is taken out and set up than a puppet theater (Simms 665). Rice plays on the confusion between doll and corpse in her screenplay for Interview with the Vampire where Claudia hides the nude corpse of a woman, one of her victims, in bed amid all the other dolls she has collected over the sixty five+ years of her childhood existence. Rilke has written hat dolls are “superficially painted drowned corpse[s] lifted and carried by the flood of our tenderness” (quoted in Simms 670).

The director of Dolls, Stuart Gordon, understands that dolls can be both innocent and eerie. Anne Rice has written that “when you loved the people of the world, you loved their dolls. . .” and Japanese and other cultures believe that human images, including dolls, include the souls of those who made them and owned them. It is one small step from these beliefs for Gordon to imagine that nasty, dysfunctional adults could be turned into magic mechanical dolls that could do the bidding of their maker.

Eva Maria-Simms argues that up to the time she was writing in 1996, the doll “”although featuring prominently in many female children’s lives, has found little attention from the academic community” (Simms 663). The same, she writes in “Uncanny Dolls: Images of Death in Rilke and Freud” is true of psychoanalysis (663). Yet, she notes that dolls have prompted more investigation by these disciplines because they, “like other toys, allow the child to project unconscious processes and facilitate the resolution of conflicts which the child is unable to articulate” (Erik Erickson, Childhood and Society, quoted in Simms 663). Certainly the aggressive, often murderous dolls portrayed the films here discussed represent and showcase the aggressive behavior their childhood companions sometimes want to express. Judy in Dolls, for example, imagines her lost teddy bear coming back as a Grizzly that hunts to destroy and devour her callous parents. Chucky, at some level in the first Child’s Play, is the very bad little foster child taking out his frustration on the foster parents and the system that took away his home. While Dollie Dearest seems to control and possess her little girl owner, she is also the child’s companion in a new, strange, and lonely environment. Many of her actions could easily reflect her owner’s displeasure at being transplanted so far from friends and home. Simms writes that the doll is the child’s “primary entry into the world of the imagination” because “the doll, among all the toys, comes closest to imitating the child’s own body: and thus “lends itself to an imaginative representation of the human world” (672). With dolls, Simms goes on to argue, a child can play at any adult rule or in any adult situation, house, school, grocery store, restaurant (672), even jail, prison, and execution. Rilke also rights that “[we] found our orientation through the doll” (Rilke Quoted in Simms 672).

Summary:
There are many kinds of responses to various artifacts, according to Alfred Gell, “terror, desire, awe, fascination, etc”( Gell p. 6 quoted in Wiseman 5).

Dolls [Dir. Stuart Gordon]: As one review writes, “”At once whimsical and creepy, the film creates in the viewer a sense of child-like wonder and makes one feel as though they’re seeing the bizarre events of the film through the eyes of 9-year old star Carrie Lorraine”(doll 4baby 1). In fact, Judy and Ralph, the child-like adult she befriends, escape the fate of the other selfish, mean adults because they are innocent, and the “little people” as Judy calls the dolls, are their to punish inherent evil by teaching it a lesson, not inherent good. The dolls, themselves once selfish, cruel adults, remain toys to atone for their past sins, and Gabriel and Hilary, the doll makers, preside over their toy army, ready to teach a lesson to all unwitting travelers who land at their door.

Plot: Six people are caught in a storm in the English country side. The setting is very Gothic. Judy is a little girl traveling with her selfish detached dad and a nasty, controlling, narcissistic step-mother. They are joined in a gothic, spooky, quintessential “haunted house” by Ralph, a kind businessman who ahs picked up two teen aged girls hitchhiking; the girls are very punk.

The spooky mansion is owned by Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke charming, elderly toy makers who have a fantastic collection of dolls, puppets, and toys.

The nasty, selfish guests are attacked one by one by the dolls. The dolls themselves are “cursed, immoral people that have been killed and imprisoned in toys to pay for their crimes by the owners of the house,” powerful witches. (http://en.widipeida.org/wiki/Dolls_(1987-film), p.1. The dolls punish Judy’s parents for not loving her and being bad parents. The dad is turned into the doll he destroyed after it attacked him. The punks are punished for trying to steal antique dolls, one is beaten, and another is killed by a toy soldier firing squad [best scene in the film!].

Ultimately, Ralph and Judy are spared because they are “pure of heart” (Ibid). Ralph and Judy are allowed to leave together, to find Judy’s mother. They are bid fond farewell by the toy makers, who invite them back because they know they “show respect to the childhood world and its mysteries” (Ibid 2).

The symbolism of this film is not lost on those paying attention. Judy has a doll named Punch as her companion, and her parents have a sort of Punch And Judy marriage full of insults. Her father is later turned into the Punch doll, and he and his wife Rosemary are more Commedia dell Arte characters than real people. Also interesting is the fact that the dolls are custom-made Italian puppets, a la the CDA tradition, and also real collectors and antique dolls.

At least one reviewer thinks the film has been successful with a select body of evil doll movie fans because “dolls are f ****** creepy” (The Girl Who Loves Horror Movies 3). One interesting effect is that doll mayhem is often signaled by a music box which begins playing by itself. When it is playing, a tiny doll ballerina dances. This is truly an example of a childhood icon entering Eberle’s uncanny valley. Many little girls , including this one, remember being enchanted by the tiny dancer that twirled inside their music/jewel boxes. Here, something innocent signals the beginning of something sinister. The dolls that attack, specially made Italian puppets, have tiny vampire teeth. They are uncanny not just because they are animated dolls, but they are used to foreshadow what will happen to the “bad” houseguests; they, too, were once selfish, mean adult humans, now doing penance in doll form.

Something else that adds to the film’s verisimilitude, even if we don’t want to believe it, are the real doll props. There are antique dolls, porcelain dolls, bisque dolls, vinyl dolls from the sixties and seventies, stuffed toys, and other collectors items scattered in every corner of the set. The doll that Hilary pushes in the antique baby buggy is an 1820s-30s wax doll, from England. These dolls, as they age, often crack and become “crazed,” lending them a somewhat creepy expression. It is the perfect part for the ghostly baby buggy scene, where Hilary, in the middle of the night, pushes the pram up and down singing “Rock- a-bye Baby,” and once again, an innocent lullaby turns to something sinister.

My favorite scene has to be the Toy Soldier firing squad, whereby one of the punk girls gets what’s’ coming to her, and then is turned into a doll herself. So, the plot is not so much horror movie as fairy tale, and Ralph and Judy are like Hansel and Gretl in the wilderness, abandoned by everyone to find their own way. Ralph tells Judy that when he was young he believed his toys came alive when he wasn’t looking, and the doll Punch, later reminds him of this when he implies that Ralph knows the truth about the dolls. Ralph is spared because, as Gabriel encourages him, he wakes up his inner child, and his terrified belief in the dolls pleases them. They know he and Judy understand them, and take them seriously, and as Judy says early on when asked if she is afraid of the dark, “No, afraid of what’s in the dark.”

http://en.widipeida. Org/wiki/Stuart_Gordon
Esplatter; The Independent Source for Horror. www.esplatter.com/profiles/gordon.htm.

Dolls influenced other evil doll movies including Child’s Play; Puppet Master, Demonic Toys; Dollman; Dolly Dearest and Pinocchio’s’ Revenge.

Dolly Dearest (1992): In this film by director Maria Lease, an American family goes to Mexico to make dolls, but their factory is next to a Satanic cemetery. As a result, the dolls become possessed by an ancient, malicious spirit. (DD idmb 1). One of the girls in the family falls under the spell of one of the demonic dolls. Possessed dolls are also a cinematic and literary tradition, and appear in the other films that will be discussed, including Trilogy of Terror. “Haunted Dolls” also have their own website and web museum, as well as a blog radio show where fans detail their own encounters with haunted dolls and toys. The web museum features photos, and readers are encouraged to write their own stories and submit their own photos. There is a haunted doll category on eBay as well, where people buy and sell dolls with a spooky pedigree. The popularity of haunted dolls is reflected in collectibles like Living Dead Dolls and Monster High and hand made dolls featured on the website The Shelter for Misfit Dolls. Another influence on this film was The Exorcist (X-entertainment 1).

Dollie Dearest has been called a “lackluster Child’s Play rip off, which makes its influences look like a complete masterpiece” (2). The puppets used have been called “effectively achieved” and there is a scary but large and colorful dolls house (2). But, as another reviewer writes, “There’s just something about a killer doll flick that makes [you] smile (www.imdb.com). Dollie herself appears disturbing and menacing in the box art adorning the film’s packaging which pictured “the sinister Dolly doll sitting in a rocking chair, holding a knife with her legs spread all slutty-like” (X-entertainment 1). This is an image similar to the doll that appears in James Joyce’s autobiographical novel Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man. Many older dolls, from about the turn of the century to the mid seventies, are jointed in five places, and when they sit ,their stiff legs extend in a spread-eagled position that could be suggestive and sexual in the right setting, and as the “others,” the nonhuman representations of humans also appear similar, with their fixed eyes staring straight ahead. Dolls as sexual artifacts and fertility figures also have a long history, dating to the Stone Age, perhaps earlier.

The doll factory the Read family buys is in ruins, but there is still a significant inventory of pretty dolls, all in mint condition, in contrast to the factory itself (X-entertainment 3). Both Dolly, and her human “girl” Jessica, soon prove that little girls, though they look it sometimes, are anything but “sugar and spice and everything nice.” Dolly soon begins a murderous stabbing spree that includes the family maid and the factory workers. The other dolls, too, “come to life” after one of the workers insults one of them. Here, the dolls take revenge, just as their toys siblings do in Gordon’s film, and there is something ritualistic about them since they are both teaching lessons in manner and trespass, even while the spirit that possesses them floats in from an archaeological dig next door. Dolly, in the spirit of Chucky, Pinocchio, Fuentes’ Chac Mol, The Nutcracker, and other dolls who come to live, becomes fully mortal, even as, ironically, her powers increase, and she herself must be “killed” for her evil spirit to be released.

Puppet Master (Dir Charles Band): htt:p//en.widipeida.org/wiki/Charles_Band: The Puppet Master Series ran from 1989, 1991; 1993-94; 1988-99; 2003-2004; 2010. Along with this series Band did Demonic Toys (1991), Dollman (1991), Dollman v. Demonic Toys (1993), Blood Dolls (1999), Retro Puppet Master(1999), Voodoo Academy (2000), When Puppets and Dolls Attack (2004)!, Doll Graveyard ((2005), Dangerous Worry Dolls (2008), and the Gingerdead Man Series (2005, 2008), with the same Production Company Full Moon. Gordon’s Dolls was done with Empire Pictures, based in Italy. Charles band is the son of director Albert band, and as a child and teen, he was influenced by various comics.

Dangerous Worry Doll (2008): www.amazon.com/dp/BOOZYRBK/ref=pe_113430_20686190_pdRe_dt_lm5:
Eva, the heroine of this film, is an inmate in a women’s prison, convicted of robbery. She is in a de rigueur cliché prison with sadistic guards, an apathetic warden, and mean sister inmates. She is trying to behave so she can get out and be with her daughter, her only goal. Her daughter presents her with a box of worry dolls, tiny, wire wrapped dolls from Guatemala that are housed in a tiny, colorful plywood box. The dolls are about one inch high. The Tradition is that if you tell them your worries and put them in your box under your pillow, they will take your worries away. But, of course, there is a twist. These particular worry dolls are evil, certainly not the cliché folk toys we all know and love. One wonders if Band has had bad experiences with having toys taken away from him. Full Moon Toys was in production, and Band is still involved with production of characters from his film.

The nasty dolls crawl into Eva’s ear while she is sleeping, in sort of a nod to Hamlet, and they take over her personality, possesss her, and cause her to kill her enemies. When the dolls tire of Eva, they just move on to their next host. The film has been called “Prison 101” and “Dumb” (unsigned reviews Amazon.com 1). In another review, the dolls are said to live in Eva’s forehead, sort of like Athena and her mother lived in the head of Zeus until Athena grew and was able to spring full-grown in armor from her Dad’s forehead. In fact, the scene most reviewers like, despite panning the movie otherwise, is one where Eva is shown “with her forehead split open ad a tiny worry doll poking out and glaring at her victim . . .” (Ibid 1). In this film, dolls that are folk objects meant to give comfort by relieving worries or bringing good luck change roles and become talismans of evil, thus bringing into another type of doll the duality of an uncanny nature.

Real worry dolls are made of cloth wrapped wire; they are made in Guatemala, and sometimes Peru and Mexico. They are around one inch high or less, and are made into jewelry, ornaments, accessories, sewed on sweaters in purses, or are housed in little yellow round boxes that are brightly painted. The tradition is that if you whisper your troubles to them, and put them under your pillow, they will take away your woes. This is the irony of the film; worry dolls are meant to be lucky, not bring this kind of horrible bad luck. The dolls in the film are larger, and far more detailed. They look like small monsters or mummies; they don’t inspire nurturing or confidence at all.

Of Dolls and Murder : http://enwidipeida.org/wiki/Of_Dols_and_Murder:

In this film by director Susan Marks, the story of International Harvester heiress Frances Glessner Lee is told. Lee was is interested in miniatures and doll houses, and the perfectly scaled Thorne Rooms miniature boxes inspired her to created doll house murder scenes to help train police and detectives in reading crime scenes. She focused, in particular, on unsolved crimes, especially murders. Most of the shadow boxes, which are called the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained death, are on permanent loan to the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office, Baltimore, MD. There is an excellent book about them and a good article in Encyclopedia Horrifica.

Lee was fascinated with miniatures; she was a stickler for detail and often knitted tiny garments and remade the clothing on the dolls so suit her scenes. She inspired CSI’s Miniature Killer, and to a certain extent, the benevolent stories of doll houses involving murder like Margaret Graces Murder in Miniature Novels and Deb Bakers stories of doll collectors, doll houses, and doll museums.

Dead Silence - Intro: In contrast to the kindly Gepetto whose love brought Pinocchio to life, the toy maker or puppet maker in this film is an evil killer, punished for her deeds. She haunts and comes back to life when someone screams because of the horror her evil hauntings and legacies create. The film exploits the uncanniness of Ventriloquist dummies, that seem to take on a life of their own, yet are merely decorated blocks of wood. As Sharon Fiffer writes of one in her latest novel:

“The dummy was one of those clones of the early television brash boys of ventriloquism. Not quite Howdy Doody, not quite Jerry Mahoney, but close enough to present your child as a recognizable TV toy and creative prop for playtime. Peering over Jane’s shoulder at the laid-out Bumby [the dummy], Tim shuddered, ’They are so creepy. Honestly, dummies give clowns a run for their money when it comes to what-were-my-parents-thinking-when –they-handed-me-that-nightmare-provoking-toy?’ Jane nodded, also wondering what parents actually wanted their child to show a knack for ventriloquism. Wouldn’t the ability to throw one’s voice just push a child into the class clown role at best, the class pariah at worst? . . . Even worse. He might grow up to be a ventriloquist!” (Fiffer, Backstage Stuff, 38).

Equally uncanny, if not evil Dummies appear in Magic, in Seinfeld [Mr. Woody], and even in the benign Lambchop, Kukla and Ollie, Friday the 13th the Series, The Muppets, Waylan Flowers’ Madame, and Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, not to mention Howdy Doody. Candice Bergen, daughter of the famous puppet master, has stated that she felt subordinate to the dummies, as if they were the real children of Edgar Bergen.

The doll maker appears like the witch in Hansel and Gretl; she is stereotypically old and evil, and she looks mad. The dummies in the film are gruesome works of art in their own right. In hindsight, you almost wonder what the point really is of giving such an object to a child.

Chucky: Possessed dolls have appeared in all types of TV series and films besides Chucky; these include Talky Tina, Telly Savalas’s nemesis in the “Living Doll” episode of The Twilight Zone(1963) to the dolls discussed here. In children’s books, there are also The Velveteen Rabbit, Corduroy, The Skin Horse, Winnie the Pooh, Puff the Magic Dragon, Hitty, Miss Hickory, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, The Lonely Doll, Paddington, Raggedy Ann, and many others (Eberle 180).

Stuffed toys, even animatronic ones like Furby and Elmo, “seem far removed from the uncanny because they promote active fantasy and set off social scenarios of nurture in child’s play (Eberle 180). Eberle also notes that Kewpie dolls and Drayton’s Campbell Kids “served as cherub-faced models for the baby dolls of the twentieth” century, but would he write the same if he know that Rose O’ Neill once said the Kewpies represented the souls of little babies who died before they could be baptized.

In the doll industry, for at least the last 100 years with the work of Käthe Kruse, Kamner and Reinhardt, Jumeau, and others ads for more and more realistic dolls were the basis of “advertising, marketing, and design strategies [that] insisted upon equating realism with normality” (Eberle 181). In Ethnic dolls, realistic hair, skin, and features meant legitimacy (182).

The Bad Seed: While not about dolls per se; the film does take the blonde haired child, who appears the image of sweetness and light, an icon of western culture, and turns her into a cold-blooded psychopathic killer, much like the dolls and toys of the other films mentioned take childhood symbols of innocence and imbue them with evil meaning.

Toy Story 3: Simms has written that “Without the child’s compassion and imagination, the doll is a corpse” (Simms 675). She basically sums up Rilke’s ideas on dolls, and on the art dolls Lotte Pritzel created for adult collectors in the 1920s, pictured in von Boehn’s Dolls, at p 221: “. . . there are no children in their lives: this would be, in a certain sense, the condition of their origin, that he world of children was past and over. In these figures the doll has at last outgrown the understanding, the sympathy, the pleasure, and the soul of the child, it has become independent, grown-up, prematurely old, it has entered upon all the unrealities of its own life”(Rilke 1) In the case of the dolls in these horror movies, they have become animated of their own accord, and in many cases, vengeful and destructive.

In 1989, a group of photographers who photographed toy figures and dolls, including David Levinthal, Cindy Sherman and Laurie Simmons, staged a show at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington called “Surrogate Selves” (1). These photo studies were based on the common theme that a child is a companion for the child, who injects it with imaginary life, that the doll in “scaled-down dimensions and simplified features . . is often designed to look ;so real it’s almost alive’ as well a vehicle for unrestricted fantasy” (1). The artists’ fascinations with this exhibit was with dolls “almost alive but clearly fake” (1).

Critics have written of toys that “Children create imaginary world by acting on and through their toys” (Wiseman 1). Uses an example from Levi-Strauss’s childhood where using a box and a Japanese etching, Levi-Strauss created an entire Japanese house. [footnote; did Godden know this anecdote when she wrote Miss Happiness and Miss Flower?”] Levi-Strauss later became a great collector of ethnographic objects and primitive art. His Japanese House and one etching inspired him to go on.

(Baudelaire, discussed in Wiseman, cheap homemade toys spark the imagination best 91).

Tommyknockers: Sheriff Ruth Merrill, played by Joanna Cassidy in the TV Miniseries, is an avid doll collector. She displays hundreds in her office. After an ancient space ship is dug up, and evil aliens begin to possess the townspeople, turning them into their own toys or zombie dolls, Ruth’s doll collection also becomes possessed. King takes The Nutcracker, where animated dolls are noble, entertaining, and heroic, and turns the hero into a killer who stabs Ruth.

Interview with the Vampire: Dolls are a big motif in Anne Rice’s novels; in fact, she was once an avid doll collector and set up a museum in St. Elizabeth’s Orphanage in New Orleans. Last year, she sold the last of her large and varied collection in an auction that included a doll that once belonged to Victor Hugo. One of her dolls alone, a large French Bru bisque head described in Taltos and featured on the back cover of Interview, sold for over $30,000.00 by itself. In the film Interview, dolls take on a creepy role. Claudia, the child vampire who grows in mind by not in her perpetually five year old body, received a doll every year on her “vampire” birthday from Lestat. Claudia, as one of the undead, is herself animated doll, but one with an attitude. The dolls pile up, and on one occasions, she murders a woman who has the physique she would like to have, and hides her under the pile of dolls on her bed, in a strange twist to Rilke’s doll/corpse idea. Claudia befriends a lonely doll maker named Madeline in Paris because she thinks Madeleine can create for her a lady doll that will reflect who she would like to be. Claudia, like many others, sees the doll as an image and projection of herself in her most perfect sense. Madeleine, on the other hand, sees Claudia as the reincarnation of the child that she lost. She has been making dolls over and over again in the hopes of recreating her child. At the end, she has Claudia, and “undead” living doll to fulfill her fantasy. Both are “broken” or destroyed by the Theatre de Vampire for crimes against Lestat the Vampire. Recently, two of the prop dolls made for the 1994 Warner Brothers film were being auctioned by Live Auctioneers, estimate for the two dolls was $400-600 dollars.

Rice uses dolls, voodoo dolls, French bisque antiques, pre-Columbian ritual figures, Santos and other dolls in Belinda, Merrick, The Witching Hour, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, Taltos, Lasher, and Memnoch the Devil.

By their nature, vampires are sort of creepy animated dolls; they never age, have the potential to be immortal, and sleep in coffins, which are types of boxes. Living Dead Dolls by Mezco explore this motif even further; their gruesome child dolls are packaged in coffin-shaped boxes.

Intensity: The miniseries and novel by Dean Koontz provide anew twist on demonic doll play. A serial killer who is a law enforcement officer stalks and kidnaps victims, then sews their eyes and mouths shut as if they were giant rag dolls. He keeps on young girl hostage in a special room filled with hundreds of dolls that he collects and brings to her from his killing trips. There are shades of John Fowles’ The Collector in this book-turned miniseries. The dolls portrayed are props, not the stars, creepy backdrops to enhance the horror of the girl’s situation. The dolls are not in themselves creepy, but what in other circumstances might comfort the young victim, now fills her with fear and loathing. She wants nothing to do with the dolls after she is freed. When Chyna, the victim/hero who saves the young victim immolates the serial killer, and burns down his house in the process, the dolls burn with the house. They are sacrificed to the evil that he has created, and are destroyed with him, their collector.
Conclusion: The Creepy/Evil doll films discussed are only a part of the horizon. There is not enough time to go into the entire Saw and Puppet Master Series, Disney’s Child of Glass, all the Toy Story Films, and The Nightmare before Christmas, The Stepford Wives films, the dozens of robot, wax figure, and mannikin films, the toys in Poltergeist, and the hundreds of films that use dolls, statutes, figuriines, animatronics, or robots to achieve a creepy and uncanny effect. Because dolls are among the oldest human artifacts, and because they are images of their creators, they inspire human imagination and emotion. Dolls to children are companions, friends, and also vehicles for expressing the darker aspects of their nature.
Dolls in horror films capitalize on the theme of an innocent icon of childhood transforming into a murderous weapon of evil. Viewers are thrilled and horrified that a cherished memento or an ordinary household object can become such a gruesome insturment of destruction. Deb Baker, in her mystery novels about doll collectors, even notes there is a psychological condition dealing with the fear of dolls. They uncanny nature of dolls and other human representatons is captured in literary works by various authors including Hoffman, Rilke, Freud, and Simms. Because they resemble humans, but are not alive, the “spooktacular” uncanny essence of dolls is enhanced in any dolls or puppets that move or can be articualted.
Yet, dolls are dolls, and in the last two or threethousand years,l have branched out from objects of ritual or magic to beloved and important elements of childhood. The Toy Story films illustrate this theme, and even Gordon’s Dolls emphasizes the importance of dolls to children as muses to their imagination and as companions. The more worn, beat-up or “creepy “ a doll is in appearance, the more likely it was well-loved by a child to whom it provided comfort. Children love monsters and supernatural creatures when they can play with them on their own terms, so even these dolls and toys can be beneficial to children’s play.
For scholars to study and collect dolls, the dolls in horror films are intriguing examples. In closing, I’ll let this response to a creepy/haunted doll blog express my thoughts as well:
“ I think that they're [haunted/creepy dolls] beautiful. Look at them, they're lost, broken, abandoned. Just imagine, they were once loved by a child but now they're lost but hopefully the love still remains inside them. Thier presence still sustains in time, but still, people sees them as emotionless and haunted figures, mocking the being that stands before them. When really, like a child, all they want is love, not to be hurt, not to be broken. One can certainly bond with these objects, as they are so misunderstood.”(SagittarianScorpioX 1 month ago . Creepy Doll Blog).

All Hallow's Eve

2011-10-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

Spooky Dolls Abound this time of year; I will have photos soon. My hand is nearly nearly healed, but forgive typos! Our Doll Museum site will feature dolls of the Celts, my favortie people, next. I'm back, after two weeks of not being able to type due to a hand injury that a physician's assistant made much worse. It is my favorite week and time of year, and it is cool, a little gloomy, and drenched in fall colors outside. There are a canopies of red and gold everywhere, and my tittle terrariums are ready for fall. We went to the pumpkin patch, and I'm even painting a few, where hand allows me. Most of all, I love Halloween for the family memories, my dad taking us out to trick or treat, my mom making fantastic costumes, for me and my dolls. My grandma sending boxes of goodies, and my babysitter taking lots of pictures andhaving mini parties ready for me after school.

Of course I knew the spooks weren't real, but who wouldn't want to be on The Jack the Ripper Tour, at Countess Bathory's castle, or at Disney's Haunted Mansion on Halloween night [all on my bucket list]? There is a rich cultural tradition for this holiday gone back to the Celts, even earlier, and there were spiritual people, rich in tradition and family virtue, courage, many good things. My here Boudicca was one of them, and really, so was St. Patrick, Arthur and his nights, Braveheart!

Below is a freely shared essay that I happen to like. Enjoy; forgive typos, more later when I'm completetly healed:

I have a confession to make. And it’s a bad one ….

When I was a kid … I used to get dressed up for Halloween! And it was not always something innocent either, like an astronaut or a cowboy. Once I was even a ghost! Worse yet, I would go door-to-door with my brothers and say “Trick or treat!” Idolatrous! Occultic! Satanic! Over time, of course this demon-glorifying activity caught up with me. Look at me now. I dress in black almost every day …

Of course you see the problem here. If not, you will very soon start reading about it in the paper again. Many people of churchy persuasions object strenuously to the observance of Halloween. Every year we read letters to the editor that run as follows:

“Halloween is the worship of the devil! Halloween comes from heathen roots! Trick or Treat comes from an ancient pagan custom: the Druids would go from house to house seeking a virgin to sacrifice! If you complied and handed over your family’s virgin, outside your door they left a jack-o-lantern with a candle inside … fueled by human fat! If you did not comply, a terrible trick would be played on you! The Catholic Church perpetuated the pagan legends with its Feast of All Saints! If you let your kids celebrate Halloween, you expose them to the possibility of demonic possession!”

Well, good Orthodox Christian, what should our Church make of this controversy? Is Halloween something we Christians should shun like the Black Mass? Don’t the facts about Halloween’s origins prove that it is an abomination?

No. First of all, none of these “facts” are true. It’s all fiction. We know almost nothing about the culture and practices of the ancient Druids, except what little the Romans had to say. (Mind you, these are the same Romans who also used to say that Christians hold secret orgies where they sacrifice babies and eat them—so let’s be careful about how much credence we give them.) The Romans invaded Britain in 43 B.C. There they found a number of Celtic tribes, which the Roman legions subjugated with relative ease.

Now, you need to know that the Romans were not what you would call “culturally curious.” They had little interest in the ways of the conquered Britons. Generally, when there is interaction between conqueror and subject, the conqueror picks up and uses the local names for rivers, hills, and the like. For instance, my home state is full of names from the native languages of the Indians: Michigan, Mackinac, Saginaw, Escanaba, Kalamazoo, Washtenaw. However, we find almost no use of the Celtic place names by the Romans. The Romans did not come to Britain for kaffee-klatsches, but for plundering and pillaging. Under the Roman sword the Celtic place-names perished with the Celts, as did any certain knowledge of Celtic or Druidic customs (like what kind of fat they used in their candles).

But what if it the stories about pagan Halloween were true? Does that prevent us from making a fun day out of the Thirty-First of October? Or do pagan origins damn a thing forever?

I would hope that as Orthodox Christians we would know better than to say that. We borrowed an awful lot of useful things from ancient pagan cultures. Our musical system of eight tones? From the pagan Greeks. (Next time you hear a dismissal hymn in the Third Tone, picture a phalanx of Lacedaemonian warriors marching into an attack: they liked Third Tone for their battle hymns.)

And our iconography is an obvious adaptation of Egyptian funerary art: the portraits painted on Egyptian coffins look very much like the faces in our icons. Christmas, we all know, is a retooling of the Roman celebration of the winter solstice, the Feast of Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun-god). And many, many Christian churches were built atop pagan shrines and holy places, the most famous example being the conversion of the Parthenon (a temple built in honor of Athena the Virgin Warrior) to a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Even Protestants with their Puritan impulses and their “just the Bible” mentality have to contend with borrowings from pagan sources in the Scriptures. For example, chapters 22-24 of the Book of Proverbs are almost certainly a translation of the older Egyptian advice guide The Instruction of Amen-em-Opet. And elsewhere in the Bible different titles given to God such as El Elyon “God Most High” and “the one who rides on the clouds like a chariot” (Psalm 104:3) are originally epithets for the pagan storm-god Baal.

What’s my point? You can’t judge a custom by its origins. What counts is one’s intention in the here and now. And let’s be honest: modern Halloween for you and me—and even the Wiccans down the street—has nothing to do with virgin sacrifice or black magic. It’s about having fun in a costume and eating things your dentist wouldn’t approve of.

“Well!” the anti-Halloween crowd would reply, “Halloween teaches kids that they can get something for nothing!!” But is that so bad? To my ears that sounds awfully close to the Christian idea of grace!

“Yes, yes, but we shouldn’t teach our kids that it’s OK to threaten someone with vandalism if they don’t fork over something you want!” Well, let’s look at this from another perspective. Maybe Halloween holds a nice little life lesson: you give a little to get a little. The Book of Proverbs speaks often of the power of gifts. If we all practiced the spirit of Halloween—being prepared always to give small kindnesses to those around us—what a wonderful world we would have.

Again, let’s be honest: no one was ever possessed by the devil because he or she dressed up for Halloween or passed out licorice or read a Harry Potter book. Our modern lives have way too many other avenues for temptation to enter, and these things are the real cause of our spiritual problems: pride, gluttony, hatred, materialism, and ignorance.

This may be the only pro-Halloween article by a clergyman you read this year. Actually, this piece isn’t so much pro-Halloween as it is anti-superstition, anti-paranoia, and anti-gullibility. American Christianity is too much titillated by thoughts of demons, based on a mythology of evil that has more to do with pagan folklore than the sober statements of Scripture. Such superstition gives all Christians a bad name.

That’s why I’m not afraid of Halloween, and I see no problem with Orthodox Christians having fun at costume parties. After all, why would anyone want to learn more about Jesus Christ and his message, if being a Christian means forever being a spoilsport and a killjoy? If you believe in one God, if you trust Him, then accept his protection (1 John 4:4) and don’t live in fear of demonic bogeymen. The real battle with the devil is fought in the heart, not in front of the Harry Potter bookstore.

Some people drink too much on New Year’s Eve. Should that stop you and me from enjoying a glass of champagne? Some people eat too much at Thanksgiving. Should that stop us from having our turkey with all the trimmings? Some people spend too much at Christmas. Should that stop us from exchanging gifts?

Some people go overboard on the spooky side of Halloween. It’s not too hard to avoid that for your family. Skip the horror movies. Don’t revel in gore. Don’t profane death. Don’t indulge in occult practices … But don’t be gullible, paranoid, or superstitious either!

And have a Happy Halloween!

By Fr. Mark Sietsema

Revised 8/17/11

Doll Photos Just Because

2011-10-12T11:11:00.001-07:00

Some of my favorite archive photos to share in honor of those everywhere who love dolls!

Metal Dolls, Mechanical Dolls, Dolls with Metal parts Nearly Published!

2011-10-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

After 25 years, I'm proofing the manuscript. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to Rivertown Creative and 918 Studio for this project. I can't type well; I am having a lot of trouble with my right hand and fingers these days, but wanted to share this little bit of good news. In keeping with October, my favorite month and its spooky themes, I am sharing some public domain photos of the dreaded Iron Maiden of Nuremberg, who exists in my museum in mini form. Many years ago, the weekend before October 17, 1989, I was just out of school, and working in the SF Bay Area. I saw a miniature iron maiden in an antique shop in Los Gatos. I hesitated; the price was a littl high for me. Tuesday, the Quake of 1989 hit. I went back to the store in November; it was rubble. She who hesitates is lost.

I was able to buy another small Iron Maiden on Etsy. The legendary and infamous Erzebet Bathory is said to have owned one of these.

The illustration here is a Jungfraubecher, or Bridal Cup, a tradition from the Middle Ages. I love these. For more information, go to the blog, Steveonsteins. There is a well-illustrated article there.

More when I can write; I love you all!

Some Miscellany

2011-09-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Kimmee for the moving comments she made after I postedon 9/11. It is amazing how we, as one human family, can reach out to each other after such a horrific tragedy. We have had a week of ups and downs at the museum; we sold our first book on Amazon, and a big thank you to that customer! I spent Sunday doing some reorganizing and arranging of tenants, and I went to a yard sale that may have been comprised of possessions of my 7th grade math teacher. My husband sums her up well,"she was a nice lady, but a terror in class. I still have the scar on my hand from where I drove the pencil point into it out of fear." I was scared to death of her, but she liked me, and used to talk to me about cradles and making doll clothes for her granddaughter. What did I find? I wicker doll carriage, and a wooden doll crib, among other things. I just missed out on a set of plastic dollhouse furniture.

My thoughts are random tonight; I finished one book on collecting from my Borders stash, "The Error World," about stamp collecting, my other love, and various relationships and collections. I am no reading "Finders Keepers," about the seamy underworld of antiquities collecting, museums, and archaeology. It is very cool now, and the days get dark earlier; I have mixed feelings about that. Halloween looms over us, and the harvest moons are coming, and do indeed shine very bright.

I like to sit outside and drink coffee, book, or doll restoration project in hand, and just think. Summer isn't summer anymore; it seldom is for us who work all year, but there is still something elegiac and deathly poetic about the changing leaf colors, and the flowers that begin to wither away.

I will post some new photos along the side, just things to look at. The conference where I am reading papers about dolls is coming in November, and we are very excited. I found a small beanie doll for everyone who comes to the panel.

Recently, I picked up a copy of Lewis Sorensen's scrapbook, containing many news articles and ads about his dolls and waxworks. I found many interesting thins about him and his work. I remember reading about his death, and also seeing dolls and figures he had created in California. Kimme might remember the old Indiana Antiques on 2nd Street in San Jose, where they used to carry a pricey but fantastic collection of antiques. They had the pumpkin head he restored. I nearly bought her, too.

Happy dolling as September fades. For those of us who are inveterate collectors, the temptation to pick up a leaf to fold in the pages of a book is now and then overwhelming. But, give into it, live life, enjoy, and remember that dolls, like other artifacts of our lives, can survive after us, and tell our stories.

Thank you Doll Castle News: Bibliography Doll and Toy Sources

2011-09-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

We would like to thank Doll Castle News for reviewing my book, A Bibligraphy of Doll and Toys Sources in the latest issue of their magazine. They are a wonderful publication for those who love dolls and collecting, and they exhibit all that is good in the business, collecting, and publishing worlds. They are a family-owned magazine, and they cover al aspects of doll collecting. They reach out to a general and authoritative audience, and cover doll history, making, news, books, crafts, museums, and important collections. They do not focus on money. I really enjoyed their article "What is a Good Doll?" which exemplifies the spirit of collecting and sharing knowledge, and why being a doll snob does not pay.

I hope you all get to review the magazine. You may find them at Doll Castle News Magazine, keyword on Google. Also, this family has for many years supported charities and sent dolls, toys, clothing and other items to children in Reservation schools. My club at school has been emulating them for the last year or so, and we send items to The Sun Valley Indian School in Arizona.

Hope everyone is well. Happy Doll Collecting Month!

Nearly 8,000!

2011-09-20T16:33:00.001-07:00

My gratitude goes out to the people all over the world who view and read this blog; we are nearly 8,000! My goal is to be over 10,000 views by 2012! Thank you to everyone; I welcome comments and ideas. If you like this blog, view, also Doll Museum on blog spot, which is my chronological web museum about the history of dolls.

McKinley Soap Doll

2011-09-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

Today is the anniversary of McKinley's assasination. His story is a sad one for many reasons, not the least of which was the devastation brought to his wife. She was an invalid, and he a loving and devoted husband who cared for her. Here is a photo of the McKinley soap baby, a "frozen Charlotte" type doll, made to commemorate his election. These events took place on or near my grandfather's birth in 1897, and on or near the year of my favorite book's publication, Dracula! The true political doll has a tag or button with McKinley's name, see Helen Young's 1967, The Complete Book of Doll Collecting.

Rosale Whyel; last sale

2011-09-12T07:25:00.001-07:00

Just A Little Reminder...

Come help us Celebrate the final Anniversary- our 19th Birthday!!

Saturday, September 10th- Museum 10am to 5pm
Birthday Cake
Door Prizes
Surprises All Day Long!
Party Room Fun- Doll Dressing, Doll Hair Styling, Pin Clothes Doll Making, Paperdolls...

and SALE, SALE, SALE!
Museum 35-75% off! Plus an additional 10% for Members!
Rosie's Too 45% off! Plus an additional 10% for Members!

Saturday, September 10th - Friday, September 16th
Museum Store Sale- Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 1 to 5pm, Monday thru Friday 10am to 5pm
Rosie's Too Sale- Saturday 11am to 4pm, Thursday 11am to 8pm

Everything is on sale- Antiques, Modern Collectibles, Robert Tonner, Madame Alexander, Corolle, Vogue, Books, Exclusives, Kathe Kruse, and More!

Rosie’s Too Sale-

Rosie's Too
221 106th Ave NE
Bellevue WA
425-455-0363
Shelley Helzer
Co-Director
Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art
Ph 425-455-1116 Fx 425-455-4793
www.dollart.com

9/11/2011

2011-09-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

I feel I must say something to commemorate the day, that I call "the worst day ever." We were not near any of the places hit; I was in class, teaching my college kids literature, when the latecomers came running in with the story of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. We went on a few minutes, and then the second sotry came of the second plane, and we sent to the student lounge. We are a samll school; I was the academic dean, and only I and a couple of teachers and the school psychologist were there. At least five kids went running for their phones; someone in their families worked at the Pentagon, or were near Ground Zero. The girl next to me was shaking uncontrollably; her husband was supposed to be near Ground Zero for a conference. She couldn't reach him by phone. That afternoon, she discovered he hadn't gone to the conferenc that day, and had rented a car to drive home.

The brother of one of my colleagues we learned later, died in one of the towers. My cousin by marriage, a day trader, was talking to colleagues and friends in Cantor Fitzgerald when the phone died. Many of them apparently did not come out. And, the girl who owns my favorite yarn shop across the street from work was a survivor; she had worked in the towers.

I thought of my Dad, who had been there late in 1976. He wanted to take me there to see the Towers; he said there were stores full of dolls from many countries. I thought of an ad I had seen the week before; there was a photo of the towers, with the caption "something will happen on September 11th." They meant they were introducing a new computer software. Little did they, and we know.

As soon as I could, I did what I always did in times of crisis; I called my mother. I had called her in 1993 when the first attack on the twin towers took place, when the Challenger exploded, when Oklahoma City was bombed, and during the Columbine disaster. I wanted to call her today; I can't. She died three years ago. That first Christmas, we joined others and bought RWB ornaments, and little fire fighter and police dolls. At the stores, others were buying them, too, and they said, as we chose what to buy, " we have to buy them; someone has to do something."

Today, may we think on those who lost their lives, and on those who have died since in the wars that have ensued. Bless them and their families and friends who have survived. There is no closure for grief; only memories, only rembrance. That, we will always have. May God Bless all of us who live in this world, even those who sadly see this as a day of celebration. Little do they know. Maybe someone can forgive them, for they know not what they do, either. Above all, God Bless the Union, and God Bless the United States. Have a thoughtful, safe, and careful day today, September 11, 2011.