The Maws, the Merrier

 It's All Hallow's Eve, 2025, and time for more members of the local Lantern Corps to give us a grin!

This year's models have no real Jet Jr input - a fact he discovered late into play we he entered the kitchen as I was finishing off the second pumpkin asking which one was 'his'. "Neither" I replied. "Ohh - so is it this one?" he indicated the old school looking one. "No, that's your cousin's" And indeed it is, my first commissioned lantern, based it turns out on Eerie from a few years back, but with some slight modification (he's had his eyes done) Given the choice of grim or ginning, sawtooth or peggy tooth, Jr's cousin went for the more traditional, and so here is un-named Birthday Pumpkin for tomorrow night's party:

Of course, I did have to do one for myself, and so Gulper here is the result, going for cartoonish and a little bit Jamie Hewlett, a little bit Mike Mignola. Also pretty okay.

Not much more to note as I'm really getting the hang of doing these things quickly and safely (but boy do we have a lot of pumpkin pulp to use now). I did this watching Larry Blamire's very silly Dark and Stormy Night, and then listening to  bit of Paul McGann reading the novelisation of the Doctor Who TV Movie which, fact fans, had its encore showing on Halloween night 1996 here in NZ. That's nearly thirty years ago now - blimey!

Happy Halloween, folks!

Gourd Vibes Only!

 

Another year, another pumpkin to sacrifice to the dark lord. Well, not really. 2024 is turning out to be another Austerity Pumpkin year, and so Jet Junior, rapidly outliving his moniker, designed this latest face. JJ has ever been the fan of the 'happy pumpkin' rather than his Dad's sinister variety, and so here's Hob-Nob. Recipe "smiling, two square teeth, eyes like half-moons." Simplicity and positivity. Nice.

Due to an accidental setting Hob-Nob has a bit of a JJ Abrams lens flare to his grin, which is not too bad, either. And like all gourd boys he's not averse to checking his reflection before going out of an evening. I have to admit, he scrubs up well.

Soundtrack to this carving session (another robust crown pumpkin - ooh, my wrist!) was the splendid Every Sc-Fi Film Ever podcast, looking into my favourite era of SF movies, the 50s and Howard Hawk's The Thing From Another World. As usual, it was the hollowing out which was tough, the face was done in record time. Atta boy!

Happy Halloween, folks!

Pumped Up Kicks

 Halloween seems to approach with ever increasing speed these days - although being in the Southern half of the globe, the attendant threat of winter's chill and non-renewal of Summer's lease is reversed. Pumpkin time means more of the day's golden orb in the summer to come.

That's quite enough romanticism, folks, because it distresses me to report that the price for your actual crown pumpkin these days is an eye-watering $18 - a clear tenner more than back in the day, not so long ago. And so, the Wizard of Austerity demanded a more modest offering a smaller, buttercup pumpkin - green-skinned Bogie is our model of the year:

The flesh of the buttercup is a little more powdery but darker and sweeter. It might make for an interesting curry, but Bogie's gift to us was a really interesting pumpkin nacho bowl - it goes nicely with cumin, garlic and feta, with lime crisps of course. Here's looking at you, Bogie. And rest assured, seeds have been planted for 2024. Green and grey ones. Happy Halloween, friends.

Happy Halloween, Punks!

 It's the most WOUNDERFUL time of the year - Halloween again! And this year the Simian Samhain has taken place a little more quietly, but with the usual guests in tow...

Jet Junior is now into his teens, and so the allure of Halloween is a changing thing. No more trick or treating for him, instead the decision tree that is creating the Perfect Halloween Playlist. His tastes are changing - perhaps next year it'll be a proper teenage Halloween Party for him? Who knows? But in the mean-time, father and son have shared yet another Halloween tradition: the designing and carving of the yearly Jack O' Lanterns...

Last year's seeds didn't take in time for April/May, so instead we used the tried and tested garden centre vines on the home pumpkin ladder. I thought we had one good looking fruit survive the season, but when I went to pull out the exhausted vine, another almost perfectly-formed fruit appeared, peeking out from behind some protective lavender. Given the number of ants in the garden it's a Halloween miracle that they made it, made it through the winter in the garage, and through to their de-BOO. 

Introducing Scary and Eerie, designed by me and Jet Jr:

EVIL- er, I mean Eagle-eyed readers may notice a cold sweat on old Scary. That's because he was first to be carved and spent the night in the cooler (well, the fridge). He's got a candle to keep him warm now, though. They even had some neighbourhood kids visiting and pointing out their toothy maws. Smiles all-round. Job done. 

Happy Halloween, everyone! 

Jack the Ladder and Friend

 It's Halloween again, but it feels different this time.

Once again, the spectre of Covid is at large in our country, and this time it seem the bugger is here to stay. While all of the Simian household are double-jabbed and our town is in the relatively-free Level 2, the trick-or-treaters of a couple of years back are still doggedly pursuing other suburbs in search of candied booty. We didn't even put the decorations up in the house this year, much to Jet Jr's disappointment. 

But we still did the pumpkins. 

And this year, as Junior has reached a significant age, he got the bigger fruit to work with. This is Spooky:

He did a great job, although the cutting was still left in my hands (all fingers still attached and accounted for), giving him the task of scooping the innards out. Junior wanted something not evil and more fun, and so Spooky is the result, whereas I had more nefarious intents and a more challenging canvas to work with. This is Kooky:

Kooky is a special boy, as he's the first fruit of 2020's pumpkin ladder, so was shop-bought as a seedling, but home raised. He's also the only survivor of the endeavour, and is a real scar-face. He's seen some things, man...

He does have a nice bottom, mind, but I couldn't find a way to incorporate the lovely patterns there. I could have made more of an effort given the rather Frankenstein-like scars on his 'face' (the main inspiration for the design), but after six months in the garage in all extremes, I fear Kooky will be the first to succumb after this transformation, so I played it safe. 

Junior and I will plant seeds ourselves this year, having selected a sunny spot and sourced material for a raised bed. They should be good to go either next February in time for a Southern Samhain, or, if they're late, some cooler storage. We wait and see...

Happy Halloween, readers!

A Stack of Jacks

 Another Halloween, another carved pumpkin or two.

The pumpkin patch was a sorry thing this year, and the pumpkin ladder wasn't even put to use, so the ones here are shop jobs - a simply H-U-G-E one purchased for a birthday party on the same day by my sister-in-law, and a small buttercup squash for Jet Jr's use and design. Here they are:

Junior's brief was "like some of the stars in the sky", which is a noble endeavour. I, on the other hand, went for the minimalist approach, somewhat fearful of the enormous fruit and its elephantine hide. It's based on an oval; the non-pith part must have been 4cm thick. Oof!

New Jack City

It's Halloween again! Time to get carving... This year I was helped just a little bit more by Jet Jr, who's still not quite coordinated enough to be trusted with sharp implements, but did his darnedest, and once again, designed his own hinkypunk. Check out that Nike swoosh grin! In fact, Junior was going for a Pac-o-Lantern, being arcade game mad at the moment, but the lopsidedness of the fruit made for a wonky smile - and it the more charming for it, I reckon.

While the junior pumpkin is a bit tipsy-shaped, there's a good reason. It was home-schooled, and home-reeared, by virtue of my unpatented pumpkin ladder! Do I have a picture of it?

Somewhere, I'm sure. It's folded up, now, ready for next season's batch (this year's wasn't actually that succesful, with the junior version being the only viable one.) Pics when it happens.

In the mean-time... Boo!

'Punkin' Disorderly

Wooo! It's Halloween again, wooo!

Our neighbourhood was quieter than your actual grave this year, in fact. No visitors, no roaming trick or treaters, child-sized or teen and gangly. A sorry state of affairs, but the diametric opposite of newer suburbs like Churton Park where, allegedly, a greater proportion of Asian families have readily taken up the Americanism of the 'holiday' and gone all-in. Maybe. We might have to get in the car next year and see for ourselves.

That didn't stop a little bit of home craft for another year, though, and this year, as in 2017, Jet Junior got into the pumpkin-carving lark by designing his own pumpkin's face - all deliberately mismatched eyes and lopsided toothy-peg mouth. He's a natural! For myself I did two: one small butternut variety (like Junior's) for a workplace table display as we had a themed office lunch, and a bigger one for home - both a little more traditional, with triangled eyes and sawtooth grins.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the Jack Pack of 2018...

Learnings for this season: Butternut pumpkins are pretty easy to carve with a sharp knife and an ice cream scoop, and ideal size for a kid's lantern. Their smaller interior, however, means the lid inside is more likely to dry out and get scorched by the candle inside. My tip: consider making a tight hole in the base to fit a tealight candle almost flush with the 'floor' of the fruit, or even safer, opt for battery-powered mock tealight LEDs. Cooler, less hazardous, and aside from the no-flickering aspect, every bit as good as a naked flame.


Jack-o-Lanterns also like being turned into magic lanterns!

Giving a Hoot

My latest mindfulness strategy is microprojects. So far they've served me pretty well, with the great Pumpkin Ladder being an early victory over outdoor living space.

Rather than anticipating pumpkin futures though, this project is a look back at the past.

My Gran passed away twenty-one years ago, and I have few material objects to remember her by, such was the nature of the Simian couple's upping sticks from the South to North Island. A bookmark, an Art Deco desk calendar, and a bookcase (which was vast and the bane of Mrs Simian, but nature and borer won in the end, and aside from a few salvaged shelves, it made a sad and warming fire for a few nights.) Add to that her plaster owl, which sat at her front doorstep for many years, slowly weathering and losing its fancied original lustre. It's travelled with us from flat to house and sat in damp garages and rooms for a long time, now, its plaster form softening with age. Restoring this is my new microproject.

I don't know what type of owl it was supposed to be (horned?), how old it is (1950s?) or from whence it came, but gingerly dusting off its efflorescing surface has uncovered some interesting details hitherto covered up by (I imagine) house paint. A feather quill lying on a small pile of books, pages picked out in shallow relief, as well as corner protectors for their covers - all of which will be picked out.

But first, a serious undercoat of protector. I don't know if old tawny will sit out in the open, but if he or she does, he or she will be well-protected. The shop assistant at the local paint shop suggested simple acrylic - maybe even from a humble test pot. But then, she didn't know my Gran. No, something fancier and harder-wearing for an undercoat, and then we can talk colours. 

And also whether it remains an outside owl or stays indoors. 

Christmas 1987. Respect!

2017 is guttering its last light, and to many I'd imagine it's goodbye and good riddance. But before we leave it all behind and ride the shopping trolley into oblivion, let's enjoy this moment in which, at the Monkeyhouse at least, a real sense of Christmas cheer has genuinely descended.

Your writer, once a few days of non-work had passed, finaly shucked off a year's work worries and just learned to enjoy the brief time off. His wife of now sixteen years (for whom he is eternally grateful) found her groove in seasonal craft and no wooden clothespeg is safe. Meanwhile, Jet Jr has 'clicked' with Christmas, his days filled with revised wish lists and enquiries about the physics of Santa's chimney-related speliology.

It would be ill-fitting, therefore, to select a Christmas song which is anything but traditional, and so in 2017 I'm going back to the classics. Thirty years ago to 1987, in fact, where an SAW-revived Kim Wilde and a peak-powered, late lamented Mel Smith have joined forces to squeeze out a cheesy hit for Comic Relief. Here's the other Mel & Kim with a distinctly Eighties' take on the Brenda Lee yuletide belter:


Look at that. Look at it! So Eighties with the big hair, the obligatory Ray Bans, Curiosity Killed the Cat, random video effects and the quaint 50s nostaliga of it all - including the Mekon! I've just watched it with the sound down and it's still watchable for one key ingredient: Melvin Kenneth Smith, one of my favourite UK comedians and his marvellous ability to mug his way out of any situation, however ridiculous.

Sure, his erstwhile comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones is in the mix, but for me Mel was the greater talent, his presence a mark of quality on many projects outside their combined efforts Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones. One of the things I want to do in 2018 is reacquaint myself with his short-lived sitcom Colin's Sandwich, featuring Smith as the titular sandwich would-be horror writer and his take on British comedy's most enduring couple: the middle-aged man and his neuroses.

But I'm drifting. Outside it's a balmy 25 degrees, the hills are scorched and water restrictions loom for Wellington, but inside this house there's a little piece of northern hemisphere tat to mark the occasion and see us through. So Season's Greetings from Jetsam and the Simian family, and here's to a wonderful 2018.

Happy Jack

Another Halloween has passed, and much like wearing an onion on one's belt, the Simian family seems to have adopted a fashion for our times - the carving of the crown.

The Crown! Most granity of pumpkin squashes. Leathery outside, amber within, and resolutely squat and green as a bad moon rising. This year's face came courtesy of Jet Jr who, instead of picking from a lineup of facial features, drew his own version, which I then transferred onto Happy Jack below and got to work. Pumpkin came courtesy of the in-laws' crop, which aren't great eating this year, but weren't too hard to carve out.

Plus, Mrs Simian approves of the smiling friendly face of Spring's waning, moreso than last year's wicked maw.

Poor Jack had a lonely vigil in the end, with only family visiting and none of those pesky kids (apparently Ngaio was the place to be this year), but he was still admired and even earned a photobomb from the neighbour's cat. If he's anything like his predecessor he'll hang around 'til Guy Fawkes Night and then take his leave for a new face next year.

The Artist

See You Next Year!

Bat bricks

Junior and I made a Batcave.  He dictated, and I sourced the bricks and made sure things stayed together and worked.  Come with us for a tour!

The Batcave took six to eight weeks to build, as it filled a number of evenings and wet weekend days, with constant revision, experimentation and checking with the Foreman on whether this was what he had in mind (he slept, mainly.)  We were never going to be able to afford a modern - or even retro set, so we made our own, a combination of what we'd seen in other sets, and what we wanted to have in our own (the toilet was an early addition.)  It took ages, and drove me a little crazy sometimes, but having tried and failed on at least three occasions before, I persevered for the last big push. The breakthrough? When I realised that unlike all the other AMAZING Batcaves across the internet, ours didn't need to be all-black or all-grey,and could use the same '66 Batman hypercolour approach if we wanted. From then on, I realised we could colour code the set for different activity zones, and we were off!

The Batcave is now in repose, back in bits and pieces in the usual Lego boxes. More recently, Jet Jr has expressed his desire for a Lego TARDIS. Hmm... I wonder...

Every Batcave needs a power source, so here's Two Face next to the 66-inspired Atomic Pile

Bat-Toilet! No other Lego Batcave set has one. I checked.

The core of our Batcave is Junior's old Lego Juniors Batcave. One day: batpoles.

In the meantime, Wayne Manor's outside walls make for good climbing practice, old chum!

A Mighty Micros Batcopter pimped out '66-style, with turbos and wings. The helipad rotates, of course!

Batsuits, Batwings and Batarangs in '89 colour scheme. The rungs lead to the helipad

The garage. We made our own '66 Batmobile out of an old Lego Jr Spider-Man car. Take that, Marvel!

Alfred uses his Butler's entrance to the Bat Computer Lab to inform Master Wayne he has a visitor in the kitchen.

The Joker - that Nefarious Knave of Notoriety is loose in the Bat Laboratory!

Gassing Up.

'I've Got to Go to Work...'

...meanwhile, in Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon strikes up the Batsignal

basing some of the Cave on the Lego Batman '66 model, we made out own Manor floor with sliding bookcase.

Bricklite switch for the Bat Toilet!

The sloping roof is hinged for Batpole access.

One of Jr's favourite bits, the non-canonical Moosehead.

Villains' Rock! Another made-up bit on a shelf of stone.

In his study in Stately Wayne Manor Bruce Wayne looks out the window...

The full thing. Pretty moveable, in case you were wondering!

Loo's Wayne

Because even the man who has everything needs a little something more...

Swede Emotion

I love winter. Winter and Autumn. I adore Sortumn and its changing light, but the other two are okay also. Winter, especially; it's when I was born, where I come from, and where I'm at. The cold seasons are license to warm one's self and seek comfort. A toasty house with an open fire (best shut the drapes or the heat will escape), the golden promise of houselight in the dark (seriously - the curtains. Close them!), and winter food.

We're spoiled for all year round produce. It seems wrong to be having avocadoes and tomatoes near mid-winter, but I don't think I could do without either. And then there's the mid-year fruit and vegetables whose sweetness is made by colder mornings. Sprouts, parsnips, and the swede:

Food carries memories of comfort. I'd go to war for my Gran's corned beef recipe, or her steamed ginger pudding with custard the consistency of thickened cream. Such things to brace one's self when our world is farthest from the sun. I've always loved parsnips, and when straying from discipline can render them ambrosiac in a nutmeggy garlic gratin. I hated brussels sprouts with the rest of my generation until I was turned onto them at dinner with my first serious girlfriend and her parents.

I'd never tasted feijoas until I moved to the North Island, and then had them baked in a crumble while staying with friends. Nectar. We now have a tree of our own, which after a few years of coaxing and transplanting is finally yielding its fragrant green baubles, which will soon be big enough to make a pudding or batch of muffins.
The swede I ran hot and cold on with usually bad experiences (at a local restaurant served as a side diced, undercooked, and ultimately vomited out during a very long day at Shantytown when I was nine), but we made our peace in my teens when I could eat at least half a swede uncooked and still have room  for tea. Staying with an older cousin in Dunedin at fourteen my two friends and I shared a whole one the size of a lawn bowl while stomping up the hill to his flat and out of the approaching dusk.

These are things to look forward to, and meals to remember with a good wine or even a mead. I hadn't bought a swede for myself for years, but saw one in a local supermarket a couple of years ago and instantly had to have it. It's now a winter staple. Over the past few years another friend and I have found a whole new subject to talk about, swapping recopies and talking about baking and cooking.

Some people aren't fans of the mid-year cold snaps, wind and damp, but I've always loved it, and the taste of it. Probably always will.

Back to School of Rock

I have over this holiday period been busy, and while I'm now but three days back at the zoo, I am of course a lot busier - but some activities haven't changed.

To what am I referring, you don't ask? Well, I have another work-related gig coming up. A musical one. To readers who know me probably also know that I had one of these last year, some fifteen years since I last played some form of live gig (my own wedding, in what would turn out to be the last ever time me and my old bandmates would ever be in a room together, let along playing impromptu.) The circumstances around this sudden return to treading pedals and dodging guitar leads are quite hum-drum; suffice it to say I was lured into a gathering of sales staff who shared a middle-aged musical itch and some degree of talent, and with a month or so's home practice and one kind of boozy actual rehearsal, once we were in the same town the day beforehand, we became the surprise entertainment for a company get-together in front of our working peers and managers. No pressure, then.

The exercise was as fruitful and inspiring as it was sphincter-tighteningly anxious. If I thought playing my own songs in front of friends and family with two drunk ex-bandmates might have been a challenge (and the wedding video offers little clue to the contrary), then a full set of varying covers and standards in front of colleagues was something else. Some return experiences in life can be wonderful - like stepping back into a comfy pair of slippers. This was (almost literally) like attempting to squeeze one's self into a pair of lycra pants from two decades before. I was not at my best on the night, and crucially aware that I stood among musicians much more talented and practiced than I - even in the simple art of looking like one knew what one was doing.

 But I won't lie; it was a very exciting experience, and it changed me for the better. I'm a better player for the limited practice time (YouTube is a godsend!), I have (pauses to grind teeth) a new respect for cover musicians that I never had to this point, because playing and muffing one's own works is a pretty fault-free form of creative expression - if you suck, then your songs suck and that's that. But sucking at playing a song everybody knows, and that somebody out there is almost certainly bound to be able to better you on, is quite another thing. So the discipline is a new thing- as is the joy of getting it right. It's a gamble, but a calculated one. And in one week's time I'm about to do it all over again at a different zoo.

Brought (back) to Book

Ma, I fixed a book!

This book I have enjoyed since I first found it in a bookshop in Roslyn, Dunedin some time in 1984.

It's not the actual book, actually. Who knows where that went? Loaned to a RPG-curious nephew, lost to the ages. Probably sent to a school fair or assisting in filling land. It happens, and because it happens, I looked for a replacement nearly ten years ago, and in that time (mainly sitting in my bedside cabinet), the secondhand copy I bought in a Newtown shop turned into this:

Now, the thing about having been a librarian for nearly 25 years is, I've never ever mended a book. At all. So when faced with detatched covers, dangling spines, and dried up glue like this:

...I had to resort to the librarian's friend, Google!

Long story short, during a week at home after Wellington's last office-closing earthquake, I discovered the book lying in pieces at the bottom of a box and decided then was the time to take action.

Covers were trimmed, glue was scraped off, and while the inner pages were separated into two or three 'blocks', luckily the interior was in pretty good shape despite some slight foxing. Hey, it's a paperback book - it's hardly top quality material from the get-go.

But hey, it worked! Mod Podge was the glue, a nondescript laminate (Coverseal, basically) stiffened up and waterproofed the cover, and I was even fussy enough to paint out the white creases and tears which couldn't be glued back together.

I fluffed the front cover, it turning out skew and the patched card replacement won't fool anyone; but my beloved old book is back in one piece and readable again. Hooray!

So proud I was in showing it off to Mrs Simian. Of course, it was only then that I realised I'd re-glued the insides upside down.