Disneyland Mermaids

I have never been to Disneyland, but apparently there are mermaids to be seen there! This is a video of a pair of mermaids hanging out in the pool at the Disneyland hotel.



Not only are there mermaids there now, but there have been mermaids there for some time! Here is some family's home video of their 1964 trip to Disneyland. The mermaids are at 1:34 if you don't feel like watching the whole thing.

Bryan Beus

Beus is another digital fantasy artist. Not much of his work is faerie-centric, but he displays a definite skill and is worth checking out nonetheless.

http://www.bryanbeus.com/index.html

Electronic Firefly in a Jar

ThinkGeek.com has released a new electronic toy featuring a pet firefly in a jar. All it needs are batteries to keep it lit. For all of you faerie adventurers, a firefly lantern is much better than just a plain old lantern for searching out evil faeries of finding faerie homes, etc. It can even be your own personal Tinkerbell locked away.

Here is the website page http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/e90c/?cpg=yt

Krampus

Everyone knows that around Christmas time you have to be extra good, because if you're not Santa won't bring you any presents. Well... what if you were treated to a punishment rather than the reward system for bad behaviour? What if in fact there were serious... life threatening... consequences for being bad. In such a case we would meet the Krampus.



The Christmas Krampus is a mythological figure that appears in some mountainous-regioned European traditions. The Krampus accompanies Santa on his night long journey, and while Good Ol' St. Nick gives good little boys and girls presents, Krampus on the other hand punishes bad children and warns them to be good. If he finds any particularly bad children, he stuffs them in a bag and steals the children away to maybe eat them later on. I bet you're wishing for the coal now aren't ya.



The Christmas Krampus looks kind of like a little devil. Some interpretations have sort of a yeti look, others a more traditional devil, complete with hooves and horns.



There are some histories and further information on these pages here.

http://krampus.com/who-is-krampus.php

http://christmasxmas.xanga.com/384364744/item/

Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

As you can guess from the title, this movie is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet… with gnomes. Going into this movie I quite honestly had very low expectations. As they stated in the movie itself, more than once, this is an old story that has been retold many times. However, though it took maybe half of the film for the story to engage me, it ended on a good note and I didn’t regret watching it.

The story takes place in the garden of a semi-detached house. The owners, last names Montague and Capulet of course, are a middle-aged to elderly pair or neighbours who loathe each other and toss insults at the other on site. Both neighbours have gardens and their garden ornaments seem to have adopted the feuding nature of their owners. One side is decorated in blue and the other in red. They either try to out-do their enemies by creating a better garden than their opponents, or more destructively, try to sabotage their enemy’s garden. On the night of one such sabotaging raid, Juliet sneaks out of her garden because she sees a beautiful flower that will make their garden superior. In samurai style, she disguises herself in a black sock (and has a fishing pole she holds like a katana) and proceeds to leap and run along the alley fences toward her goal. Gnomeo, escaping from a failed raid, sees  dark figure and intrigued, follows it to its unknown destination. He sees the flower also and as the two of the grab for it at the same time, their eyes lock and they are stunned by their attraction to each other (both in disguise). After a little flirtation stealing of the flower from one another, they fall into some water and their identities are revealed. And there continues the story of their deciding to meet secretly despite clan differences and the problems that arise. Will they ever be happy?!?!



Though the movie on the whole wasn’t amazing, it wasn’t overly clichéd either, which was refreshing. There were one or two side stories that varied the forbidden love theme to keep the viewer guessing. However it wasn’t at all a complex story line. An interesting little twist they did stick into the story however was a small chat Gnomeo has with a statue of Shakespeare. The Shakespeare statue listens to Gnomeo’s situation and says that he’s heard a story like it before, and that it ended in the lovers dying. Gnomeo then goes off to prevent this from happening to him. Elton John had a hand in the soundtrack so it's pretty decent.

Overall, a nice movie if you want to introduce Shakespeare to children who don’t read, but not a classic.

Pixie Dust

As some people may be aware, there is a recreational drug called Pixie Dust. It's a combination of LSD, or 'acid', a hallucinogenic drug, and ketamine, or 'the date rape drug' a dissociative anesthetic used primarily by veterinarians that gives the user a sense of detachment.

In a way it's kind of understandable how drugs can be related to fairies. Faeries- fantasy- escapism- drugs. There are many reasons people take drugs. It could be a peer pressure thing, or it could be an experimental phase, the need to please, or you could be dealing with some really horrible things in your life and just need to get away.

The last one kind of strikes a chord with me... not because my life is very hard, or because I've taken hard drugs, but because every once in a while, people just need a break. In a way, this is why fantasy exists. Sometimes people want to escape into another world, or want to venture off into another world. To do this some people play video games, some people use work, some people use fantasy, and some people use drugs. Excessive amounts of anything is not good... but somethings are better to go overboard with than others. If for whatever reason, you throw your self into work so as to avoid something and never have time for anything else, you may have absolutely no social life and may never laugh. But the positive side of that could be that you've probably got some cash in the bank and are maybe climbing some corporate ladder to 'succeed' in life. Alternately, if you take too many hard drugs, you will be antisocial just because you're too inebriated to do anything but lay like an empty husk. There aren't really many upsides to speak of to offset the negatives of this choice. Everyone indulges in a little escapism every once in a while, and that's ok. Actually it can be fun, but if you end up depending on that escapism like a beat up housewife needs her man, go get some help because you need it... no matter which form of escapism you use. Choose your weapon wisely because in a way, it will define you.

Here are some drug links for more information.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/drugs-drogues/learn-renseigne/ketamine-eng.php

http://www.narconon.ca/LSD.htm

http://www.partyvibe.com/forums/drugs/35527-ketamine-acid-pixie-dust.html

Bill Layne

BIll Layne (1911- 2005) was an artist known for his pin-up art and for some humourous hillbilly art. He also has a few fantastical pieces, featuring some mermaids, gnomes and fairies!







Here is a site displaying some more of Layne's work, primarily his pin-up art  http://americangallery.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/bill-layne-1911-2005/

Homo Floresiensis- 'The Hobbit'

In a previous post, I discussed the documentary 'The Fairy Faith', which discusses the belief in fairies, you can read about it here. There is a whole slew of people who strongly believe that faeries, 'the little people', really and truly exist. That there are tiny beings with a physical presence in the world that are not human.

What if they are not wrong? What if  there actually were, or even are, little people? As many people are aware, it is theorized that modern humanity has evolved over time from various ancestral roots. As you probably are aware, the taxonomical name for humans is 'Homo Sapiens' (technically it's homo sapiens sapiens but you can get away with just one sapiens), and this means knowing man, or thinking man. Here is an interactive evolution chart you can play around with. Click on the bars of colour to learn more about each evolutionary stage or about what was going on at that time. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive

Here's also a quick visual. Notice all of the questions marks, our origins are anything but set in stone.

During the same time that Homo Sapiens have existed, there were two other genuses that existed, Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Floresiensis.

Everyone has heard the word Neanderthal (technically pronounced Neandertal) but surprisingly not many people know where the word comes from. If you didn't, now you do. Something interesting to look at when studying Homo Neanderthalensis is where they lived,  the structure of what their faces may have looked like, and the fact that they were so much shorter than we were. Maybe that's where we got the idea of dwarves.

On to the point of this post. FINALLY! Homo Floresiensis. This genus of Homo was discovered relatively recently in 2003 in Flores, Indonesia. From what they estimate that she was 106 cm (3 ft 6 in) in height, and weighed about 30 kg (66 lbs). That's about the size of a very small child. Researchers estimate that Homo Floresiensis lived 95 000 - 17 000  years ago. They are supposedly extinct, but lived at the same time are Homo Sapiens. Here is the Smithsonian page for more information http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-floresiensis

Homo Floresiensis weren't the size of a butterfly or a fox, but they were extremely small in comparison to their Homo Sapiens counterparts. This species was also found on the island of Flores, which according to one of the documentaries below, is an isolated island and very hard to get to because of ocean currents. Therefore, not many people would run into these people, and if they did, wouldn't recognize them as human. In an age where the unexplained was explained through religion or myth, it's easy to see how someone could mistake a very small, semi-human looking person as something from another world.

Another interesting parallel that can be drawn is the fact that many mythologies, and even fantasy stories, have this idea that faeries once used to live on earth, but then left to go to another realm. The most widely recognized fictional story supporting this might be The Lord of the Rings. Yes the hobbits and dwarves stay on earth, but at the end of the series, the elves, the creatures that are inherently magical and immortal, leave earth to go back to their homeland, onto a better place, leaving only stories they will be remembered by. With this kind of mythology in place, interesting conclusions could be made explaining the fact that Homo Floresiensis no longer exists.

Here are two different documentaries chopped up on YouTube for your pleasure.

And finally here is a short 4 minute video on the Smithsonian site http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/multimedia/videos/hobbits-flores-indonesia

Tengu

Tengu are Japanese bird spirits of the wilderness that guard the forest. They are shape-shifters, and may not show their true form, but if you do happen to see it, there are two different true forms Tengu take. One is called Karasu Tengu, or Crow Tengu, has a human body with a crow head and are covered with feathers. and their hands and feet are tipped with claws instead of digits. The other kind of Tengu is called Yamabushi Tengu, or Mountain Priest Tengu. These have human form, but have bright red faces and longer beak-like noses.



Tengu play the role of the trickster and are known to start arguments, start fires, steal children, or drop things on people from above. Think of the evil flying monkey in the Wizard of Oz and you kind of have an idea, kind of.



They aren't always bad however. Tengu are called upon to help locate missing children. Also, if they favour you they can transfer their powers to you, which is good if you're the warrior type. Tengu are master weapon smiths and are very skilled in both Kendo (fencing) and ninjitsu (ninjas). They are also very skilled magicians and occultists and are able to control the weather.



Tengu predate Buddhism in Japan and openly resist it in legends. They often symbolize a resistance to Buddhism. Many of their shrines are in the mountains and a common offering to give is sake, mochi, or rice cakes, but they'll take what they can get. 


Here's a page with a little bit more information http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/tengu.shtml And here also http://totaljapandemonium.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/yokai-report-tengu/

A poem from- A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Flowers

All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames--
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.

   

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish author who lived from 1850-1894 and is best known for his novels Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This site here has a list of the different illustrators chosen to illustrate the book over time so feel free to check that out. It's interesting to see the different styles used http://flutterbypatch.blogspot.com/2011/07/flower-filled-days.html

A Knitted Fairy Pattern

For all of you knitters out there, you can now knit your very own fairy friend!!



The creator states on the instructional page that this pattern should be easy enough for beginners, both adults and children. I don't know all that much about knitting or sewing, but the pictures she put up look relatively easy to follow and the results are cute enough to make a few mistakes trying!!

If you have knitting needles, or know someone who does, why not give the wooly fairy a go! http://flutterbypatch.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-knitted-fairy-pattern.html

If you scroll down on the side bar to the section that is headed by 'Free Knitting Patterns', you'll see some more of her doll designs.

Glow In The Dark Fairies

Here are some little plastic fairies that glow in the dark! Decent toys for kids, or just little decorations to make a room a little more interesting.



http://www.accoutrements.com/shop/products/Glow-Fairies.html

Medical Pixie Dust!!

While watching tv I saw a show that featured this little boy whose finger was chopped off by a door, and when he was taken to the hospital the doctor used a drug called pixie dust to grow his finger back! There was a bit of a debate as to whether or not the powder actually grew back the boy's finger, but there is a powder out there and it's being used to grow tissue back!

I did some looking on the internet after hearing this and found this article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-563099/The-amazing-pixie-dust-pigs-bladder-regrew-severed-finger-FOUR-weeks.html that talks about a man whose finger was cut off in a model airplane accident, but was then regrown with this pixie dust. Pixie dust is made out of pig bladders, and was actually used to regrow human bladders at one point. Check out the article for more info. This is a picture from the website.

Apparently Pixie Dust is also being used on some of the soldiers in Afghanistan as well article here.

Redragon (Addy Rose)

Addy Rose if a computer graphics artist.  She work in CG primarily but she does have some photography up http://redragon.deviantart.com/

And here is her own site http://addyart.daportfolio.com/

La Corda d'Oro

This is an anime about a girl who is entered into a music contest because she can see a fairy on the first day of school. The plot is a little bit like A Little Snow Fairy: Sugar, but unlike that one, La Corda is aimed at more of an adolescent audience whereas Sugar is more juvenile in its execution. Meaning that there wasn't as much angst or as many love triangles. Sugar was much more effective than this one in terms of story line and progression, but this one did an alright job in conveying the love of music and the time that goes into nurturing your talent.

The story begins with the protagonist, Kahoko Hino, who is running late for the first day of class. All of sudden she hears someone calling out to her and discovers a small fairy flying toward her, very excited that she can hear him. The fairy's name is Lili and lives at the school due to past events. Every year he finds a student that can hear him, he rings a bell, which signifies a school-wide music competition. Kahoko is chosen for the competition, which shocks the rest of the school because in a school is split into two sections, the students that specialize in music and the student who are in the general study program, and Kahoko is in the latter and knows nothing about music. To solve this, Lili gives her a magical violin that will allow her to play as long as she feels the music. As the competition progresses, Kahoko learns more about music and grows more and more self-conscious about the fact that she actually knows nothing about music.



In addition to the whole 'finding yourself' plot line, there is the romance part which is also central to this story. Besides Kohoko, there is one other girl (who is very shy) and 5 guys, all of which develop sort of a thing for Kohoko. Typical high school/ romance/ drama/ comedy anime.

Here's the intro song to the show

Shugo Chara!

This is a story about an elementary aged school girl named Hinamori Amu. She’s known as the cool girl, or the tough girl in her school because of her non-nonchalance and tough-guy attitude, but really, Amu is very different from her exterior. One day when she wakes up, there are three eggs in her bed, and one by one these eggs hatch into little guardian beings the represent who Amu would really like to be. Amu is recognized as a ‘character bearer’ and is asked to join an elite club at school called The Guardians, the members of which also have guardian beings of their own. As the plot progresses, Amu finds out that there is something or someone out there trying to take the dreams of children away and turn them into negative self-doubt, for some unknown and evil purpose. It is up to Amu, with the help of her new friends, to save the dreams of these kids and stop whoever is behind the attacks.



The basic premiss of the show is that all children have dreams and hopes and desires in regards to who they want to be when they grow up. Some may want to be really good at baking, some may want to be really good at art, some may just want to make other people happy. In the show these dreams are represented by eggs, which is nice in theory, I mean you give birth to this wish but don’t know what it is until it hatches into something. But I have to very honest, it’s only after watching two seasons of the show that I was able to stop cracking up at the whole egg idea (yes? yes.). To top it off there are these magical items in the show, a lock held by Amu, and a key held by one of her love interests, and these are called, wait for it…. the Humpty Lock. And the Dumpty Key. I laughed my way through the first ten episodes. I mean the episodes were good… but sometimes the execution was just ridiculous. Oh  Japan, how I admire and love you.



Aside from some funnier elements of the show, the story was actually really well done. The plot, while dragging in some places (as do most in the magical girl genre.. what with the capturing and everything), was surprisingly well thought out and intricate compared to others in the genre. The show is basically playing with the idea of having a dream or a goal, or even an idealized version of yourself that you’d like to one day achieve. But of course, everyone has doubts and fears, especially when what they’re dreaming for is very important, and sometimes that fear or that lack of self-confidence can get the better of you and make that dream seem impossible. One of the main objectives in the show was that Amu cleanse all of the ‘x eggs’ or the eggs that were consumed by self-doubt. While this got a bit tedious by the second season, for the most part a little lesson about the human psyche was learned with each cleansing. Sometimes through the dialogue of the characters, sometimes just by observing the situation. This is coming to me at a time in my life when I’m also struggling with these issues, so I might be over-playing the whole ‘finding yourself’ theme.. but it’s good.

The characters were also well done. None of the characters were one dimensional… which can sometimes happen in animes. There was at least one episode devoted to developing each of the side characters to augment the personality they usually display. I won’t go too much into character development because one of the best things about these kinds of shows it the anticipation of wondering when certain things will happen, and the surprise when they throw you something from left field. If you’re familiar with manga and anime, the surprises won’t be entirely shocking, but if you’re not… they might be. And if you’re not I suggest you get into it!! If you are willing to go there, I don’t know what it is, but the Japanese are some of the best when it comes to emotional turmoil, both romantically and not. Anime/ manga or tv drama, it is definitely something to experience.



But yes. All of the characters are pretty strong, each in their own way. And what I enjoy about Amu (in terms of personal strength) is that when the show opens she has this tough, ‘strong’ exterior that she almost hides behind, and many people might consider that exterior to be true strength, but as the show progresses she finds a new kind of strength. If I were to relate Shugo Chara! to anime’s that have come before it, I’d say that it’s a combination of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. It’s like Sailor Moon because of the purifying souls idea, and the team of helpers that can all transform, but unlike Sailor Moon, Amu is very self-confident and doesn’t rely on some guy to fight her battles, nor does she enter into any unhealthy relationships. And it’s like Cardcaptors because the show is really about personal development and inner strength, but there it more magic and transforming than Cardcaptors.



So again, though some parts of the show might be hard to swallow at first, if you stick with it you’ll be rewarded with cute story about personal strength!



And just to clarify, the Guardian Characters aren't technically faeries, but they look close enough... and some people could say that faeries are a representation of your hopes or wishes... and fairies are mentioned in the story!!!

Here's the intro I watched the whole thing on crunchyroll.com. No this hasn't been officially dubbed in English yet. Yes the manga (where the story originated) may be obtained and read in English.

Oni

Oni are defiant spirits of chaos and mischief from Japanese folklore. The word Oni can be translated to mean ogre or troll, but unlike the trolls we see in traditional western belief, these trolls are very intelligent and have magical powers. Some believe their magic is so powerful that their limbs are able to instantly re-attach themselves to the Oni's body once removed, making them very formidable opponents. Not all Oni are evil either. Since they love a good battle, some may take it upon themselves to banish evil spirits just for the fun of it.



Some sources say that Oni like the taste of human flesh, and from this belief came the belief that Oni are spirits of death. In Buddhism, the Oni guard the gates between various hell and death realms (watch out Dante, there are 18 levels). Here's a link with some pictures of the different stages of hell, and you can see Oni torturing the people here. Some sources say that Oni predate Buddhism in the far East however and were later incorporated into Buddhism to assist with assimilation. Their role changed from guardians to evil beings with the rise of the samurai class in Japan. Stories then featured samurai facing off against the evil Oni (knight vs dragon).



While there are supposedly female Oni (and they are supposedly growing rarer and rarer), Oni were originally pure spirits who did not keep up population by sexual reproduction. As legends have it, when men die while they are overwhelmed by excessive anger, they transform into Oni.



Oni have horns, tusks, and fangs. They have either red, blue or black skin and are often clad in a tiger skin of sorts. In more recent times, Oni statues are used to keep out bad spirits, kind of like gargoyles in the West.

There is a legend about a man named Shoki who would battle the Oni, and you can read more about that here