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/