Category: costume

Ground Control to Major Dog…

Today, Hazel, my French Bulldog, had to have a thorn removed from her paw, just like Aesop’s fable, except that instead of a lion, it’s a dog who looks like a bat and sounds like a pig, and instead of a mouse, it’s a vet, and instead of exchanging favor for favor, he charged us $700. And now I have a Space Dog, because she can’t stop licking her foot. I think my dog is like a person in many respects, but if you had a hurt foot, your solution would never be: lick all the hair off, and when it’s red, swollen, and irritated, keep licking. Never stop licking. Maybe there’s a lesson we can learn here after all, about where persistence gets you- in a space dog collar.

DJ Retrogade and Retrovirus: Convergence Playlist 1

One hour of nonstop Convergence DJ action, and a signoff dedication to the evil Dr. Bennington and the patient and genteel Nurse Whatley. And now, pictures of me in a skull face and a bustle.

Little dogs specifically do not like wearing tiny hats, although they are perfectly suited to one another.

Sakura-con 2007- A Spy in the House of Nerd

The author as sad dolly.

I am back from adventure at the 10th Sakura-Con in Seattle, where I witnessed glomping, filking, and cosplay.

Costume Overview:

I have mixed feelings about discussing an anime convention, because on the one hand, it’s just nerds trying to lose their virginity while dressed as Japanese manga characters. On the other, there are too many horrors to go undocumented. It is filled with teenagers dressed as their favorite anime and videogame characteres, and I don’t know any of them, but you see the same ones over and over and eventually develop opinions about whose are better. It’s like Halloween, if there were only ten options for things to be. The Sailor Moon population alone could fill a city bus. My favorites were an adorable Black Sailor Moon who knew Para Para Paradise dances, and a boy Sailor Moon, who left and came back at 1AM dressed as a rubber nurse.

 There were a lot of Marios, but I think this one was the best. There was a little-kid team Mario and Luigi, and their mother was dressed as the princess, which I found disturbing in an Oedipal manner. Or Jocastan, as the case may be.

I’m assuming that this is a cosplay of Mana of Malice Mizer, the “Queen” of Gothic Lolita. He was giant, and had large shoes, and liked having his picture taken.

This is what we call a high-commitment costume. I don’t know what it is, but she was not going to speak, eat, drink, or have feeling in her hands for the day, but she looked fantastic.

Awesome bloody nurses from Silent Hill. I don’t mean it in the English slang sense. I mean they’re covered in blood.

The most popular option appears to be making a costume at home of your favorite character, and if you have a ridiculously oversized weapon, so much the better. Duct-taped and foil covered blades abound. If you have nothing in particular in mind, you can dress as a little Gothic Lolita dolly, but if you can’t get that together, you can just throw on a kimono and cat ears and call it a day. If you are dressed as a gothic lolita, other Lolitas will recognize you as one of them, and they will give you candy and tell you where stuff is.
The adorable fourteen year old on the right told me she was in love with a guy dressed as Jack Sparrow, (left) and that she had been to a doll meetup, where you introduce your doll to other dolls.

Fun Facts:

There is roughly a 30% overlap between Anime watchers and Furries.


Attendees at the rave, Club Sakura, can’t dance to anything below 240 BPM, because they are limited to jumping up and down.

A casual attendee might think that they would enjoy singing karaoke, but it will all be in Japanese, so give up. I sort of know the Ranma 1/2 song, and that’s not gonna cut it.

Dance, Dance, Revolution goes 24 hours a day, which is the only way to be sure you’ll get a turn.

People will line up to play console games that they played at home yesterday, because they can do it with other people.

Otaku, or obsessive nerd, is not an insult- it’s a goal.

Any 24 hour nerd event will degenerate into games of Hearts eventually.

Kid Whatever rules Club Sakura.

50% of people attending Cosplay events in their teens will be going to S&M conventions in their forties.

Dancing doesn’t count if it doesn’t involve glowsticks.

Goth Nite


Over the long weekend, we took the opportunity to take in a spooky, sinister goth nite  at Hive at Lola’s room, and we dressed appropriately as a chubby French Maid doll and a transvestite military man. Walking up to the bar, I wondered- Aren’t I getting a little old for this shit? If the reader has an opinion, I would kindly ask them to keep it to themselves.

Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear

Judging by the referrals on my site meter, a lot of people are getting to my page because they are looking for pictures or information about Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear. Since I sometimes pretend to myself that I am providing a service, here is a good page from Wikipedia about Gloomy, a toy series and his creator, Mori Chack.
From his press release: Gloomy, an abandoned little bear, is rescued by Pitty (the little boy). At first, he is cute and cuddly, but becomes more wild as he grows up. Since bears do not become attached to people like dogs by nature, Gloomy attacks Pitty even though he is the owner. So Gloomy has blood on him from biting and/or scratching Pitty.

The moral: wild animals are dangerous, even when they are cute and/or pink. I’ll bet you didn’t know that a hippo will take your arm off if it gets a chance. I met a guy who was pulled out of a boat in Africa and badly maimed by the cutest, fattest hippo ever. Hippopotamus means “river horse” in Greek, but you absolutely should not ride him.

Many celebrities exhibit the same behaivor, appearing cute and harmless but lashing out when cornered, like Mel Gibson, Peter Buck, and that guy from Seinfeld.

Youtubed!

This will be the last time I will mention our dang Leigh Bowery costumes. Probably.

I put a short film of a dance routine I did on Halloween on Youtube, but I hesitated to post about it, because it’s not really the film I wanted (due to the shaky-cam, tight-zoom effect) but in retrospect, it *is* the best one-minute tap routine in a Leigh Bowery costume ever done to a mashup of “Baby Got Back.”

Or else, certainly it’s in the top ten.

Yesterday, I got a Youtube comment asking if that was really Leigh Bowery. I told my new friend no, it was just little me, and my friend complimented my costume, and I felt all warm inside. However, shortly after that, I got a Youtube comment from an alert viewer pointing out that he didn’t really believe that it was Leigh, and believes the film to be: A HOAX. He noted astutely that:
A. The costume is not as fancy/decorated as it should have been. Shitty, shitty costume.
B. The dancing is graceless, like a drunken elephant in toe shoes. Nothing like Leigh.
C. It could be Leigh at 5 AM in an afterhours bar, snockered out of his mind- but in general, he’s calling a Bravo Sierra on this!
I wrote my esteemed viewer to thank him for his interest and to note that I never intended to pass the movie off as the genuine article, and had re-titled the movie Tribute to Leigh Bowery to avoid this kind of confusion in the future, and did not point out clues that he missed:
A. In both the notes and in the comments I say “This is me, dressed as Leigh Bowery.”
Also, I put the record date on the submit, which is 12 years and 9 months after Leigh took off for parts unknown.
B. Although “Baby Got Back” was released in 1992, 2 years before we lost Leigh, the Benny Benassi mash-up by DJ Tripp was just released in April 2005, and the one minute remix of that version was done over Labor Day weekend of this year. (Thank you, Kid Whatever!)
C. Although Leigh was gifted in many different artforms, I don’t believe that tap dance was ever on his list of interests. He overlooked the fact that I am between 125 and 150 pounds lighter than Leigh. And that’s the unkindest cut of all.