Skullduggery

The Halloween Countdown--Day 2

Conal Cochran: "Ha ha. We had a TIME getting it here. You wouldn't believe how we did it."
--Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Way back (as Internet time is measured) in September, 2008, Dan Aykroyd* began pimping Crystal Head Vodka (Warning: 8 min. of tedious New Age flummery, paranormal bullshittery, Aspergerian perseveration and extravagant product claims). Yeah, I know: another celebrity-endorsed overpriced novelty vodka; what's the big deal?

Well, this:



*gasp* Pretty... shiny... skull-y... made to glisten and gleam in the moonlight...

Listen, for a skull collector** such as myself, this is nothing less than pure porn, a fetish item of high desirability, an object guaranteed to get me in good with the drunken little Goth Girls in black crushed velvet dresses and high-rise Doc Martens who wander the darkened cobblestone alleys of Richmond.***

There were just a few itsy-bitsy, teensie-weensie problems:
--$44.95 plus shipping.
--Not available in Virginia ABC stores
--NO (legal) shipping to Virginia.

Well, OMG/WTF?, what's a poor boy to do?

eBay.

Oh, yeah! eBay sellers aren't worried about such trivial things as rules and regulations and shipping alcohol across state lines to possibly underage individuals; I could get one from eBay! Good ol' eBay!

But good ol' eBay wanted $100 plus shipping for an empty bottle. If you wanted a sealed, factory-fresh bottle complete with box you were going to have to pay a lot more.

Okay, I knew I was up against the Novelty Factor--back then Crystal Head Vodka news was all over the Internet and everybody wanted the bottle, therefore, sellers could charge whatever they wanted and someone would pay, but that someone wasn't going to be me. I pushed my Skull Lust to the back burner.

And then today I happened to be thinking "Ya know, it's been over a year, maybe the hoopla has died down a bit. Let's find out."

Friends, I'm here to tell you that good things do come to s/he who waits: just in time for Halloween the Virginia ABC stores now stock Crystal Head Vodka for $53.95/750 ml. and the bottle is every bit as pretty and shiny and skull-y as I imagined.

So if you're going to fancy-ass Halloween party this year or know an inveterate Halloween fan (over 21, please) you'd like to make very happy, this could be the Perfect Gift.


* Yes, that Dan Aykroyd.

** Mostly replicas, so relax. See some here and here.

*** Uh, that sounded creepier than I intended.

Skulls Again

Halloween Countdown Day 27

Spotted today on Boing Boing Gadgets:

"A zygomatic bone glommed together from old sauce pots; a mandible constructed from rusty whisks; a maxilla ossified from dinner plates and moustachioed with unwashed spoons. This gloriously sepulchral skull constructed entirely from old cookware and crockery was on display in London's Regent Park a couple weeks ago as part of the Frieze Art Fair."

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have this on my front lawn (such as it is). Properly lit, this would be the coolest, bestest, awesomest Halloween decoration ever!

Skullbuster(s)?

Halloween Countdown, Day 2
A couple of things to covet...

You know you're going to need something to wash down (or distract you from) Penn & Teller's Bleeding Heart Gelatin Dessert, right? Well, according to MetaFilter* there's a new booze in town and Dan Aykroyd is pimping it: Crystal Head Vodka.

Quadruply-distilled alcohol blended with water from the aquifers of Newfoundland then triple-filtered through Herkimer diamonds to infuse it with...

Well, I have no idea, but Dan talks about it real purty, almost as if his Bass-O-Matic salesguy character had finally gotten his bipolar disorder under control and yeah, there's a lot of hoo-ha about paranormal phenomena and UFOs and ghosts and mysterious doings and the crystal skulls, but the bottom line is this:

I don't drink anymore so I don't care if it has mystical powers and/or tastes like rat urine mixed with cow dung; IT'S A DAMN COOL-LOOKING BOTTLE O' VODKA AND I WANT ONE!

No, two! For my skull collection!

And wouldn't your drunken Halloween Bash be just a leeeetle cooler if your bar was well-stocked with these?


Just remember to send me the empties.

And speaking of skulls and paraphernalia for your drunken Halloween Bash, Brass Goggles reports on an artist who's made a pinhole camera that incorporates the 150-year old skull of an 13-year old girl child:



*See also the comments on reddit. They're a hoot!

Skullduggery

Some of you may know I collect skulls, especially human skulls:*



The (unfinished) painting in the back is one I did several years ago, that's a vintage embalming fluid bottle beside it, the round thing to the left is a hand mirror, and the glowing brain matter in the crystal skulls is a purely serendipitous artifact of the flash photography.

So, anyway, I was cruisin' around Boing Boing this evening (original post here) when I spotted an entry for this nesting box for birds...



...which is just delightfully creepy! I so want one!


* Relax, not real ones. Okay, part of a real one: the calvarium. Oh, and at one time I had a human fetal skull, but I gave it this one particular semi-goth woman in the hope she'd be impressed enough to sleep with me. She was impressed--she was the first and only woman I'd ever met who thought The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was the funniest thing she'd ever seen--but not, uh, that impressed.