Notes from the Land of Geek Bling

Edit: Footnotes fixed. Whoops.


I'm at the San Diego ComicCon, where, each July, thousands upon thousands of eager comics fans descend on this city* with a hearty WHUMP, splattering face paint everywhere and causing seismic activity as far away as Phoenix. Yes-sir-ree, they are a “breed apart,” these hordes of Popular Arts enthusiasts. They are “wacky,” they are “kooky,” they are “off the wall.” And now, they’re here once again, to show the world just how wacky and kooky and off-the-wall they are by means of basically all dressing up as the same licensed mass-market characters as everybody else.

(Interesting side note: a little while ago, my father observed a guy in intense sci-fi getup – highly elaborate alien costume, menacing props, bodily makeup worth more than the gross national product of Luxembourg,** etc. – pick up his cell phone and say, with a perfectly hangdog expression and no hint of self-awareness, “Yeh? … Naw, naw, I can’t do that, ‘cause I gotta go to … ” as his advanced weaponry clanked forgotten by his side. It was an odd juxtaposition, the kind that brings you right back “down to earth,” or would if you didn’t already notice the scads and scads of nametags, eyeglasses, Hasbro collectibles, paunches, etc.)

And speaking of collectibles: say what you will of the ComicCon, but it is here I have learned of the dangers of Pony Rot. I am dead serious here. I visited a collectibles counter run by a lady dealer who takes her collectibles-selling very, very, very seriously. Seriously enough that we had the following exchange:

ME: So do you actually get this much for your My Little Ponies? I mean, I sell them on eBay, but I only get about half this much.

HER: Oh, yes. See, in a place like this, people can touch them, and that’s what makes the difference. (Pause.) It’s very sexual, you know? Very sexual.

I smiled at her in what I hope was a nonchalant manner, but she might not have noticed on account of I had suddenly relocated across town. However, we did eventually continue talking, and that was when she filled me in on Pony Rot. I swear. She said – in the same tone of voice she might have used to introduce to her teenage daughter the notion of Personal Freshness – “Have you had to deal with Pony Rot?” I said I couldn’t say I had. She explained: it’s a condition the old My Little Pony dolls get wherein they develop rings around their various little pony parts, causing all the other collectibles to ostracize them, not breathe in near them, spread whispered rumors that they sleep around with the Care Bears, etc. I asked what you do about Pony Rot, but – and you have no doubt guessed this already – there is no cure. Thus it is very, very important that you be aware of its dangers before you ever get to this stage. If I have helped one person today, I sincerely hope that person and I shall never meet.

Other notable sights seen at the Con:
- Jewelry for sale called “Geek Bling”

- A guy loping through the crowd holding up a sign reading, quote, “I NEED TO PEE” (this sign was shaped like a yellow blotch)

- Another guy with a T-shirt that said: GONE TO HAPPY PLACE – BACK SOON.

- A genuine handcrafted statue of Marilyn Monroe with – this is true – Mickey Mouse boobs. Of course you can be sure this was highly historically inaccurate; in real life, her boobs looked like Goofy.

- At this same booth, a statue of Barney the Dinosaur with a skull in his mouth. This is just a little disconcerting, because when you were little, weren’t you just a little afraid that sometimes Barney, while taping a show alongside his cute little human co-stars, got hungry, and, you know, ATE one of his cute little human co-stars, like maybe Min the little Filipino girl? Well, obviously, I never thought about this.

- The people hanging around outside the Con informing us that the CIA is evil.

And with that, I’m off to another day of merrymaking at the Con. If you’re there, you should definitely stop by and say hi.*** Have fun, be safe, watch out for light sabers anywhere near your personal eyeballs, and – whatever you do – do it with protection, and don’t, don’t, DON’T contract Pony Rot. Know the dangers now, for yourself and for future generations.

* Los Angeles.
** Estimated at 13 euros, a button and half a chicken sandwich. But still.
*** Try and find me.


(c) 2010 Nicola McEldowney

Stay tuned!

I'm at the Comic Con, where I've already had a load of rollicking good entertainment in the form of wonko batshit crazies, er, excuse me, popular arts enthusiasts. More on that to come soon.

In the meantime, check out the webegirls (.com) blog where a new column of mine went up this morning.

Scenes from home

SAMMY (the Siamese cat, who bleats rather than meows): Maaaaaa
ME: Maaaaaa
SAMMY: Maaaaaa
ME: Maaaaaa
SAMMY: Maaaaaa
(Etc.)
ME: She keeps responding. I wonder what she thinks I'm saying.
MY SISTER: She's probably correcting your pronunciation.

In other language-related matters, my mother observed earlier today that the term cul de sac means, roughly translated from French, "ass bag".*

I am deeply proud of my genes.



*Of course, it is literally "ass of bag," but I suppose I will have to let that little detail slide.

A quickie

With apologies for not being better these days about blogging from work ...

1. My next piece, "Culture Schlock," is up at www.webegirls.com. Scrolling required: I'm a little late on the announcement, which means it's a few pieces down from the top. It's the one with a picture of a Starbucks logo next to it.

2. I'll once again be accompanying my father to the San Diego ComicCon next week, which means I'll do my best to blog about my fantastic adventures such as discovering that Hello Kitty toilet paper last year.

3. These four guys may be old news to some of you, but I myself only discovered them the other day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAMRTGv82Zo

Job satisfaction

I picked back up my old summer job, the one at the candy place. This causes me to cast my mind back to my once-upon-a-time job at the supermarket, my first-ever in an endless succession of mindless Jobz 2 Pay 4 Kolij. That one stands alone, though, in that it inspired my supermarket musical, Aisle Six -- the one that's perpetually Between Readings in the city. (This has something to do with my personally having not been in the city much lately. But I digress.) There was just something, something unique, about the way you'd walk into the store in the morning only to be FWOOOOOM instantly engulfed in a steaming toxic cloud of employee hate fumes, mixed with just a hint of whatever the bakery had whipped up that morning. Of course, as you would gradually realize over the course of the work day, your co-workers weren't just embittered crazed foam-mouthed paranoid loons bent on the destruction of all those around them. They were also - and I say this from the bottom of my heart - generally homely.

All of this just totally screamed musical theatre at me.

Anymore, I think only of the musical itself. The experience that inspired it was so unimportant in the first place that generally I forget it even happened. But the candy store brings it all back. Not because it's similar -- quite the opposite, in fact. I've found it to be an unfailingly lovely, non-aggravating place to work. If I were to write a musical about it, all the scenes would consist of me leaning over an ice cream counter idly thumbing through whatever book I had brought with me. Sometimes - in a true Show-Stopping Number - a customer would come in and buy something. The heart-pounding climax would consist of me washing the store utensils for the night, during which I once cut my finger.

Bummer. You don't want to think that experiences like the former only happen once. Or ... wait, yes, you do.

Job satisfaction: talk about your muse-killer!

It's up!

"You and Me is Quits (That's Command-Q): A Contemporary Primer on Dating -- Minus the Dating" is now up at weBEgirls, where it's the featured post of the day.

More to come!

Mes chers amis,

My apologies for another long absence. What have I been up to? Reverse culture shock, mainly, and making puppets. As evidence of the latter, I present you: Insecurity Blanket.

(He's the one on the right.)

I've been pondering whether to continue this over the summer as a photo retrospective of stuff from France, or as a sort of what-have-you chronicle of the present, as I've done before. Or both. Any preferences?

In the meantime, they put a couple more of my theatre reviews up (in French) at Allées et Venues. They're a few posts down.

Also, come next week, I'll be contributing to the blog weBEgirls as an occasional columnist, about twice a month. Check back around Wednesday for my first feature, a primer on online relationships.

À bientôt (really).

Nicola