High atop his shelf in The Watcher in Toronto, Canada The Loneliest Cthulhu of All waits, weeping. From his precipitous perch he hangs his head, his muscles unable to support the massive weight of his Sadness; and really, who can blame him? Out of season the outlook for the future seems bleak; his stocking body and winter colors rendering him all but invisible in the heady days of spring. Perhaps once the weather turns, and the Earth once again shrivels under freezing conditions and slate skies he will rise triumphant over someone’s hearth. Until then he can do nothing but wallow, the promise of the future providing no solace.
Few people have done more for the state of Hawaii than Keanu Reeves. Even though he was born in Beirut and grew up in Toronto, Mr. Reeves’s forename forever ties him to the tiny string of islands, proving to America and the world that Hawaii is much more than a place to off-load your excess pork products and park your battleships. No, they also turn out respected thespians.
The evidence of this greatness can be seen in this clip of Keanu covering the first Canadian International Teddy Bear Convention for Going Great. Here we can see the beginnings of what would be a long and storied career. His ability to improvise with sunglasses, teddy bears, and young teddy bear enthusiast Graham Abbey — who absolutely, positively does not actually play with teddy bears but merely collects them and is every bit the man that you are, thank you very much — is a stunning example of the craft.
Indeed, even though Reeves expected for all manner of insanity; an orgy of stuffing and button eyes, he kept his cool throughout, even while walking the convention floor with superstar collector Graham Abbey — who, it should be pointed out, merely has an affinity for teddy bears and keeps them on display, never for one minute entertaining even the slightest urge to “play” with the ursine objects of his affection let alone stroke or fondle them in a manner that might be construed as inappropriate — Reeves stays a poised professional. Truly, one is witnessing the work of a future master.
Graham Abbey is happily married with five children and continues to resolutely deny allegations of cavorting with stuff bears.*
With music from Silence!: Silence of the Lambs: The Musical, Pete Levin reenacts one of the most suspenseful scenes with Lego mini-figs, using their claw-like hands and blocky bodies to great effect.
I’ve got to wonder if it’s wise to produce plastic parodies of a beast imbued with the ability to eat worlds, hearts, and minds. A god-thing hovering in the icy dark, waiting for the time when all things will end at the tip of a tentacle laden with taste-buds split and filled with teeth of their own.
Ultimately, debating the merit of such a move is moot, as Dreamland Toyworks intends to tempt the ire of phonetically frustrating gods every Monday as they unveil the latest in John Kovalic’s line of “Mythos Buddies.” Each icon of the world’s end is available as a blind-box figure from purveyors of graven images everywhere.
The San Francisco International Airport is hosting a show entitled Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture, a collection of over 300 vintage space themed toys dating from the 1930s to the 1980s. Included in the exhibition is this pictured case of authentic toy ray guns, located right in Terminal 3 in what can only be described as an egregious violation of anti-terrorist security measures. The show is set to run through March 14th but I’m sure the TSA will seize these weapons before then.
My love for LEGO has been documented in these pages before so I shall spare you a breathless ode to the plastic building blocks of the gods. Instead I will simply allow this marvelous guide speak for itself. It shows you how to make a mold in order to make your own Gummi-LEGO. Like Gummi Bears, but in the shape of LEGO blocks. I’ll let that sink in. I can easily imagine building a mighty, saccharine city in miniature which upon completion I can run riot through, a sugar-crazed Godzilla, leaving a sticky, half eaten trail of destruction in my wake.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
