Jacob

It's only about 3 months late, but I finally have pictures of the Halloween display I created this past year. The idea for the scarecrow design and lanterns comes from the always inspiring PumpkinRot.



The crows were particularly bad that year, continually raiding the corn crop. Jacob’s father told him to build a scarecrow to stave off the birds. That afternoon, Jacob went out to the birches on the far side of the fields. He collected three large limbs from the speckled white trees, picking up twigs along the way. Back at the house, Jacob bound the three larger limbs together with twine, creating the letter ‘Y’ out of the wood. Next, he took what had once been his father’s old, tattered flannel shirt. Jacob had found it in the barn where it had been waiting to be shredded into rags. He carefully slid two of the branches into the worn brown and orange check sleeves.

The pumpkin patch was to the west of the corn fields, just on the outskirts of the woods. It was still early in the season, but Jacob searched the twisting green vines until he found a pumpkin large enough. It was dark orange and flat and wide. He heaved the gourd out of the dirt it had rested on all summer and carried it back home.



Sitting on the back porch, Jacob hollowed out the pumpkin and with a carving knife he created a face of two askew triangles eyes and a grinning mouth full of jagged teeth. He took the wooden body and pumpkin head out to the clearing in the center of the corn fields. He placed the post of the scarecrow into the ground and carefully added the fleshy skull on top. To finish off his creation, Jacob tied bundles of twigs to the end of each arm. The primitive being now reached to the sky with thin and gnarled wooden fingers. Satisified, Jacob headed home.



In the days that followed, Jacob returned to the fields many times to check on his scarecrow. Each time he visited Jacob found feathers entangled in the scarecrow’s twisting trap of fingers. Several crows lay dead on the ground nearby. Jacob was proud of his work. Not only were the birds staying away from the crops, but they were literally scared to death to go near that field. But, Jacob also had misgivings about the dead birds. Something seemed off about the whole thing. And in the middle of the night when Jacob would awake in his bed, he would swear he heard the scrapping of twigs against his bedroom window even though there were no trees on that side of the house.



The months passed and the chill of November swept through the valley and winter followed. The harvest was long over and the crops were gone. But while the extra pumpkins rotted in the field, the scarecrow’s head became dry and hard. His mouth began to sag and his teeth curled in slightly but his grin was still there. And so he stood under the grey clouds of the winter sky waiting for the next growing season.

Armistice Day

"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind"

-Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions

One of my favorite Vonnegut quotes. World War I is long over. I wonder if the veterans of World War II heard the voice of God at the end of the war. Or maybe just the scream of the atom echoed in their ears at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

November!

November must be my second favorite month, right after October. From my desk at work I can only see a window if the manager across the hall has his office door open. So when 5 o'clock rolled around and I happened to steal a glance of the world, I was shocked to see it was almost pitch black outside. WHY MUST WE SCREW AROUND WITH DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME?! But when I walked out the lobby door I was greeted with the slight smell of a wood fire and the cool dark night. It was then I realized I love November. As I drove home the full moon hung low over the small towns, lighting up the grey autumn clouds. The tangle of bare branches in the pale light. Most trees having yielded their leaves to the wind on the weekend. Straight out of an Andrew Wyeth painting.

The Night Orchard.

They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under them but among then and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.

-Cormac McCarthy
(All the Pretty Horses)

A couple of things.

Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors so I’ve been waiting on this one for some time. With The Darjeeling Limited coming out only two years ago, I didn’t expect to see Fantastic Mr. Fox for at least four years due to the stop motion animation. Needless to say I was pretty surprised when this trailer showed up last week out of the blue. I could not ask for anything more from the animation. It’s perfect right down to the way the characters’ fur ruffles as they talk. Despite the fact that the film is animated it sill has that distinct Wes Andseron style, the overhead shot of the desk is perfect. This movie has moved to second on my must see list, right below Where the Wild Things Are which brings me to my second find.

OK. So this isn’t really a trailer, but its well worth watching. This featurette is basically about Maurice Sendak’s thoughts on the adaptation of his book Where the Wild Things Are. There’s some interesting behind the scenes footage and also some commentary from Spike Jonze. Another note of interest is that the song at the end sounds like it is one of the original songs featuring Karen O.

The trailer for the new Richard Kelly film has also appeared online. The Box is about a family who is struggling financially. One day a disfigured stranger appears with box holding a button. If they should push the button they will get one million dollars but someone will die. I love Donnie Darko. I enjoyed Southland Tales, eventhough I didn’t understand a second of it. But this just looks like a let down.

Finally, the trailer for A Serious Man, the new Cohen brothers’ film has made its debut. Looks interesting. The trailer is cool. But something seems missing. I’m sure this movie will melt my mind anyway.

I lied. This is really the last one. Big Fan. I had never heard of this movie. I just happened to be on the Apple trailers webpage, saw a poster with Patton Oswald with his face painted, and clicked on it expecting to see a comedy. I was way wrong. But it turned out to be the most interesting thing I’ve seen this week.

They're here.

After starting these guys a couple of weeks ago I finally got around to finishing them. At first they all came out as dark as the short one on the left. I thought it suited him (he looks like he grew out of the ground in this picture) so I left him the way he was, but repainted the other two. They're sitting beneath a pumpkin vine that sprouted this spring after I threw last Halloween's pumpkins in the garden to rot.

These were inspired by the incredibly talented Bean over at http://thepumpkinhollow.blogspot.com.

Adams Who?

Once again, pure genius. I love the "Adams and Franklin" header, as if it's a TV show or something. The colonial version of The Odd Couple. More of this brillance can be found here.