Eileen Maksym's Blog, page 9
March 3, 2017
Jumpin’ Jumpin’
HAPPY FRIDAY!
When I hear this song, I’m instantly transported back to my senior year at Yale. On Valentine’s Day I hosted a Valentine’s Day Massacre, a party for bitter singles, in my huge top floor single room. There were anti-love quotes taped up to the walls, plenty of hard cider, and tons of people bouncing up and down to this and similarly romantically-cynical songs.
A little less than a month later I started dating the man who would become my husband.
March 2, 2017
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Coffee Mug
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When it comes to what to do with your loved one’s ashes (or, as we were required to say when I worked for a funeral home, cremated remains or “cremains”) there are a lot of choices. You can bury them, put them in a niche or columbarium, keep them in an urn on your shelf, scatter them in a meaningful location, turn them into a diamond, mix them with concrete and help form a reef, and many, many more. What I find interesting about Chronicle Cremation Designs is how they can turn ashes into objects you use everyday. While they do offer urns and jewelry, their mugs and bowls and vases aren’t meant to be kept on a shelf or worn as precious adornment. You drink from the mugs, put fruit in the bowls. You have your loved one right there as you live your life, as a part of your life. It can be a tender way to memorialize, a way to remember that the person you loved is still with you, every day, even if in a different way.
February 28, 2017
Giving a Face to the Faceless
Teenagers can still have trouble discerning fiction from reality, particularly in groups. I knew kids in high school who were absolutely convinced they had known each other in past lives, and would tell elaborate stories of their past histories. My husband knew kids who were convinced they had multiple personalities. One of the powerful things about Slenderman is that he has no face. He is a blank canvas upon which anyone, particularly those with an overactive imagination and a shaky grasp on reality, can project their own ideas, their own darkest desires. Still, I disagree with those who might say that the stories are responsible for what happened. The idea might provide the ager, but the growth upon it is all due to the girls, and it could easily have grown on something just as sweet.
February 24, 2017
After All
When I was a senior in high school, I went on a trip to England and France with a group from school. It was an amazing experience in many ways, but one of my strongest memories is of sitting on the steps of Montmartre in Paris at dusk, listening to the buskers play Wonderwall. Being a teenager in the mid-to-late 1990s, the Oasis song was already firmly entrenched in my musical landscape, and hearing it covered by a street musician, in another country, surrounded by young people from all over the world, was a profound experience. Music is powerful, and it is multidimensional. It unites people and yet it also speaks to each one of us on a deeply personal level. Wonderwall may be one person’s heartbreak song and another’s love song. For me, it reminds me of Paris. Now, I don’t have a recording of that busker, but this acapella cover is a beautiful replacement. Maybe it will evoke memories of your own.
February 22, 2017
Goin’ to the Cape!
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Belmont schools (like most in Massachusetts, I believe) have a winter break in February. That’s this week, and we’re taking advantage by going on a mid-week overnight on Cape Cod. See y’all on the flip side!
February 21, 2017
Guacamole Guts
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Man, I think I went to this party in college…it’s definitely a great idea for Halloween!
February 20, 2017
“Nice little girl you’ve got here, human. It would be a shame if something were to happen to her…”
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Can’t begrudge some deer a little bit of protection, can you?
(I came across this image on the cursed images twitter, which sadly doesn’t seem to have been updated since November. Still, there’s some great and freaky stuff on there.)
February 17, 2017
Lady Gaga Vs. Marilyn Manson
Happy Friday everyone!
I’m a sucker for a good mash-up, and this is so good. Lady Gaga is heavily influenced by shock rocker Marilyn Manson (and there has even been a rumor that Gaga actually is Manson) and the way their music fits together is a testament to that. It’s too bad that Manson is reportedly not a fan of Gaga’s; I would kill for a collaboration.
Enjoy!
February 16, 2017
Terrifying Toys
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Toys can sometimes be horrifying. Maybe it’s the uncanny valley, where the toys are just human enough for their inhuman parts to raise our hackles with their sheer wrongness. Maybe they stir up memories of our childhoods, with all the terror of being small and helpless and believing that inanimate objects may just be animate after all. Or maybe sometimes toy companies just make creepy-ass toys. I mean, come on! Look at that thing! Little Miss No-Name? The doll with a tear? Who even comes up with such things?!? No wonder it was only available for one year. Guilt tripping kids into buying a doll that looks like its head just might start slowly spinning around? Shame on them!
Hat tip Vintage Everyday. For more terrifying toys like Little Miss No-Name here, take a gander at his post.
February 15, 2017
The Tea is Getting Away
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Artist Sarah Duyer’s work takes innocent ceramic objects and adds body parts to them to create bizarre creatures. The above teapot seems to be a mash-up between Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and John Carpenter’s The Thing. Puts a whole different spin on the idea of a mad tea party. I wonder what the teacups would look like?
