Sunday, January 17, 2010

ooh, the big slow reveal!!!

One last black and white.

Her lovely face.

And below is a photo I took today, rendering her as harmless as possible. A squaw with her papoose. Now I'm not so up-to-speed on the politically correct terms for the indigenous people of this nation. You know who I'm talking about. The people we first killed entirely and then later romanticized with fourteen foot neutered statues. So for all I know squaw and papoose are the most derogatory terms one can use. In which case I'll gladly change them. That's how I do. I call people what they want to be called. I don't always know what they want to be called, but once I learn it I honor it. Which is why I have children. I can call my children whatever I like.

I want to note that I did provide good notice that these pics were coming.

http://professormikey.blogspot.com/2009/12/fighting-through-lighthouse-cliche.html




About the doll. My wife's grandmother on her father's side, Margaret, was born in 1904. She married a Swedish man, Alfred Lindholm, who was born in Sweden late in the 19th century. Don't be alarmed; that's fairly typical of the Swedish. They prefer to be born in Sweden. Anyway, he immigrated here on a boat. I say "on a boat" because for my wife that's really the most important part of the story, that we know he came "on a boat." As opposed to the Trans-Atlantic Sweden-to-US chunnel that all the rest of the (Swedish born) Swedish immigrants were using. Or on a hot air balloon--what the Swedes would call "jaatt eir balloonerjishefardig."

But I digress. She just REALLY likes saying he came here from Sweden "on a boat." Which is cool. No harm, no foul.

They were married in the early 1920's. They lived in Chicago, and early in their marriage they took a belated honeymoon-like trip through the Southwest, which is about as un-Sweden-like a place I can think of. They met an Indian who sold them this doll. It's precious in the Lindholm family, and with good reason. The last thing I'm doing is making fun of anything Lindholmish. Or as the Swedes say, "Lindholmish." I'm here to honor, not to mock. That's my motto.

Let's get back to the doll, eh? What I find most noteworthy about the doll is that it's impossible to discern a clear emotion in her face--one can find virtually any emotion depending upon the angle of perception. Also, at times she looks simple in construction but at other angles and in different light she looks eerily life-like.

Steven Taylor and his gang were over at our house and for some reason we ended up in the living room with the lights off. I swear I protested this turn of events, but the other three insisted. Typical. I was lying on the ground under a heap of blankets when I was suddenly inspired to take pictures of the woman, who we keep protected from dust under a glass box covering. Steve joined me in taking pictures, and we alternated illuminating her face with a flashlight while the other took photos. That's Steven for you. Creepy. He couldn't stop taking photos of the doll and, frankly, sort of ruined the evening for everyone. But maybe I'm projecting a bit.

The most terrifying part of the evening occured when I took a photo and then looked at the image of the doll. Her face was lit up, but one could distinctly see another image of a second face. I screamed like a little girly boy!!! "There's TWO HEADS!!!" I began to feel faint because just before I noticed this we had been talking about her as perhaps being a voo-doo doll. (I'm sure it wasn't me who started such nonsense discussion. And, frankly, it's irrelevant. Let's move on, please.) It was terrifying, this undeniable, if also fuzzy, image of a face just like you see in the Japanese photos. You know the kind, right? The spooky Japanese images of a second person, or portion of a person, sticking out of a coat pocket. You've seen them on Youtube, right?

Ummm...I'm not the only one to have seen them on Youtube, am I?

Anyway....right. Yeah. This is a link someone must have sent me. I haven't seen it myself, I'm sure.




Anyway, Juli laughed at my scream of "TWO HEADS!!!! SHE'S GOT TWO HEADS!!!" by alerting me that, yes, she has two heads because she's carrying her baby.

Of course. Like I didn't know that.

25 comments:

timekeeper said...

I pray for my children. And the Taylor children.

Mike Bailey said...

I simply don't get your self-deprecation. You're a good mom. The Taylors, however, yeah, I get that.

Andy D. said...

This is the best post I have ever read!!

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Andy D. said...

But it does unfortunately confirm what I was saying. Let's see if y'all been reading the blog:

"This posting confirms that MB is a blank-iopath."

a. Soc
b. Nut job
c. I don't know, but I do agree he's got anti-social tendencies.
d. How can I answer your questions and agree to a high level of sociopathic behaviors in Mike, Andy, when I too secretly enjoyed the photos?
e. I can't agree to sociopath or nut jobiopath because I'm uncertain the clinical basis for such diagnoses, Andy, so can I just say either he's a sick sick man, or else he's a %!#$ing nut job, and just leave it in those lay terms?

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Technoprairie said...

Ah, much better.

But still. Now when I see that doll I'll be thinking of her creepy pictures. Don't tell me that you don't keep an eye on her when you enter her room. Just like Telly Salvalas did to Talking Tina in the Twilight Zone episode.

Which by the way is one of the scariest Twilight Zones ever made.

Claudia said...

Any blog post that uses the word "Lindholmish" gets my vote.

timekeeper said...

Thanks, technoprairie, for giving us something else to get creeped out over. Like we needed help.

Steven Taylor said...

"Steven Taylor and his gang were over at our house and for some reason we ended up in the living room with the lights off."

I'm not sure that projects the appropriate mental image...

And is that anything like Scooby Doo and the gang?

Steven Taylor said...

Prayers are always welcome.

I would note that my eldest already has a camera and the middle one wants one for his birthday.

No mention of voodoo dolls, thankfully.

Steven Taylor said...

I would note, by the way, that some of these shots came after the faithful night and question, meaning someone who will remain nameless, went back to take even MORE shots of the voodoo goddess.

Steven Taylor said...

BTW, I have only posted one shot of the doll online: here. It is insufficiently creepy by comparison.

I may have to go back and look through my files.

Steven Taylor said...

Never mind on the revisiting the doll, I see you admit to the most recent photo in the post.

Mike Bailey said...

Steven--do I detect an alarmingly high degree of defensiveness in these comments of yours?

Answer: yes.

Here's why. You're guilty. Guilty guilty guilty. I'm not sure what you're guilty of, but I know it's very very very bad.

Steven Taylor said...

No doubt it has to do with idolatry.

Or perhaps it was Wiccans.

It is so hard to keep track.

Elisheba said...

How come Andy D gets his own poll on this blog? Why not one of your nice readers, who compliments you except when they say inappropriate things about sex or disturbing things about testicles?

You are rewarding Andy D for bad behavior while your well-behaved readers languish in obscurity. I repeat, languish! There are heavy sighs and gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts, and possibly also sackcloth and ashes.

Andy D. said...

If it's wrong, he don't wanna be right!!!

Mike Bailey said...

s-s: frankly you rather surprise me, being someone as sensitive to human nature as you typically are, to make such a comment.

bad behavior is always rewarded in this life.

my goodness, you know this from literature, from movies, from observation, no?

and good behavior always leads to languishing in relative obscurity. not achievement per se, but simple goodness. Achievement is morally neutral, frankly, because it simply means meeting some goal, and that goal can be good or bad. That’s why we say—and it’s why we must believe—that virtue is its own reward, because if we did not say it—and did not believe it—then we’d be stuck with the sad sad world in which virtue gets no reward at all.

Not to say that virtue’s my game. I’m just glad that it’s other people’s game.

And as for you, S-S, if I complimented you publicly for your many many talents in any sort of detailed way, well, you’d immediately be disgusted by what you’d surely, if wrongly, take to be insincere flattery. Though if you knew how I spoke about you to others, you might feel like the world was more just than you assumed.

Anonymous said...

This is the best blog in the world. It is the Walmart of blogs. I come here and in one stop I can:

Find ample justification for my bad behaviors, see Amerindians being kept in their place--under glass, plus subtle, suburban homoeroticism,

AND

eyeballs.

This is the best blog in the world.

Mike Bailey said...

I want it on the record that, despite the fact it echoes my every thought about this blog, I did NOT in fact author the comment from "anonymous" above. Though I'm thinking I should have done so long ago.

Mike Bailey said...

Except for...subtle? Really? You think so?

That's fine. I'm glad in fact. Just surprised.

Elisheba said...

I am amazingly gratified that when I start whining, you both reward and punish my bad behavior at the same time by telling me that if you complimented me as I deserved I wouldn't appreciate it. That's talent right there.

In all seriousness, you have given me shout outs for my amazingness and link love before on this blog, and I adore you for it.

Anonymous-I completely agree, but you forgot to add the slew of people who come to hang out here, bask in the glory that is this blog, and bicker with each other for no apparent reason. Surely we make up part of the wonderfulness that is this blog, no?

Mike Bailey said...

S-S: You're quite welcome for my insult. Wait...is that right? I'm so confused now.

Not only do you, the audience, make up much of this blog's glory, you make up virtually all of its brains. I am indeed like Walmart. I provide stuff. Y'all take it and make something lovely and weird from it.

Oh, this mutual admiration society is just so....gratifying, isn't it?

Andy D. said...

S-S -- I'm out of town and offline for one dang day, and you stab me in the back by finally highlighting to MB that he constantly rewards my bad behavior?? What the heck did I do???


MB -- Thanks for having my back though, man.

However I still must say: You ain't like WalMart...

...You like www.peopleofwalmart.com

Check it.

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Elisheba said...

A.D--You got a poll. All about you. And I didn't.

If it makes you feel better, had I known you were out of town and offline, I would have waited so that I could stab you in the back to your face...

Andy D. said...

See, that's the S-S I've come to know and love! Compassionate and yet openly viscious.

: )