Merry Kitsch-mas!

Bindlegrim is happy to announce that Grim Happy Christmas is now in its 2nd edition for 2013 with improvements on both price and format. This newer version is a larger 8.5" square which just seems more kid-friendly, and the print is larger for those of us with tired eyes. As well, the cover and content are now on soft-to-the-touch matte pages without any major loss to the photographic quality. I only regret it has taken me since 2011 to get this done!
 

You can find the book in two places online* this December with the following special prices:

1) On Amazon (currently priced around $7.95 and qualifies for their free shipping deals).

2) On CreateSpace (using December's coupon code 4DX92CZD get it for $5 + shipping). 

* Note that the book is still on blurb.com but there the 7" glossy (first edition) costs around $20 to produce and for some reason they only offer limited and expensive shipping options via UPS)... 

Are you new to Grim Happy Christmas? Well, once upon a time, a little Christmas gnome leaps from the darkness of his storage box to seek out the happy dreams of the holiday, but instead finds dirty dishes and big scary bills! What has happened to Christmas? The story that follows is told in simple words and photography, and is appropriate for the entire family (minus perhaps a scary scene with the grim reaper), and offers a quick lesson that maybe the importance of the holiday isn't found rushing off to find glittery gewgaws to bedazzle the senses, when love is right there at home, wherever that may be for you!

Christmas Gnomes (Tomte, Nisse, or Hobs) are (per Wikipedia) mythological creatures from Scandinavian folklore typically associated with the winter solstice and the Christmas season. The gnome is known as a gift bearer and considered the Swedish version of Father Christmas. As mid-century decorations - the gnomes were Christmas kitsch ornaments Made In Japan during the 1950s of hand painted hard plastic faces topped by flocked paper hats. Arms, legs, and hair were chenille, and the bodies and feet were made from spun cotton.

The characters of this book are actually cherished vintage hand-me-down ornaments from the author's home, that became the centerpiece of this book's lesson during a particularly skint and cancelled holiday. The photos seen in this book were at first to become a simple Christmas card yet during the photo session seemed to be telling a story, and this developed into a little hand-made book of scribbled words and pasted pictures. It was the only material gift offered during that harsh year - but with content that became meaningful beyond price. 

Bindlegrim, Red Hob, & Green Hob send you their best this season! Merry Kitsch-mas!

You can see more pictures of the book on flickr:

Grim Happy Outtakes (ILMO El Sr. Muerto)

Here are some early shots and outtakes from the photographic story of Christmas Gnomes from the original 2001 version of The Grim Happy Christmas  --- with a special tribute to the late great El Sr. Muerto:

In 2001 the part of the villain in The Grim Happy Christmas was played by a chain smoking Day of the Dead character (who was known to always play his roles with a sombrero and a cactus backdrop).

This scene (above) taken on a wet rainy day in Seattle and from the original book was redone for the 2011 version with a different actor. The original actor, I believe is listed on IMDB as the late El Sr. Muerto.

Above is an early unused behind-the-scene photograph of Red Hob and El Sr. Muerto preparing for their photo shoot in 2001. Red Hob is getting into character here as the loveable hero, while El Sr. Muerto sticks up his chin looking for the right balance of macabre and machismo.

In this outtake, Red Hob, who is supposed to be scared witless, can't help but laugh as El Sr. Muerto gives him Marty Feldman eyes. Sadly the two were unable to reunite for the newer version, since El Sr. Muerto had fallen apart some years previous in a fit of loco.

And, finally, above is a dramatic take from the early photos used in the 2001 version of this tale as only the great El Sr. Muerto could achieve. While below, in 2011, The Grim Happy Christmas (new version) cast, was honored, to have a new yet seasoned actor playing the role of the sinister villain, and we offer this small blurry outtake from the new photography as a small preview.

The Grim Happy Christmas

Following the last post (Peeking into the Christmas Box), I wanted to follow up with news that The Grim Happy Christmas photo book will be available soon within the next few days from the Bindlegrim library located on blurb.com, and here are a few sneak peeks of the cover and first few interior layouts of the book:

What happens next? I hope you will enjoy finding out.

The story is a simpler tale with simpler text (than that of poetry in The Pumpkin Dream) and is intended for a larger audience and families; the story follows a gnome who wakes up at Christmas wondering where the holiday he had dreamt of all year can be found, because something in this house seems terribly wrong!

From the inside cover:

Red Hob & Green Hob (front flap)

The characters of Grim Happy Christmas, Red Hob and Green Hob, were cherished vintage ornaments handed down from family and became the centerpiece of this book during a particularly skint holiday.

Christmas Gnomes (Tomten, Nisse, or Hobs) were Christmas kitsch ornaments Made In Japan during the 1950s of hand painted hard plastic faces topped by flocked paper hats. Arms, legs, and hair were chenille, and the bodies and feet were made from spun cotton.

Bindlegrim and Wiley (back)

Mr. Bumble Bindlegrim was a collector of holiday literature, and is said to have lived his later years among wild rabbits and mossy apple trees of an orchard on the San Juan Islands of northwest Washington.

Robert Aaron Wiley ( author of The Pumpkin Dream) is also an avid fan of holidays. He is known to explore the arts via writing, illustration, photography, design, digital media, music... as well as the history of vintage ephemera and kitsch.

Snow Glow for Halloween Scarecrows

Bindlegrim is very happy to say that here at Ichabod's Cottage the snow from the 26th has been slowly melting away and that the plans to spookify the garden scarecrow moved forward today...(much to his relief I think because that big cors-shock bow-tie was rather emasculating before that burning flame-lit head was set atop of it).

Well, it seemed worthwhile shooting a few dramatic photos of the event, (to make up for all those wintery-appearing photos in the previous blog), to get back to the classic look of autumn.

Brrr, okay, some of these shots still show snow in them... but it's supposed to head back into the sixties the next couple of days, and while part of me is relieved at the disappearance of snow - I'm a little bit intrigued by the thought of a snowy Halloween (and have visions of pumpkin-lantern parades traveling through a snowy forest).

Well, again, it has been fun watching the change in seasons here in Colorado (after being in Seattle for the last ten), and I have posted the above photos with more from this past snow-filled week together with photos of the various seasons here at Ichabod's Cottage gallery on flickr.

A Brief History of the Pumpkin Dream (Part 2) - Ghosts from the Past

A continuation from A Brief History of the Pumpkin Dream (Part 1)

By the time Halloween 2006 had rolled around, the poem had taken it's general length and narrative, and there were even a few rough illustrations created for it... this was all to correspond with a handmade version of the book, maybe about 10 total (?), that  I produced for a few close friends and for people at work, (this was when I was working as a Design Showroom Librarian - a very nurturing environment for creatives - thank you Jane!)

The packaging consisted of reclaimed cardboard envelopes (created many years ago by David and I'm still trying to use these all up...), that I attached with some printed imagery - (the lantern photographed on front was also by David; we had created papier mache pumpkins for a Halloween party a couple or so years previous).

The book itself was laborious. I printed out all the pages, cut them to size and folded, cut the plastic and incised it for what is called a living fold, and then riveted it all together). I realized, as seems to be the case with many projects for me, that this was great for a one-off event, but trying to create something like this for sell would hit my "boredom" button very quickly. I loved coming up with the design but the manufacturing part is not for me... and at the time I registered the whole item as a fun distraction.

Before heading off to Part 3, I wanted to look again into the small bit of illustrations, about 4 for this iteration (one shown above). They were mostly old photographs merged into various collages (similar to work shown here: Flickr - Haunted Visions) but desaturated, etc, for a gritty low-rez print job. Not such great work, since my focus was the poem itself, but I thought, just for yucks, I would relocate and post, although I am still a bit partial to the last image:

 Ghosts peeking through an old window. The original photo was taken through an old factory home near The Dallas Mill in Huntsville, Alabama. 

 A plastic pumpkin of fairly modern manufacturer zooms past 3 monsters. The monsters were a lifesize cardboard decoration David had created for a Halloween party.

This house was my grandfather's house in Lexington, Alabama. I got David to pose in a sheet (for the set seen in the Flickr link mentioned above), and rather shoddily superimposed a pumpkin head on it)...

And this ghoulish pumpkin head concludes Part 2. On to Part 3... or "Where did all the time go?"