Tattoo artist extraordinaire Chris Conn retired from the industry in 2006 to devote his time to other media. A combination of some financial bad luck and the desire to retire a little more formally has prompted him to offer 10 gift certificates for one of his amazing tattoos.

How Is This Going to Work?

on june first, i will begin to release the 10 gift certificates on ebay. i will release one certificate per day, and each one will be on the auction block for 24 hours. after the bidding is over on one certificate, the next one will be released, until all 10 certificates are sold. each gift certificate is good for one person, on one specific date. if you win a certificate, that date is yours, and you have the entire work day (8 hours) with me. this includes consulting, drawing and tattooing. during this day, you will get my undivided attention, which means i won’t be consulting with other customers, taking phonecalls, etc. i will spend the entire day (minus an hour for lunch) focusing on the work at hand, slowly and patiently, and with a minimum of distraction.

His site says that he resides in San Francisco, so you’ll probably want to take the location into consideration if you plan to bid.

More information at his Tumblr site, and samples of his work at his dot-com.

(via Cabinet of Curiosities)

Need plans for the weekend before Halloween? Now you’ve got ’em.

Thrill The World is an annual worldwide simultaneous dance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It started in 2007 to celebrate the 25th anniversary (zounds!) of the Thriller album, but now they do it annually.

Volunteers organize events in cities worldwide. Then everybody gets together and dances like zombies. It’s even got its own Guinness World Record category. You can see the 2009 schedule here or learn about starting an event in your own city here.

Clear your calendar!

Link (Hat tip to Haunted Wolf)

DreamWorks is going to remake Fright Night.

They promise that the new version will keep the “comedy-horror tone,” and as nearly as I can tell it’s pretty much going to be the same movie but with updated special effects. I really can’t imagine anyone capably filling Chris Sarandon’s or Roddy McDowell’s shoes, and rather doubt that shiny CGI effects will make up for their absence.

I vote that we immediately institute some sort of official review panel that has to approve any potential remake of a movie before production can begin. And if they’re presented with some kind of wacky “reimagining” of a much-beloved film, they’re allowed to slap the writers.

(Bonus Update: I find this really, really depressing.)

Craftster is sponsoring a “Sun in Gemini” craft challenge over at tarot.com.

embrace both the curious and dual nature of the Geminis, and channel that energy to create a pair of something – they can be literal pairs, such as handcrafted bookends or earrings, or an abstract image or artwork that symbolizes pairs, like a photograph of night and day.

This is a neat inspiration for some sort of “duality” project. There doesn’t appear to be any restrictions on medium or method, so there are all kinds of options.

I don’t generally mention stuff I have for sale here except in passing, but I’m really rather proud of this. An elaborate vampire slayer’s kit composed of almost entirely authentic items:

Ebay Listing

We’ve been slowly collecting actual vintage items (antique prayer books in Latin are surprisingly hard to come by), and filling in the gaps with handmade replicas. This was a monster–so to speak–to put together, but I’m really pleased at how it turned out.

A tutorial for making a similar stake will be posted one of these days, as soon as I can talk Shadow Jack into doing another one and letting me take pictures this time.

Voodoo Notepad – Draw the pins in.

Emily Valentine – “Feathers are her paint.” I expect we’ll see real animals like this once commercial genetic engineering really takes off.

A couple of links for Victorian clothing and accessories: Amazon Drygoods and Ageless Patterns.

Robot Wedding Cake Toppers – All sorts of cute little wooden robots.

Costume Wings – Tutorial for making simple costume wings. (via Creepy Cupcakes)

Jim: Skullgallery – Some really unsettling skull sculptures.

Halloween Wedding Ideas – A feature from The Knot.

Cthulhu Ski Mask – A slice of knitted awesomeness.

Tiger and Issa – Photos from a Star Wars-themed wedding, including a custom-made Stormtrooper wedding dress.

Where the Wild Things Are – Action figures from the new movie. So cute!

Deadly Multipurpose Closet – Just a design concept right now, but I love it.

Crafty Tattoos – Craftster has begun a new feature, showing off its members’ craft-related tats.

Dracula Feed – The site is blogging Jonathan Harker’s journal (as it appears in the novel Dracula) in “real time,” publishing each journal entry the day it would have happened.

Awkward Family Photos – I’m…speechless.

The Vitamin String Quartet is a group of string musicians and producers/arrangers who record for Vitamin Records. Their main schtick is tribute albums in which they perform classical versions of songs by bands like Metallica and Jane’s Addiction, but they’ve also got a couple of wedding collections.

The Gothic Wedding Collection features orchestral renditions of songs like Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and Nine Inch Nails’ “Something I Can Never Have,” and the Rock and Roll Wedding Collection includes favorites like Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and David Bowie’s “Heroes.”

This would be a lovely way to introduce a subtle gothy note into a wedding. Your guests will either recognize the song and be amused or be happily oblivious and just enjoy the pretty music.

(hat tip to Herding Kittens)

We all look forward to Halloween, but waiting a whole year to celebrate is kind of a drag. Fortunately, the whole calendar is haunted if you know where to look.

Festivals that honor the ancestors or propitiate unhappy ghosts are common in many cultures. If you’re looking for off-season excuses to get a little spooky, here are a few other dates that might interest you.

(Note: Holidays marked with an asterisk are based on a lunar calendar and move around from year to year. The dates given below are the next occurrence of each holiday.)

May 22, 24, and 26 – Lemuria
This Roman holiday took place on three non-successive days and was intended to frighten away evil spirits and placate the souls of those who had not been properly buried.

May 31* – Semik/Rusalii
This is a movable holiday which falls 50 days after Easter. It’s a week-long Slavic holiday when the dead return to Earth and evil forces are particularly active.

August 15 – Obon
An important Japanese Buddhist celebration, honoring the deceased.

September 2* – Ghost Festival
The Chinese “Festival of the Hungry Ghosts” has one of the best names for any festival, ever. On the first day of the seventh month the Gates of Hell open and spirits come back to spend a month in the world of the living.

September 18-20* – Pchum Ben
A Cambodian Buddhist celebration to commemorate deceased ancestors.

October 26 – Dziady
Another Slavic celebration, to honor the ancestors. Women sing funeral dirges and feasts are held at family gravesites. There are two of these a year, in spring and autumn. The dates apparently differ by locality, but the common autumn one appears to be St. Dimitrios’ Eve and the spring one the Tuesday after Easter.

Read the rest of this entry »

I love blogs that are dementedly devoted to a particular, obscure subject. They’re the Internet equivalent of a museum dedicated entirely to shrimp forks.

Goths in Hot Weather is just such a blog, and it’s devoted to just exactly what it says it is. I particularly like that the subjects are assigned a scale of both gothiness and sweatiness.

Link (via Miss Cellania)

You know what I hate? When a designer launches a new product and gives no information about where to, I dunno, buy the product.

Designer Jonathan Krawczuk is launching a new label called DesignedMade, and his first product is these utterly wonderful tarantula tea light holders. I would love to have a dozen of these marching across the table at my next dinner party. Sadly, the DesignedMade site is nothing but rotating images of the holders.

There’s a phone number and e-mail address listed, so if you’re simply slavering for one I expect you could call and ask where they’re sold. Me, I’ll wait for the online store.

(via Badder Homes and Gardens)