The Art of Darkness

Trivia Tuesday

April 3rd, 2012 by Cobwebs

(No prizes, but if you can answer them all without googling you get bragging rights.)

  1. Robert Smith composed and recorded which studio album with Siouxsie and the Banshees?
    A) Join Hands
    B) Kaleidoscope
    C) Hyæna
    D) Peepshow
    E) Tinderbox
  2. What breed of dog is Cujo?
  3. What well-known musician released the influential goth-tinged album “Low” in 1977?
  4. This anonymous vampire story, translated from German, appeared in the English magazine Odds and Ends in 1860. It is credited with introducing the trope of a learned individual who advises the protagonists on how to defeat vampires, a convention which eventually led to the character of Van Helsing in Dracula.
    A) The Mysterious Stranger
    B) The Giaour
    C) The Tomb of Sarah
    D) The Dark Castle
    E) The Fate of Madame Cabanel
  5. What movie has Beetlejuice seen 167 times (“and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it!”)?
  6. This novel is widely considered to be the first “true” Gothic romance, and in its first edition it was represented as an actual Medieval romance, discovered and republished by a fictitious translator.
  7. The Sisters of Mercy do a cover of which Rolling Stones song on their “Some Girls Wander By Mistake” compilation?
    A) Sympathy for the Devil
    B) Fortune Teller
    C) Paint it Black
    D) Gimme Shelter
    E) Shattered
  8. This story of a Faustian deal involving a portrait is Oscar Wilde’s only published novel.
  9. This collection of short stories was inspired by a filk song of the same name. Whose ghost is haunting Space Station Three?
    A) Buddy Holly
    B) Carmen Miranda
    C) Elvis
    D) Winston Churchill
    E) Don Juan
  10. The idea for this zombie rom-com starring Simon Pegg originally came from a skit in Pegg’s comedy Spaced, in which a character plays a marathon session of Resident Evil and then hallucinates a zombie apocalypse.

(Answers below the fold)

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Posted in Trivia | 3 Comments »

Pumpkiny Pants

April 2nd, 2012 by Cobwebs

Pumpkin PantsI ran into these cute “pumpkin rump” pettipants at Gloomth several months ago, but they’re a seasonal item so are unavailable until next October. If you simply can’t wait until then, something similar–albeit not quite as fancy–can be knocked together in a couple of hours.

Loose elastic-waist pants are a snap to sew, pretty much consisting of three seams: Sew each leg and then sew the legs together. You can find suitable patterns in pajamas or sportswear, or you can skip the pattern entirely and just look for tutorials on how to make your own tap pants, bloomers, or pettipants. I used the pants from a pirate costume because I happened to have the pattern lying around. (I suppose you could also get fancy and use a historically accurate pattern, but that seems entirely too much like work.)

I used an inexpensive cotton fabric for a rather lightweight, airy result. You can use silk, satin, or whatever other fabric appeals to you (I wouldn’t use anything too heavy, such as denim, but you could probably get away with velvet or brocade if you really wanted to). I also decided to make the bloomers a bit longer than knee length and add elastic to the legs so they could be hiked up to whatever length was desired.

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Posted in Doom It Yourself, Needful Things | 4 Comments »

Here, Have an Ecard

April 1st, 2012 by Cobwebs

For some reason, this one struck me as appropriate for this blog’s audience.

Ecard

Posted in Funny Peculiar | 1 Comment »

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