Poppy Z. Brite: Lost Souls

I haven’t read anything so cruel yet captivating in a long while. The book is one jaw-dropping maelstrom of blood, sex, addictive substances, violence, loneliness, madness and music.

It is not probably for the faint of heart but I can assure you there is nothing like it out there. Honestly, the author presents all those tabooish subjects with such ease that at the end you don’t mind the crazy vampire father sleeping with his own son. No, it’s somehow right in this world.

The vampires are a separate race; they procreate - creating a new generation which will claw its way out of their mother’s wombs; the oldest ones have retracting teeth and have strictly liquid diet and allergy to the sun, the younger having more benefits minus the cool fangs – they just file their teeth to look more like their forefathers; they can suck blood or just your essence etc. but the book is focused on a group of five blood drinkers – one lunatic Zillah with his two vagabond mates Twig and Molochai, one lonely weary Christian and Zillah’s newly found son Nothing.

We are taken on one hell of a trip to New Orleans and back home with two mortal musicians from the band called Lost Souls? - just because their music attracted a soon-to-be vampire who somehow attracted his long lost family and then all the hell broke loose.

The characters keep losing things – illusions, childhood, sanity, last link to humanity, lovers, lives – just name it. I could go on about how fascinating the novel is but I want you to go to your nearest bookshop and get a copy for yourself. Read it! I mean it – I have no idea how I spent twenty-five years of my life not knowing about this novel.

I think that to the bunch of classic vampires whom none of us will ever forget (Dracula, Carmilla, Lestat and Louis) one name will carve itself into the soft tissue of our mushy brains right next to them – Zillah the beautiful green-eyed monster.

No idea what I’m talking about? Never heard of him and don’t know why he should be in the vampire hall of fame? Just read it and you’ll understand! 

GENRE: crazy road trip whirlwind in your head

FANGS OUT: original
FANGS RETRACTING: ha, some characters wish they could slide ‘em in and out at will and not be bothered with razors
TOTAL SCORE:

Melted rainbow necklace holder

I've decided to make a hanger for my ever-growing collection of necklaces (damn you, cheap Ebay things from Asia!). At first I wanted to buy just a regular key holder or something like that (one long piece of wood with hooks in it) but then I decided to go the more difficult and artsy way.

And honestly, it would be a nice picture, too. Just use your imagination.

So, here's how I've done that:

 First, I obtained a base - you can use any type of wood, plastic etc. in any shape. It's up to you, really. What I have here is called OSB.

Then I bought a wooden frame - this particular one is used for framing floors, but who cares? It was the cheapest option and I didn't mind the thickness of it - my holder was gonna be huge so a thin picture frame wouldn't do anyway.

The next thing to do was to cut the frame. Beware of the pattern on the frame and cut it in a way it will fit once put together ;-)

Impatient people, people with dull saws or with no upper body strength will have to file the edges.

Try if your measuring was correct.

Now, next part is to glue the frame to its base. Since the glue takes a day to harden, you will need these to hold the frame to the base - no idea what these suckers are called.

Yeah, like that... There may be a chance of slight imperfections (or gigantic holes) where the two pieces of frame meet. In that case you have two options. Either let it be (like I did) or just fill the holes with some putty/paste or whatever they give you in the shop where they know what they are doing.

Now it's good time for dealing with your stress. Just hammer the nails in like there is no tomorrow ;-)

Matte black spray layer one drying...

Crayon test - how many will fit in?

Melting test (that should be done BEFORE you buy a gazillion packages of crayons) - a quick tip here - you need WAX based crayons.

Undress them - I know you want to!

Now here is a tricky part. Use a glue gun to pin the crayons to the base BUT put the glue only in the upper part of the crayon plus be precise - the glue melts the crayons so you don't want them to move aound much. (I had to break one white crayon because I decided to drill a hole through the base for easier hanging so naturally I didn't want the hook to be stopped by that crayon later when hanging it)

And now the melting begins. Be patient. I takes forever with a hair dryer. Also, you need to have the picure in some angle - letting the gravity to do its thing.

My idea of "I'm satisfied with how it turned out to be"

And now all you need to do is use it. And find out where you have gaps so that you can add more nails...