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So I got my semi-annual AG catalog today. It's my first catalog since the new BeForever branding of the historicals dropped. I was afraid I was gonna hate it more than I do - pretty much like all of the additions to various collections with the exception of a good chunk of the rebooted Sam stuff. (Yep, she's back out of the closet. Hurr hurr.) Her new Meet dress is okay, her new Christmas dress is actually really cute, and I kinda dig her new Cruella DeVil winter getup. However I hate her new bedtime set, her ice cream parlor outfit inexplicably contains some pink fetish boots that ... what lol no, and aside from a couple of things, her new collection is pretty relentlessly rose-pink. Erf. I mean her old stuff had a fair amount of pink too but this looks like Pepto Bismol went back in time and vomited on Edwardian fashion.
That's not really what's bugging me about the rebrand though. This is:
Why are Kaya's teeth showing?
To be fair, they were showing in the last incarnation of her Meet book too, but not nearly so much. This picture they're just all OUT THERE WHAT'S UP WE'RE TEETH LOOK AT US LIKE GODDAMN MR MEESEEKS. *
When Kaya came out it was a sort of a Big Deal, and I remember the to-do about her not only because she was the first Native historica, but because she was the first, and still is the only AG doll with a closed-mouth face mold. (I honestly like this about her, the two little rabbit teeth poking out of the rest of the dolls faces have always bothered me on some fundamental level. Aeris in the icon is a repurposed Kaya for that reason.) The reason, we were told then, is because the Nez Perce, or Nimíipuu, have a taboo against showing bared teeth. This was a THING, y'all.
Interestingly enough I've tried to google this little factoid and have not managed to find any reference to the bared teeth taboo except on site about AG or specifiaclly Kaya herself. Which is interesting.... but whatever. Cultural footnote or big deal GODDAMN IT AG KEEP YOUR NARRATIVE STRAIGHT ARG.
In news beside the politics of doll teeth, I've been following two construction projects back home reasonably closely for a while. One is the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, which, like probably most native new yorkers** I am kinda watching with the the sense that it's not actually happening and will not become really real until I physically alight from a Q train at 86th and 2nd. The other is the restoration and eventual reopening of the Kings Theatre. That one is kinda dear to my heart - the hulking shell of an abandoned theater lurked on Flatbush Ave near The House, its facade, clearly once quite beautiful, crumbling under weather and neglect.
As a very small child being dragged along one of my mother's shopping trips, I'd pass by the boarded up doors, under a long-dead marquee, and I'd wonder long and hard what was behind them. I think if someone had shown my five year old self what did indeed lay behind those doors, her wee mind would have blown, for little did I know that the haphazard wood and broken glass hid the remains of a glorious movie palace from the 1920s.
Clearly a ruin, yet still ridiculously gorgeous. I kinda want to write a story set in here.
This theater has been closed for longer than I've been alive but the past couple of years someone finally got together the capital and the desire to restore the place, and my god. If the wreck was gorgeous, the restored movie palace is kind of beyond description.
The King's Theatre opens next year. Lets just say my inner five year old is very excited to finally walk in, not past.
* I would like to take this moment to curse my husband for making me sit through the entire first season of Rick and Morty.
** As opposed to these white hipster johnny come latelies that are swarming in and giving places cute nicknames like "Billyburg" and "Dumbo."
That's not really what's bugging me about the rebrand though. This is:
Why are Kaya's teeth showing?
To be fair, they were showing in the last incarnation of her Meet book too, but not nearly so much. This picture they're just all OUT THERE WHAT'S UP WE'RE TEETH LOOK AT US LIKE GODDAMN MR MEESEEKS. *
When Kaya came out it was a sort of a Big Deal, and I remember the to-do about her not only because she was the first Native historica, but because she was the first, and still is the only AG doll with a closed-mouth face mold. (I honestly like this about her, the two little rabbit teeth poking out of the rest of the dolls faces have always bothered me on some fundamental level. Aeris in the icon is a repurposed Kaya for that reason.) The reason, we were told then, is because the Nez Perce, or Nimíipuu, have a taboo against showing bared teeth. This was a THING, y'all.
Interestingly enough I've tried to google this little factoid and have not managed to find any reference to the bared teeth taboo except on site about AG or specifiaclly Kaya herself. Which is interesting.... but whatever. Cultural footnote or big deal GODDAMN IT AG KEEP YOUR NARRATIVE STRAIGHT ARG.
In news beside the politics of doll teeth, I've been following two construction projects back home reasonably closely for a while. One is the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, which, like probably most native new yorkers** I am kinda watching with the the sense that it's not actually happening and will not become really real until I physically alight from a Q train at 86th and 2nd. The other is the restoration and eventual reopening of the Kings Theatre. That one is kinda dear to my heart - the hulking shell of an abandoned theater lurked on Flatbush Ave near The House, its facade, clearly once quite beautiful, crumbling under weather and neglect.
As a very small child being dragged along one of my mother's shopping trips, I'd pass by the boarded up doors, under a long-dead marquee, and I'd wonder long and hard what was behind them. I think if someone had shown my five year old self what did indeed lay behind those doors, her wee mind would have blown, for little did I know that the haphazard wood and broken glass hid the remains of a glorious movie palace from the 1920s.
Clearly a ruin, yet still ridiculously gorgeous. I kinda want to write a story set in here.
This theater has been closed for longer than I've been alive but the past couple of years someone finally got together the capital and the desire to restore the place, and my god. If the wreck was gorgeous, the restored movie palace is kind of beyond description.
The King's Theatre opens next year. Lets just say my inner five year old is very excited to finally walk in, not past.
* I would like to take this moment to curse my husband for making me sit through the entire first season of Rick and Morty.
** As opposed to these white hipster johnny come latelies that are swarming in and giving places cute nicknames like "Billyburg" and "Dumbo."
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Date: 2014-10-16 10:14 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 12:14 am (UTC)From:If you want more abandoned space porn/movie palace corpses, I recommend losing an hour or so browsing http://afterthefinalcurtain.net/
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Date: 2014-10-16 06:02 pm (UTC)From: