“Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.” was about the extent of my thoughts when I first heard there was going to be an exhibit of items from Guillermo del Toro’s home, Bleak House, at LACMA. Even though I had just come back from a trip to southern California when the news broke, I knew I’d have to get back down there before the exhibit left. I had to. Truth time: I actually pinned a photo of the interior of del Toro’s home to my “dream house” board on Pinterest before I even knew to whom it belonged. How many times in life are you going to get an opportunity to walk through your dream house? Especially if you’re like me and your tastes are a little, uh, unconventional? So now you see why I found it imperative to get my butt to Los Angeles.

“Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.” was about the extent of my thoughts as I was walking through the exhibit. While there are quite a few things from Guillermo del Toro’s movies on exhibit (after all, it’s really easy to collect one’s own work), this is not a retrospective exhibit in that it mainly focuses on del Toro’s inspirations, making the overall effect one of being able to geek out with one of my favorite directors about his favorite things. And, as it turns out, a lot of my favorite things as well.

Guillermo del Toro loves labyrinthine Victorian mansions and Victoriana? Me too!

Guillermo del Toro loves monster makeup and the artists who bring it to life? Me too!

Guillermo del Toro loves the spooky-ass artwork of Stephen Gammell? Me too! In fact, his creepy illustrations for the Scary Stories line of books may well be at the root of my love for all things dark and spooky.

Guillermo del Toro loves fairy tales and folklore? Me too!

Guillermo del Toro loves weird taxidermy? Me too!

Guillermo del Toro loves rainstorms to the point of engineering a room in which it appears to be raining 24 hours a day? We definitely diverge there, I would do nothing in that rain room but sleep.

And this exhibit? I loved it, too. The show itself is labyrinthine, like the old Victorian home styling del Toro admires.

I was so stoked to be able to get up close and personal with the costumes from Crimson Peak. Most exhibits put costume work behind glass, the reflections of which make it very difficult to see detail, especially if it’s dimly lit. Here I was able to get up on it, get my face close in and see the stitching and the buttons and everything else that’s moving too fast on screen to truly appreciate.  I was especially enthralled with the “mother ghost” costume, with all of the moths and botanicals worked into the the tulle. My blog photos do it absolutely no justice, it was a stunning piece of work.

A tableau to Charles Dickens, del Toro’s “Bleak House” is in reference to Dickens. 

  I want shelves like these for my house. SO BADLY.

T-B, Portrait of Cousin Eerie, Portrait of Uncle Creepy, Richard Corben

cw from left: Amelia, Queen of the Sea Monkeys, circa 1879, The Coachman and His Brother, The Strangler, Travis Louie

Kaiju parasite from Pacific Rim 

One of del Toro’s sketchbooks , used when planning Pan’s Labyrinth

Cronos device from Cronos

Hey, Night on Bald Mountain was my favorite part of Fantasia, too!

The Great Ancestors, Mœbius (Jean Giraud)

Landscapes, Eyvind Earle

The exhibit also had a number of pieces by Eyvind Earle, most noted for his work as a Disney background artist in the 50s. He did all the styling, background art, and color for Sleeping Beauty, which is actually one of my favorite Disney movies on styling alone. His artwork is gorgeous, but more than anything, I couldn’t believe how much the black velvet matting complemented the work, making it stand out in truly extraordinary fashion. I’ve generally been opposed to matting any artwork I buy, for a bunch of reasons–it’ll require a bigger frame which is more expensive, takes more space on the wall, mat board is stupid expensive for what it is, generally I don’t think it puts much on the table given its downsides, but primarily, I just plain hate cutting mat board. My high school art projects always had the shabbiest mat job, cutting straight crisp lines is evidently beyond me. But this black velvet is making me reconsider my mat stance, it’s that striking.

Clinkity-Clink, Stephen Gammell

Dick Smith, father of modern makeup effects. Bust by Kazuhiro Tsuji

Ray Harryhausen, sculpture by Mike Hill

God, I love this cookie-stealing skeleton.   

Dystopia! “Feed my beast with your blood”, Christopher Ulrich

l-r: The Tourist VIII, H R Giger, Duke Agares Seated atop a Shuffler, Wayne Barlowe

On the wall l-r: Pip and Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy by Gail Potocki

The Evil Eye, Chet Zar

Divine Messenger, Craig LaRotonda

The “rain room”. Droplets of silicone are adhered to the outside of the windows to give them a rain streaked appearance, and a projector and sound system handle the rest of the rain effect.

Another of del Toro’s sketchbooks

One of the most impactful statements in the exhibit for me was a quote from del Toro: “As a kid,” the filmmaker recalls, “I dreamed of having a house with secret passages and a room where it rained twenty-four hours a day. The point of being over forty is to fulfill the desires you’ve been harboring since you were seven.”

If that’s what the post-forty life looks like, sign me up. I can’t wait until I get my unicorn.

The del Toro exhibit is at LACMA through November 27th, after which it will move to the following cities (dates TBA): Minneapolis, Toronto, Mexico City, Barcelona, Paris, New York City

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The first and only time I’ve ever been to Disneyland* was when I was six years old, and my strongest memory of that visit was demanding a mickey ears hat with my name embroidered on it even though I had already spent my souvenir money on a pretty pink princess hat, because I was a little shit**. I got that mickey hat, though both hats have since been lost. Jason’s strongest memory of Disney is of throwing an unholy fit until he acquired a set of stuffed Chip & Dale, rescue rangers, and he got them, though Chip and Dale have both since wandered off into the great beyond, possibly in need of a rescue of their own. So while obviously I’ve seen a lot of the mouse in popular culture since then, the only thing that I personally knew to be a fact about Disneyland was that it had the power to make tiny humans want things with a need so visceral that it might tear them apart. I decided that I wanted to go at least once as an adult to really get the breadth of the experience–ride the rides I wanted to ride, eat the food I wanted to eat, buy the stuff I wanted to buy. In other words, the sort of happy time my parents could have had if they hadn’t had me.

In the morning, at breakfast, some of Cinderella’s helpers decided to try and help themselves to my oatmeal, but I was not having it. Where were they when I was having a wardrobe malfunction the previous evening? Nowhere to be found, the jerks.

On the walk to the park, I saw an interesting warning sign: “The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.”  This sign justifies all the disregard I’ve given these sorts of warnings, because if motherflipping Disneyland, the pinnacle of family friendly entertainment, wasn’t able to meet these safety guidelines, either these warnings are about elements so trace as to be negligible, or absolutely everything gives you cancer and harms reproductive health. It officially doesn’t matter anymore, have some more of that cancer kale with sperm damage dressing, because none of us are getting out of this alive, anyway. Or, if you’re like me and at Disneyland, you’ll have a cancer churro and an egg damage dole whip.

When I visited, Disneyland was all decked out for Halloween, and it was pretty flipping adorable, with pumpkins everywhere and the few characters we saw roaming around decked out in festive costumes. Some of the rides had even been altered for Halloween–Space Mountain became Ghost Galaxy (which mostly involves ghosts screaming at you in spaaaaaaaaace) and the Haunted Mansion was redecorated in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme which I was obviously all about. But more on that later: my first stop in the park was Tomorrowland, aka Star Wars World***.

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is a motion simulator ride–one of those rides where you’re strapped into a moving chair in a room with a movie screen. This one was in 3D, so you get to wear some really fetching glasses to show off just how cool you really are. (Spoiler: not that cool.) I did like that during the ride, they showed us a photo of a “rebel agent” who was actually in our group, which is something I feel like I haven’t seen before and was a nice touch.

We exited into the Star Wars gift shop and my immediate lust for a BB-8 style mouse ears hat was just as immediately quenched when I saw what it looked like on my big, round head. Far from cute. I have seen many, many trendy bloggers on instagram out and about in their spangled mouse ears, and occasionally I have envied their cuteness. Now I know for certain I can never be part of their elite blogger cabal. Somehow, they pull mouse ears off. Those hats turn my fivehead into a twelvehead. Don’t believe me? YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

That’s allllllllll forehead under there. Forehead for days. And where my forehead ends, my skull gives birth to Jack Skellington. Don’t ask how, learn your lady anatomy, people.

I do have to wonder if perhaps I’m just not the sort of person who can pull off Disney regalia in general. We tried on a lot of hats that day, friends, and none of them looked anything other than especially stupid. Or maybe I don’t have the Disney Attitude™.  Although, I did see a bunch of ladyblogger types walking around in sequin mouse ears, crop tops, and eight pounds of makeup, and when they weren’t posing for “omg look at how much fun we’re having (#blessed)” selfies, they looked pissed. So they probably don’t have the Disney Attitude™, either.

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride has definitely changed since I was a kid to incorporate things from the movies, and it’s still quite fun. However, the name should be changed to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Soggy Bottom because the seat was sopping wet which made my seat sopping wet for the better part of the afternoon, the better to make it look like I had a fear-based accident in the Happiest Place on Earth.

At some point, lunch happened:

And after lunch, we finally hit the Haunted Mansion. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we got close to the entrance, the ride broke down. Most of the people around us in line left, but I decided to wait. Thankfully, the extra wait wasn’t long, though I was prepared to wait as long as it took–days, if necessary. Nothing was keeping my spooky ass out of that mansion.

And it was just as good as I hoped it would be.

We hit a few more rides, had a dole whip, did some more shopping, and at that point, I’d pretty much had enough. There weren’t any other rides I was interested enough to wait for, the park had gotten insanely crowded (it went from reasonable levels to shoulder-to-shoulder everywhere which makes me feel panicky), I didn’t particularly want to meet any characters or collect autographs, so we decided to call it for the day. I think it’s funny that while Jason and I both remember throwing mighty tantrums at Disney as children, the only bad behavior I witnessed there was from other adults.

The verdict? Disney is fun–the things that they do well, they do really well. There’s attention to detail everywhere, the grounds are much better taken care of than any other theme park I’ve visited, and their animatronics are outstanding. I just don’t know that I’d ever want to go again. I definitely don’t understand the people who go every year, the people with the real Disney Attitude™. I am, however, interested in decking out my home in full Haunted Mansion fashion.

Oh, and I finally got one of those caramel apples. Dreams DO come true at Disney, so long as those dreams are specifically Disney-related.

*I did go to Disney World when I was twelve, and I do remember that visit much better–for example, I remember the employee in Epcot’s France calling me fat, which I was, but goddamn, dude. That was savage.

**I mean, I still am a shit, I’m just a much bigger one now. This tantrum-y behavior is now known in my home as “moon door-ing” as in “there sure are a whole lot of moon doors at the mall today”. Not that someone is likely to overhear your conversation, anyway, when their kid is screeching at jet engine decibel levels, but I’m just trying to comment on the situation with my husband, not make someone feel bad on the scale of Epcot Frenchman.

***Not actually also known as Star Wars World, but it should be.

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