Category: color

turning into a pumpkin

pumpkinshoes.jpgI mentioned briefly that I’m going to be a bridesmaid in a wedding coming up soon. Well, that “soon” has now become “this Sunday.” Which is, technically, very soon. As is the standing tradition, in U.S. weddings at least, I will be wearing a dress chosen by the bride. As it will be an October wedding in New England, the bride has chosen fall colors. My dress is in burnt orange, a very pretty color, though a somewhat unusual one in my wardrobe. And is also often the case for such occasions, I am to have shoes that match my dress. This means that I have needed to get some dyed. I picked up my shoes yesterday afternoon. And I have to admit that I was quite startled to see them. You see, they are orange. I now have shiny orange shoes. I don’t think you can ever be fully prepared to see orange shoes.

Anyhow, this weekend I will be donning the orange, and perhaps as such, feeling a bit like a pumpkin. Hopefully an elegant pumpkin, mind you, but a pumpkin nonetheless. But seeing as it’s October, pumpkins are all the orange rage right now. And in honor of their orange pumpkiness, I bring you a pumpkin-based Themed Things Thursday.
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  • pumpkin
    A vegetable. Or a fruit. Depending on your choice of taxonomy. Generally eaten cooked. Used in lots of baked goods, like pumpkin pie.
  • Pumpkin (2002)
    A movie starring Christina Ricci.
  • Pumpkin
    A song by Tricky off Maxinquaye (YouTube video)

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  • Cinderella’s carriage
    In many versions of this fairy tale, Cinderella’s fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a carriage to carry Cinderella to the ball. Cinderella must leave the ball before her ride turns back into a pumpkin. Leading to the expression turn into a pumpkin, meaning depart, go to bed or otherwise turn in for the night.

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  • The Headless Horseman
    A ghostly character from Washington Irving’s story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow“, who carries around a pumpkin head.

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  • Jack Pumpkinhead
    A character from the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Later had his own book, Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, though it wasn’t by Baum.
  • Pumpkinhead (1989)
    A horror movie involving a demon dug up from a pumpkin patch.
  • The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
    a song by XTC. (YouTube video) Later covered by Crash Test Dummies.
  • Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
    A nursery rhyme. Also a song you can play on the piano using only the black keys.¹

    Peter Peter pumpkin eater
    Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
    He put her in a pumpkin shell
    And there he kept her very well

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  • The Great Pumpkin
    A mythical holiday character that never appears in the animated Peanuts special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
  • Jack, the Pumpkin King
    A character from Tim Burton’s animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).

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  • jack-o-lanterns
    It’s a Halloween tradition to carve a face into a pumpkin. These are then typically set outside, with a candle inside. It’s also a Halloween tradition for mischievous kids to steal other people’s pumpkins, and smash them.
  • Smashing Pumpkins.
    A band. Performs songs such as “Tonight, tonight” and “Tarantula” (YouTube videos)
  • punkin
    An endearment or nickname based on the word pumpkin, which is sometimes pronounced without the word-medial [p]. Gives us [pʰʌŋkɪn] (Where the nasal has then assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant, a velar. Not that you asked.)

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    ¹ I admit that I’m recycling this particular item from my vegetable ThThTh list. But recycling is good, right? Or should I be composting, since it’s vegetables we’re talking about?

    black is the new black

    While other colors may go in and out of fashion, black clothing never goes out of style. This Themed Thing Thursday is decked out in black from top to bottom.

    This list is wearing black

  • Macy’s employees may know a thing or two about fashion, but not all of them appreciate the new company policy that store employees must dress in black.
  • “Dressed in Black,” Depeche Mode

    Shes dressed in black again
    And I’m falling down again
    Down to the floor again
    I’m begging for more again
    But oh what can you do
    When shes dressed in black

  • LBD: Little Black Dress: A black article of clothing so well-known, it has it’s own acronym. The concept of the little black dress is said to date back to the 1920s, with a design by Coco Chanel.
  • Men in Black (1997): a movie about a secret agency that deals with extra-terrestrials on Earth, and in which agents (who are sometimes actually women) wear black suits.
  • The Man in Black: A song by Johnny Cash, and also one of his nicknames due to his trademark wearing of black:

    I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
    Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
    I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
    But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

  • The Man in Black from The Princess Bride. Princess Buttercup and her kidnappers (Vizzini and Fezzik) are pursued by a mysterious man dressed all in blask, including a black mask.
  • Black is frequently the color of choice for those who wish to wear a mask to disguise themselves: eg. Black Mask with Jet Li, Zorro‘s mask, or the Lone Ranger‘s.
  • black hat. In old Westerns, the bad guys could often be identified by the black hats they wore. (Whereas the good guys tended to wear white hats.) The term black hat has been co-opted by those in computing, as a reflection of “bad guy” attitudes about compromising the security of computer systems.
  • In many cultures, especially European cultures, wearing black is associated with mourning. It is considered the color to wear for funerals. (Have you ever noticed that in movies and TV shows, funeral attendees almost exclusively wear black? But at real funerals I’ve been to, people wear a wider range of colors, though still somber ones.) Traditional widow‘s garb is black, and women in mourning were expected to wear black for an entire year after the death of a husband or relative in British (and American) upper-crust societies. (In Gone With the Wind, it was considered scandalous when recently widowed Scarlett wants to wear colorful clothing.)

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  • Depictions of witches often show the witch dressed in black, especially the signature black pointy hat made famous by the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, and vampires are also frequently depicted dressed in black, especially in a black cape. The Grim Reaper, a personification of death, wears a black cloak.
  • Goth subculture: black is the most commonly worn color by those who consider themselves goth. Black is often worn in other subcultures, such as punk.
  • Ninjas are often depicted wearing all black, likely because of it’s shadowy quality. I’m not sure the same could be said for Catholic priests and nuns, whose formal garb is also often black.
  • black belts: both the item of black cloth worn around the waist that signifies an expert rank in martial arts, or the person who sports that belt.
  • Tuxedos are traditionally made of black cloth, and are often accompanied by a black bow tie, after which the term black tie, an event where formal dress is expected, is named.

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    green party

    I’ve been trying to live greener of late. Cutting back on waste. Reducing, reusing, recycling. And I’ve also been eating a lot of vegetables recently, greens even, which make me feel like I might turn green. However, even with all this green-ness, I’ll never ever be as green as the green dudes I’ve listed below. Because this Thursday’s theme is green people.

    So here we have them. Following up on the blues and the reds, we got the greens. Green people and green people-like creatures. Sporting green fur, green skin, green what have you.

    Green People

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    1. The Wicked Witch of the West, from the Wizard of Oz, the 1939 movie.
    2. Elphaba from Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Based on the green woman of Oz. (Also in the Broadway muscial based on the book.)
    3. The Green Goddess. The title of two movies from 1923 and 1930. (I’m not actually sure how green the goddess actually was, seeing as the movies were in black and white. But potentially green.) Also a salad dressing.
    4. The Jolly Green Giant. Big. Really big. Likes his vegetables.
    5. The Green Children of Woolpit. Two children who supposedly appeared in a village in England in the 1100s. And were green.
    6. Little Green Men. Aliens. From space. Who are green. And small.
    7. Yoda. Of the Star Wars series. Green, he is.
    8. Kif from Futurama. A little, green, long-suffering and sensitive man.

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    9. Orions from the planet Orion, as featured on Star Trek. Remarkably human-sized, as green aliens go. The Orion women have crazy-powerful sex pheromones: “They are like animals, vicious, seductive. They say no human male can resist them.”
    10. Dipsy. A freakin’ Teletubby. A bit on the chartreuse side, as greens go, but green nonetheless, and allegedly “stylish”:

      Dipsy is the second-biggest Teletubby, and undoubtedly the most stylish, but being super cool doesn’t stop Dipsy loving big hugs.

    11. Green is generally a popular color for monsters. Like Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc.
    12. Wally, the Green Monster. Apparently based on the nickname of the wall at Fenway.
    13. Shrek. Green ogre from the book by William Steig. Also from the movies (2001, 2004 and 2007). Also Fiona.
    14. Various muppets. Such as Green Anything Muppets. Also Oscar (the grouch). (And Kermit, though in his case, green is not too surprising a color. Being a frog, and all.)
    15. The Grinch. The Dr. Seuss character.
    16. The Hulk. Big. Green. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. As seen in the 2003 movie, 70s TV show, comics, and more.

    wickedbookcover.jpg oscar.jpgteletubbies_dipsy.jpg

    wicked_witch.jpgwally_the_green_monster.jpgyoda.jpg

    seeing red

    It’s Thursday once more. Which means it’s time for some Themed Things. This week’s Thursday theme is red folks, to follow up on those blue folks. Red-furred, red-skinned, red-shelled, or red cardboard, this post is red all over.

    1. The Devil. The big bad red dude. Frequently portrayed pitch fork-wielding, with pointy horns, and a long pointy tail. And also very red.

      devil_pd.jpg cute_devil.png

    2. Hellboy (2004) A movie starring Ron Perlman about a big, strong guy. Red. Looks like a demon but files down his horns. Based on a comic book character.

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    3. Frylock, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The guy, or technically, the animate red-faced box of fries, with the brains and know-how.
    4. Dr. Zoidberg. The lobster-like alien doctor (from the planet Decapod 10) on Futurama. Fun to quote (note that Fry is a human male):

      Dr. Zoidberg: Now open your mouth and lets have a look at that brain.
      Dr. Zoidberg: No, no, not that mouth.
      Fry: I only have one.
      Dr. Zoidberg: Really?
      Fry: Uh… is there a human doctor around?
      Dr. Zoidberg: Young lady, I am an expert on humans. Now pick a mouth, open it and say “brglgrglgrrr”!

    5. Clifford, the Big Red Dog. A dog. Who is both big and red. A favorite book character from my childhood. Now a franchise with oodles and oodles of Clifford books and merchandise. And a TV show, apparently.

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    6. Wilt, from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. Tall, skinny, and red.
    7. Elmo. The fuzzy annoyingly squeaky-voiced Sesame Street character. (Here’s an Elmo link to click at your own risk.)

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    8. akadouji

      Literally “Red Youth.” Also often called Kasuga Akadouji 春日赤童子. A mysterious human figure said to have appeared on a rock immediately in front of the Kasuga 春日 Shrine gate. He often is shown as a youth (Jp. = douji), colored red (Jp = aka), standing on a rock, and leaning on a staff.

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    9. The Red Lion: A Persian folktale and book based on the same by Diane Wolkstein. About a prince who must learn to face his fears and fight a lion. Who is red. (The flag of Iran used to have a red lion on it, too.)

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    So them’s the red folks. Want more color than just red? Feast your eyes on the latest Carnival of Colors.