Last minute Halloween costume: Cryogenically frozen Walt Disney. Tragically this picture was taken before the addition of the Disney/Hitler moustache. I'll be wearing the costume on Monday to school, calender my (grotesque, misshapen) foot.

Good day my friends, I trust that you are well. Please forgive me for my long absence... school, monotonous though it is, has seduced the clock on my bedroom wall, and insists on taking up all of the time. I try to reason with it, of course, but love creates irrationality (even in clocks) and all my attempts have been met with indifferent ticking.

    Speaking of mechanical love, if you have not seen the 1950's version of The Tales of Hoffman, I urge you to hurry to the video store or library as quickly as your feet can carry you ( a pair of seven-league boots would be useful for this, though I am told they are expensive) and snatch it up before all copies of the film turn into pumpkins at midnight... for it is magical law that anything so strange is never permanent, and most likely has the irritating habit of turning into root vegetables at inopportune moments.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Tales of Hoffman, it is an opera, most of which was written by Jaques Offenbach. The 1950's version focuses as much on ballet as singing, and has candy-like sets and costumes, along with some delightfully eerie human "marionettes" dangling from a chandelier. It also includes interestingly done sequences of a man falling in love with a mechanical doll (Moira Schearer), a demon who bribes people with jewels made from candle wax, and delicious looking bicorn hats I want to pluck from the screen and pop into my mouth. I do not wish to give too much away, so that is all I will say about it. With that, I must leave you, as the tea kettle is all hot and bothered right now, and smoke is practically streaming from its ears.