I'm always interested when people in the mainstream are first exposed to body piercing… in part because it reflects the popularity of the lifestyle, and in part because when body modification cracks into the mainstream a lot of people who wouldn't have otherwise have a “eureka! that's for me!” type moment and decide they want to do it as well.
Anyway, I was watching Beverly Hills 90210, Episode 4.03 (“Little Fish” if you want to find it on YouTube or something — 2:58 in that clip by the way, not that the quality is very good) yesterday — yeah, laugh it up — and at the start of the episode, where they're in line signing up for classes at university, there's a guy that appears to have on lobe stretched to about 3/4″, as well as a labret piercing. This episode first aired September 22nd, 1993.
That predates the opening of nearly every piercing studio currently in existence. If it's not just a trick of lighting or something (I'm
sure the labret is real, but am
50/50 on the lobe stretching), it's an incredibly early body piercing exposure in the mainstream media.
Can anyone confirm this or get me a higher quality shot for the BME encyclopedia? Or maybe even I'll get lucky and someone knows who this is so I can find out if the piercings are real, fake, or imagined? And is this the earliest TV body piercing reference in truly mainstream pop culture? It's got to be close… The earliest movie I can think of is Silence of the Lambs (1991).
(Original forum unavailable, sorry)*
Nefarious and I went to the ROM (museum) this morning. I'd heard the dinosaur exhibit (as well as the crystal) was open so I told her we could go check it out — unfortunately when I got there I overheard something that sounded a lot like “we're sorry, the dinosaur exhibit is closed” so when we got to the desk I asked the same question the previous guy had… And yes, it was still closed.
The good news was that first it got us (well, half of us — the smaller half) free admittance, and also, they told us we could go up to the “under construction” wing where they were setting up the exhibit and look at the T-Rex which was already out, and watch them uncrating and setting up the rest. But mostly the time was spent in the kids areas, the Egyptian part (all the burial stuff generates the most questions), and of course running through the bat cave.
Hopefully on Friday some friends are coming up to Toronto to visit and we'll go to the
Science Centre or the CNE (and if not, I'll do that another day because it's always fun). Anyway, after the ROM we went on a super long walk — probably put another ten km on my well healed leg — and had some vegetarian food for lunch… It's healed well enough that I managed to sprain it a few days ago while running around! I was temporarily worried, but that's all better now. As soon as school starts I'll be back at the gym.
I made a box today; my first “real” one that was intended to be kept rather than just a throw-away test piece. It was a three piece carving — a lid with a carving on the top (a polynesian pattern with a Dr. BME raised in the middle), a bottom panel with a raised skull, and a riser because the board was quite thin.
The skull and Dr. BME designs were essentially two dimensional so they didn't look the greatest, so I re-carved them by hand with a Dremel, which greatly improved them. The recessed edge on the bottom of the lid (to make it sit in place) was carved with a Dremel and then cleaned up with a file (which a wise person once told me was “the poor man's milling machine”).
I glued it together (which you can see happening in the background above), sanded it all so everything fit nicely and it was smooth, and stained it (three colors; the skull and Dr. BME are lighter than the box itself which is sesame colored), and put some rubber feet on it. The picture isn't really very accurate in terms of color but you get the idea.
It's far from perfect but I think it turned out fairly well for a first attempt. It really does look nicer in person, but here's a shot of the final piece.
I probably got a bit lazy and should have done a touch more filing and sanding, but now that I've done this, I have lots of other ideas… I really need to do picture frames because that's why I got it in the first place, but little things like this are a lot of fun so who knows what I'll make next…
Tomorrow I'm thinking about going to the ROM because they've re-opened the dinosaur exhibit…
PS. Watch BME/ModBlog for a fun new article later today.
It's not too terribly exciting but I hung up the “ARI'S ROOM” sign (carved by me, painted by her with a little touch-up by me — I posted it unpainted last week). I got a (motorized) miter saw today because it was too hard (and a little wasteful because of the way it cuts) to do with the CarveWright and I really need to start making frames since that was the main reason I got the unit.
If anyone in Toronto has an old electric guitar they don't want, I'm looking for a guitar to gut for spare parts. Please IM me if you're an IAM member, or write me at
snowrail@gmail.com if you're not… The unit is large enough to carve full guitar bodies which is quite exciting (that's how
Liquid Guitars make all of theirs —
check it out) and I'd love to give it a shot.
It was sort of derailed this year because of my surgery and a couple other things, but I'm trying to get the pieces put in place to be able to move out of the city as soon as school ends this year. I definitely want a lot more space to work in because it's really hard doing projects in a little place in the city. My house is actually pretty big by city standards, but still, it's quite limiting. But in any case, my days are really full until school starts but after that I'll have lots more time for work and various projects as well.
Other than that I pick up my Lyrica at the pharmacy in a few hours, but really, the more I read about the side effects, the less I'm inclined to take it because they really suck. I hope I will get lucky and be in the group that doesn't get them, but if I do, I'm not going to take it. I really prefer to have a clear head, even if it includes pain.
