Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

On July 29 th , 2018, I received a phone call from the storage facility I keep some of my belongings at, informing me of an urgent matter. These ominous words made my blood run cold, and I knew something was terribly wrong. My first thought was towards my Halloween items, especially my pumpkin carving kits (which I have written at length about here , here and here ). Had a water main burst and ruined them all? I had just heard several sirens pass by…had the facility caught fire? I couldn’t bear the thought. No, I was informed, there was no elemental disaster in my unit. But someone had forced open my storage locker, and it looked like some things were likely stolen. My immediate presence was required. I felt the Sunday languor that had previously confined me to the couch decaying and falling away, replaced by a newly awoken sense of dread. Still, I reasoned, how bad could it be? I had an Xbox 360 that would have been visible to anyone entering the unit along with a

When I was walking down the street today, I saw this: Now this could mean one of two things: either someone is preparing to burn Tobey Maguire in effigy for that dance scene in Spider-Man 3 (which I liked , suck it, haters), or it's Halloween season again! This is perfect, because it gives me an excuse to drone on at length about one of my favorite things: pumpkin carving! Avid readers of my blog may recall my earlier installment about pumpkin carving pioneers Carve-O-Lantern , as well as the sequel post about their product line expansion. Well, there's still plenty of meat on this bone, so I'm diving into a pumpkin PIE-le of patterny goodness to bring you this retrospective! Carve-O-Lantern (and later, Pumpkin Masters) have released so much material over the decades that I could-and possibly might-write about this stuff forever. So let's go waaaaay back to the early days of the brand to take a look at how their pumpkin carving kits have evolved through time. I&

          It's October again, the leaves are changing colors, and if the latest Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer is any indication, people are really into pumpkin. Seriously, like 80% of that thing is ads for pumpkin-flavored foods. Now, this is cool with me, since I'm quite the squashophile myself. You may recall an article I wrote last year, about the release of the O.G. game-changing jack-o'-lantern carving book, Carve-O-Lantern (if you need a refresher, here's the link ). Seeing as how I just scratched the surface of the Carve-O-Lantern universe in that article, it's high time I wrote a follow-up where I can really give you the inside scoop on the product line. So, uh, here is that follow-up.      Indulge me for a moment in an extended simile: Carve-O-Lantern is like the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering . It's true! Both are products that arrived on the scene relatively unheralded, only to become massive successes. Both are icons in their r

     You know the traditional image of a jack-o-lantern?   The triangle eyes and nose, the grinning mouth with a few scattered teeth here and there? I don’t recall ever carving one in my life. I may have, and my grandmother certainly did, but I cannot think of a single instance in which I did so myself. And yet I have carved many a jack-o-lantern, often several each year. The reasoning behind this seemingly paradoxical situation can be summed up in a compound word: Carve-O-Lantern. However, just because it can be summed up thusly doesn’t mean it should be, so please allow me to explain.      A Wisconsin engineer by the name of Paul Bardeen came to the realization several decades ago (during the 1940s, as far as I can discern) that the time-honored tradition of hacking up a pumpkin with a kitchen knife or box cutter had some drawbacks. Specifically, the combination of knives and children inherent in pumpkin carving carried with it an alarming risk for lacerations and/or stabbi