diversion

I have read that the Japanese take dolls quite seriously. Since Japanese culture is heavily influenced by Shintoism, an animist religion, many consider dolls to have souls. Unloved dolls, or those whose owners have "outgrown" them, are ceremonially burned so that their souls can move on. Collecting, customizing, and, well, playing with dolls is considered a fairly normal adult hobby.

So, unless you are prepared to try to emulate the friendly folks in the East, you might want to skip this entry. Keep in mind that I have spent the past month and a half deeply steeped in the 'net's Blythe culture, so this might get a bit long-winded.

I've had my French Trench Blythe for almost a month now and it's time to give in and introduce her.



This is Penelope ("Penny"). I'm slowly learning more about her, but it appears that she's a fairly footloose girl with a taste for travel and Belgian chocolate. She's fluent in English, Dutch, and French, and can get by in German, Czech, Japanese, and several Chinese dialects. Her loves eating anything heavily flavored with garlic and her favorite drink is oolong tea. She's a complete sucker for nineteenth century travel narratives and pretends to like nineteenth century poetry, though she thinks it's generally pretentious and dry.

For those of you who don't know about Blythe, she is a doll characterized by large eyes which change color with the pull of a string (pink-blue-orange-green). She was originally created for the American company Kenner in 1972; however, she pretty much creeped out most little girls and was not manufactured beyond that year. Fast-forward thirty years and she has been rediscovered (mostly by women ages 18-30, it appears) and the Japanese maker Takara has created several dozen "Neo Blythes", along with petite Blythes, Blythe merchandise, etc. They are well-known and loved in Japan and Southeast Asia and are slowly gaining a foothold here in the States. Hasbro has been licensed to distribute in the US (though only one Blythe, Mlle Rosebud, has come out since that happened) and the Ashton Drake Gallery has made two reproduction Blythes, which are supposed to be faithful to the original Kenners but are generally regarded as overpriced junk (much lower quality than Takara). Original Kenner Blythes routinely sell for $1000-2000 on eBay, depending on their condition (now you know why I've been going fleaing!).

The thing that really draws me to Blythe is the fact that she is so customizable. I have taken out and painted/foiled two of Penny's eyechips; the brown shown above was originally her orange one. I really like her 'stock' (ie, from the box), so probably won't change much about her, but a lot of people do.

Yeah, one more photo---Penny is pretty suspicious of the intentions of my new garden gnome---and you can go back to the regularly scheduled blogging...