Workshop Visitor

We had an interesting visitor in the workshop last night. The rack shown in the photo is used for resting pipes on while waiting for their stains or inlays to dry. Visible in the background is a pipe with a liquid metal shank inlay ring, standing up on its shank while it dries. When I leaned over to set the pipe there, I found something entirely un-pipe-like waiting for me! This was a really enthused mantis - it kept reaching for our fingers and faces as we leaned close to look at it. I thought it was interesting that, while everything else from slugs to snails to birds and bats are different from their US versions, the mantis was identical. He looked just like every other mantis I've seen anywhere, except maybe a little fatter.

The grey days of October have definitely set in here. If the colors in pictures all start looking faded or washed-out, it isn't my fault!

The Halloween movie of the day is the 1964 Roger Corman flick "The Masque of the Red Death", starring Vincent Price. Arguably the best of Corman's Poe pictures (What can you say about a movie that steals Ingmar Bergman imagery for a drive-in horror quickie?), it features Vincent giving it his hammy best as Prince Prospero, the "host with the most" - or in this case, the only host with a castle retreat guaranteed to be safe from the Red Death ravaging the land. Prospero amuses himself for the bulk of the running time by playing pranks on his servile guests, until the midnight unmasking that pulls the biggest prank of all. A decent flick. Vincent Price is watchable in detergent commercials, and he elevates the film above its level, plus there's some creative imagery and funky dream sequences as well as lavish sets.