Ever go to a big zoo on a Winter’s Day. Some in habitants are very happy!
Same with a toy zoo.

It reminds them of the good times!

Creatures great and small, furred and feathered (though all are lead  hollowcast in the toy zoo).

Horned and hooved…
All on a Winter’s Day.

For Short Story my favorite is my contribution to Ellen Datlow’s Blood and Other Cravings  anthology  (Tor)

“BLOOD YESTERDAY, BLOOD TOMORROW” – a story of Flea Markets, Night Walkers and long delayed revenge.

http://www.sfwa.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=985

For Novelette I prefer my contribution to another Datlow anthology Supernatural Noir (Dark Horse)

“MORTAL BAIT” set in 1950 is the story of a private eye in Greenwich Village caught up in an affair with a Fey  seductress and caught the middle of the Elf/Fey wars.

http://www.sfwa.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=851

                                      Voting Deadline is 2/15/2012

By Minikin of Japan! Lead soldiers have had a place at Christmas since The Nutcracker Ballet in the 19th Century and maybe before. These 2 1/2″ tall, beautifully detailed figures may be more collectible than toy. But any kid would love to get his hands on them.

SECOND DAY OF CHRISTMAS – British Lancers 

By William Britains c. 1950′s. I was selling the figures. But shooting the “Castle Blocks” the winter landscape with bottle brush trees was the joy. Toys are hard to leave behind.

THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS : German Winter Flats.

  Like Anderson’s “Steadfast Tin Soldier” these 1 1/2″ -2″ two dimensional figures have great paint and poses. Begun in the early 1800′s, still made, in sets of 30 or so pieces – skating, sledding, driving sleighs, selling hot cider – everything!

FOURTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS: Toys from Outer Space!
Or at least from Archer Plastics Co of the Bronx circa 1950′s. 3 1/2″ tall. 2 are wearing their detachable oxygen masks. The third, regrettably seems to have misplaced his.

FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS – Winter Figures by Barclay.  When I was a kid in the 1940/50′s these were a fixture of store window displays and living room mantelpieces. Called “Dimestore      Figures” because that’s where they were sold – these are the basic pieces in an appropriate setting.

SIXTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS TOYS – Marx Imagination Dollhouse.Toys reflect their times. And this modular kitchen with furniture is very much in late ’60′s “modern” style. It’s from a Marx all plastic, multi-level dollhouse that could be laid out in a variety of ways. Now it looks as much like a design model as a toy.

SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS TOYS – A Porcelain head doll.

Perfect visual for New Year’s Day morning hangover: disturbing as all get-out. There are more scary stories about dolls than of all other toys combined (You could look it up!). This china-headed 20th century European item shows why.

         EIGHTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS TOY  -Marx Super Circus  The early 1950′s were the Play Set’s heyday. This 100+ pc set – a tie in with a Saturday morning TV show -    boasted a tin litho big top and sideshow platforms plastic and metal accessories, animal acts, patrons and performers like these acrobats swinging from a trapeze in the center ring!

NINTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS  – Knights of AgincourtLead handpainted figures, designed by Selwyn Smith produced by William Britains, circa 1950′s. Four poses 54mm (3″ tall mounted figures). A signpost as lead figures went from being children’s toys to
adult collectibles.

Nothing says “1950′s” as clearly as the ‘Science Fiction’ toys made in that decade. This Outer Space Jet Car by Gilmark is a fine example – half U.S. Air Force fighter and half G.M Pontiac sedan.

ELEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS TOYS – Salvation Army Band

Salvation Army Band a modern maker.H.G. Wells in FLOOR GAMES his wonderful 1911 book about toys and playing with children decries the absence of civilian figures and the overabundance of toy soldiers. A few years later the First World War meant that even eleven year old boys weren’t interested in war. Toy makers turned to civilian themes including Salvation Army figures and remains so as this fine set shows.

Toy sewing machine by Casige of Germany: Really, “miniature” would be a better description. These
were simply small, functioning machines. The company began making toy sewing machines in the early 20th century and continued into the later part. After WW2, from the “British” sector of Germany where they found themselves they continued to turn out these beautifully designed toys. The art work – in this case art deco – makes them desired collectibles.

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The following are the new stories I published this year. “Mortal Bait” is a novelette (over 8K words). The rest are short stories (under 7.5K words).

‘Were’ actors are sturdy troupers giving their all every night. But under the full moon they’re ‘special’!

“A Song to the Moon”
Bewere the Night (Sedia ed.) Prime (April 2011)

A Private Eye in 1950 New York caught in a war between loneliness and love, Fey and Elves.

“Mortal Bait”
Supernatural Noir  (Datlow ed.) Dark Horse Books (June 2011)

A less than perfect knight of the Round Table shares his thoughts.

“Sir Morgravain Speaks of Night Dragons and Other Things”
Fantasy & Science Fiction (July/August 2011)

An actor born into the wrong time plays a cop in a movie set in old noir New York.

“On the Slide”
Naked City 2011 (Datlow ed.) St Martin’s Press (July 2011)

The daughters of Winter & Summer and Fate & Folly in the Twilight of the Gods

“The Progress of Solstice and Chance”
Realms of Fantasy (August 2011)                                     

Everything old is new again! And Vampires are IT in trend conscious Manhattan right This Minute!

 “Blood Yesterday, Blood Tomorrow”
Blood and Other Cravings: (Datlow ed.) Tor (September 2011)

The best is saved for last. An aging gay writer searches for a Destruction of Manhattan story!
  (Icarus Magazine from Lethe Press is too fine and too rare to pass up)

“Hoffmann, Godzilla and Me
Icarus: Lethe Press (October 2011)

Via Linda Tsao. Check out the video

A La Vieille Russie and Parmigiani
present
Mechanical Wonders:
The Sandoz Collection

The (approximately) 5″ tall Coldstream Guards of England pictured above were manufactured by Pfeiffer, a doll maker in Vienna in the very late 19th/very early 20th cenutury. Pfeiffer dolls’ heads, hands and feet were made of composition- a mixture of sawdust and glue. They were hand painted with great life-like detail.  (examples of Peiffer/Peiffer- like dolls are shown below).

Around 1898 it must have occured to the makers that half the toy market was missing out on their products. Thus they introduced a line of soldiers (British guards, Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, etc. The detail and accuracy of their handpainted dolls carried over into the soldiers.

In 1904 Pfeiffer was purchased by Hauser, another doll maker. This company, under the brand name “Elastolin” manufactured a huge line of toy composition figures, soldiers of all nations, knights, Native Americans, farm and zoo animals. Elastolin is in business to this day though the figures now are plastic.
In Elastolin’s pre-WW2 heyday the specialty was fighting men like this duo from the “Old Shatterhand” novels of Karl Maye locked in mortal combat

Somehow, though, almost in tribute to their doll origins, among Elastolin (and Lineol the other great German composition figure maker) most interesting, most human creations are camp scenes with an injured man toting a pail of water, a band master with a “Kaiser Wilhelm” mustache, or a bugler in a tense moment.

History, as we know, repeats itself. In 1964 Hasbro Toys executives contemplated the amazing success of Mattel’s Barbie Doll, she of the endless wardrobe, vast accessories, even a boyfriend who needed to be outfitted. Barbie was a money machine.

The answer, of course, was G.I. Joe whose wardrobe rivalled Barbie’s in size and variety and whose accessories – everything from grenades to Armored Personnel Carriers – was at least as vast.

Ken may have been Barbie’s boyfriend but G.I. Joe was made for her (or at least for the brothers of the girls who played with her). Nobody at Hasbro ever said this was the ultimate boy’s doll.  But like many things never said it was true.Perhaps the last great toy soldier as play moves online. Joe was a doll for boys but far from the first one.

At 11 AM Sunday to commemorate  the tenth anniversary of  the Twin Towers disaster my friend Jim Freund hosted an hour long show in which I read my story. This was followed by Dr. Charles B. Strozier the preeminent expert on contemporary terrorism’s effects upon individuals and author of  Until the Fires Stopped Burning: 9/11 and New York City discussing my story and other fiction about the fall of the towers.�

http://www.facebook.com/l/QAQAAR67G/archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/wbai_110911_110050crcafe.mp3“

I’ll be reading my story “There’s a Hole in the City” which is set in lower Manhattan in the days after the event.   Kind of nice: I’ve never had a radio promo before.
(script follows)

On Sunday, September 11th, as part of WBAI’s special  anniversary programming, The Next Hour with guest host Jim Freund will feature this award-winning story, followed by an interview with Rick Bowes and the preeminent psychologist on contemporary terrorism, Dr Charles B. Strozier.

[Theme up and down]

That’s September 11th at 11 AM on The Next Hour, featuring Richard Bowes reading There’s a Hole in the City.

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