My life has gone through a whole lot of changes this year - got engaged, moved across the country, then moved into a new house - but one thing that has remained constant throughout all this upheaval is my belief that a lot of collectibles on the market today are pretty creepy. And the best way to keep oneself from becoming paralyzed with the terror that encountering them tends to engender is to try to pretend they are humorous. Which leads us to Count Your Beans, a purveyor of specialty gifts and collectibles which is pleased to offer… the White Babes in the Wild Collection. The crafter of these demonic talismans is Florence (Flossie) Maranuk. Attention to detail is the cornerstone of her success. The exquisite materials used, the expressive sculptings, and the harvested blood of innocents combine in an art form that makes her dolls speak for themselves. Flossie currently resides in Brigantine, New Jersey, where she escapes by sinking herself in the waters of the meadows, breathing through a thin reed until the white babes pass on to find other human ears into which to whisper their evil secrets.

I have a feeling that the hotlinks to individual doll photos that I’m about to employ may stop working at some point, so if you start to encounter broken links just scroll through the main page to find the each creature being discussed and click to view their enlarged visage on your own, which you’ll most likely wish to do anyway to familiarize yourself with the myriad forms which they can take. For there are many, so very many of them… it’s enough to drive you batty! As that first example will show, part of the White Babes in the Woods’ charm lies in the clever names that Flossie has given each of them, perhaps best exemplified by Doll Finn. See, he’s dressed up like a dolphin, and he’s a doll, and dolphins have fins! As do sharks, and there’s a shark babe too, but a shark is not a dolphin, so his handle is Finnie the Shark. Or hers... it’s a little difficult to sex these miscegenational moppets sometimes, though I’m fairly certain that Crackers the Parrot is male, Stinky the Skunk is female, and Rory the Lion writes jokes for the Acadamy Awards.

Now don’t get the idea that Flossie is some sort of racist just because these are all White Babes in the Wild… there are Black Babes too (while your China doll down in old Hong Kong waits for Show Stoppers to unveil their 2007 collection), which can be seen in the BLACK face styles section. For instance, there’s this white poodle, and this white rabbit, and of course the exquisitely named Fluffy the White Kitten. Plus Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats.

Okay, I’ve just got a couple more choice quips to make here and then you can get back to whatever you were reading before I decided to get all typetty today. You know how the unicorns were having so much fun laughing and playing that they didn’t hear Noah calling them to get on the ark and so they drowned and that’s why there’s no unicorns today? Well perhaps you remember the ending of the first Friday the 13th movie too. While we’re on the subject of film, although it’s pretty frightening for kids when Bambi’s mother gets shot, and the witch toward the end of Sleeping Beauty can also be highly scary, for me the most terrifying scene in Disney history came when Pinocchio visited Pleasure Island. Maybe this will refresh your memory. Also, I think that the Canadian government would have encountered a lot less controversy over their seal culling plan a few years ago if they’d just run some ads featuring Smooches the Seal as a mascot before they announced it. And finally, since my birthday is less than two weeks away I should offer a few gift guidelines in case you feel you absolutely must order one of these abominations for me, which I do not recommend: I would probably still be able to fall asleep if Oinks the Pig were in my house, but I’m not so sure about Nippy the Polar Bear. And for the love of God, don’t even think about bringing Hugs the Octopus within 1,000 miles of this city.

I’ll leave you to continue browsing through the collection now while I try to find a thin reed to breathe through. SS6HHH...............