Trolls I'm gonna get!

I love trolls, and I have no money. Therefore I have to rely on "lots" - bundles of trolls sold for  a single price, usually through Etsy or eBay.  My greatest haul was four trolls with immaculate outfits - two forest trolls, which I didn't have, a Russ troll and a Treasure Troll. 

OK, I have officially gone mad.

I needed something, rather desperately, now that the grandkids are older, teenagers who don't even want to talk to me any more. It left an awful hole. I miss all those projects, knitting, making stuff for their birthdays and Christmas. Now they want money, basically. But making stuff is in my blood, I guess, though this whole thing is adding up, getting sort of expensive. The three I just ordered were only about $15 American, but with all the added charges it came to $38.00 - and that was a good buy.

As I said a couple of posts ago, and forgot all about, I tried Facebook pages for troll collectors, and it's like the doll world: hard to penetrate because of the in-talk, the jargon, and the expectation that you will turn around and sell your next precious "find" to the highest bidder. I've made new hair out of yarn for a lot of my Dollarinas (dollar store trolls) -  some find it strange, I know, but I think it has turned out well. I go ahead and post my photos anyway, knowing I'll look like an amateur. But I don't know why human beings have to do this, inject prestige and arcane knowledge into the mix. 

Example. Someone told another person she had gotten her troll outfit from "BAB". Now, would YOU know what "BAB" was? Neither did I. Neither did the person who asked! Turned out to be Build-a-Bear, but the person just "assumed" everyone would know what she meant. I can't help but feel it was done to assert authority and make the other person feel diminished, put in her place, on the outside looking in.

These are not photos, but SCANS of trolls I made quite a long time ago, with the few trolls I had kicking around. I find them quite interesting, but they're not going on my Facebook page.

The Six Million Dollar Troll

VHTF 3.5" VTG DAM TAILED TROLL W/SWIVEL HEAD, NEW SALT & PEPPER HAIR

Item Information
Condition:
Used

“He is in great shape for being almost 50 yrs old”

History:
2 offers

Price:
US $1,499.99
+US $60.00 shipping 

Approximately C $1,920.59 (including shipping)

BLOGGER'S LAMENT: I've had some doubts about getting back into trolls. What started as a happy thing ended up with joining Facebook groups in which people display collections of hundreds or even thousands of expensive, vintage trolls, or trolls they just happened to pick up at a flea market (a couple hundred, usually) that just happen to include several treasures like the phenomenal find pictured above.

Like, a two thousand-dollar troll! It's nice, for sure. He's cute. Looks in great shape, maybe even mint, as if someone bought him and just put him away somewhere back in 1961. But I just don't have two thousand dollars for a troll! I have to eat.

I started off enjoying my troll hobby, and I still do, to some extent, but the experts are ruining it. I posted some photos on Facebook of troll clothes I knitted, and hair I've replaced, and I can feel the shock and disdain - shock that I'd have the nerve to even do such a thing when the standards are too high for me to reach, disdain because I'm a newbie and have to sit back for at least two years before contributing anything at all.

My thing was making yarn hair that doesn't look like yarn, or is at least pretty enough to fool the eye (or *I* thought so):

These seemed OK to me until I posted some, and the comment was, "It looks like yarn". Yarn isn't used on trolls. Tibetan cashmere, perhaps - mohair from the pelt of a yak, fleece from the Golden Ram of Jason and the Argonauts - but not yarn. Yarn is for an old Raggedy Ann doll left moldering in the attic. It seems there are certain rules as to what you can use. Which is funny, because I've seen things like steel wool, wires, shells, fake flowers, quartz crystals, snow globes, and other unlikely substances for hair replacement. But don't use yarn because it's for amateurs and grandmas, because it means you don't know what you're doing, and even if you're doing it for fun and just to share with the group and not try to sell or trade, there is a certain standard to be maintained.

The group "in-talks" a lot, meaning a lot of obscure troll jargon. WHY do people do this, in any and every field of endeavour? It's to make people who know less than they do feel like know-nothings, or to show off JUST HOW MUCH MORE they know about the subject than you do. So you are suddenly in the position of supplicant, of meekly asking questions and waiting for the Big Oom-pahs to answer rather than joining the conversation and actually saying anything.

I'd say the internet has poisoned everything, but maybe not, maybe it has always been this way. Sashaying around, ass-wagging and showing off seems to be intrinsic to human nature, and it stinks. I am SICK of it. OK, it looks like yarn, but is THIS any better?

This is what troll hair is s'posed-ta look like, not long waterfalls of de-stranded yarn fibres. But they're not collecting MY trolls, are they? Aren't they interested in what I like? I don't know.

I guess this is a whole lot of complaining, but it just galls me that the "does not belong" stamp that was placed on my forehead at birth is still so much in evidence. Even when having Fun with Trolls. The hidden agenda in these groups is that you have to be a professional doll-collector/restorer who knows and uses all the jargon, in spite of repeated insistence that it's "just for fun". I even read someone say that they think more members should contribute and get involved, rather than just sit back to be entertained. 

(I can't remember if I posted this already, so here it is again, or still).

BOX OPENING: my new Dam troll!

I am not letting the reborn community get ahead of me! Here is my version of a box opening with Frodo, my new Dam troll.

Troll Towers: the view from the ground floor

When I sneaked back into troll-collecting, I know not when or how (or why), I had to find a place to stash them. I saw these pictures of massive collections, seemingly thousands, all lined up on shelves on the wall, and didn't want that. It seemed to me you wouldn't be able to find a specific troll, and I didn't want enough room to let my collection get that big. So I racked my brains for something I could use, something with shelves, something I could put on my desk and look at and access so I could have trolls right beside me all day.

So I came up with this. I didn't even have to buy anything! Old CD racks, gathering dust in the corner. I came close to painting them, as they looked kind of  jail-ish, but someone in my troll group (yes, I have a troll group) told me to leave it alone, it had an Elvis jailhouse rock/'60s discoteque feeling to it and made it look pleasingly like trolls a-go-go. The clear shelves make photographing them from the bottom floor kind of interesting.

This is an earlier model, and since then I've added trolls, and added a breezeway between the two towers, mainly for more shelves. I soon had to reinforce the middle ones (made from more empty CD cases) because they kept flying out the back. 

Bentley, yes, Bentley does love these trolls, and he sometimes grabs one by the hair and makes off with it (though lately his interest has waned). I peruse Amazon and Etsy sites to see what I'd love to have, and can't afford. I think I wrote about Trollina already (didn't I?). She was a rescue, and I had the predictable reaction of bonding with her. Since then I've become, if not a serious collector (can't afford it), then a fairly serious obsesser.

My troll Facebook page displays things that would cost me hundreds of dollars, if I could even find them. They aren't supposed to buy and sell on that page, but most of the posts seem to be in the nature of, "Look at this gorgeous thing. I am looking for a forever home. Are you interested?" Sometimes I think it is set up to incite troll envy. But never mind, I post Trollina in hand-knitted things, and so far no one has thrown me out. I will never be able to afford a 17" Dam giant - hell, even a 7" is a hardship for me. 

Why am I doing this? I collected "Dam things" when I was ten, the best year of my life. I associate it with two significant friendships (both of whom I am still in touch with on Facebook).  I also think it's a sort of echo of empty-nester syndrome: the grandkids are now either pre-teens or adolescents, and the sense of loss is palpable. 

I look at videos of reborns, some of whom move, breathe and make sounds, and even pee. It freaks me out, but I am still drawn to it, the "morning routine", the "shopping trip", the "temper tantrum" and reborn toddler getting sick and running a fever and even throwing up. There is even realistic poop - I don't know if you make this yourself or buy it. I am sure there are recipes.

I am not that far gone yet, but sometimes I wonder. I will do almost anything to dodge the clinical depression that nearly finished me through most of my life. You can't cuddle a troll or make it talk (or, at least, if you hear it talk you're in trouble). But they tweak something in me, something I like. I want to dodge the elitism I already see, which seems to be part of human nature. A lot of my trolls, the majority in fact, cost me $4.50 at the dollar store. Then I make them over with new hair and eyes.

Where does it end? I guess, when I get tired of it. It hasn't happened yet.

Reborn or undead: the Edison talking doll

I hated dolls as a kid and never went near them, though my mother bought me something called a Debbie doll - she was brunette, with a large head, much larger than Barbie's. I think my mother was afraid I would be a lesbian if she didn't do something pretty quickly. Obviously I wasn't a proper little girl at all.

Now I am dragged as if by hypnotic persuasion to the idea of dolls. I watch "reborn" videos obsessively, even though I think the dolls are insanely creepy and most of the women who own them borderline-unhinged. Some of these dolls actually pee (I've seen footage), some cry and coo, move, and have a heartbeat and an internal heating system. All this is to reproduce, as closely as possible, a Real Live Baby. Reborn videos commonly show the baby being "sick" so the "mother" has to hover over it and pretend to take it to the doctor, or going on shopping trips where "Mom" takes them out in public expressly to shock people and weird them out. (The video of the woman "giving birth" to a reborn has, unfortunately, been deleted.) I don't know if this is just a nasty prank, or a form of casual sadism.

The true glory of the reborn, as with all dolls, is that it never changes. The agony of watching your child grow away from you never needs to happen. That little vinyl blob in your arms is forever in your thrall. In fact, it is under your complete and total control at all times. Think of the power. Women actually weep when they lift seven pounds of quivering silicone out of the cardboard box from eBay. They sob and gasp and whisper to the "baby" for the whole 15-minute video.

I don't get it. Except that I do, or I want to. I'm collecting trolls again, enjoying it hugely - trolls, to me, weren't really dolls, they were a little too weird and subversive. My mother wasn't pleased and did not consider them real dolls, and still wanted me to play with my Debbie doll. My Debbie doll sucked rocks, as far as I was concerned.

I played trolls with two friends, both people who "got" me, and I don't need to explain to you what that means. I don't think it has ever happened to me again. I was ten, and that was my golden year, though I didn't know it at the time. It was my year of the Beatles and having a horse of my own, and being in the special advanced class in which I did not learn a royal rip because I did not have to. We all "learned at our own pace", which means we learned doodlysquat. It was total anarchy, and we literally gave our poor greenhorn teacher a nervous breakdown. He had so been looking forward to teaching this avant-garde, even prestigious class.

I was ten, and there were trolls, and now when I go back to trolls I see they are different, and yet the same. They have come and gone in waves, disappearing for 20 years after that first crest in the '60s, surging again in the '80s, then disappearing, until that Godawful movie came out.

But never mind. I ramble. I was going to talk about the Edison talking doll, but there isn't much to say, is there? It was a hideous thing. Edison was an arrogant asshole and thought he could make fools of the public just by putting out something with his name on it. It didn't happen. The dolls had a tiny version of his new-fangled gramophone embedded in its hard tin carapace. The tinny distorted recordings of nursery rhymes that issued forth when you turned the crank were nothing less than demonic. Curdled dulcet tones waver and shriek, making you wonder just who was  paid to spew this stuff, and how long they've been dead by now.

The dolls worked for about five minutes, which must have broken a lot of little girls' hearts, and most customers angrily demanded refunds. They stayed on the market for less than a year. Edison was known to refer to this project as "spilled milk", another way of saying "writeoff". And yet, and yet. A few must have remained in working order, or we wouldn't still have these blood-chilling horror-movie sounds.

I even wondered if the sound had been recreated artificially, like that wretched so-called recording of Au Clair de la Lune where some electron microscope scanned a very old piece of black paper, fed the random scratches into a computer and came up with The Very First Recorded Sound. It's a known fact that we hear what we expect to hear. I could write a whole piece about that, but I won't. A few years ago my granddaughter had a baby doll that talked, and one of the things it said was, "Allah is great!". Of course, what it really said was "gagamamamblllllgagmmmm", but once the rumor got around, EVERYONE heard the doll say"Allah is great". The dolls were soon pulled off the market. Allah, as everyone knows, is the embodiment of evil.

This video has the largest collection of talking doll horrors I've heard. I won't tell you to enjoy it. Just prepare yourself.

Beyond uncanny: full body silicone baby doll Clara

Welcome to Uncanny Valley. This is beyond uncanny, for it's hard for me to even believe that this creature isn't real. Though its limbs quiver from being molded out of liquid silicone, newborns have similar little twitches and shivers. It makes me wonder if people should even have babies any more. These cost upwards of $10,000.00, but compare that to day care, designer clothes, ballet lessons, band camp, university. . .

And this one will never grow out from under you. I know what that grief is like, when children disappear into adults. I honestly tried to "go reborn" at one point, and bought a couple of minis the size of preemies who looked pretty darned realistic, considering they cost me about $16.00 each on eBay.

It didn't take. Instead of taking them on shopping trips in car seats to scare the hell out of the general public (a particularly sadistic habit of reborners), my vinyl babies are stored in a clear plastic box in the closet where I keep my cast-off clothes. They're cute, yes, but - I couldn't cradle them, sing to them, talk to them. Now I'm into trolls (again), and it's a kick because it brings back memories of being ten, the best year of my entire life. Trolls are both cute and subversive, and a tiny bit creepy without being too uncanny. Much.

Troll Towers

Troll Towers is a work in progress. Since shooting this video I've welcomed three more trolls into the highrise, with three more (babies!) on the way. In fact, Troll Towers has now doubled in size to accommodate the newcomers. 

I am not sure what is happening to me, because I've never collected dolls, not even trolls, at least not after about age ten.

Am I being cast back in time? To some extent. But the 1980s Dam trolls I'm collecting now weren't available during my initial '60s troll phase. These are larger, more full-bodied, really more troll-ish, and each one has a unique facial expression which is a little eerie, almost too real. I know from my reborn doll research that this is called a "sculpt", and that someone carved the face individually before making the mold. I'm used to my trolls having the same bland vinyl expression, so this is a little unsettling.

It's harder to dress these guys due to their more robust proportions, and I think they might look undignified in shorts, skirts and halter tops. But the trolls in my YouTube video are wearing outfits I made for them. Imagine it: the little girl whose Mum bought her a horrible Debbie doll (lest she turn into a lesbian) has become a late-blooming fashion designer for trolls.

This is the most troll-ish troll I've ever seen. He's seven inches tall, huge for a troll. WHY CAN'T I HAVE HIM?? I can, of course, but it sets up the worst guilt in me. We're on a perpetual budget, which I really don't mind, most of the time. We literally write down everything we spend to the nearest nickel. But hell, I just spent $110.00 on trolls! Six trolls, so it's really not such a bad deal, but. . . My husband wonders what new craziness this is. But I want this troll. Trolls in general aren't expensive, but the shipping and handling is murder, more than the troll costs as a rule. 

Bill keeps telling me he wants to landscape the back yard. All I want is trolls. Just compare the cost. 

I'm going to get that troll.