For some strange reason, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about last year’s NaNoWriMo novel recently. The first NaNo novel I did came out finished, more or less. It’s by no means publishable, but it’s structurally sound. Last year’s attempt …wasn’t. I thought I could just put it away and be done with it, but nope. It feels like it’s nagging me to rework it.
I really can’t: I have too much to do as it is without adding "novel" to the pile. It's a loose end that'll just have to hang loose for a little while longer. However, it is a good time to tie up some other loose ends...
One of these days I’m gonna "win" a Web Special with just a single entry. As you might have guessed by now, Zeus wasn’t it.
There are three main reasons why Hobo gets little love outside my corner of the blogosphere: he’s a Classic, on a wonky base that warps, and he’s a Hess sculpt. While I don’t consider any of those factors as strikes against him, lots of other hobbyists do. (Especially the Hess thing.)
The "Made to Order" Collector’s Club Special Run is a Glossy Dappled Flaxen Liver Chestnut Tobiano Pinto Huckleberry Bey, named Enchanted. I think he’s quite pretty, especially for a Huck Bey. Huck’s come in quite an assortment of attractive colors, so finding something that stands out is a challenge.
The reception elsewhere to Enchanted has been relatively cool, with most of the objections fixating on his color. This strikes me as very weird. "Glossy Dappled Flaxen Liver Chestnut Tobiano Pinto" sounds like a description that could have come from any random Stone Horse "Factory Custom" order form, verbatim.
I like the Huck Bey mold, but I’m no longer in love with him: the color is what’s attracting me to him. My indifference towards the mold has nothing to do with any anatomical deficiency, a dislike of Arabians, or bases, or anything like that. I’ve just …moved on. I like the ones I have - a Polaris, and a couple variations of the Atlantis Bey V - and someday I’d love to pick up one of those solid variants of the original Bay Huck (who I thought was just really attractive).
I don’t think I’ll be ordering one because I have other things I need to buy first. And if I do fall back in love again, I don’t doubt that - like Pamplemousse and Gus, before him - there’ll be a few leftovers to pick through.
Regarding my comments on the "Cash Cow" incident, it was the reaction to it - rather than its veracity - that struck me as ridiculous, and way too typical of how everybody in the hobby reacts to anything even remotely controversial, truthful or not.
Remember the situation a few years ago when the rumors about BreyerFest moving to a different locale cropped up? I was actually in a room at the HIN/CHIN at the very moment those rumors got their start - as casual, jokey, somewhat unserious throwaway comments - and saw them blossom in a matter of days to something kind of scary, intense and almost impossible to quash.
I recently remarked that many of my coworkers have a sad propensity for believing in fantasies and conspiracy theories. Many of my fellow hobbyists are, alas, no better.
BTW, I’m not implying that anyone reading or commenting here is one of those people (especially you, D), but it’s definitely an issue in the model horse community as a whole, and something that rarely gets addressed in a meaningful way.
This is something of a conundrum for me, too, in that some of the information I relay to you here comes from sources who wish to remain confidential. Sometimes I refrain from commenting about certain topics because I want to avoid bringing in details that could break those confidences. In some ways I am engaging in multiple "conspiracies" in the production of this blog.
The things I do for y’all. You have no idea.
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4 comments:
I don't understand the Hess hate. While I'm not a fan of all of his models, many of them are great. In fact, Adios, Trakehner and Justin Morgan are three of my all-time favourites. True, some of his molds are dreadful, but so are some molds from other artists //cough//Ethereal//cough.
Hess is my all-time favorite Breyer sculptor. His horses look like... horses. Horses anyone could know and ride. They look honest. I'm lukewarm to any other sculptor.
Everyone in the hobby is a Cash Cow. Look at that silly keychain, look at the people who win and flip the Web SRs for a 200$ price increase... I mean, the shoe fits, we should embrace it and laugh about it. Breyer obviously thinks we're Cash Cows with the Premier/Vintage Clubs... just because they don't say it directly doesn't mean they don't see that some of us crazy ladies will pay pretty much anything for a "limited" or heck, "pretty" plastic horse.
That's essentially my point on the Cash Cow thing. We all are, to some degree.
A t-shirt to that effect would be a fabulous idea. (Now imagining a dozen or so people milling about the Stone Pajama Sale in Cash Cow tees!)
The hobby goes through periodic shudders of Hess hate. At this point I just consider it one of those cliquey "kewl kids" things. (At least it's periodic, and not constant like with Moody. The way some people act whenever there's a new Moody release you'd think she committed a crime against humanity, or something.)
The Cash Cow comment is its very own brand of ugly. ANY customer ANYWHERE who buys ANYTHING that is at a markup is a "cash cow"; the fact that this hobby is dominated by women, many of whom are older and/or of perhaps limited means, and that this hobby may be their main source of joy in their lives makes them vulnerable to people who would take advantage of that. That someone who was so highly placed in the hobby would hold that opinion of them is pretty low and it says a lot about who that person REALLY is, as if many people didn't know already. More so that it was said within earshot.
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