Month: November 2018 (Page 7 of 9)

LEGO Harry Potter 71043 Hogwarts Castle

Our first BIG TICKET DAY choice for the 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is the perfect gift for the obsessive (and maybe compulsive) Harry Potter fan on your shopping list. LEGO has created a new and comprehensive building set of Hogwarts Castle. It’s gigantic. It will take a long, long time to assemble, and it’s going to set you back about five hundred bucks.

Your PopCulteer has thus far remained immune to the appeal of the boy wizard, but even I was mightily impressed when I saw this set assembled at the LEGO Store in Chicago. It’s huge and epic and I can’t imagine any Harry Potter fan not wanting to have it.

Let’s go to the product hype:

Make the magic come alive at the LEGO Harry Potter 71043 Hogwarts Castle! This highly detailed LEGO Harry Potter collectible has over 6,000 pieces and offers a rewarding build experience. It comes packed with highlights from the Harry Potter series, where you will discover towers, turrets, chambers, classrooms, creatures, the Whomping Willow and Hagrid´s hut, plus many more iconic features. And with 4 minifigures, 27 microfigures featuring students, professors and statues, plus 5 Dementors, this advanced building set makes the perfect Harry Potter gift.

“Includes 4 minifigures: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw, with a buildable minifigure display stand. Also features 27 microfigures: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, Remus Lupin, Professor Dolores Umbridge, Argus Filch, Lord Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, 3 students from each of the 4 houses, 2 chess pieces and the Architect of Hogwarts statue and 5 Dementors, plus Aragog the spider and the Basilisk figures, and a buildable Hungarian Horntail dragon.

Features a buildable microscale model of Hogwarts Castle, hut of Hagrid, Whomping Willow tree and 5 boats.

Hogwarts Castle features the Great Hall with buildable ‘stained glass windows’, house banners, benches, tables, flaming torches and moving staircases; potions classroom with racks of jar elements; Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom with assorted potion jars, gramophone and a closet containing a boggart; Chessboard Chamber with chess piece elements; Room of Requirement with assorted elements, including the Goblet of Fire and the vanishing cabinet; Chamber of Secrets with the Basilisk and Tom Riddle’s Diary; hidden Devils Snare room with vine elements; Gryffindor common room with fireplace and seating; Professor Dolores Umbridge’s office with desk, chair and pink furnishings; library with bookcase and desks; and Professor Dumbledore’s office with the Griffin statue entrance and Memory cabinet.

Hagrid’s hut features Aragog the spider and buildable pumpkins.The Whomping Willow includes the buildable blue Flying Ford Anglia car in its spinning branches. Also includes 5 buildable boats.

Take a seat in the Great Hall and feast with the Hogwarts professors and students! Sneak your way into the Chamber of Secrets through the secret entrance and face the Basilisk! Attend a Defence Against the Dark Arts class to learn how to protect yourself from dark magic! Climb the moving staircase! Study for your Ordinary Wizarding Level exams in the library.

Accessory elements include the Sword of Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff´s cup, wands, potions, house banners, flames, a cauldron and 2 magnifying glasses. Microfigure accessories include 2 chess statues and the Architect of Hogwarts statue.

Hogwarts™ Castle measures over 22” (58cm) high, 27” (69cm) wide and 16” (43cm) deep.

Your best bet is to order Hogwarts Castle directly from LEGO. Other retailers are selling this set, but at a higher price. Get this for the Harry Potter fan on your gift list and they’ll never know that you’re a Womble…or a Muggle…or whatever.

The PopCulteer
November 9, 2018

It’s a short PopCulteer today. We are still in the midst of the 2018 PopCult Gift Guide and that’s eating up a lot of our writing time. I do want to remind you that you can still tune in to The AIR, our sister internet radio station, at the website, or on this embedded player…

We’re hoping to bring you new episodes of our music programming next week, including Radio Free Charleston and a very special 50th episode of Mel Larch’s Curtain Call. In the meantime, we’re still bringing you the best independent re-runs you’ll find anywhere.

Also, before we get to our main topic today, since we posted our suggestion for the 2018 HESS Toy Truck, they have released a commercial, which you can see right here…

Geoffrey’s Toy Disappointment

News broke late last week that the much-vaunted “Geoffrey’s Toy Box,” the psuedo-revival of Toys R Us following their bankruptcy, is a bit of a fizzle. Rather than partnering with Kohl’s, which is what I thought would happen, it turns out that their retail partner is Kroger.

We will be getting Geoffrey’s Toy Box in all the local Kroger locations, and to be honest, it’s no big deal. There will be cardboard dumps on pallets with Geoffrey’s Toy Box markings, and all that they will hold will be the private-label Toys R Us knockoff brands, priced twenty to fifty bucks each, with are not terribly appealing.

There are only 35 different toys, and most of them are, to be frank, boring and unspectacular. They are also priced so that they can be marked down 50% and still turn a profit. The only item they have that I found even remotely interesting is the bucket of toy soldiers, and I picked those up at their regular price of ten dollars last year, before TRU announced their liquidation.

This just seems like a way for them to wring a few bucks out of the private-label toys that were already in the pipeline to be delivered after the liquidation ended in June. So it’s there if you’re interested.

By the way, Kohl’s did not pick up Geoffrey’s Toy Box, but they did acquire the over-priced and underwhelming selection of toys marketed under the FAO Schwarz name. This was the stuff that FAO sold through Bon Ton stores (including Elder-Beerman), so if you passed up any of this stuff when it was 90% off during the Elder-Beerman liquidation, now you can go to Kohl’s and pay full price. It’s exactly the same stuff.

Also, the promised KBToys revival in time Christmas is not going to happen. There is no official word, but there are rumors they may try to launch permanent stores next summer. It also looks like we are not going to get a Go Games store anywhere near Charleston this year. With any luck, they will greatly expand the toy department in our local Best Buy, which is happening in some stores nationwide.

With that piddly news, we sign off this PopCulteer, and jump back into the 2018 PopCult Gift Guide. This weekend brings two more BIG TICKET DAYS and then on Monday we’ll try to keep every gift suggestion under sixty bucks again.

Todd Burge: The First Album and Your Reflection Will Kill You

Today’s local pick in the 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is a tremendous value. For a mere fifteen bucks you get two albums by one of West Virginia’s premiere songwriters and musicians, Todd Burge. One is his very first album, recorded in 1986 and unreleased until now, and the other was recorded just a couple of months ago.

Let’s go to Todd’s own words for the full explanation:

“One was recorded a few weeks ago and the other a few decades ago. Simply put, the new one is an acoustic album, and the old one is a rock album. This is a long story and I’m hoping you’ll follow me online or better yet, go to one of my shows so I can tell you more about it, but for now…..

“Todd Burge (1986 The First Album) was recorded while I was still attending West Virginia University back in the mid-80s. I got signed to Hardway Records in California, they paid for me to record an album, the deal fell through and I didn’t own the recordings. As a result, it was never released. It bothered me for years as I loved the album. I was kindly sent the master tapes last year (31 years later!) by the owner of Hardway Records, Randall Arlett. Listening to what the 20-year-old me wrote and sang about is interesting and fun for me now. It’s almost like an out of the body and brain experience. Even back then I was writing personal songs as well as character based songs like Cavewoman, which is about a mouth breathing sexist. I’m proud of the 20-year-old me. This is a rock record and to me it represents a sonic segue between my two bands The Larries, and the much heavier 63 Eyes, who still play a bit to this day.

“The new album, Your Reflection Will Kill You is an all acoustic album that lyrically looks back on some facts and fiction that have brought me to where I am today. It is live, except for two vocal overdubs. To me, this is a concept recording. A “37-minute-long song” and I’d love for it to be listened to in that way. For years, I’ve admired the superb musicality of Ryan Kennedy and John Inghram, who are both well-known electric players from WV, but on occasion I would hear them playing acoustic, and it got me to dreaming about what we three might sound like together. Don Dixon came to my home studio with his mobile gear and captured it perfectly. He makes it all comfortable and real. Every musical action I have made or taken in over the last three decades was poured into this latest recording and now, I hand it over to you.”

I jujst got my copy of the two-fer CD yesterday, and haven’t had time to fully digest it. You can expect to hear several tracks from each album in the coming weeks on Radio Free Charleston. This is the perfect gift for any fan of Todd’s, or anybody who appreciates clever songwriting and great music. You can order it from Todd’s Bandcamp page, or check to see if the local record stores have it in stock. It’s a winner.

Check out this video for one of Todd’s new songs…

Retro Planet Tiki Mugs

Next up in the 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is our most generic suggestion of the year, a Tiki mug. We are not recommending a specific Tiki mug, but will point you to a really great online source for Tiki mugs and other stuff at prices ranging from dirt low to still quite reasonable.

Swiping liberally from the Wikipedia, let me explain that Tiki mugs are large ceramic cocktail mugs that originated in tiki bars and tropical-themed restaurants. The term “tiki mugs” is a generic blanket term for sculptural drinkware that depict Polynesian, mock-Polynesian, or tropical themes. Even a non-drinker like your PopCulteer can enjoy the craft and artistry that goes into creating this cool mugs. These are the perfect gift for the person with an appreciation of all things Tiki.

Also, according to Wikipedia, Tiki mugs are not commonly seen outside tiki bars and restaurants, but are also a kitsch collectors item. It is that collectors item part that makes this a great gift idea. Your PopCulteer has recently made room to start a collection of Tiki mugs, and it’s a great way to enjoy the trappings of mid-century Tiki culture in your own home.

Originally created as both signature and marketing tools to hold the exotic libations, the 1960s also saw the ceramic craft market following suit by releasing ceramic tiki mug molds for the hobbyist to customize. These original mugs, whether related to a location or made by the hobbyist, also known as the vintage mugs, once found in abundance on the dusty shelves of junk shops in the 1980s and 90s, became a sought after item for those who were responsible for the revival of interest in the heyday of places like Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s.

Though hobbyists and ceramic artists, in a small capacity, have continued to make these mugs at home, and larger manufacturers have mass-produced restaurant and bar promotional souvenirs since the 1960s the “tiki revival” of the 1990s and then 2008 onwards produced new variations.

At the website, Retro Planet, you will find a wide range of recent, yet very cool Tiki mugs. They offer “instant collections,” where you can get four, five or more mugs for one low price, and they have individual Tiki mugs that range from under seven dollars to upwards of fifty bucks. Many fairly elaborate mugs are under thirty dollars each. They offer over two hundred mugs, along with other cool Tiki items and tons of other cool pop culture, Americana and automotive collectibles at their website.

Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down: The Official Behind-the-Scenes Companion
by Gina McIntyre (Foreword by The Duffer Brothers)
Del Rey
ISBN-13: 978-1984817426
$36.00 (discounted at Amazon)

The absolute perfect gift for any loyal fan of the hit Netlix series, Stranger Things, this book,  Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down: The Official Behind-the-Scenes Companion is the official behind-the-scenes companion guide to the first two seasons of Stranger Things and beyond, featuring exclusive color photos and stunning concept art.

This book has been cleverly designed to mimic a used book. The marks, scuffs, and tears on the cover and pages are an intentional design element. This makes it more like a prop from the show than just a simply book.

When the first season of Stranger Things debuted on Netflix in the summer of 2016, the show struck a nerve with millions of viewers worldwide and received broad critical acclaim. The series has gone on to win six Emmy Awards, but its success was driven more than anything by word of mouth, resonating across generations. Viewers feel personal connections to the characters. Now fans can immerse themselves in the world—or worlds—of Hawkins, Indiana, like never before. Inside you’ll find

• original commentary and a foreword from creators Matt and Ross Duffer
• exclusive interviews with the stars of the show, including Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and David Harbour
• the show’s earliest drafts, pitches to Netflix, and casting calls
• insights into the Duffers’ creative process from the entire crew—from costume and set designers to composers and visual-effects specialists
• deep dives into the cultural artifacts and references that inspired the look and feel of the show
• a map of everyday Hawkins—with clues charting the network of the Upside Down
• the Morse code disk Eleven uses, so you can decipher secret messages embedded throughout the text
• a look into the future of the series—including a sneak preview of season three!

Adding whole new layers to enrich the viewing experience, this keepsake is essential reading for anyone and everyone who loves Stranger Things. If you have a rabid fan of Stranger Things on your holiday shopping list, then you know that they may be going through withdrawal pains because season three was delayed until next year. This book may be just what they need to make it through to the new season. You can order Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down: The Official Behind-the-Scenes Companion from any bookstore by using the ISBN code, or go for the big discount at Amazon.

Our final gift suggestion for today is not so much a gift or a specific store, but a heads up about a Facebook page. In this case, it’s a Facebook page devoted to Downtown Charleston and the stores that will be open and participating in Small Business Saturday, which is the Saturday following Thanksgiving, and the day after Black Friday.

This November 24 you can head to the bosom of Downtown and enjoy all sorts of wonderful shopping experiences. You may find books, music, jewelry, furniture, art, art supplies, clothes, shoes and knacks of the knick variety. Like and visit the Downtown Charleston Shop Small page and you’ll discover which stores are running what specials, who has the best discounts and which place has the neatest stuff hot off the truck.

This page was created by the Downtown Charleston Business Association, and will let you know the latest about The Purple Moon, Taylor Books, Stray Dog Antiques, The Art Emporium, Tony the Tailor, Delfine’s Jewelry and the dozens of other locally-owned and operated stores and boutiques that make Downtown Charleston such a vibrant place to shop. I will be including many of the participating businesses (and many that I haven’t the space to mention here) in the coming weeks in The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide, but this page will give you additional information and more details.

And you can use the page as a reference all through the holiday season, so click on over and check it out.

SpongeBob Squarepants The Musical Original Cast Recording

This CD came out last year, but I didn’t get to see the show until near the end of its run last summer, so I am recommending this for any fan of the SpongeBob Squarepants cartoon, any fan of Broadway musicals, and any fan of just plain great music that happens to be a lot of fun.

SpongeBob Squarepants The Musical may well be the quintessential Broadway Musical experience. It has the perfect combination of music, cast, direction, art direction and story to make it stand head and shoulders above any of the classics of the stage. The only musical close to this in terms of over all quality is The Book of Mormon, and unlike that show, SpongeBob Squarepants is family-friendly.

Taking the familiar characters from the Nickledeon cartoon, and placing them in a compelling story about the potential end of the world works surprisingly well on stage, largely due to the efforts of the cast and the creative team.

The show is a spectacle in every sense of the word. The set design is brilliant, both figuratively and literally, and the costume design manages to perfectly capture the characters of the cartoon series without resorting to using mascot uniforms. However, on the album you can really focus on how amazing the music is.

The music is incredible and hangs together very well, despite being written, for the most part, by rock musicians with no prior stage experience. In addition to They Might Be Giants, composers include David Bowie and Brian Eno, Jonathan Coulton, Cyndi Lauper, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Yolanda Adams, Sara Bareilles, John Legend and members of Lady Antebellum, The Flaming Lips, Panic at the Disco, The Plain White Ts and Paic At The Disco.

SpongeBob Squarepants The Musical will not being going out on tour until next year, so the only way you can experience this fantastic show at the moment is through this Original Cast Recording, which you ought to be able to find or order from any place that sells CDs, or you can order it from Amazon.

Check out a brief sample below…

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
by Nancy MacLean
Viking
ISBN-13: 978-1101980965
$28.00

This is a great gift for the person on your holiday gift-giving list who is fascinated with politics, and needs to know what’s really going on with dark money flowing into campaigns. This book tells the true story of James McGill Buchanan, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who developed the philosophy and the strategy by which the right-wing elite of this country have spent the last six decades systematically destroying the very foundations of our Democracy. You might not want to give it to your crazy aunt or uncle who thinks the president is a decent human being, but they may be the people who need it the most.

Democracy in Chains is not a tinfoil-helmet conspiracy. This is a meticulously researched and brilliantly written book that traces Buchanan’s influence using his own archives, which are housed at George Mason University. Miraculously for such a secretive movement, one that is steeped in re-writing history to suit their goals, the disciples of Buchanan made little effort to hide his personal archives, and MacLean had unfettered access to his entire written output, including personal correspondence. This book so scared the people pulling the strings that they attempted to discredit it with a smear campaign against the author, but it blew up in their face and only confirmed what she wrote.

Essentially Buchanan was a pioneer in articulating the concept of “I’ve got mine, screw everybody else.” He was stirred to action by the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that set the ground for school segregation. Buchanan was so outraged at the prospect of his tax money paying for the education of young black kids that he founded an entire movement to take over the government and defund every public program imaginable.

He didn’t get very far with this philosophy, until he encountered a new disciple in the 1970s, Charles Koch, who put billions of dollars into placing his carefully chosen candidates in office across the country. Koch, after giving up on getting anywhere with the Libertarian Party, decided to load up state legislatures with hand-picked minions who would gerrymander political advantages for his candidates for higher office. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as frightening as this true story of how people who seem to be evil incarnate have successfully undermined the basic tenets of our Democracy.

It was the success of Democracy and the rise of a middle class that alarmed Buchanan. To quote from the cover blurb, “In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.”

To put it bluntly, these are people who don’t think anyone but them should vote.

In this book we learn how Koch, using his money, took over the Republican Party and turned it into a “dream team” of zealots hell-bent on breaking unions, privatizing Social Security, Health Care, Education and our Interstate system and suppressing as much of the vote as possible. Along the way they’ve made willing stooges of evangelicals, who are too blinded by their own political passions that they don’t care that they’re following the grand plan of a militant atheist. Another weapon in the Libertarian Elite arsenal is the mistrust of the media that they’ve bred by financing “alternate news” sources like FOX News, Brietbart, and ministers of disinmoration like Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Predictably, there is an organized campaign to “review” this book at Amazon and give it a one-star rating. You can guess who’s behind that.

MacLean spent ten years researching this book, and it’s gotten quite a bit of acclaim since it was released last year, but it’s not being read enough. This book should be mandatory reading for anybody who plans on voting. This is scary as hell, but the public must know about this, before it’s too late. You should be able to find or order Democracy In Chains anywhere books are sold, using the ISBN code.

The Creeps Magazine Fan Club

Our final gift suggestion today is a slightly goofy, fun and fairly specific gift you can give somebody if they are a big fan of horror comics. Specifically, if they are fans of classic Warren horror comic magazines like Creepy, Eerie or Vampirella, or if they’re fans of the new magazine from Warrant Publishing, The Creeps. As I’ve told you before, The Creeps Magazine is a lovely and affectionate homage to Creepy and Eerie Magazine. Folks of a certain age probably remember these magazine-sized black and white horror comic anthologies that featured intelligent stories and high class art. You could find them on almost any newsstand. Warren Publishing, the folks who gave us Famous Monsters of Filmland, published Creepy and Eerie (and Vampirella and others) from the mid 1960’s into the mid 1980’s.

For a few now, Warrant Publishing has been recreating the magic with this now-quarterly magazine that duplicates the look and feel, down to the fonts and newsprint and some of the creators of the original Warren books. They have just stepped up their game a little in the nostalgia department.

Back in the 1970s, during the heyday of Warren Publishing, they offered a fan club for their magazine’s horror hosts that included a poster, a button and a membership card.

Well, now you can join The Creeps Magazine Fan Club. It’s a lifetime membership, and it’s a great bit of nostalgia, or a happy little gag gift for the horror comics fan on your list. It’s twenty bucks and includes a button, card and mini-poster, plus a membership number. If you don’t think that makes a good gift on its own you can poke around their website and grab a few back issues to toss in to make it a full-fledged gift. Follow the links, or click on the “coupon” below to purchase a fan club membership.

Local Spotlight: Oddbird Emporium

Our first local business recommendation this year is a great little shop that’s been with us for a few years now. While we’re plugging it, we must also congratulate the owner, Naomi Bays, who landed an at large seat on Charleston’s City Council last night. I’m talking about Oddbird Gift Emporium, located at the corner of Capitol and Lee Streets, right across from the Lee Street Triangle. Oddbird offers a collection of quirky, fun gifts for the home, office, beauty, baby, garden and everywhere in between.

Open six days a week, Oddbird Gift Emporium has a good number of items made right here in the Mountain State. Oddbird also carries the clothing lines, Mata Traders and Kavu. and has a really cool assortment of gift wrap paper, and they’ll do the wrapping for you if, like your PopCulteer, you are unable to wrap anything without making it look like a suspicious package.

Aside from the clothing and ornamets, Oddbird Gift Emporium is loaded with cool housewares, knicknacks, cooking items, custom-made soaps and candles and more. You’ll also find art prints, pottery, dinnerware, mugs and tons of other neat things.

You’ll even find printed towels, aprons and umbrellas. Best of all, instead of wracking your brain trying to pick out the perfect gift from this awesome collection of unique giftery, you can simply purchase of gift certificate from Oddbird Gift Emporium and shift the burden of labor onto the lucky receipient on your holiday shopping list.

Oddbird Gift Emporium is open Tuesday through Thursday from 10:30 AM to 6:00 PM; Friday from 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM; and Saturday from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. You will find this shop at 247 Capitol St (right across from the Lee Street Triangle) and you can call (304) 344-2473 or email oddbirdgifts@gmail.com, for details on purchasing gift certificates. You can also visit their website and their Facebook page for more details.