BVT
Joined: Mar 09, 2010
Posts: 86
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BVT
On 2010-03-18 19:03, ka'lenatiki wrote:
Hmmm hadn't quite put it that way, but you know.........made sense...lol
Welcome!!
On 2010-03-18 07:56, Brandomoai wrote:
I think I know what you're getting at - Voltaire's "Cannibal Buffet" always makes it onto both my Halloween and Tiki party playlists! You're not the first person here to explore that crossover. [ie Goth Tiki]
Great! Maybe Goth Tiki isn't as obscure as it appears to be. Anyway, here's what Voltaire himself had to say about it. You can find this in his book Paint It Black: A Guide To Gothic Homemaking. I greatly recommend picking up this book. It's an excellent idea book for Gothifying most anything. With a little creativity of one's own, the stuff in the book can be adapted to Tiki decor.
*Goth Tiki ?
I recently went to a Deathrock party in New York City called "Curse of The Hearse." It was held at a tiki bar by the name of Otto's Shrunken Head. The DJs, Allison and Fritz, were spinning 80's deathrock tunes. At one point, I looked up at the video monitor to see *The Island of Lost Souls *playing. I sat there sipping my Red Devil out of a spooky tiki mug in a room adorned with skulls when it suddenly hit me: Goth Tiki ! I remember this !
Who would have guessed that Tiki could be Goth ? Well actually, your grandparents might have! In the 1930s, American filmmakers tapped into a genre that filled audiences with an ominous sense of dread. Many action and suspense films during that era were set in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Polynesia, and Africa where the wilds are thick, very very dark, and filled with exotic and unexpected dangers. Add to that backdrop foreboding scores with low-register, bowel-loosening horns and Afro-Cuban rhythms and you have a truly dark (if not classically Gothic) experience.
You won't generally find vampires in these films, but you will find plenty of other creepy characters. Some of my favorite films from that era are* King Kong; Son of Kong; and the aforementioned Island of Lost Souls.
Even Betty Boop joined in the trend. Watch some of the early Betty Boop cartoons and you will see here being spirited away to dark jungles by man-eating cannibals intent on picking a bone with here (or from *her). Southeast Asian, African, and Tiki motifs may seem like an odd choice for a Goth, but consider this: wherever there are cannibals (real or imaginary), there are skulls. . . lots and lots of skulls. (For an explanation of why skulls are Goth, go back to the beginning of this section)
Stuff that will make your room like a vampire tiki bar include: skulls, voodoo dolls, tiki mugs, big artificial vines and creepers, anything made out of bamboo, and a well-placed rubber snake or two. Pirate or sailor paraphernalia might come in handy and a life-sized skeleton is always a nice touch; dress him up like Gilligan (from * Gilligan's Island*) for some extra yuks.
Tiki hails specifically from Polynesia (Hawaii, Bikini, etc); But there is nothing keeping you from throwing in whatever fits your fancy that seems vaguely related to the concept. You would not be the first to wing it. It's not uncommon for people to thrown in elements from other cultures in the neighborhood -- like Malaysia, Thailand, or Indonesia--despite the fact that there is nothing Tiki about them. For example, the original * King Kong *(1933) takes place on some remote island in Southeast Asia, but all of the natives are black. They must have had some truly awesome canoes 'cause it's a * long way from Africa to Borneo !
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