Monday, 22 October 2007
A dark, disturbed, caffeine libation
A very long time ago, a young man watched a TV movie, of questionable production and writing quality, that had a title something like Swords and (Sorcerers|Sorcery).[1] I don't recall much of the story, but one scene is burned into my mind:
A hero (maybe the heroes) enter a tavern. Belly up to the bar and order a libation. It is delivered in mugs, made of skulls. Do I recall smoke cascading over the rim?
Fast forward to my years in college and an incident that still makes me sad, a little bit. My parent’s had given me a skull mug from The Pirates House restaurant in Savannah, GA. The mug, as I recall, was a gift, but not for any memory of a B-Made-for-Television movie. Gray, with a “bone” handle, the mug was evocative of pirate lure. I loved that mug. Then my roommate, rushing to get to class, knocked it to the floor. Destroyed.
I have seen many mugs like this very one on eBay, or at other stores. Most white, or ivory, but none gray like the souvenir from my parents[2], and never any like the prop from the movie.
Until today.
Completely by accident, as I wanted to find an image of a skull for a blog post about locating a mug as my mind’s envisioned and remembered it from my youth, I typed “skull” into Google, then selected “Images.” As Providence would have it, this gem appeared on the first page.
Damn! This is exactly what I wanted. I wanted a skull mug that would be reminiscent of the movie prop, something sans-jawbone, that rested on the brain pan and upper jaw. Something macabre. Something that would let me drink coffee from, well, a brain pan.
I don’t have to tell you how excited I am about this mug.
Order one yourself from Tiki Farm.
Bonus points for anyone that can tell me what the name of that B-Made-for-TV movie was... I completed college in ’91, 1988 was the year I entered that university. So this movie must have aired in the early 80s, say 1980–1984.
meta-footnote-1=grep expression for “one or the other”
meta-footnote-2=The Pirates House no longer has this mug as a souvenir. The original mug was gray, with appropriate highlights and a black wash, deep black eye sockets, and a white interior. The Pirates House was prominently stamped on the back of the skull.
