Collecting Monsters

The first monster was a surprise. Our first encounter was at a now-defunct shop on Route 1, where I was killing time during one of my daughter’s Saturday riding lessons. As I browsed through the usual card-shop bric-a-brac, I sensed a presence looming above me. When I looked up to the top shelf, there lay a blue creature that only a mother-monster could love.

Two feet long and lizard-like, he sprawled along the glass shelf, his pink eyes regarding the world with baleful intensity. Tufts of brownish fuzz sprouted from his knees, his spine, his neck and his gray possum-tail. With his three-fingered hands and three-toed feet, and bearing a rhinoceros-like horn, he resembled nothing so much as a colossal mistake in a stuffed-animal factory. He was, beyond doubt, a beast of the first order. And yet…he was a small beast, and looked rather forlorn. I  plucked him from the shelf, almost expecting resistance.

There was none. In fact, I found that he fit into my arms neatly, like an incredibly ugly baby. Touch was his forte. His body was made of fuzzy, blue-checked lumberjack-shirt wool; his head and legs of blue velvet. The pads of his feet and hands were leathery, and even the sprouts of fur were an interesting contrast. He was eminently huggable, and for someone like me who comes from a long line of non-huggers and non-touchers, he was absolutely amazing. His name was Sly Upcreet, and his attached biography described him as the monster under the bed: the one who feeds on random socks and dust bunnies in the dark of night, but skitters off at the approach of a flashlight.

He cost $125. Obviously, his maker knew the magic she had created, and put a fitting price on it. I left him behind reluctantly, and retrieved my daughter from her lesson.

Months later, Sly reappeared as a strangely lumpy package on my birthday. (My elder daughter had blabbed.) I actually took him to school that morning to show my friends and students. Oddly, no one succumbed to his charm, despite my encouragement to pick him up and hold him. All I was given were dubious looks and a rather wide berth. Perhaps Sly only turns on his charm for other ugly ducklings—or those in need of a hug.

Let me go on the record with this: I have never been one to be lured by a Beanie Baby, or bewitched by a teddy-bear (although the occasional sheep has caught my eye). Dolls and stuffed animals were not my favorite toys, even as a child. Sly is a horse (monster) of a different color (blue). He has no decorative function. He is not cute. He might even be scary to the uninitiated. He simply sits in my family room near the fireplace, and sometimes joins me on the couch for a movie. He’s someone to hold when there’s no one to hold onto.

Having Sly, however, led me to search for more of his brethren. His creator was named in a small leather medallion round his neck—Charlene Kinsser. A tiny biography of Sly attached to his wrist described him and his maker sufficiently for me to know there were others like him out there—but, like most monsters, they possessed secret lairs, accessible only to those who sought them diligently.

I found a cousin, Freda B. Fierce, in her flannel pajamas in a small shop in Occoquan some years later. She was pink velvet, with baby-bead teeth and an orange hair ribbon perpetually slipping down her ears. Her eyes were a little too close-set for comfort, and her long snout and burgundy suede tongue—not to mention those irregular teeth—failed to engender in me the same affection I felt for Sly. But, when positioned in her doll high chair on the hearth, she took on a friendlier mien.

By this time, friends and family had been introduced to the search. Other Kinsser animals were located—a rabbit here, a bear there--but it was the monsters that were the real prizes. On a trip to New York, my younger daughter found a cache in a Soho toystore called ‘The Enchanted Forest’. She kept the secret for nearly six months, and used more of her money than she should have to bring me the Closet Beastie for Christmas. He was the epitome of all presents—something totally useless, that no one but me understood or loved, but purchased anyway, simply because she knew I would treasure him. Beasley (for that’s what I named him) is one of the best presents anyone ever gave me for that very reason.

A few years later, I found myself in the same store in Soho, and was beguiled by a non-monster—Coyote Sir. He was mohair-coated, dressed to dine with a napkin round his neck and roadkill menu in hand. He had absolutely lunatic eyes, but was wonderful to hold, and possessed a delightfully springy tail. He flew home with me on the shuttle, though I’m sure he’d have rather gone first-class. When we arrived home, I placed him on the foyer loveseat with my collection of sheep and went upstairs to unpack. Coming downstairs and heading for the kitchen a while later, I saw that the sheep were huddled together on the far end of the loveseat, opposite the corner claimed by Coyote. My husband assured me that he’d sat down to tie his shoes and unconsciously had shoved them aside. I’m not so sure. Those eyes were unnerving. Eventually, I bought him a pair of spectacles which, for some reason, diminished the effect. The sheep have relaxed a bit.

Winnie and Charmaine are throwbacks to the original Sly concept. They are the smallest of the lot, and were adopted as a pair. They are best friends, and their arms button around each other. They live in the red chair in the living room, only departing when company comes and they have to sacrifice their comfort for the sake of hospitality. Of all the extended monster family, they are probably the most generally appealing. They are small and brown and squirrel-like: standard and appealing enough for the average observer to understand.

                                                          

Sadie is the last. I bought her, sight unseen, at the recommendation of a shop-owner who knows my weakness for the Kinsser creations. We have not yet bonded, though it’s been a year or so. She lounges on the arm of the chair in the family room, but doesn’t demand attention. Somehow, it isn’t the same. I bought her simply because Charlene Kinsser is retiring from the general marketplace, and Sadie may be the last of her monsters I will find. That makes her a sad coda to my collection. The monster-lady is now making only a few each year—special editions for collectors. I suspect they will be one of a kind creations for people who can afford ever-more-outrageous prices: thousand dollar dragons that will be art, not magic—made to make money; to be admired, not loved.  

Practicality and the marketplace have triumphed over fun. I’m not altogether surprised. The creations have changed in recent years, and I’m sure that the original creator’s hand was missing. Sly II came out last year, and he had no spark in him. I would gladly have left him under the bed to gorge on dust bunnies and die. He was plastic and rayon and slick and shiny. “Smooth as silk and sincere as polyester” is the description that comes to mind. He was meant to be a pajama-bag. My shop-owner friend didn’t understand why I didn’t snap him up, but who can believe in a pajama bag? Pajama bags don’t sing.

And that is the crux of all collections, be they art or antiques or matchbooks or monsters: they must have a siren song of sorts—a resonance between maker and the work that reaches out and captures the unwary and makes them part of the creative magic.

I can see the new monsters, made in the image and likeness of the older models, but they are depressingly silent. With their creator in retirement, other hands are meddling and other heads are making decisions. The new monsters don’t speak… perhaps they have nothing more to say.