Gleanings from the Arizona State Fair

Look what Julianne Hoof won at the Arizona State Fair! It's a younger sister!

Amazing what you can get by tossing the ball through the ring!

Thanks to the power of Pokémon GO, stuffed pikachu were everywhere, toted like the prizes of some bizarre hunting season.

Tie it to the front bumper to haul it home. It'll feed us all winter.

The dollhouse division of the domestic arts competition either vanished or got no entries, and miniature floral arranging appears to be long gone, so for 2016 state fair delights, we're going to have to settle for seeing what miniatures I bought at the hucksters' stalls and doing a more detailed unveiling of Julianne's younger sis.

Of course, I bought a pikachu key chain. Blame the pumpkin ale for my forgetting to look for one with a good expression.

Pikachu's had a hard night on the tiles.

A little acetone cleaned the pikachu up nicely, though it lightened the yellow on his belly as well.

Pikachu feels faintly shamed.

With the harp below, I figured it was just a very primitive representation of the loose concept of "harp," but no! It is a five-string knee-harp.

I got my first real five-string... in the summer of '69...

This is a one-eyed llama carrying eggs. I guess I should either find it a second googly eye or replace the lone eye with something to match on either side.

Llama llama ramma damma ding dong.

Now for the main event! I was cruising the hucksters' stalls under the grandstand when I spotted a tray of small dolls in tubes. The going rate was $3 each, which is probably $2 over legit street value, but it was the state fair and there's no guaranteee that dollar stores will ever get these.

Totally tubular!

Her podmates were available with paler blond hair, purple hair, and pink hair, but in every case, their coiffures were so tightly scraped back into ponytails that their heads looked oddly shaped. If dolls of color -- or even brunettes -- are available in this line, the Latina vendor at this particular stall had not ordered any.

She's from Shantou, China, of course, where there are literally 4,000 factories making fashion doll clones, all with generic names like Modern Girl. Googling for various items on the container got me no fix on her maker, just some complaints in Czech about excess phthalates in the plastic. (So, like, don't suck her toes, okay?)

READY TO FACE THE WORLD.

Jillianne is a titch over six inches tall, making her 1:12 dollhouse size if she cares to settle down. She's about half an inch shorter than the Topper Dawn dolls of the 1970s (covered in detail at Dawn Doll Archive). I have this dim notion that there was another try at 6" fashion dolls in the 1980s or 1990s, but I can't remember the name of the line(s).

Hair rooting... is best not even discussed.

Look, I have GREAT extensions!

She has the usual Dollar Store Beauty level of (in)articulation: legs make great front/back splits but no side splits, arms move back and forth with no side motion. Her body is similar in style -- but less detailed -- compared to the Ddung on the right.

L-R: Midnight Magic mini, Jillianne, Ddung bought in San Francisco

Until she finds a place to settle down, she's hanging out with big sis, who needs a break from the hectic dance world.

Maybe next time at the fair, we'll get a Magikarp!