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Laughing Sal has been refurbished and has been installed in my hometown, at the entrance to the part of the Boardwalk amusement park called "Neptune's Kingdom," which is where the miniature golf and the paintball cavern are. Architecturally, it's the main entrance to the Walk, although I think at least locals usually enter from the beach side or the river trestle side.
I cannot tell you how bad an idea this is. Laughing Sal is one of the most horrific statues I have ever seen. She used to adorn the Fun House at the lamented Playland at the Beach in San Francisco and she was the only thing I hated there. She marred an otherwise excellent merry-go-round experience as the carousel passed her on every orbit and her hysterical, mad, sinister laughter dopplered through the music making the whole like the soundtrack to the climactic moment of a bad Hitchcock imitation.
The local newspaper asked if Laughing Sal never frightens children and got the sangune -- and flase -- answer that she does not. Heck, children -- she frightens any sane person. She's the clown of your nightmares: the one whose laught er tells you everything you do is useless, pointless, stupid, and doomed to failure. She's the antithesis of good humor: she's mean-spirited, nasty, the very soul of schadenfreude. She laughs when you slip on the soft serfve ice cream dropped by the absent-minded child in front of you. She laughs when you clutch your pockets in vain panic realizing you have left your wallet with your whole life in it three hours ago on the floor of a public bathroom fifty miles away in a town where you know no one. SHe laughs when your child has stepped on a filthy hypodermic dropped on the beach by some generous junkie who's been sharing it with all the strangers in the Flats. She laughs when you remember for the fiftieth time that you came here today to escape the memory of your mother's face when you suggested that she might like it better to live in the assisted-living home you promised never to consider. She laughs when your lover tells you it's time to move on. She laughs when you look into the abyss. She loves the abyss.
Here is a clip of Laughing Sal's twin sister at the Musee Mechanique.
Well, the Boardwalk never made much money on me or mine anyway.
In other news, a couple of the mothers of Guard girls are carrying the large banners we call "standards" in the Felton Remembers parade today and in Hawaii, so I won't be the only old lady in black trying to keep up for four miles in the tropical sun as I wheel my daughter along.
I cannot tell you how bad an idea this is. Laughing Sal is one of the most horrific statues I have ever seen. She used to adorn the Fun House at the lamented Playland at the Beach in San Francisco and she was the only thing I hated there. She marred an otherwise excellent merry-go-round experience as the carousel passed her on every orbit and her hysterical, mad, sinister laughter dopplered through the music making the whole like the soundtrack to the climactic moment of a bad Hitchcock imitation.
The local newspaper asked if Laughing Sal never frightens children and got the sangune -- and flase -- answer that she does not. Heck, children -- she frightens any sane person. She's the clown of your nightmares: the one whose laught er tells you everything you do is useless, pointless, stupid, and doomed to failure. She's the antithesis of good humor: she's mean-spirited, nasty, the very soul of schadenfreude. She laughs when you slip on the soft serfve ice cream dropped by the absent-minded child in front of you. She laughs when you clutch your pockets in vain panic realizing you have left your wallet with your whole life in it three hours ago on the floor of a public bathroom fifty miles away in a town where you know no one. SHe laughs when your child has stepped on a filthy hypodermic dropped on the beach by some generous junkie who's been sharing it with all the strangers in the Flats. She laughs when you remember for the fiftieth time that you came here today to escape the memory of your mother's face when you suggested that she might like it better to live in the assisted-living home you promised never to consider. She laughs when your lover tells you it's time to move on. She laughs when you look into the abyss. She loves the abyss.
Here is a clip of Laughing Sal's twin sister at the Musee Mechanique.
Well, the Boardwalk never made much money on me or mine anyway.
In other news, a couple of the mothers of Guard girls are carrying the large banners we call "standards" in the Felton Remembers parade today and in Hawaii, so I won't be the only old lady in black trying to keep up for four miles in the tropical sun as I wheel my daughter along.
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Can't sleep...hysterical mechanical creature'll eat me...
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I never spent much money at Playland or the Boardwalk either, but the Funhouse still haunts my dreams, as though it... and she... never went away.
My article says more on the dark side of Playland at:
http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/pacific/pacific.htm
It was the Limbo ride vampire/witch figure above the entrance that unnerved me... she or it was too quiet.
There's a picture of the Limbo ride entrance with the witch in my essay,
You'll know it when you you see it.
The original Playland-at-the-Beach carousel was never broken up, and is now back in San Francisco open to the public at of all places, 4th and Folsom St.
Imagine what weird sounds might have barked from the thankfully silent Doggie Diner heads... besides one in operation across from the Zoo, the Doggies are a rare item in fine cousine these days, seen mostly on tour.
Amazing that Laughing Sal inspires fear and loathing after all these years.
She appears in several B-noirs, such as Man in the Middle and Woman on the Run, always symbolic of confusion and craziness... I've heard that the sash she wears is what certain in-patients of Bellevue (?) wore for reasons that I'd like to know more about.
Though she's absent from the incredible pan, shot on location for the final scene in Lady from Shanghai, that's her "Crazy House" at Playland that puts the cap on a confused movie.