Archive for October, 2009
What I learned at the puppet show…
All guitars should be destroyed. Autoharps can stick around for a little longer, but accordions are on notice.
The fun of seeing people do assignments (react to a theme)is when they really use the assignment to stretch themselves, not when they build a tenuous bridge of justification between it and what they would probably do anyway.
It helps if your puppets “read” from more than two feet away, ’cause only your parent’s living room is that intimate.
What does it take to fill a house that seats 125 on a rainy Wednesday night? 14 performers not waiting back stage and a couple of their friends each.
One joke does not a sketch make.
Grabbing an object and bouncing it along a table surface is a barely effective way of having a puppet portray “walking”.
There are Seven Deadly Sins – Seven. It says so on your flyer and you told us that at the beginning of the show. So how come there were so many times when I couldn’t figure out which one you were trying to show me?
Snarky Lesbian break-up duet for Wrath? Excellent.
A good puppet is a legible and expressive character visually. A great puppeteer can make that puppet express many different things through movement and timing, allowing the puppet to change in front of your eyes. When you realize that the great puppeteer is three different people moving together in an intimate dance with an object while projecting outward to the audience a series of emotions, you know you’re seeing art. Brava, Green Fairy/Envy crew.
Pre-recorded music for puppets is pretty much a bummer, “Symphonie Fantastique” not withstanding.
Two to four lovely moments, a seven dollar ticket price and a brisk running time are all that it takes for me to feel perfectly happy that I went to see this show, even with my griping. Thanks for taking me, Thor.
Bonus thing I learned: it’s very nice indeed to come home to a pumpkin carved by a sweetie.
Tags: daily photo, puppets, theater, thor
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The cluttered desk has its charms as well…
Horrid anxiety attack about finances today, which put me on autopilot for much of the afternoon. Ugh. And again, Ugh.
Tags: daily photo, finance, work
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A new Blake it Yourself: in time for the holiday…
Head on over to this location to get the instructions for the latest “make your own Nayland Blake”.
Tags: biy, making art
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Flyby….
Where did yesterday get to? It seems like I was waking up one minute and then seconds later I was laughing at the latest Venture Brothers episode. There was stuff I was supposed to do, and I didn’t do it. There were friends I was going to see, and I didn’t see them. The furthest I got from my house was the laundromat, where I dumped a bunch of liquid detergent into the bottom of the laundry bag, and dropped a full iced coffee onto the floor, causing a cleanup in the aisle. It was a day of spills and chills, since I spilled more stuff at home cleaning out my refrigerator and then felt a bit off which forced me to retire to the bed for a too early for real sleep nap.
Today is definitely better,I feel more myself, and while walking Lehigh I got an eyeful of a cute furry DSNY employee with a long blonde goatee who gave me a quick grin as he climbed onto his truck. I approve of the city’s new hiring practices! Here’s hoping I have fewer butterfinger episodes for the rest of the day.
Oh and the above photo is for those who dismiss the capabilities of the iPhone’s camera: last night’s sunset, without retouching.
Tags: chores, daily photo, tired
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Contender…
At a nearby restaurant…
Ain’t gonna do The Mouse no more (was: Big Link Friday)
The first time I ever desperately wanted to see someone get hit in the face with a pie, it was this man. Soupy Sales had a TV show on New York’s channel 5 four a few years when I was a kid, and he could take a pie like nobody else. Somewhere betwen Mr Rodgers and Jerry Lewis in his on air persona, he was both the zany and straight man in a program that laid the ground work for shows like Peewee’s Playhouse and TV Funhouse. He’s most famous for the “go through your parents’ pockets” stunt, which is one of the few urban ledgends that actually happened. The fifties and sixties were the heyday of TV where you were being invited into someone’s house: The Mickey mouse Club, the Winchell and Mahoney show, Captain Kangaroo, all these guys inviting you to hang out with them and then playing cartons. Even Sesame Street has some similarities. Those hosts welcomed me into a home that was both outside and yet inside of my home, where wacky puppet neighbors got you into trouble and food was for smearing on your face. Sales’ antic Mad- Magazine style marked one of the places where my tastes and those of the adults in my life overlapped. My family got over awkward social moments by swapping our imitations of Sales’ dog White Fang or doing The Mouse (3:18 for the impatient):
Soupy’s show was one big long shtick, but look at how happy he is to be doing it!
Tags: childhood, Obit, Soupy Sales, tv
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Talk to the future…
This morning I spoke to a group of students from Duke University as part of a cultural program supervised by my friend Jeff. Every time I’ve done it I’ve been gratified to meet with enthusiasm and hunger that these people have for the chance to be out in the world making things and garnering experience.
It did mean that I was running a bit late for all the rest of the day heading from the Duke talk to a quick lunch to our crtitque class at ICP, where my students continue to bring out interesting ideas and ask either hard questions, back to the office in order to check some additional stuff to dinner eaten on the street, to desultory grocery shopping to ensure that I would have yogurt for tomorrow’s breakfast, until I find myself now here at home tuckered and without a post. No real energy to draw either. And an early meeting tomorrow as well. Sigh. Jobs is jobs, and I should be glad to have one.
Tags: daily photo, teaching, work
