Because I could not make this name up if I tried

I signed into Yahoo mail and got the following friend request.

Never heard of the person, but consigned him/her to screenshot eternity, for obvious reasons:

And on the off chance that Moist.Bootie, alias Lucid Truffle, is someone I actually know and I should realize this, then (a) sorry, (b) I didn't mean it* and (c) I hope we can still be friends.

* Just kidding.  I did.

Shout-out for fundraising friends

My first-ever puppet role, Intern

Tonight's post goes out to my friends at The Media Show, the TV show I used to write for when it was in its formative stages at Teachers College in New York.  The team behind this program is responsible not only for giving me my first ever puppet role (Intern, the sock who always refers to herself in the third person) but also for breathing life into my musical, Aisle Six, when it had its showcases at the Players Club.

These days they're looking for funding to spread awareness of media and technology throughout schools.  Below is an excerpt from a post by my friend Gus, producer of the program, in which she explains her goal.  They're currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds they need. Click the link or read Gus' post below to learn more.

So if you're interested in supporting a program that uses comically irreverent puppets to promote media literacy, read on.  Personally, I find this cause to be a far more compelling one than, say, Greenpeace.

At the moment, they have four days remaining on their Kickstarter campaign.  Well? What are you waiting for?

Excerpt (by Gus Andrews):

{...} Critical thinking about the media — often known as “media literacy” — has been edged out of school curricula. High-stakes tests pressure teachers to stick to rote memorization, reading, and math. Internet access is spotty or locked down at many schools, limiting what teachers can teach about online safety. Students may graduate without ever learning how advertisements provide the funding for most of their favorite shows, magazines, or websites.

The Media Show makes short online videos to take up the slack. We believe that when youth learn how the media and technology around them are made, they are empowered to think critically about the media messages they are immersed in.

Since 2008 we’ve used irreverent humor to explain copyright law, advertising tactics, email etiquette, and more on YouTube, the world’s most popular video site. In 2010, we won a Media That Matters award for our episode on photo manipulation throughout history — from Hitler airbrushing his enemies out of photos, through advertisers lightening pop star Beyonce’s skin color.

How can you help? The Media Show is currently seeking donors to fund not only production of upcoming episodes on search engines, online ads, and hacking, but also to support us as we take our shows to classrooms, libraries, and afterschool programs.

We need just ten more donors at the $550 level to reach our goal of $9000, to produce more episodes and bring workshops on media awareness to more youth. Would you help us? Participating Sponsors at this level fund workshops in major US cities, as well as helping us reach young viewers online with brand new episodes.

Four more donors at the $1500 level would help us reach our goal, and do workshops in areas of the United States which are farther from centers of media production — places where youth are even less likely to be exposed to the workings of media and technology industries.

Time is running out on our campaign. We need to raise $9000 by Tuesday, August 23rd in order to receive our funding. Will you help us teach more young people to think critically about media systems?

To read the full text of Gus' message go to The Media Show official website.

Trop cool!

I got interviewed for France-Amérique! Read it here (it's in French).

For those of you whom I haven't yet badgered incessantly about it (and, note to self: get on that), my friend Manisha Snoyer - Francophone actress teacher extraordinaire, and director of Into This City International Acting School - has most kindly invited me back to NYC to co-teach a puppetry workshop with her.  I just realized this marks the first time since 2006 that I won't be there en tant qu'étudiante (as a student).  Yay for that!

And yay goes double for our puppetry workshop, which - here goes ...

YOU SHOULD COME TO YOU SHOULD COME TO YOU SHOULD COME TO YOU SHOULD COME TO.  DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!!

Ahem.  Anyway, for those non-Francophones, the article linked above basically talks about my feelings about puppetry in France and the U.S. (this is one of the few Major World Issues that I have strong feelings about, the other two being men's figure skating and caffeinated beverages).  And it reminds you to come make puppets with us on Saturday, August 27.

A big thank-you goes out to Guénola Pellen of France-Amérique, who interviewed me and then, being an excellent journalist, managed to cobble my occasionally comical, French as a Second Language ramblings into something cogent and lovely.  Here's an example snippet from our conversation, with translation in parentheses:

GUÉNOLA: Alors, qu'est-ce que l'art de la marionnette représente pour vous?
(What does puppetry represent for you?)

ME: Ah bon bah ... j'ai pas exactement ... comment dirais-je? Hehhheh c'est difficile hehheh, heh.  Eh bien, moi je trouve que c'est une très bonne façon de s'exprimer, à travers la marionnette, buhh, c'est-à-dire que buhhh ça révèle plein de choses, euhhhh, même chez les personnes qui sont en générale très, euhhh, buh, est-ce qu'on dit "inhibitées"?* Est-ce que c'est un mot, ça?
(Ah bon bah ... I'm not sure exactly ... how do I put it? Hehhheh it's difficult, hehheh, heh.  Well, I find it's a very good way to express yourself, puppetry; buhh, I mean, buhh, it reveals a lot of things, euhhh, even in people who are normally very, euhhhh, buh, can one say "inhibitées"? Is that a word?)

GUÉNOLA: Uh.... (Uh....)

ME: Buh, je veux dire, buh ..... attendez je cherche sur Google .... (Buh, what I mean is, buh, hold on, I'll look on Google.)

GUÉNOLA: Ah, vous voulez dire "coincées" peut-être? (Oh, I think you mean "uptight," perhaps?)

ME (puffed up with the pride that can only come from having lit on the "mot juste"): Oui, c'est ça.  (Yes, that's it.)

Thankfully, in print I'm eloquent (merci madame), which is great, because now you'll never have to know how I sounded on the phone. 

Also, Princess Marcheline looks quite fetching in her close-up, n'est-ce pas? Although I notice they cut off our headshot right above her ample pom-pom bosoms, which is just not very français of France-Amérique at all.  On the other hand, there is Amérique in the title, which is probably where the decency comes from.  In the U.S., one doesn't just go around exposing our children to brazenly bared pom-poms.

I mean, it probably won't bother me if and when I'm a parent, but then, I'm a puppeteer.  I like to think our house will be known among my children's little friends as "the house where sometimes you get to see pom-poms." 

 


* Inhibited = inhibé, in fact.  I was close but not close enough.  I've goofed this one at least twice now which means, only six more times before I get a free coffee.

How the Puppet Got His Mouth

Here we are ("we" being me and the fluffy guys, aka The Mighty Tatterdemalions), performing two of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories a couple weeks ago in Portland, Maine:

This is the beginning of the Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, which was always my favorite Just So Story as a little kid, because it featured (a) a kangaroo (b) a dingo and (c) little, medium-sized, and big gods respectively named Nqa, Nquing and Nqong.  (These are only their stage names, of course.  Their real names are Bqa, Bquing and Bqong.)  Here is Kangaroo, possibly my favorite puppet ever, deep in conversation with the little god Nqa.

Kangaroo is extremely shocked here, and as visible puppeteer I'm supposed to be matching his expression.  However, I'd begun smiling because my audience (who consisted of 25 or 30 adorable and riveted four-year-olds who I swear were direct from Central Casting) had begun roaring with laughter when I didn't expect it at all.  They caught me off guard.  Couldn't help myself.

Here are the Whale and the Small 'Stute Fish from How the Whale Got His Throat, which, as its title suggests, tells the story of Old Man Kangaroo.  No, only kidding, it tells the story of how the whale learned not to eat people.  We can agree this has been a great boon to humanity except in the case of the cast of Teen Mom.  Anyway, guiding the whale on the way is this little fish, who, yes, is wearing glasses, though I am informed this is not zoologically accurate.

At the risk of destroying the mystique of my co-star here, I will reveal that his insides are made of poly-fill fluff, bits of foam, and bits of other discarded puppets, which actually I guess makes him a cannibal in a sense after all.  Oh, well.

Nerds of a Feather

I've been remiss in not posting this year about the San Diego Comic-Con International (motto: "Now With 33% More Obese Superheroes").  So let's take care of that.  First, a look back over five reasons why this year's Con was the best ever:

1. Sock networking
I brought Marcheline, my princess puppet best known for her work in The Golden Stoat (see photo below).  This was an excellent career move (for both of us) in the sense that she has great mass appeal, by which I mean "mega-honkin' pom-pom bosoms."  This sort of thing is extremely de rigueur* at the Comic-Con, where there are more x-treme bosoms than you can shake a stick at, although we're not sure why you would want to.  At any rate, Marcheline fit right in, and we even had chance encounters with several other itinerant puppeteers, who were also strolling with their puppets.  Our puppets had loud conversations, during which people came by and took pictures of the occasion.  That's right.  Comic-Con photographers took time out to photograph puppets chatting.  I like to think that, while this was going on, streams of major celebrities were passing by behind the photographers. 

2. We sold all the Pibgorn books 
That's right.  If you want any of the five titles sold by the esteemed Pib Press, you are going to have to order them online at http://pibpress.blogspot.com.  We sold every single copy we brought with us, sometimes - this was my favorite part - to people who had never even heard of the strip.  These were generally guys, whose rationale for purchasing was something like:


* They were keen to discover a heretofore unfamiliar artistic oeuvre featuring hot babe fairy demon succubi.
* Also, I, the salesperson, had smiled at them a lot.

One eager dude was so charmed by my sales prowess he actually went so far as having me sign the book (alongside my dad's signature), even though I warned him this could devalue it.

3. The Doofenshmirtz Blimp

Regrettably, this picture sucks, but I hope it at least gives you an idea of the glory that was the Phineas and Ferb booth.  It also featured a large vehicle shaped like a platypus and called "Perry the Platy-bus."

4. The Screaming Booth
This is a real thing, and I observed it for an extended period of time.  It's one of those things from which you can't turn away, like a bloody gory car wreck, or American Idol.  Here is how the Screaming Booth works: it's a booth, and you get in and scream.  You try to scream as loudly as you possibly can, so as to beat the score of the last person who screamed.  As long as I watched, I don't think anybody ever got past 8.79 ("Nuclear Test"), but the scale went all the way up to 11 ("Gilbert Gottfried").

I would have been extremely wary to participate, for fear of busting a vocal cord, but here is the thing: there were HORDES of people lined up to scream in the booth.**  There was a perky female Scream Booth Spokesperson with a microphone, and she would call out "Who's next?" and hands would wave wildly, as if these people were competing for a vacation to beautiful Puerto Vallarta on The Price is Right, instead of a chance to scream real loud.  Then microphone girl would choose someone, and ask them, "So, Mark,*** tell me something that makes you really mad," and Mark would go, "Um, my brother," and he'd get in the booth and close the door and YAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the little sensor on the Scream-o-Tron would crawl up maybe to 8.5, causing the crowd to give hearty cheers of encouragement ("Yeeeaaaa") and maybe get some more popcorn.  And perky microphone girl would note that the score to beat was still 8.79, but, "Good try!"

As a college graduate who has been rigorously trained to "wind up" by finding the subtext in a topic, I feel compelled to say this taught us about humanity, because, what the heck.

(Actually, as I understand it, this booth was intended as a tie-in with some movie about rage, but seriously, who even cared? My life was full as I watched, any way you look at it.)

5. The Flarp (and the Cake)

I cannot be exaggerating when I say that this item is the second-most seminal creation in the history of mankind, ranking right up there with fire, gravity, the wheel, the transmission, the power seats and that half-pretzel half-cracker thingie I once inhaled a boxful of on the way home from Shaw's supermarket. 

Here is what the Flarp does: it makes flarping noises.  Several of them, in fact.  Designated by a series of cheerfully colored buttons, they are called "Ripper," "Power," "Uptight," "Juicy," "Nervous," and of course "Classic."  These sounds must be heard to be believed, although I'm sure you can go something of the distance in imagining them.  Go on, try.

I found this unparalleled item precisely where you'd expect, namely the clearance rack at Ralph's, an extremely enchanting grocery store that does not exist on the East coast.  Hence I had to discover it in CA, where suffice it to say I immediately developed a deep and obsessive infatuation with it.  My father says I am the only person he knows who has uttered the phrase "Bow-chicka-wow-wowww" about a supermarket.  I say there have to be others.

You'll understand after seeing this image, courtesy of Ralph's bakery:

This almost totally made up for the fact that I did not see my favorite Mythbuster, Grant Imahara, anywhere at the Comic-Con this time around (although his co-star Kari Byron and I did pass each other outside the convention center.  Maybe I am fated to sight just one Mythbuster a year). 

Actually, my brush with the famous this year came when actor Anthony Head, formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, came by the National Cartoonists Society booth (where I was stationed to dispense Pib Press merch and smiles as needed).  I had a nice chat with Head and his publicist, who were buying T-shirts, although shamefully I didn't place who the former was until, like, 2 minutes into the conversation, even though he was wearing a name tag (my excuse is I never watched enough Buffy episodes).  There's just no way to go, all of a sudden like that, "Ah, yes! Now I know who you are! I dimly recall your work!" Awwwwkward.  He seemed like a very nice guy.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I certainly hope to return before too long.  If you don't see me at the Comic Con (hint: look for the puppet), you'll be able to hear me over the din of the crowd.  "What's that sound?" you'll muse.  That, my friend, is the call of the Flarp.




* French; literally, "mega-honkin'"
** 1 horde = 2.56 scads = 18.723 scabs = .05 euro
*** Even if the person's name was Caitlin.

The Musée Gadagne in Lyon, France

Back in the spring of 2010, when I was living in Paris as Columbia University's premier and only puppet researcher, I got a hundred euros from the university for the express purpose of traveling to Lyon and looking at puppets for a day.  Seriously! I was so touched and thrilled at this stunning departure from their normal stingy-butt universityness* that I will generously refrain from mentioning that they did not pay for me to stay there overnight - nor, might I add, did they pay for my brioche.  Although perhaps there was a good reason for this.  Perhaps there is a clause in the Official University Stingy-Butt Charter that goes something like this:

Ye Olde Universitye Stingy-Butte Chartere 

of Columbia University in the City of New York 

established 1764

interred 1825

no Discover cards

"Ad hoc furcifer pestis sternum" (= "Superrific Dry Cleaning While-U-Wait")**

ARTICLE XVXVIIIIFFVLLLMX***: Thou shalt not pay for a student's brioche, because the student might enjoy it, duh.  This is not a chance thou canst afford to take.


But I got to go to Lyon, anyway, and I got to see the Musée Gadagne, which consists of two parts.  As an academic researcher, I am thoroughly versed in scholarly analysis; thus, I am able to break down these two parts of the museum as follows:

• the Puppet Part
• the Boring Part That Has To Do With Other Stuff

No, in all seriousness, both parts are pretty interesting.  The latter part is actually devoted to the history of Lyon.  Because of my limited time there, I didn't get much of a chance to see the Lyon part, but I know all about the history of France anyway, thanks to a wonderful history professor who, come to think about it, mostly just chatted with me about Tintin books.  So the history of France as I understand it involved some seafaring, an encounter with the Abominable Snowman, and a missing emerald, and it was all drawn by a Belgian.  (Write this down, children.)

At any rate, the puppet part of the museum was fabulous.  Lyon is the birthplace of Guignol, an iconic little puppet guy who embodies the rich French cultural tradition of bashing people over the head with a stick.  Oh, sure, they TRY to keep quiet about their beloved national pastime, but seriously, you wouldn't believe the carnage that goes on every day behind closed doors at the Élysée Palace.

Up and down the streets of Lyon you see scads**** of stores selling Guignol T-shirts, mugs, toothbrushes, toenail clippers, catheters, etc.  Obviously Guignol is something of a local superstar, a bit like Justin Bieber, only more virile.

Here is a portrait which hangs in the Musée Gadagne, depicting Frédéric Josserand, a founding father of Guignol.  In all seriousness, I have to say this is probably my favorite portrait in the world.  I can't tell you how happy it made me:

Next up is a cellist unlike any other.  I mean, can you imagine the looks he must get in the conservatory cafeteria?

And here is L'Enfant from Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges, a piece that, if you haven't heard it, you must.  (Dead serious.  Hear it right now.  It is 42 minutes inexpressibly well spent.) 

A poster from one of the shows of Jacques Chesnais, a well-known puppeteer from Paris who performed in the early 20th century.  I'll blog more on Chesnais and his work another time.

Other assorted friends of mine whose acquaintance I made that day at the Musée ...

And, finally, the pièce de résistance (meaning "piece of resistance") of my photographic collection: these wacky and fun-loving Dutch marionnettes.  Suffice it to say it's always a party with these folks around:

So if you're in Lyon, or you're planning a trip there, I highly recommend a visit to the Musée.  It's small, but full of fascinating things, and I only wish I'd had the chance to explore it longer.  Therefore, when you go on your own trip, I urge you, as a devoted academic researcher of the puppet arts - I urge you, from the very bottom of my heart - to have Columbia pay for it.  If you can possibly figure out a crafty way, add a brioche or two to their tab.





* I have graduated, so now I can say this.  Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
** This is what it says on my diploma.  No, you are not allowed to see.  Get your own.
*** Forty-twelve.

**** Scads is a metric unit.  1 scad = 5.4 humdingers.

We're the Tatterdema-li-ONS!

That is to say, think of it to the tune of this lovely number.

Now that I've graduated, I've formed a one-woman puppet company, THE MIGHTY TATTERDEMALIONS (the plural designates me and the puppets), for performances around New England.  Check us out at http://themightytatterdemalions.weebly.com.