I just found out that George Latshaw passed away.

When I was in college, I got an internship at the Center for Puppetry Arts. To add to my good fortune, I was assigned to the cast of Wizard of Oz, directed by George Latshaw. I had already read his book, The Complete Book of Puppetry, and was stunned to be able to work with him.

He was kind, witty, charming and wouldn’t let me get away with anything less than my best. My work in puppetry was so strongly shaped by the month under his tutelage, that I can’t even begin to dissect what George taught me from my understanding of the art form. The following summer, I went to the Eugene O’Neil Theater Center for the National Puppetry Conference and spent ten intense days working on George’s Bonsai Boy. I remember him saying that he’d spent his whole life with one foot in puppetry and one foot in theater and that he wanted to be able to stand with both feet under him. My God, that connected with me and still does.

The thing about George that remains so inspiring is that he was constantly engaged with life and pushing the boundaries of the art form. I’ve said before that I wanted to be George Latshaw when I grew up; by that I mean that I want to maintain that childlike enthusiasm and interest in life. Oh. Oh, I miss him.

This falls into the category of things that I wonder if I should blog about. See, my parents are going to worry, but there are enough things that make me cranky that I’m going ahead with it.

Let’s discuss the importance of obeying traffic laws, shall we? As I was biking to work this morning, on this great downhill stretch where I can really build up speed, a minivan pulled out in front of me without stopping. There’s a stop sign at the intersection, which she completely ignored. I had to ditch my bike to avoid slamming into the side of the van. Did the woman driving stop? No.

I seem to be fine. I was shaken and angry after it happened. My bike had a flat. There doesn’t seem to be any more damage than that, but it’s all too easy to imagine how much worse it might have been. For crying out loud, would the ten seconds that it takes to stop and look at a stop sign really have made a difference in how long it took her to get to her destination? Or did she see me and decide that she didn’t want to get stuck behind a bicyclist? I wish I had been able to get her license plate number, but I was too busy not dying.

I’m very, very pleased to announce that Shimmer’s spring cover will be graced by the art of World-Fantasy award-winning artist, John Picacio. For the spring issue, we’ll be taking a look at the role that art plays in fiction. For this issue, the cover art comes first and the story follows. We’ve teamed with Liberty Hall Writers to host a contest where we provide the cover image as a trigger to the writers.

We have other surprises for the spring issue as well, but I’ll wait to mention them. The contest starts on the December 22nd. To play, you must be a member of Liberty Hall by the time the contest begins.

Avid UK has a number of small documentaries about Lazytown on their website. You get to see behind the scenes footage, including me! My face isn’t visible, since it’s pressed into one of the puppet’s backsides, but you can see the operating position that we work in. I was able to grab a screen shot so I can tell you who to look for in the video. This was from “The Workflow.”

I’m the person in the middle, doing the live hands. Julie is operating the head and body, and Emily is crouching behind us doing the eye mechanism. Please note: This is a comfortable position as such things go.