Polaroid Photo

Mon
28
Aug '06

Who thought this was a good plan?

Things that are bad ideas, #1.

Take a rod puppet. Now put a cup in its hand. The cup is plastic, so you can’t pin it to the puppet’s hand. You must hold it in place with a complicated arrangement of thread and tape. Be warned though, that despite your best efforts the cup will shift positions every time the puppet moves.

Now, put fire in the cup.

7 Comments »

  • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

    Okay, it was only incense, but it’s still a burning thing on the end of a stick! They wanted the cup to look like it was steaming and the incense works very well for that. Aside from the burning. On a stick.

  • -d-

    I have had ideas like that from time to time. :-)

  • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

    Ha! Yes, I’ve witnessed some of them and lived to tell the tale.

  • http://chris-gerrib.livejournal.com Chris Gerrib

    Well, I’m glad to see you survived, presumably without burning anything important off :-)

    Makes for a great blog / cocktail party item.

  • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

    Makes for a great blog / cocktail party item.

    Ha. So true. I often avoid mentioning that I’m a puppeteer because there are times when it feels like a conversational cheat.

  • http://chris-gerrib.livejournal.com Chris Gerrib

    “Conversational cheat?” You are what you are – run with it.

    Unless of course you walk around in the mall with a “ask me about being a puppeteer” T-shirt on.

  • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

    No, it’s really just that I wind up telling the same stories over and over and when I meet someone new I want to have new conversations. So I’m more interested in them, but the moment I say “puppeteer” the conversation goes in several fairly predictable lines.

    1. My uncle has a puppet.
    2. What’s your real job.
    3. I’ve never met a puppeteer before.
    4. How cute!
    5. How did you get into that?

    I know how the conversation will run, and I’ve honed the answers to all of these so I sound wittier than I am. Hence feeling like it’s a conversational cheat.

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