At one point, we needed to get diesel for the car and Rob said that he thought he’d wait until we exited for our next turn. I thought that there weren’t any options at that exit — and I was right. It was weird.

If you were in elementary school in Washington or Oregon in 1995-97 or in Idaho in 1993-1995 or 1998, then  I almost certainly performed for you. It is a little awkward how many adults I run across that have memories of seeing me perform or rather of seeing the shows that I performed.

Both flights were entirely smooth, which is nice, although I did get a nose-bleed upon landing in Columbus. Ah, comedy.

I ran into Kay Kenyon at baggage claim and it turned out that we were on the same flight. We shared a cab to the hotel and had a bite to eat. The nice thing about WFC is that it is like old home week. The sheer density of wonderful people is fantastic.

Today I’ve got a 3 o’clock panel on Puppetry and Fantasy with Kathe Koja in the Fairfield room. People keep asking me if I’m going to bring a puppet and, though I hadn’t planned to, I think I will just in case we veer from the theoretical to practical.

The official press release is below. One thing that it doesn’t mention is that I’ll be performing The Broken Bridge, which is the shadow play that occurs in Chapter 10 of Shades of Milk and Honey

Do come!

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present:

Laura Anne Gilman is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the Nebula-nominated FLESH AND FIRE and HARD MAGIC, part of the best-selling “Cosa Nostradamus” urban fantasy series. She has also sold more than twenty-five short stories, published in magazines and anthologies such as POLYPHONY and REALMS OF FANTASY. Her forthcoming novels include WEIGHT OF STONE: Book 2 of The Vineart War, and PACK OF LIES.

&

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY (Tor 2010), the fantasy novel that Jane Austen might have written. In 2008 she received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer and in 2009 her story “Evil Robot Monkey” was nominated for the Hugo Award. Her stories have appeared in STRANGE HORIZONS, ASIMOV’S, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Subterranean Press released her short story collection, SCENTING THE DARK AND OTHER STORIES, in 2009. Mary is also a professional puppeteer.

Wednesday August 18th, 7pm at
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)

http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org

Books will be available for purchase thanks to Bluestockings Bookstore

So, I will now tell you the story of the Worst Show I Ever Did.

Jodi is my creative partner in Other Hand Productions. He and I had been invited to take our production of Snow Queen to the Northwest Regional Puppetry Festival. This is a show that I am extremely proud of and really enjoy performing.

This is part of what makes this performance so bad. There are other productions that I’ve been in that were poorly conceived or plagued by other problems from the outset, but this show was one I went into actively liking.

But…  for a variety of reasons it had been in the box for about a year. Sure, Jodi and I had pulled it out six months earlier to do a single show and it had been like getting on a bike. We had rehearsed once and remembered the show like we’d never left it.

For this festival, Jodi was in another show which was debuting. We wanted to run through Snow Queen, but the other show took all his free time. I was also the workshop coordinator for the festival.

Mistake Number 1: We didn’t run through the show.

To accommodate my schedule, they put our performance on the last day when most of my duties would be finished.

Mistake Number 2: Both of us were exhausted and sleep-deprived.

Add to this series of judgment errors, a theft. Our sound system had been stolen the month before the show. Tears of Joy Theater used the same sound system we did and kindly loaned us theirs.

Mistake Number 3: We didn’t fully test the equipment.

And now… the results of those three mistakes.

The day of the show arrived. Rob and I had been dating for about four months at this point and I really wanted him to see this show. So, this means that for the performance we faced an audience of professional puppeteers and my audio engineer boyfriend.

We walked onto stage to the largest squeal of feedback I’ve yet experienced. All I could think of was that I was dating an audio engineer. I tried to shake that off and keep going.

The first sound cue came up and I stepped on the foot switch to turn it on. No sound emerged. I stepped on it again. Still nothing. A third time produced sound.  Odd.

There’s this thing that happens when performing in a show like this. One part of your brain is engaged with acting while another part is engaged in the technical aspects. It feels like having two selves in some ways because I continue performing while internally going WTF?

I decided that what was probably happening was that the TOJ footswitch was a double-click pedal. Back when I toured for them, we’d had some of those and they were a pain. Basically, you had to click twice to turn on the machine.

So the next cue came up and I clicked twice. Nothing. Again with the clicking. Eventually the sound played but on stage there was this awkward pause in which we were trying to act fill the unexpected silence and diagnose the problem at the same time.

So we were continuing along, with all of our sound cues bizarrely late, and I saw Jodi start to bring the Goblin onstage. I thought that he’d been badly thrown by the sound cues because it wasn’t time for the Goblin’s scene. So I waved him off.

He put the puppet away and brought out Kai and we proceeded with the scene. As we were going along, the next thing that was supposed to happen was that Kai and Gerta were supposed to dance, and while dancing Kai would get a piece of glass from the Goblin’s broken mirror in his eye.

The problem was… the mirror hadn’t broken yet. I had been wrong when I waved Jodi and the Goblin off. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In fact, if we hit the footswitch for the characters to dance, the cue that would play — if it ever played — would be the sound of the mirror breaking.

Of course, we’re miked so we can’t talk to each other and we’re wearing hoods so we can’t make meaningful eye contact. So I ad libbed, to try to get us out of this scene and back on track. The scene went something like this.

Kai: You wouldn’t be so cold if you were moving around. Why don’t you try dancing.

Gerta: No… I think I’d like to go inside now.

Kai: Oh come on! You love dancing.

Gerta: Yes, I know. But I really would like to go inside. Now.

Kai: (thinking I’ve forgotten, Jodi kindly feeds me Gerta’s line) But you’ve always said dancing makes you feel light as a feather!

Gerta: Yes. That’s true. But I would like to go inside. Now. With you.

Kai: (reaching for the foot pedal) But I know you’ll be warmer once you dance.

Gerta: I’m going to get some hot chocolate. (exits)

Jodi later reported thinking, “Boy, her leg must have broken or something. I’ll stall here to give her time.”

So I stood there, waiting for him to come off stage while he did an admirable job playing in the snow and trying to be entertaining after one of the most senseless scenes ever.

I finally turned off my mic and crossed behind Jodi. Leaning forward I whispered, “I was wrong.”

This is what the audience saw.

Kai: (playing in the snow) Whee! I love the snow. That Gerta is so sil– … … Hot chocolate does sound good. (exits)

We continued on, did the goblin scene, then Gerta and Kai came out and danced with numblingly late sound cues. Eventually we learned what was happening but by this time the show was staggering as if it had run into a wall and become badly dazed.

Basically, our minidisk player had to be stopped at the end of each cue. Because of that we had three seconds of silence at the end of each cue. The TOJ minidisk player automatically stopped itself at the end of each cue. So what we were doing was turning the sound off during the three seconds of silence after a cue, as usual. Then, when we started it again, it would roll to the end of the three seconds of silence and turn itself off. So we’d double-click, which would turn it off and then on again.

There were also issues with scenery getting stuck. I remember having to actually break a set piece to get it off stage because it got stuck so badly

This was the only time in my life where I didn’t want to take a curtain call.  The audience was polite but I was mortified. Afterwards, a puppeteer who I really respect tried to find words in which to acknowledge that they’d seen the show without having to admit that they hadn’t like it.

We use phrases like, “I’m so glad I got to see you work,” or “I would never have thought to do it that way,” or “What an interesting show.”

I stopped her in the middle and said “That was a terrible show. It’s fine.”

All the tension went out of her and she said, “What happened? I didn’t think it could possibly be like that.”

Now, I’ve had set pieces fall down on stage and the audience thought it was part of the show but this… this show was just broken all the way through.

To this day, when I screw something up I compare it to that show and usually think, “At least no one had to go get hot chocolate.”

So, I thought I’d share my portfolio with you.

We had dinner last night with twelve puppeteers, only three of whom spoke English as a native language. It was this great wide ranging conversation about art and connection.

Today we performed twice, which went well. I got to see the short film series Heather Henson curates, Handmade Puppet Dreams which I’ve been wanting to see for a couple of years now. Here’s one of the pieces, Incubus by Lyon Hill.

Before you watch this, you need to know that these are puppets and are being performed in real time. I tell you this, because otherwise it looks like animation or photoshop. No. Puppets.

See! Totally inspiring.

Afterwards we went out to dinner and I just…I’ve really missed this. Puppeteers talk about their in ways that writers don’t. I mean, we’ll sit around and say, “I’m thinking about doing this one man show…” and everyone will join in this collaborative discussion without (most people) without ever trampling on the other person’s vision. I love writing, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve missed collaboration.

Anyway, it was a wonderful weekend.

I’ll be able to keep the emotional throughline of Chapter 4, but have to move it to a different location.  Now, I could wait and just make a note that I’m going to fix that, but it’s almost as easy to do the shift now.  Sometimes I do that, just make a note [move this to rose garden] and keep writing as if it’s already there.

In this case, the change of location is also going to change the reactions of some of the characters so I’d rather fix it now becuase the potential for it to cause other changes is large enough that I’ll save effort by doing it now.

I’ve got this puppetry workshop I do in elementary schools where we adapt “The Three Little Pigs” Each group of kids gets to do their own production and make changes to the basic story. The one big rule of adaptation is, “If you change one thing, it changes everything else.”

True in puppet shows. True in SF worldbuilding. True in moving scenic locations.

Here’s a snippet of Chapter 3

Jane nodded, as she followed his train of thought. “The twist of the glamour creates, in essence, two layers of fabric that keep the interior from being either a mirror or a dark sphere. And you think a jacquard would enhance the effect?”

This is a sample of their Monkey King

At the SF Puppetry Festival I volunteered to help with whatever was needed and was lucky enough to be assigned to the Shadowlight production of In Xanandu. This mostly meant I was a runner if they needed anything, but the upshot as that I got to watch the show from backstage. As a young puppeteer, this had a huge impact on me. This photo is of Miranda and Ferdinand from the production of Tempest we did at McCarter theater. I think you can see the influence.

If it interests you, here’s Part 1 of a two part documentary about their work, including behind the scenes shots.

I have a clip of one of their shows on video tape from that festival and used it while teaching for years. Everytime someone posts a YouTube clip of a hand shadow puppeteer, I do a search to see if Theatre Budrugana has anything online.

Today they did.

This is a scene from one of their other shows. Look at the fluidity of the bear and the water that the duck is in.

This is an overview with a lot of different clips, plus some backstage photos. Notice how the hands look like random shapes until you see the shadow on the screen? It’s astounding work. (The second clip is from the show that I had on video. I still want to see the whole thing of that again.)

Besides that today consisted of meetings, and then another meeting, followed by another meeting, plus some puppet building and prop construction.

Kids will also do that, but with them it’s more a matter of being so excited about the project that they just want to dive in immediately. But they’ll actually stop and listen to the instructions. And if they don’t know how to do something, they’ll let you know instead of being embarrassed about their lack of knowledge.

Now, in general, I’m a big believer in showing kids how to do a thing and then letting them do it on their own. Frequently, they’ll say, “I don’t know how,” or “It’s hard.” Grownups will do the same thing. But kids… if you tell a kid, “Yes, it is hard, and it was hard the first time I did it too. It just takes practice,” then they’ll actually try it.

Grownups tend to get disgusted and give up faster and they should really know better. Plus, you know, when a grownup misbehaves, you can’t give them a time out, no matter how much you might want to.

via PuppetVision

The producer and the director of “There Will Come Soft Rains” — which you should go see — asked me to build a new head for the dog in the show. We discussed budget and at one point the producer asked if I needed money up front for materials.

I laughed. “There is no materials cost for this project.”

“How can that be?”

Allow me to explain. I start by using a piece of scrap blue foam as the base for my sculpture. I just trace the profile of dog’s head on it. Now if I’d bought a piece of foam, the cost of this piece would be, maybe, fifty cents.

I then cut it out with a bandsaw.

Next I turn it ninety degrees and draw the top view, which also gets cut out with the bandsaw.

I rough cut the shape with a saw.

I sand it a little to take off the hard edges and give me a loose dog head shape.

I sculpted the details in clay. I prefer working in waterbased clay because I like the feel of it, but for this I used plasticine clay because I had it on hand. A block of clay costs between $12 to $20, but once you’ve got it in stock it gets reused.

You can see that some parts of the sculpture still show the blue of bare foam. If I were planning on casting this I’d have used clay over the whole surface to make it very smooth because the details would show up in the final. But, I was planning on doing direct mache which tends to obscure details so there was no need to go overboard in making things smooth. It took me about two hours to get to this point from the original drawing.

For the first layer of papier-mache I used an old script and a couple of rejection letters — my favorite material — and wheat based wallpaper paste. The wallpaper paste is the only material so far that I’m not able to reuse. Estimated cost of the amount I used? Maybe forty cents.

The key with papier-macheing is to not get the paper too wet with paste. If there’s too much paste, it will form airbubbles as it dries. Those reduce the structural integrity.

For the second layer, I alternate with brown paper bag. It’s got nice long fibers and is heavier than the scripts so it tends to be stronger. It is also a different color which makes it easy to make certain that I have even coverage on each layer.

Each layer takes about 45 minutes to do. If I were going into a mold I could work faster because only the first layer — which is the top layer in a mold — matters. The other layers can be all wrinkly and they’ll have no impact on the level of detail in the finished product.

With direct mache every single layer and every piece of paper matters because each one obscures the original sculpture or has the potential to introduce an unwanted wrinkle.

For this, I did five layers of mache. White, brown, white, brown, white. That’s fairly standard.

The same number of layers in a mold would take about forty-five minutes total. So why didn’t I make a mold? Time. Making the mold would mean less active working time, but I’d also have to wait for it to dry before using it. A damp mold means that it would take forever for the mache to dry. So using a mold would mean less time for me, but a longer overall process. Plus, I knew this was a one-off. We won’t need to make a copy of this.

Even without worrying about a damp mold, I still made a jury-rigged hot box to speed the drying process. It’s basically a hairdryer and an upside down bin. Like the world’s ugliest easy-bake oven.

I used a mat-knife to cut the mache off the sculpture by carving right down the middle.

Warning: If you do this and discover that the mache is still damp inside, make sure you tape the thing back together and dry it. If you let the two halves dry separately they will warp, which is unpleasant.

I ran a bead of hot glue down the halves to hold them together and then papier-mached the seam inside and out. The mache gives it strength, the glue would give fairly quickly.

This is pretty fast, I don’t think it took more than half an hour.

I also seal any raw edges, like the ones around the back of the head. It’s prettier, but more importantly, it keeps the edges from peeling.

When the head was dry, I painted it with gesso. Let that dry. Sanded it. Painted with gesso again, one more light sanding and then started to paint. For some puppets I’ve done between five to eight sanding and gesso layers depending on the degree of polish I wanted. For this, I wanted a little bit of smoothness, like bone, but not all the way to porcelain.

Here’s a shot of the finished head and my design sketch.

And this is the head attached to the original dog body.

And here, because I like the final effect, is a detail of the paint job on the dog. All told, I spent between seven to ten hours making this and spent maybe a dollar in materials.

This is one of the hard things about making puppets, explaining that the major cost is in the labor. And don’t worry, the producer of the show totally got it. It’s just interesting that it’s a conversation that I have to have almost every time I build a puppet. I think people make estimates based on puppets they built in elementary school.

So… figuring that I’m skilled labor, how much do you think something like a simple puppet head costs?

Oh yes. Yes, there was.

Jay asked me to build a puppet of his tumor, because he wanted to be “smarter and funnier” than his cancer. Before I had materials in hand, it was clear that Jay had kicked the tumor without the need for puppetry.

The colon, on the other hand, is a troublesome thing. So, I’m building Jay Lake a puppet of his colon in a jar. Today, I went shopping for specimen jars. Besides needing something the right size and shape, it also needed to be plastic so that I can drill holes in it with abandon. Tomorrow I’ll start the mech for the “mouth” of the colon.

This may well be my strangest commission ever

Mostly I felt sorry for the two dachsunds tied up next to us.  Everytime we mimicked the sort of yelp the dog should give in the show, the dachsunds looked panicked.

Now I’m trying to prep my office so it’s ready for the build.  I won’t be able to really work on it until I come back from Readercon because I have to wait for the skull to arrive.

Paul McPharlin, sometimes called “the Father of American Puppetry” built a marionette covered wagon with a team of two horses and a driver for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair “A Century of Progress”.

Many years later, the horses and driver were discovered at an elementary school in Michigan by Fern Zwicky, who recognized them as having been at the “transport” exhibit at the fair. She gave them to John Miller, who kept them in his collection as she had found them. In the 1970′s, one of the horses, that was in fairly good shape, was photographed by Time/Life for a book on puppetry.

The other horse was missing a foreleg and hoof. In the spring of 2008, John’s widow, Marilyn O’Connor Miller asked me to repair the horse’s leg. I brought it to the O’Neil Puppetry Conference, where Phillip Huber and Jim Rose could help give advice on how to go about the repair.

So, we’ll catch up today.

The puppeteer who played the narrator/Grandfather role could not be with us this time, so we substituted Jodi Eichelberger instead. Jodi and I have worked together for years, but haven’t performed opposite each other in ages. While I was looking forward to that, the thing that I loved was that we took the time to really work the scenes between Peter and the Grandfather, something that we’d not had time to do with the other puppeteer.

As a result, those scenes were clearly tied to the music and had a specificity that was lacking before. Funny what a little rehearsal will do, eh? It also helped that Jodi and I have performed so much together (years touring) that we can anticipate the other one.

I also got to see the video of the show for the first time. In the last performance, we had no mirror in the rehearsal room and so I had to rely on other people and what little I could see of the puppet myself. I mean, I could only really see the top of Peter’s head. Parts of the video made me happy, but great swathes of it made me go, “Gah! People were letting me get away with that?”

I think the first rehearsal that Jodi and I did largely focused on getting the puppets to walk without looking like they were being prodded with sharp sticks in the rear at every step.

The stage we were on was significantly smaller this time. So there were places where I simply didn’t have enough action and no amount of scenery chewing was going to fill it out. So I asked if they could speed that passage up. Lo! I still had to chew the scenery, but not as much.

Other than that, it was easy to pick the show back up again. I wish we did more than one performance though. As frustrating as the puppet is, I like the show a lot. Or maybe it’s just that I like the music and the live musicians. What a joy!

New York – The Players Theatre will host Hands together: New York Artists Gather for China Earthquake Relief to Benefit UNICEF presented by Matrix Music Collaborators on June 14, 2008, 3pm, 115 MacDougal Street (between W3rd and Minetta Lane) in Greenwich Village, New York. Admission is $45 / Package of Four for $125. All proceeds will go to U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Tickets can be obtained through TheaterMania (www.theatermania.com) at (212) 352-3101. For individual donations, please visit www.unicefusa.org/ert for U.S Fund for UNICEF.

On May 12, 2008 the largest natural disaster in a generation struck Sichuan province in China.

According to date recently collected by UNICEF, more than 10,000 school buildings in Sichuan were badly damaged by the earthquake. Almost 7,000 schools were completely destroyed and many others suffered partial damage. UNICEF estimates that the number of school children affected is in the millions. Most of these children are now trying to continue their schooling in temporary shelters and tents. Precise figures are still very difficult to obtain. As the death toll from the earthquake exceeds 68,000, according to official estimates, the needs of survivors are growing daily. At least 300,000 people were injured and 5 million displaced. Now in the aftermath we can see that the scale of the humanitarian crises before us is truly staggering. Supplies are being rushed to the five million are literally without shelter. Like so many Americans we stand together with the people so deeply affected by this massive earthquake to find ways to help.

This special performance will feature an international line up of artists to include Min Xiao-Fen; Wu Na; Huang Ruo; members of the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre; Asian American Writers’ Workshop; the cast of puppeteers from Peter and the Wolf and Matrix Music Collaborators. It is geared for all ages.

Program:

Drunken Man by Jiu Kuang, based on a famous poet of the western Jin dynasty (265 -420)

Blue Pipa (inspired by Miles Davis) by Min Xiao-Fen

The North of Sunset by Thelonius Monk, arr. by Min Xiao-Fen

Mo (dedicated to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake) by Min Xiao Fen and Wu Na

Performed by Min Xiao-Fen, pipa / Wu Na, qin

Four Fragments for solo violin by Huang Ruo

Performed by Yoon Kwon, violin

Oblivion by Astor Piazzolla

Performed by Matrix Music Collaborators

Excerpts from The Joy Luck Club

a play by Susan Kim, adapted from the novel by Amy Tan with direction & musical staging by Tisa Chang

Performed by Pan Asian Repertory Theatre

“Super Cop World” video installation featuring mighty Mario and Jackie Chan

Designed by Eric Siu

Peter and the Wolf, Op. 57 by Sergei Prokofiev

Performed by puppeteers: Deborah Hertzberg; Serra Hirsch; Daniel Irizarry; Mary Robinette Kowal; Chris McLaughlin; Jessica Scott; Meghan Williams, and Jodi Eichelberger, directed by Jane Catherine Shaw and Terry O’Reilly with Matrix Music Collaborators under the direction of Sheryl Lee

Readings by published authors from Asian American Writers’ Workshop

Internationally known for her virtuosity and fluid style, Min Xiao-Fen has influenced countless Chinese musicians and her influence expands to players of all instruments and beyond China as well. She is a breathtaking virtuoso and courageous pioneer in both orchestral and underground projects, plays traditional and modern composition and her interpretations of the music of Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, as well as her own experimental music for the pipa. She played solo concerts at the Utrecht International Lute Festival, the Vienna Music Festival, the Brussels Lute Festival and the New York Guitar Festival and performed a solo set of the music of Thelonious Monk for Jazz at Lincoln Center. www.bluepipa.org

Wu Na began to learn guqin at nine. She graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in 2004 being conferred the master’s degree of quqin, and joined the Central Ensemble of the Folk Music as a guqin player. In 2002, she won the champion in the young professional group of The National Youngsters’ Game of Art – Solo Game of Chinese Traditional Instruments sponsored by the Ministry of Art. In 2004 to 2007, she was invited by Cuijian and Dou wei, the Chinese rockstars, to be the guqin player with the way of the improvisation to participate in their solo concert and publications etc. In 2005, became the host of “silkcottonhouse”, which is a traditional culture and arts studio of Chinese.

Brief history about the pipa and qin:

The history of pipa goes back two thousand years. The Chinese sound “pipa” is made when it’s plucking: the downstroke is ‘pi’, the upstroke is ‘pa’, is a four stringed, pear-shaped with a crooked neck. A very difficult instrument to master – there are more than 70 techniques used to play the pipa – it has six inverted frets and up to twenty-four bamboo frets, and the strings are tuned A-d-e-a.

Qin or Gu Qin is also known as seven-string qin. Qin’s history spans for about three thousand years. Qin music is the most effective form of musical expression that displays the spirit and essence of the Chinese ethnic musical culture

Sergei Prokofiev’s classic Peter and the Wolf is re-imagined by Mabou Mines co-artistic director Terry O’Reilly and Jane Catherine Shaw to speak to the experience of children newly immigrated to the USA as well as young native New Yorkers. The ensemble players of the Matrix Music Collaborators becomes a playground for the puppets – a garden of delight for Peter and his animal friends and safety from the wolf outside the gate. featuring puppets from the famed Guangxi region of China to animate this best known of all compositions for children. Puppet design is by Simon Wong, artistic director of Ming Ri Institute for Arts Education Ltd. in Hong Kong. Additional puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal and Jane Catherine Shaw.

Recipient of the 2007 Asian Cultural Council Grant, visual artist, Eric Siu is currently doing his residency at Location One in New York. His ‘Super Cop World’ video installation features mighty Mario and Jackie Chan in a slapstick Wonderworld. Super Cop World is just an innocent play with a fictional action movie and imaginary classical video game. Jacky Chan’s fictional action collage is a coincidental match with Super Mario’s runs and jumps. www.ericsiuart.com

Oblivion (1984), a melancholic and one of the most celebrated works by Astor Piazzolla, represents the peak of his popular acclaim. Re-imagined by Sheryl Lee with studio tracks and mixing by Ted and Maurice Clayton of One20 Productions.

Matrix Music Collaborators, a New York-based innovative chamber ensemble presents interdisciplinary collaborations through the unique approach of bridging dance, theater, visual art, film and poetry with classical, experimental, contemporary and world music, sharing the stage with an international roster of accomplished musicians. These artists maintain their busy schedules touring all over the world as soloists and recording artists, while performing with the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Lincoln Center, and at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals such as Aspen, Tanglewood, Spoleto, Verbier in Switzerland, to name a few. www.thematrixmusiccollaborators.com

Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “strikingly assured,” Huang Ruo ‘s music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch, the Juilliard Symphony under James Conlon, the American Composers Orchestra, the ASKO Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, Dutch Vocal Laboratory, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Capo Chamber Players, the Albany Symphony, IRIS Chamber Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, and the Queens Symphony Orchestra that commissioned and premiered his violin concerto, just to name a few. His music has been played in the Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall, the Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center), the Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), the Miller Theatre, the Symphony Space, the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Harris Concerto Hall (Aspen), the MUZIEKGEBOUW AAN ‘T IJ (Amsterdam), the Paradiso Hall (Amsterdam), and the City Hall (Hong Kong).

Huang’s work has been spotlighted on National Public Radio (NPR), Radio-Finland, Radio-Sweden, Radio-Amsterdam, Radio-Canada and Radio-China. He was invited to give lectures and forums at the New York University, Columbia University, the Aspen Composers’ Forum, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Shanghai conservatory of Music, the Guangzhou Conservatory of Music, and was a visiting composer at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Georgia. In 2006, he has been selected as a Young Leader Fellow from the U.S. – China National Relationship Committee. www.huangruo.com

For more than 30 years, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, guided by founding Artistic Producing Director, Tisa Chang, has been creating critically acclaimed and innovative Off Broadway premieres for audiences in New York City, nationally and internationally. Pan Asian Rep celebrates the artistic expressiveness of Asian and American theatre artists working under the highest standards of professional excellence. Pan Asian Rep has produced over 100 productions, with highlights including last fall’s “The Joy Luck Club”; “Rashomon”, which toured to Havana, Cuba; and the masterpiece, “Shogun MacBeth”, coming this November to the Julia Miles Theater. www.panasianrep.org

Established in 1991, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Inc., is a nonprofit literary arts organization founded in support of writers, literature and community, devoted to the creating, publishing, developing and disseminating of creative writing by Asian Americans. www.aaww.org

Built in 1907 and converted into a theatre in the late 1940′s, The Players Theatre has been a jewel in the midst of beautiful Greenwich Village, serving as a magnet for performing artists and their audiences. The theatre has been home to such long run productions as An Evening with Quentin Crisp, Psycho Beach Party and Ruthless starring an 8yr old Brittany Spears, Natalie Portman and Legally Blonde the Musical’s Laura Bell Bundy. The theatre is now home to the controversial comedy The Feminazi starring Suzanne Willett, and the famous Café Wha?, which has been a Greenwich Village mainstay since the 1960’s. www.theplayerstheatre.com

Contributing sponsors include Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, bluepipa,Inc., Players Theatre, C. Bechstein Pianos, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Matrix Music Collaborators, Asian American Wrtiers’ Workshop, Mabou Mines and PS 122.

About UNICEF:

For more than 60 years, UNICEF has been the world’s leading international children’s organization, working in over 150 countries to address the ongoing issues that affect why kids are dying. UNICEF provides lifesaving nutrition, clean water, education, protection and emergency response saving more young lives than any other humanitarian organization in the world. While millions of children die every year of preventable causes like dehydration, upper respiratory infections and measles, UNICEF, with the support of partnering organizations and donors alike, has the global experience, resources and reach to give children the best hope of survival. For more information about UNICEF, please visit www.unicefusa.org.

1. I have to go repair the moose, sew some curtains and carve a donut. Not in that order.
2. Are we inside him?
3. When he comes, I’ll grab his britches.
4. Do you want the tumor to talk?
5. I can’t keep his head up. He’s limp.

Think JIM HENSON (1936-1990) and you think Muppets — yet there’s so much more to the man’s genius. His experimental filmmaking ranged from Time Piece to The Cube. Though his interest in puppetry started as a way to get on television, he stayed with it because of the stories it allowed him to tell, and the weirdness from his film work shone maniacally through. Even with the Muppets. Like those dancing tubes with eyeballs in “Java.” (Wait for it.) And hey, what exactly is Gonzo, anyway? ((I wrote most of this description.))

I backed this video up a couple of times because the puppet turns around and I was trying to figure out where the heck the rods are. I’m pretty sure they must be below, but the the darn thing goes and steps on another character. Still… they’ve got to be below.

But what’s even better is the behind the scenes footage. It showcases the work of Ronnie LeDrew (who did the giant marionette Levi’s ad) as the head puppeteer on this one.

Spotted at PuppetVision.

This is one that comes up a lot and, strangely, I don’t think I’ve posted on it, so I’ll give the long answer.

I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything. My parents indulged me and so I took violin, art, theater classes, writing workshops and then, in high school, discovered puppetry. A friend of mine went to a church that had a puppet ministry program, which was the coolest thing ever. I started going to the church so I could be involved — maybe not the best reason to join a church. Anyway, I got very lucky because the leaders of the puppetry program worked very hard on teaching us good skills. A lot of puppet ministry programs have truly dreadful puppetry.

I loved the puppetry. When our high school did Little Shop of Horrors, I was the plant.

I did puppetry as a hobby until I went to college. I majored in art education with a minor in theater, which was the closest I could come to combining everything that I loved to do. ((Later I learned about colleges, like the University of Connecticut, that had puppetry programs.)) My sophomore year, the college did Little Shop and I was the plant again.

Then a professional puppeteer came to see the show. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that someone would actually get paid to do puppetry. I mean, sure, I’d seen Sesame Street, but that was on PBS and everyone knew that PBS was run by volunteers, right? Yeah… But this puppeteer, Dee Braxton, owned a house, only worked a couple of days a week and most importantly, was willing to train me. By the end of the first summer, she was handing me the gigs she couldn’t take. People were giving me money. To do puppets. I was making more money doing that than my part-time job.

Later, I realized that we lived in an area of the country with a very low cost of living and that we were the only puppeteers in a three county radius. It helps.

From there I went to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA for an internship. This shaped me as a puppeteer more than anything else. George Latshaw (like unto a god, in puppetry) was directing, and the cast was a dream team of puppeteers, Jon Ludwig, Jane Catherine Shaw, Bobby Box, and Peter Hart. Pete was in charge of the internship program and my mentor. If I tried to say enough good things about that program, I would bore you, so suffice to say that I can trace everything back to there.

After the internship, I just kept working. I’ve been at it for nineteen years now and, with the exception of a two-year break due to a wrist injury, have made my living as a puppeteer.

Until I came to NYC.

Now the irony here is that, before Iceland, I’d had several years where I worked three to five months out of the year here, as a puppeteer. I always felt as if I would work constantly if I lived here. And behold, that’s true. The odd thing is that almost all the work has been in the props department.

That’s something I stumbled into and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I enjoy it and it’s honest work. On the other hand, it’s not why we came to NYC and is taking up so much time that I haven’t had a chance to really pursue puppetry and it’s cutting into my writing time.

Rob and I are talking about how to balance that, going forward. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

These were rod puppets and the necks were extremely thin, long and sproingy. ((Yes, that’s a technical term.)) Our slightest tremor translated into a giant head wiggle. On top of that, the mouth trigger would actually pull the whole head down with it. None of this violated the forty feet and a galloping horse rule, but boy howdy did it look funny in a closeup. We weren’t doing lipsync so much as headsync.

AND one of the puppets broke moments after we got there. I had a total MacGyver moment and repaired the puppet with a paperclip, gaffers tape and superglue. (( No, I can’t describe the repair in more detail because to do so would require explaining what the characters were which would blow the secrecy around the pilot.))

The guys we were working for were supernice and thankfully understood the challenges pretty darn quickly. On the whole, they seemed pleased. Hopefully I’ll be able to show you some of it down the line.

See, marionettes are so useful for education. After that educational film, do you feel ready to stack haybales to protect your livestock from nuclear attack?

Spotted at Bubble Boy Blog

After fiddling with it, we got rid of all the complicated bits and switched to the bluefoam donut I made last night and this morning. The new system works like a champ. Whew. No more fail! I tried taking photos, but the line is too thin to show up on my camera.

Basically, we run a piece of 15 lb braided dacron ((black fishing line that I use for marionettes)) offstage, using screw eyes and tubing to control where it runs. The donut sits on a short ramp on the upstage side of the tv, out of the line of sight of the audience. While they are looking at other business onstage, a stagehand pulls the string and the donut slides up the ramp and into place.

The string on its bottom is held in place by a piece of clear tape. When the actor picks up the donut, the tape, caught by a screw eye, releases. Voila. Magic donut.

Now that you know how we do that, I’ll have to kill you.

I had to pick up a prop two blocks from the Puppet Kitchen and thought I’d poke my head in to see what they were working on. A big group of my favorite people were there, making what has got to be one of the most gorgeous puppets I’ve seen.

Sometimes, when I’ve needed a break from sewing or basket-weaving or whatever tedious bit of puppet building I’m doing, I’ve read these guys a story. So Emily saw me and said, “Read us a story!”

“Err… I only have an unfinished one with me.”

The group gives a very gratifying chorus of “read it anyway.”

Now, I’ve read unfinished stories to Emily when I’ve been stuck so I could bounce ideas off of her but never one that stopped quite this close to the beginning. “I mean, really unfinished.”

“That’s okay.”

And I wanted to see if the opening works, so I pulled out my palm pilot and started reading:

Half-consciously, Kim put a hand up to cover her new nose ring. She knew it pissed her parents off no end that she could tolerate cold iron and they couldn’t, not like there was that much iron in a nose ring.

It still made her break out sometimes, but didn’t burn her like it did them. “Kimberly Anne Smith,” Mom’s voice caught her in the foyer as surely as if she’d been called by her true name. “I’ve been worried sick. Do you know what time it is?”

“11:49.” Kim dropped her hand and turned to face Mom, her Doc Martins making a satisfactory clomping sound on the hardwood floor. “I’m here. Home before midnight. No one with me.” As if she’d take the chance of her glamour dropping and showing her friends what she really was. A freak, like her parents.

I kept reading for another two thousand words and right as Kim was about to go into The Scary Place the story had been leading up to, I said, “And then… this is an unfinished story.”

I thought they were going to throw the puppet at me.

“I told you!”

“Yes! But what happens next?!?!”

I glanced at all the sharp instruments they had in their hands, decided that my life was in danger, and told them the rest of the story. My word-smithery went out the window pretty fast leaving me with voice to convey mood and then… the rest was all about the plot. What happened next.

I knew basically what I wanted to have happen, but I hadn’t worked out any of the details yet. Having a live audience listening to me as I found my way through the rest of the plot points showed me exactly which things were interesting and which weren’t. (The car chase is right out.) If they had a question, I could stop for exposition, (See, the Faerie Queen knew there was a traitor, she just didn’t know who) while making a mental note that I needed to plant that piece of information earlier when actually writing it.

When I got out of there, I sat down with the keyboard and the words fairly flew out of me. I still have a couple of thousand words to go, but I know exactly what happens next.

Hans Christian Andersen used to do this. As he was working on a new story, he would tell it to a live audience and then go write it down. I don’t think I’ll do this with every story, but telling this one to a group was a good reminder that writing was created to capture the spoken word. I might be a writer, but I do that because, really, I’m a story-teller.

Initially she looked a little nervous, when we described the way Peter would be running in circles around her and said, “Be careful.”

“Don’t worry. I played.” ((Seventeen years))

She immediately relaxed. “Okay. You get it.” So, she’s totally game to strolling on stage and letting Peter run in circles around her.

I completely understand her concern. A lot of people don’t understand how fragile violins are or how expensive they are. It’s the same with puppets, though they aren’t nearly as expensive. People tend to think of them as dolls or toys and will just pick them up to play with them. Basic etiquette: Never touch a puppet that isn’t yours.

In fact, a couple of the musicians did that last night and it really annoyed me. You’d think they would get that automatically, since I can’t imagine they would be happy if someone picked up their instrument. I didn’t say anything, because I figured they were just excited. Still, I might ask the director to casually talk about how the puppets are our instruments.

Aside from that one, minor, annoyance, it was so unbelievably fantastic having the live musicians there. Everything felt more immediate. The clarinetist and flute players were getting into their characters and teasing each other on stage, just as a cat and bird might.

I’m very much looking forward to the next rehearsal

Yesterday:

The puppet is beautiful, with a bright lively face and a vibrant costume. It’s a curious blend of old and new construction styles. The body is made of L200, which is a dense industrial foam. Fantastic stuff and I love using it because it is flexible and yet rigid enough to be used for structure. The head is made of carved wood in a more traditional manner.

As soon as I picked up the puppet I realized that I had a problem. The weight of the puppet is supported by strings to a cap on my head, which is also supposed to control the head. However– holy cow. I just realized how much jargon I’m about to trot through to explain this to non-puppeteers.

Bear with me while I explain marionette theory. Imagine a styrofoam ball, if you put a single string in it, when you pull the string up, the ball rises. Now put two strings on it on opposite sides. If you pull the right string, that side rises allowing you to tilt it from side to side.

Now connect that to a body, which creates a third point of attachment. When you try tilting it again, the entire body is going to tilt. BUT, if you attach strings to the shoulders of the puppet then you can isolate the body and get movement from just the head. Make sense?

So, my puppet has a direct connection to my feet. I have rods to the hands. I have strings to the head. Nothing supports the weight of the body, so I can’t turn the head without the whole body moving.

Monumentally frustrating. Also the neck was a snug fit, which looks good and is fine for a direct manipulation figure, but marionettes can’t have any friction or they won’t move.

Now, there’s this saying in puppetry, “Never blame the puppet.” Why? Because the moment you do, someone else will pick the darn thing up and do whatever it was you said couldn’t be done. Even so, I felt like I spent the whole night fighting the puppet. I finally widened out the neck opening so that I had some more room for the head to turn.

Honestly, my impulse last night was to put a nub on the back of the head so that I could just grab it and turn it.

Today:
We tightened the head strings so that the puppet doesn’t sag at the knees when I look down. It means my neck is constantly under tension, but it’s not a long show. I also figured out a way to brace the puppet so that I could get a little head movement. It’s not as specific as direct manipulation, but it’s something. I continued to feel like I was fighting the puppet, but also starting to get more of a feel for what it was capable of and how to trick it into doing what I wanted it to.

I know that sounds like I’m anthropomorphizing the thing, but no more so than a computer. Oh tell me that you don’t use the same language when talking about your own machine.

I still want to go in there and fiddle with the neck joint so I can get some more movement out of it. We’ll see how tomorrow goes. The one thing I know for sure is that I will need a massage before this is over.

Sergei Prokofiev’s classic Peter and the Wolf is re-imagined by Mabou Mines co-artistic director Terry O’Reilly and Jane Catherine Shaw to speak to the experience of children newly immigrated to the USA as well as young native New Yorkers. The Matrix Music Collaborators is a playground for the puppets – a garden of delight for Peter and his animal friends and safety from the wolf outside the gate.

Matrix Music Collaborators, a New York-based innovative chamber ensemble presents interdisciplinary collaborations through the unique approach of bridging dance, theater, visual art, film and poetry with classical, experimental, contemporary and world music, sharing the stage with an international roster of accomplished musicians.

Program:

W.A Mozart Excerpts from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik featuring ‘Rainy Nights’ (2002) by Hong Kong artist, Eric Siu

Sergei Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 – a staging with Chinese Puppets directed by Terry O’ Reilly and Jane Catherine Shaw

Paul Wiancko Hip Hop Cello Concerto No. 1

John Williams Music from the Movies

Instrumentation for Matrix: violin, cello, flute, oboe, horn, clarinet, bassoon and piano under the direction of Sheryl Lee.

Tickets: $10 Individual | $30 Family of four
Free family workshop Saturday, April 19 | 1 pm
theatermania.com | 212.352.3101

Wolf image: Simon Wong

In the evening, Katherine and I headed down to the Peter and the Wolf rehearsal. She alternated between reading and watching rehearsal while I painted puppets. Did I mention that I’d done the design for the animal characters? No… anyway, my puppet isn’t here from China yet, so I’ll be mostly observing till it gets here on Wednesday.

After rehearsal, Katherine and I went for Japanese food. At the moment, I’m creating some hand props for Steve and Idi before heading to bed.

Found via PuppetVision

Now, I have to say that though I think this is really well done, it disappointed me. Let’s sum up. Puppet comes to life. Discovers world. Discovers that it is a puppet. Dies.

I was really excited when the video started, because it is beautifully shot and manipulated. I liked the way they let the light shine through the puppet and make no attempt to disguise that it’s a puppet made from brown paper. It is lovely. But then they had to go to the cliche ending. Granted, there are variations on this trope. Sometimes the ending is that the puppet kills the puppeteer.

This is not new material. I know, I know. There are no new ideas. I’ll grant that. But if you are going to recycle an old storyline, then you have to bring something new to it besides just making it pretty.

How can you pass that up?

Seriously. This is one of the hottest uses of shadow puppets I’ve seen in ages.

Most puppets fall into five basic categories broken down by the method in which they are manipulated. You have hand, shadow, string, rod and body. There are endless combinations of those forms, plus sub-categories and also some puppets which defy categories.

In addition to this, you also have overt puppetry, where you see the puppeteer, and covert, where you don’t.

Now Bert, over there on the right, is what we’d call a moving-mouth, hand and rod puppet. He’s not sock puppet, but they’re both operated the same way. Typically, you don’t see the puppeteer with these puppets.

A ventriloquist’s dummy is, by necessity, overt. The puppet itself might be a hand and rod, or it might simply be a rod puppet with a trigger control to work the mouth. Charlie McCarthy worked like this. He’s what you think of when you think of a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Jeff Dunham on the other hand, uses a variety of puppets, including a puppet that is very similar, structurally, to Bert. (He’s hilarious, by the way.)

And then there’s Shari Lewis who used, yes, a sock puppet.

The thing is that ventriloquism is a performance technique wherein a single puppeteer tries to create the illusion that there is another character on stage. This character gets to say things that the manipulator can’t say. Sound familiar?

Sure, sock puppets are less expensive to build than a traditional vent’s dummy BUT I do have to defend sockpuppets from the charge that they are not convincing and poorly done. That’s amateur sockpuppetry and amateur ventriloquism is even less convincing. Nothing is quite as distracting as watching someone who is trying not to move their lips and failing.

Professional sockpuppetry can be really quite lovely. Check out the Lady from Sockholm for example. Heck, Kermit is only one step away from sock puppet.

I don’t expect to actually change anyone’s mind about this, because sockpuppet is more fun to say than vent dummy. While I personally think that vent dummy is a better term than sock puppet, fun trumps accuracy almost any day.

M.S. was trying to get Barge into a tight corner inside the head on which he and E.D. were working.

E.D. said, “Why don’t you glove up, squirt it onto your finger, and apply?”

M.S. replied, “This might be a little cold.”

And people wonder why puppeteers have so much fun.

You can listen to the whole interview at the same link. “C” is for cookie. That’s good enough for me.

1. It lacks continuity.
2. There are no clear lines of communication
3. The public interface is out-dated.
4. Volunteers’ time is not efficiently managed.

Here is how I would like to tackle those items.

1. When I was the Secretary of UNIMA-USA (The American branch of the International puppetry organization, which is the oldest continually operating arts organization in the world), I was responsible for updating and maintaining an Officer’s Handbook. This contained, not only the minutes and the bylaws, but also a detailed description of the goal of each committee and the semi-annual reports of the committees.

I would like to implement a similar system for SFWA.

2. At the moment, when a committee is created, it exists as an entity of its own, without reporting to a specific member of the board. The problem with this is that when a committee becomes inactive, it can languish in this condition for months or years without anyone noticing. Several times during the past months, I’ve contacted a committee chair, only to have them say, “Oh. Am I still on that committee?”

I would like to re-evaluate the committee structure, and rebuild it using more vertical lines of communication. This will create more accountability and a smoother line of communication. For your interest, I have done a diagram of the current committee structure and a proposed restructuring.

3. We all know the website is outdated. Rather than using a committee to redesign this, because we all know how successful design by committee is, I would like to see SFWA hire an actual web-designer to do a complete revamping of the system, including adding a forum.

In particular, I want to see redundancies removed. For instance, we have a team of extremely hardworking volunteers who update the Nebula Recommendations. It is all hard-coded with HTML in several different places. This is something that cries out for automation, so that the volunteers merely need to moderate it and check for errors.

4. SFWA uses the principle “Want something done, ask the busy person” so that the brunt of the effort comes down on a few people. I want to implement online volunteer management software, which will track availability, hours, and skills. Let’s stop burning out the volunteers.

About me: I have spent most of the past seventeen years working in the non-profit sector. Volunteers are the backbone of non-profits and I’ve managed them on projects ranging from running a week-long festival to getting envelopes stuffed to making a cyclops head. In addition to being a writer, I’m a small business owner and freelancer. I’ve got the publishing credits to be an active SFWA member, but more importantly, I know how to run a non-profit efficiently.

The urge to watch this kind of film doesn’t come up that often so I don’t keep up with the good action films out there. I’m looking for suggestions for the next time I need an exploding film nights.

To start you off, here are movies that fit the bill:
Almost anything by Jackie Chan
The Blues Brothers
Spiderman
Indiana Jones
The Bourne Identity
Some Bond, such as Goldfinger
Serenity
Robocop

There’s a tendency for comic book escapism here, you might note. It’s not that they need to be light-hearted it’s just that I don’t handle monsters well.

So… got any suggestions for me?

I’ve got no idea if the director will accept these or not, but I’ll keep you posted.

MADAME DE PUYSIEUX was a witty and vivacious lady. Among her recorded sayings is one that exceedingly well suits us for the nonce. “I would rather,” she said, “be occasionally found looking at puppets than listening to philosophers.” There was doubtless some reason in this, but the fact is also indubitable that puppets and philosophy are not so far apart.

Further on:

The gravest of authors are at issue as to the actual origin of the puppet race. Charles Nodier is satisfied in tracing it to the doll that lies in unconscious felicity within the loving arms of youthful and precocious maternity. M. Charles Magnin, on the other hand maintains that the puppet does not spring from the hearth but from the altar. The rude god whittled out of a gnarled bough is with him the undoubted sire of the universe of dolls

Hey– That last sentence could be the plot of a fantasy story. Hm…

The goal of this project was to make a self-illuminated boat for the opening of the Tempest. It needs to be sturdy enough to tour, but also needed to match the materials in the rest of the design, which were fairly industrial. We first made patterns of stiff paper to find the shape of the boat.

Here, I’m cutting out the base of the boat in a stiff white plastic. The brown paper keeps it from getting scuffed in transit and also provides a handy thing on which to draw the pattern.

Peeling the paper back you can see the nice glossy surface.

The plastic for the rest of the boat is a matte polycarbonate, so it handles bending beautifully. To get sharp creases, I used my vise like a metal brake, which worked pretty well.

Once I had the basic hull, I started testing light sources. Originally, we were going to use an incandescent bulb, which would also have served as a practical light on stage, but the director decided to free up the actor manipulating the boat and so we had to figure out how to light the boat without the benefit of a power cord.

I’d done another show with self illuminated puppets and had discovered then that a florescent closet light provided the best light. This photo has much more of a hotspot than in real life.

In an effort to get more light and more diffusion, I tested out a piece of mirrored polycarbonate instead of the white plastic.

Oooo! Ghost boat.

The original light was six inches, and here I’m testing out a twelve inch light.

I tried a backing mirror to bounce the light forward. Putting a V of mirror in there really brightened up the boat. Alas, when I got to the final construction, the smokestacks, and observation deck kept the V from being practical.

For the final assembly, I pop riveted the boat together. This is a view of the bottom of the boat as it’s being held in the vise.

Because I was stupid, I didn’t take a picture of the finished boat. Sorry. I’ll get one later.

1. Where did I put my lady belly?
2. Catch the fish eyes!
3. How many bird kebabs do you want?
4. I think the crocodile is going to eat us alive
5. My skull is supposed to arrive tomorrow.
6. RiteAid is the mother-lode of Emilys
7. I’ve lost my arm
8. Go ahead, put your finger inside. It’s really good. So snug and smooth.
9. His rod isn’t stiff enough.
10. The logical way to get vaseline off a Galumphus head seemed to be to take in the shower.

What it all means.

1. We were making fish and I couldn’t find the pattern for the female fish’s belly.
2. The eyes for the fish were made out of a lightweight plastic and were put outside to dry. A stiff breeze came along and the fish eyes went sailing.
3. Birds puppets stacked on top of one another with a piece of steel running straight through them. Really. What else would you call it?
4. The process of building a crocodile puppet was not going well.
5. I ordered a dog skull for a dead dog I was building for a show.
6. I needed a 42″ doll, which happened to be called Emily, that was available at the drugstore.
7. Couldn’t find the puppets arm
8. Checking the fit of a puppet sometimes makes one say unfortunate things.
9. Really, this was too easy. We needed heavier gauge spring steel.
10. This is part of a friend’s hilarious story about making puppets for a Seuss show.

I spent the last day or so working on the boat — I’ll upload pictures later — and went into the shop today for the first time in ages.