EDITED TO ADD: I got Grandma to talk more about her housekeeper. She had remembered that it had been Nellie’s husband who had been killed and that it happened in Alabama. She said that Nellie was worried about the same men finding her and killing her. I figured an ax murder should be easy to find records of.

It turns out– serial killers.

From 1919-1923, Birmingham, Alabama had a series of ax murders. I’ve only found two articles online but the timing is right for him to have been a victim of the “ax syndicate.”

FURTHER EDITED TO ADD: Apparently, this trial got some attention because the confession came through an early use of “truth serum.”

After the camera was off, I also found out that Grandma used to play the slide guitar.

What’s really crazy? I recorded this on my phone and Grandma remembers when they didn’t have a phone. Talk about living in the future.

(Hat tip to Lee Moyer)

The Narrative of Victor Karloch [Official Trailer] from Kevin McTurk on Vimeo.

He’s using 30″ rod puppets, shadow puppets and in camera effects to create what promises to be a deeply eerie film. You can read more about the Narrative of Victor Karloch at the Spirit Cabinet.

(Hat-tip to Grá Linnea)

The Serenading Unicorn was created by the Henson Company and performed by Allan Trautman.

via puppeteers unite

BUT while I was there Stephen Nelson offered to film my presentation. Here’s part one and part two.

Our neighbors were going out of town so we offered to take care of their pets while they were on their trip. Two cats, one dog. Our neighbor stopped by with Nick, the dog, to ask us a question and we invited them in. We were a little curious about how Harriet would behave with a dog, since we’d never seen her with one. She’s a friendly animal, but we did not expect her response. Not by any measure.

She was curled up on the couch and when Nick came through the door, Harriet jumped down and ran up to him, mewing like he was her long lost best friend. She rubbed against him. Followed him. And the purring…

The video below is the third time they’ve met.

Love at first sight. It’s so hard. Every time she’s thrown herself at him, begging for attention. Poor cat. He doesn’t even know she exists.

As always, you can listen to this at Writing Excuses 5.22: Film Considerations but you also have the rare opportunity to actually watch the episode too.  Moses Siregar III of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing filmed us as we chatted.

I just ran across this video which I sort of love because it pokes fun at Portland with so much love. Watch it and if you live here you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Apparently it’s promoting a t.v. series called Portlandia.

Mom and Dad live in the house that Dad grew up in, Woodthrush Woods. Yes, it’s a named house. My grandfather built it.

I grew up in Raleigh, N.C. but since both Mom and Dad are from Chattanooga I’ve always come here for the holidays with only three Christmases missed.  You’ll forgive me for continuing to mention this, but today was my first white Christmas.

Here are some photos and a video, mostly for our family, but I figure you won’t mind it if indulge in showing some of the snowy fun.

Rob, my niece, and my nephew in a snowball battle.  As my brother said, “What does it say about my parenting that my children are happiest when someone is throwing things at them?”

This is the most fun I think Rob had this weekend.  Clearly, he fits in well.

If I have to explain why this is made of awesome, you probably won’t appreciate the video. I will forgive the bunny’s lipsync because he amuses me.

(hat tip to Chris Hansen)

The video was created by David Kazzie.

(Hat tip to Michael Chan for pointing it out)

This polar bear is so adorable that it’s easy to forget he could rip my head off without thinking.  How cute is he? That’s Willie, from the North Carolina zoo. He used to be in a circus under very poor conditions but was rescued and lives at the zoo now.

He’s still apparently a bit of a ham as you can see from this video. Also, note the scale. That’s a really, really big bear.

Via EpicFTW

Donate to animal rescue at http://www.okgo.net/dogs

See? Here it is!

Yeah… that puts things into perspective. And the interstellar travel in your SF story works… how? Powered by handwavium! Oh, well that’s all right then.

(spotted on EpicFTW)

(hattip to Jennifer Pelland for spotting this beauty.)

There’s more information about the novel and the people behind the traler at http://www.ShadesOfMilkAndHoney.com/trailer. I will shamelessly ask that you pass that link around to anyone that you think might like it.

Meanwhile, I thought you might like to know a little about how the trailer is made. We’re using a style of puppetry called Shadow Masks. The style was originated by Larry Reed of Shadowlight in San Fransisco and it combines the grace of a human performer with the stylization of shadow puppetry.

All of the set pieces are created with small cut paper vignettes on an overhead projector, while the performers work next to a paper screen with the masks. So when the Lady (Sarah Frechette) is sitting at the fortepiano, that’s a practical bench and a shadow fortepiano. Sarah is a puppeteer by trade but we also had two members of the Oregon Regency Society in to play the seamstress (Suzannah Hamlin) and the gentleman (Jason Stanley). They do a wonderful job and I wish you could see some of shots we didn’t use, which really show off their beautiful sense of movement.

The magic, which in the world of the novel is called glamour, is CG and created by Remo Balcells, a BAFTA award winning special effects supervisor, and his assistant Johnathan Nation.

See! Saying things like  ”Pass me an eyeball” is perfectly natural.

My most grateful thanks to Miss Ellis for sharing this video with me.

History of the typewriter recited by Michael Winslow from SansGil—Gil Cocker on Vimeo.

(Thanks Saladin!)

So hard to look away…

These are not the horse puppets you are looking for…

Thanks to Jon Freestone for sending a link to this beauty my way.

So what we have here is a troop of active soldiers who happen to train for warfare from horseback. This isn’t an amateur re-enactment group, these are actual soldiers.

This video is of their annual Musical Drive. Apparently, some of the formations they are doing have been in the drive since 1897.

There are loads more videos of them training and working. Very cool stuff.

This means I can make some guesses about the format, although they are just guesses at this point. I know that one of the horses will be there along with the puppetry coordinator. Since there are nine of us and the horse takes three puppeteers, my guess is that they will show us how to use the horse and then rotate us through different slots and combinations of puppeteers.

Since they are auditioning for four days with a morning and afternoon slot each day, my guess is that they’ll probably see about 70 puppeteers. The show requires 12 for the cast but some of those may be precast.

There’s really not much I can do with this information but knowing that the audition will be in workshop format makes me relax some because it means I’ll have three hours in which to watch and try to understand the puppet. The worst is when you come in and have five minutes.

They’ll pick a group from that to go onto call backs the following week, which I am trying my hardest not to think about. I may get in there and just be too small. 

Here’s another of the video diaries from the West End production. They go visit real horses of the King’s Troop. Around the 2:30 mark Toby Olié talks about being conscious of how he was sitting as a rider because of the time he’s spent as a horse. Fascinating stuff.

War Horse Video Diary: Episode 2 from Toby Olié on Vimeo.

Here is a simulation of what might happen if the typical current patterns hold and the spill continues to go unchecked.

To me, this is scarier than any Hollywood film, and the cost is much higher.

If this were Hollywood, then some scientist would invent a bacteria that would eat the oil spill without subsequently consuming all the petroleum on the planet. There would be a kiss between the scientist and the romantic interest as the sun sets over a spotless ocean. A dolphin would leap triumphantly out of the water.

That’s not going to happen.

Cherie Priest wrote a very moving post called, Oil, about what is happening in the Gulf right now, which I encourage you to read. She also came up with a list of things you can do about the oil spill.

Just to kind of bring home exactly how big the spill is right now visit If It Was My Home which puts the oil spill over the place where you live.

Here it is over Iceland.

And finally, if you haven’t seen it yet, swing by the Big Picture which has pictures of animals caught in the oil spill.  It is heartbreaking and makes the viscosity and consuming nature of the oil very palpable. The pictures are difficult to look at.

Normally, I mock Hollywood endings but I would take one right now.

So, um, there’s a list of dates of my book tour, plus other sightings, over in the left sidebar. Come see me?

Also, I am totally going to see Parnell Hall the next time he’s on tour.

No, really. It’s not a joke. Darth Vader really does GPS navigation. What do you think the Force is for?

via Props

The Whole World and You by Tally Hall, directed by Frankie Cordero

The hardest thing right now is expecting to see her around the apartment. Such a small creature and such a big impression.

Meanwhile, I thought you’d like to see these two videos of her. She’s only seventeen in them but was this feisty up until a few weeks ago.

And this is the real man.

If it were a puppet, I’d smack the puppeteer and tell them that the gestures were meaningless and to stop them.

via The White House.

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.)

via Eric James Stone

The Orson Welles Show was an unsold television talk show pilot. It has never been broadcast or released. Filming began in September 1978 and the project was completed around February 1979. It ran 74 minutes and was intended for a 90 minute commercial time slot.

Shot partly before a live audience, Welles interviewed Burt Reynolds (taking several questions from the audience,) Jim Henson and Frank Oz performed Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear.

Part of what makes this totally fascinating is that the puppeteers are in full view of the audience and only masked by shadows.