AT THE ANNIE AWARDS

John received The Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award. It was an unexpectedly moving event and the crowd cheered enthusiastically. Other recipients included Brad Byrd, Glen Keane and John Canemaker. Good speeches by all.


Here's John (above), looking very suave. Kali appears to be reacting to a loathesome thing crawling on the armrest.


Jerry Beck won a much-deserved special award for contributions to the industry and gave one of the better speeches of the night.


Let us take a moment to appreciate the suavity of Jim smith and Mike (above).


After the ceremony John signs autographs. Jim appears to be hooting at Kali, though he may have sucked in a passing bee.


Mike also discovers the loathesome thing, this time crawling on JoJo's jacket.


JoJo won an award for volunteer work at The ASIFA Archive.


After the ceremony Mike and I searched for our parking structure with Marjane Satrapi, director of "Persepolis." Wow! She has a magnetic personality!

At the after-awards party Mike (above) toasts an off-screen friend while Steve is lost in visionary reverie.

Here's (above) Kali, fishing what appears to be an old shoe out of John's Annie Award.

Tom Minton and Wendy (above) were there! They make a great couple! Tom's a producer but in this picture he has the brooding look of a novelist. I'll bet Kurt Vonnegut would like to have looked like this.

Why is the image (above) so blurry? Did I put my thumb on the lens?

Here (below) a passing giant asks for Tom's autograph and Tom graciously complies.

HOW TO TIE A BOW TIE

Hello! Uncle Eddie here! Tonight I'm going with John, Kali and Mike to the Annie Awards ceremony at U.C.L.A.! John's getting a life achievement award! It is of course, a black tie affair. Only the most suave animation people will be there. It's all very refined, very upper crust.

Most men will wear bow ties and ten'll get you twenty that most of the ties won't be tied right. Most artists are butterfingered when it comes to things not of the drawing board. Well, I wouldn't want any Theory Corner Readers to have that problem. If you're going to the Awards tonight, and you're having trouble with your tie, here's a tutorial just for you! 

First, adjust the tie to maximum length. You can tighten it later.  Put it around your neck and let one end be about an inch and a half longer than the other.

Now tie a standard simple knot, letting the long end do most of the wrapping. 

Here's (above) what I mean. Just a plain old, common as water, knot.

Now take the short end and crimp it between your fingers.

After the crimping it should look like this (above): The classic bow tie shape. I forgot to say that the other end of the bow tie doesn't come into play here so you get it out of the way, maybe by flinging it over your shoulder. 

Now, take the long end that was over your shoulder (above) and let it fall in front of the crimped bow tie shape.

Now this (above) is the hard part, the thing that seperates the men from the boys.  The problem is that there's no way to photograph it.  I tried, and my hands always got in the way.  Maybe I should have drawn this, instead of taking pictures.....Aaargh! Too late now! I'll have to talk you through it.

Ok, take the bottom of that long, vertical piece in the foreground,  bring it around the back of the tie, up and over, til what's left dangles over the front of the tie again. 

Now, as you see here (above)....You take the dangling part and stuff it through the loop in the middle of the tie.  Hard to see, I know. You have my sympathy.

Come to think of it, before you do any stuffing, take a look at the shape of the tie. One side has a bow and the other side has a straight end.  Each side needs to be completed by getting the part that it's missing. The bow side needs a straight end, and the straight part needs a bow. Stuff the part that was dangling through the middle loop so each part of the tie gets what it needs.


And Voila! There it is! 

Well, it doesn't look like much at this stage. 

Wiggle and pull things around till it begins to take shape (above).  When you get it right, reach around the back and tighten the tie buckle till it fits nice and snug. That's it!

I was going to say, "Simple wasn't it?", but it's not really.  Actually, it's kind of complicated. Just remember that each end of the tie, both the right and the left, require two parts: a bow and a straight end. Do whatever you need to do to make that happen.

Now...onto the Annie Awards!

COMPLETELY RANDOM THOUGHTS

Warning: nudity below!

Forgive me for writing a post that's all over the place.  I just haven't had the time to write. Just rambling now, I thought I'd mention that I've been fooling around with imovie 08 and 06, the two amateur mac editing programs.  Holy Mackeral! The critics of 08 were right! 06 is a whole lot easier to use! Now at long last I've experienced the simplicity that mac is famous for and it's wonderful to behold! I was able to do almost everything quickly without resorting to a help menu. o6 is amazingly intuitive!  Of course 08 has the ability to send everything to YouTube with a couple of clicks.

I'm reading a book on the famous Chinese 36 strategems. My book implies that these traditional strategems were taught to every Chinese child for a long, long time, but Wikipedia says the book has only been available since 1961. 

 
Every strategy has a romantic title and a story that goes with it.  "Loot the house when it's burning" is another way of saying, "Take advantage of your enemy's misfortunes". Somehow expressing the idea with the metaphor of the burning house makes it more memorable. "Borrow a corpse to resurrect the soul" is a romantic way of saying "Re-interpret the past in order to influence events in the present." It's amazing that this is taught to young children.  It's a very practical way of looking at the world, very far removed from the Christian ethic that prevailed here until recently. 

Since I'm rambling I'll mention that I just visited the Domai site and found the peculiar pictures shown here (above and below).  At first I couldn't figure out what made these girls seem so unusual, but after thinking about it I realized that they're all look a little bit crazy.  The girl on the top looks like she's way, way over the edge, the third one, one on the bottom (way below) is almost normal...almost, but not quite.  Her eyes seem like powerful instruments of understated manipulation.  Of course these are guesses. Maybe all these girls are much more normal than I am. 

In real life mildly crazy girls are kind of sexy.  Probably girls find crazy guys to be sexy too, if the craziness is mixed with charm. Isn't it odd that we're all attracted a bit by craziness? No wonder every generation has so many half-cocked people! 

I also find it interesting that the allure of craziness doesn't translate into photography.  These pictures are fascinating to look at but they're not exactly erotic. My guess is that in real life these girls would be very sexy, but in photography not so much so. Why is that? Maybe a lot of eroticism is in the eyes, and that's hard to capture in pictures. 

BTW, None, absolutely NONE of what I said about crazy people applies to anyone I know, thank heaven! I have to say that because every time I write about human oddities, half the people I know look at me strange the next day, as if they'd been insulted. 

Also, if one of the paragraphs is blue that's because I hit a wrong button and am too tired to do anything about it.  

WHY DON"T PAPERBACKS SELL AS WELL AS THEY USED TO?

Well, the price for one thing.  A new paperback novel averages $7.99 and a really popular author like Stephen King gets $9.99. That's outrageous!  But I don't think price is the only reason. Paperbacks just aren't as attractive as they used to be. 

Check out the 50s cover above where the "cheap and evil" girl is smoked on by the giant green head. Maybe the cigarette is a burning penis. It's beautifully executed but it's also weird, and vaguely supernatural. Weird and supernatural are spices you can add to any genre, the more the better.

 
I'm digressing here to include a magazine cover (above) from the paperback era. In evidence are girls, guns, an exotic locale, a picture of a real, live lurid girl, and exciting letter styling. What a feast for the eyes and for the imagination! No wonder these magazines sold!

Psychotherapy (above) was a popular subject in lurid paperbacks, maybe because men envied psychiatrists. Readers must have thought, "What a job! You get to put women on a couch and listen to their sex fantasies all day long!"  

Everybody likes to read about crazy people (above) for some reason, and if sex can be added, so much the better. It's sleazy but you have to admit that if this book was lying on a table, and no one was around, you'd pick it up and spot read it. 

There's a genre of paperbacks (above and below) which I call "Swamp Trash" for lack of a better name. Paperbacks readers were obsessed with the idea that hillbillies didn't work and spent their whole day drinking and having sex. Could that be true? If it's not, it's still an appealing fantasy for some. 

It seems to me that paperbacks of the past sold big because they gave the reader what he really wanted, even when it didn't make sense.  They sold stylized hyper-reality, rather than reality. There's a certain amount of pandering in that, but the quality of the writing and artwork was exceptionally good, which means that creative people found the medium congenial, even if they didn't like to admit it.  The weird subject matter lent itself to high style in the execution. 

One additional reason: I imagine that more books were aimed at men in those days and men's weird and sometimes deviant tastes made for more creative opportunities in print. My guess is that most editors today are women, Vasser graduates or the equivalent, and the subjects women choose to publish just aren't interesting to a lot of men.  We need more male editors.

"THE SMOKER"

The Smoker:  "Hey sonny, here's twenty bucks! When the cigarettes come in, send a carton up to suite 316. And here's two bucks for you!"

Young Tobacconist:  "Gee whiz, mister! Thanks! Suite 316!"  (Then, to his friend after The SMOKER walks off...) "Billy, who is that guy? He orders a carton of cigarettes a day!"

Billy:  "Holy Cow! You don't know him!? He's a big-shot private detective! He's....'THE SMOKER!' "

ANNOUNCER:  "Yes, he's THE SMOKER, and a smoker knows what others can only guess at!"

  

Announcer (cont): "Through the tobacco mist he perceives truth and error...AND MURDER!" 

The Smoker:  "Yeah, I smoke a lot. It relaxes me, and things tend to happen when you smoke! Like the other day, for instance. I was sitting in my office, puffing away, when the phone rang...."

"It was a real cute girl, you could tell, and I knew she was classy because you could smell the expensive perfume right through the phone. She said she had a job for me, and that I should come down to her house in Beverly Hills."

 

"It was night when I got there. I didn't know what was going on,  but I figured I'd give the outside of the place the once over before knocking on the door.  I parked silently in the back and went through my routine. Wow! You coulda' fit my whole office in her kitchen! It looked OK, so I knocked."

"She answered as I was lighting up. Just another customer, I thought."


"Whoa! Let me revise that! NOT just another customer!!!! She was quite a woman, no doubt about it, about five-four, braided blonde hair, and with a body that said 'Wanna be my friend?'  Yeah, I definitely wanted to be her friend!" 

"She opened the door wide and gestured me in, but before I could take a step her face went pale. She seemed to be looking at something behind me."

"She backed up, trembling and saying "No...no! I won't tell anybody, I promise! Please...please...don't...."

"BAM! BAM, two shots rang out, and she crumpled to the floor!"

"I wheeled around to confront whatever it was, but before I could focus I took a heavy slam to the head and the next thing I knew I was out cold!"

"When I came to, maybe 15 minutes later, I found myself holding a warm gun. How did that get there? Not only that, but I was inside the house and it was dark.  I pulled myself up and groped along the furniture, looking for a light switch.  It didn't take long before I stumbled over something on the floor, and it wasn't furniture. It was something soft with braided hair. It was the lady from the doorway, covered in blood!"

"I let out a gasp and staggered backward! We'll never know what would have happened next because the next minute was all about the wail of police sirens, and the light from cop cars coming through the curtains."

"Maybe I shoulda' stayed there and explained everything...maybe... but there I was holding a warm gun next to a corpse, and somehow explaining didn't seem like a very good idea.  I pocketed the gun and headed for the back door.  That was when I got the second surprise of the evening...my car was gone!'

"My first thought was to run, then I noticed a fancy car with an open door and keys in the ignition. I didn't get it! Why would somebody take my old wreck and leave a car like this in its place? Who knows? No time to think! I got in and peeled out, before the cops knew what was happening!"    

"Did I say there were two surprises that evening?  Change it to three! On the seat beside beside me.....just sitting there was.....no, I think I'll save that part of the story for next time.  I'm getting hoarse and it's time to savor this wonderful menthol cigarette that I've been waving. Check in next week for another installment of ....THE SMOKER!"