Haw! Here's something Steve Worth turned me on to....it turns out that English poets of the late Middle Ages used to carry on insult wars with each other. One bard, Dafydd ap Gwilyn, was so good at it that the subject of one of his poems is said to have died when he heard it.
I couldn't find a picture of Gwilyn, but here's (above) the next best thing: a picture of Chaucer reading to Edward III. Geez, if biting satire was a popular entertainment at court I can easily understand how someone on the receiving end might give up the ghost.
Anyway, here's the exact poem (below) that had the power to kill a man. If you don't want to read it then watch it on the YouTube video (also below):
Here's a few photos from my trunk. Let's see....here's (above) Mike as W. C. Fields. Steve took the picture on Halloween. I cropped it 'cause I'm in there too, and I didn't like the pose I took. Mike looks great, though. The red on his nose perfectly sets off all the other reds in the picture.
Aaaargh! If only I'd had my camera on a wide angle setting!
Above, a very dignified Fields poses for his fans.
Above, another Halloween photo, this time of me in the uniform of the Exalted Grand Master of the Royal Order of the Muskrat. No, I'm not eating a muskrat...that's chicken. I love this picture, but I don't know who took it. Steve? Auralynn?
Here's Mike wearing the sacred hat and....taking the Muskrat pledge?
Here's Auralynn and Sarah. Auralynn designed those pajamas (above) for (I think) American Apparel. Her measurements were used for the petite size of a whole line of clothing.
Imagine that...she could walk into any store that sold that line and buy anything off the rack and get a perfect fit. Me, I don't know what it's like to have an article of clothing that actually fits.
Here's a photo of me taken by John at his favorite BBQ restaurant. Animal pictures like this are all over the walls there.
Above, me around the time when I got my first animation job.
Above, me now. Gee it's amazing, isn't it!? I've hardly changed! I attribute it to good living.
EDDIE: "Hi everybody! Where I live is thick with animation people. I thought I'd take you for a drive and show you where some of them live."
EDDIE: "Yikes! There's a lot of pedestrians out today!"
EDDIE: "Okay, here's the first house on my list, John K's. John's in the back working on "Cans Without Labels." The man you see rummaging through the refrigerator is ace Hollywood cartoonist, Jim Smith."
EDDIE: "It looks like those guys are busy so we'll try the next....."
BAM! THE CAR HITS A PEDESTRIAN.
EDDIE (VO): "Yeow!"
EDDIE: "Er...sorry!"
EDDIE: "Gee, maybe I should wear my glasses when I drive!"
EDDIE: "Okay, here we are at the next house on the list, Steve Worth's!"
EDDIE: "And there's the man himself! Steve's an animation producer and the mind behind the nifty internet site, 'Animation Resources'."
EDDIE: "Let's listen in to Steve explaining film theory to Auralynn...."
STEVE: "Well, you see Auralynn, the kinetic twist is what gives pizazz to what I call the person-to-person dynamic. It's a plus if you already have in place the film "nugget," but a minus if you failed to establish the "fulcrum."
EDDIE: "Wow! Words of wisdom! Thanks, Steve!"
EDDIE "Okay, next on the list is Mike! He's at the end of this....."
EDDIE SWERVES TO AVOID HITTING DOG. CAR CRASHES.
MIKE: "Eddie! Is that you up there!? What was that noise???"
I believe a lot of what cosmology serves up, even when it's bizarre and counter intuitive, but I might have reached my limit with the latest theories.
The new idea is that our reality is just a holographic projection of the true reality, and that true reality is located on the flat, two-dimensional, inner wall of a black hole somewhere. According to this theory I'm not really typing this blog on a planet called Earth, I'm just a holographic projection of something something that's happening very far away under the Event Horizon of a black hole.
Does that sound plausible to you? Not to me; I just don't believe it. Being a science fiction fan I almost hope it's true, but....naaaaaaw.... it's just too weird. Really, will anyone will believe this thirty years from now?
That's not the only idea I have trouble with. How about "M" theory, also fast becoming a mainstream idea, which says that the universe is layed out on an undulating flat sheet called a membrane? According to M theory our brane is separated from the flat brane of another universe by a thin fourth dimensional space. Some time around fourteen billion years ago our brain somehow touched the brane next to ours and The Big Bang resulted.
Nope, I don't believe that either. I'll follow the idea with interest, and I sort of want the theory to be true, but...once again...it's just too weird. If the universe is flat, how come it doesn't appear that way? Shouldn't theory conform to observation?
Apparently all these strange ideas spin off from the attempt to apply String Theory to cosmology. String Theory requires the existence of eleven dimensions and the existence of infinite numbers of universes. It's not regarded as proven but it's the operating assumption of a whole generation of cosmologists. But what if they're wrong?
The infinite universes concept is not without challenge. Skeptics like Michio Kaku claim that any equation that delivers an absurd answer like "an infinity of infinities" must be wrong. Count me with the skeptics. We don't even know the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which are held to account for most of what exists....maybe a theory of everything is premature.
I should mention another theory that's being bandied about lately...the theory that we're a simulation, a sort of video game on someone else's computer. This, I'm happy to say, isn't embraced by mainstream physicists, but it is being researched by a team in Germany. They figure that any simulation must occur on a grid of some sort, and that grid should be detectable. As a science fiction fan I love the idea, but....really.
All this reminds me of a book I just found out about called "How the Hippies Saved Physics." I could see a book about how they tried to wreck physics (computers excluded), but save it???? Did I really read "SAVE?" Astral projecting, pyramids-that-sharpen-razor-blades, California's going to physically detach from the continent in our time, gurus that levitate, past lives in Atlantis, the only good technology is the batteries in electric wheelchairs, anti-business hippies...THEY saved physics???? This I've gotta see! I'll see if the library has it.
I thought you guys might like to see how John's film, "Cans Without Labels" is coming along. Weeeeeeelll...It's a John cartoon, need I say more? It is...of course...indubitably (whatever that means)...terrific! John let me take a few frame grabs but I had to do it while he and Jim were patiently waiting to go somewhere, so what you see was taken on the fly, from scenes that are still in the works. I hope you can make sense of it.
In case anyone's forgotten the story, here's a reminder: George Liquor tries to save a buck at the supermarket by buying cans without labels. He springs this on his nephews Slab and Ernie who have to eat whatever's in the cans.
The kids panic and George tries to put them at ease by telling them he's carefully picked out the cans with the best foods inside. Like this can (above), for example.....
He sloshes it around, weighs it, and counts the rings....(great finger action and expressions in the animation)....
...then it dawns on him what's inside (inbetween pose).
It's gotta be beef stew! Imagine that...a whole can of beef stew for just five cents! Wow! Slab and Ernie can't wait! [BTW, I can't believe how well this is drawn. The cartoon is full of drawings at this level.]
Only.... it's not beef stew. It's....well, you'll just have to see the cartoon.
The kids refuse and George reacts. The whole cheap meal thing doesn't work unless somebody actually eats what's in the can!
He tries persuasion....
....and when that doesn't work......................
I love to draw shapes that I see in the clouds. Mostly I see animals but I also see things like overturned laundry baskets, ghosts, tanks and tape dispensers. A friend says he always sees beautiful girls.
I see girls too (above) but usually they're not very beautiful.
You can see all kinds of shapes in clouds. Most of them are silly things. It's a strange fact that the most serious and consequential events in human history probably took place under a sky full of gently drifting pork chops, school buses, kangaroos and pies.
Sometimes the opposite is true (above): it can happen that nothing of consequence is going on down on the ground but overhead giant battleships race over the horizon to a distant war.
There's something tragic about clouds. They marshal themselves into heroic formations (above) and set out for the horizon with what great purpose, determined to sweep away any obstacle that gets in their path. Sadly most of them are ripped apart before they get there.
It's amazing how frequently George Washington shows up in the sky. Here's (above) a photo of Washington's head surrounded by flying cats. In a panic Washington thrusts his arms out ahead of him to ward off the cats but they're not to be denied.
Where I live isn't a good place to draw clouds. Mine is a coastal city where the clouds are often stretched into thin wisps or flattened into massive pancakes. Cumulus are the best clouds to draw and we just don't get enough of them. Jenny, who comments here sometimes, says that's that's a bunch of hooey; she says she sees cumulus all the time when she's out with her horses.
Maybe she's referring to the type of clouds above. Are they cumulus? I'm not sure. They don't immediately suggest anything to me....er...no, wait....hmmmmm, well maybe the clouds on the upper left suggest a ghost chasing a flying beaver....but what about the rest?
Here's a recent picture of myself, taken in a bathroom mirror. It's not something to write home about, and it won't win any photography awards, but it's pleasant and it doesn't make me look especially old or fat. "So what?" you say.
What makes it worth posting here is that lately I am old and fat....well, sort of. Anyway, you'd think I was if you only saw pictures other people take of me nowadays. What I want to know is, how come I DON'T look that way when I take my own picture, and I DO when somebody else does?
Maybe you've had the same experience. Do pictures of you come out better when you take them yourself? If so, why? I'll take a stab at an answer.
And here's that answer. What all the pictures in this post have in common is that they were all taken in front of my bathroom mirror. No wonder they look good. Like everybody else I've had years of experience mugging in front of bathroom mirrors, trying out angles and expressions that make me look good. When you take your own picture it's often in a mirror, so you're taking them in a medium you're already familiar with and know how to charm.
Not only that, but there's usually an artificial light nearby and filtered sunlight coming through the window. If the bathroom has white walls then you have something approaching a photo studio.
Now let's look at your friends. They're handicapped right from the start. They're probably taking your picture outside with no nearby light source and no mirror to allow you to fine tune your expression. Outside you're just a statistic. You're a generic human who exists just to give scale to your environment.
Even in a living room there's usually no nearby light and no interesting ambient light. Professionals have all sorts of equipment to get around this problem, but if your friend isn't a pro then forget it...he's not going to capture the real, philosophical you. He'd need a studio for that...or a bathroom mirror. Interesting, huh?
BTW, the bottom two pictures were taken late at night with only artificial light. They're grotesque but that's what I was aiming for. I like to imagine that I could pass for Long John Silver or Scrooge or Captain Hook or Uriah Heap (the Dickens character, not the musician). The raspy white crud on the bottom is the residue of post-it reminders. I wish I'd cleaned the mirror first.
Also BTW: How do you like the tiny hair near the tip of the nose? I better cut it off. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow and I'm afraid he'll become fixated on it.
