TIME TO LEAVE LA!

MY KITTEN: "Go now. Saying goodbye is too hard!"

EDDIE: " (Sob!) You're right, Kitten. It's better to make a clean break! The neighbors'll take good care of you til I can send for you!" 

DOGS: "Woof! Woof!"

EDDIE: "Fido! Mergitroid! My luggage! Thanks, guys!"

 DAPHNE: "Bye, Eddie! Be sure to write!"

MARILYN: "Send us a card when you land!"

 SUPERMAN: "Bye Eddie! I'll drop by if I happen to be flying over that part of the country! Well, er...assuming there isn't any Kryptonite around."

MARIACHIES: "We'll save your seat at the restaurant! You weren't the best tipper, but even so..."

CHEERLEADERS: "2...4...6...8! Who do we appreciate!?"

MARIACHIES (SINGING): "He 'twas not the best tipper/ But his napkin drawings, they were hipper."

THE TWINS: "Bye, Eddie! Byyyyye!!! We put some chocolate in your pocket!"

TWIN #1: "Did you really give him the chocolate the dog licked?

TWIN #2: "Sure. I wanted to give him our best."

ON BOARD THE PLANE: Eddie finds something melted and gooey in his pocket:

EDDIE (VO): "What the heck!????"

**************

Eddie: I fully intend to keep up the blog in my new location. I'll just  need a couple of weeks off line to settle in. 'See you then!!!!!

THE LATEST ASTRONOMY PHOTOS: 7/19/2017

Have you seen the latest Juno pictures of Jupiter's red spot? This one (above) was taken July 11 from less than 10,000 kilometers away. The origin of the red spot is still a mystery. 

Here's (above) an odd one: a mysterious Martian cone 5 meters high and 15 meters across.  It's all alone. There doesn't appear to be other cones nearby. It was taken in February by the Curiosity rover. 

Here's (above) an artist's conception of the Earthlike planet called Trappist-1f.  Along with six other planets it orbits the star, Trappist 1.  The other planets may all have some Earthlike features. Since the planets are unusually close to each other it's fun to guess that if life sprang up on one world it would probably spread quickly to the other six. 

Last but not least: red sprites over the English Channel. Nobody knows what causes them but they're thought to a product of thunderstorm activity. They're rarely photographed because they only last for a millisecond.

MODERN STORIES VS. CLASSIC STORIES

A CLASSIC STORY SAMPLE:  FROM THE OLD "LONE RANGER" RADIO SHOW

OUTLAW: "I'm gonna kill you right now, Lone Ranger!"

SHERIFF: "Oh no you ain't, Cal Steward! Put up your hands!"

A MODERN STORY SAMPLE:  FROM A CURRENT RADIO SHOW

KATE: "I wanted to cry but I couldn't. Know why? I didn't feel enough."

KITTY:  "That's better than feeling too much (sob!)...like me."

ABOUT SCHTICK

The problem with animation writers, one of the many problems, is that they don't write visually. For them visual writing means lots of chases or excuses for fast cuts. When I think of visual writing I think of schtick.

Schtick has a lot to do with funny acting and funny situations. It's about small things, like the inability to find the sleeve of the jacket you're putting on.  Or maybe your guy drops his wedding ring into the soup of the bully sitting beside him and has to fish it out with his fingers without the bully noticing. Small stuff like that.

Schtick is great, and animation is tailor-made for it, but it takes some skill to integrate it into a larger plot and most writers don't want to be bothered.

In the sketches above (which are hard to interpret...forgive me, I'm too sleepy to redraw them for clarity) I tried to imagine what kind of schtick a man without control over his arms and hands would do. Imagine putting your arms behind your back and letting a friend substitute with his arms. If he was well-intentioned he could try to make his gestures fit what you're saying but it would be off somehow...somehow out of sync and wrong...but funny in a strange way. Now imagine what your own arms would be like if they were naturally independent like that, without the aid of a friend.

 Imagine what it'd be like if your arms had a mind of their own. While you're talking to friends the hand might become bored and squeeze your face, or they might squeeze the girl next to you. There's no telling what mischief they could get into.

 Or maybe it's played more subtle than that. Maybe you underplay it so the audience senses something's out of whack but they can't put their finger on it. Anyway, you see what I mean. Schtick is fun.

WHY ARTISTS SHOULD AVOID YOGA

For the life of me I can't understand why an artist would practice yoga. Actually, I can't understand why anyone at all would practice it. It's an awful lot of work and what do you get for it? You get to be rubbery. Since when was being rubbery so special?

What really needs to be explained to me is why artists would be interested in it. Am I the only one who's noticed that yoga poses are ugly? Why would an artist try to cultivate ugliness? We're the people who are supposed to make the world more beautiful!

Honestly, I think yoga goes out of its way to be ugly. Ugly poses occur far too frequently to be caused by random chance.

Even traditional Indian art ignores yoga. The dancing Shiva is beautiful by any standard and the Kama Sutra is informed by something resembling yoga but not dominated by it. I know nothing about Indian history but I'll hazard a guess that yoga came to India fairly recently, maybe only a few centuries ago.

India must have had a charismatic Richard Simmons-type who convinced everybody to dispose of tradition and adopt ugliness instead. Who WAS this malevolent person? Why would he do such a thing? Why did people listen to him?

Yoga not only violates traditional Western ideas of beauty, it flies in the face of an international consensus. Everywhere you go outside of India the people have developed some kind of aesthetic fitness training.

Whether it's hula or karate or tai-chi or hip-hop, the moves are all intended to be beautiful. Only yoga defies the aesthetic standard. OK, that's my take on it. I'm going to get a sandwich.

BTW: DJ, a long time yoga practitioner, wrote a thoughtful comment to this post which is worth reading. He says yoga has roots that are at least 4,500 years old.  Give it a read!

THE ROMAN IDEAL VERSUS THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL

 Who's your favorite sculptor? Rodin?  Carpeaux? Bernini? Maybe the ancient Greek sculptor who did The Winged Victory of Samanthrace. Good choices, all.

 My own all-time favorite is an ancient Roman artist, whose name I don't know. The top two photos in this post are both his. Both show extraordinary men who've suffered greatly but are determined to prevail. I'm reminded of the old saying that the most beautiful thing in all the world is that of a good man struggling with adversity.

Okay, we've seen the pagan Roman view of the good man. Now for contrast here's (above) the Christian view of the good man as shown by Donatello. He's intelligent, self-disciplined, thoughtful and kind. You could ask, "Who has the better outlook, Donatello or the Roman?"

In my view they're both right. The world needs both types.

HAVE A WONDERFUL FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Fourth of July!!!!! It's a great day, isn't it? I thought I'd celebrate by posting one of my favorite patriotic songs. It's sung by Kate Smith, from a film made in the early forties.



Yikes! I tried to post two more items but Google wouldn't accept them. That's Okay, I'm lucky to have gotten the two that you see above. Have a good holiday, everybody!!!!!!!!!!