So Animated
The week's newsletter is a work of art!
This week’s E-Musings is quite animated—notably by my wonderful son-in-law, and other graphic artists. I so admire their patience and precision, enhancing our experiences of the world in new and surprising ways!
CLAYMATION: BEYOND GUMBY…
I find claymation utterly delightful, and I do appreciate how long and painstaking a process it is. As we’re in a spot of sticky weather these days, here’s a cool little video for you:
VIDEO: HEAT WAVE
THE FUTURE LOOKS—CREATIVE!
RealMotion inc. is a wonderful VFX studio led by my son-in-law Gil Gavish and his partner Amit Chachek. Gil and Amit have been working together since their school days, and their clients include household-name corporations, bands, etc. Their visual effects magic is truly out of this world!! Here’s a video they worked on for Coldplay…
Check out more of their incredible work HERE:
THOSE WERE THE DAYS…
Taking nothing away from today’s very impressive animation (ahem, Pixar), I am still in awe of what the early studios managed to accomplish—whimsical work that stands the test of time. Here’s a fun one: a battle between classical and jazz in “Music Land!”
COMIC BOOK MEMORIES
I was a voracious reader, of everything, from a tender age. While I was an elementary school legend for checking out (and reading) JFK’s Profiles in Courage when I was in third grade at Epiphany School, my tastes were not always so elevated. Especially in the summers at Normandy Beach, New Jersey, when my sisters and I stayed with Nana and Aunt Rose at their summer cottage. On rainy days, I’d devour whatever paperback novels were on hand, including grown-up potboilers like Arthur Hailey’s Hotel.
But my guilty pleasures were comic books. My overly generous Nana would pay us $5 each PER DAY to stay in bed until 9 AM on those July mornings at the shore. We would head on down to the variety store on Ocean Blvd. with our loot, where there was always a big supply of comics—lots of reading excitement for very little $$. I consumed Archie comics (subset Betty and Veronica) avidly, and I also adored the Marvel Comics series Millie the Model—and Millie’s photographer boyfriend Clicker (get it?) but I had a hands-down fave….
BRENDA STARR, REPORTER!
Ah, Brenda! Fashioned after actress Rita Hayworth, our heroine was a true jetsetter and glamour girl, no matter the peril in which she found herself. Her love interest, the mysterious, eye-patch-wearing Basil Saint John, just added lustre to my image of my future journalistic life. I would become a long-legged redhead romanced by a pirate-y guy, always filing my stories with the newspaper right on time, even when kidnapped or otherwise endangered!
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered what being a writer (my kind anyway) was really like! Steve does not sport an eyepatch, nor have I ever been held captive until I burned my notes incriminating a notorious mob boss (at least not lately). And while I guess I could’ve hit the hair dye bottle and gone auburn-ish, no amount of stretching on a rack would have rendered my gams LONG.
Oh, well.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
I’ve heard of plenty, especially Art Spiegelman’s classic Maus and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, but the only one I’ve actually READ is Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, the compelling story of her unorthodox upbringing in a funeral home, her coming out as gay, and her complicated relationship with her brilliant and tormented father.
Aiden is into the youthful equivalent of the graphic novel series these days, from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man and Cat Kid. The illustrations are really funny, the texts surprisingly witty, and—bottom line—they keep him excited about reading. And if he’s not poring over Profiles in Courage just yet? Well, Nanas who loved Millie the Model shouldn’t throw stones!
BLOG PREVIEW: VEGGIE BABIES
Ya-Jhu has an app comparing the size of our Bouncing Baby Grandson #3 with increasingly-sized veggies and fruits as the weeks of her pregnancy continue (a bean, a red pepper, now he’s an eggplant). Join me over at Working Title as we explore my complicated history with produce (I thought all peas came in cans for AGES) and how glad I am that my grandguys eat many more strawberries than Ring Dings!
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
A reminder from the great caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who sketched the luminaries of stage and screen until late in his life (he died at 99!) Hang onto those crayons, friends (and go ahead and buy a new box of 64 Crayolas for YOU this week!)
