Rules of Attraction?

Why are some puppeteers attracted to one style of puppetry and some to others? Does it have to do primarily with age? Cultural upbringing? Or personality? I engage in several styles of puppetry, but some resonate and some just don't. But why?

There have been many books and papers written about who creates what type of character in role playing games (RPGs), like Dungeons & Dragons, Everquest, etc. One study found that self-described introverts tend to play characters who they feel they would be if not encumbered by an introverted nature. They tend, however, to play non-aggressive roles, and often play the same character types in various games.

Self-described extroverts like to vary their personalities and adventures. They value social experiences in the game, but hold no preference for one character type over another. They claim to like to challenge themselves with different roles, or choose characters based on the moods that they are in.

The study goes on to say that (based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) "Feelers" can immerse themselves more fully in characters than others, "Intuitives" learn about themselves through playing characters, and "Thinkers" simply analyze situations during the experience.

Is this the same for puppeteers? Are some types of people attracted to marionettes while others find shadow puppetry enticing? Do Muppet-style puppets resonate with some personalities, while others find nothing in it? What about the characters we create?

I am surprised that no one has tackled this as a journal article. Maybe I will. I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions....

And So It Continues

So, Greece and Turkey have history. Which is the understatement of several centuries. Since 1821, they have been embroiled in four major wars. I am not going to get into the details because a) it is really, really complicated and b) I am bound to make some error that will result in my being disowned. Not really. Maybe. But I'm not taking any chances.

However, what is vital to this conversation is an understanding of the migration of shadow puppetry from Asia to Europe. Originating in China, the art form spread to areas of Mongolian conquest as troops used the puppets to entertain themselves. Additionally, French missionaries in China brought the style even more westward when they returned to their homes in the 1700s. One such area of Mongolian conquest, however, was Turkey.

In Turkey, shadow puppetry is called "Karagoz and Hacivat." These are the names of stock characters who are generally the leads in the shadow plays. The story is that there were two construction workers in the 1300s whose volleying banter amused their co-workers, but slowed progress considerably. They were killed as punishment, but they became folk heroes. Legend has it that one of their co-workers made puppets of their likenesses and began to perform stories that he had heard. Karagoz is lewd, uneducated, and deceitful, whereas Hacivat is learned, and speaks a more refined version of Turkish. Karagoz, of course, outwits Hacivat every time.

Greeks disagree about the origins of their shadow puppetry, referred to as "Karagiozis." Some believe that Greeks originated the form, however, most believe that it was an adaptation of the Turks' Karagoz. Becoming popular during Ottoman occupation, Karagiozis tales were able to express subversive themes that would not have been able to be expressed in other ways. Of course, this is only a brief description, and I urge anyone who has not seen such plays to visit YouTube, as live shows in the U.S. are infrequent.

At any rate, UNESCO recently decided to declare this style of puppetry to be of Turkish cultural heritage. And so the Greeks' hackles are raised, and perhaps rightfully so. Greece's foreign ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras even stated, "The UNESCO convention on intangible cultural heritage enables neighboring countries to access the same commodity," a statement that is uncharacteristically ecumenical. Delavekouras assured Greeks, however, that there will be further discussion with UNESCO in October.

Didn't UNESCO officials know what they were stepping into when they announced the rightful "owners" of Karagoz or Karayiozis? More as this develops...

The Early Years

So, who were the earliest puppeteers?

I am working on a paper where this bit of info would come in really handy, and little to no information really exists. A mention here, a mention there. Connect the dots yourself, and either come up with a Truth or a big fat ball of Supposition.

It's pretty apparent that puppeteers were mostly itinerant. Of course, there are the exceptions: the monks and priests that used puppets to tell religious stories, families groups competing in mua roi nuoc, those touched by the spirits in the Seneca Nation, to name a few.

But why didn't we organize earlier the way that actors did? The first professional acting company was in 1430. One hundred years later, drama was an institutionalized part of a student's education. Admittedly, I am skipping over some serious theatre setbacks (for example, the Puritan Revolution), but still...In 3 years, it will be the 100th anniversary of the theatre degree in the United States.

Were we solitary by nature, solitary by craft, or were we just bad organizers?

Many of us still live rather itinerant lives. Perhaps we don't cross the land in wagons (though some of us do - in trucks), but most of us do live lives of loading up cars with puppets, theatres, sound/lighting equipment, unloading, performing, reloading and unpacking...over and over and over again. Are we that much different? How would puppetry have evolved if puppeteers had created guilds and performing companies early on, instilling puppetry as a classic art?

The Zappets

A couple of years ago, I saw CEO of Zappo's, Tony Hsieh, on Oprah. I was completely taken with him, and have tortured friends and acquaintances since with my recollections of that interview.

Quick history: Zappo's was created by Nick Swinmurn, a motivated guy who couldn't find shoes that fit his feet. He wanted to start an internet company that sold shoes, a weird idea then to a public used to trying shoes on in a physical store. Enter Tony Hsieh. Hsieh was 25 and had recently made $265 million from an internet marketing company that he started three years earlier with his college roommate (sigh). Hsieh decided to invest in Swinmurn's idea, and eventually became the CEO. Swinmurn left when the company became successful as he was interested in new projects.

Some interesting facts:

• Hsieh is a soft-spoken guy, who is all about company culture and customer service.
  
• He has a cubicle, just like everyone else, so that he is no less accessible.
• Hsieh hopes that by 2018, Zappo's is no longer primarily associated with shoes, but with excellent customer service.
• No matter what job you are hired for, you must spend one month in customer training (at full salary), two weeks of which is taking phone calls. After one week, you are offered $3,000 to leave, no questions asked.
  
• 97% turn down that offer.

Enter their newest marketing promotion: The Zappets.

Created to resemble actual Zappo's employees, these puppets star in commercials designed to underscore the company's commitment to customer satisfaction. Zappo's CSRs are not given scripts nor are there time limits per call and employees are encouraged to keep their offbeat personalities, all of which are clearly illustrated in the commercials. Interestingly, actors were hired to call actual CSRs with quirky scenarios (one customer wants to exchange her workout clothes for a deep fryer, another claims that she is not "ready" for a dress that she received), but the CSRs were under the impression that they were authentic calls and not material for a marketing promotion.

The Zappets are just another example of puppets being used lately in advertising. These commercials remind me a lot of Crank Yankers, and I think that they are very successful. Having quirky puppets stand in as the visual for such ridiculous audio is pretty brilliiant and almost forgives the excruciating CGI eyes that the Zappets have. What on earth were they thinking?

If you are interesting in the making of the Zappets, click here. At any rate, a big thumbs up to Zappo's.

The Smile Stitchers

Sometimes, when we are teaching the very young, and one of them is sad sad sad, my wonderful partner will draw the smallest happy face on their tiny little index finger. It's almost guaranteed that it will result in a smile (I can't think of a time that it has not worked, actually). Of course, the desire for this novelty will immediately spread like wildfire, and soon the entire class will want happy faces, sad faces, mustaches, eyelashes, and so on and so forth....Gone will be any hope of teaching correct hand positions, or puppet history, and instead we will have a class in love with finger puppets.

Because of this inescapable truth, today I felt like it was necessary to give a shout out to a group of ladies called the Smile Stitchers. For the past 36 years, this troop from the First Baptist Church of Richardson, Texas (outside of Dallas) has built 20,000 finger puppets a year for the Children's Medical Center in Dallas. This group consists of 45 members, most of whom meet once a month to cut, and some volunteers then take the pieces home to stitch and adorn. The finger puppets are not all alike - they come in a variety of characters and animals. The ladies say that each puppet takes about 30-40 minutes to build. For those of you doing the math, that is 15,000 hours of manpower annually. 20,000 puppets! Granted, they are finger puppets, but that seems incredibly taxing.

There is very little history about the origins of finger puppets. Maybe because it is like researching the origins of the ball...I'm sure that as soon as a child or a mother figured out that it was an amusing distraction, it spread as quickly as it does in one of our classes. I think that it is important to note that no matter how savvy we get, we are all still mesmerized by the same basic thing: giving life to something that we know in our minds isn't real. But our hearts just won't keep up, huh?

Hey, Jealousy.

You know, there are times when you are happy for another artist, and there are times when you are just plain jealous. Jealous of their flashes of creativity, gumption, their work. That is happening to me at this very moment, and, I suspect, throughout the month to come.

Two puppeteers in New York City have taken it upon themselves to collect $10,000 in gold coins (they say that it took several years, during which they hid their collection in their apartment) and bury it in the city somewhere. They claim that they buried the treasure box last November. Over the course of the next month and a half, they will release a series of eight videos that will give clues to viewers as to where to dig. They promise that the money is buried and findable (one puppeteer said that he is willing to be punched in the nose if they are lying), and the first person to find it may keep it. The videos are centered around a cast of pirate puppets (and one ninja, of course).

The puppeteers are remaining anonymous for fear of their safety. It has been reported that they are in their 30s, and one is also a freelance video editor. This is clear, in that the introductory video is beautifully crafted.

The puppeteers claim that they created this adventure as a way to draw attention to their work, but also say that they just want people to have fun watching their videos. They hope, also, that funding might become available from sources who see them as they become viral hits. Interestingly, as of this posting, only 25,000 have seen the initial video, which is a pity! This project has its own website and Facebook group. Apparently, this is not the first time that this type of marketing tool has been used to generate interest. In the late 1970s, for example, a children's book by Kit Williams, entitled Masquerade, concealed clues to a buried jewelled pendant of a hare that was buried somewhere in Great Britain. Unfortunately, that adventure didn't end so well, but I can't wait to see how this one progresses!

So, kudos to these guys for being so inventive! Now I'm going to hang with my new green-eyed monster friend.

By the way, they say it's not in Central Park.

Pants on the Ground

This is not what I had planned on writing about today. However, this morning, I had a mortifying experience occur during a gig, and what better way to seal the deal than to write about it on the internet?

So, the train started down the track toward Disaster when we were asked to come to a summer reading program to perform with our life-sized alter-ego puppets. For this group, we were prepared to tell a handful of Louisiana folktales, and we rely heavily on audience participation. My partner built these puppets, and they are beautiful. We have used them many times, and although we initially had some issues with weight, we now have unobtrusive harnesses that make lengthy shows much easier. We, as puppeteers, are behind the puppets in puppet blacks, hooded - we manipulate one of the puppet's arm with our own arm in a sleeve/glove, and our other arm/hand is used to manipulate the head and mouth. The puppets share our feet, as my puppet's pant legs gradually wrap around my ankle.

Most of the students at this program had never seen a puppet show, and I would wager that not one of them had even fathomed this type of puppetry, based on their initial reactions. As we were entering the space, my partner checked me out, and remarked that my puppet's pants were sitting a little low. His comment was purely aesthetic - they are in period inspired tramp style clothes - and was not a comment based in logistical concern.

For this performance, we did not have to be mic'ed as the house was small, and both of our voices carry. What is particularly nice about this is that since we are hooded, we cannot read each other's facial expressions, but we can we whisper to one another, if neccessary. We have learned over the years when we have to be mic'ed to use secret words to let the other know if we are in trouble, a trick we immediately implemented after a dangerously hot outdoor venue. At any rate, about halfway through the show, my partner took a sec in between tales to let me know that my puppet's neck seemed truncated.

So, there we were, telling a story - volunteer performers with us in front of an audience of around 50, when, in an attempt to elongate my neck, I must have stretched the puppet's torso too much and I immediately felt the puppet get a whole lot lighter. Gasps from a handful of front row students let me know in nanoseconds that there was big trouble. As you may have guessed from the title, my puppet had lost her pants. Down around both of our ankles.

But, it gets worse. These types of puppets have no legs. They only have torsos, and brief thigh-beginnings, since we eventually share legs. So.....my puppet not only had her pants down around our ankles, but now looked like a very scary amputee. Not that amputees are scary, but this sight must have come as quite a shock. I know that it was to me.

I immediately grabbed the pants and held them to her waist, and let my partner know that I was going to leave and come right back. He had missed the whole fiasco (I think the whole thing was only a matter of moments) but knew that I must be having some serious technological issues.

As I cleared the view of the audience, I tore this now completely disloyal puppet from my body, and tried to regain my composure. I stood there for a full ten seconds, gathering my thoughts, and considering getting in the car and leaving. But, trooper that I have learned to be, I put her back together and calmly reentered the stage. I couldn't think of anything witty to say (not my strength, really) but I jumped back in and did my best to finish the show.

We always tape our performances. I have not yet gathered the courage to watch it, and I have little faith that I will in the near future, since I was definitely lookin' like a fool with my pants on the ground.

A Messy Business

This is not my house, but sometimes, it might as well be.

Due to my recent, but chronic, frustration of the state of my home workshop, I have decided to spend some time considering what things can be tossed/listed. This process has not been fruitful in the past. I am inclined to think that this is a problem that particularly plagues puppeteers (although I suspect that collagists and found artists have some idea of what I am talking about)...

Q. Can we get rid of the bags of empty paper towel and toilet paper cores?
A. Well, no...we might need to teach a class on using recycled materials for puppet-making, and we won't have time to accumulate that many.

Q. How about that box of leather scraps?
A. NO! Leather is expensive, and Tandy was having a sale! Besides, you don't need that much for a puppet.

Q. OK, what about the packs of wire hangars over there?
A. Those hangars are perfect for the rods on karagiozis. Wal-Mart doesn't carry them anymore. The ones now break too easily, for some reason.
Q. I know, but we don't have any karagiozis shows planned....
A. Yes, but we'll have them when we need them!

And so on, and so forth. You can't get rid of bolts of fabric or felt, because, well, you use it all of the time. You can't get rid of enormous rolls of foam for the same reason. Spoons make eyes, as do ping pong balls. Boxes of feathers and marabou boas take over your life, along with various containers of adhesives, scissors, and sewing equipment. This is to say nothing of lighting equipment, sound equipment, recording equipment, backdrops, props, and a myriad of theatre environments. I moved recently, and will again soon. My friends who helped the last time vowed that they would never help again. They have even offered to pay for professional movers the next time, just to relieve themselves of the task.



I am going to try again, though, to let go of some of this. I am currently completely overwhelmed, and I think that streamlining might be the best thing to cleanse the creative palette. Off I go....Maybe the next time I write, my workshop will look more like this:

We'll see.

It's a Kind of Magic

• In ancient China, puppets' heads were always removed from their bodies at night in order to keep them from coming alive.
• In ancient Greece, legend has it that Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor, carved the perfect woman from marble. He loved her so much that he prayed to Venus that she could come to life. Venus granted his wish.
• In the early centuries of the common era are some of our first references to the Jewish golems. A golem is a being created from inanimate substance, and much respect is given to those who are able to conjure them into being. It is said that golems have occasionally protected the Jewish people from attack.
• In the 1700s, Jacques de Vaucanson, a French inventor, created the first "robots." He is most famous for his "Digesting Duck," that had hundreds of parts, appeared to be able to drink and digest food, flap his wings, and poop. In creating the duck's intestines, de Vaucanson inadvertently gave the world flexible rubber tubing.
  
• In 1818, a novel was published anonymously that spun the story of Dr. Frankenstein, a scientist who discovers a way to create life. He rejects his ugly monster, however, and the monster seeks vengence on his creator out of loneliness and rejection.
  
• The late 1800's brought us the tale of Pinocchio. Geppetto, the Italian woodcarver, carved him from pinenut wood, and although he was a puppet, he dreamt of being a real boy.
• One hundred years later, Child's Play films introduces us to Chucky, a violent killer who dives into a toy box on his death bed and, of course, his soul is transferred into a "Good Guy" doll.

These are only a few examples that I could think of that illustrate how the world sees puppets. Of course, some are not traditional puppets, but I think that all of the examples underscore the fascination and respect that all humans have for the anthropomorphization of inanimate objects. I think, too, that we see it as fair trade for deaths that we experience. Click here, and you can see what seems like one more chance to see MJ. It was magic in the ancient times, and it is magic now. Consider also, Toy Story 3, in theatres now, making grown men cry. We love to suspend disbelief, whether we are puppeteers or not.

Which leads me to my video link for the day. I know many of you are very familiar with Philippe Genty, French theatre artist and puppeteer, but this video is one of my all time favorites. Get out your Kleenex.

A Happy Marriage

"In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again.... We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring." ~Enid Bagnold, Autobiography, 1969

When people ask me what I do, they are instantly excited when I tell them. I suppose it is refreshing not to hear, "IT Specialist" or "Marketing." (not that there is anything wrong with either of these occupations, but I think we can all agree that they aren't in the minority) People even stay interested while I explain a little bit about puppet history, the state of puppetry in the US today, puppetry in education. But if I progress any more, perhaps into the lives of my characters, forget it. Eyes glaze over, some seem a bit frightened. It's nice to have a partner who totally gets it.

There seem to be innumerable husband and wife puppetry teams. Go ahead, google it. Many years ago, puppeteering families were not uncommon, primarily because of logistics, as they lived itinerant existences. But this tradition has continued, and I wonder if it is because of the necessary acceptance of an odd fantasy life.

It doesn't seem to matter, however, if the husband was the original puppeteer, and led the woman into the adventure, or vice versa. And, there are plenty of cases of puppeteers who meet on the job. Bil and Cora Baird, the famous marionettists known to the mainstream as the artists responsible for the "Lonely Goatherd" scene in The Sound of Music, fell into the-husband-brings-wife-into-the-fold category. Cora Baird graduated from Hunter College with a degree in the theatre, studied with Martha Graham and was a member of the Group Theatre when Bil heard her "do voices." Four weeks later, they married, and that was all she wrote: for the next thirty years, they were magical. Allie Scollon of Scollon Productions and Columbia Marionette Theatre, was a puppeteer from childhood, and introduced her boyfriend (and then husband), Bill, to puppets. They made marionettes in their one-bedroom apartment while working full-time jobs, eventually opening their own production company, and later, theatre. Mark Carrigan and Michelle Smith-Carrigan were both puppeteers at the same puppet company, married, and when the company folded, opened their own, the successful New York company, The Puppet People.

It is lovely and important in a marriage to be safe from ridicule. In puppeteering, it is essential. You are creating funny voices, climbing over one another, living in a vibrant fantasy life. Maybe the sanctity of marriage creates a two-fold safety net.

Disclaimer: I am in no way intentionally ignoring the many LGBT puppeteers in working marriages, I just cannot find any examples at this moment. Also, my use of the word "marriage" is completely ecumenical.

BCI and Puppetry?

In the 1970’s, scientists began exploring possible relationships between the human brain and external mechanisms with the hope of one day developing a way for the brain to manipulate these devices, primarily for use by the disabled. Interestingly, the possibility of such a relationship had existed in pop culture for many years, although the purpose was usually more dystopian in nature. Think Marvel supervillain and mad scientist, Doctor Octopus. Created in the early sixties, Spiderman’s enemy created four sophisticated mechanical arms that are operated by a harnessed, brain computer interface (BCI). Although his arms were originally designed to enhance his research skills by conducting precise movements with great strength, through an unfortunate turn of events, they were, for a time, fused to his body (of course). Currently, Doc Ock’s arms are no longer permanently attached (of course), but he is able to control them at a distance with invasive BCI. But I digress…

BCIs, which are also interchangeably known as “direct neutral interfaces” or “brain machine interfaces,” developed quickly during the 1990’s. Initially, BCIs were exclusively non-invasive, but eventually progressed to brain implants. By 2008, a monkey was able to stimulate a robotic arm with his mind at the Pittsburgh University Medical Center, using invasive BCI. However, non-invasive BCI research has also continued. The electroencephalography (EEG) skullcap, which records neuron activity, has been utilized extensively, due to its (relative) low cost and ease of use.

The possibilities of BCI, however, have not been limited to options for the disabled. The gaming industry, the toy industry and the US military have embraced non-invasive BCI, particularly in the past couple of years. In 2008, the US Army extended a $4 million contract to UC Irving, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland to produce “thought helmets” whereby troops could communicate with one another mentally (I'm not making this stuff up). Within gaming, Emotiv Systems’ EPOC, released in 2009, has been widely received. EPOC, also operating from electromagnetic sensors, is closer to a medical EEG machine, and can gauge twelve different types of movement, emotions, facial expressions and head rotation. On the market for $300, EPOC operates with Windows PC games. In April 2009, Neurosky released Star Wars: Force Trainer, the first BCI toy to enter the competitive mainstream. An inexpensive simplified EEG headset, the Force Trainer is accompanied by a ping pong ball in a clear plastic tube. With the use of the headset, the brain controls a small fan at the bottom of the tube, and through concentration, the user is able to keep the ping pong ball elevated by operating the fan. Later in 2009, Mattel released Mindflex, a similar product which was expanded by the implementation of an obstacle course for the ball, and won the 2009 People’s Play Award Toy of the Year. Lastly, the September 2009 Robo-One Robot Fighting Tournament in Japan revealed the latest in non-invasive BCI technology: A bi-pedal robot entirely operated by a BCI headset. The University of Electro-Communications team had developed a 1.5 second thought-to-action robot that was only four pounds in weight and operated by an astounding twelve electrode connection to the brain. (An EEG has nineteen.)
You see where I am going with all of this? We, in the puppetry community, need to be fully participating in, and benefitting from, the burgeoning non-invasive BCI developments. Consider the ease with which many puppets could have been operated, and how much more expressive they might have been with such developments. Consider also, the possibility of the application of non-invasive BCI to smaller, less intricate puppets. How much more dynamic would Rizzo be if it could be controlled by thought? This is not to say that we ought to relinquish our loyalty to the traditional aspects of our art. What has always been a unique quality of puppetry has been our ability to stand both at the forefront of technology and resolutely at the rear, protecting our legacy and traditions. In a world where puppet traditions are declining or being remanded as child’s play, non-invasive BCI is an area where we could shine as a grown-up, sophisticated vanguard.

A NOLA Happenin'

So, although I am not always here to plug puppet happenings, a fellow New Orleans puppeteer, Brady, pointed me in the direction of some work that he has recently completed with a Young Audiences summer camp. Here is some of my conversation with him:

LP: Tell me a little about this camp and your program.

B: Young Audiences focuses on exposing students to the arts, which have been removed, in part, from the school system. Professional artists work with the students on whatever their expertise is, everything from African drumming to puppetry to rap. This camp, in particular, was four weeks long, and was particularly challenging because once a week they went on a field trip, so in total, we saw them for about thirteen class sessions.

LP: Wow! And had any of them had any previous puppetry experience?

B: No, not really. A few had seen a puppet show at school or at church, and of course, Sesame Street. But no, not really.

LP: So you are not always at the same school...

B: Nope. Almost every time I teach a course or camp, I go to another school. They try to rotate the teachers, so that the students get exposed to as many genres as possible. That also lets me work with all ages from 4-17.

LP: So, tell me about your classes specifically.

B: At this particular camp, I taught six classes a day to about 165 students aged 4 to 14. We start with introductions and class expectations, move on to warm-ups, team and partnering exercises, and then on to puppet history. Eventually, we design puppets and at this camp, we chose to focus our final presentation - which was a series of music videos - on the oil spill. I try to stay relevant and address issues that they are concerned or interested in through puppetry.

LP: What types of puppets did you all build?

B: We built Fandango-style paper bag puppets, sock puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes and puppets made out of recycled materials.

LP: That sounds like a lot!

B: Yeah, it was. Then we filmed short music videos that they had learned and pre-recorded. It was a little rougher than it might have been if we had had a longer session, but I am really proud of what they accomplished.

LP: How does this class differ than one of your longer courses?

B: Oh - a lot. I teach puppet manipulation more intensively, I bring in monitors so that they are able to see themselves as they work, everything is more intensive and there is time for so much more...But I do want to say that these kids worked incredibly hard to overcome their thirteen day learning curve.

LP: What are their biggest oil spill concerns?

B: How long it is going to last - the spilling and the ramifications - the animals, the fisherman, the availability of seafood, whether people will still visit New Orleans. I think that they might be getting tired of being "the underdog." Their biggest concern with their puppet film, though, is how many hits they are going to get!

If you would like to see their work, it is available on YouTube in sections: 1 and 2, since it is a little bit longer than ten minutes. But it's worth every minute to see our next generation of puppeteer/activists.

Shattering the Illusion

You know what drives me nuts? This kind of thing drives me nuts:


And this:



Granted, I am as big a fan and user of Photoshop as the next girl, but seriously, is nothing sacred? I also understand that perhaps I am not the most unbiased judge on these sorts of things, but a group of people spent time giving life to characters used to teach our kids (who we were habitually parking in front of television) how to read. Satire, you say? Yeah, that excuse would work if these images were used intentionally as satire, and not by sixteen year old boys on their MySpace pages.

Equally annoying, however, is the "adults only" disclaimer on the Sesame Street DVD that has episodes from 1969-1974. It is included because, in our attempt to sanitize everything, the following is now considered offensive or dangerous to our young people: Cookie Monster eats too many cookies, Alistair Cookie smokes a pipe and then eats it, Big Bird is delusional due to his having an imaginary friend, and Oscar the Grouch not only has bad manners, but poor hygiene. I mean, come on.

I, as you can see, am super-sensitive about the sanctity of puppet characters. Every puppeteer will probably not agree with me. There are plenty of accomplished puppeteers who create fully developed characters who are not super-sensitive or attached to the "souls" of their puppets. However, the following situation, I find, particularly odd:

Remember Labyrinth? David Bowie? "Dance, magic, dance...?" Unfortunately, Hoggle, the grumpy giant, did not fare so well. Due to lost luggage on a trip by Henson Associates, Unclaimed Baggage Center, a company that purchases, well, unclaimed baggage and then resells it, ended up with Hoggle. And there is where Hoggle stayed. And continued to rot, due to the foam that was used in his creation. No one claimed him, until Sowatzka's Dolls found it in their hearts to restore him. I wonder if (then) Henson Associates didn't notice that he was missing? Or after a large number of puppets, one missing isn't any big deal? No blame, I just wonder.

The Overture

It has always fascinated me that true puppeteers have often been the strangest people that I have ever met, seemingly caught in two worlds. They don't seek attention the way that other performers do, and seem almost to prefer the worlds of their own creation. This blog, I hope, will discuss issues concerning puppetry and puppeteers; not primarily an update of the happenings in the puppetry world (although those, too, will be included, but are more than amply addressed in wonderful blogs like Puppeteers Unite!, Puppet Buzz, Puppet Vision Blog and Puppet Muse).

To begin, I think that it would be appropriate to tell you how I began my interest in puppetry: I'm not entirely sure. I am not one of those people who grew up around puppets, per se, or had a natural affinity for them. I tended to be a cautious child, and I cannot imagine that creating funny voices would have been something that I would have explored.

This is what I do know: I was encouraged by my mother to anthropomorphize everything. I had a favorite doll, Nini, and I can distinctly remember my mother telling me that it was vital that I take her on trips so that she wouldn't be sad that I had left her behind. I had an imaginary friend, Ferla (who I am sure on some level I understood to be imaginary), and Mom would send me birthday and Christmas presents from her. And there was this horrid story in an old children's book series, The How and Why Program, called "Poor Lizbeth Jane!" by Anne Gage, about a girl who gets a new toy each Christmas and forgets about her old ones. The discarded toys, of course, come to life when the humans are not around, and Lizbeth Jane (the rag doll) and her friend Toby (the cloth dog) decide to run away. Eventually, they are found in the snow, and the little girl remembers to love all of her toys, not just the new ones. (For those interested in the similarities to other tales, the copyright on that one is 1950.)

I can also remember attending puppet shows as a very young person, most often at the Glen Echo Park in Bethesda, Maryland. Now the home of one of the best puppet theatres in the country, when I was a child the park was a creepy ghost town with an historic, though dilapidated carousel, and an abandoned puppet workshop. The children's theatre was active, though, and we went often to see the featured puppets. Also, as a Greek child, I saw karagiozis shows, and, as a teenager, a good friend's parents were, at that time, professional puppeteers.

I studied theatre and vocal performance in college, and was peripherally exposed to puppets. And then the strangest thing happened...One day, a friend was sad, uninterested in really talking, I instinctively picked up a stuffed creature, created a character, and began puppeteering. That was it. And here we are.

I am now a professional puppeteer. I am also a woman. I live in a city where I am one of only a handful of puppeteers, and the surrounding area doesn't really increase that number by many. All of which conspire to make me somewhat isolated. So, here I am, sincerely....