How I Learned to Stop Worrying and... well, Tolerate the Twilight Fandom.

At this point you are aware of this book series known as the Twilight Saga, a magical romp through a land of glittery vampires, cuddly werewolves, epic battles between the two, and some other stuff that is not at all as interesting as it sounds. I read some of the books and watched the first movie all in the interest of science.

And I didn't like any of it.

I have since gotten into arguments over the quality of this series with my friends who do enjoy Twilight, and that brings us to the real point of this here post: If you have never heard of Twilight, you sure as hell have heard of it's fandom.

This is not without reason, mind you. Some Twilight fans are... aw, hell with it. Some Twilight fans are nuts. Sparkly vampire bat-sh*t insane, if you will. Several dozen copies of "Cracked Rear View" short of a used CD store. Crazy enough to be screaming for the fictional character portrayed by an actor but *not for the actor himself* (honestly, the vast majority of fans don't seem to give a pair of fetid dingo kidneys for the actors -- they just want the characters they embody, see all those chicks clawing at their jugulars so R-Patz Edward could feed off them.) Yet powerful enough to make the Mtv Movie Awards essentially useless for the next four years.

You know about them because the media loves to focus on the crazier side of fandom. This is why all Trekkers hang out in full Starfleet regalia at all times, all Furries are into the weird stuff, all Anime fans dress like "Naruto" characters and/or something called "Steamy-Punks" or "Lolly", and all "Avatar" fans are depressed over how life on Earth just doesn't cut it and they want to turn into Na'vi and move to Pandora and ride a Leonopteryx doin' barrel-roles and sh*t.

Some Twilight fans have delivered on the crazy fan behavior like no other known fandom. Boy, have they ever (and that's just from the surprisingly huge arts-n-crafts contingent).

SOME of them -- but not all of them.

As I've mentioned, I have friends who enjoyed Twilight. They are not crazy. They also like things that I can agree with. And they (well, except one of them) don't mind that I don't like the series.

Which brings us to this film that made the Internet rounds when "New Moon" was in theaters. And this, this right here, is how I learned to stop worrying and tolerate the Twilight fandom.

The first time I saw this, I thought it was pretty funny... for about the first minute or two. And then, when all the fans filed into their theater seats, excited to see the movie they've waited so long for, I got a little twinge of uncomfortable familiarity. Haven't I been in a crowd like that? As a matter of fact, yes I have -- my cousins and I were in exactly this kind of crowd going in to see "Matrix Reloaded".

And we all -- the whole theater -- would have been Bull. Sh*t. If this little bait-and-switch stunt had been pulled on us.*

* - Yes, I know. But imagine having to wait four years between, say, "Lost" seasons and you have an idea of the agonizing wait between the first "Matrix' and "Reloaded". Expectations were a *little* high. (And screw you all, I *like* the whole trilogy.)

But that's not the half of it. It isn't just that this guy isn't going to show the promised movie. He berates the Twilight fans for enjoying the series. And you and I might not like Twilight -- but imagine if you were brought into a theater as a teenager and told that the thing you love is bad and you should feel bad? Wouldn't that be heartbreaking? Wouldn't you feel awful and alienated?

And so, I give the peace sign to all the Twilight fans I may have offended in the past. I'm sorry.


(But I still maintain that getting into an argument with a Creationist is more fun than getting into an argument with a Twilight fan...)

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WIKKID IMPORTANT HEAD'S UP:

Amazon's Gold Box deal of the day is the complete series of "Fraggle Rock" for $37.50. If you do not own "Fraggle Rock" on DVD, hop to it! This is less than I paid for each individual season!
This goes double if you are a reader with kids.

Also, I got rid of the embedded video because it was causing problems.

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Sketch of the Day!
I believe we need something aggressively silly after all that.

Style Memes, and the Important Stuff they can teach you about Character Development

So over at Deviant Art, some artists like making these little charts for others to fill out. The intent is usually to draw your characters in the style of another artist/character from a movie/book/whatever. They are called Style Memes and I think I'm in love.
Seriously, this is a great exercise for character design. I've noticed that younger artists tend to experiment more, drawing their characters (in this case) over and over again in different styles, different colors, different media and so on. Somewhere along the line we loose that enthusiasm. But it's great drawing practice and it's just plain fun!
I found the Avian Style Meme at Lizkay's gallery and decided to put our dear friend Squee through the wringer:


Avian Style Meme by ~babbletrish on deviantART

Huh... first time embedding something from DA. Interesting.
Here are my notes, pretty much somewhat longer versions of what I've posted below the upload, now that I have had more time to think:

Personal Style - Default Squee.
Now, I've been trying to move away from drawing these characters digitally, as it really doesn't suit them (it looks too "neat" after a while). Also, when I do draw in Photoshop, it's usually at a much higher resolution, so this was a bit of a challenge. (Watch somebody tell me that there's a way to download a 300 dpi version of these memes, whereupon I shall say, "d'oh.")

Marahute!!! - Hell and yes. Glen Keane is the man and Marahute is his Crowning Moment of Awesome if I have to pick just one. I also thought the idea of drawing a chickadee in Marahute's "I'm Being AWESOME" pose was comedy gold.

Pokemon - Weird how so much of this meme includes big influences on me. Also, drawing a Chickadee as a Pokemon is sublime. (My crazy Anime-only theory: The Pokemon aren't walking around "saying their names". The Pokemon, like the Chickadee, are *named after* the calls they make.)

Jeremy - "Secret of N.I.M.H." is my favorite movie of all time. Don Bluth may be the one artist here who influenced me the most. Thing is, I never noticed until just now, doing the research for this meme, how *long* Jeremy's legs are!

Kehaar - Almost-photorealistic Squee, which was great fun to draw. Also, who couldn't leave out Kehaar's signature line?

"Quest for Camelot" - Squee's reaction here is pretty much my own. Seriously, what a random movie to go for. Not knowing what else to do, I drew her in the style as that fluffy little falcon.*
* - No offense if you like "Quest for Camelot", but I... don't... The film is also part of a particularly strange family movie-watching experience. My grandmother loves Andrea Bocelli and "The Prayer" is one of her favorites of his songs. She also likes "Camelot". Grandma was delighted to learn that "The Prayer" was written for a movie that happened to be about Camelot (I think you can tell where this is going) and so we rented "Quest for Camelot" to watch together.
I will let you imagine Grandma's reaction when she got to the particular scene in which her beloved song appears...

"Asterix" - This is where it occurred to me that there aren't a whole lot of cartoons/comics with birds as main characters. It's our What Measure Is A Non-Mammal problem again. *sigh*

"Family Guy" - Uh... eh. Not a terribly big fan of this series. (This has been my Gross Understatement of the Day.)

"For the Birds" - Ha-ha, she looks kinda cute like this! It'd be a hell of a challenge to draw after a while, though.

Iago - Birds with human-like teeth freak me out. There, I said it.

"Animals of Farthing Wood" - Now, now, let's be honest here. I only know "Farthing Wood" exists because the European contingent over at TV Tropes keeps raving about it. It sounds fascinating. (The heroes include a fox, a falcon, and a *snake*?!? Awesome!!!) And it could be the greatest animated series ever made for all I know, but sadly, I don't know if there's any way I can watch it in America (Youtube only appears to have the opening sequence). Wah.

Griff - Is... is this meant to be a Meme for Gryphon characters? (Long awkward pause...) Oh..... :p

Now I just found out that there's also a Dinosaur Style Meme floating around. Hrm...

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Addendum: Sketch of the Day, hot off the scanner!

Augh! Augh!!! AUGH!!!

OK, Let's Talk About That "Lost" Finale.

Now that I've had some time to process everything (and a few things to drink), and you've had at least a week to watch it once or twice, here are my thoughts. Vast galloping herds of unmarked SPOILERS ahead. You've been warned.

I liked it a lot.

I didn't *love* it. I'm having a slight case of "That's not what I would have done!"-ness. (Let us henceforth call this odd sense of fandom-entitlement "The 'Matrix Reloaded' Effect" [though I was fine with that ending too], or even better, based on Neil Gaiman's wonderful essay on the subject, The "George R.R. Martin is not Working for You" Problem). But I really liked it.

Part of the reason why I really liked this finale is simply because it made a lot of people angry. This is a show that never did the expected or "easy" things; characters could be downright unlikeable for large swathes of time, story arcs went down unexpected paths, weird stuff was introduced and never again addressed (there is now a small, steaming crater now where TV Tropes' Big Lipped Alligator Moment page once was.) I will admit, I am human and I would have liked a few more explanations (no, seriously, why were there so many ancient Egyptian things on the Island, what the hell was going on with Walt, and just what the heck *was* Smokey?) A lot of people said they feel as though the writers screwed them over by not addressing many of the stranger plot twists and have even started to resent the series as a whole. (Seriously. Take a shot when you run into a comment like, "They didn't address my pet mystery so now the whole series that I have been 100% on board with for longer than most people spend in college sucks and we hates if forevers!") My thinking is, if "screwed over" means six years of terrific television with smart science fiction and some of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure to meet, then I would like to get screwed more often.

That came out wrong... O.o

I like how some people will be debating those final ten minutes for weeks. I like how those final ten minutes are destined to be misinterpreted -- even though, and I don't mean to insult anyone, if you didn't understand what was actually going on there, I am in no position to help you. (Tellingly, a LOT of negative comments online are from people who just watched this last episode out of curiosity or otherwise didn't pay much attention to the series as a whole. It's pretty much your own darn fault for not liking it.) I've been on this ride since season two (my curiosity about the series was piqued when I saw the late, lamented "Best Week Ever" summarize the season finale), and I'm going to miss my weekly visits to The Island.

Listen, I was doing fine until around the twenty-five minute mark. Then it got really dusty...

(Oh, by the way, I totally called it. In a manner of speaking.)

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Sketch of the Day! This has nothing to do with "Lost", but it's still funny.

Top Five Unresolved Plot Points from... "Avatar: the Last Airbender".

I know, but It's going to take me a while to process the "Lost" finale. (Exceedingly minor spoilers in that link.)



So here's a rundown of mysteriously abandoned characters and plotlines from another television series my entire family was in total agreement of and that none of us wanted to end. Supposedly, the producers are working on some feature-length direct-to-DVD sequels. Hopefully, these will be at least be addressed if not fully wrapped up.
Mind you, I love the hell out of this series. Unfortunately, this kind of thing kinda comes with the territory when the network decides that they're only going to give you half a season to wrap everything up in your epic fantasy series. Wah.
These are in no particular order:

The White Lotus Society
They built this up so badly in the final season. This secret society made up mostly of cool older characters did show up in the finale, but their previous mentions in the series were so mysterious. So this isn't technically a dropped plot, but it's one of those things, like the Blue Spirit and Combustion Man and, infamously, Uncle Iroh's jailbreak, that we expected to have a much, much bigger payoff

Toph's Family
For a lot of people, this is one of the big ones. So Toph is a character who joins the main cast early in the second season, and she quickly becomes one of the best characters in the show. Thing is, she is a runaway; she went off on her adventures with Aang and company without saying anything to her rich parents. In the *final season* she decides to send a message to her mom to let her know she's alive. This is never again acknowledged. Heck, we don't even know if Toph's family received the message, as it was sent via Sokka's messenger hawk. And since I brought Hawkie up, that leads us naturally to...

Dropped Characters
This is a series with loads and loads of characters. Not all of them are going to appear more than once, but there were several who seemed to have been developed enough that they were going to have larger roles later on. Among them are Aang's mentor Guru Pathik, eerie spirit Koh the Face-Stealer, the aforementioned Hawkie, and probably many more that I can't remember right now. But the big one here deserves her own entry:

OK, So What's the Deal With Ursa?
She is Zuko and Azula's mother. She has been missing, presumed dead, since before the series began. There is a great deal of evidence that she's still alive in the series, she appears -as a hallucination- in one of the final episodes, and in the very last episode it is revealed that she is indeed alive. It is wildly speculated that the first DTV film will focus on her somehow.

And Finally, What's the Deal With Bosco the Bear?
Katara: (reading a newspaper) "The king's having a party tonight for his pet bear!"
Aang: "You mean platypus-bear?"
Katara: "No, it just says, 'bear.'"
Sokka: "Certainly you mean his pet skunk-bear?"
Toph: "Or his armadillo-bear?"
Aang: "Gopher-bear?"
Katara: "Just... 'bear.'"
(There is a pregnant pause.)
Toph: "This place is weird."
That dialogue pretty much speaks for itself. Bosco is the pet bear of the Earth King and he is one of the odd little non sequiters in the show that was treated as kind of a joke for those of us who were paying attention. However, this "joke" has some pretty weird implications for the Avatar universe. All of the non-supernatural animals seen in "Avatar" are weird hybrids, very likely in tribute to "Dungeons and Dragons" (Owlbears anyone?) Taking for granted that the very act of calling a Turtleduck a Turtleduck is a translation convention and normal animals like Bosko are unknown, if Wuzzles/Firffels are normal for the Avatar world then...?

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Totally unrelated, but happy Towel Day!!!
Also, here's a nifty interview with Don Hahn via the wonderful /Filmcast.
Also via /Film, a preview of illustrations for Josh Cooley's upcoming book Movies R Fun! Oh good lord, they are beautiful
ALSO also via /Film, our first look at fully-rendered CGI Wile E. Coyote in Three-Effin-Dee. Dear reader, you can probably guess with 99% accuracy how I feel about this...

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Sketch of the day!
Let's consider this a teaser for the next post:

Ways "Lost" Could End, as Predicted by Anime!

Well, three Anime series and a movie based on one of said series. Here be SPOILERS GALORE! (But no fanart. None. I am not going to draw Jack as a wolf or Locke with an automail arm. No. Just, no.)
We all know this is a series that's not going to end with the old "main character looks into an empty room with a sad smile and closes the door" option. I will make two real predictions here:
1) A lot of fans are going to be really, really upset. May want to give them a break that Monday morning.
2) This series finale will inspire essays. Long, long essays.
Now, the three best complete Anime series I've seen (thank you, Netflix) had exactly those kinds of endings, so let's try to use them to predict how "Lost" will end.
Important terminology note before we begin: Borrowing from "Futurama", the "still stuck on Craphole Island" continuity will be known as Universe A, while the "815 landed safely" continuity will be Universe 1.
"Wolf's Rain": Similar in (very) broad strokes to Watership Down, this series ended it's televised run by wrapping up a major conflict, but it didn't conclude the story. This was "fixed" with four episodes that went straight to video, essentially a four-part series finale. The "W.R."-ish Last Episode of "Lost": Every conflict in Universe A is resolved -- but not before everybody dies violently. Jack is the only character left alive, and even then he lies bleeding to death in the bamboo grove. As he slowly passes on (and a ridiculously sad song gradually builds), he gets to watch Craphole Island return to it's pre-crash, pre-Dharma, pre-Jacob and Not-Locke state.
But before the credits role, we get a brief look at Universe 1. All the Universe 1 versions of the Candidates, no matter where they are, suddenly sense something. And then Jack starts running...
Notes: Change a few of the details and I think this is the most likely ending of all. We are in for a bittersweet as hell ending.
"Fullmetal Alchemist": Great series. Probably my overall favorite out of this bunch. Note that we're going with the series ending, and will be ignoring the "Conqueror of Shamballa" movie. Most people do anyway. (Seriously, Fritz Lang is somehow involved. WTF?). The "F.M.A"-ish Last Episode of "Lost": Sawyer is able to destroy NotLocke after that creepy kid (the one who looks like a possibly older Aaron) shows him NotLocke's weakness. Meanwhile, Jack is killed and somehow "wakes up" as Universe 1 Jack. Desmond is conveniently there to explain what's up. In the end, all the Losties in Universe A mentally merge with their Universe 1 counterparts -- and, as Desmond comments, none of them remember a thing about their Craphole Island experiences. And Jack? He's stuck in Universe A, and starts on the search for a way to cross over... Notes: This may be the best integration of the two Universes. And I'd be surprised if Jack gets off the Island.
"Neon Genesis Evangelion": For the two or three of you who have never heard of this series, it is essentially to the original English-language dub of "Power Rangers" what "Lost" is to "Gilligan's Island".The "N.G.E."-ish Last Episode of "Lost": Forget the various mysteries of the Island, anything about Universe 1, who or what Jacob and NotLocke are, which characters end up on what side, or anything like that. None of that gets resolved. Instead, Jack gets to talk through his daddy issues with some other people. The end.
Notes: You KNOW we're going to hear something about Jack's father one more time for the road. Why not base the whole finale on that and really get it overwith?
The main case against this ending: Carlton and Damon probably enjoy breathing.
"End of Evangelion": After the uproar over "N.G.E."'s... underwhelming series finale, the producers got together again and made this movie. (It was originally how they had intended to end the series, but time and money were uncooperative.) This new ending was.... ye gods, it was somethin'...The "E.o.E."-ish Last Episode of "Lost": The main conflicts of the show are, thankfully, resolved... and then some angelic beings in the form of Sayid come and hug everyone in both Universes, causing them all to dissolve into Slusho. In the end, Universe A Jack finds himself on a desolate shoreline somewhere doing... something inappropriate... to Universe 1 Locke. Locke compares this situation to getting his period.
Notes: Yeah...

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Sketch of the day!
Arrrrrrgh. I was just curious. :(
This will be a Blogger exclusive, as I don't want to stain either online portfolio with this. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sadbeard McJackwolf:


And since I am the kind of person who thinks that any horrible art thing worth doing is worth doing all the way (and Jackwolf needed some friends), here is The Worst Thing Ever:



This is essentially an amalgamation of all the worst kinds of fanart I've ever seen.
Disclaimer: No, I do not for a second regret joining Deviant Art; I've met lots of cool people there and made some great new contacts. But every so often you run into something like this and...
The thing about DA is this: Think about all the art you did in junior high that you loved at the time, then went back to look at it and said, quote, 😭 . OK? Now consider: back when you and I (presuming we're around the same age, dear reader) were just starting out as artists, our embarrassing-in-hindsight artwork was safely hidden in our Sketchbooks, journals, math notebooks, and so on, where nobody else could see them. These kids have their old shames on display for the whole wide web to see. Dang.
So, anyway, "Lost"!

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I am afraid my brain has turned into mush lately. Therefore, I completely forgot to post this lovely Mother's Day song:

Two months in and I already have something for Nessie's 2010 Gift Guide.

Most of you have probably already seen these, but for those of you who haven't, here comes nightmare fuel.

I... have nothing that I could say that would make these things less horrifying. I can only repeat what I said about Moose Jesus: Imagine going over somebody's house and seeing this proudly on display.----
I'm getting ready for a family trip in a couple of weeks, so for now I'm doing a twice-weekly post schedule. Which means it's time for
Feederwatch -uh- Thursday!
Man, what a storm on Tuesday.
Rock Pigeon 2
Mourning Dove 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
House Sparrow 15
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Sketchotheday! Assuming we all need some brain bleach after the "Manillows", here is cuteness from the Great Backyard Bird Count!

THE FINAL SEASON OF "LOST" STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!!

I am a teeny weeny bit excited about this.

Now I know that a few readers probably don't care, so I won't let my fandom overtake this Art Blog (me talking about art I have made will resume Wednesday. Therizinosaurs will be involved.) I definitely can promise you that I am not and never will become one of these fans.

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Sketch of the Day! Here are some classy monsters.

Let's read my master's school essay about Maurice Sendak!

Because "Where the Wild Things Are" made me think of it, of course, and because I was lucky enough to find it on the first backup CD I took out of the filing cabinet (trust me, this is very impressive.)
I don't think I mentioned this before, but I have my Master's Degree in Education, with a focus on children's media. Basically, this means you can trust me when I recommend a work of fiction directed at children. With your life.
Anyway, what you're about to read is one of the many essays that comprised my thesis project. (The thesis itself is about four inches thick.) I was assigned to write a biography on a significant figure in the world of children's fiction and Sendak turned out to be one of the most fascinating people in the field. Today, I'm posting the bibliography and biography, and the next post will have book reviews and whatever else didn't fit here.
Final draft originally "published" 5-1-2005.

Bibliography
Children’s Books Written and Illustrated by Maurice Sendak:
* Grimm, Wilhelm. (1988). Dear Mili (Ralph Manheim, Trans.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Original story written 1816).
* Kushner, Tony. (2003). Brundibar. New York: Michael di Capua Books.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1960). The Sign on Rosie’s Door. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1963). Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1965). Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1967). Higglety Pigglety POP! -or- There Must Be More to Life. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1970). In the Night Kitchen. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
* Sendak, Maurice and Margolis, Matthew. (1976). Some Swell Pup -or- Are You Sure You Want a Dog? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1981). Outside Over There. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1993). We Are All In the Dumps With Jack and Guy. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Other Books
* Jones, J. Sydney. (2000). Sendak, Maurice Bernard. In Alan Hedblad (Managing Ed.), Something About the Author (Vol. 113) (160-169). Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, Inc.
* Lanes, Selma G. (1980). The Art of Maurice Sendak. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
* Sendak, Maurice. (1970). Fantasy Sketches. Philadelphia, PA: The Meriden Gravure Company
* Sendak, Maurice. (1988). Caldecott and Co. Notes on Books & Pictures. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
* Zinsser, William (Ed.). (1998). Worlds of Childhood: the Art and Craft of Writing for Children. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Articles and Films
* Maguire, Gregory. (2003). A Sendak Appreciation. The Horn Book Magazine, Vol. 79, 667-682.
* Marcus, Leonard S. (2003). Where the Wild Things Are. The Horn Book Magazine, Vol. 79, 703-706.
* Sutton, Roger. (2003). An Interview With Maurice Sendak. The Horn Book Magazine, Vol. 79, 687-699.
* Deitch, Gene (Writer/Director). (1987). In the Night Kitchen [Motion Picture]. Weston, CT: Weston Woods.
* Fleming, Victor (Director), Langely, Noel (Writer), & LeRoy, Mervyn (Producer). (1939). The Wizard of OZ [Motion Picture]. Hollywood, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
* Luske, Hamilton & Sharpsteen, Ben (Directors), Battaglia, Aurelius (Writer), & Disney, Walter (Producer). (1940). Pinocchio [Motion Picture]. Hollywood, CA: Walt Disney Motion Pictures.
* Sendak, Maurice (Writer/Director), & Riss, Sheldon (Producer). (1976). Maurice Sendak’s *Really Rosie* [Motion Picture]. Los Angeles, CA: Wood Knapp Video.
* Schindel, Morton (Producer). (1985). Getting to Know Maurice Sendak [Motion Picture]. Weston, CT: Weston Woods.

"We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So" - The Worlds of Maurice Sendak
One of Maurice Sendak's earliest memories from his childhood was a cold February day in 1940; the day his older sister took him into town to see the Disney film, "Pinocchio". Although they arrived late, and missed the first twenty minutes, Sendak was enthralled. This movie was imaginative, scary, and poignant. And best of all it was smart enough to understand what life was really like from a child's point of view. It respected the fact that childhood is full of happiness and wonder, and that it is just as often frightening and upsetting. It immediately became one of Sendak's all-time favorite films.
When Sendak was a teenager, he decided to read the original Carlo Collodi novel, which inspired the Disney film. He was stunned by what he read.
Disney's Pinocchio is an innocent fool-hero; he runs into trouble without meaning to do so. But the original, printed page Pinocchio is a nasty little brat from the very beginning. Worse yet, he is told, over and over, that the only way to redeem himself is to fully obey all of the adults without question. The punishments given to Pinocchio when he refuses to obey are astonishingly cruel.
Maurice Sendak was appalled. Here was a story written by somebody who clearly didn't understand young children at all. Or else, the author hated children and thought they were malicious by their very nature. In either case, Collodi clearly believed that children needed to be frightened into behaving nicely all the time. (Sendak, 1988)
This was an important turning point in Sendak's career as a writer for children. He vowed that no matter what, he would respect his young audience on their own terms, and he would never, ever talk down to them. For this reason, Maurice Sendak is inarguably one of our generation's most important writers for children.
Maurice Bernard Sendak was born on June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were both immigrants, both from small Jewish neighborhoods outside Warsaw, who had come to America from Poland some time before World War I. Maurice was five years younger than his brother Jack and nine years younger than his sister, Natalie.
As a child, Maurice Sendak never enjoyed good health. When he was very young, he fell ill from both measles and double pneumonia, and was bedridden for thirteen weeks. His parents worried ceaselessly about Maurice's chances for survival… within the boy's earshot.
It seems they took for granted that little Maurice wouldn't understand what was going on, but they were very wrong. "…My parents were indiscreet enough to bewail my sickliness and carry on about how long I'd be around. I learned early on that it was a chancy business, being alive… We don't like to think of kids worrying about such things but of course they do. They have no choice, if they're intelligent and sensitive and alive to what's happening in the world." (Sendak, 1988, p 209-210)
Since he wasn't allowed to go outside and play very often, Maurice often had to entertain himself. His happiest memories of boyhood are of creating stories with his father and his older brother. Jack would write the stories down and Maurice would draw pictures to go along with them on sheets of cardboard. He still lists these books as the official first entries in his career-spanning bibliography. Not coincidentally, Jack became an author as an adult, and he has collaborated with his brother on a few books.
Although he wasn't often allowed to go outside to play, Maurice did have something very important and fun to look forward to every week: his family's Friday night trips to the movies. Sometimes, they would go into New York City to go out for a special dinner, and afterwards they'd see a film. New York itself enthralled young Maurice, but it was the movies that had the most profound influence on his work as an adult.
"If I'd been a Renaissance child and had lived in Rome, I could have gone down the block and seen Michelangelo working on the Sistine Chapel, and I would have been a much more enlightened and tasteful human being. But since I was a Brooklyn kid, there was only the Kingsway Theater and you made shift." (Sendak, 1988, p. 212-213) Sendak's favorite films as a child were the aforementioned "Pinocchio", and "the Wizard of OZ", "King Kong", the Busby Berkeley musicals, and the Laurel and Hardy comedies. He also spent a great deal of time reading comic books, and especially loved the lavishly illustrated fantasy stories of Windsor McKay. These books and movies would all be directly referenced in Sendak's three personal favorite books: Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside, Over There.
Maurice Sendak's books speak directly to children, and to the child within every adult. His characters are spunky heroines and sassy heroes who are far more emotionally complicated than the literary characters in many books for adults. In many ways, Sendak's characters are incarnations of himself: wildly imaginative people who aren't usually understood by other, more sensible people. Other people don't appreciate the Sendak heroes' use of imagination and their emotional intensity.
This is very important, because there seems to be a movement nowadays to shield children from anything that might upset them. The trend isn't exactly new, but the magnitude and intensity of it lately has become downright alarming. Children today are treated as delicately as porcelain dolls. They aren't allowed to play Tag during recess because it's too exciting and competitive. Teachers are told not to use red pens while correcting papers, because it might hurt their students' feelings.
What Sendak does in his best books is acknowledge something that these well-meaning adults have overlooked: Kids aren't stupid. They are amazingly perceptive and can handle the issues and ideas that many adults would rather shield them from.
"Children are extremely tough - they know exactly what's going to frighten their parents, and they don't ask questions that will upset mommy and daddy... you don't want to give them ulcers with questions they can't deal with. So you find out in the backyard, or from the landlady's daughter. But you do find out. Even before television, you found out. Isn't it kinder to give children the bitter pill in a work of art?" (Sendak, 1998, p. 23)
Maurice Sendak legitimizes the unspoken concerns of children. He deeply understands that every child faces fears and disappointments, happiness and wonder, and his books are celebrations of the imagination.
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On to Part Two!
And head over to The Realm and enjoy a gallery of bizarre cheap Halloween costumes. Meanwhile, in real life, I am hopefully planting those spring bulbs I mentioned before...

"Paul McCartney: The Music and Animation Collection" and a return to NIMH?

Who knew there was an animated adaptation of David Wiesner's Tuesday? And who knew that it was one of the most downright perfect adaptations of a picture book ever? (These are way too rare and tend to be quite short.) And who knew that Sir Paul McCartney was behind it?

And who knew that both Google and YouTube would fail me in finding the short.  But fear not, for it is available on the very nice "Paul McCartney Music and Animation Collection" DVD, which I rented off Netflix on impulse after seeing it and immediately thinking, "ZOMG 'Rupert and The Frog Song'!!!"

The DVD title is a bit of a tease. Technically, McCartney looks to have been the instigator: the real star here is the work of the crew headed by the brilliant animation director Geoff Dunbar. He and Paul McCartney have collaborated on several very nice shorts, not all of which are included on the DVD, and are currently bandying about the idea of working on a feature together. There is much more information about this at Cartoon Brew.

That Brew post also includes a very short clip of "Frog Song" (the entire film does not appear to be online) and as I mentioned before, this short inspired me to rent the DVD. It still is one of my favorite pieces of animation. As a child, this was utterly enthralling. Even back then, I liked that a lot of things in the short are left totally unexplained. And when else have you ever gotten a thrill from a phrase like "Frogs Only beyond this point"?

There's a third short on the DVD that, honestly, was so bland that I barely recall the title. But apparently it stars the characters that will be expanded upon in the upcoming Dunbar/McCartney film collaboration. Huh...

A quick look at Amazon reveals that the DVD is out of print, so if I've piqued your curiosity, grab a copy if you can.

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So in other news... apparently the guy who used to be behind Walden Media (the studio responsible for several recent adaptations of varying quality and accuracy of the chapter books that defined your childhood and mine) and the writer/director of "The Illusionist" (I liked the other "Hot Guys Play Dueling Old-Timey Magicians" movie better) are working on an adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
 
This is going to get very, very interesting very, very quickly, once the word gets out.

You see, if that title sounds familiar, it is because the book inspired a movie that I may have mentioned is my favorite movie ever: "The Secret of NIMH". My knee-jerk reaction to a second NIMH adaptation, and I am totally honest about this, is, "Really? Huh. Interesting."
Because, you see, I understand the difference between a remake and another adaptation of a book that has already inspired a film. You'd think this would be an easy concept to grasp, but it looks like I may be rare in possessing the ability to know the difference. I learned this during the long, L-O-N-G summer of 2005...

That's the main reason reason why it will be very interesting to see how the rest of the "Secret of NIMH" fandom reacts. My prediction is that the indignation isn't going to be of the "OH NOES THEY IS ATTACKING MY CHILDHOOD!!!" variety (NIMH-rods tend to be some of the smartest fans I've known).

It will be over the use of Live-action/CGI. Which will make this movie look not only like another remake of a well-liked 80's cult movie, but also another damn talking rodent movie.

Hilarious Harry Potter Fan-theories, plus two more Potter lists.

First of all, I did not draw this, but I wish I had. Best fanart ever.

There will never be anything quite like Harry Potter within our lifetimes again. That's kind of a heavy thought to start out with, but what I mean is that we'll never see anything like the Harry Potter fandom again (sorry Twilight fans, you don't count).

The reason is simply because all the books are out there in the world for new fans to discover and read in order one after the other with no waiting. Let's not forget that it took so very long for each new book in the saga to be released. This was the first such book series to be released during the Web 2.0 revolution, and so fans were able to easily share their guesses as to what would happen next.

Some of the resultant fan-theories are pretty hilarious in hindsight, now that we know what actually happened in the story. And so, as you get pumped for the "Halfblood Prince" movie, here is my brief, humble tribute to my favorite such theories, in no particular order:

Lily Potter was an Animagus and Hedwig is her alternate form.
This one might just be my absolute favorite silly-in-hindsight fan theory. It is only matched by...

Ron Weasley is actually a time-traveling young Albus Dumbledore.
Curiously, this theory hinges not on the fact that Harry has such a close friendship with both characters - but because of the events surrounding the chess match in Philosopher's Stone. And because they both have (or had) red hair.

Neville is actually the Chosen One.
This hinged on Trelawney's -shall we say- less-than-reliability as a source of information. To be fair, the Prophesy could have been taken either way. Note that Neville's life sucks only marginally less than Harry's.

Neville is the Half-blood Prince.
Or, better yet...

Neville's pet toad Trevor is the Half-blood Prince.
Heheh, I still like this one.

Neville will be the one to defeat Bellatrix LeStrange. Poetic justice considering what she did to his family.
Yeah... about that...

Sirius Black is just hiding!
"And he's really Stubby Boardman! And the Veil really doesn't kill you for real; we don't even know what it was! And he can come back somehow! And Ponch from the Young Wizards series totally is really Sirius! And and and..."
Man, you'd think no beloved character ever died in a book before. (Where were these people to console me after I read Mostly Harmless?)
On a similar note:

Dumbledore will continue giving advice through his portrait.
Death, it turned out, really didn't stop Dumbledore from raining exposition on Harry -- though it didn't happen the way fans expected.

Speaking of the Portraits, we'll finally learn how the intellectual paintings actually work.
Whether they contain a bit of their subject's consciousness or if they're a direct line to the afterlife or something like that. We never really learned anything about how the paintings work and/or are produced. That's been kind of a disappointment for me.

Harry is a Horcrux and he dies in the last novel.
The second half of this theory isn't too out-there (and as we all know, Harry doesn't stay dead), but the first half is crazy enough for it to be genuinely surprising that it turned out to be true. Sort of. It was complicated.

Mrs. Weasley will go all Lt. Ripley on Bellatrix LeStrange.
Actually... I don't think any of us saw that one coming.

And for more fun, here's a repeat from an old MySpace blog post:

Things I hope do not happen in Deathly Hallows.* - Surprisingly, Norbert reappears and eats everyone.
* - A spell goes awry and everyone is transformed into different species of iguanas. The rumored spin-off series takes off from here.
* - Harry and Ron are riding their broomsticks around when out of nowhere, two a**holes in a passing truck shoot them both.
* - Kurt Russell meets everyone in an elevator in some mysterious building, where he calmly explains that they're all dead and dreaming the whole thing. (Yes, "Vanilla Sky" still has the most insulting cop-out ending ever.)
* - In a shocking twist, Draco flies down out of nowhere are skewers Ginny with a sword longer than she is tall.
* - Voldemort reveals the terrible truth of his tragic past and mysterious connection to Harry - immediately before he suddenly kills Harry. Harry finds himself in a strange world wracked by war and devoid of any magic whatsoever. Also, somehow Fritz Lang is involved.
* - My favorite character dies.
* - As the Universe is rebuilding itself after the destruction of Voldemort's evil, Harry promises Ginny that he will find her somehow even though they are seemingly being stranded in separate worlds (cause Harry is suddenly unable to jump a three foot gap).
* - Your favorite character dies.
* - We flash-forward to three years hence when Harry has a secret meeting with Ginny and he cries and cries at her "Why did we leave Hogwarts! It wasn't meant to happen! We have to go back, Ginny! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!"
* - Two words: "Sopranos" ending.

And, what the hell, an old LaGremlin list:

Rejected Titles for the last Harry Potter Novel
"Harry Potter and the Magic Mushrooms!" (I guess you can already tell what direction we're going in here. I apologize.)
"Harry Potter and the Fantabulous All-Powerful Nose-Hairs of Mythra Khan!!!"
"Harry Potter and the Skull-Cracking Hangover!"
"Harry Potter and the Altar of Blood!"
"Harry Potter and the Evil Within!"
"Harry Potter and the Miami Sound Machine!"
"Harry Potter and the Golden Pot Bowl!"
"Harry Potter and the Granny Broth!"
"Harry Potter and the Hot Goth Chicks!"
"Harry Potter and the Burning Wizz!"
"Harry Potter and the Hella-Boring Low-Paid Dead-End First Job!"
"Harry Potter and the Acidic Booger!"
"Harry Potter and the Long Stream of Drug References!"
"Harry Potter and the Poison Arrows From the Sky!"
"Harry Potter and the Restaurant at the End of the Universe!"
"Harry Potter and His New Roommate Saruman!"
"Harry Potter and the Caverns of Steel!"
"Harry Potter and the Mystery of the Fifth Beatle!"
"Harry Potter and the Nothing!"
"Harry Potter and the Estate of Roald Dahl's Lawyers!"
"Harry Potter and the God-Damned Riddle-Man!"
"Harry Potter Gets Schooled by the Elric Brothers!"
"Harry Potter and *S-O-O-O-O-O-O* Many Unresolved Plot Points." (It was funny for "Star Wars", it's funny here.)

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Off-topic, so consider this an addendum to Monday's post. You know how I said that the reputation of an excellent work of fiction that is a semi-obscure cult hit (like "Avatar") can be all but destroyed by a sh**ty film adaptation? Yeah. Meet the teaser trailer for the long-in-development-limbo film of The Time-Traveler's Wife (FYI, the last science fiction novel that made me think), which appears to have been filmed in Glorious "What Do You Mean it Wasn't Written by Nicholas Sparks?" Vision.

AnimeBoston is this weekend!

More information at their website.

Alternatively, if you're the kind of reader who misses the Feederwatch Friday posts, and you can get WAAAAAAY up to Lubec, Maine, you may enjoy the big Downeast Birding Festival. It also runs throughout Memorial Day weekend.

Of course, if you enjoy birds and animation (if you're me, in other words), you'll want to try and attend both events. Unfortunately, I will not be able to go, but there is an excellent reason for this...