Tuesday, June 13, 2017

"The walrus was Paul": Beatles animations




It was fifty years ago today, or whenever it was, that this landmark album first came out, and the world is celebrating. I wish I remembered my first reaction to it. Since we lived in a small town, I am sure we didn't get around to buying it 'til maybe 1968. But there it was, and it was as if it had been part of our lives always. 

Though it was indescribably weird, at the same time, there was something familiar about Sgt. Pepper, and it fast became a friend, an album you'd go back to again and again, maybe for the next. . . fifty years. I've started dipping into it again, though I find the Beatles so "dense" (no, not stupid, just musically thick and layered and emotionally laden, not to mention dizzyingly brilliant technically) that I have to take it a few songs at a time. 

When I listen to Pepper now, I hear George Martin. His musicality and influence permeates every song. Along with the less-brilliant Magical Mystery Tour, Pepper is one of the Beatles' most highly-produced (some would say overproduced) albums, meaning that it is just thick with the bells and whistles that spawned the stoned, psychedelic, signature '60s sound. They could not have done this on their own. They were a gear group, man, and as they matured as songwriters, they could tear off a masterwork like Blackbird backed by a single guitar. But right there they were in an uncharted musical wilderness, breaking ground like crazy, and badly needed a guide. 

I love finding snippets of interviews with George Martin. His love for the group is palpable, as is their trust of him and openhearted willingness to apply his complex arrangements to songs that, let's face it, were still pretty scouse around the edges. Though Ringo retained more skiffle than the rest of them, the fact that they remained working class lads probably kept them from flying off the edge of the world from the insane pressures of fame. 




Please forgive these strange animations. I got making them today, and couldn't stop. What happened is,  I decided to see if I could animate (if you can call it that) the legendary Sgt. Pepper album cover. Of course I could not go near the front. That would be plain foolish. So I tackled the back instead, though in its own way it is no less complex. All the song lyrics are superimposed on top of the four lads, creating an eerie 3D effect. (By the way, I used to be on the front cover myself: I clipped out my face from one of those godawful class photos - I was wearing a pink velvet dress with a ruffle down the front - and scotch-taped it next to Laurel and Hardy. Or was it Marilyn Monroe.)




As I poked around in all this 50th anniversary stuff, noticing the approximately ten billion YouTube videos on the subject, I inevitably ran into the stupidest conspiracy theory in human history:  "Paul Is Dead" (as of 1966, when he was replaced by a double). I was amazed to see that the rumor, poisonous lie, or whatever it is, is still around and has so many viciously enthusiastic proponents. There are comparisons of eyes, noses, lips, even teeth, insisting that the Paul of today (indeed, the Paul of 1966 - God, I can't believe I just wrote "indeed") is a mere stand-in. Some even call him, inexplicably, Faul.

Apparently, the Beatles' music is rife with clues as to Paul's demise/replacement. Since he died in a car crash, John wrote, "He blew his mind out in a car/He didn't notice that the lights had changed." Never mind that John specifically stated that the song was about the death of Guinness heir Tara Browne. 

I could go on. "Dying to take you away." "Turn me on, dead man." "I buried Paul." Bare feet, black carnations, "the walrus was Paul" (and by the way, conspiracy people see all sorts of omens and portents where there aren't any. Walruses are NOT a sign of death, people. They are large marine mammals. John's use of them was pure surrealism.) 






This album has been analyzed and written about to death. Each song has brought forth PhD theses and books and more albums and all manner of things. My favorite Pepper story - and this may even be true - is about Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, the circus poster come to life. George Martin wanted something special to illustrate the surrealism of Henry the Horse dancing the waltz, so he had a technician find an old tape of calliope music, cut it up into one-second pieces, throw them up in the air, then splice them back together as they landed. This led to a lot of snippets of backwards music that was, like, weird, man, it was just incredible. I don't know for sure if the Beatles invented backwards music/messages, but I do remember that in 1965 the end of Rain sounded a lot like "nair".

I always assumed Paul was alive, but then it hit me, as I was mucking around trying to make these silly animations: hey, why is he facing backwards? This was 1967, and though the conspiracy theory didn't really come out until two years later, the Paul-is-dead zealots would claim that he had died already and they were trying to cover up the fact that his "double" (Billy Shears? William Campbell? - whatever) looked nothing like him.




I was determined to get Paul (Faul?) to turn around here, and found an image of a guy in a blue Pepper uniform. I don't know who he is, nor do I care. He was the right size and shape for my purposes, Beatlish in a generic sort of way. I keep thinking he looks a bit like Dave Thomas of SCTV wearing a Sonny Bono wig.

I don't know. It is odd as hell, when you think about it. I am not sure if all the people on the cover were dead, or just most of them. I can't remember, and I don't want to look it up because I am getting bloody sick of the topic. If they were all dead, then Paul was "facing" them by looking backwards like that.

But wait, wait, no, JOHN is dead - we know that much. We know George is dead. Good old scouse working-class Ringo is still around, and he is SO COOL and hip now, it's a real transformation. It's really just stupid, because it means Paul never did Blackbird, and - screw it, it's all a load of crap! Who else could have done Blackbird? No other human being, living or dead.




Don't look down!





I LOVE watching these guys rescue cats. They are so patient with them and wait until the cat is relaxed and trusts them before scooping them up or "scruffing" them and getting them into the bag. This little calico, "prettiest kitty from the city", spends a long time strutting along the "catwalk" before allowing herself to be taken down. I love watching these because the distance to the ground is quite harrowing. It just warms my heart that anyone would go to these lengths to get a cat down from a tree.


Kitty up a tree: animation





Sunday, June 11, 2017

Goose stampede!





Wild goose stampede! For reasons unknown, a large group of geese encompassing three or four families began to run away in terror. Or maybe they were running TO something? Whatever it was, it must have been good (or bad). I wish I had managed to capture more than half a minute of this, but as usual I was focused on something else.  I took this footage at Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake, my current favorite place to goose-watch.


Love in bloom




Marilyn in the morning




This will drive you NUTS!





Make your own Scotsman







The assignment was this: "Nanny, can you knit me a little Scottish guy playing the bagpipes?" No, I couldn't. Nevertheless, I hated to say no. I only had about ten days to do it in, a fraction of the usual time. This wasn't for a birthday present or anything trivial like that, but a Grade 6 school project on Scotland, so I felt I had to do a decent job on it. And I had no pattern.

I think she really thought this would be a fully-mechanized, four-inch-high, walking, talking, authentic bagpipe player, speaking in a weird accent and playing that abominable Scottish music, but it didn't quite turn out that way. For one thing, his legs were too stiff to march. The bagpipes were the hardest part. I found myself mucking around with wooden dowels, black Sharpies and plasticene. With my arthritic old hands and all the tiny scraps of costume that had to be sewn together, it was kind of murderous.  





The wild red hair was a sort of tribute to William Wallace (though I don't know if he actually had wild red hair or not). This was from a Braveheart pattern that I didn't use, except for the hair. I had to cobble together bits and pieces from other doll patterns and make the rest up. It worked out OK, I think, but more dolls may not be in my future. 

At one point I asked my husband if I should make him anatomically correct. He thought not, for one of the children might lift his kilt in curiosity about the old legend. You know the one I mean. And I have never knitted a tiny 1/2" penis, and didn't want to screw it up. Interestingly enough, there was a moment when "he" could have become a "she". It could have gone either way, for women can be pipers too, can they not? Chalk one up for gender fluidity.





After all that, and after a kind of lukewarm reception from my grandgirl (who's not into displays of emotion - not cool),  I got my reward. My daughter-in-law picked it up and looked at it, whooped with laughter and said, "That's insane. That is INSANE!

An insane Scotsman (with wild red hair) is more than I ever could have hoped for.

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Uncanny Danny doll





I am not sure how I created this - I feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein - but it's a "blank" doll, a form for any sort of character you want to make (in this case, a Scottish piper in full regalia). But here he is not in full anything, just a little mutant floating around, a thing with no face.




There is something about the flat, faceless disk that strikes terror in the human heart. Nowhere Doll. The unliving. Little girls have a tendency to rip off all their Barbies' clothes which end up in a grimy heap in the corner of the closet. Almost all Barbies end up naked, their hair filthy and snarled. Is this a kind of primitive reversion to the Ur-doll, the hank of hair and piece of bone that started it all?


Fur and purrs





A monk dancing: animations









When you come upon a trove of photos as gorgeous as these, you just have to try to find a way to make them move. Thus moved our Dead Monk, Thelonius, who lives in a glass case in the Smithsonian Institution but who has been wheeling around for 450 years or so. I don't know whether they ever take him out for a spin or not, but a video was made which I finally got to see in its original form, not a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

This guy's got rhythm, especially in that last image where he resembles nothing more than a boxer warming up before the big match.


Dead monk in the middle of the road





Automaton friar in action

Description

This automaton of a friar can imitate a walking man thanks to a wind-up mechanism. The friar's eyes move from side to side, while one arm raises a rosary's cross for an automated kiss and the other arm strikes the chest in the "mea culpa" gesture from the Catholic Latin Mass. This friar was probably made in Spain or southern Germany and is about 450 years old. It has been in the museum's collections since the late 1970s. This video depicts the original figure. The clothing it wears are from the 1970s. The automaton and other mechanical figures, precursors to today's robots, are in the collections of the Division of Work and Industry, National Museum of American History.






Hey, this might not mean much to YOU, but it's a real bonus to my week. It seems if you wait around long enough, that missing video will eventually show up on YouTube. In this case, it's been missing since about 1567.





I've been fascinated with this guy (affectionately called Dead Monk, though I doubt if that was his real name - probably Saint Whatever) for years now, but couldn't find much about him. There are older, much more distorted and pixilated versions of this video, which I think plays along with the exhibit in the Smithsonian. I doubt if the old (old, OLD-old) man is still in operation - I think he spends most of his time in this glass case - but you never know. His 450-year-old joints may just be able to still perform.





This boxing stance implies that he's been sparring with Sister Ignatius in his spare time, perhaps explaining how he has managed to stay fit for 4 1/2 centuries. If I ever got to see this marvel in person, I think I'd turn cartwheels of joy.

I've written about automata before - and a creepier mechanical genre you never saw, the unliving dolls of all time. Now that there are so many more decent videos around, it's probably time to look at them again. 

And Dead Monk animations! Watch this space for more.


Friday, June 9, 2017

Uncanny Valley High





Sometimes I create something that scares me, and I feel a bit like a mad scientist. It was only an innocent doll! I swear it. But it came out looking so - disturbing. It reminded me a bit of my juju doll experiment, in which the object of my wrath actually died. Had nothing to do with me, of course, and I am sure he died with a smile on his face. But he died, nonetheless.

There is more to this story, but I am afraid to tell it. Suffice it to say, I came out the other side of it realizing that a doll can be a way to concentrate loves, hates, and wishes, and not all of them are benevolent.

This doll will not bring about the death of any known human being. Unknown ones are another matter.


Valley of Unliving Dolls





I had a reborn doll phase that lasted a couple of months, if that. It mostly consisted of watching videos of women pretending that elaborately-shaped blobs of silicone were real babies. It was so bizarre that I became transfixed, watching little Tamsyn get "sick" (some of these dolls actually heat up and probably vomit), and Kendrick going on a shopping trip to buy a tiny pair of Skechers. Reborn addicts love to dress up their "babies" and put them in full public view, waiting for that "Oh my God I thought it was - " reaction. Some even leave them locked in hot cars. I can't help but see this as very disturbed behaviour.




But it was fascinating. I wanted the experience without spending the money, so I bought these two, Alyssa and Alex, for about $20 each on eBay. I knitted clothing for them and everything, then very soon I chucked them into a plastic box. Once in a while I would see them on the closet shelf and a wave of shivering dread would go through me. These are uncanny valley dolls, for sure, as are all the reborns.

My dolls aren't life-size and don't have the soft, squishy bodies of the true "unliving" doll. But they are definitely influenced by them, as they are deliberately more creepily real in their detail: fuzzy newborn-like hair, big glassy eyes, eyelashes and a rosebud mouth.




I'm unlikely to play with these much, and I certainly won't treat them like babies. The women in the videos really do seem to believe they're real, and I wonder sometimes how their actual relationships might suffer from their obsession. There's lots and lots of justification going on, assuring everyone that it's a harmless hobby that only brings joy to your life. No mention of the tens of thousands of dollars the high-end version of these things cost.

But is it joyful to dash to the baby's room in the middle of the night to take her temperature, when the "baby" is a chunk of vinyl with a gizmo inside it that makes the sound of a heartbeat? Are these women open with other women, normies I mean, about their "hobby"? My guess is that they're secretive, which is why the "reborn community" on YouTube means so much to them.



Paul McCartney animation