Schedules and Lion Dance and Plague Tiger and a Georgian Cat

Hi, future me or you who have stumbled upon this inconstant blog.
Let us exam the title shall we?

Schedules and Lion Dance and Plague Tiger and a Georgian Cat

Schedules
My day job often conflicts with puppet happenings.  I wanted to make sure that I had the day off for the puppet guild's Christmas performance and party.  The Sunday of the party I checked the time to make sure I would not be late.  And I discovered that the party was actually on the day before! Saturday & not Sunday !  I just had to laugh.

Lion Dance
My Puppetry Fairy Godmother followed up with me upon missing the Christmas party and reminded me about a special puppet performance happening at The Cleveland Public Library.
A puppet troupe from the United States that has studied Bunraku in Japan.
I secured the day off and with the help of a friend I made it !
I am not sure with my sense of direction and being unfamiliar with Cleveland Public Library I would have made it on my own.  (Thanks again if you are reading this post!)
The performance was of the Lion Dance.
The way they did it they had a small human puppet operating the larger Asian lion.  I thought it was a cool way to do it.
If the lion bites you on the head it is supposed to bring you good luck and fortune.
I was one of the last people to be bitten.  And the lion just munched and munched on me like my head was an egg and it was going for the yolk !

yesterday
Plague Tiger and a Georgian Cat
I found a set of Passover finger puppets.  Little plastic ones that look to me about the same size as the Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer set I picked up after this Christmas.  I have a cloth set of plague finger puppets from the same store from years ago.  I understand completely the idea of teaching by using puppets but I still get a Dada Art vibe from having a finger puppet labeled "death of first born child" or "blood" or "lice'.  The "beasts" puppet is a really cute orange tiger puppet with a cute purple nose.  Hence Plague Tiger !

Georgian Cat
I like libraries.  I am at one now as I write this.
One of the librarians that works at both a public library and at the local community college I ran into at his public library gig.  He said that a librarian had something waiting for me behind the counter !
I wasn't able to get their until yesterday.
Waiting for me was what looked like a hand made felt (the felt itself being hand made) cat puppet ! The note said that the puppet came from the country of Georgia !  I did not get a chance talk to the librarian that brought in the puppet for me.  I look forward to learning more about it.     
       

The Guild Card & A Certain Dog Puppet

The Guild !
At the Indiana puppet fest - I got my lamented guild membership card !
Oh, the things that make me happy !😊
(note: my first ever emoji in a blog post!)

Other things about the fest.
Laughing until I cried over and over with the crooked mouthed dog puppet.
I thought he had a Marlon Brando " I could have been a contender " - look about him.
I lip-synced to "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" from GUYS AND DOLLS sung by one of my roommates.  Having roommates well versed in musical theater helps when doing impromptu bits in the hotel room.
It was my roommates banter between themselves as they operated the puppet that killed me.
The set up was simple:
The dog asked if it could ask a question.
It waited patiently and politely until permission was granted.
And then it would ask the most horrible and funny questions !
The voice used was a kind of slow drawl. If forced to compare it to someone else I'd say the school counselor on South Park.  With maybe just a touch of Swing Blade in there.
I wish I had video of it to remember it by.
I am serious when I say the experience was like sitting in the room listening to Charlie McCarthy rip into Mae West.  Only not safe for old time radio.
And if Charlie was a stuffed animal dog that had been re-purposed as a pupped !               

Two in one day ! (TEST)

I am attempting to dk this from my tablet (I think that is what this is.  Is an e-reader &a tablet the same thing ( fun note  I am typing without seen g what I types)  I just wanted to see if this could be do e  & to mentioned. That there was. Oh! I just saw how this is going! I need to stop. The earlier post needs to be edited too.  I will try to correct this I. The morning. Arrrgh !

Time Warp & Ragnarok !

Well, well, well it has been a while !  Coincidently it was almost to the exact day that I went on-line and checked into this blog - what 6 years later !?!  Unfortunately I had no idea the email or password I used and could not make a post.  Since then I have found that info - obviously - and been to and just got back from the regional puppet festival in Indiana. That was this weekend !
It is Monday November 6th, 2017. I am still recovering. I am not the greatest traveler. Built for comfort and not for travel I guess. One of those people that are susceptible to motion sickness.  Anyway -
Time Warp !
Because it has been so long since I was last here.
Ragnarok !
Ragnarok (sp?)
 because...

1. Marvel's movie THOR: RAGNAROK came out this weekend. I saw it. I enjoyed it.
2. Around the indoor campfire - it was raining and our "campfire" consisted of us circled around a plastic bucket of pretzel sticks (which I brought with me from Ohio) sitting in chairs in the auditorium. [ Is this sentence as awkward to you as it seems to me? I've got a tad bit of a headache going. Travel lag?  Time change? ] - anyway a puppeteer from Chicago mentioned seeing Ragnarok & we fist bumped and discussed it. "Geeked Out" if you will.  Her favorite character was the giant wolf.  And I pulled out my remembered knowledge of Norse Mythology - from the report I did on the subject in 6th -Grade !!!  My main source a paperback copy of Bulfinch's Mythology - and we contrasted the myths vs. the movie.  Example being the giant wolf in the movie's parentage is never mentioned.  In mythology the wolf is Loki's son. Loki being a shape shifter and all. Understand this was not an in depth discussion. My knowledge came from the 6th grade & the Marvel comics I've read over the years.  I think we figured out the maybe 4 differences and between the 2 of us cobbled together one story about the wolf biting off the god of war's hand because the wolf was pissed because he was tricked into being bound.
3. I did not go crazy in the puppet buying this year.  I got 2 hand puppet heads. One raw but nice of Judy that really could be used as Mr. Punch - at fist look I thought it was Mr. Punch - and a plastic toy like puppet head of a gray haired and mostly bald old man.  then I bought a snake puppet as a gift. 2 florescent orange gloves made out of fleece as a gift.  A dog puppet with a crooked mouth made out of a stuffed animal as a gift and a stuffed animal puppet of a gray wolf with his tongue hanging out. $3.00 for the wolf ?  Now at the time I was kind of baffled why I bought the wolf.  Just impulse. I was thinking Big Bad with pigs & with Little Red. Then I realized the next day wolf !  Ragnarok !  And just now I realized I also bought a snake or serpent if you will which was another creature that was instrumental in bringing about the Norse End of The World known as Ragnarok ! (that is if I am spelling it correctly !) And another of Loki's offspring !

So the wolf's name is Ragnarok or Rocky for short.  For now at least !
(edited on 11/13/2017)   

Update & Forshadowing

Oops.  A bit more of a delay than I had hoped in keeping this blog going.  How's the duct tape finger puppet opera going you ask?  OK. I admit that I have only finished two.  The teal demon and the cat.  No names for their characters yet.  No play written yet.  I did get more colorful duct tape and other fixings to create more cast members but other responsibilities have gotten in my way.  Boo other responsibilities! I have decided not to beat myself up.  This is to be as fun and as stress free as possible.

That was the update part.  This is the forshadowing part.  A puppet convention is coming up and I am going!  This will be my third time at this particular convention and I am really looking forward to it.  It has been a blast the last two times.  Until next time remember socks may be made for your feet but they are more entertaining on your hands!  Especially if they have eyes attached!  Oh yeah, one more thing- NEW MUPPET MOVIE OUT IN THEATERS LATE NOVEMBER 2011 !  The 23 I think.

What was I ...?

Oh yes!  Went to the movies and saw a preview for the movie JOHN CARTER.  Why bring it up?  See post one, silly!  John Carter is the Warlord of Mars!  And that inspired this blog's Puppet Warlord title.

I was once at a poetry reading where the poet was asked a question and he related a story about being at a bar with a bunch of other poets and them reciting poems.  I thought that sounded pretty cool.  Taking poetry to a bar.  Why am I telling you this?  Because it was a rough work week.  And Saturday night I asked a co-worker if they were doing anything after my shift ended because I wanted to go and hang out. They did the social network shout out to the crew but it ended up the two of us.  And what did we do?  We stopped off at a late night retail store and purchased a sewing kit, buttons and fuzzy socks.  I also bought a package of self adhesive googly eyes.  We brought  the makings for sock puppets to the bar! And we made them between our late night meal.  We brought puppets to the bar!  The googly eyes I broke open for a finger puppet I made out of teal blue duct tape Sunday morning.  My plan is to make more finger puppets and a finger puppet theatre.  I have the urge to do a finger puppet opera!  One might find it strange that all I know of opera comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons and that I can't sing or play any musical instruments.  And yet I am planing on creating an opera?  I just don't see that as a problem if I am mounting my production with finger puppets!  I will keep you posted!    

A Few Goals

To keep the puppet vibe alive I think I should have a few goals.  One goal that I have been working on is adding the contact information I gathered at the puppet festival to my e-mail and social network accounts.  And I have joined Puppet Hub.  A social network for puppeteers.  I am not sure how to navigate the site yet but I am now an official member.  Another goal is to join professional organizations.  I am a new member of Puppeteers of America.  Why not join the international organization too?  That seems to me to be a logical goal.  Now yesterday I found myself at The Cleveland Zoo.  And I bought a Koala puppet and a koala mask.  So how about a puppet related goal for my newest acquisitions?  Maybe a short video is in order?