After their parade yesterday, some participants lined up in my windows. (Kirsten, I thought of the wonderful window toy-tableaux near where you used to live.) My windows look directly into my apartment, so I don't do this often.
I'd taken Neil Gaiman's View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction (2016) home from work, and last night I read his commencement speech, "Make Good Art". [Here, you can watch him on youtube, or read a written transcript.]
I laughed to recognize his advice to "behave as if"...
It's the same thing Thomas à Kempis suggested 700 years ago--advice I'd quoted just a week ago:
Anxious because you waffle in belief and fear you are doomed? Do what you would be doing if you did have certain hope.
Gaiman says to the college graduates--here, these are the final words of the his commencement speech:
"Someone asked me recently how to do something she thought was going to be difficult, in this case recording an audiobook, and I suggested she pretend that she was someone who could do it.So, as instructed, here are bink (left) and me making mistakes + making believe = good art 😊
Not pretend to do it, but pretend she was someone who could do it.
She put up a notice to this effect on the studio wall, and she said it helped.
"So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.
"And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art."
"Make believe"
Isn't that a funny phrase? Wouldn't it be "make belief"? But no, Etymology online says "make believe is from the late 14c.
Gosh, that when Thomas a Kempis was born--in 1380!
Ha, but I'm not alone:
according to the OED, "The noun form make-belief (1833) was 'Substituted by some writers for MAKE-BELIEVE; the formation of the latter, being misunderstood, was imagined to be incorrect'"
I'm so glad someone recorded your commemoration of "Rat Day"!
ReplyDeleteYes, I luv to see BHS (behind the scenes)-/ and the difference in scale is so funny
Deletei miss those tableaux! the one you posted is just as inspiring. rat/mouse looked so big in the early photo but now i see it's not so big and actually quite girlette size.
ReplyDeleteher window toy-tableau had a solid backdrop which could be use here if you wanted to do it more often. the window was a basement window and often had a cardboard box that was part of the tableau but decorated to be what the scene was.
kirsten
KIRSTEN—I miss seeing those tableaux too! I did set a screen up behind these paraders, but don’t usually want to block light & air… wish I had a basement window like that one
DeleteHow you manage to make the girlettes stand up and march and carry and all that they do is miraculous- I know this to be true having tried and generally failed to influence the Orphans to cooperate for posing. They would rather fall on their faces or topple backwards and laugh and laugh. I love the shot of the action behind the girlettes parade, How did you get the strings on bear blimp to hold so straight? How marvelous this all is!
ReplyDeleteIs black shoe/white shoe so that girlette can tell left from right? Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteLINDA SUE: I promised them candy! And they lined right up—luckily the shoot went quickly or they’d have started to fidget and wander off—or cut up for fun, they think it’s so funny yes indeed like the orphans with you!
ReplyDeleteAlso, this was the best location ever-/soft uneven ground for dolls to get a foothold—natural vertical supports in the form of rocks and plants…
And it wasn’t windy so the bear balloon didn’t twist (that happened last time).
That’s Pearl Duquette, survivor of a shark attack, wearing the shoes—she just likes them that way, and she’s pleased you noticed . Me too—thanks for asking and enjoying!!!