Remembering with ParaNorman

Aggie: Aggie... My name was Aggie... I - I remember... My mommy brought me here once. We sat under the tree and she told me stories. They all had happy endings. Then those horrible men came and took me away and I never saw her again! 

Norman: Sometimes when people get scared, they say and do terrible things. I think you got so scared that you forgot who you are. But I don't think you're a witch. Not really. 

Aggie: You don't? 

Norman: I think you're just a little kid with a really special gift who only ever wanted people to understand her. So we're not all that different at all.

I’ve been telling people for months I had this inkling that ParaNorman might be one of the most important films of 2012, and possibly, as time will tell, of the decade. It’s taken me awhile to process and let its nagging significance soak into my head, but I think more and more I’m starting to see why.

The Sacred Space of The Muppet Show

Once upon a time, on Friday nights in the late 1970s, there was a little 30-minute space of time on the CBS network which would grow to define a generation. Carved out between shows like Dance Fever, Family Feud and The Incredible Hulk, which were mostly predictable week after week, a program called The Muppet Show provided the kind of variety, humor, playfulness and absurdity that provided a welcome respite from the usual sound and fury of prime-time programming. Looking at much of what passes as "entertainment" these days, looking back on certain moments from this show makes you wonder how it ever got broadcast to begin with. The show drew on age-old traditions of vaudeville, show tunes, mime, and international styles of puppet theater brought up-to-date for its modern audience, in a manner seldom seen on television at all since then. For several years, US networks turned down Jim Henson's concept of a prime-time slot for puppetry, and it might never have happened were it not for the faith that British producer Lew Grade put into the show to green-light it for production and syndication. The first season in particular, first aired in 1976-77, featured a mix of British and American guest stars who had previously worked with the Muppets or who were friends of the production team. Once the show grew in popularity, finding guest stars became an easier task, allowing them to attract everyone from the "high culture" of classical ballet and opera to the freakish fringes of 70s shock-rock & pop...from Beverly Sills and Rudolf Nureyev to Alice Cooper and Debbie Harry. Through the entire 5-season run of The Muppet Show, as I've enjoyed it so much from those first original airings as a small child, into re-runs and collecting of episodes as I've grown up, there is one particular feature of the show which I have come to notice as rather poignant and significant.

The Music that Changed my Life, Part 3

Continuing from The Music that Changed my Life, Part 2....and Part 1 before that, here is the final chapter of my reflective series on the albums and songs which have moved me, challenged me, ingrained themselves into my molecules and continue to grace my playlists for constant re-discovery.  As noted in my previous articles, there seems to be some common threads in much of the music I'm drawn to: vocals and instrumental elements which feel like soaring, a sense of storytelling, and a sense of longing for something that is lost. Whether it's expressed through notes and chords of rage or more quiet, introspective melodies, a lot of the music I tune myself into also invokes images of driving. I first fell in love with music being driven around in the car with my parents, and when I was able to drive myself, so many significant journeys and experiences in the car were inevitably set to music.

This chapter of my musical memoirs begins with me leaving my home state of Michigan and literally hitting the highway on a road trip to Vancouver, where I still reside today.  For 5 days in late August 1998, my friend Brandon Moses and I drove across America, and literally began our descent onto that first freeway ramp with the opening notes to Movin' Right Along off The Muppet Movie Soundtrack. Along the way we would listen to practically every album and mix tape we each brought with us, including much of the music I've mentioned in my previous two chapters of this series. In some ways, it was like a musical flashback of my life thus far following me along the road into the next phase of the journey.

Outside Over There: Reflections on Maurice Sendak

Earlier this year, on May 8, 2012, I was struck unexpectedly by the news on the radio as I crawled out of bed, that Maurice Sendak had passed away.  On my commute to work, I somehow stumbled across his final interview on NPR, and 19 minutes later, had to fight back tears as I stepped off the train. What I had heard in my earbuds was a story and testimony all at once extremely beautiful, extremely sad, and yet full of mystery and grace. I was hearing for the first time the longings of an artist who I only knew in a relatively shallow manner, but who I discovered meant more to me than I ever fully realized.

I only knew him through one of my favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are, plus some fond memories of seeing the films and books for Really Rosie and The Nutshell Library as a child.  I regret to say that outside of these particular works, I was not overly familiar with the rest of his life until hearing of his passing and reading up on the various news reports that followed. It's one of those unfortunate realities of life that we often don't spend enough time studying the lives of artists we admire until they have left us. By then it's too late to send them a note of thanks or encouragement, or to anticipate any other projects they may be working on.

The Music that Changed my Life, Part 2

Continuing from The Music that Changed my Life, Part 1, this second act of my musical journey takes me from the Shire of my tiny Hobbit-hood into the dark night of high school and beyond.

As the late '80s segued into the '90s and I segued from childhood to something else, life found me moving into a different house and different schools, leaving the church of my youth, and breaking bread with all kinds of new souls. Alongside the music of the time as it shifted from pop to hip-hop, and from glam to grunge, this time period also found me catching up on some classics, and mixing them up with the signs of the times. While some sounds have faded into the past, the ones which have stayed with me continue to be those which invoke a sense of storytelling, a longing for something that is lost, and in many cases, a cry of rage from the wilderness.

A Poem for Jerry Nelson (1934-2012)

His voice was rough as sandpaper,
Yet could be smooth as rock,
It went from a gentle whisper
To a screaming laugh or squawk.

He sang all styles of music
And sang them all so well,
Each ballad drifted from his throat
Just like a silver bell.

Yet as these tales in song were sung
With such amazing grace,
We saw so many sides of him,
But never saw his face.

He was a hipster bassman,
He was a little green frog,
He was a Scred who took advice
From the Great and Mighty Favog.

He was a hard-working otter
With a simple Christmas wish,
He was a guy who blew things up,
And another who threw fish.

He was a count who loved numbers
And a wise old heap of trash,
He was a Fraggle named Gobo
And a Skeksis, evil and brash.

He was all these wonderful creatures,
And all of these creatures were him,
We say good-bye and look to the sky,
Where he's up there jamming with Jim.

The Music that Changed my Life, Part 1

Music is one of the major obsessions in my life (right next to puppets, movies and books), and often I find myself pondering over just how much certain albums and songs have stuck with me and never left, to the point where they have seeped into my DNA. In our modern age of one-hit wonders, iPod shuffles and selecting tracks from iTunes rather than holding a physical "album", it's also important to remember the significance that albums can have as a unified, solid piece of work...something of a rarity these days.  Today most of my music listening happens while working on freelance animation projects, or on my daily commute to work or the occasional car trip.  My iPod shuffles through various playlists of favorites, both old and new, and I allow myself to get lost in the random selections of new discoveries mixed in with classics which have become as much a part of me now as they were when I first heard them.  At the outset of the first notes, I am transported back to different places, sitting alongside people from other times and chapters of my life, and I am able to bring the magic of those moments into wherever I am now.  Listening to certain albums and songs, I am as much 5-years-old, or 8, or 14, or 23 as much as I am    insert current age here   .

Such is the timeless power of music which I can barely express in words, but in a feeble attempt to do so, I feel compelled to review and muse over the albums and songs which have enriched or changed my life in one way or another....in particular, the ones which have stayed in my playlist and never left. Some songs and albums may have been important once upon a time, as passing fads tend to be, but as nostalgia sifts the good from the bad, time tends to bring to light and determine which ones will age like a fine wine, bringing out new flavors & fragrances. Like friends and acquaintances, some of them come and go, some are re-visited after years of separation, and some become consistent influences who either change you or become part of you. With each new listen to a song or album, new meanings are revealed and continue to unfold, and the universal language of the sonic vibrations "pour forth new speech", as my perceptions and experiences grow along with me. It's also fascinating to look back and see how the reasons why certain albums "spoke to me" ended up revealing themselves in later chapters of my life, as if they were dropping clues for things to come.

This Part 1 of my life's soundtrack starts at the beginning, and unpacks the albums and songs of my early childhood which I still listen to, including a few honorable mentions.