Author Archives: oinsketta

A small step forward

This is a rough draft of a clip that 1) introduces the idea of stop motion as an exciting alternative to drawing dozens of frames;   2) shows a bit of traditional animation;  3) lays out a way to work that could keep everyone in the workshop involved and busy– and the workshop much more productive;  4) gives a crude example of a quick new way to lay down a soundtrack.    More at wehearyou.net

Some Random Pricks I Have Known

As part of my constant effort to do better, a short list, in no particular order, of vindictive pricks I have knowingly, or unknowingly, infuriated in the past.

A pleasant looking young woman, who had graduated a top law school and clerked for a federal judge, then gone on to a white shoe law firm as a young, overworked attorney.  After several years she opted for academia, and having impeccable academic and professional credentials, soon found herself running a clinic at a state law school fighting for the the rights of those unconstitutionally victimized by arms and agents of the federal government.  I worked with her on a case to free several illegal aliens from what, after 9/11, would not be seen as either cruel or unusual detention in a privately owned facility that had a contract with the federal bureaucracy then known as INS.  They were subjected to some pretty nasty conditions during their long detentions and the clinic was their only advocate.

This driven woman, who’d graduate high in her class, garnered a federal clerkship, and worked as an associate in a top corporate law firm, evidently felt she had the right to treat the law students who worked for her in a high-handed and sometimes harsh manner.  In a word, she was a bitch.  Unbeknownst to me, then still an outspoken fellow with a biting sense of humor (thankfully both things of the past now) the conference room the five or six law students who worked for her sat and vented in after long days and even weekends of demanding work (she was very demanding), was equipped with a concealed intercom that allowed this associate professor to listen to our daily critiques of her in real time.  How my quips, and the laughter of my peers, must have galled her!

Which explains the overnight Fed Ex threatening me with a failing grade if I did not comply with her unreasonable demands to complete a “substantive portion” of my commitment to the clinic weeks after the end of the term.   Of course, not long after that I shut down her clinic by spreading the word among every law student in the school, but not before a clearly retaliatory and irrevocable 6 credit C- was entered on my transcript and could not be covered with a Pass because, to the Civil Libertarian deans of my law school, Academic Freedom extended to the right to enter a grade the student was able to demonstrate had not been based on the student’s actual work.

Live and learn, I say.  

(to be continued)

Other Priorities

It was Monday and massive Hurricane Sandy was poised to make landfall at around 8 pm.  At 7:15 pm I received the following email:

subject:  Club Behavior and Discipline

Dear Afterschool Club Instructors:

Behavioral issues have come up in a few of the clubs, so I wanted to share with you what parents received regarding disruptive behavior at the onset of the program. Although we haven’t been removing disruptive kids from clubs, as you can see below, if a child is repeatedly disruptive in your club, you are to send them to me in the office where they are to spend the remainder of the club time and their parents will be notified. Please keep my cell phone number (below) handy and either call me or have your assistant call me.

We recommend that you set up behavior expectations, e.g. sitting and listening, no wrestling, no yelling, at the beginning of your club and explain what the consequences will be if a child fails to behave as they would in class. Clearly articulating your expectations and the consequences if they do not behave properly will help the children understand later when they are being reprimanded.

WHAT IF MY CHILD IS DISRUPTIVE DURING THE CLUB?
We will not tolerate children who are disruptive or disrespectful to teachers, assistants, and/or other
children. The first time a child is disrespectful or disruptive, they will be removed from their club
and must spend the remainder of the club time in the office with our Club Coordinator, and their
parents will be notified. A second occurrence will result in the child being prohibited from attending
their club for the remainder of the semester with NO refund of fees.

Children MUST respect ALL SCHOOL AND CLUB EQUIPMENT. Any willful destruction of 
property will result in a child being prohibited from continuing with a club with parents liable for the
cost of damages.

On a related note, we are a team in the meeting/dismissal room #205. Of course you are expected to keep order of your club members, but if you witness ANY children, even if they are not in your club, yelling, running around, jumping on furniture or anything of the like, please use your authority to step in. Thanks!

That someone was composing this note about reprimands and authority as a destructive storm was moving in would seem to speak for itself.   Oddly, this email was not sent to me by the glaring bald headed man who strode into the noisy room where the children wait for their parents at 5:00 after 8 hours in school.  This man was clearly unhappy that kids were blowing off steam by making such a racket.  The email was probably written at his request.

We knew each other at once, with the quickest of glances, the way any random mongoose and any equally random cobra instantly know each other.  He was the most important man in the building and I was a man playing music in the corner with another adult while children shrieked,  a man who did not break off his conversation to recognize the clear fact of this imperious man’s importance.  

In my defense, I’d never seen the man before.   In his defense, guys like me…. well, there’s really no defense necessary there.   This is a fellow who makes the rules, who demands excellence, not nuanced excuses.

America builds prisons, passes laws, makes threats and wars to insure that people who do not respect our institutions are punished accordingly.   We do not reward failure.  Many believe the best president for our troubled nation is a successful businessman, not some Harvard educated lawyer who sees the endless complexity of major problems and is clever at making speeches.  The bottom line is the bottom line and the successful businessman’s Harvard law degree has nothing to do with it.

On the other hand, if children are treated with respect, and the program is designed to insure that they are engaged, and content, the likelihood that we need to threaten, reprimand or punish them is greatly reduced.

On the other hand, look around, there are many examples.   If you randomly prohibit certain drugs and impose long jail sentences for infractions, there’s a lot of money to be made by certain people along with a lot of pain for the masses of imprisoned users of the randomly prohibited drugs, not to mention victims of organized crime’s drug trade-related violence.   Nothing wrong with money, my friends, even if the war against certain drugs is an arbitrary, ridiculous, expensive and increasingly deadly failure.  

The attitude, of course:  as for people who hate our freedom, I tell you what, there’s no reason to have any mercy on their freedom-hating souls.

Still, I can’t help thinking that smart people can work together to design and implement things better than this system we have.  I understand that most smart people have other priorities, but, call me a dreamer.  There has got to be at least one better way forward than this.

The Unkindest Cut

I’d be hard-pressed in this world of pain, this world of pleasure and pain, to call one cut the unkindest.  I recall a teacher describing his worst terror, the moment he might have to take his clothes off to make a point about teaching, or character, or life.  Not a far leap from that to being forced to strip and then machine-gunned into a ditch, that’s a terrible one, unkind and also a deep cut.  A sister whose rage will never be soothed in this lifetime, or a brother who will never forgive the rage, in spite of his sacred vow.  Nation who will always lift up sword against nation.

There’s the image of being on the outside of a space craft, alone in black silence, the smug robot inside, reading out your remaining oxygen levels in that robot singsong.  Friends bailing with both hands, all their servants also there, bailing hard, all the possessions in the world under that water and no time to sing harmony or even think about music.  There are massages that will never be had, laughs never laughed, debts that can never be repaid and gifts squandered ungratefully, mercilessly.   Cancer.    There are terrors more real than the hand that is on you trying to calm you down.

There are many unkind cuts, and they all hurt.  There are cuts so unkind we can only describe them by crying.   Or bending an Eb note up to E, over and over against the vamp, another way to weep, as in this example:

Image

see you in the boneyard

 

Bipedalism foo

I’m going to start walking on four legs.  Screw this bipedal bull dung, if you know what I’m saying.   Tired of the upright pretense of walking on two legs.   Too much work and not much pay off, I say.  My lower back hurts more than it used to and I’m pretty sure I know why.

I look at my master, the only time he’s up on two legs is to grab my wrist with sharp claws and sink his fangs into my hand.   The rest of the time he moves and relaxes horizontally.  Way to go, I say.  And I’ve never heard him complain about his back hurting him.

“Where are you going with this?” asks one of those upstanding prigs, the kind who scrutinize with a wrinkled nose.

“Follow me if you can,” I say, putting my palms on the floor, along with my toes, and moving smartly up the staircase.

Louis Armstrong was once asked by a square what the meaning of jazz was.  “If you got to ask, Daddy, you ain’t never gonna know,” said Armstrong.

So if I go on two legs, or on four, what I’m saying is the same– and so is the song I’m humming.  Only my hands will be a little more calloused when I gesticulate, you know, since I’ve been walking on four instead of two limbs.