I need more hellos

One of my most favorite things about creating art is the process of going from the source of inspiration to the finished product. Lately I've been harnessing a lot of inspiration in a lot of places and even if I don't get to follow through with performing/executing the thing I want to create, even getting an idea from somewhere and fleshing it out into a piece on paper with little stick people is enough of a push for me to keep going.

I'm a big fan of parody and satire and since such an enormous part of that is the original source, the inspiration is...I mean, it's pretty obvious. There are few things I like better than a good parody, a really solid recontextualization of a thing that makes us re-examine everything. Thank you nerd-dom.

Here's one of my faves.

What's Opera, Doc? - Click here for more amazing videos

The classic and somewhat archaic music coupled with a hip trickster like Bugs Bunny, plus some exaggerated art deco-y settings and creative lighting/focusing just warms the soul. And the fact that they don't try and make it so cartoon-y that it takes away from the opera-ness of it; Bugs and Elmer are very sincerely doing this opera the way they would do it. When Bush Jr. first declared war, all I could hear was him going "kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit..."

On a different note, I spend most of time with people making their living on acting jobs, which is an incredible opportunity for me to get a lot of insight into the business while avoiding bodily harm or getting screwed out of money or any other unpleasantries. But at the same time, it's the first time I'm dealing with theater and acting as a business more than an artform and that's the fastest way to suck the life and passion out of a guy. So imagine my delight when today, despite being totally exhausted and gross-feeling, I got to encounter some kids to whom I taught exciting things like performance art and physical theater and awareness of human behavior and they, in return, were excited to hear that they could do more of it next summer with me. I mean it's always a nice ego boost to hear that someone likes you and wants to work with you, but it was totally something I needed to hear. As I continue to say, theater is nothing if not a conversation, so now I can go beyond drawing little stick figures for myself and actually do some art with people that want to and maybe inspire them to do their own arty loveliness. And now I've got all kinds of exciting plans for the summer, including some secret immersion theater...

and while we're talking about cartoons and goodness, here are some other ones I like a lot.