A Million Bad Drawings

You've got a million bad drawings in you; you better get started.

—Chuck Jones

That particular quote from Chuck Jones is scribbled on a PostIt note and stuck to the front of my computer monitor, next to a Studs Terkel quote. It reminds me to get my butt in gear, to go do something already. He was absolutely right, but boy, can I get lazy. I must be part cat.

If you go here you'll find all sorts of wonderful things brought to us by Chuck's daughter, Linda, and others. (The Chuck Jones Center for Creativity is a nonprofit dedicated to archiving Chuck's life work: sketches, paintings, animation cels, videos, and more.) One blog entry in particular had me stop and think. In a letter to his daughter in 1954, he refers to some sort of misstep she's made in her life and offers fatherly advice on the situation. One wise paragraph sounded like it was written this year, not in 1954:

"Not in reference to any of the above, but I would like to tell you quickly that I believe there is only one basic wrong in any human society and that is the one against the society itself. I believe that a sour visage and a murder are part of the same general misuse of society. They both cause disturbance and unbalance. Both, I think, indicate the assumption by the individual that he knows better than the society or its laws. Murder, of course, is a written crime while a person can be a sullen drag on the people around him for fifty years without being legally penalized. But they are both crimes, nevertheless. I think any action can be easily judged by the question of whether or not it wrongly affects those around us. If it does, then it deserves a second look. To be sure, there are times when the true individual must be out of step with society, but this is usually on the basis of his ideas and not his actions. Well, this is not intended as a cure-all, but it might give you an idea to chew on."

. . . . .

Here's the latest on the Halloween puppet illustration: a devil costume, the beginnings of a papier mache devil mask, and a suspicious cat.

Hands to be added later. Studio to be cleaned soon. Cat to be startled very, very soon…

"I swear I saw it move. It MOVED, I tell you."

Linda and Aggles Crash the Party

The latest puppetry work on the Halloween story contest illustration—Linda and her sister, Aggles. Next up: a devil mask and costume, and a sweet little dress with a Peter Pan collar. Linda's story is here.

. . . . .

I want. I need. Gimme.

I am a woman torn. The moment I laid eyes on the Hobbit Hut, I vowed one day I would have it for a studio/writing space:

Then I saw these treehouses, and now I'm befuddled. Hobbit Hut or Treehouse? How about Hobbit Hut for writing and Treehouse for art?

These are only a couple of the many beautiful treehouses featured at flavorwire.com. Do you see why I'd need to build a village? It would be very hard to choose just one style.

This one is The Yellow Treehouse Restaurant in New Zealand. [via Inhabitat]

And this beautiful structure, built by Takashi Kobayashi in Obihiro, is made from driftwood. [via NYT]

There's even a "treehouse" for the inner redneck in you—a mobile tree home, which sold on eBay. Now go make me a sammich.

Here's a magnificent treehouse here in Tennessee, in Crossville. I had no idea. It looks like a road trip is in order. [via Inhabitat]

My brother built a treehouse in the magnificent old mulberry tree that was in my family's back yard when I was growing up. The tree was located next to a chicken coop, and I used to love climbing up onto the chicken coop roof in the summer because I could hide among the thick, leafy branches of the mulberry tree.

The beautiful old mulberry tree in winter. The old chicken coop is gone, but the tree still stands, even after a lightning strike split it down the middle, years ago.

My parents had our old farmhouse remodeled in the late '60s, and there was plenty of scrap lumber, old doors, and screens left over for fabricating a dream treehouse. If I remember correctly, it had a couple of platforms, window screens for walls, and a knotted rope for climbing up into the tree. We also put an old mailbox up there, and we stored some of our books in it. Too bad the mailbox wasn't waterproof.

I have a vague memory of being lifted up to the platform in the tree when I was very young so I could sit under the leafy canopy with my other siblings. After a few years most of the treehouse was taken down except for the main platform, and when I was maybe 7 or 8 I remember hanging around up there, reading.

A treehouse is a wonderful thing.

New Puppets

In the process of sculpting puppet heads. This one's the head of a hapless haircut victim—2 inches off one side, 8 off the other (sound familiar, Linda?). Would that be like some sort of odd mullet? You know— instead of business in the front, party in the back, it would be business on the left side, party on the right side?

A friend of ours is currently experiencing the phenomenon known as Let's Play Hair Cutter with his little daughter, who experimented on her own hair first, and then later on her Barbie dolls. The image he posted of the Barbie dolls surrounded by clumps of cut-off Barbie hair were, as another friend commented, like some kind of Barbie crime scene.

The Winner!

What industrious little monkeys you all are! In honor of Halloween, I held a contest asking for a tale about your favorite Halloween when you were a kid. The winner will receive a signed copy of Squawking Matilda, an Annie Oakley action figure, and a specially-created puppet illustration of the winning story.

The results are in! This was tough, as all the entries were lots of fun. However, the winner went above and beyond telling a Halloween memory, and for that it gets the special kudos. Prepare to bask in the recognition of your peers: the winner of The Squawking Matilda Centre's first Halloween contest is…

MS. LINDA DAVICK

w00t, w00t!

Without further ado, here is her winning entry; I will post it again with the puppet illustration once I actually create it after I wash the cat.

My favorite Halloween lasted almost a whole year. When I was 8 years old, my sister Aggles chose a fairy princess costume and I chose a devil costume. Looking back I can see that the costumes suited our personalities perfectly. Not only did my costume come with a gruesome mask with twisted lips, it also included a rubber pitchfork on a stick. I can still remember the deliciously weird smell of the plastic mask, and the way the slippery red sleeves turned into devil wings when I raised my arms.

After Halloween night was over, the costume was stored up on a shelf in my closet. But it got a lot of use before I outgrew it.

I would put the costume on often, because wearing it granted me permission to be bad. Once I put it on before giving my sister a haircut. I told her it was to keep the hair off my clothes, but it really allowed me the freedom to give her the kind of haircut I wanted: 2 inches off one side, and 8 inches off the other side.

One time when I wore it, it allowed me to take some money out of my dad's drawer. And another time when I happened to put it on before church, he told me to change clothes and I called him "Daddy the Fatty."

My favorite culinary discovery during my 8th year was American cheese that came in packs of 32 saran-wrapped slices. I would put the costume on while my mom was taking a nap, open the refrigerator, and quietly unwrap 7 or 8 slices of the plasticky treat, flip back my mask, and eat to my heart's content.

I could use the rubber pitchfork to open the cabinet door above the refrigerator and knock a box of cake mix down. I'd open the box, eat half the cake mix with a spoon, and tape the box back up with scotch tape.

If no cake mix was available, I could always knock a box of Ritz crackers down, arrange some in a bowl and pour Hershey's syrup over them.

That summer my cousins from Tennessee came to visit us. I loved my cousins, but as well as being bad, I was terribly shy. I made sure to don my devil costume before they arrived. When they rang the doorbell I opened the door, kicked my handsome older cousin Barry in the shin as a way of saying hello, and ran around the side of the house.

I miss that costume. If you happen across a devil costume in size x-large, please buy it for me and I'll reimburse you.

—story ©Linda Davick

The two following stories from Phillip Brooks and Sally Cruikshank were too good to pass up and deserve applause and kudos. Phillip and Sally, you both will receive a surprise package in the mail as your reward.

This one's from Phillip:

Halloween Face-Off

In the late 1960s my family lived in a small East Tennessee town that for all intents and purposes could have been Mayberry. We lived in a suburb, but our redneck roots were covered by the dye job of living in “the city.” Halloween was my second-favorite holiday, barely eclipsed by Christmas. While we weren’t exactly poor, we weren’t well-off either. Store bought costumes were out of the question. Halloween became a creative combination of imagination and hardscrabble where a pirate costume was just a t-shirt, jeans and an eye patch away. The most important accessory was the candy bag. Oh yeah... the days before plastic grocery bags, where the brown paper grocery bag (called a poke in the hills) ruled supreme. These were the days when folks shoveled goodies into the bag. A short neighborhood stroll and muttering “trick-or-treat” resulted in a hernia-inducing haul to the sweet land of cavities.

This particular Halloween I was aiming for ghoulish make-up that would scare people like no other year. I had seen television specials about makeup, so of course I thought I knew all about it. Lacking any kind of real supplies, a scavenger hunt began. My Mom had a recipe for homemade Play-Doh that I remember was pretty much bread dough with a lot of salt in it. She whipped up a batch and we stirred in some green food color to get that perfect zombie patina. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I slopped the green goop onto my face. There was just enough to cover my forehead, cheeks and jawline. The rest of my face and neck looked totally normal. Lon Chaney eat your heart out... boy it looked good! Red food coloring mixed with Karo Syrup provided the oozing pustules that makes every zombie the envy of his graveyard. Of course, in reality it looked like a dead Pillsbury Dough Boy with a bad yeast infection. But I was unstoppable! My scariness knew no bounds. The rest of the costume fell into place quickly... a white t-shirt, high-water jeans, and tennis shoes. A jacket to ward off the cold of the undead finished the ensemble.

Armed with a candy bag, I set off into the neighborhood with a few of my friends to make our rounds. At house after house, I practiced my undead glare as the cold dough sagged a tad with each stop. No matter. It was easy to give myself a little facelift every now and then, keeping my zombie good looks intact. Most of the kind older ladies that answered the door in my neighborhood recoiled in horror when they saw me...transfixed with my zombie glare and hypnotized into dumping load after delicious load of goodies into my outstretched bag. Of course, years later I realized the frightened looks were more likely translated into “what the hell are YOU supposed to be?” But I was a kid... on a mission. In short order the bag was almost filled to bursting. What a haul!

Two streets away from home I was strolling through the darkness, the road awash with costumed silhouettes darting in and out of glowing pools of porch light. The chorus of “trick-or-treat!” carried through the cold air. With no warning at all, my candy bag flew violently from my hand in a flash of running feet and laughter. I stood paralyzed for a second, dumbfounded by the realization that sprinting hoodlums had just grabbed my candy bag and were getting away! I sprang awake and chased them for all I was worth. It was no use... they were too fast and were too far ahead... no way to catch up. My anger boiled, and I needed to throw something... to at least hit them as they made off with my candy. In desperation I scraped off a handful of green dough from my face and launched it in a wild Hail Mary. Even in the darkness I could tell that I missed.

I finally stopped running, and slumped over with my hands on my knees, defeated and gasping for air. My fantastic makeup was in shambles. The punks’ laughter echoed up the street, mocking me. I slowly started walking again, my side splitting and still in shock from losing everything. Out of the gloom a huge, older kid appeared, his face still in shadow. He said, “here.” He shoved a candy bag into my hands. He was the thief. Apparently the joke was over. The sport was in the look of shock on his victim’s face when he grabbed their candy. He elbowed his buddy and sprang off into the night. I cradled the bag close to my chest and dazedly shuffled home. Safe inside, bathed in the cold fluorescent glow of the bathroom light, I looked at my face. A green stain remained where the dough had been, ringed by a white salty crust of thin, dry dough. I ripped open the candy bag and spilled the contents on my bed. The prize, my haul, was intact. Warmth returned and it was good again to be a kid.

I think that was my last Halloween as a trick-or-treater, yet Halloween remained a favorite in the coming years. Water balloons, toilet paper, homemade explosives, and brushes with the law were all looming in my future. But those are stories for another day...

—story ©Phillip Brooks

That visual of actually pulling off parts of your zombie face to throw at the culprits is priceless. Why haven't writers of zombie movies figured out that the best way to capture victims is not chasing them, but throwing bits of their own rotting zombie flesh at them? Hmmm....

And this one's from Sally Cruikshank:

When I was in 4th grade my mother gave me a Halloween party that some friends still talk about at town reunions. You had to go down plank steps to get to the party in the basement. My brother hid on the underside of the stairs and grabbed ankles as kids came down. EEK! The basement looked very spooky, (well it did all the time anyway), and music was playing from our old windup Victrola. My sister was dressed as a witch and told fortunes. My mother was a gypsy. There were games where you put your hand in slimey things and treasure hunts and bobbing for apples. The best part was the ghost walk. We were led out into our big dark yard, where older kids were hiding behind trees in costume, waiting to jump out and scare us. I think for refreshments we had cider and powdered sugar doughnuts.

Years later I threw a Halloween party for my daughter, and made a haunted house in the garage. I hid mostly Snickers bars in the back yard for the candy hunt. Before the kids got there the neighborhood crows descended on the back yard and ate all the candy!

—story ©Sally Cruikshank

I always dreamed of going to a Halloween party like that when I was a kid. And the Snickers thing? How awesome is that? You know those birds in Hitchcock's The Birds? Forget human flesh—they were really after Snickers bars.

Thank you, everyone who entered—this was lots of fun.

Never forget what it felt like to be a kid.

. . . . .

Halloween playlist: Frank Zappa—Zombie Wolf…Warren Zevon—Werewolves of London…Bow Wow Wow—I Want Candy…The Cure—Lullaby…Tegan and Sara—Walking With A Ghost…Nick Cave—Henry Lee…Nancy Sinatra—Bang Bang…Elvis Costello—God's Comic…My Chemical Romance—Welcome To The Black Parade…Bobby "Boris" Pickett—Monster Mash…Robert Johnson—Crossroad…The Decemberists—The Rake's Song…Frank Black & The Catholics—Black Rider #2

The Ante Has Been Upped

Greetings, Slugs, Ghouls, and Goblins,

In honor of Halloween, we here at the Squawking Matilda Centre are sponsoring a contest–send in a brief tale about your favorite Halloween when you were a kid for a chance to win a signed copy of Squawking Matilda and an Annie Oakely action figure. And the ante has been upped.

If your story wins, I will also create your very own puppet illustration to go with your story–painted background, fabricated puppet, and all. Since these illustrations are digital, you will receive a signed, high-quality full-color print for you, yourself, and thou. What's a puppet illustration? Go here to see how I create one. I don't do these things for just anybody, pal. It's akin to promising my first-born; I mean bidness.

Though it certainly isn't as serious as my offering to wash your cat:

Email the entry to: LisaKidsBooks@gmail.com

DEADLINE: Friday, October 30, 2009 midnight EST

You have nothing to lose, and a book/puppet illustration/action figure to gain. Go for it!

The Bad Seed

I loved Halloween as a kid because it meant a little bit of freedom, because you'd get to prowl around after dark with other kids in crazy outfits. There was something magical about being out in the crisp night air; back then we could trick-or-treat without any adults hovering, so it felt like a big Kid World. You were allowed to act like a loon, face safely hidden beneath a mask. And you were allowed to beg for the best thing in Kid World...candy. Also, it was kind of cool to catch a glimpse of the interior of a stranger's house when you trick-or-treated, to observe what their house smelled like compared to yours, or to see what they happened to be watching on TV.

The last year I went trick-or-treating, probably when I was maybe 10 or 11, I couldn't decide what costume I wanted to wear. We always made our own costumes, usually from old clothes, paper bags, or old sheets (my mom made my brother a skeleton outfit one year out of an old white sheet, and it was truly awesome). But that particular year, I was running out of ideas; the Halloween Muse was packing its bags.

My creative mother came to the rescue once again. "Why don't you dress up as an Upside-Down Person?" she suggested. Hmmm.

She helped me assemble the costume: shirt, pants, mask, hat, something to stuff the hat/mask with, adult-size gloves to wear on my feet, shoes to wear on my hands. I pulled the shirt sleeves over my legs and buttoned up the upside-down shirt. I pinned the mask/stuffed hat between my legs. Next, she pulled the pantlegs over my arms while I held them over my head, cut little holes so I could see out of the pants, and pinned the shirt to the waistband of the pants. Gloves on my feet made them look like hands. Shoes on my hands made them look like feet.

"Now, walk," she instructed. I walked, like a crab because of the mask/hat between my legs, and she fell over, laughing. After a bit, my arms started getting tired from holding them over my head, so I rested them by folding them on top of my head. Mom screamed with laughter.

This was going to be good.

Upside-down man seems very happy to see you...

By the way, that mask is a Cinderella mask put to good use at last.

On Halloween day, at noon, all of the grade school kids always took part in a Halloween parade led by the high school marching band. After the parade, each homeroom had their own Halloween party; we were so sugared-up by the end of the day that we maniacally hung from the rafters like monkeys. It was great.

And so, during the Halloween parade, I got a taste of what it felt like to have an audience laughing with me while I was safely hidden under those upside-down clothes. Peering from the darkness of the pants with the holes cut in them so I could (barely) see where I was going, I watched the adults point and laugh when they saw my costume. I was a fairly shy, quiet child, and receiving that much attention otherwise would have made me uncomfortable. But hidden beneath my costume, I felt safe, and it made me happy that people got such a kick out of the costume. It got even better when my arms were tired and I folded them on top of my head to rest them; it sent them into hysterics. I won First Place that year for my costume--look closely at the photograph and you can see the First Place ribbon pinned to my flanks.

Trick-or-treating in that outfit, however, was another story, because it was so difficult to see where I was going in the dark. I shuffled along doing my crab walk, trying to keep up with the pack of kids I traveled with. There was no way for me to hold the trick-or-treat bag; I think I attached it to a belt that hung around the pants, and every time an adult was supposed to put candy in the bag I sort of thrust out my hip so they'd get the idea to put the candy in there.

There was a legendary house that was hugely popular every year because the elderly lady who lived there always made the most amazing doughnuts to hand out. You had to get there early, though, because when trick-or-treating officially began, she was immediately barnstormed by the town kids for doughnuts, and she ran out of them fast. By the time we got there the doughnuts were always gone, and we were taunted by the lingering scent of fresh, sweet pastries.

It was the same way with the fire department. Those guys gave out full-size candy bars, not the miniatures, and as a result they were hugely popular.

The best part, though, was bringing the candy home and checking out the loot. I can still smell what 20 different kinds of candy thrown in a bag smells like, usually with one apple thrown in. My dad, a candy hound, hovered and teased us about taking all of our candy; we knew he was kidding, but still let out howls of protest. We were undeniably greedy about hoarding the candy; nobody else was getting our hard-earned loot, pal.

.....

Don't forget to enter the Write-A-Halloween-Story-Get-A-Signed-Copy-of-Squawking-Matilda-and-Annie-Oakley-Action-Figure! Details here.

Halloween Contest!

Dear Ghouls and Goblins,

We here at The Squawking Matilda Centre recognize that Halloween is coming up, and YOU, yes you, have the chance to win a signed copy of my latest picturebook, Squawking Matilda, AND an Annie Oakley action figure! Annie Oakley really has absolutely nothing to do with a book about a pet chicken, but so what? It doesn't have to. They're both funny and entertaining and will delight both young and old for weeks, months...possibly years.

What, oh what do I need to do to win these delights, you ask? Send me a brief tale about your favorite Halloween when you were a kid. It can be funny, spooky, gross, whatever. If it is chosen as the winning entry, you, pal, will bask in the recognition of your peers and also receive the signed book and action figure for your very own.

Email the entry to: LisaKidsBooks@gmail.com

DEADLINE: Friday, October 30, 2009 midnight EST

You have nothing to lose, and a book/action figure to gain. Go for it!