scaryonettes

went to the state fair of texas a few weeks ago, and my daughter and i attended a marionette show (i should have known better than to go to something called "world on a string"). while sitting there watching the ill-proportioned, ugly puppets whose movements are awkward at best, i began to wonder, why are these things still around? who grows up saying, i want to be a puppetmaster (alright metallica fans, name that song!) apparently somebody does, because those dang puppets ain't going away. it's tragic really.

not only are the puppets ugly, their heads separate from their bodies, and if that is supposed to be cute, it isn't. one puppeteer came out with a skeleton all dressed up in those big sleeves with maracas, dancing to some song that i no longer recall. the puppeteers, all dressed in black look like floating heads and hands themselves (they must do that so they don't distract from the puppet) but something so ugly is in need of a distraction. at the very end, there were some cute line dancing french marionettes, that were all connected, so two puppeteers could operate six dancers, but they only did a few kicks then the show ended. the puppeteers don't even do ventriloquism (is that even a word?)they just move their mouths and they are right there hovering over the puppet, how is that supposed to be interesting? if you have an ugly puppet, the least you can do is learn to make it look like it is talking for/by itself (why, i don't know! i don't make the rules)

marionettes are just plain hideous. however that hasn't seemed to impede their progress (if you can call it that). went to the movies and saw a trailer for team america: world police. my friend laughed through the whole thing and i just sat there, unable to overcome my aversion to these strange thesbians (remember that ventriloquist movie from the 80s, before scary movies became truly horrifying?).

granted, seeing them on the movie screen without the legs and floating hands and heads of their puppetmasters mouthing their lines is a tad less disconcerting, but not much. they remind me of my growing aversion for clowns. there are very few clowns out there that aren't ghastly. i wish they would just go away and take the marionettes with them.

apparently the creators of south park made this film, so hopefully it will be funny if nothing else. it doesn't look like marionettes will go away after this run if it is funny though. it's tragic really.

in trying to find something visual for you visual learners, i found this site which had this tragic, but hilarious (to me) note:

On January 1, 1999, at 12:22 p.m., a fire totally destroyed the New England Marionette Opera. Consumed by the fire were more than 200 handcrafted marionettes, all sets from nine complete operatic productions, all sound, and light and office devices. Only the two large travelling bridges survived the six-hour inferno.

On November 4, 1999, the decision was made to not try to reopen the theatre.

On December 31, 1999, at 11:59 p.m., the New England Marionette Opera was officially closed.

could you imagine actually paying and going to sit through an opera done by marionettes? maybe someone in the community burned it down. (now that's just mean!)