Temple's Longtails and Fur

     This is an excerpt from the Disney film The Jungle Book , released in the US in 1967, directed by Wolfgan Reitherman.  Born in Germany in 1909, Reitherman served in the US Air Force during World War II, seeing action from Africa to China, for which we was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  He began working for Disney in 1934, and is responsible for other Disney classics such as The Aristocats, The Sword in the Stone , 101 Dalmations, The Rescuers, and Sleeping Beauty .  I reckon if I was forced to say, The Jungle Book would be my favorite of these greats.            This movie is based on the novel of the same name published in 1894 by Rudyard Kipling.  Kipling was born in what is now Mumbai, India in 1865, and for a time shared the earth with Reitherman.  Kipling was of English descent, though born in Bombay, and grew up in a Southsea foster home after being brought to England by his parents when he was six.  His was a haunting childhood, described in his stories "Baa

    Questions where the answer is in the asking are vexatious to me at first glance.  The performer's role is to perform.  Be that in singing, acting, dancing.  Their job is to put on a performance.  But what is that?  What is a performance?     That is where my wheels started turning.  The job of the performer is to elicit a response from us, the audience.  Whether it's love, elation, sadness, or even hate, it's their job to induce these feelings in us.  They don't have to write it, but if they don't generate a response from us there's no reason to pay them any attention and they fade away.    This ain't musical yet, but we'll get there.  Take Delores Umbridge for example.  At a glance, she's not unattractive, pleasantly dressed, well quaffed, polite, mousey.  But from this one frame we all know we hate her pink guts.  Why?  Because Imelda Staunton PERFORMED the hell out of that role.  She took that script and made it her bitch like Umbridge tried t

Chuna McIntyre of the Nunamta Yup’ik  D ancers. Photo by Jim Hardin.     Unknown Spoon Player     I'm having some trouble getting rolling with this one.  With many of these blog posts, including for my previous art class, once I kick the keystone out from under the subject matter the post flows from me.  The wedge under the door is stubborn on this one.  It may be because of my own conflictions which I touched on in my "Alaska Native Contemporary Art" post.  I'm a half breed Yup'ik Eskimo, my mother's family is from Western Alaska.  My father's family is from North Carolina.  I'm literally the son of hillbillies and farmers, and raw meat eaters.  I'm not saying this with denigration, these are just true facts.  Pop's mother's family is from the flatland of Eastern North Carolina, hard working farmers.  His dad's people were musical moonshiners from the hills that could wring a song from laundry implements.  Pop's culture is all but