The Motion Of Puppets

From the bestselling author of The Boy Who Drew Monsters and The Stolen Child comes a modern take on the Orpheus and Eurydice Myth—A Suspenseful tale of romance and enchantment In the Old City of Québec, Kay Harper falls in love with a puppet in the window of the Quatre Mains, a toy shop that is never open. She is spending her summer working as an acrobat with the cirque while her husband, Theo, is translating a biography of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Late one night, Kay fears someone is following her home. Surprised to see that the lights of the toy shop are on and the door is open, she takes shelter inside. The next morning Theo wakes up to discover his wife is missing. Under police suspicion and frantic at her disappearance, he obsessively searches the streets of the Old City. Meanwhile, Kay has been transformed into a puppet, and is now a prisoner of the back room of the Quatre Mains, trapped with an odd assemblage of puppets from all over the world who can only come alive between the hours of midnight and dawn. The only way she can return to the human world is if Theo can find her and recognize her in her new form. So begins the dual odyssey of Keith Donohue’s The Motion of Puppets: of a husband determined to find his wife, and of a woman trapped in a magical world where her life is not her own.

Stop-motion puppet animation is one of the most unusual and demanding art forms in the world. It uses a variety of skills, including design, sculpting, metal work, mold making and casting, taxidermy, filmmaking, storytelling and acting, and can be seen in the simplest commercial spots on television to more complex animated shorts and science fiction and fantasy feature films. This work explains research and design of puppets, and details the fabrication of stop-motion puppets around a metal armature skeleton using the build up and foam injection processes. The former technique uses pre-cut blocks of foam formed with a pair of scissors or other instrument into the shape desired and attaching them to the armature. In the latter technique, the character is sculpted in clay over the armature. This clay sculpture is then replaced with foam by using a plaster mold and injection gun techniques. Finishing techniques described include the making of hair, eyes, eyelids, teeth, horns, nails, and chitinous (insect-shell-like) surfaces. The manual also covers the process of creating replacement heads using rubber molds (such as RTV) and urethane castings. A glossary and bibliography complete the extensively illustrated work.

A fantastical, fast-paced science fiction novel of mystery and action from award-winning novelist Philip K. Dick.

Puppeteers have enthralled audiences for millennia with their unique charm, not just telling stories but enacting history, sharing knowledge, and preserving culture. In this dazzling and immersive volume based on the 2019 exhibition Shadows, Strings and Other Things (UBC Museum of Anthropology), puppets from all corners of the globe are resplendent in striking photographs that illustrate texts from ten scholars and puppeteers. Bodies of Enchantment highlights still-vital traditional puppetry practices, as well as examples of modern adaptations of the form: translucent leather shadow puppets depict ancient Indian epics in modern-day Indonesia; Taiwan's long-running Pili glove puppetry show thrives in the digital era; and Indigenous filmmaker Amanda Strong uses stop-motion animation to create entrancing new realms. Bodies of Enchantment: Puppets from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas features over 150 full-color images, and chapters by nine additional contributors: Anthony Alan Shelton revels at the alluring uncanniness of puppets; Annie Katsura Rollins explores Chinese shadow puppetry; Sutrisno Setya Hartana introduces us to Indonesian wayang; Jo Ann Cavallo unpacks the archetypes of Sicilian opera dei pupi; Mary Jo Arnoldi encounters the Sogobò masquerade in Malí; Izabela Brochado shows the continued vibrancy of mamulengo in Brazil; Kathy Foley and Catherine Ries uncover the significance of clothing in Javanese wayang golak cepak; and Jill Baird shares the history of puppetry at the Museum of Anthropology.

The bold and boundlessly original debut novel from the Oscar®-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • “A dyspeptic satire that owes much to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon . . . propelled by Kaufman’s deep imagination, considerable writing ability and bull’s-eye wit."—The Washington Post “An astonishing creation . . . riotously funny . . . an exceptionally good [book].”—The New York Times Book Review • “Kaufman is a master of language . . . a sight to behold.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND MEN’S HEALTH B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he’s convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius. All that’s left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of “likes” and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être. A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.

Puppets & Puppet Theatre is essential reading for everyone interested in making and performing with puppets. It concentrates on designing, making and performing with the main types of puppet, and is extensively illustrated in full colour throughout.Topics covered include: nature and heritage of puppet theatre; the anatomy of a puppet, its design and structure; materials and methods for sculpting, modelling and casting; step-by-step instructions for making glove, hand, rod and shadow puppets & marionettes; puppet control and manipulation; staging principles, stage and scenery design; principles of sound & lighting and finally, organisation of a show.