Well here’s the last of the this year’s Folklife sketches. It all went pretty well though by the end of the day it was getting a little too crowded for me to stay in my zone… fortunately the brass bands snapped me out of early burn out.
Growing up I was fascinated by magic and read a lot of books on the subject and while I never really took it up as anything interesting sideline I came out of it knowing quite a bit about the history of magic, biographies of the most famous magicians and the mechanics of a lot the more basic tricks.. So doing Magicians as my theme was very attractive choice.
My first film The Illusionist (not to be mistaken for the earlier live action film) is a wonderful lyrical animated film by Sylvain Chomet, creator of the Triplets of Belleville based on an old script by French filmmaker Jacques Tati.
It takes place in the fifties and tells the story of an aging magician named Tatischeff whose career is slowly dying due to traditional variety shows being replaced by popular rock bands. As his audience shrinks he travels to Scotland where he meets a you barmaid who is enamored by his magic tricks which she believes is real. What continues is a quiet but lyrical relationship as the two move to Edinburgh as Tatischeff tries to make what is left of a living as well as preserving the girl’s innocence.
This film is beautiful, the attention to detail and design is amazing as it tells the story of the end of an era with subtly and quiet dignity.
The next film Christopher Nolan‘s The Prestige based on the book of the same name by Christopher Priest tells a story of the golden age of Magic through the story of the rivalry of two Magicians played by wonderfully Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale.
As each tries to one up the other things go from petty one up manship grows to dangerous obsession..
I’m not sure what I think of this film. Make no mistake it’s very good, Nolan’s work is always good but whether I actually like one of his films is frequently fifty odds. No mistake it’s gorgeous and awesome and I loved the twist in the end but many of the elements of the film mostly the way the narrative wasn’t in chronological order, I could never get into it.
I’ll post my final batch of folklife sketches in a bit but I had to show this one by itself because I was really psyched while doing it. The band performing Chaotic Noise Marching Corps had a great anarchic energy that really blew me away. It reminded me of one of the strips that started Bloom County’s Deathtongue storyline where Opus first show up with his sousaphone and claims that he plays “weighty brass” these guys made it clear that such a thing was real.
They’ll be at the HONK! Fest West festival this solstice. Can’t wait to check it out.
Today’s rhyme, “Before her Old Grandmother” made little sense to me and I’m pretty sure I misunderstood it completely… frankly I think it’s another orphaned song verse.
I didn’t sleep well the night before and had someplace I had to be later in the afternoon so I don’t think I was ever in my zone enough to do quite as many sketches Sunday as Saturday but I think I did okay.
Maybe it was because a slow start today but I couldn’t figure out what the context of today’s rhyme, A Little Man From Derby, could possibly be. Fortunately I had plenty of options in our present context and went with snooty maître d’.
