Objects of Significant Admiration:
Charles Addams
"The Addams Family" started out as a comic strip that mostly appealed to audiences of a more morbid nature. It spawned a live action TV show, then an animated series, a TV special, a movie, another animated series, another movie, a third direct-to-video movie, and finally a live action tv show.
...Charles Addams was terrified of snakes, and would spend hours at the zoo staring at them in morbid fascination.
Tim Burton
An early teenhood idol of mine... if you had any idea how obsessed I was with this man and his work, you'd realize what a loser I am, so I won't.
Cab Calloway
This man's voice was just ca-razy! In the best, most creative way possible. It is impossible not to love his stuff.
Jackie Chan
I love to watch slapstick, ballet, and Jackie Chan.
Charlie Chase
A severely underrated comic, he won me over with a single two-reeler. In the 1920's, twenty-minute comedies were all the rage, and they were pumped out by the hundreds. Most of them were utter crap, but they made people laugh. Chase, however, strived for more story to his comedies, with more humanity and sophistication to the development of the characters. The difference is astonishing, and despite his obscurity today, I think his style would be well appreciated if he were given a revival.
Colette
Danny Elfman
He provided the soundtrack for my sorta-troubled teen years. Nobody can do kookie-gothic the way he can. His former band, evolved from a 70's novelty act called "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo", gives angst a fun, danceable turn. I'll always regret not being able to see their farewell show on Halloween of '95. Tim Burton's films and Elfman's musical scores are utterly indivisible.
Boba Fett
Neil Gaiman
Okay, maybe Neil Gaiman is a pretty cool guy after all. I was hesitant to like him at first, as he put on this angsty-gothic-jaded-superstar-in-bulky-sunglasses persona. The irksome thing was that I always knew he was a kick-ass writer.
He's probably the easiest disease to spread amongst friends, too.
I got to see him live and in the person at a book store in Bothell, not only to sign autographs but to *perform*, like musicians get to perform, you know. He read us a poem and an excerpt from his latest book "American Gods." I also got to meet Erika and Kevin there, and it was awesome.
Jim Henson
He breathed new life into the ancient and neglected art of puppetry. Quite by accident, really. He got into puppets as a way to get into television.
Sherlock Holmes
Harry Houdini
I was racking my brain just now trying to remember who I was going to add today, then I looked at my fresh new sheet of Houdini stamps, and... remembered.
Buster Keaton
If I were to start ranting about his beauty and talent and perfect teeth I'd take up five pages. So maybe later. I greatly admire his **ART** first and foremost. My first glimpse of him (other than that long shot of the wall falling on him from "Steamboat Bill Jr", which everyone has seen I'm sure) was on a lazy day in Theatre class in high school, watching tapes of "The Twilight Zone". I saw a frumpy old man who was rather amusing, kinda pathetic. Shame on me.
Then when I was in Anchorage visiting my sister, I went to the library and saw a collection of Buster Keaton tapes. I liked silent films by this time, and promised myself to check him out and see how he measured up to Charlie Chaplin. Shame, shame.
When I finally did pick out one of the tapes, which for no reason in particular turned out to be "Our Hospitality", I gazed at the cover picture and was stunned. Perhaps they'd taken out a childhood photo and used it for some reason. But no, he was an adult. A grown young man with eyes that were large and melancholy and childlike and innocent. He reminded me a bit of Johnny Depp, with a narrower face. He was no Chaplin.
I took him home.
Upon seeing the actual film (I would save "Sherlock Jr" for last as I was a Holmes fan too), without reading the back of the cover, I was perplexed by his blank face as he imagined inheriting a huge southern mansion. You get the impression he was pleased by the thought. Shouldn't he be smiling? What's that look about?
As the film progressed, it was startling to see how physical he was, how frequently this delicate-looking creature would trip and fall, meanwhile his blank face making him seem oblivious to anything like self-pity. I liked that a lot. His lack of sentiment. A very rare thing in the silent era. He also let other characters on-screen get laughs, another deviation from the Chaplin style.
And when I least expected it, this painfully mysterious comic I'd already taken a shine to, KISSED THE GIRL. I don't know, he was so distant, such an otherworldly creature, but suddenly he makes contact. Is that allowed? Guess so.
The waterfall was the last straw. I was on the edge of my seat (well, the carpet), I did NOT want him (okay, or the girl) to fall over! "Oh, be careful!" In an amazing feat of physical prowess, he swings from a rope and rescues the girl right in time, and I went insane applauding him then and there in the living room, all by myself.
I was hooked, forever and always.
I couldn't wait to get the next VHS tape into the VCR. "Sherlock Jr." charmed, flirted, bewildered, amazed.
You must realize though I was suffering from cabin fever up there in Alaska, in the dead of winter, 15 below. (There is no better atmosphere for taking in a silent film, not when things are buzzing around you and there are things to be done.) Buster may be the only reason I survived. Thanks, Bus.
Marcel Marceau
I've kept a special place for him since seeing him while I was in Alaska. Before that he'd been absent from America for years. He's been touring the world again, in his mid-70's, still performing. He seems to be sticking to a few tried-and-true routines. Good for an entertaining evening, at the very least. Other artistic pantomimists seem to think he's overrated, which maybe he is, in a way. He is the public's idea of the perfect mime, and has established a lot of the cliches for street mimes. I'd rather not enter into the whole complex idea of what qualifies as "art" to the snooty folk, I find his work artistic because there is passion in it and it moves the audience, using nothing but his limbs to create worlds and put people in it.
Harpo Marx
Sweet, endearing and cripplingly funny. He loved animals and was an eccentric sort of fellow off-screen, without a doubt. Read his biography "Harpo Speaks", even non-marx fans should enjoy it. But Marxism helps quite a bit.
Dorothy Parker
Master Depressive Poetess. Very clever. Easily rhymed.
Emo Philips
Funny guy. I saw him live and in the person on my birthday last January, way back in the "nose bleeds" so he couldn't see me, but was it ever worth it. His humor is random, intellectual, silly, creepy, from another planet. Just a great comic. He was born to do this.
Henry Selick
For a time I'd have thought that what Jim Henson did for puppetry, Henry Selick could have done for stop-motion animation. But then CGI happened. So nevermind. He still has a quirky, fresh style all his own.
Patti Smith
In high school, I was grazing through a book about women in rock'n'roll, and found her photograph. Her face has haunted me ever since.... I had to draw her, as soon as I saw it-- even though I turned her into a boy. Sorry Patti.
I only recently got to hear her music. I love her speech patterns, and her rough, raw voice.
Erich von Stroheim
This guy must be even sicker than I am. Some of his on-screen antics are so terrible, I bust out laughing. He was quirky, intense, and utterly brilliant. So far I've only seen that "Wives" movie, the last half of "Greed", which was terrific, and some captivating film clips; but I already know I'm a fan. ;>
Weird Al Yankovic
Yankovic is smart AND talented... and amazingly limber. He's also a very nice guy... far as I can tell.
My Special Lust Objects:
Louise Brooks
One of the beautiful people.
Clopin
Jet Li He's short, he's *fine*, and possesses the world's snazziest name. What, you mean he's a martial artist/movie star too? Cool!
Groucho Marx
Richard O'Brien
You know, the "Rocky Horror" guy.