R.I.P. Kokomo

I've been feeling gloomy since the sudden demise of my bronzed wing Pionus, Kokomo, who was about fourteen years old and had been with us since before the Northridge Earthquake. Birds don't show symptoms of illness until they are very sick, and I have no idea what went wrong.

I was his principle person all his life, but he hated me and would scream when I came in the room. I loved him anyway. He was a feather picker, and disturbing to see, as he looked as if he was headed into the oven. This picture is from the start of his feather picking days.

We had another parrot, Big Boy, who really loved me, but he's been gone four years now. He flew away, and I always have hoped he landed in a back yard where someone made him a pet. Once he was quite ill and went to the bird hospital. They told me I could come see him during visiting hours. I went for my visit and was admitted into the room. They brought Big Boy in. He looked at me, struggled with his tongue, then said, "You poor thing."

I guess we won't be getting more parrots. If we move to Colorado, it will be too cold for them. I've been having troubles with aging animals generally. My horse Pepper is not really interested in being ridden anymore, at age 23, though he still loves to run and buck if I'm not on him. And last summer dear old Luna, my first horse, went on to the big corral. So it's been tough adjusting to life without riding, which may sound quite spoiled but I really love to ride.

Reading Banned Classics

I went to visit my mother at her retirement community and had a computer free week. I really enjoyed reading an assortment of novels and non-fiction, and with my mind disconnected from the internet could really think about them.

The two classic banned books I read were "Huckleberry Finn" and "Catcher in the Rye." I'd read "Catcher in the Rye" a few times before, but somehow never "Huckleberry Finn." Of course on the scale of banned books these are such innocent low weights, but they appear on many of those stupid lists. It was just coincidental that I read them together-- I only put the connection together later.

The first third of "Huckleberry Finn" is very great, mysterious, original, and moving. I didn't expect it to be that good. Then it takes a big narrative shift with the entrance of two con artists/pitchmen, the King and the Duke, and turned into a very different book, which I didn't particularly enjoy. By the time Tom Sawyer enters near the end I was quite sick of it.

But the edition I was reading was annotated, (and also included the original illustrations), I learned he took a break from the book at just the point where the tone changes, and returned to it four years later. The magic was gone by then. Jane Smiley wrote a defense of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at the end of this edition! Wow, there's a new point of view. Actually it made me want to read the book!

"Catcher in the Rye" still kept me involved. As I first started it, it seemed so involved in a prep school vision, but then that fell away for me, part of a world described that no longer exists. There are moments when he writes things that no one else has ever written. That's how it struck me at least.

I read an awful short story in "The New Yorker" by Louise Erdrich. I remember reading an early book of hers where the descriptions were so beautiful they took my breath away, but this story had a character with a "mop" of brown hair and sensitive brown eyes. geez.

The Land of Make Believe

When I was little I had this poster on my bedroom wall. It delighted me. I could explore this world. The image is laid out in a way that makes it easy to enter and travel around, in your mind. Later in the hippie years it was sold in head shops. I was never a hippie by the way. I've learned the artist's name, Jaro Hess. It's from the 30's. I don't have a copy anymore, but maybe I'll order one.

I've been working on a new Whinsey/Anita story in flash. I'm using the IBM text to speech voices-- not quite what I'd like but by grabbing voices to use in the animation it makes me more likely to continue with the project. My old source for text to speech voices is no longer available. If I had to get a microphone etc. I would probably just not do it.

I feel sort of like Tinkerbell in the Peter Pan tv show, begging for claps to fly, asking for encouragement to continue. Actually I've received so many nice emails from total strangers who've enjoyed my animation over the years, and I think that, (plus total lack of work), is what's gotten me started on a new project.

ebay makes me SO MAD!

I've been selling on ebay for years-- postcards, horse stuff, movie memorabilia. The last year I've been selling copies of my own cartoons on dvd-rs. Since I am the copyright owner, this is legal on ebay. However, dvd-r is also a frequent format for bootlegs. Something in the ebay system punches reject and they pull my listings, considering them taboo.

I protest, they check the listing, they concede, I relist.The people who want these dvds really want them, remembering something from their crazy youth, etc. All the feedback on the dvds positive. (More than 1200 feedbacks and only one negative all that time.) Each time ebay concedes they apologize and say they've added a note to my account so the same mistake won't be made again.

Tonight I listed the dvd again and they have suspended my account. Means I cease to exist on ebay. Meanwhile I had about twenty five other auctions on-going, with bids, and they get suspended too. I know ebay will re-instate me, but meanwhile all these auctions are screwed. And ebay has no support phone number, you are totally at the mercy of their support email. In the last two months I sold more than $6000 in one thing or the other-- means nothing in the mega giant corporate world of ebay.Worst part is I really want to get re-instated. grovel grovel. groan. groan.

Soviet Sal

I was about nine or ten, it was the late fifties, Kruschev era, Sputnik, cold war. I lived in New Jersey, a Republican town, all church going families, the burbs... I was very interested in everything Russian. Really I don't know why, thinking back on it now. I kept checking out a little phonograph album from the public library to teach myself Russian, and I would play the records in my room on a kiddie record player. "Nyet Nyet Nyet" I was careful to renew the album when it was overdue. Then I decided to subscribe to "Soviet Life." It was free. It looked like LIFE magazine but was even bigger, and more color pictures. But the pictures were sort of dull, young women on tractors in giant wheat fields with bright blue skies. I got interested in other things.Then summer rolled around, and two men in suits came up on the front porch to talk to my mother. They were from the F.B.I.!!! They wanted to talk to her about ME! Little Sally, the soviet spy!!!!

There's probably a record on me somewhere in Washington!

Of course in the George Bush era of "all your information is mine" this may not seem so funny, but it still cracks me up.

Entertainment of the Future

I've been thinking a lot about entertainment of the future, where is it going? I've had so little work the last few years, but it's been that way for lots of creative people I know around L.A. We're not retired, but we might as well be. 2-D animation is another obsolete format, it seems, but maybe so is the linear narrative.

In his important book, "Understanding Media", Marshall McLuhan pointed out that break-through media formats are often predicted by earlier art movements-- his example that the color tv had antecedents in Seurat may seem far fetched, but I have always felt that the sudden beginning of independent animation in the early 70's was somehow foreshadowing an event or media form that has yet to fully take shape. Will it be on a hand held device, or perhaps a screen right in the air in front of you, or on your clothes?

R.I.P. Video artist Nam June Paik, who died this week. Many of his video installations now sit in storage rooms because the video components require spare parts that are no longer made. I find this sort of mind boggling. For years video art was regarded as the newest, the hippest, and in such a short period of time it too has become obsolete.

Happy New Year!

Thanks to everyone who bought my DVD last year. I got so many nice emails back, but none can top this one I received last week:

"Sally, I am thrilled beyond words to find this! My husband courted me in 1983 by playing Quasi at the Quackadero when I would come over. The old beta tape (copied from channel 11PBS) has long been useless/lost, but our 4 children have heard the story often. (They are now 21, 18, 16, and 13). My husband will simply explode when he opens this! "

Santa Massacre?

Santa Massacre?, originally uploaded by Big Chicken.

I drove by this house to show Dinah how overdecorated it was, but they'd turned off their blowers on the inflatables, and the front lawn looked like the scene of a crime, Santas and Polar Bears flattened all over the lawn! To tell you the truth, inflatable decorations give me the creeps anyway.

Charbucks further

On my site I have a flash version of one chapter of my Charbucks saga. It ends proclaiming that more will soon follow. However, the wonderful online source of the voices has been removed. Formerly rhetorical.com had an amazing free feature where you could type in dialog lines and get a specific voice saying it back. Their Valley girl voice was exceptionally good, and they also had a variety of foreign and American voices to choose from. They didn't have the usual Radio Shack answering machine voice quality.

However, the site is gone because it was sold to a bigger fish, I learned recently. It made it so easy to create the voice tracks to animate, and you could just drop the voices right into flash and go.

The Charbucks saga was a multi-chapter adventure I wrote and illustrated with animated gifs around 1997, just when Starbucks were starting to appear all over the place, including some pretty odd places. The story was pretty amusing but the artwork began to look awfully rough as the Flash look came to dominate internet animation.

Anyway, not that anyone's asked me, but just thought I'd report on it.

thai dinner is coming

thai dinner is coming, originally uploaded by Big Chicken.

After the peace event we waited in the car while Jon got dinner to go at a Thai restaurant. I enjoy passing time taking time lapse photos, and especially liked this one.

Peace Vigil 10/26/05

on the way to Sherman Oaks, originally uploaded by Big Chicken.

We took Molly to a peace vigil on a street corner in Sherman Oaks last night. I made the sign. People held candles inside of paper cups. There was a coffin and signs, and about sixty people. Molly almost got in a fight with another German Shepherd on the two feet of available sidewalk. So much for peace in the dog world!

Las Vegas Grand Prix

We drove to Las Vegas on Saturday Oct. 15 to see the Grand Prix of Las Vegas, an incredible international horse jumping event. You can see a full slide show of the event here. These were the most outrageous jumps I've ever seen. The Europeans handled these fences with vigor and authority. The Americans were definitely more challenged, and none made it to the jump-off, which is the final event.

After the Fire

The horses came back last night, and today I went to look at it all.

Passed a lot of fire engines leaving. You can see what a narrow way in, and the only way out, is Bell Canyon Blvd.










The fire came incredibly close to some houses.


Unfortunately there is still plenty of dry brush out there with Santa Ana winds starting up again next week.




But Molly enjoyed her first moonwalk.

Rescuing our horses from the Bell Canyon fire!

The last two days have been very dramatic around here. The little brush fire on the news Wed. afternoon turned into a big wildfire in four hours, and we had to evacuate our two horses and two goats from the Bell Canyon Equestrian Center.



As soon as Dinah got home from school we drove out to the stable. It looked incredible with huge firey clouds, and emergency vehicles zooming around in all directions.


Many people were unaware of the fire at all because it came on so fast.
We knew we were in for a long night.

At first very few were at the stable and it was very quiet. Then various messengers would appear and say, "get out now", but there were no trailers and the barn manager said "Not yet." The sky was getting REALLY red, sorry no photos of that. Then the official word came to get out-- there's only one route out of that canyon. Still no trailers. Then a CONVOY of volunteers driving trailers appeared, maybe 20-30 trailers, and we loaded them up as fast as we could. Our two horses and two goats were good getting in the trailers. And they're not always good! We helped load them all.



It didn't entirely go smoothly- lots of people freaking out, arguing, not sure where to go or what to do-- lots of screaming and accusing-- about 100 horses and four goats had to move-- some had never gone in trailers before-- but we all got out.
Our horses went about twenty miles to Hansen Dam, where they had horse show temporary stalls we could use.



The horses all handled the change well, at least so far. The volunteers were amazing- they ask for nothing. Almost all women driving these rigs. Our driver had just been to a vet clinic with a singed horse. They left in a rush to rescue other horses.

We hope to move back to our stable this weekend. No update on what it's like out there, but it's been snowing ash for two days around L.A.

Feeling Much Better

I got the cast off last Thursday and it's wonderful. I'm swimming again and driving and stumping around quite handily. Even back at my favorite hang-out, the dog park again. I haven't made it to the stable yet, but I sure hope to get back on my horse Pepper soon.

Last night we saw the Werner Herzog movie, GRIZZLY MAN. It's terrific! The guy was so nutty, like Michael Jackson among the grizzly bears. People were howling at the 4:15 matinee in West Hollywood. Great footage of grizzlies too. If you live in California, you'll feel as if you met this guy somewhere or other.

I've also been reading several Mormon books this summer. Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven", and Vardis Fisher "Children of God". I liked the Vardis Fisher "Mountain Man" better.

I posted a series of photos of Molly swimming in our pool on my flickr page here.

One problem we don't have!

Hey Martha, we have goats too!

It goads me that Martha Stewart and I share a few things, (not the $) but yes I have a nasty Chow though I've moved on to German Shepherds, and yes I am under a form of house arrest because of my broken ankle, and yes, I grew up in New Jersey and love horses.

And now I learn that Martha is upset because at her big new house they won't let her keep her goats and chickens. What? I have goats and chickens.
eeeeh. However, Martha would despair if she walked in the door. Besides, the Chow would probably bite her.

However, I have been having fun with flickr, loaded some goats pictures, plus paintings I did a long time ago.

All at my flickr site/

Things are looking up.

Yesterday I got a neon orange walking cast, and now I can stump around the house like Frankenstein's monster. I am really enjoying my new freedom. I was rather feeble with the crutches, and approached stairs as the human worm.

One of the best things about the Internet for me is hearing from people I knew long ago. A reason for everyone to have a site, just so people you've lost touch with can reach you through google. It's quite amazing, and unimaginable in the past. Although I missed the Chatham High School reunion this summer, I have heard from many old classmates and loved seeing their pictures on flickr.

messing with firecrackers

labels, that is, in Photoshop.

backyard madness