flwyd: (Trevor baby stare)
Got some time to kill? Been through all Vi Hart's videos on YouTube? The next best thing there is almost assuredly Don't Eat the Pictures, a Sesame Street movie from 1983 full of dark myths and deep characters. I saw this on TV when I was 4. Years later, I remembered parts of it vividly, but nobody my age had any idea what I was talking about. Did I really have an imagination rich enough to come up with this? A couple folks have confirmed my memories that this producted. And now, thanks to [livejournal.com profile] scott_lynch, I know what it's called and where to find it.

Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] scott_lynch at Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain
I was a hard-core Sesame Street viewer from about 1979 to 1984, and my memories of the show are the sort of deep nostalgic tangle you'd expect, with a great deal of idiosyncratic noise blended into the signal. So, for many years, I carried around a vague but emotionally vivid recollection of a Sesame Street episode in which Big Bird and Snuffleupagus had witnessed the the passage of a soul to the ancient Egyptian afterlife, complete with the weighing of the human heart against a feather. I shit you not.

For all those years, I just assumed that I was nuts, or that I was conflating a memory of a childhood dream with a childhood television experience. Not long ago, I was trading Sesame Street memories with that girl I like, and I determined to Google-fu my way to the truth.

In the 1983 special Don't Eat the Pictures, assorted humans and Muppets are stuck overnight in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While Oscar, Bob, Cookie Monster, Olivia, and some small children are having the sort of mild and educational adventures you'd expect, Big Bird and Snuffy meet Sahu, a 4,000-year-old Egyptian prince (!) condemned to wander eternally in spirit form (!!) unless he can answer a riddle posed by a demon (!!!) that appears to him each night at midnight. I am not fucking with you. This really happened.




There's Sahu!





ACTUAL DIALOGUE from Big Bird: "Oh no! The demon's gonna be here any second now!" And here's the appearance of that demon, played by James motherfucking Mason.


You know you want to keep going past the cut. )
flwyd: (charbonneau ghost car)
Some thoughts kicking around my head after a conversation today. The ideas aren't new to me, but I think this is an interesting way to phrase them. Perhaps you'll find it helpful too.

When something's really bad, it's easy to make the decision to end it. Think of all the TV shows that get canceled after a pilot or two.

When something's really good, but has a clear time structure, bringing it to the right end is a situation for celebration and pride. Think of your favorite miniseries.

What's hard is deciding to end something that's got some good bits, got some bad bits, and not a lot of new excitement. Think of a TV show that was amazing when it first aired, but hasn't had a brilliant episode in a few seasons. Or think of the great movies that spawned a string of terrible sequels.

Mexican soap operas last six months and then end. U.S. soap operas go on for decades. Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side ran for less than 15 years. How long have Prince Valiant and Mary Worth been in print?

It's important to periodically take stock of your major commitments and decide if they're worth continuing. "The status quo is okay" versus "Maybe there's something much more awesome" is a tough call. The former is certain, the latter much less so. Sometimes you go in search of greater and grander and find out what you had before was actually pretty good. Other times, you look back and wonder why you stayed in Lameville for so long.



Incidentally, I decided on a date to leave my job. April 3rd, give or take a week, will be my last day working for Eagle. (I've been saying I'm leaving for two years now, so it's time to rip off the tape, dammit.) The next stop is Central America for a couple months. Then I'll have the summer to find a more awesome job and go camping a bunch. Some people say it's a bad time to not have a job. I say it's a great time to visit a third world country.
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