Rolande Duprey documents the process of repairing an historic marionette. It’s fascinating and with beautiful photos.
Paul McPharlin, sometimes called “the Father of American Puppetry” built a marionette covered wagon with a team of two horses and a driver for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair “A Century of Progress”.
Many years later, the horses and driver were discovered at an elementary school in Michigan by Fern Zwicky, who recognized them as having been at the “transport” exhibit at the fair. She gave them to John Miller, who kept them in his collection as she had found them. In the 1970’s, one of the horses, that was in fairly good shape, was photographed by Time/Life for a book on puppetry.
The other horse was missing a foreleg and hoof. In the spring of 2008, John’s widow, Marilyn O’Connor Miller asked me to repair the horse’s leg. I brought it to the O’Neil Puppetry Conference, where Phillip Huber and Jim Rose could help give advice on how to go about the repair.
I love you so much.
Thank you for using “an” in front of historic.
So many people are convinced it’s wrong and THEY are wrong. So I always lavish praise and affection on people who have it right.
Oh, and I plan to make a Team Robinette-Kowal shirt for Denvention and what I have dubbed The Night I Shall Frantically Check The Blogosphere For Who Won Stuff.
To be fair, I think “historic” is one of those that can go either way because the H is not mute and I think that’s usually the dividing line. Like “a hundred” because the H is voiced.
You are swell! If I had a device that went with my ballgown, I’d post from the awards ceremony.
(Psst… Before you make that shirt, you should double-check my FAQ.)
I don’t think “a historic” looks right. I went round and round with a couple of friends on this, but my final authority was Douglas Adams writing about something in The Salmon of Doubt and yes, he wrote “an historic”. Then I gleefully went and pointed it out to everyone who had to agree, yes, DNA pwns us all and is always right. I look at it this way…”an historic event” or what have you simply sounds better in verbal communication, so I will use it. That’s generally my dividing line–what sounds better spoken? It served me well as a child since I could read before I started talking and I always read far beyond my level, so while I knew big words and could use them in the proper context…can my parents tell you some whoppers about me trying to pronounce these tricky words and their not understanding me til I went and got the book I found it in, lol. They STILL get on me for “paraphernalia”…
I went to the FAQ, looked at it for like a full minute wondering “What does she want to me to find there…?”
MY BAD!!!! Can I edit comments? 😛 Can I say I was drunk? It was too early? It was too early AND I was drunk? Egg on my face or WHAT.
I completely agree that “an historic” sounds better, but I think that’s in part because the H is only lightly voiced.
You must have been an awfully cute child. “Paraphernalia!”
And don’t worry about the Robinette-Kowal hyphenation. People hyphenate those two all the time. I should have just said that Robinette is my middle name and Kowal is my last, instead of making you look. So the egg? Is on my face.
Oh I was. But I said pah-fer-nah-fail-ya. My mother still is incapable of pronouncing the word correctly since my mispronunciation brings her such mirth. I think I was five, possibly six when that happened. I told my father he had way too much pahfernafailya on his desk and they thought I was nuts til I showed them the word in the book. Then they were amazed I’d used it and correctly. After a couple of those instances I did start diving for the dictionary and reading things aloud in my head.
I was still drunk and it was early. And I might also have had rabies at the time. *firm nod* I AM STILL THE BIGGEST FAN!!!! *gets out her signs*
I had looked at this earlier before heading out to the barn. Liz came in, standing in the far end of the room and said, “Oh my god, what’s wrong with that horse!?”
“It’s okay honey, it’s a marionette.”
It somehow (a very loose connection) reminded me of these driftwood horses.
Ha! You know, I thought of you as I was posting this.
The driftwood horses are quite amazing. There’s a pair outside the Portland Airport that I’m fond of.
The details of a horse marionette are only important as to fool a horse girl walking into a room and glancing at an LCD screen from 10 feet away…