Puppet Passage of the Day...

"Look at the ugly little thing for yourself then, and tell me if it's an ordinary puppet!" said Delia, her voice rising.

Curiously I examined the limp figure she had jerked out of her handbag and tossed on my desk. The blue-white dollface grinned at me, revealing yellowish fangs. A tiny wig of black horse hair hung down as far as the empty eye-sockets. The cheeks were sunken. It was a gruesome piece of workmanship, with a strong flavor of the Middle Ages. The maker had evidently made a close study of stone gargoyles and stained-glass devils.

Attached to the hollow papier-mâché head was the black garment that gave the figure its appearance of limpness. Something after the fashion of a monk's robe, it had a little cowl that could be tucked over the head, but now hung down in back.

I know something about puppets, even though my line is a far cry from puppeteering. I am a private detective. But I knew that this was not a marionette, controlled by strings, but a hand puppet. It was made so that the operator's hand could be slipped up through the empty garment until his fingers were in a position to animate the head and arms. During an exhibition the operator would be concealed beneath the stage, which had no floor, and only the puppets would be visible above the footlights.

I drew the robe over my hand and fitted my index finger up into the head, my second finger into the right sleeve, and my thumb into the left sleeve of the puppet. That, as I recalled, was the usual technique. Now the figure was no longer limp. My wrist and forearm filled out the robe.

I wiggled finger and thumb, and the manikin waved his arms wildly, though somewhat awkwardly, for I have seldom manipulated a puppet. I crooked my first finger and the little head gave a vigorous nod.

"Good morning, Jack Ketch," I said, making the manikin bow, as if acknowledging my salutation.

"Don't!" cried Delia, and turned her head away.

Fritz Leiber - "Power of the Puppets"
​
 
You do not have to experience yourself as a living person to be conscious. There are neuropsychiatric disorders in which patients have lost just this, and only this, aspect of their phenomenal self without losing conscious experience or the first-person perspective altogether. In Cotard's syndrome, patients experience themselves as dead, as not being living entities anymore. Such patients form the firm and persisting belief of not being a living person anymore, and they consciously experience this very fact. In severe forms of depersonalization the patient will typically come to see a psychiatrist because he experiences himself as turning into a machine or into a remote-controlled puppet.

-- Thomas Metzinger, Being No One. The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity
 
For a very humorous and strange look at the fear of puppets, watch this episode of Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule.

U.S. Viewers:

[ame]http://video.adultswim.com/check-it-out-with-dr-steve-brule/puppet-show-flashback.html[/ame]

UK Viewers (this is also viewable in Canada):

Check it Out! with Dr Steve Brule: Fear | [adult swim]

I'm not sure about other parts of the world, but hopefully at least one of these links will work for other countries. Oh, and watch soon, because I know that Adult Swim often likes to move things around or take things down altogether, so I'm not sure how long these links will actually work.
 
Greek tragedy may strike us to-day as something austere and wooden, and yet something monstrous and superhuman like the galvanic gestures of vast Cosmic Dolls, who, rising on the rim of our round world, nod and wail at one another, bow and bend to one another, and hurl at one another bleeding thunderbolts of meteoric malediction.

--John Cowper Powys, The Pleasures of Literature (1938)
 
From Marguerite Young's essay "The Doll People":
Fairyland, according to Johnny Gruelle, must be filled with rag dolls—soft, loppy creatures who go through all the beautiful adventures of dream life and are not afraid of the bumps. It is less dangerous, he wrote, for a rag doll to fall downstairs than for a doll with a breakable head, easier if one is a rag doll to tumble and run.
​
Dolls are not puppets, strictly speaking, but still...
 
From “The Puppet-Show,” in Poems, Consisting of Tales, Fables, Epigrams, &c. &c. by Nobody (London, 1770), attributed to J. Robertson

Here dangling on a Pin were seen,
A purpled King, or tinsel’d Queen;
Here Punch with sceptred Princes tumbled,
Here Priests with Beelzebub lay jumbled;
Here sidelong hanging by a Wire,
A chop-fallen Heroe, Prince, or ’Squire.
With such mock Grandeur thus surrounded,
Poor Hodge, alas! was quite confounded . . .
The rest, at Hodge’s droll Mistake,
Laugh ’till their Sides and Midriffs ake:
“Sure, never yet was seen,” cries one,
“Such a besotted Simpleton;
Were you not blind, you might behold
’Tis Tinsel this you take for Gold;
And what you fancy Flesh and Blood,
Is nought, d’ye see, but Rags and Wood,
That cannot speak, look, move, or stand,
But owes all to the Artist’s Hand,
Who fix’d on high, lordly presides,
And with a Wire each Action guides.” . . .
“Nay, haw’d ye, haw’d ye, where’s the Wonder
That I,” quo’ Hodge, “should make this Blunder?
Since, as a Many do report,
In London—nay some say, at Court,—
There’s nought more common than to see
The Beaver doff’d, and bended Knee,
To strutting, wooden-headed Beaus,
With empty Fobbs, and tinsel’d Cloaths;
Who, Puppet-like, ne’er speak or move,
But as they’re wire-led from above;
And like these Folk aside are thrown,
As useless Logs—the Work once done.”
 
"To men who have no eyes to see
the light of day is lunacy.
Philosophers will sometimes find
the Light of Reason strikes them blind.
Upon the stage the puppet seer
is looking for the puppeteer."

― Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff, Havet (1978).​
 
It was a very pale moonlit night, and in the side streets of the town the sleeping houses were washed with silver and there were black tree shadows lying against their walls. They drove down Main Street between the silent shops. On the north side of the street the windows were softly illuminated with moonlight, and inside you could see the ghostly merchandise and the moonlit mannequins standing with wan, smiling doll faces and still, pale, plaster hands, casting black shadows behind them in the windows.

-- J. R. Salamanca, Wild in the Country
 
“Humouresque (After J. Laforgue)” by T. S. Eliot (pub. January 1910)

One of my marionettes is dead,
Though not yet tired of the game,—
But weak in body as in head,
(A jumping-jack has such a frame).

But this deceasèd marionette
I rather liked: a common face,
(The kind of face that we forget)
Pinched in a comic, dull grimace;

Half bullying, half imploring air,
Mouth twisted to the latest tune;
His who-the-devil-are-you stare;
Translated, maybe, to the moon.

With Limbo’s other useless things
Haranguing spectres, set him there;
“The snappiest fashion since last spring’s,
“The newest style on Earth, I swear.

“Why don’t you people get some class?
(Feebly contemptuous of nose),
“Your damned thin moonlight, worse than gas—
“Now in New York”—and so it goes.

Logic a marionette’s, all wrong
Of premises; yet in some star
A hero!—Where would he belong?
But, even at that, what mask bizarre!
 
There were a bunch of puppet and marionette kid shows on early TV that made a deep impression on me because, in spite of the adult assumption that these puppets were cute and lovable.... they were actually... grotesque. Howdy Doody was an alien being, and the way the puppets moved was bizarre and dreamlike [ellipsis Crumb's].

-- Robert Crumb, The R. Crumb Handbook
 
The truth, my children, is that we are, all of us, acting in a marionette comedy. What is important more than anything else in a marionette comedy, is keeping the ideas of the author clear. This is the real happiness of life, and now that I have at last come into a marionette play, I will never go out of it again. But you, my fellow actors, keep the ideas of the author clear. Aye, drive them to their utmost consequences.


Isak Dinesen, "The Roads Round Pisa" (Seven Gothic Tales, 1934)
 
The pills he is given every sixth hour wash away the worst of the pain, which is good, and sometimes send him to sleep, which is better; but they also confuse his mind and bring such panic and terror to his dreams that he baulks at taking them. Pain is nothing, he tells himself, just a warning signal from the body to the brain. Pain is no more the real thing than an X-ray photograph is the real thing. But of course he is wrong. Pain is the real thing, it does not have to press hard to persuade him of that, it does not have to press at all, merely to send a flash or two; after which he quickly settles for the confusion, the bad dreams.
*​
They talk about his future, they nag him to do the exercises that will prepare him for the future, they chivvy him out of bed; but to him there is no future, the door to the future has been closed and locked. If there were a way of putting an end to himself by some purely mental act he would put an end to himself at once, without further ado. His mind is full of stories of people who bring about their own end--who methodically pay bills, write goodbye notes, burn old love letters, label keys, and then, once everything is in order, don their Sunday best and swallow down the pills they have hoarded for the occasion and settle themselves on their neatly made beds and compose their features for oblivion. Heroes all of them, unsung, unlauded. I am resolved not to be any trouble. The only matter they cannot take care of is the body they leave behind, the mound of flesh that, after a day or two, will begin to stink. If only it were possible, if only it were permitted, they would take a taxi to the crematorium, set themselves down before the fatal door, swallow their dose, then before consciousness dwindles press the button that will allow them to emerge on the other side as nothing but a shovelful of ash, almost weightless.

He is convinced that he would put an end to himself if he could, right now. Yet at the same time that he thinks this thought he knows he will do no such thing. It is only the pain, and the dragging, sleepless nights in this hospital, this zone of humiliation with no place to hide from the pitiless gaze of the young, that make him wish for death.
*​
Of course he is not a special case. People lose limbs or the use of limbs every day. History is full of one-armed sailors and chairbound inventors; of blind poets and mad kings too. But in his case the cut seems to have marked off past from future with such uncommon cleanness that it gives new meaning to the word new. By the sign of this cut let a new life commence. If you had hitherto been a man, with a man’s life, may you henceforth be a dog, with a dog’s life. This is what the voice says, the voice out of the dark cloud.

Has he given up? Does he want to die? Is that what it comes down to? The question is false. He does not want to slash his wrists, does not want to swallow down four and twenty Somnex, does not want to hurl himself off the balcony. He does not want death because he does not want anything. But if it so happens that Wayne Blight bumps into him a second time and sends him flying through the air with the greatest of ease, he will make sure he does not save himself. No rolling with the blow, no springing to his feet. If he has a last thought, if there is time for a last thought, it will simply be, So this is what a last thought is like.

Unstrung: that is the word that comes back to him from Homer. The spear shatters the breastbone, blood spurts, the limbs are unstrung, the body topples like a wooden puppet. Well, his limbs have been unstrung and now his spirit is unstrung too. His spirit is ready to topple.

-- J. M. Coetzee, Slow Man
 
Wake up, puppet boy!
Get up, puppet boy!
You got a job to do
Even so you're free to go
Where your master tells you to
Listen, puppet boy!
Before you disobey
Consider that the strings attached
Could make a big change in your ways
Puppet boy!
It's the little things that count
Little problems little minds
Little points of view
Puppet boy!
It's the little things add up
Getting bigger pull the trigger
Little things like you
Stand up, puppet boy!
Time to start the show
You'd better do some brand new moves
They paid a lot to watch you go
No!
What's that, puppet boy?
Don't tell me what to do
What's that, puppet boy?
I'm not a freak like you
What's that, puppet boy?
I'll move when I want to
I can't hear you, puppet boy
Now dance dance dance
Stay out of bed
Unless you wanna get wet
I'm a boy not a toy
And I'm not through yet
Stay out of bed
Unless you wanna get wet
Now wake up, puppet boy!
Listen, puppet boy!
You're not a robot slave
Consider that no strings attached
Could ever make you misbehave
Puppet boy

"Puppet Boy" - Devo
​
 
-

This night you
are mistaken

you're a puppet
in the museum​

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxUvgkYG0do
 
Last edited:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mybflC03kU4

That's 'Showroom Dummies' in German..​

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtT8xsiXBQ

Unheimlich..​
 
"When we face our deaths, our life is like a puppet on a festival cart. As soon as one string is cut, the creature crumbles and fades."

Such is the image given of the existence of man, caught in the perpetual flow of life and death. This constructed puppet, on a cart, shows various aspects of himself but cannot come to life of itself. It represents a deed performed by moving strings. At the moment when the strings are cut, the figure falls and crumbles. Sarugaku (a sort of entertainment) too is an art that makes use of such artifice. What supports these illusions and gives them life is the intensity of mind of the actor. Yet the existence of this intensity must not be shown directly to the audience. Should they see it, it would be as though they could see the strings of a puppet.

Let me repeat again: the actor must make his spirit the strings, and without letting his audience become aware of them, he will draw together the forces of his art.

—Zeami - Mirror Held to the Flower (The Major Treatises of Zeami)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PiG-FA11UM
 
"A limp puppet figure emerged, bounced a moment on a worn-out spring and sat there idly rocking slowly back and forth, all worn out by time and the fading splendours of forgotten histories. The little music box whirred out its last few ringing notes.

I sat, out of breath, staring at the little puppet.

But the face on it, what a remarkable face! Its great hooked nose and crooked grin had been crudely chiselled from a small block of wood and appeared to be splintering apart. Indeed it was. That wonderful face-- so familiar, yet so unbearably other-- was disintegrating and reforming into multitudes of faces; great crowds of faces, looming for an instant and then vanishing, melting into each other. All the ridiculous faces! All the remarkable, wonderful, ridiculous faces! All the wonder, horror, sadness, love and light of humanity in one ludicrous wooden doll that had been hidden for years, perhaps for centuries-- no, millennia!-- here in this little box: a sacred box that had finally given up its secret to me. They all bobbed along with the charming hurdy-gurdy of the master playing in my mind-- all the eyes and cheeks, lips and noses, sliding into a magical mirage of identities.

And the last face-- oh yes, you can guess that quite well-- was my own; with little rosy cheeks, black eyes that glinted with fury, and that great hooked nose and crooked grin that seemed to reveal a deeper, more monstrous physiognomic pattern that I could never have imagined bubbled beneath all our fleshy little masks."
--D. P. Watt, "Vertep" (in The First Book of Classical Horror Stories)
 
“…like a motionless Chinese idol from beneath whose chin a string hangs, leading down under his chair. One waits for the string to be pulled, but it is not pulled; or, if the jaw happens to open slightly, it’s to utter some disheartening words, words which tell you that you have not been noticed, and that all your antics are wasted; the words answer a question you asked several days ago; once they are uttered, the mastoid spring relaxes and the jaws snap shut…”
-- from RAMEAU'S NEPHEW by Denis Diderot

My real-time review of this book: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/rameaus-nephew/

rameau1.jpg
 
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