I have a thing for puppets and these guys are just too cute. This little piggy and cow were needle felted by Laura Lee Burch. Makes me want to try needle felting again but alas I'll just end up stabbing my fingers.

With Thanksgiving a few days away, it’s time to think about (reaching teens and collegians during the holiday shopping season with well targeted messaging. Kohl’s gets it right with a hilarious take on Rebecca Black’s... Read the rest of this post

By Mark Peters

With the arrival of the new Muppet movie, Kermit, Miss Piggy, Beaker, and our other felt friends are everywhere. There’s no escaping Jim Henson’s creations, and few of us would want to (unless the movie happens to suck, which is doubtful, given the stewardship of Jason Segel, who showed major Muppet mojo in the heartbreaking and spit-taking Forgetting Sarah Marshall). It’s a good time to look at the history of the word Muppet, which has some meanings that would make the Swedish Chef bork with outrage.

Thanks to interviews with Muppet creator Jim Henson, we know Muppet is not a blend of marionette and puppet, though that theory has been appearing since 1959, just four years after Henson invented the crew, who appeared in pre-Sesame Street and Muppet Show fare such as commercials for Wilkins coffee. I love this part of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of Muppet: “Any of a number of humorously grotesque glove puppets.” That phrasing seems humorously grotesque itself, but if it helps a Martian understand a Muppet, I guess it’s worthwhile.

In the eighties, the word took on several meanings. Since 1983, a muppet has been “A lure made to resemble a young squid.” I don’t want to give my enemies (arch or mortal) any ideas, but since calamari is squid, I’m pretty sure this kind of muppet could lure me anywhere. In British prison slang, a muppet is “A prisoner with psychiatric problems; a vulnerable inmate liable to be bullied or harassed by others.” As this 1998 use shows, Muppets aren’t the only Henson creation to carry this meaning: “Their favourite targets are the fraggles, the nonces and the muppets. But anyone showing tell-tale signs of fear is a target for Britain’s jail bullies.”

A muppet can also be an idiot, though I have no idea why, since the Muppets are among the least idiotic members of the puppet community (Elmo excluded). However, this part of the OED’s definition sort of rings true: “someone enthusiastic but inept; a person prone to mishaps through naivety.” With the exception of curmudgeons (RIP Andy Rooney) such as Oscar, Statler, and Waldorf, the Muppets are brimming with optimism from their pieholes to their puppetholes. Green’s Dictionary of Slang also has examples of muppet meaning a child or a cop.

These Muppet meanderings are similar to the meanings smurf has taken on over the years. While most know Smurfs as blue elves with a disturbingly low female population, other smurfs or smurfers make smurf dope: blue crystal meth. A smurf is also “an inexperienced or short prison officer,” as Green’s puts it, and a gay man who’s youngish and blonde. Plus, smurf is one of the most awesome euphemisms for the f-word in the known universe, as seen in words like clustersmurf, mothersmurfer, ratsmurf, and fan-smurfing-tastic. If I didn’t know better, I’d think smurf has an acronymic origin, like fubar and milf. Despite the PG origin, something about smurf feels blue in the naughty sense.

When a word is as fun to say as Smurf or Muppet, there’s no stopping how people will use it. Now that the Muppets are back, who knows what this mega-appealing word will soon describe? I have no idea, but let me suggest a meaning, Urban Dictionary-style, that I’ve used and suspect others use: “A harmless, lovable person.” I used this sense when I called my friend Neil a Muppet a few years ago, as Neil was stuck giving a presentation that typically made students reach for pitchforks and torches. This pernicious presentation made presenters long for a force field, or at least student-proof chicken wire. In calling Neil a Muppet, I

We begin this week with something extraordinary.  A book trailer that looks like a movie trailer (no real surprises there) but that includes so many specific details to its book that you’re half inclined to think that the movie version already exists.  Super 8’s actor Joel Courtney stars in trailer for The Dragon’s Tooth by ND Wilson.  What’s funny about it is that its locations are eerily perfect, the scenes amazing, and yet it has one aspect that makes me sad.  You see, the hero of this book and his sister are dark skinned.  Yet here you can see that they’re pretty darn white.  To be fair this is entirely due to the fact that Mr. Courtney is friends with Mr. Wilson’s kids and that’s how he got the part.  Still . . . sigh.  Ditto the fact that an elderly woman from the book now appears to be 45.  Perhaps elderly actresses are difficult to find sometimes?  But aside from all that this is a remarkable piece of work.  Maybe the best movie-like book trailer I’ve ever seen.  Little wonder since it was directed by the author himself!  If that whole writing books thing doesn’t work out, I can see a second career ready and waiting. Thanks to Heather Wilson for the link.

Along similar lines is this trailer for Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone.  When you’ve been following an author since day one, there’s an instinct to claim them.  I loved Ms. Taylor when she wrote her Faeries of Dreamdark books back in the day.  Now she’s hugely popular and I feel very possessive of her.  With a whopping 50,000+ views (holy moses!) this next video is not as sophisticated as Wilson’s, but it has its own ineffable charm, no?

A very different kind of book trailer involves the recent winner of The Society of Illustrator’s Original Art gold medal.  I daresay that this is the first time in my own recollection that a nonfiction title has won the award (and from National Geographic at that!).  And I can think of no better way to see the art than this little video right here:

Gorgeous. Thanks to Jules Danielson for the link!

If I hadn’t begun with all those book trailers I probably would have begun with this glimpse of the staged production of How to Train Your Dragon in Australia.  Because when it comes to stage puppetry, you ain’t never NEVER seen nuthin’ like this: