Monday, December 23, 2013

PART ONE: ACT ONE

This is a pop-up book that is the first act of a play. It contains some of the dialogue and the narrator parts, but since it is in pop-up book form it is presented as PART ONE of a three part story. I worked for 8 years to create this book and have been writing the play for 12 years. The book pictured is one of four books, hand painted, hand built designed and written by myself, illustrated by Nathan Matthews. There are three scenes in this first act, and three pop-up illustrations per scene, nine pages total.Cover

Page One: Act One: Scene One: opens with Our Hero laying on his kitchen table recording the concert of electronic sounds from his kitchen for hours as he ponders the demise of his marriage, before going on tour with Wesley Willis
 
Page One: Act One: Scene One

Page One: Act One: Scene One: the Formica 50's style table top

Page One: Act One: Scene One: table covered in dirty dishes that have to get moved around. Unfortunately, this pop-up book has been up for display, and one of the stacks of dirty cups have been broken by handling. I can fix it, and I am sure this picture communicates the gist of the image

Page Two: Act One: Scene One: We go deeper into the internal thoughts of Our Hero

Page Two: Act One: Scene One.

Page Two: Act One: Scene One: Our Hero is about to dis-embark from his home and job, now that his wife has left, and become a part of the road touring crew for Wesley Willis, but he hates the music, so he is recording hours and hours of the drone of his kitchen to play in his heads phones during the shows.
 
Page Two: Act One: Scene One: Music is powerful, sounds are powerful, repeated loop sounds will join with his internal rhythm and unfortunately Our Hero is in great danger of getting lost in his own mind.
 
Page Three: Act One: Scene One: Now his body becomes a part of his larger environment, where-ever he is.
 
Page Three: Act One: Scene One: Our Hero has a small remote control in his pocket, while he is standing in the back of the club, with his ear phone under the ear flaps of his hunting cap. He is controlling the volume.
 
Page Three: Act One: Scene One: The text is typed individually on my manual type writer. Each piece of paper is a different part of the dialogue.
 
Page Three: Act One: Scene One: Each pop up is designed to open and stay own by virtue of it's own design, so you can just sit back and look at it. Each book is built differently. Some of them open like a quilt, or a path, and so you can lay the entire book out at once in front of you on the floor, and engage all the pop up and see the entire book as it is completely open. This book is built like a traditional book, accordion style, but is is built backwards.
 
 
Page Four: Act One: Scene Two: There are many people in the club that night, all on their own trip. Our Hero makes a trip to the bathroom


 
Page Four: Act One: Scene Two: As Our Hero moves through the crowd is begins to realize that he exists in a particular place in time, and that he is alive in relation to other living things.
Page Four: Act One: Scene Two: Each person is distinct in and of themselves, and Our Hero hears snatches of conversation as he passes them through the crowd.Page Four: Act One: Scene Two:The tabs their heads are mounted to carry the writing of what Our Hero hears as he passes them, and also the internal thoughts of the people that they don't vocalize.Page Four: Act One: Scene Two:"My gums are numb" "from alcohol"Page Four: Act One: Scene Two: The energetic expense of the power that is bound up in the wires messes with the ability for people to be truly aware of and understand one another, and so wires/signals get crossed, missed, confused.
 
Page Five: Act One: Scene Two: Our Hero is waiting in line for the bathroom and he sees a teenage boy come out of the bathroom with a hand full of poo and hurl it at the stage. Our Hero's is jolted back into the present moment and his heart engages.

 
Page Five: Act One: Scene Two: the tab pulls up and the heart lifts up to reveal the inner workings
 

Page Five: Act One: Scene Two: you move the wheel and the diodes of the heart twirl.


Page Five: Act One: Scene Two: hand typed text




Page Six: Act One: Scene Two: one photo is darker than the other. okay

 

Page Six: Act One: Scene Two: He is like a walrus lumbering out the back stoop. Our Hero is loosely inspired by Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character from the novel "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole


Page Seven: Act One: Scene Three: The teenage boy will not be cowed by Our Hero, who to him seems like an pile of pudding, and he attacks Our Hero viciously until he pees on himself. As he is lying on the pavement he sees a crow flying up to it's nest in a bundle of wires attached to the side of the building with something shiny in its' beak.


Page Seven: Act One: Scene Three: the crow flying up to its' nest


Page Seven: Act One: Scene Three: the crow flying up to it's nest


Page Eight: Act One: Scene Three: An airplane buzzes the air, his glasses are knocked away, his vision of the organic and in-organic world becomes a delusional division of convenience, as everything that is here on this earthly sphere is here together, made of the same matter as everything else. Everything is everything


Page Eight: Act One: Scene Three: as the crow flies up to it's nest the teenage boy throws something and knocks the nest down into the parking lot, as the airplane flies over head. The tour bus driver emerges from the tour bus with a few young girls in a cloud of smoke


Page Eight: Act One: Scene Three: the airplane


Page Eight: Act One: Scene Three: the bird and the air plane


Page Nine: Act One: Scene Three: Our Hero moves away from the conflict to retrieve the shiny thing from inside the crow's nest


Page Nine: Act One: Scene Three: Our Hero moves away from the conflict to retrieve the shiny thing from inside the crow's nest


Page Nine: Act One: Scene Three: Our Hero moves away from the conflict to retrieve the shiny thing from inside the crow's nest. 

The cost of this book is $500.00.
 

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