stand, and unfold yourself!

ajkoch:

natfish:

standandunfoldyourself:

mabelmoments:

(via thesophie)

hey, natalie. a sweet, tender photo that made me think of you.

this picture makes me tear up every time i see it. (i almost went to muppet school instead of theatre school…). 

i often wonder what else he would have done, had he lived.

It makes me happy that a Muppet photo made you think of me :)

This is a really nice image. It’s crazy how personified a piece of felt and plastic eyes can be.

Carol, it makes me happy that you seriously considered Muppet School.

You’re such a badass.

thank you, but you know - muppet school is what is badass! and although i’m very happy about the ultimate outcome (i.e. the current nature of my life as it stands), i sometimes think made the wrong choice that day, simply in terms of the worldview offered by those two very different places. at that time, goodman offered kind of loose, non-skill sets of skills and the idea that “if you want to act, you will do *anything*.” since, at the time, i could easily think of at least 50 things right off the top of my head that i wouldn’t do in order to act, i assumed that meant that i both couldn’t and shouldn’t be working anywhere near a theatre (a correct assumption, as far as they were concerned). the idea that theatre was a living art, that it could be really vital, that it was worthwhile - none of that ever really came up. it was a pretty cynical experience and it changed the way i felt about theatre for a very long time.

but, at least while jim henson was alive, the muppet world view seems to have been that the world is an infinitely open, even magical, space, where creativity is harnessed for good reasons, not simply self-promotion: it was harnessed to make things that hoped to be worthwhile. things that were fun, things that were challenging, things that made people consider their world - which is basically what i think art is supposed to do.

that it’s an art you do with your hand up the green felt butt of a small constructed thing - that certainly appealed to my extremely strong sense of whimsy. that it’s something that you do while crawling around on the floor, hanging around in horribly weird and uncomfortable positions, that it is, in the end, such a surreal thing to be involved in as a performer - but that, when you see someone working at the top of their craft, you see everything that picture of there shows. so many layers of what i would dare to call truth, wrapped up in green felt and a staged photograph. that is theatre. the person that is working the kermit puppet in that photo isn’t just sitting there, bored, with a thing on his or her hand. and look at the face of kermit in the photo - look at what henson is sending up his arm and out into the world.

that’s badass, is what that is. jim henson and kermit changed the world.