You should be able to “click on” to this in order to better read it. I have many “blank books” I’ve drawn in, written in and copied down quotations. I’ve often gone through them and typed up collected quotes, to photocopy and to pass out to people. I believe this was compiled sometime in the 1990’s.
In 2008, I had a large exhibition of my puppet collection at the library of the University of Detroit Mercy (the McNichols Campus). I also included books and images related to puppetry.
This is also my day job. I work the checkout desk, do book repair and do most of the lobby displays. Right now, there’s a display on CHEMISTRY. I helped with it, but it was mainly the Chemistry School (they brought their collections over).
My original statement for this exhibit:
a Marionette of a French Policeman
I still do puppet shows, usually just 5 or 10 a year. It’s usually totally improvisational. I make up songs and bits as I go along. My main goal is to surprise the audience and to get them laughing out loud. I’ve had people screaming and “falling out of their chairs” laughing. Once at the Dally in the Alley, unsupervised children attacked me and pulled the puppets off of my hands. It was like a band being mobbed at a rock concert. Then, I’ve had a few dud shows where people were confused by my act, just didn’t know what to make of it (squares!). This is rare though. I generally get an audience laughing. It’s my comedy act!
There’s a rich puppet tradition in Detroit. There are still a lot of good puppeteers here. In 2000, they hired some of us as “marionette wranglers.” They had simple marionettes for the public to manipulate. We got to give them pointers, untangle the strings and so on. Some kids, who’d never tried to move puppets, had them kickboxing minutes after first trying to move them.
The Detroit Institute of Art has a great puppet collection, the Paul McPharlin Puppetry Collection:
https://www.dia.org/art/collection/dia-collection
They have some of it on their site but as of 2019, most of it says “image not available” but here’s one of the stars:
https://www.dia.org/art/collection/howdy-doody-93417
Detroit’s Puppet Art Theatre:
These photos should enlarge if you click on them and then hit the back button on the browser to return to the post.
Adventures and Resources 