Five Questions from Yoko

Here’s the five questions that Yoko asked me:

1) How did you come to choose a career in animation over writing?

Based on a total misapprehension of what it involved.  I graduated college with a Liberal Arts degree encompassing studies in Art, English, Communications, Theatre and Philosophy, but with no clear way of turning that into a salary.  Being a professional philosopher was out, and being a professional communicator was so vague as to be meaningless.  That left Art, English and Theatre. If I chose English, I would have had to start writing novels or short stories and submitting them to editors, which I knew was a hard road.  If I chose Theatre, I would have had to start going to cattle calls in the City of Mists, or trying to get into IATSE, which seemed quixotic at best.  And in both those cases, I would be at the mercy of the whims of other people.  But (or so I thought), if I chose Art, then I didn’t have to deal with anyone else; all I needed was a pencil and a piece of paper and I could do it alone.

Shortly after framing the debate in those terms, I saw Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” for the second time, and during that repeat screening it hit me like a thunderclap: “Of course!  Why didn’t I think of that before?  I’ve been watching cartoons my whole life!  They’ve been the only thing I’ve consistently cared about!  And they’re Art-based!  I should do animation!”  The fact that animated movies and television shows were produced by anywhere from dozens to hundreds of people, all working together in a carefully structured hierarchy, with massive amounts of editing of any one individual’s work and all the creative freedom concentrated at the top in the hands of a few people somehow escaped me in that epiphany.  By the time I figured that out, I had worked as a float teller in a Savings & Loan for a year to save up money, then used that money to do a post-grad term in Art School, then quit the art school early because I was getting professional work, then become an established professional.  So I just kept rolling with it.

Ironically, there is a plausible argument to be made that it was the English, Communications, Theatre and Philosophy that allowed me to succeed in the career, as artists are a dime-a-dozen, and there are quite a few of them more technically proficient than I am.  English gave me the ability to dissect a script and see where it wasn’t working;  Theatre gave me a basis in understanding staging and performance.  Communications allowed me to navigate the complexities of sometimes hostile workplaces without taking too much harm.  And Philosophy gave me a certain degree of perspective on getting canned every six months and having to look for a new job.  That and the alcohol.

2)  What’s the first book you ever remember reading?

Oy.  Some kind of compilation of children’s stories.  No idea what the title was, or the author;  my recollection of it is limited to a single flash image of a block-print illustration of a pot-bellied stove and a country-type woman, above a passage narrating how the woman cooked mincemeat pies.  I remember being confused by that, because I had no idea what mincemeat was, and it seemed incongruous to put meat in a pie, which was a dessert.  From the peripheral cues, I’d estimate I was 2.  Maybe 3.  I was still sleeping in a crib.

3)  What is your favorite fish (or combination of ingredients) for sushi?

Uni.  Straight-up tekka maki.  Salmon, if it’s a hand roll.  Pickled radishes.  Anything that combines crunchy and creamy,  like a Boston Roll full of lettuce and mayo,  or a Spider Roll with hot soft-shell crab, panko crumbs and avocado.  Yum.

4)  Are you still doing that hiking/biking/rafting club thing?

Only on paper.  First Mom fell, then Dad died, then I got sick, then I got a relationship, then I lost the relationship, then I got sick again, and throughout all of that I worked and worked and worked, and spent most of the rest of the time with my son.  I get maybe 4 unspoken-for days a month to myself.  Maybe.  The effort required to go out and haul my sorry ass through a forest on one of those days seems Herculean.

5)  Which card in the tarot do you identify most strongly with?

Ach.  None of them, these days.  I suppose on some level I’ll always be the King of Wands, and the High Priestess will keep saving my life as long as I have a life (or lives). But the cards have been silent for years now.  There’s a reason I made that movie on the Main Index.