a day without animation is

Yes, this is Dr. Zork. And no, I am not about to write to you a sizzling article in which I detail the ten greatest washboard solos in the history of sweet jazz music. And yes, I will relate to you more of the details in the life of the fictional character, amateur animator John Akre.

Yesterday was a day without animation. He had a long day at his fictional real job and got no animation work done. So perhaps I should use this opportunity to fill you in some more of his backstory.

He was young. He was a fictional pre-teen. He drew on paper with crayons and cut out the shapes. He made his characters and moved them frame by frame, quickly flicking the shutter release of his 8mm camera for he had no single frame shutter release on that 1950's Brownie movie camera.

His light source was a desk lamp. At one point the desk lamp fell down and burned a small brown dot into the green living room carpet, which was his animation stand.

His first animated film was of Noah's Ark, the ancient story. To present the rain, he drew with a felt tip marker some black dots upon a sheet of plastic kitchen wrap and then moved the sheet down frame by frame over his drawing of the ark/ship at sea.

His second animated film was the continuing adventures of a cat chasing after a gerbil. He remembers disguising his cat in a giant seed, but the gerbil sees the cat out and splits open the seed with a hatchet. The cat then also splits in half, but we are happy to report that the cat was back in the next scene for further adventures.

Enough of the past. Here is the pome.

it was electric
it was eccentric
that action
that reaction

i was as flat
as a sandwich
i did not want
i did not question

it was alarming
it was calming
that image
planned by force

i was as angle
as a table
i had a hand
it merely rotated

Written for you in sincerity and with fingers,
Dr. Hubert Zork