On Jules Verne's Old Stomping Grounds
Tipped off by Making Light, I found my sense of wonder tickled by pictures of the Small Giantess of Nantes and the Sultan's Metal Elephant. Would be wonderful to have them visit my city.
Jean-Luc Courcoult says:
“In the year 1900, Professor SAHIB started work on the phenomenal construction of an elephant to be used as a time machine. His project, no matter how insurmountable it may have appeared, took up all his energy and also attracted the attention of the sultan of his country. This ensured that he had the necessary means and funding for his project. The results of his efforts to transform giraffes and monkeys into machines were disappointing for many years; it was not that his special training hurt the animals but they did not like his treatment and he was faced with the stumbling block of their problems of memory which meant that they could not concentrate enough to go back in time.
Faced with the sultan's dissatisfaction, he obtained a troop of elephants and fed them with a mixture of crushed metal, gunpowder and denatured oil that he imported from Abyssinia. This source of oil attracted his attention because the nearby trees had become large metallic sculptures. However, although the metal provided the idea of eternity, it did not provide the movement necessary for his invention. Of course, the elephants became metallic after a few months, but they were as immobile as the sculptures. The professor has to face the facts: he needed a special elephant and at that time, there was a group of isolated mountains in the heart of India where an elephant that was over three hundred years old lived. The sultan was growing impatient. So all the people in the palace were requisitioned to capture the animal. Time went by and the elephant became nothing more than a steel sculpture, like the hundred or so that decorated the city's gardens. Afraid of the sultan's wrath and vexed by his failure, he had the idea of building steel kneecaps that he placed on the key points of the animal's joints. With the help of ropes, jacks and springs he succeeded in getting the animal to move.
Then, he placed a terrace on the elephant's back and made rooms in its stomach. It was a real vessel with a kitchen and a bathroom. He invited the sultan and his suite to climb onto the back of the machine and got his team to set the elephant in motion. He was surprised, even astonished and afraid when he saw the trees grow slowly, the buildings deteriorate and the city mushroom. The delighted sultan showered him with gold and set off a few weeks later on the back of the elephant on a long journey through time...”
More pictures, swell video clips, and commentary in English from Ian Flanigan.
Here's collection of links from Hilary Talbot's puppetry blog, Spirits Dancing.
They're in Amiens right now. London in September. Other cities later.
Jean-Luc Courcoult says:
“In the year 1900, Professor SAHIB started work on the phenomenal construction of an elephant to be used as a time machine. His project, no matter how insurmountable it may have appeared, took up all his energy and also attracted the attention of the sultan of his country. This ensured that he had the necessary means and funding for his project. The results of his efforts to transform giraffes and monkeys into machines were disappointing for many years; it was not that his special training hurt the animals but they did not like his treatment and he was faced with the stumbling block of their problems of memory which meant that they could not concentrate enough to go back in time.
Faced with the sultan's dissatisfaction, he obtained a troop of elephants and fed them with a mixture of crushed metal, gunpowder and denatured oil that he imported from Abyssinia. This source of oil attracted his attention because the nearby trees had become large metallic sculptures. However, although the metal provided the idea of eternity, it did not provide the movement necessary for his invention. Of course, the elephants became metallic after a few months, but they were as immobile as the sculptures. The professor has to face the facts: he needed a special elephant and at that time, there was a group of isolated mountains in the heart of India where an elephant that was over three hundred years old lived. The sultan was growing impatient. So all the people in the palace were requisitioned to capture the animal. Time went by and the elephant became nothing more than a steel sculpture, like the hundred or so that decorated the city's gardens. Afraid of the sultan's wrath and vexed by his failure, he had the idea of building steel kneecaps that he placed on the key points of the animal's joints. With the help of ropes, jacks and springs he succeeded in getting the animal to move.
Then, he placed a terrace on the elephant's back and made rooms in its stomach. It was a real vessel with a kitchen and a bathroom. He invited the sultan and his suite to climb onto the back of the machine and got his team to set the elephant in motion. He was surprised, even astonished and afraid when he saw the trees grow slowly, the buildings deteriorate and the city mushroom. The delighted sultan showered him with gold and set off a few weeks later on the back of the elephant on a long journey through time...”
More pictures, swell video clips, and commentary in English from Ian Flanigan.
Here's collection of links from Hilary Talbot's puppetry blog, Spirits Dancing.
They're in Amiens right now. London in September. Other cities later.