Terrytoon Epiphany
Until 1977, I had no recall of encountering the name Anatole France -- great French writer -- until a reference in Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden where he mentions that Lord Byron possessed one of the largest brains [2200 cc] on record while Anatole France had one of the smallest [1000 cc] for a grown male, despite Byron not being twice as intelligent as France.
However, Anatole France had a profound influence on my life.
As my sixth birthday approached, experiencing my first winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, I encountered this spare, magical eight-minute cartoon, unlike anything else witnessed by me before or thereafter. I saw it exactly once in my life until this afternoon when it struck me that on the cyber-realization of Gordon R. Dickson's Final Encyclopedia I might relive this moment of my boyhood. Several months ago, in relating a story to my friend SF writer L. Jagi Lamplighter arhyalon about my childhood in the Great White North, I used GoogleMaps to explore the street level of the church my family attended in the forested outskirts and traveled back in time it seemed to gaze upon again the silver birches I played amongst with my brother.
So, with trepidation, that even though I have been told by a child psychologist that I had close to what is described as an eidetic memory, I feared the reality of the animation would fall short of the wonder of my experience as viewed through the eyes of the child I had been.
Because this cartoon altered the course of my life and shaped my philosophy to this day.
I was not disheartened.
Let me share this very personal epiphany with you:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8s7e2_juggler-of-our-lady_creation
Here's the story behind it, by one of its creators:
http://genedeitchcredits.com/roll-the-credits-01/29-r-o-blechman/
As a member of the Heinlein Society and a lifelong reader of Robert A. Heinlein since stumbling upon one of his Juveniles in the school library when I was eight, it came as no great surprise when revealed by Spider Robinson in his The Best of All Possible Worlds anthology that this tale was a favorite of RAH.
JJB
However, Anatole France had a profound influence on my life.
As my sixth birthday approached, experiencing my first winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, I encountered this spare, magical eight-minute cartoon, unlike anything else witnessed by me before or thereafter. I saw it exactly once in my life until this afternoon when it struck me that on the cyber-realization of Gordon R. Dickson's Final Encyclopedia I might relive this moment of my boyhood. Several months ago, in relating a story to my friend SF writer L. Jagi Lamplighter arhyalon about my childhood in the Great White North, I used GoogleMaps to explore the street level of the church my family attended in the forested outskirts and traveled back in time it seemed to gaze upon again the silver birches I played amongst with my brother.
So, with trepidation, that even though I have been told by a child psychologist that I had close to what is described as an eidetic memory, I feared the reality of the animation would fall short of the wonder of my experience as viewed through the eyes of the child I had been.
Because this cartoon altered the course of my life and shaped my philosophy to this day.
I was not disheartened.
Let me share this very personal epiphany with you:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8s7e2_juggler-of-our-lady_creation
Here's the story behind it, by one of its creators:
http://genedeitchcredits.com/roll-the-credits-01/29-r-o-blechman/
As a member of the Heinlein Society and a lifelong reader of Robert A. Heinlein since stumbling upon one of his Juveniles in the school library when I was eight, it came as no great surprise when revealed by Spider Robinson in his The Best of All Possible Worlds anthology that this tale was a favorite of RAH.
JJB