What is and How Does: Charlie Mackesy

[Originally posted on LA Times HS Insider on April 16, 2021] British-born Charlie Mackesy, author of Barnes and Noble 2019 book of the year “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,” and award-winning illustrator answers questions for the first “What is and How Does?"

What is the last show you binged on Netflix and how does that relate to how you view society?

I binged on “Friends”, and I binged on it because it makes me laugh and it’s timeless and a good escape, but it doesn’t really reflect anything on how I see society. I think society is far more complicated than six 20-somethings living together talking about relationships and drinking the same coffee in Central Perk. That’s my honest answer and my last binge.

What is your favorite color and how does that correlate with how you have salvaged your creativity as an adult?

My favorite color is blue. I wear a lot of blue clothes, my eyes are blue. I love the color of the sea and the sky and I think for me it symbolizes water. I think I’ve always been creative, so I’ve never had to salvage it as an adult but certainly blue has played a big part in my work. It’s often present when others are not.

How do you take your coffee and how does that relate to your political opinions?

My coffee drinking varies an awful lot. I go through phases of not drinking coffee at all, to drinking lattes, to then drinking cappuccinos. But I always have it with milk. It bears no relationship to my understanding of politics, other than my views change and I’m open to change and open to being wrong.

What’s a song that you have on repeat and how does that relate to your upbringing?

“Clay Pigeons” by John Prine, I listen to a lot. It relates to my upbringing because I knew people like him when I was a boy who were very relaxed, open and was evidently on a journey and sometimes wanted to start all over again and talked about it. And there is something very beautiful about that to me, something real and honest and heartwarming, and it reminds me of my upbringing.

What is your preferred mattress style and how does that represent what you believe to be the most important social cause of the 21st century?

I quite like a hard mattress for my back, and I know that many people don’t sleep on mattresses they sleep on the floor, and I think empathy is the important thing to us at the moment. The most important social cause of the 21st century is alleviating poverty and if we learn to understand each other and empathize with one another, we can address it.

Column: An ode to spaghetti

[Originally posted on LA Times HS Insider on March 22, 2021. Edited]

Spaghetti is the shape of a pasta. But growing up, spaghetti was an event.

With garlic bread and simple arguments over who got ahold of the controller and remote, we understood it as c'mote. The red sauce and noodle twirled up on my fork, completely missing my mouth with a lack of grace and for it, earnest happiness.

But as the years grew, I went from calling spaghetti to pasta specifying the sauce with pesto, alfredo, or carbonara. Choosing the pasta with the choices of tortellini, linguini or penne. This is for sure what Aladdin was referring to when talking about a whole new world. But then you get accustomed to it, and the new world is just a world. Only it is remembered as naivete for it to ever have been new. Like we are entitled to becoming accustomed.

Beyond that there are noodles, fitting in a similar category. Peanut noodles, jade noodles, soba noodles, that I eat with a napkin placed carefully on my lap. Only because I was once instructed to. Now I do it because with my practice, I've learned to mean it. Now we have cold kinds of pasta for hot summer days and warm kinds of pasta for comfort and family gatherings.

But as we get older, we refer to garlic bread and pasta as carbs. We chalk it up to naivete for having not always known that. For not prioritizing our health over our wants. Every practice of ours from wandering, embracing eyes soon become chalked up to naivete for having not always known that.

Now spaghetti is nothing but a distasted meal for your picky kid and as beautiful as all of these kinds of pasta get, I sometimes long for Spaghetti.

Bob Baker Marionette Theater: Puppets, the past and the pandemic

[Originally posted on LA Times HS Insider on February 2, 2021]

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a Los Angeles staple, was recently at risk of shutting down due to COVID-19.

The Bob Baker Marionette theater opened in 1963 as a way for kids and grownups alike to get to experience and learn from the perspective of art. The state and county guidelines limited where the theater was able to receive their consistent revenue considering the primary source of income was in-person shows.

Living with these circumstances The Bob Baker Marionette Theater got creative and started Zoom shows where tickets can be purchased on their website for a fun event right in the comfort of your own home. Despite this new approach, the theater was still at risk of shutting down amidst this difficult time for businesses.

The stay-at-home-order caused closure for their busiest time of year: October through December. The Theater is not foreign to struggles and difficulties within the business.

In 2014 the Bob Baker Marionette Theater lost its lease and had to move from its location. What was previously a church became this historic LA- monument’s new home.

Around the world adults still come to the theater reminiscing when they went as kids. This Puppet Theater is embedded in the community.

Once upon a time, a kid used to bounce her ball on the walls of the theater where everyone inside could hear. One day, Bob came out and gave her ice cream where she then went inside for the first time. She now works there as a puppeteer.

Bob Baker Marionette Theater tries to reciprocate the love to the community too. With the exception of this year, the theater has live music events to raise money for underfunded schools to see a puppet show.

Every puppet is crafted with care and is handmade and antique with some puppets being as old as the theater. It originally started with Bob Baker, who previously worked with Disney.

“Legend has it that overnight he [Bob Baker] transformed this dismal old prop house into a beautiful theater to welcome children and is kind of a child’s first experience with live theater,” Missy Steele, Director of Operations at Bob Baker Marionette Theater, said.

The staff has had to pivot and alter their normal routines because of the pandemic. Less consistent income, no in-person shows and Zooms that cost $10 each ticket.

You can join Patreon similar to a subscription where you would help fund the theater, make tax-deductible donations and adopt-a-puppet with options like Santa, Penguins and Hawaiin Pigs. Follow the theater on all social media to stay updated on all news regarding this LA staple.

Bob Baker Marionette Theater’s hope for the future is to open doors, to grow more across the globe while maintaining the history from the past 57 years. Just as Missy Steele says: “It is only up from here.”

bobbakermarionettetheater.com

Editors Note* Published February 2, 2021.