Storybook: Larkin Wyley’s Paleontology Adventure

By Artie Knapp (USA – ArtieKnapp.com)

Illustration by divaDzine

BEFORE THE SUN had even broken across the horizon, young Larkin Wyley was anxious to start his day. Larkin was confident he was going to make a paleontology discovery so big and so grand, that it would put his name in the Kid’s Hall of Fame.

As his parents drove him to the digging site, it was hard for Larkin to contain his excitement.

“Just think, in a couple of hours I may be holding something millions of years old!” said Larkin.

“Well, that would be something, Larkin. But remember, paleontology is hard work. The most important thing is to just have fun today,” said his dad.

“And if things don’t turn out like you had hoped, that’s okay. Just keep at it,” said Larkin’s mom.

Larkin appreciated his parents’ advice, but quickly reminded them about the local farmer who had discovered a fossilized dinosaur egg many years before.

“Where there’s one, there’s sure to be more!” said Larkin with great excitement.

Then the Wyley family drove up a long country dirt-road, where Larkin’s grandparents owned land that stretched as far as the eye could see. And it was there that Larkin knew he would find his T-Rex.

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Animation: Dog Life

Who is Tanya Grishko? She made this film and it’s just absolutely magnificent. There’s not a false note anywhere in it. The timing is brilliant, never missing a beat. I love the scene in the bar where she starts lapping her drink and all the customers are just staring at her. Fantastic. Beautiful drawings. If you’re running an animation studio, just meet Ms. Grishko on the corner, walk her through the front door, sit her down at a desk and have her start working.

Another film from the Candlelight Stories Short Films group on Vimeo.

Epic Mickey Wii Game Intro

This is the opening cinematic from the upcoming Wii game Epic Mickey. It is fun and has that ever-flowing look of a Disney cartoon. I have one quibble with it. You can’t always do in computer animation what you do in hand-drawn animation. In this case, I think the problem is in Mickey’s hands. They are a little off.

1000 Years of Polish History Turned Into 8 Minutes of Xbox Hell

Here’s how you obfuscate 1000 years of history. You animate it into an unintelligible eight minutes for an expo in Shanghai because certainly those Chinese are interested in how the Poles won their freedom. But the real problem with this animation that seems to place Poland’s entire history squarely into an Xbox game is the ending. All that history brings us up to the overbearing and rather creepy final images of the great corporate towers ascending into the heavens, completely taking over and creating the corporate citadel of wonder that houses only cubicle workers and offers relaxing courtyards where business people can take a mandatory lunch.  It’s as if the only thing the western world can figure out to do with cities anymore is to turn them into gargantuan corporate business parks unfit for any human habitation.

Animation: Sensology

Animator, Michel Gagné, has just premiered his latest film.  Sensology is a visualization of music played by Paul Plimley (piano) and Barry Guy (bass).  The images actually look like the sounds they accompany.  I couldn’t help thinking all the way through the film that the pictures were exactly how the notes sounded.  I’m normally very hard to amuse with shapes that illustrate music, but this piece is short and good.  My favorite part is the machine-like animation near the end.

Via Cartoon Brew

Animation: Dante’s Inferno In Under 2 Minutes

Filmmaker Declan Moran made this under 2-minute version of Dante’s Inferno which is based on a book called Dante’s Inferno: A Comedy’ by the Brothers Grim & Grimy (undead). I like it.  Dante’s actual book is so full of colorful Italian whining that I find it almost unreadable.  I mean really, the nasty old fellow used his trip through the underworld to take out his revenge for every little insult he ever suffered at the hands of almost anyone he ever met.  Insufferable.  Well, suffer no more, the Inferno is here in short form!

Special Treat For The Anti-Defamation League: How to Build a Mosque

Since the Anti-Defamation League has just decided to support the mission of bigots opposed to the building an Islamic center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site in New York City, I thought I’d offer them a special presentation on the building of a mosque.

Another suggestion for all bigots like those who work at the Anti-Defamation League would be to schedule a field trip to a local mosque to see just how well-treated one is upon entering a mosque.  If you have never been inside a mosque I would recommend going.  What you imagine goes on inside a mosque is most certainly not what goes on inside a mosque.  Give it a try sometime.  Get to know the people inside the building and when you start to feel really bad about the way you have behaved, just chalk it up to your own uneducated imagination.

Here’s an article about the raging anti-Muslim attitudes spreading across the U.S. and Europe.

Click here for the other 6 parts of the video

Animation: Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty

In this Oscar-Nominated short, Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty, directed by Nicky Phelan and produced by Darragh O’Connell, old Granny tells a tale that goes a bit off the rails as all good stories should do.  It’s hilarious.  It’s got a maniacally angry ‘elderly fairy’ who crashes the fairy tale party and spreads her bile around the joint in a most amusing tirade.

Anti-Defamation League Joins Anti-Mosque Bigots in Hatred

Anti-Defamation League - Fighting Anti-Semitism, Bigotry and Extremism - Yeah, unless you're a Muslim.

The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that ostensibly stands up for religious freedom and tolerance in the United States has shocked and disgusted many people, including me, by announcing their opposition to the construction of a mosque in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site.

In the vicinity! We’re not talking about on top of Ground Zero. We’re talking about nearby, somewhere in the general neighborhood in New York City.

The Anti-Defamation League appears, as a result of this bizarre proclamation, to be an organized group of bigots pretending to support tolerance.

Muslims have every right to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site.  There’s nothing inappropriate or wrong about it.  In fact, I think it shows a concerted effort to be a thriving part of the New York community.  It’s healthy to build this mosque.  It’s a better decision than building the ever-stalled ‘Freedom Tower’ which never gets an inch off the ground.  Why not rename it ‘Freedom Hole.’  These people who have been protesting, including some of the relatives of 9/11 victims, are nothing more than the worst form of bigot.  They couch their hatred in ‘protecting the emotional well-being of families and victims.’  By their logic we should cordon off every site of a plane crash and forbid construction by people who are of the same religious beliefs as the pilots.  We should ascertain the religion of every person who commits a murder and prevent people of that religion from ever constructing churches near the murder sites.  Insane.  Hateful.  Nonsense.

Muslims are not terrorists.  Muslims are simply people who worship in a particular way.  Associating Muslims with terrorism is bigotry by definition.  I think someone should build a mosque on top of the Anti-Defamation League.

Here is what the Anti-Defamation League says:

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.

So don’t build your mosque because it’ll make a bunch of backwoods idiot bigots feel bad.  Wow!  I’m just blown away.  You know, I never give money to organized bigots.  But I’ll certainly contribute to the mosque-building fund if there is one.

This insidious and creeping connection of Islam to terrorism is becoming very dangerous.  It’s getting worse quickly.  It’s spreading all over the U.S. and Europe.  If the Anti-Defamation League feels that is can say something like this then we are in very bad shape indeed.

Podcast Novel: A Princess of Mars (Chapter 20)

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A Princess of Mars

This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.

Chapter 20: John Carter, on the edge of starvation finds himself as an unwanted guest in a vast atmosphere generator.

You can find all the previous chapters of the book here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

Duration: 00:19:17
Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.