Jared Axelrod

It’s been a wonderful handful of days. Despite the stress and panic of wedding and convention planning, it’s been good. Not through anything I’m doing, mind. It’s all the excellent friends I have, from J.R. on down. Without them, I’d have been curled up in the dining room, hot gluing felt together.

Dragon*Con looms at the end of the month—did I mention I’m a guest this year? I’m totally guest at Dragon*Con this year—with another Aliens You Will Meet puppet show due. Naturally, I have to top myself, which means new puppets. We’re going for quality over quantity for this one, only 8 new puppets compared to last year’s 15. Luckily some extremely talented folks have volunteered to operate them, so that helps.

Saucy Polly, that’s her right there, is the first of the new group. A space pirate queen of murderous reputation, she’s also the first of the AYWM puppets to have a working hand. This year’s characters are going to be a little more active than last years, so she’ll need it.

But it hasn’t all been space pirates and googely eyes! There’s also been culture!

JR and I managed to snag Shakespeare In Clark Park’s production of AS YOU LIKE IT on it’s final night. We had meant to go earlier, but it turned out to be a wonderful thing we did not. Trillian Stars and Kyle Cassidy—extraordinarily talented folks that we had been meaning to meet for, like, ever—were front row-center, so we got to not only see the show, but share it with fascinating people. Trillian and Kyle hung out with us after the show and played with our puppets and rayguns. A future zoo-date was tenuously set up, and well as plans for future collaborations. It was like we’d been friends for quite some time.

Watching AS YOU LIKE IT has gotten my theatre bug twitching again, as has the just-released Philly Fringe schedule. Come this fall, I’ll have a huge collection of alien puppets (heck, I have a huge collection now!) that I should probably do something with. Philly Fringe can always use more puppets.

The whole experience was capped off by spending yesterday with David, Mena and their tiny, smiley baby Tina. It was a relaxed evening, but great one. I really don’t hang out with them as much as I should, something I need to rememdy.

Also, they have a TV the approximate size of Belgium, so that should make finding a reason to go back pretty easy. “Hey guys, I was just in the neighborhood…Oh, look. I just happen to have MIRRORMASK with me…”