Death and Pixar
by Mark Loewenstern



"Someone always dies in a Pixar film," an 8-year old told me last year, explaining why she wouldn't watch them anymore. This is only a slight exaggeration, as the Pixar body count includes Nemo's mom in Finding Nemo, the Chef in Ratatouille, a blown-up action figure in Toy Story, Carl's spirited wife in Up, and everyone wearing a cape in The Incredibles. The threat of Woody being destroyed hangs over all of Toy Story 2, and the climax of Toy Story 3 shows all the main characters, after struggling futilely to escape a fiery recycling plant, silently catching each other's eyes, joining hands and preparing to meet their fate. That moment reminded me of my mortality like no film I've seen in the past five years.


Don't get me wrong; I would much rather have grown up with these stories than the thin gruel that was the family films of the 70s. But what strikes me is how frequently death comes up in a typical Pixar tale, and how different its role is from the stories that have come before. Generally, it isn't a villain's just punishment for wickedness, or the fate of a boy who cries wolf. Fairness does not enter into it. Sometimes it is the old story of predator and prey, but more generally the deaths are arbitrary and faultless: accidents, disease, the inevitable wearing out of the body.


And if this isn't hardcore enough, the films then go on to ask the *really* tough questions. How do we face death? How do we not let fear of death prevent us from living a full life? How do we move on after we've lost someone important to us? This stuff is not for every kid at every age. But the overwhelming majority seem to have no problem with it. In August, Toy Story 3 became the first animated film to gross $1 billion worldwide. All of those kids are getting some serious life lessons early on.

---

Unmasking the Muses
by Christopher Stewart


When Kristen and Motrya approached me in view of featuring me in the « Meet The Artist » series on One World One Art, they also offered me to contribute as a writer. As a musician, I have been involved in numerous online discussions about music wherein the stream of « writings on the walls …
read more


~


Contributers:


Mark Loewenstern is an award winning writer of teleplays, web films, plays and musicals. His scripts include "Holiday Rumble," an animated web short that has received over 290,000 hits, "A Doctor's Visit" which won the Samuel French One Act Festival, and a Scriptapalooza "Best Sitcom" script. Mark has studied theater, literature and general storytelling at, among other places, The Juilliard School, Playwrights Horizons, The University of Pennsylvania, and Kings College London.


Christopher Stewart is perfecting the art of blooming late. He has studied for a long time, played football even longer, spent most of his adult life developing software on a full-time basis and invested what remained in the pursuit of his ideal of creating meaningful music in the context of a rock ensemble. He has founded the prolific yet still album-less Quebec-based prog rock outfit Poligraf in 1998 and has never been quite the same since. He has been practising Buddhism dead-seriously since the mid 90s and until he finally awakened to the fact that it teaches living happiness. His interests range from psychology, physics and philosophy, to mysticism, astrology and tarot, the arts and the creative process, and, obviously, multi-tasking and clichés. Pick any task, tag it with the word « impossible, » assign it to him, and he’ll be hard at work for years before the first suspicion finally pops in his mind.

Looking for a new instrument to learn?

How about something unusual, like the kalimba, the aeolian harp, the glass armonica or the bandura or kobza?

According to certain sources, there are between 1500 and 2000 musical instruments in the world, with classical instruments comprising less than twenty-five percent.

The kalimba, also known as the finger piano, is a percussion instrument from South Africa.

It is also known as the mbira or likembe. It consists of a small hollow wooden box with mounted metal keys on it.

The glass armonica (also called the glass harmonica) was invented by Benjamin Franklin, and uses a series of glass bowls that vary in size to produce sound through friction.

The aeolian harp, named for Aeolus - the ancient Greek god of the wind, is played near an open window where the breeze can blow over the strings and alter the sound. They can also be left free standing outdoors to create their own ethereal sounds.

The bandura, and the similar but smaller kobza, are Ukrainian folk instruments. They are in the lute family.

Made famous during the 16th and 17th centuries when the Cossacks fought against the Turks, Poles and Tatars, these instruments played an active role in uniting the people and promoting nationalism through music in a time of great unrest.