Tissa David told us " At first all animators animate themselves. Every action you create is done as though you yourself were doing it. An animated walk is your walk. To be an animation actor you must strive to create an action as if it were done by someone you are not."

By the way, that picture is not Tissa, she'd kick me in the goulash if I didn't point that out. I just couldn't find a good one of her. It's a self portrait of Eduard Meissonier. He was the head of the French Academy of Arts and a leading figure in painting in his time.
He was a classical academician and thought the Impressionists were all phonies who couldn't draw.

history for 9/8/2006
Birthdays: Richard the LionHearted, Michel Caravaggio, Antonin Dvorak, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, Peter Sellars, Sid Caesar, Freddy Mercury, Lyndon LaRouche, Euwell Gibbons- natural food advocate, Heather Thomas, David Arquette, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas

1504- Michelangelo unveiled his completed statue of David. The project had humble origins. The Florentine Republic had commissioned a statue from another artist who gave up after gouging a large hole in a huge block of Carrarra marble. Stuck with the block, magistrates asked Michelangelo if he could do anything with it. Michelangelo carved the David positioning the hole where the legs stand spread.

1636- Massachusetts established Harvard College, the first college of higher learning in North America.

1642- Plymouth governor William Bradford noted in his diary this day the Pilgrims executed a 16 year old named Thomas Granger for buggery. Young Master Granger confessed to buggering a mare, two cows, six sheep, two goats and a turkeybird. I guess the Pilgrims felt it was hard to enjoy thanksgiving when someone had relations with the main course.

1892- Writer Francis Bellamy published "The Pledge of Allegiance" in the Youth's Companion magazine as a vehicle to instill a sense of Patriotism in America's youth. Bellamy was a socialist.

1921 - 1st Miss America crowned -Margaret Gorman of Washington DC.

1926- Screen actress Greta Garbo skipped her own wedding and left John Gilbert alone at the altar. They still stayed lovers and lived together.

1930 - Richard Drew creates Scotch tape.

1935- HUEY LONG, the "Kingfish" Louisiana governor and colorful 3rd party candidate for President is assassinated at the statehouse in Baton Rouge. His assassin, a quiet doctor named Karl Weiss, was riddled with bullets by Long's bodyguards before anyone found out why he did it. So many bullets flew some scholars wonder if Weiss' shot was even the one that killed Long.

1935-A vocal group called "4 Joes from Hoboken" get their first break on Major Bo's radio show. One of the singers is a young man named Frank Sinatra.

1935- Top Hollywood musical director Buzby Berkeley (42nd Street, Footlight Parade) got drunk at a party in Malibu and drove his Cadillac head on into oncoming traffic on Pacific Coast Highway near where Gladestones Fish Restaurant is today. He piled into three other cars. Berkeley was unhurt but three people died and four were injured. After three trials for 2nd degree murder Berkeley was found innocent. The reason star defense attorney Jerry Geisler gave was “cancerous tires”. Later it was revealed that all the tire experts who testified in the defense were on the Warner Bros. payroll.

1939- British Alfred Hitchcock began shooting his first Hollywood picture- Rebecca , for David Selznick.

1954- Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

1960- Penquin Books was charged with obscenity for the first large public paperback printing of D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady's Chatterley's Lover'.

1965 - Dorothy Danridge, beautiful black actress (Island in the Sun), dies at 41 in Hollywood of sleeping pills overdose.
courtesy allposters.com
1966- T.V.'s STAR TREK debuts. That season it ranked 52nd in the Neilsen ratings, behind #1 "Iron Horse" starring Rory Calhoun and "Mr. Terrific". It was cancelled after two seasons but a letter writing campaign won it a third season. Star Trek then found a new life in syndication. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and the rest of the principle cast had signed a deal guaranteeing royalty payments for only the first five reruns. So by 1969 when the show was being seen 200 times a day around the world they weren’t getting a penny. The cult fan base called Trekkies kept the memory of the show alive for ten years until Paramount felt compelled to revive the show as first as an animated series and then a series of feature films. Frank Sinatra once said: "The only good thing to come out of the Nineteen Sixties was Star Trek."

1966 - "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell premieres on ABC-TV

1967 - Surveyor 5 launched; makes soft landing on Moon Sept 10

1968 - "Funny Girl" premiered, starring a young Brooklyn singer named Barbra Striesand.
1979 - Jean Seberg, actress (Breathless, Airport), commits suicide at 40. She had been in love with a member of the radical Black Panther Party and was under continual harassment by the FBI and other Federal authorities.

1986- The Chicago based television talk show the Oprah Winfrey Show went national and became one of the most successful talk shows ever.

The first copies are coming out and they look pretty good. Those who ordered directly from the publisher should be getting them now. Those who ordered on Amazon should be arriving in the next two weeks.

DRAWING THE LINE Booksigning events planned so far...

September 20th- USC Seminar, 6:30PM, George Lucas Bldng rm 108, Department of Cinema Television.

October 13 LAUNCH PARTY Burbank Cal. Gordon Biersch - c/o Creative Talent Network.

October 4th USC Trojan Bookstore, Main Campus 12:30-1:30PM

October 23- UCLA, Bridges Auditorium, Melnitz Hall, 7:30PM

October 25- Laguna College of Design. 1:00PM/

October 30- California State College, Fullerton

November 8- San Diego. Southern Cal Cartoonists Society, 7:30PM

November 17-San Francisco Cartoon Museum 313 Mission St., evening talk with
ASIFA/SF 7:00PM

November 18- San Francisco- Zeum ,a childrens interactive museum.

November 27- New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, 11:00am.

November 29- New York- Chelsea Barnes & Noble, 675 6th Ave near NYU.
7:00PM talk & reception courtesy of the School of Visual Arts and ASIFA*East.

December 8- Burbank- The Animation Guild Local 839 Holiday Party, The Pickwick Center.

December 14- Hollywood- Dec membership meeting.the preservation society Hollywood Heritage dedicates restoration of 1920s era building near Capitol Records on Yucca that was once the Screen Cartoonists Guild Local 852 offices.

Venues: If you or your organisation would like to order your in bulk copies directly from the Univ of Kentucky Press, their direct number is 1-800-839-6855

Birthdays: Grandma Moses, Dame Edith Sitwell, Elia Kazan, Richard Roundtree - Shaft, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Quayle. Peter Lawford, Senator Daniel Inouye, Susan Blakely, Shannon Elizabeth, Sonny Rawlins, Julie Kavner the voice of Marge Simspson.

1963- Mushi productions cartoon series."Tetsuan Atomo" debuts in the U.S as AstroBoy.

1978 - Keith Moon, rock drummer of the Who, died of a drug overdose at 31. He actually overdosed the drug he was perscribed to treat his alcohol and drug abuse. In one night he took 22 tabs of choloromethiazole edysilate. He was staying in the very same London apartment #123 Curzon Place, was the one that Mama Cass Elliot died in four years earlier.

1984-the Walt Disney Board formally fired Chairman and Walt’s son-in-law Ron Miller.

1996- Rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur was shot to death gangland style in Las Vegas Nevada. He was standing up in the open roof of a BMW 750 sedan talking to some girls when a Cadillac pulled along side and opened fire. In 2002 the LA Times concluded and investigation that rapper Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G. hired and killer and provided the gun. Notorious B.I.G. was himself shot to death shortly after.

2000- Barely legal teen pop star Britney Spears shocked even the permissive MTV Music Video Awards crowd by singing her hit “Oops, I Did it Again” while stripping and grinding in a Las Vegas showgirl type sheer bikini.

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Birthdays: Marquis De Lafayette ,Joseph Kennedy Sr., Buddy Holly, Jane Curtin,Swoozie Kurtz, Jo Ann Worley, Rosie Perez, Billy Rose, Ernest Tubb, Justin Whalin, Mad cartoonist and Groo creator Sergio Aragones- Feliz Compleanos Sergio!

1847- After living in a shack on Walden Pond for two years, Henry David Thoreau moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord Mass.

1862- During the Civil War an incident occurred when Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate brigades moved through the pro-Union town of Frederick, Maryland. All civilians kept indoors and waved white flags from their homes. But elderly widow Barbara Fritchie flew a bigass American Stars & Stripes from her window and dared anyone to do anything about it. General Jackson just smiled and tipped his hat as he rode by. Years later a famous poem was written about the incident, The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie:” Shoot if You Must, This Old Grey Head, But Spare your Countries’ Flag, She Said!”

1901-PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY ASSASSINATED- The President was visiting the Temple of Music at the World Exposition in Buffalo when anarchist Leon Czogolsz shot him with a pistol hidden in his bandaged hand. Czogolsz was such an emotionally unstable character that even other anarchists avoided him. He said he was inspired by the political speeches of Socialist Emma Goldman, which soured many mainstream Americans to radical Socialism.
McKinley lingered for two weeks while doctors were afraid to probe for the bullet. Ironically he had just inspected a new-fangled X-Ray machine at the science pavilion that could have saved his life but doctors said: " This is too serious a time for toys!" He died and Teddy Roosevelt became President. Roosevelt was a maverick Republican that McKinley reluctantly chose as his running mate because he was a hero in the recent Spanish-American War. When Tammany boss Paul Crocker heard about Roosevelt being made V.P. he shouted;" Don't you realize that now there's only one heartbeat between that nut and the Presidency-?!" Republican Senate Majority Leader Marc Hanna was also annoyed:”Oh, no! Now that crazy cowboy is President!”

1958- The Spunky and Tadpole show debuted.

1968- Many momentous events occurred in 1968: assassinations, riots, the Vietnamese Tet offensive, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Easy Rider, 2001 a Space Odyssey Sergeant Pepper. But that’s nothing compared to the television premiere of H.R. PUNFNSTUFF this day! Witchipoo, Orson and the Vroom Broom. Whether or not Sid and Marty Kroffts strange kiddie show was a code for drug use -HR meaning Hand-Rolled Puffing Stuff, is a matter for scholastic conjecture.

1969- Depatie-Freleng's the Pink Panther TV Show premiered.

1971- Scientists at Proctor & Gamble invent the disposable diaper.

1972 - John Lennon & Yoko Ono appear on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon

1997- The great Funeral of Princess Diana of Wales brought England to a halt and was televised around the world. There was a last minute fuss over the fact that Buckingham Palace refused to lower the Royal Standard to half-mast, customary for a death in the Royal Family, because technically Diana was divorced and no longer part of that family. The tabloid press jumped on this as a way to divert public attention from the discussion that their hounding Diana was what caused the fatal car accident. As this day began the flag came down at the urging of the elderly Queen Mum.