Muppet Nonfiction.

Whenever I think about muppets, I can’t help but think of my aunt Marilee. She took me to see The Muppet Movie at The Amigo Theater, back when it was The Amigo. And I think that it might be a made up memory, because it premiered the year before I was born. But I swear I saw it in the theater. And The Rainbow Connection is a song that is really quite haunting and fantastic. Nominated that year by the academy as best score. The muppets were and still remain my educators. It is from them that I learned how to count. A vampire taught me how to count. No matter what my kindergarten teacher may lead you to believe.

Cross stitched Sesame Street by Marilee Swinburne

Seasame Street and the birth of the muppets will probably be the crowning achievement of puppetry in the 20^th century. The list of awards won by the Jim Henson Company is a 25 page document in 8 point font. It began in 1958 with an Emmy and it is still growing. But the flip side of this coin is the loss of creative control. Disney rearing its corporate policies to distort and corrupt that which was designed to educate and glorify art. An elegant and passionate song distorted over the foul winds of capitalism.

 But is it our breed? In as much as USA is a melting pot, I would like to think that Sesame Street embodies that which is truly American. The spirit of collaboration and cohabitation. For that, to me, is what separates Jim Henson from the puppeteers before him. Taking collaboration to an entirely new level, and opening up the stage to peoples living rooms. Understanding that the television is a proscenium all its own. The imagined dream of using the great tool of mass communication for good, and not simply profit. And maybe it is all because we are all of us still on the lookout for that rainbow connection.