Archives for the month of: January, 2014

lizzie and lil sculpture

Magician finally got to work! His first action was to serve all non-Dedes with an eviction notice. They have to leave their places in the studio by Thursday. Magician wants all human visitors to the studio to see Dedes only. Lil’Sculpture didn’t take the notice too seriously as he is a well liked observer of the Dedes. You could call him an honorary Dede, as he was created by Sunny Boy, the wannabe Dede artist. He even appeared in one of the Dede Flash Dramas. He always thought he was well liked by everybody.

Lizzie, the sponge puppet, on the other hand keeps mostly to herself. She is a very hard worker and has been working flat out the last four days on a film to raise awareness about Lipoedema. She was too tired in the evenings to look at the notice. Both were very surprised when Magician appeared at dawn this morning and reminded them not to ignore the deadline, and they have only one more day to leave. “But where shall we go?” asked a tired Lizzie.  Magician looked around and said, “Ah well, you can have the empty bookshelf till Friday. But this is my last word. If you are not out by then, I will move you to the rubbish bin.”

Magician was very cunning with his timing. None of the other Dedes were about. They were all still asleep in their cupboard. Only Devil, who has made his bed by the stage door for the time being, overheard what was said. But if he mentions anything to the others they will assume it is just sour grapes. What a predicament. What to do?

devil explain

Devil and I had breakfast together. I know he is extremely scathing about the committee when he is with Mouse, or so Mouse says. They have been good mates for years, and I assume he feels he can let rip.When I last spoke to Mouse she said he didn’t think he made any mistakes at all. But when I listened to Devil, his point of view didn’t seem particularly skewed, it all made perfect sense to me.

Right away he made it clear he wasn’t unhappy he lost this particularly ungrateful job. Nobody appreciated his efforts and the committee were the worst. To be honest, they had no clue what they wanted, nor did they know what is involved in a spokesperson’s job, but they expected miracles from him. Their motto basically is, we say jump and you jump, to hell with the implications. And while one member of the committee said jump to the right, the other said jump to the left, so he ended up standing in the middle of the road. Just look back at the last year. One day they wanted a zazzle shop, the next day they wanted to sell books, then they wanted a facebook page, a week later they thought workshops would be all the rave… and each time they expected him to put his full heart into the campaign while he knew very well that next week at least one of them would change their mind. He tried to tell them they should focus, it’s no good trying everything, but they didn’t want to listen to his expertise and it got really, really tiresome in the end. He got so sick of the uphill battle. Good luck to  Magician. But of course, he will be the hero for a while as new brooms always sweep clean.

“So why are you so down then? You should be skipping and dancing. It sounds like it was a job from hell anyway.” I asked.

“I am simply grieving for the engery I spent” he said. “You know I am not the youngest anymore. In fact I am the oldest of the Dedes. It gets more and more difficult to re-invent yourself, but that is what I have to do!”

Good on you, Devil!

mouse clipboard

I bumped into Mouse and took the chance to ask her how it was decided that Devil should be sacked. Our reader Cathosster queried yesterday whether there should have been a vote and asks, where is the democratic process in all this? Mouse reminded me that there was in fact a vote by the Dede committee members. She even pulled out the minutes which she still had on her clip board to show me. “Here you are,” she said, “the woodheads had requested to speak to the committee at their meeting. They spoke at length about the future of the Dedes, and so on and so on… you can read it for yourself”. She handed me the minutes. It was all above board. In the end it was motioned to vote on the dismissal of the spokesperson and the result was 3 for and 2 against letting Devil go. Sorry, I am not a big expert on the Dede Society Constitution, but I believe Mouse when she says there was no foul play.

“So, what do you think about all this?” I asked.

Mouse seemed a bit uncomfortable and humed and hawed. “But you and Devil were such a formidable team,” I continued, “will it be the same with Magician?”

“Look” she said, “I am the administrator. I will work with whoever. It will be different, but I am sure it will work.”

“She is scared she will be next” said Pirate who just happened to pass by at that moment.

“No, I am not!” replied Mouse defiantly and then pulled me into a quiet corner. There she told me in confidence that she finds herself in an impossible position. Devil is one of her best friends, but each time when they see each other now, he is terribly negative and scathing about the Dede committee, and he wants her to agree with him. But she, Mouse, is still working there and loves her work. While she can understand Devil’s hurt, she also sees how he could have done things differently to avoid the situation. But of course Devil doesn’t want to have a bar of this yet (or maybe he’ll never want to hear it). The whole thing strains their friendship to the max.  He treats her like a traitor and while she knows he really needs her badly right now, she doesn’t want to see him. She feels like a real bad mouse at the moment and wishes it will be over soon and everybody is back to normal.

magician speech

After the Woodheads had started their long track back to the bottom of the stairs, where they usually reside, Magician was ready for his maiden speech. He stood quietly on stage and smiled benevolently at the crowd. You have to admit, he does have a very benign expression. It made me all fuzzy inside watching him slowly unfolding his arms and stretching them out as if he wanted to embrace the entire Dede world. The crowd looked at him expectantly. Finally he said very slowly: “I will save you, trust me!” in a rather high-pitched voice. And that was it. He bowed a few times in all directions and the Dedes thanked him with rapturous applause.

“Oh’ dear”, said Devil from his favourite spot behind the curtain. “Ssssh,” I said “Give him a chance, he just does things differently than you.”

“So far he hasn’t done anything!” Devil answered back and gave me a very dirty look as if I’d betrayed him. Then he wandered back to his bedstead to have another rest.

magician intro

Yesterday we were finally introduced to the new spokesperson. It is the Magician. I never would have guessed it, as he hasn’t stood out in any way so far. He kept a very low profile. Indeed, I have never heard his voice before. But obviously he was in the right place at the right time. As I understand it, the Dedes have been dissatisfied with Devil’s performance for a while. (Personally I think it all started when Devil resigned last year to prove a point, but then he took his job back when everybody begged him to continue. But that is a different story.) So back to the Magician. He obviously had asked the Dede committee every so often if he could be of service, but they said they were happy with the Devil they know… Then, recently, two self-appointed advisors, I think they call themselves the woodheads, showed up and told the committee that they are going nowhere fast with the Devil. They painted a very bleak picture for the future of the Dedes if they didn’t get a new spokesperson. They pointed out the Devil has his own agenda, and rubs people up the wrong way to boot. The Dedes thought about it and had to agree. But what to do? Luckily the woodheads had a solution: the Dedes simply need a magician, and then they conjured him up. What could the Dedes do, except to say: yes, you guys are so right! And here we are.

devil coffee

“Coffee.” I heard a thin voice from poor Devil’s bedstead. I was so happy to hear his voice that I immediately ran to the kitchen to prepare him one, thinking it would be nice to choose the monkey cup.

“Not that idiot” he said, when he saw me coming. I wasn’t quite sure who he referred to, me or the monkey, and pulled away, but Devil grabbed my sleeve. “Ah well, I don’t have to look at his pancake face when I drink from the cup.” You better go back to sleep, I thought.

devil bed

I hope you all know that the film was not real! Of course the Dedes wouldn’t be that vicious in real life. They wouldn’t try to decapitate the poor Devil, though in every story there is a bit of truth. Some parts of the film are recounted correctly: Devil got the sack last week and after having talked to a few puppets, that seems to be final. There is no way for him to get back his position. They have already appointed a new spokesperson. Devil knows that and now he is not getting out of the sack in the mornings. Of course we all know that there will be brighter times again, but right now he is inconsolable. Mouse says she has been there a few times herself and she can sympathise how difficult it must be for him to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had nightmares too, but no words of consolation would help at this stage. He has to go through this in his own time.

Nobody has seen the old fellow since he took part in the film on Saturday. I had a little peek in the corner of the stage. He obviously just rolled over after the filming had finished and pulled the blanket back over his head. Mouse begged me to leave him alone for a while. He has to grieve and come to terms with the injustice he thinks he has received.

Yesterday we had another dede puppet workshop and it turned out very interesting. Devil and Mouse had selected the actors. It is good practise not to select yourself, when you are on a selection committee, so they were not to take part in the filming. However, when the participants heard that Devil had just lost his job they dragged him onto the stage. Even though life seems to be doom and gloom for him at the moment, I hope he notices that he still has good friends.

Enjoy the latest film.

devils last job

We have another Dede workshop this afternoon. It is usually the job of the spokesperson and the administrator to select the actors who will take part. I was surprised to see Devil, who has just learned he lost his spokesperson job, at the stage door with Mouse who is the administrator. Devil’s dark glasses told their own story and he really looked like he didn’t want to be there. I commend Mouse for keeping her patience, as he wasn’t holding back with snipey and derogatory comments today. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Dede world was right today. Truly, I wasn’t aware how vicious he could be when he is deeply hurt, which I think he is.

I asked Mouse afterwards what the story was. I thought maybe Devil got his job back. But she told me she had begged the Dede puppet committee to let Devil at least finish this one job, as pretty much everything was prepared for this afternoon and they only had to select the actors. It is no secret that Mouse loves to work with Devil. Honestly, these two guys are such a formidable team (Remember when these two organised the Super Dede Competition a year ago?). The outcome of the vote took Mouse as much by surprise as Devil himself, though she told me that Devil had an inkling that something was brewing for quite a while. It was her who always consoled him, saying he was just imagining things. Long ago she figured out that he has the tendency to believe everybody is out to get him. But boy, was he right this time!

Anyway, after having selected the actors for today she sat down with a big sigh and said, “Maybe it is for the best, if he’d always behaved like today I couldn’t cope with him for long!”

devil sad

You might wonder what happened to the Dedes. I didn’t even realise how much we had drifted apart while normal life took over. Admittedly, I am not the best in-touch-keeper. And when it comes to the Dedes I didn’t need to be, as Devil at least (who is the spokesperson for the Dedes) seemed to drop in on a regular basis and kept me posted. But he too was very quiet lately. To be honest, I only realised this yesterday, when I heard through the grapevine that the Dedes had called for a special meeting (Dedes only). I try to keep out of their politics as much as possible, but I found it very strange that neither Devil (whose job it would be) nor Mouse (who is a well-known gossip) told me the reasons for the meeting. If I would have asked Mouse outright, she might have told me, but I didn’t want to put her in an awkard predicament. Anyway, last night they had the meeting and not long into it I heard the door slam and Devil galloping down the corridor. I ran after him to find out what happened. Typically, I thought the meeting was all about me and they were having a good rant about our flawed relationship. Devil would tell me all about if I asked him. I do consider him a friend. Surprisingly, I found him crying in the corner of the spare room.

“Hey, what’s up?”, I asked very startled. I was unaware that devils could cry.

“Leave me alone” he barked.

“C’mon, it can’t be that bad” I said and sat down next to him.

“They decided I am not a good spokesperson and they voted for someone else to take over my job”

“Oh,” I said for lack of other words. Since Devil didn’t volunteer any more information, I added after a pause: “I  didn’t see this coming!”

He was shaken by another burst of tears. “Go away, pleeeeease, leave me alone!”

I know my Devil and decided it was the best to leave the room and close the door on my way out. But I promise, I will keep you up to date with the developments as soon as I know more.