The other day I installed a clothes rail in my art cupboard. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the two bits that hold the rail. Aren’t they happy?
Archives for category: Comedy
Do you know the feeling when you have so many things you want to do, but you don’t know where to start or what to do first, so you run around doing a little bit here and a little bit there, but you don’t finish anything? This is my life! I am not getting anywhere in a hurry but the sand is steadily running through the hourglass.
At least I am keeping up with my Instagram images. The month of love (February) is finally over and we are now into March. Life in the Dede world goes on. Here again is a quick summary about what has happened lately. Top Dog, the narcissist, is back on the scene and currently wooing the lil’Dede Walrus. Though Walrus dresses carefully she is not a particularly good looking lil’Dede, so she is an easy target for Top Dog‘s silver-tongued words. Of course she fell for it. Nitpicker tried to warn the little walrus not to get too close but being a nitpicker she didn’t believe him. It looks like he was unsuccessful in preventing the lovelorn walrus from making a big mistake. Today she happily announced she is convinced she has found her soul mate.
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- Top Dog is in love with his self-image
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- Top Dog talking smoothly to little walrus
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- Nitpicker warns Walrus of Top Dog
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- Lil’ Walrus is deeply in love
The Dedes are currently discussing love. I am sure, we all agree, love is the most wonderful thing that can happen to someone. However, when there is an imbalance in affection it can also become scary. Lou, the young puppy, is infatuated with Skeleton Edeltraut. Who can blame him? Any young puppy will fall in love with a pile of bones. Whenever she shows up, he gets all excited, jumps up and down, tries to lick her and basically follows her around sniffing and worshipping the ground she walks on. Skeleton Edeltraut is outright scared, but no-one offers support. Everyone believes she should be able to cope with it. After all, she is in the scaring business herself. When she comes out of her closet, a lot of people are very frightened. It doesn’t help that she is generally a bit distant and cold and not as cute as Lou. No one takes her cry for help seriously. They put Lou’s behaviour down to his nature and advise her to harden up. Mhm. That is such a classic dede conundrum. How can this be resolved?
Yes, I left civilisation and it looked like I never came back. But I can set your mind at rest. I have returned and the Dedes have been posting on Instagram every day. Fittingly, having had Valentine’s Day this month, they are discussing the various notions of love. :) It started with Minor, Detail‘s teenage daughter, looking for true love. Today Skeleton Edeltraut complains about an admirer who doesn’t respect her boundaries. Below I have put together a catch-up picture gallery. If you have any forms of love to add, please feel free to make a comment.
I have to apologise for my longer blog posts that have fallen by the wayside again. I am trying to make a major decision. I am investigating the feasibility of leaving ‘honest work’ and the big smoke behind and moving to the country side, engaging in art (not just the puppets), full-time and for good.
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- Minor is looking for true love
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- Rob was Minor’s lover once, but her mother disapproved
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- Motherly love
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- Nosy Neighbour loves himself
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- Harvey loves everyone
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- Foxy Lady gives Minor advice
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- Valentine’s Day and Pig, one of only two puppets in a known relationship, finds a love message on the beer fridge
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- Professor, Pigs long-term partner knows that love is a work in progress
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- Witch believes the path to a man’s heart is through the stomach. Pity she burns the food regularly
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- Court Jester says people in love make fools of themselves
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- Daredavil believes fearing love is fearing life
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- Bossman doesn’t strive for love but for respect
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- The benevolent King’s strategy is to love and respect will follow
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- Philosopher agrees with King in parts. but not entirely
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- Skeleton Edeltraut is scared of an unwanted lover
I am traveling into an area without cellphone reception and dial-up internet only. Wonderful! But only if it isn’t permanent, I have to admit.
I read the other day that 60% of the world’s population has no access to the Internet and we complain about dial-up!
Witch and the old owl racked their brains to find a solution for Esta’s memory loss, but to no avail. Finally, the old owl called in his pet Little Blue Tack. It looks like a duck, sticks around and often has very creative ideas. It settled down on the owl’s beak and hopefully the three of them can come up with a solution swiftly. It’s becoming urgent now.
You might have heard of our Australian friend Tony who has created a stunning Punch and Judy cast (He is currently working on a dog. You should have a look).
Tony has asked Esta Blished to cast a spell for Punch so his performance this weekend will be a success. Punch got a gig at a market that rejected him last year for not being PC. What is the world coming to? Honestly, throughout the centuries, the most marketable and endearing feature of Punch was his UnPCness, wasn’t it?
Anyway, as we have “Ask Us Anything” this week, I counted Tony’s request as an ask. I am just a bit worried that Esta will get everything mixed up.
Esta Blished, the fairy godmother, was inconsolable yesterday when she realised her memory fails her more than she cares to admit. In the afternoon she visited her best friend Witch and had a good cry on her shoulder. Witch is one of the oldest and wisest Dedes. Unfortunately, with the big wart on her nose she is not particularly photogenic. Does she care if she doesn’t appear on the blog much? No! She is happy to spend quality time with her pet owl and discuss the issues of the world. If you have a problem you really want to consult an old owl or a witch! The clever old pair had a good look at their RTD cabinet to see if there is an appropriate potion for Esta’s ailment. Sadly, even with their tremendous knowledge, there are certain things they simply can’t solve.
Last night I got a comment from Jürgen Küster, the artist who originally sparked the Dede’s dharna incident. When I recently re-read the Dede storys from that time, I realised they have changed a lot over the years. In my opinion not always postively. Jürgen is not only an accomplished artist himself, but also offers tremendeous support to other creatives and the Dedes are fortunate that he has kept an eye on them from the very early days. He was surprised to hear I had a negative perception of the puppets and has asked three questions (in German, translated below):
1 What did you get from the Dedes?
2 What is their impact on you?
3 Why can’t you let them go?
First of all I have to apologise before the Dedes decide to have another dharna. I didn’t mean they have a negative impact on me. It is just that they have become increasingly cynical over the years. They have lost the lightness of being they had in the early days. I recently revamped the Super Dede Competition as an ebook (available soon). In my own humble opinion they were at the top of their game when they did that competition. It is truly an insightful story.
But, and this is now a question for our readers, there is of course the possibility that only I know how cynical they have become, because I know how close they are to my personal life. I am really interested to find out, how do you perceive the Dedes?
But to answer Jürgen’s questions:
- I can’t measure how much the Dedes have given me. Since I was a little child I had this mephistopheles kind of personality. Mephisto is a devil in Goethe’s Faust (arguably the most important book in German literature). He describes himself as being part of that force that forever wants the evil, but always creates the good. I of course intended the opposite. I wanted the good, but somehow always managed to create the evil, at least in the eyes of those around me. Even my teachers said I only did things to rile them, when I rather would have liked to have gone unnoticed and blend into the background.
- As a result, I am obsessed with the impact of miscommuncation. And there is a lot of miscommunication out there. Everyone lives in their own little bubble of reality, each of us adament our own reality is the one and only true one. The Dedes are an amzing tool to view other people’s perception or interpretation of situations. If I don’t understand a person’s behaviour, I simply make another Dede or invent a new story and by the time I am done I have a better understanding. This doesn’t mean I understand everything. No way, but I can make an educated decision to walk away when communication is too lopsided.
- It is not that I can’t let them go. I don’t want to let them go. These little critters are the ones that keep me sane.
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Now, back to the Dede story that is going on on Instagram at the moment. Snippedy the clown found fairy godmother’s magic wand in the attic, but no handbook on how to use it. Esta Blished the fairy godmother got angry because it was hers and he just took it. When Snippedy ask her to do a bit of magic and find Rob a job, she started to cry and reluctantly admitted she had forgotten how to do it. It could be the onset of alzheimers.
Rob D Light is looking for a job and has been for quite some time. Though he has heaps of skills, he has mainly been working for himself so he doesn’t have a long CV. His first approach was to simply be nice to people and volunteer his help, like offering to carry the shopping to the kitchen. For some reason people are reluctant to accept his help and hold on tight to their bags. Then yesterday, Rob drew up a sign to show on Instagram. No one came forward to offer him a position. It seems the viewers don’t take him seriously, or they get the wrong impression. It doesn’t help that he has a serious health issue. He can’t work on building sites because he has a severe dust allergy (that’s why he always wears his handkerchief).
When he crawled under his blanket of newspaper last night without getting a single offer he was quite depressed. He was so worried he couldn’t close his eyes at all.
Does anyone have any ideas?
This week is Ask Us Anything (AUA) week.
Jessie Martinovic asked what the strangest request was so far for the Dedes. I didn’t have to think hard, but I have to go back a long way. It was definitely when Arindam asked the Dedes to do a dharna, indian style. So what happened then?
I had discovered the blog of German artist Jürgen Küster who writes together with his alter ego art figure Buchalov. Unlike the Dedes, Buchalov is very supportive of his artist and acts like a mentor. The two have deep and meaningful conversations. I aired the wish I would love to have similar conversations with the Dedes, but they are not intellectual at all. Of course this blog post offended the Dedes big time. (There are four consecutive posts to the story). Bad Conscience got involved and it got a bit messy.
The next day, our reader Arindam said I should apologise to the Dedes and if not, they should do a Dharna. Neither I nor the Dedes knew then what this was, but the Dedes looked it up on the internet and figured out a Dharna is a way to show the world that somebody had treated them in an unjust way. It involved sitting on the offender’s doorsteps until they get justice or die.
Thankfully, it didn’t come to the latter. Witch and I negotiated the end of the dharna, as it started to drizzle (The Dedes can’t stand rain). I certainly didn’t want my behaviour to cause the demise of the Dedes.
Thanks Jessie for your question. It was fun reading the story again :)
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