Archives for posts with tag: imagination

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Of course Foxy Lady knows she is in trouble now. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that her attempt to assassinate Top Dog will have repercussions. It would be best if she could disappear. But how? How can she escape this little Dedeworld?
It happened that we received snail mail from @denise_m_oehl recently. Denise had sent us a pack of beautiful postcards of her work. Oh, postcards, greetings from the big wide world! Foxy Lady’s heart nearly stopped when she discovered this image of a gorgeous fox with golden fur. “I am going to find this man” she thought instantly “and I am going to marry him!” Problem solved!?

Oh dear, it is nearly a month since the dedes reported last. The reason? They were tidying up. If you have seen the studio before, you know this was a major.

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Magician was happy with the result, but Esta Blished, who suffers from Alzheimers feels a bit disoriented in the empty space. Even worse. most of the Dedes got tidied up as well and are packed away for the time being. Only a few of them are still in the cupboard. Nobody really know what the artist was thinking, leaving Top Dog in the cupboard. After a weekend in the confined space, being forced to listen to the narcissistic Top Dog, Foxy Lady lost it and tried to push him off the shelf. Fortunately someone realised what she was up to and slammed the door shut just in time. Instead of falling off the shelf, Top Dog only bumped his head on the door and had to go to hospital with suspected concussion and a broken hand.

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He came back this morning and the first thing he did was taking his bodyguard Norman T Newbie to the side and instructing him to go and to find the culprit and deal with it. I wonder what that means.

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Deutsch Fraulein started reading the same night and she couldn’t put the artist’s diary down until she was finished. Top Dog had given her the one written when the artist travelled to New Zealand for the first time. It wasn’t an outstanding work in the sense of literature, but Deutsch Fraulein found it very insightful and loved the honesty. Something she misses when she is reading posts on her mobile phone.

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The next day Deutsch Fraulein had to seek advice from her friend Socialite. “I don’t know what to do” she said. “I read one of the Artist’s diaries and Top Dog asked me to tell him some juicy bits. I don’t want to disclose secrets, but you know, I can’t say NO to a Dede.”

Socialite might not have been the right Dede to ask for advice. She was as curious about the content as Top Dog. “Don’t worry” she appeased Deutsch Fraulein “for us Dedes the artist is a person of public interest, so she doesn’t have the same privacy rights as a normal person!” she explained.

“Really?” Deutsch Fraulein wasn’t convinced and decided to get a second opinion.

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Next she asked Foxy Lady: “You are a girl, what would you do?”

“Give ’em the sanitised version, like people do on social networks nowadays. Leave out the bad bits, pretend doubting never happened” the vixen advised.

“But I found the problems were the interesting part. It was so comforting to read about the ups and downs. That made her so human and made me realise I am not a nutcase with all my doubts.”

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Then Alien, who always seems to be on a different planet, entered the discussion. “Why all the drama?” he asked Foxy Lady. “Everyone knows you have to travel on your own to find yourself. And to make sense of your impressions its best to write an honest diary on the way. I do it too. If you want, you can publish my diaries!”

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There is no inspiration without Groucho…. Today Liar showed us his favourite quote, which was sent to the Dedes by  @renfieldwantsmore  “Who is that Groucho Marx guy” called Top Dog from behind the curtains “he copied that one straight out of my book! I will sue him.”

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Then Top Dog came out of his hiding place and walked straight up to Liar.  “You and I are definitely cut from the same cloth,” he said, “do you want to be my campaign manager?”

This didn’t go down well with a few instagram readers. Sorry guys, it is out of my hands. The two seem to be the dream team.

I am not sure if I get round to updating you tomorrow as I have a full-day gig making puppets from trash at the Auckland Storylines Family day. The puppet making is themed healthy eating. Munch and Kin will be the baddies that need to be fought off.

I was busy all week sifting through surplus and left-over material and whittled it down to two boxes full of rubbish to take. This is a job that takes ages, as I easily get sidetracked with making things myself. I also had to remove oodles of rusty pins, so the kids don’t injure themselves when they comb through the treasures. I love these workshops. I find it amazing to see the kids being totally engrossed for an hour or so and come up with their gorgeous creations. I hope I will get some good pics, but I might be too busy running around with my glue gun, helping to stick everything together.

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Here is one puppet I prepared earlier, to give the kids an idea what to do. Not that they need it, but had fun making it.

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“Can’t we just ignore that Top Dog guy and have some fun?” said Alien to Devil and Mouse, who both look very bewildered at the moment. Alien believes a good laugh can heal all wounds, and the situation definitely needs to be defused somehow. But is ignoring the right solution?

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Devil and Mouse retreated to a corner to have a quiet discussion about Alien’s suggestion. They do not want to ignore the clear and present danger and are concerned that everything seems to be becoming too sombre. Yes, they agree, the situation needs to be defused, though neither Devil nor Mouse feel much like laughing at the moment. They feel their hard work has been devalued through Top Dog’s actions, but they must battle on to hold it all together.

“Do you know,” said Mouse to Devil, “I really could do with some inspirational quotes.”

Does anyone have one for Mouse?

 

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The Dedes are at the end of their tether and have no idea what to do next. It finally dawn on them that they can’t change Top Dog but the freedom they are accustomed to, is seriously jeopardised. Now all eyes and hopes are on the magical worker Esta Blished.  In her younger days the fairy godmother was very active in politics. She relentlessly fought for liberal values and equality. With age, unfortunately, Alzheimer’s was creeping up on her. At first no-one seemed to notice. Her friends simply thought she was a little tired after all these years of hard work. And now it is too late – Esta is away with the fairies most of the time. No-one knows how to use her magic wand to continue her excellent work.

The Dedes decided to have someone with Esta Blished at all times. In the hope, she will have a lucid moment before everything goes to the to the dogs.

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Sure enough, with all faith suddenly pinned on her, Esta Blished felt obliged to say something. Alien was with her at the time. He recorded everything verbatim, but thought it was more of an oracle than a lesson in magic. Here is what she said: “Listen to the ones who follow Top Dog. Not to gain power over them, but with true empathy. Should the dog meet the bear we will have the biggest schoolyard fight ever!”

Actually she did say the biggest school yard massacre, but Alien thought that was to harsh and edited it out.

 

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Monkey, who is very worried because he belongs to a minority everyone laughs about, went to see Court Jester. He was upset and asked “Why didn’t you say outright they shouldn’t vote for that idiot?” 

“It is against the Jesters’ code of honour. Jesters don’t tell anyone what to do, instead they try to open your eyes.”

“But you know exactly where we are heading if this idiot comes to power.”

“There is only one thing I know exactly” said Court Jester now, “if you call someone an idiot, he is no longer prepared to listen. Believe you me, my profession has hundreds of years of experience. Being confrontational doesn’t get us anywhere. We have to remove the heat and approach the situation with a cooler head.”

Then he gave Monkey a big hug and said: “Trust me.”

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Court Jester went to discuss the result of yesterday’s questionnaire with the benevolent King. Turns out only three Dedes considered themselves weird. Strangely enough Top Dog wasn’t one of them. But fifty Dedes thought the others were weird. That was exactly the point Court Jester wanted to make: the weird ones are always the others! And herein lies the problem according to the jester.
Unfortunately, this morning the Dedes were also told that the majority of readers reckoned they were indeed weird. Though in the sense of wonderfully different and excitingly strange. They valued their weirdness as a positive attribute.  You should have seen the upheaval that revelation caused. Now they all wanted to do the questionnaire again. And this time, all of them ticked yes for the first question. Weird, indeed!

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These two Dedes should be commended for taking part in the “Embrace Diversity” project. The difference between Rob D Light and Bobby, the policeman poses an insurmountable dilemma, doesn’t it? But there is a real story in here and to be honest, they really would deserve a longer post.

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Hands up who thought Rob D Light is a Robber! Bobby, the policeman certainly did. Who could blame him. He has to make his decisions on the run and admittedly Rob fits the profile perfectly, doesn’t he? Thank god, Bobby doesn’t have a gun, otherwise we might never heard the full story.

The reality is Rob D Light contracted a serious lung condition in his previous job. Now he is unemployed and homeless and he has to protect himself from too much dust. The only way he can afford to do this is by wearing a kerchief. Unfortunately, if he doesn’t find a job soon, he might turn into exactly what his reputation is. But with these insignia, who will give him a chance?

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Mouse isn’t particularly patient when it comes to campaigns. She wants to have results, poff, poff, poff. No fluffing around. Naturally she was very disappointed when there were only a few votes yesterday and she got her management team together to discuss how they could rustle up more vistors. In the afternoon, they agreed on a strategy to sacrifice one of the lil’Dedes for a regram action. They invited the Lil’Devil into the theatre for a photoshoot and told him he would be the cheerleader for the Super Dede Competition. He happily agreed, but I think they forgot to tell him that he will have to leave the Dede household once the cheerleading contract is over. This campaign is on Instagram only, and everybody who regrams the picture goes into the draw to win this little fella. The picture went up last night, but no-one has yet taken up the offer. If he is lucky, Lil’Devil will stay with us. :)

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As we all know, Rob D Light hasn’t got a job. He was sent by the Dede employment agency to help out Mouse and gain some work experience. Mouse gave him the task of keeping track of the comments our readers make. This is a very important job as every single comment goes into the draw for a signed copy of first Dede puppet book, Hermit’s web. So if you comment five times, Rob D Light has to write out five little dockets and put them into a hat, from where the winner is drawn after the competition ends. Mouse gave him a big baseball cap, though Rob used his initiative and changed it for a little Leprechaun hat. “That is big enough for the few comments we’ve got so far” he told Mouse. Mouse just sighed and said “I hope you are wrong.”

We have also had the first upset in the competition. There must be a few older fans amongst our readers. Yesterday Alley Cat and Granddad Max were introduced to the Instagram readers and Granddad Max, who is in second place on the blog votes, has taken the lead when his likes from Instagram are added. Who would have thought! Snippedy and Chambermaid are hot on his heels, so “run old fella, run”.

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.