Handmade A Tale of Production Part 1: That Old Magical Cabinet by Don Clark

Handmade: A Tale of Production – Part 1

 

HANDMADE: A TALE OF PRODUCTION

Part One: That Old Magical Cabinet

 

by Don Clark

 

We open on the weary toymaker, Henry. He makes loads of old timey wood toys inside the coolest little workshop that was formerly the cutest little barn. It’s not a barn barn. More like an outbuilding that sheep (or something) lived in.You wouldn’t know that now though. Henry re-outfitted the building decades ago. He heats it in the winter with a pot-bellied stove fueled by shop wood scraps. Handy. Henry had the shortest commute he knew of – about fifty feet. He and his wife lived in an old farmhouse. Their kids were grown

His shop it a cozy little place filled with sunlight, toys, and tools. Some of the tools he’s inherited, but most were picked up at yard sales and the like. He has a professional interest to be sure, but, good grief, he has more rusted hand planes than he’ll ever find the time to restore. Let alone, need. In addition to his power saws, he has four or five dozen handsaws. Maybe six? And let’s be honest here; you can make do when one or two. Henry has a half dozen hand-drills. Like he needs any more help adding to his arthritis.

On top of all this, he’s not even sure what some of the tools are.

That doesn’t matter though. Henry’s chief interest is the tool’s owners and their stories.

Take that saw over there. Some old fella used that saw for thirty years before he was just too old. Then he spent a decade first cupping his ear and saying “WHAT?,” before relenting to the inevitable and just nodding when someone spoke to him.

Then he passed, where his tools, rusted from an untended decade in the garage, were sold at an estate sale. His children and grandchildren holding back tears as they swapped old stories. But the tools don’t look like much, they mostly went unsold. Henry can’t bear to think of those tools being shuttled off for scrap.

He bought all the unsold tools. Henry had to keep those tools in use.

Because he can’t bear to think of his old tools suffering a scrap-yard fate.

This is our toymaker. Making toys for the young folks, some of which have grown up to buy his toys for their young folks. Read more

The Horrors of Home Repair

The Horrors of Home Repair!

In recognition of the abnormal, weird, disturbing, and just plain scary, we present:

 

Terrifying Tales from the Attic!

Nefarious Noises from the Cellar!

Shocking Stories of Crossed Wires!

The Horrors of Home Repair!

– or –

How to get your ‘new‘ old home at a scary cheap price!

The Horrors of Home Repair

The sunlight is waning; the leaves are falling. The chill in the air tingles your skin. The moon rises. You think you’re safe inside your own home when you hear the growling noise vibrating through the walls.Now! You must stop and ask yourself this: Do you want the noise to be a reanimated poltergeist intent on doing ill to your home and family.

OR

A fault in the mechanical system that will lead to a series of repairs, lost weekends, and countless buckets of spilled cash?

We will help you answer such a question as we now enter the home of Mr and Ms Levitt. John and Susan. They have two lovely young children and are whispering about a third.

Eight years ago, when Mr and Ms Levitt were newlyweds, they thought they knew what they were getting themselves into when they purchased a one-hundred-and-something year old house. A long-past-its-prime Victorian that had suffered through decades of half-hearted repairs, misguided renovations, and plain old neglect.

Now, Ms and Mr Levitt bought the house intent on a proper renovation, and, of course, they knew the unexpected would occur.

They were more right than they knew. Read more

Riley Justice and the Corporate Team Building Exercise in Deception

The Daring Adventures of Riley Justice!

Riley Justice, the hard-working (or is it hardly working) accounts-receivable cog helping to keep the corporate machine grinding on, while occasionally foiling Corporate Raider’s sinister plots.

Serial Fun Office Fiction Riley Justice by Don Clark

Riley Justice and the Corporate Team Building Exercise in Deception

Where Riley Justice Thinks Outside the Box to Strategically Move to the Rear of Department Restructurement

 

Accounts Receivable is an efficient and ruthless machine. Invoices are processed and dispatched within hours of completion of contract. Payment is expected statim vel propter aliud. Statim vel propter aliud is a Latin turn of phrase crafted especially for Accounts Receivable. It’s meaning is ambiguous; it’s intent is menacing. Payment is expected upon receipt.

Past-due notices are sent the following day.

Accounts Receivable is an efficient and ruthless machine, but still, there is room for improvement. Thus was formed the once-yearly Planning Exercise in Creative Thinking. PEcT for short. They’re always held off-site at some corporate creative outside the box blue sky center. There’s grass, fresh air, comfortable furniture, and loads of snacks and drinks.

And you can wear shorts. Read more

The Hare Hair Stylist - A Silly Pun-Filled Story by Don Clark-Happy Bungalow

The Hare Hair Stylist

The Hare Hair Stylist

The Hare Hair Stylist - A Silly Pun-Filled Story by Don Clark-Happy Bungalow

It used to be that journalists had just one job. For instance, a fashion reporter, style reporter, or the offbeat / quirky news specialist. Never was one person called upon to do all four jobs. But times are tough; People just aren’t reading magazines like they used to. Unfortunately many people lost their jobs. Most eventually found new jobs; some even started up their own companies.

But for those left with a job, their blessings were mixed. Yes, they still had a job, but now it had become jobs. Plural. So fashion / style / offbeat beat came to be handled by one person.

Melanie McKay was such a person. This is the time she found herself on the niche interview of her life.
Read more

DIY Home Spring Maintenance Tips

Home Maintenance Tips for Spring

Gnome Gnews – Spring Cleaning Edition

5 Spring Maintenance Tips that are Charmingly Easy

 

Life is beautiful when it’s well maintained.
Practical Home and Garden Maintenance Tips from the Idyllic Gnome Glades.

 

Spring Maintenance Tips for the Home

 

Clean Vegetation Around Your Air Conditioner(AC) Condenser.

Problem: Do you live outside the perfect Gnome Glades where temperatures rise above the comfortable? Oh dear, we’re sorry to hear that, but taking proper care of your air-cooling machine can be a snap! You only need to clear away the vegetation that has grown up around your air conditioner condenser.
Read more

Detective Serial featuring Archibald the Penguin by Don Clark

Archibald Penguin No. 1

Introducing Our New Serial!

Who Ate All the Fish?

featuring

Archibald Penguin, Our Bird,
The Famed Detective.
The Cheeky Penguin who
Loves Fish as Almost as Much as
He Loves Fighting Crime!

Detective Serial featuring Archibald the Penguin by Don Clark

The Players:

Polar Bear —  A Hungry Animal
The Walrus —  A Certain Tusked Mammal
Seal —  A Happy Fellow
Pelican —  A Creature with a Large Mouth
Archibald Penguin —  Our Bird
Henrietta Puffin —  Penguin’s Ever-Present Companion
Shark —  A Miracle of Evolution
Killer Whale —  Poster-Fish for the Misunderstood

Chapter 1

We find Archibald Penguin, Our Bird, on the ice and snow-covered shores of the Southern-Most Continent. He stands near the edge of the water, the cold gray sea continually washing against the frozen ground. His ever-present companion, Henrietta Puffin, is with him. Together they look out towards the sea where there is water in great abundance.

“But there is one thing missing Ms. Puffin.”

“Indeed Penguin. Indeed. What do you suppose is the cause of this?”

What my dear Puffin?” Our bird spun on his webbed feet to look inland. “Or more precisely who?” The pair looked down at four sets of footprints leading inland. “This cove is normally teeming with fish, but there are none to be seen. What is to be seen, however, are three sets of footprints.”

“Yes,” Ms. Puffin added, “If I’m correct, the tracks of the Walrus, Seal, and Polar Bear.”

“ I concur. I purpose we follow the trail of the Walrus. The trail looks particularly heavy.”

“Laden with a multitude of fish?”

“Perhaps that is so. Let us go and find out Ms. Puffin.”
Read more

The Buffalo and the American Reaper Company-Happy Bungalow

The Bison: Nomadic Wanderer

The Bison.  Noble Ungulate wanderer traveling across continents.

Originally from Europe, the Old Country, the bison arrived in the New Country millennia before it was known as America (1). In the great open land where, one day, meritocracy would throw off the shackles of European aristocracy. For in this new land it did not matter what station in life you were born to, it only mattered what station in life you desired to achieve.

 

The Buffalo and the American Reaper Company-Happy Bungalow

 

Here there was a new continent with fields aplenty. Vast tracts of untrodden lands to be tamed – a continent to be cultivated and prepared for a great outpouring of human ingenuity that would change the world.

Here in the new world, so much was new that, many immigrants changed their names (2). Some dropped a syllable, other re-arranged some letters. A few changed their names entirely. The Stag became the Buck. The Elk became the Moose. The Bison became the Buffalo.

THE BUFFALO

The Old World, small ancient land that it is, had been tamed and tidied ages ago. Compact little towns hugged cozy farm lands. Tidy rivers ran along beautiful, but small, open spaces. Every inch of earth was ordered and claimed; there was no room for expansion.

This was not so in the New World.

The Buffalo arrived with a strong back prepared to clear the vast tracts of the American West. But there would be no need for the agrarian scythe – not with the Buffalo!
Read more

Committee of Camels designs the perfect ostrich logo

Where Do People Come From?

Where do people come from?

Our children are always interested in where they come from. We do our best to explain. We show them baby pictures and old scrapbooks. This leads to more questions. So we speak of parents, then of parent’s parents, and so on. Eventually our children ask the question that we’ve all asked. The question that, aware of it or not, always lingers in our mind. It is perhaps the first question ever asked.

Committee of Camels designs the perfect ostrich logo

Where Do People Come From?

We have an answer, my wife and I. It’s not universally accepted, and try as we might, we have located no “hard” evidence of its truth or exact origin. But we believe in this answer. For the answer is a story that speaks in the quiet of the still darkness that is the Truth.
Read more

Happy-Bugnalow-robot-movie-production-wooden-toys

Toy Robot Movie Production Troubles

It’s been well established that toys come to life under certain circumstances (ie: when placed in magic cupboard, or when the kids leave the room); our toys are no exception. Our animal toys are mostly content to graze around the living room or nap under the shade of the couch. The fairies buzz around the potted plants. The cars usually zoom around, always underfoot. But the robots? Oh boy those robots.

The robots are restless and always working on something. Of late they have taken up movie-making. They built their own equipment and took over a corner of the garage for production. They fooled around with physical props and sets, but couldn’t get the look they were going for. So up went a green-screen for later CG work. Everything was going well . .

toy robot movie production

I made it clear the movie was their project, and I also made it clear they could only have the garage for the weekend. I thought this was plainly stated in the contract. Whoever wrote the thing and whichever bot signed it were two different beings. I brought this to their attention (again) late Saturday evening. Wow! Drama!

Lot’s of yelling squeaks and bloobs and bips (I struggle to understand them when they talk fast). I caught every third or fourth word – lot’s of blame and name calling. But to their credit they worked out their differences, and then worked through the night. They finished up garage photography the next day and my wife and I were able to move the car back in.

The robots finished their movie. It had a limited release in all the art-house theaters (poster below). It’s a big hit as far as small movies go. Robot Lords from Cosmic Space is due for home theater release later this year; certain to be a cult classic.

Pick up your own robots and make your own movie today!

Vintage Looking Sci-Fi Movie Poseter With Robots

Happy-Bungalow-boy-floating-away-with-balloons

Boy Holds Too Many Balloons, Floats Into Sky

toy posed reenactment of child floating into air holding balloons

5 cents each or 15 / 50 cents. “I’ll take sixty please.”

The balloon barker was a large fellow. He could hold two hundred balloons and not budge an inch, but the Attleson’s boy? The Attleson’s boys was thin as a bean stalk. He handed over his money, took those balloons in his two hands, and ZIP! Off he went into the air.

It was a steady breeze that day so he made it a good two miles before he thought to let go of a balloon or two.  He loosed a few more and finally landed in John Southwick’s sorghum field. If you can believe that.

If you can believe it.  Our grandmother believes it.  She swears by this story, says it happened when she was a kid herself.  Though she lost the newspaper clipping, and wavers on being at the scene or simply hearing about it second hand.

Still, it’s a FUN story, One of our favorites, and we’ve recreated it here in toy story-telling form.

Want to act out your own adventures with toys?  Well, click here to purchase some.

toys pose for fanciful story of boy flying into air