"First introduced in 1962, the Peanut Butter Floor (Pindakaasvloer) is a conceptual artwork covered with a thick layer of peanut butter."

"The humorous, absurd nature of the work raises questions like 'is this art?' and 'am I allowed to find this beautiful?,' reflecting [the late Dutch artist and comedian Wim T.] Schippers’ belief that art does not necessarily have to be logical or useful, it may as well 'be absurd – just like life itself – and that is precisely what makes it worthwhile.' Rather than exhibiting the preserved floor from 1962, the installation is recreated each time according to the artist’s precise instructions.... 'it requires 15.6 kilos of smooth peanut butter (not chunky) per square meter, no one should stand or lie on the peanut butter floor, the peanut butter should be applied as smoothly and monotonously as possible, and the work should not be approached with any educational purpose.'..."

From "390kg of peanut butter cover rotterdam gallery floor, celebrating humor and absurdity" (designboom).

Here's the Wikipedia page for Wim T. Schippers, who died last month at the age of 83. Excerpt: " During the 1960s, he worked mostly as a visual artist, associated with the international Fluxus-movement. As a television writer, director, and actor he was responsible for some of the most notable and controversial shows on Dutch televisions from the 1960s to the 1990s, creating a number of lasting characters and creating terms and expressions which entered wide usage. In addition, he voiced the characters of Ernie and Kermit the Frog on Sesamstraat, the Dutch version of Sesame Street."

And: "Schippers' art work is praised for its sense of humor; when a dozen journalists stood pensively around the peanut butter platform, Schippers cried out, 'Isn't this fantastic! We're all watching peanut butter!'"

"A 'reimagining' of 'Sesame Street' was underway to overhaul the show’s format and focus on just four core characters — Bert and Ernie not among them...."

"Leaders of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit corporation that produces the show, hope that children will develop deeper relationships with the characters — and with the show — if they see the same Muppets every episode, really get to know them. But that means downgrading beloved Muppet stars who have been there since the start to supporting roles: Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, the Count and Oscar the Grouch.... Hoping to deepen the connection children feel with the characters, [Kay Wilson Stallings, who was promoted to chief creative development and production officer in 2020] pared the core cast down to just four Muppets: Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster and Grover.... Competing shows featured just a handful of central characters. Too many, she reasoned, and kids would not connect with anyone.... Wilson Stallings was matter of fact about the decision, saying it was based on market research, not nostalgia. 'We’re leaning into the characters that resonate most with our audience,' she said...."

From "Inside ‘Sesame Street’ as it fights to survive/With a lucrative HBO deal ending, the show tackles emotional well-being and remakes itself to win over a new generation" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"Even though it's hard, you're never alone."

I know how hard it is some days to sweep the clouds away and get to sunnier days.

Our friend Elmo is right: We have to be there for each other, offer our help to a neighbor in need, and above all else, ask for help when we need it.

Even though it's hard, you're never alone. https://t.co/ffMJekbowo

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 31, 2024

Brilliantly executed parody: SNL's trailer for "Grouch."

This is so well done that I shifted from enjoying the mockery of the idea of taking a comic-book villain's origin story utterly seriously and filming it with high artistry (which is, I think, what happens in the movie "Joker") and getting drawn into the fantasy of how Oscar the Grouch (and other "Sesame Street" characters) could have become the people they are. "Sesame Street" has always been a falsely sunny fantasy version of New York City, so what's really there if you remove the sunshine filter. Who are these creatures? They're just puppets, it's all made up... that's what you're supposed to blithely tell your kids if they ever wonder. Hours and hours of watching these candy-colored freaks... but what if you looked past the surface and sought to understand them as human beings?

"Now, this rising generation of autistic adults is joining others in the movement to change autism discussions that, they say, have historically been 'about us, without us.'"

"More and more, they are influencing policies, leading protests against misleading anti-vaccine messages and the marketing of quack treatments, pushing for fair representation in media coverage, movies and TV shows, such as 'Sesame Street,' and helping to reshape language and outdated opinions about what autism really means. (For example, many self-advocates ask to be called 'autistic people' rather than 'people with autism' because the latter implies a disability.) More and more autistic people, such as 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg, are taking pride in their identities. This month, she called autism her 'superpower.'... [Self-advocates object to teaching] autistic people to mimic neurotypical behaviors that are not natural to them. [Jillian Parramore, an autistic person in California] said providers would come into her preschool class to teach her how to 'walk and talk and breathe like a human — one that they understood to be human.' Parramore, who did not fully speak until she was 10, said trainers would also force her to practice facial expressions in the mirror to convey emotions, saying, 'show me happy, show me sad, show me angry.' 'To this day, I get really freaked out when I see a mirror in public because I immediately want to go through the facial expressions,' she said. 'I’ve even learned to put on lipstick without a mirror because it’s too much for me.'"

From "How a ‘Sesame Street’ Muppet became embroiled in a controversy over autism/Autistic self-advocates are changing discussions that, they say, have historically been 'about us, without us'" (WaPo). Despite the headline, the article is not mostly about "Sesame Street." The comments at the link are fantastic, with some very articulate autistic people dominating. Example:

It is wrong to put a child through conversion therapy which drives them to PTSD just so they can appear neurotypical in ways that do not disable them at all. Cosmetic behaviors like stimming are not corrected for a child's benefit, but rather for the benefit of an ignorant public.

And (from another comment by the same person):

I feel it is rational to assert that society as a whole could benefit if more people with autism could be understood and provided with a better opportunity to contribute. I feel fewer people with autism would end up in institutions, jails, and unemployment lines, and I feel that more savants would be able to step up and make the one-to-species contributions that we are known for.

It isn't a matter of entitlement. The question is: What choices are good for both a minority that needs to be protected and for our society as a whole? The answers come out the same. Encourage understanding, not cruelty, in the general population. Offer *reasonable* accommodations. Don't try to force us to be like everyone else.

"We fluffing love Sesame Street and we’re obviously very pleased that the ruling reinforced what STX’s intention was from the very beginning — to honor the heritage of The Jim Henson Company’s previous award-winning creations..."

"... while drawing a clear distinction between any Muppets or Sesame Street characters and the new world Brian Henson and team created. We believe we accomplished that with the very straightforward NO SESAME, ALL STREET tagline. We look forward to continued happytimes as we prepare to release Happytime Murders this summer."

That's Fred, Esq., a puppet, supposedly speaking on behalf of STX and quoted in "STX Beats Lawsuit Over ‘Happytime Murders’ Trailer With ‘Ejaculating Puppets.'"

I wrote about the "Happytime Murders" lawsuit a few days ago and gave it my "lawsuits I hope will fail" tag, so I'm glad to see the judge boot this thing out of court so quickly.

The judge was Vernon Broderick, and The Daily News summarizes the opinion:

He said the "No Sesame" tagline was a "humorous, pithy way" of letting viewers know "The Happytime Murders" was not Sesame Street.

During nearly two hours of arguments before he read his decision, attorneys for Sesame Street sought to link their trademark case to an earlier one involving the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and the famous 1978 porn flick, "Debbie Does Dallas."

"Debbie Does Dallas was a pornographic movie. There's no question," Broderick said. "This is an R-rated movie. There's a distinction."

Broderick was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President Obama. Nice work!

Let's take a clear look at how "The Happytime Murders" appropriates "Sesame Street" intellectual property.

I wrote about this lawsuit yesterday, based on a stupidly short article in The Daily Beast, and I can see that I lacked a clear picture of what the new movie was. The "restricted" trailer gives plenty of information about the kind of satire that's going on (and please know in advance there's lots of puppet ejaculation at the very end):



For what it's worth: When I tried to type the first tag for this post, which was going to be "sesame street," I typed "sexame." That does suggest the new movie has the power to sully the brand, which may support the "Sesame Street" — jeez! I did it again! — side of the legal argument, which is based on trademark and therefore confusion, but I think that satirizing TV shows is an important part of the free-speech tradition. You have to be able to parody famous characters, and in fact there's a Muppet tradition:

The Land of Gorch was a recurring skit that appeared in season one of the American comedy television program Saturday Night Live, featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. Prior to his work for children on Sesame Street, Henson had created puppetry work, including his show Sam and Friends, for adult audiences. His characters appeared regularly on the late-night comedy television programs, and The Ed Sullivan Show. After Sesame Street, Henson feared he would become typecast into working on children's television series. His talent agent Bernie Brillstein, who represented Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi, helped him transition to Saturday Night Live....

The premise of The Land of Gorch featured Muppet characters, who were members of a royal family, in a faraway locale. They behaved boorishly and made frequent references to drug abuse, sexual innuendo, and consumption of alcohol. Characters included King Ploobis, Queen Peuta, their son, and servants Scred and Vazh. These characters often consulted their oracle Mighty Favog for advice....

Neither "The Land of Gorch" nor "The Happytime Murders" uses a particular puppet that was or is on "Sesame Street" (as far as I know). The idea was that there was a style of puppetmaking that had been established and was developed for the children's show in the 1960s, but that was always in tension with the broader idea of what to do with Muppets.

Notice that "Sesame Street" isn't claiming control over the Muppets brand. The movie is co-produced by the Jim Henson Co., and the director is Brian Henson who directed “The Muppets Christmas Carol” (WaPo). The claim seems to need to rely of confusion with the "Sesame Street" subsection of the larger Muppet project. The tag line for "The Happytime Murders" is "No Sesame. All Street."

Is that confusing, saying that it's not Sesame? That's what the lawsuit says. I've got to dredge up my "lawsuits I hope will fail" tag.

The movie "The Happytime Murders" uses "Sesame Street" puppets in a way that is "explicit, profane, drug-using, misogynistic, violent, copulating, and even ejaculating."

The Daily Beast reports on the lawsuit brought by the "Sesame Street" company to stop the distribution of the film, which, of course, it did not license or authorize in any way. The film is directed by "one of Jim Henson's family member."

“Sesame seeks an injunction that forces Defendants to cease and desist their trading upon the goodwill associated with Sesame Street in furtherance of box office receipts,” the lawsuit says. “The promotion of The Happytime Murders should succeed or fail on its own merits, not on a cynical, unlawful attempt to deceive and confuse the public into associating it with the most celebrated children’s program in history.”

I assume "deceive and confuse" relates to trademark law. Is it deceptive and confusing or will pretty much everyone know it's a send-up, a satire or parody? When do the rights to characters you've created give way to the right of expression of those who want to make fun of them?

[ADDED: I’m now thinking the headline to this post misstates the facts. I think there’s just a Muppet character that is not a “Sesame Street” character and the poster slogan “No Sesame. All Street.”]

[MORE: I put up a new post with the "restricted" trailer for the movie that makes the overlap with "Sesame Street" very clear. Having seen that — not saying I liked it, but having seen it — I think it's easily within the zone of satire that should be protected.]

This makes me think of "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" — "a 1987 American short biographical film portraying the last 17 years of singer Karen Carpenter's life. Directed by Todd Haynes, the film uses Barbie dolls as actors, as well as documentary and artistic footage... [and] an unauthorized soundtrack consisting mostly of the hit songs of The Carpenters."

"Superstar" was never distributed because it was stopped by claims of copyright in the music. But what about the use of Barbie dolls?

... Haynes detailed Karen's worsening anorexia by subtly whittling away at the face and arms of the "Karen" Barbie doll.

This is only tangentially related, from Woodward and Armstrong's "The Brethren," an account of the Supreme Court in the early 70s:

The National Lampoon, a humor magazine, had just released its February issue. The centerfold was entitled “Amicae Curiae”—Friends of the Court—and it depicted, in a color cartoon, all nine of the Justices engaged in a variety of sexual activity. 

View image here...

The Chief, naked except for holster and pistol, was on the floor licking the boot of an otherwise naked young woman. Brennan was standing in front of two very young girls holding his robe open. Stewart was measuring the throat of a young woman with a ruler, apparently in preparation for oral sex. Rehnquist, clad in a woman’s bra and red garter belt, was parading before the others cracking a black whip.

Maddie Poppe sings Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide"...

... on the "American Idol" finale last night. The results are revealed tonight, in a show that will include, among other things, Maddie Poppe singing her audition song, "Rainbow Connection," with Kermit the Frog. I don't know what you like to watch on TV but Maddie Poppe singing "Rainbow Connection" with Kermit the Frog sounds like the best thing that's been on TV in years.

Here's the audition version of "Rainbow Connection" (one of my all-time favorite songs):



ADDED: "If not for american idol i may have never heard her artistry.she is so cute.when i hear her sing it makes me want to ride a merry go round at the county fair" — a comment on this video from last year, before the TV-show competition began:

"It would seem that last year some Chinese parents complained that their children were 'addicted to Peppa Pig,' and 'began oinking and jumping into puddles after watching the cartoon.'"

"But the subculture referred to [in the state media outlet Global Times] is a more serious phenomenon. It is called shehuiren, which translates directly as 'a member of society,' but is used to describe rowdy young adults, particularly young men. How did an animated farm animal meant for preschoolers come to be associated with millennials who are labeled by state media as 'slackers' and the 'antithesis of the young generation the [Chinese Communist] Party tries to cultivate'?"

From "What Does Beijing Have Against Peppa Pig...?" (Daily Beast).

I read the article but still can't answer those questions. I am wondering if the Chinese leaders are anything like Jordan Peterson with his hatred of Elmo (see #7 at "11 things I learned from the WaPo article about Jordan Peterson").

Any characters designed for children that you'd like to rail against. This is a potentially huge topic. Please try to go big with it. Don't just wander around inside the comfortable topic Communists Are Repressive. Look at the characters we invite and encourage young people to identify with. Quite aside from government censorship, private citizens make choices about what to give to our children. Where  are we going wrong? What did you latch onto as a child that took you down a dark path?

11 things I learned from the WaPo article about Jordan Peterson.

(Here's the article that went up yesterday.)

1. Kanye West seems to have put up a photo of his computer that showed he had a tab for a Jordan Peterson video, so either he was watching a Jordan Peterson video, or he was considering watching a Jordan Peterson video, or he or somebody touching that computer wanted to make it look as though he was watching a Jordan Peterson video. The Jordan Peterson/Kanye West combination is awesomely exciting/terrifyingly powerful/mindcrushingly lame.

2. Video is the key to Peterson's success because — these are Peterson's words — "it turns out that people can listen to things they can’t read." People who won't read "challenging books" — WaPo's words — will, for some reason, listen to Peterson lectures that go on for hours.

3. Peterson is speaking to men. Women can listen in and try to get some useful tips, but the intended audience is men, men, men, those little weasels, those "weak... [s]louchers, slackers, chumps, low-status dudes who have amassed."

4. Some developmental psychologist was found to deliver the accusation that Peterson "takes a really simplistic approach toward gender inequality" and gives what "feels like a dressed-up version of misogyny." How does one get to be "simplistic" and "dressed up" at the same time? The text on its face is hinky.

5. Peterson's Rule #1 is "Stand up straight with your shoulders back," but he's "slow to offer direct eye contact, prone to gazing downward" and "seems too immersed in big thoughts to be bothered by what’s in front of him" and, "[d]uring the photo session in the park," he "semi-slumps."

6. Peterson sometimes moves himself to cry and leaves the "unwiped tears" on his face. We're told he's subject to "severe depression" and has been on antidepressants.

7. The selected item of evidence in support of the proposition that Peterson "appears temperamentally incapable of picking his battles" is that he attacked Elmo — "I always hated that creepy, whiny puppet." But — I just checked — Peterson doesn't randomly attack Elmo. He's telling a story about an inept father who complains about his inability to get his son to go to sleep at night but has been rewarding the child's recalcitrance by putting on an Elmo video. The sideswipe at Elmo was a bit of comic relief. The main problem was the father and his decision to show any video to the child, but the fact that the father showed Elmo gave some color to the story. Lest we think Elmo was at least good choice if you're going to show a child a video, Peterson calls Elmo "creepy" and "whiny" and — WaPo left this out — "a disgrace to Jim Henson’s legacy." I presume Peterson could speak for an hour on that topic.

8. Despite efforts to connect Peterson to the right wing, WaPo highlights his opposition to what Donald Trump supposedly represents. It quotes the one mention of Trump in the "12 Rules" book: "If 'men are pushed too hard to feminize,' he writes, 'they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology.' He argues that 'the populist groundswell of support for Donald Trump in the U.S. is part of the same process.'"

9. Peterson gave up religious belief when he was a teenager but he lectures at immense length on the “Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories."

10. He's very sensitive about food and believes he got off antidepressants by changing his diet, which seems to be "meat, salad and water... with only turmeric and salt for flavor." His daughter promotes the diet on line, here. He calls the diet "ridiculous," and I agree. The only fruit on the diet is olives!

11. The highest-rated comment at WaPo is: "As soon as I read Kanye was a fan, I could have stopped reading. Unfortunately, I kept reading. Victimhood is a left wing problem? Trump and the alt-right thrive on victimhood. I am a white male. I enjoyed a great advantage in life. When I started my professional life, 'girls' still had to prove themselves the equals of men. No, I am not that old. This was the 1990's."

"Sesame Street Just Unveiled Its First Autistic Character/Julia was introduced... in an effort to fight the stigma associated with autism..."

Headline at Buzzfeed. I listened to part of the embedded video, stopping shortly after the lyric "We all are important/We all are OK..." made me think too much. I read some of the comments, which I sorted according to "best." After wading through some discussion of whether the headline should have said "character with autism" instead of "autistic character," I got to some criticism of "Sesame Street" for working with an organization called Autism Speaks:

As an autistic person I hate that they worked with Autism Speaks. We autistic people can speak for ourselves, we don't need an organization without even one autistic person on the board speaking for us. While Sesame Street's heart is in the right place they're going about this all wrong and I wish I could help them fix it. Have a bunch of actual autistic people provide input on the character, not just the parents of autistic people. Only we can fully express what's in our heads.

There's also criticism of "Sesame Street" for making the character a girl when boys are much more likely to be autistic. One answer is: "It is exactly so they can break the stereotype." But, somebody says, that's "marginalizing boys with autism." Somebody else says having a girl exemplify autism is like have a male breast cancer spokesperson.