Caroll Spinney's book tour and release date!
Jeni
I spoke to Caroll a few days ago and he gave me the dates for his book
tour!
The title of Caroll's book is "The Wisdom of Big Bird/The Dark Genius of
Oscar the Grouch: Lessons from a Life in Feathers". It be released on
April 29, 2003.
Here are the dates for his tour:
May 6, 2003 @ 7PM: New York: Barnes & Noble, Broadway and 6th
May 7, 2003 @ 7PM: Boston (Cambridge): Wordsworth Books, 30 Brattle St.
May 8, 2003 @ 7PM: Acton, MA: Willow Books, 279 Great Rd.
May 12, 2003 @ 7:30 PM: Atlanta: Borders #15, 3637 Peachtree Rd, Suite C
May 13, 2003 @ 7PM: Chicago (Naperville): Anderson's Book Shop, 123 West
Jefferson Ave
May 15, 2003: Los Angeles (Pasadena): Vroman's Bookstore, 695 E.
Colorado Blvd.
May 16, 2003 @ 12:30 PM: San Francisco, Stacey's, 581 Market St.
May 16, 2003 @ 7PM: San Francisco (Berkeley), Cody's Books, 1730 Fourth
St.
May 17, 2003 @ 2PM: San Francisco (Walnut Creek): Barnes & Noble, 1149
South Main St, Walnut Creek, CA
I will soon be adding these dates to the web site.
If you want to meet Caroll, here may be your chance!
Take care,
--
-Jeni Rizio
Webmaster, The Official Caroll Spinney Fan Page
http://carollspinney.netfirms.com
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D.W. McKim
chance more cities may later be added?)
--------------------------------------
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Jeni
"D.W. McKim" wrote:
> Is this the full tour schedule or the initial dates (ie - is there a
> chance more cities may later be added?)
>
DW,
I tink this is it. Caroll told me he was going on vacation after that.
I know, I wish it were longer, too. :-)
trekkie1701E
Him, Frank Oz and Jerry Nelson are my favorite (Next to Jim & Brian
Henson, of course :) ).
TheShredder
does anyone have a schedule of events for this? Please don't tell me it's
been to New Jersey already and I missed it! Oscar was one of my favorite
characters, with the 'I Love Trash' song a constant playing on my portable
Fisher Price Record player during my youth ;).
"trekkie1701E" <dmar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8e5de538.03042...@posting.google.com...
Jeni
TheShredder wrote:
> Ack,
>
> does anyone have a schedule of events for this? Please don't tell me it's
> been to New Jersey already and I missed it! Oscar was one of my favorite
> characters, with the 'I Love Trash' song a constant playing on my portable
> Fisher Price Record player during my youth ;).
Here is the link again to the schedule of events:
http://carollspinney.netfirms.com/docs/booktour.html
Craig Silverstein
} http://carollspinney.netfirms.com/docs/booktour.html
As luck would have it, I happened to be in new york at the same time
as Carroll Spinney, so I got to go to his signing tonight.
Spoiler space for those who are going to a later signing and don't want
to hear what it's like...
It was nice, a pretty low-key affair but a pleasant one.
The event was focused towards an adult (well, 20-something) crowd,
rather than to little kids. There were probably(?) 75 people there,
and 5 - 10 of them were kids. I asked carroll about this and he said
that they had pitched the event to an older audience. "One reason is
the kids don't like seeing the person behind it." That doesn't match
what I had read, or in fact what I saw at the event, but maybe there's
some truth to it. Carroll told a story about how he used to talk to
his grandkid on the phone in his big bird voice. When the kid was 10
carroll, assuming he wasn't saying anything the boy didn't already
know, admitted it was really he who was big bird. Well, it turns out
he was saying something the boy didn't already know. "Can you spell
devastated?"
Oscar made an appearance (one of the audience questions: "What do you
have in your duffel bag?") and spent some time talking to the
audience, including the kids. The kids were much more likely to
answer back. It reminded me of when the Muppets went over to talk to
the litle girl in MuppetFest. One of the most amazing things to me
was how lifelike oscar was, how he moved his head around and even
widened his eyes, even when carroll was just answering questions and
seemingly ignoring his puppet arm altogether. I wonder if he was
thinking about his performance or if that was just force of habit.
No real tidbits were let out that we didn't already know, except that
oscar, in the original design, was actually intended to be purple.
But there were some interesting anecdotes comparing jim's and frank's
directorial style. Jim used to let carroll do all sorts of anything
muppets on sesame street, but when he left for other projects and had
frank stay on as "director," carroll didn't get those roles anymore.
So one day jim came back to visit and said, "Why aren't you
performing?" and carroll is all, "I dunno," so Jim and frank confer
and jim says, "OK, why don't you do lefty?" (Normally frank's role.)
So this is how, just once, carroll got to say "Wanna buy an O?" "In
fact, I saw the lefty skit I did on tv just the other day. But Frank
still gets the royalties for it."
He didn't present very much at all, maybe 5 minutes, with 45 minutes
or so for questions, and another 30 minutes for signing. We were the
first tour stop, so his handwriting is stil very good. :-) Carroll
also used to live just a few blocks from the bookstore, so there were
quite a few friends of his in the audience. I wanted to pretend to be
one, but I figured he would notice...
Carroll Spinney seems to be genuinely a nice guy, and if he's let fame
get to his head he hasn't shown it. If I were a famous puppeteer, I'd
want to grow up to be just like him.
craig
TheShredder
> Oscar made an appearance (one of the audience questions: "What do you
> have in your duffel bag?") and spent some time talking to the
> audience, including the kids. The kids were much more likely to
> answer back. It reminded me of when the Muppets went over to talk to
> the litle girl in MuppetFest. One of the most amazing things to me
> was how lifelike oscar was, how he moved his head around and even
> widened his eyes, even when carroll was just answering questions and
> seemingly ignoring his puppet arm altogether. I wonder if he was
> thinking about his performance or if that was just force of habit.
Aww man...... why didn't I hear about this sooner? I would have
kept my Jersey Shore vacation cut short and would have went myself.
Did they accept picture requests with Spinney and Oscar? That
would be the ultimate memoir :).
> Carroll Spinney seems to be genuinely a nice guy, and if he's let fame
> get to his head he hasn't shown it. If I were a famous puppeteer, I'd
> want to grow up to be just like him.
Heh, after all these years, even though I've long since stopped watching
the Show, I'd love to get a tour of the SS set. Do they still do those?
Craig Silverstein
} Did they accept picture requests with Spinney and Oscar? That
} would be the ultimate memoir :).
A few of us did pose for pictures with Spinney -- me included -- but
we were all too bashful to ask him to bring oscar out again as well.
Since we posed while he was signing, I think it would have been too
inconvenient to involve oscar.
I didn't wait until he was done signing, so all sorts of crazy things
might have happened then, but my guess is everyone just packed up and
went home.
craig
Scott McGuire
Craig Silverstein <csil...@theory-lab1.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
Last night at the Harvard Square (Cambridge, MA) signing, one of the
last folks in line (not me) asked if it was possible for Oscar to come
out again and pose for photos. Since it had been a small crowd and it
wasn't too late, Mr. Spinney agreed and the few folks left all got their
pictures taken with Mr. Spinney and Oscar (alas, as I made last minute
rearrangements to attend the signing, I didn't have my camera with me).
Mr. Spinney talked for about 15 minutes, and then spent another 45 or so
answering questions. There were two visits during the talk from Oscar
the Grouch and Mr. Spinney sang the Alphabet Song in his Big Bird voice.
Then he signed the books, all with an illustration of either Big Bird or
Grover (your choice). Mr. Spinney's family was there with him and they
were all very nice and willing to take a little extra time for the fans
- I'm glad I was able to make it!
--Scott McGuire / smcg...@mit.edu
Scott McGuire
Scott McGuire <smcg...@mit.edu> wrote:
> Then he signed the books, all with an illustration of either Big Bird or
> Grover (your choice).
Er, I meant "Big Bird or Oscar" of course. Sigh!
--Scott McGuire / smcg...@mit.edu