Figure Makers Brothers George & Glenn McElroy are considered the Stradivariuses of ventriloquist figure makers. It’s estimated that only 30 of their creations from the 1930/40s exist today. Palimpsest of fingerprints on a legacy of head sticks & levers from master machinist & artist brother-- intricate doings lying in wait for the flash & the flaunt. Candies & cakes pale next to Jacko the talking monkey, wild elf atop Russian hurdy gurdy-- he’s another Cadillac of a dummy, Fabregé of sweet gears. Magical apparatus these strange gifts, temporal & timeless, every McElroy offspring: Cecil, Ollie, Dudley & Troll, man-sized animatronic named Umpire. Poetry in hacksaw & sander, monkey business in eyes crossing, ears wiggling, tongues sticking out. In the museum Jacko poses-- wunderkind spirit, parody in an organ grinder’s suit, perhaps pining for a full moon’s treetop. All Figure Makers step back, leave us to the clockwork of our days, vulnerable machines in silence. Señor Surreal[Señor Wences] was the one who… stopped using
a dummy, which is the gutsiest thing you can do in a ventriloquist act. That’s like Metallica coming out and doing something a cappella. —Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller By s’awright s’awright I mean Monday morning after Ed Sullivan Sunday nights, when our geography class was a ping-pong salsa of s’awrights until Mr.Kaminsky scowled with detention threats. By s’awright s’awright I mean Spanish clouds of tilde that didn’t need a joke to float. Etcetera his territorial tract with a wacky swivel chair of voices. We cottoned to his weird decoys-- feisty falsetto, box of severed head, mundane scraps of conversation with a lipsticked hand. By s’awright s’awright I mean a matador with a meringue cape dispatching cigarette smoke rings & spinning plates teetering atop flamingo legs, ees bery nice.
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