This semester (which I realize is almost over and I've neglected this little note so long that now it's probably forgotten in the back of your desk drawer) I'm taking a puppetry class. Yes, I'm learning the craft of Jim Henson, Adrian and Basil as well as the Tanglewood Marionettes.

You don't have to tell me because I'll beat you to it:

Ladies and gentleman I am a part of the world's coolest field of study.

One of our recent projects was to create a parade puppet that advocated for some kind of social cause. I was in a group of three. And for some reason I'm still trying to tease out, we, as bright, young women, who are advocates for the arts and generally socially aware, chose to create a puppet to raise awareness about not throwing your gum on the ground where birds can eat it. Once the birds eat the old gum, it expands in their stomachs and they die, or so swears one of the girls in my group. . . whether or not I actually believe it expands in the bird's stomach and doesn't just sit there like a flavorless zebra striped rock, is beside the point. The fact is, we (where we is used in a rather loose sense) chose to be advocates for little gum ingesting birdies everywhere. The validity of the cause aside, we made a pretty kick kidney puppet. Behold:

Feel free to be impressed. That loveable blue bird is probably about 500 times the size of an actual blue bird and is made of hot glue, blue felt, hot glue, styrofoam, hot glue, wire, hot glue and plastic tubing. Oh and 6 fake feathers. Bet you just want to cuddle him. Well, I'm here to tell you, he doesn't cuddle . . .but he does dance.

The musical accompaniment and artistic cinematography as well as the really cool video quality are all complimentary bits of the experience. If you're not a hip enough film consumer to appreciate the artistic choices of this little documentary, then look at content. Isn't he utterly charming when he dances? Of course he is. He's made of hot glue magic.