Everybody forced here ripping 2021 and 21 22 Don Russ optic basketball hobby four box mixture number 18 random team style The results can always be found a late in sports cards calm. Thanks for joining everybody and good luck Start with the current year 21 22 Orange Christian Wood numbered one twenty one of one 99 Rockets Follow Jeremy Grant pistons. I've looked at I've looked the whole list illegal. That'd be cool if there was though I'd probably be big money It's a 99 Rolando Blackman Mavericks optographs Go Mavericks 60 of 99 and roll a die here one two three left four five six right for these all-star cards for the next two boxes here to It's gonna go left side for these all-star cards left side for both boxes Bassie Shigeltos Alexander Pink Velocity Anthony Davis number 75 of 79 Lakers hollow Marcus March Celtics Orte rated rookie a gold Deandre Hunter Atlanta four out of ten There you go Hawks nice gold there see if that'll come off the bottom there for those like a speck on it Trammer for the third rated rookie. Hello all-stars Jalen Brown Zach Levine goes left side Celtics Hello rated rookie Cameron Thomas Nets Zia Jackson The rookies Jalen Suggs magic Red Spencer Ginwitty one of 99 wizards. What happened illegal? As they live as hollow rated rookie Jaden Springer Sixers That's what you're saying wow to Red light it up Russell Westbrook Lakers numbered 50 of 99. That's how time works. It's how we keep track of it Alonzo morning Hello, and no Carter jr. Magic. That's right Randy. That is dedication Randy You watching people get punched in the magic game writing threes hollow Chris Middleton bucks Hollow rated rookie Evan Mobley Cavaliers What do you think illegal? Would to be or no be Moses moody Julius Randall on the lime green to 149 Knicks Hello Terrence Mann Clippers Jalen Suggs rated rookie magic. We'll get that piece of dust off of that card Hollow elite dominators Zia Williamson Pelicans. Yeah, I think it's I think it's no be dum dum Moody light it up Tatum Red rated rookie Josh Christopher 7 of 99 Rockets Hollow James Harden Nets Bones Highland. We've got a Trey Mann rated rookie Otto Thunder Damon Mitchell Orange Isaac O'Coro Cavaliers numbered 97 of 199 Hollow Kyle Kuzma wizards Give you a Mitchell Evan Mobley rated rookie Typical Sixers fan bringing Ben Simmons up and everything always Hollow light it up Jason Tatum Celtics just trying to make it about Ben Simmons and Talk trash. Hollow rated rookie Davion Mitchell Kings Last pack lime green Reggie Bullock Mavericks to 149 All right, we need something big out of the uh 2021 boxes here Hollow All-Stars LeBron James Lakers Who was born in Lakeland, Florida? Pink Velocity Josh Richardson for the Mavericks numbered 45 out of 79 Killian Hayes was born in Lakeland, Florida. Wait He's not French We need to go Kong Wu Hollow Eric Gordon Rockets We've been living a lot Oh, you grew up in France though. Okay So is he French citizen or us in it like what what? Hollow lights out Devon Booker Sons How do you be born in Lakeland, Florida and then end up playing that and end up growing up in France because your dad plays I don't understand that Orange rated rookie Patrick Williams numbered 157 of 199 all rated rookie Sadiq Bay Pistons Right, but that's a similarity between the two Desmond Bain Grizzlies rated rookie lime green 34 of 149 Congrats Grizzlies Gonna Ray G there you go Ray Hollow LeBron James Lakers What do you guys think your most important app on your phone is? Hollow stargazing luke adantage Mavericks Gmail that's probably that's a good answer. Yeah, if any email app that you use the most is probably the most important one The rookies lamello ball Messages is a good one Alarm Google maps is solid How basing Mine would be the uh, the regal cinema app Okay, I'm just kidding. This is a sponsored ad by regal cinema I'm just kidding. Uh, sergi baka numbered to 199 clippers orange Bank apps is a good one, but you could do banking without It's inconvenient though Rated rookie hollow malachlyphaline raptors. I think I'd rather be able to answer emails and bang on mine I say a sewer rated rookie pistons I feel like I'd choose the bank over the email because I could always respond to email Dude, we should get a lead in app Anthony Edwards rated rookie T wolves every time you open it.  It's like go birds and then it just leads you to like the brakes and stuff And jamal murray lights out blue for the nuggets to 49 Coming in 2030 You did make it an app. It's quick today. Just give someone like a few hundred bucks and you've even got an app We'll be a good one. It's a late nap.  All right, you talk talk to rich. I'm not about that. I don't know What's up, kyle? How's it going, man? hollow stargazing lebron james lakers Be a link to the website Rated rookie Anthony Edwards T wolves What was the auto in that did we miss the auto? Prichard rated rookie hollow lamarcus aldridge spurs Perfect through all the holidays the rookies james wiseman Yeah, I don't think we pulled one Hollow all-stars kawaii Leonard clippers. Yeah, there was no auto All right, let's see a big one here then tiris maxi rated rookie sixers hollow jaymond green warriors as the on average on the Autos there The cell rated rookie verney carry jr. Lyme green hornets rated rookie 71 of 149 hollow lou williams clippers As Stuart rated rookie Here's our tiris haliburton rated rookie base auto for the kings nice hit Dude is a baller. There we go kings Harper congrats, buddy. We'll get that magged Sabin lee nick richards red rated rookie hornets with a ding in it on the right side there Dent's almost gonna send a boxer wrapper with the hornet spot all the rated rookie warriors nico manion Hey, let me make sure I save a boxer wrapper for that missing auto I know it is on average, but I'm not sure what that would be all right guys. Let's do a recap here We have trey man here the auto is a haliburton in that one Rolando blackman mavericks to 99 Tyrese haliburton kings rated rookie auto base And lime green desmond bane for the grizzlies Despite missing the auto in the one box the 2021 boxes were really good with the bane and the haliburton And that's gonna do it. Thanks again everybody more basketball coming up


Human beings get confused about what's recyclable. We make a system called TrashBot. We take the decision that you have when you're throwing away an item and we automate that. It's incredibly humbling to be this far in the competition. That made my day.


Ready? Set? Using an opportunity to practice at-sea emergency response, sailors from USS Warrior are putting their damage control skills to the test. Welcome to the DC or Damage Control Olympics. Events ranging from line handling, and trivia, to dewatering, and pipe patching, measured sailors' damage control knowledge and skill. The events that we chose were all specifically chosen because we thought they were critical skills that sailors needed to have. Even though only one team walked away victorious, everyone went home feeling more confident in their ability to keep their shipmates safe and ship afloat. Seaman Christina Coffey, Fleet Activities, Sasebo, Japan.


This red line is a symbol that will also be carried tomorrow in red line actions in the center of Paris to show the world that people are not giving up, we will continue to fight and if the governments will not contribute to the solutions, we will pursue the solutions ourselves. The climate justice movement is here to last and we are the solution and we are going to keep pussyfilling the grounds and tomorrow on Saturday it's just going to be the big escalation of civil disobedience towards 2016.


If you're at least 18 years old, have you joined a political party? If not, you may be passing up your opportunity to significantly influence major political outcomes in the country, especially as we approach the 2023 elections. Also, Investment Banker Mr. Atelopetoside is advising every adult Nigerian to go join a political party. He's the founder of Stambic Habitism Bank and Anab Foundation. He's also the convener of Go Nigeria. Go Nigeria is an initiative of Anab Foundation. It started at the end of 2021 with 18 advocates drawn from the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Go Nigeria is a non-profit, non-partisan movement dedicated to building a new voice for young people in Nigeria. It's joining us on Zoom tonight. Thanks for joining us, Mr. Atelopetoside. Hello. Hello. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. Now, we can start with what we should begin with. When a party comes forward to ask us to join, or a candidate of a party is asking for a vote, the very first thing to look at or to look out for is that party's manifesto. What are the appropriate factors to look out for in the manifesto? I think the manifesto sets out the deologies of big areas. When I looked at the political parties in the study of all of them, I finished off with a short list of three political parties that I could consider. On one of them, I ruled them out because of their manifesto. Because when I read it, half the things they believed in and what they were looking at as objectives were things in respect of which I was diametrically opposed.  And they were against the private sector of free enterprise. So for me, that was like closing the door. And so when you look at the manifesto of a party, the broad policy directives, the broad objectives, everything should be closely aligned to what you also believe in as a person, but otherwise you're in the wrong place. So I think manifestos are important except that if you want to be honest with you, or some of the parties, their manifestos will be very similar. But I think I'm just saying that I use manifesto in the sense that if the manifesto is a negative for you, then don't join that party. It's okay or neutral or positive, then you can join that party. That's my concern because I know all along that these parties have similar manifestos. And that's a cause for concern. When you talk about ideology, they claim, many of them claim that they have brilliant ideologies. They have ideologies that support the masses. They have ideologies that will really deliver the difference of democracy. But then they don't do any of these. That's why I had to, so how then do you decipher which of them because when they come forward with similar ideologies or manifestos, you're beginning to think, where do I go from here? Two roads are back on in which do I take? Now let me explain. Some political parties have never governed. APC, PDP has governed for 16 years. APC has governed for eight years. So I think your question is fair to ask PDP and APC. If this is your manifesto, what have you used it to achieve when you had govern as at the federal level and at several state levels? For some of the smaller parties who have never won an election in terms of presidency or governorship, they can give you the difference that you've never been given the mandate to practice a manifesto. So you really cannot judge them. All you can do is to read the manifesto and see whether it's a manifesto that makes sense to you. So that hopefully if they win an election, with governorship or presidency someday, then they have their own guiding lights. So you cannot fault a man who has no other chance to implement a manifesto in any form. Those you can fault are APC, PDP. And I think they have both been very disappointing, most Nigerians. Okay, now that already answers my next question. I was going to ask you about the quality of these parties, leadership at the national level, because everything rises and falls on the leader. But then because at the end of the day it's the leader that will appoint team members that will work these manifestos within. And so if these manifestos have not been able to deliver, then that's with the volume of the leadership, don't you think? You said, look, if you're managing a country and economy and the economy is doing badly, which we all know it is, you have also have been security, the level that is frightening. Then we all know that you've not succeeded. Forget about the people who would lie to their teeth and pretend that something good is happening. What is happening that is good. Tell me about the only good news of recent, anything that I think is phenomenally positive is the new electoral act, which was, I'm assigned by President Buvali. It's about the only claim of good news in recent times. Everything has been bad news. So anyway, I'm also really thankful for that new electoral act because it gives us a chance to have free and fair elections. So even if that's the only thing that the PC government has done, at least that's not for them or that's what they did one good thing. That's several bad things. Interesting. Okay, now go Nigeria. You are convening for youths who want to take back the country. Now, are the parties do truly open to Niger youths who wish to claim their country back? How do you now advise youths who truly wish to take the country back? You see, let me make it very clear. Go Nigeria has non-partisan. Inside Go Nigeria, we have a PC member, PDP member. I have recently joined the SDP. And I want everybody to join any party of their choice. I'm not going to join the party. You must do what I'm doing. Everybody should look at push parties where they feel at home and so on. So it's to be like when you come together for one objective, we're coming together as Go Nigeria to improve the system for everybody, to fight the problem of voter apathy, and to educate and to bring more youth voters among the youth into the electoral system. That is for the benefit of everybody. Because you don't want these enchanted youths who refuse to take back the electoral process, instead they'll take to some other form of expressing themselves that could be beyond control. So you can come together to do something for Go Nigeria, and that's organization is non-partisan. But I believe that individuals at all of us should join political parties, the one that we are attracted to. Because if we don't do that, even with the beautiful electoral act, even if you solve the problem of voter apathy, your political parties may be defective, and they are animer on defective systems, defective party with defective systems who probably produce a defective outcome. So when it comes to primaries and things like that, they will not bring out the best in Nigeria. So it's important that we join parties and also put pressure on the parties from within as party members and join the team. It can be something wrong and we silenced it with screaming, but I have a voice. Absolutely.  We must thank you for coming to Enrich our bulletin. My last question to you, my very last question to you tonight, you continue to be a challenge to me personally because you started Stabic Abilities as a youth. In your 30s, you've been doing very well for yourself and for this nation. What's your last word in 30 seconds or so to the youth out there? Your last word? My last word is to repeat my third, go out there to any political party of your choice and try and make a difference from within. Go to a party where you think you're wanted, where it does that open, where you don't need a Godfather to protect you. Thank you very much. Thank you.


Hey everybody, this is Brett and today I am super excited to go over this 2014 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. This is stock number 14453Z. I'm here at Summit Automotive, your new and used sports car headquarters. This 2014 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is the last year that you get the 5.8-liter supercharged V8 Trinity engine, puts out 662 horsepower, 631 foot-pounds of torque. This is also the last year that you could get the stick shift in a GT500. This car has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this car is 100% ready to go, super clean all the way around, that's exactly what I'm going to do in this video. Go all the way around inside, show you all the options, start it up, we're going to go over some build numbers on this one as well, and just give you the most accurate representation that I can of the vehicle. Ruby red tint coat is the color, you get the matte black racing stripes on there, should all my videos in 4K, if you like the video, subscribe to the YouTube channel, click the bell notifications, get updates on the videos I do each and every day, and stay current on our ever-changing and vast inventory here at Summit Automotive, and stay current on everything that, so you don't miss out on gems like this one. So this one comes with the SVT performance package, 555 of these had the performance package in 2014 for the Ruby red coupes, and this one has the painted alloy wheels in the front, 19 inch, and no scuffs or scrapes on there, you get the Brembo brakes on this car, and this one has Goodyear Eagle F1 tires in the front, these are 265 40 ZR19s, and I would say they have right around half the tread left in the front here, but once again didn't see any scuffs or scrapes on the wheel, and you get the Cobra logo on the valve stem cover, the only thing to disclose on this car is there's a scrape on the caliper there, but not the biggest thing in the world. The front fender is absolutely perfect, no dents or dings on there, you get the HAD headlamps, the LED running lights, and the factory fog lights, the front lower valence is absolutely perfect, the Cobra logo looks really good, and then all the stripes, I like showing all the stripes on these, no rips or tears or rock chips or anything like that, 338 of the coupes came with the matte black stripes and ruby red, you get the all-aluminum heat extraction hood, and the edges of the hood are all in nice condition, that aluminum sometimes has been known to corrode, but this one is absolutely perfect, this is a clean title history, clean car facts, it's been owned in Utah, Wisconsin, and Michigan, passenger side front fender, absolutely perfect, passenger side front wheel, absolutely perfect as well, no scuffs or scrapes on there, ruby red tint coat has just a little bit of metal flake to it, very similar to the red candy metallic that I did the other day, and that video is in the upright hand part of the screen if you want to check that out, and as you go down this side of this 2014 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, take note of how clean that body is, how reflective and mirror-like the paint is, I take these HD videos so if you're far away or even if you're close by and you just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the car here, the car end up confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at, so that when you do get here there's absolutely no surprises, you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at, if this video helps you make that buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video, it was helpful and that Brett sent you, back wheel is absolutely perfect, and these back tires are 285 35 ZR20s, and you can see that they have about the same amount of tread as the front tires, so I'm going to turn the light on here, because one of the options on this car is that it has the track package, the only way to tell if one of these 13 and 14 has the track package is that cooler line that comes off the rear differential, and this one has it, so that's a really nice feature, and actually a lot of these cars had the track package in the ruby red, 400 or 439 had the track package in 2014 in ruby red, coming around to the back here, rear bumper is in great shape, and you get the diffuser back here, the quad tipped dual rear exhaust, I believe everything's stock on this car, the rear bumper is in excellent condition as well, no rips or tears, on there the black plastic fascia is in nice shape as well, the Shelby GT500 logo back here looks really good, and these back stripes are in excellent condition as well, just a little bit of water dripping on there, so very very nice car all the way around, let's take a look inside the trunk, so I do have some cool stuff back here, so this one did come with the car cover, it also came with the shaker pro audio, which gives you the factory sublifer, I do have a copy of the original window sticker, I do not have the original window sticker for this car, you can get original window stickers for these cars from Fordshowparts.com, so even though this one doesn't have one you can order them, they're like 50 bucks, so you can see all the options here, this was ruby red 10 coat 395, so 331 ratio limited slip axle, there's no charge for that, but that is a rare option on this particular car, only 59 in ruby red had the limited slip 331 gears, so pretty cool, has the SVT track package, electronics package, the recaro seats, the shaker pro system, and the Shelby car cover, so here is where I've been getting all my numbers from, you can find these online, but you can see I have the ruby red coupe highlighted on the right there, and then the options on this car I have highlighted across, so the recaro seats, 364 were made with the black recaro seats, the limited slip rear axle 559 were made, and the engine super cooling or track pack 439 were made, 536 had the navigation system, and the performance package, 555 had the performance package, and the black stripes, 338 had those, and then the shaker pro audio 405 it looks like, 408, and then 435 had the vehicle cover, there is a tire and splatter kit underneath there, but you can see the back trunk area is very nice and clean, and the shocks are doing a nice job holding that trunk lid up, I was like closing these from this plastic lip on the trunk there, so you don't scratch that black fascia, you get the LED tail lamps as well coming around to the driver's side just as clean as that passenger side, no dents or dings on the rear quarter, and for full disclosure this back wheel, no scuffs or scrapes on their either very nice wheels on this car, down the rest of this side the door looks really good, the stripes are in really nice condition as well, I didn't see any dents or dings, power mirrors, blind spot mirrors inside, you get the black on black recaro seats, leather and suede, no rips, no tears, you also get the cobra logo stitched into the backrest, you get the recaro stitched into the side of the seat, the only thing just a little bit aware on the inside of the seat there, but that's very common driver's seat, head adjuster factory GT500 floor mats, you get the bright pedals down there, auto headlamps, it has launch control, your different steering feels and then you can do the different dampeners for your driving feel, power windows, power locks and power mirrors, let's show you the back seats real quick, no rips or tears back there, they're in really nice shape, smells very clean inside this car, show you the VIN sticker here, no previously owned in Canada cars here, tire and loading information, let's hop inside and check out the miles, the radio and everything that this car has to offer on the interior before we start it up, you can see this one has 9,172 miles on it, instrument cluster is very nice and clean, comes with the leather wrapped and alcantara suede steering wheel, bluetooth and audio controls on the right, cruise controls and information center controls on the left, this one does have my favorite forward radio which is the factory navigation system, it's a touch screen, you also have AM, FM and serious satellite radio capabilities, you also have a CD player and you also have a jukebox where you can download music from CDs and then it's like you put them in your library there and then you can always have your CDs with you even though you don't have your CDs so I really like this radio for all those features, down here the more tactile volume tuning, climate controls, stability control, hazard lights, trunk popper, you get the cue ball shifter of course, six speed manual transmission, this one does have the ambient lighting, you can change that color as well, passenger side format and seat are in excellent conditional rips or tears once again and smells very clean inside the headliner is absolutely perfect, you do get home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lane systems and map lights right there, let's start it up take a look under the hood, check out all those hid lights as well, go listen to that exhaust a little bit too, I love how these GT500 sound, got a very nice rumble to them especially the factory exhaust is probably the best sounding exhaust, also love the LED tail lamps, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you've been able to verify the quality, condition, options and of course cleanliness of this car all the way around inside now, got the hid light headlamps, the led running lights, factory fog lights, under the hood we have the 5.8 liter trinity v8 supercharged engine 662 horsepower, 631 foot pounds of torque, engine base very clean runs very smooth, once again this car has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluid tab and check pan topped off is 100% ready to go, the shocks are doing a nice job holding that hood up, those are aftermarket, there's your mission sticker, you do get a K&N cold air intake and this one was hand built by Paul Walter and Larry the Kyle Deaco, same guy that built the engine in my GT500 and this car like I said 100% ready to go, really really a nice car, really a nice car I would highly recommend it from a quality and condition standpoint, I would ship this one anywhere California, Texas, back to Utah, Florida, you name it, whoever is going to get this car is going to be very happy with the quality and condition on it and to see more pictures of this car, one of other 550 new and used cars, trucks, SCVs, minivans, Wranglers, sports cars, GT500s, Camaros, Challengers, Chargers, you have it, we got it, go to the website right there, summitauto.com, full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle all at summitauto.com, if you want to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summitauto, click the bell notifications, get updates on the videos they do each and every day as well as having access to one of the largest catalogs of vehicle and sports car walkarounds on youtube, over 9,000 videos, over 100 GT500 videos I've done on there, in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to my youtube channel the upper left, a link to all the GT500 videos I've ever done in the upper right, a link to the this vehicle on our website in the lower left and a link to one of our latest youtube videos in the lower right, quick those check us out, we're super excited to help you with this ultra clean 2014 Shelby GT500 with the SVT track pack, SVT performance package, shaker pro, electronics, rikaros in ruby red tin coat, thank you so much for checking out the video remember to like subscribe and share on the youtube channel I really appreciate it thanks again


We go ahead and begin so good evening. My name is Blair Thomas, and I am very Excited to have this inauguration of our Ellen von Volkenberg puppetry symposium for the sixth edition of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival begin with a first of our four book talks and so I just want to say thank you for making your way up here and that after the talk I would invite you to Visit our studio at 433 which is directly below this space And in that we have three gallery exhibits happening Actually, there's only two today But we have two exact gallery exhibits because one is La Liga's puppets that are now getting ready for tomorrow's a puppet performance But Michael Montenegro has a Collection of paintings and sculpture work. He's a local puppeteer. It's a very fantastic he's connected to the little coral production and he directed and designed that and And then we also have some some images from some of the productions on Materiality the shows that are in the festival itself So but without further ado, I would like to introduce Paulette Richards and she's gonna take it from here So Greetings, thank you for coming out We've been doing these Symposium series for several years now and in recent years We were focused on kind of what I call the metaphysics of object performance so we were getting very philosophical and theoretical and People enjoyed it, but I also had some comments afterwards about it being too technical So when Blair and I started planning for this year, I thought well, why not Get to the nitty-gritty the materiality of the puppet So for the all eight sessions this time, we're gonna be talking stuff And I'm very happy to introduce my colleague Colette Searles Who has produced this wonderful book on puppetry in Star Wars? So I'll give you her a brief bio and then we'll just jump right into the questions so Colette is Associate professor and of theater and head of performance at the University of Maryland Baltimore County There she has devised award-winning puppet productions and as a stage director she specializes in visual storytelling with Her directing credits include Albert's dream at the brilliant Baltimore International Arts Festival Noah Hyde's vigils at the woolly mammoth theater company and Fixed boundary at San Francisco's exit theater For her original works in found person found object puppetry She has received grants from the Jim Henson Foundation and Puppeteers of America Her new book and that's what we're here to talk about today a Galaxy of things the power of puppets and masks in Star Wars and beyond and this book has recently received an Unima USA Nancy Stubb award for excellence in writing on the art of puppetry So please give a warm welcome to Colette Searles you Well, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for proposing this idea. Thank you for inviting me Blair This is at my first Chicago International Puppet Festival been wanting to come for years. So I'm so happy to be among this crowd Thank you. It's such an honor and I just wanted and it's so such a pleasure to share the stages I have a few times now with my friend and colleague Dr. Paulette Richards who wrote this amazing book This the past several years as three amazing women have been writing these books This is Paulette's book object performance in the black Atlantic, which also just won a Nancy Stubba award by the way And is amazing You have to get it If you don't have it now get it soon and reading the puppet stage by our friend Dr. Claudia Orenstein who also helped a lot with this work that I did and I cite her a lot has written this book that focuses on the Dramaturgy of the puppet in theater and specifically it's amazing. So please check it out and she'll be here next week Yes, and the two of you will be talking next week about your books. So, um, yeah Was I supposed to say where's I get it? No, that's great. That's great. Okay, so hopefully we've whetted your interests There's all of these great puppet books coming out But we're gonna talk about the one at hand today And so could you give us a little background on how you came to write a book about puppets and Star Wars? So I have like many people in this room Who are puppetry artists and enthusiasts? I have a hard time explaining to people why they're so that they are so amazing first of all that we see puppets all Over the world all over the place advertising in film video TV theater on the street Everywhere we go we see objects performing characters and we give them so pay them so little mind and give them so little credit For what they do so I'm always struggling for ways to explain this to my students my theater classes to people at parties when I tell them what I do and One day I and I love Star Wars So one day I was watching a teaser for the new sequels that came out I think it was 2015 or so and JJ Abrams was was charged with directing the new sequel in Star Wars They came out the live-action film the Force Awakens and there's a teaser I don't know if any of you saw this but it was a teaser on YouTube that sort of broke the internet in which he was giving some sort of promotion about a contest and Behind him well, he's on the set right outside in the desert and this Creature walks by that's just this kind of like peasant creature with a funny turtle like face And it's got like a basket of other creatures inside it that are all kind of moving around and and it just walks It's just walking by mine at some business and it looks at the camera and JJ Abrams is like And and you know they did this on purpose But it looks accidental and everyone just freaked out because they thought oh my the response from the press and even even the Cover Vanity Fair, I think was oh my gosh the practical puppets are back, you know after the CGI dominated prequels we're going back to the old school and And I suddenly went okay. I got it tell it to them and put in Star Wars That's a line from 30 Rock I think was a TV show where One of the comedians had to explain the uncanny valley to someone and she's like oh, hey And it says just tell it to me in Star Wars So this book is is telling it to you in Star Wars Essentially why puppets and masks are so amazing? So I do want to really quickly say if I and if you beg my ear indulgence here people have asked me to explain What's in the book? It's actually a fairly skinny book as you can see I tried to make it really a quick read It's five chapters and but they're all kind of separate essays that all come they connect together But I know people come to this with different areas of interest Yeah, you might be a puppet scholar. You might be a practitioner or big Star Wars fans So I'll just quickly say what's what's in here Chapter one is sort of a is a rundown of all of the live-action Star Wars in release order from 1977 to 2023 two-ish three-ish of live-action Star Wars not the animated series none of that but just anything that was live and it looks at the journey of puppets and masks and How they were made and what the technologies were and how they contributed to story through that trajectory of about a little over 45 years, so you're kind of looking at you know a real beginnings of the practicals puppets and masks and only a few of them and they were mostly evil characters to becoming more meaningful through Yoda and Then you had the CGI explosion and the controversy over that with the prequel films And then the sequels and the new streaming series which went back to the old school But then also brought in some really amazing new digital technology such as performance capture So I take everybody through that and then I talk about something called the Star Wars thing aesthetic Which is a way that Star Wars treats materiality With certain qualities. I won't go into all of them now But like for example, there's a recycled element to everything in Star Wars. It uses a lot of like repurposing and recycling Chapter two is a theoretical chapter, which I try to make really simple and easy. I talk about the three D's which we'll get into So I use Star Wars characters to explain for example the concept of distance of puppets have distance from human beings And why that's exciting and Chapters of three and four or companion chapters, which which do a deep dive analysis of What I consider the strongest one of the strongest puppets. I'm not alone in this like I consider this a lot of people Who are more important than me in film criticism consider Yoda to be one of the greatest achievements of special effects in the history of film And how I talk about how Yoda came to be the history and the trajectory of his of his creation How how and how he affected the story how those few scenes that he was in in Empire Strikes Back Actually, I make a case for how they launched the deeper meaning of Star Wars And I I would suggest even I'm not sure Star Wars would have continued if that hadn't worked as well as it did Then I make a similar case for Darth Vader So I talk about puppets in chapter 3 and in chapter 4 I talk about the best example of a mask Which I think is Darth Vader and I talk about how the revelation anyone anyone let besides me and my folks here See Star Wars in the theaters back in the 70s and 80s. Okay, right So when when we saw that when the I'm sorry spoiler alert, but Darth Vader's Luke's father But the moment when he said I am your father The revelation of that was powerful but it was powerful in part because we didn't know what was behind that mask and we'd seen that little gross kind of Moment where we see the back of his head the revelation of the mask and the fact of the mask really made that that movie work and It also launched a storyline which which continued onward. In fact, if you think about it the original films asked the dramatic question What was behind what's behind the mask? And it answers it in the climax. We see what was behind the mask The the prequels then answered the question. Well, how did that mask get on in the first place? How did that happen? So I make a case for how the materiality of puppets and masks are deeply deeply meaningful and then the longest chapter chapter five Is it is a Good to see you. I'm seeing so many wonderful friends here is actually is about is about how Material characters are so powerful that they can cause harm and they have I talk about racial representation in Star Wars negative racial representation and stereotypes I get deep into Jar Jar Binks but I also try to really look at the positive potential that could have been there for that character and I also look at images of women and servitude and in service in the droids So that was a really interesting and fun and challenging chapter to write and see Okay, great. Thank you for that overview. I hope everybody's now just salivating to get their hands on this book And so linking into our theme once again materiality I wanted to ask if you could talk about The concept of material characters a little more give me a moment to give some background because if I'm not mistaken It was does the opposing her who put first put this concept of material performance out into the world Yes, I think she did. I mean I looked up I I'm not sure she was the absolute first person to utter it But she's she's I was certainly credit her with the term and the idea Having spoken with her and and read very carefully what she wrote in the introduction to the Routledge companion of puppetry and material performance another book you must have in 2014 And it's in that introduction. She and her co-editors John Bell and Claudia Orenstein Both write about their definition of puppetry and material performance expanding the term the idea of material performance being that That that puppets there's there's more than puppetry to puppetry and that puppets have agency they have agency to and I think there's a quote from Darcy apposner to shape and create and They they themselves in their materiality in their presence have the power to shape and create and that really was helpful to me because I thought You know Darth Vader's mask alone by itself without being on or part of any body has power It's it has power the meaning that it's been given I mean it the whole sequel trilogy in some ways kind of looked at the melted mask You know that image of the melted mask was itself so powerful I have a photograph in here of how it's used as a sort of religious relic almost It has power to create stories I was at Party City while I was writing this book a few years ago And I was like balloons of like all the current pop culture characters frozen whatever it was and there's Darth Vader And it's like 2022 Yet Darth Vader from 1977. You know what I mean? That's how powerful it is. So I Think so I so did you want me to talk about how I came I'm gonna lead you into that No, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is great. This is great. So we I'm establishing a lineage here So from Darcy apposner's work We get material performance and then I was at I think it was the 2017 puppeteers of America 19 yeah critical exchange session and Colette gave a presentation about this work that she was beginning at that time and she talked about material characters And I'm like so she's expanding on Darcy and I'm like, oh, I need that Because I was doing a lot of work with blackface Puppets because people would send the pictures of them to me and want me to verify is this a mammy is this a stereotype and so This is in my face So it's also been a wonderful journey because we we've laughed about being book pregnant together Colette's got her contract from Rutledge like a month before I did and so we would have these Friday afternoon Phone meetings. We'd both be folding laundry and and we would talk through Concepts in the book. So I was running down what I wanted to do with this idea of material characters and Calling these blackface stereotypes material characters and Colette was developing that further And I think that leads us into the 3ds. Yes a little bit. Yeah, I'll get there.  I was like, yes, you know our church fans material characters Yes, so yeah, I mean and I want to thank Paul it to this, you know first for suggesting that I really I don't remember Using the term material characters in that presentation. It's only because you told me I did and it was useful that I was like, oh and then I started ticking and started going someplace with it and what what where What I found useful about making this sort of concrete noun out of the noun material performance Of a thing material character is it gave me a way to collect as a community puppets masks and performing objects, which is the title of a really important essay by John Bell and I think Frank Potion also talked about performing objects this family of Characters So that not to suggest they aren't distinct types I mean within puppetry that are very specific and distinct styles and types and that's very important So I don't mean to suggest that puppets are masks or masks or puppets But they are part of a their cousins and I think it's important to give that that Cousinship a name to be able to give them a collective unified power and talk about their powers because they share quite a few So to me a material character as I suggest in the book is a Semi-human a non-human or a concealed human character that has come into being Through a performers collaboration with material of some sort And so what I what I thought about talking about in the book I wanted to kind of come up with a quick and easy way to collect all the puppetry scholarship I've been reading into some clear terms So I came up with this idea of the 3d's distance distillation and duality These are not terms that I created myself Distillation I mean did you know distance for examples talked about a great deal by Stephen Kaplan Penny Francis and others duality Darcy Paul's and others have talked about But I wanted to kind of put them together in this alliterative trio to help people remember to make it easier for professors like me to talk about them and For you know and for theater artists for directors I'm working with a director right now who's putting puppets in their show for the first time and helping them understand What will make this character? increasingly meaningful So yeah, there's a distance distillation and then there's five dualities And I can get into them if you like but we can we can see how much time we have Yeah, um, well, could you give us a little sketch for each? Distillation and duality, okay great So distance is this is is the fact is like the main power that all materials characters have which is that they are distanced from the human being So, you know C3PO Looks a lot like a person in terms of the outline sounds like a person has a human voice acts like a person but is not a person is clearly not is signalling with their material Imagery that they are even before they utter a word before C3PO utters a word. We know that's a nonhuman In fact, I talk about C3PO is kind of our host through Star Wars because that's the first thing we see Well, the first human like your first character we see in Star Wars is C3PO and we actually follow into Star Wars through his his his point of view So there's that distance element and distance enables things like violence C3PO gets blown to pieces several times in Star Wars and it's totally fine, you know, it can be fixed You know, so his head can come off and it's not grotesque So it's a storytelling element to that it can create separation You know, you can take off Darth Vader's mask and hold it and look at it and that is gives meaning So there's also distance just enables you to make a character look it can have a hundred eyes It can have it can be this tiny it can be a giant puppet when you're distanced from human anatomy Which is essentially what three to seven feet tall is the usual human. We're not that we're not that in terms of our shape We're pretty narrow, you know, if you look at all of creatures on the earth, you know There's a lot more variety there and puppets enable us to create with such abandon because of that distance Do distillation is simple It's just that the fact that when you are creating when you create a character out of material It is going to by nature end up communicating, especially if it's well-designed and well-performed Really ideas in a really distilled way and I use I use Star Wars characters mostly from the original films in the book to explain these ideas sort of tell it to you in Star Wars Because most of us can conjure up an image of Chewbacca or C-3PO because they're that famous So I talk about Jabba the Hutt who's this in in Empire Strikes Back is this like big slug And I talk about how he's a distilled idea of this greedy crime boss, right?  He's literally slimy, right? He literally throws his weight around He's literally too important to walk like people just move for him himself for him So but it's but if he'd been performed by just a human being in a costume Which I think was the original idea it wouldn't have had that impact So there's a visual impact to that Finally duality It was really this was the hardest one and I and I and I really do want to credit a dossier posner again because she she talks about All the different paradoxes in in one of her essays in the in the companion to material performance puppetry material performance She talks about all the different paradoxes that a I think she's puppets are co-committally alive and dead for example They are both living and not they're both real and fictional And so I thought this is exciting. So how can I make this digestible in what I'm thinking about material characters? And so I have these five dualities. I'll just give two examples one of them is novel familiarity So their paradox is essentially that a that a puppet can be both a material character is both this and that thing Which are opposites so, you know For example, our 2d2 is novelly familiar, right? We've never seen one of these before Our 2d2 was made up out of a bunch of different brains coming together part of it was like a lampshade a little bit like a vacuum cleaner There's a lot about our 2d2 that is totally familiar, you know He a lot like Lassie actually the dog that goes off and does what you need, right? Looks very much like a mid-century vacuum cleaner or or postal box, right? So and I get into why that's exciting I get into why each of these dualities helps helps make these characters particularly compelling another one is limited limitlessness Which is a bit of a hand of mouthful, but thinking materiality I often hear puppetry artists say things like a puppet can be anything puppetry can do anything Any puppet can do anything that's actually not true if you're a puppet tree artist You know that you wanted that puppet to do that thing and it didn't do it, right? And but it's that relationship you have which we are all now arguing is not Godlike It's not a hierarchy of me over you. I'm the God and you're the puppet. It's a negotiation The Claudia talks about this a lot, too it is it is a synergetic collaboration and So by the puppet or the material character refusing to do what you're trying to force it to do You and John Bell talks about this too You have to actually negotiate with it and then that itself has a creative outcome for example Anthony Daniels got inside C-3PO in 1976 and it couldn't he couldn't walk well Just couldn't right so he ends up shuffling. Well now C-3PO has this very distinct shuffle Right that is is part of his character. It's his iconic characterization same thing with these akimbo arms, right? So it it's it's that materiality has delicious limits. Yes, it's limitless in a way, but those limitations are also The limitlessness is limited and that's a good thing. So that's part of the duality. So there's other dualities you can Read about if you wish Great, okay, so we hit all the absolute must-have points and now we get to go have fun so was there Since we are going to get in the Artist panels into the nuts and bolts of what is this puppet made of and how did you design this mechanism and What was the construction process like and how does the material affect the way that you manipulate the puppet? Did you cover any of that and can you give us examples? Yes, I mean I think that the limited limitlessness is the one where I talk about it the most You know, there's so many opportunities in the way a character is Resists you or works with you. Maybe I'll slide into the CGI question here. Okay so One of the things I like to think about with material characters the term that is useful in thinking about how do we talk about all these non-human or semi-human special effect characters and film television and theater I want to think expansively and So I would consider I do consider any even images that are Characters that are non-human or semi-human if they're in live action Even if they're animated images, I still consider that a material character I talked about this a bit in my chapter in the the companion about CGI and it's it's evolution There's a there's a technology called performance capture motion It's motion capture, but it's like a step further Andy circus I don't know if you're familiar with him But he performed golem in in Lord of the Rings and he also performed King Kong and a lot of the primates in the Age of a what is it called the plan of the apes? Yeah, so he's a and he does he performs Snoke, which is the evil humanoid in in In the sequel films and he's an expert at performance capture. He really understands how to Combine the human with the non-human image So I give a lot of kudos to that technology. I think it's very exciting and So people have asked me I you know Paul it and I were both at Dragon Con back in September in Atlanta And there were a lot of Star Wars fans at these panels that we were Giving or that I was giving Star Wars and you know, I would do the puppetry ones and people would ask me to talk about CGI versus Practicals, I think there was even a panel called CGI versus practicals in Star Wars and I was like it's not a binary and right so because because of these dualities you actually if you understand them if you understand the power of material characters you can actually make the characters Serve the story and meaning in a in a better way For example, you may not if you may I feel badly because not everybody's seen everything here But there's these characters called the Kaminoans in the prequels that have like these they're made of they're CGI animations They're not performance captors. There's pure cartoons in a way pure animations. They have faces like rabbits and they're they're kind of white and glowy and skinny and and and and very fluid and I feel like these characters were actually the first CGI characters in Star Wars that were successful Because they understood their limitations somehow and I don't know whether this was intuitive or purposeful on behalf on the part of the Creators, but they and they didn't try to walk. They just they would glide Right and they were very polite and they were very well spoken and they were very Elegant and it suited the sort of fluidity and liquidity of the CGI style You know whereas Jar Jar Binks did not you know Jar Jar Binks was was was very was a physical theater character and physical theater You need stuff you need physicality, you know, I mean you're good If you're juggling you need actual objects and actual gravity and so that's why that that character kind of failed So there's what's that one reason one of the ways Right so yeah, so I think that You asked me about materiality in here. I'm talking about non material intangible images But I think that that's part of what what answers that question of does material matter and and the answer is yes I mean there's yak hair in in Chewbacca and that's meaningful because there's a real organic animal in there And it's woven in a very particular way so that he can move in a way That's very believable, but there's also something novelly familiar about that, you know We've never seen a Chewbacca before that was invented, but there's something truthful in in in the animal fur That we can kind of feel into it, so I hope that's helpful. Yeah, that was very yeah Since you brought up Jar Jar Binks, then we can get to your last chapter where you unpack the ways in which these Material characters can be harmful And this was the part of your work that I found most useful because you had your Your list of human and non-human could you run that down again, please? Sure right, so I talked about a Material character is a character that is non-human Semi-human or a concealed human which is like it offers the opportunity for masks And I think then you expanded on that I added subhuman because I needed to talk about Ajimaima and the whole minstrel gang and I also found your work on looking at these CGI characters through the lens of puppetry because so many of these images that I was dealing with existed as live performance as performing objects and as brand logos in the realm of illustration and animation and and in all of those medium They Performed as what we are now calling material characters. So subhuman add to the list But let's let's hear what Jar Jar Binks. I have never forgiven them for that. I stopped going to those films after that, but You were able to analyze what happened with that character. So yeah Yes, thank you and many have and you gave me some real courage and help in writing that chapter There's a section in the chapter called the the lost potential of Jar Jar and I chose that title because you know I'm at best to perform Jar Jar His career was nearly ruined by that and it wasn't his fault, but he also wasn't you know just a young Naive actor he was young and he was but he was already successful and he had a really thoughtful approach to that character And I was curious because I'd been reading about that. I thought well then what went wrong, you know, of course Lucasfilm is was busy saying well, you know, we didn't mean it. We didn't mean for it to be racist Of course, we have no racist intentions, but as we all know that and it's not about intentions It's about outcome and harm that that comes out of it and you take responsibility for that And so but I didn't feel like it there were there was a lot of talk about well Why should that responsibility fall necessarily on a mod that I'm at best? And so I read about his approach interviews with him and there's actually really amazing podcast now that he's he's given Interview that came out after the book was published that is fascinating to listen to about his process But I wanted to ask so I was like what part at what part what can I contribute to this in this conversation? And and I decided it was Is it because in part because he was CGI was was the fact that Jar Jar Binks was CGI was that part of the problem and the answer is yes I think I think it did actually contribute to the problem And and it's and this there's many reasons why there's many reasons within the reasons But one of them is that he was in some ways a little bit of a goofy character. I don't mean that in a small g I mean capital G goofy The character which was actually based on a racial stereotype to begin with so there was that lineage there, right? That was one of the reasons and and there we talk about the negative side of the duality of novel familiarity, right? Yes, we've never seen Jar Jar Binks before that was a really when you look at the design process for that character It's quite imaginative the designers and builders behind him really studied animal anatomy really looked at like skeletal structure Really thought carefully about that character and it had a lot of potential But there's that then there but once it was put into the context of the characterizations that ended up that character ended up performing on in the final film there was that other Familiarity of the racial stereotype which we're all familiar with if we've watched cartoons You know, especially if we've watched cartoons we watch Disney films those stereotypes are in our in our consciousness and so So that's part of the problem too Yeah, and it was just it was unseen and unacknowledged but also a huge part of it is context. I think I'm The context is often not considered and you have to understand that that You know what it's not just about the character in in isolation It's what they were with they were operating within which was a franchise in which all of the main characters Who were heroes and the villains as well were white men for the most part it was their world, right?  And the sort of native buffoonish characters were sort of coded as as people of color And and that was so that context was a big part of the problem too. Yeah Okay, have you covered everything that you wanted to say about your book? I'd love to have Q&A Yes, yes, so we do have time for Q&A So what I'm gonna do is get up and go into the audience and bring the microphone to whoever has a question Yes, sir Well, I'm an amateur among experts, but I do have a question your presentation mainly Seem to be about the visual experience of puppetry, but I'm wondering about how people with visual limitations experience puppetry or even blind people The there has to be some did they are they allowed to touch puppets or I don't know how that's dealt with That's really interesting. No one's ever asked that question. Thank you I mean, yeah, this is a room full of puppetry experts and maybe someone else could else could address that Puppetry the puppetry community is very engaged with accessibility and disability There's a large section of there's a large group of puppetry artists who are engaged in therapy particularly with and We're particularly what with people on the autism spectrum and children who find that distance from the human being to be particularly particularly helpful in social anxiety, right? But as far as blindness specifically, I would think that It's you're saying this is fictional, of course, but there's a period when Han Solo is blind in in return of the Jedi and he Recognizes Chewbacca by the feel and if Chewbacca had been a CGI character that wouldn't have been possible So there's that and there's a lot of embracing and hugging and petting that goes on between Chewbacca and others And there's that tangibility, so it's fictional of course, but but yeah, I imagine if you're if you're a Chewbacca fan And you can't see and you're at Dragon Con and you meet one of the Chewbaccas That's that's pretty powerful as opposed to shaking hands with somebody who's dressed as Luke Skywalker You know what I mean? There's that you know, we're touching the dome of Feeling the smoothness of C-3PO, you know, I'm sorry the RTDT. Thank you. The spherical feeling of BB-8 Yeah, there is that tangible element. I would think so. Yeah Thank you anybody else Yes, oh, yeah, this is one of our experts here Hi, Colette. Thank you Can't see you This is this is a question from my youth rather than really a puppetry question per se Which is I didn't see the original Star Wars in the theater But I definitely saw the prequels and I remember the enormous controversy about CGI Yoda and I think you you sort of addressed What I take to be your argument for why CGI Yoda was so horrific But I'd be curious to hear a little bit more of that sense It's probably the controversy that I can point to where Everyone I knew cared a lot all of a sudden about puppets in particular. Oh, that's great. I never thought of it that way Thank you. I don't remember that as much. That's so interesting You know that someone said to me I teach a class I'm about to go to start next week teaching a seminar on this book And I've taught several seminars already on on the Henson puppets Sesame Street Muppets and Star Wars. So this would be like my six or seven time But every time generationally I get a different group of students who have a very different understanding and memory like some of them are big Ewok fans Right, and if you what is the thing they say tell us this is how I can know how old you are Tell me what you think of the Ewoks, right that because if you love them that means you're young And if you hate them that means you're like my age so Thank you for that question. Um, yeah, I mean I actually was on a panel a dragon con about like Yoda specifically and They're just that's a world It's wonderful. It's wonderful. And and we talked about that There are Star Wars fans who love CGI Yoda because he can do all those kick-ass crazy Things with a lightsaber and and I think Frank Oz also, you know I've spoken to this before and one of the interviews that he gave talked about how it's a tool So use the tool at hand for the for the job that you got to do if he's gonna have to wield a lightsaber and fly in the air Make it CGI because a puppet can't do that So then there's that question of limited limitlessness in which you ask yourself well, I would have liked to have seen them try That might have been really cool You know and I think so I think that's that's That's a big part of it, you know I also talk about Grogu baby Yoda and I compare right I talk about that a good bit in the book and the Success, do you think the first Yoda was successful? this Yoda Was amazing and it was one of the most expensive special effects ever made and again one of the most important successful But because we he was novel and new but he also was familiar reminded us of the original Yoda that made him more More endearing to us But that character, I don't know if you any of you heard of this but but they were thinking about making him CGI You know and who was it that said? Or Furner Herzog was like your cowards and if her turn her talk tells you not to do something you're gonna be like, okay Cuz he's in the episode and he's like these puppeteers so magical it is amazing and he was like it bring me tears to my eyes You know and and that is a legendary story of the new This is from the Mandalorian the new streaming series that came out a few years ago The first of the streaming series which turned out to be tremendously successful in part because of baby Yoda But just to come back to that. Yeah, I mean, I think that baby Yoda sealed the deal make it a puppet do it You know you will not regret it Disney says this now, right? So it's proven So I One quick thing because I think also what a raised for those of us that were old enough to see when they Released four five and six was the change in job of the hut And I think that was what raised our hackles when when the because they were very close to each other when they were released And then when the prequels came out so I want to say I think that was when we all we started to think it's like Wait, where are the puppets and then when it came out and it was like where are the then we got really angry We were a little irritated and then we got really angry from the CGI But I just wanted to add that because that was when I remember it saying saying that job What is what's up with job nights? Why is he moving? He's supposed to be moved around anyway to your point So one thing that I find really fascinating So a lot of the work and and my background is with indigenous Communities and whatnot especially, you know within the Star Wars and there's this very much about this sort of claiming reclaiming of these particular Star Wars characters and especially these these the the material performances these objects are the ones that we in as Sort of indigenous Have gravitated towards and so I think my question because you know, I mean there's there's you know, baby grogu There was tons of stuff when when you know the baby came out and we were just like nice ours now You all go away. We we this is ours, right? But it doesn't apply to characters it applies to these these objects There's a whole thing with R2-D2 being like no R2-D2 is one of ours now, right? Like there's really fascinating art and work that's been done around that So I'm I'm kind of curious and you kind of brought this up a little bit in the addition is the cultural Connections around this and sort of I guess your research around some of the cultural Like the cultural understandings that go in this beyond say American culture, right? So like indigenous cultures and global cultures Do they do they hold or do you think they hold in the same kind of way? I Feel like I want to have a longer conversation with you for sure So I'm gonna say two things that may not fully answer exactly what you just asked but is related You know, there there is there was a name there, you know To say Native American or indigenous is that I know that I'm generalizing by saying that but there was of course There was a love and hate embrace and rejection going on throughout the Star Wars Releases and you know one for one thing, you know I believe the original Star Wars was the first to be filmed to be translated Navajo So there was that and but then there was also the Tuscan Raiders who were clearly, you know playing on the Native American Western trope of these savage natives, right that the Tuscan Raiders who've now been or they were called sand people Right, which also of course is many familiarities of many racial stereotypes is also Middle Eastern stereotypes there as well So there's been a reclaiming and I actually do write about this quite a bit as well I write about Native Americans claiming Star Wars in in the new the book of Boba Fett Which is one of the new streaming series in which they they they totally center material characters I love this they center material. I love about the new streaming series. They're not side characters anymore I mean the Mandalorian is literally about a masked character and his relationship with a puppet That's the whole thing so book of Boba Fett is about a masked character who becomes unmasked and he's he's of Maori He's a Maori, so he's an indigenous man In in his in his own identity and he uses some of the traditions of his culture in in the storytelling They also use sign language and they had a Sign language a coach too as one of the performers working on that and and they they give the Tuscans a new identity and they give them dignity and centrality I'm not saying it's all perfect. They also killed them all at the end So, you know Star Wars is a way of like it's just about to do better than it doesn't sometimes But but I do write about that and I do look at Native American voices and reviews and criticism too So thank you for bringing that up, but as far as other I also talk about Asia the Absent presence of Asian cultures too so we can let's talk more. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I'm not sure you may be the last question But anyway Let's see so I am not a super fan of Star Wars, but I've seen most of the stuff I'm just young enough to have not managed to see any of the originals in theaters But I saw the rest and I've seen all the streaming serves. Okay My personal feeling which is definitely also based somewhat in the conversations that have just come up about you know How fans feel about things is that? Yoda absolutely right the puppetry and the material object of the original three was huge Darth Vader's mask all those things that the the next three which are the prequels And then the final three Which are the sequels? Okay, yeah That the best character in those three really was Darth Vader's mask And you said like his uses ritual object. Sorry. This is sort of first, but not I'm not the only one who says this, okay? So that but that really was and that that's almost why they brought it back because like you had to you had you needed something They didn't have anything else like that in those and you needed it And then Mandalorian which arguably has been the most successful the streaming series and kind of gave them a restart in a way the movies didn't You have baby Yoda the material object. So my sort of thought is first of all That hopefully they're that they have kind of but not quite managed to learn a lesson about how much they need that But second this actually goes a little bit further Do you see this having an effect because they have been so incredibly successful? With particularly like the masks the puppetry in Star Wars There's so many other properties out there that use CGI famously and all the new special effects that are out there and all the stuff Is there a sense of materiality? Do you think that is I know that Star Wars has helped popularize? Or what is the problem that somehow even Star Wars then they back away from it and then when it isn't successful They go back to it and then they back away from and then they go back to it because they that's what makes That seems very clearly to be what makes these things successful. So do you have anything to say? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, so it's just summarized. Are you asking is that okay? Well, do you think Star Wars is maybe helping popularize the material in other things? Yes, and why is it people keep backing away from it when obviously they fail when they back away? Because it's well, I think it's I think that CGI is leaned into because of its affordances, right? And I tell this to my puppetry students all the time. I say your puppets are gonna have powers and limitations Affordances or powers. There's there's affordances things they could do. Well CGI is very murcury. Oh, it does language Well, the mouth moves well if you want a character that speaks very articulately CGI can be very helpful for that if you need them to transform or fly or be liquidy fish They're great at that. They're really not good at gravity. Do you know, they're really not good at tangibility. They can't hug you So you need to know what you're dealing with in its affordances and its limitations So I think that they're learning that I think when they first leaned into CGI was all about the affordances and you know And when you have someone who's as all-powerful as George Lucas, he had no limitations Everybody was a yes person. Nobody said no, so he was just you know going wild with it And and I don't think it's a binary. I think that even I even Grogu is enabled by CGI in part So they they go back to those affordances. Is it making it more popular? Is it proving the point? Absolutely, there are so many puppet shows right now There are so many plays films Netflix series with I can't even keep up with them all It used to be like a big deal when a new show came out with puppets in it It was like make the cover of Peppetry International magazine and now it's like oh yesterday and an hour ago So they're they're everywhere. They're everywhere. Yeah, thank you Kate and you I told you you'd ask me a smart question. Oh shoot. I just want to smart um, yeah, I when I I You know now how to start when I talk about distance and duality I am often thinking about the puppeteer the performing puppeteer and I'm happy that in this conversation that person has not been totally erased and forgotten Because in a lot of times when you know the the New York Times writes about puppet shows They don't even mention that there's puppeteers in it But it seems like a really really central figure to all puppet shows that because of their invisibility or Secret falling away that people just forget about them And I think that they're having really interesting core relationship to distance the the literal distance between the puppet and the puppeteer affords you storytelling that you wouldn't otherwise have and like who is this person in relationship to this object and And I have this other thing I talk about Simultaneity and I sometimes I'm like oh God is that different than duality? But now that you've said that you have different types of duality. I'm like oh simultaneous like Simultaneity is like a kind of duality So my question is about the Simultaneity of the puppet and the puppeteer in the puppets in the Star Wars Like do you think that there is a kind of like juiciness or magic that happens because the Simultaneity is going on and do you feel like because it's on film It's harder to notice or is it something that you're like no, of course Everybody knows that it's that there's a person in there and therefore the magic is is there I don't know. Can you say anything about that? I'm so glad he brought that up and I would just learn this morning that Kate is teaching puppetry at Harvard So yes, it's made it people. Yay. She's made it for us on our behalf So yeah, I talk about it. I think I have heard that term simultaneously I don't know from something that you wrote or somewhere else, but I have heard that term I call it the duality of absent presence So there's that paradox of the puppeteer the person operating the puppet whether they're using remote control animatronics Whether they're in a motion capture suit or they're literally going like this There's a there they are both present and absent So they're there and their work is going to make it onto the stage or onto the film is going to make it And it is necessary, but they are also absented in a way We're asked on stage just as we saw with walk-a-walk-a show last night We are asked not to look at them by virtue of their being dressed head to toe in dark colors that recess into our visuals Recess into the background so we're asked not to pay attention to them even though we see they're there and that's interesting You know, but on in the film as you suggest It is it is different because they are literally taken away like they're just taken out in post production We don't see any trace of their body. So there's actually a puppeteer running around behind the droid BB8, right? There's actually two I think and and there's an article that one of them I want to say Tompkins. I'm trying to remember his name, but he he wrote He was interviewed in puppetry international puppetry journal about his experience as a puppeteer So even though we don't see them their work is absolutely there the choices that they make the little head turns And all that are there One of the most to the most interesting examples of absent presence to me and Star Wars though our Chewbacca because we see the eyes of Peter Mayhew through Chewbacca and Peter Mayhew If you ever see him in behind-the-scenes interviews or anything like that He's passed away recently, but he's a very awkward way of walking He's a very fluid kind of angular way of moving that is absolutely Chewbacca his legs are very close together center of gravity is very low and The the the actor who is now performing Chewbacca who understudied with Mayhew for years before he died You now see his eyes, right? But he's also trying to kind of keep a bit of Peter Mayhew's spirit in the performance So there's a presence that will never go away there. So obviously Anthony Daniels I mean there is no C-3PO without Anthony Daniels It is a he even said between the two of us we make a beautiful sculpture He understands it's a synergetic relationship and of course Frank Oz and Kathy Mullen and perform and others in performing Yoda I mean it's it's you feel you not only feel the presence of of Frank Oz's voice and Comic timing in working with Yoda, but there's also a funny kind of way that he had he works with Muppets Muppets are funny in part on the Muppets show and in Sesame Street because of the way they interact with human beings There's a bit and that was permeating culture popular culture and television when Star Wars came out We a lot of us like we saw people interacting with puppets a lot, right and that Relationship Mark Hamill leaned into with Frank Oz and Yoda and so the presence of Frank Oz as a Muppeteer Was it was also part of what made that puppet successful. So if that answers your question. Thank you for that I'll be going downstairs after this to the cafe And so if y'all want to if you want to pick up a book, I'll be down there for a few minutes You can sign if you'd like, okay. Thank you so much Colette


I think we'll go ahead and get started. I know it's a lovely afternoon, so it's really great to see everyone down here for a discussion this afternoon. My name is Catherine Bliss, and I am a senior fellow and a deputy director with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, and it's really a pleasure to see all of you. The topic of today's session is social franchising and health. And specifically, we will be looking at the emerging challenge of non-communicable diseases in the developing world, and the role that the private sector in general and social franchises in particular may be able to play in addressing them. Now the role of the private sector in providing health care is certainly well known. We spend a lot of time talking about the role of the government in providing health care, but in some world regions over 50% of household expenditures on health go to private sector entities, such as clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, or NGOs. According to a 2007 WHO report, in many Asian and Latin American countries, the private sector provides more than 50% of all contraceptives, and in sub-Saharan Africa around 30% of family planning methods are procured from private sector suppliers. And this trend is not limited to reproductive health. Nearly half of the most impoverished quintile of the population in sub-Saharan Africa who sought remedies for childhood diarrhea did so from a private sector institution, according to one survey. So social franchising, we're gonna hear a lot more about it in our discussion in a few minutes, but has been defined as a business model that involves building a network of outlets, or franchisees, that are locally owned, but act in a coordinated manner with the guidance of a central headquarters, or the franchisor. And so in this setting, the franchisor maintains quality standards, provides training, and conducts centralized purchasing and promotes a common brand. In a business or commercial franchise, that relationship between the franchisor and the franchisee may be contractual, and involve the franchisee buying into the franchise and paying fees, and it's generally a profit motive. In a social franchise situation, the franchisor is more often an NGO, or a nonprofit, providing access to commodities or supplies at lower costs. The franchisee may pay fees and ensure a standard quality of care to clients, and they may report data and service statistics to the franchisor, but in that arrangement, the motive is improving social well-being rather than profit-oriented per se. Now, evidence from developing countries suggest that social franchising as a concept has worked well in terms of improving quality of care, access, and affordability for the most vulnerable populations, particularly with respect to reproductive health care and tuberculosis treatment. So the overarching question we wanted to tackle this afternoon is whether the concept can be applied to the non-communicable disease challenge. If so, what would that look like? Under what conditions might it work best? What might be some of the challenges or drawbacks? And to discuss some cases where this has already been tried and to discuss some lessons learned. And of course these are relevant questions, as we look ahead to the high-level UN meeting on non-communicable diseases to be held in New York this coming September. Now, fortunately, we have with us today an expert panel to provide some background information and to help begin a discussion and to explore these questions. I am pleased to welcome Nikki Charman, Rebecca Firestone, and Gina Lago-Marcina here to speak with us this afternoon. And you should have received a copy of their full bios at your place or when you came in. So I won't repeat all of the information you have there, but let me tell you a little bit about each of them. Nikki Charman works with Population Services International, or PSI, as the Global Services Marketing Manager, and leads PSI's social franchising initiatives worldwide. She's based in Nairobi. I think that's right, yes. Rebecca Firestone is a researcher at PSI, specializing in sexual and reproductive health and non-communicable disease. A social epidemiologist, she is based here in Washington, D.C. And Gina Lago-Marcina focuses her work on health systems design and financing as a managing director at Results for Development. She has a background in business administration and previously served as Senior Health Policy Advisor to Mayor Anthony Williams here in Washington, D.C. So Rebecca will start us off with a discussion and an overview of the NCD challenge in developing countries. And she'll be followed by Nikki and Gina with a discussion of social franchising and its potential applicability to NCD issues. And then from there we'll open for discussion and questions. So let me turn the table over please to Rebecca. Thank you, Catherine, and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you all for coming. We're hoping to stimulate a lively discussion about some of the intersections between social franchising and NCDs. So I'm going to start out with the epidemiology and some of the policy context about why we're talking about NCDs. And there's three things that I'm hoping to come across in the next 15 to 20 minutes. And one is that non-communicable diseases are a major health challenge for low and middle income countries now. It's projected to get worse into the future. There are effective and cost-effective approaches to address, to both prevent and treat, many non-communicable diseases in developing country and low resource settings. And we need to start thinking about opportunities and strategies for integrating that into the existing platforms that we have within the global health community to address the current diseases, which are a major focus. So as long as this works, what are we talking about when we see non-communicable diseases and why are we talking about it? The primary impetus right now for conversation on non-communicable diseases is the upcoming UN high-level meeting in September, as Catherine suggested. And this is, in a way, similar to the 2001 summit on HIV AIDS held at the UN. The non-communicable diseases themselves are a somewhat broad term. And just to focus it down and get us all on the same platform, usually we're talking about cardiovascular disease, cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes as the major non-communicable disease as a focus. And those are likely to be the diseases that policy and strategy will focus on at the UN meeting. The UN meeting does follow on several other major policy initiatives that have occurred around the world of non-communicable diseases. Most notably in 2003, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was introduced, and this is the world's only public health convention or sort of treaty in the world. And that was a major impetus focusing on tobacco. But right now, if we actually look at the priority within the global health community that is given to non-communicable diseases, if we just look at overall development assistance for health as kind of a measure for priority setting, in 2007 less than 3% of all development assistance for health was dedicated to non-communicable disease. So that was less than $1 per disability adjusted life year, dedicated to non-communicable diseases compared to about $24 per disability adjusted life year to HIV, to B, TB, and malaria. So there has been discussion around non-communicable diseases, but it has not yet led to much in the way of action. So why the focus? I'm going to go through and show a little bit of the epidemiology based on estimates from the World Health Organization. And non-communicable diseases are leading causes of death now and likely well into the future. NCDs account for 60% of all deaths globally, and 80% of those diseases occur in low and middle income countries. So this figure here shows mortality rates across different regions of the world. I'll see if I can get my neck to stretch back and forth here. So the blue are communicable diseases. Red is non-communicable diseases. And green are injuries. And these are categories that the WHO has set up to organize causes of mortality and morbidity. And the blue category, communicable diseases, maternal and perinatal and nutritional deficiencies stand out. But what I really want to show you on this slide is basically that the red, which are non-communicable diseases, are a large proportion of overall mortality rates across regions of the world. And that red proportion is just going to get bigger projected to 2030. And this is despite the fact that in some regions of the world, overall mortality rates are projected to decline between 2004 and 230. The proportion attributed to NCDs is expected to increase. So 2004 is the last date for which we have, the last year for which we have comparable data across countries. And I wanted to go through and look at what the actual causes of death in 2004 were. So can I get any guesses from the audience about what the leading causes of death were? OK, cardiovascular? Traffic accidents? Others? OK, yeah, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. OK. Here's the actual rankings. Top five. So we got some of them. Ischemic heart disease? Cerebrovascular, so stroke. Lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diarrheal diseases. So two, I'm sorry, three out of the five main causes of death in 2004 were non-communicable. And besides just looking at mortality, NCDs are also a major cause of disability in 2004 and projected to 2030. So this is because there is a chronic element, or sort of a long-term element, to many of the non-communicable diseases that we're looking at, that they are likely not just to be causes of death, but to be causes of illness prior to death for an extended period of time. Then going into sort of what's causing some of this, there are a handful of modifiable risk factors, about six, which are attributable to, for most of the non-communicable deaths in the world. And these are starting over on your left. High blood pressure, tobacco, high blood glucose, physical inactivity, and overweight and obesity. And I've also added a few other major causes of disability here, so unsafe sex, alcohol use, underweight, unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene. And you can see that high blood pressure is really the big one across regions of the globe that the majority of, this is the leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases. Tobacco itself accounts for one in six of all NCD deaths, and three of those risk factors are actually related to diet. So blood pressure, blood glucose, overweight, and obesity, these are all associated with nutrition. So we can look at a handful of modifiable risk factors and think there's something that we can focus on. If we focus on diet, physical activity, if we focus on tobacco, those are things that we can get a handle on. But there's actually some underlying causes that are at play that are contributing to why we see a rise in those modifiable risk factors in developing countries. And those are things like, for one, population aging. As the population just gets older, the chronic diseases are likely to become more prevalent. But other factors like rapid urbanization, agriculture subsidies of tobacco, corn, and soy, and the role of multinational corporations looking for expanding markets in developing countries are all factors that are contributing to sort of underlying what we see as the growth in modifiable risk factors. So although some people might say a frequently term non-communicable diseases as lifestyle diseases, there's actually and suggest that there's a matter of individual choice involved. If you actually look at some of these contextual processes, it's not just about individual choice. So I've tried to lay out some of the epidemiology and why there is an existing burden. The question is, why has there been so little action to date based on the evidence? And I'm going to reference Julio Frank, who's a major global health leader who's been speaking about non-communicable diseases recently. And he suggests that there's a set of misconceptions in the conversation in the global health community, which are likely focusing on why we haven't really focused on NCDs too much to date. And this is in some ways somewhat similar to the conversation we were having around HIV back 10 years ago. And that's one is that it's not a problem or that NCDs are not a problem for developing countries because these are diseases of affluence or individual lifestyle choices. So I've tried to present some data to suggest that that's not the case. We can discuss this more. Even if we accept that NCDs are a problem for poorer countries, we might think that it's not that important or that it's too complicated to do something around NCDs. These are chronic diseases. It's going to involve real investment over the long haul to deal with these diseases. So what can we do? So we'll address that. And then even if we felt like there was something that we could do about NCDs in low resource settings, it's going to be too expensive. So I'm going to go through and try to address some of those statements. And I'm going to start with some data from Southeast Asia, which is a region of the world that I know best. And I think it's also interesting because Southeast Asia encompasses countries from the lowest income in the world to the highest income in the world. So it's a good kind of microcosm of what's going on. And if we look over here on your left, I have non-communicable mortality rates mapped against gross national income down here on the x-axis. And over here is NCD deaths as a proportion of overall mortality within those countries. And then on the right, we have NCD death rates themselves. And so on the left, you can see that as a proportion of overall deaths, NCDs decline. I'm sorry, they increase by income. So there's more NCD deaths proportionately in Singapore than in Laos. But if you actually look at the absolute mortality rates, the NCD mortality rates in Laos are higher than they are in Singapore. So that suggests that this is not just diseases that affect only wealthy countries. If we break it down even further, we can look at risk factors for non-communicable disease deaths in the same set of countries and see that if you disaggregate by socioeconomic status, for some risk factors, it's very clear that the poor are actually disadvantaged. And that's clearest for tobacco. Again, let me see if I can go over here. We've got Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar are the columns here. And at the top, we have wealth quintiles from the poorest in blue to the wealthiest in the light purple. And you can see that there's a gradient where tobacco consumption is highest amongst the poorest quintiles across all of these countries in Southeast Asia and lowest in the wealthiest quintiles. The pattern is less clear for insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption, but there's some evidence of a gradient where the poor are actually consuming less of a healthy diet than the rich. And the pattern may be somewhat reversed for insufficient physical activity. But what I just wanted to indicate here is that across many different Southeast Asian countries at different levels of economic development, some risk factors are disproportionately disadvantaging the poor. So we have evidence that poor countries are affected by noncommunicable diseases, and we have evidence that poor populations are disadvantaged within those countries in noncommunicable diseases. Some further evidence as to why NCDs are a development issue is the link to poverty. So chronic illnesses themselves are a major cause of catastrophic expenditures within households because of the chronic illness, the chronic nature of it, that there's just going to be an expenditure over time. And if you're paying out of pocket, it's going to be an increased burden on the poor. Poor people are likely to have worse access to health services to begin with. And so that's evidence at the household level of the likelihood of NCDs becoming involving people in poverty traps. On the macroeconomic level, there's some evidence to suggest that NCDs and the burden of having to treat these noncommunicable diseases over time are associated with reductions in economic productivity. I would say that there is a need for better research on the economic burden of NCDs. There's some initial evidence out there, but it's spotty, but the evidence to date suggests it's not a good picture. So that's to suggest that we need to do something, particularly if we're concerned about the health of the poor and the most vulnerable to focus on NCDs. And this slide is to indicate that there are a handful of effective and cost-effective interventions have been identified and costed. The costing here was for 23 of the highest burdened countries in the developing world, and these included countries like India and China, but also Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, and several others. And this suggests that these interventions for risk factors of tobacco, dietary salt, unhealthy diet and physical activity, alcohol intake, and then treatment of cardiovascular disease are likely to be of a minimal cost. So for tobacco, we're talking about ensuring implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which includes efforts such as tobacco taxes and much more careful regulation of tobacco marketing. Those are some of the items, and that is projected to avert 5.5 million deaths over 10 years. For salt, we're talking about reducing salt consumption on a population level through things like voluntary reformulation of processed foods, just to take the salt out of the cans of fruit or vegetables or bread, as well as media campaigns on salt reduction. And that has been estimated to avert about 8.5 million deaths in some of these over 10 years in the highest burdened countries. For obesity, we're talking again about regulation and taxation strategies, same for tobacco. Risk reduction for cardiovascular disease. Some work has been done to look at a very low cost regimen of a statin, aspirin, and a couple of hypertensive drugs that could be introduced at a primary care level for about a dollar and eight cents per person per year. And if you did opportunistic screening of people for risk of cardiovascular disease and provided this type of low cost regimen, it could potentially avert about 18 million deaths over 10 years. So these are potentially really big wins if we think about how to implement them. PSI itself is an organization, and I'm going to say that there are several PSIers in the room who can chime in on some of this work as well. PSI has been thinking about how to approach the noncommunicable disease burden through a few different types of interventions around tobacco control and obesity, and then social franchising. I'm going to leave that to Nikki to talk about. She's going to mention a little bit of the work there. So I just want to leave us with, I think, in terms of stimulating a conversation into the future in this panel, is to think about noncommunicable diseases, not just from the epidemiology or the policy level, but how are we going to respond on a health systems level. And from there, I think we need to really be focusing on the fact that a continuum of care is required to follow through the full life cycle of disease from prevention all the way through to palliation is going to be necessary. We have to prevent the coming increase in the burden of disease, but there is an existing population of people who are in need of treatment right now, and are in need of palliation and sort of pain relief for human rights purposes. I think there's two things that we need to be thinking about, getting our heads around for that. And one is on the prevention side, we need to be thinking about extending beyond the health sector, that some of the most effective population-wide prevention strategies are going to require engagement with people in ministries of finance, in ministries of trade, and urban planning. And we need to think about how, as people who are accustomed to working within the health community, we're going to start to make those conversations and coordination happen. Within the health system, we need to be thinking about stronger health systems for noncommunicable disease, because that chronic element of non-communicable diseases is critical, that if we're doing our jobs right, we'll be able to ensure that some people are having, have access to care over the long term, because many of these diseases are eminently manageable, even if you have them. And the opportunity there is that through integrating approaches to NCDs into existing health systems, that it's likely that we can end up with stronger health systems that will benefit other diseases as well.