Theodore Roosevelt on Liberty - 1916

Ah, politics and the strangeness of bedfellows. Republican Theodore Roosevelt made a speech 100 years ago about the abuse of industry upon hourly workers (the memory of the Triangle shirt factory fire was still fresh at that time) - and how we needed *more* government to protect the workers from the "liberty" demanded by these companies. Here's a 90 second excerpt from the 78rpm recording in my archives. Film from the Library of Congress was used for the background. I love history.

Let's see how this holds for a blog posting:

Nixon Resigns and Ford Inaugurated - August 1974

With Super 8mm film and some lucky "wild sound" lip synching....

...a homemade kinescope!...

It was a warm summer in 1974, and the shredded lettuce at Burger Chef tasted so sweet...like the sweet taste of shredded Watergate documents...the sound came a few months later when a magnetic stripe was added to the original super 8mm film and the whole thing recorded on the fly, complete with projector noise.  Back when you could still do six impossible things before breakfast...

Mug Design #1 - Mr Caffeine for President

Everyone else is getting ready for 2016, so why not Mr. Caffeine?



(c) 1988, 2013 The Animating Apothecary



Coming soon from cafepress....maybe too soon...
In the meantime...
See the first volume of sketches at http://www.lulu.com/shop/jim-middleton/uncle-stans-profusely-illustrated-world-no-1/paperback/product-20701680.html

Political Asylum - Work in Progress

Calling it a work in progress is actually optimistic...it's been cluttering space on at least six different PCs since 1999.  If ever completed, it will be a whopping 3 minute opus synchronized to a nice, public domain 1917 recording in my collection.

Part one, created in Autodesk Animator Pro (DOS version!!!) plays with an 1846 photo from the Library of Congress:

Part two, created in Autodesk Animator Pro for Windows 3.11 (beta version), works with multiple layers that had to be sandwiched, optical printer style, in the render that took, as I recall, about 8 minutes...

This third clip is a frame-by-frame reconstruction of some 8mm footage shot in 1973 that may be put to use as well:



2003 Flashback - Dubya's Health Care Plan

So much talk about Obama/O'Romneycare these days...what would that stellar intellect of just one administration ago have come up with?  Oh the possibilities, the possibilites...


(c) 2003 Jim Middleton The Animating Apothecary

Presidential Morphing - Test 1

Every few months I dust off this project called "Political Asylum" and render out some background elements.  This time the early US Presidents get a working over.... (note from 23 June 2025 - FINALLY FINISHED IT!  https://vimeo.com/856397514