The Animating Apothecary - Jim Middleton's Interests
General
Animation, film and philately. Not necessarily in that order. I like to ride my exercise bike while watching silent movies. I also like to read with my eyes shut.
Here's a film collage, a bit late for Valentine's Day:
Music
For starters, give me Warren Zevon over Kid Rock any day.
THEN,
I collect old music...really old music. Think 78rpm. Then go back a bit further. I crave electron-free recordings. But then nothing is better after a good evening of Shostakovich than tossing in some Moody Blues.
Movies
Animation and comedy top my list. Make it a funny animation and it is NIRVANA. Wall-E redefines my concept of an animated film. To call it a cartoon is to call the Mona Lisa a "pretty picture."
Film archives are opening up their vaults and have been flooding the market with rare and unseen movies, too. Saved From the Flames is the latest DVD 3-pack with astonishing examples of old film experiments in sound and color-- and gosh, there's even some animation there (a restoration of Fantasmagorie where someone actually had a budget to do it digitally, instead of my frame-by-frame retracing in Flash).
Add to that the usual and amazing classics - Harold and Maude, Brewster McCloud, anything with the Marxes, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Chaplin.
Here's a clip from Lilac Time (1928), a mushy sniffle-fest with Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper:
Television
I'd rather make a program than watch a program.
For example, in 1976:
And this parody from 1977 (AD):
And this parody from 1979, featuring my amazing brother Dave:
And this clip from the first "Jim Shorts Cavalcade of Sports for You" from January 1995 on the Sports Channel - another 99 episodes followed before it was cancelled, but not before it received a regional Emmy nomination (!!)
Books
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaymes. Or the latest issue of People. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle ...a combination of a lot of topics that have shown up in less-accessible books, woven with common sense and even more fingers in the eyes of "established" religions. Ah the emotions of Ego, and all emotions are pain...
Heroes
Obama! Ben Franklin! Miss Mae for helping with the setup! Gwen Frostic! Joe Cartoon! Oskar Fischinger! Frederic Back! Karen Aqua! Sally Cruikshank! Nina Paley! Winsor McCay! Emile Cohl! All of my students! The guy (or gal) who invented the "!"
The Animating Apothecary - Jim Middleton's Schools
Ferris St University-kendall
Grand Rapids, MI
Graduated: 2003
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Master's Degree
Major: Education
Minor: Curiculum Development
2001 to 2003
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI
Graduated: 1978
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: Pharmacy
Minor: Radio broadcasting
Clubs: SAPhA, WFRS
Greek:
Omicron Delta Kappa
1973 to 1977
Lakeview High School
Lakeview, MI
Graduated: 1973
Student status: Alumni
Degree: High School Diploma
Major: Sciences
Minor: Dead Languages
Clubs:
1969 to 1973
The Animating Apothecary - Jim Middleton's Companies
Animating Apothecary Battle Creek, Michigan US Director of Idiocy Creative Dish Washing
1912-present
The Animating Apothecary - Jim Middleton wants myspace plugged with animators! view more
About me: My own - sadly outdating - web site is the Animating Apothecary, so that one is www.animatingapothecary.com
-- you can kill a few minutes there, too. Woo.
Here's the infamous 2006 "Avian flu"
My vacations rarely go as planned:
Who I'd like to meet: All of my former students to hear what raging successes they have become and how utterly amazing their phenomenal lives are.
Oh, and Voltaire, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.
For my dental hygiene students, here is your "tribute" from your pals in the animation class!
The Animating Apothecary - Jim Middleton's Friend Space (Randomized)
The Animating Apothecary - Jim Middleton has 67 friends.
Just thought you might find it interesting that my great grandma went to nursing school at the San and I have all of her old uniforms, yearbooks and such from then.
