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Friday, April 27, 2012

Bestiary I: The Manthikaar


                                                                 The Manthikaar


Manthikaar (male) in threat display

                                Description:
The manthikaar is a medium sized, muscular species of tiger. Their coats are shaggier (especially in the winter) and more subtly marked than those of other tigers. They are darker orange to crimson in color with dark brown stripes that form a nearly solid chocolate colored patch along the animal's back. The ears are small and dark brown. The underside is whitish in color with white patches of longer fur along it's cheeks, eyebrows and around the mouth and tuft of the tail. These patches are longer and more pronounced in males. Males are also sometimes as much as ten times larger than females. The manthikaar, due to the short, compact shape of it's skull,has a muscular jaw which gives it a powerful bite. The paws are broad and thick making the creature able to climb easily and negotiate drifting sand and snow easily. The unusual tufts of “facial hair” along with the comparatively short muzzle give the manthikaar's face a cantankerous and nearly human appearance, which gives this animal it's name. (In the Muhor language lit.: Manthi=elder[masculine], kaar=sand. Or: Old man of the Desert)

                                                                       Behavior
Not much is known about the manthikaar in the wild as it is a solitary, secretive creature that is primarily nocturnal and prefers inaccessible habitat. They are territorial animals that will aggressively drive away, not only members of their own species, but any other large animal that it considers to be competition. A manthikaar when threatened, will arch its back and hold it's tail over it's body in a manner reminiscent of scorpions, while emitting a series of low coughing growls. If this threat is not heeded, the animal will attack immediately and will persist until the threat is either driven off or killed. Mating occurs in the towards the end of the short rainy season. Courtship is brief as the male and female will only tolerate each other on their territory for short periods. Two to three cubs are born in the spring. They are independent and sexually mature at one year of age, although it is estimated that only forty percent of cubs will reach this age. Manthikaar are hardy resourceful hunters that rely mainly on the traditional feline “ambush “ strategy. It is uncertain how long they can survive without food and water, but it is widely accepted that during lean periods, this animal can lose as much as forty five percent of it's body weight with no apparent ill effects. Their metabolism is thought to slow down to nearly exothermic levels when stressed. Manthikaar have been known to live up to twenty years in captivity. Their lifespan in the wild is unknown.

                                                                        Habitat:
Found throughout the western foothills of the Rusting Mountains and the Great Northern Desert. It prefers rocky, arid terrain relatively close to water.

                                                                           Diet:
The manthikaar is a versatile and opportunistic hunter. From camels to mice, it has been known to eat anything it can catch including wolves, hares, goats, tortoises, unicorns, wild boar, pheasant, mountain oxen, deer, and young dragons. While accounts of predation on livestock are doubtlessly exaggerated, they do take place. More frequently than other big cats, this species will intentionally hunt people. There have also been unconfirmed reports of manthikaar fishing and scavenging.

                                                                           Status:
Locally common

                                                                          Threats:
The manthikaar has fared better than many big cats due to it's secretive nature, fearsome reputation, and local taboos. Development and habitat encroachment have been minor threats due to the rugged terrain preferred by these animals. Still, It's fur is warm, soft, and attractive which makes it prized and a pelt fetches a handsome price. They are also hunted to protect livestock. An adult animal is fairly safe from predation, but cubs and adolescents are threatened by larger predators, such as bears. There has been reliable documentation of instances of an older manthikaar preying on cubs, but these instances of cannibalism are thought to be rare.





                                                   The coming of the Mantakaar
                                                           A Muhor tale

In the time of our Ancestors, There lived a fierce and warlike tribe on the plains to the east. This , you say, is nothing unusual and you are right to think so. On the plains of Kentar, such people grow as plentifully as the golden grasses. This particular tribe that I speak of was so wicked and bloodthirsty, it is said even their own horses were afraid of them. They craved battle as a man in the desert craves water. They swept across the land like a winter storm destroying any who they came upon. Even the other tribes lived in fear of them and would flee when they approached. One day the chieftain of this murderous horde called his men together and spoke to them thus:

“Oh, Brave Horsemen, Mighty warriors, Hear my words! Our shadows have grown too long on these plains. There are none left who has courage enough to face us . It has been a long time since we have tested our strength in battle. We have taken to fighting among ourselves for want of an opponent and I fear our proud people will soon tear ourselves asunder if we continue in this manner. I say let us pack up our encampment, leave the Kentari Plains and look to the west. I hear that on the far side of the towering snow-peaked Rustings, there is a rich and beautiful land of jeweled cities and fragrant gardens. There every woman has the beauty and bearing of a queen in any other land. Why should we not go there and live as kings?”

The fearsome band quickly agreed and set out that day for the foothills of the Rusting Mountains. Now, I needn't tell you how treacherous the mountain passes can be, even when the spirits have not set themselves against you. There are snowstorms,avalanches and biting winds. The passes are narrow and high, with sharp rocks beneath. Wild beasts and demons live there. Only a great fool would attempt to cross the mountains unguided. These tribesmen were born without fear and were ignorant of all of this. They did not know the way or the words to appease the spirits, who were angered by such arrogance. Before long the spirits beset these travelers with the worst the mountains had in store. While they were mighty warriors, a spear cannot fight against weather and hunger. Lost and starving they were forced to eat their horses. Many succumbed to the cold or sickness, or else fell to their demise, leaving their bones to bleach in the sun and be picked clean by the birds. So it was that a journey that should have taken no more than ten days lasted for many months. Fate was kind to our people and merciless to those warriors of the plains.

           When the survivors emerged on the other side those unforgiving peaks , exhausted, battered and only a handful of their former numbers left, they came out too far south. They did not see the shining silver ribbon of the Anajai beneath them, surrounded by the rich green fields and bright roofs of our cities that welcome us home from our wanderings. No, They came out in a place where the hostile red wastelands of the Great Northern Desert stretched from horizon to horizon uninterrupted. The remaining men tore out their hair and bellowed in fury to have traveled so far and so hard through the mountains only to come to an inhospitable barren place. They turned upon their Chieftain with blame in their eyes, In their rage those men tore him to pieces with their bare hands. In that moment they finally became completely uncivilized. The last trace of the tribe's humanity vanished. They turned into wild beasts. Hair sprung from their flesh, their hands turned to claws and their teeth lengthened to fangs. Great curving tails arched over their backs like a scorpion's. Their heads flattened and became empty of any thought but hunger. Their eyes burned with unquenchable anger.
 
       From that time forward, those once haughty warriors skulked in the shadows of night as large wild cats. They shun all company and have become the beast we now call “Manthikaar” This is why the manthikaar's coat is red to remind any who look upon them that these beasts were born of blood and murder. It is said that these animals hate humans particularly and will devour them on sight because seeing people remind them of what they once were, and what they have become. Hunters believe that death reveals it's true appearance. They say just before a manthikaar, dies, or it kills you, the beast will show you his human face. Because of this, and because it's spirit is likely to be vengeful it is unlucky to kill a manthikaar.

                                                                Muhor
         Muhor is a small nation that is situated in the Anajai river valley between the Rusting Mountains and the Great Northern Desert. The Muhor people are hardy and compactly built. They are renowned for being shrewd merchants and skilled craftsmen. Muhor jewelry and leather-work is especially sought after. Muhor is primarily an agricultural economy. The fertile lands near the river are primarily given over to grains and orchards, while the foothills of the Rustings are populated mostly with shepherds and their flocks. Life in the arid lands around the Anajai is harsh and unforgiving. The river is swift, difficult to navigate, and given to frequent flooding. Storms can arise suddenly from the desert to their west and blizzards sweep down unexpectedly from the mountains to the east. Droughts are common. The winters are long and frigid. It is perhaps understandable that the Muhor are inclined to think of the natural word as being cruel and capricious. The main trading routes of the Muhor are either southwards via the Anajai River, Caravans east across the Great Northern Desert, or eastwards through the mountain passes and over the vast Kentari Plains. As the climate of the plains is much more hospitable than that of their homeland, many Muhor have attempted to settle here, only to be driven off by the proud nomadic tribesmen who live there. The tribes of Kentar are also not above raiding a Muhor supply train. Consequently, very little love is lost between the two cultures.

Copyright J. Ryan 2012

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Recovery

       Exactly one week ago after meeting a significant deadline, and entertaining  friends at what i think was a pretty good party in my home, I was truck by two unusual pieces of fortune. The first being that shortly after the last guest departed and I could finally relax and turn in for the night, my immune system also decided that it had earned a well earned break and let a particularly virulent stomach flu through it's defenses unchallenged. I will due the reader the small courtesy of not describing this in any greater detail than to say it was notably worse than any travel ailment I have ever contracted. The second piece of fortune was that after a lifetime of abuse at my hands, my laptop had come to the conclusion that it had done it's last noble duty and shut itself down permanently (my adversarial relationship with modern technology is near legendary).  So there I was, laid up for three days unable to eat solid foods and with no electronic means to distract myself from my discomfort. Honesty compels me to admit that at the time I was not feeling particularly lucky at the time.

        I did what all sick people do when there is nothing else to occupy their time. I slept, drank plenty of fluids, read, and thought. I thought about how much I enjoyed getting lost in a good book. When was the last time I had done that? I realized that I do not draw very much anymore either. I had gotten a laptop to write with and instead I spent most of my time basically channel surfing from video to puzzle game to mildly entertaining website. I have wasted countless hours of my precious and finite life doing this! Meanwhile the back storehouse of my mind was piled high with ideas for any number of projects and stories that would be perfectly usable with just a bit of work. Instead of putting in the effort required when I came across one of these artifacts of thought. I would sigh, mutter the word someday under my breath and go back to exploding colored orbs on a screen. I was behaving like a man who was given a treasure map and used it to patch the hole in the roof!
         I looked at my lifeless computer on the floor with it's jaunty checker-cab paint job (The friend who sold it to me neglected to mention that it was yellow until it was too late. I had to fix that somehow. I always sort of liked the results). I thought about what was stored on it. If I could turn it on one last time, it wouldn't be links to the network of distracting websites I would rescue, it would be the story drafts and artists statements, and various photo files  I would try to preserve. Maybe some of them weren't very good, but dammit they're mine, truly mine and I want them back!  (Another friend assures me that I should fortunately be able to save most if not all of these). My life was being frittered on trivialities. How had I permitted this to happen?

     As I regained my health, My sense of perspective recovered with it. As soon as I could manage I erased my access to those games that were all too easy to spend a day playing and brought nothing productive into my life. I grabbed a notebook and sketch pad from a nearby table and began to flesh out one of those thoughts that had obsessed me in a minor way for years. I did not complete it, it may be years before I can. I have at least made a good beginning and this is sometimes enough to be going on with. For now I am reading more and enjoying the slow meticulous work that must follow the first rush of a new creative venture, rediscovering the simple and easily forgotten truth that to walk a great distance, you must travel one step after another. I can proudly tell you that probably the most time I spent in front of a screen since last week  has been writing this entry. Once I saw my bad habits for what they were and what they cost to maintain, it became very difficult to contemplate returning to them. If the circumstances that led to this minor epiphany are not in retrospect extremely fortunate, then I do not understand what luck is!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Into The Storm

I went to the post office today.
 Ordinarily this is exactly the sort of thing I wouldn't bother to write about for the very good reason that it is not interesting. Being the bright and perceptive reader that you are, you have probably already come to the conclusion that there must have been something interesting about this trip to the post office. Right you are! The envelope pictured above is being mailed to this address:
 Aha! See? Now I've piqued your interest haven't I? Want to take a peek inside the envelope? Of course you do!
 This actually gives me the opportunity to officially announce something that I've been sitting on for some time. If all goes as planned, In the Spring semester of 2013 I will be staging a version of Williams Shakespeare's "The Tempest" through Hartwick College here in beautiful Oneonta NY! The envelope contains the Letter of Intent and One page 8 1/2 X 11 visual that are the first step in applying for the 2013  Jim Henson Foundation Grant. (The project will take place with or without their funding, it'll just be really cool if I get it.) To give you some idea of how exciting this really is here is my original sketchpad  where i first started designing and thinking about Tackling "The Tempest". If it looks a little worn, this is because it is twelve years old. I started working on this idea just before I graduated college! I'm going to post the text of my letter of intent because I think it does a good job explaining what I have in mind.




Dear Jim Henson Foundation Selection Committee:

                Shakespeare’s The Tempest  could have been written specifically for puppetry. It has it all: potential for cinematic staging, poetic imagery, magic, wonder and some of the most nuanced characters in literature. When I first read it shortly before graduating college, I instantly wanted to create a full stage production using puppets and puppetry techniques. Now nearly twelve years later, in collaboration with Malissa Kano-White, Hartwick College, and hopefully with the support of a Project Grant from The Jim Henson Foundation, I finally will have the opportunity to bring this show to life before an underserved audience in the Northern Appalachians.

                I envision Prospero’s island to be a mental as well as an external landscape, simultaneously a shelter and wilderness. As such, I plan on drawing inspiration for the set from old weathered books and the craggy coastline of the Pacific Northwest. The set itself should be, in essence, a giant puppet, alive and teeming with spirits and animals. Scenes could change by the flipping of a page, or the sea animated by actors manipulating fabric.

I intend to use the medium of puppetry to poetically explore the psychological depths of the characters, illuminating their growth and issues of autonomy and control in ways that more conventional staging cannot.  Puppetry makes it possible to use dreamlike symbolic imagery. The play’s most magical character, Ariel, can be shown to shape-shift gracefully from one bird form to another without losing her identity. Caliban, a creature of the stone and soil of the island, would be capable to literally emerge from the ground.

                With a combination of traditional shadow puppets and digital projection, the shadow screen will make it possible to show atmospheric effects (i.e. lighting) and act as a living subconscious for the production.  Petroglyph forms and manuscript illuminations moving across the screen will make it possible for the audience to peer in on the dreams and intentions of those onstage.

The production has a projected cast of ten to fifteen performers who will perform multiple roles utilizing various puppetry techniques including modified Bunraku, shadows, mask, and costume work, alongside traditional acting.  Rehearsals would begin in January of 2013 with the performances to be in April or May of that year.  
For me personally telling the story of The Tempest using puppetry techniques on a full stage is the dream of a lifetime. The Jim Henson Foundation’s kind assistance would help to make this dream a reality.
                                                                                                                             Sincerely,
                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                  John A. Ryan
                                                                                                                                                       Puppeteer
                                                                                                                                                       April 2, 2012


Here also is the visual that I included. Due to technical difficulties that I won't bore you with, I only have the "low res." version on my computer right now. what I mailed looks a bit cleaner and nicer.


If you want a closer look at the concept art and the sketchpad page I used, Here they are. I'm not going to repost the Mouse Puppet picture. Anyone who cares to can always revisit him Here.
















Thanks to Joe and Hope Von Stengel getting the ball rolling and  for their support, technical and otherwise, also to Malissa Kano-White, my new co-conspirator and creative partner in this.Working with you is going to be fun!  Thanks also to Gennarose Pope for her usual eagle eyed proof reading  Proof reading  credits also go to the amazing Susan Forte and the lovely Jeannette Kjos. I would be very remiss if I didn't give a big shout out to my roommate Joe La Fave  partly for the help with photoshop,  partly for the proofread, but mostly for politely ignoring the fact that he lives with someone who frequently behaves like something out of a Lewis Carroll fever-dream!

We find out in June if I get to continue the application process. I will of course keep everyone posted as events warrant. So stay tuned! Over the course of the next year, you will all get to watch what could very well be my descent into madness!