Summer In The City
By David B. Levy

This week the temperature dips down to the mid 70s. Take that, global warming! While the summer may be over, it doesn't mean that it's too late for a semi-humorous recap list of the season's animation high and low marks. Enjoy!

  • The subject of a retrospective at this year's Ottawa International Animation Festival, Michael Sporn recently released two new DVDs distributed by FRF (First Run Features) containing his multi-award winning films, "Abel's Island," and "The Marzipan Pig."

  • It takes me a full week, but I finally make it through that whole bag of Oreo cookies.

  • Signe Baumane's latest films court controversy. (This is something I'm thinking of keeping on the list for next year. You never know.)

  • Living in urban apartments since 1996, this year marks my 12th anniversary of not having to mow the front lawn.

  • ASIFA-East's Ray Kosarin spends over four weeks in Japan serving on the selection committee of the 2008 Hiroshima International Animation Festival as well as attending the festival itself. He's turning Japanese . . . I really think so.

  • In an example of the worst kind of ethnic profiling, a man on the steps of the Union Square subway station says to me, "Hey you look like a guy who enjoys independent film."

  • Will Krause makes a five-second doodle so perfect that it opens up a vortex into another dimension, which oddly enough, turned out to lead to Providence, Rhode Island.

  • A man outside Union Square's Virgin Megastore shoves his selfmade CD at me, saying, "Hey, you look Rap music. Try my CD." To which I reply, "You don't know me at all. I'm a guy who enjoys independent film."

  • Justin Simonich takes on two animation classes at a CUNY school, bringing his animation expertise with him, which hopefully made it past the school metal detectors.

  • While going through a box in my closet, I stumble upon a DVD of "Cats Don't Dance" I bought seven years ago--still in its original shrink wrapping.

  • Mr. Warburton is a double threat with a new children's book and animation pilot in the works. If he had taken two years of modern tap, I'd be able to call him a triple threat.

  • ASIFA-East plans a new way to take your money, via a membership renewal through PayPal. Coming soon to our web site!

  • Overhearing my debate at a restaurant on whether or not 2D is dead, another table mistakes this to mean that Tootie from TV's "The Facts of Life" is dead.

  • Buzzco's Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafarelli win an Emmy!

  • I waited at the Union Square subway steps for like ten minutes, and still no sign of the man who instinctively knew I was a guy who enjoyed independent film. I briefly consider posting an Ad in the missed connections section of the paper, but then decide to look for the man who thought I liked Rap instead.

  • Nina Paley rocked the festival world with her confessional feature film debut, "Sita Sings The Blues."

  • I whip up a peanut butter and banana breakfast smoothie so hearty that it actually holds my appetite till lunch.

  • Unionized musicians working on "The Wonder Pets!" won their demands after taking their case to the media and threatening a public press conference on the steps of Little Airplane, which would have clogged up the runway and delayed flights.

  • Recent NYU Tisch School of the Art's grad Stephen "Shark Suit" Neary lands a coveted spot in Blue Sky's storyboard department.

  • I land a coveted spot on my couch and hunker down to three sweet episodes of TV's Mad Men.

  • Wachtenheim and Marianetti cause a stir on Cartoon Network after the channel features an entire day wrapped around their short-form series, "Big Baby."

  • I cause a stir in my cup of tea after I mix in a little honey and lemon.

  • Aaron Augenblick's animation studio wraps up production on the Adult Swim series "Super Jail!" (created by Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick and Ben Gruber.) The in-house term for finding offbeat solutions to tricky animation is to "superjail it." That's one term you won't find in Eric Goldberg's book.

  • Bidding the warm season adieu, I grow my fall coat and look for the right-sized rock before hibernating.