Gareth has been working from home since last March, when he left his day job in the video game industry with the goal of illustrating full-time. Since then he’s been reveling in the joys of self-employment, as many artists and writers do when they aren’t bemoaning the cost of single-payer health care, worrying about the source of their next paycheck, or missing the company of others engaged in similar work.
Last week Gareth e-mailed me to announce that he’d found his new theme song. I laughed out loud when I heard the lyrics to this VERY catchy little tune by They Might Be Giants that many of you may feel you can relate to, and most of you are likely to find very entertaining (though you might find this song is stuck in your head for days — consider yourselves warned)! It’s animated in kid-friendly/grown-up-friendly fashion and viewable by way of This Might Be a Wiki, the They Might Be Giants knowledge base. If you get a kick out of it, you might want to subscribe to TMBG’s free podcasts. Click on the image below to get this party started…
Watching the video again before posting it here, it suddenly struck me that the line drawings (in particular the animated ones during the "practice trumpet every day" section) look like they could’ve been done by Laura Ljungkvist, author/illustrator of (most recently) Follow the Line Through the House. I’ve got no reason to think that Laura actually DID do the drawings for that TMBG animation, but the very talented Laura would certainly have been capable of doing so! Perhaps, though, she’s been too busy working on Follow the Line Around the World, which is due out in May 2008 from Viking.
Thought you’d like to know there’s a video of Rick Riordan on Youtube reading a bit from the next Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth book. Sorry, but web addresses seem to be disabled here.
Just a note because it’s apt to confuse people; single-payer health insurance usually refers to a system where the government pays for everything covered for everybody. Unless Gareth is auditioning for the Fox Network, he’s probably complaining about individual health insurance — which means the very expensive private plans where you’re the only one in the pool.
Thanks for correcting me on that point, passerthru! When last I checked Gareth was NOT auditioning for the Fox Network, so “individual health insurance” would indeed have been term I should have used.
Thanks for this – have just posted about it at my blog. Fab stuff. Enjoying your blog.
I just had a sabbatical and made this my theme song. I was humming it for four weeks straight. Thanks!
Anon, It’s PAINFULLY catchy, isn’t it?? Gareth and I had to declare a moratorium on it in our apartment. All one of us has to do is hum one line and both of us will have it stuck in our heads for days! EVIL!! (But so much fun…)