Snow White (& Her Apple) is on Display at the American Museum of Natural History

The poisonous apple that Snow White ate, causing her to collapse, produced a similar effect to pufferfish poison, according to the exhibit. The poison blocks nerve signals that make muscles move, but victims are otherwise awake.

A new exhibit called The Power of Poison opened in late November in New York, at the American Museum of Natural History, last year and our gal Snow White - and her poisoned fruit - features as a major installment. (Yay!)

The whole exhibit looks fascinating but the section on Poison in Myth and Legend (get a brief overview HERE, though I gather there is much, much more) looks particularly so, with nods to the Mad Hatter, Harry Potter, the witches of Macbeth and much more. Take a look at this brief video by curator Mark Siddall (who seems very in touch with the 'now' and obviously loves educating people in the most entertaining way possible) and tell me you're not intrigued:

Here's a summary of the exhibit from popular family blogger MommyPoppins, who picked it as one of the best family exhibits currently out there this 2013/2014 Winter:

The exhibit begins by putting you in a Columbian rainforest, complete with toxic creatures...

The Power of Poison examines facts, fictions and legends about deadly toxins. While the subject may seem offbeat for families (how many kids know what arsenic or mercury are anyway?), the presentation is totally engaging. Kids can explore the role of poison in famous fairy tales, solve mysteries at digital kiosks, get up close and personal with deadly creatures, and watch a live presentation about a historic poisoning. Both my son and I were completely absorbed by the one-of-a-kind display. For once, picking our poison had a totally awesome outcome. 

The Power of Poison is divided into two distinct sections connected by a live dramatic presentation. The first part explores the back story of toxins: where they come from, what they do, how they were used and who used them. Armed with this knowledge, you're able to solve three different poison-related mysteries in the second section. 

You enter The Power of Poison through a dimly lit Colombian jungle where you're introduced to poisonous plants and animals like live golden poison frogs and Zebra Longwing caterpillars. There's also an interesting short about a lone camper found dead in the woods with no evidence of foul play. I won't give away the ending, let's just say the culprit turns out to be one of nature's toxic creatures. 

One of our favorite parts was the Poison in Myth and Legend gallery, where life-size dioramas reveal the truth behind well known legends and stories. Find out why Lewis Carroll called hatters mad in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, whether Snow White would have really died from eating a poisoned apple and just what those witches in Macbeth were brewing up in their cauldron. 

We also enjoyed searching through the Hogwarts-style magic book, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Dioscorides' De Materia Medica. As you flip through the animated tome about poisonous plants, the text and illustrations seem to appear out of nowhere as if the book were enchanted... 

(Read more on the fascinating exhibit areas HERE.)

Apparently the presentation is quite different from the usual AMNH exhibits, being rather more interactive and hands on. There's even a section where you can solve a mystery by following clues It's very multi-media too. There are full-scale, semi-animated scenes, actual venomous/poisonous creatures, audio and visual presentations and slideshows and a very special interactive projected 'Enchanted Book' (also mentioned above), which looks like something straight out of the Hogwarts library, that you can turn the pages of and see move under your hands when you touch the pages (much like you might expect a magic book to do), to learn more about poisons. There's an online version of it HERE. 

This “enchanted” book resembles an ancient botanical volume. It displays animations of poisonous plants and how they were used in the past. Drawings appear to come to life as the reader touches the pages.

While it's nothing compared to the exhibit piece, it still gives a lot of truly fascinating information on various poisons, how they came to be, the history and myth-tory behind them and more and is well worth your time to browse through and set all the animations and videos happening.)

The exhibit also explores myths and legends associated with poison. It features a life-sized scene of the Mad Hatter from the book "Alice in Wonderland" to explain the origin of the term "mad as a hatter." The saying dates back to the 19th century when mercuric nitrate was used by hat makers to turn fur into felt. Prolonged exposure led to mercury poisoning with symptoms that included trembling, memory loss, and anxiety.

I'm so thrilled that fairy tales are not only included in the exhibit but are showcased the way they have been. While the truth is you could have an entire exhibit just on poisons in fairy tales, getting people thinking about possible real-world origins of tales is a good way to get people to go back and look at their favorite tales, rethink folklore they know, and maybe do a little research beyond as well. Blogger Sonic Eclectic looks to be one of these since their summary of this part of the exhibit is as follows (section in bold is my emphasis):

Once the exhibit gets into the details of the environment then the specifics of countering poisons and folklore arrives.  Details are offered about witches, stories of Hercules using the toxic hydra blood, an excerpt of Snow White, and also information from Harry Potter.  What’s best is the exhibit ties the fiction and folklore to real life.  Tying poison and its affects to literature is something I would not have guessed to read and see.  Paired with the information are well-crafted artistic visuals and interactive information you can touch and hear.  Thankfully we don’t have to smell it if we could because that would not be enjoyable.

This life-size diorama of three witches circling a boiling cauldron recreates a famous scene in Shakespeare's "Macbeth." The witches are drawing on the magical powers of a few highly-poisonous plants.

The AMofNH also has a great Pinterest board full of information (and cool visuals) that you can browse HERE. While fairy tales aren't featured here, it's still intriguing (I need more words for fascinating...).

You can see more displays from the exhibit HERE and there's a whole set of behind-the-scenes photos on creating the exhibit HERE, where you can see much larger images of those below, get more information about the section, what went into putting it together and some of the varied skills employed for the presentation. (I don't see the video and animation artists included but no doubt they were hard at work as well.)

I now want to see a fairy tale exhibit JUST LIKE THIS! (Please.)
The Power of Poison runs until August 10, 2014.

"The Tale of Princess Kaguya" Is Coming to the US This Fall - Yay! (In the Meantime, Enjoy the 'Art Of' Book)

Kaguya Hime by doll artist Wakatsuki Mariko* (who adores fairy tales from all over the world)

Distribution for this reportedly gorgeous animated film of Japan's oldest fairy tale, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (aka The Moon Princess), has been picked up by GKIDS. (You may want to take note of the name since they'll also be bringing us Cartoon Saloon's Song of the Sea when it's ready.)

From Cartoon Brew:

Studio Ghibli is producing an English-language version of the film... 

Kaguya, which is based on the folktake “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,” has been a modest success in its home country of Japan, grossing $22.7 million to date (or less than a fifth of the box office gross of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises). The film will be released in the U.S. this fall and will be submitted for Oscar qualification.

With the US distribution happening later in the year, it's likely other English speaking countries will see it soon after as well. (Here's hoping, anyway...) 

I know more than a few animation buffs who are well primed for this and, knowing the ending isn't all sugar and sweetness but is more true to the original tale, I can't wait to see how the film resolves as well. I'm really glad we'll be getting the chance to see it in theaters. Here's a quick write-up of the artistic achievement by director Takahata on this film:

The visual expressions of director Isao Takahata’s “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” were groundbreaking. Up until that point, animations had been made with separate drawing styles for background and cell images, but Takahata paved the way for a new animation, telling a story that existed on a single page. This exhibition presents several illustrations unique to Takahata’s style of lightly colored animation, while also introducing Japanese art in the forms of folding screens, hanging scrolls, and picture scrolls.

In the meantime, for those net savvy international buyer people, there is a new book: The Art of The Tale of Princess Kaguya (images in this post are from the book). While the text is Japanese (as it has been for other Ghibli "art of" books) most of the presentation is visual, so it will still be a good addition to your Art Of library.

There is also a storyboard art book as well, which you can find HERE. You can see more artwork, some merchandising and a theater pamphlet HERE.

*  Wakatsuki Mariko may be Japanese, but her work is quite similar to that of Western artists. She opened her studio, Atelier La Lune, in Japan in 1989 and has produced lines of porcelain fairy dolls in large editions. She also exhibits one-of-a-kind or small-edition porcelain dolls at solo exhibitions. Before studying dollmaking at Ecole de Simon, Mariko did not have any experience with dolls. She was inspired by Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolism paintings, and she decided she would create works in three dimensions, rather than two. She believed dolls to be somehow similar to paintings because they express the world through imagination. Mariko is a bibliophile, and books are the root of her creations, so she seeks literary essence in her dolls. She is especially fond of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen and Japanese author Ogawa Mimei. Through their tales, she learned about good will and the meaning of happiness. Through her dolls, Mariko hopes to deliver love, dreams and hope to all who enjoy them. (From Dolls Magazine)

'Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge' Premieres on Syfy March 25 (Squee!)

Labyrinth, The Storyteller and Dark Crystal fans rejoice: coming to your (US) TVs at the end of this month (March 25th) is a new contest reality show, seeking out and challenging the best aspiring fantasy creature-makers out there! Introducing Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge. (Woo hoo!)

While Face Off can be a lot of fun, and I find the creation process fascinating (from pulling together pieces of legend to make a new story, to using unconventional inspiration and materials) I get a little tired of the horror creatures. That 'otherness' that I love in fantasy and in fairy tales is often missing but now we get a show that's likely to be a little closer to our hearts.

Basically, these guys (above) will do their best to pay tribute to one of my all time heroes, Jim Henson and his creature creations, aka this adorable rabble below:

I adore this photo. It has been in an inspiration scrapbook of mine since I was a kid.

Not only will this be a little like Project Runway (with muppets) but the challenge will go beyond design as well. These guys are going to have to manipulate their creations and bring these creatures to life - and to make you feel something when they do.

Ten aspiring creature creators competing to out-imagine one another in a series of challenges where they build everything from mechanical characters to whimsical beasts, bringing high-end creature designs to life. The contestants compete for a prize worth up to $100,000 including the opportunity for the job of a lifetime - a contract working at the world-renowned Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™.

That sounds... huge. I don't know what the time frame for an average challenge is but !!! Take a look at my favorite promo for this show to date:

OMG so cute. (My son wants to adopt the last one...)

And if they need ideas I'd have to say: please create a kelpie. In water. That transforms.

Or Baba Yaga's hut, complete with working legs, flaming skull fence and toothy, hungry door.

Or Ent wives. It's about time someone found them, don't you think?

Or a firebird. That's on fire...

Also: MORE STORYTELLER PLEASE!  (Here's a little visual trot down nostalgia lane to inspire you.)

Ah good times. The Storyteller tales are still some of the best fairy tale presentations to ever to grace our TVs and I still recommend them highly to anyone wondering about fairy tales.

(If you need me, I'll be programming the DVR and staking out the Creature Shop here in LA...)

"Wicked and Loving It": The Maleficent-Meets-EW Interview

Courtesy of Team Jolie, those of us without access to this issue of Entertainment Weekly (#1302, dated March 14, 2014 - on stands March 7, 2014), can view and read the interview and bonus bits for ourselves. Although this is (obviously) not a dense discussion on fairy tales, fairy tale villains or Sleeping Beauty in general, Ms. Jolie does have a lot of insightful things to say and despite her ranging over a few subjects apart from the film, the themes and her emphasis for each of them clearly work together and, at the time, affected each other.

In fact, one of the reasons I think this interview is worth reading is because it shows how the issues raised by fairy tales are directly applicable to life, learning and raising better people (whether that's our children or ourselves).

Please find the pages below. As I mentioned in the previous post, I will be hunting down and purchasing a proper copy for myself, just in case this movie turns out to have significant impact on society's view of , not only the Disney movie but also (unavoidably) the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

Just click on the images to view them full size so you can read the text a little easier.

Note: I'm a little vague on whether or not EW is OK with this being published elsewhere on the web at the moment, especially seeing as it's been up in other places for a short while already, but if it comes to my attention that EW want it taken down, I will do so immediately. Should that happen you should still have enough information from this post and the cover image if you need to hunt it all down at a future date.

Enjoy!