Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Last night concluded the Michael Sporn weekend at the Museum of Modern Art. What a treat for me to renew my acquaintance with some of the many films I’d done over the years and to find out how many of them still hold up. Others I would have liked to have trimmed down for the occasion. As the wolf says in The Amazing bone: I can’t help being who I am; I didn’t make the world.

Last night it was a treat for me to gab on the stage of the Titus 2 theater within the museum and to casually answer some intelligent questions put to me by both John Canemaker and Josh Siegal. It really was a somewhat controlled conversation; they didn’t seem to have a list of prepared questions that I was required to answer. (Maybe they did, but it didn’t feel that way from my vantage point.) We just talked.

And talk I did. It was planned for the event to last an hour, and we went to two hours – almost exactly. I’d prepared 44 mins of video clips, and we strolled across those clips hitting some key spots in my career. It was fun, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. The theater was about 90% filled. At first it seemed like only close friends were coming, but at the last five minutes the place filled up. It turns out that only close friends did come. The audience was so supportive. I still can’t believe Michael and Phyllis Barrier came so far to be there. The same is true of John and Cathy Celestri. But it was also a long trek for a lot of others to come out on a rainy evening to watch ME talk. I can’t tell you how touching it all is.

My primary goal here was to thank some of those individuals that were so important to me over the years. Tissa David, Maxine Fisher, Christine O’Neill, Bridget Thorne and most importantly Heidi Stallings. So I did. To top it all, I’ll have it on tape when the museum gives me a copy of the video record they made of the program.

Afterward the museum offered us cocktails next door at their restaurant. A relaxed, enjoyable way to end the evening and to sit back with some of those who came. Many thanks to John Canemaker and Josh Siegel for taking the time to put this together. It meant a lot. Now it’s back to business.

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