"Those pushpins, you wouldn't believe how small they are"

At the New Yorker, Richard Brody on the stop-motion animation of Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox production (subscriber only):

Anderson wanted the figurines to have "a believable sort of finish, a lifelike quality," according to Andy Gent, the puppet master. Although the largest of the figurines were only about eighteen inches tall, their fur was, indeed, fur (which, Gent said, came from "safe sources," suc as "food production"). They had been crafted for maximum pliability of expression: Mr. Fox's eyes were poseable, and his foam-latex face had a jointed framework that could register the slightest sneer or snarl or raised eyebrow. Moreover, the figurines had tailored clothing, made with fabric. (Anderson designed the clothes himself, having his own tailor send fabric samples. He has a suit made from the same corduroy as Mr. Fox's.) In closeup, not only are the buttons on Mr. Fox's white shirt visible; so is the stitching on the edge of the collar.

Molly Cooper, the film's co-producer, told me, "Wes wants the references to be from the real world. A desk actually has a coffee stain, piles of papers, things you'd have in a real-world setting." Standing before the set of the supermarket, which is filled with hundreds of miniature boxes and cans and bottles and jars, Anderson told Dawson, "Stores don't put bread in the refrigerator." Dawson joked, "Here they do," and Anderson responded, "I'm saying a serious thing. Maybe we shouldn't have bread in the refrigerator." Another set featured a miniature piano, whose keys could be depressed individually, so that, when a figurine played, the motions matched those of the real performance being heard on the soundtrack. The walls of one character's office were lined with tiny cards that Anderson had based on the scheduling board in the film's production office. On his computer, he'd shown me a still frame of that set and said, gleefully, "Those pushpins, you wouldn't believe how small they are."

Also (courtesy of Wendy): miniature city in The Hague reduces everything to a fraction of its original size! (And I wouldn't mind seeing Miniatürk, either...)

"Hail the wale"

At the FT, Miles Rohan on the founding of the Corduroy Appreciation Club:

People join every day. During the corduroy-wearing season – the autumn and winter months – I easily get 10 or 12 applications a day from all over the world. At the moment we have about 4,000 members.

We have membership cards made from corduroy. I sell them for $11.11c, which is annoying because it means that I only end up making about a cent on each one. The number 1 is very important to us.

At the Corduroy Appreciation Club’s annual meeting, on November 11, members are required to wear a minimum of two items of clothing made from corduroy.

I see a lot of hats, some three-piece suits, and there is even a woman who has a corduroy brassiere. There is a member who has made an entire monk’s robe, complete with hood, from a very wide wale cord. I’ve even seen corduroy earrings. People push it.

Recently we’ve had a lot of corduroy shoes. I’m not sure how I feel about this as I think it is somewhat disrespectful to have corduroy that close to the floor.