Did you intend to hibernate this long, cartoon bear? I know you’re there — I see you, rubbing those sleepy eyes with fuzzy paws, scratching that empty tummy. Smacking those cartoon lips as your mind wanders to cartoon fish. It’s been a whole year, big bear! I can hear you sitting up, moving, shuffling over to the mouth of your cave; there you are, peeking out at the happy bright morning sun through the golden beams of light while smiling bluebirds sing happy songs and bumblebees buzz among pastel flowers. Behold, your wonderful Cartoon Forest!
Oh, but this isn’t the Cartoon Forest you left when you fell asleep those many months ago, is it? Rub a little bit more sleep out of those peepers, and you’ll see that the beautiful sunlight is actually a forest fire! The bluebirds are beating the rabbits to death! The bees are stabbing the flowers with their stingers, the smear of pastel colors the flowers’ delicate blood! The fish in your river are emaciated and diseased! Oh what a cruel and horrible reversal of nature!
The storytellers become the story: White Reeves Productions returns after a year-long hiatus to find the ground has shifted under our feet, our safety mechanisms are faulty, our hopes are corroded and leaking, our protectors are tightening the screws. The Cartoon Forest becomes the anti-agitation agitator, warped and unknowable, the slow incineration of our reflected selves rippling in the heat. Chaos pumps through the aqueducts, through our ear canals and our bloodstreams, its careful and exact distribution a clinical marvel. Cartoon Forest razes expectations.
O cartoon bear, how we long to help you! O how we long for you to help us! O how we long for convergence!
Cartoon Forest might as well be a WRP house band: Michael Skz (en EETCHIS, Earth/Vessel, OMNIVM), Ryan Emmett (Hunted Creatures, White Reeves [the “band”]), and Eric Messerall (Bearathon). Tape’s OUT NOW.
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