Werner the Squirrel and his traveling companion Klaus the Acorn have arrived at their new home in New York City! They now live with
Marci.
Werner ("verner") is named after the German director
Werner Herzog. Werner Herzog is so cool that even Henry Rollins (from the punk band Black Flag) thinks he's the shit. Henry has a show on IFC. Henry was recently interviewed on
Nerve:
NERVE: I read recently that one of the people you most wanted to interview was Werner Herzog. Did you get to?
HENRY: I did. He's going to be on the show. It was so cool. He said stuff I'm using now as rhetoric. I said, "As far as Hollywood is concerned, you're kind of an outsider." He just nodded his head and said, [In a German accent] "No. They are the outsiders." Thank you! New tattoo, please! We talked about when he was shot recently. He was doing an interview and someone shot him. [In a German accent] "Yes, but it was a small bullet in the abdomen; it did not perforate the intestine. I finished the interview. It was not a serious bullet." And I'm like, "You know, Werner, there's a lot of people out there, myself included, who think every bullet is a pretty fucking serious bullet!" So he goes into this long story about all the times he's been shot at, and what a rush it is for a guy his age to have someone attempt to kill him and be unsuccessful. I would follow that man anywhere.
I'm not sure why he gets shot at so much, since, from what I can tell, he is a sweet, warm, intelligent, and thoughtful person, but we should all be thankful that no one has been a half-decent shot because Werner makes *incredible* movies.
And then there's Klaus the Acorn, whom Marci christened "Angry Acorn." He's named after the actor
Klaus Kinski. Werner and Klaus go way back - all the way to their teens. Their collaboration is quite a
crazy story. This
page of quotes from them kind of sums it all up.
The starting point for Werner is a pattern in
Palm-sized Stuffies ISBN 4834722449. I altered the tail so I could attach the marabou feathers and I designed a whole new head. This is the third head I made. The first two were rejected by quality control (a.k.a. Andrew). One head was accused of looking like an walrus! I used the same dark brown embossed felt as I did for
Wim.
Klaus was created in a free-style frenzy of felt. The big bulbous top is a little much (it's almost as big as the bottom part), but once I noticed the eerie resemblance to the real Klaus'
vaguely swollen head and mop of unruly blond hair, I realized it was meant to be.