How real is our imagination? What of its value in the reality of human life? Christmas time seems to tempt my puppet pal, Brooklyn Birch for some reason to not believe in himself, to doubt his self worth. A sad state of affairs for anyone I think. There is, I tell him, a certain visionary power when we believe in the reason we exist, but with that mystery comes the caution not to be tempted to crash on the rocks of disenchantment. Ulysses, I told him, bound himself to the mast to resist what he was made to believe would please him. By not allowing himself to be tempted he saved his ship from being broken to pieces on the soulless rocks along the shore. Brooklyn Birch wants me to buy him, Miss Ecstacy, a porcelain doll, that lives on a shelf at Toys R Us. “She is not real” I said to him. Sadly he says to me “Well then, neither am I” I said to him, “There’s a few good reasons why I can't believe that."

My poor little puppet, Brooklyn Birch. I should not leave him alone so much while I work on projects other than performing with him on stage. It was brought to my attention, by my neighbor that Brooklyn Birch finally surrendered after three days of fighting with the enemy, a gleeful, very bright little girl next door. He was taken into custody, forced to wear a bonnet and was seen being pushed by her around the block in a doll carriage. My reason for reporting this however is to speak on his behalf. Despite his defeat at the hands of joviality, and the merriment of a child, the brave little puppet, refused to surrender to despair.

My talkative fictitious character, ventriloquial partner, Brooklyn Birch, his imaginative struggles into the unbelievable is often in conflict with self talk in real life. Ventriloquists Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy or Jeff Dunham, with his Dead Terrorist character present a ‘self talk’ dual between the forces of free will and the imagination. The scary history of man, with myths and magic in its backpack wanders the paths of hope, in a journey through his own perceptions of the believable that he measures against what he perceives to be unbelievable. The Green Lantern’s power allows this user of his imagination to create anything that he can think of, pots and pans, hand grenades or machine guns. Superman faces his downfall as Kryptonite, Gotham City, its great villains, Wonder woman’s amazing powers, are limited if her hands are bound by a man, so her legend states and man too like Superman with the electromagnetic forces of Kryptonite does not realize his enemy too often is within. Man's own will power may set his mind behind the bars of what he believes to be unbelievable, and stubbornly may leave it at that. In doing so he denies himself the magic of the very placebo he seeks. In his work with autosuggestion, or self talk, Emile Coue’ a physician, (1857-1926) observed that the main obstacle to autosuggestion, (positive self talk) was man’s own will power that would resist positive suggestion. My materialistic puppet seeks only the pen, the ink and the paper, sadly, at times he has little faith in the superpowers within him that would clothe his comic book hero.