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Of children, mask mandates and fi gure skating ... Victor D. Infante Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
FIRST PERSON
The Library of Disposable Art – Cel Animation David Macpherson Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
When I picked up my cel animation from Framed in Tatnuck, I gave my name and the woman said, “Oh you had the animated dragon.” For some ridiculous reason, I took off ense at this. “No. That’s not a dragon. That’s Godzooki.” The woman, a trained framing professional, looked at me like I was a crazy person. I was worse than a crazy person, I was collector of nostalgia. There is nothing more annoying. If you get something wrong about my collection, I
will have to correct the snootiest way possible. Let’s stop here for a moment. There is a lot to unpack in the fi rst hundred words of this column. What is cel animation? That’s a piece of the process animators used to make cartoons. For every second of cartoon goodness on Saturday morning, they had to paint the characters in progressively diff erent poses at least fi fteen times. For really good animation, like Disney movies, there would be 24 cels of animation drawn and painted. For TV animation, there would be someSee ANIMATION, Page 12
It’s hard to fi nd anything new to say about the Worcester School Committee’s decision to lift the mask mandate in Worcester schools, so let’s put that aside for a moment, and talk about fi gure skating. You didn’t have to be a die-hard fan of the Winter Olympics to be drawn into the drama surrounding world record holder Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian skater embroiled in a doping scandal. Valieva’s shaky routine Feb. 17 robbed her of a medal, leading to one of the biggest, most emotional meltdowns in Olympics history. The young skater is facing a ban pending an investigation of her failed Dec. 25 drug test, but was allowed to skate in Beijing, according to The Associated Press, by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to avoid “irreparable harm” to her career. As it turns out, that allowance was not a kindness. Indeed, it’s probably destroyed the girl’s career. The outrage she faced was probably best summed up by Olympic medalist Tara Lipinski, who was providing commentary for the event. “In my opinion, she should not be skating in this competition,” Lipinski said. “We have to remind ourselves that she is just 15 years old, a minor, and I know more than any what it’s like to compete in an Olympic Games at 15 years old, but a positive test is a positive test. She cannot skate.”
Kamila Valieva reacts after the women’s long program during the Beijing Olympics. ROBERT DEUTSCH/USA TODAY SPORTS
The controversy has played out over the TV news and the sports pages, but amid all the Sturm und Drang and fi ngerpointing, one’s forced to take an accounting of just how many decisions failed this young woman: Her coach, the controversial Eteri Tutberidze, who allegedly pushed her to take three heart medications – hypoxen, L-carnitine and trimetazidine, the last of which being the only one offi cially banned – to increase her endurance and enhance her performance? The Russian Olympic Committee, which has a long history of overlooking such abuses, so much so that Russia was banned from offi cially competing this year, ironically replaced by a team representing the ROC? How about the the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the International Olympic Committee, which was responsible for the
decisions that allowed Russian athletes to compete and allowed Valieva to skate? There’s plenty of blame to go around, but from the clarity of an armchair thousands of miles away, it seems at least one problem here is that Valieva’s well-being wasn’t prioritized by anyone. Not really. Placating the Russians with the ROC workaround was a signal that doping rules didn’t matter. Valieva being allowed to skate was a slap in the face to Olympians such as U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, who was prohibited from competing in the Tokyo Summer Olympics after testing positive for THC. No, Valieva was practically held up as a sacrifi ce, and from where she was standing, it must have felt like all the world’s scorn was falling on See INFANTE, Page 20
