Introduction

I haven't been cooking as much as I would like lately. To fill that gap, I've been watching videos from the emmymade channel:

Go to 6:04 and watch for 15 seconds. No really, I'll wait. These words won't disappear when you're not looking.

Snow boots

Did you see that? When Emmy walked out of the shot, the camera focused on the snow boots, helpfully labeled “snow boots.”

This small moment, just a few seconds long, brings me incredible joy. The first time I watched it, I immediately rewinded to re-watch it again and again. It made me laugh, not giggle, laugh. Even now it makes me smile.

At risk of bogging down the feeling with explanation, I think the “snow boots” moment entertains me so much because it yanks back the creative curtain. When you consume art, you often take that art “as-is,” pushing the process of creating art out of awareness. However, as I covered in my diegesis post (see that post for a definition), art builds from an integrated set of choices made by the artist. Emmy (or some other editor) realized the camera focused on an unrelated background object, chose some flowery font, and inserted the text label. As a brief excursion from fried milk, you briefly consider the editor, slightly annoyed or amused or both by the inclusion of snow boots in a fried milk recipe.

Fruity fruits

Emmy has a series on fruits, titled “Fruity Fruits”:

If you betrayed me last time by not playing the video from 6:04 to 6:19, I forgive you. However, if you don't play this video for the first 5 seconds, I will never forgive you. Do it, come on!

I found the original audio of the opening by following the credits in the video description. Like with “snow boots,” when I first heard the track I replayed it again and again, overjoyed that it exists.

Once again, I find myself face-to-face with the creative process behind the art. Some time around 2002, Paul Mottram, experienced jazz and classical composer for film and television,, this guy: Paul Mottram

thought I should compose a track about fruits. After deciding on notes and rhythm, a process which I imagine looked like this: Paul Mottram with fruits

Paul hired multiple singers and told them the lyrics: “fruity fruity fruity fruity fruity fruity fruity fruity” (yes I did count the number of “fruity"s).1

Do you think they did multiple takes? What fruit do you think Paul had in mind?2 Such wonderful questions! Once again I find myself filled to bursting with joy that this exists!

Conclusion

Call me simple; call me weird. That doesn't change how joyous I get when a small touch evokes the quirks of a creative process.

  1. Apparently the track “[was then u]sed to great acclaim in BBC panel game QI.” ↩︎

  2. I put a Cosmic Crisp apple in the picture next to Paul, a fun little anachronism because Cosmic Crisp started growing commercially in 2017. ↩︎