When I think of getting creative with my spaghetti, I try using fresh tomatoes instead of canned sauce, ensure the pasta is al dente, add a dash of thyme and perhaps a hint of rosemary, and top it with a generous grating of blue cheese and maybe even a dusting of crushed black peppers or cayenne for a bit of bite.
However, 2009 Sundance Film Festival winner Adam Pasapane, or "PES" as he is commonly called, took being creative with spaghetti to a whole new and out of the box level. You've just gotta see it to believe it!
"Western Spaghetti" shows you an imaginative and resourceful way of making this humble and favorite dish, and like any meal preparation, one has to start off with just the right ingredients.
While watching the stop-motion video, it's not difficult to realize that the everyday items we have in our homes resemble other things in life, such as red pincushions that look like ripe tomatoes, pick-up sticks that resemble uncooked pasta noodles, and yellow post-it notes that can be mistaken for a pat of butter.
With a B.A. in English Literature at the University of Virginia, PES's story-telling style makes use of seemingly ordinary objects to create his stop-motion animation. His clever presentation of the ordinary as extraordinary makes his original creations instantly recognizable.
Now, with close to 20 million views on YouTube, "Western Spaghetti" has become an inspiring way to perceive the world we live in and view it with a childlike candor. The brilliance is not only in how the film was made but in how he has captured the audience's attention and opened their minds to the possibilities of mundane items turning into something surprisingly different.
His other notable short films, "Submarine Sandwich," which garnered Academy Award nominations, and "Fresh Guacamole," which became an Internet sensation, may also be viewed on YouTube.
