I Don't Need to be Told...

... not to get off a moving transport until it comes to a complete stop.
... not to tamper with the smoke detectors in the airplane lavatories.
... that there even are smoke detectors in the airplane lavatories.
... how to buckle my seat belt.
... to take my "personal belongings" with me when I leave. (or my impersonal ones for that matter)
... to have a nice day by a recording.

The World according to Walt

So how was your Disney World vacation, I hear you demand, with eager anticipation?


Yes, we felt the time had come to expose our 5 year-old child to Disney theme parks - Worlds "where dreams come true". I was more worried about "when the nightmare will be over", but actually it was fun. I call it our"vicarious vacation" - it's fun to watch your own kid get bombarded with thrills and exposure to princesses to the point of exhaustion!


Disney World, Florida is a collection of parks - Magic Kingdom, SeaWorld, Animal World, Epcot, Blizzard Beach, MGM Studios, etc. - of which we experienced but 2 - Magic and Sea. Walt's is a world where the real (dolphins and killer whales, say) is made unreal (trained to splash an audience and give rides to trainers in a Skinnerian exchange for fishy morsels) while the unreal (Cinderella, Micky Mouse) is made "real" (actors in full costume, including wigs for the princesses). For some reason, this existential role-reversal is endlessly appealing, especially to the young. I have a suspicion that it actually helps children understand the real vs. the unreal, actual vs. pretend or sham. For example, our sparkling-brained youngster wondered why the "real" Mickey and friends didn't say a word, and came to figure out it was because indeed they were fun pretences. One of a series of reality checks that she'll be engaged in figuring out over the next few years.


Personally, I find reality far more fascinating, but fantasy is fashionable and always has been. So it's no surprise to come home and discover Disney has plans for a Harry Potter park (perhaps they will call it Pottersville!*). Hey guys, how about a Lord of the Rings World, or a If All the Little Raindrops world! Oh, what aworld that would be**!



* in case that didn't raise a chuckle, the hometown of George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life is eponymously renamed from Bedford Falls to Pottersville in the fantasy sequence where malicious millionaire Potter controls the town. There, now you're laughing raucously!

** http://w3.gorge.net/cannon/songs.html move down almost to the bottom

Fame Through Frivolity

I have had cause in the past few days to consider the case of the composer/musician doomed to be remembered for his most frivolous work. It started when I received my copy of Thomas Dolby's "greatest hits" collection, called Retrospectacle, originally released in the mid-90's. Tom was not the most prolific of writers of music, but he did write the odd gem, such as "Airwaves", "Leipzig", and the haunting "Screen Kiss". But he's remembered as the one-off one-hit wonderboy of "She Blinded Me With Science", a scherzo with scientist self-parody Magnus Pike on backing vocals, which Dolby himself described as his least favorite song, but one that earned him fame and fortune on both sides of the Atlantic - which, alas, "Leipzig" did not do, even in Leipzig.

Then my daughter had the briefest of appearances in her ballet school's production of the most famous work of Camille Saint-Saens, Carnival of the Animals, a work that he considered so frivolous that he wouldn't allow it to be performed in public, nor published (save the Swan movement). I'm sure he'd have prefered the Piano Concertos or Symphonies to have sustained his immortality, though the Organ Symphony is I'm sure selling better since its airing in the great movie Babe. As I was bringing my ballerina home from practice, what should be on the KVOD playlist that afternoon but Ravel's Bolero - his most famous composition, but one he regarded as trivial - a "piece for orchestra without music". Why can't we like Tombeau de Couperin better? (I do!).

Then there's old Tchaikovsky, who really is remembered for his better works, but who was constantly putting himself down. He even disliked Nutcracker, for goodness sake, but considered the rather boring Serenade for Strings one of his better efforts! No accounting for taste, is there?