1893

I happened to be in Columbus Square yesterday. For other business. I've been there a few times, enough to know the area, but I had passed by the statue of Christopher Columbus all those times. Just stopped to take a better look at it yesterday. Because I didn't yet know about it coming from the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago―the same World's Fair at which the Ferris wheel was introduced―the "1893" date on the base looked weird to me. After all, it wasn't like Columbus was doing a hell of a lot to commemorate by that time.

Crowd work

I'd read other books by China Miéville before, but am only now tackling Perdido Street Station, the first of his Bas Lag cycle and one of his earliest novels. Also somewhat epic in scope.

It's an overwhelmingly detailed world. I don't read all that much other world fantasy, but Miéville has a notably fresh approach to it. In truth the scars in his writing show. It's easy to spot things that had to be workshopped, places where ideas were discarded and replaced on the advice of honest readers, but his thought processes are interesting enough that that isn't a deal breaker

Have to say that in no scientific sense do the Khepri make sense. The fact of an entire beetle body being naturally grafted onto the neck of a full human body sans human head is wacky enough. But a species where one sex is sentient and the other isn't just isn't feasible in terms of evolution and reproduction. It's a fantasy race, and a symbolic one. I suspect Miéville likes the way they'd be susceptible to alienation. Also that he found the concept in his notes while smoking hash to come down from E and he just couldn't let it go.

The Garuda are the most fascinating, though. Well, specifically Yagharek. He's the client of scientist hero Isaac. The Garuda are bird people. Yagharek has been punished with lack of flight, and his determination to undo that flightlessness drive much of the action. He's a combination of hamminess, sullenness, and enlightened self interest. It's a magnetic brew, and I look forward to each new appearance of his even while I sometimes picture him looking like this.

Worth the wait?

I was just thinking about making a joke. Then I realized I had already made it. So obviously I can't now, because I'd just be repeating myself. I'll wait a few months or years. Then it will be like opening a fine vintage.

The California Project

Volume One of The Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture, which I recently picked up at the library, covers a number of topics. Judith A. Adams-Volpe writes the chapter on "Amusement Parks and Fairs." Not too surprisingly, she writes in some detail about Walt Disney, the man. The next chapter is on animation, so he pops up there as well. And with ol' Walt there is a lot of interesting detail.

Disney and his crew developed the basic design elements for his amusement park: a single entrance; a coherent, sequenced layout; wide, leisurely walkways; extensive landscaping; plenty of food and entertainment; attractions unique to Disney; efficient, high capacity operations. The projected Santa Ana Freeway would make the Anaheim property a half-hour drive from Los Angeles, yet out of the range of mass public transportation, thus not accessible to the poorer population and unsupervised adolescents. In a truly inspired move, Disney turned to the television networks, specifically, the then-fledgling American Broadcast Company, to provide financial backing to build the park. He promised to produce a weekly hour-long television program, Disneyland, in return for ABC's financial investment. Thus, from the beginning, this amusement park was essentially linked with the new cultural giant, television. Together they would establish the dominant outdoor entertainment venue of the twentieth century.

Interestingly, as Disney and ABC were putting Disneyland on the air, another Hollywood figure was venturing into TV. It's not controversial at this point to say that Alfred Hitchcock was kind of a creep in his personal life. But he was also pretty much a pure artist. While he was interested in making money, and successful in doing so, his goal was always to make more films. Alfred Hitchcock Presents was another way of accomplishing this. Tell shorter stories, get them out in front of the public, and use the revenue to make more movies.

Disney was a different kind of figure. Most of the creative work in Disney movies was delegated, of course. Having grown up deprived, he wanted to create a new and better childhood, while casting himself as the benevolent father figure. Having grown up poor, he wanted to be richer and more powerful than anyone could imagine, creating a company more vast and powerful than many nations. And in this second goal he not only succeeded, but is still succeeding to this day. For better or worse.

Turnover

Something I mulled over today.

If I initially wake up in the morning and I don't want to get up right away but know that I need to get moving pretty soon, it's better that I turn to face the left. On the other hand if I feel like I can sleep until I'm good and ready to rise I turn so I'm facing right. Now the way my room and my bed are oriented, left is north and right is south. What's the significance? I don't know, but that fact may have one.

Also left is the direction my clock radio is in, but this all happens even if it's not playing and isn't due to anytime soon.

B is

WFMU has a kid-oriented show, Double Dip Recess, and I just heard the above song on this week's archive for the show. I'd heard the song before, but had forgotten how close the Children's Television Workshop people stuck to the original, both musically and lyrically.

Years ago, I remember a nice guy I was working with saying that he had always thought that the song was about the Virgin Mary―a not unreasonable conclusion―but that he'd recently found out it was about marijuana. I said I was pretty sure it was neither, that McCartney was writing about his own mother, who'd died when he was a tween. I think I was right, but didn't really push the matter because I've learned that there are off-putting ways of being right.

For the record, "Got to Get You Into My Life" actually is about weed.

Balmy

Well, the mercury has certainly crept back up. But it's not as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago. I'm not 100% on what the difference is. It's still humid, but maybe not as humid. If you keep the air moving you can still sort of act normal. Good thing for sleeping, as compared to the other time.

FADE IN:

Last night I spent some time reading and critiquing a screenplay. It's not really a regular activity for me. But I am in an informal writer's workshop. Another member has an idea for an animated TV series. While I'm a little more comfortable talking about fiction, he'd shared something in scenario format before, so I had a little more idea of how to proceed.

As to what this script was about, I shouldn't say because it's not mine and it's still in the pipeline. It has potential, though.

Ripples

This I just had to share because of the looks of the grass. Moving it looks like a river, or at least like this meadow has been flooded. But no, it's just the grass. Under which are, I assume, rabbits, moles, and all those things. I imagine that finding a prime spot on one of those hills, sitting and listening to the wind, watching the grass flow like liquid...Yes this could be a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Riding in public

Another bus story.

On a bus today that was pulling into Kennedy Plaza, the main hub for the public transit system. A lady was yelling at the bus driver because other riders had their feet out in the aisle, so an elderly person like herself could trip and fall. And she made the bizarre claim that she owned part of RIPTA, which is actually true of everyone who pays taxes and/or fares.

The thing is, it's a genuine problem, the kind of thing I've complained about myself, although I'm too lazy to link to it right now. But there's only so much the driver can do, since for most of the trip he's face forward with his eyes on the road. And, well, her tone was more than a little on the rude side.

It's possible to make a good point in a counterproductive way.

Out of stock

It's around the time of year, and this particular year, for remembrances of Woodstock to be in the air. The fiftieth anniversary, and the cancellation of the proposed anniversary festival, got me thinking about 1999.

The less-than-great results of Woodstock '99 are a matter of public record, and provoked a lot of hand-wringing about the differences between the generations. (For the record, the target audiences and a lot of the troublemakers were from the latter half of Gen X. I'm from the first half.) But the problem was more specific than that. The organizers of the first Woodstock festival wanted to make a profit, but were also trying to make a point. As a result the event came with a Utopian spin that was a little hyped but also gave attendees something to aspire to.

The marketing for Woodstock '99, by comparison, was fairly cynical, only promising a hedonistic getaway. Some people when they hear "no rules" also understand an implied "except for the Golden Rule" whether for them it's of religious or secular origin. Other people think "especially the Golden Rule." Throw them together and the latter group will wind up exploiting the former. That's why you need to build in defenses.

Another book post? Yes.

Right now I'm reading Shirley Jackson's The Sundial. Re-reading it, actually, but it's just as fresh the second time around. It's a story about the Hallorans, a wealthy and screwed up family, holed up in their house with cousins and servants after the untimely death of one of their scions. During a party game, one of them sees a vision of the end of the world. It takes hold in the form of a sort of inversion of Rapture Christianity. This group looks forward to inheriting a cleansed world after the unworthy have been purged. Some of them dissent, though.

Jackson's best known novel is The Haunting of Hill House, which was adopted into a classic horror movie, a dodgy remake, and more recently a TV series. I could note that it wasn't just about a haunted house, but a small scientific study to learn more about what haunts it. This is a specialty of Jackson's: people staring into the abyss, trying to make sense of it, and the abyss saying "nope." And it hasn't gotten any less relevant.

Also a miniature work of genius is a dream sequence where one of the Hallorans dreams that she's the witch who built the house of gingerbread in the woods. She reacts with pure chagrin to the little brats who come along and start eating it.

Paranoia fuel

Outland from Mystery Flavor Collective on Vimeo.

That's a TV Tropes-ism of course, but it fits this mixture of claymation and live action, the impression I get from it. Despite the absurdity of the ending, or maybe enhanced by it.

Outside we're having a cleansing storm, flooding in the gutters. Wonder if that has anything to do with my reaction.

Under the sea

I just finished reading Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Felt like getting some grounding on the author who may be the first commercially successful science fiction writer. Except that description might be a little off. Verne was a popular novelist and an adventure writer. Science fiction as we know it wasn't really on the menu.

Aronnax is an interesting choice of narrator. He's not detached by any means. His reaction to the Nautilus, being forced to live on it, and what Nemo does is naive in places, and this is a deliberate effect, one he questions himself.

While I haven't seen it, apparently the Disney live action movie cast Kirk Douglas as the Canadian whaler Ned Land. That seems to be a way of changing the focus from Aronnax to Land. The book's Land is very brave, of course, but is only the hero of the story in his own mind.

Sirkian rhythms

Bear with me a minute. I was just listening to a jazz singer being interviewed on the radio. She said there was a "scat virus" going around among vocalists. She meant it as a bad thing, but it's safe to say it came out sounding worse.

Anyway, last night I watched Douglas Sirk's 1959 film Imitation of Life. Here's a thumbnail: Aspiring actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) almost loses her daughter Susan at the beach. In the course of finding her she meets photographer Steve (John Gavin, pre-Psycho) who for better or worse falls in love with her. She also meets Annie (Juanita Moore), attending the beach with daughter Sarah Jane, whom Lora thinks Annie is paid to take care of. The confusion stems from the fact that Annie is black, but Sarah Jane doesn't look like she is. As Sarah Jane grows into a teenager (Susan Kohner) she more and more resents her heritage, determined to pass as white even as it takes her down the road of becoming a (G-rated because of the times) stripper and implied prostitute. At the same time Lora gains greater and greater success as an actress. All well and good, but she can't spend as much time as she likes with her own daughter Susan (Sandra Dee) who develops a crush on Steve.

If you read all that you might be thinking that it's a load of sheer nonsense. And yes, there are aspects of it which are ridiculous, possibly regressive. But Sirk is no dummy. The two main storylines are awkward in the joining together because they're meant to be. Whenever Lora tries to intervene in the issues between Annie and her daughter it becomes clear that while her intentions are good, she has no knowledge here and speaks with no authority. And while Sarah Jane is awful and bratty, she asserts that her life would be better if she were white. Well, she's right. The point is brought home in an upsetting scene where she sneaks out to meet her boyfriend, played by a cast-against-type Troy Donahue. He's heard rumors, asks if her mother is a nigger (yes, he uses the word) and beats her up.

It should also be noted that like all the Sirk films I've seen, this one is gorgeous, brightly colored, imaginatively lit. David Lynch tends to copy Sirk in the parts of his movies and TV shows that are supposed to look civilized. In fact Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks has a lot of Sarah Jane Johnson in her, just without the tragic mulatto baggage.

The runaround

I can only imagine what kind of effect these guys had in the early seventies when they first came along. This performance has the air of a goof, kind of, but how many of us are capable of goofing on this level.

It also strikes me that they preceded KISS in having each member take on a different theatrical look and persona, like they were a kabuki troupe or commedia dell arte troupe. They seem more committed to it at this stage, as well.