Still Enchanted

It's true.

Now that I'm back in Eugene, I want to go back to the Magic Kingdom. I'm very surprized. I was expecting to be Disneyed-out by the second hour. But they do what they do at DisneyWorld very well. I could have easily spent another two weeks there (it's probably better for our bank account balance that we didn't... but...)

I think part of the fun was that it was 78 degrees with reasonable humidity. I've been back in Eugene (and in front of computers) and already I can feel the places where my hands sort of hurt and all the funny little winter twinges are back in my feet.

That and Mark and I have decided that the cast members at Disney dress better than a majority of the citizens of Eugene.

There must be a metaphor in there somewhere.

The Quintessential Disney Moment

OK. The first thing you need to know is that Tomorrow Land, in the Magic Kingdom, is really dark. I don't mean in a cyberpunk, Mel Gibson way, either. I mean the lighting is all dark reds and blues and deep purples. It looks cool from a distance, but you can't see anything if your night vision is bad.

Luckily, the dark makes Tomorrow Land a great place to view the fireworks over Cinderella Castle. And it's even better if you just happen to be riding a rocket in the Lunar Orbiter. Loud music, explosions, and a carnival ride three stories high with Art Deco planets -- even if I was riding with my six-year-old niece-out-law and not Mark, it was one of the coolest moments of our visit.

Water Up My Nose at 55 MPH

Tuesday Mark and I spent the afternoon at Blizzard Beach. Think ski-challete meets the Beach Boys. The set is decorated as if you're visiting the Alps, but there's also sand and lots of beach chairs. The plank fences alternate with pine and palm tree cut-outs. It's very clever, and the puns are turned up full blast. The park mascot is the "Ice Gator".

The reason we went to Blizzard Beach instead of Typhoon Lagoon was for the Plummet Summit. It's a water slide 120 feet tall at a 60 degree angle. There are no curves, so by the time you reach the bottom you're in free fall. There's a long run for you to loose your momentum, so for about 80 feet you're hydroplaning wearing nothing but a swim suit at about 55 MPH. I watched other people coming down and they sent sprays of water up about 8 feet.

We went down the slide three times, and the last time I got a water spray up my nose. It was like a water-pic for my sinuses. Mark and I are still saying, "ooh, ow" from all the little bruises we got from the slide.

I'll probably get into trouble for suggesting this, but I think the theme song of the park should be It's a Large World After All (and Tattooed). Let's just say that I'm no longer worried that at fourty years old I'm too fat.

Dredging Up Memories

Tuesday morning we returned to the Magic Kingdom.

This was a ride visit

• Splash Mountain ("Don't throw me into the briar patch!")
• Alladin's Carpet Ride ("A whole new world.")
• The Haunted Mansion ("A ghost will follow you home...")
• The Enchanted Tiki Room ("Do not anger the Tiki Gods!")
• Pirates of the Carribian ("Dead men tell no tales.")
  

What was strange for me was how memories of some of the rides and shows in Disneyland in 1969 interacted with their 2005 Disneyworld counterparts. More on that later...

Mission SPACE!

Well... I had fun in the centerfuge. And we got to slingshot around the moon and dodge asteroids before nearly crashlanding on Mars. Mark wants to change the tag-line for this ride from "hurtling through space" to "hurling through space."

Yes. He took dramamine beforehand.

What was interesting to us was how difficult it was for some adult guests to follow instructions. At least, we think he could speak English.

The Animal Kingdom

OK. My experiences recording things at NorWesCon convinced me that there's more to making an NPR report than talking into a microphone in the middle of some street. So I wrote this one down.

It's about 3 and a half minutes long.

I'd have to say that the Animal Kingdom might be just a little bit better than the Magic Kingdom. It's certainly less frantic.

I Survived NorWesCon

I'm back from NorWesCon.

http://www.norwescon.org/

I did what I set out to do, which was meet the folks who send me rejection slips and attend a few pannel discussions. I'm not sure if I will go again -- parking, checking into and checking out of the Doubletree was so obnoxious that I think I'll stick with OryCon (where at least it's not a five hour drive).

What was fun was being able to talk with other writers and editors.

This time around I applied the "Internet Rule" to pannels. If in the first five minutes of a pannel it looked like I could get the same experience by reading a newsgroup or web page, I left. I also didn't go to a couple of writing pannels because going to Wordos for the last two years has made them redundant. Finally, Mark forbade me from attending either the "Peter Jackson vs Tolkein" discussion or the demonstration on tying people up. A quick and dirty summary of the pannels I went to follows.

• Lots of interesting things happened in the first second of the universe's existance, but it was too hot for a really really long time before hydrogen could clump together to form stars.




• Don't start your pannel discussion, "I got all this information off of the NASA web site..."



• When publishing stories, it's usful to think in terms of your long-term franchise.



• When writing aliens, start with the biology and work backward to the planet (and star).



• You can change the wavelength at which quantum-sized crystals flourece by cooking them for different periods of time.



• Humans wont be able to understand really alien languages.



• The editors of big publishing houses don't read short fiction magazines or anthologies; so if you're writing short fiction to jump-start into writing novels, just write the novel.



• The Tengwar character for voicing "GH" is good for words most commonly found in the Klingon language, but not for the beginning sound in "ghost."



• Most poor character development can be fixed by writing very specific details.



• As long as you don't bore the reader or waste their time, you can use almost any fiction cliche.

The participants at NorWesCon fell into the usual categories: writers, editors, publishers, gamers, people with leashes, elven princesses, Aragorn- and Legolas- wanna-bes, fantasy artists, Boris Vallejo model wanna-bes ("ya want a spangle with that?"), pirates, furies (people who believe they are animals trapped in human bodies), Hogworts students, and people with latex prosthetics (everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads). For most of these folks, Black is the new Pink.

I must conclude that the Peter Jackson movies were really big at NorWesCon. Although I wore cream colored courderoy pants, a white sweater and "The Loadstone of Atlantis" (a basalt rock with a hole in it on a cord) I was asked if I had danced at the disco party as Aragorn. It must be the hair.

- John

Your Own Personal Isis, Astarte...

The Friday night dance was lots of fun. I did have to pause when I realized that I was bouncing around to a 20-year-old (at least) pagan song, Burning Times. The chorus is a perky chant of various goddess's names; the verses are a rehash of the Margart Murray burning times thesis. This would be fine except that it doesn't jive with any historical records.

• While certainly people were burned at the stake for being witches, the number of burned witches was probably much less than 9 million -- more like 1 million (still bad).
  
• An examination of court records from the times suggests that where the Church's civil authority broke down, people were more likely to be burnt as witches.
  
• Pagans today have problems organizing; so far little evidence has been found that would support the theory of a pan-European, organized goddess religion.
  

So it was weird to look around the disco-ball lit room and see very earnest con-goers mouthing the words to Burning Times who were probably born after the song was written. It would be like discovering your parents cha-cha-ing to a song about the hoax about the US Congress taxing e-mails -- the information's wrong, but you know that they'll dance to it because it's got a cool beat. I've tried imagining using the tune of the song to set Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon to music, but it would probably be too long to put into a song (and very dry in some places).

At least they followed Burning Times up with a very funny selection.

I'm Not Moving This Car... No... Uh-uh, uh-uh.

Recorded, live, from the last parking space available.

Something about the weekend

The road goes ever on and on... I suppose.

I woke up laughing...

... we join the dream in progress. John is putting on some sneakers. He starts to put one foot into the shoe, then withdraws it. Feeling along the inside of the shoe, he finds a nickel.

John: "Well. Look what the Toenail Fairy left me!"

... and the dream went on to something else.


Of course now I want to find a nickle from the Toenail Fairy in front of some kids and see what happens.

I can hardly wait for the Brian Froud illustration.

- John

January Moon

This morning a quarter moon shone into the window when the alarm clock went off. Next to the moon was a star that stayed visible in the sky until quarter to 8.

The morning moon is one of the best parts of Oregon Winters. Often the cool temperature will clear the sky and everything shines crisply. In the early morning the stars fade, becoming dimmer and dimmer before the sun rises. The sky turns from cobalt to turquoise, and the stars seem to step back behind a skrim. Only the half-moon gives away where the bright star goes.

The cold air lines the tops of fences, leaves and cars with frost. As I hurry to the bus, I wish I had time to stop and photograph red holly berries and ornimental grasses. I imagine that the south side of our wooden fence will steam a little later in the morning.

By the time the sun rises, I'm at work, nine stories up in the air. In the distance, fog rising off of the Willamette River catches oblique ruddy sunlight.

Ug. Re-reading the above paragraphs, I am reminded of smarmy John Cooney, a radio personality who does dead-pan nature shows on KLCC. I need action and adventure...

In the sterile dark sky, the crescent moon shone like a bone. The distant stars withdrew in the glare of the morning sun, which painted the ambigous grey fog blood red.

Would I catch the bus, I asked myself, and hurried by the barbed plants with their casting twiggy branches; frozen fingers reaching out to snag the unwary.

Would the elevator work? Would I reach the ninth floor? And would my vision there be clear, or misted over by concealing fog?


Ah. Much better. All I need is a preditor / prey scene.

- John