Love - Art - Disease - Pain - Life-Humanness - "Otherness"
In our desensitised society,
the artists,
the bohemians, poor, discarded,
"others", recovering addicts -
all are more in touch
with their human-ness
than the so called
mainstream.
Despite everything -
HUMANNESS, LOVE, LIFE, ART survives.
-Jonathan Larson
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
rent 1 (rent)
n.
1.
a. Payment, usually of an amount fixed by contract, made by a tenant at specified intervals in return for the right to occupy or use the property of another.
b. A similar payment made for the use of a facility, equipment, or service provided by another.
Idiom:
for rent
Available for use or service in return for payment.
5:30 PM
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
No tricks, folks ... "Haunted Mansion" book is a real Halloween treat.
Jim Hill goes gaga over Jason Surrell's great new book, which goes into great detail about the history of this much beloved Disney theme park attraction.
Haunted Mansion fans, you can finally die happy! The book that you have been waiting for for decades has finally arrived.
Jason Surrell's "The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies" (Disney Editions, October 2003) is the real deal, folks. A thoroughly researched, beautiful illustrated history of this much Disney theme park attraction, I can honestly not say enough nice things about this book.
Obviously, Surrell has to be a fan of the ride. I mean, how else do you explain the almost fanatical attention to detail here? Where every little piece of this attraction's history is celebrated? Where every Imagineer who ever worked on this project is acknowledged? Where even the smallest of differences between the four versions of the attraction are so carefully weighed and measured?
My apologies to Jason if the above description makes "The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies" sound like kind of a dry read. Or some academic tome. It's really not. Surrell's text for this book is actually quite entertaining.
More to the point, Jason really knows his Disney theme park history. (But - given that the guy's an Imagineer - what else did you expect?) Which is why he decided to start his tale of the Haunted Mansion's development in just the right spot. Back in 1951, when Harper Goff was first doing conceptual work for the "Mickey Mouse Park" that Walt was thinking of building on that 11-acre parcel of land directly across from Disney Studios in Burbank, CA.
And -- as Harper was throwing together ideas for that then-super-secret project -- he drew one particularly atmospheric sketch entitled "Church, Graveyard & Haunted House." Goff's inspirational drawing showed a quaint country church in the foreground. While - off in the distance - this decaying mansion looms over an overgrown graveyard.
And out of this one single sketch ... the attraction that millions around the globe have thrilled to was born.
Mind you, Harper's idea had to pass through a lot of hands before the core concepts for "The Haunted Mansion" attraction that we know today were finally in place. But Surrell skillfully walks you through this part of his narrative. Starting with those first treatments that Ken Anderson wrote for the Disneyland's "Haunted House" show back in February 1957. Back when the attraction's central story dealt with the ill-fated marriage of Priscilla and Bartholomew Gore.
Jason then swiftly moves you through all of the other takes that Anderson had on this tale. The version of Disney's Haunted Mansion where the Headless Horseman (I.E. the villain from the studio's 1949 release, "The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad") was the star of the show. As well as the version that climaxed with the marriage of "Monsieur Bogyman" and "Mlle Vampire."
Meanwhile, while Ken is hammering out scripts for this proposed attraction, Yale Gracey and Rolly Crump are back at WED -- cooking up illusions to present in Disneyland's Haunted House. In fact, as part of his book, Surrell tells one of my all-time favorite stories about the early days at Imagineering. About how Rolly and Yale used to get a kick out of torturing the janitorial staff by setting up these ghostly gags to go off hours after they'd left their workshops for the night. They'd come in the next morning and find the door to their offices wide open, the broom left where the janitor dropped it after he'd raced out of the room in fright.
Of course, the downside of this gag was that Crump and Gracey eventually got a call from WED's Personnel Office. Which told the two Imagineers that: "You're going to have to clean your own office from now on. The janitors refuse to go back in there."
Pretty funny story, eh? Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg, folks. Jason has crammed his "Haunted Mansion" book full of great anecdotes like that. Along with page after page of terrific concept art and photographs of models, etc.
And -- for those of you who just can't wait to see Disney's "The Haunted Mansion" movie (opening at a theater near you on November 26th) -- the last third of the book reveals all the care and consideration that went into the creation of this Rob Minkoff movie. And you're just going to flip when you see the wonderful job that Academy Award winning make-up artist Rick Baker did as he was translating various ghosts from the attraction into characters for the movie. I mean, the Hitchhiking Ghosts look great. As does the Headless Knight, the Executioner and the Opera Singing Ghost.
But perhaps the best reason to buy this book is that it will make you aware how much the folks who are behind this upcoming Walt Disney Pictures release really love "The Haunted Mansion" (the attraction). Otherwise, why else would they go to all the trouble of making two of the singing busts that appear in the film actually look like Thurl Ravencroft (AKA the singing voice of "Uncle Theodore," the bust that's often said to look like Walt) and Paul Frees (the voiceover legend who also did the voice for the "Ghost Host" in the original version of the "Haunted Mansion')?
Another interesting bit of trivia that you'll only get to learn (and see) when you pick up a copy of Jason Surrell's "The Haunted Mansion": The other two busts that were initially designed to be part of the quartet that appear in the "Mansion" movie were modeled after Marc Davis (the legendary Imagineer who designed many of the scenes featured in the attraction) and Blaine Gibson (the talented sculptor who brought so many of Marc's memorable characters to life). Sadly, these two busts were eventually rejected because it was felt that Marc and Blaine's visages were just too normal looking. They weren't "Grim Grinning Ghosts" -- like enough for the filmmakers, so their busts were eventually redone.
Speaking of grins ... my face actually hurt when I finally closed the cover on this book. Which means that I must have been smiling the entire time that I was reading Jason Surrell's history of "The Haunted Mansion." And given what an entertaining read this book is ... I guess I can understand why.
So give yourself a real treat (not a trick) this Halloween and go get a copy of Jason Surrell's "The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies."
By Jim Hill
October 16, 2003
www.jimhillmedia.com
3:11 PM
Quotes For A Tuesday...
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life,
when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic
about”Albert Einstein
"Everything starts as somebody's daydream" Larry Niven
"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you
can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people
spend it for you" Carl Sandburg
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." William James
"Questions are the creative acts of intelligence" Frank Kingdon
"Truly loving another means letting go of all expectations. It means
full acceptance, even celebration of another's personhood" Karen Casey
"Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep" Fran Lebowitz
"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If
you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one,
not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little
luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or
coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless,
airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable,
impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable" C. S. Lewis
"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will
ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without
caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times
out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it" C. S. Lewis
"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable" L. Frank Baum
"He was part of my dream, of course - but then I was part of his dream too" Lewis Carroll
"When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint."
Lewis Carroll
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" Lewis Carroll
"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars" Vincent Van Gogh
"Romance is dead - it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece" Lisa Simpson
"I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in
each other's dreams, we can play together all night" Bill Watterson
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw.
"I just wanted to be sure of you" A.A. Milne
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down" Oprah Winfrey
"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision" Lynn Lavner
"When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one" From the tombstone of a gay Vietnam veteran
"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" Ernest Gaines
"Homosexuality is god's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children" Sam Austin
"Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law" Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, A.D. 524
"If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: "Hello. Can't work today, still queer." Robin Tyler
"No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only queer people are those who don't love anybody" Rita Mae Brown, speech, 28 August 1982
"You could move." Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood
"War. Rape. Murder. Poverty. Equal rights for gays. Guess which one the Southern Baptist Convention is protesting?" The Value of Families
"Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality" James Baldwin
"What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains" Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947
"There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats" Elton John
"Soldiers who are not afraid of guns, bombs, capture, torture or death say they are afraid of homosexuals. Clearly we should not be used as soldiers; we should be used as weapons" Letter to the editor, The Advocate
"It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain" Francis Maude
"I get sick of listening to straight people complain about, "Well, hey, we don't have a heterosexual-pride day, why do you need a gay-pride day?" I remember when I was a kid I'd always ask my mom: "Why don't we have a Kid's Day? We have a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, but why don't we have a Kid's Day?" My mom would always say, "Every day is Kid's Day." To all those heterosexuals that bitch about gay pride, I say the same thing: Every day is heterosexual-pride day! Can't you people enjoy your banquet and not piss on those of us enjoying our crumbs over here in the corner?" Rob Nash
"The world is not divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are blacknor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex"
Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948
"If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered" Robin Tyler
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind" Dr. Seuss
3:09 PM
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