Month: January 2020

Wonder Thursday

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More photos from our grand day at Disneyland!

Love those squirrel rain spouts…

The castle is really looking good after a major refurbishment last year.  It may not be large in stature, but with it’s bold colour popping and looking great under the strong California sun it captures the eye and is once again a grand centrepiece for the park.

Got to visit with Nick!  (Judy was out on patrol…)

ShadowCheetah was wearing this fun and semi-subversive shirt that was filled with traditional Star Wars poster imagery but with title text at the bottom said “Star Trek” in the Trek font.  Though he hadn’t approached Nick, as we were leaving Nick runs over and stops him to energetically point at the title on his shirt as if to say “What the heck?!”  That ol’ sharp eyed fox!  Spotted it from 6′ away!  And then, if that wasn’t amazing enough, he proceeds to pantomime pulling out his pad, writing up an infraction/ticket, and handing it to ShadowCheetah.  We laughed so hard, what a perfect act by Nick, a great interaction and totally impressive that he spotted it in passing from so far away!

The park as a whole for the day was delightfully quiet.  We didn’t even get or need a FastPass once throughout the day, and managed to see/explore/ride an amazing number of things (listed in no particular order):

  • Space Mountain
  • Star Tours
  • Pirates
  • Thunder Mountain
  • Jungle Cruise
  • Peter Pan’s Flight
  • Smuggler’s Run (3x)
  • Rise of the Resistance
  • Castle Walkthrough
  • Matterhorn
  • Submarine Voyage
  • Guardians (3x)
  • Incredicoaster
  • Nick Meet & Greet
  • Lunar New Year Processional

Plus exploring Batuu and many areas of the two parks.  My oh my, it was a gloriously full day!

There’s something certainly beautiful of walking through the park long after closing, but also… mildly disconcerting.  It’s weird to not have anyone else around, and with the silence that accompanies it.  I totally loved it, don’t get me wrong, it’s peaceful beauty and I am now scheming to ensure I get to do that again.  But it was very amusing to be in that headspace space of both marvel and unsettled at the same time.

 

I mean, though, how could you not love seeing the castle and main street so clear and free like this?

Getting to start the day standing before the castle nearly an hour before rope drop (ie park opening) and ending the day again before the castle nearly an hour after closure, with non-stop attractions in between.  Truly a spectacular, wonderful, and fun-filled day.

Wonder Wednesday

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Last week ShadowCheetah and I got a chance to hop into my starfighter and fly ourselves down to visit Batuu… and it was a decidedly good time!

After following the construction progress from afar, walking into Galaxy’s Edge and experiencing it was very cool.  It’s a deliciously hyper-detailed land, with an attention to detail I’d not seen in a Disney park outside of the ones in Japan.

Every nook and cranny has been paid attention to with set dressing so that there’s no blank or disused areas.  And the design of the land purposefully avoids any clear sight lines so that it unfolds bit by bit as you journey through it.  While it has its downsides (or even flaws) from an operation’s standpoint (such as lack of casual seating) the land is glorious eye candy everywhere you look (which would be great to observe from said missing seating).

Our plan was to visit the planet both during the daytime and then return to see it under the glory of night.  This worked out even better than we expected — our boarding pass was called for Rise of the Resistance (more on that in a bit!) late in the evening, which had us emerge from the ride just a few minutes before park closing.  Which was enough time to hustle it over to Smuggler’s Run for our third ride of the day.  We ended up being the last ones on the ride for the day, and when we were done piloting (woohoo!) we exited Hondo’s garage to a very empty Black Spire Outpost.  Which allowed us to not only marvel in the great detail and lighting, but also take some nice shots with nary another person in sight.

So clearly we enjoyed Smuggler’s Run, but we were especially fortunate that our trip to Batuu came after the opening of Rise of the Resistance.  Because it is truly something else.  Several something elses, really, as it is more like 5 rides in one.  Spoilers hereon out if you want to avoid, as I kind of did, studiously avoiding watching any on-ride videos so that I would go in semi-fresh.  So while I knew of a few of the big set pieces from following the construction photos, the overall of it I didn’t know.  I’ve heard it described as the first “F-ticket” attraction, and I would agree.  There are a lot of very nifty moments, a tonne of incredibly creative set pieces and effects, and it has a more cohesive plot and perhaps even story than did the The Rise of Skywalker movie.  It’s a tour de force (pun semi-intended), and I’m keen on seeing it again!

Some of my fav moments:

  • From those construction photos, I knew that there would be a Star Destroyer hangar.  But having us go out of the shuttle through same door we came in was unexpected… and best of all, there was this group of about 8 who clearly didn’t know about this and when the door opened and we were greeted by the tableau of three rows of stormtroopers and the giant doorway to space and the First Order officers this group, in unison, literally jumped back, leaned back, and screamed in a mix of surprise, amazement, wonder, and terror.  So much so that the officer had to stop his spiel and wait for them to finish before ordering us off the ship.  So while I unfortunately wasn’t surprised it was absolutely great to get to live vicariously through that group.
  • The cast members playing the First Order.  They must love it, getting to be all stern and order-y and generally being very non-Disney like.
  • The cutting out of the jail cell!  The effects of the plasma torch were neat (even if one fellow prisoner was standing in front of it, totally clueless to what was going on behind) them, and then the rough cut look of the wall when the panel pulls away.
  • As we’re in the droid vehicles, headed towards a lift… and a mechanical form slowly slides down from above into view.  Me:  “Gahhhh!  It’s a probe droid!”  Voice on the Ride:  “Look out, it’s a probe droid!”  Me:  “That’s what I just said!”
  • I want to see the blaster effects a second time… some seemed to work great (along with blasting holes in the wall), some less so…
  • The decompression effect was amazing.  I’m guessing a chamber of pressurized air to get that instantaneous blast effect, it was very effective.  (The debris that ‘falls’ to hide Kylo Ren, not so much.)
  • And then that last drop right into the motion simulator.  They must drop the entire motion simulator rig, and that’s just downright impressive — that thing plus the ride vehicle plus the guests can’t be all that lightweight!  And to do it over and over and over again!  It’s also very effective from an experience standpoint, you do get the sense of being ejected out of the ship and then escaping down to the planet’s surface (that said, they need to upgrade their graphics on both that and the original shuttle ride to take time-of-day into account — it was night outside but the graphics were all day).

All in all, a great ride experience, and super impressive from a technical standpoint.  Hats off and lightsabres up in salute to Imagineering for such great work!

 

 

Philosophy Tuesday

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I mean, it’s not like it’s unclear why we hate being or feeling wrong…  because, in many ways, it makes sense.  Out on the savanna, being right equaled being alive.  A right prediction, a right memory, a right deduction, eating the right food, it all meant we survived for another day.  A wrong prediction, a wrong snack, a wrong turn, all could lead us to being eaten or otherwise not surviving for another day.

No wonder we were given such a potent euphoric reward for being right!

The thing is, though, we don’t live in the savanna anymore.  Not everything is insta-kill or be killed.  Not everything needs to be run through that filter.  And when we let our system of “being right” run amok on autopilot, we often lead ourselves down unhelpful, unhealthy, and even, ironically, down paths that are downright dangerous.  We can become so attached to being right over everything else that we accidentally screw ourselves, along with our friends, family, communities, and humanity.  We hoodwink ourselves into being miserable, into sabotage, and away from the clear and present mind that is necessary for making actual, proper, and lucid, choices.

That is the paradox.  Being attached to being right will often lead us instead to the opposite.  Which, doubly ironically, also means that being attached to being right lowers our chances of that euphoric reward from being right that we crave so much in the first place.  Oops.

When we let go of the savanna attachment and allow ourselves to be present, it gives us all the freedom to shine.  We can walk down the middle path, wending our way forever forward towards the sunny uplands of connectedness, fortune, and the more perfect futures we all crave.

Architecture Monday

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The new Amos Rex Gallery in the heart of Helsinki is pretty cool.  Not the least of which because the building that surrounds it was co-designed by Vijo Revell – the architect who designed the Toronto City Hall!

Even without that tie to my hometown city, it’s still nifty in its own right.  Built to avoid disrupting both an existing plaza and the surrounding buildings – including the lovingly restored 1930’s era aesthetic functionalist building designed by Revell that contains shops, restaurants, event spaces, and a theatre – the museum is built underground, beneath the plaza, keeping it part of the urban fabric and open for continued public use.  But it doesn’t lie quietly or hidden, instead bursting out of the ground in undulating mounds, creating a fun topography of artificial hills and bumps all punctuated by a super tall tower.  Reminiscent of a lighthouse, the tower in actuality serves as a passive ventilation shaft.

The entry to the museum is by far one of its most dramatic moments, with a wide angled staircase creating a simultaneous bifurcated view of the museum lobby below coupled with an eye level view of the plaza.  It’s trippy and prepares you for the area below, with its arching ceilings matching the landscape forms above, all culminating in windowed occuli that allows the spaces to be naturally lit whenever appropriate.

Great little addition to the city, a new venue that totally both preserves and enhances the old. Nicely done.

Amos Rex by JKMM Architects.

Architecture Monday

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Can’t leave without visiting a castle stronghold, now can we?  Especially one as well storied as Kronborg, aka, Elsinore from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  From a modest fortress in 1420s to a royal household from the 1570s onward to the addition of ramparts in the 1690s plus, it’s an interesting mix of military utility along the perimeter walls contrasting with upper crust opulence in the main residence.

 

Also quite fun, most of Hamlet is recreated and performed each day throughout the proper rooms in the castle, with the actors and actresses intermingling and interacting with the guests in between (always staying in character)…

Kronborg by Hans Hendrik van Passchen, Anthonis van Obbergen, Hans van Steenwinkel the Younger, and a gaggle of other unknown architects over its history.

 

Wonder Wednesday

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This is something nifty… a “hyperlapse” film touring around New York City and some of its biggest landmarks, created entirely from, and only from, publicly available tourist photos.  Every frame is from a still image, pulled from the internet, effectively crowdsourcing the imagery for the tour.  Mesmerizing and a stark illustration of our gravitation towards things called a “landmark”, and even more so of both our photo revolution (given the high-def cameras we’re always now carrying around in our pockets), and the accompanying revolution (and the accompanying attempt at gaining social capital) in and of sharing these images and moments for all to see.

Philosophy Tuesday

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“The thing is, meaning is not absolute.  It does not reside inside the artwork to be unlocked or decoded and revealed.  Meaning is something that happens between you and the work.  It’s different for you than it is for anyone else, and it’s always shifting, changing, depending on who you are and where you are, and what’s happening around you.

The artist does not own the meaning.  And neither do the experts or authorities who present it to you.  They are voices in the room, often very good and compelling ones, but ultimately you determine the meaning for yourself and only for yourself. “

— Sarah Urist Green from The Art Assignment

 

(Love love love this quote, so much great stuff is buried within!  For starters its a great reminder on how we interact with art and that we are, indeed, interacting with it.  It may seem, at first, like we’re only passive observers but it is quite the opposite — there is a lot going on.  It is almost an ongoing dialogue, and the meaning we create is very much our own that may both include and be irrespective of that of the artist’s.

Even greater however is that we can replace “art,” “artist,” and “artwork” with “events,” “the world,” or “our life” in order to delve into the quote even deeper and explore its implications, inspirations, and liberations in whole new ways.  What layers can we uncover in doing so?  What dialogues that we thought we had long ago settled upon can we re-engage with?  What new futures might we write?

So much to unpack, both in the quote and inside of our created meanings.  Very well said.)

Architecture Monday

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A glorious example of adaptive reuse tonight, in the form of a project that sports an equally epic name:  Godsbanen.  A former railway goods station it is now a full-blown cultural centre, with several theatres, galleries, night clubs, along with a number of art workshops and rentable spaces for creative business startups.

In its transformation the building keeps both its rugged heritage as well as its Neo-Baroque forebuilding, presenting several faces to the city.  Forming a giant U, that elaborate forebuilding and the adjoining warehouses were both preserved, while a new and rather fanciful addition nestles within the base of the U.  Appearing as a series of angular forms and ramps, this new bit houses the main theatres and all the connective tissue, such as the lobby, café, and a courtyard.  A courtyard that connects to the roofs, allowing full access up and along those angular ramps, doing triple duty as a lookout, seating, and another venue for performances.

Inside, the addition the muscular facets of the addition’s angular forms create dynamic and interconnecting spaces that are further punctuated by overhead oculi.  Meanwhile the amazing curved wooden structure of the original warehouses continue to march in succession into the distance along with the equally amazing continual light monitor.  Galleries and workshops are enclosed within slightly sculptural insertions into the existing space.

Exiting Maps – the glorious gift for us who want to see a floor plan…

I totally love it.  From the luscious and aged red brick to the rough concrete wedges, from the massive wood supports to the slick gallery walls, all wrapped up in a great play of light and form and shadow.  Not to mention the diverse nature of the cultural centre itself, and the vibrant heart it gets to play for an entire area that will soon include a School of Architecture.  It’s a fabulous example of repurposing something existing to create something even more amazing, taking the time, energy, detail, and beauty of the past and enhancing it through something equally detailed and beautifully thought out and crafted.  Great stuff!

Godsbanen by 3XN Architects.

Muse Rising on the Jedi, Redux

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One big addition to (and to fix a glaring omission from) my review of TRoS from last Sunday, and that is to commend the actors.  They did what they could with the material given to them to do, and often went above and beyond the call.  Adam Driver especially – he didn’t even get to speak for the last third of the movie and managed to pull off a lot of communication with only body language and expression.  And a glass raised in condolences to John Boyega, for whom I think 50% of his dialogue opportunities was, started, or ended with, shouting “Rey!” in various ways.  Their embodiment of the characters throughout the trilogy (whether they were in all three or just some of them) is one of the series’ strong points, and for some of the installments was the reason why the movie worked at all in any capacity.

It’s also gotta be rough as an actor, signing up for something you’re excited in and then being presented a script… and a reshoot, and another reshoot… and then seeing on screen what was finally edited together.  And then everyone’s reactions to it.  (Doubly so since, especially for some of them, they were hit with insane and disgusting vitriol hurled towards them personally as actors.  That’s really shitty.)   Like many I both dream of and would jump at a chance to be in a Star Wars movie (or any other movie, really, but Star Wars has extra resonance).  I would sign on the dotted line and be ready to dive in.  I can also imagine then being handed the script like for TFA or TRoS and feeling my heart sink and continue sinking throughout the process.

Now, I don’t know if any of the actors felt this way, and maybe they didn’t, but I still commend them heartily for giving it their all and bringing what there was to life and for making us like and invest into the characters, even as we may have wanted to see them (with these feelings even heightened because the actors were doing a good job) in better stories or better told stories.

Wonder Wednesday

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From the moment I first heard/saw it on the Laserdisk release, I’ve always loved this early version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight.  It’s just Simba and Nala singing to each other, though not actually singing to each other.  It’s quiet and intimate and there’s something raw-er and more emotional present here than in the “heavenly choir” version used in the film.  And also something more… profound?  That might not be quite the right word for it, but there’s a greater sense of two lions becoming aware of their attraction while also dealing with what they’re carrying from their past.  It feels much more authentic and real than the polished and grand production number used in film.  The simpler orchestration here also really works for me.

All in all, an absolutely lovely version and definitively my favourite version of the song!