if you weren't a child in the 80's, i'm sorry. it was awesome.
John and I have been talking about great TV shows from our childhood and I want to share some awesomeness. First, we have the Sesame Street crayon factory. Possibly my favorite Sesame Street segment. The visuals are awesome. The fact that it's an actual Crayola factory is awesome. But the music is just spectacular.
Awesome, yes? Okay, next, there's the nines song from "Square One." My favorite thing about "Square One" was Mathnet, but the nine song is the thing that I think was the most useful to me. It's like it's describing some sort of weird mathematical magic. To this day, when I multiply something by nine (not that it happens often, but still), I picture this cowboy.
Next on my list of 80's children's programming is the opening to "3-2-1 Contact." I remember that I loved this show, but I remember very little about the show itself. This theme song is so cool though! It has the upbeat, inspirational tone of the old EPCOT music I love so much. (If you don't remember me talking about this before, check out this post from February, when I was praying Obama would get the nomination, in which I compare his speeches to lyrics of songs from EPCOT.)
I would love to have found something from "Jellybean Junction," but I couldn't. In fact, the internets are telling me that that isn't even the show I watched, based on timeframes and stuff, but that is the show John and I both specifically remember.
Last, in a departure from the public television theme I have going here so far, is a commercial for Astronaut Barbie. Amy had this doll. And she was really one of the coolest Barbies ever. Listen close to these lyrics.
"We girls can do anything, like Barbie." Classic! Rather than shattering the glass ceiling, Sarah Palin seems to have made it so that our political discourse is now roughly on par with 80's advertising aimed at children. Bravo! I'd just like to point out that the Barbie commercial is the only thing here that I didn't remember. Hopefully, in 20 years (or less), no one will remember Palin either.
she was already an orphan, hasn't she suffered enough?
Yesterday, I got a very depressing email from American Girl. Apparently, they're not going to make Samantha dolls anymore. I'm heartbroken. It's ridiculous how upset this makes me, actually.
The way they're wording it is, "After more than 20 years as a beloved historical character, this American Girl original will soon say farewell. At that time, Samantha’s collection—including Nellie and her accessories—will be placed into the American Girl Archives so that we may preserve her place in history."
The American Girl Archives? Seriously? That sounds waaay too much like the Disney Vault. (And what's with the Disney Vault, by the way? Rerelease "Beauty and the Beast" already, come on. How do they keep selling toys of characters from movies you can't currently buy? How does this new crop of kids see these movies? How does this make any sense?)
I didn't have a lot of friends as a kid. I loved dolls and reading and the idea of those two things mixing together was like heaven. I could read by myself. I could play with my fancy-pants doll by myself, too, since I'd never be willing to share her. Plus, I got Samantha at around the time my sister was growing too old to play with me. Being "into" things like American Girls dolls and my Playmobil dollhouse and wrapping string around stuff / making weird crafts was really what I perceived as being my identity, although I'm sure I didn't realize it then.
And so now, when I'm already shaken up by this economic crisis and how it's beating the crap out of my little business and others like mine, now is not the time for bad news. The books aren't going out of print, but it's just not the same. I never even wanted my car as badly as I wanted that doll. I've still never wanted anything as much as I wanted Samantha. In the months leading up to that Christmas, I think I even slept with the catalog. I know it's not like they're going to come and take mine away, but, she's an antique now. She's vintage. And I'm old.
I always seem to become obsessed with things when they no longer exist. I love all the apartments I no longer have. All the foods I like at a restaurant are the first to get changed or taken off the menu completely. I actually still miss clothes I had when I was a child (a pink and white striped polo shirt and my 1989 Easter dress, to be precise).
That being said, when did Disney decide to make EPCOT so stupid? I've heard the naysayers that think it was never that great, but I think they're dead wrong. When I was a kid, we had a CD of music from DisneyWorld--probably one of the first CDs we ever owned--that I've been wanting to listen to for at least a year. I found it at my parents' house a couple of weeks ago and have been listening to it occasionally. It. Is. Awesome!
I'm aware that I was sort of a snobby, goody-two-shoes kid, but I was also secretive and weird. Much like today. I tied furniture together with string, spinning the whole house into my web, then slid buckets along the string like an assembly line. I was addicted to the sound of my own voice playing back to me from countless cassettes. (Oh, my GOODNESS do I miss the 80's!)
Right now, I'm watching CNN's coverage of today's primaries. I find Wolf Blitzer incredibly boring. The pundits are so excited right now, which feels wrong. When political pundits get excited, something's gotta be wrong somewhere. They're like the paparazzi, but somehow not looked upon as weasels. I so much want Barack Obama to win the nomination, not to mention the general election. And here's why:
Barack Obama embodies all the good things I remember about EPCOT.
I know, I know. That's ridiculous, but it's also true. I need something fantastically good to happen in this country. I have yet to vote for a winner in a presidential election. I'm hoping to open my own bookstore, in a flailing economy, in the face of Amazon. I see all the possibilities that our superconnectivity can offer. The things I saw as a kid, enacted by animatronics, have slowly become real. But the spirit of excitement and wonder that I felt then is just not there. And when I hear Obama speak, a feeling wells up in me that's very similar to how I felt as a little girl, with my life splayed out in front of me like a sprawling red carpet. Just, take a look at this:
"If we can dream it, then we can do it. Yes, we can. Yes, we can." --from the theme song to "Horizons," my favorite, long demolished EPCOT ride.
"We are the hope of the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we cannot remake this world as it should be. We know that we have seen something happen over the last several weeks, over the past several months. We know that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored, that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, make this time different than all the rest. Yes, we can. Let’s go to work. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can." --Barack Obama in his Feb. 5th Super Tuesday speech
"Holding the spark, as we embark, on a great journey together we're learning to reach for hope and desire, building a world to inspire." --from a song called "Tomorrow's Child," which used to be part of "Spaceship Earth" (the ride inside the silver EPCOT globe)
"The implication is that if you are hopeful, that you somehow must be engaged in wishful thinking, that your heads must be in the clouds, that you must be passive and sit back and wait for things to happen to you. That seems to be the implication. And so I have to explain to people that is not what hope is. Hope is not blind optimism. Hope is not ignorance of the barriers and hurdles and hazards that stand in your way. Hope is just the opposite." --Obama
"A dream can be a dream come true, with just that spark in me and you." --from "Journey into Imagination," probably the best EPCOT ride ever
"We are the change that we seek." --Obama, Super Tues.
When I was a kid, EPCOT made me feel like I could do or be anything, that the world was open and amazing. And Obama makes me feel like, when I have kids, they'll have a chance of feeling the way I did. I want to be idealistic again. I'm tired of being dissatisfied with my country and being obsessed with things that aren't there anymore.
I've just gotten home from seeing Transformers. It was no where near as bad as I expected. It was a long, silly live-action cartoon of pretty ladies and big robots. Not exactly my cup of tea, but you have to understand that in the 1980's, as now, I was a girl. Until about five minutes before the previews started tonight, I thought Optimus Prime was a bad guy. Needless to say, I didn't watch the Transformers cartoon, and this is a little embarassing.
Changing the subject for a moment, Mr. Lee, do you remember that you ate at the Baja Fresh at Sunset and Vine during the opening weekend of Episode III? Well, I was there, too. My husband and I were there with our friends (Chris, Jennifer, and Greg), having a quick bite to eat before mingling with the Boba Fett and Chewy in the lobby of Arclight. You were there in your trendy clothes and weird Earl facial hair. And I was so excited to see you. Do you remember? Of course, I know you don't remember me, but do you at least remember owning a cool plaid shirt?
Mr. Lee, I first saw you in Dogma, because I didn't see Kevin Smith's movies in order. In college, I came to know you as Banky and Brodie, both of whom I found (and try to still find) adorable. I must tell you now, with love, that Brodie would be ashamed of you now.
Now, I'm not saying this to be hateful, I'm saying this as a sort of warning. You see, next month, a live-action movie of Underdog will be coming to theaters. And you are the voice of Underdog. Mr. Lee, surely you see that this was in bad form. I'm willing to cut you some slack, because you're much older than me and, in fact, new episodes of the original cartoon were still being made when you were a child. I'm sure you grew up on it. I'm sure it could've even been exciting for you to be his voice, in whatever dumb format Disney felt compelled (by what ridiculous force, only you and your ridiculous movie folk know) to create. But, I'm afraid I can only give you so much slack.
Before going into the theater this evening, my husband and I saw a huge, cardboard version of the movie poster for Alvin and the Chipmunks. Have you lost your mind?! How much money did they give you? Your face was over 3 feet tall, towering over the ugliest CG rodents I could've ever imagined!
I swear to you, if I find out that you are somehow involved in a live-action My Little Pony movie, I'll track you down and beat you with a Rainbow Brite doll.
I got an American Girl catalog in the mail today. Even now, all these years later, seeing it in my mailbox gave me that butterflies-in-my-chest-in-a-good-way feeling. I came inside the apartment and immediately looked at it, page by page. It's full of pictures of young girls in red and navy L.L. Bean-type sweaters holding their immaculate, factory-done-hair dolls. It makes me want to go out and rake leaves.
Today I baked my very first loaf of bread. I'm sending you a picture of it because I was so excited at the way it turned out. I opened the oven door and as the heat rushed out into my face, I saw how the top had cracked, you know, just like real bread. I actually said, outloud, "It's beautiful." Usually, the first time I bake something in this oven it turns out being one third fine, one third burned, and the rest all soggy and gross. I learn by trial and error. I'm so excited!
Wish you were here to eat some!
Love, Laura
Sometimes, when I do something new and intimidating, I wish I was still in Girl Scouts. There's something really satisfying about walking around with a big sash that says, Yes, I can... Only, I can't actually think of a single thing I did to earn a badge. I sort of remember my sister earning one because she could swim.
I wonder if they'd give me one for just not drowning. I mean, if you know how what challenge is there? Every minute I'm in a pool, it's a fight for life. Amy could fall in sideways, hit her head on the way in, and still come out without flailing her arms around and gasping for breath. All I have to do is walk down the steps and I've got water up my nose and hair in my mouth.
Anyway, I wish I could earn life badges or something. Move to a new state, earn a badge. Get a new job, earn a badge. Bake banana bread from scratch that tastes just like your mom's, earn the biggest badge ever and sew it to your favorite shirt and wear it to work and make everyone jealous! Instead, the closest you can get is to take some of the bread with you to work, which means you don't get to eat as much, and then say something like, "Oh, please, eat it, my husband and I just can't finish it!" Why do people say that? Why bake a cake (or anything else) you don't actually plan to eat? Baking is hard. If I'm going to go to all the trouble to bake something, I'm going to eat as much as possible without making myself sick or robbing John of his half. (Yes, he gets half. He's smart. He married a woman who bakes. He deserves brownies.)
Of course, the truth is that making banana bread, even though it is delicious, means admitting that you're not good at keeping up with the produce you buy. Banana bread calls for bananas that are "very ripe." Like, so ripe you probably wouldn't think to eat them unless you were going to mash them up and mix them with flour and sugar and then cook them. Basically, so ripe they could be yeast. How did I let those bananas get that way, anyway? I had such good intentions of healthy lunches and potassium levels. Instead they got banana bread ripe on top of my microwave and nearly fell off every time I opened the cabinet door and hit them, while getting something down that I really would eat. They sat there like little blackening pariahs, watching me eat granola bars, until I felt so guilty I had to go out and buy half a dozen eggs, four of which I'll probably never use.
I just watched Dirty Dancing. I think that's only the second time I've ever seen it all the way through.
The first time was on a bus during my junior year of high school on the way to the Cincinnati Zoo. I remember being really upset that we couldn't find the only sleeping bag my family ever owned on the one occasion I actually needed it...because my biology class was spending the night. In the zoo. I took a garbage bag full of blankets and what my dad, trying to make it sound like a good idea, called "carpet remnants" (you know, instead of "hunks of carpet I found in the basement that never made it to being part of the living room floor"). My biggest worry was that I would look ridiculous showing up with my garbage bag and reject carpet. To my surprise (and utter joy), basically no one in Houston County, least of all high school girls, owns sleeping bags. It was very out of character for me to be so embarrassed. Even now, I can't work out what it was that I was so worried about.
And then, when I was there...I ended up finding out that my best friend had recently lost her virginity. In the back of a pick-up truck. And I was worried about some carpet scraps.
What a weird and horrible experience that turned out to be. The zoo was really nice though.
In 1984 or '85, I think, my sister took baton lessons. I was amazingly jealous. It's possible I haven't been that jealous since then. Of course, I was about four years old at the time and I could really only feel one emotion at a time (like Tinker Bell) so I guess they all felt stronger then. At any rate, Amy learned to do these amazing things....well...it seemed that way. Really all she learned how to do was twirl a stick in one hand. But it was a really cool stick!
When I was a little older, I got cheap batons at toy stores, but they never had enough weight at the ends to work right. I'd just end up hitting myself. Usually on the side of my head.
Another part of this class resulted in her learning how to dance with a streamer. Or is it called a ribbon? It was gold on one side and silver on the other, which I always associated with the friends song I'd heard my sister's Girl Scout troop sing, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold." I'm not sure how, probably pity, but I ended up with a streamer, too. Only mine was red and silver and was taped directly to a wooden stick, whereas my sisters was fastened to a plastic stick with a little chain so that it could move around easier. I was so proud of that thing.
Then, in 1987, when Dirty Dancing came out, my sister bought the soundtrack. That was the year I started kindergarten. She was in sixth grade...and seemed, to me, oddly fascinated with mix tapes. In reality, I doubt she even made two. I was just amazed at this, another Cool Thing my sister could do.
Me? I was dancing with my red streamer to Mickey and Sylvia singing "Love Is Strange." "Baybayy Ohoh Baayybbayy...Myy Sweeet Baybay...You're the one." Strange, tortured guitar chords and pluckings ensue. It's amazing to me how much that one tape plays as the background to my entire childhood.
I remember my sister saying that her friend Heather liked "She's Like the Wind." I just found out Patrick Swayze sang that song. He sings?!
Feel her breath on my face Her body close to me Can't look in her eyes She's out of my league Just a fool to believe I have anything she needs She's like the wind.
I watched the movie tonight and it was very strange for me. When I saw it last, I was about the same age Jennifer Grey is in the movie. When Baby finds out what sordid things are going on behind her perfect world, I was sitting next to the friend that had told almost everyone else about her "experience." Except me. She was afraid I would judge her, our families not so different from those who would've gone to Kellerman in the summer of '63. And yet, she wanted everyone else to know that the self-proclaimed wallflower she used to be had died and they could now accept her. Only they didn't.
The music still strikes me as being at some moments magical and at others mysterious. It will be impossible for me to outgrow Patrick Swayze. Impossible. And yet, the setting doesn't fit the music. The early 60's to the soundtrack of twenty years later? And for that music to win an Oscar? Really?
That's not to say that the movie isn't good. It is. And I feel strangely disobedient watching it. One of Amy's friends had a sleepover and that's where Amy saw it. The friend's mom talked to my mom. This was a big deal. I was wildly curious. What could possibly happen to the girl in the pink dress on the cover of the tape I listened to on repeat? What was it? What had she seen that I hadn't?
That night at the zoo, cuddled up in carpet and picnic blankets, the same questions floated through my head.
"magnolia in exile" may be the funniest thing I've ever thought. ever.
We're watching King of the Hill, the third episode out of eight showing tonight on FX's "King-sized Friday," which I'm totally devoted to. Except that this happens to be my least favorite episode (the one where Bobby gets a ventriloquist dummy and inadvertently freaks out Dale...and me...because it's just a creepy-looking doll).
I finished Persepolis (by Marjane Satrapi) Wednesday night. Yestday at work I told Anna that I'd read it (she was the reason I wanted it anyway, because she said it was so good) and she said she had just started reading Persepolis 2 on Wednesday. She finished it on her break, brought it to work for me to borrow, and I read the whole thing last night. I read super-crazy-slow, but graphic novels go pretty fast. Even so, I was still pretty surprised to finish two books in a week. I literally could not stop reading them.
That Sarah Vowell book I've been reading keeps, sort of, getting less and less enjoyable. It's weird. I mean, sometimes I really like it. And I just like her style, in general. But the last story I read, about her and her sister traveling down the Trail of Tears to better understand the history of their people, just didn't sit well with me. The idea is great...but she just didn't carry it out very well. There's this one part where she's at a historical landmark near the Tennessee Aquarium and she starts getting angry because the happy kids going to see the pretty fish aren't being told about the landmark by their teacher. And while I do, to a certain degree, see her point, there's something about the way she wrote it that makes it sound like the kids should be made to feel guilty for something that happened before their grandparents were even born. She compares the Trail of Tears to the Holocaust on more than one occasion, which I think is relatively acurate...but I wonder if she begrudges little German kids and wants them to go around feeling guilty on every school fieldtrip they get to take. She even goes to the Hermitage and confronts some poor tour guide. (Andrew Jackson was largely responsible for the Trail of Tears.)
This all makes some sort of sense. I know that. But it's her attitude. Too willing to blame people who really aren't related to the issues.
Later she talks about Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas, a battleground where about 800 Cherokee soldiers fought for the Confederacy. Sarah Vowell has this to say:
I'm making myself sick trying to reconcile the fact that oppressed Indians could live with owning slaves, to die for slavery's cause.
We all know, without question, that slavery is, was, and will always be, horrible. But to act as though that's the only thing the Civil War was about...well...that's just ignorant.
I'm sick of feeling like I'm supposed to be ashamed because I'm Southern. I'm not. At all. Nor am I going to defend the Confederacy. It's just that...I don't deal in absolutes.
I remember going to Shiloh as a kid. Actually, all I remember was part of the film we watched in the visitor center...the nearby creek turned red with blood. The water ran red. That's straight out of Exodus. A plague on Egypt! 150 miles from Nashville! I was terrified.
In my annoyance, I was suddenly filled with the desire to read about the history of the South. To sort of know the truth in a very symbolic, but real way. I would write a book about it. Me living in California, finding my way home metaphorically. Here are some possible titles (mainly, I'm joking):
The Battle of Burbank A Year Without Rain (Except for a Couple Weeks in December) Magnolia in Exile
I spent my night typing old love letters my boss got in the 60's from a girl he didn't end up marrying...and watching The Muppets Take Manhattan. I just noticed, while looking for the best site to link, it was nominated for an Oscar for best original score in 1984. I had no idea. I felt sort of sad...what with this being a movie from my childhood and all...and there being a lot in it about friends splitting up and writing to each other and plotting out plans that might never happen.
The letters I was typing were pretty rough. Not poorly written or anything, just, well...I think I probably wrote letters sort of like that to guys I didn't marry either...and I can't imagine someone, someday, forty years from now getting paid to retype them.
The 80's weren't good for Miss Piggy. Huge teased hair just doesn't work for pigs. Have you seen her in that shampoo commercial? Disney has fully owned the muppets for, what? A couple of months? And they've already done ads for Pizza Hut and some shampoo.
And the quote of the day: "Because you share a love so big, I now pronounce you frog and pig."
There's a guy at work who's even more into Disneyland than my family and I are. We talked Disney yesterday and he told me about a couple of neatwebsites about the park and people who are crazy into preserving it.
But I still think of Michael Eisner as the guy with the red and black Mickey ties who did the spots after commercial breaks on "The Wonderful World of Disney."
He seemed like such a nice guy. A bad actor, but a nice guy. And now that I'm older, I find out that he's really shady and a capitalist nightmare.
Which is basically the same realization I came to about Ronald Reagan, who, when I was six, seemed dignified and righteous.
"it won't be long before we'll all be there with snow-oh."
By the way. John (dear boy) left for work around 11AM. So. Because I always sleep way too late, I took a shower alone in a house full of hammer-happy maniacs.
That was my ever-so-melodramatic lead-in to this awesome memory I had in the shower...
When my numb hands went under the water, they got that burning feeling little hands get when put near a heater after playing in the snow. My family used to have this big, ugly, wood-burning heater that took up, like, 1/4 of the room. When my sister and I would come in from playing in the snow, which didn't happen all that often, we'd put our mittens and/or gloves (depending on the year) on top of it to dry off. There's nothing like the smell of snowy wool gloves drying on top of a stove. We'd change clothes, then both squeeze into the big arm chair beside the heater, sideways, so our feet would dangle in front of the heat.
