#Pinto = found little bro

[xjumbled-up-brainx]

Holiday Hugo my beloved❤️

Bakin clam cookies :3 🍪 Hugo also doesn’t like to part with his bandana, but Pinto made him that scarf for the holidays so they could match <33

Sled race, Kwazii canonically painted the teeth on the Gup B so he helped with the fly custom decorating😎

No one goes home a loser, but they’ll only cheat if they have to😌

“Listen here Pinto, your brother is very dear to me, but he is a bit of a ninny. SO I’m gonna help you crush all of your little friends instead, and when we win, we’ll all go out for ice cream, ey chap?” :D

[jaigny]

Jemima Pinto is taking a chance at being in Orange Bailey's --- the Bachelor!

Here's a little interview we had with Jemima!

Jemima Pinto

YA (bout a few years younger then Orange)

She/Her

Fave food : Pretty much anything but she really loves a home cooked meal.

Fave colour: Metallics and peaches,pinks and blues

Traits: Hot- Headed. Bro & Loyal

Career: Manager at her family's florist shop called Pinto'd Posies.

She loves skincare and self care routines and loves to show people the importance of a good routine. Though she herself only uses light makeup practically only owns a mascara, a bunch of lipbalms and her fave gloss and a small palette her friend bought her for her birthday.

She is a hard worker and after buying her parent's house made her first bucket list renovation --- Her own greenhouse! She's very proud pf her little paradise and always gets compliments from how perfect her own garden is.

(here's a sneak peek of her hard at work making a friend's birthday bouquet plus some other bouquets before they get taken to the shop.)

She isn't a health nut but she loves to visit the gym sessions 2-3 times a week --- she particularly likes , swimming, yoga and rock climbing.

She is a hot headed sim and sometimes can get abit spicy for her attitude which sometimes is taken in previous relationships she had as mistaken jealousy.

She's a loyal sim to friends and family and has not ever cheated on her other relationships -- but sadly has been cheated on or abandoned cause her ex's thought the grass was greener on the other side. Her last relationship was when she just turned 17 and she found her ex with her now ex friend. Last she heard they both moved to Foxbury Campus.

She has a few degrees under her belt too though she got her degrees by being one of the few of a large chosen group to partake in Foxbury and Brichester's joint online program. She excelled really well. Even when she worked 4 days a week as a florist during the day and at night as a mixologist at a family friend's lounge bar known as Orchid A Go Go.

Rundown of how she got chosen? She was a crew florist member of the decor department for the show, and seemingly apparently one of the producers liked her and recommended her to the casting for potentials director where Jemima was introduced to them and after the finalizing of the contract and a quick simple mini introduction interview at her house as well as a photoshoot the following evening and is now waiting for the final call announcements. If she's not chosen she'll go back to working on set. And only her parent's have met Orange Bailey yet but she's willing to give it a shot for love

Here's a few extra photos plus ones from her photoshoot.

*Her Files will be private*

Hope you enjoy her! @plumbobtv

[citialiin]

FIVE SONGS

list five songs associated with your muse and its meaning to them as a character, or to you as the writer. this can be applied in-character or out-of-character. it can go as deep as looking at the song’s real-world origins or meaning along with the themes it carries to the muses’ story, values, or experiences, or as simple as if your muse would listen to this kind of music, or even if you just listen to these pieces for inspiration.

TAGGED BY: @dansiere​​, who did such a good detailed job they even included an “honorable mentions list” ? i am embarrassed to type mine out now TAGGING: @blossomingbeelzebug​​ @zhrets​​ @dirtyfilthysunshine​​ @prcphesise​​ @hyakiru​ @foxcharmed​

01. kaun komsott - ros sereysothea

this song actually lyrically has absolutely nothing to do with ziggy !!!!  kaun komsott /  កូនកំសត់ actually just means “poor/pitiful child” it’s just a khmer dub of a song from a taiwanese movie lol but i feel like this is the kind of music he would listen to that made him fall in love with, like ... humanity, as dumb as that sounds. it’s time period appropriate (late 60s/early to mid 70s), the song is really good and it’s SO emotional.  i could see him sitting in the apartment of his bandmates after being “found” and they teach him how to use the record player and he sits there going through each and every record they have and listening to this and its like the fucking scene in ratatootie where the goddamn rat can visualize tastes as colors but he would be so enamored with the song he would see it in colors or something i dunno.  something has definitely fucking happened to my brain because ever since nat and alex and i rewatched ratatootie we keep referencing it for our characters. anyways i ended up using an instrumental of kaun komsott in the final film i made as the song that plays during the end.  so this song just also means a lot to me because it’s part of how i made this character and the film/story i animated to go along with him, i am sure you are all absolutely sick of hearing me talk about it <3  

02. who can i be now - daveed booweyywywy now you found me, now can I be real?  can I be real? if it’s all a vast creation / putting on a face that’s new someone has to see / a role for him and me someone might as well be you

one of z’s most obvious character motifs is figuring out self identity through adopting different guises.  he markets himself as being so overly confident and almost arrogantly certain of himself -- rock god space idol whatever -- as his own way of learning who he thinks he might be underneath it all.  i think at first it started off a little innocuous, a ‘ fake it till u make it ’ thing at the least and maybe more obviously a ‘ im not a human so i have to pretend to be someone else ’ deal, but over time it became almost all consuming and just obliterated all his previously held sense of self in favor of some weirdly demented version of who he wanted to be.  683 starts off with the same core personality traits as ziggy: maybe he’s a little vain, a little selfish, but he’s very interested in creativity/self-expression and he wants to be thought of as a unique individual and appreciated for his differences.  but the difference is that 683 isnt an arrogant asshole who has no regard for other people in the slightest.  so yeah ... who can u be now ... is it worth it to adopt a different guise or should he go through the effort of figuring out what parts of his personality were corroded by human influence and what parts are genuinely him?  my big endgame thoughts for his story would be that he eventually just decides to retire from the public eye and fucks off entirely.  this would be over the course of a long long long time -- maybe he has a good 20 yr run in the industry -- but there are some things about him he has to deal with (mental health issues, drug addiction, also the fact that you’re a freaky alien creature who doesnt age like a human so you’re physically like 46 and you still look like you’re 25?) so he inevitably decides he doesnt need the horrible pressure of fame and he ought to just live his life for himself.  i think this would be a nice final song for him to sing/perform -- then he goes into the dressing room and cuts his hair and just vanishes. bye.

03. sunny afternoon - the kinks Help me, help me, help me sail away Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay 'Cause I love to live so pleasantly Live this life of luxury Lazing on a sunny afternoon

1. i think this would sound A LITTLE like the kind of music he would write/play albeit i feel like his would be more exciting and have more samplings of like laser noises or pewpewpew or weird spaceship sounds BUT.  its also pretty time period appropriate.  even in “modern” verses ziggy is inexplicably obsessed with the 1970s, he likes bell bottoms and thinks groovy patterns are neat and he owns too many lava lamps.  anywayz. 2. just the general idea of feeling unfulfilled with luxury -- even if ziggy enjoys his fame and wealth and the absolutely insane amount of pussy/dick he gets at some level he is still cognizantly aware of how weirdly empty he feels.  he ditched atomina and came here because he felt unfulfilled and bored and unwanted.  now he feels wanted (clearly, everyone loves him) and he feels entertained (earth is So Good at fun distractions) but his fulfillment still isnt quite there.  he’s getting there -- but in exchange of being able to live this life of fame, he’s had to kind of change everything about himself and live this almost caricature version of himself, and he knows he cant keep it up forever.  the luxury will run out one day and he’ll be a washup and no one cares about celebrities once they stop being hip.  it is literally only a matter of time before ziggy has to find out who he is because no one can be a “rockstar” forever.

04. i hate jimmy page - mindless self indulgence SUCKAS CAN REACH OUT TOUCH ME EAT ME BITE DA FUTURE & FUCK DA PAST  I'm lower than most animals and fear what might be weird and all those voices in my head have every right to be there i ain't a girl just cause i rock the boat i ain't a boy just cause i rock your world

i mean he does hate jimmy page but that’s beside the point. its just a good song about being a crazy rockstar and has the same Craziness that i feel like accompanies his character ... just go listen to it you will understand. there is nothing to explain here.  even the lyric “ill show u how official midgets jack me off” like just accept it. it’s whatever  but yeah i aint a girl i aint a boy ... i guess his gender (or lack thereof) never really comes up in rp but its still an important part of his character.  if any of u guys ever call him a man in prose again ill kick ur ass.  gender is like an accessory to him and he just takes whatever aspects of masculinity/femininity he prefers and discards everything else.  to him he’s just as much a “man” or a “woman” as he is a “human” which is to say he isnt, at all, and he just pretends to be because he feels obligated to.  also ziggy’s brain kind of sounds like this...just Noises.  his brain sounds like a microwave that’s been going off for 26 years.  i think his brain is a single uncooked pinto bean rolled in glitter that’s been left in a box with a cobweb

05. ghostride - crumb daydreaming I stay in the backseat / the slow beat rocks me back to sleep keeps me on automatic  press my face up close against the glass i see the people when they pass they move so automatic you wake up when I go down / the radio reminds me I'm alive we've been hearing it all night

i care more about 683 on atomina than i do about ziggy on earth sometimes (BUT I CARE THEM BOTH. DO U?) so ... 683 feeling aimless and drifting but trying to find purpose through passion, a person, some sort of concrete meaning -- going through the motions of life makes him feel empty he spends almost every day going through the same toil while feeling guilty or like a burden and also feeling like he’s ultimately nothing more than a replaceable cog in a machine. his species had a near extinction = bottleneck which made them so genetically similar they’re almost clones of each other.  no one ever seems to do anything wrong except him, he finds no joy or fulfillment in anything at all.  all he ever wanted (which isnt a selfish desire at all) was to feel purpose, or feel wanted, or appreciated. inevitably he leaves because of his own imagination -- he yearns for something More, and he doesn’t know What, so he figured he ought to at least Try instead of waste his life away. also atomina is supposed to sound like “automatic.”  do NOT make fun of my bad scifi.  i am trying to mimic the way 1970s scifi is endearingly cheesy.  come here.  i just want to touch you with this knife.  gently tho it wont go inside of you. bro you are bleeding. bro we are bleeding and i keep putting the knife in your soft parts.

[derrickappleus]

Pantry Essentials for Your Plant-Based Kitchen

Seven years ago, I weighed 340 pounds and had a 52-inch waist. My cooking skills were limited to microwaving packaged foods and boiling Top Ramen. I primarily subsisted on a “window diet,” meaning most of my meals were prepared by someone else and handed to me through my car window or the front door of my home. Then, as described in my new book, Walking with Peety, the Dog Who Saved My Life, I turned my health around by switching to a plant-based diet, and by adopting a dog and walking him for a half hour twice daily. After some trial and error, I’ve learned how to best manage a plant-based diet, and I’ve put together a list of pantry essentials for your plant-based kitchen to help you get started, too.

As part of my journey to a healthy weight, I learned to prepare my own meals from whole plants. Out of season and during winter months, I buy frozen and canned vegetables to fill in what I can’t buy fresh. I always make sure my canned foods have BPA (Bisphenol A) free liners. BPA is a polycarbonate resin used in many food containers that has been linked to various health problems, including obesity, cancer and enlarged breasts in men.

I also learned what bulk foods and ingredients to stock in my pantry to supplement the fresh plants I prepared, and how to cook those products. By learning how to cook my own meals and changing from a standard American diet to a plant based diet, I lost 150 pounds in less than one year, and have maintained my new 185-pound weight and 33-inch waist ever since.

The main bulk foods and ingredients always stocked in my pantry include:

Arrowroot powder and cornstarch:

Excellent thickeners for sauces, gravies, with various uses in baking.

Baking products:

I have known several people to gain weight after transitioning to a plant based diet, because that is when they learned to bake. Baked goods are calorie dense foods that should be minimized or avoided if you want to lose or maintain your weight. If you aren’t trying to manage your weight, there are thousands of excellent standard and gluten-free vegan baking recipes on the Internet, just search and try the ones that look good to you. In my limited baking, I get by nicely with these products:

Try-

Baking powder: Baking powder leavens bread by causing an acid-base reaction to release carbon dioxide gas bubbles into batter or dough. Double acting baking powder causes this reaction twice, first when added to the dough or batter, and again when heated in the oven during baking. There are many brands of baking powder, so look for one that is both double acting and aluminum free, based on health concerns about ingesting aluminum.

Baking soda: This is another leavening agent that produces gas bubbles to lighten and improve the texture of baked goods. Baking soda must interact with an acidic ingredient to produce this reaction, and apple cider vinegar is an ideal reactant. The only active ingredient in baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so I recommend a pure formulation with no additional ingredients.

Yeast: Active yeast is another leavening agent, and depending on the recipe, may be used instead of, or in addition to, baking powder and baking soda.

Flax seed and aquafaba: I use each of these products as egg replacements in baking. To replace one egg with flax seed, mix 1 tbsp ground flax seed with 2 tbsp of water, whisk well, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.  The result will be a sticky egg substitute. Or use aquafaba, which is the liquid byproduct from cooking garbanzo beans. Use three tbsp of aquafaba from a can of chickpeas as a complete egg replacement in baking. You can make your own aquafaba by saving the leftover liquid from cooking chickpeas in your slow cooker, and freeze excess liquid for later use in ice cube trays.

Flours: I don’t use wheat flour because I’m gluten intolerant, but there is no harm using wheat flour if you do not have this limitation. I prefer Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour as a substitute for wheat flour, and rice flour, oat flour, and coconut flour for other baking and culinary uses.

Bread crumbs:

Why pay $3 or more for bread crumbs at the supermarket, when you only need to toast a few slices of bread and drop them into a food processor or blender to make crumbs.

Coconut cream:

I keep a few cans of coconut cream in my pantry for use in sauces and other recipes.  The difference between coconut cream, coconut “milk” and reduced calorie or “lite” coconut milk involves the proportion of water in each, so I just use coconut cream and thin as needed.

Legumes:

Legumes, including beans, offer excellent nutrition and high protein, and provide the full spectrum of amino acids when served with rice. Canned beans are convenient, but beans made from scratch can be made to taste better, with the lowest cost per serving of just about any meal. You can buy dry beans in bulk for pennies on the dollar compared to canned beans. As a rule, one cup of dried beans equals three cups cooked.  I usually cook as many beans as I can eat in a week, since beans keep well for up to a week in the refrigerator, and almost indefinitely frozen. Dried beans yield the best result when cooked within a year after harvested. Beans cook faster, more uniformly and may be easier to digest when soaked overnight before cooking, and with salt in the water. The gaseous properties of beans may be minimized by adding a piece of kombu (seaweed) to the water before cooking. Other legumes, such as adzuki beans and lentils, cook quickly and don’t require soaking, and are great additions to soups and salads. I always keep my pantry stocked with pinto beans, black beans, red beans, and lentils.

Nuts:

I use cashews to make ice creams, imitation cheese sauces, and other recipes requiring a creamy texture. For best results, soak cashews for at least 30 minutes then puree with the least water possible in a high-speed blender. I also use almonds, and walnuts in various recipes. To toast nuts, preheat your oven to 350° F and spread them on a baking sheet. Different nuts require different toasting times, usually between 5 and 15 minutes. When you smell your nuts from the oven, they are done. Nuts are high in fat, and should be used sparingly, if at all, if you are trying to lose or maintain weight.

Oats:

Oats provide a concentrated source of fiber and nutrients and a legion of health benefits. As a breakfast food and baking ingredient, I prefer old-fashioned oats to steel cut and other types of oats. Oats are listed within the category of “gluten grains,” but as someone clinically diagnosed as gluten intolerant, I do not have any gluten reaction to oats, while I do with wheat. Buy no more oats than you can use within two months, since oats go rancid more quickly than other grains.

Onions:

I use onions in most of my cooking.  Onions can be grouped into two main types: (1) expensive artisanal varieties of sweet onions, and (2) more familiar varieties commonly found in supermarkets.  The first type, sweet onions, are usually only available from April through August, depending on place of harvest. These include the Walla Walla from Washington, “1015” from Texas, Vidalia from Georgia, and Maui sweet onions from Hawaii. Each of these onions have a fabulous light flavor. You should buy and use them for all cooking needs when in season and affordable. Common onions are marketed by color, as yellow, white and red. These common onions are available year-round, have more pungent flavors, and are less expensive than sweet onions. Store all onions outside of the refrigerator. You should store them in wire or other ventilated baskets, and away from potatoes. The ethylene gas released by each potato will spoil the other. The nutrients of onions are most concentrated in their outer layers, so peel off as little of the outer layer as possible when prepping onions for cooking. And never throw away onion peels and tops, use them to make vegetable broth as described below.

Pastas:

I only use gluten-free pasta, and prefer Tinkyada brand organic pasta, which has brown rice as its sole ingredient. I prefer this brand because it holds its shape wonderfully in cooking, and friends often cannot tell the difference between it and wheat pasta. Whatever brand you use, be sure to read the ingredients to avoid pasta made with eggs.  I stock various shapes of dry pasta in my pantry, including penne, elbow, spaghetti, pad Thai noodles, and lasagna shapes.

Potatoes:

Baked, roasted, boiled or steamed, potatoes are a low calorie, high fiber comfort food with significant nutritional benefits. I only buy organic potatoes based on concerns about the toxic effect of different pesticides and herbicides used to treat non-organic potatoes. Potato skins are so nutritious and high in fiber that I leave them on for cooking.  Discard potatoes that are sprouting or have green tinted skin, since that indicates the presence of a toxin that may degrade taste and cause unwanted health effects. Store potatoes in a cool, dry, ventilated place away from onions, since each emit gases that may shorten the life of the other. These are the most common types of potatoes in US supermarkets, which I use for the purposes listed:

Red skin: Red potatoes have firm flesh and hold their shape well when diced. They are the worst to use for mashing but are great for potato salads, soups, and oven roasting.

Yukon gold: These moist, general purpose potatoes are great for mashing, baking, roasting, boiling, and grilling.

Russet: The most common potato in the US, these are light and fluffy, but do not hold their shape well when diced. Therefore, they are great mashed or baked, but are not a good choice for potato salads and other dishes that require diced potatoes.

Rice and Quinoa:

Rice makes up about half of the calories consumed by half of the world’s population.  I eat some type of rice almost every day, since it goes well with so many other foods. I primarily use brown rice, and use white rice only sparingly, since the process of converting brown rice into white removes most of the nutrients from the rice. A meal of brown rice and beans includes the full spectrum of amino acids, the building blocks of protein. No matter which rice you use, rinse it well before cooking to clean, reduce stickiness, and improve fluffiness. I often mix quinoa with brown rice in a 1:1 ratio to get the nutritional benefits of each grain, and enjoy this mixture as much as plain brown rice.  Rice and quinoa will store nicely for about six months in a dry, airtight container. I keep these varieties in my pantry for different uses:

Basmati: A long grain, aromatic brown rice primarily grown in India and Pakistan.

Jasmine: A long grain, aromatic rice in both brown and white varieties, primarily grown in Southeast Asia.

Paella rice: Traditional paella rice is exceptional at absorbing flavor and produces cooked grains that are nutty, dry and separate well. Some people substitute Arborio rice for paella rice, but in my experience Arborio produces a creamier result and is better suited to risotto. I prefer Matiz brand Valenciano rice in my paellas.

Quinoa: Quinoa is traditionally grown in the Andean region of South America. Quinoa has higher protein than rice and can be cooked and used in the same manner as rice. I stock both white and red quinoa in my pantry.

Sprouting Seeds:

Sprouts offer one the most cost effective, concentrated nutrition sources of any food, if you grow your own from seeds.  The cost of organic home-grown sprouts is just pennies per serving. Grow sprouts in one-quart Ball jars with stainless mesh screens and plastic screw tops. I consume sprouts every day in smoothies, salads and sandwiches. I always have these sprouts growing in jars next to my kitchen sink:

Try-

Mung Beans: Add 1/3 cup of mung beans into a one-quart sprout jar, fill with water, and allow to soak underwater overnight.  In the morning, drain, rinse and drain again. The only time you should allow the beans to soak covered in water is during the first 10-12 hours after you add them to the jar. After this initial soaking, drain, and then only “water” the beans by rinsing then completely draining them twice each day.  Harvest your beans when the jar is fully sprouted and filled, which should occur in 3-4 days. Once harvested, spread your sprouts out in a mesh bag and air dry them for a few hours. Store in refrigerator and consume within a week. You can store any excess in Ziploc gallon freezer bags. Defrost them at room temperature and consume within one year.

Broccoli seeds: Broccoli sprouts offer one of the most concentrated sources of nutrition of any food. One cup of organic broccoli sprouts costs about 25 cents to grow on your kitchen countertop, and contains about the same amount of the phytonutrient sulforaphane as 27 cups of broccoli. Start broccoli sprouts by adding 3 tbsp of seeds to a 1 quart sprouting jar. Next, grow and store exactly as described for mung beans above. The only difference is that broccoli sprouts will be slower to mature and typically fill your sprout jar in 5 to 6 days.

Seed mixes: To vary the nutrients I get from sprouts, I also use a few different seed mixes. I purchase most of my sprouting seeds from Sprout People. This is based on my long-term satisfaction with their germination rates.  My favorite seed mixes are Italian and French seed mixes. With each of those mixes, I use 2 tbsp of seeds in my sprouting jar. Then, I process exactly as described above for broccoli seeds.

Sweet potatoes:

Sweet potatoes and yams are members of different botanical families. Because of similarities, they are often confused and mislabeled by supermarkets. My advice is to not worry about whether you are buying sweet potatoes or yam.  Instead, just make sure eat them often. These are among the most nutritious of all edible plants. The more orange the flesh, the higher the beta carotene content. I keep my pantry stocked with a combination of light, orange, and purple-flesh variations. Then, I combine them in my cooking for nutritional diversity. I try to purchase organic, when possible. This makes me feel confident about avoiding pesticides and herbicides when leaving the nutrient-rich skin on for cooking. Sweet potatoes cook faster than regular potatoes. They can be ready to eat in about six minutes when microwaved whole or cut into cubes and steamed. Eat yours before they sprout, usually within two weeks of purchase. Store them in a dark, dry, cool place outside of the refrigerator.

Tofu:

I often hear people say that they hate tofu. When I ask why, it’s usually because they have only tried it once or twice. Their experiences are often at an Asian restaurant where it was served as slimy white chunks. I also dislike tofu served in this manner! Fortunately, after much experimentation, I have learned why millions of people around the world eat tofu every day. First of all, it’s a complete source of protein and a delicious meat alternative. Grilled, baked, or sautéed with vegetable broth, tofu can be browned and cooked without oil. By coating with arrowroot powder or cornstarch and any flour, tofu chunks can be sautéed until golden brown. Tofu is sold based on firmness and water content:  Silken, medium, firm, and super firm. Tofu is a chameleon food and has little flavor of its own. Soaking tofu in a marinade for at least an hour will imbue it with the flavor of the marinade. Simmering browned tofu in a sauce will imbue it with the flavor of the sauce.

Vegetable broth:

Stop buying vegetable broth and make your own!  Recycle vegetable tops, peels, and expiring produce to make broth rather than throw them in the garbage or composter. Keep a gallon plastic bag in your freezer. Fill it with the vegetable ends and peels you generate while preparing meals. When the bag is full, dump it into your pressure cooker, add 8 cups of water, and salt to taste.  I also add a piece of kombu (seaweed) to my vegetable broth for additional nutrients and ocean flavor. Set the manual timer on your pressure cooker for 10 minutes. Next, use the quick pressure release when the timer beeps. Strain and refrigerate unused vegetable broth and use within one week or freeze. Freeze some broth in ice cube trays for small needs.

Eric O’Grey is an inspirational speaker with a bachelor of science in finance from San Jose State University and a juris doctor from Emory University. Eric enjoys long-distance running with his dog, Jake; gourmet plant-based cooking; and spending time with his wife, Jaye. He is passionate about animal kindness, plant-based nutrition, and helping others reverse obesity and achieve their optimal weight and happiness. Learn more about Eric and his initiatives at EricandPeety.com and in his new book, Walking with Peety.

The post Pantry Essentials for Your Plant-Based Kitchen appeared first on Skinny Ms..

source https://skinnyms.com/pantry-essentials-for-your-plant-based-kitchen/ source https://skinnymscom.blogspot.com/2018/04/pantry-essentials-for-your-plant-based.html

[alinenelee-blog]

Week5

LISTENING 

#Time 24:31

READING

The One That Started It All… The Making Of Snow White 

Welcome to Persistence Of Vision, where the spotlight is thrown on animation history’s illustrious past, present and future! So how better than to start with a brief overview on the making of the “one that started it all”, Walt Disney’s 1937 triumphant Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs? Restored and released as the first of the series of Platinum Edition double disc DVD sets from Disney, Snow White changed not only the face of animation, but of film-making in general. Without it, we wouldn’t have had MGM’s The Wizard Of Oz that followed it soon after in 1939, or many of Disney’s subsequent animated features.

Walt Disney would have eventually produced a full-length animated film. It was his dream – the ambition that drove him and his company, the Walt Disney Studios. Created with his brother Roy O. Disney in the early 1920s after a string of other animated endeavours including the Alice Comedies, the Disney Bros Studio, as it was originally known, first tasted real success with the launch of the Oswald The Lucky Rabbit character based shorts, for distributor Universal. As the well-known legend goes, Universal balked at the rising costs of Disney’s shorts and “hi-jacked” production away from Walt. He returned to Los Angeles bitter at Universal and determined never to work for anyone else ever again. He had an idea for his next character, a mouse…

Mickey’s public debut, Steamboat Willie, was an instant hit on its release on November 18 1928, and Disney’s reputation was assured. Going from strength to strength, Walt finally gathered his top artists in one of the storyboard rooms in 1934 (around the time that the Studio had switched to fully color cartoons in its Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony series) to tell them a story and let them into his most audacious gamble yet. They would make the first full-length Technicolor animated musical feature film, based on the Grimm Brothers’ Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Acting out the whole tale, performing voices and hunching his back in order to portray the evil Queen, Disney inspired those in the room so much that animators Ken Anderson and Ollie Johnston later commented that the film, although lauded in Hollywood as a masterpiece, never did turn out quite as good as Walt told it!

Most of the staff continued to work on the Symphony and Mickey cartoons, but a select few were busy, hard at work designing and coming up with concepts that would shape Snow White. Around this time, differences in some of the Symphonies cartoons began to show up. Techniques that would be used in the feature were developed and adapted, with the most celebrated and famous of these being the Multiplane Camera – a new kind of animation apparatus that gave the illusion of depth to the artwork in a much more believable way. It was first used and extensively tested in the 1937 short The Old Mill. Another cartoon, The Goddess Of Spring, was basically an experiment to see if a human figure could be drawn convincingly. The short appears on the Platinum Edition, but for those who have seen it, the answer was: “more training”!

Soon, there were nightly animation courses on offer for the Studio staff. The story goes that when Walt heard that some of his top animators were gathering each evening to study the female anatomy, he ordered the classes to be moved to the Studio on official grounds. After all, as Disney stated, he could not have his animators known to be looking at naked ladies after hours!

Known for the four years it was in production as “Disney’s Folly”, Hollywood was sure that the film would fail and bankrupt the still young Disney Studio. Not for the first time (and most definitely not for the last!) Walt threw caution to the wind and continued to push ahead with his dream film. He had chosen Snow White among a selection of stories (also on the cards were Cinderella, Peter Pan and Alice In Wonderland) due to a silent version of the story that he had seen in 1916 in his hometown of Missouri that had made a lasting impression on the young boy. Knowing that the original Grimm Brothers story had all the pathos and romance that he felt was needed to create a memorable film experience, Walt decided to up the humor quota by giving each of the Dwarfs their own individual personalities.

Originally there were over 40 names and characteristics suggested, which were of course finally whittled down to the magnificent seven: Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy and Doc. Other names that came and went included Scrappy, Hoppy, Weepy, Snoopy, Gabby, Silly, Flabby, Daffy, Dizzy, Puffy, Biggy-Wiggy, Jumpy and Awful! In previous versions of the story, the Dwarfs all acted as one, but the decision to create separate characters, as Walt had learned from the 1933 Silly Symphony success of The Three Little Pigs proved to be the film’s masterstroke and took the story in new directions. Under animator Fred Moore, who had designed the Three Pigs, these characters would not just be supporting players. They would, in fact, save the day!

Providing the flip side to the Dwarfs comical performances was the Wicked Queen herself, a wonderful creation who hid her twisted and bitter hatred of Snow White under her calm and beautiful smile. Her transformation into the evil Witch is one of the film’s highlights – a brilliant montage that would have shocked audiences back in 1937! Bringing the vocal chill to the Witch was Lucille La Verne, and when no better casting could be found, she provided the dulcet but cold tones of the Queen as well.

Finding a voice for Snow White herself was a much tougher task. The call had gone out all over Hollywood for a voice that would reflect that of a young girl. After auditioning hundreds of girls, casting director Roy Scott telephoned Los Angeles singing coach Guido Caselotti. Evesdropping on an extension line was Caselotti’s 19-year-old daughter Adriana. She piped up during the conversation and Scott immediately asked her in for a reading. When Walt heard the voice, he jumped up in enthusiasm, and had found his Snow White! The other voices in the film were somewhat easier to find. The Dwarfs’ roles had been given to popular radio names, with Pinto Colvig in the running due to his performances in many of the Disney shorts, not least as his regular guise in the character of Goofy, and Harry Stockwell (father to Quantum Leap’s Dean) became the handsome Prince Charming.

Eventually, due to overruns and budget constraints, Walt ran out of money. The Bank of America was offered to view the incomplete film by Roy O. Disney, something Walt was adamantly against. All through the screening, the banker sat silent until the end when the lights came up. He nodded at Walt and made a call to the bank: “Give Mr Disney the money”. The film was finally completed, coming in on time, but at six times over the original budget – and $1.5 million was a lot of money back then!

SPEAKING

WRITING

Description

Anyone who has access to the internet is a person capable of knowing all the secrets that the world offers, this week we visited the school library for a meeting in which they explained that more than a half of the information was in books of text in English.

If it really makes us very tedious to read, we can populate with articles that have topics of our liking and that are attractive to the eye, the worlds of magic are the best for this task. I also met friends who are already studying their third language and that helps me to practice with them a bit more.

REFLECTION

I must lose the fear of speaking in public with people who have already mastered the language, because otherwise I can never express the ideas that I want, and in some way that will make me look like I don´t have a skill in other aspects of life. I must take an advantage of events such as welcoming foreign students and listening to the accent that they use in a loud voice and trying to imitate them so as not to mark my accent and confuse my pronunciation as I usually do.

[apexart-journal]

Mimi Lipson in Montevideo, Day 11

On Tuesday, the 116 bus didn’t go where it usually goes, which meant I had to do some triangulating to get to my 9:30 a.m. aerobics class at Gimnasio Vida Activa. This stressed me out because I was anticipating some possible problems with the prepayment, which was under Javier’s name. That’s on top of the problem of following along in an exercise class conducted in a foreign language. In the event, I arrived at this building, which was not in any obvious way a gimnasio:

The doorman didn’t know what I was talking about. He took the printout of my schedule to inspect and became engrossed. I had to ask for it back.

Clearly the address was wrong. I googled the gym and called them and said, “Necesito dirección para el gimnasio. Que es su calle y numero?” (remembering to say “CAH-shey” instead of “CAH-yey), which is probably gibberish. In any case, the guy who answered the phone didn’t say anything that resembled an address, so I apologized and hung up and then looked for the gym on Google Maps, which took a while (the phone is pretty unresponsive), and I saw that it was a block away. By this time I was 10 minutes late for class, and I made an executive decision not to go. In the spirit of the activity, I walked back to the apartment briskly and went for a jog on the Rambla. That will have to do.

Dolores, a social worker at an after-school program for teenagers, picked me up in the afternoon so I could tag along with her. She is also a family therapist-in-training, and we talked about families on the way over. She has five children, all grown. I sensed right way that she is a very kind person but not a pushover. (She waved away a squeegee man working the traffic on Bulevar Gen. Artigas, the way they used to at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.)

The name of the program is Proyecto Gurisaes. ‘guri’ is Uruguayan slang for ‘kid’, and the name is a meld of the plural feminine and masculine:’gurisas’ and ‘gurises’. I will be going back there three times, so I will save some of the details for later, but here are the basics: it’s a church program, affiliated with the parish of Nuestra Senora de la Guardia, in a neighborhood called Villa Muñoz. It’s close to the agricultural market where I went with Florencia and Martin.

The program is for kids of all ages, but Dolores works with the teenagers. Their program consists of about an hour of recreation, then a snack, then they can select from carpentry class, cooking or baking, and academic tutoring. My understanding is that the kids sign up for one of those and stick with it for a few months, and then they can switch.

This is Don Orione, who founded the church--above General Artigas in the courtyard. I’m told Artigas is in every school.

The little kids were there when we arrived—their backpacks scattered in the hall under a display of their art projects. 

The teenagers were drifting in while Dolores and her colleagues discussed some of their individual issues.  I gathered that there had been some fisticuffs the previous week, and that bad words were said with the result that football would be canceled today during recreation.

I went off and checked out the building a bit.

That’s a shrine to Our Lady or Lourdes. I asked Dolores how you know which Our Lady you are looking at, and she patiently explained that it’s the setting and the dress that distinguishes them.

One of Dolores’s colleagues asked me what my real name was, by which I understood he was asking what “Mimi” is short for. I told him it was Miriam, and he suggested that should be how they introduce me. “There is a lot of bullying,” Dolores said. I asked if “Mimi” meant something weird in Spanish, and she said, no, but it was… she made expressions suggesting cuteness and endearment. So here I will be Miriam.

The teenagers were teenagers. Each one kissed me as I was introduced—some perfunctorily, in the way people do here, like a handshake, and others with palpable sullenness, in the way of teenagers everywhere. The staff relented and they were allowed to play football after all, and ping pong, and hang around chatting, and then we all filed into the dining room for the snack, which was some pretty good pizza! Lots of garlic and a chewier crust than the stuff at MAM. The kids in the cooking class made it a few days ago and froze it, apparently.

I think those kids found it pretty amazing and/or hilarious to be in the presence of such a weird, barely articulate adult, though some of them were awfully sweet about it—inviting me to sit with them and all. I had to leave right as the educational part of the program was beginning, unfortunately, because I guess some of them are studying English, and maybe I could have been useful, finally, instead of just dumb. I confess that Being Dumb is very exhausting.

They have a long day at the center, those kids. I’m sure there is all kinds of trouble waiting for them in the streets after school, but when I heard that they are at Proyecto Gurisaes from around 4 until almost 9, I told Dolores I thought having some free time was also important, some unstructured time. Well, they do. I was surprised to hear that their school day is very short. Most of them get out at 12:00 or 1. 

They are many of them very poor, and for some, the snack might be the only food they get all day.

More on PG later, as I will be returning x3. I walked through the neighborhood and found my bus stop. It was very dark, with trash and rubble. A little more intimidating than the places I’ve been in Montevideo so far. I assume Dolores would not have sent me to an unsafe area to wait for the bus, but it gave me a chance to think about how, when you are in a foreign place, it’s hard to gauge the safety of your surroundings. I remembered my first experiences in California, where the most crime-intensive areas looked suburban to me—with driveways and front yards and little bungalows. I had to unlearn the signifiers of suburbia, in a sense, to know where I was. That’s the work of learning a city, and it takes a while.

I had allotted myself extra time to get to my next event—an accordion concert in Centro—but then I had my first experience of buses just not arriving (I am discovering that I had been overly sanguine about MVD’s bus system), so I ended up just making it there in time to meet Ana Ines, my date for the concert.

The nights have been warm, perfect for hanging out on benches. Walking through this plaza, I smelled that legal Uruguayan weed. You smell a lot less of it than you would think—or at least I have.

Ana Ines Pepe, my date, is another of Javier’s colleagues from the University, where she teaches business communication. The event was in a small second-floor venue at Sala Zitarrosa, an entertainment complex on 18 de Julio, and cost a modest (by my standards) 150 pesos, or about $5. MVD seems to be full of affordable cultural offerings.

Here is Silvio Previale—one of Uruguay’s greatest accordionists, according to my info sheet.

 He was wistfully comic, and played tango after tango with offhand panache—first on a traditional accordion and then on a very fancy high-tech instrument, which had some kind of LED viewer he kept looking at, as well as controls for setting various instrument tones and accompanying beats—basically, like one of those Wurlitzer synthesizers from the 1970s, strapped to his chest. Not pictured: there was a keyboard running down the front of his shirt behind the accordion keyboard. It had been a long day, I guess, because I got kind of quietly punchy. I tried to explain to Ana Ines what “punchy” means, and I’m not sure I got it across.

This year is the 100th anniversary of La Cumparsita, which is the tango you think of when you think of “tango”. You have heard it at the very least in a Warner Bro’s cartoon. I guess no Uruguayan accordionist gets offstage without playing it in 2017, and Silvio Previale did not disappoint! 

There were a few encores, and then he stood up and walked offstage, still playing. It was awesomely showbizzy, except that we could see him chatting with the ticket girl on the other side of the glass wall.

Ana took me to a restaurant nearby which is famous for its white pizza. Honestly, no more pizza, unless it’s made by the kids at Proyect Gurisaes. But the restaurant was a gem: a casual joint, hardly touched by the last 100 years. I loved the milk glass chandeliers.

Ana Ines was wonderful company. There was, inevitably, Trump talk. She is in business communications, after all. The main reaction I’ve gotten from people here is fear, and a lot of them have specifically mentioned his eyes. 

I asked Ana what she thought of the prospects for the left-wing coalition in the next election here. She said there was a problem that the incumbent is termed out, and there are no young politicians coming up in the party. Sounds familiar. Their best hope, the current vice president Raúl Sendic, has been neutralized by a humiliating scandal involving an invented degree in genetic engineering and public debts he covered up when he was running the state oil company. So we talked South American politics, trade, and also comparisons between the temperament and atmosphere in Uruguay and Argentina where Ana did graduate work. We talked about “hyper-assimilation” (I think that’s what she said) resulting from things like the free public university, where everyone from all classes theoretically gathers. She suggested that the (expensive) Catholic education system is making inroads in that tradition. But I am more and more confident in my impressions about the communitarian way of thinking here, and I think it must run deep.

And suddenly it was 11 p.m.

On to Wednesday.

This was something I was especially keen on: a visit to the Dina Pintos Film Archive at Universidad Catolica, with curator Julieta Keldjian. This is the main, maybe the only official? film archive in Uruguay. The archive began in the early 1990s, with a television program called “Inedito” (unedited) that solicited and broadcast home movies. I highly recommend checking out the youtube channel, where you can watch the programs:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ineditosuy

Most of the people who sent in home movies didn’t reclaim them, and so began the Archive, preserving the folkways of Uruguay from the late 19th century to the present. (I asked Julieta what the most surprising thing was that they had come across, and she told me they had discovered a previously undocumented Basque folkdance!)

They have photos in the collections, including glass plates and daguerreotypes. 

One current project is a collection of Super 8 movies from the 1970s and 1980s—some experimental films, but largely this collection will document the resistance movement  during the days of the dictatorship (1973–85). Many of the films are in bad shape, like this one--a rare kind of animation using paper cutouts, from which the sound stripe has separated. 

They do what restoration they can on a very limited budget. They are also archiving the work of the students at Universidad Catolica, which is the most important film school in the country.

The archive is temporarily housed in a classroom in the film department. They are clearly in need of a more climate-controlled facility, and also they have very little equipment. They can’t make digital transfers of film at all. But the archive is precious, I think. Julieta and I talked about how important it is for students working digitally to have access to film—to see what it is, physically, and the discipline and attitudes needed to work with it. Julieta showed me some 9.5 mm reels, aka ‘pathe baby’, which was something I didn’t know about. The sprocket hole runs down the middle!

I hope I’ll see Julieta next time she’s in New York, and we can go to Anthology Film Archive and the Museum of the Moving Image together.

Next was a preview of Teatre Solis, where I will be going in a few days to see a concert. I went on a guided tour, which was offered various languages. There were dozens of takers for Portuguese, but my only company on the English tour was a couple from New York—which our guide said was a typical ratio. 

I’m going to go a little light on this. The tour was interesting, but I’ve got to get on with my day!

This gorgeous building was begun in the 1840s and completed in 1856. Now it is city-owned and offers low-cost, sometimes free, programming. It’s one the most impressive structures in Ciudad Vieja, and despite the sun motif, it is named after a person. That red box up top lights up at night.

This China Zorrilla, an important actress from the National Comedy, as they call their repertory cast.

Here is the ceiling of a gallery where they have different events and funerals and such, with a massive baccarat crystal chandelier. The “gold room,” as it is known, opens up onto the “president’s box” in the main theater (which we didn’t see).

Okay. Then I made my first touristic purchase. I bought seven enchanting little matchboxes showing “Uruguayan fauna” from a street vendor.

Desiring refreshment, I sat in a café and ordered a cappuccino, and this is what arrived.

Then the tango lesson, which I have frankly been dreading. I have never taken any kind of dance class, and it seems a little crazy to start with tango, but I loved the hall where they give lessons. You buy a ticket at the window where this woman is standing. 

It felt very “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” to me, if you know what I mean. 

People of all stripes arrived and put on their fancy shoes, and then an elegant gentleman walked into the room and clapped. We gathered around him, and then he put on a tango record, and we began walking around the room in a circle. We did this for several songs while the teacher looked on. I assumed we were supposed to be keeping rhythm with our steps, but apparently that wasn’t all, because he came and walked arm in arm with me for a while--correcting my posture, maybe? I did something right, because he nodded and went back to the middle of the circle.

Then there was a lot of work in front of a mirror, trying to copy his steps, which were SO COMPLICATED and UNPREDICTABLE and, worse, seemed to have no correspondence with the music. Trying to predict the steps felt like a game of whack-a-mole. I also couldn’t see the teacher very well, and I got pretty frustrated. Then some of us, it seems, were taken aside for remedial instructions, and then I was made to dance a very simple box step with an older gentleman, and then more remediation, and then I gave up. I tried. I lasted over an hour. Okay? it was just so humiliating.

Leaving the dance hall, I discovered that the studio was partitioned off behind glass in a corner of a 19th century arcade, which it turns out is el Mercado de la Abundancia. 

 Screw it. I sat down and had a steak and a beer and looked through the picture window at the couples moving across the floor like wind-up toys.