#german music at epcot

[samsdisneydiary]

Bonny Tones Direct from Munich Germany via the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival 2023

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 14 thoughts

i just finished the episode and stared at the screen for a bit and then burst into laughter because. what the hell did i just watch?

all i could think of while viewing this episode was that video of brittany broski in epcot sipping on a drink, shaking her head in confusion, and saying "heyyy! what are we doing?"

lmao. okay. so let's start from the top. man hold on i'm giggling again due to how baffled i am. okay i need to Get It Together.

(i assume that those who read this blog are already familiar with this episode so i'm not gonna list TWs and i normally don't feel the need to but we get some... interesting flavors here, like child abuse and antisemitism mention. and to be clear, i am not laughing at those- i am laughing about how utterly confused i am, and how i have no answers to anything, and only more questions than before this episode began)

so the episode title is in german and i had no idea what it meant but it was quickly explained. we'll get to that.

we start at a PTA meeting- a parent-teacher association, arguably the scariest of all settings we have yet encountered. and they're arguing about the school musical. someone wants to do jesus christ superstar (banger show) but they think that is inappropriate so i'm like oh, they're just super christian, and hippie jesus must offend them. and they also shoot down the idea of grease for language so this only reinforces my belief.

they start praying, which was in line with my earlier assumptions, but they're praying to satan. which raises the question: why does satan care if the musical grease says "fuck"?

(but this made the idea of JCS being inappropriate very very funny)

they're chanting the german that the episode is titled, which means "his is the hand that wounds" which tracks i suppose

now we're in the woods of new hampshire, with some teenagers, one of which says this girl's mittens are "giving him a gingrich". so i looked that up thinking it was some sort of 90's slang i was not versed in, but the only result was a reddit post trying to figure out what they meant in that exact episode. which did make me feel justified.

so these teens are being creepy, reciting things at a witch's altar and it looks like the boys are gonna try and be weird with the girls. they're doing some reciting and RATS BE UPON YE.

they're making a break for it, when the lead guy's neck is snapped. and we don't see by who.

enter our agents! the policeman is saying that he KNOWS they listen to that devil music, to which mulder quips, "the night chicago died?", so i had to google THAT too, and its a song about al capone. so i'll look into that i suppose.

policeman is like noooo, it's that evil METAL music

they're examining the altar, and scully asks who he was with, and the policeman says uhh we thought he was by himself? she says well, there's two six packs here, which generally suggests company, and also here's a scrap from a book. why didn't your guys notice this? and i thought this was going to be a plot point, how the cops were overlooking basic details, but they just sucked for no reason lmao

i also made a note that her hair looked really good here. a little wavy. the way i wished my hair looked.

mulder's going on about this place having a weird feeling, which i wish he would elaborate upon, but she's saying nooo, it's nothing, until...

toads fall out of the sky and onto their umbrellas.

YES BABY!!! CAMP TV!!!! TOAD SHOWERS!!!

(also gonna NEED their reactions in gif form at some point because i'm howling)

((and also how did they film that? go to the toad store to pick up some background actors?))

they go to the library to try and trace down who had the book they found the scrap from, and scully's theory is that the toads must have been brought by the tornadoes that were recently in the area. this is a scully approved theory.

they go into the school to try and talk to the surviving boy, who is sitting in science class with a sub, and when they announce they are looking for him the kid tries to jump out the window. but mulder is a track star and grabs his legs before he can fully yeet himself out. and i'm thinking to myself, if the FBI came and grabbed some kid in my science class, i think i would pass out.

our agents pull this kid and the two girls who were there aside for questioning, and the boy says he was just trying to "get some". at the witch's altar. a sick and twisted juvenile.

CUT SCENE to the PTA who say amongst themselves that one of them must have killed the boy, whose name is jerry, but they all deny it. he was killed with his heart and eyes ripped out, which is in line with their practices. so yeah that's suspicious but after that episode of trophy hunting killers, it could be anyone.

but when our agents enter the scene, the PTA say that it must have been the media that brainwashed the kids into satanic killers. and scully is like. if that were the case there would be tens of thousands of murders. and they say "okay so you get the stakes here" which had me howling. "tHe mEdiA iS bRaInWaShInG tHe cHiLdrEn" <- wow this is something i cannot say i have heard in the year of our lord 2024 (/s)

when they walk out of the school, mulder stops to get a drink at a water fountain. which is already funny because that's a grown ass man. when he notices that the water is going down the wrong way for the hemisphere they are in. and i'm laughing because why the HELL does he know which way the water is supposed to go down the drain. like i have never thought of that in my entire life and i guess now i will.

(btw this is never explained. we don't know why the water goes the other way here. witchcraft, i guess)

at this point, i'm thinking, this substitute teacher has to be the killer, and she opens up the drawer of her desk to put away the tests the students were taking, and we see a heart and eyeballs. gasp! i paused the screen here to make note of this revelation and the eyeballs on stalks looked sososo funny. and she just COVERS THEM UP with some papers which i can imagine must have been hard to grade after being soaked in blood.

they take a trip to the school therapist and mulder says boy, there are an awful lot of cases of mental health troubles here. and the doctor says, yes, this is high school. which honestly? i remember high school and yeah. that does track. it was a strange time. but mulder is not pleased with this explanation and expects that it's something deeper

scully went online and found what sounds like a report on the case- a boy killed with his eyes and heart removed- and mulder is like omg where did you get this?

well. i did not see this coming.

she then keeps reading and it is deeply antisemitic. actually allow me to do a verbatim report from the notes here:

"she went online and i was like haha she used this newfangled internet :) AND THEN SHE READS AN ARTICLE CALLING A SIMILAR CASE ACTUAL BLOOD LIBEL?? MY JAW HIT THE FLOOR IN RECORD TIME oh she found it in a Nazi newspaper from 1934... oh my gosh y'all i thought this was going in a VERY different direction"

so i thought that maybe this was framing the murder as an act of religious persecution? but it wasn't. they just threw that in there for... reasons?

mulder explaining wiccan lore... yeah that's a man who has studied religions

at this point, we are back in the science classroom, and the substitute teacher is handing out baby pigs. OUGH. i am so glad i never had to do that in school.

this poor girl is about to cut into the pig and she looks like she is going to be sick, which is in all honesty exactly what i would have been doing, but then she starts screaming and seeing things like the pig moving??? and squeaking???

she runs to the office, where the agents are serving looks in a corner, and she's told her dad is gonna come get her, but she runs away and mulder chases her and says "you're remembering!" because he is once again convinced of the reality of repressed memories due to his own personal experience

they're staring at this teenager as she sits crying on a picnic bench spilling her life story and again, the whole dealing with kids thing, who thought this was gonna be part of the fbi? not me!

this girl is crying, saying that her stepdad used to hurt her, and that they would chant and tie her and her sister up.... and well. this next part will also be best delivered from my notes verbatim:

"THEY WOULD GET ME PREGNANT AND THEN THEY WOULD KILL THE BABIES???? HUH??? I'VE HAD THREE CHILDREN AND THEY'RE ALL BURIED IN THE CELLAR??? STEPDAD KILLED HER SISTER??? WHAT THE FUCK"

and boy we do not even sort have time to unpack all of that. but it is safe to say that i was thoroughly gagged, and our agents seem only mildly surprised. in retrospect, i think they didn't believe her, which was further proved by a line like "imagine if what she is saying is true", but i, the viewer, believed her pig-induced memories

the girl is hysterical, and scully moves closer to hug her, and hold her while she sobs into her trench coat, and i'm sitting here wondering what is going on (very few answers are delivered btw)

(shoutout to scully to letting a strange teenager cry into her while confessing to all of That)

so the agents go over to the girl's parent's house, the stepdad of whom is in the PTA cult btw, and they ask about the things the daughter told them and i was shocked because. if they really WERE killing babies, telling them they knew about it could perhaps allow the parents to tamper with the evidence sitting in the basement. but the parents are shocked by the whole thing.

scully is asking why the daughter would say all this- and the mom is saying that her and stepdad have been having marriage problems- but i don't think that leads to THESE SORT OF CLAIMS?

at this point, i was deeply confused. i had no idea what to believe or where the narrative was leading me beyond the fact the substitute was evil. i wrote that i was "mentally putting up a board and there is string everywhere and i'm trying to figure out what is going on"

the girl had mentioned a sister who was killed by the stepdad at age 8- and scully says, well did you have any other kids? and the mom says yeah, one who died. and was she 8 when she died? not 8 years, but 8 weeks.

so what is going on here

scully is trying to be pretty careful and tiptoe around the situation, figure out what is real and what isn't, whereas mulder gets alone with stepdad and just asks him "did you do it?" which had me HOWLING. absolutely zero subtlety in this man.

he opens the door to the cellar and it SLAMS shut and stepdad man gets VERY angry and tells them to leave. can you do that? kick the fbi out while they're investigating you? i didn't realize that was an option

okay, so the girl is trying to make up her final, and is back with the substitute making up her pig autopsy because it's a final and of course you don't want to miss a final! the teacher takes her jewelry so it doesn't get dirty which makes sense to me, but then we see her in her office burning it over a candle??? and she's MOANING??? and it seems she's controlling the girl into CUTTING HER ARM??? she's bleeding out on the floor. and i'm still wondering what the hell is going on. but this poor girl is dead.

the agents are at the crime scene and the substitute is being weird af but i guess that's to be expected of someone who just did psychic murder

the PTA committee says the energy is very bad and they need to do a sacrifice to clear the air... so they say they're gonna frame the girl who just died as killing jerry, the og murdered boy, and say that she was jealous he liked another girl. and the stepdad seems pleased with this plot, which only made me further believe that he did the evil things he denied.

so at this point i was thinking, has anyone thought to check the cellar and see if there are in fact babies down there. no? just me? okay

mulder smells incense in the substitute's office, which she says is to cover the smell of pig, but he knows is also used in black mass, and frankly i'm shocked that it didn't set off the fire alarms, because i went to public school and i know how finicky those things are. but the situation is looking sus as hell because the actual teacher she's subbing for has only EVER missed these two days of school and also apparently he's out with... flesh-eating bacteria? that seems a bit odd, don't you think? AND no one can recall hiring this substitute.

there was a very loud and spooky clap of lightning here that felt reminiscent of the halloween specials of shows i used to watch as a kid. and i was wondering if this was perhaps meant as a halloween special of sorts. can anyone confirm.

mulder must have picked up on me telling him to go check the cellar for babies, so he gets a warrant and goes down there, but STEPDAD IS WAITING FOR HIM IN THE DARK! he's monologuing about his religion, and being raised to think that humans are no better than animals...

but then those in the PTA decided they would frame his dead daughter for jerry's murder, he realizes he IS better than an animal! better late than never for such a basic realization to hit, i suppose?

he also says that his beliefs were responsible for her being killed. so i hoped he would elaborate and surprise. he did not.

he admits to including them in ceremonies because the blood of the young is very powerful (???) but he says he never hurt them the way she claimed. and there were definitely no babies. she must have gotten that from the tabloids, and it mixed in with the repressed memories. which doesn't sound like how repressed memories work so i do not trust this guy still.

meanwhile the substitute is doing some witchery, while scully is still in the school! this cannot bode well for her!!!!

mulder is shocked by stepdad's stupidity, and says "did you really think you could call up the devil and ask him to behave?" which is objectively a banger line, even if used quite literally

the witch/substitute is moaning again and she's dialing numbers and mulder's phone rings, and scully's voice says there's something going on in the school, so he handcuffs stepdad to the cellar to get tf out of there, and locks the door behind him, but the cellar door OPENS????

A SNAKE IS COMING NOW???? he is BIG and is he gonna EAT stepdad...?

YES HE IS??? BOA AROUND THE NECK AND TORSO??? HUH?? what is going ON.

mulder arrives at the school just as the snake begins to feast, and he has his gun drawn and does his famous "scully?" yell, when he bursts in on her... just chilling in the dark and doing her work LMAO. he's all "why did you call?" and she says "i didn't?"

meanwhile the snake is doing some serious eating and the SUB HAS SNAKE EYES NOW?? HELLO?

they rush back to stepdad's place, where they find the door unlocked, and nothing but human bones on the ground and what looks like a snake track, which scully points out is impossible because it would take HOURS for a snake to eat a human and then weeks to digest...

and he makes some comment about her watching TLC and i'm thinking, well, i feel like knowing how long a snake would take to eat a human is more relevant than knowing which way the water goes down in a sink, so don't try and nerd shame her here.

but they find a snakeskin so they know it's a snake, and they remember there was a snake in the classroom, so it's time to get back there because clearly he has been consumed and there is not much that can be done to undo being eaten

the PTA folks are having a conference, talking about the death of stepdad, and how they need to make a sacrifice, and they say that if mulder knows what the sacrifice is for, it'll make it more meaningful, so ARE THEY GONNA SACRIFICE HIM??????

when mulder and scully return to the classroom, the substitute is moaning on the floor, saying she thinks the PTA folks killed the boy, and i'm like uh-huh, for sure, snake woman

scully opens her drawer and finds the eyeballs which are pretty incriminating... but as they go out to return to the substitute...

the PTA ATTACKS! a bookshelf is thrown on scully, and mulder is beaten by two men. and they are tied up and taken to the gym showers???? here i wrote "what the hell, there are two minutes left in this episode" and i was hoping it would somehow resolve itself so we didn't end up with another two parter and i could go to sleep after this in peace

(which. it did wrap up in those two minutes but i'm confused so there is little of the aforementioned peace i hoped for going on)

so the PTA crew has a dagger and a gun for sacrificial purposes, and they're about to be sacrificed in a high school gym shower, when the substitute uses her witch powers to make the PTA members turn the gun upon THEMSELVES, and frees our agents from their trouble. sort of. because they are still tied up and wet in the shower.

(does anyone know what the hell is happening.)

they stop writhing about and make it back to the classroom, where the substitute has written a note saying it's been nice working with you and then she's gone.

hey!! what ARE we doing here?

so i don't even know where to begin. i feel a lot of questions were raised and not one of them answered. what was up with that girl saying she was forced to give birth? were the parents denying it because it didn't happen or were they covering up the truth? what was with the whole eight year old vs eight weeks old dead sister? did the substitute kill jerry AND the girl, AND the PTA, and then just... leave? was she the dark force they were worshiping taking revenge on their lack of faith? but if that were the case, why would she kill the PTA members who were about to make a sacrifice? why would she kill the two kids and three adults but spare the agents? where did she go? why did she briefly have the eyes of a snake? where did the snake go? how did he eat a whole person that fast?

man. i'm not sure i've ever been so baffled.

was this an attempt to comment on the satanic panic? like, was the show pointing out how silly it was, or validating the fears of people across america?

i'm so deeply confused. can someone tell me if i'm missing something. was there some overarching theme that went over my head. is this setting up a part two where there will be answers. or is that the whole thing.

?????

[coulsons-fullmetal-cellist]

Looking Back

(Dieter x horror loving female)

Words: 967

Summary: while at an exhibition with your fiancé, you encounter someone from your past (check out my masterlist to check out the timeline)

Warnings: lost romantic potential, Dieter being Dieter, an underrated pioneer of animation gets a mention so please check them out before or after reading this

Artwork is a sculpture by Spas Kirchev

“I’m so glad you suggested this! Although you should have started with stop motion with shadow puppets.”

“I was getting there but was distracted by all the history stuff. I did get you interested with early German cinema though.”

“That’s true.”

The two of you were having a date night. Your fiancé Dieter had mentioned an exhibition by some animation students presenting their final year project.

The theme was Lotte Reiniger, a pioneer of the animation world who used shadow puppets as her medium. These students were to pick a piece of music and create their own short films inspired by Reiniger. Several clips from her over 40 films were dotted around the exhibition in between a few small alcoves where the students’ films were being presented.

You just came out of one short film based on the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. The small dark space encouraged much snuggling.

“Look,” Dieter pointed out to a screen on the wall. “The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving feature length animated film. It predates Snow White by a decade. Then Walt went and stole her ideas and never gave her credit, the bastard.”

“I thought you loved Disney.”

“I love the films but the man himself? Don’t get me started on his original idea for Epcot.”

“You are adorable when you’re in history mode.”

“Not sexy?”

“A little bit. But you’re always sexy.”

“You’re always sexy.” You tried to brush off this compliment but stopped dead in your tracks and hid behind his broad back. “What is it honey cakes?”

“I just saw someone from my past.”

“From New Zealand?”

“No, from when I first moved here. I made friends with this guy called Orfi.”

“Orfi?”

“It’s short for something, I never asked though,” he turned around to face so you could continue. “We became fast friends, always having the randomest conversations and hanging out occasionally but then he just dropped out of communication. It was only later I found out from other friends that he got himself a girlfriend. Her name was Dizzy or Dolce, or something.”

“What a dick,” you shrugged. “Wait, did you have romantic type feelings for him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I trust myself enough to see if it was going in that direction. When I look back on it, there was a possible maybe but by that time, it was too late.”

“Were you ready by the time we met?”

“We met at the right time,” you looked over at your former friend. “I should really go and say hi to him, but I’ll go alone; you might be too distracting.”

“Because of my devilish good looks?”

“That too, but also you’re an award-winning actor.”

“Is that all anyone focuses on?” you patted his shoulder as you made your way over.

You must have willed yourself over there, the ground feeling like mud under your feet. Your hand felt heavy as you raised it into a wave, catching his attention.

“Oh hey, fancy seeing you here.”

“Well, you know it’s early German cinema so…”

“Yeah, couldn’t help but think of you.”

All those past emotions hit you like a sudden wave in the ocean. You tried to not get caught in the current and be lost in the past and decided to go forward with the conversation.

“How is…sorry, I forgot her name.”

“Disay? Oh no, we’re no longer together.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it didn’t work out. Looking back, we just weren’t meant to be together. Now I’m single for the first time in a long time,” the laugh was awkward. “Let me guess, you’re still single?”

“No, I’m with someone.”

“Is it serious?”

“We’re getting married so yes, it’s very serious.”

“Oh, uh, congratulations.”

“Thanks,” you looked at the ring on your finger, not noticing the look of sadness on his face which had gone by the time you looked back up. “It was nice seeing you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“I’ll message you some time.”

Those emotions you thought you had were gone like the tides of the ocean. You waved a small goodbye and tried to not make it look like you were rushing back into the safety of your fiancé’s arms.

“He looked like an Eeyore.”

“Did he?”

“Almost like you were the one that got away.”

“Was I?”

“I think you were. And you know what, fuck him.”

“Yeah, his loss.”

“He was too stupid to realise he had the most amazing, beautiful, caring…”

“Dieter, we don’t need to go through the alphabet.”

“Well, an alphabet list of what makes you, you and he was an idiot to see you.”

“I’m glad I have you, I think I made the better choice. Definitely the most handsome choice.”

Dieter gave a small cursory glance over at the other man. “He has a bit of an Oscar Isaac look about him.”

“He does now that you mention it.”

“Wait, you know who he is?” you nodded. “I thought you only knew actors if they were in a horror film.”

You gave him that look that he knew oh too well.

“Okay, what horror films has he been in?”

“Annihilation, that’s the one with the scary bear,” Dieter shuddered at the thought. “I think Ex Machina is more of a thriller.”

“Those dance moves were thriller,” you looked at him in surprise. “I’ve seen the clips.”

“And you’ve learnt the moves?”

He held you close, almost as if he was about to launch you into a waltz, “Of course I have.”

“You want to show me some other moves, don’t you?” he mumbled something affirmative into your lips.

So he took your hand and led you out.

As you left the exhibition, neither of you looked back. You only had the future to look forward to.

Lovingly tagging @boliv-jenta @simpingcowboy @ellenmunn @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi @chaithetics @myloveistoolittle @cevans-is-classic @glshmbl @cupcakehp @gswizzsstuff

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Encountering Italy and Germany on a Road Trip Through Southern Brazil

The author encountered accordion music and other unexpected delights on a meandering five-day tour through villages with names like Garibaldi and Teutônia.

I had intricately planned my road trip exploring the Italian and German heritage of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, to maximize immigrant cuisine, unsung wineries and villages with charming timber-frame buildings. I’d visit Antônio Prado, the self-proclaimed “most Italian city in Brazil,” drive along rural roads lined with hydrangeas, and explore Gramado, a town whose center this time of year resembles an Epcot version of an Alpine ski town, decked out with Santa statues and massive candy canes.

But while Gramado’s Christmas parade had its charms and Antônio Prado’s nearly 50 landmark buildings were mesmerizing, unexpected encounters would repeatedly steal the show during my five-day adventure.

Take the impromptu concert that started when I pulled my car over one day near a meandering river. A roadside event was clearly winding down — a woman wiped down a long table, a few stragglers drank beer by a makeshift bar, and a handful of kids splashed in the water. A friendly man told me I had just missed a party celebrating the opening of a bridge to replace the one that had been damaged by tragic floods in May.

As I explained in Portuguese that I wanted to learn “about the immigrant traditions of the region,” a man grabbed an accordion and gathered members of his musical group — Grupo Náni, slogan: “Keeping Italian Cultures Alive” — to belt out “La Bella Polenta,” an immigrant ode to a cornmeal dish with origins in the Italian province of Veneto. The town mayor, one of the dillydallying drinkers, joined in too, and all were singing in Talian, a language that evolved from Venetian and other Italian dialects that their ancestors brought to this region of Brazil more than 100 years ago.

I live in Brazil, and have done the big tourist hits — Carnival in Rio, a cruise on the Amazon, the jaguars of the Pantanal. But pockets of immigrant cultures have always sparked my interest, and I had never experienced the vibrant European traditions that began with 19th-century migration and are still found in the Serra Gaúcha and the neighboring Taquari River Valley.

Continue reading.

[mywifeleftme]

55: 3 Mustaphas 3 // Bam! Mustaphas Play Stereo

Bam! Mustaphas Play Stereo 3 Mustaphas 3 1985, GlobeStyle

Depending on how personally aggrieved you feel by broad ethnic caricatures in comedy, the 3 Mustaphas 3 listening experience will fall somewhere in the range between “suppressed Fawlty Towers episode about the opening of a mosque in Torquay” and “Prince Phillip wearing brownface.” The be-fezèd, supposedly Hungarian band was in truth a gaggle of white British ex-punks and proggers of impressive pedigree, including Ben Mandelson (Magazine), Colin Bass (Camel), and Lu Edmonds (The Damned, Mekons, Public Image Ltd.). Their ersatz pan-“Oriental” sound initially drew mostly from Turkish, Greek, and Roma music, but over time became something more like what you’d find on a child’s plate at the Epcot World Showcase cafeteria.

I don’t speak any of the languages 3 Mustaphas 3 sing in on their debut EP Bam! Mustaphas Play Stereo, but then I’m pretty sure they don’t either; based on titles like “Lebedik un Freilach” (which translates to “Swan a Smile” in a mix of Russian and German), my guess is that we’re dealing with fake-accented Simlish here. They are good musicians, and the music is performed with obvious affection for the source material. The seven-minute instrumental “Mehmeteli” (Turkish: “Ceremonial”) opens with nearly two full minutes of industrial skronk before heaving into winding Turkish belly dance music, played completely straight.

Unfortunately, it’s immediately followed up by “A Chilling Tale Pt 4 / Belz,” an idiotic shaggy dog story recited in English and laden with groaners like “we will never forget the day we lost our memory.” This schtick is a hint as to what their dorky stage shows were like, which included a sub-Moxy Früvous recurring bit where the band would shout “take it to the fridge!” mid-song and then go over to an onstage refrigerator which contained fruits. I’m not wholly averse to corny jokes, but the sense of someone winking so hard at me that I can feel their eyelashes brushing mine makes it hard to enjoy this even during the stretches when it sounds perfectly fine.

Several of the Mustaphas would go on to further success as ‘world music’ producers and sidemen, a genre that their live performances helped to build the popularity of in the UK. This is clearly meant to be silly fun, and there is an argument to be made that, by introducing audiences to a wider sphere of music than that which they knew, 3 Mustaphas 3 laid the groundwork for genuine cultural exchange and ultimately helped non-western musicians make a little scratch. But on its own merits, Bam! Mustaphas Play Stereo has aged about as well as Spike Milligan’s Curry and Chips.

55/365

[thetldrplace]

Florida Vacation: Epcot

So in my mission to see all the states (except maybe Hawaii), we went to Florida for Valentine’s Day.

We flew to Orlando on Friday and met up with some friends to visit Epcot on Saturday. I’ll confess I’m not really a fan of Disney. Having grown up in Orange county, I’ve been to Disneyland plenty of times, and with many trips to Knotts and Magic Mountain, I’d decided years ago I’d had enough of amusement parks. Normally, I’d have no desire to fly all the way across the country to see another version of the same thing I’d seen 20 times already, but Epcot promised something different, so I was willing to do it.

I guess I should mention that we ate at a restaurant in Disney Springs, more or less the equivalent of downtown disney here. The crowds immediately reminded me why I disliked the disney experience in the first place and had me rethinking the entire endeavor, but Epcot turned out to be nice.

It was a food and arts festival, and there were lots of pop-up types of food vendors, each selling specialties from the various country “villages” that they represented. First up was Canada.

Then the UK.

Morrocco came next.

Then France. We hadn’t eaten anything until we got to the French section, where we tried a few different things. We also went on the Ratatouille ride.

Japan

Then Italy

The US was in there too... although it was apparently an 1800′s version of it.. We had some scallops and beef wellington here, and while sitting in the shade, was able to strike up conversations with a lady from Anapolis, Maryland, and a couple from Miami, who gave me some tips about places to visit.

Germany... we ate a few more bites in the German section

China...

then Norway,

By the way, we saw another replica of this building at the Norwegian cultural center in Minnesota, across the river from Fargo, ND, while on vacation a few months ago. 

There was a Mexico section too, where we ate some carne asada, but I didn’t get any pictures. By this time, the walking, standing in line, and heat, had gotten to all of us, and we were exhausted and just looking for a place to relax. We hit a few rides just to have a place to sit down and get outta the heat. Then went back to the French section for a sit-down dinner.  My friends wanted to stay for the fireworks show at 9p. I would have left if it were just Shell and I, but we stayed. Now, both my wife and I grew up in the shadow of Disneyland fireworks, and I’ve never been overly impressed by them. So I wasn’t expecting much. But I was wrong. This show.... it was truly spectacular. Disney has, by now, a long catalog of movies, characters and well-known songs from a variety of cultural references to put together a varied, but still familiar show. They also have very talented artists putting all this together and the resulting, sound, laser, and firework show was the proof of this. I found myself tapping along to familiar and.... really likeable music, and watching with amazement this production. The pictures here don’t do it justice, but from a skeptic, I was impressed.

I’ll close out Saturday’s stay at Epcot with a shot of the iconic ball all lit up.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.1

331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela. 366 – Pope Damasus I is consecrated. 959 – Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England, in succession to Eadwig. 965 – Pope John XIII is consecrated. 1553 – Coronation of Queen Mary I of England. 1588 – Coronation of Shah Abbas I of Persia. 1730 – Ahmed III is forced to abdicate as the Ottoman sultan. 1779 – The city of Tampere, Finland (belonging to Sweden at this time) is founded by King Gustav III of Sweden. 1787 – Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn. 1791 – First session of the French Legislative Assembly. 1795 – More than a year after the Battle of Sprimont, the Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium) are officially annexed by Revolutionary France. 1800 – Via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain cedes Louisiana to France, which would sell the land to the United States thirty months later. 1814 – Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring. 1827 – Russo-Persian War: The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination of Armenia. 1829 – South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa. It will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools. 1832 – Texian political delegates convene at San Felipe de Austin to petition for changes in the governance of Mexican Texas. 1861 – Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management is published, going on to sell 60,000 copies in its first year and remaining in print until the present day. 1887 – Balochistan is conquered by the British Empire. 1890 – Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress. 1891 – Stanford University opens its doors in California, United States. 1898 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie. 1903 – Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. 1908 – Ford Model T automobiles are offered for sale at a price of US$825. 1910 – A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21. 1918 – World War I: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force captures Damascus. 1918 – Sayid Abdullah becomes the last Khan of Khiva. 1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its first five-year plan. 1931 – The George Washington Bridge in the United States, linking New Jersey and New York, is opened. 1931 – Clara Campoamor persuades the Constituent Cortes to enfranchise women in Spain's new constitution. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia dissolves itself, handing control of Catalan defence militias over to the Generalitat. 1938 – Germany annexes the Sudetenland. 1939 – World War II: After a one-month siege, German troops occupy Warsaw. 1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic. 1942 – World War II: USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru, not knowing that she is carrying British prisoners of war from Hong Kong. 1943 – World War II: After the Four Days of Naples, Allied troops enter the city. 1946 – Nazi leaders are sentenced at the Nuremberg trials. 1946 – The Daegu October Incident occurs in Allied-occupied Korea. 1947 – The North American F-86 Sabre flies for the first time. 1949 – The People's Republic of China is established. 1953 – Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India's Madras State. 1953 – A Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea is concluded in Washington, D.C. 1955 – The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established. 1957 – First appearance of In God we trust on U.S. paper currency. 1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA. 1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military intelligence organization. 1961 – East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. 1961 – The CTV Television Network, Canada's first private television network, is launched. 1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. 1964 – Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka. 1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with no survivors in Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9. 1968 – Guyana nationalizes the British Guiana Broadcasting Service, which would eventually become part of the National Communications Network, Guyana. 1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time. 1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. 1971 – The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient. 1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines. 1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1979 – Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States. 1979 – The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens. 1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence. 1982 – Epcot opens at Walt Disney World in Florida. 1982 – Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan. On the same day, Sony released the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind. 1985 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia during "Operation Wooden Leg". 1987 – The 5.9 Mw  Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing eight and injuring 200. 1989 – Denmark introduces the world's first legal same-sex registered partnerships. 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins. 1994 – Palau enters a Compact of Free Association with the United States. 2000 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Palestinians protest the murder of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah by the Israeli police in northern Israel, beginning the "October 2000 events". 2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38. 2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. 2012 – A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others. 2014 – A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people. 2014 – A double bombing of an elementary school in Homs, Syria kills over 50 people. 2015 – A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Oregon. 2015 – Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in Guatemala, killing 280 people. 2017 – An independence referendum, declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, takes place in Catalonia. 2017 – Fifty-eight people are killed and 869 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide. 2018 – The International Court of Justice rules that Chile is not obliged to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean with Bolivia.

[tvwriteups]

ESC SF1

Yay, no commentary! (I'm watching on PeacockTV)

Lithuania I feel so bad for these guys. Not only did they not get to perform their song for last year but then they have to open this year's contest. Well, at least they got to represent their country... which is more than what some of last year's competitors got to do. It's an okay song though.

Slovenia It's like singing with a Windows XP screensaver.

Russia The Russian entry that Russians don't like because she's Tajik? Is this correct?

Sweden The lyrics are so trite. I can predict half the lyrics.

Australia I f*cking have no idea what's going on.

North Macedonia Staging really boosts this song even if it is a bit on the cheesy/smaltz side. (Which is another way of me saying that I don't rate the song even though it's very sincere.)

Ireland It's like Ireland listened to me and went 200%...which is trying too hard to be cute with staging and not presenting the song that well. Should be more colorful than this. And then they show their work in the end in a "Hey guys, we're really trying" kind of way.

Cyprus Oh yeah, the Gaga-esque song. At least it's staged [and framed!] to the beat a lot more precisely than the previous songs.

Norway I started laughing when I realized this fallen angel song followed a song about the devil. This is actually kind of cute.

Croatia I swear half these countries have the same choreographer.

Belgium This is nicely staged for a musical performance on a music awards show. But the ESC is not a music awards show. Like, they're in the wrong place.

Israel I like it. It's just a weird time to like Israel though.

Romania I don't like it. I don't hate it like I hated last year's song but ... don't like.

Azerbaijan I was expecting something more interesting than this. Makes me feel less bad about them not getting to perform "Cleopatra" last year.

Ukraine I appreciate that they completely avoided epilepsy-inducing graphics. This song is really rhythm/beat-oriented.

Malta Women empowerment... but not "Toy."

Were there a bunch of technical issues? Obviously there was at least one right before Ireland went on but there were a lot of odd bits between postcards and performances later on in the competition as well.

I have no idea. I really have no idea how this will go.

Sometimes I wish Il Volo won in 2015 so we wouldn't get Mans all the time.

Interval act about the power of water. This opening narration was a lot more intense than it needed to be. All I'm thinking of right now is Denmark's stage and the "Rainmaker" song. And 80s era Epcot Center World Pavilion country-sponsored exhibits. And the Sistine Chapel. And now there's pyro in a song about water? I'm.... sweet, sweet water? Isn't that "syrup"?

I don't... I... um...

Johnny Logan again. I'm still bitter about "Why Me?" beating "One Step Out of Time." LOL. (I didn't know what a Eurovision was until 1997 so...)

Nikkie "Tutorials" de Jager is a really good TV presenter. And huge! Or maybe she's the only Dutch-sized person on that stage.

I guess I also like Italian rock.

And the German aesthetic is cute. The key to those things is to just go all out.

Dutch performance gives off a more interesting vibe than the video did.

Did Jon Ola Sand retire? (Quick google search. Why yes, yes, he did.)

Norway, Israel, Russia, Azerbaijan, Malta, Lithuania (ahhh), Cyprus, (oooh, getting dicey now), Sweden (nooooo! it's probably because of juries), Belgium! (well, I do like Hooverphonic but wasn't certain about that; maybe a jury thing too though because Hooverphonic), Ukraine (whew!). Can't believe they saved Ukraine for the last reveal. Or maybe that was the point -- get people concerned about the streak.

[waltereliasmickey]

Here is The Walt Disney Company’s official biography of Walter Elias Disney, born 119 years ago.

During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana.

David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney "the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo." A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world, including 48 Academy Awards® and 7 Emmys® in his lifetime. Walt Disney's personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France's Legion of Honor and Officer d'Academie decorations; Thailand's Order of the Crown; Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.

The creator of Mickey Mouse of Mickey Mouse and founder of Disneyland and Walt Disney World was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. His father, Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt early became interested in drawing, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing both to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.

During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was only 16 years of age, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was covered from stem to stern, not with stock camouflage, but with drawings and cartoons.

After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.

In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed animated and live-action film. Walt's brother Roy O. Disney was already in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement, and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500 and constructed a camera stand in their uncle's garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first "Alice Comedy" short, and the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood real estate office two blocks away.

On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. They were blessed with two daughters — Diane, married to Ron Miller, former president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions; and Sharon Disney Lund, formerly a member of Disney's Board of Directors. The Millers have seven children and Mrs. Lund had three. Mrs. Lund passed away in 1993.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, and his talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled Plane Crazy. However, before the cartoon could be released, sound burst upon the motion picture screen. Thus Mickey made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie, the world's first fully synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928.

Walt's drive to perfect the art of animation was endless. Technicolor® was introduced to animation during the production of his "Silly Symphonies." In 1932, the film entitled Flowers and Trees won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards®. In 1937, he released The Old Mill, the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.

On December 21 of that same year, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard of cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Great Depression, the film is still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi.

In 1940, construction was completed on Disney's Burbank studio, and the staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and technicians.

During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities were engaged in special government work including the production of training and propaganda films for the armed services, as well as health films which are still shown throughout the world by the U.S. State Department. The remainder of his efforts were devoted to the production of comedy short subjects, deemed highly essential to civilian and military morale.

Disney's 1945 feature, the musical The Three Caballeros, combined live action with the cartoon medium, a process he used successfully in such other features as Song of the South and the highly acclaimed Mary Poppins. In all, 81 features were released by the studio during his lifetime.

Walt's inquisitive mind and keen sense for education through entertainment resulted in the award-winning "True-Life Adventure" series. Through such films as The Living Desert, The Vanishing Prairie, The African Lion and White Wilderness, Disney brought fascinating insights into the world of wild animals and taught the importance of conserving our nation's outdoor heritage.

Disneyland, launched in 1955 as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom, soon increased its investment tenfold and entertained, by its fourth decade, more than 400 million people, including presidents, kings and queens and royalty from all over the globe.

A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961. The Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro were popular favorites in the 1950s.

But that was only the beginning. In 1965, Walt Disney turned his attention toward the problem of improving the quality of urban life in America. He personally directed the design on an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of American industry.

Said Disney, "I don't believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that is more important to people everywhere than finding the solution to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin? Well, we're convinced we must start with the public need. And the need is not just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for starting from scratch on virgin land and building a community that will become a prototype for the future."

Thus, Disney directed the purchase of 43 square miles of virgin land — twice the size of Manhattan Island — in the center of the state of Florida. Here, he master planned a whole new Disney world of entertainment to include a new amusement theme park, motel-hotel resort vacation center and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

After more than seven years of master planning and preparation, including 52 months of actual construction, Walt Disney World opened to the public as scheduled on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center opened on October 1, 1982.

Prior to his death on December 15, 1966, Walt Disney took a deep interest in the establishment of California Insitute of the Arts, a college level, professional school of all the creative and performing arts. Of Cal Arts, Walt once said, "It's the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something."

California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 with the amalgamation of two schools, the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Chouinard Art Institute. The campus is located in the city of Valencia, 32 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Walt Disney conceived the new school as a place where all the performing and creative arts would be taught under one roof in a "community of the arts" as a completely new approach to professional arts training.

Walt Disney is a legend, a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideas which his name represents: imagination, optimism and self-made success in the American tradition. Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century.

Through his work, he brought joy, happiness and a universal means of communication to the people of every nation. Certainly, our world shall know but one Walt Disney.

[keystonewarrior]

Actually Older Than Dirt

Actually Older than Dirt

They called themself Vajra Tiglitolf these days. They had slipped into the United States in 1946 along with countless other Europeans, unheralded, unnoticed.  It was actually their second time in North America (third if you counted living underwater on the continental shelf), having resided with coastal communities stretching from modern day British Columbia south to Sinaloa, but that was when there was still a land bridge to Asia and long before the Spanish arrived on the continent.

They worked quietly at a deli in Princeton, NJ until 1961, then moved over to Philadelphia where they bagged groceries at an A&P and later attended classes as a liberal arts history major at Temple until 1968.  They always enjoyed the liberal arts classes more than the technical coursework, science and math just weren’t their thing.  Art courses were nice reminders of what they had seen and done over the millennia and they often thought it was a shame that nobody would ever see any of Leonardo’s really good stuff.  The original three-panel cartoonist, the church meticulously destroyed every last copy of those satirical hit-jobs while he was still under house arrest.  Music appreciation always took them back to the times and places where they first heard many of those stirring performances, sometimes overcome with emotion at the memory of being in the same room as the great composers.  Nakisha was little remembered among music historians and was a more accomplished harpist than anything else but as rock and roll grew in popularity in the US in the 50s they could almost hear her singing and playing, and then stopping to take her notes.  The hippies sounded a lot like Nakisha’s less serious work, the stuff she played for crowds in the market instead of the Persian palaces.  Literature classes were always fun but they often felt Chaucer would get more credit if they understood the man better and Shakespeare less credit if they’d really known him.  The most amusing classes were the history classes, especially when publishers, professors, and students got almost everything wrong and left out some of the critical tipping points and most hilarious details about so-called important people and places.  Egypt was terribly misunderstood and India all but forgotten.  But Vajra could not provide any evidence, and had spent intermittent and sporadic decades in each region and travelling between them for three thousand years, so mostly they simply asked questions about details they knew nobody could respond to and provoking debate.

The most memorable detail about those four years at Temple was the accounting class where a football player would crack jokes and hassle the TA, openly - if jokingly - copying answers from other students’ tests in class.  Vajra felt bad for the little TA but if she was ever going to make it as a mathematician she had better toughen up.  In the arts, you can often make up for a little talent with a lot of panache, but in math you have to prove it or you’re less than zero.  Zero was probably the thing historians never really got right about math - people died for zero.

There was tension in the American air as Vajra moved towns and changed careers again that summer.  Vajra had a nose now for avoiding war, but this didn’t quite feel that bad.  When the Democratic Convention in Chicago went down Vajra was working at a high school near Washington DC.  They were active in the environmental movement, civil rights movement, equal rights movement, but mostly ardently against the draft.

Vajra hated the draft most of all and when that came to an end they spent a few more years involved in various movements but saw the wind going out of the sails.  Without any skin in the game in the draft, most of the white, suburban US mosied out of protest movements and into adult family life.  The environmentalists couldn’t see the climate change writing on the wall, a few could but they didn’t have the data needed to really fight that battle even though Arrhenius had made everything very clear eighty years earlier.  Vajra was back in Europe in the late nineteenth century and had read Arrhenius’ work.  After Angstrom had argued against the climate change model, Vajra had gone to work with the Swedish physicist because (while they weren’t particularly talented at math and science) they had personally endured hundreds of environmental transformations and could see the path humanity was on.  Far too many in the environmental community thought they had essentially won the war and had the corporate polluters on the ropes.  Vajra knew how persistent - like mold inside the walls of a house - money and wealth could be, but nobody was willing to listen to a high school history teacher and low-level staffer working part-time and voluntarily across multiple national movements who actually liked disco.  When the Equal Rights Amendment fell short and Reagan and the NeoCons came to DC, Tiglitolf moved to Kissimmee, FL.  It was actually their second time in FL, but their previous abode had been underwater.

They had been to Disney twice before on summer working-vacations and decided it was a good enough place to work and hideout for maybe even several decades before having to move on again.  That was the trouble with dwelling within a body that could self-heal, it also maintained the same age and appearance if no changes were demanded of it.  There were subroutines in core memory Vajra could activate to simulate aging and to make changes to their physical form in different environmental and battlefield conditions.  A few were near-instantaneous (response to a chemical attack) while others took time and resources to manifest (changing from male to female).  The worst had been the years watching the dinosaurs die.  That particular rock had been a visible comet for weeks prior to impact and Vajra’s were the only intelligent eyes on the planet to see it coming.  A military draftee, a slave really, their body and mind had been laid open to the foundation - while they were aware and conscious - and rebuilt as the ultimate weapon.  They felt forced to fire up old diagnostics and activate telescopic sights and telemetry trackers.  Of course the computers immediately sought connection to higher headquarters, but Vajra kept shutting them down almost as soon as they booted up, but they were also distracted by the impending doom and the changes they were making to their body to survive the impact event.  Back then they looked more like a dinosaur.  Hey, above a certain size a reptile has no natural predators, except for big rocks from space.  The comet calved.  As it broke up it was clear one of the smaller pieces was going to hit the planet now, followed by a second larger impact a few weeks later as the comet’s orbit and the orbit of the Earth met again.  In the end there were essentially millions of impacts.  Rocks and ice hit the moon and the Earth and smaller rocks got pulled into other radical orbits and scattered around the solar system.  The millions of little ones might have been enough to kick the dinosaurs into the ditch along the evolutionary roadside, but it was the capital letter impact at the beginning of that death sentence followed by the exclamation point at the end that sealed the fate of almost every life on the planet.  Fourteen years later, resting in an ice-free estuary, quietly photosynthesizing and chewing on whatever corpse happened to float by, Vajra felt the tickle of communications programs being queried by a robot probe passing through the mesosphere overhead.  They had mercifully, if painfully, ripped out their IFF antenna a billion years earlier, so the communications and slave-chain programs could not be remotely activated, but Vajra nervously sat in that pond as glaciers crept closer for seventeen years before the probe finally exited the system.  They crept out of there and swam and crawled to the sea, then made their way around the planet closer to the second impact site.  The shallow seas in the area that would later become the Lake Wales Ridge on the Florida peninsula made for an excellent place to shake off this boring semi-plant existence and start eating food again.

Their first job in modern Florida was actually at Circus World.  They worked part-time there and at the Magic Kingdom waiting for Epcot to open.  They painted faces, told children the same silly jokes children had laughed at in Mesopotamia, and dropped agonizing puns on the parents.  Disney was going to be a beast, with thousands of anonymous employees, and every few months Tiglitolf could change jobs and nobody would ever say, “You haven’t aged a day” while they hid unnoticed and unheralded among the masses of workers.  Epcot ended up Vajra’s favorite park, even though between 1981 and today they had worked in almost every guest area.  Epcot ended up nice, but hardly a world’s fair, and Vajra had worked at three - Paris and Brussels in the late nineteenth century and Barcelona thirty years later.  World War One had been a disaster but they had weathered that shitstorm in Tunisia.  Nursing experience helping as a volunteer during the flu pandemic 1918-1920 led to work in Portugal through the 20s and when the Germans practiced mechanized warfare in Spain in the 30s Vajra quietly moved back to Egypt and reopened their old bakery and brewery almost on the same spot it had been over a century earlier.

Of course their name had not been Vajra Tiglitolf back then.  They’d had hundreds of names ever since that sort of thing had been important among people, but every name had been some variant of their name as a slave-soldier: Diamond Twelve.

[laurieclevenger]

SELF-PORTRAIT:

I am 52 years old.

I align as female.

I was born in Minnesota, but moved to Indiana at 17 and then Florida at 25.

I am Polish/German/Irish and European.

For fun I like to attend live music concerts, go to Epcot at Disney World and Universal Orlando and travel to Nashville a few times a year. I also enjoy reading a good book and programming databases for work and just for fun.

I am a Florida licensed Real Estate Broker.

I work at Rent Me Florida – A statewide property management company.

What makes me unique is that I think I’m funny (but most of the time I’m sure people don’t get my jokes), I am sensitive, a great friend and mother, and a very hard worker.

[samsdisneydiary]

Die Couchies Live at EPCOT: Full Set from the 2025 Festival of the Arts

Die Couchies Live at EPCOT: Full Set from the 2025 Festival of the Arts

The 2025 EPCOT International Festival of the Arts continues to bring unforgettable performances to World Showcase, and this year, guests were treated to an incredible full set by Berlin-based trio Die Couchies at the Germany Pavilion. Known for their unique ability to blend vintage German Schlager music with a modern twist, Die Couchies have become a festival highlight, entertaining audiences…

[eshninermusic]

Apurimac By Cusco - Higher Octave Music - 1988 Apurimac is an album by the German Andean new age band Cusco. Though their sound has certainly matured over the years, this was the breakout album by the band, garnering their first major international success with its release on the Higher Octave music label. The album was originally written in 1984 and released to select markets in 1985, but it was not until 1988 that the project was finally released worldwide via the new signing with Higher Octave. This album would become the first album in a trilogy, with the second and third installments being released in 1994 and 1997. Despite the name of the band implying an ancient South American sound, this was the first album that focused specifically on bringing together native Incan instrumentation with traditional European rock music structures (synthesized pan flute sounds, which previously were used only sporadically, are brought to the forefront here). Inca Dance is used as the closing theme of the radio show Coast to Coast AM, and other tracks have been used as bumper music for the same show. Several songs from the album, including Inca Dance and Flute Battle, have been used as background music at the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World Resort. In addition, Tupac Amaru still receives radio play in certain markets today. #nowspinning #nowplaying #cusco #artbell #vinylrecords #vinylmusic https://www.instagram.com/p/CCCsTklhPIj/?igshid=1f2z52hfbv1q7

[perfectworldau]

Mystic Messenger Imagine

Where would the members of the RFA take you on holiday?

Yoosung-

Yoosung wouldn't be able to afford an expensive trip like the rest of the RFA (he's a student after all)

But he still wants to treat you to a break away

You end up going on a camping trip

And it rains loads

Yoosung gets really annoyed by the rain as he wanted to go to the beach and sit in the sun

He'd planned to go to arcades and eat fish and chips on the sea front

Now you were stuck in a tent together, with water leaking through one corner

There wasn't even wifi

You were still determined to make the most of it

'Yoosung, come play cards.'

Yoosung agreed reluctantly but you both became more and more competitive until you were both completely invested in the game.

After that, Yoosung brightened up and you started to make the most of the holiday, despite the weather

You both bought matching wellies and raincoats and went out wearing them

You went to the seaside wearing them and ate soggy fish and chips in the rain

You went to the arcade and Yoosung spent ages trying to win you a toy on the claw machine(Damn it, he was getting his girl a pikachu soft toy)

He eventually managed to win it and gave it to you, proudly

There's a game similar to LOLOL in the arcade and you have to stand and watch as Yoosung beats the high score (which takes a long time. You enjoy watching how excited he gets though when he eventually beats it)

Zen-

Zen wants to take you on the trip of a life time so he plans it all behind your back and doesn't tell you where you're going.

You even fly without him telling you what airport you’re going to

He's taken you to New York City :)

You stay at a 5* hotel overlooking Central Park because only the best will do for his girl

Zen takes you around all the tourist attractions of New York: the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Met Museum, Central Park, Top of the Rock and Brooklyn Bridge

So many selfies sent to the other members of you at all the different attractions

And selfies all over social media

You get lost all the time as Zen isn’t very good with directions but he insists on guiding you around

‘I’m sure it’s this way, MC. Just trust me.’

Half hour later you have to go back the way you came because you went in totally the wrong direction

On your final evening in NYC, Zen takes you to see a Broadway musical

As you're watching the show, you can see that Zen is longing to be on the stage rather than in the audience

It makes you remember how much passion the boy you love has and how important acting is to him

Both of you are in tears by the end of the show as it's so emotional and the actors are so good

'I bet that one day you'll be among those actors, Zen. You deserve to be on that stage.'

Jaehee-

When Jaehee goes on holiday, she wants to relax completely

So, you plan a break away to a beach/island getaway for the two of you

You go to the most luxurious hotel you can afford and get a premium room overlooking the sea with a jacuzzi on the balcony

When Jaehee sees the hotel you've booked, she's stunned

'MC, you shouldn't have booked such an extravagant hotel! We could have managed with a basic hotel as long as it had a coffee machine. Can we even afford this?'

Okay, so maybe you went a little over the top but you wanted to treat Jaehee and help her to unwind

You promised to work extra hard to make back the money that the holiday cost

When you arrive at the hotel, Jaehee has to admit that it was worth the price you paid

The atmosphere of the holiday is really light hearted and you've never seen Jaehee so relaxed

Jaehee and you spent a lot of time in the pool, swimming and splashing around together

You also went for romantic walks on the beach in the evening

Jaehee researched before going and found a historical building that she wanted to visit one day

Every morning started by visiting a different coffee shop in the nearby town and drinking unique coffee flavours

And eating pastries for breakfast

You don't want to go back home when the holiday is over but Jaehee has so many ideas for her cafe and can't wait to go home (even if it does mean working hard again)

She's also really grateful to you for booking the really nice holiday, as it's something she wouldn't usually treat herself to (so you’re forgiven for overspending)

Jumin-

Jumin travels a lot, so a holiday doesn't sound that appealing to him

But you've been begging him to take you somewhere exotic so he books a fancy trip around Europe as a Christmas present (he doesn't trust his assistant to do it as it's a gift for you and he doesn't want anything to go wrong)

You're really excited when he tells you and start to pack immediately

Jumin buys you new clothes for you holiday

Damn it, that man can't help but spoil you

The vacation is definitely the best you've ever been on

You visit so many places in Europe

Jumin takes you to see the Acropolis in Athens and treats you like a modern day goddess (doesn't he do that every day though?)

You eat calzone in Venice and ride in a gondola

You go skiing in the alps and drink hot chocolate at the ski lodge

You go to the Christkindlmarkt (Christmas market) in Germany and buy toasted almonds and traditional German cookies

In France, you obviously visit Paris and see the tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre

You go to Spain and visit Barcelona to see the La Sagrada Familia and drink sangria in the sun

Jumin finds himself enjoying the experience more and more as the holiday goes on

Sure, he's seen most (if not all) of these generic tourist attractions before but he's never seen them with you

Your enthusiasm and energy makes Jumin realise how he'd taken his life of travel for granted

It feels like he's never seen these sights before and it's the first time he's seeing them because you’re making him view them differently

Bonus: Jumin ends up buying a tacky fridge magnet and postcard from every place you visit (the postcards he sends home to Elizabeth to show her where he is)

Seven-

When Seven finds out that you've always wanted to visit Disney World, he books the holiday immediately

Because he's secretly always wanted to go there too

He's as excited as a five year old the day you travel

To be honest, you both act like children throughout the whole holiday

One of the highlights of the trip is when Seven meets Woody and Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story is probably his favourite Disney film)

He really enjoys Epcot as Future World is so scientific and interesting to him (especially Test Track as it allows him to design his own car and drive it so you end up doing this ride about ten times)

You Disneybound together as Peter Pan and Wendy one day and get stopped by cast members who tell you how great your Disneybound is

Seven obviously goes over the top with the Disney bound as he loves to dress up anyway (It wouldn’t be surprising if he’s dressed as Wendy honestly)

Seven really gets into the character of Peter Pan that day (as if that boy needed another excuse to be mischievous and childlike)

You both share a mickey shaped ice cream and Seven ends up getting it all over your nose (of course you blame Seven but it was probably your fault really :p)

Seven teases you for crying at the fireworks but by the end of the show, he's bawling his eyes out too

Both of you declaring it the best holiday ever, but that's probably because you had each other)

You both promise to take your children there when you have them, as it's the most magical place either of you has been to

[disneyelite]

New Entertainment at Epcot Festival of the Arts

Wandering through the markets of Marrakesh and enjoying the tastes of Oktoberfest are just some of the many reasons Epcot’s World Showcase holds a special place in every Disney lover’s heart. The immersion in culture from architecture to food to the shops filled with trinkets from both near and far transport us to another place entirely, even if we never leave the theme park. The same goes for the entertainment offered throughout the year, providing a full-service buffet for the senses. One way Disney provides us with authentic cultural experiences is by hosting bands from across the globe to play music from various countries and backgrounds. These groups not only give us a glimpse into another world but deliver a masterful ambiance for guests as they explore each new pavilion. For Epcot’s Festival of the Arts event, Disney introduced two new bands and an old favorite to three of its pavilions.

Atlas Fusion: Morocco’s Newest Entertainment

Not going to deny it: Morocco is my favorite pavilion in Epcot. That doesn’t mean I don’t love the other countries with as much fervor and heart as the next guest, but there’s something about Morocco that has always captivated me. Beyond the mouthwatering dishes served at Restaurant Marrakesh, the jaw-dropping scenery and a market fit for a queen, the upbeat music that filters through the streets never disappoints. The new band, Atlas Fusion, is no different.

Who They Are Atlas Fusion is a band of five members, including the lovely, dancer, Arya. The band plays a blend of traditional Moroccan beats and Gnawa music that enliven the streets with cheerful, toe-tapping tunes. Gnawa music consists of spiritual songs that combine poetry with folkloric rhythms and dances. The lively music and visual elegance of the dancing are a sensory treat for all who experience this performance.

When to See Them Atlas Fusion is only around for the Festival of Arts celebration, so you definitely want to check out this entertainment before it's too late. They play five days a week, expect for on Mondays and Tuesdays. Below is a schedule of the times they play throughout the day. Show Times for Atlas Fusion 1:20 pm 2:20 pm 3:45 pm 4:45 pm 5:45 pm 6:30 pm 7:45 pm Each set typically lasts around 30 minutes. Below is a clip of their performance. https://disneyelite.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Project-1.mov

Lebendig: Germany’s Next Big Sensation

While many come to Germany for the oversize pretzels, beer, and the rest of the Oktoberfest fixings, the music is another great drive for those wanting to experience a little more of the culture. It doesn’t hurt that the stage for Germany’s newest performers is right next to the Cuisine Classique food booth, making it the perfect venue to listen to new music while you order and eat your tasty treats.

Who They Are This German-based pop rock group is known as Lebendig and consists of four members. The name Lebendig loosely translates into the word “lively” or “living” and accurately describes the spirited sound of the group’s music. You can learn more about the band at their website.

When to See Them Just like Atlas Fusion, Lebendig is only around as exclusive entertainment during the Festival of Arts. So you only have until February 24th to catch their last performance. The band does not play on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Below is a schedule for times to come see them play. Show Times for Lebendig 12:10 pm 1:10 pm 2:10 pm 3:10 pm 5:00 pm 6:00 pm 7:00 pm Each set generally takes about 20-25 minutes. Below is just a short clip of what to expect. https://disneyelite.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IMG_7885.mov

Suroit: An Oldie But Goodie

The French Canadian band Suroit is not a new band at Epcot’s World Showcase, though it is back for a limited time for the Festival of the Arts. This band incorporates a mixture of Celtic and Cajun influences to create a truly unique sound. Suroit started in 1977 and has been playing ever since.

When to See Them Suroit is also off on Mondays and Tuesdays and will only be around for the remainder of the Festival of the Arts. While this band has played for other special events at Epcot in the past, you never know for sure when this band will pop up again. A schedule for their performances is listed below: Show Times for Suroit 2:15 pm 3:30 pm 5:00 pm 6:15 pm 7:30 pm Each set lasts about 30 minutes.  Enjoy a quick peek at the band in the video below. https://disneyelite.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IMG_7912-2.mov The amazing thing about the two new bands is that they are eager to meet and interact with their audience. Not only are they willing to take pictures with guests after each performance, but you can tell they genuinely love what they do. Stop on by and check out these fantastic specimens of entertainment before time is up. Epcot’s Festival of the Arts continues until February 24th, so save yourself plenty of time to view these gems before they’re gone. Read the full article

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

all the ones with 8 in them

This was a lot and kept me busy and thinking. Thank you! I answered 8 already so I skipped that one, here’s everything else :)

18. talk about a moment where time stopped

I love this one a lot. 

16 years old. In Paris France, the city I have dreamed about all my life. Well, it’s raining and it’s cold, and we’re in the part of the city that tourists don’t go to. It’s so clinical looking and dull. we were stuck at a bus station for two hours before that. We’re about ready to get on a boat ride on the river seine and we have to walk. I’m wearing shorts and sandals and I’m freezing. Well, we’re walking toward the eiffel tower, and something in me warms up. We get on the boat, and it starts to move as I hear the music of French accordions playing. The city scape passes me by and then we go back round to the Eiffel tower, now lit up, and everything is beautiful. Perhaps all the more beautiful I found Paris because of what happened previously. On that boat in Paris, time did stop for a moment. Yup. writing about this still makes me tear up. 

28. who are you? describe yourself!

Hi everyone I’m a Shakespearean, though I’m actually Cheyenne, and there are so many pieces of “Cheyenne” that make it hard to pinpoint exactly what each little idiosyncrasy does when looking at the whole picture. She has doubts about herself but she doesn’t let that stop her, and above all she wants to do something that helps people. Being useless is her biggest fear. She wants to look back at her life at the end of her days and knows she would do it all again. 

And that was very dramatic, haha. Leave it to the Shakespearean. I could have just said I like Shakespeare, am a nerd, and belongs to house Ravenclaw. But subtlety also isn’t my strong suit when it comes to certain things :) 

38: Mom or dad? 

Oh don’t make me pick...I’m an only child and I latch onto both of them equally. I have a different relationship with both of them and the dynamic with both changes. My mom is my emotional support while my dad makes me laugh and vent. let’s just say when I’m mad at my mom it’s dad and when I’m mad at my dad it’s mom :)

48. what does the sky look like right now? clear? cloudy? pink? blue? rainy?

It’s dark night, cloudless.

58. were you/are you in a fandom? if so, what?

Well, looks like I’m officially in the Dragon age fandom, haha.

68. how often do you say "i love you"?

to my loved ones, almost every day.

78. do you listen to your own advice?

Not always. I should listen more, especially when it comes to eating ice cream after dinner. Yeah it’s halo top and healthier, but yeah...

80.  tell us about your favorite halloween!! what did you dress up as? did you get a lot of candy?

I was around eight or so, and I was cleopatra. I wore a leopard dress, had a wig and my mom did my makeup. I got a lot of candy and then later I passed out some at my house, and I remember doing an Egyptian style dance and a bunch of people lining up for candy. some day I plan to dress up as Scarlett O’hara!

81.  first memory that pops in your head, talk about it.

well since I mentioned Scarlett O’hara I’m thinking of my dog, who is named Scarlett, and I remember sticking my hand in a box of puppies and the little black one coming right toward me and licking me. So I picked her up and she put her head right on my shoulder, and yup...l’amour, l’amour. Since Gone with the wind was/is my favorite movie I had to name her Scarlett :)

82. how are you? what are you feeling? how has your week gone?

Thanks for asking! I’m good! I was feeling tired because I had a bridal shower I was hosting today, (it was a lot of fun and the bride had a great time!) but now I’m filled with energy again! Week has improved tenfold since I finished my GRE on Wednesday and saw my friend and hung out Friday where she gave me the best belated Birthday gift, a wonder woman funko pop. Also my newest commission came in and I’ve been drooling at it since :p So week has been very good :p

83. rant.

Broadway musicals of today suck. Sure there are exceptions (hamilton of course, and perhaps a few others) but modern day musicals miss what brings people to musicals...music! in these modern musicals maybe there’s one, two good songs, but the rest are forgettable. think about the sound of music, king and I, even Phantom of the opera. awesome and catchy song after another. all of them are amazing. Hamilton is amazing because all the songs are catchy. Make musicals great again by making ALL your must great again. 

84.  do you worry about something a lot? if so, what?

I worry about making the right writing choices when it comes to certain things I’m writing. I know I am, but self doubt can be a nagging beast. 

85. do you think long distance works?

Depends on the people. I think for me it could if only for a little while, like he’s getting his degree somewhere. There has to be trust in the relationship though.

86. would you date someone younger than you? older than you?

It’s all about mental maturity. So sure.

87. name some people you'd love to meet

Tom hiddleston, Shakespeare, or at least the man we know as Shakespeare, even though I believe that Shakespeare the guy named Shakespeare, but that’s a whole other story for another day. you fine people on tumblr seem like a cool bunch too :) Also, the guy I’m going to marry would be a nice person to meet. (maybe i’ve met him already...)

88. what were some things you were scared of as a kid?

The clown from the It miniseries. Damn it tim curry. Also I watched this haunting documentary and that scared the caboodles out of me too. I also didn’t like spending the night at someone else’s house. 

89. tell us about your favorite birthday

I turned 13 in disney world. We were in Epcot and I ate delicious German food, we rode some awesome rides, and my parents bought me a kimono which I still have :)

98. describe what you think afterlife is like

being surrounded by the ones you love.

whew! thank you again!