Day 317: Sunrise

With college comes learning, and homework, which for me, often times happens to be a lot of reading. And I mean a lot. But either way, that's not the point of this blog post.

One of the classes I'm taking is that American Literature course that I may or may not have talked about previously, and for today we were finishing up the last two chapters of Thoreau's Walden. We read the first chapter for yesterday and the final two for today, so it's not like we read the whole thing. Now, I guess it wasn't terrible (I've read some stuff that's much worse, that's for sure), but I can't see myself becoming Christopher McCandless either.

So we're talking about Walden in class today, specifically the second to last chapter titled "Spring." Now, there's some serious symbolism in this book, and it's all done through parables, but the one I think we really talked the most about was the symbolism Thoreau gives to the sun.

In the book, the sun is talked about with the morning, and in the chapter it is what warms the world and melts the ice on Walden pond. Thoreau uses the sun as both a scientific and metaphorical analysis of the ice breaking up as the world warms, and in the end the sun becomes a representation of an awakening.

Can you guess how this relates to Disney? What the first thing I thought of was?

Well, unless you were with me on the Backstage Magic Tour I took with my dad a few years ago, there's a good chance you won't know. On that tour, which is absolutely excellent, by the way, our first stop was The American Adventure. But we didn't go in the front. No, we went in the back. That's right, we got to go backstage of the American Adventure, and the best part? While we were standing back there they began the show, doing their morning test run of it before it would open to guests. So in other words, I stood five feet from Mark Twain as he appears in the beginning of the show and then watched the screen from down below the stage (which actually isn't there).

Either way, I loved everything about that backstage tour of The American Adventure, but there was one thing that I learned that absolutely ALWAYS makes me smile, no matter how many times I see the show (which I have recorded on my computer and watch quite often now that it's there). At the very end of the show, even after the video, we see Ben Franklin and Mark Twain one last time, atop the Statue of Liberty (you'll hear about this part again someday I'm sure, I have another story). They talk and shake hands as the music continues to play and the show finishes. But there is one light backstage, behind the rest of the set and screen that is only used in this scene. It has a special job. What is it? To create the sunburst at the very end of the show.

It was that very sunburst that I thought of in class today when we were talking about the sunrise. Why? Because I believe it represents the same thing as the sunrise in Walden. Aside from the eagle, what better to represent the history of our country than a sunrise? It is an awakening, the start of something new, of a new day, and that's what our history has been based on. The Pilgrims started a new life here, a new country was born, new inventions created, wars started and freedoms given. None of that would exist without an awakening and a new start, just as a new day cannot start without a sunrise. 

 

Today's Frumpstagram post prompt was "How Clever," so I went through my pictures to find something clever that Disney has done. Now, I absolutely love the Art of Animation Resort, specifically the cars wing. You had better bet I had my picture taken with all the characters, because I just LOVE that film and I think it's so awesome that they're all there!






Here's today's Disney History: 1906: Actress Hermione Baddeley is born in Shropshine, England. Her Disney credits include Mary Poppins (as Ellen), the Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (as Miss Irene Chesney), The Happiest Millionaire (as Mrs. Worth), and The Aristocats (as the voice of Madame Adelaide Bonfamille - the owner of Duchess and her kittens).

Have a magical day!

Day 297: Harriet Jacobs

We read a lot of authors in my Survey of American Literature course, and I'm sure you'll hear more about others as the remainder of the semester goes on, but today in class we were talking about one author in particular: Harriet Jacobs.

Now, for those of you that aren't really into history and don't know who Harriet Jacobs is, here's a quick background. Jacobs was a young slave girl with two children some years before the Civil War. She lived as a slave for the first years of her life, and after having two children, she hid in a small room of her grandmother's home for 7 years, never leaving and only seeing her children through a small hole in the wall, although she could not have any sort of contact with them. After she eventually gained her freedom, she wrote a book narrating her experience as a slave girl, titled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

When I found that we were reading her my mind instantly went to Disney, or at least I was pretty sure it did. At first I wasn't totally positive, but once I got around to looking at the video on my laptop, I found I was correct.

In the American Adventure Pavilion of Epcot, they recently changed the exhibit in the downstairs area. It used to have pieces of history from various subjects, but was recently changed to a narration of Black History.

The new exhibit is wonderful. I'll say that flat out. I loved it. The way they incorporated technology with the exhibit is great and the entire thing was just super interesting. Honestly I wish I had more time to go through it, and I really hope that I'll have a couple minutes to go through it on this next trip.

Back to Harriet Jacobs. As much as I love learning about the Civil War, I had never really heard the spectacular story of this young woman before. I guess I had heard her name, but never gave it much thought. In fact that I didn't give it a ton of thought back in July either when I heard her name for the first time at Disney, but I did pay attention to the exhibit, and here's yet another example of how you can learn things from Disney!

If you go through the exhibit you'll find one of the lanterns explains the story of Harriet Jacobs and talks about how she took action even though she was afraid, and then I believe there's a copy of her book there in one of the cases (although I'm not totally positive on that one). Either way, when I did figure out we were reading her for class, my mind went right back to The American Adventure, and I made those connections with what I was reading for class.

So in other words, because of that little bit of information I got at Disney, I knew a little bit about Harriet Jacobs before I read her narrative, and it really made me enjoy the book even more.

Here's today's Disney History: 1982: EPCOT Center (Disney's third theme park) is officially dedicated by Disney Chairman E. Cardon Walker 23 days after the park's opening day.

Have a magical day!

Day 239: Reading

Here in Wisconsin it's insanely warm. Like seriously hot. Our dorms don't have AC either, meaning that it's basically like walking into a sauna that you also sleep in. Luckily the rest of the building on campus DO have AC, so I just end up spending a lot of time in those. This morning though, after my three classes and eating lunch with a couple of my friends, I went to the library to study with my best friend. Of course, we were just studying for our own classes, but we were there, at the same time, in the AMAZING basement (that I'll have to show you sometime), and I was reading for my Survey of American Lit course.

Basically my course studies American Literature from the 1600's until the end of the Civil War. So I sat down this afternoon in the library to read our homework, the introduction to the course. Now, honestly a large portion of me is somewhat confused about what this introduction has to do with the rest of the course, but there are several things that really stood out to me as "DISNEY!"

I was annotating the entire time, so I was able to kind of mark them all down too! =)

First, this passage: "A written alphabet had been used by Europeans to preserve and communicate information for many centuries, and Gutenberg's invention of movable type in the mid-1400's had shown the way to a mechanical means of "writing"; by 1492, Europe was on its way to becoming a print culture" (The Norton Anthology: American Literature Volume A).

Any ideas on how I related that one to Disney? I'll give you a clue: Epcot. Get it now? If you guessed Spaceship Earth, you'd be right! There's actually two references in that quote, but the most obvious is Gutenberg's Movable Type Printing Press, actually invented in 1450. Yes, the second I read that every time I hear the line in my head "In 1450 Gutenberg invents the movable type printing press..." and so on and so forth.

Next, a few pages later, I was annotating and came across the section on the Pilgrims and Puritans. I don't really have a direct quote for this one, but as I read it, I really thought of the American Adventure. I mean, they talked about the colonists surviving the first winter in the New World, and if you recall, in the American Adventure, there is a portion of the song about the Pilgrims talking about that same cold winter.

Finally, and this one will probably come up more in the future, but my next assignment is the autobiography of Frederick Douglas...which can also be related to the American Adventure. Of course, this one is obvious as well, as Frederick Douglas himself makes an appearance in each and every show. I'm really looking forward to reading his work too, so I can finally relate the words in the attraction specifically to the man himself.

And so, that was my Disney relations for the day, or at least what I can tell you. There is another part of my day that included Disney, quite obviously, but I'll wait to tell you about that one later. All I can tell you is that it has to do with Disney and Wind Ensemble, and that I'm REALLY excited about it!

Here's today's Disney History: 1964: Disney's live-action and animated film Mary Poppins has a lavish world premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The comedy-musical stars Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Some of Hollywood's biggest stars like Angie Dickinson, George Hamilton, Angela Lansbury, Carl Reiner and Debbie Reynolds are in attendance. After the screening and a 5-minute standing ovation the audience moves on to an elegant party hosted by the Technicolor Corporation.

Have a magical day!