I Will Watch That Movie If

• "Ragtag" is somewhere in the description.
• Shah Rukh Khan, Will Smith, or any of the Wayans brothers,  is in it.
• It's based on a Jane Austen book.
• Someone must learn to dance.
• One or more characters undergo a montage transformation.
• Someone must go from poor to rich or from rich to poor. (They must "Trade Places," if you will.)
• I can immediately tell that there will be a happy ending.
• There is a heist.
• "...must learn that, in life, things don't always go as planned" is in the trailer.
• A remarkable child is the narrator.
• Morgan Freeman is the narrator.
• Tom Hanks and/or Meg Ryan are in it. Who am I kidding? It's Tom Hanks *and* Meg Ryan.
• Tina Fey and/or Amy Poehler did anything with it, to it, or near it.

Just Your Typical Fairy Tale...

I came across this thought in a student's research paper on Marilyn Monroe:

It started out as a typical fairy tale story of one young girl dropping out of high school to be with an older man with hopes that they would live happily ever after. That was not the case.

I plan to submit the idea to Disney. If that fails, Dreamworks. If that fails, I'll go straight to Michael Bay, and maybe he can combine it with some robots and other forms of banal failure.

Themes of Entertainment

How much can the entertainment you choose tell about your personality? I'm guessing... a lot.

I have been using Leah's Netflix for a few months now. It automatically makes suggestions based on an original viewing questionnaire. But after a while, it seems to suggest based solely on your viewing choices. Here are the categories that show up for Leah and me:

1. Romantic Dramas Featuring a Strong Female Lead

2. Witty Sci-Fi and Fantasy

3. Goofy TV Shows

4. Feel Good Screwball Comedies

5. Quirky TV Comedies

6. Sentimental Children and Family Movies

7. Classic Musicals

8. Foreign Action and Adventure

9. Cerebral TV Dramas

10. Independent Movies

11. Faith and Spirituality

Events and Observations

from the last 30 days.

For Christmas, I traveled to Stephen and Megan's house. I saw Aida and Holden and my Dad, and got everyone sick with a distinctly violent cold. We watched Master and Commander practically in slow motion. Stephen commented on everything navy... and it was still a good movie.

I read The Curate's Awakening by George MacDonald.

I traveled to see Erin Heisey with Christine Rankin. Oh, yes! Cleveland really does rock. We loved the zoo, and the Hyatt where Erin works. I loved the Cleveland Museum of Art. It's good for the imagination to see the Egyptian wing in a museum having just seen The Mummy. We stayed up late talking and talking. And even though it's been a long time, and might be a longer time, we picked up where we left off. You know when that happens that as we have been growing up, God has been growing up in us, too.

Michelle came for a too-short weekend. We attended The Beggar Folk's album release.

I learned to play Dominion with Joella's family.

Tim Nickels visited all the way from Maine! It had been seven years since we had actually talked. Again, with how God grows up in us.

I got a job at Isaac's Restaurant. I begin this week. This has been a tough couple of months regarding jobs.

Mom and Dan dropped off the truck for me to use while student teaching. It's great to have wheels!

Just today, I attended Millersville's student teacher orientation meeting: Rough. Times. In short, I don't yet have a placement for student teaching. Please don't ask about it. I'll let you know.

Weekend Continues

Last weekend was so packed that it merits three separate posts. Steve and Meg and I left Lancaster with our packed lunches and some non-specific directions. The day's goals: Longwood Gardens and the Brandywine River Museum. The day was windy, and clouds moved quickly in large mounds across the sun. We wanted to see everything. We started with the outer perimeter of brand new treehouses and the hourglass lake where catfish swarmed from under the bridge to gulp at the tulip petals I dropped. Those hideous beasts. If they were any bigger, I am sure I would have felt some fear.

We visited the DuPont house where a very large kitty was reclining on some cacti. Visitor after visitor stooped and petted her; the only indication that she was still alive was the rhythmic rise and fall of her massive belly.

We passed through the tulip beds: squares of the densest tulip patches humans can manage. A block of bright orange, a block of streaked yellow and red with fringes like leather jackets; a block of sedate and orderly small-headed purple; a block of magenta; light pink; large white-petalled towers over tiny violas.

At the far end of the tulips, a cat slept on a bench near a sign which told us of the important role the cats play in the garden: they catch rodents in exchange for (a seemingly endless supply of) food, shelter, and more loving tourists than Cinderella at Disney World.

We traveled into the trees near the belltower. A limby North African tree stood at the bottom of the hill near the Magnolias lining the road. Oh, that tree needed a friend. Sometimes fathers will build jungle gyms in their back yards so their kids can climb all around and see the world from a thousand different angles and turn upside down and look up into the sky. God built this one. I climbed high up into it. There were no signs. I am pretty sure I'm insured.

Our legs were getting tired. We could use a rest. We passed through a side door in the wall of apple trees at the edge of the vegetable gardens and found three chairs around a little garden table. I half expected wood elves to come serve us cider and honey wafers to restore our energies. After a brief respite, we turned the corner out of the alcove to find that we were right back in the action of the gardens.

We went into the conservatory where we experienced the perfume exhibit. Wow.

As we walked down from the bonsai room, there was Kelly Neibert. Just walking along alone. "Kelly!" I thought. But in reality, I just stared into her face as intensely as possible, so she would be sure to notice the stranger to her right. We talked precious little. She was busy. We were leaving.

We braved the long lines at the gift shop to buy Aida a mini gardening set, and an African violet for my aunt. The Brandywine River Museum was closing when we arrived. We went to a Thai Restaurant and loved it. We were tired. We rested in my living room where I watched and they made fun of the new Twilight movie, New Moon. Really, Twilight, guys? Yes, really. When we see the next one (and we will!), we plan on muting it and adding our own dialogue. You're invited to come see the magic.

Looking to Summer

April and December are my low-volume blogging months. The reasons? An abundance of schoolwork and a lack of sleep. In response to the increased demands on my time, here is a brief list of things/thoughts that made me smile this week, with explanations.

Cherry blossoms: they cover the far edge of the pond at Millersville. Huge catfish wag their fins just above the surface, flicking away the blossoms to make little, moving chasms.

George MacDonald: whom I read in the summertime.

Breezes through my third-floor bedroom

Tiki time: tiki torches, back yard, "how was your day?"

Fresh asparagus: fresh anything, actually.

Bright purple clothing

A haircut: but I'm waiting til July to go above the chin...

Making my point in a paper: Auteur Theory. It can ruin a Michael Bay film without even trying.

Choosing a new book to read
Choosing an old book to read: these two acts will not happen for another three or four weeks.

Family visiting: Mom, Dan, Michelle, and Chelsea visited last Monday for lunch. We played storybook pictionary at Lindon's diner. Next week, Stephen and Megan will visit! We're headed to Longwood Gardens.

Road trip: I'm ready for one! Anyone with a sunroof is welcome to take me anywhere without notice after May eighth. All unauthorized trips subject to the whim and care of Thomas Campus Deli, the availability of this author, and the weather. See terms and obligations listed elsewhere for details.

The New Woman a la Disney

I am watching Mulan. I can never get enough of this movie. My favorite song is “I'll Make a Man Out of You” because the montage is so inspiring! The montage moves from a hopeless bunch of unfit men (and woman) to a trained corps of incredible acumen. In true Disney fashion, they each entirely master the skills needed to complete the rigors of training. They all make rapid, unbelievable progress, though Mulan leads the group as they run. The only thing the fellows in the army are lacking is brains. They cannot figure out how to use the weights to climb the pole to reach the arrow.
The scope of masculinity is very broad—from the effeminate adviser, to the noble blockhead Yao, to the handsome and capable Li Shang. Mulan proves she cannot fit into her prescribed position in society in the meeting with the matchmaker. She is too full of personality... so we see another ideal of femininity as Mulan develops as a soldier. She fits well. She has more than physical stamina, for she is a problem-solver. She has emotional equanimity when the army passes through the razed village. She commemorates the dead, tries to comfort Li Shang, despite her own despair.
All told, she is no typical Disney leading lady. For example, Cinderella's claims to fame include a lovely singing voice, a fondness for animals, and extraordinary forbearance when treated poorly by relatives (not to mention a knack at scrubbing, sweeping, and sewing). Snow White is primarily maternal, exhibiting a keen household sensibility, a fabulous cook, a fondness for woodland creatures, her “fatal” flaw though, is being a tad too trusting when it comes to strange, old women. Sleeping Beauty, er...uh, Briarrose, is it?... a nice singing voice, dancing skills, a fondness for woodland creatures... Jasmine and Belle have a few more traits to recommend themselves: an independent spirit and a deep love of learning, respectively. But Mulan is the new woman: strong, smart, sensitive, beautiful—though her physical beauty is downplayed when she is dressed as a man. But she is not entirely new-fashioned: she follows in the rags-to-riches economic expectation, and she still talks to animals, though their responses are limited to typical animal-talk, excluding Mushu the dragon.
[Spoiler Warning] By the end of the movie, Mulan's fullest self is realized. She saves the emperor himself from the leader of the Huns, even dressed as a woman! She leads the other men with her strategy (now all dressed as women, to the “I'll Make a Man Out of You” reprise). She the personally beats (Attila?) the Hun with her wits.
Though set in China, perhaps the story is Western, with Western ideals, and Western heroes. As a product of Western society, I love it!

Fiddler on the Roof

Don't ask me when I get time to watch whole movies. But this one deserves to be a priority. Here are the things I like about Tevye.

I love the way Tevye speaks with God right out loud, in conversation.

Upon hearing of their eviction, one man says they should fight back, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" And Tevye, though he is a man of the Good Book responds with, "very good, then the whole world will be blind and toothless."

As the town reconciles itself to leaving Anatevka, a townsman says that the Jews have been uprooted many times in history. Tevye says, "perhaps that's why we always wear our hats!"

At the very final moment, the enigmatic fiddler follows Tevye and his wife and their two remaining daughters. Tevye stops, puzzled to find the fiddler still there amidst their muddy grief. Surely they carry all the heaviness, regret, and insecurity of any displaced people. The fiddler looks back, as if to ask permission to follow after them. And Tevye nods. He has not done with life yet. He will not give up. The fiddler may follow.

At the outset, Tevye tells us that their fragile lives are balanced on tradition just like the fiddler is balanced on the rooftop. But Tevye shows throughout the movie that his life is not just balanced on tradition. His life is also balanced with humor, love, patience, kindness, an appreciation for life (l'chaim!), and faith in God.