ittttss a smaaaall whirled, after alll....
Emeralds - Damaged Kids
In Disney, sound is everywhere... utterly controlled... ideologically sound and yet ripe for cherry picking... wishes merge with dreams... the attention to sound detail is exact; you'd think the songs would merge more than they do, you have to make a real (accidental) effort to stand in the right place for the harmonies to drift together... and then everything does start to sound like Vodka Soap or the messier bits of Emeralds or the cleaner bits of The Skaters, even Kylie Minoise...
And then there's Pocahaunted, of course; Disney's tangles slowed right down... their feminine fuzz is the sound of places here, you just need to know which way the wind is blowing...
Pocahaunted - Hideous
Pocahaunted - Demon
it's a world of laughter, a world or tears
its a world of hopes, its a world of fear
theres so much that we share
that its time we're aware
its a small world after all
And Disney is scary; there's masses of people here of course but look closely and you'll see that there's not masses of children...
Where have they all gone? How have they grown up so fast?
So, instead of childlike wonder and simplicity you get something akin to Children Of Men; imagine this place with the fugue of War, Disney as Crass Collage or else everything turning into brightly-hued rubble and sand-art; Europe After The Rain...
The place is full of Notre Dame gargoyles; turning this bright star into a Current 93 album cover; you can't quite see them but you know they're there... The Daemons... Jon Pertwee's Dandy Doctor would fit right in here, would slip seemlessly alongside the Mary Poppins guy, the nu ravers pumping out Mickey's Magical Party Time...
I've seen Bessie.
God knows why people would come here without children but they do; groups of teenagers (emogoth kids with Disney ears - brilliant), groups of adults, couples... yeah, for sure some are with groups of kids, students, whatever; some are just kicking their heels, some are pretending towards irony (though I wonder how many can sustain it to the end of the day?) but many many others are here because they want to be, because they understand that it is for them...
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small, small world
This is a brilliantly conceived adult environment, pretending to be for children...
We spent a lot of time secretly cursing the adults in the queue, turning into Parent Fascists ("...they shouldn't let them in without a child. Ban the fuckers..."), watching as people old enough to drive pretended to drive in tiny sports cars or space ships...
The space stuff is Jules Verned steam-punk space not the cleanlines of its American Cousin. The space of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, of Tesla coils, of Howl's Moving Castle...
There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone.
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small small world
Take the adults without children out the place and the queues would just disappear... $$$$$$$$$lide... Disney would die... Walt's head would unfreeze, tumble out and frighten the children into playing football...*
It's a small world....
*cf. the loss of Sanity Points in Call Of Cthulhu when witnessing a gigantic severed head falling from the sky...
In Disney, sound is everywhere... utterly controlled... ideologically sound and yet ripe for cherry picking... wishes merge with dreams... the attention to sound detail is exact; you'd think the songs would merge more than they do, you have to make a real (accidental) effort to stand in the right place for the harmonies to drift together... and then everything does start to sound like Vodka Soap or the messier bits of Emeralds or the cleaner bits of The Skaters, even Kylie Minoise...
And then there's Pocahaunted, of course; Disney's tangles slowed right down... their feminine fuzz is the sound of places here, you just need to know which way the wind is blowing...
Pocahaunted - Demon
it's a world of laughter, a world or tears
its a world of hopes, its a world of fear
theres so much that we share
that its time we're aware
its a small world after all
And Disney is scary; there's masses of people here of course but look closely and you'll see that there's not masses of children...
Where have they all gone? How have they grown up so fast?
So, instead of childlike wonder and simplicity you get something akin to Children Of Men; imagine this place with the fugue of War, Disney as Crass Collage or else everything turning into brightly-hued rubble and sand-art; Europe After The Rain...
The place is full of Notre Dame gargoyles; turning this bright star into a Current 93 album cover; you can't quite see them but you know they're there... The Daemons... Jon Pertwee's Dandy Doctor would fit right in here, would slip seemlessly alongside the Mary Poppins guy, the nu ravers pumping out Mickey's Magical Party Time...
I've seen Bessie.
God knows why people would come here without children but they do; groups of teenagers (emogoth kids with Disney ears - brilliant), groups of adults, couples... yeah, for sure some are with groups of kids, students, whatever; some are just kicking their heels, some are pretending towards irony (though I wonder how many can sustain it to the end of the day?) but many many others are here because they want to be, because they understand that it is for them...
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small, small world
This is a brilliantly conceived adult environment, pretending to be for children...
We spent a lot of time secretly cursing the adults in the queue, turning into Parent Fascists ("...they shouldn't let them in without a child. Ban the fuckers..."), watching as people old enough to drive pretended to drive in tiny sports cars or space ships...
The space stuff is Jules Verned steam-punk space not the cleanlines of its American Cousin. The space of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, of Tesla coils, of Howl's Moving Castle...
There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone.
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small small world
Take the adults without children out the place and the queues would just disappear... $$$$$$$$$lide... Disney would die... Walt's head would unfreeze, tumble out and frighten the children into playing football...*
It's a small world....
*cf. the loss of Sanity Points in Call Of Cthulhu when witnessing a gigantic severed head falling from the sky...
2 comments:
i had similar thoughts at Eurodisney last year. was also amazed by the volume of full-on burkha-wearing Muslim families at the resort. Disney seems to appeal to them. Whilst i appreciate that even devout Muslims need a holiday too, i wonder what the attraction of this vulgar symbol of Western modern-mythology could be..?
absolutely... i felt bad because, with all the mayhem and oddly dressed critters wandering around you often had to double-take / double-think to make sure a burkha wasn't a character from Aladdin or something... and sometimes it was...
did feel odd and a little scary - the sheer power of Disney to absorb...
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