Celebration, Magic Kingdom

Since my last post I've gotten my computer back in working order, decided not to go to Florence, and signed up for a trip to Israel for december break with the Jewish Resource Center, an educational facility here on campus. I also got an ipod w/video and am enjoying it very much. Florence would have cost about 14,000 all said and done, a large part of which would have been my savings. That kind of money just doesn't make sense because about 7,000 goes towards tuition, and I don't care about the classes or credits, just living there and traveling. So there will be better oppurtunities. The JRC lead the Israel trip that Andrew, Ari, and some others went on last spring. Most of it is subsidized, and for $400 we spend 12 days studying in a yeshiva each morning and touring in the afternoons. I'm very excited to get out of the US, let alone go to Israel. My passport, gotten for Florence most likely, came in last week.

Back to Disney World. In celebration we took some time to get lunch. Myself the grad students, Chris and Diana, and the adults on the trip, went to Columbia, a cuban place. Here they made fun of me for getting black bean soup. Cuban sandwiches are kind of out of the question though, for me.

We drove to some kind of office building at the other end of Celebration, I'm not sure exactley what it is called. I believe it is the headquarters of Celebration staff and Imagineers in related divisions. Here Matt Kelly (?), president of Celebration Co, spoke to us about the project. They look at their plan through five aspects, including education, community, and some other ones I cna't remember. New Urbanism, and their implementation of it here, are very interesting. The dictated styles of storefronts could be seen as homogenized, but the streets are still very welcoming. The focus on pedestrianism over cars, and the use of segways and smartcars is great. Apparantly, their schools use a conglomeration of unsual techniques found around the country and are very receptive to trying new teaching methods. Chris asked how much the view themselves as an offshoot of the EPCOT idea and its philosophies, but they do not purport to be that all.

David Stofcik, Imagineer in master planning, then took us through some slides of the WDW property. A suprising amount of land is swampland and cannot be touched, which is great. He also discussed the new road they are building into the property on the West side, said that there are no real plans for a 5th gate, and mentioned that monorails lines will be extended to the other two parks, using EPCOT as the center. When we were filing out, I stayed back and mentioned my interest in Imagineering and what I'm studying/would like to do at Imagineering, and asked if there were contacts in those areas he could give me such that I could tailor my studies a little better. He said he would pass along a list, which is great. I am following up with a letter today ( it took a long time to get his address). I also gave him my resume, cover letter, and a summary portfolio of a couple websites and videos.

And we went to Disney World! Well, the Magic Kingdom that is. We took our time heading up to the castle, saw part of a rather unfortunate show involving all the princesses, and headed to adventureland. Here we would begin the process of giving spiels about the attractions we researched and then riding them together. The first was Nate and Jungle Cruise, followed by Sarah and Pirates of the Carribean. Maybe it was the analytical context we were there with, or maybe it was thinking about how cheesy the others would think something is, or maybe its just a small departure from my childhood ability to get lost in these worlds, but by this point WDW felt like a place and not an entirely different space from the rest of Earth. There was not the constant euphoric sense of just being there, and I could see pirates as just robots in a box. I was certainly enjoying myself, and this would wane over the next couple days, but it just wasnt the level of attachement I would have liked.

Splash mountain was closed, but we managed Haunted Mansion and Small world, which was quite enjoyable I thought. We then had some free time, which Team Turkey Leg used to get some legs. Frontierland cart, tragically, was closed, but we headed to tomorrowland, enjoyed some poultry and went on space mountain. We had just enough time to get to the path back to the hub where we watched the fireworks show, which was pretty good, but didn't have quite the music or culminationn of some other shows.

Chris and I briefly went to Downtown Disney, and checked out the Art of Disney store. Because our room wasn' ready when we arrived, our bags were in a seperate room. The cast member at the front desk was kind enough to come out and open the other room so we could get our stuff! Quality. Will write about Saturday later.

Around the World

There's not much better than waking up at 4:30, to get on an early flight to WDW. The night before I spent finishing up an updated resume, cover letter, and portolio summary of a couple website and videos. I sent a copy of each to a couple design companies that Disney contracts (Kirk Design and Thinkwell) and packed a couple.

We met at 5 at the union, boarded vans, and headed to our NW flight. We had each done a short report on a given attraction or space for Tuesday, and Sarah Happy had been kind enough to assemble them into a book we each got. My topic was monorails. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Dr. D on the flight and hearing a little bit about his encounters with imagineering regarding animal kingdom, and the clash with his Africanist background. Mostly I read the imagineering field guide and finished shaping questions for the imagineer we were meeting later that day.

Disney's Magical Express service bus took us to Port Orleans Riverside resort, with a 30 minute video going over all the parks and major attractions at WDW. At the hotel we met up with Ray Silverman, director of UM museum studies who helped organize the conference last week, and Scott Mallwitz, lead experience designer at Henry Ford and designer of the Disney exhibit. We met him on the first trip to HF.

There was no time to take the planned monorail trip but we put our stuff in our rooms and headed on a bus to Celebration. We had some time to grab lunch, which the adults and a couple of us did at Columbia's cuban place. The art deco Celebration seemed a very successful example of new urbanism. We didn't have time to walk around much, but their was a social aspect apparant that isn't there in suburbs or large cities.

more later.

Behind the Magic Conference

It has been inconvenient to post in the last week, as my laptop has been in the shop because the week prior it was crashing every 5-20 minutes. They sent it back, unfixed, and it's in for the second time. But so much has happened that I should post.

Last Friday the Disney class made its second trip to the Henry Ford. This one for the Behind the Magic conference. By far the most exciting part of the day was seeing Marty Sklar, head creative exec at imagineering, and more importantly the strongest living link to both Walt and Pre-corporate machine Disney, and the write of Walt's words for many a show, including the introduction of the Florida Project. What Marty actually had to say wasn't all that thrilling, however. He made mention of several original imagineers and played a video about the imagineering process. For most, it was nothing we didn't know or couldn't look up. The highlights were the few anecdotes he gave which were mostly in response to questions, such as one regarding the financing of Space Mountain.

We had a few other speakers, who were hard to sit through when Marty could have been talking. I noticed he dosed off a litle during some of them. One speaker gave a history of Walt's life we already knew, and another gave a pretty interesting lecture about the effects that the environment in the park has on visitors. She went through a list of human needs, and explained how D fans and critics see each side of them in the park. Not a great speaker, but I think she made that connection between theory about Disney and the concrete way it affects us that has been missing in much of class.

Karal Ann Marling, whose book is reading for class, was a fantastic speaker. It was a very interesting talk on the relevance of D today and some of WD's philosophy in the parks.

We did have some, but not a lot, of time to go back through the exhibit before Tom Fitzgerald spoke. He gave a polished CEO type recounting of Imagineering recent projects and some of the directions they are going in the future. For example, more interactive elements, ie space or buzz lightyear, and randomness, such as multiple drop schemes for ToT.

The afternoon ended with a Panel of all the speakers answering questions. Questions were passed on notecards, I asked one regarding Epcot that didn't get read. Marty was suprisingly open, making a joke about the French's attitude to their Disneyland and a small stab at Eisner. Unfortunatley, because of poor planning we had to get back on the UM culture bus a little early but it was a fantastic day.

Recently

The most stressful issue of the day, though connected with others, is definetly what to do next semester. I am currently rushing to get a passport and visa worked out for Florence, which in a difficult decision I am leaning to over Budapest. Though I have family and family background in the latter, the program in Florence seems tighter and well run and I can visit budapest. It will cost about 14,000, much of which will come from me. So I need to figure that out. To complicate things I sent in my app to apple after my interview, and I won't hear back until after I nede to decide Florence (the first big payment is due on the 15th). I am also going to send my resume to studios that Imagineering hires for consulting work, and I won't hear back from them soon either.

Stressfully enough, my computer is also crashing every 5-30 minutes and I am retyping this for the second time. It will be sent in to apple soon.

That brings us to Disney class. Today we had class at Dr. D's house. You see, he has a room, the buki buki rooom, decorated (or rather themed) in a tiki manner. As it is our week to discuss adventureland and representing the other, it was an appropriate setting. It is a great entertaining or studying room, with a large collection of books, many disney, a large collection of tiki themed items, and a volcanic rock fountain (well thats outside). He and his wife were great hosts and it made for a fun class. Tonight was no exception, however, to the issue that irks me about the class. It seems that we never quite make the leap to where what we talk about is really useful, at least for me. We talk about the theory, for example that presenting exhibitions of other places at a world's fair eventually makes a comment on the presenters (this isn't really one of the more theoretical discussions but stay with me). We, the presenters, are able to create this space, we are able to present all this and classify it. We are over them. OK, so the reading makes this point, and we can see the connection to Epcot. . so? is there a moral implication (we never outright discuss it, if there is)? How does this affect the guest? Or really, why is that important in the wider picture of WD, the US, or our commodity driven culture? How do we use this ovservation?

More significantly on the subject of the D, this friday we have the conference at the Henry Ford, headlined by Marty Sklar! Carel ann Marling is also speaking. It should be some day. And a week later we are leaving for our weekend at WDW! That friday Dr D announced today, we will be meeting with an Imagineer, not sure who, and the President of celebration in celebration. And then the evening is in the MK, and I believe saturday is in animal kingdom. Dr. D also gave us the book, Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom as gifts today, which was extremely generous of him and I am excited to read it. I know that there are some big oppurtunities ahead of me, and I am nervous that I won't be ready to soak it all in, or really that I don't know enough to appreciate it all or I"m not in a state to appreciate it all, or I won't be ready with intelligent enough questions to position myself for any kind of consideration for employment down the road.

Right so... yesterday I acheived the first of several semester goals. I beat my previous best mile time 7:01 (from junior year, i think) and beat my goal of a 7 with 6:42. I am 99% sure that I ran 8 laps. Sometimes I forget, but i was running about 50 second laps until I sped up on the last, so it makes sense.

I went to a meeting tonight at the JRC about a trip they are running in december to Israel to study at a yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusaleum. Andrew did a similar but longer trip before camp last spring. Between what he has said and tonight I am pretty excited about it. I need to interview, and hopefully I get the full scholarship and it's only 399. Jordan and Mike Feldman are also going. It would be a terrific oppurtunity. I wanted to wait for Ben to be eligible for Birthright so we could experience Israel together, but who know where Israel or us will be in a couple years. And Andrew pointed out that they are really single age trips, so I would be with predominatley people Ben's age.

He turns 17 on Sunday, so I will be making the trek home to celebrate that this weekend. Looking forward to that. In the meantime I have a lot of work and deciding to do.

Post Birthday

Saturday evening I got a ride with Andrew back to WB. Probably the best part of my birthday was the hour or so I was able to spend with Ben talking and hearing about his time at medical mentorship. Andrew drove me back in the morning, but I forgot my keys and was locked out of my room for the day. It worked out though, because I spent most of the day out with Mitzvah Madness. It was a little chaotic and disorganized, and not very many people showed up. We ended up canceling on the Arb, and pushing back our ETA at a the nursing home. With a group of 6 we went to a hospice first, where we fiixed up a garden, and then to a nursing home, where we played bingo with some residents. It was salvagable, but not a great event.

The whole family came up (with keys) to take me to pizza house, with Andrew and Zeman and Ari, who came up from dinner there with his parents. We finally managed to give Andrew back Hor Deourve, the goldfish he gave me for my birthday last year.

No deep thoughts on the new decade right now. Later doesn't look good either.

The good news yesterday was an A on my french film midterm and the demo of the Ugli study group finder (for eecs 498) went over pretty well. Currently, I'm in leonardo's on north campus writing a post as I wait for Carrie, who is currently standing me up, to come to lunch!