Celebration!

I am celebrating the fact that I am back home in California, a great state indeed because there is no humidity suffocating me.

On the 4th of July, however, I spent some quality time in the town of Celebration, Florida, which is a planned community created by Disney. Scary indeed.

I felt like I was on acid the whole time I was there. It was a weird, weird place that felt more like Disneyland than an actual town (to be fair, the fact that it was overrun by outside visitors and tourists like myself for the 4th of July celebration enhanced the Disneyland feel).

Their fireworks display was fabulous, enhanced by songs from "The Lion King," naturally.

I hear many of the houses in Celebration are rotting, due to the fact that they are made from materials like wood, which look "traditional American" but can't withstand the Florida humidity and heat. Celebrate!!

WWZD?

Photo credit

Still here in Florida, learning all that can be learned (I'm joking) about Zora Neale Hurston. Love her madly. Yesterday we visited her hometown of Eatonville, which she immortalized in her books. It's very different today than it was during her time, but it still retains a lot of its small-town Southern charm. As Alice Walker argues in her story "Everyday Use," culture is a living thing that can't be framed and hung on a wall.

Purchased the cute Momiji doll pictured above at the campus art museum, which has a great exhibit on post-1990s Japanese painting.

Meanwhile, this chaos is going on in Mongolia, where JSS is working this summer. Scary. I trust that he knows enough to stay inside and away from the riots. Otherwise I might have to go and retrieve him.