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.

Winter Park is Wild!

I am spending a week at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, to attend a seminar on the writer Zora Neale Hurston, who hailed from nearby Eatonville, and briefly lectured at Rollins.

So far, it has been extremely hot and humid, so I think this will be good preparation for India. Today, to escape the heat, we (my colleague Beth and I) saw the movie Kung Fu Panda, which I loved.

Yesterday, we were introduced to the wild side of Winter Park when, on our way to dinner, we caught a couple in a stairwell engaged in some un-appetizing activities. Actually, all we saw was a guy's exposed bum. We made the logical assumptions as to what we had come across. Gross! By the way, this was a few yards away from a Williams-Sonoma and Restoration Hardware. Shocking!

Who knows what else is in store for us...

McVhat??

Spotted on an AC Transit bus in San Leandro.
Translation (courtesy of my mom): "Taste the new sweetness of summer......McDonalds". Does not make a whole lot of sense but that is what it says.....Garmiyon ki nayi mithas chakhiye."

And the verdict is...

(Photo Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/The Kobal Coll)

I liked it! I am shocked to admit that the movie was, in my opinion, a step up from the horrendousness that was seasons 5 and 6 of the show. I laughed, I cried, it was better than 'Cats.'

I went to the theater in full Charlotte glory, and, somehow, Charlotte's character ended up being the most entertaining and great in the movie ("I curse the day you were born!").

I did not really care for the "okay, now that you've humiliated and battered me emotionally for years, we'll get mariied your way" ending, but I guess that leaves the future open for possibilities (but hopefully not sequels). And Jennifer Hudson was great, though I'd gone in expecting to be annoyed by her character's existence.

Why didn't Stanford have any lines (other than, "That's what I'm wearing at my wedding, only bigger.")?

The clothes were amazing. Cynthia Nixon was amazing.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Another Useful/less website

http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/tinkubell

Why do I continue to sign up for these things?? Information overload!

Can't get it out of my head

I can't get this song or video out of my head.



What's disturbing is that I no longer find it disturbing.