The magic kingdom

Today we spent the day at Disneyland with our two children and my parents-in-law. We had gotten discounted tickets from a local community group we are associated with. Otherwise, the $59 one-day cost the park charges would be too prohibitive. We managed to spend under $110 total, including parking (the children are under 3, and thus free of charge).

Believe it or not, but my parents-in-law have never been to Disneyland. My wife's explanation is that they don't like to do conventional things for fun, like traveling in the state or visiting amusement parks. The chance to spend the day with their grandchildren was what convinced them to go, though I had some doubt whether they would think it worthwhile.

The park was really crowded. We planned to get to the gates before the 9 AM opening, but cars were backed up trying to get into the parking garage, and there were long queues to get through security and then through the front gates (I really miss the pre-California Adventure parking lot right next to Disneyland).

When we got to Fantasyland and saw the long line for the Peter Pan ride, I knew my plan, to get through some popular rides before the crowds arrived, wasn't going to work.

But despite the crowds (damn you, Disney marketing department and the 50th anniversary campaign), we managed to have a fairly enjoyable day. My parents-in-law seemed to have a good time, both in spending the day with their grandkids and enjoying some rides and shows on their own terms.

Here are some photos I found interesting:

A detail from the Dumbo ride















A couple of close-ups of a model of Disneyland on opening day, 1955. It is housed in a 50th anniversary exhibit, displacing the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln show in Main Street.













The original Fantasyland














And the original Tomorrowland, the area of the park which has undergone the most change

I can't resist the chance to complain about the now twice-annual price increases at Disneyland. Here is a link to an Orange County Register story about the latest price increase, the fourth since March 2004. Among the items in the 50th anniversary exhibit were old A-B-C-D-E ticket books and more recent "passports" from someone's private collection. I noted that a one-day ticket from 1991 cost about $25, half of what the tickets cost two years ago. I am pretty sure that when I was in junior and senior high school in the 1980s, the cost of a one-day ticket was in the $12-16 range. Unfortunately, it's simple economics that a company will charge what the market will bear.

In praise of Chris Ware

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in downtown Los Angeles to see its exhibit, Masters of American Comics. The exhibit is co-sponsored by MOCA and the Hammer Museum in Westwood. The first half of the exhibit, chronologically, is at the Hammer, and the second is at MOCA.

I spent some time looking at the original artwork of Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman's Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers, but the real attraction for me was the work of Chris Ware.

Since last fall, the New York Times Sunday magazine has been serializing his Building Stories, which follows the inhabitants of an apartment building over a twenty-four hour period. I read about his other works on the internet before visiting, and afterwards I had a chance to buy a copy of his most famous work, Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth, at the museum bookstore.















Jimmy Corrigan is a thirty-something Chicago office worker, afraid of social interaction yet deeply craving it. He often retreats to the world of his imagination, where he sometimes interacts with a Superman-type figure. One day he receives correspondence from his father, who long ago abandoned him and his mother. The father's attempts to reconcile with his son have tragic results. In a parallel story, Jimmy's grandfather, lives under the authoritarian rule of his widowed father, who is working on the construction of Chicago's World's Fair.

Before I got married, I was part of a friend's book club for a year or two. We read things like Memoirs of A Geisha, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Even though Jimmy Corrigan is a "graphic novel" (or even "comic book"), it shares some of the complexities of these novels, and affected my outlook on life in a way that truly great literature can.

Washington, Lincoln, and Nixon

Quick: name the holiday we are celebrating today in the United States, February 20th.

If you said "Presidents' Day," you are wrong, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. Since 1971, the third Monday in February has been observed as a federal holiday to observe George Washington's birthday.

From Wikipedia:

"A draft of that bill called for a Presidents' Day to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but the final version only moved Washington's Birthday from the 22nd to the third Monday without changing its name.

"As of 2006, the federal government and many state and local governments still officially designate the holiday as 'Washington's Birthday.' Yet most private employers and calendar makers refer to it as 'Presidents' Day.' "

And from snopes.com:

President Nixon is frequently identified as the party responsible for changing Washington's Birthday into President's Day and fostering the notion that it is a day for commemorating all U.S. Presidents, a feat he supposedly achieved by issuing a proclamation on 21 February 1971 which declared the third Monday in February to be a "holiday set aside to honor all presidents, even myself." Evidence of this proclamation remains elusive, however. Presidential records indicate that Nixon merely issued an Executive Order (11582) on 11 February 1971 defining the third Monday of February as a holiday, and the announcement of that Executive Order identified the day as "Washington's Birthday."

The misunderstanding resulted in this recent correction in the Los Angeles Times:

Federal holiday — An article in Section A on Jan. 16 about efforts to keep the Martin Luther King Day holiday from becoming commercialized said it was the only holiday named for an individual, that "even George Washington has to share Presidents Day." Although Presidents Day has become the popular reference to a day that combines Washington's and Lincoln's birthday commemorations, legally the federal holiday is called George Washington's Birthday. Columbus Day is also a federal holiday.

Happy Washington's/Lincoln's Birthday to all!

Gung hay fat choy

We went to the annual Chinese New Year Parade in Los Angeles' Chinatown this afternoon. Some photos from our vantage point near the starting point of the parade:
















One of the multiple groups in the parade featuring Chinese lion dancers. The drum section is just out of sight, but well within hearing range.

















The two parades I have attended in the city of Los Angeles (the other being the St. Patrick's Day parade) have featured vehicles from the city Fire Department. The children on this fire truck, like many others riding in the parade, wore traditional Chinese outfits.

















A different group's lion dancer performs for the boy sitting next to us. My wife had earlier "fed" this lion a few dollars. Apparently it will bring you good luck in the new year to offer money to the lion. The young woman inside the lion made an elaborate show of "eating" the money and then paid a lot of attention to our daughter. Apparently it was too much for a two year-old, and someone in the group had to come call off the lion. I suppose one's vision is a bit restricted inside the costume.
















The front section of the same group's dragon dance. The young woman in front is leading the dragon by spinning a red orb on the pole.
















And the back end of the same dragon.