I am sometimes wrong.
It hurts to even hit these keys.
I don't think I did think EPCOT was experimental though, even that first day. But it's hard to go back to a time when I hadn't seen it before. What was the experiment? Let's see if somebody can make a big splash in Central Florida for people to come see from around the world... again? That wasn't too much of a challenge for the Master.
Looking back; it looks like they just added water and stirred.
But I really love the whole thing. I went there yesterday and the day before, and a couple times last week. And I plan to be there on the 4th. See you there.
By the way, what did I get from Morocco yesterday? Water, of course.
Shaken, not stirred.
I guess maybe they were experimenting on some things; like how to make people want to go somewhere else close to Magic Kingdom. And it totally worked. I loved the fact that the monorail now went to both places.
The real fake train, with two rails the exact maybe width apart of Roman chariot wheels, goes around the Happiest Place on Earth. But that was for babies. The monorail- up there in the sky- well, the monorail goes around in a bigger circle and now it even goes somewhere new.
Let's take it. Let's manténgase alejado de las puertas and get going!
Arriba, Arriba! Andale, Andale!
On the monorail, the sky is bluer and the grass below is greener: Hey, look at that! I can ride a train from the future to the past or to space; to a castle or a jungle or the wild West. It's all awesome here. Everything is awesome. I'd love to just be there and walk around Walk Disney World and step inside Fantasy Island and see what I can see in this experimental prototype community of tomorrow; which I knew from the start, it wasn't. But I didn't care.
Go ahead, Master of Illusion. Tell me it's one thing. I know it's not that thing. But even though I know what it's not, let me see for myself what it is. Let me experiment my prototype of tomorrow.
I loved it instantly.
Watch me where I arrived. I passed a fountain and stepped underneath the supports for the Geosphere; which I did not like being called a golf ball. I knew about geodesic domes; a little. I knew right away it was more awesome than walking around chasing a little white ball trying to smack it into a hole. And I saw the connections in architecture between the countless triangle tiles that are grouped into threes, making pyramid looking shapes that then comprise the big sphere; and the glass buildings around, clear with potential like those at the Louvre and outlined like lead that holds roses in Chartres or on an island in the Seine. And this giant sphere, new and shiny, had history inside of it too. If you mention the Egyptians, you've got me.
The wind whips around and underneath the Geosphere and I know that I'm there. I can go in, into history if I want to, or I can step around it. You can always catch it on the way back. If you want to avoid it, you have a choice to make. You have to go left or you have to go right. Behind it there's a big fountain. Maybe the biggest. And it holds all the water that hits the sphere. And more. They added water. Never will rain hit the sphere and bounce onto you. It's collected there, stored and pushed up into the sky in time with the music, just like cast member shoes are compressed into matting for waterplay areas and other old things are repurposed from princess to Fairy Godmother.
You think those kids in It's A Small World look familiar? Where's Timmy? Did he actually make it back to the parking lot last time?
Do you think that Space Mountain dog still hears His Master's Voice? Tilt your head and look.
I don't remember the music in Logan's Run. But the music in the front part of Epcot takes me to that future world that I thought would be there when the century changed looking forward from 1980something. The 21st century seemed so far away then. But I could see it there and step into it that day. I didn't really think about living there, but I wanted to visit. I didn't think then about looking back from the 21st century today to that day and seeing the same Future World last night that was there then. The water spouting into the sky got me. The sound of it plopping back to earth drew me in. It was timed to the music. And it echoes in that open space. Made ya look. Over to the right, the water in a pond was serenely calm, rippling just slightly and glinting in the sun over river stones that I could see barely distorted, a few feet below the surface; rounded and placid. Complete. And then there was Jessica.
The front part of EPCOT was a real life Logan's Run, without any of that icky stuff.
What a great name. I've had several run-ins with Jessicas since. One of them was even at Epcot. But even that more recent experience didn't ruin the place for me, or Jessicas. I clearly like Epcot more than I like any Jessica I've known yet; but I haven't given up on the possibilities. I didn't find a Jessica there that first time, but I felt that I had walked right into where she might live.
When I saw Logan's Run, I didn't even notice Farrah Fawcett, which brings me to a very long aside. That's how much I loved Jessica then. I didn't notice Farrah Fawcett until Charlie's Angels. Now I notice Farrah. And it wasn't until just now that I realized why she's so famous. I once heard her say that her poster- which did change the world at the time- was as squeaky clean as a toothpaste commercial.
She changed later, and the world changed too. Farrah became a star, and then an actress and then a joke and then a better actress and then she disappeared, re-emerging even better, and then she became a hero who disappeared again; even from the In Memorium section at the Academy Awards. But it all started with that poster. Farrah understood, looking back. I wonder what she knew at the time. She was useful to clean up the image of sex. She was known instantly for sex- but look at that poster again. The faucet was opened and the world was turned on. But why? What was even new? You don't change the world unless something comes along that is new. Suddenly hair could be sexy. That wasn't entirely new. But everybody wanted the feather.
That was new. It applied to everybody. And now, I don't even see feathers in her hair in that photo. It wasn't the particular poster, of course. It was how we saw it. Maybe the feather wasn't there until later, but the faucet was on. Everybody ended up designing their hairstyle around the feather. Either they wanted little ones or big ones or they didn't want one. But suddenly that was the question. Suddenly too, teeth could be sexy. Come on people. We're talking about teeth. We're talking about some things everybody's got. Sure, she's a lovely lady- but she wasn't made famous for what women have. She's famous for making sexy seem a possibility for everybody in the whole world.
There is a video taken of passersby seeing a huge image of Marilyn unveiled that was looming above a theater like a 50 foot giantess, looking down upon a showing of The Seven Year Itch. One woman can be seen today on video, asking the world that was, what Marilyn Monroe has that a million other women don't have or don't prefer to show. Well, that's a great question. We've had a few decades to think about it.
Showing what you've got or not quite showing what you've got or pretending like you're accidentally showing it, or starting to show it but not showing it completely isn't new. Careers rise due to this today as they have for millenia. It's not rare, either. But riding high into the sky for showing what everybody's got, or at least had, or could? That was something Farrah did that Marilyn didn't.
Farrah was new. She was so right about that squeaky cleanliness. Clean was sexy. That wasn't new. Nobody was whiter than Marilyn in that white dress. She was so pure that she had to be blonde everywhere because she was even showing her white underwear, and any color might seem like darkness next to the bedsheet white color. But she was famous for showing things only women have. Farrah is clearly a woman. But in that famous photo, she's riding on things everybody can have. Anybody can be clean, and young, and happy, and have a head of hair. She wasn't the girl next door. She was better. She was the person next door. And her name- with the double F alliteration, with an uncommon spelling of a common outdoor yard watering item one was allowed to drink from with no fear of germs- (oral cancer's skyrocketing rise wasn't imagined yet due to the fact that no one talked about sexual contact truthfully and AIDS wasn't even invented yet) and a great unfamiliar exotically sounding but normal first name- cemented it for us. Add water and stir and there she was, hardening into an image at the foot of Grauman's Chinese.
The faucet opened. And the swimsuit wasn't even wet.
Anybody young has hair. And anybody at any age can get some. Anybody over the age of two already has teeth. And anybody; absolutely anybody, could bleach both.
; 
Back to EPCOT:
It isn't prototypical now. It may once have been. It was never a community- and I knew that from day one. But it is about tomorrow. It's about how tomorrow is not mystical at all, but simply the day that comes around just after today. It's Todayland. Well, let's say it's the land of the day after today. One sunset into the future. Just a peek.
Yesterday and the day before I went to see a wonderful singer at Epcot. The crowd was hefty and they guzzled their way around the world. We've gotten bigger since EPCOT opened. I think we've even gotten bigger since EPCOT became Epcot; not too long ago.
If you want to go to Disney World, you really need to practice walking. Walk every day. Walk with your family. Walk carrying the baby or pushing the stroller and do this until you can walk ten miles. Then, and only then are you ready to go to Disney World. Do this often and you'll not be so so big, and you'll be happier and if you go to Disney World you'll actually be ready for it. Maybe you'll even love it like I do.
When I saw the pyramids for the first time, I loved it. Inside was an imaginative ride. You stepped on lights and the carpet sang. At first I just noticed that we were being herded along and it's human nature to step on the lights just because they're there making patterns on the floor. And then I realized. This is magic. We're making the sounds. When I step on this yellow light, this sound plays. When I step on a blue one, the drums start. Hmmm- we're the magic.
I saw a waterfall that flowed upward. I saw bouncing bits of water that flew above us from one futuristic hedge display to another. I saw a movie that jumped out at me with images of things from this world that were beautiful and saw reflections of a clean, metal and glass future one. I took a boat ride into a glass greenhouse. I saw bubbles mark my descent on the way to the ocean floor, saw lots of fish there, and surprisingly didn't need to see the bubbles on the way back up to the surface.
Ride's over.
Let's face it. I felt like I was on Space Academy.
And that was only half of it. In the back, I hadn't even reached the other entrance reminiscent of the English Channel that lies between France and the UK. I hadn't yet circled the World Showcase lagoon into which each represented nation had ceremoniously poured out water from their homeland to mingle together with Disney's Florida drainage system.
You want to walk at Walk Disney World, too? Come see Epcot.
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