LATEST TRIP TO DISNEYLAND (PART II)

This post is for architecture fans. Disneyland is an architect's dream, even when it's a bit overwrought or hokey. Here's a few examples. See what you think.

Even on a gloomy, overcast day like this the landscaping looked terrific. I could easily have photographed nothing but that all day. The tallest shrubs (trees?) here are only about as tall as a person.

Even industrial sites look good in this park.

And why shouldn't industry look good? It has a noble purpose, which is to make useful or beautiful things in quantities which will allow them to sell for low prices.

Every time I go to Disneyland I come back with a resolve to make my backyard look like Disney's cannibal village. I actually tried it once and was surprised to see that my kids were indifferent to it.

Nice shield!

Above, that crossbar and faux giraffe skin add a lot to that pole.

Nice bamboo stakes! I'll have to remember this when I decorate my porch next Halloween.

Here's (above) a low roof supported by columns in Fantasyland. Walless sections of buildings like this aren't very useful for keeping cold air out, but they're psychologically sheltering, and make for great indoor/outdoor transitions. For some reason this sort of thing never caught on in America except on railroad platforms.

Remember the stage set for Disneyland's Animation Academy that I posted about last time? Here's a few blurry pictures (sorry about that) to show details of that set. Check out that framed picture on the wall showing what I assume is a winning hand in a card game. It never occurred to me to frame things like that. It looks good.

Here's (upper left) a bulletin board framed in thick, quality wood that matches the wood in the shelf stack beneath it. It's a nice look.

In a different location now, here's a shelf top (above) in a voodoo shop in New Orleans Square.

In the same shop: a shelf of colored glass bottles. Nice, huh?

Above, the Haunted Mansion decked out Tim Burton-style for both Halloween and Christmas. Click to enlarge.

Yikes! I have more pictures but no more space. Oh, well.....

MY LATEST TRIP TO DISNEYLAND

Here I am again, this time on a cloudy day.

I was so happy that on the park trolley I broke into the J. G. Wentworth song. I was surprised to find that others on the trolley joined in. Apparently lots of people know the lyrics: "I have a structured settlement and I need cash now."

"Call J. G. Wentworth! 877 CASH NOW!!!"

"They've helped thousands, they'll help you too-oo!"

"One lump sum of cash they will pay to you."

"Call J. G. Wentworth, 877 CASH NOW!"

'It's your money! Use it when you need it!"

After that we blitzed the area around the trolley stop.

Holy Mackerel! My head is about twice the volume of the park attendant's.

We ended up in The Animation Academy where an animator teaches the audience how to draw Mickey.

I didn't get to draw because I was too busy taking pictures of the set.

Wow! I'd give a lot to have wooden shelves like the ones on the stage.

Check out the rug on the floor.

From a distance the pattern looks like a faded, old-time Sunday comics page like the one above. When you see it up close though, it's just an abstraction. Even so, the idea is an interesting one. I've heard you can get custom patterns printed on throw rugs and the price isn't steep.

Yikes! I've reached the end already! Maybe I'll continue this on another post.

NEW YORK CRIME

These are all pictures from a recent book of old New York Post photos called "New York Noir."

The Post's staff artists frequently drew recreations of crimes using the real backgrounds.  Here a man temporarily blinds his victim by throwing pepper at her.

Here (above) a woman has been shot by an unknown sniper.

This man (above) has been recaptured after a jailbreak.

This guy's wife caught him cheating so she gathered up the kids and threatened to leave him. That never came to pass because he shot her. One impulsive act changed his life forever.

Above, a policeman looks on as two tough kids (above) take a cigarette break. Two soon to be wasted lives.

In this picture a whole family has been wiped out. But why? No one knows.

Above, two cop killers after interrogation.

I'm supposing this man was a well-known criminal of the time. Here (above) a Physiognomist offers her opinion about why the man went wrong.

This dapper gent (above) is, believe it or not, the District Attorney. He dresses the way crooks in the movies dress.

Wow! New York used to look like one big noir movie set. I wish it still did.

NEXT POST TUESDAY

THE AMAZING GALAXY S4

Have you seen the latest Galaxy phone, the S4 model? It has something called
"Drama Shot" which allows for a burst of character exposures, all in the same picture. You get pictures like the one of the dog above, or...

...or like the Playtex Living Girdle ads (above) that were in every bus when I was a kid.

Geez, I wish I had an S4! If I had one maybe I could persuade my friends to smash into the ground for a photo like the kid above.

But the Samsung isn't the only technological marvel. Steve Worth introduced me to a new kind of camera called the Ricoh Theta. It's a $400 camera that takes 360 degree pictures without distortion...well, I should say with a minimum of distortion.

The picture taken by the double fish eye camera comes out distorted like the picture above and an easy-to-use computer program straightens it out and makes it presentable...normal looking, even. On your laptop screen you can scroll right and left or up and down and see everything in all directions that surrounded the camera when the picture was taken.

One use for it might be internet who-dunnits with clues in the pictures. The pictures are pixel hogs, though. One of the pictures Steve showed me was a jpeg and it still took up over 6 MB. Isn't Blogger's limit 10 MB? That would mean only one spherical picture per post.



Last but not least (above), a home virtual reality viewer called "Oculus Rift." It looks like Microsoft has already made a deal with the Oculus people to do an Xbox game in that format.

Here a 90 year-old woman experiences virtual reality for the first time. Imagine that...she  was born into the world of The Charleston and Flappers and now she's looking at a virtual world in our time.

DEATH MASKS

With the approach of Halloween I looked up "masks" on Google and inadvertently stumbled on these. They're death masks, probably of well-known people, but I don't recognize them. 

They all look like people I'd like to have known. How sad to see them like this, with their nobility intact but bereft of life.

In a comment Steve Worth says this (above) is Beethoven,

 The faces are so striking. A passage from the Bible comes to mind: "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"

 This man (above) looks like death came on him in his sleep.

 This woman (above) appears to be smiling. Could that be? Would anybody ever smile at the moment of death? In a comment Kelly Toon has this to say about the mask:

The smiling woman has a very interesting history. She was a girl of about 15, whose body was taken from the Siene river. Her face had such a serenity and peace despite her tragic end, that she became a well-known and sought after mask. Many artists used her as reference and inspiration. 

The faces also remind me of the lines from Hamlet: "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?"