My Wonderful Tour with the UAMC

Yes, I'm back - and yes, I did give myself two days to recover before posting in my blog. Deal with it. Tour is exhausting, y'all - but so much fun. The best way for me to write about everything that happened is to do it in order, using the UAMC Tour Itinerary I got from my handy tour managers.

Day 1: Saturday April 28th
Okay, today was the day I had been waiting for. I woke up super-early (we had to meet at the University at 7:30 am to make sure everything was packed), and forced breakfast into a stomach in which butterflies were doing various variations on the standard waltz. I mean, this was going to be tour - I was going to be away from home for eight days, and that meant eight days away from home, where I could be sick or sad or lonely or miserable or whatever, and I wouldn't be able to run on home and pull the covers up over my head and feel better. I was already having severe second thoughts - my comfortable-rut-brain was having fits about the damage I was doing to my schedule.

Anyway, I had breakfast, double-checked my luggage, packed a lunch, and went down to the basement to program the TV shows I would be missing over the week (Drive, Heroes, The Office, Grey's Anatomy - forgetting this week was the Grey's double-spinoff episode, but more on that later).

Today was also Pyjama Day - the first day of Tour traditionally is - so I arrived at the school in my brand-new pink flamigo pyjamas. There were two Greyhound buses for our trip - a red one and a white one - and people were already busy stacking the risers and handbells and foodstuffs into the red one. Soon, everyone else started a luggage-and-sleeping-bag-train to pack our things into the white bus. I noticed my suitcase was one of the smallest present - and that made me a little nervous, let me tell you.

We were so busy putting our carry-ons into the buses (I ended up in the white one, with my friends and my billet partner, but near the front - I felt a little sad, because in every single bus trip I've ever been on, whether they're for short fieldtrips or day-long tours, the fun stuff always happens in the back), that we almost forgot another Tour tradition that was new to me - the hora. The tour members always perform a hora before we get on the buses to go to our next destination, because otherwise bad things happen. I'd danced the hora before - at a friend's bat mitzvah, but I didn't know the words. Neither did most of the other people actually, and eventually people ended up making up dirty words for it (but more on that later).

Finally, we were on the bus. It was a Greyhound, so nice and spacious and comfortable and with a bathroom - but we were cautioned never to use it except in an emergency, because we didn't know when, if ever, it would be emptied on tour. On the bus we read books, and watched movies (Talledega Nights this day - that was my DVD contribution), and talked - and handed out the Secret Pals to those who were participating. I was lucky enough to get someone whose name and face I recognized, but I jumped the gun by passing on one of their tasks and prizes right away - on the same bus. I thought it would give me away too easily, but it didn't (but, er, more on that later).

We had a brief stop in Whitecourt, which was even windier and dustier than at the University, and since most of us were in our pyjamas it made it quite an, hmm, interesting experience to go into public restaurants and restrooms in our PJs. I followed my friends from the White Bus into an A&W, where I ditched my bagged lunch for some junk food (not the best decision, but it made delicious sense at the time). Then back on the bus.

We arrived at St. Paul's United Church in Grande Prairie around 3pm, but most of us had to stay on the bus because only the Moving Crew and Bell Ringers were allowed off first to set up. I stayed in the bus and read Child of a Rainless Year by Jane Lindskold - which started out really good but got pretty boring really quickly, but I was obsessive enough about reading to insist on reading it to the very end. Finally, we went in and rehearsed - and I was expecting my Secret Pal to show up and do the task I'd asked her to do during warm-up (which was shake her ass - and by that I mean the little donkey-puppet I'd given her), but she didn't. On top of that, it turned out the slow tempo I'd been rehearsing the solo for was an even slower tempo than I was supposed to sing it at (it's slower than the CD, but not as slow as I'd been imagining it was), and so I was even more nervous about how I was going to get the solo right when there wasn't nearly as much time to rehearse it.

After rehearsal we went to dinner - a potluck which was provided by the grateful people who would be listening to us and billeting us tonight. I was a bit annoyed when the head person came out and said they couldn't ensure that there weren't nuts in some things and that they removed themselves from any responsibility - because some of the food had actual, whole, wallnuts in them. Which plain pissed me off because not only was I fatally allergic to nuts, but so was our accompaniest and we were definitely screwed big-time if he ever got sick. I just avoided a lot of the food, so I didn't eat a whole lot, but there were brownies which were labelled "NO NUTS" in really big letters that were pretty good.

After dinner we quickly dressed in our formalwear and lined up to perform. The first half I held my music binder (we were supposed to have every song memorized for every performance after this one), but since I knew most of the words I ditched it after intermission. During intermission I handed out some of the Winter-Mint Lifesavers my mum had given me, and many choir members were really grateful because there wasn't a lot of time to brush our teeth and we'd been eating garlic. We actually made a mistake this day and re-entered the church before the handbells (who play after intermission but before the choir comes in for the second half) had started their last song, a really fun number called "Plink Plank Plonk". But we played it cool, standing in the aisles quietly with our hands at our sides, so I think no one noticed.

Then came the important part - the second half. With the introduction to The Little Mermaid medley, my heart started pounding double-time. I was expecting this, and it usually makes my performances better, but then my knees started shaking, really knocking together. I was terrified - what if I actually fell down when I came down off the risers to sing the solo? I somehow made it down, and really listened to the piano to make sure I got the tempo right, and started singing. The terror didn't stop until I was done. I kept being frightened that my voice would waver or that I would run out of breath because my knees were just shaking so hard, and I know that I can't really sing smoothly when I'm walking or running around too much. But I managed it, and calmed down during the next two songs in the medley, and then we were done and I just felt so happy.

Then came the billets. My billet partner and I were billeted with six other girls, and the woman who would house us and provide us with breakfast and a bagged lunch had to make two trips. She had a really large, big house with lots of rooms - because her kids were all grown and she gave music lessons in the basement for kids. I was still pretty nervous - this was a stranger's house, and I would have to sleep and bathe in a place that I was totally unfamiliar with. I'd also forgotten to bring any kind of alarm clock (the other girls used their cellphones), so I had to borrow one. That first night I called home - I didn't want to have to go through with this, I didn't want to have to deal with strangers, and I didn't get to sleep for a long while because two of the girls (a bell-ringer and a flautist) stayed up late talking.


Day 2: Sunday April 29th
I ended up waking up first, before my alarm, and I went into the first bathroom, locked the door, stripped, and found out I couldn't turn the cold-water tap for the shower. It was stuck. Horrified, I got out, re-dressed in my pyjamas, took my bundle of this day's clothes with me and shuffled into the second shower (that was attached to the lady of house's bedroom) and used that. I dunno - it's always been a squicky experience to use someone else's shower, because there's this ever-present paranoia that someone will walk in on you (even with the locked door) or that they have cameras everywhere or something. It's impossible to be comfortable in your own skin in a stranger's shower.

Breakfast and lunch were interesting - the lady of the house had a milk and gluten allergy, so I made my sandwich with oatbread and mayo. She made a pretty big breakfast though - frozen hashbrowns and eggs and bacon and (oatbread) toast, with sliced pineapple and tea and raspberry juice. We also saw a group of deer sidle up to her backyard fence. We squeezed into her car and arrived at the church to find out that someone by the nickname of "Kato Ace" had graffiti'd his name onto the white bus, which was immediately christianed the "Thug Bus" - meaning it had more street cred and was more "gangsta" than the other, red bus.

This morning, all the Secret Pals came out in earnest - I'd been earlier than all of them, which was something I would have to remember for the next tour. Something I also learned is that the time when most people do their Secret Pal tasks is in the circle right before the hora - it just makes it easier. So my Secret Pal did go and shake her little donkey, and someone else had to perform a scene from a chick flick with handpuppets (he chose the death scene from Titanic), and we also humiliated one of the choir members who had not only forgotten his music binder (which means he has to be punished by the BLF - the Binder Liberation Front) but he'd actually stolen one of the tour manager's binders and lost that. His punishment was to pretend to be a Charmander - because he looked like one with his brilliant red mohawk.

I gave my Secret Pal her first clue - that I have glasses - and then it was back on the bus. We watched Super Troopers on the bus, but the screen was so small and blurry I was missing most of the jokes - and even then, the movie was still funny. Something that happened in Super Troopers caused our bus to be re-christianed Bus Ramrod. We took a break in Pink Mountain - which was a rather desolate part of BC that was comprised, as far as we could tell, by a restaurant on one side of the highway that (conveeeeniently) became "Open" once we showed up, and a convenience store on the other side that sold cold medicine and books next to firecrackers and Cherry Bombs. I bought some more presents for my Secret Pal, some cookies, and then went over to the Restaurant to discover that my Secret Pal had just discovered that the bouncy-ball I gave her not only had an eyeball in it, but lit up when you bounced it. Fantastic.

We all got back in the bus, watched Madagascar (not bad!), and fiddled around until we arrived in Fort Nelson BC. The Moving Crew and Bell Ringers got out to set up in the town's one Secondary School, and at the sound check I got something from my secret pal - a Darth Vader ring and the task to go around asking people in the Vader Voice "ARE YOU MY DADDY?!" I thought it was silly, but I wouldn't get a clue until I did it. Then we all got out to eat a spaghetti dinner provided by the school. I stayed away from the desserts. There, my Secret Pal performed her second task (sing a song of friendship and hug the other tour manager), so I secreted her another clue. I asked a bunch of people "ARE YOU MY DADDY?" and got a few confused looks but all noes - most people realized that if someone's acting strange on tour, it's usually thanks to Secret Pals. Our club's President-Elect, for instance, had to sing "Food! Glorious Food!" everytime someone said the word scrumptious during dinner, but towards the end of the meal he was scowling and muttering "foodglorfood..."

However, I had to keep asking "ARE YOU MY DADDY," still no clue, and it was getting increasingly embarassing to ask it, especially to guys. I guess I'm a bit of a prude, but I saw that there were sexual implications in asking guys if they were "my daddy" and it was really uncomfortable. I ended up asking more and more people, until the Assistant Conductor - who, like me, was realizing I was getting nowhere - asked me to say the question to a whole room of people in the hopes that someone would have a clue for me. No one did - and I was practically in tears. Now, I'm a complainer by nature - and it is something I'm trying to stop - but that's when I started complaining that if you make your Secret Pal cry, you're obviously asking them to do the wrong thing. After asking (I kid you not) about 70 of our 76 members, I finally got a clue - written in Chinese. Someone translated it to mean "Hunter" or "Male Shooter" in Outlands - so I figured they played World of Warcraft, which narrowed the field down only slightly.

Anyway - the concert went fine, but I was still incredibly embarassed, and after that came the billets which made me even more embarassed. Seriously - I may go on a dozen tours and never get used to it. Me and my billet partner got partnered again with the Bell Ringer and Flautist, and were driven to a nice home in Fort Nelson owned by an elderly couple - a woman who was very appreciative of my singing and a man who could have rivaled Father Time with that crazy-long white beard of his. They lined their stairwells with Christmas lights instead of nightlights, because they "were prettier and used less wattage" and for their fiftieth anniversary the husband made a poster with their wedding photo and a big number 50 made out of tobacco cans pasted onto it - but with an earring under each one because the woman was fond of earrings. My billet and I got a bed in a room where two of the four walls were huge windows (and the woman made a surprising joke about how if we didn't want to use the drapes we could give the neighbours a wonderful time), while the other two decided on couches, and these were the types of couches I've always categorized as "Old People Furniture" - you know, the ones with polished wooden frames and golden-tan cushions printed with enormous pink cabbage roses on them, that rest on brown shag carpets so thick it makes it hard to close doors.

I go to sleep pretty early (and we were now officially on BC time - which is an hour later than Alberta time), because I'm all "early to bed, early to rise" - but the bell-ringer and flautist stayed up and played duets on the piano and flute. It was very nice, and eventually I went to sleep, so there wasn't a whole lot wrong with it.

Day 3: Monday April 30th
We woke up, I used the shower (in which the hot and cold taps had been conveniently labelled in marker), then went down to breakfast. Today was dress up like a Yukon Miner Day, but I figured I didn't have the suitcase space so I didn't bother. The lady of the house had pre-made breakfast plates of eggs, bacon, red peppers and fried potatoes - only the egg was raw. She put it in the microwave for two minutes and then everything came out cooked. We were then supposed to make our lunches, when I discovered a giant bowl of pistachios next to all the lunch food. Now, I don't know if my allergy can be triggered by inhaling as well as eating, but I haven't been in much of a mood to test it. I don't know if the woman simply forgot the allergy information she got or just ignored it - but it sent my appetite all to hell.

And she had so much stuff to put in the lunches too. My allergy is also kind of psychological. If I see a big uncovered bowl of fatal nuts in a house, than I just feel constantly tense. I managed to make one sandwich and take one wrapped nut-free chocolate bar, and she kept insisting I take more, but I simply said I didn't eat that much because I didn't want to scream in her face: "I DON'T WANT TO EAT ANYTHING YOU'VE MADE BECAUSE YOU PLACED IT ALL NEXT TO A BOWL OF NUTS THAT WILL KILL ME!"

Anyway, we met up back at the high school, where I gave my Secret Pal another present and task (everytime someone said the word "sun," that day, she had to quote The Princess Bride), and I got another message from my Secret Pal - that my uncomfortable experience the last day had been to build character. My next task was to identify a text he gave me and detail in public what is was about - and I figured out it was Jonathan Swift's treatise on eating babies just after the hora. The note also said to have something sweet to make up for my sour experience, but there was nothing attached to the note except for the text. Anyway - we had the hora, where TWO people had to seduce the President-Elect with "Happy Birthday" a la Marilyn Monroe, and another guy had to dance sexily with an inflated lizard.

After that, we discovered that Bus Ramrod (the white bus) was discovered to be broken down after the driver scrubbed the last of the spray paint off. It could be fixed, but no one was sure when - so that meant that the conductors, bell-ringers, instrumentalists, and Moving Crew were put onto the Bus of Rad (the red bus) to make sure that if Bus Ramrod was late, there would still be a concert. That also meant that I (as the soloist) was moved to the Bus of Rad. It was lots of fun - the bus was extra packed, but we watched The Princess Bride and everyone yelled out about a three-fourths of the script (including the Conductor - who loves the movie)!

The bus made its break this time in Toad River, and while I felt brave enough to eat the chocolate bar (because it was wrapped), I threw my sandwich in the garbage because I just didn't want to take chances. If I went into shock, that would be it for tour - even if they took me to a hospital, I probably wouldn't have been able to sing for a while. I then lined up for the bathroom (the lines are always long) but the place as interesting because the entire ceiling was completely lined with ballcaps from truckers and people all over the world. Some guys had even signed theirs. It was cool.

We alternated bathrooms (because there was only one toilet in each) so I got the men's one when it was my turn and I was surprised that the graffiti etched into the wood of the sink was comprised mainly of political commentary regarding the martyr status of suicide bombers (with one penciled comment: "lern how 2 spel!") I bought chicken fingers and fries at the diner, and got into a spirited discussion about good fantasy novels with the Assistant Conductor. I then had my picture taken at the Toad River sign and then everyone got back on the bus, where we learned that Bus Ramrod had been fixed and was now three hours behind us on the road.

We watched Little Miss Sunshine, while the busdriver pointed out the wonderful number of caribou on the road (because it had been salted), and we even got to see a herd of bison! We arrived in Watson Lake, Yukon Territories, where we had a bare-bones rehearsal (because half the choir was still catching up in Bus Ramrod), and we had another spaghetti dinner. By this time, my cold was starting to take a turn for the worse, I was blowing my nose all the time, and my throat was starting to hurt, so the Conductor gave me some Halls, and during our free time we went out and saw the famous Signpost Forest - where people from as far as Germany send in road signs, city signs, place signs, and personal family signs - and they're all nailed up onto hundreds of wooden posts. We saw a sign for the city of Cool, Gays Mills, Dycksville, and Saturn - I found signs of places that corresponded to both my first and last names - and before we left the next day we nailed up a UAMC sign for them to remember us by.

By the time we got back, the others had caught up (the wonderful bus driver had sped like hell to get here), and we had a great concert - although during intermission, one of the Social Conveners took me aside and asked if I wanted to call the whole Secret Pal thing off. I'd been very vocal about how uncomfortable the first task had been, the Secret Pal had heard about it, and did I want to continue with it? I said yes I did - I'd calmed down somewhat, because I knew the person hadn't mean to humiliate me on purpose and I realized most of the embarassment came from the fact that I'd had to ask the silly question about 70 times before finding the clue and that was just bad luck. We finished the concert, I aced the solo, and we went back to the rec centre for a group sleep, where everyone sleeps on the gym floor in their sleeping bags. This we did - once again, I felt the pang of being an early sleeper in a group of late-night partiers, and I ended up sleeping near someone who snored like a herd of elephants so I ended up staying up late, too.

Day 4: Tuesday May 1st
I woke up today with my throat on fire and a serious cold, and it was then that I found out I was missing a crucial item - it wasn't on the Tour list, but it was needed just the same - a towel. I had no towel, and I couldn't very well borrow anyone else's. I hadn't even packed enough clothing to use a spare shirt - because with the way my luck was going I would probably have to wear it again. So instead of heading for the Rec Centre's showers, I tiptoed into the Ladies bathroom, lathered up in the sink, and dried my hair and armpits (rather ineffectively) with paper towels. I came out feeling all plugged-up and awful (and also knowing that I wasn't going home for another four days). I gave my Secret Pal another present and a task, then had a breakfast of hot coffee, cereal, and toast provided by volunteers, and then made my lunch from some food that was also provided. I then sucked on a bunch of throat lozenges because we weren't done with Watson Lake yet - we had a school concert.

Instead of formal wear, we wear our UAMC t-shirts and blue jeans. We also had a bunch of pranks to pull on the Conductors - another Tour tradition for school concerts. When singing the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" we sang "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Assistant Conductor [I'm not saying his name] together again" - which made the AC grin, and then during The Little Mermaid the dudes sang "Guess Head Conductor will be on the plate." Then, at the end, we're all supposed to put on our sunglasses and run out in order - I screwed up the order and ran before I should have, but the others said it was no problem. Then we had the hora, and my Secret Pal completed her task of dancing like a hummingbird.

We got on the bus again, and stopped in Teslin, where my Secret pal gave me candy and a Yukon keychain - he hadn't been able to give me the candy before because of the bus fiasco. Also, another clue: He had a BA and flew British Air a lot. I immediately felt better! We checked out their animal museum, and after an hour got back on the bus where we watched The Dark Crystal - again, the sound and picture weren't very good so all I got out of that movie was that it was about a bunch of puppets who scream at each other and shoot blinding lights. Finally, after a long drive, we arrived in Whitehorse, Yukon.

We had a great potluck dinner - because some (wonderfully!) lazy people brought pizza and take-out ribs as well as all the other stuff, and more Secret Pal shenanigans were performed during supper. We then went and performed, and I was embarassed, because no matter the cold meds I took or the amounts of kleenex I drenched (I'd had the foresight to bring a lot and they were all needed), my nose my running like a faucet and I spent the short periods of applauce snorking and snuffing so that I didn't dribble all over my choir dress. My solo still went well. During intermission, I found out from friends who my Secret Pal was - he was the President (outgoing)! As in, the guy who sat directly in front of me on the bus and probably heard every word of my whining about Secret Pals. *crap crap crap!* I guess, anyways - but I turned out to the third who guessed, so no prize for me.

While Whitehorse was supposed to be a "group sleep" place, a whole lot of people volunteered to billet after the concert, so I ended up billeted again. I'm not sure whether I was pleased or not. There's no paranoia in sleeping with a gym full of your friends - but no showers either. Anyway, me and my billet partner, two other girls, and the Bell Ringer and the Flautist were sent over to a B&B. I got a bed to myself, which was great because I was going through kleenexes like a mofo.

Day 5: Wednesday May 2nd
I woke up, had my shower (with a detachable shower-curtain that was always threatening to fall) and one of the choir girls made pancakes and we had cereal, too.

We went back to the gym for the second school concert, and there I gave my Secret Pal a day-appropriate gift: today was Hawaiian Day (I was wearing a sarong) and I gave my SP a beachball! We also had even MORE pranks for the Conductors. For the AC, who was doing a set of nursury rhymes, we were asked to sing scales in the wrong direction, exchange "moo" for "baa" when singing "Little Bo Peep" and having a girl say "what a good girl am I" during "Jack Horner". The AC kept smiling, although panic began to rise in his eyes, especially when we started "Mary had a Little Lamb" and the pianist's joke was to play the original tune everyone knows instead of the modified one for the set, and we all started singing the wrong notes - it took a few bars for us to wrench ourselves into the right tune.

During The Little Mermaid, we had to sing "Part of the Head Conductor's world," but I sounded like I was the only one who remembered. But the kids were so appreciative. When I got up and sang my solo (I was even introduced as Ariel!) two of the girls in the front row did open-mouthed double takes! And when the HC said the students could ask four questions, two of those questions were "could you play some more/again?" (Both answers: no). I got to talk with some of the students because recess happened right when we were doing the luggage train, and they said the cutest things!

"You sounded just like Ariel!"
"Is that your real voice?"
"I liked that guy who screamed during the song!" (the President-Elect, who played the Scuttle role in the "Kiss the Girl" number, you know the -"waah waah waah!" thing he does)

After that, we didn't do a hora, but we all gathered for the SP tasks. Mine was to perform Hamlet's soliloquoy, but I spiced it up by doing half of it as "great Canadian actor" William Shatner, and then to keep the piece short I said he got drunk and wandered off the stage so Sylvester Stallone had to fill in (which allowed me to get away with a lot of mumbling) and then I finished up by saying Shatner had come back on to finish and screamed "KHAAAN!" I got lots of applause for that one!

After that came free time - so I went with some friends to explore Whitehorse. One of my friends wanted to go somewhere local to eat some "Yukon Food," or at least, no junk food, but we ended up settling on a cart that sold caribou smokies. We sang after we ate them, too. I also bought souvenirs for my sisters - two vials of water filled with small, yellow flakes of pure-gold. I thought they looked cool, anyway. Also, there were two car accidents within blocks and minutes of each other that happened while we were there - a bike got hit in one, a woman another. We then did another hora before we departed, and I heard some of the made-up words people had made to sing to the hora because they couldn't remember the real words:

Have-a tequila
Have-a tequila
Have-a tequila
Hey, hit the floor!

Have-a tequila
Have-a tequila
Have-a tequila
Hey, hit the floor!

Have-a another one,
Have-a another one,
Have-a another one,
Hey, hit the floor!

Whooooooo?
Whooooooo?
Who gave me an STD-a?
Who gave me an STD-a?
Who gave me an STD-a?
GonorreeeeeeAH!
GonorreeeeeeAH!

Hey now, let's hit the floor!

Very hard to keep from laughing - but now, back on the bus! We arrived in Teslin, and that's when I started experiencing a load of health problems. I'm talking huge headache, can't breathe through my nose, my toe's bleeding for no reason...We sat down to a pretty good dinner (they made chicken cordon bleu, which was good, and apple pie which was so bad I would have thrown it out if the chef hadn't been standing right there, but he gave me an out by saying "Oh wait, cinnamon's a nut isn't it?" and I said, "yes, yes it is..." not really knowing - so that I could take another piece of bumbleberry pie instead)...but through it all I wanted to die. Or go home and curl up under the covers and then die.

So I changed into my choir dress, and buried my head in my pillow as the bus makes its way to the school (the town's so small the school doesn't even have an address - and grades 3/4/5 are all taught in one room!), where I felt a little better. There were cute babies in the audience! But I still felt like crap - one thing about me and colds is that my lips feel so sticky, so I'm always licking them, and then they dry out, and then the skin under my nose dries out from all the blowing and I haven't even brought any Vaseline...ANYWAY - I gradually felt better as the night progressed. We spent the intermission in the children's library so it as nice to comfort myself with Lois Lowry and Ursula Le Guin. We all came into the hallway as the Bell Ringers played "Plink Plank Plonk" - and we all danced to it. Then we went back in, and I didn't screw up the solo.

After that, we had to trek through the mud to Teslin's other museum, where there was punch and snacks, then we unloaded our stuff into their gym for another group sleep. I changed into my PJs and decided to wash my hair in the sink at night, so that I wouldn't have to bother after I woke up - and it turned out I wasn't the only girl uncomfortable with open showers. There was a bit of a fuss when we accidentally set off the alarm, but that was quickly taken care of. I also made sure to sleep on the opposite side of the gym from the person who snores, and right next to one of my new friends! We read the same stuff, and watch the same stuff, and we've sat together all through the tour, it's so great! I then watched a few minutes of Heroes someone had bootlegged, read some more of my novel, then went to sleep.

At around two in the morning, I woke up, picked my way across the sleeping bags on the floor, made it into the bathroom just in time to absolutely puke my guts out. I don't know whether it was the caribou smokie, or the karmic payback of taking that bumbleberry pie slice, but when I went back to my sleepingbag I feel asleep right away and woke up fine. Who knew?

Day 6: Thursday May 3
I woke up around six, and found I could be lazy since I'd already rinsed my hair in the sink, y'know, before I'd voided my stomach contents. The volunteers provided us with a pretty good breakfast - with strudel and muffins and cereal. I had cereal, and chanced a strudel, but stayed away from the muffins. I gave my Secret Pal another present - a pencil with a little wooden dog on one end whose ears spun if you shook it. It's great finding cute little gifts to give people! We had another hora, then went straight back on the bus. Most of us were pretty excited, because today was Hotel Night. For one night on tour, instead of performing, we all stay at a hotel and relax and have fun. It's also an occasion to drink and dance and go crazy, but I didn't do that today.

We watched Shaun of the Dead on the bus (all the last ten minutes, which drives me crazy and means I have to rent it for myself), and I finally finished the incredibly boring Child of a Rainless Year and was able to start the fluffy, cheesey, but incredibly fun Scandal in Spring, by Lisa Kleypas - my, ahem, second romance ever. Very silly, but I liked it.

And then, hotel night. I was paired with my billet partner (great friend!) and my seat partner (another great friend!), so I was looking forward to it. Lots of people were going out to eat (and drink), but I decided to stay in. I know, I could have been listening to my rut-brain telling me to stay away from people, and hole up in a cozy room with a book and no one to bother me, but I'd also had a killer cold/headache the day before, and actually been sick early this morning, so I decided to eat at the hotel restaurant and relax with my friends, who were all staying in as well. I did have my regrets, but I think it was for the best and I was sociable on skit night (more on that later!).

Anyway, we went to the restaurant, where the waitress was completely incompetant. We ordered our food, and I alerted the woman to my allergies, but she didn't actually say that my order wasn't safe to eat until she's actually served the two women first - so I'd had to order something else and wait while they cooked it when my friends already had their food because the woman was an idiot. Grrr...anyway, when my new order came, the food was good, but we waited around with our paid bills for a quarter of an hour until someone told us we had to go to the front to pay it. Thanks a lot, waitress! I didn't tip her a cent, but I took half my supper in a doggie bag up to the room, and ate the rest of my beef sandwich and fries watching the last half of The Office and Grey's Anatomy with my friends. I also dug into Scandal in Spring, which was a decadent read and a million times more entertaining than Child of a Rainless Year.

I think I'm getting just the littlest bit tired of Grey's Anatomy - I think they jumped the shark when they ruined the George-Izzy platonic relationship, and this episode, which had the adulterous Addison whining and crying and tongue-kissing completely random people because she finds out that she has no boyfriend and will never have children, really tried my tolerance of the soapy-sex that goes into this show.

Day 7: Friday May 4th
The hotel breakfast was at nine, so we got to sleep in for a bit. It was nice, and the hotel, while not flawless (there were watermarks on the ceiling and cigarette-burns on the sheets) was pretty comfortable. Hotel breakfast was everything I hoped it would be - in fact, breakfasts are my favourite part of staying in hotels. They had a buffet of fruit and hashbrowns and bacon and the biggest pancakes ever - I took it all, except for the eggs (which turned out to be a good thing - they were powdered and no one liked them), and had a grand old time.

Today was Be Your Billet Partner Day but my billet partner and I were so different in styles, appearance, and clothing size that we just didn't bother. We got back on the bus, stopped for lunch in Fort St. John (I took advantage of the tour's Lunchmothers program and had summer sausage and pitas and Oreos!) then bused until we arrived in Dawson Creek. By the time we arrived I'd finished Scandal in Spring. When a book is fun, I read it quickly. Child of a Rainless Year took five days - Scandal took one and a half: do the math. I picked up Melusine by Sarah Monette afterwards - darker, yes, and more serious - but delicious for all that.

We had a great dinner - yeah, it was spaghetti and Caeser salad again, but I switched it up a little by making a spaghetti sandwich. They also had cookies that were clearly marked as having NO NUTS, and they tasted great - especially when dipped in hot coffee. The performance went without a hitch, but when it was over it was billet time again. Me, my billet partner, and three other girls (no Bell Ringer or Flautist this time, for some reason) were hustled into a car and driven to a farm - which meant it was pretty far away from town, which meant that with every mile we were being driven into the dark I was having the willies about this strange man taking us to the outskirts of town to dispose of us so that no one would ever find us again. He had a pretty large house though (with brown shag carpets, natch) with beds for everyone, and this time I decided to shower at night. I think on the next tour I'll do that as well - at night I'm more alert, more reasonable than early in the morning, and it'll be less of a rush and no mistakes will be made. Still, the shower was weird - yes, the man of the house had a wife who was out at an art show, but I still wondered where the cameras in the bathroom were, the cameras and peepholes and weird one-way mirrors that just had to be there because this was a situation in which an old man was alone in the house with five young women. In the light of day I know I'm absurd, and doing this kind couple a disservice, and they were kind and hospitable in every respect - but I just wasn't comfortable sleeping/showering/eating in a stranger's house.

Day 8: Saturday May 5th
Woke up, didn't have to shower, and had an awkward breakfast of strawberries and cereal - we met the Lady of the house, but it was a brittle interaction because she was one of those people who has to be asked for every single thing instead of just bringing it all out, and I hate asking strangers for things because I feel I'm imposing.

Anyway, we were soon all packed up and sent back to the school to meet with the other choir members. I received a container of bubble formula and another task (write a Royal Sonnet about the word "kimeo" - a nonsense word that was part of one of the songs we sang). This was a pleasant surprise to me, because I hadn't heard from my Secret Pal in a while, and I'd just assumed that he knew I'd guessed and didn't want to bother with it anymore. Apparently, he didn't know I'd guessed. After, we all went to take pictures at the part of Dawson Creek that indicated we were at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway (the road we'd used to go up to Whitehorse and back down again). Then, the Secret Pal tasks, a dance-off, the hora, and back on the bus to Valleyview Alberta, and eventually, Skit Night.

Valleyview was sunny, but windy, and we arrived early. Most people went off to rehearse their skits for skit night, but because I wasn't in any of them, I went with some of my friends to the drugstore to pick up munchies for Skit Night: booze makes me sleepy, so I like sugar instead because it keeps me awake. I got watermelon-flavoured Twizzlers, French Toast Crunch cereal, sour cream and onion Pringles, and a case of Berries & Cream Diet Doctor Pepper (which in the long run was a mistake, because it tastes like a Doctor Pepper that someone has let a berry popsicle melt in).

We went back, and supper was served soon after - it was tasty chillie with corn chips to dip in it! In the food line, I was ahead of one of the more well-known "Old Guard" of the choir. She wasn't ill, but she'd caught some throat thing that deepened her voice so she wasn't able to sing, and she was talking about what other jobs she could do with her voice instead of singing. I'd blurted out that she could sign up for a phone sex line, and she laughed so loudly and with such shock. "Don't take it the wrong way!" she said, "It's hilarious, but I never expected such a joke to come from you!" Well, just wait until she heard my sonnet! As everyone squeezed into the tiny Home Ec room of the Valleyview high school to get supper, I stood up and read my sonnet aloud.

I felt bad about my reaction to the first task, because it made me look like a prude, and I was a prude - the so-called sexual implications of the task shouldn't have made any difference. Everyone knew it was a Secret Pals thing, and it wouldn't have reflected anything whatsoever on my character. And even the deep-voice girl knew of my growing reputation as, er, an "innocent." So to make up for my whining I made my sonnet incredibly dirty - the first stanza was ordinary enough (except for a reference to a hobo knife), but it got dirtier and dirtier. By the end of it everyone was howling and clapping. Did they think I was a slut, or a person with bad taste, or someone who needed their mouth washed out with soap? Did they think less of my morals? NO! They saw me as a person who was really breaking with her rut-brain and jumping more readily into the Choir Social Scene. Deep-voiced girl half-wailed, half-laughed "Oh, what have we done to you?" and the Head Conductor mocked, "They've finally turned you into one of them." I was finally one of them. Fantastic!

My Secret Pal was ecstatic, and sent a note saying he'd buy me something for skit night if I could guess who he was - I promptly did, and asked for chocolate M&Ms.

As for the performance, it went wonderfully, and one of my friends who'd opted out of singing due to illness managed to film the one minute of my solo on her camera, so that my parents will be able to see it. Not only were the people of Valleyview in the audience, but also lots of choir people who'd driven down from the capital. They hadn't been able to go on tour, but they were present to see the last performance and take part in skit night. Charmander's girlfriend was there - and she had a mohawk too, a long sheaf of bright pink hair that was combed demurely over one side of her shaved head. It'd taken three hours to dye them both, she'd said. Also - one of our tour managers was there - she'd done all the legwork before tour, but hadn't been able to come herself due to nursing scheduling.

It didn't come to mind that this might have been the last tour for a lot of people until the last song - the tour manager in the audience apparently started crying during the final song, "Good Night," because she wasn't coming back to choir. Another person in the choir saw it and started crying, then the Head Conductor saw him and his face screwed up in concentration. We barely made it through and ran out the doors to do another after-concert tradition (waving the bells and screaming like mofos), before so many people just started bawling - especially lots of the guys. Who knew? It turns out a lot of people, due to jobs or graduation or whatnot, were not coming back for choir next year - including one of our Social Convenors, the "Raging Buffalo." But tour meant so much to everybody that this last performance was so tearful. After it was all cleaned up and put away, we all changed into our PJs and started Skit Night.

First came speeches from the Head Conductor and one of the Social Convenors (the one who wasn't leaving), then the skits - and interspersed between them was the Secret Exec event (which was like Secret Pals but for all the executive members of choir). There was the traditional "Bell Skit" - which the Head Conductor took part it, which was very silly and ended up with everyone dead but gave plenty of excuses for the Bell Ringers to perform versions of "The Pink Panther Theme," "The Godfather Theme," and "Secret Agent Man." After that came the "Anti-Bell Skit," where the Assistant Conductor, and two other people went on about how bells were invented by Adolf Hitler and are fashioned out of the tears of baby panthers, and all the evil people who are bell-ringers (like Mugatu - "I INVENTED the piano key necktie! I INVENTED IT! What did you do? NOTHING!").

Lots of other skits followed, my billet partner/friend sang a Broadway song (and very well, might I add) - and then the Not-Leaving Social Convenor, the President-Elect, and Charmander got up and read the "Dear Secret Pal" thing - which is they say, "Dear Secret Pal," then make a quotation from a movie or a TV show or a silly comment about what "Secret Pals" shouldn't do. Charmander said something like, "Dear Secret Pal, yes, the baby is yours" and I blurted out, "Well maybe you'll miscarry!" He felt down like he'd been hit, laughing, and people said I'd broken his brain.

Then came the dirty, XXX-rated skits. People were warned that they could take their sleeping bags out into the hallway if they were uncomfortable with that sort of thing, but I stayed right where I was. What followed was the traditional "Naughty Seaman" sea shanty that was sung by the guys, and the filthy musical repost from the girls (called "Flaming Breasts") and a dirty version of "Under the Sea" ("Under the Sheets"). It was all pretty shocking, and even me with my dirty sonnets could not be tempted to sing ANY of the lyrics from "Flaming Breasts" out loud EVER, but it was great fun! After that came more speeches, and the final thing of skit night - the "I Wish." During the week, everyone was supposed to right a wish on a piece of paper, and it could be something funny ("I wish the water in Teslin didn't smell like diarrea") or serious ("I wish I could go on tour next year") and the Leaving Social Convener read it, and pretty soon people were in tears again.

We were supposed to go to sleep then (it being 2:30 am), but people stayed up to talk so I did too. It was a long time before they had to enforce a lights out.

Day 9: Sunday May 6th
Woke up, didn't shower, put on dirty clothes, ate the rest of my French Toast Crunch cereal, had a final Hora, then we all got onto the bus. We drove mostly in silence (watching Love, Actually) until we got back to the city, which looked all shiny and modern and sophisticated suddenly in comparison to all those small towns we'd seen. We did a final luggage train and carried all the risers up to the where they belonged. I collected a bunch of e-mail addresses, promised I'd join FaceBook to see the choir pictures (1200+ of them, and I'm in about 10 of them, ha!), and then collected my Program - I forgot to mention, everyone gets a special personalized Tour Program, and everyone signs it year-book style with helpful comments. I then went home, finally, had a clean shower (no spy-cameras!) got into clean, impractical clothing, and sat down to read the comments in my program. Then, finally, I started crying. Tour was a blast, now it was over, but I had something to look forward to next year.

Rejection! And a busy story-submitting season...

Fantasy Magazine sent a standard "we'll pass" rejection e-mail for "Golden Opportunity." My back-up plan, to try to send it to Cicada, isn't set to work out because several magazines I've checked out - such as Cicada, and Challenging Destiny - have closed themselves to submissions to deal with their backlogs. I guess that makes sense - it's April, University's out, and people are filling up their empty days with writing. Ah well - that means I'll just try different magazines.

Flytrap, however, is open to submissions until May 31, so I sent them "Parasite: A Love Story," and we'll just have to wait and see how they feel about that one.

Today and tomorrow will also probably be the last day that I post for about a week - I'm set to go on tour with the UAMC on Saturday and I won't be back until the 6th of May. It also means I'm going to miss the premiere of Spider-Man 3 (nooooo!) but have no fear - I will see it the week after!

Movie Review: Prince of Egypt (1998)

Well, contrary to my review of The Swan Princess and my repeated bitchings about how awful and cheap Quest for Camelot was, there actually are animated films not made by Disney that, on occasion, can be top-notch. One is Cats Don't Dance - but that's not what I'm reviewing here. No - I'm going with Prince of Egypt.


It's the standard Biblical story of Moses, but with a few changes of artistic license - one example is that in the film he's adopted by the Pharaoh's wife, not daughter, and I'm hard-pressed to explain which version is less realistic - that the king of Egypt would allow his wife to take up a baby she found in the freakin' river (she doesn't even know where it's been!) and raise him as a Prince of Egypt, or that he would allow his (presumably) unmarried daughter to do so. Either way, a bit of suspension of disbelief is required.


Another change is the cut made to Moses' mother's involvement in her son's upbringing. In the Bible, she's permitted to be Moses' nurse until he's weaned, and then he goes and lives with the princess. In the film, there's a very sad, teary, and musical (natch) moment where the mother weeps as she watches her baby's basket float into the current, because she knows that although he'll now be free of the Pharaoh's order to kill all baby Hebrew boys, she'll never see him again. In the movie, she never does - although Moses gets a glimpse of her in a cool hieroglyph-designed dream. I'm not sure whether, in the Biblical version, Moses was aware of his Hebrew heritage or not, although I assume his adopted father and other family members would know about it.


In Prince, however, he has no idea. AT ALL. After a fantastic opening musical number in which the Hebrews' plight and Moses's adoption/destiny are colourfully explained ("Deliver Us"), we open on a scene in which Moses (Val Kilmer) and his older brother Ramses (Ralph Fiennes, in another role as The Fellow Who Is Not Fond of the Those Jewish People [see Schindler's List]) destroy a temple and a construction site in a reckless chariot race. Moses is depicted as a pretty jolly type, cheerful, mischievous and easy-going. As a Prince of Egypt, he's accustomed to luxury, but as the second son he conveniently escapes the you-are-destined-to-rule-after-me-so-please-try-not-to-destroy-3000
-years-of-history pressure heaped upon Ramses by their father (Patrick Stewart). Basically, he gets away with a lot more - but he still claims responsibility for the damage he causes, and he and Ramses are shown as having a very affectionate relationship.


After taking pity on a captured desert woman (Tzipporah, played by Michelle Pfeiffer) and helping her escape, Moses runs into Miriam and Aaron - his actual siblings. Here's where there's another difference from the source material. In the film, Moses and Miriam (Sandra Bullock)share the closer relationship, whereas Aaron (Jeff Goldblum) is a bit of a dick. In the Bible, Moses meets Aaron first (and this is after he runs away, too), whereas Miriam gets leprosy. Anyway - Miriam jumps the gun, assumes Moses knows his heritage, and starts gabbling away about freeing the slaves and all that jazz. Moses, realistically, has harboured no urges to free the slaves, and is offended when Miriam suggests they're related, going so far as to assault her. Miriam responds by singing the same tune their mother sang when she gave Moses to the river, and Moses comes to an appalling realization when he recognises it.


Cue shift of world-views! In painfully quick succession, Moses learns he's Jewish, that his "father" ordered the drownings of thousands of babies, and that, like, y'know, the slaves actually suffer. Unhinged, he snaps and kills an abusive slave-driver, flees, meets Tzipporah, marries Tzipporah, cue burning bush, magic staff, bloody water, bugs, boils, and more dead babies.

Let me just say first off that the animation is amazing. Dreamworks seems to have switched to CG after the crash-and-burn of Sinbad was paired with the green-cash-cow success of Shrek, but the imagery here is just breathtaking. I love hand-drawn animation, but it seems now that my favourite visuals are when the film is primarily two-dimensional, but supported by "invisible" computer-animated segments. For instance - The Hunchback of Notre Dame used CG people in its crowd scenes and for the enormous bells, and Beauty and the Beast had that famous swooping-in-on-the-ballroom scene which is gorgeous. Well, they use that to pretty nifty effect in Prince.

Also, in keeping with the subject matter, the film was pretty serious. It had some moments of humour, of course, and the comic relief characters (Steve Martin and Martin Short play Ramses' sneaky court magicians, and get their own music number: "Playing with the Big Boys Now"), but for the most part the film is pretty respectful. No goofy sidekicks, no singing hairbrushes, and most important of all - no talking animal sidekicks. I mean, if every frog that rained from the sky had something to say, the film would be days long, and a raining-frog-musical-number might not have been appropriate for the film's tone. That's not to say I'm opposed to talking animals/inanimate objects, but there is a time and place for a tap-dancing mirror, and that's not when first-born Egyptians are dying in the streets.

I really enjoyed the character dynamic the movie set up between Moses and Ramses. I mean, they start out as the lazy second son with no responsibility, and his stressed-out heir brother, but by the second half of the movie their positions are switched: Moses is the one with his people's burden, and Ramses is the pampered Pharaoh who doesn't give a crap about his slaves' lives. Despite the brothers' former affection, the narrative ably explains Ramses' refusal to simply give his brother what he wants - the first half of the film tells us pretty clearly that Ramses is terribly insecure about his place in his father's dynasty, so much so that he feels he can't take the risk of freeing the slaves and dealing with the inevitable social/political/economic fallout that would result. And holy crap, what a fallout - lots and lots of animation work apparently went into the rain of fire, the locusts, the cool evil-cloud mojo of the Angel of Death - and the parting of the Red Sea. One of the best images of the movie is when the Hebrews, walking along the Red Sea, see the shadows of whales and sharks following them. Cool!

Anyway, along with gorgeous animation, there were cool songs, too. The music was composed by Hans Zimmer (who also composed the score for The Lion King), and the songs are grand - I mean that in the positive way, and in the, well, big way - they're catered to an epic style, which fits with the movie perfectly. They're great tunes, they serve the tone, and they have great lyrics ("By the might of Horus/ you will kneel before us!"). So you have great songs, fantastic visuals, good story, and fairly decent voice-acting. Plus, there's God and stuff. Apparently, Disney doesn't have a monopoly on fantastic hand-drawn films, although they own most of the shares. ^_^


Crush du Jour Rating:

Topher says: Let those people go! (Translation: "Involving. Pretty. Cool songs. A.")

Movie Review: The Swan Princess (1994)

Seeing as I've watched pretty much all the animated musical Disney films of the 90s lately, I've moved on to the animated musicals that other companies made in a bid to cash in on the Golden Age of Animation Disney briefly revived. One of those was The Swan Princess, based on the story of Swan Lake, naturally.

Now, I could complain about the visuals, and how the facial expressions on the human characters looked kind of weird or they moved oddly, but let's face it, I've watched a lot of animated films and the only ones who've managed to make humans move realistically are Disney, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers (with The Iron Giant - the only animated movie they made), and Don Bluth (and Don Bluth is borderline). Also - in a film whose hand-drawn water- and light- animation effects were actually fairly decent, the Swan Princess folk inexplicably switched to CG to portray the rippling of the lake, but only for the last five minutes of the film. ANYWAY...

There's no question of Prince Derek and Princess Odette being made for each other - the movie explains how they've been forced to spend every summer together because their ambitious parents hope to unite their two kingdoms through matrimony. Of course, the parents aren't quite ambitious enough to force them to marry if they don't want to, which seems a bit wishy washy. "What if Odette's not for the merger?" her dad asks in the catchy opening tune "This Is My Idea." Derek's suspiciously elderly-looking mother replies, "URGE HER!"

For most of these enforced summers, Derek and Odette have not gotten along, and the accompanying musical number accords the bad feeling to Derek's childhood fear of cooties and adolescent discomfort with losing at cards to a girl. Magically enough, on the last summer, when they are both (presumably) of age, they take one look at each other, the hormones (belatedly) kick in, and Derek says, "You're hot, let's hook up," and Odette says, "Like, yeah, okay." Sadly, Odette realizes that Derek, for all his hotness, still possesses one fatal flaw: he is as DUMB AS A POST. She asks, "Yes, I'm beautiful - but what else?" and Derek, with royal aplomb, replies (and I'm accurately quoting here), "Well, what else is there?" Which makes sense in a way - since they've probably spent more than ten summers determinedly avoiding each other, it stands to reason the only thing that made Derek perk up this year was the fact that Odette grew boobs and blond hair during the interim.

As one might expect, the wedding is promptly called off and Odette leaves in a huff. It is at this point that the film's villain, an evil sorcerer named Rothbart (played with whispery camp by Jack Palance), whose previous attempt at a coup on Odette's kingdom was foiled, swoops down on Odette's carriage, whisks her off, and puts her under a spell that changes her into a swan by sunlight and a human by moonlight in order to persuade her to marry him. Yes, that's right - he wants to marry her because he's too lazy to try to take the kingdom by force. Anyway, since he used magic to do the kidnapping, all Odette's father can say under questioning was that Odette was attacked "by a great animal" (Rothbart in disguise, natch).

Naturally, Derek hears the cryptic witness statements "great animal," "not what it seems," and "Odette gone," and is determined to use all of his intellectual powers, however woefully limited, to get Odette back and thus prove that he doesn't only love her boobs, he loves the heart underneath her boobs, which he bet he would have been able to say if Odette hadn't interrupted him with that unlady-like snit-fit. He and his friend Bromley (a chap with an interchangeably British-Australian accent who's a dead-ringer for Beauty and the Beast's evil sidekick Lafou) spend a few humorous slapstick scenes practicing archery, before Derek comes up with the lamebrained idea that a "great animal" that is "not what it seems" can only be a transforming animal, so his entire plan is to head off into the forest and literally shoot anything that moves. Bromley agrees. Their friendship seems primarily based on the fact that Bromley is the only character who's more of an idiot than Derek is, so this isn't surprising.

Guess who he almost shoots? That's right - Odette, in swan-form. Odette, having had a few days (weeks?) to get accustomed to her spell (and its cure: kiss a dude and have him make an everlasting vow of love and prove it to the world), comes to the conclusion that Derek is a dude, and seems to like her, so she might as well call him her soulmate and have a whole drippy song number about how they're meant to be ("Longer than Forever") despite the fact that she already established that she really didn't want anything to do with him only a few days (weeks?) before. But seeing as how the spell is really crimping her style, I guess she figures Derek'll do.

And let's not forget her new talking-animal friends: being stuck on a lake, naturally her new buds are all aquatic creatures - Speedy the turtle, Jean-Bob the frog (played by John Cleese in a hilarious French accent), and some kind of Scottish puffin with a penchant for military catchphrases - they are present for the requisite song-and-dance numbers and comic relief, but aren't all that memorable past the silly but rather sweet subplot that Jean-Bob believes he's really a prince who needs a kiss to break his own spell.

Well, these creatures help Odette lure Derek to her lake, where she turns back into a girl in time for Derek to NOT shoot her. She relays the whole story to Derek, who comes up with an idea: the next night his mother's planned a "There's Plenty More Fish In the Sea" ball for Derek to find a new wife, so if Odette shows up then, he can make the vow in front of a crowd of people, which should meet the "prove to the world" condition as well. Unfortunately, they forget about the new moon the next night, which means she's stuck as a swan, so Rothbart (not handling Odette's constant rejection very well) uses a spell to change his maid into Odette's doppelganger to go in her place, adding a not-before-mentioned plot point that if Derek swears his love to another girl, Odette will die. How convenient...

Derek, having evidently been hit on the head as a child, is easily fooled. Odette collapses, Derek screams a few Darth-Vader style "NOOOOOOO"s, kills Rothbart with his manly prince fighting powers, and that, apparently, breaks the spell and revives Odette. Happy endings are had by all.

Not quite. Twitchy visuals aside, the movie's not all that bad (and certainly better than Quest for Camelot), partially because on many levels it knows it's silly, so it just runs with it for the most part. The setting is quasi-medieval and vaguely European, and no real names or time periods are mentioned, so they can have an excuse to have arrows and horsies and ball gowns everyday. The comic setpiece where Derek hunts the musicians is pretty funny, as well as the "This is My Idea" musical number, and the character of Rogers, as Derek's sarcastic valet, brightens up the pace considerably.

But...The main characters are borderline unbearable. Odette's nice, but we don't get to know her very well - she spends much of the movie giggling, giving cheering advice, or crying her eyes out because Rothbart's a meanie. I mean, at the end, when Derek tries to revive her, he says "It wasn't just your beauty, it was your kindness and your courage," etc. etc. - I kept wondering: "Derek, you are mentally challenged - how could you realize something that even I didn't get?" To describe Derek, I'll have to quote Disney villain Scar, in that "the lights are not all on upstairs." Dude is stupid, man. Really - and he's going to end up as KING of TWO kingdoms - how's that going to work out?

And as for the songs, there's one catchy number ("This is My Idea"), a silly-but-pleasant one ("No More Mister Nice Guy" - Rothbart's jazzy explanation of how he's going to go apeshit on Odette's kingdom once he takes over), one song that is annoying in how memorable it is ("Longer than Forever" - I keep humming the refrain, dammit, despite not remembering anything else) and a few that are simply awful in their tackiness (like "No Fear" - the one song they stuck with in the lame sequels).

I think one of reasons I didn't like the songs much in this film is because they didn't seem to segue smoothly into the narrative. In most animated musicals, the song arises out of, or is inspired by something the characters are already doing. But in Swan Princess, it's the other way around - it's like they wrote the songs first and had to write the story around THEM, so what happens is that the characters will suddenly suggest a half-assed special event (let's steal a map! Let's have a beauty pageant! Let's hunt musicians for sport!) that really isn't relevant to the story at all, that then transforms into a cheesy number ("No Fear," "Princesses on Parade," and "Practice," respectively). Interestingly enough, the lyricist for the tunes was Dave Zippel, who if memory serves went on to pen the lyrics for Disney's Hercules, which were pretty good.

Still, despite some good-natured humour, the songs are cheesy, the main characters unsympathetic, and the animation is distracting. Really, it's not that bad (even stupid people deserve to fall in love), but it's not that good either.

Crush du Jour Rating:
Ron is reasonably amused. (Translation: "M'eh.")

Yes, it really IS neat!

While eventually recovered from the blow of not getting the Little Mermaid solo in choir, and having to listen to someone else sing at the concerts that will end up on the CD, I've still felt fairly melancoly, for the purely childish, selfish reason that it should be me up there. Mum suggested that maybe I lost the solo for Lent, to learn a little humility. I suppose that makes sense - I've always had a big head about my big voice, and it was confident, bordering on certain, that I was going to win the Little Mermaid solo.

Well, I guess it turns out Mum was right - the choir rehearsal right after Easter (and the last one before we go on tour on the 28th), the choir director came and gave me a Good News - Bad News - Good News announcement (his words).

Good News: The soloist got her dream job to work as a nurse at a children's hospital.

Bad News: Because of that job, she can't go on tour.

Good News: As the understudy, I GET TO SING THE SOLO ON TOUR! Me me me! As one of my friends pointed out, "That's, like, nine performances to that other girl's two!" I mean, how lucky am I? How often does the understudy get that lucky?

Of course, I let it go to my head pretty quickly, so God took it on Himself to remind me that pride is a sin: I got up to sing on the last rehearsal, and FORGOT ALL THE WORDS TO THE SONG I'VE SUNG SINCE I WAS THREE. So embarrassing, but at least I got it out of my system before we go on tour so I have time to straighten out my jitters and adjust myself to the slower tempo. Now, I could quibble over the minor details - like how the other girl's on the CD, and how she shouldn't have been able to sing the solo in the first place if she wasn't able to go on tour, but there's no point, really, is there?

Besides - my parents have hinted that if the first performance isn't a huge drive from our city, they might come to see me anyways - and if they don't, one of the social conveners for the tour usually films some of the performances, so I might be able to finagle a copy with my solo on it.

I'm so excited! So excited!

Book Review: "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman

I've read books that have eventually been turned into movies, and I've watched movies and then gone and read the original books (The Hunchback of Notre Dame is actually at the top of my TBR pile now. Seriously.). For the most part, while some of the movies have been fun, the books have been buttloads better, if for nothing else, than because there is more space for the goodness that a two-hour movie just doesn't have time for.

So, let's just say I had some high hopes for Practical Magic. I'd read Alice Hoffman's The Ice Queen and adored it, and I'd seen the film Practical Magic and while on the whole I didn't quite like it, there were certain scenes and themes that were pretty interesting - so I figured the book had to be about a million times better, right?

Well, no. In the book, two orphaned sisters are raised by a crotchety pair of spinster aunts after their parents die in a fire. Sally, the eldest, is determined to be good, sensible, helpful, and logical because she's secretly afraid the aunts will cast her out if they aren't pleased with her. Gillian, the younger, grows up into a gorgeous, devil-may-care wild child who eventually runs away, promising never to come within a hundred feet of the aunts ever again.

Their aunts aren't explicitly labelled as witches until the end of the book, but it's obvious pretty early on that they are considered to have special powers. They (and by extension, the sisters) are ostracized by the superstitious, but women will still come to the aunts' back door begging for love potions. The experience of spying on the aunts' customers scares the two girls about love - the customers are portrayed as pathetic, selfish, troubled women who have no idea what they're asking for and are ultimately betrayed by their own wishes. Both girls decide never to be cornered that way.

However, both sisters end up, against all odds, trapped and severely hurt by love. Sally falls in love with a hardware salesclerk named Michael, but after he's killed in a fated accident she has a nervous breakdown for about a year, and spends all her time thereafter devoting her life to her own daughters instead of serving herself. Gillain, meanwhile, flits about with a number of men, but unwisely falls for an abusive drug-dealer named Jimmy. After he inadvertantly dies, Gillian returns to stay with Sally, and the reunited sisters, along with Sally's daughters Kylie and Antonia, eventually rediscover all the good things that come with the heartbreak of true love.

Practical Magic is one of Alice Hoffman's earlier books, and while I'm glad to say her style improved by the time she wrote The Ice Queen, the storytelling in this book left a lot to be desired. Here, Hoffman does an enormous amount of telling over showing. We're told that Sally is the responsible, logical one who refuses to believe in fate and magic and love, and we're told that Gillian is the insecure wild one who thinks she's isn't worthy of true love. How we are told is through rather blunt internal musing and a large number of lists. Hoffman lists things like a madwoman in this book. To evoke a bizarre childhood, instead of focusing descriptively on a few special scenes, she creates a grocery list of barely-described, mundane actions - and she does it all the time. Lists of Sally's accomplishments, Kylie's insecurities, the sisters' cherished memories, common superstitions, chores, fears, recipes -- on and on and on. It is such a frequent narrative habit that it becomes quickly tiresome, and gives the details a shallow quality.

The pacing of this book also has a disturbingly random, out-of-the-blue element to it. Every single person - I am not making this up - every single man who falls in love with Gillian, Sally, or her daughters does so instantaneously, with one glance followed by flash-of-lightning-certainty that renders them virtual slaves to the girls' will. This leaves us with an uncomfortable lack of romantic build-up, which in turn explains very little about why Sally and Gillian are so attractive. I can imagine it happening once, but four times? Also, each character seems confined to a set amount of emotional triggers, where if one is accidently tripped, it can send the character over the deep end or provoke a certain unexpected action, which is convenient for the narrative but appears pretty sudden and unrealistic to me.

However, like The Ice Queen, the magical elements of the book are restrained and subtle. For all her telling and her lists, Hoffman never comes out and says: "Hey, the aunts are WITCHES - so maybe THE GIRLS ARE TOO." Instead, she uses descriptions, scenery, and setting to demonstrate the aunts' otherworldliness, letting the magical occurances build up slowly so that by the time a Big Magic happens (somewhere near the middle, concerning Gillian's dead boyfriend), it fits in smoothly with the tone of the novel and gives it a consistency while easing the suspension of disbelief.

In many ways, the novel has a fairy-tale quality to it, probably intentional. It explains the frequent hairpin turns in character and narrative development, the frequency of love-at-first-sight, and the intense and sudden changes that occur around Sally and her family. While I love fairy-tales, Practical Magic demonstrates how some elements of folktales and myth just aren't suited to a long-format story. The ritualization of the formula, that fits a shorter tale, is repetitive when stretched over more than three hundred pages.

This might have explained why I found the movie more enjoyable - except that the movie uses very little of the material from the book. In the movie, for instance, there is a curse that is supposed to kill the true love of every woman in the aunts' family, the aunts are more present (they're little more than bookends in the novel), Sally's girls remain children (they're teenagers at the end of the book), and Sally ends up moving back into the aunts' house when her husband dies - which does not happen in the novel, in which Sally makes a point of leaving the aunts' house when she's widowed, in order for her kids to have what she believes is a "normal" life.

In the movie, I particularly liked that the Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn) character turns out to be the "perfect man" that Sally wished for as a child - with one blue eye and one green eye, who can flip perfect pancakes, and ride a horse backwards and forwards - but that particular cute tidbit was invented, apparently, by the screenwriter (Robin Swicord), and Gary and Sally's true relationship is, like nearly every other relationship in the novel, instantly set in stone.

Neither interpretation of the story was completely engaging - while cute, the film occasionally verges into the "too cute" realm of Bewitched, and isn't nearly as subtle with the magical element (another change: in the book Sally and Gillian never use any magic of their own - but they each have specific magical powers in the film) and although Alice Hoffman's language is as poetic and beautiful as ever, the narrative is unfocused and all over the place so there wasn't a lot to hold my interest.


Crush du Jour Rating:
Topher is disappointed. ("I kinda liked the movie better...")

Book Review: "Bet Me," by Jennifer Crusie

As you can probably guess, I've been backed up with my book reviews, so I'm getting them all done while I can.

This was the first book I read after I finished my University reading - and let me tell you, what a palate-cleanser it was! This is, by the way, the first official romance novel I've ever read - and I have the lovely Bitches over at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels to thank for that. I'd been lurking over at their blog for quite a while, but I'd never had the chance to get any romance novels, because I had books to review for University, and books to read for my parents/grandparents, and of course, the towering pile of sci-fi/fantasy books I bought for myself but haven't had the time to read yet!

I'm kind of a stickler for reading books in the order I've acquired them (since I still have the three books I bought at Coles/Chapters when I was fired - last summer - and they still haven't been read yet), but after all the heavy "thinking" books I had to pore through for English (Cosmopolis? Like, gag me with a spoon!), I said "Screw it!" and picked up Bet Me, which had been languishing somewhere near the bottom of my TBR pile.

The book opens on our protagonist Min (short for Minerva - because her mother wants her to be a goddess - kill me now), who is having an extraordinarily bad day. First, David, her boyfriend of about three months, breaks up with her because she won't have sex with him. Second, this break-up means she will be dateless to her sister's wedding, and her calorie-counting-appearance-is-everything-Harpy-QUEEN of a mother is going to hold that against her and probably link her failure to her weight, which is ample, but not unhealthily so. Third, she overhears her spineless ex-boyfriend make a bet with another man, Cal, that he won't be able to get Min into bed within a month.

Inconveniently, she doesn't hear all that clearly: Cal, not being the oblivious ass that David is, refuses the bet, but not wanting to offend David (who is a client) he deflects it with another bet: that he can take Min to dinner. He succeeds, but only because Min decides to string Cal along for a month to revenge herself AND have a conveniently HAWT date for her sister's wedding (she justifies her behaviour because her friends inform her that Cal has a reputation for being incredibly commitment-phobic). The date proceeds horribly, and Cal and Min decide never to see each other again - but Fate (or Chance, given the book's theme) seems determined to keep throwing them together.

There's so much about this book to love. First of all - the characters. Cal and Min are by no means perfect, or similar, but their differences and personal problems and despicable families (seriously - they both lucked out and missed the asshat gene that claimed most of their relatives) complement each other in delightful ways. Min, in particular, is very concerned with her weight - she's not obese, but she's definitely not thin, and her hateful mother is convinced that "all men are visual" and that if she and her daughters aren't Barbie-perfect, their men are bound to cheat on and leave them. Cal responds to this with flat-out denial. Crusie is brilliant at describing how attracted Cal is to Min, especially while she's enjoying good food. There's one scene in the book that is just perfect: Min, after enjoying chicken marsala at a local restaurant, tries to improvise a low-fat version and fails miserably - Cal simply says that some food, and some people, are just meant to have a little butter and oil in them to be delicious. This is the part where I swoon, people.

Cal and Min are both backed up by a hilarious bevy of friends, each of whom is fully-drawn and contributes something meaningful to the story while still remaining a distinct personality. Crusie masterfully depicts how these groups of people become more and more integrated as Cal and Min become closer, until they become one lively, cohesive bunch of friends.

The closeness of the friends also emphasises the complete and utter wrongness of the novel's villains: David, of course, is not only determined to have Min back, but doesn't want to pay off the bet should Cal succeed: he still thinks Cal accepted the bet, a bet David put ten thousand dollars on. David is aided in his plans to break Cal and Min up by Cynthia, Cal's ex-girlfriend, a gorgeous couples therapist Cal broke up with when she proposed marriage. She got famous preaching all these four-step plans to love so often she believes it herself, and knows that her career is pretty much dunzo if she and Cal don't tie the knot. Her textbook referrals to behavioural patterns are pretty funny, especially when she puts her theories into action, but in the end she knows Cal just as little as David knows Min.

Crusie also has a wicked sense of humour, particularly in dialogue. I could practically hear the zings as Min and Cal verbally spar, break up, find an understanding, spar again, fight again, end up closer together, and then go back to bickering. The pacing is also, for the most part, fast and even, although it drags a little in the third act. The amazing and wonderful thing about the writing is that it isn't only funny, and heartfelt, and sexy (I can never look at chocolate donuts the same way again...read the book and you'll know what I mean), but it's intelligent. The characters are all smart in their own way, and while they are prone to their own mistakes and prejudices, Crusie describes their motivations in a way that allows the reader to relate to them, even when they're being stubborn or wrong-headed. Especially Min - what a wonderful heroine! I'm no twig either, and I've had my share of humiliations whenever I go to a clothing store and the pretty tops won't fit or the pants are too small - but she comforts herself in a way that I do, by collecting funky accessories that aren't affected by size. She collects gorgeous shoes (like the pair on the cover!) whereas I like dangly earrings.

Hot damn, this book is Romantic with a capital R, but the writing allows it to be such without having unnecessary sex scenes. In fact, there is only one, near the end, that I shan't describe because you have to read it for yourself to truly enjoy how yummy it is. Crusie builds up love and affection and attraction through action and dialogue - she doesn't rely on the out-of-the-blue-OMG-HAWT-SECKS scene as a crutch. This is definitely a Keeper book - and not just a Keeper book, but a Comfort-Reading-Break-the-Spine-Reading-It-A-Million-Times Keeper book.



Crush du Jour Rating:
Hugh is in love! (Translation: "Fantastic!")

Book Review: "On Beauty," by Zadie Smith

Sorry about this - I'm still fiddling with the perfect format for my reviews. Anyway - wow, I have to say, wow. I wonder how I might have read this book had I not read Howard's End first? I read about a chapter in and my strongest thought was: "I am reading a re-make." That astounded me. I've seen remakes of movies, re-adapations of Shakespeare places, covers of songs - but I didn't think people were, well, allowed to remake books.

Yes, eventually On Beauty meanders off in its own particular direction, but the first few chapters are pretty darn close to those of Howard's End. Howard Belsey, the white, British professor of art history at fictional American university Wellington, flies to London to see his son, Jerome, when his kid e-mails that he's engaged. Just like the previous book, Howard shows up just in time for the two stupid kids to call it off. Again, similar to the previous book the Belseys (multiracial, radically liberal, intellectual) do not get along with Jerome's ex-intended's family, the Kipps (black, viciously conservative, religious), but nevertheless Howard's overweight, African-American wife Kiki quickly befriends the ailing Mrs. Kipps, so much so that when Mrs. Kipps kicks the bucket, she leaves a handwritten note leaving Kiki a priceless painting that outrages her family.

Smith deals with a great many characters, and I guess it's to her credit that they aren't all pretentious, oblivious, spoiled elitists like those in Howard's End. Most of them are, but not all of them. Howard, the de facto protagonist, is a boorish, controlling pig who, while claiming to be trying to get back into his wife's graces after a disastrous affair, continues to do ridiculously idiotic and selfish things. His daughter, Zora, feels unattractive and socially awkward, but is nevertheless willing to scheme and manipulate to get her own way. Youngest son Levi has a few sweet moments, but his overflowing idealism combined with a complete ignorance of the "street" he claims to belong to do not bode well for his fate. And while Forster was more charitable towards the Wilcoxes in Howard's End, Smith does not place very much focus on the Kipps at all, preferring to portray them as hypocritical, homophobic, and cruel bigots. At least Forster gave the rival family a little depth.

Anyway, though, there are a few characters to root for. While I found it hard to believe Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox could ever get along, I found no trouble believing Kiki and Mrs. Kipp's relationship. Kiki is an astonishingly colourful, warm, and well-rounded character, so much so that it only increased my hatred of those characters who treated her badly - that is, nearly every other character. Smith evocatively portrays her humiliation at Howard not only sleeping with another woman, but with a skinny, white woman who also happens to be a family friend.

In many ways, it's more interesting than Howard's End, because most of the theorizing takes place in dialogue that is more or less dynamic, rather than the stifling dull internal exposition that Forster uses. It still isn't enough to save this book - I found myself out of my depth among people who were so interested in discussing the theory of art (is this a painting for painting's sake? Or is this a painting for all paintings? etc.), and the theory of love and the theory of justice, beauty, etc, that they never have time to see or do any of it in practice. I felt detached from all of the characters except Kiki, so in truth I had no interest in seeing how their petty, narrow lives would turn out.

Crush du Jour Rating:

Patrick is sympathetic. (Translation: "Nice try, really, but it still wasn't all that good.")

Book Review: "Howard's End," by E.M. Forster

Crush Du Jour Rating: Patrick is confused! (Translation: "Um...didn't get it.")

I know, thanks to school and stuff I've been pretty lax with the book reviews, but they're coming, they're coming...I received this book from my grandmother for Christmas, along with Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which shall be reviewed pretty soon after this one. Apparently the two are connected - Smith intended her book to be an homage to this one, which she considered to be one of the best books ever written.

I have to disagree. Generally speaking, the plot is this - two families, the wealthy and liberal Schlegels, and the middle-class-but-still-well-off conservative Wilcoxes, are brought together when young Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox announce, and then just as swiftly terminate, a harebrained engagement. Helen and Paul recover fairly quickly, but Margaret, Helen's older sister, strikes up a friendship with Paul's mother, Mrs. Wilcox. When Mrs. Wilcox dies, with only a rough pencil-written note that leaves Howard's End, her country estate, to Margaret instead of her family, the tension only builds, even after the Wilcoxes unanimously decide to destroy the note without telling Margaret.

Things proceed on from there at a rather muddled and tiresome pace. Forster does a lot, and I mean a lot, of telling instead of showing, with Margaret and Helen and the others going on about the nature of love and marriage and decision-making and hayfever and what have you, with a great deal of philosophizing that I either didn't understand or didn't care about. I realize I may sound a bit immature, and maybe I might enjoy this book when I'm older, but as it was it simply could not hold my interest. The narrative has this annoying habit of leading a reader in one direction, only to make a sudden turn that has no bearing on the story at all. In this manner the book ends on a fairly large deus ex machina, and I left it feeling unsatisfied. For instance, Mrs Wilcox dies, the book spends several pages demonstrating that Mr Wilcox is a) mourning his wife, and b) an awful pig-man, but then a few pages later he up and proposes to Margaret! Who accepts, of all things!

For another thing, the characters are all uniformly unsympathetic and poorly developed. Helen is irrational, selfish, and thoughtless. Margaret is easily bored, haughty, and disturbingly pleased with the unearned quality of her wealth. Mr. Wilcox and his children are even worse. I couldn't find one character in which I could relate to anything, since both families are composed of snobs who really don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. And their characters have no bearing on how they actually react to things, which while it might have made the book more unpredictable, also removed any ounce of sense from the narrative. There was really no point to the whole thing, and I couldn't for the life of me guess how any of the characters had progressed from the beginning of the novel to the end. They all seemed more or less the same to me.

The point is, basically, the story was about well-off people who disagree with and make catty remarks about other well-off people, while a few not-so-well-off people show up here and there to throw a monkeywrench in things. Margaret may lecture on at length about love, but as someone who kept herself on a pedestal thanks to her money and had nothing to do with men, what experience does she have on the subject? Yes, yes, I might understand it better when I'm older, but there really isn't that much incentive in this book to ever get it a try ever again.

It finally came!

Yesterday, I went to get the mail, just as I had for the last two weeks, and found three enormous packages, all addressed to me. One was a book from Green Man Review, one contained two books from Ballantine, and one contained what I had been ripping my hair out waiting for: my contributor's copies from Cicada. My beautiful, beautiful issues were here!

We're going to have to order more copies. Everyone in my family wants one, and six just isn't enough. *lol* It was amazing - my story was mentioned in the Editor's Letter at the beginning of the issue, and it had fabulous illustrations - of Paulie, of his sister, and of his mother Jeannie. They were surprising and original but ultimately I felt that they fit the story perfectly.

And my name - believe me, I know my own name, and I've occasionally seen it in print - in The Gateway, at the Green Man Review, but there's just something about it here - seeing my name in a literary magazine, with pages like a book's pages, with my name at the top of every other page just like a novel's - it just seems like a different name, an author's name, it looks different. I can't really explain it, but it's a really cool feeling.

Full-Blown Obsession Time

This week's obsession? Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney. Animation, to be more precise. I'll even take Pixar.

I want to watch animated Disney movies, I want to listen to their music, hell, I want to write for Disney (I've got lots of ideas!). I mean, since January I've started watching all the movies, and I've worked my way through Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Toy Story (which was partially written by Buffy's Joss Whedon! Imagine that!).

Now I'm seriously considering watching the older films - those I've tended to shy away from, because I'm more a fan of the Alan Menken musicals, but hey, I can't afford to be picky. It takes four years to make an animated feature, and the next best thing, Disney's Enchanted, isn't out until November and I'm going to have to wait until 2009 for The Frog Princess. I've never even seen Sleeping Beauty. Or The Black Cauldron, though I'm a little iffy about watching that one because I'm quite attached to Lloyd Alexander's books and Disney's live-action "adaptation" of Ella Enchanted had me spitting blood.

Still...I just finished watching the Making-Of featurettes on The Little Mermaid DVD, and I was fascinated by the process that brought Little Mermaid into being. Did you know that Ursula was originally intended to be King Triton's sister? How does that work? Let me imagine:

Seahorse OB/GYN: Congratulations, it's a girl!

King Triton's Mom: Honey, I can explain...

King Triton's Dad: She has tentacles.

Triton's Mom: I don't think it's such a big deal...

Triton's Dad: Tentacles, woman! With suckers!

Triton's Mom: You know, when she grows up I'm certain it'll be a very sensative issue for her so...

Triton's Dad: Since when has anyone in my family had tentacles?

Triton's Mom: I'm really starting to object to your tone, mister!

Triton's Dad: YOU CHEATED ON ME WITH AN OCTOPUS.

Triton's Mom: You mean squid.

Triton's Dad: ....

Triton's Mom: Cause, she has, y'know, six tentacles, not eight...but...oh crap.

Triton's Dad: But, but, our gardener is a squid.

Triton's Mom: I'm pretty sure my great-great-uncle's step cousin was a squid, it could be a recessive gene...

Triton's Dad: I WANT A DIVORCE.

Triton's Mom: I GET HALF.

Triton's Dad: YOU CHEATED ON ME WITH A SQUID.

Triton's Mom: YOU CAME HOME WITH CRABS.

Triton's Dad: Those crabs were personal friends of mine! And they were finally acquitted of those date-rape charges!

Triton's Mom: FINE.

Triton's Dad: FINE. (You get the kids.)

Triton's Mom: What?!

Triton's Dad: Dibs out! *exit Ocean left*

Baby Triton: *sniff* I really hope my little sister doesn't try to overthrow me...

Anyway, another nice surprise on the Little Mermaid DVD was the animated short The Little Matchgirl. It was one of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short. Seven minutes long, traditionally hand-drawn with some CG touches, completely silent, it kept perfectly to the Hans Christian Andersen Story. At the last minute, I was afraid they would change the tragic ending (since the fact that the real Little Mermaid died didn't really go over all that well with the makers of that Disney adaptation), but they didn't. I absolutely cried my eyes out. I kid you not. I've heard that story about a million times, but this particular animated version had me runny-nosed and bawling. So sad, so wonderful - see, that's why when Disney gets it right, they really get it right. That's why I'd kill to write movies for them.