NCTE and Disney Hell: The Happiest Bloody Place on Earth

I haven’t seen a Starbucks in three days. I’m sitting here on the floor in a hall at the Coronado Springs Hotel, bereft of Internet access, jacked into a hallway plug for power. First, a message to NCTE—DO IT BETTER NEXT YEAR! Let me elaborate, in structured paragraphs.

First—Internet access. Supposedly we are at a conference for 21st century educators. Not everyone, however, has the money to have the 4G data plan up and running, either on smartphone or netbook. This would not be too much of a problem, were a) everyone staying at the conference hotel, getting $10-20 per day tacked onto their fees (though I hate that, too, when I can stay at a Comfort Inn in Flagstaff Arizona and get free Wi-Fi with my inexpensive room), or b) if Wi-Fi were transferable between Disney Resort Hotels, the problems would be solved as well, since Disney owns everything within 8 square miles, or c) if the conference had arranged consistent, free, wi-fi. But they didn’t. Apparently (and I’m just guessing here), there are times of sponsorship by companies that give the fleeting illusion of decent wi-fi access. However, these times come and go without warning, or instruction for that matter. To try to hold a convention with educators used to ubiquitous access is nuts, if you don’t have the very tech tools you exhort them to use.

Second—Choose a better place. The Disney World experience is beyond the scope of this particular paragraph (more later), but, simply put, the hotels are too far apart and too difficult to get around between. When I found out that the route to my residential hotel (Disney’s Caribbean Beach) would be shut down for two hours in the mid-afternoon, I checked to see if it was possible to walk back. The two-word answer, “Not safely.” The other possibility was taking the Disney Resort shuttle service, which would whisk (or chug) me to a theme park, from which I could grab a connector back to my resort. I decided to wait until 4:30 and grade essays. Even the two convention hotels are a couple of miles away from each other. Disney World is so structured that one almost must take motorized transport (preferably a Disney shuttle) to get between any amenities.

As an addendum to the previous paragraph—I hope you got a SMOKIN’ deal on the venues, NCTE, because otherwise it’s not worth it. Disney’s certainly got a lot of the attendees’ money to boost the corporate bottom line, so I hope the organization benefited as well.




So, what color is the sky in Disney World? Totally other. Walt Disney’s vision of an integrated amusement center has come true over the last almost 40 years, and it’s a brave new world. Most of this world’s elements relate to the complaints I’ve voiced. But where shall we start?

It’s impossible to walk anywhere safely except inside the demarcated areas of the resorts and attractions. All the broad boulevards and freeways are bordered by pine woods (probably planted), with that difficult-to-penetrate thorny undergrowth and hanging moss characteristic of Southern forests. But there are no sidewalks or trails, either beside the roads, or into the woods. The only choice is to walk on the pavement or the relatively narrow grass verge.

However, all is pristine—no trash along the roadways, no billboards, few advertisements, and, interestingly, not that much traffic. I assume the ubiquitous buses on their routes are responsible for that lack of clutter. This does come at a cost; if the bus doesn’t come, you’re stranded, as I was for an hour and a half this afternoon.

And, by the way—pristine? It’s too pristine. The colors are there, the music is there (as in Aruba, the Holiday Inn-like complex where I’m staying), the beach is there, the water [no actual swimming in it] is there, but the life . . .? Here is the Caribbean, inhabited by Americans, Canadians, Japanese—an international set of consumers. The slums, the dive bars are nowhere to be seen. This is the Disney vision; a sanitized version of culture.

But it’s all good. I’ve just never been into the amusement park experience, and this is certainly the ultimate amusement park experience. What’s intriguing, though, is the way reality is screened from view in a place like this. As one rides the shuttle buses, one becomes aware that, half-glimpsed behind a screen of trees, are maintenance yards and commercial parking lots, lots that hold all the garbage trucks that haul the trash to keep the parks pristine.

And I’m conscious of a certain irony—Starbucks is an international chain, so why do I have a problem with Disney? (But I actually like Starbucks coffee, and the less tasty Disney version costs more.) I remember being impressed by places like Browns or Loch Fyne in Britain, until Nathan told me they were chains. But—again—I like their food or fish. So what does this mean? Do I just want choice in my patronization of conglomerates? But there is something more, something real. I see it in Mexico, at J.J.’s and Xoltis, in the Mazatzals and elsewhere. But, enough. At the top is a picture of my hotel, from across the lake, below, a picture of some flamingo-like birds that congregate like gulls around the resort, and, in the middle, the resort central restaurant and store where I do most of my eating.

Historic Churches in Scotland

Well, standing at John Knox's house in Edinburgh is an interesting experience. Knox--Scottish reformer, friend of John Calvin, revolutionary, political activist, founder of the Presbyterian Church--is one of the pivotal figures in the history of the Protestant Reformation. He steered the Scottish church (the Kirk) away from Anglicanism, though he got some strategic support from reformers in England under Elizabeth I. But he had written a misogynist attack against Mary of Guise and her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," that offended Elizabeth I. He took intransigent and sometimes contradictory political positions, depending on the situation in which he found himself.

That may explain the difference I saw between historic churches in Scotland and those in Britain, though I really don't have enough evidence to pronounce anything definitively. In Britain, as my video blog shows, churches still have standing as places of worship, and the interpretive material connected with them really makes their devotional purpose explicit. In the Scottish historic churches I visited, there is really no attempt to describe or explain the reformation in Scotland. One gets little sense of the history or development of Protestant Christianity.

I am at a loss to explain this. Reform in Scotland was a messier, yet more theological, process than in Britain. Yet, from all I see, Scotland is a more secular place even than Britain, one of the most secular societies in Europe. But then again, I didn't go to Saint Andrews, and didn't visit any Highland churches.

Video Blog for August 2, 2010

Here is the video blog on my GCU Facebook site, for last week. Over the next few days, I'll have more to say about historic churches and religion in Britain and Scotland. I'll also be talking about the Highland moors and the Scottish outdoors.

English Serendipity

In my video blog, I mentioned two things, that I'd gone to Oxford, and that I'd seen the Codex Mendoza (above). I pointed to both this, and a picture of Shakespeare that I'd seen exhibited last year, as examples of serendipity--useful blind luck of the find.

Anyhow, I'm interested in the Codex Mendoza because sometime around 1587, Richard Hakluyt, my research subject, who was working in France at the time (spying for Sir Francis Walsingham?) received this manuscript from Andre Thevet, the Geographer Royal of France at the time. Interestingly, around this time, Thevet and Hakluyt may or may not have had a falling out, because Thevet accused Hakluyt and Martin Basanier of essentially stealing a narrative about a French colony in Florida from him. But they must have worked it out. The Codex Mendoza is an important Aztec manuscript: in fact, if you could see the writing on the illustration on the left page, it's Aztec spoken language in Roman characters at the top, the Aztec ideogram in the middle, and Spanish on the bottom. But Hakluyt couldn't get anyone to engrave the illustrations, so he didn't print it before his death in 1616. It came to his self-appointed literary heir, Samuel Purchas, with the rest of Hakluyt's manuscripts upon his death, and Purchas printed it in his collection Purchas his Pilgrimes. From there, the manuscript came into the possession of Robert Selden.

So imagine my surprise, when on just an informal visit to the Bodleian Library exhibit room with no idea that it was there, I see the codex on display in an exhibit of the donation of Robert Selden, an exhibit which was to close on the next day. One doesn't always get that kind of luck.

That was just like my luck with the Shakespeare portrait last year, when in walking around Stratford, I came to the mini-exhibit of this portrait and its provenance (narrative of transmission). The portrait had just been in the news at that time, and I got to see it in detail. I wasn't supposed to take pictures in either case, as it turns out, but I did. It's better to apologize than to ask for permission beforehand.

RSC As You Like It 2010

The RSC Trailer

Before you read the rest of this, take a look at the RSC's trailer for this production (click on the link above). Keep in mind that this is one of Shakespeare's comedies, in fact from what's sometimes called his "golden period," the sunniest ones he ever wrote.

I hate to break it to them, but it still turns out a comedy, even when you skin a dead rabbit on stage. Even when you put Touchstone into a straitjacket and crazyman pants. Even when songs that generally would be sung by Amiens and Touchstone are put into the mouth of noir-Jethro Tull costumed Jaques. Even when you make "The Lusty Horn" song into a nightmare sequence for Celia.

I mean, there are anxieties in this play, chief among them the Freudian (note anachronism) male anxiety about cuckolding, which the intelligence and female friendship of Celia and Rosalind do nothing to allay in the comic version. But nihilistic anxieties of the type that the changed stage business attempts aren't really convincing.

The structure and language are too strong to push against, even though the play with its "humorous" (in the Early Modern Renaissance sense of character determination) elements suggests a kind of dispositional determinism that gets subverted by the "conversion" plot. In fact, this interplay produces a kind of happy chaos in which anything can happen, and in which characters end up overcoming their dispositions.

This is also my favorite script of a play, in pretty much a tie with Midsummer Night's Dream. I'd forgotten just how witty it is when played by stage experts. So, the language is too exuberant to be tamed to nihilism as well. It's free play instead.

But different takes are always enjoyable, and the attempt to heighten the negative emotional tension between Celia and Rosalind actually worked to underline some elements that generally go unnoticed in the play when worked as a comedy (like the adjudication scene at the beginning of MSND; that verdict could be pretty serious for Hermia).

So, two thumbs up (as opposed to index and middle finger up, palm facing the gesturer. It's a British thing.).

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

I'll write more later on several topics that I bring up in this video blog. For now, I need to teach!

Wicken Fen Odyssey (Redux)

Quick Note: Apparently I didn't write about our little odyssey last year, up the Southeast bank of the River Cam. But we did it. I promise.

For at least two years now, Chris has had a fixation with one of the last remaining wild fens (marshes) in the vicinity of Cambridge, Wicken Fen. Maybe it's because the visitor's center is called the Thorpe Visitor's Center (her maiden name). Cambridge lies at the edge of the Fens, which used to reach north to to King's Lynn from around Cambridge (http://www.cfsa.co.uk/denver_complexintroduction.htm). Wicken Fen is toward Ely, one of the major historic towns in the fens, and the year before last, Chris and I had bicycled to and from Ely. Of course, it's a 15 minute trip by train.

So now, we've been intrigued by the trails and towpaths that parallel the River Cam up to Wicken Fen. Allegedly, they are part of two major routes of the National Cycle Network, and a route from Cambridge to Newmarket (which Chris also wants to visit because of the horses) is also supposed to exist (http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/Cambridge_to_Newmarket-Cycle-Route-68.html).

Last year, we attempted Wicken Fen by the bike path leading out of Cambridge on the Northwest side of the river. Somewhere around Waterbeach last year, we switched sides of the river from northwest to southeast bank. They really should put out a mountain biking recommendation for that side of the river. With wide knobbys, it would be decent (outside of lifting the bikes over stiles), but with street tourers, not so much (see my post last year about it).

Well, this year, we decided to stay on the Northwest side, using Long Drove to get up to where the path supposedly begins in earnest again just on the other side of the river from Upware. Of course, there's no bridge there, so one would theoretically have to make about a 3-mile loop anyway, to get back down to Wicken Fen (then, again theoretically, on to Burwell, a scenic, interesting town, and on to Newmarket).

Alas, it was not to be. Another mountain bike recommendation is needed here, starting at the end of Long Drove. Again, city bikes, and this time we stood opposite a pub in Upware where we had had a meal last year. But we couldn't get there, nor could we face another mile and a half of jolting on what is in actuality a rough footpath. The panorama above commemorates the farthest point north that we got. That's Upware across there with those narrow boats. Sounded like a good party.

Instead, we turned back to Waterbeach, and to a nice pub there. The weather was partly cloudy and the wind flowed over the flat fenland. And so, the odyssey (and jinx) continues.