Items up for discussion: the wondrous movie Hocus Pocus and a little game I like to play called What Would This Be In Barbie World?
1. I have long harbored an obsession for the delightful film Hocus Pocus. If you are familiar with this movie, you will recall the scene in which Max and Allison try to sneak open Winnie's magic book of spells when Binx isn't paying attention. When Binx discovers them, he jumps atop the book (he's in cat form at this point) to close it and berates them for trying to meddle with powerful magic. His direct quote, I do believe, is as follows:
"No! Nothing good can come of that book."
This is accompanied by a paw swipe in the vicinity of Max and Allison's faces. The extraordinary thing about this moment of dialogue and gesture is that while Binx speaks in a very forceful tone, emphasizing the word "no," his paw swipe is at a leisurely pace. My friend Sarah and I discovered this and immediately tried to replicate this odd combination of harsh, fast words and a lazy paw swipe. Let me tell you: it is difficult. It took much practice to even begin to approach mastery. I am fairly confident, however, that I can now perform this difficult task.
All of this came to fruition during a recent rehearsal, in which Mari, my choreographer, called me out for speaking very quickly and loudly in our most recent piece whilst moving my arms far too slowly. This was not the effect she wanted--she wanted my tone and speed of voice to be matched by a frantic port de bras--but this moment was actually one of personal pride. I had succeeded! My mastery of slow-cat-paw-swipes and an accompanying angry voice had infiltrated my other gestures and speech. This, this is to have succeeded, my friends. And I wanted to share this with you.
2. When my sisters and I were younger, we had a ridiculous amount of Barbies--something like thirty. (About a third of them, give or take, lived in a perpetual state of nakedness. We also had only one Ken; every year, we'd stage a big ball for the Barbies in which Ken got to choose his new wife for the coming year. This never struck any of us as odd. Or completely chauvinistic. Or stupid. This...worries me. Retroactively.) Naturally, I was obsessed with Barbies. I found myself, as a child, constantly observing objects and wondering what they'd be like in Barbie World. That is, what they'd be if they were something Barbie owned or used. For example: at my grammar school, whenever we had a good rain, a very, very large puddle would form near the portable classrooms--sometimes it got so large that it became difficult to jump over. To me, this was Barbie's Lake. I imagined it as a woodsy retreat at which Barbie might take a dip, perhaps swinging off a nearby vine into a refreshingly cool body of water. (There were no tiny vines, however, near these large puddles. In real life, I mean.)
Disturbingly enough, this game has continued into my adult life. I bought some delicious chocolate-mint candy canes last week, and as I selected one from the cookie jar in our apartment, I found myself imagining it as a Christmas staff for Barbie--perhaps carried by one of the Wise Men in a Barbie living nativity scene.
This...cannot be normal. A of all, I'm twenty-three years old. It's time to stop thinking in Barbie terms. B of all, a Christmas staff? Seriously? That's the best I can come up with for the candy cane? I've lost my touch. Sorry to say.
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