Meme, Interrupted
Jul. 29th, 2009 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
k_puffFinishing what I've started, you guys! This is something I've been trying to work on. Organizing is my great skill. Carrying through those plans all by my onesie? Not so great. (Delegating is another of my great skills, handily enough.)
4. Peter Pan
I absolutely ADORE Peter Pan. I could write a thesis about Peter Pan and his psychology, and actually I've kind of considered doing that in much the same vein as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zombres did with her zombie movie thesis (the main obstacle being that it would have absolutely nothing to do with my current major, ECONOMICS, HELLO). In fact, I did earlier this year accidentally give my class an impromptu *lecture* on the similarities between Peter Pan and the title character of Wagner's Seigfried. Luckily, the teacher of that class was particularly chill and just let me carry on without interrupting me. ^_^;; (side note: have I mentioned GRINNELL IS AWESOME!?)
I find him to be both an incredibly inspiring and simultaneously tragic figure in literature. He possess a trait that figures throughout history have hungered for -- everlasting youth -- and he enjoys it, lords it over everyone he sees, brags about it. He's an arrogant little bastard, cocky, defiant, brash, and takes things (and people) for granted. But he is so charismatic, so cheeky and fun and adventurous, that people overlook his bad qualities and want to follow him. He inspires with his sheer thirst for life. For as long as he's lived, where most people would tire and fade, become disillusioned, instead Peter Pan continues to live every day to the fullest, inspiring his followers to do the same. This is extremely admirable.
But Peter is only like that 99% of the time. He is unique, and with uniqueness always comes isolation. He is the only one of his kind. Everyone around him has left him, will leave him at some point. No matter what he says or does, his Lost Boys will eventually leave... and not just leave, but CHOOSE to leave. Eventually, they CHOOSE to leave him, and he can do nothing but watch them go. Even Hook and Tinkerbell eventually leave him, in the source material. "I forget about them all in the end," he says to Wendy with his normal bravado, no trace of remorse. He forgets them, because remembering them is too painful. Moving on with his bold and brassy cover is so, so much easier.
(Remind anyone of a certain Time Lord we know? But I digress.)
In the musical Peter Pan (that I would willingly give both hands to perform in, which shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you, honestly) there's a song called "Distant Melody" that explores Peter's regrets simply, innocently, and extremely effectively. I'm a huge, huge fan of the musical.
Oh man. Wendy! And Hook! Tinkerbell! I really should write a thesis on this, I could go on for ages. But my above closing statement ties in nicely with my last WORD!
5. Musical Theater
I do not say lightly that musical theater is my religion. That's one of the great things about being a Unitarian Universalist, is that I'm free to have two kind-of religions at once! ^_^ (Man, I LOVE being Unitarian... more on that later.) I often feel the same fulfilled, inspired, teary-eyed, overflowing-with-joy feeling when I watch musicals that I imagine people get when they're praying.
I've loved musicals ever since I can remember; my Mom was always into musicals, and I started watching the Tonys with her at a very young age. But I didn't really become devoted to it until I entered middle school. The summer I was 16, we went to New York and saw WICKED. It had *just* come out, so I'd never heard of it, and we saw the ENTIRE original cast. I remember sobbing during intermission, overcome by "Defying Gravity", and I remember the wide-eyed, fast-breathing girl who left the theater because I was too overwhelmed with happiness to cry. I had been deeply, deeply inspired by all that musical theater could do for a person's emotions. To this day, I cannot see a big chorus number or hear a sweeping quartet or chord without getting weepy.
Here's the thing: it takes a LOT of passion, and a LOT of luck to become a Broadway performer. These people are only there because they can do nothing else -- not physically or intellectually, but emotionally. These are people who would be devastated if a doctor told them, one day, that they had too stop dancing/singing/acting. They would shrivel up and die, that's like telling someone they have to stop breathing. And as a performer myself, when I see all those people up there doing what they love to do most in the world... I feel that. It really touches me, in a place I couldn't describe to you.
In other news, completely unrelated, Oregon broke it's all-time heat record today with a spectacular 108 degrees. FML.
4. Peter Pan
I absolutely ADORE Peter Pan. I could write a thesis about Peter Pan and his psychology, and actually I've kind of considered doing that in much the same vein as
zombres did with her zombie movie thesis (the main obstacle being that it would have absolutely nothing to do with my current major, ECONOMICS, HELLO). In fact, I did earlier this year accidentally give my class an impromptu *lecture* on the similarities between Peter Pan and the title character of Wagner's Seigfried. Luckily, the teacher of that class was particularly chill and just let me carry on without interrupting me. ^_^;; (side note: have I mentioned GRINNELL IS AWESOME!?)I find him to be both an incredibly inspiring and simultaneously tragic figure in literature. He possess a trait that figures throughout history have hungered for -- everlasting youth -- and he enjoys it, lords it over everyone he sees, brags about it. He's an arrogant little bastard, cocky, defiant, brash, and takes things (and people) for granted. But he is so charismatic, so cheeky and fun and adventurous, that people overlook his bad qualities and want to follow him. He inspires with his sheer thirst for life. For as long as he's lived, where most people would tire and fade, become disillusioned, instead Peter Pan continues to live every day to the fullest, inspiring his followers to do the same. This is extremely admirable.
But Peter is only like that 99% of the time. He is unique, and with uniqueness always comes isolation. He is the only one of his kind. Everyone around him has left him, will leave him at some point. No matter what he says or does, his Lost Boys will eventually leave... and not just leave, but CHOOSE to leave. Eventually, they CHOOSE to leave him, and he can do nothing but watch them go. Even Hook and Tinkerbell eventually leave him, in the source material. "I forget about them all in the end," he says to Wendy with his normal bravado, no trace of remorse. He forgets them, because remembering them is too painful. Moving on with his bold and brassy cover is so, so much easier.
(Remind anyone of a certain Time Lord we know? But I digress.)
In the musical Peter Pan (that I would willingly give both hands to perform in, which shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you, honestly) there's a song called "Distant Melody" that explores Peter's regrets simply, innocently, and extremely effectively. I'm a huge, huge fan of the musical.
Oh man. Wendy! And Hook! Tinkerbell! I really should write a thesis on this, I could go on for ages. But my above closing statement ties in nicely with my last WORD!
5. Musical Theater
I do not say lightly that musical theater is my religion. That's one of the great things about being a Unitarian Universalist, is that I'm free to have two kind-of religions at once! ^_^ (Man, I LOVE being Unitarian... more on that later.) I often feel the same fulfilled, inspired, teary-eyed, overflowing-with-joy feeling when I watch musicals that I imagine people get when they're praying.
I've loved musicals ever since I can remember; my Mom was always into musicals, and I started watching the Tonys with her at a very young age. But I didn't really become devoted to it until I entered middle school. The summer I was 16, we went to New York and saw WICKED. It had *just* come out, so I'd never heard of it, and we saw the ENTIRE original cast. I remember sobbing during intermission, overcome by "Defying Gravity", and I remember the wide-eyed, fast-breathing girl who left the theater because I was too overwhelmed with happiness to cry. I had been deeply, deeply inspired by all that musical theater could do for a person's emotions. To this day, I cannot see a big chorus number or hear a sweeping quartet or chord without getting weepy.
Here's the thing: it takes a LOT of passion, and a LOT of luck to become a Broadway performer. These people are only there because they can do nothing else -- not physically or intellectually, but emotionally. These are people who would be devastated if a doctor told them, one day, that they had too stop dancing/singing/acting. They would shrivel up and die, that's like telling someone they have to stop breathing. And as a performer myself, when I see all those people up there doing what they love to do most in the world... I feel that. It really touches me, in a place I couldn't describe to you.
In other news, completely unrelated, Oregon broke it's all-time heat record today with a spectacular 108 degrees. FML.
