ramblin’ – Page 39 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

A Tangled Web, or some random thoughts on animation

I noted yesterday that Tangled is likely to be the last of the “Disney Princess” films. This still seems like a bit of an odd decision, considering how popular the girls are as a brand. They have their own clothing, doll and even comic ranges, and new direct-to-disc movies seem to roll out on a regular basis. It’s funny to see how Tinkerbell seems to have been folded into the gang. She’s an uncomfortable fit. A bit too feisty for the rest of the girls. It’s apparently to do with appealing to boys. Note that Disney didn’t say anything about quitting the fairy-tale genre. That Jack fella’s got some stories to tell.

When pictured together, the Princesses have a disturbing similarity. As their images are tweaked and refined, they are slowly nudged into templates that look very familiar. The eyes get bigger, the mouth smaller, the head shape more overtly heart-shaped. Granted, Mulan and Jasmine don’t quite fit the mould, but it’s starting to become difficult to tell Cinderella apart from Sleeping Beauty, Belle from Ariel*.

Rapunzel’s the most extreme version thus far of the look. It’s a very anime approach. Her eyes take up half her head and her mouth almost disappears to compensate. There’s a lot of the japanimation heroine in Rapunzel. Her hair becomes prop, weapon and maguffin. Anime is full of characters with ridiculously long hair, that seems to have a life of its own (and also seems to randomly change length based on what the character is up to at the time).

The thing is, of course, that the influence goes both ways. The father of modern manga, Osamu Tezuka, was famously influenced by early Disney, with characters like Astro Boy given the big eyes and childish features that he found so appealing in Mickey Mouse and his friends. We could say that by making Rapunzel look so anime, the designers are simply acknowledging, however subconsciously, the history and influences that have placed The House Of Mouse at the heart of world animation.

We can look to Europe too. It fascinates me how we are happy to have cartoony characters as long as the backgrounds and settings are rendered realistically. Tangled again is a prime example of this idea, with gorgeously rendered scenery playing up against massively stylised heroes and villains. It’s an example of the style that French bande desinee artists have made their own. Think of Tintin, with all those beautiful, exquisitely researched landscapes backing our blank-eyed hero. Or Asterix, if you want to go more cartoony. There’s nothing to say that Disney was at all influenced by the French school, but the comparisons are there to be had.

The Europeans are also big on their anthropomorphic animals. The biggest selling comic album in France right now is Blacksad, a noirish detective tale. The main character just happens to be a panther, with a snappy line in suits. Again, Disney made their name with animals that wear clothes, walk on two legs and talk. Which came first – the mouse or the marsupilami? It’s a knotted mess of influence and cross-fertilisation. And it’s not helped by the fact that, contrary to common practice in modern animation, the two animal sidekicks in Tangled don’t talk. They react in human ways, but in dumbshow. Even more messily, the horse Maximus is presented as half cop, half jock and half dog. He chases down Flynn by smell, and reacts very favourably to Rapunzel scratching him behind the ears. It’s yet another knot in the net.

It’s worth sticking around to watch the end credits, which are illustrated with character designs (by the brilliant Shiyoon Kim) in a lovely, scratchy inky style that has more than a nodding relationship to the work of one of my favourites, St. Trinian’s creator Ronald Searle. I’ve always seen nods to Searle’s style in some of my favourite Disney’s, and the linework in the Tangled end credits hearkens back to some of those classic mid-60s films. 101 Dalmations and The Aristocats are prime examples of this looser, freer form. It’s great to see this little tribute to past triumphs, and I was quietly amused to see how much more busty Rapunzel is in these early sketches. I didn’t think Disney did cleavage.

Dammit, this film has got me thinking about cartooning again in a big way. In a kind of unfocussed, scattershot manner, for which I apologise (how else could it be when talking around a film with a title like that?). But the fun in watching a film as rich this rich reference and tribute comes from seeing the images spark and fire off connections, however randomly. Tangled provides a dense web in which it’s a pleasure to get tied up.

*yes, alright, apart from the tail…

The Chain Of Life

I gave my bike a little dose of love yesterday. A good dose of lube, a bit of a wash down and de-rust, a fresh tube on the back tyre. The poor old thing gets dreadfully neglected for the amount of abuse it gets, and it’s quarterly wash and brush up is quite literally the least that I can do*.

I try not to make it look too shiny though. I lock up at Reading Station when I’m at work, and a bit of protective colouration goes a long way to making sure that the thieves keep their mitts off my wheels. Hence, although I often swoon over the gorgeous machines at AW Cycles on the Henley Road, I know in my heart that I couldn’t use them. I’m not a competitive or leisure cyclist. My four-year-old Ridgeback Motion is a mode of transport, simple as that.

You notice things on a bike that simply pass most other people by. The state of the roads, for example. Last year’s brutal cold snap took place not long after a fairly major resurfacing project in Reading – a surface that simply hasn’t held up. The side roads, in particular are drastically potholed and cracked. My Ridgy has no suspension. You feel everything. I bounce around on the saddle so much that it makes the bell on my handlebar ring*.

Our friend here is not in the bike lane. For obvious reasons.

Which wouldn’t be so much of a problem if we had a decent and consistent cycle lane policy. The bike lanes around here are badly-thought out, and have a tendency to merge you into traffic or simply disappear just when you least expect it. Or, in the case of the lanes around the Vastern Road rail bridge, they abruptly cut off with whacking great stop signs. Pedestrians grumble about cyclists on the pavement – in this case I simply have no option.

Ah, pedestrians. They walk in your bike lane. They wander out in front of you. They run out in front of you. They never look where they’re going. I’ve noticed this more and more over the past couple of years. I suspect, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, that it’s connected to the fact that so many people are plugged into iPods and other devices when they’re out and about. With a soundtrack in your head, you become invulnerable.

They’ll still look out for cars. The mass displacement of half a ton of steel bering down on you must trigger some latent impulse to at least look around before you step out on to the road. If you’re on a bike, you’ve got no chance. If they’re texting while they’re walking, the temptation would be to plow into them anyway. I know riders that do that just to prove a point.

The problem is that when I’m off my bike, I’m guilty of exactly the same crimes that I’ve just bitched about. I dreamily amble around, letting stories and characters flit through my head, barely hearing the scream of brakes and curses from behind me. In Amsterdam, a true cyclists city, TLC and I both nearly ended up in someone’s front forks. I really thought I knew better, but it seems that as soon as I’m off the saddle, my spatial awareness goes to pot. I’m as bad as everyone else, bitching at cyclists on the pavement when I’m on foot, at pedestrians in my way when I’m on two wheels.

Some things never change. Pedestrians hate cyclists. Cyclists hate drivers. Drivers hate cyclists. Cyclists hate pedestrians. The chain of life continues, unending as the loop round my deraillieurs.

*The more waggish members of the Readership who might postulate that I’m not talking about my bicycle here are filthy minded reprobates – and that’s probably why you’re here. Fair do’s. Carry on.

Friday Fotos: A Day Among Ghosts

I took a day to plot and scheme with the mysterious docoBanksy yesterday. Usually we meet and cavort in Soho, but I fancied a change, so we met in Islington, before heading to Spitalfields and Brick Lane. It was a cold, cold day. Fun was had. Beer was drunk, including a pint of crude in the infamous Ten Bells. It’s been tidied up a lot, but there’s still a strange air about the place. An edge, sharp as a butcher’s blade. Or maybe I was just letting my imagination get away with me.

Anyway, here are some photos of the day. The area’s renowned for the street art which graces many of its walls and dead spaces, which will always get me pulling out a camera.

(edited, to include the fact that I was actually in Spitalfields, not Shoreditch. Maybe it’s because I’m no longer a London-errrr…)

The Sunday Lao Tzu: Quiet Time

“Silence is a source of great strength.”

When I write, I like to be in a quiet place, physically and spiritually. On a day off, if I’m working on a blog post or getting some word count down, there will be no music on, and no sound to be heard apart from the soft tick of fingers on keyboard. It’s a simple fact that I’m not much of a multi-tasker, and I’m very easily distracted. It’s better for me just to switch off and work.

I find quiet time to be an important source of inspiration, too. I like to walk, wandering like a flaneur with no real sense of destination or purpose, content to see where the road leads. This will often put me in a contemplative mood. That’s the moment where ideas often arrive, or solutions to a narrative problem solve themselves. On occasion, a character has simply popped into my head and started talking. Because I’m quiet, I’m able to listen to them. Rory Armstrong introduced herself to me in this way. If I’d had headphones on, it’s likely that she would have been drowned out.

Being quiet, and open to the world around us, I think we’re much more likely to find inspiration and strength in everyday life. Sometimes, all you have to do is shut up for a minute and listen.

The Daily Grind

Commuting is horrible. Yes, I know, that one’s up there with gems of wisdom like “oranges are not the only fruit” or “poking oneself in the eye with a stick is a bad idea”, but it’s a truism that somehow packs some weight. I think we treat commuting as a task that we simply don’t think about. Getting to and from work is just something that has to happen. It becomes blank time, a zero point that we don’t think about unless it becomes more difficult than usual. I think that if we properly considered the time, effort and money that goes into the simple act of getting in and out of the workplace, then there would be a lot more people simply rethinking their lives and walking away.

If a train breaks down or if there’s a tube strike, then we are confronted with the true, mind-clawing horror that we have to deal with at the start and end of every day of our working lives. It becomes work on top of work, a trial to be completed before we can get on with all the other crap we have to sort out.

Otherwise, it’s a journey that’s erased as soon as it’s over. There are days when I have walked into my suite and stopped dead, realising that I have no recollection of the steps I took to get there. The bike ride to the station, the train journey, the tube, walk or bike ride to Soho – all gone. Dropped out of short term memory like veg peelings into a bin. Scraped off the brain and composted without a second thought.

I’ve often talked about the virtues of my morning commute as valuable writing time, and that’s still true. But time spent on the netbook has a second, and almost as important benefit. It kills time, compressing the half-hour spent on the fast train from Reading into an eye-blink. On the odd occasions where the batteries on my devices have drained, and I have nothing to read, that 30 minutes stretches out to something like three days. It drags interminably, and I begrudge every wasted moment.

And I consider myself lucky. My shift pattern means that I have to do this trip fourteen times in any given fortnight. An ordinary 9-to-fiver has to do it twenty times. And if you’re driving, or if you have to stand on a bus or a train, that really is time in which you can’t do anything else. The very thought of it fills me with the fear. It feels more like a punishment then a task that we willingly impose on ourselves. It’s not surprising that we wipe it as soon as it’s done.

The Sunday Lao Tzu: Three Things

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”

I think I’m at my happiest when I’m doing simple things. Reading, writing, cooking. A life lived quietly and without fuss. Today’s teaching strikes me as not just true, but directly applicable to the way I live my life. Simplicity, patience and compassion are all interconnected, and when you start to live with these three things in mind, then you are on your way towards a more contented existence.

I have always been a patient person, to the point where it becomes something of a kink. My favourite part of Christmas is the anticipation. Waiting to see how the dinner will turn out, what gifts are under the tree. As I tend to know what TLC has bought me beforehand (with the exception of The Pot, which came as a genuine, delightful surprise) the wait until I can get my mitts on the new loveliness becomes part of the pleasure of the whole experience. It’s an exquisite torture. See, told you. Kinky.

But patience also comes out of care and preparation. It’s pointless rushing a loaf of bread while it’s proving, or a slow-cooked stew while it bubbles fragrantly on the stove top. Is it a coincidence that my favourite meals are the ones that take a bit of time to prepare and cook, filling the house with delicious smells, allowing the expectancy of the meal to become part of the whole experience? I don’t think so. And of course, the food I like tends to be simple, hearty, rustic fare. I’m not a big fan of fussy over-done stuff. Although Heston Blumenthal always makes me laugh.

Compassion is a no-brainer. If you don’t live a life filled with understanding and empathy towards everyone else, if you lose your patience, then your time on the planet becomes much more complicated. People can be vain, stupid and cruel. That doesn’t mean you have to be. For the most part, getting angry with an obstacle of any kind doesn’t help matters. In fact, it can frequently make things worse. Basil Fawlty thrashing his broken down car with a tree branch is an image that springs to mind. I’ve never seen the boys at Kwik-Ft do that. Treating the people around you with a little patience, understanding and humour works wonders. Call it a charm offensive if you like, but it works a hell of a lot better than yelling and screaming.

Now, I know this is all making me sound like some sort of annoying zen guru, answering questions with yet more questions or gnomic statements, floating smugly through life. That’s not the case. The idiot in the modded Peugeot who cut me up on the way into work yesterday got the finger and a robust curse. I get angry and pissed off. I rush stuff and grumble about it. But I try to remember that simplicity, patience and compassion do work, and that sometimes all you need to do to solve a problem is to take a breath, step back and look at it differently. Sometimes, the answer really can be simpler than you think.

New Culinary Definitions: SMOZZ

Smozz is the stuff added to food to make it extra perfect. Vinegar on chips. Parmesan. Ketchup. Sweet chili sauce. It’s an embellishment. A grace note, but one without which a meal can be perfectly fine, yet not …quite …there.

Smozz is dependent on the tastes and proclivities of the individual. Most people like a dollop of ketchup with their chips, which to me is a culinary crime. Mayo, on the other hand, is a must. Those crazy Dutch really hit on something there.
Smozz is not just a savoury addition. Sweet smozz can include marshmallows on hot chocolate, or a snappy, plasticy Flake shoved at a jaunty angle into an ice cream. A grating of chocolate on your cappuccino is the very essence of smozz.

Origin: the word was first seen on a bill at an Italian restaurant, where TLC and I had ordered a small garlic bread with extra mozzarella. Garlic bread does not need a blanket of sizzling, string-melty cheese on top, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The bread was itemised on the bill as s.mozz. A new culinary term was born.

The Sunday Lao Tzu: starting small

(In the attempt to keep the blog fresh as I make the attempt to give you something new every day, I have decided to theme my Sunday posts arounds the teachings of Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism. Expect the Sunday X&HT to be a bit more philosophical, if not necessarily spiritual).

“All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.”

I don’t do new Year Resolutions, for the same reason that I no longer keep diaries. They always seem like a good idea, and I start off strongly, entering whole-heartedly into the agreement with myself to be a better person, to journal my every move. I have a stack of notebooks that have entries through the first week of January, an apologetic second burst somewhere in mid-February (when I was a teenager these usually coincided with Valentine’s Day, and consisted of bursts of woeful spite and, if things had been going really badly, love poems) then nothing. Rueful, shameful blank pages. Most of my resolutions have started and ended this way, and I view it as a sign of finally growing up that I stopped making unrealistic pledges that would be quickly abandoned.

I’ve realised that I was going about things in the wrong way. Rather than launching with both feet into a project and losing interest in the face of the hard and sustained effort that was required, I would have been better starting gently, easing into the task. This was a lesson that Lao Tzu teaches, but that Nanowrimo allowed me to apply to real life. By doing something every day, the task soon becomes a habit, then a part of your daily routine. No matter how little, the daily bit is the important bit. (Sidebar: yes, I know Nanowrimo is a 1667 word a day challenge, and that doesn’t sound like a little thing. By by breaking that task down into further 500 word chunks, it’s surprising how quickly you make your daily, weekly and monthly goals.)

The Habit is something that I hope to achieve with the PostaDay exercise. The point where I feel twitchy if there’s a danger of not posting is the point where I know I have accomplished something important.

When your objective stops being a chore, and becomes a daily pleasure, then you have succeeded in your goal.

Soho Morning

I get to work early. I’m usually in my suite for 8am. The walk through Soho at that sort of time reveals a different aspect to the usual crazy revelry. Something quiet and contemplative. This is the best time to take photos in my little corner of London, and something always jumps out at me.

2011: The Cleardown

The beacon is lit. The Gateway opens. The sleeper awakes.

A sense of peace and order descends on Casa Conojito as the Xmas deccoes are packed up and put away, signalling the end of all merriness and joy for the next eleven months. It’s been a straightforward clearup, as we went minimal on the froth, frippery and frou-frou this year.

The exception to that rule is, as ever, the unknotting of the lights from the tree, a process that requires the application of non-Euclidian geometry and much swearing to complete. I was quite proud of the amount of quantum entanglement I achieved this go-round. It was an exercise in four-dimensional shared-plane dynamics that took some thought and a tearful breakdown before I applied good old Gordian theoretics to the problem and took the tree apart with the lights still attached.

Even then, the bastard things were tighter than Kylie’s dress on New Year’s Eve. The final knot-form that the lights evolved to once I had finally freed them from the tree was unsetting, otherworldly. The bundle of green wires seemed to twist serpent-like in my hands as I stuffed them back in the box. ‘Twas if somehow the form had described a pathway, a map to eldritch other dimensions. A beacon that the dwellers of these side-shifted places could follow to find their way here.

I fear for what awaits me when I go back up to the loft next Christmas. I fear that the deity whose arrival we celebrate on December 25th will not be the one we usually greet.

Ho ho ho. Cthulhu fhtagn.