Malibu morning picture of the day - (Day After the Lantern Festival) Friday, March 6, 2015

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

It's Friday, people! Here's your picture for today.

Yup, blue on blue again. Not even jet trails like yesterday. Wonder about night time on a full moon? Wonder no more:

It's midnight blue on midnight blue basically. It's pretty cool seeing the moonlight on the water on clear nights--nothing like it in person. When you're here it looks like the moon is only a few thousand feet above us. (Finally figured out how to focus the camera in the dark.)

Speaking of the full moon, the full moon marks the end of Chinese New Year which began with the new moon. The full moon is the day on which is typically celebrated The Lantern Festival. I've never lived or visited anyplace where this is done en masse, but someday I shall.

There are several stories that are behind Lantern Festival festivities--do look up a few online. By and large they are stories about liberation from oppression and tyranny. This is why the Vietnamese chose this time (TET) for their major pushback against the U.S. forces back in the war. They put history on their side. In popular practice, it's a time to eat special food, blow off firecrackers, and hang up pretty lights (and to get drunk for many).

On the subject of celebratory lanterns in a festival setting, did you see the movie with this scene?

From Tangled

Thai sky lanterns

In case you haven't, it's from Tangled, the Disney-Pixar retake on the Rapunzel story. When you saw this, you probably thought the same thing I did: Boy did the continuity guys screw up! They forgot to make the royal family's last name something like Wong or Aduladej and to make everybody darker skinned Asians like you find in south China and Thailand (Siam at that time period) where they have these kind of flying lantern celebrations. How could they MISS something like that? Well, even Disney makes mistakes I guess?

Wait, did I hear somebody mumble something about cultural appropriation? Nah, no way. NOT DISNEY. They don't thoughtlessly mine other cultures to make a buck.Wait, wait, I can work it back in continuity. Some Cantonese knick-knack trader made it through that part of Germany and showed a toymaker how to make the things (before he was hanged for being a foreign witch) and they just caught on ... that's IT!

Damn if she doesn't look just like a Jewish girl I was
in love with back in law school.  <3 I always love the bad girls.

At least they got the Euro-prejudice thing right by making the bad guy (Mother Gothel) a woman with dark curly hair, probably of Jewish or Romani (Gypsy) origin. Boy did she get it in the end (Bitch! Such hubris wanting eternal life! She needs to convert to Christianity where the hope is ... hmmmm).

Rapunzel after her haircut,
many of my lesbian friends
would approve of this style.

The vivacious Tomo from
Azumanga Daioh

BUT we can all take solace in the fact that the lead actress becomes a brunette at the end, making her look a lot more like the assertive, self-sufficient, best friend trope character in Japanese anime and manga. Whew! I saved Pixar's ass on that one...


Hoping you have a wonderful weekend in store.

Love,
Pops