Snoozles™ From 1973
I just scanned a batch of 30 (or so) slides from around 1973, and wound up having to reject a handful of them due to unacceptable blurring. Many of them were taken as the sun was setting, and I guess the shutter speed was too slow for lower-light situations. D'oh. Both of today's scans have issues, but they are not terrible - in fact they are perfect for a Snoozle Sunday.
See? Even the blur isn't that bad, and I do like the end-of-day lighting, with the Sub Lagoon in cool blue shadows, while the Peoplemover (it appears that our photographer was on the Peoplemover when the picture was taken) and Monorail tracks are lit by the warm setting sun. The Skipjack and the Nautilus glide silently, one about to enter the "dark ride" portion of the attraction, and the other heading back to port.
Another Peoplemover view finds us above the entrance to Tomorrowland, with a look at the desaturated swirling flower pattern. Psychedelia in Disneyland!
6 comments:
Major-
The swirling yellow and purple flowers cannot be ruined by a little blurriness; they always look outstanding.
Thanks, Major.
Nanook, I agree. I LOVE that extra-swirly purple and yellow floral pattern! I bet Bu [and others] will say the same thing.
Thanks, Major.
Like you said, blurry, but not too blurry. And besides the nice lighting, we get the multiple layers of track, which I always like. Something's happening over there on the Ethan Allen. Looks like one of the Crew Members is trying to drag Donald Duck forcibly out of the hatch. I can hear Donald quacking angrily!
Interesting that the photographer purposefully made the swirly flowerbed his main subject. Usually we get the flowerbed in a photo as an afterthought; just another pretty, curious, exciting thing to include in the photo. As you noted, the desaturated colors makes the photo have a little less impact, but still quite good.
"Not terrible" is a good description of these photos. Just barely Snoozles. Thanks, Major.
The PeopleMover: so high in the sky. I'm wondering why this application of people moving was not used more readily...it seems a much more exciting way of getting from a parking lot to the Main Gate...and much more "Disneyland" than the tractor things they have now. The Monorail from the hotel is a wee sight impaired because of those "advertisements" they put on them. They are kind of dark and swampy on the inside with poor visibility, and people cramming their strollers and conestoga wagons or other child movement implements onto them. People need a lot of "stuff" these days. I get it, but I don't get it. The sub lagoon looks peaceful...I can hear the waterfalls through it, and the Matterhorn behind me...with people screaming and such. The Monorail station is well designed...up one side, out on the other. I literally could not find the entrance now...maybe there is a churro/bubblemaker/Coke/Popcorn stand they want you to walk by? Maybe it's me and my old man grumpiness. I'd like to ride the subs again, but I take one look at that queue, and the close quarters downstairs and feel like it's more a "getting into a Matterhorn bobsled" experience with my "developing physique". I also hear mythical new stories about the smells down there now too...probably with the unbridled gaseous actions of churro eaters. OK, I've talked myself out of that ride again. On a molecular level, smells are solids. That being said: I LOVE the swirls. Like trees have no scale, flowers have no timestamp and are the past present and future. The freeform concrete benches are so very well done throughout a 1967 Tomorrowland, with many still existing...you just need to go hunting for them. I did the math on how much $$ it would take to recreate this planter...holy smokes...in a residential setting, the juice may not be worth the squeeze, but I do make attempts to bring these two colors together every season using tulips. Tulip bulbs can be very reasonably priced if bought wholesale in bulk. Note to self: reserve tulip bulbs. Fall is upon us! Take me back to 73 Tomorrowland. I'd even take 83. Thanks Major for the Snoozle Sunday (tm).
These are just enough out-of-focus to match my memories of these scenes, so I’m loving them.
The PeopleMover climbs quite a steep grade there, or is it coming downhill? Can’t recall. Still a sensible bit of engineering that should have escaped containment and spread everywhere. There are descendants at the San Francisco Airport, but they are big, heavy, comparatively unsightly, and probably cost a billion dollars.
Nice to see the Ethan Allen. Only in America could a man have a career like this, Founding Father, furniture magnate, AND inventor of the submarine. Truly inspiring.
The swirling flowers are the kind of detail that is easy to miss in the general blur of amazing sights, but they would be easy to bring back for a little jolt of you-were-there.
“Child movement implements”, (snort). I’m still wondering how we managed to raise 2 kids without a stroller the size of an SUV. People don’t really need all that stuff, they’ve just been convinced of it by advertising.
Thanks Major, these are a good start to the day.
JG
Nanook, maybe psychedelic stuff is actually *improved* by some blurriness?
Lou and Sue, I wonder if Rolly Crump personally laid out the swirls? I assume there are little dividers in the garden, maybe he directed exactly where they should go.
JB, I don’t know if there is anything in Walt Disney World with those layers of different tracks - this was a case of the “lack of space” actually resulted in something pretty incredible. Donald Duck is probably stuck in that hatch - I don’t want to body-shame him, but his rear end is pretty big. I love those swirly flowerbeds, but I think it’s interesting that of all the things our photographer could have taken photos of, they opted for the flowers.
Bu, I think one of the problems with the Peoplemovers at the Disney parks is that the tracks are very expensive to build, and also the vehicles move rather slowly so they are only useful in certain situations. They are building some sort of peoplemover at LAX, and an airport seems like the perfect place for something like that. I wonder if there will be moving-sidewalk load areas? Will the vehicles move continually, no stopping? I don’t care for the “city bus”-style wraps that they put on the Monorails, but I guess somebody decided that a red, orange, or yellow Monorail train was boring. The last time I was there, they didn’t have ads for the next big movie, but they did still have characters all over them. I expect that we will lose our Sub lagoon someday, and I will be very sad when that happens. Like you, I love the sound of the waterfalls, and I definitely like that big body of water in the middle of Tomorrowland. I wish I loved the Nemo subs more than I do - again, the lagoon area is beautiful, but the “dark ride” portion is a bit anemic. I guess curves are super expensive (re: the planters), I just watched a video about the new David Geffen Gallery at LACMA, and they cheaped out on what was originally supposed to be curved glass. The straight glass looks exactly like the “budget solution” that it is.
JG, I can never tell which way a Peoplemover train is headed, they look the same in either direction. Like a worm! As I’ve said before, one of the very cool things about the Disneyland Peoplemover is that they changed elevation, sometimes fairly drastically. They could be 30+ feet above the ground, or only 9 feet as we’ve seen over near parts of the Autopia, where an athletic person could jump up and touch the track. Not many people know that Ethan Allen invented the bean bag chair, but bean technology was not advanced enough, so he had to let his design go unused. On my last trip to Disneyland, I saw kids sleeping in their shady strollers and admit feeling a pang of jealousy. Maybe I need a stroller!
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