Character Analysis?

The kid's teacher has assigned them to do character analysis. Specifically, they are to meticulously analyze every character in Walt Disney's The Adventures of Pinocchio.

Until Bigger Girl began doing this, i hadn't stopped to realize how complex the story can get.

She has brought up such things as Monstro as, not an antagonist, but simply the force of Nature, how unpredictable and irrational the damage it does can seem.

Stromboli, she asks. Simple bad guy, or a commentary on Evil Capitalists Who Exploit All Workers?

Then there is Figaro, the innocent mischief of very young childhood.

She has 6 handwritten pages so far, and is just over halfway through the characters.

Heaven help me, i knew the movie was more complex than it appears on the surface, but really! It takes the fun out to parse things so closely.

Maybe i just need to go sit down with a bowl of guacamole and watch Cinderella. Although her analysis of that is the girl is the personification of grace under pressure and kindness in the face of wickedness and she deserved the breaks she got.

Hmm, maybe i'll just go read the comics. Garfield doesn't strain my brain.


Today is:

Art Deco Festival -- Miami, FL, US (through the weekend)

Blame Someone Else Day -- always on the first Friday the 13th of the year

Daikoku Festival -- Kanda Myojin Shine, Tokyo, Japan (purification ceremony)

Democracy Day -- Cape Verde

Door-to-Door Salespeople Day -- ouch

Feast of St. Kentigern (a/k/a St. Mungo) (Patron of Glasgow whose given name meant "head chief" but whose nickname meant "dear one.")

Lee-Jackson Day -- Virginia, US

Liberation Day -- Togo

Magal de Touba -- Touba, Senegal (Muslim celebration)

Maghi -- Sikh

Make Your Dreams Come True Day -- no info on the origin of this; maybe someone who broke their New Year's resolutions by this day used the fact that it's New Year's by the Julian calendar to start over

Midvintersblot -- Ancient Norse Calendar (midwinter festival)

National Peach Melba Day

Old New Year's -- Belarus; Georgia; Montenegro; Republic of Macedonia; Republic of Srpska (Yes, that's how it's spelled; no, i don't know how to pronounce it); Serbia; Russia; Ukraine; Wales (Julian Calendar)

Recuperation Fortnight begins -- Fairy Calendar (I think I need one of those!)

Runic Half-month of Peorth (womb) begins

Rubber Ducky Day

Scalloway Fire Festival -- Shetland Islands (viking festival)

Sidereal Winter Solstice Eve -- celebrations through South and Southeast Asia, including
Bhogi -- Tamil
Lohri -- Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh
Uruka -- Assam

Silvesterklausen -- Switzerland ("Old" New Year's celebration, based on the Julian Calendar)

St. Hilarius' Day (according to English tradition, the coldest day of the year)

St. Knut's Day (a/k/a Little Christmas or Twentieth Day or Tyvendedagen among the Scandinavians, it is the day to "plunder" the tree put up on Christmas Eve, eating the candies and cookies that were decorating it, and puting all the other decorations away before the tree is removed.)

Strive and Succeed Day -- Horatio Alger's birthday

Tiugunde Day -- Old England (midwinter offering, a celebration picked up from the Norse Midvintersblot)

Tyvendedagen -- Norway (Twentieth day after Christmas, official end of Yuletide or "Juletid")


Birthdays Today:

Orlando Bloom, 1977
Patrick Dempsey, 1966
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 1961
Richard Moll, 1943
Charles Nelson Reilly, 1931
Gwen Verdon, 1925
Army Archerd, 1922
Robert Stack, 1919
Sophia Tucker, 1884
Horatio Alger, 1832
Salmon P. Chase, 1808


Today in History:

Crusaders set fire to Mara, Syria, 1099
Sicut Didum, the papal bull prohibiting the enslavement of Canary Island natives who had converted to Christianity, is promulgated, 1435
The controversial play Eastward Hoe by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston is performed, landing two of the authors in prison, 1605
The Bank Of Genoa fails after the announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain, 1607
Jonathan Swift is ordained and Anglican priest in Ireland, 1695
James Oglethorpe and 130 colonists arrive in Charleston, South Carolina, 1733
John Walter publishes the first issue of the London Times, 1785
The Great fire of New Orleans, Louisiana begins, 1830
Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole European survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, 1842
Anthony Foss patents the accordion, 1854
A chenille manufacturing machine is patented by William Canter of NYC, 1863
A circus fire in Poland kills 430, 1883
The Independent Labour Party of the UK has its first meeting, 1893
U.S. Marines land in Honolulu from the U.S.S. Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution, 1893
The first radio set is advertised, a Telimco for $7.50 in Scientific American; claimed to receive signals up to one mile, 1906
The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the opera Cavalleria rusticana is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, 1910
An earthquake in Avezzano, Italy kills 29,800, 1915
The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometres of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people, 1939
Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car, 1942
Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, is appointed archbishop of Krakow, Poland, 1964
Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American US Cabinet member, 1966
Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom Prison, 1968
A passenger train plunged into a ravine at Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa, 1985
L. Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American US governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia, 1990
Soviet Union military troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, 1991
An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 800, 2001