This is wonderful. It's a comic turning in-flight safety demonstrations into dance. And it's so cute.

I missed a lot of the typical books for reading youth when I was, well, a youth. I was thirteen when I read The Hobbit for the first time, and fourteen before I read The Lord of the Rings. I was seventeen when I read The Sword in the Stone (as part of The Once and Future King), and read The Chronicles of Narnia the same year. 

As a friend reminded me with her poll a week or so ago, I read some very poor mysteries, and Doyle's Holmes (good mysteries), along with some Poe and Michael Crichton (sp?) when I was in middle school.  I honestly can't remember anything before that, save the very first books I had, of nursery stories -- I had most of the Little Golden Books that Hardees gave away with their kid's meals, up on a shelf of their own, which is now holding several Salvatore books, and a Zelazny collection, at home in my "library." 

What I'm getting at is that I didn't read Peter Pan.  I've just now finished it for the first time, in fact, and for whatever record this will serve as, I'm twenty-three.  Barrie, the author, is famous for loving children, but has had the least number of pedophile theories woven about him -- it is pretty much accepted, through his writings, letters, and the accounts of acquaintances, that Barrie was physically and psychologically very close to asexual.  He delighted in children in a way parents don't, and that certainly comes through in the book.

But he was also old enough, experienced, as William Blake would put it, to see children as conniving, carelessly cruel creatures.  "Gay, innocent, and heartless," he calls them, and Peter exemplifies them all.  Pan actually made me a bit uncomfortable all through the book -- he's not a typical hero, after all, despite his connections with mythology.  He's not all bad, and serves, I think, as a literary argument that kids are neither, until they're no longer children. 

I did find myself fascinated and sympathizing with Jas Hook, though.  I would dearly love to see a good performance of the character -- reviews say the first performance of the play, the one Barrie put together himself, had a Hook so well-played some children had to be taken from the theater, as he was too terrifying.  At some point Boris Karlloff played him.  Certainly, if you know of a film Hook that meets the standard, speak up.  I can't remember Hook pulls it off or not, though certainly he doesn't look quite as ridiculous as the Disney Hook does. 

Of course, through all the discomfort and fascination, the adventure and the tragedy, there runs something that would confuse my high school English teacher, who was stunned to learn all of us, her senior class of 2001, missed being children.  Personally, I feel a strong tug of sadness for a place I've  left forever, because Peter's life was my life once, and that's probably the point of the whole affair.  And really, my life now is closer to his than most people my age, or even younger.  I still wander about wherever I may be, flat or home, when alone, and take swings at make-believe figures careering above my bed.  I can still creep outside after ten in the evening and feel a fright from the black woods, successfully circumventing my knowledge of the safety of my home -- the only really dangerous animal around would be snakes, and they're typically not out at night.  That twist of fear, and the mist-eyed fighting, I've always had them, and sometimes I suspect they're the things that make me a writer, as far as I actually am one, at least.  Certainly, even though I'm terrible at visualizing my settings like most other people do, I can still make good places, and I think it's because I can call up the emotion, as I run through them all so often. 

Like now, of course, with my drooping-Keats Romanticism.  I hadn't read Peter Pan, but I suppose I will again, in time.  All through the reading, I wondered what it would be like to read it to children, maybe even to mine, if I ever have them.  Will they be confused by the leaps the narrator takes, as I was?  And will they come away even a little worried at how Peter treats people, or is that really as implicitly natural to children as Barrie felt?  Even Wendy, after all, takes no thought of how her mother must feel until the very day she left Neverland. 

I should have been in bed hours ago, by the way, but I was busy reading.  I does bother me, sometimes, that I can't remember what I read as a kid -- after very, very young, but before fifth grade.  Sometimes I think maybe I didn't read all that much, though I remember checking books out of the elementary library -- the Bruce Conville "My Teacher. . ." books, and these picture-novelizations of old horror movies, like Dracula and The Blob.  I've never watched those movies, but I've read the kid-books.  I think The Blob was my favorite, actually. 

One can't escape the long arm of liquor.

I tried a new drink this evening, and gave an old attempt one more chance. That is, I mixed a gin and tonic, and found it wasn't quite so bad. It was better than a martini, but as I hinted at earlier, what wouldn't be?

The gin and tonic was created by the British army. No, really. The amounts of citrus (lime, mainly) and quinine required for health reasons (to prevent scurvy and malaria) by the British army in India bothered so many of the soldiers, they cut the foul flavors with gin. Simply, the tonic water (the delivery method for quinine) was so bad, they had to add liquor to make it taste better.

Tonic water still contains quinine, "for flavor," it's claimed. Less than previously, but still. What? It is terribly bitter, but not as bad as I remembered. Maybe the bartender was cutting back the gin to save money, or something. Anyway, I made a wee version -- This wiki claims you should use a highball, but I used a lowball, and cut the ingredients appropriately. I didn't want to waste gin, in case I hated the drink, right? Well, it was better than I remember, though the quinine is still bitter as a smart high schooler. I didn't have any lime, so maybe it'll be even better with. I'll find out, eventually.

The new drink was the mojito. Supposedly it was a favorite of Hemingway's, though he preferred it without sugar. Given what I know of his life, this isn't surprising -- he always did go out of his way to make his life worse for himself. Damn volunteer ambulance driver.

Anyway, I picked up a mix (everything but the liquor) out shopping tonight, and made the drink -- though it's a bit touchy, really. The back of the mix bottle claims one could make a "mojito spritzer" by adding club soda to the mix -- if you look closely at the wiki, club soda is part of the drink. So, what now? It's sugar, rum, and lime juice, mainly, so I figure I'll like the real thing if I ever gather together all the ingredients. I suppose the only difficult thing to find will be the mint leaves.

So, that's tonight's venture into debauchery. Incidentally, I added the line to the g&t's wiki about Bertie Wooster. Someone had to say something.

I become convinced that I have a low alcohol tolerance, by the way. I'm fuzzy/tired, the phase (or so I'm told) before tipsy, and I've only had an ounce of rum and 3/4 of an ounce of gin. Oops.