what i was really doing was looking for the lyrics to a song michael feinstein had recorded, called the mole people. it was on the pure imagination album. (i wanted a verse about the harvard drawl and the subway train that came through the wall at a bronx address) i didn't find the lyrics, but i found out that the song was a livingston and evans! apparently they'd written it to prove they could write a song with such a title, though it wasn't recorded until michael feinstein. how neat! actually, what i really really was doing online in the first place was looking for the singer who recorded the opening song for disney's bambi (donald novis - love is a song a never ends) which i'd watched the day before yesterday, while trying not to do my readings. when i was a child i loved bambi and watched it over and over again although i had trouble understanding the rabbit. i do now but he's got a funny accent what kind is it? he sounds like the children in mockingbird. i like bambi awfully much now but for different reasons from the ones i had when i was little. i'm not even upset when bambi's mother dies which is what everyone always talks about, but i was awfully taken by the old stag - bambi just doesn't have half his commanding presence and steadiness. "he is very wise, and very brave. that's why he is known as the great prince of the forest" and i like that rabbit awfully. "kinda wobbly, isn't he? - thumper! what did your father tell you!" "he doesn't walk very good does he?..if you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin at all!" it's an awfully charming movie. and i like the sense of seasons passing. it reminds me of nature stories for children by a certain russian writer whose name i can't remember.

i was thinking that the earlier disney movies felt very different and that i still like sleeping beauty better than any other one. for one thing, it's got a proper prince. he could fight dragons and stand up to his pa (this is the fourteenth century!) he had initiative, whether it was flirting with women or fighting monsters. i allways feel bad he had to slash through the forest of thorns to get to her too (in the perrault - the thorns just burst into bloom when he approaches - that's cheating!) plus, medieval princes dress better than princes in other ages (cinderella's prince, i remember, had silly epaulettes and gold buttons and braids - yeuw!) and he's the only one of them who could sing too. and use a sword. did you see any other disney princes putting their swords to more than decorative use? i never liked snow white and cinderella. recently i sat down to watch snow white with my 3 year old niece and i remembered why i didn't like it. i didn't like snow white herself - she has a roundness that was annoyingly artificial that reminded me of babies, fleshy but not in a voluptuous way, just blurry-edged and childish (sleeping beauty, on the other hand, was drawn angular and slim) - and her voice wasn't pretty. then the dwarves annoyed me to no end - i want dwarves to be tolkienish - (altho pratchett's dwarves are fun too: gold! gold! gold! - no! that's the second verse, you big stupid troll!) the animals were as good as pieces of furniture (the mice in cinderella were endearing, and the sleeping beauty animals stole the clothes of phillip), and the prince was such a wet rag! come to think of it, the only one i liked was the queen's raven, and even then he wasn't a bit cunning and wicked like maleficient's raven in sleeping beauty (ravens are a bit odin aren't they) maleficient was fantastic. what a terrific entrance, that woman. eerie green light and her own castle on a dark mountain. and turning herself into that hellish fire-billowing dragon (the dragon reminds me of c.s. lewis's underground lady in the silver chair) plus there's the adapted tchaikovsky score and once upon a dream is a beautiful song. i wonder whether we've got sleeping beauty in the library.

actually. what i was really really doing online was looking for was a jeffrey osborne cover of all the way. i can't find it on kazaa and i wish someone would send it me if they've got it. i keep turning up celine dion and frank sinatra and half a dozen other people. the best i could find was michael feinstein's version. don't know why i want the song or the version particularly i just do and feinstein's version is too - soppy - and unsatisfying.