Worrybirds,
My friend Andrew, from my standup comedy podcast series is a co-owner of Logan Square Improv. They’ve been hit especially hard during the pandemic. Even though they’ve been temporarily closed since last year, they managed to produce six episodes of improv, standup and sketch from local Chicago performers.
Send some support their way and check out the show!
For any new subscribers, my name’s Jed and I created the Get Afraid Journal. If you want to get in touch, hit reply.
Try it for the Story
🎡 The Adventures of Hoot & Chief
I’ve worried about falling out of amusement park rides, but I’ve never considered willingly getting out mid-ride.
Back in the 90’s Dave Ensign (aka Hoot Gibson) and Ed Barlow Jr. (aka Thunder Chief) were just two guys in love with the Horizons ride at Disney’s Epcot. The attraction featured linked ride vehicles that snaked through massive sets, audio-animatronics, and film projections.
I was a teenager when it closed in 1999, but I remember riding it a few times. I can recall the smell of the orange groves and the underwater dining. I also remember the ride was usually empty.
When Hoot and Chief heard the dark ride was going to shut down permanently, they decided to document everything. Everything! They didn’t just take pictures from the ride, they actually got out of the vehicle, and ran around on the sets. And they got away with it for months.
Security was incredibly lax, so they basically waited for a gap of empty cars in front of and behind them. Then they hopped out of the ride for 90 seconds or so, took video and pictures, and then hopped back in.
With time, the duration of their visits grew more bold, until eventually they were spending hours undetected, wandering around the inner workings of the ride.
It’s worth jumping through the age-restriction hoop to watch the following documentary about them.
It’s insane, illegal, and the best thing I’ve seen in a very long time. I love it so much. There’s just something disarmingly wholesome about the whole thing.
Remain Seated Please - A Hoot and Chief Story by Matthew Serano via Mesa Verde Times
The true story of the unauthorized, daredevil documentation of the Horizons ride at Disney World
Spooky Good
The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan
I started reading this last week and I’m hooked. It’s a deep-dive into Christopher Nolan’s filmography and features excerpts from multiple interviews with the director. It features interesting bits like:
You can spend a lot of time trying to figure out why, when you look in a mirror, your left and right are reversed, but up and down are not,” Nolan told me one morning not long into our interview schedule.
I can’t say I’ve thought about it, but that is an interesting observation. Apparently this is the answer?
I still don’t get it.
Anyway, back to the book. Christopher Nolan then asked the author, Tom Shone, how to describe the concept of left and right objectively. It’s basically impossible. You have to reference yourself or something else in order to explain it.
These concepts pop up all the time in Nolan’s work. Reflections, endless layers, mazes, memory loss. It’s thought-provoking to hear how he stumbled upon these ideas and incorporated them into his work.
I’m loving the book so far.
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