Danika Miller

                      The Happiest Place on Earth smells like corn dogs[1], waffle cones, and chlorine water. [2]The walk down Main Street U.S.A. [3]is a walk down a turn-of-the-20th-century American town. Town Square presents a City Hall, for buttons, special accommodations, and customer complaints. A Firehouse that hosts Walt Disney’s own apartment, the Disneyland Railroad, the Penny Arcade, a Magic Shop and countless more shops line the funneled entrance to the park. Children bounce out of the Emporium with new toys and Mickey Mouse ears. Vanilla and cinnamon waft from the Candy Palace, and the Dapper Dans barbershop quartet serenades our souls. You might notice the employees[4] who have formed a human blockade around rejected food as a child wipes his mouth. Custodial promptly arrives at the scene to clean the vomit. All the while a grand castle[5], the ultimate symbol of all childhood imagination, draws nearer as you immerse yourself deeper into Disneyland.

 

                      You spot bright dresses worn by young actresses hired[6] to be cartoon characters, who push smiles onto their faces for countless photos in SoCal heat and a wig. You watch as you sit on a bench to wait three hours at front row seats along the parade route[7]. Ignorant foreigners somehow find space in personal bubbles as free game. Inconsiderate parents shove their kids to prime seating just minutes before Mickey stomps down the pavement. Mickey waves at you and Minnie blows you a kiss. You heart skips along with Peter Pan and his band of dancing pirates. It’s over too soon and the route floods with tourists rushing to the next ride.

 

                      The Main Street hub ends in a circular center, breaking off to wondrous options, the Castle its looming north star. A dirt path with horse hooves and boot prints, a cobble stoned street with trolley lines, a star speckled blacktop, a wooden paneled walkway and a brick mote offer to lead to different worlds[8]. 

 

                     The venture into the jungle in Adventureland heightens adrenaline, it's a place where a water safari and tour of the tombs[9] awaits. The path is thin and winding, shaded, and Aladdin’s oasis offers refreshment. It costs more for bottled water than fountain soda, dehydration is the only free souvenir. 

                     Giant double wide strollers and ECV scooters scrape the back of ankles and slow movement through the park. Strollers line up like horses at the starter gate for the Kentucky Derby, seriously, there's separate parking areas overflowing with these things. 

                     A path winds into New Orleans Square, pirates and happy haunts[10] await your arrival. You delight in Tiana’s spicy gumbo and a refreshing mint julep while a live jazz band performs. The Mark Twain Riverboat steams by on the Rivers of America. 

 

                     You don’t bother with the dead limb that Disney refuses to amputate or revitalize, Toon Town. Sun faded cartoon buildings, two rides made for tiny people, and even the children are bored with their dated giant house props.

 

                     Tomorrowland is really the future according the 80’s but that future is still more fun than our present. You shoot through the Space Mountain like an asteroid, blasting blindly though a star speckled galaxy of dips, drops and turns. Hopefully the lights won’t turn on if it breaks down, then you’ll be able to see it’s really just a giant metal structure that funnels down to a big camera. Stormtroopers secure the area and point fake blasters at your camera, it’s the most authentic character experience yet. 

                    The day always ends back on Main Street. In front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle you see bundles of Mickey Mouse balloons and hear light tunes of hope. Disneyland is magical. But magic has a price[11] and it doesn't always agree with everyone. At the end of night cast members wave lava lamp torches as you try to get across the park to ride Splash Mountain while the fireworks are going on. And despite the chaos, you'll likely return tomorrow. 
 

 

[1] Disneyland’s Red Wagon has the BEST corndogs known to man. This is their real source of magic.

[2] This scent is strongest in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but also spills from Splash Mountain, It’s A Small World, and the Rivers of America.

[3] Walt Disney designed this opening section of Disneyland to resemble his hometown Marceline, Missouri. Walt Disney said, "For those of us who remember the carefree time it recreates, Main Street will bring back happy memories. For younger visitors, it is an adventure in turning back the calendar to the days of their grandfather's youth."

[4] I worked as an employee (A.K.A. Cast Member) for Disneyland from January 2014-August 2014

[5] The Sleeping Beauty Castle reaches a height of only 77 feet, it was designed to appear taller using forced perspective; design elements are larger at the foundation and smaller at the turrets. The castle holds two gift shops at its base and a winding attraction through the castle that tells the story of Sleeping Beauty using moving pictures and story boards.

[6] The Entertainment Cast Members go through rigorous auditions that test their physical appearance, dance skills and most importantly their ability to act like whichever character they’re portraying. They usually do love their job.

[7] It’s worth it.

[8] Described here are: Frontierland, Mainstreet U.S.A., Tomorrowland, Adventureland and Fantasyland- which all break off from the main center courtyard.

[9] Referring to the Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones Adventure rides.

[10] There’s room for one more.

[11] Approximately $99 for one day at one park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   

                     Middle Style is designed to please and engage. It’s a bit more risky and employs more tropes and figurative language in order to entertain. The reader is invited to look at the language, rather than through it with low style. This was the easiest style for me to write. As a creative writing major, I’m practiced at entertaining storytelling and manipulating figurative language. I also enjoyed the room for humor in this style.

 

                    One example of the use of a simile is the sentence, “Strollers line up like horses at the starter gate for the Kentucky Derby.” This simile allows the reader a picture of comparison to better understand the image I want them to. Most readers will know what a Kentucky Derby horse line up looks like. That image paired with strollers in an amusement park is both humorous and accurate.\

 

                    I used imagery a lot in this piece and tried to describe smells and sights and sounds to really immerse the reader. The line, “Children bounce out of the Emporium with new toys and Mickey Mouse ears. Vanilla and cinnamon waft from the Candy Palace, and the Dapper Dans barbershop quartet serenades our souls.” Utilized sight, smell and sound, leading the reader to more easily place them within this image.

 

                    I used the second person ‘you’ perspective to more intimately show the reader the content. I had a really close psychic distance into mind of the intended reader and what they were seeing. This allowed me to control the emotional reactions and experience to the good and the bad circumstances I describe.

 

                    I started this piece by first describing Disneyland and inviting the reader to be placed directly in the park, directing what they see and where they go. The first half of the piece explained the great things about Disneyland. I then shifted mid piece to some unfortunate truths about the amusement park experience. I thought this would be a surprise deviation and a comical twist. Ultimately though, this made the piece feel a bit disjointed and uneven. In revision, I weaved together the moments of magic and the messier bits about the experience. This helped create a more whole picture of the immersive theme park and allowed for a bit of an up and down emotional roller-coaster.

 

                   I also streamlined the journey that I took the reader on. In early drafts I was just describing what it would look like to be in different areas on the park, without a clear map and idea of where the reader was meant to be. In the final version, the reader is taken more closely through the park. They start in Main Street, the only entrance to more lands, and then explore each land in a circular rotation, ending again in Main Street for fireworks.

 

                  The addition of the footnotes felt perfect in achieving an engaging and entertaining Middle Style. Some of the language is a play on a spiel from the rides or insider hints that only people who have been to Disneyland would necessarily pick up on. The footnotes really helped in this sense to keep all readers on the same page.

 

                  For example, the line, “A path winds into New Orleans Square, pirates and happy haunts[10] await your arrival.” Someone unfamiliar with Disneyland might not know what I mean by happy haunts. The footnotes allow me to explain that it’s a reference to the Haunted Mansion Ride, where the spiel line is, “actually, we have 999 happy haunts here, but there's room for a thousand.” 

 

                The footnotes also allowed me to insert an establishment of ethos, “I worked as an employee (A.K.A. Cast Member) for Disneyland from January 2014-August 2014.” I utilized them to provide additional facts as well and elaborate on more elusive comments made in the piece. And the footnotes left room for humor. The first footnote, for example, is “Disneyland’s Red Wagon has the BEST corndogs known to man. This is their real source of magic."

 

                My overall message was that Disneyland isn’t perfect and things get messy and go wrong, (hence the “A Messy Magic” title). But ultimately, you’ll want to go back because it truly is special.