Micro-pleasure: Unexpected Inspiration in Cinematic Lettering.

“Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way or another.” – The Doctor.

The above is from the gift shop [of all places] of my new favourite museum – Seattle’s Experience Music Project.

Let’s back up. The EMP’s funky Frank Gehry architecture is what caught my eye, and Wallpaper Seattle‘s endorsement made me mark the museum as a must-see. Just look at it.

See? Look how giddy I am.

If the swirly awesomeness wasn’t enough, this sign, in My Colours, provided further encouragement.

Once inside, I joined in on the EMP’s celebration of music by watching OK Go & friends [aka dogs] be weird and rhythmical on an IMAX-worthy screen to the best blasting speakers I’ve ever heard….

…participated in listener surveys…

…bowed down to girl power female artists, saw Lady Gaga’s childhood piano and Madonna’s diary, and soaked up the inspirational sun at the Women Who Rock exhibit…

…and opened the door to magical lands at the Fantasy: Myth and Magic exhibit.

Another Micropleasure: Finding Wonderland, Narnia, Middle Earth, and Hogwarts All Over The World.

Storytime. This Fantasy exhibit is the kind of thing I would make a special trip across the country to go see – in fact, fantasy literature is what drove me across the ocean in the first place – but this part of my already-booked trip to Seattle was luck, chance, destiny, a miracle – pick one.

This vacation, although a present for graduating from Oxford, was not intended to include metaphorical connection to Oxford itself, yet here Alice, Frodo, and Lyra were, as if we had all agreed to meet at Mr Tumnus’s for tea all along.

It’s like Dumbledore already told me: “I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me.” We may have said goodbye, but we will meet again, and again, with not only each reread, but in the most unexpected spaces on our journeys.

Not all who wander are lost,

P.S. Last week’s Micro-pleasure: Gossip Girl and Chunky Necklaces