Update, Hello Luxo: My Pixar Adventure

WALL•E IS CURRENTLY THE #1 MOVIE IN JAPAN. Today I was contacted by Kazuhisa Kawahara, the chief director of a news program called Wide Scramble for TV Asahi.

From the email I received: "I want to introduce another wonderful story of 'WALL・E' on our TV program, yes, I mean YOUR story!"

Sounds like my crying video will be debuting in Japan soon. Exciting! I've also answered a couple of additional questions via email.

I'm so happy to have the chance to say, again, how great the people at Pixar are.

I love the internet.

Hello, Luxo: My Pixar Adventure

It was fun playing ball with Luxo, Jr. at Pixar Studios!

AS SOME OF YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN, I'm pretty fond of Wall•E even though he makes me cry. Ever since I posted that video several months ago, the lovely folks at Pixar have been more wonderful to me than words can express. In fact, it's still a bit overwhelming for me to write about and I don't know where to begin. Luckily, my boyfriend wrote about it on Metafilter, so, with his permission, I'm just going to reprint it here. I've inserted my own comments in parenthesis within his writeup.

Here's a true story about how awesome Pixar is.

As some of you know, when the trailer first came out, my girlfriend, Courtney, burst into tears at the trailer. She was embarrassed but somewhat amused by this, as so she made a video of herself watching the trailer on her computer, knowing she would start crying every time that little robot said his own name.

After a few months, she started to get trickles of emails from people at Pixar who said they had seen her video and really appreciated it. It was all sort of under the radar -- mostly code monkeys, and they were sort of circumspect about the subject.

Then she got an email from one of the film's producers, saying they wanted to send her something for Christmas. She received a Crew Jacket and a nice note saying that the folk at Pixar had appreciated the film.

Then, last month, she received another barrage of emails from Pixar, again from producers (Not all were from producers). They were having the wrap party for Wall-E in San Francisco, and wanted to know if we wanted to join them. (In one of the emails, a woman concluded her email with "So, do you want to come party with us?" Ha! I didn't even look at my calendar before I replied YES! I was shaking from excitement so badly that I am glad I was at least able to type those three letters.)

They flew my girlfriend out and put us up in the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel, the same one featured in Bullitt (How cool is that!), at the top of Nob Hill. We met a few of the people who had contacted my girlfriend, all of whom were very nice, and some of whom she had gotten to be quite good friends with in the past six months. We walked over to a nearby Masonic Temple, which had been elaborately dressed to look like the interior of a spaceship, and then we settled into the the theater with a thousand of the people who had worked on Wall-E, as well as their families. (I'm pretty sure it was just employees +1 that night. I think friend/family viewings were on a different night, closer to the release date.)

Before the movie began, the producers and the film's director, Andrew Stanton, came out and gave a very heartfelt speech about the making of the film. They made it abundantly clear that, as far as they were concerned, this film was a collaborative act, and no part of it could
have existed without the imagination and labor of the people who made it. They were the real stars of Wall-E, Stanton told them, even if they are never seen on screen. (I had, at this moment, realized I was sitting in an entire auditorium of movie stars even though they themselves are never on screen.)

Then he said this: "Six months ago, when the first trailer for Wall-E came out, we were only halfway done with the film, and we weren't exactly sure how we were going to get it done. We were exhausted. And then, one day, a movie showed up on YouTube showing a girl watching the trailer for Wall-E. And every time she watched it, she would cry on cue. When we saw that, we knew we were on the right track." (I think I zoned out due to excitement after I heard the words You Tube. Glad Max was there with me to help me remember!)

Everybody in the theater laughed at this knowingly. (I was THRILLED by their reaction because, at this point, only a couple of people knew I was there in person. The fact that the Pixar crew reacted so positively to my video simply being mentioned was such a great experience. I could have gone home happy just at that point.)

"Well," Andrew Stanton said. "We invited Courtney here tonight." (I remember turning to Max with some crazy expression on my face. I should try to recreate THAT sometime. ha!)

A gasp went through the theater. I turned and looked at my girlfriend, who was gape-mouthed with astonishment. Andrew Stanton asked her to stand up*, and all one-thousand sets of eyes in the theater turned to find her, and thunderous applause broke out. Courtney stood, and, not knowing what to do, blew kisses to the assembled artists and
craftspeople who had made the film. (I can't describe how amazing it was to see an auditorium full of people -- a sea of faces -- turn all at once in my direction. The entire Pixar crew was applauding and shouting for me? That's crazy! It's true I blew kisses to the entire audience. I didn't know what else I could do to show my gratitude to everyone all at once.)

It was one of the most moving and astounding things she had ever experienced (True!), and I had ever witnessed, and Pixar had done it for no reason other than that her video had touched them and made them optimistic about the film they were making, and they wanted to repay her.

The movie began, as usual, with a short cartoon. The one that preceeds Wall•E is called Presto and is an immediate classic. It is Looney Tunes at it's finest. I laughed so hard, especially when that rabbit first points at his mouth... As usual, Pixar's comic timing is impeccable.

We went to talk to Andrew Stanton afterward. He recognized Courtney at once and embraced her (It was a bear hug and I loved it.), delighted she had made it. As we talked to him, Brad Bird, the Academy Award-winning director of Ratatouille, interrupted. Stanton introduced us (Brad Bird said, "Why didn't you cry at any of MY movies?"), and Brad Bird offered to take our photos. This is the photo he took. (I had a great conversation with Brad Bird about one of my favorite scenes in The Incredibles, where the little neighbor-boy in the Big Wheel says, "I don't know -- something AMAZING, I guess.")

For the rest of the evening, at the wrap party, people from Pixar came up to Courtney and talked to her excitedly, thrilled that she had been invited. (I was so happy to meet everyone, and I never got over the excitement of people coming up to me saying, "Are you Courtney?" Later I would find out that I was known around the studio as The Crying Girl.)

The next day, one of the Pixar employees who had befriended Courtney gave us a tour of the studio. Then we went home, unable to believe our experience.

Pixar has never tried to make use of this story for promotional purposes. They really did it exclusively because they were touched by Courtney's response to their trailer, and because they thought it would be nice, and because they thought it would be a treat to their
employees, who, from what I have seen, they treat with enormous respect."

If you read the comments on my video, you'll see that my reaction to Wall•E isn't all that unique. I am so happy that my video was able to lift their spirits in the middle of a very long process. I'd like to say that was my intention when I set up my camera that evening, but it wasn't. I put the video up because I was so amused by the fact that this little robot made me cry in just the few moments he was on screen in that first trailer.

I thought I'd be better about not being so emotional after I saw the movie, but I think I may be worse now that I have so many wonderful memories associated with it. I think I can handle it, though.

Definitely tears of joy, Pixar.

Go see Wall•E. I dare you not to fall in love with that little robot, or the entirety Pixar for that matter.

*I stood up. The audience did not. Andrew Stanton ask that I stand up so that everyone could see that I was there. I just want to make sure this is pointed out: I did not get a standing ovation. I've noticed this detail in articles going around. It's only a tiny factual mistake, but one I want to clear up nonetheless. I was happy to stand up for Pixar when Mr. Stanton introduced me -- they deserve the standing ovation, not me. I enjoyed seeing all of their faces turn toward me with giant smiles, their whistles and hollers, and clapping.

Update WCCO News Story

Update Wide Scramble in Japan

New York City Edition. 21 Club

The Bottle Gang tippled a glass or three
at New York's 21.
We didn't drink them dry,
though they may say we tried.

We left so we could drink no more,
to go home and dream from our beds
that when we come back to 21
they don't treat us like the Feds.


WE'VE BEEN INTERESTED in New York's 21 Club for years, mostly because it piques our fondness for history. After reading Marylin Kaytor's "21" The Life and Times of New York's Favorite Club, we found that the club could have modeled itself after the wildly rambunctious, unbelievably booby-trapped speakeasies of Hollywood talkies. However, Kaytor's anecdotes are of the we-can't-make-this-stuff-up-folks kind, which helped us draw our own conclusion: Hollywood went to 21 for inspiration, not the other way round. Every nook and cranny in this low-light, checkered tablecloth atmosphere has its own fantastic story.

Our favorite stories about 21 begin during Prohibition with a man named Soll Roehner, a necessarily trustworthy construction worker, and his equally trustworthy, hand-picked crew. He was put in charge of designing a Federal Agent-proof door, not to keep the Feds out of 21 altogether (21 has never been a private club), just keep them from finding the 2,000 gallons of illegal hooch hidden in the basement. This door would have to endure, successfully, multiple tap tests, draft tests, and any other liquor-seeking tests the Feds could dream up. Roehner had quite a task at hand. He set to work with some ingenious ideas; not only did he design an invisible door, but an undetectable lock as well. Set a few feet back in a small alcove is a wall -- or the door to us insiders. Inside the alcove and on the back wall are thousands of small holes, many of them painted over now. To the Feds these looked like nothing other than places to put pegs on which to rest shelves -- and 21 did just that. They had cured hams hanging above miscellaneous sundries on the shelves. But one of these holes is actually a key hole. If inserted at just the right angle, an 18" long metal rod unlocks the behemoth, 5,000 pound door. Roehner had to design hinges that could facilitate this hulk to move smoothly, so as not to damage the brick on the door and the wall. In Kaytor's book, Roehner speaks about his famous feat of architecture:

"[The door] would have to function with precision balance to avoid damage to the brick door as it met the brick jam stop. A concealed metal adjustment stop was fabricated so that the brick just kissed against brick as the door swung shut. In the locked position, the door had to be perfectly solid with no visible play. The lock had to operate without a conventional key, to be absolutely jam-proof, and to be lockable from the warehouse side in case of siege."

Inside is a cavern of wines, practically over stuffed with bottles as old as 1880. Bottles of wine seem to be stored in the cellar indefinitely, among them are wines owned by Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis, and Richard Nixon among hundreds of others. Each bottle has the name of its owner labeled on the bottom and facing outward for easy locating. Further back is yet another cavernous room. We had to practically fold ourselves in half to get through this literal hole in the wall. Inside is a luxurious dining room -- longer than it is wide with a table that almost matches the size of the room. This room is also the active red wine cellar, and bottles line the walls. It takes some tricky maneuvering getting out -- especially for those exiting after dining and imbibing. This doorway is jokingly referred to as The Sobriety Test.

It may only be out of sheer unwieldiness that all of this still resides at 21 -- the door in particular -- as many remnants from that dry time have been renovated out of the infamous brownstone at 21 West 52nd Street. "You have to understand," explains Philip W. Pratt, 21's Sommelier. "People did not like Prohibition -- it was not a happy time." So the coat closets with dummy walls that could only open with an electric charge from a strategically placed metal coat hanger are gone, as is the back bar shelf that could turn over and dump bottles of illegal alcohol down a chute leading directly to the New York City sewer system at the push of a button. Kaytor describes what this sight must have been like:

"Shades of Orson Welles, Vienna, and The Third Man -- if one had looked down the opening revealed behind the back bar as the shelves tipped over, one would have seen a brick-lined chute with iron spikes jutting from the walls, arranged so that bottles would strike the spikes and shatter, and then fall on down to an iron grating to smash completely any stubborn glass. Under the grating was an opening leading down past the basement drain and into the New York sewerage system, into which everything ran off to disappear forever!"

For those of you squealing over all of that lost liquor, according to Pratt, the speakeasy was only raided three times. Federal Agents spent many unsuccessful hours searching the place, undoubtedly growing more frustrated by the minute as the smell of alcohol filled the room, and seeing patrons holding only empty coffee mugs instead of splashing cocktail glasses. In one case, an agent thought he had them figured out. This agent asked to be lowered into the water tower on the rooftop, thinking that 21's stash of alcohol would be hidden there. Once he reached the water, however, he remembered that he didn't know how to swim and the search was called off. It was an unsuccessful search with a nearly successful drowning. Another raid was cut short by James J. Walker, New York's Mayor at the time. Of course, it would be devastating to his career to be caught drinking in a speakeasy so "he called his friend the police commissioner," explains Pratt, "and had all the Feds' cars towed." 21 still has Mr. Walker's private booth where he could "do whatever he wanted to do out of the public eye."

The 21 Club's sense of playfulness is not overshadowed by their extreme professionalism. There are lawn jockeys lining the facade of the building and toys hanging from the dining room ceiling -- the toys are an especially surprising sight for such a posh establishment. "This was the second plane that we hung up," Mr. Pratt says as he points upward to a large model plane of the Spruce Goose. "Mr. Hughes had to one-up the first plane we hung up." The first plane, according to Kaytor's book, was an American Airlines plane; 21's website says it was a British Airways "flying boat." Now there are thousands of different memorabilia hanging from the ceiling, from airplanes to baseball bats, brought in by patrons from around the world.

As for 21s drink selection, they have a talent for making room for new tastes while making sure to keep the classics. We're sure this theory permeates throughout the entire establishment, in fact, and is one of the major reasons for its longevity. We tried The South Side, which is basically a mojito made with vodka instead of rum and, according to Pratt, was invented at 21 along with Humphrey Bogart's drink of choice, the Brandy and Benedictine. We also tried a Cosmopolitan, which, from the first sip, spoiled us rotten for any other Cosmos from any other bar. This Cosmopolitan made all the others we've had in the past seem like something poured out of a juice box rather than the fresh citrus concoction that was set before us at 21. And we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a martini -- Tanqueray, dry Cezano vermouth, with a dash of orange bitters (yes! They have orange bitters!), straight up with a twist. It was perfect. We tried two of their newer additions to the drink menu, the Peg Leg and the Global Daquiri, which are lemon drinks. We weren't crazy about these new additions to the drink menu, which seemed to be sweet and sour takes on the same recipe, but, admittedly, they were tolerable.

21 isn't the only remaining speakeasy in New York City; Minetta's, Pete's Tavern, and Chumley's are just a few of the better known establishments that have remained open. 21, however, certainly has the heir of being the most notorious among the group.

We were curious if any of those Federal Agents returned to 21 after Repeal, if only to ask where the good stuff was hidden. Mr. Pratt could only conclude "they probably did." As of now, the Bottle Gang hasn't found any accounts of curious Feds returning to 21 on a friendlier basis. But we agree with Mr. Pratt that at least one agent must have come back. After all, curiosity almost drowned one of them. With a cocktail lounge as luxurious as 21's, we can't see any reason for staying away. Except the danger of drowning in libations more exciting than that found in a water tower.