X is for Xanadu

You want a trip in the surreal? Maybe with rock music? Someplace where ELO meets Big Bands...and Gene Kelly. Oh, and there's roller skating too!

Sound like a fever dream? Maybe...

It's Xanadu!

First a poem titled Kubla Khan in 1797 by a poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (belo w is the first stanza), it's about the Mongolian ruler Kubla Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan dreaming in his pleasure palace;  a movie in 1980; and later musical in 2007.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree: 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea. 

Xanadu is defined as an idyllic place, a place place of great beauty, luxury, contentment. From dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

Xanadu is many thing all rolled into one. The primary story centers on the Greek muses, nine sisters and one muse in particular, Kira's (real name is Terpsichore. Clio in the musical.) and her adventures on earth. The funny part is the movie is adaptation of a movie from Down to Earth (1947), which is an adaptation of a play Heaven Can Wait. The movie is filled with rock music from ELO (Electric Light Orchestra), Olivia Newton-John, who plays Kira in the movie, and early animation from Don Bluth. Never mind that it is about a roller disco and features Gene Kelly in his last movie role; and one amazing scene that blends 1940s and 1980s music into the most intense mash-up ever.

It was also one of two movie nominated for the first ever Golden Raspberry Award, but lost out to the Village People movie, Can't Stop the Music.

It also needs to be seen to be believed.

A Musing Inspiration

Where is the inspiration?

The Greeks believed the Muses inspired,

giving mankind a leg up in creativity

in song, poetry, and dance.

The Greeks believed the Muses inspired,

nine sisters to grant humanity gifts

in song, poetry, and dance;

to create something out of nothing.

Nine sisters to grant humanity gifts,

although I prefer my gifts to be my own,

to create something out of nothing,

but maybe I am wrong.

Although I prefer my gifts to be my ow,n,

weaving words across a page or colours across a canvas,

but maybe I am wrong,

that gifts are given to us, for us make our own.

Weaving words across a page or colours across a canvas; 

that is our job, isn't it?

That gifts are given to us, for us make our own,

out of the spiritual ether around us.

That is out jobs, isn't it,

make the art that the world needs

out of the spiritual ether around us?

That might just be the gods bequeathing their gifts.

Make the art that the world needs,

giving mankind a leg up in creativity

that might just be the gods bequeathing their gifts.

What is the inspiration?