Is it cynical to find the silver lining, to instinctively seek it in the first place? One supposes it depends upon whom answers. Cynical could be read as pragmatic. 2020 was a vile year for so many around the globe, on so many facets. For those whom did not survive it, for their inner circles, there is, likely, no silver lining, and the only thing to write is sincerest condolences. What can one say, but, I'm sorry. For those whom survived, we were afforded the opportunity of self-reflection and existential reexamination. The question is, did you self-reflect, did you examine the life you're living? Did you find yourself content with your innermost findings? Excellent! What a wonderful place to start; a good attitude is always a great starting block! Conversely, did you find yourself displeased with your status quo? If so, what did you do to change your status? For, if 2020 didn't slap you silly and teach us everything can change overnight, literally overnight - from shutdowns of fave pubs and restaurants, to travel and event cancellations, to school closures, and, most heinously, death -  then you failed to pay proper attention. However, a paradigm shift doesn't have to be viewed solely with pessimism; it is possible to view also with optimism, taking advantage of a forced situation and busting thorough it victoriously, or at least thinner. Whilst the beginning of the pandemic was almost too freaky to comprehend, by April it was clear we were all homebody-noobies and, depending on your frame-of-mind, what a marvelous, unique opportunity, in the course of human history, to Seize the Upside, Seize the Day and Emerge Better. 

If you think on other pandemics and plagues throughout mankind's history (the Spanish Flu of 1918, the European Black Death of the mid-14thC, the San Francisco and Australian Plagues of 1900), there could not be a better time to be in lockdown. First and foremost, medical research and application the world over is, obviously, cutting-edge in 2020/2021. Yet, what other era has afforded us the beauty and utility of the Internet? Lockdown might mean your local bar is closed, your kids are now homeschooled (never a bad plan anyhoo, I thought) and you work from home now (also never a bad plan), but you have complete access to whatever you need/want/crave. Imagine having had Amazon and Instacart in 1915 Sydney or 1350 Vienna. Imagine all the YouTube the quarantined might have watched during the Spanish Flu days? Like visiting New Orleans, Vegas, Paris or Amsterdam: if you're bored, you're just not trying. Got an itch? The world is in your hand. Use your technology to scratch that itch. 

Language, exercise, film, fashion, literature, the Fine Arts, writing: all constants in my existence. Bettering my knowledge of these joys are habitually expected, of myself; ergo, filling quarantine time with these pursuits was easy and fun. Kicking up my language study, adding a new level of difficulty to my yoga practice, committing to more writing, more often, including learning new styles of long-form poetry, studying every Woody Allen film, including identifying specific jazz songs within each film, and expanding my education of European painting and sculpture were all movements I expected to enact, regardless of a lockdown. What I didn't expect were the pursuits that piggybacked on my elemental interests.

If you desire fluency in a second (or third, or fourth) language, you must nurture it. If not, cool. Polyglotism isn't for everyone. I bet you're a lot better at math than I. Yet, if you are seeking fluency, simply because you learned a foreign language as a child, took it in high school, or even at advanced levels in college, doesn't mean you can let it flounder. It will pop back, though. Your long-term memory will rush it all the the front burner and off we go! Yet, to become proficient, like any art or sport, #practicepracticepractice! Flms, websites, Insta accounts, TV series, Zooming & Skypeing with friends whom speak your language of pursuit, whatever it takes, wherever you find it, practice as much as you can, daily.

As lockdown began last March, I found a fab new, Duolingo, to help me keep up my French and German. Whilst there, I thought it might be sage to add Italian,which I've been casually noshing on for about a decade. Then, because I'm bonkers for languages, I thought how fun to add a few more: Irish, Danish, Japanese, Klingon and Dutch. (Duolingo offers thirty-eight languages, including endangered languages like Hawaiian and Navajo. To boot, it's free and such fun! Yes, there are paid-subscription models, but the free version keeps one très occupée. Also, DYK, Ashton Kutcher was one of the early investors? Do yourself a fave and check on it! "The best new way to learn a language. Gamiification poured into every lesson!" Moi senses a future post devoted to Duolingo ... check back soon.)

So, of all the amuse-bouche languages I piled on my plate, what stuck was Dutch. Similar to Italain, I had been casually pursuing Dutch, if only for a couple of years, because of my love affair with The Netherlands and the Dutch. Ik houd van het Nederland en zijn mensen! Today, I am nearing my 365-day learning streak via Duolingo. (I believe today is something like 349.) Thanks to Duolingo plus following some Dutch-language Insta accounts (trying to translate captions and comments is xlnt for capturing colloquialisms), news-sites and watching the few Dutch-language films Netflix offers, my Dutch is - als ik het zelf mag zeggen - making wonderful progress. Now, if the Schengen zone reopens to American travellers, I'll be able to get back to my beloved Amsterdam and practice mijn Nederlands.

Now, it's true, languages come very easily to me. (Of course, it is at a brain cost for math and map-reading. Ask me to find a fraction, a percentage, do subtraction involving 9s, or ask me help navigate through the Irish countryside you will see a tearful, hopeless, sloppy pile of JennyPop.) Not all languages are my friends. I'm maintaining a tenuous hold on the basics of Irish. I might be able to politely request a menu, order some water, bread, wine and a sandwich, and, if I can work it into a conversation, point out to any passers-by on the Dingle coastline, "The seal eats a fish!" Itheann an séala iasc!." I don't ever expect to be fluent in Irish or Japanese (another one I'm working on, if only at learning the alphabet and characters thus far), and that's okay. Fluency, for me, will likely be relegated to French, German, Dutch and English (duh). Maybe Italian if I can get there again for a few months. However, in the realm of languages, I am not used to is failing, flat-out. However, I failed this year, miserably. Failure, thy name is Klingon.

Doff my cap, I do, to anyone whom can speak it. Pronunciation, to be precise, is not my problem. Dutch and German have taught me well the hard, throaty Gs, Hs and Rs. It is the sentence structure, possessives and pronouns that stump me, well, stumped me: past-tense. You will rarely read, or hear, this from Moi, yet ... I quit. You win, Klingon. I'm tapping out for good. Not one one to walk away empty-handed, I did learn one apropos, très useful phrase: Tu'HomI'raH SoH ‘e’ Sov wo’  "You are a thing notable for its uselessness; the Empire knows this." Ha! Too true, Klingon, too true.

The Greeks and Spartans believed it was not only vital to work the mind, but the body in equal measure. Agreed. Movement has been pivotal to my life since preschool and continues to this day: ballet, gymnastics, track and cross-country (hated it), field hockey (briefly and only because I loved the kilts), fencing, too many gym-memberships to count, and, as of the last fifteen years, yoga. The last six or so have been following Boho Beautiful Earth-angel, the quiet, gentle, beach-based, vegan and elegant Juliana Spicoluk. (I don't do frenzied, high-energy, you-got-this-girl! kind of frantic coaching. Ick.) In 2020, as I imagine many did, I added some meditation to my yoga practice. It was helpful on some days, notably in the earliest days of the pandemic, when nobody knew what the virus was, how it was transmitted and whether or not it was survivable. Like a Cloverfield monster out there somewhere, anxiety could creep in if one wasn't careful. Juliana's peaceful meditations definitely calmed me when needed. However, I'm more of a stretchy than sitty kind of girl and, whilst I still do the occasional meditation, I like to move. Happily, thanks to Juliana's nurturing instruction, I achieved some poses this past year I never thought possible, for me: Flying Crow, Full Mermaid, Double Eagle and various arm-binds. Still woefully out of my grasp are Bird of Paradise, Lotus Headstand and Pistol Squat. They're the Klingon of yoga. (Look them up, they're bonkers advanced!) 

Of course, a girl can't live on all lavender water, plinky spa music and love and light. Sometimes she needs a Guinness, some obnoxious, Dropkick Murphys and to kick up her heels, literally. 2020 was the year of Irish step-dancing and, like Dutch, it has burrowed deep into my heart and soul and has stuck like hearty, steel-cut oatmeal. Irish dance feels like home. It is also bonkers-difficult, way too much fun, requires supa cute dance shoes and, best of all, an hour of Star Jumps, Light Jigs, Rocks, Leap-2-3s, Sevens and Hornpipes is, by far, the hardest, sweatiest, heart-thumpiest workout I've ever endured Irish step-dancing: like a real sport, only much harder and wherein the weak are killed and eaten ... and washed down with a nice pint of Guinness. 

Oh, big whoop, JennyPop, the fair reader might comment here with exasperation and eye-rolls. You did some stuff. So what?  So this, fair reader ... my endeavours mean very little, if anything, to anyone other than Moi, and that is the point of 2020. This is not an advice column; I wouldn't dare be so confident or bold. Besides, you are too wise. As Ben Franklin sagely postured, Wise men don't need advice and fools don't take it.

Life can change very quickly and sans warning. Pursue your Best You because you want to, not because others wish it or want it for you or you think you're supposed to because of social pressure. If your Best You is a kick-ass cupcake baker, get on it. If your Best You is only a few credits shy of a degree, finish. If your Best You wants to lose weight, learn to knit, garden, cook, dance, write poetry, play soccer or paint, do it. Whatever you choose, do it with gratitude, gratitude for this beautiful life you get to live. Life isn't a carousel; we don't get multiple go-rounds. As Mom said, when I dithered once about what to order at a Karl Strauss, "Don't worry about the calories, honey. Eat the macaroni and cheese. Maybe there won't be a next time to get it." (Full disclosure: I did not get it. Instead, I got the waterrnelon goat-cheese salad. Mommy passed away suddenly about two weeks later. She was right, I should've gotten the macaroni and cheese.)

Whatever 2020 brought, the intangible sentiment of humanity and friendship is what will last, for Moi anyhoo. The opportunity of a year shaken so violently, like a snow globe in the hands of an horrible toddler, has shined a spotlight on friendships. 2020 brought me closer to my dearest friends, it brought a couple back from a silly tiffs and, for better or worse, it exposed a long-term friendship to be, sadly yet truthfully, nothing more than an façade: if it was easy, we were friends; the moment it took effort, we were not. A hard lesson to learn, but glad to know its depth. Where friends are the truest, not even a global pandemic can keep you apart; there are ways to keep connected, especially today. Where friends are fairweather, all it takes is a global pandemic to serve as the perfect excuse to break contact altogether. It's likely they're just not that into you, maybe never were. Sorry, but that's the short and sour truth of it, kittens. Move on to the folks whom appreciate the amazing unicorn you are. 

2021 has had a slow yet gentle and promising start. It's like driving a big sedan with a powerful, 390horsepower kind of engine. You don't bust off the stoplight like a flashy nutter, you very slowly pull away, giving those horsies a light kick. By the time you approach 30mph, you kick it up a tick. After that, you're just a smoky grey blur on PCH. It's almost April. I'm feeling about 45mph ... I can't wait to hit full speed. 

Abyssinia, kittens! Keep bettering yourselves!

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Hey, kids! It's me, Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame of The Del and ring-a-ding-ding it’s like Springtime for Hitler around here! The set-design faeries must have had a March 1^st deadline and, boyzo did they ever make it! 85 degrees, postcard blue skies, a sparkling ocean view that just won’t quit and a rainbow of pastels and brights everywhere you look! Dames are in their sugar-pink dresses, guys are sportin’ their Peeps-yellow polos and the air smells like strawberry salt water taffy and lemonheads. San Diego’s ready for spring and so am I!

Being a ghostie girl, I’m kippy enough to get to haunt the Hotel del Coronado, as many of you know. Now that I’m all moved into my new digs in the Resort Suites, I’ve packed away my velvet opera coat, my tweed jackets and my fur-topped pirate boots and moved my warm weather gear front-and-center stage. Hello, Betsey Johnson floral tea dresses, JLo floppy hats and 1970s wooden platforms! Unless you’re allergic to fun, smiles, hibiscus cocktails and feeling good, get yourself out here and enjoy our warming, welcoming, California sunshine.

What else fills my noodle in the spring, besides fouffy dresses and perfume that smells like caramel corn and cotton candy -Miss Dior Chérie by Christian Dior is just such a scent- ? Flowers! Springtime means flowers and when I think of flowers, I think of forests; when I think of forests, I think of der Schwarzwald; wenn ich denke an dem Schwarzwald, I think of fairy tales. When ich denke of fairy tales I think of Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Pied Piper of Hamlin, Three Little Pigs and Little Snow White. When I think of them, I think of … American network television? One thing I have been enjoying, when not out sunning my chilly gams by the pool, is watching loads of Grimm and Once Upon a Time on Hulu. Scripted television, fantasy-themed at that, is back, babies!

No! It can’t be true, Miss Hannah! Surely you jest! Scripted television? You and your ghost tales of the good old days! No, little children, ’tis true. Yes, I’ve been dead and holed up in The Del for nearly a century, but I consume far more media than the living and wow, have your modern viewing habits gone to dust over recent years! Some of you are probably too young to remember, but if you sit back and sip your champagne coolies I’ll tell you a story, a fairy tale of wonder and woe.

Once upon a time there was a magical place called The Writers’ Room where smart and witty folk thought about fresh ideas and interesting characters and how to best interpret and present them to entertain the good people of TV Land. Then, the gruesome and greedy producers emerged from the fjords and hollers and swathed the land in the blackness of Reality TeeVee …

Television, unlike film, has gone the way of Wal-Mart: cheap and easy to produce, cheap and easy to market to the lowest common denominator. It’s a sure fire return on investment: no actors, no scripts, just a flat-fee to participants, some base expenses like housing and booze and maybe a prize for the last one standing. It’s good enough … in the absence of anything else. So is Grapeade, but ick. Don’t get me wrong, kids, film can be total schlock, too. Ever seen the Fred franchise? Heavens to Murgatroid! Yet, we’re talking television here and this medium still reigns supreme where garbage stacks up like London’s Daily Mail in a shut-in’s Yorkshire cottage.

Certainly, one can always turn to the likes of the BBC for trips into the fantastic: Being Human, Whitechapel; Masterpiece Classics for, well, classics: Downton Abbey, Sherlock ; and HBO & Showtime for something freaky and fab: Game of Thrones, True Blood. Further, as many a Hannah reader knows, American television rules where comedy is concerned, when producers care to take a leap of yuks. Yet the broadcast airways of the big four generally run scared when presented with concepts outside reality and talent show programming. Happily though, it seems as of late the powers that be of network teevee have begun their commendable trek back into the dark and misty forests of fantasy. We may ne’er see the likes of The Twilight Zone, Star Trek or The X-Files again, but ABC, NBC and Fox are making remarkable efforts to reward us for sitting through years of The Bachelor, The Biggest Loser and American Idol.

Those who oft read me, know my love for FX’s American Horror Story. Thrillingly, I now have a few more options for fantasy via Grimm and Once Upon a Time . ABC and NBC have both brought the medieval fairy tales to the small screen; though, I think ABC has an edge. Once has the benefit of two Lost writers, which explains the bouncing around, parallel-universe storylines: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis. It also has the benefit of, as Rolling Stone reviewed, “the first hot Snow White ever.” Ginnifer Goodwin’s Snowy is certainly a more grown up version than the Jessie Wilcox Smith or Walt Disney reiterations we’re used to, but if you ask me, Snowy’s always been a bit of a hot patootie, especially the truly Teutonic version with long, blue-black, curly hair and sky-blue eyes. Bonkers hot! That’s the reason she was left behind in the forest, then later hunted by her mother’s goon, in the first place. Original tale by the Brothers Grimm lends a far more sinister version than the colourful Disney tale we all know, and which I love equally. (No implied cannibalism with Disney! No, Sir! Don’t know the cannibal-angle? Read the original.)

A bit stormier than The Happiest Place on Earth’s Fantasyland, and taking itself very tongue-in-cheek, the sylvan hamlet of Storybrooke, Maine is where the world’s fairy tale characters have been sent to live in exile by the Wicked Queen, a hateful gift thrust upon fairyland at the wedding of Snow White and Prince Charming. Storybrooke? Seriously? asks Emma Swan, played by golden girl Jennifer Morrison, the unwitting offspring of Snow White and Prince Charming, and soon-to-be the sweet-and-spicy sheriff of Storybrooke. Natch, not only Grimm characters reside in Storybrooke.

Perrault’s Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood make their lovely but forced homes there and Collodi’s Geppetto, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket are trapped as well. A perfect example of that tongue-in-cheek? Jiminy, looking like a poor, literature professor, is Dr. Hopper, Ph.D., psychologist. Continuing the Grimm thread, Robert Carlyle plays a captivating, slimy, slithering Rumpelstiltskin, spinning gold and profiting from desperation and the Evil Queen herself, Ruby, serves as mayor of this Stephen Kingesque burg.

It’s a darker setting than The Magic Kingdom, but it’s done remarkably well and beautifully shot: cinematography by Stephen Jackson. Similar to American Horror Story and The X-Files, this is a tale best watched at night and with a glass of red. Also similar to The X-Files, it’s shot on location in Vancouver. Not to put too fine a point on it, but just like AHS, X-Files and Grimm, Once uses very cool, spooky and blue-hazed opening titles to keep us from trolling for other programming during the first commercial break. Finally, apropos and pivotal to fantasy television, another Northwest metropolis serves as backdrop for yet another reiteration of the grim, children’s tales.

If Law and Order SVU relocated from Manhattan to the Black Forest, you’d have Grimm. It takes the NBC model of cop shows they just can’t seem to chuck and turns an affable, modern-day Grimm (traditional hunters of the supernatural in this version) into a detective working homicide cases in the eerie outskirts of Portland, Oregon. Amidst his work, he sees the supernatural beasties and, lo and behold, they seem to be at the heart of every crime scene. Hitler himself, according to the latest episode (S1E13) Three Coins in a Fuchsbau, it seems was a Blutbad, a werewolf. In Grimm, the Mausehertz, Lausenschlange, Fuchsbau, Eisbiber and a host of other creatures replace the antagonists in your standard cop show; these guys just happen to morph in and out of their animal forms.

Supposing the audience knows more about Grimm’s Fairy Stories than they probably do, each episode is fitted with an opening quote from the originating tale. Pleasingly so, there is also a nice smattering of German in each episode, thanks to he whom carries the show: a Big Bad Wolf, or Blutbad, named Monroe and portrayed brilliantly by Silas Weir Mitchell. Funny enough, Mitchell’s first role ever was Hansel, in a grade-school production of Grimm’s Hansel und Gretel. Mitchell plays a reformed Blutbad whom has assimilated nicely, has a quiet business fixing antique cuckoo clocks and sustains his bloodlust with handy-dandy, blood ice cubes in his soup.  He’s the conduit to the supernatural and has all the answers for Detective Nick Burkhardt, a newbie to the supernatural whom had no clue he was a Grimm until his auntie, his nearest living kin, passed away and passed down the family business … and a trailer full of what looks like props left over from the attic set of Charmed.

Although the characters and mythical figures are well represented, Grimm‘s plots are certainly stretched and reshaped, like a shrunken cashmere sweater on a drying rack, to embrace modern issues and appeal more to the CSI viewer whom likes his steak rare, and less to the Snow White of us whom like a deep cabernet with our pink rose cupcakes.

Overall, it’s just peaches to see the fairy tale genre taking hold once again. Fairy tales have been around, be it oral tradition or written, for centuries. They are the stuff of human interaction and, moreover, offer up the most primal of emotions: fear. Fairy tales are the tales of mankind: good vs. evil, right over wrong, romance and terror. Steampunk Dr. Lucy, my fellow ghost pal at the hotel, loves fairy tales as much as I; she finds the rebirth sehr interressant, in her words, “because too much of magic has left the world”. She certainly has a point. Star Wars is even fairy tale fodder, as much as is Sleeping Beauty: good vs. evil, larger-than-life villain and a steamy romance, to boot! Han Solo in those breeches and jack boots?! Sweet biscuits!

I’m just happy to see that some bravehearts in the decision-making, turreted towers of TVLand have the strength and courage to wield their broadswords and fight the dragons and trolls whom have led us headlong into harm, feeding the masses incrementally more and more poisonous, shiny, shiny candied apples.

As a side note, yours truly was at the original premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs … looking smashing in Chanel, if I I might say. Yeah, I was dead by then; but it made for no less of an event. (I did have to get my Chanel dress on a dead girl before I could actually wear it, but that all worked out just fine.) Sure, with a packed house, too, I had to sit on Clark Gable’s lap, but zowie! He never knew what he missed!

It was Christmastime in L.A., 1937, and the history-making film was introduced to the world at the Carthay Circle Theater in L.A. What a lineup of stars and lookers who showed up to see 90 minutes of animation! Shirley Temple was there (total doll) and Charlie Chaplin (what a smooth talker). Marlene Dietrich graced the place (What a face, but what a piece of work! Honey, you ain’t the only one in H-town with a million-dollar caboose!) and funny men Milton Berle and George Burns helped fill the celeb seats. Cary Grant showed up (What a man!) as did the luscious Ginger Rogers. What a set of getaway sticks on that broad! The place sold out and at five bucks a ticket, that was a lot of chicken feed back then, cats! Left 30,000 un-ticketed fans pouting outside the theater. (Sounds like this year’s Comic Con.)  Good for Mr. Disney!

The naysayers called it Disney’s Folly, but they were a bunch of mooks and flat tires. Little did they know the markers Walt and Snowy would set: first feature-length cel animation, first full-colour animation, first American feature-length animation, first Walt Disney Productions production. Whilst the theater is long gone, with the exception of a replica facade at the Walt Disney Studios, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and die Bruder Grimm continue to bring us generations of dreamy fairy tales, lingering nightmares and the brilliant juxtapositions of  mayhem, cannibalism and really, really pretty dresses.

Bis später, alligator!

Update: May 1, 2014: Since this original scribbling, I am happy to report a huge uptick in scripted television, especially historical-fiction! Notably, Sleepy Hollow, Turn, Salem, Reign and Complete Works. Let us hope the trend continues!

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Looking for more Hannah Hart rants, kids? Here I am!