Xanadu

Just for fun, here is some of what I found when I googled Xanadu:

It's a Place,  a Fine Art Gallery, a Movie, a Song . . . all inspired by an ancient ruin, details on the ...

UNESCO World Heritage list at Xanadu Site Ruins

Located in what is now Inner Mongolia, Xanadu was the cool summer home of the khan of that era. It included both a beautiful marble palace and one made of strong cane, along with a vast and beautiful park where the khan enjoyed riding. In 1872 a Britain with the Legation in Beijing visited the site and found blocks of marble, tiles and other artifacts. But by 1990 everything was gone, probably used by locals in building their town. Only some art now remains in the walls of that town, Dolon Nor.

The name became famous in our times with the revival of the poem Kubla Khan by the English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Written it in 1797 while he was apparently under the influence of opium, it praises the city built during the period 1252-1256. It was visited in 1275 by Marco Polo who later (1298-99) dictated a description of it in glowing detail. In 1369 it was occupied and burned by an enemy, and then abandoned for several hundred years.

Picture Gallery:  UNESCO's details and pictures of remains at the site.

Xanadu Art Gallery

"Resource for collectors, designers, builders, and corporations for procuring the highest quality art ..."

Xanadu:  1980 Romantic Musical Fantasy Film. 

A musical based on the film also opened on Broadway in 2007. 

I don't recall either of these. If any readers do their comments will be welcomed. 

AND FINALLY . . . 

Oilvia Newton John sings "Xanadu".  I wonder how the khan would have liked this!

Brigadoon

B is also for buff, film buff that is. That's me.

The movie Brigadoon came out in 1954 when I was a freshman in college. It was based on the Alan Jay Lerner Broadway musical of the same name and featured a fine cast and many of Lerner & Loew's best songs. Dated as the film is by today's standards I still have fond memories of the story and music.

This is a whimsical love story set in a misty version of a long ago time. It plays to our desire for the unattainable, to remain forever young and in love. No wonder it was so popular in that post-Korea era!

Because I studied German literature I noticed a similarity to the German story Germelshausen by Gerstacker. That, in turn, was based on the ancient tale of a town that falls under an evil enchantment and disappears, reappearing for just one day each century. Like the town, the story keeps resurfacing, so we must be due for a new version. I can't wait to see how it is treated in today's idiom!

The obvious and comforting point here (for some!) is that however much civilization may "improve" us over the centuries, in our hearts we humans remain the same.

Several of the Brigadoon songs were long-runing hits in the day. My favorite is sung here by Frank Sinatra. We girls were all in love with him, and our mothers were convinced that all that "swooning" and screaming was terribly unhealthy for us. (Adolescent females then were pretty much like today's.)