olympics opening ceremony - nagano, 1998

today i'm so happy because i figured out that these twin ceremonies are the media, design and performance event i most internalized in childhood. it...explains a lot.

at the time, my great aunt loretta, who had seen many olympics in her day, said it was the most beautiful of all the ceremonies. she collected little statues, and she loved children also.

it's probably why i'm making a scale model of my parent's country club's ladies locker room circa 1995 right now, and probably also why i bought the phaidon book "japan style" instead of the stephen shore or jorge pardo ones. the olympics also coincided with my third grade class's unit on the history of the us and japan, when i first learned about the atomic bomb, though long after i learned of world war two. "the nagano theme song ... "when children rule the world." when i was seven or eight, i realized i was a child. this was shortly followed by the realization that i was an american child. god i'm a terrible memoirist. don't you love the costumes?