And There He Kept Her Very Well
In 1995, I relocated from my home in the UK, and joined a crew of artists in Orlando, Florida, to help make Disney’s 36th animated feature: "Mulan".
As you can imagine, this was a dream job, and my first day in the studio can best be described as eight hours of absolute excitement and total joy. I arrived bright and early, and headed for Disney's HR office (called "Cast Member Services"). There, I was welcomed by some bright Disney smiles, and given an itinerary of about two dozen twenty minute meetings, taking me on a journey around the building to say hello to all the various heads of department.
Unfortunately, I peaked too early.
In my first meeting, I should have begun by being mildly pleasant, and then slowly increased the energy throughout the day, to arrive at my "Maximum British Charm" level by about meeting number eighteen. From there, it would have been easy to pace myself carefully through the remaining meetings, to finish the day on a high, with my audience cheering.
Instead however, through a mixture of poor control and first day jitters, I walked into meeting number one, and reached my highest energy peak after about ten minutes.
To be fair, it wasn’t entirely my fault, because the person in meeting number one was so nice. As I shook his hand, he launched into a wonderful and flattering speech about how completely amazing it was that I’d decided to join the team, and how, no, really, it was totally and utterly fantastic that I, Daniel Cohen, with such talents and reputation, should choose Disney as the place to work...
As my ego inflated at the continued shower of such nice words, I grew more enthusiastic in my rebounded charm.
“Thank you so much,“ I said, speaking way too fast and far too loudly. “The movie looks like it's going to be absolutely incredible, and I’m VERY excited to be here. Everyone I’ve met seems so nice. And of course, Disney is the best in the world, and I love that I am here, working with such amazing people... etc... etc...”
By nine-thirty in the morning, I’d been about as charming and enthusiastic as I was ever going to get, and I knew that sustaining this effort was going to take a LOT of energy. After five meetings, I began to repeat some of the wittier moments that had gone down well from previous conversations, and by meeting number ten, I pretty much had the full twenty minutes of high energy material prepared, complete with fully rehearsed spontaneity.
Thankfully, day two at Disney saw a swift end to the honeymoon period, and I settled down to the task of actually working on their movie. Human brains are very efficient, running on roughly the same amount of power as a 10-Watt lightbulb, but it would have been impossible to sustain that same level of energy for the remaining eighteen years I was with the company.
Professional athletes require a daily intake of around 4,000-6,000 calories to maintain their peak levels of activity. My 2,500 calories a day converts to over 10,400 kilojoules of mechanical energy. This is the equivalent to the combined power of a small hair dryer and a reasonably good toaster oven, but certainly not enough energy to shake hands and talk incessantly for almost two decades.
Among primates, humans eat the most. Our metabolisms are more efficient, and it's thanks to this energetic advantage that we enjoy such long lives. Meanwhile in the wild, polar bears need 12,000 calories a day to survive, and not surprisingly, the blue whale has the largest appetite of any animal. They take in an incredible 457,000 calories with every 1,000 pound mouthful of krill. On their hungriest days, they can eat more than 3 million calories. To put everything into perspective, this is the equivalent to around 1,200 first days at Walt Disney Feature Animation.
Over the past few months during this crazy 2020 year of Coronapocalypse home confinement, I've managed to keep my mind and body active through some nice walks, healthy eating, and a love of home gardening in and around my house in White Plains, New York. Now that we are well into November, the growing season is winding down. The last of my tomatoes have been picked. The cayenne peppers are ending the year with an impressive final batch, ripening on the stalk and ready to pick soon.
My mustard greens are also growing nicely. This is a late-planting crop that doesn't mind colder weather, and I'm planning for these healthy greens to find their way into a soup within the next couple of weeks. Unexpectedly, my strawberries are also doing extremely well right now; every day, the ones I pick and eat are replaced with new flowers, which quickly turn into delicious red fruit.
Around this time of year as food becomes more scarce for the local wildlife, I like to fill my bird feeder. It's amazing to see how many different varieties of bird are attracted to eat, and this week brought me a couple of incredible surprises.
When I first noticed activity around the feeder, I thought it was being visited by a tiny gray and white woodpecker. It was only 5 or 6 inches long, but incredibly fast and agile. Initially, he stood on the side of a nearby tree, nimbly running up and down the vertical surface of the bark before launching himself over to the feeder. Then he quickly grabbed a seed and flew the food to a safe place on a branch, where he held it between his claws, and pecked it open with his beak like a drilling woodpecker.
I watched two more similar birds do the same thing together, and then a group of three, each flying to the feeder in fast and precise formation. I moved closer, to get a better view of this mystery bird, and then suddenly another different breed of bird flew in and started to do the exact same thing. This one was slightly larger with a gray back, and a white chest and belly. On top of its head was a large protruding tuft of gray feathers, reminding me of some of the punk rock hairstyles I used to see in the 1970s.
Similar to the other bird, it flew in, grabbed a seed and cracked it open in the same "woodpeckery" way. This was fascinating, and after a brief consultation with my "Birds of New York" book, I identified these two new visitors to be the Red-Breasted Nuthatch and the Tufted Titmouse.
By this point, the new source of food had attracted other birds, and soon the feeder was bustling with activity and color, when Cardinals, Sparrows, Doves and Wrens, joined the Nuthatches and Titmouses (Titmice?). As I moved closer and closer to get a better view of the feeder, there was a point when the other birds suddenly scattered for cover, but the Nuthatch and Titmouse routine continued. Neither kind of bird seemed to be afraid of me, even as I inched right up to the side of the feeder and prepared to take photos.
At one point as I held steady, waiting for the next wave of birds to visit the feeder, a Titmouse flew in and landed on the top of my camera. I said something human like: "Oh. Hello!" and the bird replied something that sounded a bit like: "Peter-peter-peter!" before jumping onto the perch of the feeder and posing very nicely for me.
I try to take positive lessons from every experience, so this one was easy. Such a close up encounter with nature could only fill me with hope, strength and energy for life. Maybe not enough to power a first day at Disney, but certainly sufficient to fuel me well past the final mustard green soup and strawberries.
