Saturday, April 10, 2010

Kiki & Lala: The Blue Bird of Happiness

Jake Kotze did a wild post on blue birds and much more, and it brought this video back to mind. In it, the Sanrio characters Kiki and Lala, known in the US as "Little Twin Stars" (Sirius anyone?) have a little adventure incorporating psychedelics, flying saucers and musings on the nature of the universe. You know, kids stuff.

Funny thing is, much of the psychedelia revolves around a spot over Kiki's right-frontal lobe - a spot that I have had repeated dreams about for the last few months. Most of these dreams involve information being shared with me from an extra-ordinary source. In one of the dreams, I discovered a chip in my brain that was receiving transmissions from Sirius, the twin stars themselves. Now, I don't believe I actually have a chip in my brain or anything, but these dreams were all very powerful and left me extra aware throughout the day. Take from that what you will. I'm not sure what to make of it either.

The video is in Japanese, but luckily I live with a beautiful girl who is able to translate for me. And now for you. Join me on this trip of loaded language and imagery. Here goes:

After brief intro with an unhappy penguin sitting on a mushroom, he wonders what happiness is. The Little Twin Stars fly in over an Amanita mushroom and offer to tell the classic story of the Blue Bird of Happiness.

An old lady asks Kiki and Lala to find the blue bird of happiness for her sick daughter.
Lala asks "What is happiness?"
Kiki says, "Bread and Butter, Fashion, Cake, Singing and Dancing, Playing as much as you want..."
That sounds so good that they agree to go find this bird. Ah, but where to look?
The old lady tells them to start across the river. (Harkening an Aquarian beginning to their journey)

But they don't see a river when they look out the window.
The old lady says, "What's wrong with you? You aren't seeing things as they really are."
So she gives Kiki a hat with a stone in it to help him see.
She tells him to turn the stone slightly.

The old lady turns into a beautiful young woman in blue (shades of Pinocchio's "Blue Fairy") and asks, "Can you see things clearer now?"

She explains that when you see things as they really are, you can see time clearly too.
(Reminds me of a time I saw music coming out of a speaker)

Next, all the animals start talking and not-completely random things come to life. Like this milk spirit and this bread (grain) spirit. (See the Circumpunct Breakfast post for more on this).
Also joining the ranks are the sugar, fire, and water spirits.
Nice globe the cat has there.

The blue fairy turns back to an old lady and says she cannot join them on their quest. But the light bearer comes and she'll show them the way. ...By taking them all on a flying saucer!
First shot of the flying saucer? Flying over white rabbits of course!


Next they go to a dark forest of the memory or the past. They find the blue bird there by remembering their grandparents and manifesting them. Essentially raising them from the dead. The grandparents say that they live forever - "in your memory." (My thoughts exactly)
The cat is a bit of a nasty bitch and tells the trees that Kiki and Lala are bad and wish the trees harm, which they do not. The trees want the bird back, but are defeated by the fire spirit.
Then, suddenly, the blue bird turns back to normal - they don't know why - and they decide to move on to the next locale: A creepy old castle that is basically the night world.
Once there the cat runs off to be a bitch again, but first climbs our spiral staircase. She then tells the night queen that Kiki and Lala are there and how bad they are.
Kiki and Lala and gang find a room of ghosts and get attacked. So Kiki uses his stone (gets stoned?) and scares off all the ghosts. But this light bothers the night queen so she asks him to turn it off.
He makes a deal with the queen and trades her his cool hat for:

A key!

He attempts to use they key but gets sucked through the key hole sorta like that famous Winnie The Pooh shot the boys at the Sync Whole are so fond of.
On the other side of this door are germs of the heart, a powerful metaphor. These germs make everyone depressed, sort of a Blue Bunny effect.

Only the milk spirit is unaffected, instead loving her germ and rendering him useless. Another powerful metaphor.


The germs combine into a big monster that looks a bit like the new amorphous Kraken in the "Clash of the Titans" remake. It then eats everyone.

The monster is so powerful as to frighten even the queen. The cat redeems herself by taking the magic hat and diving into the monster's mouth where Kiki can use it again. Here's another Pinocchio, or even Jonah and the whale, nod. ...Maybe dark night of the soul?

The stone makes the monster explode, everyone is safe, and it's the cat's turn to do the Pooh pose.

Now tons of blue birds fly over head, all on their way to the land of dreams.
Our cast follows them into something that looks like the Norway Spiral and behaves like the holodeck from StarTrek.

But, when our group leaves this land of dreams with a cage full of blue birds for the old lady and her sick little girl, they find all the birds turn black.

They're told "No matter how beautiful/vivid/precious a dream is, when it's over, it's over."



Now, I'm sure this story goes on, but that's all that's posted online. And to be honest, I'm okay with that. I like that ambiguity.
It leaves us to find the true blue bird of happiness for ourselves.

Good luck on your quests.


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