Good and bad Fantasy

Dallas Road Beach, Victoria, BC


So, a few days ago, I was having a discussion about what constitutes "cute". My friend and I agreed that miniature versions of things are nearly always cute. (This might be part of the appeal of Malta...)

It reminds me of my childhood attraction to tree and beach driftwood forts which I built nearly constantly from age six to twelve: a smaller and more contained and sort of fantasy version of the humdrum home I was used to.

Forts could become anything. Very often my tree fort was a pirate ship, but it doubled as the Tardis, the Enterprise and as an unspecified castle in Narnia under seige by Orcs, Morlocks and Calormenes. A whole world that was contained in my brain.

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It's funny what your brain tells you. Most of my life, beaches looked like this:


And a beach without driftwood all over it was simply dull. What are you going to lean on when you're reading your book? How are you to build a fort if there's nothing but sand? What are you going to climb around on if there's no rocks? What's the point of a beach that's covered in sand where all you can do is just lie there? How boring is that?

It still throws me off and I'm afraid I look at Santa Marinella's beach culture as dumb, dull and pointless. Beaches are for climbing around on the rocks, gazing deep into tide pools and building forts. Period.



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