[ALADDIN & JASMINE]
A whole new world; That’s where we’ll be
A thrilling chase, a wondrous place
For you and me…
— from the Disney song, “A Whole New World” by Alan Menken & Tim Rice, 1992.
Sure, a magic carpet would be nice to have, especially if I were dating someone.
I’m thinking about the magic carpet that Aladdin used to impress Princess Jasmine. She thought he was a prince, even though he was actually a petty thief who had stolen a particularly valuable lamp.
That happens sometimes. Thieves pose as princes, or kings, and we can get fooled by the carpet.
I actually have a pretty nice car, which stays safely and securely on the ground. Truth be told, I would be afraid of falling off a flying carpet, so I would probably fly it, like, three feet off the ground. In which case, my car is a perfectly suitable substitute.
But what I could use even more than a flying carpet is a magic lamp, with a genie inside.
If the genie looked like Will Smith, that could be an added bonus.
Of course, knowing how these things work, you don’t find magic lamps just sitting around in a secondhand store, or for sale on eBay. To get my hands on a magic lamp, I would probably have to break into a rich person’s treasure cache, which would qualify as trespassing and also burglary.
Amazingly enough, I did find something on Amazon that looked an awful lot like a magic lamp, and I got really excited.
When it arrived, it turned out to be just a decorative teapot.
Magic lamps often look like teapots. and vice versa. But the difference is immediately apparent when you rub them.
If you’re dating someone who’s a little bit gullible, you might be able to fool them into rubbing your teapot. Then you can both have a good laugh.
The carpet in my house happens to be a wall-to-wall carpet, safely nailed to the floor. Needless to say, this provides a sense of security, but less opportunity for travel. In this world, you have to pick one or the other.
It’s possible that, if we had a whole new world, even a wall-to-wall carpet could be a safe form of transport. But I’m not holding my breath.
It turns out that Disney’s Magic Kingdom has a ‘magic carpet ride’ — a dozen cast-fiberglass carpets that go around and around in a circle, bobbing slowly up and down like a real flying carpet. I assume it feels a lot like a real flying carpet would feel.
I’ve never tried riding these carpets, however, because as mentioned, my fear of falling.
There’s a huge magic lamp towering above the carpets as they go around and around. It looks a lot like the teapot from Amazon. Maybe it’s actually a teapot. Hard to tell.
One interesting facts about the original story of ‘Aladdin and the Magic Lamp’ as originally collected in ‘1001 Arabian Nights’… the story takes place in China, even though the characters seem to have Arabian names. But I firmly believe, if anyone is going to start mass-producing flying carpets, it will most likely be the Chinese.
When Aladdin and Jasmine took their flying carpet for a ride in the Disney movie Aladdin, it caused them to burst spontaneously into song.
A whole new world; a new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no, or where to go
Or say we’re only dreaming…
At least, it seemed spontaneous. But perhaps it was a planned performance? Some evidence suggests the song — ‘A Whole New World’ — was written in advance by Alan Menken and Tim Rice.
I’ve been following the news lately, and I have to say, I wouldn’t mind experiencing a “whole new world” right about now. One that’s very different from the one I currently live in.
And maybe sharing that whole new world with someone who can laugh as she’s rubbing my teapot.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.