A New Alice

As a big Alice in Wonderland fan, I have to say, I am extremely concerned with the prospects of the new Alice movie. After over 30 years of Lewis Carroll's classic stories, I'm not sure if I am ready for a reinterpretation. And the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp combo makes the uneasiness all the worse with the memory of how they butchered Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The idea of Alice a little more grown up isn't so bad, but the Mad Hatter has just become a little too freaky for me.

Grrr... 3 months an we will see, I suppose.

The Cheshire Cat?

So, I took one of those quizzes on Facebook...

Heather took the Which 'Alice in Wonderland' character are you? quiz and the result is You are most like the Cheshire Cat

You are mysterious and a little bit cooky. You help when you choose to, but are infuriatingly unhelpful when you don't. You are philosophically-minded.

The result, above, was that I am most like the Cheshire Cat. I am uncertain as to my feelings about this result. I guess I always thought I was an Alice.

Writing for Alice, Again

So, Anthony and I have done precious little on this one. Anthony has actually done more sketching for the illustration than I have done any practicing for the calligraphy, but we're still pretty much nowhere. With him moving in a couple of months from now (after the wedding), it would be nice to get something up on the all that is a joint project for us. But, it being a couple of months until our wedding, time is kind of short for pet projects.

Alas, I may just wind up using my standard variation of Carolingian Miniscule that I use for non-SCAdian projects and call it a day. I used this hand to do calligraphy to Anthony's watercolor images of "A Royal Princess," a Christina Rossetti poem. Our first Christmas as a couple, I stole his paintings and made a book out of his illustrations and my calligraphy, then had it printed for him and his family. It came out rather well, I think.

I was really hoping to have something special for Alice, though. Who knows, maybe it ill just come out organically in the process.

Writing for Alice

So, Anthony and I have decided that, as a joint project, we are going to illuminate a section of Alice in Wonderland. We have picked a section with which to start, and have divided labor. Part of what I have to do is decide on a calligraphy hand to do the text. I am having some difficulty with this.

I don't want it to be too stiff and formal, but it still has to be legible. In my head, I would like to see a hybrid of my handwriting (which I like, and if fairly legible as far as handwriting goes) and a more traditional calligraphy hand, like Carolingian miniscule. But so far, I am having little success. I fear that I cannot blend the two successfully.

When writing out a story like Alice by hand, you want something with whimsy, with imagination. Most handwriting is so structured that you lose any sense of that, even more so with a true calligraphic hand, with all of its very prescribed strokes and ligatures.

I may have to start from scratch on this one.

Identity

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I- I hardly know, sir, just at present- at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

"What do you mean by that!" said the Caterpillar sternly. "Explain yourself!"

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir, " said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see."

-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Are we always the same person, or is the person we were this morning a different person by the end of the day, as Alice proposes to the Caterpillar. It is easy to realize that we have changed as people from the days when we were an infant, a child or a teenager- these are significant differences in age that come along with new experiences and emotions. But are we really a different person? A basic existential question, I suppose. I will not dive into deep debate, I promise. I will simply type my thoughts out loud, as I am wont to doing.

I think it may be difficult to argue that we are different people from one day to the next. We have the same DNA, occupy the same body, though it may look or feel different. Our souls have grown with us. I will often comment that I am a different person now than I was when I was a teenager. I am. I no longer use drugs, my values have changed, as have the circumstances of my life. But just as I am the woman I am today, I was also that impetuous girl. I know her well, she will always be a part of me. She is my past. I will hold her near always, because she is me, and helped me become who I am today. Sometimes, I need to take a moment and remember her.

I think the way to look at the situation is plain. We are not a different person, but neither are we identical to who we once were. We change. We grow. But the path we take to get to our present, and eventually our future, is all contained within.

So, from where is this all coming? Truth be told, I had a dream, a nightmare actually, that scared the life out of me this week. And it made me question who I was, really. It made me wonder if I am really the same person I was at 17, who would do or say anything, for any reason or none at all. How much of her is still me? Am I any different, or am I just playing this new role trying to run away from her?

Falling, falling, falling...

And if you go chasing rabbits,
and you know you're going to fall...

Jefferson Airplane's song White Rabbit makes Alice in Wonderland seem more like a fantastic acid trip than a child's imaginary excursion. I wonder about Lewis Carroll's intent around this children's book, and how right Jefferson Airplane really had it. Drug use was viewed far differently in 1866 than it is today. When kept to a certain acceptable level, drug use was an aristocratic passtime. The caterpillar smokes a hookah while conversing with young Alice, and a drawing of this appears in the first edition of the book, from John Tenniel's original woodcuts (see above.)

The claim is that Carroll wrote these stories for children that he knew, who he entertained with stories of fantastical adventures before he even put them to print. But I think there is merit to the view that the author could have been putting to paper some of his more interesting drug fantasies. If that is the truth of the matter, parents have been entertaining children with a story born of a hallucinogen for over 125 years.

The real Alice

The real Alice, the girl that begged Lewis Carroll to write down the stories he told her.

Entering Wonderland

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretense
Our wanderings to guide.

And so begin Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and my new blog. I'm not sure where I'm going with it, but Alice strikes something within, and right now, this is how it's coming out.