Online « Lewis Carroll Society of North America

SOUP!

A film about soup!

canned soup in the leading role of a short allegory.

amosmulder.com/soup.htm

2010

Thanks to Lee Welsch (son of Sue & brother of James) for forwarding this to the LCSNA.

“Unintentionally Terrifying” Alice LPs on Cracked.com

The internet humor depot, Cracked.com, yesterday posted a collection of “19 Unintentionally Terrifying Children’s Album Covers“, two of which were old Alice records:

Cracked comments:

We’re tempted to chalk this one up to a bad case of Engrish mistranslation from our friends across the Pacific. It’s easy to see how “Wonderland” could have been misread as “Waterland,” and the “Mad Hatter” may have been literally interpreted as “Angry Hat.”

In any case, how we are supposed to believe that they’re pouring a cup of tea underwater? How the hell are you going to drink it? Could they have made a more disturbing Alice in Wonderland cover?

I think all LCSNA members will know the answer to that last question.

UPDATE! Matt Crandall had a post on his Disney Alice blog last year featuring Alice in Waterland, with more pictures, and included a recording:

Thank you!

And secondly:

Jenny Woolf Smithsonian Article on Dodgson's Changing Reputation

The current issue of Smithsonian magazine includes Jenny Woolf’s succinct summary of current critical and popular thought around Mr. Dodgson, focusing on how perceptions are at last changing to a less sensationalized and more fact-based, historically appropriate view: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Lewis-Carrolls-Shifting-Reputation.html

From Brazil with Theremin: a new soundtrack for silent 1903 Alice

When our cousins the Lewis Carroll Society of Brazil held their first “Alice Day” in May this year, one of the main events was the live performance of a new soundtrack to the silent Alice in Wonderland (1903). The music was composed by Paulo Beto and performed by the band Frame Circus on keyboards, cello, percussion and Theremin.

Thank you to Adriana Peliano for sending us news of the event. Adriana tends Alicenations, the blog of the Lewis Carroll Society of Brazil. The above video featured in her Alice Day blog post, along with another soundtrack by Frame Circus, and a video of Leon Theremin playing his own instrument.

Happy Snark Day

Thanks to Mahendra Singh for reminding us that 136 years ago today Lewis Carroll began his composition of The Hunting of the Snark, “and thus, in a semiotic and hypermetaphysical manner, began decomposing the non-existence of The Hunting of the Snark.” Read more at his excellent blog.

In celebration of Snark Day, here is the full text the first edition, published by Macmillan and Co. in 1876.

In lieu of a rendition of “Happy Birthday To You,” we suggest listening to Billy Connolly as the Bellman in the 1987 April Fool’s Day performance of Mike Batt’s Snark musical. When the musical was originally released as a concept album in 1986, the part of the Bellman was sung by Cliff Richard, possibly the only time Billy Connolly and Cliff Richard have proved substitutable in popular culture.

Finally, Mr. Singh (an LCSNA member and Knight Letter editor) is publishing his own beautiful Snark illustrations, coming out November 2nd, 2010, from Melville House, and it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon.com here. Only $10.08! (Don’t be fooled by Amazon’s “look inside,” it links to another edition.) Previews of many of Singh’s illustrations can be seen on his blog, and I’ve reprinted one below.

From Mahendra Singh's illustrations for Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark

Oxford StoryPods Nonsense Contest and Mad Hatter Lunch Party

Liz and Francis of Oxford Storypods, the talented folks who put out a very nice audio version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland paired with a great selection of poems and letters, have just announced a contest for nonsense writing in a Carrollian vein. You can read the details by clicking here. It’s a particularly challenging contest, since your submission must be very brief (max 200 words) as well as good! Two winners will be selected and awarded the aforementioned Storypods audio book, which is well worth a little nonsensical effort. The winning entries may also be professionally recorded.

7/20 PLEASE NOTE: The contest deadline has been extended to August 15th, 2010, to allow you nonsensical writers more time to flex your imaginations. Storypods has asked that you keep your submissions to the 200 word limit. The two winners will be announced on or about August 25th.

Liz and Francis also hosted a A Mad Hatter’s Lunch Party that sounds delightful.

The Future of Alice Books, Part II of an Infinite Part Series

Image from Atomic Antelope's Alice iPad app

There’s more discussion on the Alice pop-up book app for the iPad (originally mentioned here in the post Through the LED Screen). The Atomic Antelope app ($9, or a free demo) is the original Carroll text with interactive animated illustrations based on Tenniel. Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy is ruminating on all of this over at the Guardian this week.

…But this is nothing compared to Alice for the iPad. You can throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts, help the Caterpillar smoke his hookah pipe, make Alice grow as big as a house and then shrink again. You can watch as “the Mad Hatter gets even madder”, and throw pepper at the Duchess. Over the 52 pages of the app there are 20 animated scenes. Each illustration has been taken from the original book and has been made gravity-aware, responding to a shake, tilt or the touch of a finger. The story is never the same twice, because users are Alice’s guide through Wonderland. The Caterpillar will smoke his hookah in a new way when you tilt your iPad, or you can throw more pepper the second time around.

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One side renders you larger, the other reticulates splines

Thanks to the Facebook page Alice in Wonderland Inspired Photography, Movies and Art for posting Nikki Nebula’s trippy version of Alice in Wonderland created using the Sims 2 Movie Maker:

That Guy With Glasses reviews Disney's Alice in Wonderland

There will of course be reviews of the new Tim Burton Disney Movie (knocked down by titans, dragons, and Tyler Perry, but still 5 in the box office in its fifth week, and having made already $300 million dollars!) in the forthcoming Knight Letter. Meantime, several LCSNA members have been forwarding this video around, seconding this reviewer’s sage insight:

Contrariwises Rejecting Apology; or, Did Lewis Carroll burn his secret collection of Lolicon manga?

Our post on the controversies and pseudo-controversies surrounding Carroll’s character generated some small discussion (“teach the controversy”, as the Kansas School Board might advocate). The folks at Contrariwise continued with a longer reaction. I quote Ms. Karoline Leach at length:

from Alice in the Shadows by Maria Bodmann

[...] we send our sincere thanks to the LCSNA bloggers for so generously giving us the space. We have also linked to you.

Tangentially though, in conjunction with something a commenter here said the other day, the reference to ‘certain questions’ has got Contrariwise thinking.

Suppose you give a false alibi to a man in order to get him acquitted of a crime you know he probably commited – if it later turns out he didn’t do it after all, does that make what you did right?

I don’t think it does, does it? And that’s the weird problem at the heart of Carrollianism right now, that I think needs to be looked at.

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The LCSNA blog that features us is headed “Special Report: Was Lewis Carroll a gay Mormon and were the Alice books written by J.D. Salinger?”, referencing some of the many stupid things that have been said about Carroll over the years. It’s a joke, but in its way it makes exactly the point Contrariwise is trying to make. Because those things aren’t ‘myths’ are they? They’re just loony ideas no one has ever taken seriously. The point about the myths we are concerned with (his child-obsession, his avoidance of adult society, his passion for Alice Liddell), is that they were promulgated by serious Carroll scholars and believed by everyone until very recently. The notion of the man as a pedophile arose out of these myths as an inevitable, and very reasonable conclusion. It couldn’t, and can’t be just laughed off as ridiculous, and taking that line is just Apology again. No one will take you seriously if you sell the image that has been sold for so long and simply ask people to take your word that – honestly - he wasn’t what you are obviously painting him to have been.

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There’s some more interesting comments below that post, and feel free to continue the discussion in the comments here. The shadowy illustration above is from Alice in the Shadows, Maria Bodmann’s Balinese-inspired shadow puppet play.

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