Of course we all remember Morpheus saying, “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes” from the first Matrix classic film. Well, if you watch the trailer for the latest sequel (Matrix Resurrections, coming in December), many more Carrollian references abound, at least according to this Vanity Fair post (which IMHO stretches things a bit, although some of the references—going through the mirror, the song “White Rabbit,” a glimpse of a copy of Wonderland/Looking-Glass, etc.—cannot be denied). But there’s more!
Many of you knew my beloved dad, Sandor, a major Carroll collector, medical scholar, and president emeritus of our Society. For the last 17 years of his life he lived in a lovely dwelling on Vallejo St. in San Francisco. The movie trailer (and perhaps the movie?) opens on a shot of this very house!!!! Where else would a movie about the Wonderland of dueling realities take place?
A few seconds later, the psychiatrist (Neal Patrick Harris) in profile, looks out our living room window. When they filmed at and around the house for five days in February, 2020, we had no idea if we’d end up on the cutting-room floor, much less that it would be so prominent! (Not to mention that Grace Slick, who sings the song, was a patient of Dad’s during the time in which the song was recorded. And my stepmother, Beth, still lives in the house.)
Cue Twilight Zone music. Take your pill.