And here it is… there’s no escape!
(Watch it full screen, the resolution is great.)
>
The Blog of the LCSNA
Burbles
The Blog of the LCSNA
Rumors of an Indian Alice in Wonderland Movie
There’s Bollywood buzz of a big budget Indian Alice in Wonderland. The gossip from One India:
Quick Gun Murugun director Shashanka Ghosh is planning an Indian version of Alice in Wonderland. The film’s lead character will be named Alisha and it will be a modern version of the story.
The film’s script will be written by Samit Basu (writer of Simogin Prophecies). Shashanka wants the movie’s special effects to match up to international fantasy hits like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
Actresses Katrina Kaif, Soha Ali Khan and Sonam Kapoor are being considered for the lead role. A character, based on that of the Alice in Wonderland writer Lewis Caroll will be added in the film.
It is Better to Give Than to Receive
Yes, we know Hanukkah is over and it’s too late to mail order anything in time for Christmas, but isn’t that always when you find the best presents? Let “Universe” be “Books” presents a round up of unique gifts to suit a variety of highly-specific gift-giving scenarios:
* First, is your mother, sister, or other beloved barrette-wearer a fan of Lewis Carroll and of the current Victoriana revival? How about something from Rivkasmom.com “Steampunk Wonderland” pendant and barrette collection? Rivkasmom combines antique watch gears, clock faces, tiny teapots and little brass top hats into sparkling items of wearable, affordable and fashionable literary allusion. (Sorry, images on their website are copyright, otherwise we would show you one.) $15-$95
* Or… do you know someone who has always wanted to read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll [sic], but just can’t find the time to sit upright and hold the book near his/her face? Bed Books revolutionary new sideways print edition might just be the perfect gift:
“The patent p
ending sideways text layout of Bed Books affords total comfort and eliminates the back and neck strain associated with the contorted body positions normally required for reading conventional books while lying down, and usually propped up, in bed.”
ending sideways text layout of Bed Books affords total comfort and eliminates the back and neck strain associated with the contorted body positions normally required for reading conventional books while lying down, and usually propped up, in bed.”
Instructions on How to use a Bed Book can be found on their website. Paperback, $6.95
* For the Alice fan you insist on only meeting in public places, we would refer you to A. P. Miller’s Beyond the Looking Glass, “Erotic Romance: Paranormal, Gothic/Horror, BDSM”, as featured in our previous posting. $2.99
* and finally, what could say “you’re special” and “I think ahead” more than a nice card informing your friend that you have pre-ordered for them an official Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland action figure? (Official release date July 2010). $19.99
A.P. Miller’s "Beyond the Looking Glass" from Red Rose Publishing
Red Rose Publishing is an online Romance fiction site, where you can buy digital books and escape into amorous fantasy. One of these, by A.P. Miller, is a collection of fairy tale-themed shorts called Beyond the Looking Glass by A.P. Miller, downloadable in pdf and other formats for $2.99. (I don’t see how “beyond” the Looking Glass is a fundamentally different preposition from going “through” it – if you’re already through it, how much more additionally beyond can you go? But it’s a title that has been used elsewhere by eating disorder specialist Remunda Ranch in her 1992 Beyond the Looking Glass: Daily Devotions for Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia; for Alan Downs’ 1997 Beyond the Looking Glass: Overcoming the Seductive Culture of Corporate Narcissism; for the DVD Beyond The Looking Glass- A Behind The Scenes Tour Of The Tennessee Aquarium; and on dozens of other books.)
Alongside Rhed Riding Hood and Snow White, the titular titillation of Miller’s Beyond “finds Alice set in an underground world she would never expect through the very nature of it, which forces her to find her way back through Wonderland with the help of the Cheshire cat.” Missy Brown’s review of this at ParaNormalRomance.com says: “Each story is told with well thought out plots and twists, I kept looking forward to what came next. The love scenes are so naughty, they will have you running to find your own Big Bad Wolf, or not so Prince Charming.”
Steampunk Alice Collage by Ramona Szczerba on Etsy
Artist Ramona Szczerba is selling this stylish collage inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on Etsy.com, the online store for handmade craft. This 1 of 1 is still available for $145.
Well, you didn’t think Alice WALKED all over Wonderland did you? That place is HUGE, and Alice is way too clever for that. Besides, those maryjanes pinch after a while.
No, Alice has wisely fashioned her favorite wicker chaise into a fabulous Wonderland Cruiser and can be seen motoring about, accompanied by the March Hare (who has also fashioned a means of transport), the White Rabbit, and the hookah-smoking caterpillar (she felt giving him a ride was the least she could do after pressing his mushroom into service as a parasol). With the Dormouse emerging (with a yawn) from her teapot and her small bottle of elixir following on an endtable sidecar, Alice is ready for whatever Wonderland might throw at her next.This 5″ x 7″ original collage features a vintage image of Alexandra “Xie” Kitchin (one of Lewis Carroll’s favorite child models) in true steampunk style and has been hand-printed, hand cut and hand assembled on a stretched hand painted gallery canvas. It features brown mulberry paper, German Dresden trim and is accented by antiqued pressed brass corners.
Ms. Szczerba and Mark Burstein were e-mailing back and forth this week about the photograph she used for the collage, which he wrote is “not the face of Alice Liddell; it is a photo of another of Carroll’s favorite young models, Alexandra ‘Xie’ Kitchin, taken 14 May 1873.” Ms. Szczerba also directed us to her Flikr site, starting here, where she has some more original illustrations for AAIW.
Keith Sheppard’s Wonderland Revisited
Evertype has published a book of new Alice stories called Wonderland Revisited and the Games Alice Played There by author Keith Sheppard, with illustrations by Cynthia Brownell. At Sheppard’s website, www.writerman.org.uk, you can read the first chapter of the book & also some of his other nonsense verse.
Here is the blurb from the back cover:
“Excuse me,” said Alice to a small white Mouse in red shorts. “What precisely is a custard race?”
Did Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass leave you yearning for more? Join Alice on her new journey and meet the extraordinary inhabitants of Wonderland, both familiar and new.
If your bed turned into a boat and you found yourself “drifting off” in an entirely unexpected manner how would you find your way home? The Jack of Diamonds says it’s Alice’s own fault for being fast asleep—had she slept more slowly she wouldn’t be so far from home.
The Red Queen, the Mah-jong Dragons, even the Red King’s Gamekeeper, all seem helpful enough at first—but things never quite turn out the way Alice hopes!
Brimming with wordplay, nonsense verse, and a cast of eccentric characters each with their own peculiar logic, this adventure is faithful to the style of the originals, picking up the pen where Lewis Carroll put it down. Be swept away on a torrent of humour and madness. Alice is back!
It can be purchased from Amazon.com for $12.95 or Amazon.co.uk for £8.50.
Alice’s Adventures under Ground: new typeset edition with Carroll’s original illustrations
Evertype has published a handsome new edition of Alice’s Adventure’s under Ground, Lewis Carroll’s earlier version of Alice’s adventures. Michael Everson, who has previously translated AAIW into Irish, is the editor, creating a book design inspired by Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice and original elements from the facsimile. He has typeset the text, making it easier to read than the facsimiles. And this edition uses Lewis Carroll’s own original illustrations (which Carroll would not have thought were professional enough to be published widely in the 1860s, but, by our modern standards, are very cool.) It is now available from amazon.com for $10.95 or amazon.co.uk for £7.95. More about this edition at Evertype.
« Alice Still Alive » in its Thirteenth Incarnation
Every year since Lewis Carroll’s centennial in 1998, French artist Guy Jacqumin has asked other “Artistes Alicéens” to collaborate on an exhibition around an Alice-related theme, like 2004’s Alice à la Folie or 2003’s Alice dionysienne. If you’re near Paris in the next few weeks, stop by the Centre d’arts plastiques Albert Chanot, 33 rue Brissard, 92140 Clamart. Alice chez Albert et Lucie, the thirteenth Alice still alive, will show starting December 12th, 2009, thru January 3rd, 2010. Previous Alice still alives can be seen at www.alicestillalive.clan.st, which the British Lewis Carroll Society has kindly translated here. (Thanks to Mark Richards and Hugues Lebailly of the LCS for the tip.)
Free Samples from Dover Publications
Each week DoverPublications.com emails subscribers with a list of publication samples aimed at teachers. Last month’s offering included both the seasonal and the fashionable: at the bottom of the list was a selection of Christmas and Hanukkah origami projects, at the top were extracts from the Dover Thrift Edition of AAIW with Tenniel’s illustrations, two Alice coloring books, and a newly-released soft-cover edition of AAIW as illustrated by Willy Pogány in 1929. The latter is now available for purchase on their website.
Reading extracts of a coloring book is probably worse than reading a book with no pictures at all, but it could supply some rather nice clip art files for this year’s Christmas letter.
Rare performance of Alec Wilder’s original music for the 1957 LP Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
In 1957, a popular dramatized LP version of Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland was released, narrated and sung by Cyril Ritchard. It’s still widely available, even on iTunes here. The music, which many children of that generation heard so many times, was written by light classical American composer Alec Wilder – (He also wrote television operas, like Miss Chicken Little [1953] for CBS, and was friends with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.) A piano reduction of this score, with song versions of just about every poem in AAIW, has been in print from Tro Ludlow Music since 1986. However, the original instrumental score, for woodwind quintet plus percussion, was lost.
It was lost until it was found in Gunther Schuller’s attic a few years ago. (Schuller is another swing-era American popular-classical composer.) Professor John Koehn will be staging a performance at Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s College of Fine Arts this weekend and next, with the school’s Dean, Michael Hood, reading from the story. 11am on Saturday, December 12th and 19th, at the Indiana Free Library in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Read more about it in the Indiana Gazette.