Following last year’s popular Alice in One-Hit Wonderland, Burbank’s Falcon Theatre and Troubadour Theatre Company are presenting Alice in One-Hit Wonderland 2: Through the Looking Glass from July 25 to October 12: “No need to Walk 500 Miles for summer fun! Just jump on the Double Dutch Bus to the Falcon and join Alice, (who in Troubie-land is the wise-cracking housekeeper from The Brady Bunch), Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Red Queen and the rest of the wacky Carroll characters as they bebop along to one-time chart toppers of yesteryear.”
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Behind the Looking Glass
Cambridge Scholars Publishing has just released Behind the Looking Glass (ISBN 9781847184863) by Sherry Ackerman. The book “demonstrates how nineteenth century currents of spiritualism, theosophy and occult philosophy comingled with Carroll’s interest in revived Platonism and Neoplatonism, showcasing the Alice and Sylvie and Bruno books as unique points of conjunction between Carroll’s intellect and spirituality.” View the table of contents, sample chapter, and ordering information.
Theater down the rabbit hole
Foolsgold Theatre’s Alice in Wonderland is touring the U.K. this summer: “Is the rabbit hole a black hole? Is Wonderland a parallel universe? We’re all mad here! Join Alice on a magical mystery tour of wacky characters, weird science, and impossible sports as Foolsgold presents a pulsating adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale for all the family.”
Billed as “outdoor walkabout theatre,” Foolsgold is currently playing at the Williamson Tunnels in Liverpool, so the audience actually travels underground along with Alice! See the Foolsgold website for other engagements.
Lewis Carroll’s chess problem
In response to Christophe Leroy’s Alice and the chess master (see http://lcsna.blogspot.com/2008/06/alice-and-chess-master.html), Arne Moll has written a very interesting article, “Lewis Carroll’s chess problem” on the ChessVibes website.
E.L.A(lice) and Ela (Queen of Roses)
Mentioned in the New York Times article, “Lisbon Comes Alive” (July 13, 2008), clothing store “Storytailors isn’t so much a retail outlet as a cabinet of wonders where the ghosts of Lewis Carroll and the Brothers Grimm haunt the racks. The 18th-century warehouse brims with hoopskirts, corsets and elaborate lace getups adorned with richly patterned fabrics and kaleidoscopic colors. …each year’s line of clothes began with a classic fairy tale, myth or legend, either Portuguese or international. The [designers] then hire writers to transform it into ‘twisted stories,’ whose characters and experiences form the basis of various collections. These literary-sartorial mash-ups, [include]… ‘E.L.A(lice) and Ela (Queen of Roses)’ (the tale of a schizophrenic girl that mixes elements of Alice in Wonderland and a Portuguese myth about a queen that transforms roses into bread for the poor).”
Yum
Jim Dale’s Alice
Jim Dale, actor and reader of the Harry Potter audiobooks, has just come out with an Alice in Wonderland audiobook, available at all fine bookstores and booksites.
Tania’s Alice
A new colored edition of Alice in Wonderland is printed and available from illustrator Tatiana Ianovskaia! The price is $40 for the book (plus postage). Perfect binding, paper cover, 63 original colored illustrations. 50 copies only are printed.
There is a discounted option of the same publication due to some printing flaws, e.g., change of the font, duplicated pages that had to be removed. Pictures at the beginning of “The Mad Tea Party,” on page 8, and on page 38 look different in the two runs. The price for these flawed copies is $25 each book (plus postage). Perfect binding, paper cover, 63 original coloured illustrations. Artist can sign the book if requested. Again, 50 copies are printed.
If interested, write to Tatiana at “tianovskaia at yahoo dot ca”.
Dreamchild
On the front cover of the July issue of Art Monthly Australia is artist Polixeni Papapetrou’s photo “Lewis Carroll’s Beatrice Hatch before White Cliffs” (taken in 2002), which features her then-five-year-old daughter Olympia in the nude. The work has generated a great deal of controversy in Australia over whether child nudity equals child pornography. (Papapetrou’s “Dreamchild” series was featured in Knight Letters 71 and 72.)
Snark citation
Yes, I know I’m behind the times a bit, but in case you somehow missed it, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited “The Hunting of the Snark”‘s “what I tell you three times is true” in a recent ruling on a Guantanamo Bay detainee: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080630/ap_on_go_ot/guantanamo_chinese_detainee.