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The Blog of the LCSNA

Alicegate? Scandal involving “lavish” White House Alice in Wonderland Party

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Star-studded photo from the White House 2009 Halloween Party

Mad Tea Parties and politics are in the news again, but this time thrown by the Democrats. President Obama’s 2009 Alice in Wonderland-themed “star-studded” Halloween party is central stage in a mini-scandal, coming to light because of details in a new book called “The Obamas” by Jodi Kantor of the New York Times. Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing criticizers of the President are claiming the party was secret and extravagant. The White House has responded that the party was for military families and not at all secret. From the Huffington Post article “Limbaugh: Media Helping Obamas Cover Up Secrets”:

“The Obamas,” by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, has already prompted a fierce response from the White House to its stories of infighting between Michelle Obama and her husband’s staff. But the media has latched onto another story in the book. Kantor alleges that the White House deliberately downplayed a lavish, Tim Burton-designed Halloween party held in 2009 so as not to appear out of touch with economically struggling voters.

Though they did not mention the details of the party in official briefings at the time, the White House has pushed back on this story as well, saying that the news of the party was mentioned in a Tennessee paper and on a Johnny Depp fan website.

And another Huffington Post article “Obama’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ White House Party With Tim Burton” describes the party in more detail:

Kantor writes (via the NY Post) that Burton made up the room “in his signature creepy-comic style… He had turned the room into the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with a long table set with antique-looking linens, enormous stuffed animals in chairs, and tiered serving plates with treats like bone-shaped meringue cookies… Fruit punch was served in blood vials at the bar. Burton’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided over the scene in full costume, standing up on a table to welcome everyone in character.”

George Lucas, the book says, sent over the original Chewbacca costume for the occasion. Kantor also writes that the President and First Lady’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, and their friends were entertained with a magic show in the East Room.

Local children and military families were also invited.

I don’t remember if anyone at the LCSNA was aware of the party, but we certainly weren’t invited. Pictures of the party are on the White House website.

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Walrus seeks Carpenter, must have own loaf of bread

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Mowbury Park Walrus, Copyright Helen Wright
Mowbury Park Walrus, Copyright Helen Wright
Mowbury Park Walrus, Copyright Helen Wright
Mowbury Park Walrus, Copyright Helen Wright

Oh shed a tear for the lonely Wearside walrus! For eleven long years he has sat alone, gazing across Mowbray Park and Winter Gardens in Sunderland, UK. Now friends of the park hope to raise the money to commission a companion for him.

“We thought it was right to do this,” said Sylvia [chairman of the Friends of Mowbray Park]. “The poem is The Walrus and the Carpenter, but all we have is the walrus. It could be any old walrus without its carpenter.

“It is unlikely though, if we get enough money to go ahead, that we will base the designs for the carpenter on the original drawings – as he might scare the children!

“We would prefer a kindly carpenter visitors can sit on. People always used to sit on the lions in the past, but they don’t seem to any more. Perhaps we can start a new tradition!”

Read more about the fundraising campaign and Lewis Carroll’s connection to Wearside on the Sunderland Echo website.

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“O Oysters, come and walk with us!” at the Walrus & Carpenter Nighttime Picnic

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“A picnic” on legendary Totten Inlet at low tide in the dark and cold in the middle of the winter, and, if you are lucky, an icy gust of wind off the bay to season the experience — more than a little crazy, yes?

Crazy? Yes, but with impeccable literary credentials. Jon Rowley of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, WA, is taking reservations for his annual nighttime oyster picnic, inspired by the Walrus and the Carpenter.

Beneath a sulkily shining moon, adventurous diners march up and down the oyster beds before eating each and every bivalve they fancy. Or as Rowley describes it, “Lantern light, freezing weather, plump, sweet oysters just rousted from their beds and opened on the spot, award-winning “oyster wines” drunk out of Reidel stemware, a bonfire — just the right mix of magic and madness.”

These pleasant walks will take place on December 21, January 7, and February 6. Reservations can be made online at Brown Paper Tickets.

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The Lewis Carroll Mad Tea Collection not available in stores everywhere (or anywhere)

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Neha Hattangdi
Neha Hattangdi
Neha Hattangdi
Neha Hattangdi

The perfect Christmas present—if only it existed! This beautiful tea chest was designed by Neha Hattangdi, a student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She was asked to create a product line inspired by a literary author and the Lewis Carroll Mad Tea Collection was the result.

The wooden box contains three loose-leaf teas, reusable tea-bags, a tea strainer, and a bar of extra dark chocolate.

For more pictures of the imaginary collection go to The Dieline, the foremost blog for packaging design industry. Other great designs by Hattangdi can be found on her own website.

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Salman Rushdie celebrates the 140th Anniversary of Through the Looking Glass in Vanity Fair

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Salman Rushdie, c. 1988

Well, he partially uses the short article in the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair to plug his own children’s books, but his reverence for Looking Glass is genuine:

Salman Rushdie, c. 1988

By the time Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking-­Glass, in 1871—140 years ago this month—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was already a beloved book. So the pressure was on; Carroll faced a real “follow-that problem.” … “Still she haunts me, phantomwise,” he wrote in the book’s epilogue, and thank goodness she did, because Through the Looking-Glass was anything but an anticlimax, giving us the Jabberwock, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the Walrus and the Carpenter to add to Carroll’s pantheon of magnificently nonsensical immortals. [continue reading.]

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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland read in Scientology Cruise Training Routines

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An article by “Explainer” Brian Palmer at Slate.com seeks to answer the question “What do you do on a Scientology Cruise Ship?” “They hang out in the Starlight Room, play shuffleboard, and achieve Operating Thetan Level VIII,” is part of his explanation. And, according to him, our favorite novel is also included in training  routines:

"Alice: Ace of Diamonds" by Annie Rodrigue, deviantart.com. 5x7 watercolour, ink and acrylics on hot pressed watercolour paper.

Coursework on the Freewinds is a combination of independent book study, cooperative activities, and personal counseling sessions. In lecture halls, students complete lists of assignments that include reading book chapters and using modeling clay to demonstrate their understanding. They also participate in “training routines” to improve their communication skills. Classic examples include staring another student in the face for hours without blinking, or reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to each other. [continue reading.]

A quick Google search finds dozensof other articles corroborating that AAIW is used. The Wikipedia article on Training Routines (Scientology) describes TR-4 called “Dear Alice” thusly: “The student reads several lines from Alice in Wonderland to the coach as if saying them himself. The coach either acknowledges the line or flunks the student according to whether the line is communicated clearly.” The footnotes reference Cooper Paulette’s 1971 book The Scandal of Scientology and Jon Atack’s A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics & L. Ron Hubbard Exposed (1990). By the way, Jon Atack is a great name for a writer of exposés. Anyway, I wonder which edition of AAIW they use…

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Secret supper club leads diners down the rabbit hole

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Tenniel's Leg of Mutton

Secret supper clubs are all the rage, so we’ve heard (we’ve never found one). Right now, somewhere in Vancouver, the Swallow Tail Supper Club is entertaining diners with fine food, cocktails, and live entertainment on a Wonderland theme. Local blogger Ariane Colenbrander seems to be in on the secret:

The evening starts at the outskirts of a moonlit forest, where guests are greeted by a frantic White Rabbit, who ushers them down the rabbit hole, to a nostalgic world of childhood fairytale characters. The Mad Hatter pours tea and soup is served in a “Drink Me” bottle labeled either “Big” or “Small”. The bottle guests drink from will determine their next course. More…

According to the same blog, celebrity chef and Food Network star Bob Blumer may also be involved, though it is not clear how. The supper club will be operating for only a few more days—they don’t seem to be sold out yet. Tickets cost $129 a head.
Tenniel's Leg of Mutton

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What Middletown Read: Very Little Lewis Carroll

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…So when I learned about What Middletown Read, a database that tracks the borrowing records of the Muncie Public Library between 1891 and 1902, I had some of the same feelings physicists probably have when new subatomic particles show up in their cloud chambers. Could you see how many times a particular book had been taken out? Could you find out when? And by whom? Yes, yes, and yes. You could also find out who those patrons were: their age, race, gender, occupation (and whether that made them blue or white collar, skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled), and their names and how they signed them.

John Plotz at Slate.com explains the What Middletown Read database, the labor of Ball State University English Professor Frank Felsenstein. We at the LCSNA were naturally immediately curious about how often Lewis Carroll books were checked out, and the result is mysteriously bare: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the only Carroll book that the Muncie Public Library owned, wasn’t acquired until 1900, and then only checked out ten times in an eight month period. Unless we’re missing something, that’s it. Perhaps it wasn’t popular in the midwest until later, or perhaps it was a common book in private collections therefore unnecessary in the public library? Or maybe the local pick-a-little-talk-a-littles thought it was a “dirty book,” like BALZAC. If anyone has any theories, please comment.

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Alice’s great-grandson writes for Huffington Post

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Hugh St. Clair fabric
George Smith Chair with Hugh St. Clair Fabric

Hugh St. Clair: interior designer, creative consultant, columnist for the Lady Magazine—and great-grandson of Alice Liddell. An article by Hugh appeared yesterday on the Huffington Post: What Was the Real Alice in Wonderland Like? Her Great-Grandson is Fascinated.

The short article contains no shocking revelations from the family vault, (except, perhaps, his admission, “As a child I never read Alice,”) but it is interesting to see what the family is up to these days. Do you think Lewis Carroll would have liked one of these armchairs for his rooms in Christ Church? It is upholstered in Hugh St. Clair’s own fabric, “Large Oval Flamingo.”

Hugh St. Clair fabric
George Smith chair with Hugh St. Clair fabric
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