In the last edition of the Knight Letter we noted that Dame Gillian Beer, King Edward Professor of English Literature Emeritus at Cambridge, had delivered a lecture entitled “Alice in Time” last March at the Radcliff Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Now you can read a short review of the lecture in the online version of the Radcliff Magazine.
Beer discussed Carroll’s preoccupation with time as one reason for the Alice books’ enduring popularity; she also remarked on the upcoming anniversary: “The 150th anniversary of the first Alice book won’t occur for several more years, but ‘if people are getting primed already,’ Beer said, ‘Lord knows what will happen in 2015.’”
From Brazil comes word of Norberto Conti, an Argentinian artist with three muses: Alice, Bobby Fischer and quantum physics. These unlikely graces inspire surreal landscapes of chessboard spires of quantum foam, grinning skeletal cats and mirrored paradoxes. His Alice Series, Fischer Series and other works featuring Albert Einstein, Steven Hawkins and superstrings can all be viewed on his Portuguese language website.
Conti’s work was exhibited at the LA art show last January as part of a contribution by members of the Ward-Nasse Gallery.
"Fischer through the mirror" by Norberto Conti"Schrödinger's Cat II" by Norberto Conti
How often do you hear the phrase “inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno”? If your answer is “not enough,” check out the reviews for Outland, a new play currently being performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
UK national newspaper the Guardian described it as “a flight of fancy into parallel universes exploring the nature of creativity… spurred by the suggestion that the creator of Alice in Wonderland suffered from a form of epilepsy that made him see the world differently from the rest of us.”
Written by 24-year-old British playwright Dominic Allen and performed by Belt Up Theatre, the play has been receiving pretty positive reviews, citing both beauty and confusion and episodes of pure panto-style audience participation.
What can audiences expect from Outland? They can expect a lot of typical Carroll nonsense and characters; there’s a fair bit of Wonderland and his obsession with puzzling logic. However, you’ll also meet some new characters, if you’re not familiar with his more obscure work, and perhaps another much more profound, sentimental, philosophical side to him. The play has its surreal, absurd moments that you’d inevitably expect but it’s also touching, sweet and introvert.
Outland is running from August 3-29 at the C Soco venue in Edinburgh.
Nancy Willard sends Clare Imholtz this piece of snail-mail correspondence as a ‘guest blog,’ a report of a local production of Alice in Wonderland witnessed in Provincetown, Mass.
August 6, 2011
I am writing from Cape Cod. Lewis Carroll is thriving here. Two productions of Alice are listed in the local newspaper, and yesterday I attended one of them, in Provincetown. When I told the director that I would be writing to the Lewis Carroll Society about it, he was ecstatic. Needless to say, the production was an adaptation, a wonderfully zany and lively affair, and I think the ingenuity the actors showed in staging “The Pool of Tears” and “The Garden of Live Flowers” in a small space would have amused Carroll. The director told me that the aim of their theater was to put on plays that would be greatly enjoyed by both adults and children.
The play, Alice in Wonderland (A Musical Curiosity), was performed by the Pee Wee Players of Provincetown. It was adapted by Matthew Lazure with additional songs by Ryan Landry, and directed by Marc Guerrette. The players were Matthew Lazure, Marc Guerrette, Megan Ludlow, Billy Hough, and James P. Byrne.
It runs weekend evenings at 5:30pm through September 4th, in the Vixen at the Pilgrim House, Provincetown, Mass. Thank you, Nancy!
For our next segment, we welcome guest blogger Emily R. Aguilo-Perez from the University of Puerto Rico, who incidentally will be speaking at the LCSNA’s Fall 2011 meeting in New York City. She graciously volunteered her services to review That Guy with the Glasses’s review of The Care Bears Adventures in Wonderland (1987):
Original movie poster for The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland (1987), from Wikipedia
I wasn’t aware of the existence of the movie (if it can be called that) called The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, but the Nostalgia Critic, from the website That Guy with the Glasses has done a hilarious review of it in his newest episode, and I think you will enjoy it. When I was a little girl, I used to love the Care Bears, and I still find them cute. I also still love the Alice stories, so I was a little excited when learning there is a movie that combines the Care Bears and Alice. The excitement towards the movie quickly diminished. Here’s why. Although I haven’t watched the whole movie, the clips from the review were enough to help me form an opinion, one that isn’t too positive, but I will let you be the judges of that. I do want to point out some things about the movie before commenting on the Critic’s review.
The stories have changed. What a surprise! Alice visits Wonderland but her adventures are completely different from the books. Are they better than the book, you ask? I think we all know the answer to that.
There is one thing I like about this movie (“like” might be too much of a compliment). I should say, there is something I don’t dislike so much about the movie: the Queen is not evil, so it moves away from the usual “evil witch, evil women” most children’s stories present. The Queen might be, as one of the commenters observes, a version of one of the Queens from Looking-Glass but which uses the idea of the Queen of Hearts because she is more recognizable.
This is the most important point. WARNING: After watching the movie clips some of you might feel the sudden urge to poke your eyes out or chop your ears off because, get this… THERE IS A RAPPING PSYCHEDELIC CHESHIRE CAT!
What was up with the ‘80s and ‘90s and the constant need to rap? Ironically this is the character in this movie the Nostalgia Critic “kinda likes,” acknowledging that the bar has been set phenomenally low, so a rapping cat sadly counts as an “up.” Not to give too much away, but if there is one reason to watch this review, it is actually to listen to all the rapping nonsense taking place, and the wonderful remix the Critic produces using other rapping animated artists from other not-so-wonderful movies. This is something the Critic does wonderfully: his references to pop culture, which include the Mario Bros. game and movie, Disney movies, other songs, and even Double Mint gum add to the hilarity of his review. In addition, when the fall into Wonderland occurs, the Critic makes reference to the Disney movie, not Tim Burton’s, but the animated feature from 1951. He refers to it as the “much better Disney movie.” This of course is a point of debate for many of us Lewis Carroll fans because there are very differing opinions about it. I do believe the Critic is referring to the animation in that movie, which was excellently executed and really brought Wonderland to life in a way that not a lot of movies have been able to.
At one point the Critic also comments on the names in the movies, indicating that the Princess’ name is Princess, the Queen’s name is Queen, and the Wizard’s name is… you guessed it, Wizard. This is not only funny but it also makes one think about the absurdity of the movie and makes one wonder how much thought the writers actually put into it. There is one character, however, which is given a name, but I will let you find out for yourselves and laugh at the absurdity, and of course laugh along with the Critic’s comments.
Amid the jokes and screams of frustration, the Critic demonstrates his knowledge of the original books and the period in which they were created. For instance, there is a robot (yes, you read correctly) in Wonderland that needs to be destroyed for some reason. The Critic comments that this is “clearly fitting the Victorian-based novel that this hacked film was loosely based on, but hey, if Tim Burton can throw in breakdancing I guess Care Bears can throw in giant robots.” Robots in Wonderland? This movie seems to be a mixture of Wonderland, Looking-Glass, Care Bears, Transformers, and pure nonsense (and not the good nonsense only Lewis Carroll could so perfectly create). But I don’t want to spoil all the fun of watching the review, which is actually truly funny, and the “fun” of watching clips from the movie. So I will leave you with these wise words about the movie from the Nostalgia Critic himself: “Not only do they insult the intelligence of the younger audience watching this, but now they insult the intelligence of the timeless Lewis Carroll books…” Enjoy!
Warning: This contains some spicy language! Furthermore, our blog posted That Guy with the Glasses’ review of Alice in Wonderland a few years ago here. Additionally, someone has put the original onYouTube:
Your watch may be stuck at 6 o’clock tea time, but it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere, right? New Holland Brewing out of Holland, Michigan, has a new beer called Mad Hatter India Pale Ale.
Dry-hopped for a distinctive, floral hop aroma; subtly balanced with delicious malt notes.
Pairings: spicy dishes, greens and aged cheese.
12.5° Plato
Alc. 5.25% by Vol.
Last Shipped:
Ongoing
Estimated Next Ship:
Ongoing
Availability:
There’s also an Imperial Hatter Imperial India Pale Ale (9.4% alcohol will make you madder quicker.) And lovely label art, I wonder who the artist is. Cheers!
“Starfield” by Los Angeles artists Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French is among the “Circumspect” works on view at E6 Gallery. – SF Chronicle
This new Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French photography exhibit in San Francisco at the E6 Gallery is said to be “Lewis Carroll … inspired” by the San Francisco Chronicle. The exhibit, called Circumspect, was also described by Photograph magazine as “Fellini’s take on Lewis Carroll.” And Charbonneau says, “Our vision of the solar system and the universe based on a very simple idea: How would you view it as a child or see it in a tangible form that you can interact with?” The art looks lovely, even if the relation to Carroll is merely high-concept. (Could any art featuring girls in wondrous lands be considered in some way related to Carroll?)
Circumspect runs through September 14, 2011: 12-6pm Wed.-Sat.; 12-5 pm Sunday; at E6 Gallery, 1632 Market Street, San Francisco, California.
Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French: Circumspect, at E6 Gallery, San Francisco
Monday morning off to a dull start? Transform it with this Vocaloid musical created by the Japanese artist known as Oster Project.
The part of Alice (and possibly all the other parts as well – I’m shaky on the technology here) was “sung” by Hatsune Miku, a singing synthesizer application which was created using vocal samples from Japanese actress Saki Fujita. Hatsume Miku, one of many singing personas created using the Vocaloid software, has become a virtual idol: her album topped a Japanese weekly album chart and she even performed “live” in Tokyo in last year.
They are the work of Christian Jackson who, from the bio on his website, sounds like man of many excellent interests: “I enjoy spending long hours staring at typefaces. I dream about kerning, leading and attractive counter spaces. I also like less nerdy stuff like existentialism, meta and quatum physics, the concept of consciousness, infinity, the color orange and a comfortable arm chair with good ass bologna (where your ass sits below you knees).” Posters of his designs can be purchased here.
Enough Un-Anniversaries, July 28th is actually the day Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was released in 1951. To celebrate properly, we’ll re-post from reigning expert Matt Crandall’s excellent Disney Alice blog, vintagedisneyalice.blogspot.com, where he posted today images of a Disney comic book:
