white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits

Today is March 1st - have you said your "white rabbits x3" for luck?

I pulled out The Annotated Alice the other night, as it seemed timely reading, March hares and all. In the preface author Martin Gardner talks about Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, or Lewis Carroll, as he is more commonly known, and how he would keep a record of good days:

Adopting the Roman symbol for a day of good fortune, he would write in his diary, "I mark this day with a white stone" whenever he felt it to be specially memorable.

Now what does that remind me of . . .

I've always liked the White Rabbit and could understand Alice's obsession with him—where is he off to in such a hurry? Monty Python's killer rabbit is also a personal fave ("That's no ordinary rabbit.")

I have to admit that I'm a little leery of the upcoming Alice movie. From the advertising it seems that they should have just cut to the chase and called it Tim Burton's The Mad Hatter. I respect both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp as artists, but the creepy make-up job that is Depp as the mad hatter—is it really necessary? What is wonderful about the original Alice is that the nonsense comes from the words. We'll see. I will definitely check it out, but I'm on guard. Their recent collaborations were very problematic for me. Sweeney Todd was interesting to watch for about a hour, but the repetitive throat slashing ultimately drowned out the very excellent singing efforts by the cast. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was so creepy and weird it just totally missed the mark for me, not capturing Roald Dahl's book or even any of the magic of the 1971 Gene Wilder film. I have no desire to see either film ever again.

So, back to The Annotated Alice in the meantime. She's about to finally get through the door into the garden, I think . . .

Pin It