Alice.

I love Alice in Wonderland. 

I love it. 

Lewis Carroll is clever. 

Sometimes simple sentences are best, and so I say again: Lewis Carroll is clever.

He is the Tim Burton of the 1800s

the Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffanys.

the crazy in crazy.

He's smart.

THIS IS BRILLIANT: 

{So she eats the cake and starts to grow... Go ahead. read on...}

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice, (she was so surprised that she quite forgot how to speak good English,) "now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!" (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed almost out of sight, they were getting so far off,) "oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sire I ca'n't! I shall be a great deal too far off to bother myself about you: you must manage the best way you can--but I must be kind to them", thought Alice, "or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas."

- Alice's Adventures under Ground 

(pssst. that's the original Lewis Carroll story that became Alice in Wonderland)

 and how grand. 

the idea that you can cry so much that you drown in your own tears? 

or this great predicament: 

They want to execute the Cheshire Cat, but there is a debate because the executioner cannot cut off a head unless there is a body to cut it OFF OF.

What a problem to ingeniously create. 

Tell me it's not.

Sometimes restaurants on Halloween have brilliant storybook walls.

original picture was by Rebecca Hankins, aka photographer extraordinaire. this one is altered from her original work.

I love Halloween. 




MMUuuaaaaaHHHHaahahhahahaha.








No, for real. It sparks something in me. 

____________________________________________




Let me take a minute to crack up here.


ok. I am ALWAYS trying to piece together the path I took to building puppets and creatures. And loving them. And I remember this one Halloween when we were on our way to NC for a distant relative's funeral. TRUE STORY. 


so we had to miss Halloween at home. 






Well guess what I was that year? Awesome Elementary School me. BY CHOICE. 








A Nutcracker. 








(GET OUT THE FIREWORKS.!!! TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES! WOOOOOWWW. AHH!!! THE NUTCRACKER IS HERE! LET THE PARTAYYY START) 






Why? 






Because I think I had just been one for a book report. And I chose it then because I liked the idea of being a fake person. Um. Hi. Puppet. aha.ahahah. 


I remember specifically thinking I could do a great job with the lines that go from the corner of your mouth down to your chin. 






I thought. THAT WILL SELL IT TO EM.






I digress. But come on. Trick. or. TREAT.
Wow.






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and I guess I love Halloween so much because it's that, for a minute, everyone is solving the same sort of problem at the same time. 






Almost like we are all in a class. And getting ready for book report projects. Except we go to parties and run through the streets in our projects. Our ideas that we whipped up. and feel excited about. 
and self conscious about. 

(Like when I was Clifford The Big Red Dog.)

And for that Halloween minute, we are all drinking the same crazy juice. 

my crazy juice.

Where nostalgia meets eerie. 

I'm telling you. It is like my artist statement comes to life and everyone celebrates for a day. 


In the fall. 

Huge win.

In the end of the story, when Alice wakes from what may have been a dream, her sister hurries her off to tea...

Then, her sister has a dream of sorts, thinking of Alice - 

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality--the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds--the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep- bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy--and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard--while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs. 

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

Oh, keep your eyes half closed. 

I plan to always. 

THE END

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it: "they must go by the carrier," she thought, "and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

Alice's Right Foot, Esq.

The Carpet,

with Alice's Love

oh dear! what nonsense I am talking!"