Dance the night away as Alice from Wonderland in Bozeman!

Saturday, September 27th, 2008, I was working at The Leaf and Bean. Normally Saturday morning are very quiet at the Bean, but not this morning, oh no. We had a line to the door and I was shocked! What is going on?!

It was the Bozeman High School's 2008 Homecoming parade and guess what the theme for Homecoming is this year at Bozeman High......"Alice in Wonderland"......hmmm. And as the parade floated by the Bean windows I saw the Mad Hatter and Alice and the rest of the gang sitting down to tea riding on a trailer attatched to the back of a pick-up. I had to investigate so I went onto the Bozeman High School website and looked at their Hawk Tawk publication and found an article written all about their homecoming to come, 'Homecoming in Wonderland' (at the botom of the post). Bozeman High students are going to be able to walk into their own fairytale night of Alice in Wonderland, very much in the backyard of Bozeman, like Oz is only in Dorothy's Kansas backyard. Talk about displacing fairytales into realism or rather becoming the fairytale on a typical fairytale wannabe night for most high school students!

Homecoming In Wonderland
Simona Rackauskas
September 26, 2008

This year’s Homecoming theme is “Alice in Wonderland” and by letting the theme inspire your night you can guarantee to make this a Homecoming unlike any other. ‘But how do I incorporate the theme into my night’, you ask? Never fear, I’ll help you! With these tips you can have a wonderful Homecoming and I suggest you make every effort to because this year is especially special; this year Homecoming falls on your un-birthday.

The first matter to address is what you’re going to wear. The obvious choice for a girl is a light blue dress with a voluminous skirt, and a black ribbon in her hair. A guy might dress like the Mad Hatter, with a colorful suit and a top hat. Ladies, if you consider yourself a non-conformist I suggest you wear a suit also. Or take your inspiration from the Cheshire cat and incorporate purple stripes into your outfit. Follow the Rabbit’s lead, and stay on time with a pocket watch. Wear pieces with patterns containing spades, clubs, diamonds or hearts to symbolize the Queen’s cards. Use your creativity to come up with something unique.

So you’re looking hot, but how are you going to get to the dance? Make sure to plan ahead and find cooler transportation than Alice. Your date would be pretty frustrated if you told him or her that they’re going to have to walk everywhere. And if your date is late picking you up, don’t miss an opportunity to sing ‘We’re late! We’re late! For a very important date…”

Once you arrive at dinner, steer away from ordering dishes containing mushrooms, as it could be dangerous if you grow and/or shrink later on in the evening. Be cautious of cookies that say ‘Eat Me’ and bottles that say ‘Drink Me’. Order some tea at dinner, as the tea party is one of the most famous “Alice in Wonderland” scenes.

I cannot help you with what to do concerning this year’s theme during the dance, as I have only been to one Homecoming in my high school career, but of course I advise you have the most fun possible. However keep it safe kids, please don’t take part in any Caterpillar-like activities (you know what I’m talking about) during Homecoming.

Wrap up the night with an after-party that includes midnight games of croquet with flamingos and porcupines, card games played with singing and dancing cards, and perhaps even a tea party with a hare, a Mad Hatter and a mouse. At the end of the night when it’s time to sleep, curl up in a teapot like the Dormouse and sing yourself to sleep, “Twinkle, twinkle little bat / How I wonder what you’re at? / Up above the world you fly / Like a tea tray in the sky.” Sweet dreams!

However you celebrate this Homecoming, be sure to make it your wonderland and use the night to escape the mundane of everyday life. “Alice in Wonderland” reminds us that anything is possible (even if only in dreams), and above all apply this concept to your night for success. As the Doorknob says to Alice when she cannot go through the door, “No. [It’s not impossible. It’s] impassible. Nothing’s impossible.”

Transformation Information

Cassi Clampitt's displaced fairytale mentioned a TV show I happen to like, which is why it caught my attention, then I looked into it. In Cassi's story towards the end, "Jake made the Verizon Wireless nerd watch an all day marathon of What Not to Wear." This show, although a classic reality TV show, is all about transformations which is a fairy tale notion of taking the ugly and making it beautiful. Here is an episode of What Not to Wear - Cristina Hernandez for an example, the woman is transformed from her old frumpy self to someone who is 'fabulous' by Stacy and Clinton. Just looking in our book of fairy tales I counted 5 tales that have an obvious transformation: Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, The Frog King, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Ugly Duckling and I'm sure there are more that illustrate this transformation. Even in Alice in Wonderland doesn't the caterpillar smoking the pipe transform into a butterfly and take off? And if anyone has seen The Swan Princess the princess is a swan by day princess by night until her prince can save her from a sorcerer. An example of this dramatic transformation in real life is a caterpiller making his transformation into a butterfly. As I serached the internet for information about transformation in fairy tales I stumbled upon an online article Classic Fairy Tales for Maidens, Matrons, Crones
Review: Spinning Straw into Gold by Joan Gould © Megge Hill Fitz-Randolph which said that "Spinning is a metaphor for transformation." More transformation information! Then where do we see spinning in fairy tales: Rumplestiltzkin, Sleeping Beauty, and probably more. I was reading Taylor Moorman's blogs and in the blog, "There in the warp and the woof is the proof of it..." Taylor talks all about spinning and weaving and says, "Spinning and weaving become, not just a tedious task, but a way to transform oneself from a poor miller's daughter to a queen." And there is quite a bit more information on spinning in Taylor's blog post, you will have to see for yourself.

Displaced Fairytale

Sadie's taffy reciepe for the fairytale displacement was very inspiring because she took something people used in real life and revealed the fairytale within it.

I wanted to do that, but with a song. I took a song that people listen to and enjoy in reality and I wanted to reveal the fairytale within it or rather displace The Little Match Girl into realism, however some people guessed The Juniper Tree which also fits. Like Sadie, I changed many things from the original. I decided to use a song called Eli the Barrow Boy by The Decemberists. I performed the song in class. Now I changed many of the lyrics from the original lyrics written by The Decemberists, and the way it was sung and the use of the guitar. You can listen to it here on you tube with a video someone made to it. I played it twice through in two different styles of playing because both interpretations were dramatic and effective however The Decemberists only play it once through with little variation. I was trying to capture the haunting images from The Little Match Girl and the beauty of it in my own cover of the song. But isn't all of literature, all of life, just a cover of something else, an imitation? Nothing is new, we should ask the question "What's old?", not "What's new?". Sutter touches on this topic in his first blog entry and refers to Plato. Plato says that writers are cons and they can only imitate, and all that poets, writers, and artists can do is limited imitation. He explains the rest through his theory of the three beds.

Here is my cover of a song by the Decemberists which is how I displaced The Little Match Girl into realism, which has more impact when it is done in an oral presentation or concert accompanied by a musical instrument, like the guitar. Like Plato said in The Phaedrus, the living word has a soul.

My Cover of or Version of: Eli the Barrow Boy

Eli the barrow boy walks around town,
Sells coal in the snow,
And he cries out,
All down the day.

Below the chimney stacks,
He is crying,
“Yule logs and candle wax,”
For the buying,
All down the day.

“Would I could go home to my father,
Bring him gold and silk, a loaf of bread,
But I cannot for I have sold nothing,
So still I push my barrow all the day,
Still I push my barrow all the day.”

Eli the barrow boy, when they found him,
Dressed all in corduroy he had frozen in,
The alley down the way.

They lay his body down in a churchyard,
But still when the moon is out,
With his pushcart,
He calls down the day,

“Would I could go home to my father,
Bring him gold and silk, but nothing instead,
For I am dead and gone, frozen in the churchyard,
But still I push my barrow all the day,
But still I push my barrow all the day”

I used the chords Am, C, G, F, but you could transpose the song into any key to suit your fancy.

"We've eaten the apple and fallen" - Dr. Sexson

Making the connections...

Svetlana Pankratova, World's Longest Legs, Meets He Pingping, World's Shortest Man

I went back to find this story because I remember seeing it yesterday before class and I thought 'it is a tall woman and small man' and went about whatever I was doing, what I wasn't doing was "looking into it" as Dr. Sexson told us to do and I didn't "only connect" as Ian Forrester says. And like Dr. Sexson and the man reading the newspaper it wasn't very interesting until he started reading into it. Now looking at the photo I see Snow White and her seven dwarfs.

Or maybe I see Rumplestiltzkin,

Or maybe, this might be a stretch, but maybe I see Jack and the Beanstalk,

After missing the connections when I first saw the picture of Svetlana and PingPing it makes me wonder what other connections I miss throughout my day.

Seeing Red

The beautiful ruby slippers above were worn by Judy Garland in the MGM film The Wizard of Oz and are found at the National Museum of American History.

Dr. Sexson mentioned Oz was found in many places... like in BOZeman for example and then I got to thinking that the ruby slippers are found here too. 628 W. Maint St. BOZman, MT 59715. Has anyone been to Ruby Slippers on Main Sreet? If you are into cute shoes at high prices then this is the store for you. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that a place called Ruby Slippers was found in our own town. We can all go down to the store, in our backyard so to speak, and find our own pair of dazzling footwear....except for the guys, unless you are into that sort of thing. SO we have the Seperation from where we are and go to Ruby Slippers to find great new shoes which is our Initiation into adventure and in this case a life with new amazing shoes and then we Return home with an amazing pair of new shoes and new adventures we had in them. I know it is more complicated than this. Dorothy had quite the adventure in her shoes or rather the shoes of the Wicked Witch of the East which I suppose were now rightfully hers. HOWEVER, if you have read the novel Wicked you will know that the shoes are rightfully for the "Wicked" Witch of the West. Wherefore The "Wicked" Witch of the West really isn't so wicked, she just wants her shoes and I must admit if someone had stolen my super cute pair of shoes, I would want them back too. I don't really have super cute shoes, so not to worry.

A Girl on a Polar Bear

How and where you read greatly influence your experience with the story you are reading. Sutter and I decided that it might be fun to read aloud to eachother from our Classic Fairy Tales book. We really got into the storytelling art and after reading "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" together we've decided to read to eachother at least one fairy tale a night. Isn't that how we hear most fairy tales when we are younger, aloud?

The intro to "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" tells us that this story is a variant of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cupid and Psyche", a story which appeared in the Golden Ass. We can find the the first story in our fairy tales book, however not the latter. When Sutter and were reading he couldn't remember the story of beautiful Psyche and Cupid. So here is a link to Cupid and Psyche for those who don't remember the story.

I found many different versions of East of the Sun and West of the Moon when I looked around online. One thing that struck me was the young woman rides the polar bear to his castle. In Phillip Pullman's book, Lyra makes friends with a polar bear, which they call armored bears because they wear armor of course. In any case Lyra ends up riding Iorek, the polar bear, at least two times in the Golden Compass. The image is even on the cover of some editions os The Golden Compass. But a young girl riding a polar bear is not a new image in terms of literature.

There are some more pictures in the book of fairy tales with a girl riding the polar bear, but here is a different one and I feel really bad for the bear:

Morality in Children's Literature

I was ruminating on the tension between there being no clear moral to the end of a children's story and a very clear moral theme. I also read through blogs and Sutter mentions Sidney, so I followed up. In Sir Phillip Sidney's Apology for Poetry he says that poetry delights in order to teach and he would consider poetry, but in our case Children's literature, a tool to inspire people to virtue, ahem, The Book of Virtues. My mom happened to love reading different stories and poems out of it to me and my brother as young kids. Sidney says, "Now, for the poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth." (150, Richter). Nothing that we read is false because none of it is said to be true in the first place, in terms of poetry and Children's literature, however historians who affirm lots of "facts" cannot escape from lies. (A New Historicist would argue there are no, so called, facts) So instead of being true or false in Children's literature, it is what it is. So then I guess, as I learned from Dr. Sexson in Classical Literature, the moral of the story is the story. I think that would be very comforting to a child because no one likes to be lied to or decieved, especially not children.

Even if there is no moral to the story, strictly speaking like a virtuous theme, then that is okay. Percy Shelly says, in A Defence of Poetry,

"Poetry enlarges the circumfrence of the imagination by replentishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating of their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices whose void forever craves fresh food" (351 Richter).

We don't need a moral at the end of the story to gleen something good for us. He also says, "The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause" (351 Richter). So all literature stimulating and providing imagination is of moral value. So then again the moral of the story happens to be the story. Would this be that same for art and music I wonder?


The Critical Tradition, David H. Richter pages 150, 351

hand holding a rainbow picture found at fencepostings.wordpress.com

Isaac Watts and Lewis Carroll

I really liked this poem:

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy Bee
Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
From every opening Flower!

How skilfully she builds her Cell!
How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet Food she makes.

In Works of Labour or of Skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some Mischief still
For idle Hands to do.

In Books, or Work, or healthful Play
Let my first Years be past,
That I may give for every Day
Some good Account at last. [1715]

SOURCE: http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/victorian/authors/rands/ajrbion1.html

"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is Lewis Carroll's parody of "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" by Isaac Watts. The Crocodile poem by Lewis Carroll is in his novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.


HOW DOTH THE LITTLE CROCODILE
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!


"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is a parody of the moralistic poem "Against Idleness And Mischief" by Isaac Watts.[1] Watts' poem begins "How doth the little busy bee," and uses a bee as a model of hard work. In Carroll's parody, the crocodile's corresponding "virtues" are deception and predation, themes which recur throughout Alice's adventures in both books, and especially in the poems.
SOURCE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Doth_the_Little_Crocodile

Again I am befuddled about why these reacurring themes of deception and predation are so played up in Alice's adventures....a children's story none the less.


In the movie I remember the caterpillar telling Alice the crocodile poem and his smoke illustrates the poem for her:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Alice_05a-1116x1492.jpg/250px-Alice_05a-1116x1492.jpg


http://samuraifrog.blogspot.com/2008/04/evaluating-disney-1951.html

The Juniper Tree or the Burning Bush?

Dr. Sexson read us the first half of The Juniper Tree which is an interesting story with a happy ending I guess. I noticed that there were a lot of Biblical influences in the text and possibly more than what I noticed since I am not well acquainted with the Bible. First of all the couple couldn't have children just like Joseph and Mary could not have children, and then it seemed like the juniper tree granted the couple a child just as God had done for Joseph and Mary. Then, even the book says on page 60 side note #3 that the date of the fairy tale is Biblical and the boy dies and is resurrected which I would think is a reference to Jesus Christ. Then when the boy is resurrected a flame was burning in the juniper tree.....anything like the burning bush Moses stood before. The burning bush was God and God granted Mary and Joseph children and the juniper tree seemed to grant the couple with the little boy. Maybe a big stretch comparing the juniper tree as God, maybe not. I'm just speculating and exploring. See notes 10 and 13 for more Biblical references that the book gives you. It is interesting and not suprising that this text from the Children's Literature genre uses influences from another foundation of literature, along with all the others too. The Biblical literature influence struck me while I was listening to Dr. Sexson read the story to us.

Portal Power

Dr. Sexson informed us, the first day of class, of the four foundations of literature: Classical literature, Biblical literature, Mythical literature, and Children's literature. He also told us that texts that fall under the category of Children's literature open into myth and are displced into realism. Children's literature is a portal for us to venture into other worlds as there are portals in some texts like Alice and Wonderland, the beanstalk, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and there are others. Portals show up in Phillip Pullman's book The Golden Compass as well, which is the first book in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. And in the Subtle Knife many many portals show up and the kids can create and close portals or windows. I won't say any more in case people haven't read the books yet. I also remembered that portals show up in the movie Donnie Darko, which is hardly anything like children's literature, or maybe it is.

If Children's literature is displaced into realism then I tried to find the portals in my own world and life. Maybe the revolving doors that whirl you into the luxurious world of comfort and care in a ritzy hotel are a portal. Is any door a portal? I don't think so because some doors take you to places that you are all too familiar with. Disney World is very much another world to me and I suppose after making your way through the parking lot and through whatever gate at the entrance you have gone through the portal and into some wonderful land people could never really go to, but they can go to the simulation. A thing about Disney World: It is supposed to be like the real world. They have all these cultural villages there, like Morocco and France, but it is a magical amusement park only meant to be the real world. This would be reality displaced into fantasy, and not fantasy displaced into reality. It is, it would seem, at least from a postmodern perspective, that the parking lot outside of Disney World is the mystical world which is actually our disparaging reality. The harsh back-top, reflective exteriors of high rise buildings, and a sense of alienation from the world of our own reality whereas in the world of whimsy inside the park, we may all feel at home and maybe comfortable when in actuality we should all feel estranged from Snow White, Alcie, Cinderella, and even Pluto (Why can Goofy talk but Pluto can't?). So, if this is the case, which way does the portal transport you? Out of one wonderland and into another?


One last thing, I liked the comment in class made by Mr. Sexson, I think, about the "MYPORTAL" email thing. Just interesting.