opinion ascii games defunct rock vmail bach eigen

chip music, grid puzzling, demo art, WFMU hunt [links or contact]

Alice is the only of Lewis's creations to truly enter the popular culture of our whatever-it-is age. Here's a few loggish, meme-shaped bites before we enter the thick of things.

Seeing Ear Theater has a decent Alice in Wonderland performance. The Alice is average, but the supporting cast is brilliant. Good background listening, even.

Alice tarot deck

Yes, Virginia, there is a game being designed by former id cohort American McGee loosely based on the Alice stories.

Alice in Pimpland is a collaborative comic strip loosely based on Carroll's tales that is even odder than it sounds. And yes, profane.

Alice in Unixland (from 1989, and geek humor doesn't age well: funny by being unfunny)

I even had a distorted Rackham canvas of Alice on my desktops for a while there.

Obsessed with ASCII? I sure am. View some translations of the Disney characters. Heavily modified the Cheshire cat with permission for the link-mess - mischievious!

While we're covering the usual fixations, how about a life-size Alice made of Legos. (Yes, really!)

Doublets (which I knew as laddergrams), were invented by Carroll.
Lutwidge -> Ludovicus -> Lewis
Charles -> Carolus -> Carroll

If you want to sit down and curl up with a big old book, I can heartily recommend The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll (Chancellor Press, 1982). Otherwise, here's some net locations.

Bibliomania: The Complete Stories of Lewis Carroll
Literature.org: Lewis Carroll
Another etext collection, with images interjected

Alice's Adventures Under Ground
The original story, with Carroll's own illustrations, revised and extended led to
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
(Both with the original John Tenniel illustrations included).

What the Tortoise Said to Achilles
Has much to do with logical inference, and how to symbolically represent a formal system without losing what we like to call meaning. My favorite short piece by Carroll.

How Doth the Little Crocodile
The Mad Gardener's Song
You Are Old, Father William
The Walrus and the Carpenter

A Tangled Tale

Jabberwocky
From Jabberwocky.com, that crazy host of the longest hostname I've seen.

Hunting of the Snark (with preface)
The Hunting of the Snark (original pages)
The Hunting of the Snark (alternate scans)

We'll skip that whole rumour mill about his obsession with little girls. There is some of Dodgson's photography available on the net - not a topic for today.

Let's have some fun now eh?

Multimedia Alice (a bit odd, but nifty)

Ruthann Zaroff has quite the collection of Alice toys. To pick a few... Curiouser and Curiouser lets you distort Alice. A Mad Tea Party constructs a conversation by mouseover. Plus, Painting the Roses Red has an interactive, slowly emerging "painting" of a rose. (Be sure to play with the buttons at the bottom.)

Mathematics with Alice doesn't really deliver anything interesting. Try some puzzles and games instead - like puzzles from Wonderland.

Along those lines, here's the Pillow Problem of probability, in Javascript.

If you are interested in the early debate of formal logic, you might enjoy this as much as I did: a set of Java applets detailing his logical game of counters, devised to aid in unraveling soriteses.

Logic is the art of hiding your pure random number generator. How well do you have yours tucked away? Solve this. and other Carroll puzzles. Of course, the best ones are the many little asides scattered throughout his work.

Lewis Carroll and Relativity attempts to relate some of Carroll's concepts as preceding Einstein's general theory in a time when relativity was looked down upon. (from Secrets Revealed!)

Fantasy or Reality? contrasts Wonderland against the real world, striving for logic and failing.

Did you know Lewis Carroll could be linked to J.S. Bach by the number 42? More on that.

Here's some student analysis of the supposed "sense within nonsense" of Carroll's writings. Also, a close reading of the Walrus and the Carpenter.

I recall that the Turtle wanted to build up some of this sort of analysis, and then rip it to shreds. Rending this particular set of interpretations wouldn't be too difficult as it's just a tossed-off student project, but I'll leave the destruction to the pros.

There is a Lewis Carroll Academy in good old California. While attempting to find out more about it, I noted that copyright notice at the bottom: "...is licensed by Applied Scholastics International to use the study technology of L. Ron Hubbard."

At this point, I was fairly certain this academy was not accredited by the state. But hey, Chef promotes it, and you know he's one bad mutha.

This critical Scientology linklist has some information on ASI, such as outside opinions on study technology and this USENET posting explaining a bit more about study technology.

This diagram of the "tones" frightens me in a way few cartoons can. Apathy is very bad! Below body death. (I don't claim to understand the concept behind it.)

Right about now, you're wondering how in the name of all that is Dianetic am I going to link this back to Carroll space? Like this. David Miscavige (Chairman of the Board at the Religious Technology Center) makes like the Mad Hatter in a bizarre, cyclic interview of hilarious sidestepping and fun absurd logic.

Question: Are you familiar with the practice of bypass?
Miscavige: "The practice of bypass," I don't know what that means.
Question: Well... what does "bypass" mean?
Miscavige: In normal English... I guess, to pass something by.
Question: Does it have a significance as management policy within Scientology?
Miscavige: The word "bypass?"... I mean, now you're asking me a technical question in reference to-- Just one second. (Attorney-client discussion held off the record.)
Miscavige's Attorney: He's confused. Mr. Miscavige said to me that he's confused by what you mean.
Question: ...Is it the duty of management to bypass into an area and take charge to make sure that things get back on track...?
Miscavige: Well, would you clarify to me what you mean by "management?"...
Question: Does bypass... ever occur between orgs...?
Miscavige: These are very hypothetical. Give me-- Who do you mean? What do you mean by that, "bypassing?"

Any trademarks in the above text are completely the property of the owners, except OT. You can't have my overtime. Oh, and I reserve the right to link to any public page on your servers, Scientologists. growl...

Tenniel illustrations: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass

Non-Tenniel illustrations: Dave Neal's partial gallery

Of these, William Rackham's interpretation is definitely my pick; still, one would be hard-pressed to find a bad picture amongst all these visualizations.

From the Disney site (shudder)... a clip of their interpretation of the Cheshire Cat.

Musical compositions inspired by Carroll

Jan Svankmajer's Alice is a warped combination of puppets, stop motion photography, and live action. If you don't have a lot of bandwidth for clips, I suggest you nab Where Socks Go.mov which is a brief little oddity.

A boat, beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear -

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

She still haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in the golden gleam -
Life, what is it but a dream?

Places I traipsed through on my way through Wonderland.

LewisCarroll.org Lewis-Carroll.com Carroll in the Victorian Pages Lewis Carroll Illustrated Huge linklist
Wonderland Webring WebMuseum: Carroll, Lewis: Tenniel, Sir John
The Free Library of Philadelphia's Alice pages The Rosenbach Gallery's Kids Games page