A golden afternoon boat ride 150 years ago

Charles Dodgson traveled on a boat ride on "a golden afternoon" with Alice Liddell and her sisters and began an imaginative story about a girl falling down a rabbit hole.  Alice loved that story and encouraged Dodgson to write the story down.  Thus began the first telling of the story that would become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  The boat ride was 150 years ago on July 4, 1862.  The book would be published in 1865 under the very careful scrutiny of Lewis Caroll, Dodgson's nom de plume, with illustrations by John Tenniel, the famous Punch cartoonist.

Here are a few links to articles that mention the anniversary.  In Brain Pickings.  In Media Bistro. In the Oxford Mail. in the Independent.

And in Oxford, England, they're celebrating the Caucus Race this weekend.  It's the fifth year that the town where Lewis Carroll lived most of his adult life is celebrating his work and imagination.  If we lived nearby, I am sure we would be there.

It will be exciting to learn about all the events planned for the 150th publication year coming up soon.

Fairy Tales re-imagined on TV and in books

Mix up traditional fairy tale characters such as Snow White, Prince Charming and Rumplestilskin with literary fairy tale characters such as Pinnochio, the Blue Fairy and perhaps someone from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a dose of contemporary fantasy and modern sensibility.  One result is a new television series on Sunday nights on ABC, Once Upon a Time.  This show is for families and fantasy fans while on the darker, flip side fairy tales get the law-and-order, violent treatment with Grimm beginning this Friday night on NBC.

Once Upon a Time intends to draw in readers of Harry Potter as well as the many YA, middle-school and adult books, such as Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series, E. J. Patten's new Return to Exile series, Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted and her subsequent princess books, Shannon Hale's The Princess Academy series, Cressida Cowell's How to Train a Dragon series, the Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series in chapter book and graphic novels, etc.  Combining fairy tales with fantasy and contemporary realism has become a popular story well to mine, accompanied by the elves and dwarves who know the way through the tunnels.Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Sister Mary Margaret

Once Upon a Time stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White and Josh Dallas as Prince Charming who are cursed by a wicked witch played by Lana Parrilla.  The witch's curse seems to be that the characters are transformed into the creepy world of 21st century Storybrook, Maine.

Not that long ago some book publishers, librarians, and adults directing children to books decided that kids did not want to read fairy tales or fantasy.  J.K. Rowlings opened up the floodgates by proving them wrong.  Kids enjoy the excitement, dark turns with usually happy endings, romance, and swashbuckling adventures in these kids of books.  So, it seems that it's about time that television has figured out that a series that interweaves these kinds of tales while still having a PG sensibility might work. 

Obviously, I've just seen one episode and the series is laying the groundwork for the complicated material that is bound to come later.  I do want to point out that there is a significant difference between  traditional fairy tales that the Grimms and others collected and literary fairy tales created by one author, such as Lewis Carroll or L. Frank Baum.  It's just a little unsettling to see the two mixed up so freely here.Josh Dallas as Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time

It's not surprising that Once Upon a Time has roots in the mysterious series Lost; two of that series writers – Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis -- are the creators of this show.  They also worked on the tightly crafted Felicity.

"We love the mish-mash,” Kitsis told the Hollywood Reporter last summer about scenes in which Geppetto interacts with Grumpy, etc. Maybe so, but the mish-mash may become a little confusing as viewers make the connection between fairy tale time and contemporary times.  For instance, Snow White becomes the beloved teacher Sister Mary Margaret in Storybrook.  Or remembering Rumplestilskin from the Shrek films and then from fairy tales and then trying to remember exactly why he was bad.

Maybe there's a need for a fairy tale quick guide. 

Mary Blair Googled!

Today would be Mary Blair's 100th birthday and to celebrate Google created a Google Doodle inspired by Mary Blair's art.  Very cool! 

Just wanted to mention again that I have a chapter in my book, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature, on the Alice in Wonderland book that uses  Mary Blair's original artwork for the Disney film and Jon Scieszka's adaptation. That chapter essay, "Show Me, Don't (Re)Tell Me: Jon Scieszka Revisits Wonderland" is available in .pd format here.  Blair's work continues to show an amazing imagination but the usually funny and clever Scieszka seems a little intimated by adapating Carroll's work.  I'm working on a few other ideas related to Mary Blair's art as well.

Go Mary Blair! 

The Mary Blair Google Doodle.

more artwork from Mary Blair Disneyland exhibitFrom the Mary Blair exhibit at Disneyland in Summer 2011

Mary Blair exhibit at Disneyland & Matisse influences

Mary Blair's amazing artwork for Disney is the topic of the  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 17th Marc Davis Celebration of Animation lecture tomorrow night.  Looks like a fun, interesting panel the creators from Disney and Pixar who've worked on Toy Story 3, Monsters, Inc., Aladdin, Up, Pocahontas and more. Of course, the panel is already sold out, but it would be great to be a fly on the wall.

I'm fascinated by Blair's work. I included a chapter in my recent book, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature, about the re-working of Alice in Wonderland by Jon Scieszka using the art that Blair created for Disney as an inspiration for his animated film.  Not the best Alice adaptation because Scieszka doesn't bring his usual humor and confidence to Blair's dark and stylized work.

When we were in Disneyland during the summer, we were able to see an exhibit on Mary Blair's work.  I thought that the panel talk would be a good opportunity to post some of the photos from that exhibit.  The exhibit was near the entryway to Disneyland in the area on Main Street devoted to the history of Walt Disney and the theme park.  It's one of my favorite sections because the older Disneyland is the one that seeped into my imagination while watching the Sunday night Disney television and The Mickey Mouse Club.

Looking at the photos again, which are obviously not perfect photos, reminds me how much Mary Blair was inspired by Henri Matisse cutouts.

Matisse's La Tristesse du roi (Sorrows of the King), 1952Matisse is noted as saying "To look all life long with the eyes of a child."

Anfitrite, 1947The Eschimo , 1947

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Carroll's possible thoughts as Alice in Wonderland film wins Academy Award

Tim Burton's dark Alice in Wonderland continues its success by winning last night's first Academy Award.  Robert Stromberg and Karen O'Hara accepted the Oscar for Art Direction for their work in Alice in Wonderland.  Later, the winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Costume was Collen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland.  She had certainly been heavily promoted as a possibility even before the film came out.

Great article in the Chicago Tribune on former Chicagoan Karen O'Hara on what was involved in Art Direction for Alice in Wonderland.  While art directors and producers used to get their actual objects on the set, in this CGI-enhanced Alice, O'Hara worked with the computer graphics people to take the images she had found and put them into CGI.

She explains:"There's a huge department on films nowadays that creates the environments in 3-D on a computer, based on paintings and other research that the production designer has put together," she said. "What I do is, I bring in all the items that are going to decorate those areas, just as they would be in a complete live-action movie. I photograph those items and then those get built in 3-D in the computer. Then I sit with the computer artists and place those objects in the environment. Everything that's in that rabbit hole that Alice falls through — and there were hundreds of items: a piano, pictures, pieces of jewelry, a large sofa, a bed — all those pieces need to be figured out."

In this backstage interview after winning the Academy Award, Robert Stromberg also explains that during his acceptance speech he put a little Mad Hatter hat on the Oscar.  Cute!

I am sure that Lewis Carroll would have been both appalled and intrigued by the Academy Award Show last night.  As a man who loved theatre, just being with all those actors would have thrilled him.  But he was more conservative than many assume and he might have found some aspects a little tawdry or risque.