Provided nobody has done it first, I would like to declare today Alice in Wonderland day. Not, mind you, to commemorate when the book was first published, but when the book actually takes place.
How do I know this you may ask? Well, the Reverend Dodgson gives us ample evidence.
Exhibit one, from chapter 6, Pig and Pepper.
“Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. `I’ve seen hatters before,’ she said to herself; `the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad–at least not so mad as it was in March.’ As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.”
And Exhibit two, from the next chapter, The Mad Tea Party.
“The Hatter was the first to break the silence. `What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.’
`Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. `I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare.
Ergo Alice has her dream today on May Fourth.
Raise a toast and enjoy.
Today’s Sketch are a couple of different angles of a fragment of a Roman architectural relief from the first quarter of the 2nd century AD representing the preparation of an animal sacrifice, from the Louvre’s Roman sculpture collection. I can’t say just how much I liked this exhibit. For the two months it was visiting the Seattle Art Museum I was there as often as I could, getting there every time I was certain there wouldn’t be much of a crowd. I think it was the closest I ever came to recording an entire exhibit on paper.
