{"id":8214,"date":"2011-06-24T12:40:19","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T16:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8214"},"modified":"2011-06-24T12:54:44","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T16:54:44","slug":"what-did-the-dormouse-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/what-did-the-dormouse-say\/","title":{"rendered":"What Did<\/em> the Dormouse Say?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: T-shirt available from the Skreened store<\/a>. Of all the images of this moment which I found online, the original Tenniel still seemed best. <\/em>Disclaimer: I have no interest (vested or, ha, shirted) in the store other than this photo of this T-shirt.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Brotherhood<\/strong>
\nHomage to Octavius Ptolemy<\/p>\n

I am a man: little do I last
\nand the night is enormous.
\nBut I look up:
\nthe stars write.
\nUnknowing I understand:
\nI too am written,
\nand at this very moment
\nsomeone spells me out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Octavio Paz [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.<\/p>\n

I have caught life. I have come down with life. I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed…<\/p>\n

They never shut up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Kurt Vonnegut [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Questions In The Mind Of A Poet While She Washes Her Floors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will obedience leave me unknown to myself, stranded?<\/p>\n

Is it enough for me to know where I’m from?<\/p>\n

If I do more truth-telling will I be happier with what I say?<\/p>\n

If I had three days to live would I still be sensible?<\/p>\n

Is the break between my feelings and my memory
\nthe reason I’m unable to sustain rage?<\/p>\n

Am I a peninsula slowly turning into an island?<\/p>\n

If I grew up gazing at the ocean would I think
\nlife came in waves?<\/p>\n

If I were a nomad would I measure time
\nby the length of a footstep?<\/p>\n

If I can see a cup drop to the floor and shatter
\nwhy can’t I see it gather itself back together?<\/p>\n

If a surgeon cut out my mistakes
\nwould the scar be under my heart?<\/p>\n

How much time will I spend protecting myself
\nfrom what the people I love call love?<\/p>\n

Would my desires feel different if I lived forever?<\/p>\n

Will my desires destroy my politics?<\/p>\n

Is taboo sex the ultimate aphrodisiac?<\/p>\n

If I fall in love with the wrong person
\nHow do I learn to un-in love myself?<\/p>\n

Can I make my intuition into a divining rod?<\/p>\n

Is music the closest I can get to God?<\/p>\n

How many of these questions will remain
\nwhen I kneel to wash my floors again?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Elena Georgiou [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

One side of the planet is draped in eternal freezing darkness, the other side is bathed in permanent starlight.<\/p>\n

Fields of “stinger fans” — animals that look like tall plants — cover the floodplains. Other strange species abound, from giraffe-like predators called gulphogs to tiny flesh-dissolving tadpoles known as hysteria<\/p>\n

Welcome to the planet Aurelia….<\/p>\n

Alien life is not just possible but probable, according to many scientists. And thanks to new technology, we may not be too far from finding it.<\/p>\n

The question is: What<\/em> can we expect to find?<\/p>\n

Perhaps something like Aurelia. Or maybe the Blue Moon… The fictional moon has a 240-hour day and orbits a huge planet in a solar system with two suns. With an atmosphere three times denser than Earth’s, the Blue Moon has giant whales gliding through its sky.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Dear Marilyn:<\/p>\n

Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say number 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say number 3, which has a goat. He says to you, “Do you want to pick door number 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?<\/p>\n

Craig F. Whitaker
\nColumbia, Maryland<\/p>\n

Dear Craig:<\/p>\n

Yes, you should switch. The first door has a 1\/3 chance of winning, but the second door has a 2\/3 chance. Here’s a good way to visualize what happened: Suppose there are a\u00a0million<\/em> doors, and you pick door number 1. Then the host, who knows what’s behind the doors and will always avoid the one with the prize, opens them all except door number 777,777. You’d switch to that door pretty fast, wouldn’t you?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Marilyn vos Savant, Parade Magazine<\/em>, “Ask Marilyn” (Sept. 9, 1990); quoted in vos Savant, The Power of Logical Thinking<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>; also see Wikipedia<\/a>, on the “Monty Hall problem”])<\/p>\n

I have great difficulty thinking of the Dormouse<\/a> — my favorite Alice<\/em> character — without being reminded, at least subliminally, of Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane. Here’s a video to accompany their hit, “White Rabbit<\/a>,” interleaving images of the Airplane themselves, performing the song, and clips from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland<\/em><\/a> (2010):<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

White Rabbit<\/em><\/strong>
\n(by Grace Slick; performance by Jefferson Airplane)<\/em><\/p>\n

One pill makes you larger
\nAnd one pill makes you small
\nAnd the ones that mother gives you
\nDon’t do anything at all
\nGo ask Alice
\nWhen she’s ten feet tall<\/p>\n

And if you go chasing rabbits
\nAnd you know you’re going to fall
\nTell ’em a hookah smoking caterpillar
\nHas given you the call
\nCall Alice
\nWhen she was just small<\/p>\n

When men on the chessboard
\nGet up and tell you where to go
\nAnd you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
\nAnd your mind is moving low
\nGo ask Alice
\nI think she’ll know<\/p>\n

When logic and proportion
\nHave fallen sloppy dead
\nAnd the White Knight is talking backwards
\nAnd the Red Queen’s “Off with her head!”
\nRemember what the dormouse said:
\nFeed your head
\nFeed your head
\nFeed your head<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for the question posed in this post’s title: one kind soul seems<\/a> to have done all the legwork for everyone else, having compiled a list of everything<\/em> the Dormouse said. (None of it, maybe predictably, was “Feed your head.”)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: T-shirt available from the Skreened store. Of all the images of this moment which I found online, the original Tenniel still seemed best. Disclaimer: I have no interest (vested or, ha, shirted) in the store other than this photo of this T-shirt.] From whiskey river: Brotherhood Homage to Octavius Ptolemy I am a man: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,53,74,250,5,50,251],"tags":[1595,2340,2427,2428,2429,2431,2432,2433,2434],"class_list":{"0":"post-8214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-movies-media","9":"category-music","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-language-writing_cat","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"tag-octavio-paz","15":"tag-kurt-vonnegut","16":"tag-elena-georgiou","17":"tag-stefan-lovgren","18":"tag-national-geographic","19":"tag-marilyn-vos-savant","20":"tag-the-monty-hall-dilemma","21":"tag-jefferson-airplane","22":"tag-alice","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-28u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8215,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8214\/revisions\/8215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}