Lilith

After finishing this, it occurred to me I had George MacDonald's allegorical fairytale Lilith in mind when working on it. George MacDonald was a good friend of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) . The story is that of a sort of super-succubus who holds half the waters of the world in her hand. Her sin is in cutting off life, which results in her living a sort of half-life and doing harm to others. George MacDonald was quite an interesting character, a Presbyterian minister whose unorthodox sermons (he believed in that God was internal, and in love rather than doctrine) got his parishioners riled up to the point where he was essentially demoted from a parish with a good living to a less remunerative one. It's also interesting that C.S. Lewis was such an admirer of MacDonald, whose vision seems to me much more generous than that of Lewis.

This (on Imaginary Bicycle) made me cry, in a good way.

Work in Progress

I think I have most of the writing done. I have been rereading Robert Polhemus' wonderful take on Through the Looking Glass in his book Comic Faith (its title comes from his contention that humor is redemptive, and that laughter can awaken us). Anyway, here's what I have now for the first section:

Both stories begin with pursuit, the dreaming mind chasing a rabbit in one, passing through the mirror of quotidian reality in another. The door out opens through language, both a prison and the key to escape. Carroll states his intent in the preface to Through the Looking Glass:

These magic words shall hold thee fast

I'll have a little intro to each section in prose, but will mostly let the pictures speak for themselves, with brief quotes from Lewis Carroll. I may post one or two more of the intros here, but will mostly reserve them for the book.

You are Old, Father William/ Second Alice Series

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak–

Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

- You are Old, Father William

Recently made contact with an Alice transmogrifier in Dublin at The Josie Baggley Company, I like her melancholy take on the White Rabbit.

In news of a personal nature, one of my nephews sent me a David Lindley CD (very greasy) - listening to the song "Your Papa was a Rolling Stone" fills me with longing to do a post titled "There was some bad talk on the rockpile". However, since March is officially going to be Alice in Wonderland month here, that may have to wait...

Alice in Wonderland/The Dutchess

What Alice finds inside - a choleric crew in a big cloud of pepper. The cloth on the frame was something I found on the street a couple of days before I shot this.