Monday, June 23, 2003

It's Very Good Jam

We made jam yesterday, 36oz of black cherry jam courtesy of Costco's bulk-buy fruit. Jam worthy of paying a Queen's Lady's Maid. Only every other day though. Yes that is a literary reference my dear, how very kind of you to notice.

I've been re-reading Alice In Wonderland, and Through The Looking-Glass; it's rather disconcerting to realise how much those two stories shaped my youthful internal monologue. Especially my tendency to scold myself in an upper-class accent, just like Alice. I found that I remembered almost every line verbatim, they're stored in my brain permanently, probably the result of having an excellent book on tape version of them, read by Alan Bennet. I was barely reading the book, more opening the door to the part of my memory where Mr Bennet's nasal voice resided, providing perfect inflections to the White Queen's assertion that it's always "jam tomorrow, and jam yesterday, but never jam today..." Because it's jam every other day you see, and today isn't any other day.

If anyone ever accuses me of creative circular logic, I can now point to Lewis Carroll for the reason. Just as I can lay my sick sense of humour at the door of Roald Dahl and Monty Python. I wish the Disney version of Alice had tried harder to carry accross the intelligent surreality of the book, and not just the random cartoonish characters. Alice is a permanent resident in my subconcious, bitchy little asides and all. Such a contrary little thing, but I suppose she can't help it.

Oh dear, I'm rambling in Carroll-ese, it probably only makes sense to me as well. I had better go do something serious and important immediately.

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