Promo bilde for “Dyrene i Hakkebakkeskogen”, Qvisten Animation, fra sf-film.no.
Sønnen min og jeg så «Dyrene i Hakkebakkeskogen» på førpremiere på Colosseum Kino like før jul. Det var en underholdende og spennede film med mange velskrevne og velkjente sanger. Dersom du har vokst opp i Norge i løpet av de siste 40-50 årene, så kjenner du garantert til flere av sangene.
Ganske tidlig i filmen møter vi Bakermester Harepus som, på fiffig vis, forsøker å videreformidle noe som mest sannsynlig er en gammel familieoppskrift, til lærlingen i bakeriet. Komplikasjoner oppstår raskt og uten å avsløre for mye kan jeg vel si at Thorbjørn Egner (forfatteren bak “Dyrene i Hakkebakkeskogen”) påpeker viktigheten av å lytte og å følge
oppskriften.
“Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
“India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.”
― Shashi Tharoor
India is, without a doubt and without comparison, the noisiest and dirtiest country I’ve ever visited. Pushkar, were this photo was taken, was relatively quiet though.
My response to Paula’s Thursday’s Special post.
Some years ago, two or more Norwegian stores sold candy containing the toxic chemical melamine. The candy is manufactured by the Chinese company Guanshengyuan Food Company in Shanghai, and it’s called White Rabbit. I’m not sure if the Chinese company got the White Rabbit from the Jefferson Airplane song or if they got it from the novel ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ written in 1865. The author of the novel was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson that wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.
Photo: EPA/JULIO MUNOZ
‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ (Alice in Wonderland) has inspired a lot of popular culture: I’ve already mentioned Jefferson Airplane, but also the character Neo, in the movie The Matrix, is encouraged to “follow the white rabbit” in one of the film’s metaphysical awakening scenes. In Carroll’s novel, the white rabbit shows up at the beginning of the story, Alice follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole leading to Wonderland – a wonderland that singer Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, uses as a metaphor about drug affected experiences. Aah, lovely, lovely.
I can’t write about Grace Slick without mentioning the famous story when Grace Slick and Abbie Hoffman planned to slip the drug LSD into Richard Nixon’s tea.
Here’s the full story, copied from a longer interview with Slick in Time out Chicago.
«Okay, tell me about trying to slip Richard Nixon acid at the White House.
See, Trish Nixon’s daughter went to Finch College, and it was so small that she invited all of the alumni to a tea at the White House. But my name when I went there was Grace Wing, that doesn’t mean anything right? Now, Grace Slick meant something. So I get an invitation to the White House and I call up Abbie Hoffman and say [Sing-songy] “Guess what I have….I’ve got an invitation to the White House.” So I put 600 mics of acid under a long fingernail I had for cocaine, and we go and we’re standing in line, and the security guard comes up to me and says, “I’m sorry you can’t go in. You’re a security risk.” And I go, “What?!” And he says, “You’re on the FBI list.” And I go, “What?!?!” And I found out that the members of Jefferson Airplane were on a list because of “suspect lyrics.” They didn’t know why I was a security threat, but they were right.
See, I learned all about formal teas at Finch College. You have two urns at either end of a long table and you stand—you don’t sit—and since I’m an entertainer, I gesture a lot, and I was gonna gesture across Nixon’s tea and in about a half an hour, he would’ve been out of his mind and nobody would’ve known why. But it didn’t matter because he was so goofy and made mistakes and got his own ass out of the White House. It amazed me that they didn’t say anything to Abbie.» (Source 1).
The Mad Hatter
«The Mad Hatter» Work in Progress – Digital drawing by CardinalGuzman.wordpress.com
Above you see another one of my never-ending projects: «The Mad Hatter», a work in progress . This is a digital drawing that I started working on several months ago, but I’ve just forgotten all about it lately.
Mercury poisoning, also known as hydrargyria or mercurialism)
From Wikipedia: “Mad as a hatter” is a colloquial phrase used in conversation to refer to a crazy person. In 18th and 19th century England mercury was used in the production of felt, which was used in the manufacturing of hats common of the time. People who worked in these hat factories were exposed daily to trace amounts of the metal, which accumulated within their bodies over time, causing some workers to develop dementia caused by mercury poisoning (called mad hatter syndrome). Thus, the phrase became popular as a way to refer to someone who was perceived as insane. (Source 2).
Tim Burton made a film version of Alice in Wonderland where Johnny Depp performs as the Hatter in the film. – Burton and Depp have collaborated on six films before and Mr. Depp seems to be tailor-made for the role as The Hatter. Speaking of Depp (and Jefferson Airplane): Terry Gilliam made a brilliant film “Fear and loathing in Las Vegas” where Johnny played the role of gonzo journalist Raoul Duke.
In that film Jefferson Airplane contributed to the soundtrack with another one of their famous songs: “Somebody to Love”, but let’s do like Alice did and follow the White Rabbit. Hopefully the following video clip isn’t blocked in your country or removed because of copyright blah, blah (that is one of the major problems when posting YouTube videos in your blog posts):
White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Recall Alice
When she was just small
When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s “off with her head!”
Remember what the doormouse said;
“Feed your head. Feed your head.”
I was glad when I realized that this dog has made it to the movies!”Red Dog” is a short novel Louis de Bernières wrote after he discovered a statue of a dog in the city of Karratha in the Australian outback.
Kathryn Flett at Guardian.co.uk writes the following in her book review from 2001:
“Red Dog is the semi-fictionalised biography of an extraordinary Red Cloud Kelpie – a tough, stocky, short-haired, pointy-eared breed of Australian sheep dog, descended from the Scottish collie – who became a legend in Western Australia during his short life (1971- 1979 RIP). Continue reading →
Cardinal Guzman 