Kratzke: The Hatter's Tea 2024

Complete Carroll Alice Poetry (47 pages)

Complete Tenniel Alice Drawings (83 pages)
Additional Alice Files (59 pages)

Outgrabe I. How Doth the Little Crocodile
Outgrabe II. You are Old, Father William
Outgrabe III. 'Tis the Voice of the Lobster
Outgrabe IV. Turtle Soup
Outgrabe V. Jabberwocky
Outgrabe VI. The Walrus and the Carpenter
Outgrabe VII. To the Looking-Glass World

Stuff & Nonsense I. The Mouse's Tale

Bookend IV. A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

Victorian Singalong I. The Duchess' Lullaby
Victorian Singalong II. The Lobster Quadrille
Victorian Singalong III. Turtle Soup
Victorian Singalong IV. The White Rabbit's Evidence
Victorian Singalong V. The Aged Aged Man
Victorian Singalong VI. To the Looking-Glass World

This year is different.

You are the performers, celebrating a work in progress with Your Hatter.

For some short hours, Wonderland will settle upon Snake Mountain instead of Tileton Abbey.

In Wonderland, you can sing badly and I can play badly, and it will still be grand.

We know this because in all the films that record the Wonderlands, that's what happens.

I've ordered myself an enormous plum felt Victorian top hat!

And it was the right year to do it; I happen to be 42 years old in the year 2024.
Carroll liked 42 and 24. Gardener can tell you a lot more about that, but

1. The Red King's Rule Forty-Two: All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.
2. Alice is 7 years and 6 months old in the second book (7 x 6 = 42).
3. The White King sends 4,207 horses and men to restore Humpty Dumpty.
4. There are 42 illustrations in the first book.
5. Each of the two Alice books has 12 chapters for a total of 24.
6. 42 is 24 backwards.

Let's talk more about my hat!
My hat did not cost exactly 10 shillings and 6 pence, and I know this because:

2 farthings = 1 ha'penny

2 ha'pennies = 1 penny (in pricing, these are pence)
3 pennies = 1 thre'penny bit
2 thre'penny bits = 1 sixpence
2 sixpences = 1 shilling
2 shillings = 1 florin
5 shillings = 1 crown
2 halfcrowns = 1 crown
2 crowns = 10 shilling note
2 10 shilling notes = 1 pound

So in pounds, 10 shillings and 6 pence would be:

[1/2] (for the shillings) + [(1/2)(1/2)(1/5)(1/2)] (for the pennies) of a pound, or .525 pounds.

Adjusting for inflation from 1865, that would be $70.24 today.

There's no further point to that - I just correctly assumed it was fascinating.

I've only composed one new song for you to sing - The Mouse's Tale.

But I've also restructured the Outgrabe project into an Alice project with the following sections:

I. Outgrabe
II. Stuff & Nonsense
III. Bookend Songs

This year, we'll also sing songs I did not compose:

IV. The Victorian Singalongs

One of these Victorian Singalongs is not new to us this year, and I had previously called it "A-Sitting On A Gate." Here's an excerpt from Book II, Chapter 8.

"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It’s long," said the Knight, "but very, very beautiful.
Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else—"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks’ Eyes.'"
"Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don’t understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That’s what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man.'"
"Then I ought to have said 'That’s what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing!
The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that’s only what it’s called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said.
"The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune’s my own invention."
...
"But the tune isn’t his own invention," she said to herself:
"it’s 'I give thee all, I can no more.’"
She stood and listened very attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.

You can see why I can't compose this song. Not only does Alice recognize the melody, but the title of the entire chapter is "It's My Own Invention." I initially called it "A-sitting On A Gate," because that's what the song really is. But this year, I revised that and decided to call it "The Aged Aged Man," because that's what the name really is. The other five singalongs are not essential to this body of work, and I cannot predict whether or not they will materialize in a future Wonderland.

Another edit worth mention is that I have changed the types of quotations, the types of hyphens, and the spacing of hyphens in Outgrabe. Before, I was using Lenny De Rooy's wonderful Alice website (https://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/) as my main resource, which uses the punctuation of The Gutenberg project, and I decided that as a Hatter with a Real Hat, I no longer had the tolerance.

07 Oct 2024

What a fantastic time we all had!