Curiouser and curiouser!

Look what I get to add to my book collection! A 1934 print of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. When I have it in my hands, I feel like I'm holding a relic from some enchanted land, or that it has some magical power I haven't yet deciphered. It's in pristine condition and so so beautiful...

I was instantly enchanted by the set when I saw it at Feldman Books several months ago but couldn't justify that it was the price of a designer boot. I went back yesterday just to look at it and hold it again. When I came in, the book store owner greeted me with, "Didn't you come in many months ago for the Lewis Carroll set?" and I said, "I haven't been able to stop thinking about it!" He brought it out for me again, and while I was longingly admiring it he offered me a lower price, adding "because you like it so much."

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone: "so I ca'n't take more."
"You mean you ca'n't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."

One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it : - it was the black kittens fault entirely.

the cover gold imprints

My Very Merry UnBirthday this past summer

At my favorite SF spot, Bourbon and Branch, a real speakeasy during the Prohibition that covered as a cigar shop. They still require password for entry into their door that's hidden in the middle of the Tenderloin next to a crackwhore, and recently opened up the basement (which was the location of the actual bar in the 1920s). I really recommend trying to check out all four rooms at some point.

The party invites were these "Drink Me" viles filled with port, and a riddle for the password "Mister Rabbit" to enter. All the tea cakes had "Eat me" or "Try me" written on them. It was a lot of fun...but I always enjoy planning parties more than the actual events, I don't know why...

...maybe it's the difference between hopeful creation and impending end. Both seem to me an awareness of the passage of time but with very different lights. And maybe that's why youth is generally pleasantly looks upon, the illusion of a generous portion of time that in large quantities appear to be hope. Ok, side tangent, I watched this silly historian's talk who proudly found what Michelangelo looked like, pulling from the statue of David (which is assumed to be modeled after him in his youth) and the Vitruvian Man (him in old age). The absurdity of the endeavor to begin with aside, it interested me that the portraits of him as a youth and in old age didn't satisfy the audience; people wanted to know what he'd look like in his "prime." And I thought maybe people always picture themselves in their prime as the base metric; viewing old age they as a deviance from and childhood as an approach to it.

Misc Herr Johann