Madness Takes Its Toll

I had been meaning to see Curious Nature, the Alice in Wonderland exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, for some time now. And, like the White Rabbit, I was pretty late in doing so, finally getting around to it in its last week, along with Beth. It was pretty enjoyable, and most of the stuff was clustered around a single area. The thing I had the most trouble finding was Alyson Shotz's mirror sculpture on the edge of the forest, which I walked right past before noticing.
The conservatory had items modeled on Victorian gardens, like the ones at Oxford in Lewis Carroll's time.
We ate at the Pine Grove Cafe and split a cookie with a picture of Alice on it.

It was all right, not great. And I still don't know whether looking-glass milk is good to drink. I don't even like drinking the regular kind. At the store, I bought a keychain and two pairs of socks, one with Alice and another with mushrooms. There were a lot of mushrooms around the place. A model cottage built by Andre Kong that referenced Alice growing to enormous size inside the Rabbit's house had bricks made of mushroom.

And one of the exhibits at the library included information on how common the use of psychedelic drugs was in the Victorian era, how they might have influenced Lewis Carroll's work, and how the connection was strengthened during the psychedelic movement in the 1960s. I'll admit that I think the drug thing is sometimes overemphasized in relation to Alice, not because there's no chance Carroll was referencing hallucinogens, but because I think the association is more that such drugs produce a dreamlike state than that the whole thing was one big drug trip. But then, I've never been high, so what do I know?

Another exhibit highlighted the scientific discoveries of the time, and mentioned The Water-Babies as a book that tied evolution to Protestant morality.

There were also works by Abelardo Morell, Agus Putu Suyadnaya, and Patrick Jacobs, the latter of whom contributed miniature dioramas.

The library seemed somewhat Carrollian in form itself, as only the even-numbered floors were accessible. I assume the others are for staff only, but the building doesn't look tall enough from the outside to have six stories. Outside the rose garden was a display of the white roses that were painted red.

There were a surprising number of roses still in bloom in the garden itself, but then, it was an exceptionally warm day for the end of October.

At the Reflecting Pool, there was a big topiary Rabbit.

There were a few other themes going on besides the Wonderland one, including some giant pumpkins (I assume these were set up before anyone knew about the recent Family Guy episode about that topic) and people and a horse with pumpkin heads.


Last Saturday was a Kevin Geeks Out show at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park, usually the easier one to get to, but this time the trains weren't all running. It was weird to have this in the daytime, and Kevin Maher had to make an effort to say "today's show" rather than "tonight's." The show was about horror television, including a montage of dream sequences, a look at the Crypt-Keeper's sartorial choices (complete with appropriate puns), an overview of Punky Brewster and Benson episodes where characters were murdered, and a game where we had to guess whether Elvira ever appeared on certain shows. The final clip was of her on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show; she was on there twice, and I'm pretty sure neither one made the DVD collection.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

I tried the French toast sticks, which were good. After the show, we met Tavie and walked around Green-Wood Cemetery, where we've been many times, but it's so big that we ended up in a place I don't think we'd seen before. It had this pond.

Then we looked at the house that goes all out for Halloween, which is owned by a playwright.


We voted on Monday the twenty-eighth, and the polling place for early voting was closer than our usual one, so that was a good idea. If we'd voted on Halloween, however, we could have gotten special voting stickers. It's nothing unusual, but the election looks pretty bleak, and I'm dreading the aftermath. I don't really get why people support Donald Trump anyway, but it's even more worrying that he's even allowed to run after all the crimes he's committed. And the Supreme Court is basically in his pocket at this point. It's like there's no real safety net for the country anymore. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that he'll win, but a lot of damage has already been done.

On Halloween itself, we saw a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Kings Theatre. This is the third time I've seen it with audience participation, the first time having been in college, when I didn't know what to think of it. I kind of thought it was going a little too much for shock value, and I don't think I really appreciated camp at the time. I guess it's a pretty weird thing to go into without context, and I don't think a campy sci-fi musical comedy is that strange by the standards of the seventies, if perhaps more overtly sexual than was normal for the time. Beth was always a fan, and I came to like it more later on. And the songs were always good. Barry Bostwick showed up to introduce the film, and someone helped him stretch out his leg.

There was also a costume contest, and the winners were two people in striped outfits with tall hats, making me think of They Might Be Giants' "Don't Let's Start" video. I don't know what they were actually supposed to be.


They still had Fright Fest at Great Adventure this weekend, and we had season passes that we'd only used once, so we went on Saturday.

We ate at Friendly's before getting there, and they had these cool bat-lamps.

They had mazes set up for the occasion, but those cost extra. We largely concentrated on rides we'd only been on once, like the Jersey Devil Coaster, Joker, Kingda Ka, and Green Lantern. I think we'd been on El Toro once before, but I can't remember for sure; it might have been our first time. That's a wooden roller coaster that goes really fast, making it pretty rough. We also rode the Giant Wheel, SkyScreamer, Skull Mountain, and Nitro.

We're planning to go back again for Holiday in the Park.