S3 E22 Unpacking Nonsense on a Quiet Tuesday Night

Let's have a little easy listening fun! I found all kinds of trivia for you tonight that explains our current literary masterpiece: Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, and all of the wacky wonder to behold between it's covers!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Good evening and welcome to the Comforting Voice Podcast. I'm your host Shasta Ray, and I'm joined in the studio tonight by Emmy the Minimicaw, and the giant dog is outside of the studio door, he's settled in, and he's gonna take a nap. So here we are. Oh my gosh. How was your weekend? Did you survive it? Did you stay busy? Did you get some R? I had a little bit of all of that. You know, I think it's not out of the norm, it's not unusual. We're all feeling the stress of society right now like crazy. And man, it's really nice to just hang out here, but sometimes you just gotta take the weekend, shut off for a little bit, and if you've gotta be productive, figure out a way to do it while you're in front of the television. That's what I did. And it really did help recharge the batteries, and I got a lot of stuff done. Believe it or not, sometimes that just does not pan out, and this weekend I was kind of proud of myself. I did not succumb to the sleep all weekend. It's easy to do. Anyway, I hope that you were able to recharge your batteries a little bit. But here we are Tuesday night. It's almost midweek, so we better get you started on recharging your batteries so you're all rested and relaxed and ready to go tomorrow, right? Settle in, get comfy, figure out that position you want to doze off in, or maybe you're in your easy chair and you need a pillow, or a blanket, a beer perhaps, whatever you gotta do to unwind a little bit. If you're here to go to sleep, hey, make sure you got a bottle of water at your fingertips, your teddy bear, a sleep mask, whatever you need to surround yourself with to get a good night's sleep so you don't wake up and have to wander around and go do that. That's really no fun. And then while you're at it, just make sure that your listening device is set at that perfect volume that works for you. And after that, you're just gonna do something really simple. Stretch those arms and legs out, engage those muscles real quick, wiggle your fingers and toes at the end of that stretch, and then let go of the stretch. And you're gonna feel some relaxation kick in immediately. Follow that up with a couple really good productive deep breaths of air. Inhale to about the count of four, hold it to about the count of four, and exhale a little bit slower to about the count of six. And really, that resets everything going on in your busy mind after a long busy day, and it helps you disconnect from all that, and just let go. You'll be rested, you'll be happy. There you go. Easy. Okay, Emmy is behaving herself for the time being, so we're gonna rapidly do a quick draw on your tea tag and fortune cookie slip. Ooh, I got it before you noticed, Emmy. Hay your tea tag for the night. Happiness is actually an art of living which is in each of us. And your fortune cookie slip. It is sometimes better to travel hopefully than to arrive. I'm not sure what that means, but it sounded thoughtful. Okay, your lucky numbers off the back of the fortune cookie slip for those of you that play number games like the lottery, things like that. Four, thirty-seven, fifty, fifteen, forty-seven, and sixteen. Good luck if you play any kind of number games. I hope you win big. Got that in the archive receptacle and the pickle chicken. Tried to bite it, but missed. Okay. Did I did I do you want your piece of paper? There you go. Okay. We missed out on join the fun last week. We had such a long Tuesday hanging out, talking about frogs. Oh my gosh, if you missed it, go check it out. And for those of you that caught it and gave me some awesome feedback, thank you so much. All of your enthusiasm was greatly appreciated. We got a few people that gave me some great feedback. And um, yeah, it was kind of a special episode. Lon and I teamed up for a very special topic that we both love, a proverb that means a ton to us, and uh it helps us through life on a day-to-day basis, especially in these troubled times. So we had a lot of fun with that. Go check it out. Last week it was uh a frog, an ocean, and your well-being. So we skipped over join the fun, and this week we are not gonna skip over join the fun. So let's see who we have next on our listener base list. Okay, we're gonna start off with Mexico. Mexico introduced chocolate to the world. Ancient civilizations in Mexico were preparing cacao drinks long before chocolate became popular globally. Mexico is home to the world's smallest volcano, which is small enough that people can easily walk around it in minutes. I didn't know that. Mexico has 68 officially recognized indigenous languages reflecting an extraordinarily depth of living cultural heritage. And I did not know that either. So if you're joining the fund from Mexico, you represent enduring tradition, remarkable cultural depth, and a country that gave the world one of its favorite comforts, chocolate. Not to mention the world's cutest volcano. Okay, next on our list is Denmark. Denmark has an island where residents can borrow books twenty four hours a day from an unmanned library using trust based access. Denmark is considered one of the world leaders in wind energy and has invested heavily in sustainable living. The Danish concept of Hegi, am I saying that right? Heige H Y G E became globally admired because it centers around coziness, comfort, and everyday well-being. So if you're joining the fund from Denmark, you represent trust, thoughtful living, and a culture that believes comfort and quality of life truly matter. Vietnam Vietnam is one of the largest coffee producers and its coffee culture is known for distinctive styles and preparation methods. Vietnam has the world's largest cave passage, large enough to contain forests and its own weather system inside. Vietnam uses millions of motorbikes as a primary form of transportation, creating one of the most dynamic street cultures anywhere in the world. So if you're joining the fun from Vietnam, you represent ingenuity, energy, and a culture that blends natural wonder with vibrant everyday life. That's really cool. Alright, let's check in with Lawn and see what he sent in for this week's clip. So if you've got a minute, I've got a minute. Here's Lawn with Got a Minute.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

As complicated as life can be, there is a simple formula that can help bring us back to center and help bring us back to a peaceful way of thinking. If we put every single thing we do into these little categories, it just might help. Think of it this way Hope is grasping one single mustard seed in a white-knuckled grip. Optimism is thinking that seed is going to grow. And faith is knowing it will. To recap, hope is gripping a single mustard seed in a white-knuckled grip. Optimism is believing that seed will grow, and faith is knowing it will. If we can keep those thoughts in mind in every single thing we do, it can help bring us back to a peaceful way of thinking, and we can thrive.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

That was a good one, Lon. Much appreciated. I always love hearing what he had for the week. That one was awesome. Now I've got something different for this week. We're gonna do something I've never done before. I don't know why, no real reason. Probably because we're reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and it's the first time we ever read that book. So first off, what makes this unusual is that we're gonna read the final chapter on Friday. So we're not even quite done with the book yet, but it has been such an interesting book to read, and honestly, I never had it read to me as a kid. I barely remembered seeing the Disney film, and that differs from the book quite a bit. So it's you know, it's close and it captures the vibe of it, I think. But at any rate, the book was written in the mid-1800s, I think 1865-ish, I'll have to check. And um that's not quite 200 years ago, but going on. So um, you know, we're we're approaching that 200 mark on that book. And it was written in in Europe in the Victorian times. So there's a lot of stuff in there that's just kind of like, huh? What's that mean? What are they referring to? And what? I don't know how much how many of you have caught that, but there's a lot of question mark stuff that just doesn't seem to make sense in today's modern times. And uh so I thought I would look some of this up and see what it was because it's very interesting. And yes, here it is. I had it written down, 1865. So a lot of the jokes, the book is actually full of jokes, and it's jokes that were written for Victorian children, and the way they were raised and things they experienced were so different than us that uh some of this is just lost on us. So there's entire sections modern readers just sort of glide past without really understanding references, the school jokes, social satire, and the parody that's hidden there. And the thing I noticed is a lot of play on words, so they twist a lot of words around with double meanings. And the chapter where the Dormouse was delivering the story about the little girls that lived in the treacle well, I was like, what is this? Okay, here in the US we don't know what treacle is, we've never heard of it. I don't even know if it exists in Europe anymore. I'd be interested to know. But it's a very thick syrup, it's very similar to molasses, and they used to use it in cooking sweets and treats and tarts and things like that. But also there's a double layer, and that treacle was considered to be medicinal at one point in time. So there were people that believed that this sweet syrup could cure poisons and illnesses. So it's a treacle, they're in a well. It's a treacle well. Treacle well, get well. So that was one of the really obscure jokes in there that we're just not gonna get in modern times. Basically, it was the image of somebody living inside of a giant syrup medicine pit. It's just weird. And then one thing I I had to dig a little bit to figure out, Alice is always mentioning lessons and having to recite lessons. And I was like, what is all this about? Did they make kids do this back then? And they did. Poems, lessons, rhymes, Victorian education had children in the 1800s memorizing enormous amounts of material, I guess. And reciting this material was a was a very large part of their schooling. So students were expected to stand up and perform poems, speeches, moral lessons, Bible passages, and their multiplication tables from memory, on demand, in front of whoever they were demanded to say it in front of. So any mistakes were considered embarrassing. So when Alice was trying to recite poems, but they came out wrong and twisted, the children of the time would have immediately understood the joke in this because it would have been mortifying for all the words to come out different. So that's why the author kept doing that. Um I was very curious about the little alligator poem, and then it's mentioned when she's talking to the caterpillar, is the Busy Bee poem. And it's a poem that Victorian children had to memorize. It was written by an author named Isaac Watts. So I'm gonna read that poem at the end of this. I found it. So the poem is very moral, it's educational, it's very Victorian, and Alice mangles that into Howdoff the Little Crocodile, and it turns this wholesome educational poem into total nonsense. So these kids back then would have recognized this and just probably been rolling over it. And this happens repeatedly through the book. Lewis Carroll keeps taking respectable educational poems and he twisted them into bizarre nonsense versions. The poem You Are Old Father William, Victorian readers knew this as a parody of a serious moral poem called The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them. The original poem What are you doing, Emmy? She's chewing on me and the cable right now. The original poem lectures children about behaving responsibly, and Lewis Carroll transforms it into total absurdity. Father William stands on his head, eats geese with bones still in, and behaves like a lunatic. So the Wonderland humor was basically what if all the stiff educational material adults force onto children becomes chaotic nonsense. It's probably a stress relief for those kids to be able to laugh like that, actually. And don't forget, radios weren't even invented until I think 1895. So ridiculous stories and things to make each other laugh, that is like prime time entertainment for us. They didn't have all the luxuries we have. So all of us modern readers see Wonderland as random, but readers of the time and part of the world, this was just pure fun. This was comedy to them. Even little kids understood the silliness and how deep it went, what he was referring to. Now let's get to that doormouse. What is up with the Dormouse? I never knew what a Dormouse was. I looked that up too. Because the Dormouse at the tea party is one of the strangest characters in the book, I thought it was false. I thought it was just a fake thing that they made up. But it's a real animal. It's a tiny little rodent, it's native to Europe, and despite the name, they're not actually true mice. It's a part of the rodent family, but they're thought to be closer related to squirrels. They've got fluffy tails and they have a softer appearance than a typical mouse. So honestly, they're really cute, and they're famous for sleeping a lot. They hibernate for outrageous periods of time, like half the year. So their body temperature drops dramatically, they enter these deep sleep states, and it's like suspended animation for them. So that's why they were poking fun of it sleeping the whole time. Um, Victorian people strongly associated the Dormouse with sleeping and sleepiness. But there's also another possible reason why Lewis Carroll chose the Dormouse specifically, and that's because in Victorian times people sometimes kept them as pets. They were occasionally kept in teapots near fireplaces because they liked warmth and small enclosed places. So that suddenly takes that image of the dormouse being shoved into the teapot. It makes it even weirder and stranger and has another correlation to it. And then about the mad tea party. Interesting fact, if you paid attention through the book, the hatter is never called a mad hatter. It's the mad tea party, and they say everyone's mad there, but they never specifically call him the mad hatter, but we've come to call him that. So he was actually inspired partially by a real issue, and that's that hat makers in the eighteen hundreds used a lot of mercury during the hat production process. So long-term mercury exposure caused neurological problems, tremors, mood swings, strange behavior, and it inspired the phrase mad as a hatter. So even though the mad hatter wasn't literally a medical case in the book, and they didn't actually call him the mad hatter, we've come to know him as that, and that's why. People in those days associated hatters with being a little bit eccentric in their behaviors. And then his buddy the March Hare. That also has meaning. The English had a phrase, mad is a march hare, and that's because during mating season, hares behave erratically and very aggressively. So the author basically assembled a tea party using some very interesting character references of the day. Other interesting notes on some of the writings is how Time was treated as a character. The Hatter says something about time becoming offended and not moving, so it was always six o'clock, which meant it was tea time all the time. Victorian readers would have found this funny because afternoon tea was such a huge social ritual. So imagine being trapped forever in an awkward tea break. It's actually pretty clever. There's hidden math jokes throughout the book, and Lewis Carroll himself was actually a mathematician. He taught at Oxford, and some scholars think that parts of Wonderland actually parody new mathematical theories that were emerging at that time. There's changes in logic, changes in dimension, identity confusion, things becoming larger and smaller with no notice, you know, totally unexpected. Alice is constantly struggling with proportion, measurement, certainty, and a lot of this could reflect anxiety about the changing scientific world. So those were some of the theories that came up. The Cheshire another interesting thing. The phrase grinning like a Cheshire cat already existed before the book, and people aren't totally sure where the phrase came from. One theory says Cheshire cheese wheels were sometimes molded with a smiling cat face on it. Another theory involved something about pub signs in Cheshire, England, and basically it was already a phrase that was in use at that time, so Carol took that existing phrase and turned it into a character. Another interesting undercurrent in the book is there's kind of some anxiety that goes through it. Alice constantly worries about rules, her identity, growing up, being corrected, social embarrassment, and authority figures. The adults in Wonderland are irrational and they're unpredictable. The rules are changing constantly, nobody explains anything properly, and it actually feels very childlike, because think about it, when you're a kid, the world of adults can seem arbitrary and confusing. And even the Queen of Hearts could partially parody strict authority figures and harsh school discipline, because she's always screaming off with their heads just irrationally all the time. Victorian schools were extremely severe, corporal punishment was normal, obedience mattered deeply, and Wonderland exaggerates authority into absurdity. And that could be kind of why the book still works today, because even when we miss those original small references that were so funny to kids and audiences back then, there's some emotional feeling that still comes through. The confusion The nonsense, adults acting ridiculous, feeling too small one minute, too big the next. There's a lot of back and forth feelings that we probably can relate to, especially today, when you think about it. And one final weird detail. The book was originally told during a boat trip. Lewis Carroll created the story to entertain three sisters, including a little girl named Alice Liddell, and that means one of the most famous books ever written basically started as an improvised storytelling session. So when we see each other again on Friday for that final chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, think back to this, think about the little weird hidden jokes, the Victorian references, the wordplay, scientific anxieties, the social satire, the exaggerations, and just realize Wonderland wasn't random to the original audience. It was packed with references that were instantly recognized, and then think about the fact that we're visiting this book all these decades later from a very far point in the future, and that author, he may never have dreamed it possible that his book, his silly nonsense book, To Entertain Some Little Kids on a Boat Ride, became one of the most famous books ever written. And now two last bits for you before we go. One tiny little last piece of trivia on the author himself. Lewis Carroll was not a pen name, that was his actual name. And just like I promised, the original Busy Bee poem that was referenced in Alice and rearranged as an alligator poem. And I'm gonna sit and try to be proper. You can't really see me, but I'm gonna fold my hands properly in my lap, like they referenced in the book. Against Idleness and Mischief by Isaac Watts. How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour and gather honey all the day from every opening flower? How skillfully she builds her cell, how neat she spreads the wax, and labors hard to store it well with the sweet food that she makes. In works of labor or of skill I would be busy too, for Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. In books or work or healthy play, let my first years be past, that I may give for every day some good account at last. This has been so much fun. Don't forget to hang out with me again on Friday for the final chapter, chapter twelve of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and we'll see how it ends. And until then, sleep tight, good night, and bye bye.