`Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was born on this day in 1832. In 2005, Dan Curtis Johnson started the notion of Rabbit Hole Day. From his original post...
Alice fell down a rabbit hole into a place where everything had changed and none of the rules could be counted on to apply anymore. I say, let's do the same: January 27th, 2005 should be the First Annual LiveJournal Rabbit Hole Day. When you post on that Thursday, instead of the normal daily life and work and news and politics, write about the strange new world you have found yourself in for the day, with its strange new life and work and news and politics. Are your pets talking back at you now? Has your child suddenly grown to full adulthood? Does everyone at work think you're someone else now? Did Bush step down from the White House to become a pro-circuit tap-dancer? Did Zoroastrian missionaries show up on your doorstep with literature in 3-D? Have you been placed under house arrest by bizarre insectoid women wielding clubs made of lunchmeat?The notion has expanded a bit beyond just LiveJournal to bloggers everywhere, but the basic concept remains.
Let's have a day where nobody's life makes sense anymore, where any random LJ you click on will bring you some strange new tale. Let's all fall down the Rabbit Hole for 24 hours and see what's there. It will be beautiful.
I've actually been trying, off and on, to come up with something clever and Carroll-ian for the past two weeks, and I have to admit that I'm at a loss. Not for lack of ideas, mind you, but because the most freaky, out-there, wackyland ideas I can think of are, in fact, reality any more! To wit...
- Two days after a fairly widely-run AP article tauting the absolutely spotless record the US aviation industry has had over the past two years, pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger was forced to crash land in the Hudson River.
- After years of complaints about the comic book distribution system from nearly all corners of the industry, the company that holds an effective monopoly on the market (despite government inquiries to the contrary) unexpectedly changed their policies in such a way that will almost surely put a number of publishers out of business.
- Literally hours after posting that "publishing business firings are coming to an end" Publishers Weekly Editor-In-Chief Sara Nelson was laid off.
- The 800-pound gorilla of computing, Microsoft, just announced that, for the first time ever, they will be laying off a number of employees: 5,000 over the next 18 months.
- On January 1 of this year, my band had zero shows lined up. As of last night, we have gigs every month through June. During a recession!
- Weather forecasters predicted several inches of snow for my region last night, and there were in fact several inches of snow on the ground this morning, surprising everyone.
- A black man has been inaugurated as President of the United States, and everyone seems happy with him. More significantly, the politician almost immediately started acting on his campaign promises!
You can't make this stuff up, people!Oh, I briefly considered writing a piece today on how utterly normal and banal everything was. Kind of more subtle version of this piece, but I don't think I could've pulled it off. I mean, I think many (if not most) people are trying to carry on with their lives as if everything was normal. Much like Alice does in Wonderland. But it's not normal! It's every EC story ever published happening at once!
I've mentioned Alvin Toffler's Future Shock a few times before, where he tauts the idea that society is advancing so quickly that some people can't keep up and experience a sort of culture shock when they suddenly wake up one morning and see that the world has changed around them. I think he was spot-on with the concept, and I think we're going to see more and more people wig out in 2009 because they just realized they've fallen down the rabbit hole.
That's why so many people have gone into a panic about Diamond changing their policies. Their world has been changing around them, but they only now were forced to see that, thanks to Diamond. "Heeeey... this isn't how the comic book industry was run back when I started in it."
Welcome to the 21st century, where the slithy toves gyre and gimbler, and mome raths outgrabe! If you're smart, you've already snicker-snacked your vorpal sword, so you can go galumphing back home from the tulgey wood and have a frabjous day.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
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