Happy 176th Birthday, Lewis Carroll!

‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’
‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, logician, fantasy novelist, stutterer, High Victorian, and nonsense versifier supreme, was born on January 27, 1832. He concocted his famous pseudonym by Latinizing his first and middle names (to Carolus Ludovicius), reversing their order, and de-Latinizing them. Though he died 100 years before Muse came along, we daresay he would have approved. Thanks to lifewithoutacellphone for reminding us that today is his day.

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23 Responses to Happy 176th Birthday, Lewis Carroll!

  1. greekgurl the Latin speaking geek freak! says:

    wasn’t lewis carrol another one of those druggie-authors?

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  2. Jadestone says:

    *dances* Yay! Lewis Carroll is very cool. I like his poems… I think we all know Jabberwocky by now so I won’t sing it… yet.

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  3. Alice says:

    Happy birthday, Reverend!

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  4. Robert Coontz (Administrator) says:

    (1) Members of the 1960s psychedelic-drug culture liked to think so, but there’s no evidence that it was true. The indications are that his imagination alone was better than anything they ever achieved with artificial assistance.

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  5. oxlin of elsewhere says:

    Happy birthday, Lewis Carroll!

    ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
    ‘To talk of many things:
    Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
    Of cabbages — and kings —
    And why the sea is boiling hot —
    And whether pigs have wings.’

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  6. ¡Í߀ƒ! [108 piepoints ©] says:

    Lewis Carroll was mad. But we’re all a bit mad, aren’t we? This entire thread is mad! Maaaaaad! *goes mad* *madness*

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  7. The Man For Aeiou says:

    museblog- if wonderland had a blog.

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  8. KaiYves says:

    Happy birthday, Mr. Carroll!
    Sometimes I think everybody in my school is mad.
    Or maybe they’re all sane and I’m mad.

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  9. koko's apprentice says:

    if anyone is here please say something. it is getting very dull with no one here and I cannot find anyone anywhere else

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  10. KaiYves says:

    9- I’m on MB.

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  11. Robert Coontz (Administrator) says:

    Things don’t happen instantly around here, KA. You’ll have to get used to the rhythm.

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  12. The Insane Blue Sage says:

    Lewis Carroll. I never did like any of his books…

    That just proves that madness is infinite and on saneness is boring…

    It feel like a poet…

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  13. Sam, just Sam says:

    Will you walk a little faster said a whiting to a snail
    there’s a porpoise close behind us and hes treading on my tail

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  14. Sam, just Sam says:

    yes, looking through a collection of his poems I do agree…mad as a hatter, to quote…
    although, Edward Lear is not incredibly normal either, but its not his birthday
    The New Vestments (LC) is extremely odd, about an old man ( who lived in the kingdom of Tess) who made a suit from food (pancake coat, porkchop trouers, cabbage leave cloak etc.) but then the farm animals came and eat his clothes…how…normal. . . .

    THE MAD HATTERS SONG

    Twinkle, twinkle little bat
    how I wonder what you’re at
    Up above the world so high
    like a teatray in the sky -LC

    I guess it’s best not to ask

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  15. speller73 says:

    I love Lewis Carroll! By the way, does anybody else know that he was also a mathematician.

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  16. KaiYves says:

    15- I knew that! He was also an amateur magician!

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  17. Alice says:

    15- Yup.

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  18. lifewithoutacellphone says:

    Happy Birthday Lewis Carrol!

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  19. Unintended Pun (10 spdzk points?) says:

    4-Lots of people at my school like to think he was on drugs. “Going down the rabbit hole” is slang for getting high around here. The people who say that have only seen the movie though. They think they’re too good for reading.

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  20. Nora the Violist says:

    And now, if e’er by chance I put
    My fingers into glue,
    Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
    Into a left-hand shoe.
    Or if I drop upon my toe
    A very heavy weight,
    I weep, for it reminds me so,
    Of that old man I used to know–
    Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
    Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
    Whose face was very like a crow,
    With eyes like cinders, all aglow,
    Who seemed distracted with his woe,
    Who rocked his body to and fro,
    And muttered mumblingly and low,
    As if his mouth were full of dough,
    Who snorted like a buffalo–
    That summer evening, long ago,
    A-sitting on a gate.

    That’s the craziest poem I can think of. Oh, wait.

    ‘Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
    “You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”
    As a duck with its eyelids so he with his nose
    Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

    So much wonderful poetry. Happy Birthday!

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  21. gimanator says:

    hooray!

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  22. Kokonilly says:

    2- I don’t know it. Enlightn me.

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  23. Alice says:

    22-

    Here.

    ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
    All mimsy were the borogoves
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my son
    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
    Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
    The Frumious Bandersnatch.”

    He took his vorpal sword in hand
    Long time the manxome foe he sought
    So rested he by the Tumtum tree
    And stood a while in thought.

    And as in uffish thought he stood
    The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame
    came whiffling through the tulgy wood
    And burbled as it came!

    One-two one-two and through and though
    The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
    He left it dead, and with its head
    He went gallumphing back.

    “And hast though slain the Jabberwock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
    Callooh, callay, oh frabjous day!
    He chortled in his joy!”

    ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
    All mimsy were the borogoves
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

    Sorry about any misspellings or mis-capitalizations.

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