My Gloomy Wonderland
For a while now I have become more and more fascinated by Tim Burton’s universe. It started off mildly with Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas and then I have taken everything I’ve been able to get my hands on. Then when everybody went and got disappointed about Alice in Wonderland (and why was it 3D and it wasn’t original at all and it didn’t look like Tim Burton…) I secretly loved the expansion of the world on the other side of the rabbit hole. I sometimes find myself dreaming of living in this lugubrious, gloomy and slightly morbid universe of corpses, skeleton-men and pipe-smoking caterpillars. In this place where forms and structures are turned upside down and cookies make you bigger (which in a sense is true) and potions make you smaller (if only that was true) where you have to fight off dragons and the craft of hat making is still an actual job, where the most fun happens where the dead rule and what is up here, where sadly we live, is no way near as colorful as in the land of the dead.
When I was smaller the fascination was slightly different but in some ways an aspect of the same thing. I must have read every book about pirates, treasures, knights and witches. I dreamed of being the best sword’s-woman around Arthur’s table, having to ride horses and brew potions, probably with a handful of magical powers OR if that didn’t work out Robinson Crusoe. At this point I was still afraid werewolves and vampires were true and despite the fact that my room was on the first floor, I knew werewolves could climb walls, so it was impossible for me to sleep with my back to the window (yes this is the bare truth). Yet I found these creatures fascinating, creatures of the night, drinking blood and transforming into beastly figures of humans (uuh Freud I can feel you have something to say). Right maybe the vampires and the werewolves are a little over the top but they were part of this world without conventions and structures where magic is a given and where there’s nothing weird about a turban-wearing, blue, pipe-smoking (and very cleaver) caterpillar. So I think what this post is about, apart from praising late rabbits with pocket watches and the macabre life of talking green worms (inside skulls), is to invite you all to take a moment and think about how it looks like on the other side of you own rabbit hole.
myella 