mAlice Monday

8/22/2011

If there’s one thing I love, it is the book Alice in Wonderland. If there’s one thing I hate it’s the Tea Party. No, not the scene in the book with the Mad Hatter, but rather the farce of a quasi political party with its mad members who have hijacked our discourse and spilled clotted cream on all that is sane and reasonable in our country.

So what better news could I read the other day than the fact that one of my favorite feisty spirits on Twitter (@Symbolman) has taken the Tea Party to task, Alice-style.

Political satirist and illustrator Micheal Stinson and his wife Julie Sigwart have written mAlice In Wonderland – A Tea Party Fable. And I’m so pleased to have Michael join me for a few Mondays to help those of us who have fallen down a dark rabbit hole climb out.

LN: You don’t have to Go Ask Alice to figure out that the right wing nightmare is alive, well and picking up steam. Your book is a true satirical romp and it couldn’t come at a better time.

MS: Love them or hate them, the Tea Party has created a political firestorm, and are now a force to be reckoned with, especially in the midst of the election season. Julie and I believe the best way to approach the political insanity around us is through satire. By rewriting the original Lewis Carroll victorian classic fable, “Alice In Wonderland” we can educate and entertain with this basic plot line: Alice stars as an “Independent Voter” who must somehow navigate this bizarro world populated by Tea Party crazies!

LN: And you leave no character unturned as far as I can see. Alice, as The Independent Voter, navigates the madness of a Tea Party “Wonderland ” which includes The Mad Hatter (Michele Bachmann), The Very White SuperPAC Rabbit (Karl Rove), The Queen of Hearts (Sarah Palin), The March Hare (Glenn Beck), King of Hearts (Ronald Reagan), and The Keithshire Cat (Keith Olbermann). And Julie provided 30 illustrations, also in the original style. I suspect you left no hot topic off the table, am I right?

MS: That’s right. Politicians, the media, big corporations, it’s all in here. Everything that you and I might value, it seems the Tea Party loves to hate. And their attitude toward gays is chief among the topics we tackle.

LN: There are multiple references to gays through out the story. And there are multiple reasons to believe the Tea Party is rife with homophobics. You can imagine where I am coming from on this. I live in the Bay Area. It's all good here. And yet there is so much hatred out there. Talk a bit more about how you address this.

MS: Specifically we talk about that in the section of the book where Alice banters with the Mad Hatter (Michele Bachmann). She and her husband's tactics of using their bizarre religious philosophy to "talk" gays out of being gay, (or "reparative therapy" - exposed by a Truth Wins Out video) at their "Clinic" are abominable, have been widely discredited, and cause incredible damage to a person's psyche. This is totally irresponsible, on top of receiving government grants for it, which should be cut off immediately. Bachman’s on the dole in a big way and it’s sickening. I felt I had to speak out, and this story represented the perfect satirical vehicle for it. I've got plenty of gay friends, and for these monsters to call them "barbarians" is beyond the pale. Mad Hatter it is, they're nuttier than squirrel crap.

LN: Let’s close for this week with an excerpt from the book. Then next week we’ll come back and tackle one of the other Tea Party points of hate that I sure hope you grind to a fine powder!

MS: Here's an exchange between Mad Hatter (Michele Bachmann) and Alice at the Tea Party, regarding Michele's Husband and his clinics that "talk" gays out of being Gay:

"'You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; 'it's very rude. Especially as you demand no one says a word about your husband, while you yourself have called the President's wife Un-American. If you run for King, aren't we to worry that he'll make policy, are you not required by your church to submit to him?'

'Oh, HIM. He wouldn't hurt a fly. He's obliged to try to talk it out of being a fly, suggesting that being a fly is not it's nature in the least.' the Mad Hatter squinted, but it was hard to tell as her eyes were stuck wide open all the time. "We're both good Christians, and that's his calling, while we make a fairly good business of it - so far he's talked a goose out of being a goose, and a fish out of being a fish, though the goose later hung himself in a barn, and the fish perished when she went for a bicycle ride to celebrate her newfound freedom.'

'I would rather suppose that was a form of torture for them, a very sad tale.' Alice said in wonderment.

The Hatter opened her eyes ever wider on hearing this; but all she SAID was, 'A riddle: "What is the difference between Loving and Hating Gays?"'

Michael Stinson, it is a sad tale indeed when people make it a policy to hate others. But to shine the light on their hypocrisy, that is a good thing. Thank you for joining us today. Let me leave our readers with this short bio of you and Julie because it’s mighty impressive…and so is your new book! See you next week.

Long time political activists Micheal Stinson and Julie Sigwart have appeared in countless interviews on radio and television. Micheal has appeared on The Bill O’Reilly Show (FOX Network), Joe Scarborough (MSNBC), and Lou Dobbs (CNN), among others. Media articles regarding their last book, “Going Rouge – The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book” include AP, New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Chicago Sun Times, as well as being featured in Entertainment Weekly, and as an interstitial on Entertainment Tonight. Julie Sigwart was a political cartoonist for the Arizona Business Gazette, as well as an illustrator for The Arizona Republic.

21 Comments

FrostyAK

8/22/2011 09:05:08 am

Ah, Alice. Sometimes the truth needs to be gotten out to the dumbed down public with coloring books and easy to read satire. Thank you, maybe even a few of the low hanging fruit will see the light?

Hopefully you used the poem Jaberwocky as the basis of the queen's speech patterns? The Cheshire Cat was always my favorite character.

Will the weight of all the books released this Fall be enough to submerge the queen of hearts' ambitions?

lilly lily

8/22/2011 09:05:41 am

I'm thinking of starting my own blog called "Down the Rabbit Hole." To get things I want to rant about without anyone getting huffy about it all.

No comments, or if they did and I didn't like them they would be deleted.

The mistress of all I surveyed. LOL. I do blog elsewhere and get read, but I sure don't want a lot of animosity and guff. Too thin skinned for a blog?

Maybe.

Everyone has a blog.

It's the great American pasttime.

lilly lily

8/22/2011 09:22:08 am

Looks like a lot of people like to go Down the Rabbit Hole. So that is that.

Not as easy as I thought.

I'll try something else eventually.

Symbolman link

8/22/2011 10:03:58 am

Appreciate Laura for taking the time to interview us, if there are any questions I'd be glad to field them. Thanks for the comments, hope you enjoy the book

Sonoran Supposition link

8/22/2011 10:18:45 am

Cannot wait for this book to come out! Love it! Alice in Wonderland was definitely the right choice for your satire. The world these Teabaggers live in definitely topsy turvy!

Micheal Stinson link

8/22/2011 11:24:28 am

Sonoran, I like your site - and just so you know, the book IS available for Pre-order right now at the link..

Thanks so much for your kind comments, you Nailed it, these Tea Party Folks are more dangerous than some may realize!

mistah charley, ph.d.

8/23/2011 12:10:33 am

With regard to the Tea Party in Carroll's Wonderland, I have the honor of have my name preserved, for as long as English Literature shall last, in Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice, for my suggested answer to the Mad Hatter's "raven/writing desk" riddle.

With regard to the Tea Party in 21st Century America, I have to honor of being furiously castigated at the C4P for suggesting that the billionaire backers of today's Tea Parties have ulterior motives. To wit:

==========

Organizing the event in Indianola involves many expenses – rental of the physical facilities, publicity (e.g. website, radio ads), hiring the band, perhaps traveling expenses and speaker’s fees for the people appearing, perhaps buses to bring audience members, etc. Clearly they have enough money on hand to do this.

Who did it come from? Possibly from the same people referred to in a blog article by Kathleen McLaughlin-Hoppe, with the provocative title “Tea Party of America Unaware of How It Has Been Purchased; Unwilling to Look at Evidence”

http://blahger.net/2011/03/24/tea-party-of-america-unaware-of-how-it-has-been-purchased-unwilling-to-look-at-evidence/

Ms. McLaughlin-Hoppe goes on to cite Jane Mayer’s article in the New Yorker dated August 30, 2010

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

This is not pleasant reading, but it is thought-provoking. Many conservatives have read the science fiction of Robert A. Heinlein – it is from RAH that I became aware of the acronym TANSTAAFL – there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. If lunch is on the table, SOMEBODY paid for it; and they had a reason to do so. Who’s paying for this lunch, and why?

Why does it matter if the Koch brothers are funding it? Because they claim to be interested in promoting a "fundamental restoration of America", but what they really want is for America to be more corporation-controlled than it already is. The human energy and idealism and votes that go into the Tea Party come from real Americans, but the financing and the control at the top come from the billionaires. Look at the Tea Party of America web page and you see the line of propaganda that is designed to manipulate the public. Read the articles i've cited to get some idea of what is going on behind the scenes.
==========

In response, one person suggested, "Do the world a favor: make like a cat and pee in a live outlet." Another called me, " a democratic/progressive/liberal on the soros payroll trolling for your last bit of pay for the month of August ... go away little troll - your bridge is waiting...."

As the saying goes, I've been thrown out of better bars than this.

Laura Novak link

8/23/2011 12:31:40 am

Mistah Charley, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your comment. It's trenchant, as usual.

Interesting, or not, that the C4P response is to shun with third grade words and admonitions. I think that when someone disagrees with "us" we often pause and wonder, "Are we being used?"

Their lack of introspection - their fear of the truth - relates to their fear of gays IMHO. And THAT fear has to do with secret yearnings. If they can keep talking about the subject, then they can stay close to the subject. Non?

Viola-Alex

8/23/2011 02:54:01 am

I was an insatiable reader as a child. It's how I survived a brutal childhood that was one thing in public, another in private. AliceIW was one thing I couldn't read because-- Carroll's chaos, whimsy, inventiveness were an alternative universe as terrifying (for me) as the original.

So it's fitting to have AIW as a setting for today's Tea Party. A brilliant choice for satire! I love the illustrations. And I'd love to see a series of political cartoons showing the Tea Party with your new characters.

Good luck M and J. And thanks again Laura for exercising our higher-than-83 IQ's.

Viola-Alex

8/23/2011 03:30:08 am

@Mistah Charlie: I googled you, I think.

What fun to read the raven/writing desk riddle again and some [plausible] answers. My IQ just went up 1 pt.

NSG

8/23/2011 06:00:45 am

@Viola-Alex, your observations about why Alice didn't work for you hit a very familiar note for me. It's never really appealed to me, and I hadn't carefully analyzed it, but what you said makes a lot of sense from my own childhood. "Through the looking glass" is off-putting when you're already living it. =/

And on another TP note. Sorry if this has already been highlighted, but I just saw it, and it's (yet another) example of why Words Matter:

"Tea Party Chair In SC Posts Joke On Facebook About Killing The Obamas"

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/tea_party_chair_in_sc_posts_joke_about_killing_obama.php

REALLY?!?!?! On what planet does someone think that's ok?! Oh, yeah. Never mind.

Thanks for sharing this with us, Laura. Good discussion.

Laura Novak link

8/23/2011 06:15:51 am

NSG, what a horrible thing to say. Thanks for sharing that link. Why is it that it's okay to talk this way about Obama, yet I think the worst we ever got about Bush was him being a dry drunk. Am I wrong?

It is the party of "No" and the party of hatred.

I'm glad Michael and Julie can satirize them with their artistic talent. It's far more highbrow than "joking" about tossing the president out of a helicopter.

lilly lily

8/23/2011 07:19:29 am

Was driving in my car leaving the inspection station (long overdue sticker) relieved that it passed the emissions test. I began to hear odd sounds as I drove, and I thought, oh no, either I was relieved too soon and I'de already passed the dealership but maybe I should get those strange sounds checked out, might be the engine. Then I thought, its the surfaceing of the road I'm on.

Turned out to be the D.C. Virginia earthquake.

I live on a fault line, but most of the small quakes we get have been when I'm in bed, and its a loud bang and the bed shakes as if a pet jumped in.

They say it is unlikely that there will be a stronger shock later on. But people are writing angry posts complaining that the president wasn't killed, and expressing it via Fauz news sites? (huh? they are nuts.
Gaia, the earth itself, cares who lives or who dies?

Even in the unlikely event that the president did die in an earthquake, how many others would have died with him?

They don't give the man any credit, but hate him beyond measureing. Die, die, die it is an epidemic of hatred.

I was saying to someone over lunch, that before this election I thought the majority of Americans were reasonable people, or at least somewhat reasonable, a bit like most of the people I knew. Not the mental cases of course. It seemed on the surface that basically most people I know are decent. You don't agree about politics or politicians but you handled it gracefully.

This last few years, have become bizarre, like Alice and the strangers she runs into. The Queen of Hearts, The Duchess and her baby, the Walrus, and the Carpenter. People have become caricatures.

Checking in the net and see a load of hate as to why didn't the president die, he should have died etc. No shame at all. Now extolling Bush as what a Commander in Cheif should be. Show Bush at a bike race.

And they make no attempt at controlling the vitriol or their violent attitude. The masks have dropped. Hate is acceptable.

"The Party of Hatred" is a perfect name if Sarah Palin tries to get a third party started.

Though Sarah Palin seems to be receiving disdain and sneers for her many lacks from those who liked her initially.

She is now valued for getting the lefts knickers in a twist, and they say as much.

A counter irritant like capsacin.

rubbernecking

8/23/2011 10:08:44 am

Off topic...but I'm very excited about the latest post on themudflats. Devon is promising some bombshells and I think she'll deliver.

Symbolman link

8/23/2011 11:08:46 am

Thanks for all the comments everyone, especially Mistah Charley, I'm sure I read your expert opinion in the annotated version which I'm very familiar with, appreciate you posting.

Here's a link to the Right Wing getting their knickers in a twist, seems they're upset and claiming injury, which of course is ridiculous, tho I have to admit they almost seem to LIKE the concept, certainly are advancing our book. What do you all think?

http://www.mrc.org/cmi/articles/2011/Malice_in_Wonderland_Rewrite_has_Tea_Party_Led_by_Mad_Hatter_Michele_Bachmann.html

I'm beginning to think they're satire-impaired and have no regard for the First Amendment :)

mistah charley, ph.d.

8/23/2011 10:42:53 pm

Symbolman, thanks for the kind words. That you have annoyed the Culture and Media Institute shows you are doing something right, just as Joe McGinniss was praised early in his career by Annenberg for provoking people to cancel their subscriptions.

The fact that CMI leaves your (Michael Stimson's) name out of its article reminds me a little bit of how I felt when Martin Gardner's MORE ANNOTATED ALICE came out - and this is a footnote on a book of footnotes. After reading ANNOTATED ALICE

mistah charley, ph.d.

8/23/2011 10:55:52 pm

(CONTINUED)

After reading ANNOTATED ALICE in the early 1980s, while still studying for my doctorate in an unrelated field, I'd written Gardner with with a couple of comments. He sent back a postcard that he'd opened a file and might publish further on the topic, which he did. When the follow-up book came out in 1990, I immediately found I was credited by name on the raven/writing desk riddle. I was disappointed, however, not to have my name attached to the other point I'd made, which also made it into the book - namely, that in Chapter 3 of Through the Looking Glass, the comment "She must go by post, as she's got a head on her" can refer not only to the Victorian slang for stamp as "head", but also to the traditional practice of displaying decapitated enemies. Admittedly, several people may have made this suggestion.

Symbolman link

8/24/2011 01:54:59 am

Mistah Charley, sorry to hear you weren't credited! especially with such an important piece, the riddle. The word play in a Victorian novel was interesting to play with, to make satire of satire left my brain glowing cherry red :)

I tried to retain the guts of intimations as I updated them, like the "animal, mineral or vegetable" play when Alice walks with the Duchess after her release by the Queen.

I had a lot of fun with the style of writing, but here and there I believe I nailed it, also updated the tech in the book, probably will interview with Wonderful Laura on that angle in the book as well next Monday.

It IS curious that ICM left my name out entirely, as I rewrote the book, with input from my wife, who created some amazing illustrations for it, all drawn BY HAND. No photoshopping at all.

Thanks for the input, I'm really enjoying it, and thanks for all the comments everyone!

Micheal

mistah charley, ph.d.

8/24/2011 03:27:42 am

Micheal - to be more clear, I WAS credited for the riddle solution I proposed (having to do with "quills"), but not for the "head on post" comment. Gardner had described one exchange that Humpty Dumpty had with Alice as "the grimmest joke" in the books; I nominated the "she must go by post" remark as another possible candidate - but reading it now, I think the Humpty Dumpty remark may well be the grimmer one.

And speaking of that which is grim, I've read your parody of "Father William" - liked it very much - and in particular commend you for pointing out the potentially grim truth that the flowering of free expression in the blogosphere lives and breathes and has its being in a corporate-supplied national security agency-monitored internet service provider environment - which could change or disappear at any time.

Symbolman link

8/24/2011 05:52:56 am

Thanks Mistah, I rewrote all the poetry in the book, The Toss The Middle Class Quadrille is sung by The MockTurtle (John Boehner) and The Gryphon (Rush Limbaugh) - appreciate your remarks!

phantomimic link

8/28/2011 02:34:20 am

Great interview Laura. I worry too about the nutters in the Tea Party, and they are a big worry for the Republican party too. Even John McCain has called then "hobbits". However, with the state of the economy these people will gain traction, no doubt about it. If they prevail this country will look more and more like version of Alice in Wonderland.

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