July 8, 2012 • 8:33 am 0
After their fantastic gig in the Norrington Room on Tuesday evening here is a video of the song that they wrote especially for the performance. It is a song inspired by Alice in Wonderland and is called Curious and Curiouser
Filed under: Alice's Day, Bookshop news and events, Alice's Day 2012, The Bookshop Band
July 4, 2012 • 1:10 pm 1
Curious and curiouser
Things aren’t what they seem…
Last night on the 3rd July, Blackwell’s staff and customers were treated to an intimate but astonishing show from The Bookshop Band.
The Bookshop Band comprises the talents of Ben Please, Poppy Pitt and Beth Porter, who can take as little as a new book and one or two hours to create beautiful songs about books. Normally to be found in Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, The Bookshop Band are currently on tour sponsored by Vintage. In order to prepare them for the evening, we gave Ben, Poppy and Beth two new books for inspiration – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as a pre-Alice’s Day celebration, and Blackwell’s favourite and bestseller New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani.
And I am afloat, on a great sea
In a boat, veiled from reality…
As the last week before the show came round, we realised that only four tickets had been sold… panic! How could we let people know how brilliant this band was? We spent the week creating posters, writing to newspapers and playing their CDs on repeat in Blackwell Music…
The Queen of Hearts is furious
This life is but a dream…
The hour drew closer and we were terribly excited to find out what the band had done with our favourite books – and still panicking that we’d have failed to provide them an audience… we need not have worried! Our lovely customers saved the day, and came streaming through the doors, filling the thirty seats we’d set out in our Norrington Room.
Playing the Norrington Room was particularly significant for Ben Please, as the room is in fact named after his grandfather – Sir Arthur Norrington… or as he was affectionately known in the family ‘Grandpa Eyebrows’.
The band’s first song ‘Curious and Curiouser’, based on Alice in Wonderland, was fast paced, frantic and exciting to listen to, conjuring up all the familiar images of smoking caterpillars and ‘Eat-Me’ cakes.
‘A Sea of Sound’, based on New Finnish Grammar, was slower and more gentle, but still full of intriguing images and capturing the confusion and difficulty of learning language.
Unknown sounds, echo emptily
In my mouth, But I cant repeat
A transitory feat, as they slip back down beneath
But I drag each word, back to the surface to be heard…
Once the new songs were finished, we were treated to a collection of The Bookshop Band’s earlier works, including songs based on The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch. A music-hall tune based on The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack got the entire audience singing along to the chorus (which incidentally, I’ve had in my head all day)…
Smoke over London, looks jolly splendid, I’ve heard…
So, the evening was a complete success, and both staff and audience left not only with great music still ringing in their ears, but also with several new books on their ‘must read’ lists.
“We felt really privileged to play in such a magnificent and famous room of books. The commissions were great choices too – Alice in Wonderland is a real treasure trove of images and ideas – we had lots of fun writing about that one, and just in time for the Alice celebrations in Oxford too. We’ll try and get the video up online in time! Hope to see everyone again for Christmas. Any Christmas book ideas?” - Ben Please
If you’re currently kicking yourself for missing out on this amazing evening (and so you should be!) then never fear – The Bookshop Band are still touring the UK, and you can always find them at Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath. Here at Blackwell’s, we have a selection of books from the band’s reading lists, and we’ll be keeping CDs and band merchandise on sale - so come and have a listen!
We’d love to ask The Bookshop Band to come back again, so keep an eye on our events page for to see when they’ll pop up next…
Curious and curiouser
Things aren’t what they seem…
Filed under: Alice's Day, Beauty of Books, Bookshop news and events, The Bookshop, Uncategorized, Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Day, Blackwell's, Diego Marani, New Finnish Grammar, The Bookshop Band, The Story Museum
July 1, 2012 • 4:34 pm 1
This coming weekend Oxford dons top hats, blue dresses and all sorts of other weird and wonderful garb to celebrate all things Alice. Visitors flock from all over and the city becomes a wonderful hub of eccentricity, fun and activity. It is clear that Alice holds a very special place in the affections of people from all over the world, but why? Who better to answer this question than our very own Alice – author, poet, blogger and all around ball of loveliness Jen Campbell. Ahead of the day itself hear what it is about Alice that created such an impression on Jen:
I came to Alice (and Peter Pan, come to think of it), rather late in life – well, in my teenage years. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I should sue my parents. I did see the Disney version of both but, as we know, what Disney portrays is not really what the books are all about. The 1950s Disney Alice is good, but if you want to see something as weird, wacky and (quite frankly) screwed up as the book, then you should check out Jan Svankmajer’s ‘Alice’ Here’s the Jabberwocky If that doesn’t mess with your head then I don’t know what will.
I wrote my English Literature dissertation on growing up as a sin in children’s literature [so: Peter Pan, Narnia, His Dark Materials, all that jazz]. It’s a fascinating subject. Is it the children who don’t want to grow up, or the adults who wish they hadn’t?
‘”Be a man, Michael,” Mr. Darling said.
“Won’t, won’t!” Michael cried naughtily.
Both Alice and Peter Pan have an underlying darkness. In the play of Peter Pan, stage instructions insist that Mr. Darling is played by the same person as Captain Hook, and that Peter is played by a girl. So, Peter is Wendy’s youth, fighting her father because he wants her to grow up and move into a single bedroom. A bit twisted, no?
Lewis Carroll wrote Alice for Alice Liddell, a young girl he was fascinated with. He didn’t want her to grow up and, consequently, Alice never really knows who she is, where she is, or how grown up she should be.
‘I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I must have changed several times since then!’
”Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing–
turn your toes out when you walk— And remember who you are!”
In the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll himself is in the book as The White Knight, an old and frail man who Alice thinks is ridiculous. Alice Liddell herself had grown up and married. She’d hopped over the final gate and turned from a pawn into a queen. He wasn’t happy about it.
On lighter notes, Alice is a fascinating play on language, especially The Jabberwocky and the character of Humpty Dumpy. It’s like an Oscar Wilde feast.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,’ said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
“I see nobody on the road.” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at such a distance too!”
Wonderland and the land beyond the Looking Glass are places to get lost in. To bury yourself in. To be pleasantly confused and surprised and completely swept away by. We’ve all got little [or large] parts of Alice inside us. Who the hell are we, and where exactly are we going? But, along the way, if there’s cake (hand it out first and cut it up afterwards!) and tea (happy unbirthday!), then uncertainty is quite ok with me.
Jen Campbell
http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com
http://www.twitter.com/aeroplanegirl
Jen will be with us on Saturday taking part in our continuous reading of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, along with a host of other authors, customers and booksellers. That is just one of the events that we have lined up on Saturday – do pop in and say Hi, you just never know who, or what, you might see…
Filed under: Alice's Day, Guest Blogs, @aeroplanegirl, Alice's Day 2012, Jen Campbell
