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February 28, 2015 by tomdalzell

Flamingo Croquet in Alice

 

The flamingo has long fascinated us.  Exotic looking, bright pink, definitely From Another Place.

alice-flamingo

Lewis Carroll was an early fan of the flamingo.  In Alice, he described the Queen of Hearts’ croquet game:

Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

Over the years, illustrators have had changing images of the flamingo as croquet mallet:

il_fullxfull.380599140_6nqk Alice-in-Wonderland-Queen-s-Court-Croquet-font-b-Flamingos-b-font-Fantasy-Decorative-Story-Book aliceinwoderland,illustration,alice,flamingo,whiterabbit,manga-1dfa61f7cd3f9804a47d1cf251c842dc_h alice-wbftclxlgp0103-image 312e80f789b16788b67a2dfc8e52ac00

John Tenniel’s illustrations of Alice are my gold standard:

alice30aalice_in_wonderland_flamingo_4_7_250x327

And with due respect to Walt Disney, the 1951 movie depiction is my least favorite:

tumblr_lnj8ld9iqw1qfgqalo1_500My friend was happy with the thought of Ailce.  His response was entirely predictable.

jefferson-airplane-white-rabbit-rca-victor-3

He loves the video of the Jefferson Airplane singing “White Rabbit” on the Smothers Brothers show and I agreed that we’d watch it after, and only after, I got his official opinion on the croquet flamingo illustrations. Easy enough:

IMG_3677

 

 

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