Tag: Peanuts cartoon and characters

The Elf I Met at the Shopping Mall

This time of year, you see all kinds of people holiday shopping including Elves.

Shhhhh! Don’t tell Santa that some Elves are ditching work in the Gift Wrap Room at the Big House. With only a few days until Santa’s annual sleigh ride, it’s crunch time! All hands are needed to write names on those little itty-bitty teeny-weeny tiny tags. Not to mention, forefingers are required to hold down the intersecting ribbon on gifts so that other, more nimble, fingers can make knots and tie everything all together.

In terms of Elven jobs, this part of the gift process is crucial, because, without enough workers, chaos ensues at the North Pole and Elves can get a little grumpy.

Believe me, you don’t want to be near a grumpy Elf. More about that in Diary of an Elf (coming to a theatre near you, in the near or not so near future, depending on when you are reading this).

I kinda have to write the book first. So I’m starting with blog posts.

This time of year, it’s important that all North Pole Elves are present and accounted for. Like many humans, some Elves feel like they have to give presents during the last few weeks of the year instead of celebrating the joy of rebirth each and every day.

Is it end of the year gift-giving or just gift-giving procrastination?

Even Elves forget, but that’s a story for another day.

Back to this one.

A few days ago, I was at a store in my local strip mall when I saw a person shopping in the ladies clothing section, her back turned to me.

She was wearing a Santa-style hat. I was incognito, looking like your average Suzie Shopper, not at all like Suzie Snowflake with a snow-white gown.

Being in a super-silly mood, I just had to talk to her.

I walked up to her and she turned to look at me.

“Aren’t you one of those Elves from the North Pole?” I asked.

She looked surprised and hesitated for the briefest of moments. Then she lit up like a star atop a Christmas tree.

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

“I thought so,” I said. “Elf Cabin Number 9, right?”

I didn’t give her time to answer. I turned and disappeared into the endless racks of clothing.

I recognize my own. Elves and Faeries, that is.

Now you’re thinking: I thought she was supposed to be Alice in Wonderland.

Yep. Alice is about wonder and imagination. So are Elves and Faeries.

Just like a child, I can be any magical being that I choose to be.

So can you.

Always,
Alice Always the Elf

P.S. The t-shirts in the picture are available in assorted colors and sizes on Amazon! Let It Shine Sun Rays and Let It Shine with Lyrics.

All the World’s Indeed a Stage and We are Merely Players

All the world’s indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another’s audience
Outside the gilded cage

Those are lyrics from the song “Limelight” by the Canadian rock band, Rush. This adaptation of Shakespeare was written by drummer Neil Peart and sung by bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Geddy Lee.

The origin of the song is a speech from William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It. Act II, Scene VII, features one of Shakespeare’s most famous monologues which begins:

All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts …

Though I love many of Shakespeare’s monologues, this one is best depicted as a song running through my head throughout my life since I first heard it on the Rush Moving Pictures album in 1981 when I was a teenage fan.

Theater as a metaphor for life is a concept I entertained when I was still in the single digits of life. I was one of those philosophical, geeky, 4-eyed kids who just couldn’t get into sports because my hands, eyes, arms, and legs didn’t know how to work in conjunction. I couldn’t do cartwheels, skip rope with others holding the end of the jump rope, or run at the pace of others.  I barely scraped by in gym class.

I couldn’t sing on-key but that never stopped me from singing to myself. It still doesn’t.

I found myself on a stage in Theatre class in college where we did a session on Improv acting. A student director approached me afterward and told me I had a stage presence. He asked me to be in his play but I was too nervous to say yes.

I was afraid of making a mistake in delivering scripted lines. Imagine what might have become if I had gone beyond my fear.

I may have ended up on the right path a lot sooner.

I had jobs at the local Renaissance Faire where I could create a character and play act but that ended a while back. The last dozen or so years I’ve portrayed other facets of myself: a pirate chic named Red-Handed Ginny and a faerie queen called Queen Goo.

I’m a silly person who enjoys playing different roles with friends. I often play Mario to my best friend’s Luigi where-a I talk with-a lousy Italian accent. In real life, I have a distinctive Sout’side (the “h” is silent) Chicago dialect no one else in my family seems to have. It’s all part of the character I play in my imagination.

We all play various characters in the theatre of life: child, sibling, friend, parent, lover, student, teacher, employee, coworker, boss or fill-in-the-blank.

A lot of times we juggle roles.

In the 1965 animated Peanuts Christmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Linus,  with his blue security blanket and profound philosophical nature, gives a narrative of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke which ends with:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.

Linus is playing the narrator in that play.

In the theatre of life, there are times when we are in the spotlight of center stage, on the side, backstage or in the audience.

There are people who always want to be the center of attention and demand that we give our attention to them. In our society, we make celebrities out of them, obsessing to no end about what they did or what they said. Some of them can be so ego-driven that they upstage everyone in their lives and may attack those who have a different perspective.

We call them drama queens in everyday life and tyrants in positions of power. They care more about themselves and their own interests than everyone else. In their world, everyone is the audience praising them or antagonists who vilify them. Their reality is warped because their ego is out of control.

We get sucked into their world. When we give them our attention, it feeds their egos. When we give them our attention, it takes away from us doing something wonderful for ourselves.

Getting hooked on their little reality show often makes us forget that we have the right to be center stage as well.

All of us have the right to tell our version of the story, to think for ourselves. We don’t have to believe what another says just because they said it.

When Linus got onstage, he spoke words of love, to which I say:

The ability to shine in the light
is available to all.
Spreading a message of peace
and goodwill uplifts everyone.

Imagine the world if we all actually lived the lessons of kindergarten: sharing, caring, kindness and respect.

Imagine the world if we all gave attention to our joy instead of our misery. Imagine if we stopped attacking those who are different from us. Imagine if our choices were made from a warm loving heart instead of a reactive hot head. Imagine if we listened more than we talked.

Do you ever wonder how our world change if we changed the play?

Always,
Alice Always

Who is Alice Always and Why Does This Alice in Wonderland Look Like A Peanuts Character?

When it came to writing this blog, I wanted to adopt a playful theme, something that people would immediately recognize as childlike without being too childish. I wanted it to exude that innocence of childhood and for me, that is typified by the Peanuts cartoon strip by Charles M. Schulz.

I really can relate to each of the characters in Peanuts.

Snoopy is my wonderful imagination, and like his escapades, I often find myself in my own reverie. Sally is the little sister that I have always felt like, even though I am a big sister to my little sister. Linus with his security blanket and philosophical temperament, is my the ultimate dreamer self, believing in things that no one else does like the Great Pumpkin. Lucy as the psychiatrist exemplifies my fascination with psychology and her own self-absorption is something that makes me reflect upon mine. Schroeder is the artist in me, creating art for art’s sake and truly immersed in the world of music as I immerse in painting as my art. And like Charlie Brown, I am prone to depression and anxiety and tend to over-analyze both myself and whatever situation I find myself in.

I could write entire books on each character and how each of us can relate to the Peanuts gang in our own way. Perhaps someday I will write more on this blog about them.

You can tell I have a fascination with Peanuts. I obviously also have one with Alice in Wonderland. So what better way to celebrate this by creating a mashup? Before The Peanuts Movie came out, the website peanutsizeme.com was created to promote it. I’m glad it’s still up because I really enjoy playing with it. I created a character there and I Photoshopped it a bit to make it appear more like Alice In Wonderland. Because I didn’t want to infringe on copyright, I emailed the people at Peanuts about using it on my blog, but I never heard back. So, no news is good news, right?

I am currently writing two books about Alice in Wonderland. After these are finished, I anticipate more. One book is entitled Alice Awakes, which is about spiritual awakening and imagination. The second book is a children’s book that is about Alice returning to Wonderland. There is more info to come on these books and I hope that you will enjoy them someday.

Alice Always is a facet of myself. She is a persona that is me as a curiouser and curiouser being in the world of imagination.

Remember when you were a kid and you would pretend to be whoever you wanted to be? Well, I’m here to tell you that you can still be that person.

I am . . .

Always,
Alice Always