Hi, Dean and All,
Long time No Speak - that way Grow Wise! Regarding Alice in Wonderland's "magic potions", etcetera. She first drank the contents of a little bottle marked "Drink Me". (As most of us would!) This made her shrink down small enough to follow the White Rabbit through the little door, and out into a lovely sunny garden she could see beyond - (the Hollow Earth, naturally!) - except that she had rather stupidly left the gold key to the little door upon a glass table, which was now too high for her to reach. Then, after a really good cry (Who wouldn't?) she found a little glass box (it could have been plastic) containing a little cake, with the words "Eat Me" spelled out on it in currants. This then made her shoot up to well over nine feet tall, so that she bumped her head on the ceiling of the hall she'd found herself.
Then, after Alice had another darned good cry, the White Rabbit reappeared pattering along the hall-way. But as soon as Alice asked him for help, he dropped his white kid-gloves and FAN (say WHAT?) and fled. (Just as any of us would, if addressed by some strange nine-foot floozy!) Alice rather thoughlessly now tried one of his gloves on, and found that it fitted. Then, realized that she'd shrunk again - she headed for the little door to the garden - only to realize she'd STILL left the dadblasted golden key on the glass table! Stupid child! This made her cry again, but so hard that she soon found herself up to her chin in salt-water! (Talk about "Cry Me A River!")
Fortunately, as she was floundering about, drowning in her own tears, a mouse swam by, so she "tailed" it, and before long she was in some sort of big lake with a duck, a dodo, a lorikeet, an eaglet and all sorts of weird creatures (ETs? No! Couldn't be, surely?) . Anyhow, to cut to the chase. Alice ended up joining in some loony "Caucus Race" - (maybe an inner-earth race of white Caucasians?) - which culminated in her being left all alone in Wonderland.
However, she again spotted the White Rabbit searching for his gloves and his FAN (must have been a "magic" rabbit!) outside his house. Mistaking Alice for his maid, the Rabbit sent her into the house to fetch a spare pair of gloves and a fan, which she found. But, on her way out, she also found another bottle - this time NOT marked "Drink Me". But Alice was game for anything - I reckon she must have been fond of the odd shot of red-eye!) So she knocked the lot back, with no heel-taps, and awaited results. These were not long in coming, and she burgeoned forth until she was the size of the entire house! (I hear that drinking can do that to one!)
Well, folks, one thing followed another until eventually, Alice found herself showered by little pebbles, (stoned?) which turned into tiny cakes ("fairy cakes", one wonders?) Again these were unlabelled, but Alice gamely sampled one. But, alas! This one made her SHRINK even SMALLER than before! And from thereon in, it ALL began to happen, and she wound up talking to a caterpillar who was smoking a "hookah" (Look it UP, fool, if you don't know!) and seated upon a MUSHROOM! (Ahahah! At long last!) He then suggested that she try nibbling a bit of his mushshroom, "One side makes you taller, the other makes you shorter!" he told her.
Well, need I say more to all of you who were around in the Hippie Days? Suddenly Alice's head was floating around on a long neck yards and yards long... Talk about "Head-in-the-clouds" stuff! The Old "Magic Mushroom" Trick! After that, of course, it was all very psychedelic - with Cheshire Cats, Mad Hatters and weird card-games. You'll remember the rest, I'm sure! Incidentally, just as a matter of interest, I happen to have been born in Cheshire, England, not very far from dear old Daresbury, where Charles Dodgson, aka "Lewis Carroll" - (Well, he'd NEED an alias for all that psychedelic scribbling, wouldn't he?) - was born. and I also have a tad of a cat-like leer, too - though I haven't yet vanished into thin air - or into the Hollow Earth, either! (But give me time!)
Dodgson, incidentally, was also a mathematics lecturer at Oxford, so he might just have had some odd geophysical concept as a hidden agenda! Who knows! I guess we''ll all have to use the code-name "Wonderland" for the Hollow Earth from now on - but please, don't call me "Alice"!
Of course, there's "Alice Through The Looking-Glass", too, which stars such riotously weird acts as Humpty-Dumpty, Tweedledum & Tweedledee, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Lion and the Unicorn, the Red Queen and the White Knight - but I guess all that as they say, is "Another Story!"
Hope you all enjoyed this jolly little tale, kiddies, and that it helps to clarifies the whole Hollow Earth mystery once and for all! But it's time now for "beddy-bys", so it's
Nighty-Night" from Uncle Gerry ~( :- ) >
(aka "Cheshire Cat", "Marsflash" - you name it! )