Introduction

In writing about nonsense, one has to make many assumptions. It would be very easy to write something completely absurd but who would want to read it. There has to be some sort of reason to the madness that would interest the reader. A key to the little door at the bottom of the baseboard, if only one could shirk themselves small enough to even fit inside the door.

My reference is to Lewis Carroll's, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll is the most celebrated writer of nonsense. Carroll's actually name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a shy Oxford don who was a mathematician. He wrote the book for some children who were friends of his but it isn't surprising to me that a mathematical would write nonsense.

When Dodgson was with the children, he would loose his stammer and become a wonderful storyteller. He entered another world when being with the children and would just follow the lead into the rabbit hole of his nonsense with his stories. There was an intelligence behind the writing. His pen name was a play on words for instance. Charles Lutwidge when transposed is Ludovic Carolus, which in turn becomes Lewis Carroll. The world he creates in Alice becomes a place that has its own rules even when it confounds the ordinary ones. Carroll's book was unusual because it was the first, or at least one of the first, that was for children that didn't moralize.

Instead Carroll, in a way, questioned the fabric of the societal norms at the time. Why do we live the way we do? Isn't it ridiculous? I think the nonsense of Carroll, was one of the precursors to much of the literature that questions who we are and why we're attempting to do what we're doing. Of course today, we have it in music, art and in film as well. My favorite recent example is Being John Malkovich, nonsense of the highest order. The film is certainly analyzing what we take for granted.

It's in this spirit that I've written my pieces. You don't have to take them seriously. In fact I hope they amuse on some level. There may be some depth to them, but I guess I'll have to let you decide that. The pieces are roughly divided in four and I haven't been able to fully realize the separation yet because of time limitations. The inklings were the first set to be written, the first draft undertaken many years ago. I revised them last year. Most of the other pieces are recent.



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