Chapter sixty-two: Alice at the Palace (and something extra)

Hello everybody! I've been sitting here in my room for twenty minutes, trying to think of a way to start this off that could be of some amusement, when my friend sent me a video made one year ago today in stage crew. In the video, there's a huge closed ladder standing up off the side, and she has the idea to throw her water bottle up there to see if it will land on one of the steps. She makes the aimed shot, with the bottle landing perfectly right side up, and can't believe it. I, and the person filming, can't believe it either and start dying of laughter in the background. Of course, one week later, the musical, which we were constructing sets for, was postponed, and the school was closed for the pandemic. So that bottle, which is still there sitting on top of the latter to this day, probably has a new strand of unidentified COVID attached to it, but it serves as a nice memory.

Also recently, my dad and I got my mother attached to Stanley Tucci's new Sunday night cooking show on CNN called "Searching for Italy." I came home from school Monday, and it looked as though someone had replaced my mother for an Italian grandmother. In the episodes I've seen, I still think of Stanley Tucci as Paul Child from Julie and Julia, so part of me expects Meryl to come out in full Julia persona, ready to teach and eat.

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This week's movie - or play, rather, was recommended to me in April of last year by one of my dad's Art Director friends who called it "a fever dream." I knew nothing about it, so I excitedly added it to my mental checklist and watched it that night. From 1982, let me tell you, that's exactly what it is - a fever dream. It was a play of Alice in Wonderland that was adapted for television, and if you've seen Alice in Wonderland, you know that it is trippy enough within itself. My advice is to be ready to embrace theater in its true form.

Personally, I can't believe that she went from this happy six-year-old Alice to Sophie only a year later. I found the play on Youtube and thought it was sketchy, as I had found it so quickly. My instincts were right; it's no longer there because of copyright. I guess I watched it at the right time.

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Since entry is shorter, I want to double-up on the mythical, child-like theme. I'd like to say that it's because I'm nice, but really it's just because I have poor playing skills. I was going down the list of movies last night thinking, "Holy crap! I might actually do this," when I realized there was one movie I had completely forgotten about, but for a good reason, I promise. The film was Mary Poppins Returns, and the reason I forgot about it is that I think of it as a Julie Andrews movie because, well, you know. Unfortunately, though, it's not.

In the 2018 movie, Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) returns after her 54-year absence from Cherry Tree Lane to care for Michael Bank's (Ben Whishaw's) three children, John, Annabel, and Georgie, after their mother dies, and their father is preoccupied with the fact that the family is at financial risk of losing their house.

Mary takes the children on adventures as only Mary Poppins can. They feature a local chimney sweep-like character, Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), and her cousin Topsy (Meryl,) who's conflicted about why everything in her house turns upside down biweekly on Wednesdays.

When the ecstasy of their adventures together begins to wear off, and reality sets in that the family cannot evade eviction, Mary and the children set out to convince the bank of their home's worth by midnight. At the courtesy of Mary's wit and her ability to backtrack time, they do so. Luckily, the old bank teller (Dick Van Dyke) also supports the children's cause. The film spreads the underlying message that you must not worry about every little thing, and even when you do hit rock bottom, "there's nowhere to go but up."

I read, and I still think it's interesting how, in the first movie, Dick Van Dyke played not only Bert but also the old, senior bank teller, Mr. Dawes. For that role, he donated his salary to charity. And in 2018, he revived the character at the fitting age.

I watched this movie two spring breaks ago - before my Meryl phase, months before my Julie phase, and just after my musical phase with Hamilton. I look at it now and think, "This movie must've been made to tell me something about my future because they're all interconnected."

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.