Did you see the trailer for Alice in Wonderland? I'm generally a fan of all Tim Burton's strange, ludicrous, extravagant maneuvers; I don't expect this to be an exception, especially with Johnny Depp taking on the role of madcap milliner. Interesting bit of trivia: in the 1800s, hat makers used mercury to cure the felt, and thus were exposed to the highly toxic metal, resulting in confusion, slurred speech, loss of memory and coordination, anxiety...aka "the Mad Hatter Syndrome," a disorder immortalized by Lewis Carroll.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Mad as a Hatter
Wow, I made it out of DC! Possibly on one of the last flights out of the city. Left the blizzard and was greeted with 75 degrees and sunny skies in Los Angeles. Hallelujah.
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I have heard of this mercury madness suffered by hatters before. Strange stuff. Did I ever tell you that John B. Stetson invented the cowboy hat in Colorado? He was travelling out west when someone in his party kilt a beaver. He bet he could turn it into a hat. Game on. He shaved the fur off and mashed the hairs together using his own spit, and made a big, tough, wide hat with the felt. He later sold it for $5. He had been a hatter with his father back in New Jersey. He went back east and created the largest hat company in the world. He had been been traveling out west to search for gold and I'd say he found it. Now that's American madness.
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