We can almost hear the quiet sigh as the old season lets go. It's suddenly cold, at night of course but also when the sun is out. Just a few days ago I was wearing sandals and a light overshirt in Cobble Hill Park, and now it's all about layers against the weather.

We've begun putting together our Alice in Wonderland holiday show at last. There are so many ways to approach Alice, and tons of adaptations. The Disney movies are iconic, of course, but I've always preferred darker takes. The 2010 Disney/Tim Burton big-head Alice didn't work for me, though I loved the visual oddity of it, and the weird 1933 studio-star-studded movie (with Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle and W.C. Fields as Humpty-Dumpty) has an interesting weary menace. My favorite is the creepy 1988 stop-motion Alice by Jan Svankmajer, a skewed dream of confined spaces filled with taxidermy, bones, porcelain teeth, and glass eyes. It's worth the trip, if you can find it.

This is an old key, newly revealed, and should work like new. If you have trouble with it, please let me know.