It's now the 4th day of the new year-- 2005! And I've decided to follow in good, good buddy Rony's footsteps and start a blog of my own. As for the blog name, I got that from the title of a movie that another good friend, Topper, lent me-- oh let's see... many, many forgotten moons ago? (sorry Topper!). We met up at one of our music rehearsals for "Noah's Big Boat", and he just said out of the blue, "Hey Jennie! There's this movie I want you to see...I just thought it was a Jennie-movie, you know? Just the kind of thing I thought you might appreciate..." Awfully nice of him, don't you think? For him to... recognize...something...in a thought-provoking, non-commercial film that a friend of his might particularly enjoy, and proceed to actually lend her the vcd. Just because...it was a Jennie-movie!

Maybe Topper is just gifted with perception, or maybe I have "I love quietly thoughtful movies" stamped on my forehead-- but it all pleasantly surprised me, actually. For all the shows and fun times we've shared as theater colleagues, Topper and I have never really had any kind of deep conversations about life or love, or even about the kind of films we liked, for that matter. I don't know...I guess it just mattered a lot that someone had bothered to look through the seemingly thick, murky glass between me and the banal world, and....just...saw.

Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Lost in Translation, Girl With A Pearl Earring (see a pattern here?), The Hours, A Room With A View, Remains of the Day....gee, looking at that list now, I'm suddenly thinking maybe it wasn't so hard to guess the kind of stories for which I'd stare, riveted, at the screen for three or more hours, if need be. Haha. In "Next Stop Wonderland", starring Hope Davis (and a bunch of actors I had never before seen nor heard of except for Philip Seymour Thomas something-or-other), Wonderland is apparently a place in Boston, a destination stop along a long subway route. After a series of aimless rides up and down town on this particular train, the protagonist finally finds what she has long been looking for on her next and last stop-- Wonderland.

Personally, I can't, in all honesty, rank this film alongside those amazing titles i had listed above. It was subtly done, handled with a light but clever hand. Funny, too, in spots. But for me, it lacked the all-too necessary pinch of poignancy that characterized the above-mentioned movies. But that's beside the point, isn't it? It was a personal journey film, with most of the narrative happening in the beautiful-but-sad protagonist's intellectual-but-deeply-searching heart. That's one of the reasons it merits more than a mention on my list. Another reason, perhaps more profoundly, is its fabulous title, which more than makes up for whatever the film may have lacked in depth and style. It of course alludes to my literary alter-ego's escape world-- yes, that Wonderland of wise caterpillars, grinning cats, card deck armies, and flame-eyed Jabberwockys...."twas brillig, and the slithy toves, did gyre and gimble in the wabe..."

To those who truly know me, and even to those who are still puzzled to this day-- I have never made secret of the fact that I've lived a life of Escape...far, far from the real world, down a rabbithole, through a looking glass (where nothing is as it seems!), into a place where a pale name like Wonderland will have to suffice. There is nothing to suggest, in the present state of things, that this adventure -- on subway trains or otherwise-- will cease anytime soon. In fact, it even seems to be hurtling further along at breakneck speed into lands unknown.

Speaking of lands unknown....I am getting married this year (cue warm, ear-to-ear smile). Maybe this "next stop" in the bantam book of my life will be the end of my Escape world...or the beginning of a whole new road to another kind of Wonderland. One thing I am quite sure of, it is a new leg of the journey i'm now ready to take.