ALICE, the Opera - You CLOD

Zane and I put so many Easter Eggs into both the music and the text of ALICE. Some of them are personal and no one would know about them unless we share. As I work on the full orchestration of the Duchess Scene (Pig and Pepper), I'm reminded of my grandmother.

In this scene, the Duchess continues to call the Cook a "clod". I drew that insult from my grandmother. My grandmother was a firecracker and extremely nice... but she could be firey as well. She was barely 5 feet tall and did not like to think that anyone could push her around.

Once, at the grocery store, a man slammed his cart into hers. He mumbled something but was clearly not apologetic. My grandmother looked up at him, slammed her cart right back into his and kept doing so until she had moved his cart out of our way to get by him, all the while calling him a CLOD in the loudest voice possible. My sister and I were beside ourselves with laughter... the man looked utterly horrified. Even after our grandmother had shoved past his cart, she looked over her shoulder and called him a clod again, saying: "clods everywhere!" Her tiny body was producing the loudest sound in the grocery store and it was one of the funniest things we'd ever experienced.

So, in honor of my firecracker grandmother, "YOU CLOD!" makes an appearance several times in the Pig and Pepper scene.