THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 1, 1996 ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 10:10:21 -0500 (EST) From: David Parker Subject: Ozzy Digest: Baum as Theosophist David Hulan (in Ozzy Digest for 1-31-96, responding to my posting from the previous day) wrote: >Didn't know Baum was a Theosophist. I know I've read that Edgar Rice >Burroughs (who was living in Chicago at about the same time Baum was; I >wonder if he and Baum ever met?) based his Barsoom on Theosophical ideas. Thanks, David; I didn't know about Burroughs and Barsoom. Interesting! John Algeo, formerly of the English Department at the University of Georgia (a linguist) and now president of the Theosophical Society in America, discovered that Baum and his wife joined the Chicago chapter of the Theosophical Society in 1892. I had suspected as much--Baum wrote a good bit about theosophy (and other occult/spiritualist topics) in the pages of the ABERDEEN SATURDAY PIONEER, the South Dakota paper he edited for a year or so--but I was not aware of Baum's formal Theosophical connection until Algeo's article in THE AMERICAN THEOSOPHIST (Aug. 1986) titled "A Notable Theosophist: L. Frank Baum." Another article by Algeo, "The Wizard of Oz: The Perilous Journey" (same journal, Oct. 1986), briefly analyzes the book from a theosophical perspective. (I had trouble tracking down copies of this journal, by the way, and ended up having to use my school's interlibrary loan service.) William R. Leach, in the foreword and afterword to an edition of THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ published in 1991 by Wadsworth, also discussed Baum's theosophical leanings. Leach worked much of this material into his new book, LAND OF DESIRE, "an extensive study of modern consumerism" (reviewed in the latest BAUM BUGLE). I'm working on an essay of my own, tentatively titled "Oz: Baum's Theosophical Utopia," and I will appreciate comments or suggestions from list members. David B. Parker dparker@kscmail.kennesaw.edu Asst. Professor of History Kennesaw State College (770) 423-6713 (office) 1000 Chastain Rd 423-6294 (department) Kennesaw, GA 30144-5591 (770) 423-6432 (fax) ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:29:47 -0500 (EST) From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN Subject: Del Rey I have a copy of the Del Rey edition of _The Patchwork Girl of Oz_, and the text has not been altered. I also have some of the Del Rey editions of the Thompson books, and the portions with problematic material have not been expurgated either. Based on this, as well as the continued publication of unaltered versions of books like _Peter Pan_, I'm not quite sure that the arguement that the books have to be expurgated to be published holds water. Is it just me or is everyone being a bit too serious about the east-west reversal problem? A much simpler explaination would be that there were reporting errors as to the directions (which happens at the time) and that the Wogglebug, when he drew the broad outlines of the map, just happened to be wearing his experimental image-reversing goggles which he made for a perceptual study and then forgot to change it. The size of Oz? Hmm. Dorothy walked about a quarter of the way across the land of Oz in, what, three days, so assuming she was going at five kilometers per hour (heavily laden, I can do about that on irregular terrian, and I'm short, so I assume that on a semidecent road a child who's been doing hard farm work all her life could do the same on a semidecently paved road.) and was walking eight hours per day, that means in three days she covered 120 km, which would mean the entire country east to west (regardless of which side the Munchkin Country is on) would be 480 km wide. The north-south axis is a bit harder to measure, but eyeballing the relative distance based on proportions, I would guess that the entire country is 400 km high. I think this would make Oz considerably bigger than Colorado, but, of course, there are plenty of places to nitpick in this estimate. ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 17:31:02 -0500 (EST) From: Tyler Jones Subject: Ozzy Digest "How Big is Oz?" was, I believe, the name of a paper written by a member of the Oz research group. By adding up the sizes of the counties in Skampavia and multiplying by 50, we get an area af about 10,000 square miles, approximately the size of Vermont. The problem with this is: Look at all the stuff in Oz. We have kingdoms, mountains, forests and other stuff by the score. There is NO WAY that all this could be squeezed into an area the size of Vermont. The only thing I can assume is that Pinny Penny is not very strong on Geography. I decided on the size and shape of Colroado, based on Baums statement in EMERALD CITY that there are about 500,000 people in the Land of Oz. At this early time, Baum may not have been aware of all the hidden kingdoms in Oz, so its population may actually approach 1 million. Giving it the size of Colorado allows for a realtively non-dense population, giving us a lot of open spaces and other geogrpahical features. On the maps, Oz is wider (east-west) than it is tall (north-south) by a ration of about 5 to 3. When building the HACC, we decided to inlcude only books that actually took place in the Land of Oz itself. The other books, such as those Aaron mentioned, take place in the Oz "Universe" and really deserve a list of their own. There are two exceptions to this rule: 1. CAPTAIN SALT IN OZ. As one of the FF, it is special. 2. THIRD BOOK OF OZ. I did not (and still do not) want this book in there. It does not take place in Oz and was not originally a book. It was originally published as a series of short stories and illos in a magazine to provide publicity for Baums stage show. Chris D., however, has a disease which I call "Baum on the Brain". This is where you see anything, and I mean ANYTHING, with the name "Baum" on it and therefore it MUST be an Oz book. Chris even wanted to put "The book of the Hamburgs" on the HACC! This is a non-fiction book dealing with how to raise chickens. He felt that this was an early introduction to Billina, believe it or not. Chris claims that this story has an unusually strong Oz connection because it features so many of the celebrities of the Land of Oz. The HACC, as is so many things in life, is the result of compromise. BY agreeing to put this thing in there, Chris agreed to some basic rules of placement, such as considering textual evidence more important than the authors wishes regarding chronological assignment. He also gave in on some other things. I still hope to convince Chris to take this book out someday. It is a good story, but it is also probably Historically Inaccurate. I for one would gladly buy Oz Squad comics from Peter Glassman if he was to offer them in his catalog. I, too, felt Marcus was a little heavy on the Greek mythology, although he claimed that there was some indirect evidence for this in the FF. I have never found it, however. Remember, though, that Lurline was Queen of the Fairies before her association with the Greek gods, and that was just to give some background. The Greek mythology does not come into contact with Oz in any way. As for the implication that Ozroar was the first king, thus contradicting DOT&WIZ, Chris and I have assumed that the Ozroar in that story was not the Ozroar who was Pastorias father and was featured in THE BLUE EMPEROR OF OZ. As far as consistency checking, LURLINE AND THE WHITE RAVENS only says that Lurline enchanted the Land of Oz, gave it the name of Oz (named after Ozroar) and the name of the first king was Ozroar, who may be a different Ozroar than Pastorias father. You need not consider the Greek references at all, as they are almost incidental to the creation of Oz. I won't say more, because it would give away the plot. Of course, Greek Mythology is a collection of fragmentary tales told and re-told over the centuries. Many are contradictory. I know of at least three mutually exclusive stories of the origin of Apollo. Maybe we need a HACC for Greek mythology! NOT!!! :) My attitudes about Historical Accuracy have changed over the years. A book goes into the HACC if is textually consistent with the FF. If the book appears to contradict a non-FF book, it is the job of Chris and myself to come up with a clever explanation as to why it is not really a contradiction after all. My whole point has been (and still is) that by working together and sharing info/ideas etc., we can minimize these contradictions so that our explanations do not become too outlandish ("And then the aliens created ANOTHER fissure in the space-time continuum and agve Evlis's brain to Ozma..."), giving us a smooth, unified version of Ozian history without sacrificing peoples creativity and creating even better Oz books in the process. One of our suggestions is for people to write an Oz book that explains the contradictions, much like a "patch.exe" from Microsoft (or Ozosoft). Barry, maybe if you throw a lot of Ozzy jargon (like Reilly & Britton, Denslow vs. Neill) around, you might impress the bookstore guy and talk him down a few dollars... GLASS CAT was excellent, despite the cuts. As David said, most Buckethead artwork is of a very low quality. Marcus Mebes was a fine illustrator, but he is no longer with us. No, Dave, I have not read SPHERELAND, although it sounds cool... The January Ozzy digest is ready to be sent to Ken Cope. It is a whopping 485K! This is much larger than the December 295K. BTW, I may be updating my Web Page today or tomorrow, so stay tuned! --Tyler Jones ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 17:10:05 -0600 (CST) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-31-96 Lurline with a long i sound in the last syllable seems to be the most common way to say it. So, how do y'all say "Evoldo" or"Kalidah"? ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:55:53 -0500 (EST) From: David Bedell Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-31-96 First posting--I'm a new subscriber, but an old IWOC alumnus. Yes, I've read _Flatland_ & _Sphereland_. Just finished _Wicked_. Can someone refresh my memory as to Krumbic witches? I don't recall that reference. Just got the BoW catalog and have two questions: Wasn't D&T originally illustrated by Denslow? Why did BoW prefer to commission new illustrations by Donald Abbott? Also, has anyone purchased their _Who's Who in Oz_? They say their copies are remainders from the last publisher. Was that Reilly & Lee? Are these illustrated? Comparable to early editions? David Bedell, University of Bridgeport ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:54:47 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: Jitterbugs and other stuff 1) I think I should have been more specific when asking for information about jitterbugs. What I wanted to know is what type of creatures they are and what they are supposed to do to people. Also: Someone please open a copy of The Annotated Wizard of Oz and find out the name of Mrs. Pastoria II in the play. I'm trying to avoid using a Laumeristic name for Mrs. Pastoria, who is named explicitly, before she is revealed to be the same person as Mombi by Plumly the Four Horned Cow. (I'm still surprised no one has objected to the idea. Is this something which is intrinsically so sensible that no one can find anything wrong with it?) 2) How many kingdoms are there in Oz? I think the exact number is mentioned in The Gnome King of Oz, but I don't have a copy yet. (Should have jumped on those books Scott Cummings was selling as soon as he sent me the list...) 3) Marc, I must concurr with your opinion that the Emerald City Press books are too short. Although I was able to cut about three chapters worth of extraneous material out of The Woozy of Oz (some of which will probably be recycled in the second book of the trilogy), and I don't think it could reasonably be cut down to standard Emerald City Press size. Anybody out there know of a good publisher which is not as likely to mangle my book? 4) Mike, is there another Aaron on the digest? I don't recall ever asking about a funny-looking Jack Pumpkinhead in a comic book, having never seen an Oz comic book before. Also: While you're mentioning them, someone please describe Was and Sir Harold and the Nome King. (Just curious. A Barnstormer in Oz I've read before, and some of its material I worked my way to independently (Glinda the Perfect/Manipulator) and other is being directly horizontally transfered (mostly place names) to The Woozy of Oz.) 5) I've read Sphereland, The Planiverse, and a bunch of other books on dimensions. 6) On the name Ozma Tippetarius from Wicked: Baum had to set a precedent in The Marvelous Land of Oz by giving a character a Latinate name with an ending of the opposite gender attached (Pastoria, rather than Pastorius), which the author of Wicked had to copy (Tippetarius, rather than Tippetaria). Anyone have any idea how Baum made such a blunder in the first place? (Didn't take Latin in college, perhaps?) Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:58:20 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: Ozroar Is there any evidence for the first ruler of Oz being named Ozroar besides Lurline and the White Ravens of Oz? Also: Is there a source for Ozma's grandfather being named Ozroar besides the afformentioned book? Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 17:24:50 -0800 From: Bob Shepherd Subject: Oz Theme Park in Kansas Hi - I'm one of the newbies that just got hooked into the Ozzy Digest this week. I've really enjoyed reading all of the Oz related discussions, although some of the acronyms threw me for a loop until I could get them figured out! Excuse me if this thread has been covered in the past, but does anybody out there know about the Oz theme park that is being built somewhere in Kansas? Is this for real, and if so, does anybody know when it is planned to open and what it might contain? ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:12:27 -0500 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest 1/31/96 Aaron Adelman (and Dave H.): I wrote a fairly lengthy article on "How Big Is Oz", which was submitted to the Bugle about four years ago. Unfortunately, I've never heard anything back on it. To give the gist: Although the size of Oz seems to be somewhat elastic, the quantitative information we have (basically what you said about WISHING HORSE) puts it at about the size of Belgium - around 11,000 square miles. If you take the IWOC map as about right in terms of shape, it means Oz is about 90 miles NS and 120 miles EW. This is reasonably consistent with travel times in most of the books. Making it the size of Colorado, on the other hand, would mean that everybody in Oz is using seven-league boots most of the time. Emerald City to the Deadly Desert EW is typically about a three day walk - which is reasonable for 60 miles or so. If Oz were Colorado-size, EC to DD would be about 200 miles, and even walking twelve hours a day that would imply a pace of 5 1/2 miles an hour, steadily. Maybe the Shaggy Man could do that, or the tireless ones like the Scarecrow or Tin Woodman, but ten-year-old kids? Even though they lived in our world before the automobile, and are therefore probably in much better shape than most kids today, I think that's excessive. Twenty miles or so a day, on the other hand, sounds feasible. I feel very strongly about this and would want to hear some very powerful arguments to the contrary. Tyler Jones: I'm not sure that material got lost from your message, and I didn't notice anything missing from mine. It may have gotten lost in the return to you rather than in Dave's compilation. At least, the version of your message of 1/30 that I read had the defense of the HACC in it that you refer to, and it didn't seem to have any obvious lacunae. Mark Semich: Certainly some of the ECP Oz books are very short, really hardly longer than some of the individual "Little Wizard Stories". But some of them are at least a fair approximation of the length of the original books - GIANT GARDEN is really about as long as a lot of the originals, and GLASS CAT is maybe 20% shorter - only 10% shorter than the shortest of the originals. And QUEEN ANN is well over half the length of an original. Mike Burns: Until somebody has read WINGED MONKEYS and said it's worth reading, I think I'll hold off on spending that much money. But I'm willing to accept almost anybody's recco if anybody's read it. I was the one who objected to the strange-looking Pumpkinhead, not Aaron. But I realized my mixup afterwards. I can't think of a better term for books like WICKED and BARNSTORMER than "heretical". I don't mean anything literarily pejorative by it; I just mean that they're not to be considered, even casually, in the plotting of new books. (I would not, for instance, use "Elphaba" and "Nessarose" as the names of the Wicked Witches of the West and East, although canonically they aren't named.) "Different" is another way of describing them, but when the rest of the discussion is using "religious" terminology, I think "heretical" is appropriate. And I would expect anything Ruth Berman wrote to be entirely orthodox, unless she were deliberately trying for heresy (I haven't read her Holmes/Oz story; where did it appear?); she knows as much about Oz as just about anybody. Me: As Dave pointed out, I typed "Kumbric" twice instead of making it "Krumbic" the second time. I is covered with rue. Dave Hardenbrook: But marching around singing in a 16 rpm voice is something from the movie, not the books. (Book, really, since the life of the Winkies under the Wicked Witch is only described - and then only loosely - in WIZARD.) And even marching around singing in a 16 rpm voice beats getting grilled over a not-particularly-low flame, or frozen in ice, or pushing rocks up hills, or most of the other Hellish existences that I've read of. None of them are exactly fun, of course. But living in Winkieland pre-Dorothy still gives the possibility of running off to the Quadling or Gillikin countries, right? Or even into the southern part of the Winkie country where Gloma ruled. Could be worse. I have a feeling that I read a short-story sequel Abbott wrote to FLATLAND, which might have been called "Sphereland". Whatever I read wasn't a full-length book, though. Think I read it in a compendium of mathematically-based fiction. And if I haven't said it before, I add my thanks to the others for your making this digest possible. I really enjoy discussing Oz in this semi-real-time way. David Hulan ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:52:44 -0800 (PST) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-30-96 > Hi everyone! Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Nate, we have another big > influx of new members (32) today. Welcome to you all! This brings our > membership up to 97! Ozzy days are here again! :) :) :) Now if we can only find a way to keep the header from taking up nearly three pages... > From: cummingss@kenyon.edu > Subject: RE: Ozzy Digest, 01-29-96 > > I read somewhere on the Net that BoW has a closet full of early edition Oz > books. Is this true? I was in the store once in the late 80's and lost my > breath when I saw a bookcase full of gorgeous Oz books. It's entirely possible, since they also sell used and rare books as well as new stuff. (I've GOT to get to NYC some day just so I can finally see the store!) > I was in San Francisco last summer, and saw that Acorn Books had a large > collection of nice Baum and Oz books. The prices were quite high (it's a large > city after all), but more shocking was that many of the books were sitting in > the sunlight, just BAKING. I hope someone (with a fat wallet) rescues them > soon! Have you pointed this out to them? > From: Tyler Jones > Subject: Ozzy Digest > > BTW, Dave asked us not to echo back so many messages, in order to keep the > filesize down. I hope everyone remembers this :) It would also probably help if we cut out our long .sig files. > Dave, did you really read Flatland? You're the only other person I've heard > of that has! All glory to the perfect circles! Hey, I've read it, too. AND "Sphereland." Interesting stuff, good personification of mathematics and scientific theory. > FYI, I always prounced Lurline to rhyme with "mine" until the late great > Marcus Mebes told me it was pronounced Lur-Leen-Uh with the emphasis on > the second syllable. And what made HIM a bigger expert than any of the rest of us? (I say, pronounce it any way you want!) > Oh, mais oui. Peter Glassman, continue to crank out Oz books old and new? > IS your project to reprint the entire FF still alive? If so, when is > TIK-TOK due? I recently heard that the schedule was going to be cranked up just a bit so that "Glinda" will be out for the Oz Centenniel in 2000. > From: DavidXOE@aol.com > Subject: Comments on Ozzy Digest, 1/29/94 > > Eric Gjovaag: > When did Baum mix up east and west in his text? I've looked for it, but > although I thought I remembered occasions when he did, I haven't found one. > That doesn't mean he didn't, just that I missed it. I know the map in LOST > PRINCESS shows the Winkie country to the right of the EC, but in the text it > says it's the west. He did change which side of Oz the Nome Kingdom was on, > though. Er, good point, maybe he didn't mix 'em up in the text. But he DID mix up the map (or at least had a hand in it), which caused all the confusion in the first place. (I seem to recall east and west being reversed in "Magic," but I may be wrong.) > If someone is E-mailing you unpleasant material, can't you just refuse to > read E-mail from that person? That's what I've done in similar circumstances. Perhaps, but does that necessarily mean they won't keep sending e-mail? But I wasn't objecting to the content of the e-mail, more that it was happening in the first place, especially since it was on-topic and would have fit in just fine with the Digest. > No point in dropping a whole agreeable area of discourse because of one or > two individuals whose inputs are unpleasant. Tell that to JMS, the creator of "Babylon 5," in the B5 newsgroup... > Glad to hear that you're not > currently thinking of dropping out. Things seem to have settled down now, so if we can all keep our heads, I'll DEFINITELY be staying. > But if I do make it to Winkie, I'll certainly autograph GLASS CAT for anyone > who's interested. (And I'll bring my copies of QUEEN ANN and CHRISTMAS for > more personal autographs from their authors, too - I have the "autographed" > HC editions of both, but they're rather impersonal...) YOU try making it pleasant and personable when you're autographing FOUR HUNDRED of those little things in one evening, and Karyl has taken up more than her fair share of space on a lot of them... > Aaron Adelman: > Baum's version of Button-Bright's name is Baum being silly; "von Smith" is > really impossible unless somebody decided to change their surname > arbitrarily, since "von" is used with place-names in German and "Smith" is an > occupation-name. Don't forget, Button-Bright can't remember large parts of his own name. Maybe there's something that belongs in between the "von" and "Smith." --Eric "Gee, I was actually able to log on tonight" Gjovaag ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 19:16:13 -0800 (PST) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-31-96 > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: Flatland and the Size of Oz > > Also: By the way, how come the HACC doesn't contain books which Baum > wrote that definitely occur in the world of Oz (The Sea Fairies, Sky > Island, John Dough and the Cherub, The Magical Monarch of Mo, Queen Zixi > of Ix)? Ah, THIS is a good idea! (Just don't include "The Enchanted Island of Yew," as it can be explained how it's NOT part of the same world as Oz.) Also, I STILL say that it would improve the HACC no end if books were identified as being FF, published by a major publishing house, privately printed, or still unpublished, and whether or not the book is currently available. What good is a list of Oz books to help Oz researchers if they can't find out if they can even get the books? > From: Tyler Jones > Subject: Ozzy Digest > > As far as I know, Baum himself never mixed up East and West in the text, > although the maps were reversed. March Laumer claimed that this was the > way it SHOULD have been oriented, since we could then have golden dawns > and deep blue evenings. And Dorothy melted the Wicked Witch of the East, then, eh? > From: Michael F Burns > Subject: New Oz Book! > > Posted by tinhat1@aol.com: > The Winged Monkeys of Oz > by Dennis Anfuso > isbn 1-57433-025-X > Hardcover 8 3/4" x 11 1/4" > 154 pages, 2 new maps (part of the book takes place on islands in the > Nonestic Ocean) 25 b/w illustrations, fullcolor cover plate pasted to the > front cover of the book. > $24.95 + $3.00 shipping OUCH! And I just bought "Wicked" in hardback, too. May be a while before I get this one... > To avoid the appearance of beating a dead horse, I bear no animosity to > Peter Glassman or Books of Wonder. They have been a most excellent source > of Oz-related material and I hope they will continue to do so in the future. > But... unless Mr. Glassman conducted a survey of all the bookstores and > libraries in this country I don't agree with his assertion that most > would not purchase Patchwork Girl unless it was edited. Peter Glassman is co-owner of one of the world's largest bookstores, and he has a number of contacts in the publishing industry and is in touch with many librarians and store owners. If he says the change needed to be made, I trust him. (Or it could have been squeamishness on the part of BoW's publishing partner in these books, William Morrow and Company.) > Aaron: the rather strange looking Pumpkinhead is in the OZ comic series, > not the Oz Squad where his appearance is very Neillesque. And I > personally don't go so far as to call anything heretical, Was, Wicked, > Sir Harold and the Gnome King, and Barnstormer are simply different. > Although I would like to add Ruth Berman's short story with Sherlock > Holmes and Dr. Watson in Oz to my list of "good" Oz material. I thought > it was wonderful! What story was THIS? Where can one get it? > From: DavidXOE@aol.com > Subject: Ozzydigest 1/30/96 > > Eric Gjovaag: > If it's really true that libraries and bookstores wouldn't have carried PG > and D&T without the changes, then certainly I can agree with making them. > (Though if bookstores objected, why do they carry the Del Rey PG - or did it > have similar changes as well?) The Del Rey books were, first of all, first published some years ago, and second, now seem to be marketed as science-fiction, not children's books. I haven't seen them in children's in a long time, but all the time now in sci-fi. > And I'd be happy to pay $50 for an > unexpurgated PG with all the color... Peter, are you listening? Here's one... > ...though not for an unexpurgated D&T - it's > worth it for one of Baum's four or five best books, but not for what's > probably his worst. (Certainly his worst children's fantasy under his own > name.)(IMO) You haven't read the unexpurgated "Woggle-Bug Book," then, have you? > I meant that you or Robin would be a better source of information on how Oz > fans pronounce "Lurline", since both of you have been to far more Oz > conventions, and therefore have presumably heard more Oz fans pronouncing > "Lurline", than I have. That's all. I didn't mean that you were Authorities. > (You may be, or may not, but that wasn't what I meant; I just meant that > you'd talked to Oz fans more than I have.) Heh. I hear you. But it's not like Lurline pops up all the time in casual conversation at Oz conventions. (Many conversations at Oz conventions actually have little to do with Oz, but instead catching up on the news from previous years. It's just as much family reunion as Oz-fest.) But even if we say "It's pronounced /LER-line/ or /ler-LEEN/." that STILL doesn't make one pronunciation more right. /ler-lih-NAY/ may be just as right. It's up to you. (Want a bigger challenge? Try Kalidah. Six Oz fans will probably give you six different pronunciations.) --Eric "Any other pronunciation sticklers we want to tackle?" Gjovaag ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:48:45 -0800 From: "W. R. Wright" Subject: "Legends of Oz" Try the following: Multicom Publishing 1100 Olive Way, suite 1250 Seattle, WA 98101 phone 206-622-5530 email: info@multicom.com URL: http://www.multicom.com/ ------------------------begin quote---------------------------------- ate: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 00:07:12 -0800 From: Jon Childerston Subject: The Ozian Times My wife is interested in getting on your mailing list. She saw your address in the Oz Gazette. Reba Childerston fnbnp@nque.com p.s. Do you know where we can find the "Legends of Oz" software listed in the same gazette? -- Jon Childerston LAN Administrator First National Bank 201 North Dewey North Platte, NE. 69101 Office: (308) 532-1000 Fax: (308) 532-3202 fnbnp@nque.com ------------------------end quote---------------------------------- ============================================================================= Date: Wednesday 31-Jan-96 21:59:41 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things Aaron rote: >Anybody out there know of a good publisher which is not as likely >to mangle my book? I'll see how things go with Buckethead with my book and get back to you. Eric wrote: >Now if we can only find a way to keep the header from taking up nearly >three pages... I'm going to ask my server if it is possible to "mute" that header... Bill W. wrote: >>Reba Childerston : >>p.s. Do you know where we can find the "Legends of Oz" software listed >>in the same gazette? >Try the following: >Multicom Publishing >1100 Olive Way, suite 1250 >Seattle, WA 98101 >phone 206-622-5530 >email: info@multicom.com >URL: http://www.multicom.com/ fnbnp@nque.com asked to be unsubscribed from the list, so you'll have to send them a private message. David Hulan wrote: >If you take the IWOC map as about right in terms of shape, it means Oz >is about 90 miles NS and 120 miles EW. This is reasonably consistent with >travel times in most of the books. > >Making it the size of Colorado, on the other hand, would mean that everybody >in Oz is using seven-league boots most of the time ... I still say it has to be Colorado-size. Like Tyler says, how can you squeeze everything in such a small area? Maybe Oz is like the "City Speed Limit" episode of _Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland_ ( Uh oh! Sorry for another Non-Ozzy science-popularizing book! :) ), so that in Oz the speed of light is so absurdly low (8 mph?) that when you walk at a brisk pace ( "Weeeee're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful--"...sorry :) ) the relativistic effects of shortening of distances take effect and the trip to the Emerald City becomes a 3-day trek. ( Another one of Dave's kooky ideas! :) ). >I have a feeling that I read a short-story sequel Abbott wrote to FLATLAND, >which might have been called "Sphereland". Whatever I read wasn't a >full-length book ... Dionys Burger's _Sphereland_ is a full-length Novel, longer than _Flatland_. ( And now back to Oz... :) ) >And if I haven't said it before, I add my thanks to the others for your >making this digest possible. I really enjoy discussing Oz in this >semi-real-time way. :) :) :) ( Smilies of gratitude :) ) -- Dave ============================================================================= THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 2, 1996 ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 08:48:15 -0500 (EST) From: cummingss@kenyon.edu Subject: RE: Ozzy Digest, 02-01-96 *************************************************************************** ANOTHER INTERESTING OZ WEB SITE: http://www.southwind.net/IMS/bok/ There are Oz items for sale, including a Dorothy doll with hemp hair! Now I've seen it all (didn't inhale, though....) Scott ************************************************************************** ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 09:57:28 -0500 From: David A Gerstein Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-29-96 AARON: "Also: I have heard that a scene was cut from the MGM movie in which some sort of creature called jitterbugs appear? What are they?" You may recall that in the original _Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, the Wicked Witch sent bumblebees to destroy our heroes on their way to her dwelling. This MGM sequence was their adaptation of that, although it changed the bees to mosquitos. Our heroes danced and sang while fighting the mosquitos off, thus producing a cheerful musical number at exactly the wrong time in the film. When MGM saw how this looked in context, they axed the sequence. As of a few years ago, this scene was missing; all that existed were some clumsily-filmed bits of rehearsals for it. Did part of the final version, or any other lost material, appear on that Turner "Ultimate Oz" disc in 1993? Does someone know? David Gerstein <96dag@williams.edu> ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 07:19:15 -0800 From: "W. R. Wright" Subject: Oz Kingdoms Aaron asks: >2) How many kingdoms are there in Oz? I think the exact number is >mentioned in The Gnome King of Oz, but I don't have a copy yet. (Should >have jumped on those books Scott Cummings was selling as soon as he sent >me the list...) Go to the places section of the Encyclopedia Oziana (http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/). There you will find all the "kingdoms" from the first 14. Bill W. ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 07:24:25 -0800 From: "W. R. Wright" Subject: BB > Aaron Adelman said: > Baum's version of Button-Bright's name is Baum being silly; "von Smith" is > really impossible unless somebody decided to change their surname > arbitrarily, since "von" is used with place-names in German and "Smith" is an > occupation-name. and Eric replied: >Don't forget, Button-Bright can't remember large parts of his own name. >Maybe there's something that belongs in between the "von" and "Smith." Button-Bright himself said their was more to his name, but he couldn't remember it........ Bill W. ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 11:34:40 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: Life under Bastinda's rule 1) Bastinda: DavidXOE@aol.com, you think you could escape ME? Not very likely! I put a spell over Winkieland so that no one can leave it without my permission. Can't have slaves escaping, you know. Now back to work before I feed you to the Forty Wolves! 2) Scott, I've been to Books of Wonder and seen that bookshelf and seen those early edition Oz books. They have some not-so-early edition Oz books there, such as a few Del Rey Thompsons (at $17(!) each), and a few of the less well known titles in the HACC as well. 3) Tyler, if memory serves me correctly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz specifically identifies west as "where the sun sets", so this golden dawns thing isn't particularly workable. 4) Just a thought on the size of Oz: Perhaps geometry in Oz is non-Euclidian, or even stranger, due to the high magic flux of the land, kingdoms pop in and out of existence all the time. Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 14:49:32 -0500 (EST) From: Sheryl Ramage Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest Hi, I'm new to the list and have enjoyed reading all of it. Someone mentioned the TNT special. I didn't like it because of the woman who played Dorothy. Her voice drove me crazy a good deal of the time. The idea was interestering and I was waiting for it eagerly but I was disappointed. I did like the boy who played Toto, he was cute and barked his lines well. Part of my Oz collection is many different cartoon versions. Some are ok and some are interestering. One version has a gangster and a machine gun!! Has anyone ever seen any of the cartoons, and if so what do you think of them? I know I have the answer to the jitterbug question, but I want to look it up so I'll post it later. ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 23:29:35 -0500 (EST) From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN Subject: The Origin of the Scarecrow and the Size of Oz I have a possible explaination for the origin of the Scarecrow which would be consistent with the FF but avoids the logical problem of Thompson's assertion that the Scarecrow is the reincarnation of Chang Wang Woe. One of the ideas that has come out in working on _The Woozy of Oz_ is that some areas are more magical than others; further more, the more magical a place is, the stranger things are. For example, Mo is a more magical country than Oz, and as a result it is stranger, with edible geography, rains of popcorn, etc., such that Oz in comparison is usually tame. Suppose that the area of the cornfield where the Scarecrow was assembled was a particularly magical area. As a weird side effect of this, the Scarecrow might come alive spontaneously, where as less magical propery nearby would not have such things happen. Later, when the Scarecrow came back to look for his family tree, as a side effect of the high magical flux of the area, the Silver Islands popped into existence with a fictional history which made the Scarecrow the former king. This explaination has the advantage over Farmer's, who suggests that Glinda animated him, in that it requires no intenion or interference from anyone. Similar explainations could also explain why there seems to be no end to strange, unexplained places in Oz. There are lots of magical hot spots all over Oz which have as a side effect have strange places spontaneously pop into existence. As the vast majority of these places seldom or never reoccur, it may be that when no one is looking they vanish and new ones pop up in their place. ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 00:12:39 -0500 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest 2/1/96 Dave Parker: I should say that some Burroughs critics attribute aspects of his Barsoom (particularly the green Martians) to Theosophical ideas; as far as I know there is no direct evidence that he was inspired by Theosophy or in fact that he even knew anything about it. I don't want to present it as established fact. Barry Adelman: According to the maps Oz is about 3:4 in aspect ratio, so if it's 480 km EW it would be about 360 NS. That's rather smaller than Colorado; Colorado is just under 400 miles EW, or about 600 km. But I don't think Oz is that big. Dorothy's journey in WIZARD is one of the slower ones on record. In ROAD the characters cross the Deadly Desert in a sandboat, bathe in the Truth Pond, and walk to the Tin Woodman's palace in one day, and walk to the EC the next, arriving well before dinner time. That one is unusually short. But most walking trips from the EC to the Deadly Desert in the EW direction seem to take about three days, usually with a stop or two for some kind of adventure. On the other hand, they seem to spend more than eight hours a day on the road - usually from sunup to sunset or thereabouts. (They're not walking 12+ hours, but that allows for the stops.) Tyler Jones: Have you ever tried walking around Vermont? Remember that those kingdoms in Oz are typically the size of a very small village. And the forests can be walked through in an hour or two, for the most part. This is what I'd call a "wood" rather than a "forest", but in any case they can't be more than ten or twelve miles across, and there aren't necessarily that many of them. If you take the IWOC map and put a scale on it that makes it 90 x 120 miles, as I've done, most of the travel times in the books come out fairly reasonable. If you made it 300 x 400 miles, however - Colorado size - they wouldn't be reasonable at all, unless you do something like the time-contraction Dave mentions. Since I don't see that it's necessary - 90 x 120 is -plenty- big enough to fit in everything from the FF with ample room for new places that hadn't been discovered - I prefer to believe that the speed of light in Oz is normal (otherwise people walking briskly would look flattened in the direction they're moving, and that should have been mentioned), and that Oz is about the size I assigned it in "How Big Is Oz?" (I was the one who wrote that article for the ORG, incidentally.) I wouldn't quibble with making it, say, 120 x 160 miles, but 300 x 400 is far too big. (Just for one example, the Wizard rides the Sawhorse to Glinda's palace [near the southern border of Oz], consults with her, and returns to the EC in well under a day in LOST PRINCESS. If that were a 300-mile round trip then the Sawhorse would be going at least 50 mph - just try that in an open airstream! I don't think an elderly man could hang on for six hours against that kind of wind.) Around 15 mph is much more plausible. And half a million inhabitants, or even a million, in 10-12,000 square miles isn't dense at all. At 90 x 120, Oz is about half the size of San Bernardino County, which has a population of about 1.5 million. And, except right around the city of San Bernardino itself (like the EC), that county is -very- sparsely populated, with a lot of mountains and deserts. I think you're radically overestimating the size required to fit in all the places in Oz; walking is a slow way to travel! I agree with you entirely on excluding The Third Book of Oz from the HACC. There are significant contradictions between it and the FF, or even between it and OZMA, which was the next Baum book. It's clear from the latter that the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman hadn't seen Dorothy since WIZARD. Glad you thought GLASS CAT was excellent. You're one of the first Oz fans who isn't also a fairly close personal friend who has commented on it. Robin Olderman: I say "Eh-VAWL-doh" and "Kah-LYE-duh", myself. (Not that I've had much occasion to pronounce the first one.) David Bedell: (Lots of us sharing that forename in here, aren't there?) Coo-ee-oh in GLINDA described herself as a "Krumbic witch". Yes, Denslow originally illustrated DOT AND TOT. As to why BoW got Abbott to re-illustrate it, though, I couldn't say. Presumably the illustrations are as much public domain now as the text, and the originals are, IMO, better than the new ones, although maybe not that much better. (I never liked Denslow all that much.) I think I bought WHO'S WHO IN OZ from BoW, but I've had it for several years, so I'm not sure. The edition I have was published by Peter Bedrick Books, and is quite nice; I don't know how it compares with the original R&L version. Aaron Adelman: I don't think anybody ever described the jitterbugs in detail, or at least I've never seen such a description. But others may have more info. Do you have a clue as to where in THE ANNOTATED WIZARD Mrs. Pastoria's name might be given? I have the book, and would be happy to check for you, but I don't have time to read through all the annotations in the next day or two. I have a vague recollection of Thompson citing the number of kingdoms in Oz somewhere as well, but it's not in the first chapter of GNOME KING. Maybe elsewhere in that book, or maybe in another book. She was probably underestimating at that. I think ECP is the only current publisher of Oz books who pays their authors (even if they don't pay much). If you can finance your own publishing then either you can publish it yourself (which sticks you with the distribution problem) or try Buckethead; they at least have sale tables at the Oz conventions (or anyhow at Winkie; I assume at the others). As I said in my last post, I was the one who commented on the strange-looking Jack Pumpkinhead; I think Mike got us confused. I've never read WAS, but according to the reviews I've read it's a book wherein Dorothy was first sexually abused by Uncle Henry and later by Baum, but who told some of her fantasies to the latter and found them published in a best-selling children's book. As far as I know, Oz wasn't a real place in that book, which puts it so far outside that it's not even heretical. "Sir Harold and the Nome King", on the other hand, is essentially true to the FF; it's just that it diverges sharply after the last of the canonical books, to the point where it's generally considered heretical. You can find it in "The Enchanter Reborn", by L. Sprague de Camp and Christopher Stasheff, in the SF section of your bookstore (or, at worst, your used bookstore, since it was published in 1993 or 1994). I don't know if you've read any of the Pratt-de Camp "Incomplete Enchanter" stories - they're favorites of mine - but in any case de Camp takes Harold Shea into Oz, where he finds that a sorcerer's-apprentice type has managed to inadvertently reverse the spell that prevents aging in Oz so years before the time of the story. The result is that Dorothy is thirtyish and married to a rather plebeian Winkie; Ozma is about forty and has married Evardo of Ev. Sir Harold persuades Ozma to disenchant Ruggedo (who was correctly described as in the shape of a cactus) so that Rug can help him rescue someone from the clutches of Kaliko. It's a fun story; de Camp clearly has read most if not all of the Oz books (since he was born in 1909, he probably got them for Christmas through his childhood) and knows the universe well, even if he twisted it for his own purposes. The "-a" ending in Latin isn't necessarily feminine - e.g. "nauta", "agricola". And Ozish names aren't to be confused with Latin ones anyhow; no more reason "Pastoria" should be feminine than, say, "Attila" or "bar-Kosiba". Ozroar as the name of Pastoria's father was invented by Fred Meyer, and has apparently been adopted by Oz fans in general; others have extended it to earlier rulers of Oz. Bob Shepherd: There really is an Oz theme park planned (and maybe under construction) in Kansas. There's been information about it in the BUGLE, but I don't remember details. Perhaps others will. Eric Gjovaag: BoW is a neat bookstore, well worth the visit if you're in the NYC area (though not, as the Michelin guide says about the top restaurants, worth the trip). Their stock of rare Oz books, as one might expect, varies depending on what they've bought lately vs. what they've sold. But their prices on all of them are too high for my level of interest in that sort of thing. I find a nice facsimile edition like they publish for $25 every bit as good for my purposes as a first edition at $500+. I'm an Oz fan, not an Oz collector. Wa-el, I dunno, but I've found it perfectly easy to note the name of individuals who've been sending me obnoxious E-mail and hitting the "delete" button instead of the "read" button when I've selected that message. It's something else where it's on a bulletin board where you don't know who sent a message until it scrolls onto the screen, but E-mail has never seemed to me to present any problem. Tell me about it; I had to autograph four hundred pages in one evening, too! I made no personalization on those; how could I, when I didn't know who'd get which copy? But I've cheerily personalized any copy anyone has presented to me, and would hope that you and Karyl and Robin would do the same for me. Good point about Button-Bright not remembering all of his name - though I'd think he wouldn't remember the "von" and forget what came between it and "Smith". Still, the kid was so laid-back that not much would be beyond him... There's certainly nothing connecting "Yew" and Oz, but I didn't know that there was anything definitely separating them, either. Give a quick explanation? BoW is "one of the world's largest bookstores"? Maybe, if that includes all their stock they have off-site, but as a store it's not that big. I know of at least ten in Orange County that have more books on display and more square footage of sale space than BoW. It's arguably the biggest bookstore I've seen that specializes in children's books - at least, one of the two or three biggest. But that's all. I agree that the Del Rey Oz books turn up in the SF sections of bookstores oftener than in the children's section, but I've seen them in the latter, fairly often. I haven't read the unexpurgated "Woggle-bug Book", no. But I wasn't counting it as a "book", since it was at least my impression that it was just a collection of newspaper installments. The rest of the Third Book of Oz is also probably worse than D&T - but D&T is still pretty awful, and I wouldn't pay $50 for a pristine facsimile of it. Yeah, I've been to enough Oz conventions to know what they're like. And of course anyone can pronounce any Oz name anyway they like. But if there's a rough consensus on a particular name (and maybe there isn't), people who attend a lot of Oz conventions, and particularly ones like you and Robin Olderman who are also Quizmasters (the two of you beat me - narrowly, I might add - in the Masters' quiz the past two years at Winkie), are the likeliest to know it. I remember discussing the pronunciation of "Kalidah" with Robin Hess at the last Winkie. I'll have to admit that I'd never even thought of pronouncing it any way but "Kah-LYE-dah", but will have to admit that his pronunciation of "KAL-i-dah" is just as possible. I probably got my pronunciation from hearing my mother read WIZARD to me when I was too young to read it myself. Dave Hardenbrook: Ah, "Mr Tompkins in Wonderland". Lovely book. Another one I read back around 1957. Remember when he tried to put the rack over the billiard ball in the world where Planck's constant was large? Gamow was a great science popularizer, as well as an eminent scientist. One of my favorite stories about his was that he once got Hans Bethe and another physicist named Alpher to co-author a paper with him so he could call it the "Alpher-Bethe-Gamow Theory". (Which explained how Dorothy could fall into the Pacific off Australia and Peter into the Atlantic off Cape Hatteras and both end up in the Nonestic near Ev...no, it really didn't, but I had to tie it back to Oz somehow!) David Hulan ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 22:24:53 -0800 (PST) From: ahclem@netcom.com (Ken Cope) Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-01-96 Let's see how many Oz topix I can crowd in here...Flatland, the fourth dimension, Theosophy, FTP, Oz and digital media, Heinlein, Barsoom, you get the picture. For a wonderful exposition about 19th century spiritualism and bizarre mathematics, I highly recommend tracking down a book by cyberpunk author and college professor Rudy Rucker entitled The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes in which he provides even a bio of Flatland Author Abbott. It was thought that higher dimensions might provide a rational explanation for phenomena such as table tapping and apportations from the beyond. In one of Heinlein's last novels, he posited that infinity is really, really big.(a stretch, I know) Big enough to include an infinity of alternate universes, including fictional ones. Characters in The Number of The Beast (because there were six to the sixth to the sixth bazillion accessible alternate branched universes) were able to use their universe-hopping spacecraft (christened The Gay Deceiver) to visit even fictional universes such as the one where Mars was Barsoom. I won't spoil it for those who haven't yet read it, but Glinda naturally provides a wonderfully practical gift for her visitors. Oz in Vegas? I can't do it justice, but the Flying Monkey Bar is a treat, and it actually is worth your wait to enter the gate to the Emerald City and witness a delightful magic show in the round that uses patter that paid more attention than it might have to the Famous Forty. In all, a far more satisfying experience than the stop in Munchkinland in the Great American Movie Ride at the MGM Studio Tour at Disney World, with the badly animated Sarcos figure of the W W of the W and a pile of Munchkin Mannequins bobbing on teeter totters at you. I was being paid to experience that at the time, you have been warned. You have also been warned about the sight of Glinda surrounded by slot machines. Threats to the contrary, I never expect to find Oz in Kansas. A call to the gift shop at the MGM grand will get you a copy of the Legends of Oz CD-ROM and a copy of the Wizard of Oz video game for the Super NES. The Super Nes isn't as awful as you might think. They'll set you back about sixty bucks a pop, and might let you say hi to Roger, usually holding court. I have on back order from a different source a triple CD-ROM called The Yellow Brick Road for which I saw an announcement last year at E3. It was made in Japan, probably the only hard digital media pertaining to Oz out there that doesn't have the name Turner stamped on it. The main trouble I have with Turner, is that it is in his best interest to assert that The Wizard of Oz is the ONLY Oz story. The awful animated series from DIC is a typical example, always trying to escape the WW of the W. I think of Wicked (liked) and Barnstormer (didn't) as Alternate Histories, like the Steampunk from Gibson's/Sterling's The Difference Engine, where Babbage's Calculating Machine made the information Age happen a century earlier. The trouble with Hereticals is that they are best appreciated by scorning Canonicals. I do think Heinlein's and Rucker's multiple alternate worlds help blur the edges made by such harsh distinctions. I am enjoying the talk about the actual dimensions of Oz, I favor variable, I wouldn't be surprised if the Yellow Brick Road conveys its travelers at a rate faster than allowed by their footwork, a la the magic roads in Patchwork Girl. While I miss some of Baum's original words, I would more sorely miss future afterwords from Peter Glassman. I wonder if there are any additional coffee mugs commemorating his newest Oz publications. Peter, when you release Tik-Tok, be on the look out for those who would correct the compass directions on the endpapers. It has happened in The Oz Scrapbook and Who's Who in Oz. I will need to call the store again to get back on the mailing list and get caught up on all the Oz material he provides. I am lucky enough to have a lot of (new to me) Oz books to look forward to reading, and the blessing of this Digest to bring together so many storytellers of Oz. (AOL has some help functions under Internet Connection, look for FTP Connection, otherwise I'll be happy to mail it to you if you need it.) Eric, let me know when the FAQ is ready for public perusal, I'd like to be among the websites making sure its always available. This run-on rant has eschewed punctuation to make Dave's job slightly easier. -- Ken Cope Ones & Zeroes SurReal Estate ahclem@netcom.com http://www.ozcot.com/ ============================================================================= THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 3, 1996 ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 08:32:26 -0500 (EST) From: Michael F Burns Subject: Sherlock Holmes in Oz This story was first published in the first issue of Oziana in 1971. It involves the theft of the Rainbow Pearl, which has been given to Ozma by Prince Inga of Pingaree as a symbol of the friendship that exists between Oz and Pingaree. The Pearl glows with the colors of the rainbow and has the magical ability to turn aside water. That is, it can change the course of rivers and move rain to where it is most needed. The Pearl is stolen after a banquet and when a search of the palace fails to turn up the Pearl or the thief, the Scarecrow suggests they hire Sherlock Holmes to find the Pearl. The Wizard of Oz and Ozma prepare a spell and use the Nome Kings's Magic Belt to summon a very surprised Dr. Watson and a not-so-surprised Sherlock Holmes to the palace. If you can dig up Oziana #1, do so. If not, the story is available in the anthology: The Game is Afoot-Parodies, Pastiches, and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Marvin Kaye and published by St. Martin's in hc in 1994 and in trade paperback in 1995. Libraries and specialty book stores should still have it. Sir Harold and the Gnome King was originally published in the World Fantasy Convention booklet for that convention in 1990. It was published separately in a small hardcover editon and a trade paper edition by Green Tiger Press. Part of a series of stories involving the adventures of a pair of psychology grad students, later professors, who used symbolic logic formulas to transport themselves to different mythological or legendary or fictional worlds. They visit, besides Oz, the Finnish Kalevala, the world of The Faerie Queene, Ireland in the age of Heroes, the Arabian Nights and others. This is on the whole a fun series of stories. ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 12:17:53 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: The Twenty-Four Rulers of Oz and other stuff 1) I might as well give my own opinions on pronounciation, as as they're based upon my research into Old Ozzish, feel free to attack them on the basis of Laumer's research into the same language. Evoldo is really Ev Oldaus, so the pronounciation is something like /ev Ol-dows/. Kalidah is a contraction of kali ("tiger") and dah ("bear"), so it is pronounced /KA-li-DAH/.=20 2) All I remember on where Mrs. Pastoria II's name is mentioned in The Annotated Wizard of Oz is that it is mentioned in connection with the play version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, so it should be in that thick section preceding the actual text of Baum's book. 3) I remember something about the number of kingdoms in Oz being mentioned in the beginning of a chapter about Patch in The Gnome King of Oz, but I'm not sure about this. 4) Anyone have any data on how many Ozroars there have been? So far I have been assuming only two. 5) Speaking of rulers of Oz, I have drawn up a list of rulers of Oz while working on The Woozy of Oz (in a contest, the Angry Kalidah and the Sawhorse get asked who was the 17th ruler of Oz, so the answer had to be invented). Working with the assumptions that rulers get replaced about every 30 years and that Oz (or rather originally the Four Countries) was united about 1200, I decided that so far there have been 24 people with the title Oz or Ozma. At first I started filling in names which I had decided I wanted in there, but then I took to filling in first names from yesterday's Ozzy Digest. I am curious as to whether anyone out there has any objections to this, based on them not liking their names being used or for historical reasons. Below is said list, all the names being given formally in Old Ozzish, the numbers being the year of the ascention to the throne. 1198 Oz Roarus I 1219 Oz Barukhus 1254 Oz Hovedayaus 1289 Oz Yohananus 1323 Oz Tailerus 1339 Ozma Skregalima 1366 Oz Petrus 1399 Oz Tippetarius I 1429 Ozma Robinma 1462 Oz Ojaus 1489 Oz Aharonus (probably popularly called Oz Aaron the Blunt) 1515 Oz Davidus 1553 Oz Pastoria I 1587 Oz Markus 1610 Oz Tippetarius II 1638 Ozma Glindma 1671 Oz Mikaelus 1708 Oz Robertus 1729 Oz Tippetarius III 1757 Oz Erikus 1773 Oz Skottus 1801 Oz Roarus II Boz 1823 Oz Pastorius II 1851 1903 Ozma (full name generally unknown; those who know are sworn not to tell) Note: Ozma Glindma is (probably) not Glinda the Good/Ambiguous/Perfect. Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 12:50:43 -0500 From: Nathan Faut Subject: Glass Cat of Oz Dave and friends, I _JUST_ received my copy of Glass Cat, the 350th signed edition, out of 350 signed editions (PHEW!), and was *startled* to notice that the copyright page is in error -- did anyone else notice that? It credits the book as being The Magic Dishpan of Oz! What a revolting development! I certainly expect and hope that the rest of the book is the Glass Cat of Oz. I _have_ Magic Dishpan (haven't read it yet, but will soon), but haven't checked to see if its copyright page is mixed up with Glass Cat, yet. What does this do to the value of the edition? I mean it Tricky Dick's (Richard Nixon, for those of you who missed Watergate et.al.) mis-printed stamp can increase in value because of its mistake, why not this book? Another textual point. I am constantly amazed at the reprints. I have three different copies of Emerald City of Oz -- a 1930s edition, lacking color plates; a Rand McNally large-edition paperback (my first copy, now more than 20 years in my possession, I'm 34), and lastly the reprint from BoW. Now, SOMEWHERE in there, you'd figure that SOMEONE would correct typographical errors -- nope. Page 200, near the bottom. Dorothy is trying to gain entrance to Bunnybury, and the gatekeeper rabbit is giving her a hard time. He says to Dorothy, "No, Pincess," obviously mistaking the Princess for someone more like an angry goose or closely related to a recessed Pincushion. For more than 90 years, that typo has existed in every edition. So much for progress ... Another textual point. I have an unusual later printing of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. The paper, cover and binding all point to a WWII printing -- no color plates, the cover is the Wizard and the piglets but no Dorothy, the colors seem more watered down than non-WWII editions, that pages browned easily, the paper is thinner than the older editions, etc. But the side binding is upside down! I mentioned this in a letter to the IWOC, I think to Douglas Greene directly in fact, but he replied he had never heard of that before. So, surprise, surprise. Anyone else seen/heard of this particular printing and printing error? Nathan +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Nathan Faut e-mail address: faut@nih.gov +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ The National Institutes of Health Division of Computer Research and Technology Laurie Anderson: "Paradise is a lot like where you are right now, only much much better." ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 14:23:09 -0500 From: HermBieber@aol.com Subject: oz Mail Group [Forwarded to the Digest for the book info -- Dave] Dear Dave, Bill Wright (piglet@halcyon.com) told me you run an internet Oz group, and that I can get involved in this by e-mailing you. My daughter, Judy, and I are long-time Oz enthusiasts. I am currently on the board of directors of the International Wizard of Oz Club. I also have a mail order hobby book business (Oz and Ends Book Shoppe) to dispose of surplus books as we upgrade our collection, so I maybe able to help your members find things at what we feel are low prices, compared to most book dealers who have to make a living off books. So please sign me up. Many thanks.. Herman Bieber ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 14:29:49 -0500 (EST) From: Tyler Jones Subject: Ozzy DIgest Due to my error yesterday, I have two digests to respond to (groan) I have to break one of Daves rules :( but I will be brief :) HA! Me be brief? Not likely! :) Somebody (I deleted the message so I don't know who it was) e-mailed me to "correct" my joke about the 76 GOP freshman vs. our 32 (and 27) freshmen members of the Ozzy digest. Yes, Mr. X, you are correct when you say that according to the AP (and Congress itself) there are 74 of these guys. Congress and I have a slight difference of opinion concerning the definition of incumbency. E-mail me privately if you want an explanation of this fascinating topic! But I'm right and they're wrong!!!! :):):) I really ought to stop deleting mail so quickly. I know nothing about Theosophy, so I will leave this to the experts. I am with Barry, that the reporting directions for east-west simply got garbled from time to time and the Munchkins have always been in the East and the Winkies have always been in the west. Of course, Laumers book has an interesting explanation and one advantage of inconsistencies is that people write books to explain them, and the more Oz books, the better. FYI, many people seem confused about what Laumer meant with the east-west thing. Laumer did not claim that Baum originally intended for the East to be yellow, he said that Baum SHOULD have made the east yellow and the west blue so we could have a golden dawn and "the blue of the evening". He didn't do that, though, and that's that. Except for Till Orangespiegal, though, but that's another story... I do not think that we are getting to serious over the east-west topic (or any other topic, for that matter). Part of the purpose of this digest is to examine the series, discuss it, and hopefully come up with a better understanding of Oz and ideas for more Oz books. Maybe Oz is not as big as Colorado. I've never been to Vermont, but your question reminds me of Bob Newhart telling Larry, Daryl and Daryl that God wanted them to "take a lap around the county". Maybe they would know if their state is big enough. I like the idea of these strange kingdoms appearing and disappearing at will, but I've taken it a little further: The countries themselves are not really in Oz; they exist in hyper-dimensional bubbles with a magical link to Oz. Using Aarons magic machine terminology, the link could be an address pointing to an area of memory in the super- Universe. These countries ("billions and billions" of countries) are permanent in their 4D-bubbles, but the LINKS come and go. This explains, for example, why Dorothy could make the trip between E.C. and the castle of the Tin Woodman dozens of times, yet get lost and meet new countries every time. This way, the countries could get re-visited sometimes, but would not always have to be there. In this way, a kingdom could be of substantial size, yet take up a very small space in Oz. Also, you could have dozens of them in a relatively small area. This theory is supported by the fact that many of these kingdoms do not seem to know of the Land of Oz at all. You could still have a country approximately 50 times bigger than Skampavia yet also have many many kingdoms and lots of other wide open spaces. Furthermore, there is now no limit to the number of Oz books we can write or the number of strange kingdoms. Of course, some of them really ARE in the Land of Oz, such as Pumperdink. The number of kingdoms listed somewhere in the Thompson series was at best a guess. After all, they discover new ones every day. If anyone is interested, I say ee-VAWL-doh and KAH-lih-dah. Someone already mentioned this, but Queen Coo-Ee-Oh in GLINDA OF OZ claimed to be a Krumbic Witch, much more powerful than other withces, although there is no evidence for this, and we do not know what makes a Krumbic witch different from other witches. The Oz theme park is (last I heard) scheduled to open sometime around 2000. Based on the MGM movie, it will have Munchkinland, a mock-up of the Emerald City, and, believe it or not, Glindas "northern" kingdom, a land of snow and ice! Since the movie gave no info about Glindas home, they chose to make up completely new stuff instead of using the books. I don't know too much else about it, however. When I redux the HACC, I will include a "status code" for each book, which will tell us if it's FF, another publisher, private pub or out of print. This will come out at the same time as my new Web Page. Web Page '96 has been delayed, but it will be out soon. ENCAHNTED ISLE OF YEW is tenuous at best to be included in the Oz Universe. It is entirely self-contained. It mentions nothing outside of Yew and has no characters from other books. Other books do not mention Yew at all. It was put on the map of Oz and surrounding countries only because Baum wrote it, and people have just assumed it was there. For the sake of arguement, I will assume that it IS in the Nonestic, the Oz folk just haven't discovered it yet. As for cartoons, I saw "Dorothy and the Green Gobbler" or "Thanksgiving in Oz". This had the song "A bone in your back, beans in your button, and a heart that wants to believe". I also have seen some of the series on HBO called "The Wizard of Oz", which blends in some elements from the movie and book two, along with some new elements. Any comments from people? ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 16:44:02 -0500 (EST) From: David Bedell Subject: Who's Who in Oz I checked the IWOC Special Publications page and I see they also have Who's Who in Oz (178pp, illus., cloth, $16). Is this the same edition as those at Books of Wonder? If different, can anyone compare them? David Bedell, University of Bridgeport, CT, USA ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 10:57:46 -0800 (PST) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-02-96 > From: David A Gerstein > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-29-96 > > AARON: > "Also: I have heard that a scene was cut from the MGM movie in > which some sort of creature called jitterbugs appear? What are they?" > You may recall that in the original _Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, > the Wicked Witch sent bumblebees to destroy our heroes on their way to > her dwelling. This MGM sequence was their adaptation of that, > although it changed the bees to mosquitos. Our heroes danced and sang > while fighting the mosquitos off, thus producing a cheerful musical > number at exactly the wrong time in the film. When MGM saw how this > looked in context, they axed the sequence. > As of a few years ago, this scene was missing; all that > existed were some clumsily-filmed bits of rehearsals for it. Did part > of the final version, or any other lost material, appear on that > Turner "Ultimate Oz" disc in 1993? Does someone know? No, the same stuff that was on the 50th anniversary video was also in "The Ultimate Oz." I think all of the leads on finding the actual film have dried up by now. > From: "W. R. Wright" > Subject: BB > >> Aaron Adelman said: >> Baum's version of Button-Bright's name is Baum being silly; "von Smith" is >> really impossible unless somebody decided to change their surname >> arbitrarily, since "von" is used with place-names in German and "Smith" is >>an occupation-name. > >and Eric replied: >>Don't forget, Button-Bright can't remember large parts of his own name. >>Maybe there's something that belongs in between the "von" and "Smith." > > Button-Bright himself said their was more to his name, but he couldn't > remember it........ Er, isn't this what I said in my earlier reply? > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: Life under Bastinda's rule I just want to add here that Bastinda is Aleksandr Volkov's name for the Wicked Witch of the West. The name has NO basis at all in the FF, and the only author I know of who uses the name is March Laumer, whose books I consider not to be part of "real" Oz, but a parallel universe. > 2) Scott, I've been to Books of Wonder and seen that bookshelf and seen > those early edition Oz books. They have some not-so-early edition Oz > books there, such as a few Del Rey Thompsons (at $17(!) each), and a > few of the less well known titles in the HACC as well. Er, Peter, if you're still reading these Digests, do you guys happen to have a copy of "Mister Flint in Oz"? That's the only Buckethead book I don't have now, and I'd like to get it... > From: Sheryl Ramage > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest > > Hi, > I'm new to the list and have enjoyed reading all of it. Someone > mentioned the TNT special. I didn't like it because of the woman who > played Dorothy. Her voice drove me crazy a good deal of the time. Well *I* liked her. (It doesn't hurt that Jewel also looks an awful lot like Neill's Dorothy, and she did an Elvis impression during "The Jitterbug." But she -- nor nearly anybody else -- could ever hold a candle to Judy, of course...) > The > idea was interestering and I was waiting for it eagerly but I was > disappointed. Once I kept telling myself that this was a concert, not a stage recreation of the movie, I was able to accept it on those terms. If others were expecting a full-blown stage adaptation, I can see how they'd be disappointed. > I did like the boy who played Toto, he was cute and barked > his lines well. I liked him, too. He stole large parts of the show! > Part of my Oz collection is many different cartoon > versions. Some are ok and some are interestering. One version has a > gangster and a machine gun!! Has anyone ever seen any of the cartoons, > and if so what do you think of them? Could you be a bit more specific? There are dozens of cartoon versions out there. (One of my favorites is the Sugar and Spice version, with the Tin Woodman doing an Arnold Schwartzenegger impression and lots of dumb jokes thrown in, a la the Hope/Crosby "Road" movies.) And might you have episodes of "Tales of the Wizard of Oz"? I have most of them, but I want to get ahold of the four that I'm missing... > From: DavidXOE@aol.com > Subject: Ozzy Digest 2/1/96 > > I've never read WAS, but according to the reviews I've read it's a book > wherein Dorothy was first sexually abused by Uncle Henry and later by Baum, > but who told some of her fantasies to the latter and found them published in > a best-selling children's book. As far as I know, Oz wasn't a real place in > that book, which puts it so far outside that it's not even heretical. No, Baum didn't abuse Dorothy in "Was," but with all the other disgusting stuff in there he may as well have. There's also a lot about Judy Garland and her mother (most of it made up, I'm sure) and others whom Oz has affected, but no, no sign of the actual Oz. > Eric Gjovaag: > > There's certainly nothing connecting "Yew" and Oz, but I didn't know that > there was anything definitely separating them, either. Give a quick > explanation? Okay, everybody, pull out your copies of "Yew" and look at the last chapter. (Possible minor spoilers here, thsoe of you who haven't read "The Enchanted Island of Yew" and want to be TOTALLY surprised may want to skip to the next note now.) When the Red Rogue of Dawna is released from his enchantment, Baum wrote: "He wandered out and found strange scenes confronting him, for during the hundred years a great change had taken place in the Enchanted Island. Great cities had been built and great kingdoms established. Civilization had won the people, and they no longer robbed or fought or indulged in magical arts, but were busily employed and leading respectable lives." So now Yew is civilized. But as the Good Witch of the North pointed out in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," Oz has never been civilized, and I think we can extend that fact to the rest of the lands found in the Oz books. Therefore, Yew can not be part of the same world as Oz. QED. > BoW is "one of the world's largest bookstores"? Maybe, if that includes all > their stock they have off-site, but as a store it's not that big. I know of > at least ten in Orange County that have more books on display and more square > footage of sale space than BoW. It's arguably the biggest bookstore I've seen > that specializes in children's books - at least, one of the two or three > biggest. But that's all. Yeah, yeah, I mistyped. I meant "one of the world's largest CHILDREN'S bookstores." I've never been there myself, but I would be GREATLY surprised if it was any larger than Elliot Bay Books here in Seattle or Powell's in Portland (or, if we're talking used/antiquarian books, Shorey's here in Seattle). > I haven't read the unexpurgated "Woggle-bug Book", no. But I wasn't counting > it as a "book", since it was at least my impression that it was just a > collection of newspaper installments. No, "The Woggle-Bug Book" is not a collection of the newspaper comic, but a continuation. I bought the facsimile that came out back in the early 80's, and the edited version in "Third Book" is MUCH less offensive... > From: ahclem@netcom.com (Ken Cope) > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-01-96 > > Eric, let me know when the FAQ is > ready for public perusal, I'd like to be among the websites making sure its > always available. I hope to at least start getting a ready-for-the-public version ready this weekend, as for once I have no family obligations or parties or other events clogging up my free time. But I plan on putting an HTML version on my OWN Web page (yes, you heard it here first, folks, I'm going to finally get my own website going), which of course everyone is welcome tolink to their own pages. What I had in mind, Ken, was an archive site that DOESN'T need a web browser, for FTP retrieval or something similar. Anyone want to take it (and all future versions)? --Eric "Then, once I get the FAQ up, wait until you see what ELSE I can do with my website!" Gjovaag ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 10:21:55 -0800 (PST) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-01-96 > From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN > Subject: Del Rey > > I have a copy of the Del Rey edition of _The Patchwork Girl of Oz_, and the > text has not been altered. I also have some of the Del Rey editions of the > Thompson books, and the portions with problematic material have not been > expurgated either. Based on this, as well as the continued publication of > unaltered versions of books like _Peter Pan_, I'm not quite sure that the > arguement that the books have to be expurgated to be published holds water. Okay, yes, sorry now, I'll just stop being the Peter Glassman apologist. Even though he is an actual bookseller and children's book publisher, it's obvious that everybody else here on the 'Net is more familiar with both fields than him, and his opinions or my defenses of him hold no weight or bearing whatsoever, and so I'll just shut up about the whole issue now. You are welcome to read whatever edition of "Patchwork Girl" you choose, and believe whatever you want about the current changes. Can we move on to something ELSE now? > Is it just me or is everyone being a bit too serious about the east-west > reversal problem? A much simpler explaination would be that there were > reporting errors as to the directions (which happens at the time) and that the > Wogglebug, when he drew the broad outlines of the map, just happened to be > wearing his experimental image-reversing goggles which he made for a > perceptual > study and then forgot to change it. Actually (as I've stated before), this is not as far off from the truth as you may think, seeing as how the original map of Oz was a colored slide used in the Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, with the compass rose correct and the Winkies to the left and the Munchkins to the right. In "Tha Annotated 'Wizard of Oz'" (where the slide was published, and which I might add would be a welcome addition, with some updates and additional notes, to Oz libraries for the centennial in four years) Michael Patrick Hearn speculates that Baum (or a Reilly and Britton artist) may have looked at this slide backwards when making the map of Oz in "Tik-Tok," which would explain the reversed "W" and "E" on the compass rose. A later R&B editor, noticing the "W" and "E" in the wrong places, later "corrected" them, thus causing all the problems we have now... > From: Tyler Jones > Subject: Ozzy Digest > > When building the HACC, we decided to inlcude only books that actually took > place in the Land of Oz itself. The other books, such as those Aaron > mentioned, take place in the Oz "Universe" and really deserve a list of > their own. But that list is so short anyway, may as well include it in the HACC, right? (Okay, since "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" covers such a HUGE period of time, that may be hard to place, but the others should slip in quite easily.) > I for one would gladly buy Oz Squad comics from Peter Glassman if he was to > offer them in his catalog. He may, however, feel that these are too "adult" to include in "The Oz Collector." Or he may not be able to get them, for whatever reason... > No, Dave, I have not read SPHERELAND, although it sounds cool... Real quick recap, then: It's a sequel to "Flatland" (DUH!), told by one of A. Square's grandsons, which goes into further details of that 2-D world, and took into account the theory of relativity and other more recent mathematical and scientific theories. (I now have a MUCH better idea of what 4-D space is thanks to this book, for instance.) No, I don't know who the author is. Has anybody ever heard of a film version of "Flatland"? Apparently there was one... > From: David Bedell > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-31-96 > > First posting--I'm a new subscriber, but an old IWOC alumnus. > > Yes, I've read _Flatland_ & _Sphereland_. Just finished _Wicked_. Can > someone refresh my memory as to Krumbic witches? I don't recall that > reference. In "Glinda of Oz," Coo-ee-oh refers to herself as one. > Just got the BoW catalog and have two questions: Wasn't D&T originally > illustrated by Denslow? Why did BoW prefer to commission new > illustrations by Donald Abbott? Yes to the first question. I suspect the reason for the reillustration is because the originals were all printed in colors -- no black for outlines -- and would have been quite difficult to recreate in black and white without redrawing them anyway. (I have a 1920 reprint of "Dot and Tot," and the publishers chose to eliminate one color from the illos. -- which means about a third of each picture is missing, and some of the results are quite odd.) While Donald Abbott is the natural choice for a new illustrator, I wonder why he did all new pictures, and didn't redraw Denslow's originals as line drawings. > Also, has anyone purchased their _Who's Who in Oz_? They say their copies > are remainders from the last publisher. Was that Reilly & Lee? Are these > illustrated? Comparable to early editions? Quite comparable, nearly identical to the R&L editions, with the illos. in red ink. But no updating, sad to say. (It was a different publisher than R&L, but I can't remember who it was right off the top of my head. They reprinted it a few years ago.) The International Wizard of Oz Club also has this version for sale as well. > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: Jitterbugs and other stuff > > 1) I think I should have been more specific when asking for information > about jitterbugs. What I wanted to know is what type of creatures they > are and what they are supposed to do to people. Are you SERIOUSLY going to make a movie reference in your book? Oh, all right. From the existing footage we've never actually seen the Jitterbug (only one, I think, was mentioned in the movie), but ISTR the script saying that it was a pink-and-blue-striped mosquito-like insect. His sting caused the sting-ee to break into "jitters" and start to dance like mad until they collapsed from exhaustion. (Question is, how could the sting affect the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman?) > Also: Someone please open a copy of The Annotated Wizard of Oz and find > out the name of Mrs. Pastoria II in the play. You're really making me do some research today, aren't you? According to the summary of the play's plot in "The Oz Scrapbook," Pastoria was accompanied from Topeka by a waitress named Tryxie Tryfle, but whether or not they were even romantically involved (she was NOT his wife, I know that for certain) I can't tell. In some of the Buckethead books, BTW, Ozma's mother/Pastoria's wife is named Ozette. > (I'm still surprised no one has objected to the idea. Is this something > which is intrinsically so sensible that no one can find anything wrong > with it?) Aaron, most of your ideas are, IMHO, so ludicrous that I haven't bothered to say anything, because it is your book, after all. So what's one more? > 6) On the name Ozma Tippetarius from Wicked: Baum had to set a precedent > in The Marvelous Land of Oz by giving a character a Latinate name with an > ending of the opposite gender attached (Pastoria, rather than Pastorius), > which the author of Wicked had to copy (Tippetarius, rather than > Tippetaria). Anyone have any idea how Baum made such a blunder in the > first place? (Didn't take Latin in college, perhaps?) Didn't GO to college! Baum's only formal education was two years in military school. He mostly learned from private tutors. (But who ever said these were Latin names in the first place?) > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: Ozroar > > Also: Is there a source for Ozma's grandfather being named Ozroar > besides the afformentioned book? Robert R. Pattrick's series of essays "Unexplored Territory in Oz." Although the name Ozroar is an invention of Fred Meyer's. Ozroar later appears in fiction in Henry Blossom's "The Blue Emperor of Oz." > From: Bob Shepherd > Subject: Oz Theme Park in Kansas > > Hi - I'm one of the newbies that just got hooked into the Ozzy Digest > this week. I've really enjoyed reading all of the Oz related > discussions, although some of the acronyms threw me for a loop until > I could get them figured out! Just ask, I'm sure many of us will explain them. > From: DavidXOE@aol.com > Subject: Ozzy Digest 1/31/96 > > Mark Semich: > Certainly some of the ECP Oz books are very short, really hardly longer than > some of the individual "Little Wizard Stories". But some of them are at least > a fair approximation of the length of the original books - G THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 4, 1996 ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 03:04:44 -0800 (PST) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-03-96 > From: Michael F Burns > Subject: Sherlock Holmes in Oz > > This story was first published in the first issue of Oziana in 1971 ... > If you can dig up Oziana #1, do so. If not, the story is available in the > anthology: The Game is Afoot-Parodies, Pastiches, and Ponderings of > Sherlock Holmes, edited by Marvin Kaye and published by St. Martin's in > hc in 1994 and in trade paperback in 1995. Libraries and specialty book > stores should still have it. This should be the impetus needed, IMHO, for anthology reprints of "Oziana." Say, a 70's edition covering 1971-1979, and an 80's edition covering 1980-1989. (All you Club Directors on this list, are you listening?) > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: The Twenty-Four Rulers of Oz and other stuff > > 4) Anyone have any data on how many Ozroars there have been? So far I > have been assuming only two. Since there are no Ozroars whatsoever in the FF, and only two (so far as I know) appearing in any other books ("Lurline" and "Blue Emperor" -- assuming these are two separate rulers, which may not be the case, depending on your own beliefs of Ozian history), you can put in as many Ozroars as you want. > From: Nathan Faut > Subject: Glass Cat of Oz > > Dave and friends, > > I _JUST_ received my copy of Glass Cat, the 350th signed edition, out of 350 > signed editions (PHEW!), and was *startled* to notice that the copyright > page is in error -- did anyone else notice that? It credits the book as > being The Magic Dishpan of Oz! What a revolting development! I certainly > expect and hope that the rest of the book is the Glass Cat of Oz. I _have_ > Magic Dishpan (haven't read it yet, but will soon), but haven't checked to > see if its copyright page is mixed up with Glass Cat, yet. Yeah, I noticed that error, too, in my paperback edition. Don't worry about it, it's just one of those boo-boos that creep into all publishers' books at one time or another. Since "Magic Dishpan" came out a year or two ago, before "Glass Cat," I suspect that title page is correct. > Another textual point. I am constantly amazed at the reprints. I > have three different copies of Emerald City of Oz -- a 1930s edition, > lacking color plates; a Rand McNally large-edition paperback (my first copy, > now more than 20 years in my possession, I'm 34), and lastly the reprint > from BoW. Now, SOMEWHERE in there, you'd figure that SOMEONE would correct > typographical errors -- nope. Page 200, near the bottom. Dorothy is trying > to gain entrance to Bunnybury, and the gatekeeper rabbit is giving her a > hard time. He says to Dorothy, "No, Pincess," obviously mistaking the > Princess for someone more like an angry goose or closely related to a > recessed Pincushion. For more than 90 years, that typo has existed in every > edition. So much for progress ... Well, I just hope that when either BoW or the Oz Club reprints "Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz," they do a THOROUGH job on the editing, since that's one of the worst copy edited books I've ever read. All kinds of misplaced or missing punctuation all over the place, various little misspellings... Cor, if it wasn't such a fun read, it would really get my feathers up... > From: HermBieber@aol.com > Subject: oz Mail Group [Forwarded to the Digest for the book info -- Dave] > > Dear Dave, > > Bill Wright (piglet@halcyon.com) told me you run an internet Oz group, and > that I can get involved in this by e-mailing you. > My daughter, Judy, and I are long-time Oz enthusiasts. I am currently on the > board of directors of the International Wizard of Oz Club. I also have a > mail order hobby book business (Oz and Ends Book Shoppe) to dispose of > surplus books as we upgrade our collection, so I maybe able to help your > members find things at what we feel are low prices, compared to most book > dealers who have to make a living off books. So please sign me up. Many > thanks.. HERM! Good to have you here! Folks, I just want to say that Herm and Judy are a terrific asset to Oz collectors, as Oz and Ends is the place to get Oz books, IMHO. They have a wide variety of titles, EXCELLENT prices (I picked up a color "Kabumpo" in jacket from them once for only $80!), and their copies are complete, even if that means inserting a xerox to replace torn or missing pages. Once I have some money and I can start getting older color-plate editions of the Thompson books again, these are the folks I'm going to first. I HIGHLY recommend them! > From: Tyler Jones > Subject: Ozzy DIgest > > I do not think that we are getting to serious over the east-west topic (or > any other topic, for that matter). Part of the purpose of this digest is to > examine the series, discuss it, and hopefully come up with a better > understanding of Oz and ideas for more Oz books. Perhaps, but Oz is also supposed to be fun, and I'm not sure some people here are taking the whole thing lightly enough... > The countries themselves are not really in Oz; they exist in hyper-dimensional > bubbles with a magical link to Oz. You're kidding, right? (Anybody here ever hear of the KISS rule: Keep it simple and sweet? Do we REALLY need these hyper-convoluted explanations for things that don't need a lot of explanation?) > Someone already mentioned this, but Queen Coo-Ee-Oh in GLINDA OF OZ claimed > to be a Krumbic Witch, much more powerful than other withces, although there > is no evidence for this, and we do not know what makes a Krumbic witch > different from other witches. ...except for their use of machinery and technology. > From: David Bedell > Subject: Who's Who in Oz > > I checked the IWOC Special Publications page and I see they also have > Who's Who in Oz (178pp, illus., cloth, $16). Is this the same edition as > those at Books of Wonder? If different, can anyone compare them? Nope, no need to. They're all the same edition. > From: Dave Hardenbrook > Subject: Various Subjects > > Baum's Education: > Maybe everyone can clear up something for me -- I heard a long time ago > that even after Baum's worse-than-living-under-Bastinda's-rule > experience at military academy, he turned right around and sent his > sons to military academy as well! Is this true? > (Or rather, *Say it ain't so!!!*) Er, um, I would, but my mommy told me not to lie. Yeah, 'fraid so, Baum sent two of his sons to military school. (And don't forget, Frank J. Baum was a career soldier, serving in both world wars.) Why do I get the feeling, though, that it was Maud, the rock in the family, who made the decision to send them? --Eric "Should I change my name on this list to 'Dave' so as to avoid any confusion?" Gjovaag ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 16:44:37 -0500 From: HermBieber@aol.com Subject: Oz File [Forwarded to the Digest -- Dave] Dear Dave, Thanks for the fast service in sending the Oz file. I downloaded it, and when I tried to read it, I got the following message. "This document is too large to be opened by simple text" I am a fairly novice computer user, and have a Mac Quadra 610. My software is Microsoft Word 6.0, and also Claris. Any suggestions on how to proceed, or should I ask Apple or AOL. Appreciate any advice you may have. Regards, Herm [Please send replies privately to Herm as his system seems to be rejecting the Digest; I didn't realize the Digests were *THAT* large! -- Dave] ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 19:21:58 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: Bastinda and other stuff 1) I realise that Bastinda is not a name used in the FF, but in The Woozy of Oz my coauthor and I have the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wicked Witch of the East show up and interact with people who know them personally, people who would speak to them using their first names, so since we wanted to avoid such awkward sentences as "So, Wicked Witch of the East, how are you feeling today?" we accepted Laumer's precedent for calling them Bastinda and Gigemma. 2) Currently I'm only toying with including jitterbugs in the Lurline's Machine series (The Woozy of Oz + Hiergargo and the Queasy in Oz + A Civil War in Oz + ... + Till Lurline Returns to Oz). In such a case they'll probably get twisted in some way. For comparison, the Royal Literary Critic of Oz and I are thinking of having Ev invade Oz and have Evardo XV have as one of his grudges that years earlier Ozma turned down his marriage proposal, which is without question a spoof of Ozma marrying Evardo in Sir Harold and the Gnome King. 3) Mrs. Pastoria begin named Ozette? OK...Anyone out there have any more precedents for names of the royal family of Oz? Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 19:45:53 -0500 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest, 2/3/96 I successfully downloaded the December Ozzy Digest files last night and read them. I have a few things to say (I'd have a lot more if I indulged myself, but why strain the Net), which I'll do at the end of this posting if I don't think it's too long by the time I've commented on yesterday's posts. Mike Burns: Oziana #1 is probably not that easy to dig up, but "The Game's Afoot" ought to be something I could find, and probably should have in my library anyhow. Thanks for the info. As I said earlier, "Sir Harold and the Nome King" is probably easiest to find in the mass PB THE ENCHANTER REBORN - I can check the publisher if anybody wants to know, but just look in used bookstores under "de Camp" and you should be able to find it. Aaron Adelman: So how are you doing research into Old Ozzish, or does this really mean that you're making it up? I looked at the section about the play in THE ANNOTATED WIZARD and didn't see anything about Mrs. Pastoria II. Sorry. And Pastoria isn't in the index. Nathan Faut: You can bet that -I- noticed the incorrect title on the copyright page of GLASS CAT! Besides that, the ISBN numbers on that page are dummies, both ending in "HH-H" instead of "44-6" for the HC and "45-4" for the PB. However, the rest of the book is completely different. As to what value it might add to the book, probably nothing, since every copy printed has the same error. Of course, if it becomes wildly popular and they have to go into a second and third printing, and they correct the error in those, then the erroneous copyright page would be proof of a first printing. (Naturally I hope it becomes wildly popular and goes into a second and third printing, but I'm not holding my breath...) I'd be more excited at the news that your copy is the 350th signed edition if I didn't know that they don't ship them in order of number; I had one batch of HCs shipped to me with numbers ranging from 64 to 331. So I doubt if the collector's edition is already sold out. Since my understanding of my contract is that I only get royalties on the PBs, it doesn't mean anything to me financially one way or the other. There are quite a few typos in the original editions of the Oz books, and later editions don't seem to have corrected them. I know that "Lond of Oz" shows up in the BoW edition of DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD, as it has in every copy I've seen. Tyler Jones: Putting the mysterious little kingdoms of Oz into fourth-dimensional warps is certainly one way to accommodate an indefinitely large number of new places in Oz without having to make it so large that travel times get unreasonable, in a place where most travel is on shank's mare. I don't think it's really necessary, since as I said virtually all the "countries" we encounter in Oz are less than a mile square - most of them much less. Take a look at the map - only a handful are big enough to actually show boundaries, as opposed to being identified by a dot on the map. I don't actually remember but once that Dorothy got lost between the Tin Woodman's castle and the EC (in GRAMPA) - refresh my memory? Or are the other cases all in books outside the FF, IWOC, and BoW publications? Eric Gjovaag: The fact that Yew is civilized doesn't -necessarily- mean that it's not in the Oz universe; it certainly lowers the probability, but it doesn't rule it out entirely. We only know for sure that Oz itself isn't civilized, and the Good Witch of the North seems to attribute that in part to the Deadly Desert. My objection to DOT AND TOT isn't that it's offensive, but that it's boring. ROAD without the Scoodlers and the Neill art, which are the only redeeming features of that particular book, IMO. But if we count the THIRD BOOK in general, then it's even worse than D&T, which at least shows some imagination. I just wasn't counting it, or THE WOGGLE-BUG BOOK alone either. I don't think most of us who are speculating about whether it was -really- necessary to alter the text in PG are being critical of BoW; I'm certainly not. They made a decision; they had a rationale; it's been done, and the results will speak for themselves. I'd still be willing to pay $50 for an unexpurgated version of PG, if that's all it would take. Then I could donate my copy of the expurgated version to a worthy library. It's hard to imagine that the "Oz Squad" comics are any more "adult" than WICKED - or probably than "Mayhem in Munchkinland". Ozzy Digest for December 1995: There were a lot of things in those 300Kbytes that I'd have commented on if I'd been on the list at the time, but I don't want to go back now for most of them. (With any luck, the subject will come up again. :-)) But some people gave brief bios, and lists of favorite books and characters (and the reverse), and I thought I'd do those at least. So: I'm 59 years old, and in the mundane world make a living as a lens designer for a small optics company in the aerospace business. (These are lenses for TV and film cameras, lately mostly for space stuff or infrared systems for tactical aircraft.) With any luck I may be retired in another couple or three months, but in any case I will be in a couple or three years. I read my first Oz book (WIZARD, of course) when I was five, and began getting Oz books for birthday and Christmas immediately; I accumulated 15 of them in my youth, including LUCKY BUCKY, MAGICAL MIMICS, and SHAGGY MAN the years they were first published. A lady who'd been my parents' Latin teacher loaned me most of the rest of them, though her collection stopped with WISHING HORSE; as a result, I didn't get to read CAPTAIN SALT, HANDY MANDY, WONDER CITY, SCALAWAGONS, HIDDEN VALLEY, or MERRY-GO-ROUND until I was an adult. (The last, of course, wasn't written till I was an adult.) I picked up quite a few of the missing ones shortly after my daughter was born, though to my disappointment she much preferred animal stories to Oz, and the rest when I became prosperous enough that I could afford $50+ a pop to fill in the remaining gaps in my collection. I'm basically a fan of the text and art; I'd rather have a newly-printed edition in a good binding on good paper with all the color plates than a first edition, frankly, though I have a couple of the latter. (Well, at least one - I'm reasonably sure my copy of GIANT HORSE is a first, since it has the "Oniberon" typo on the frontispiece. I think my PIRATES is a first as well, but since I don't really care, I haven't checked for the relevant points of difference.) I'm not much into other collectables, though I've bought some of the stained glass from BoW and have some other odds and ends that people have given me because they know of my interest. Most important to me recently, as those of you who've been reading this all along well know, is that my book, THE GLASS CAT OF OZ, was published by ECP in November. Most response has been favorable so far; I'd be quite interested in comments from anyone who's read it. (E-mail me privately if you'd rather not clutter the Digest.) I also do some research for the Oz Research Group of the IWOC and have written short Oz fiction for both the IWOC and the Royal Club; one of my stories was in the 1995 Oziana. I've attended the last three Winkie Conferences, and plan to attend at least one Oz convention a year as long as I can. (I might do more if my wife were interested in Oz, but the only Oz book she's liked was GLASS CAT...) As for lists of favorites: Favorite Oz character: Cap'n Bill, although he's not in but two books in any significant way. Of the characters who are in a lot of books, Dorothy. If Baum books were the only source, the Wizard might win overall, but Thompson makes him a rather thoughtless egotist; I don't like her version at all. Favorite book: Wishing Horse, with Lost Princess and Rinkitink close. In all three the protagonists deal with serious problems, and they have a minimum of encounters with odd groups that appear to have no purpose except to depict an encounter with an odd group. Merry-Go-Round is probably the best-crafted book in the whole series, but it doesn't have the Ozzy "feel" that Baum and Thompson have. Least favorite book: Wonder City, with Scalawagons, Ozoplaning, and Road close. Unlike others, I rather like Lucky Bucky - possibly because it was one of the first Oz books I read, so its version of Oz doesn't seem skewed to me. Even those who dislike all of Neill will probably admit that he doesn't go as far overboard on gratuitous puns and other silliness in it as he did in his first two books. Edit out some of the italics and it's quite readable. Ozzy prized possession: No question now - the author's copy (lettered "D" of the 350-strong numbered edition - I don't know who got "A"-"C") of GLASS CAT. Long enough post for today. See everybody tomorrow. David Hulan ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 21:18:33 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@compuserve.com> Subject: OZ DIGEST Dave, I really appreciate your picking up the load of keeping OZ on line with the Digest. I was a part of the OZ FANS net and later received the OZ Times. It would be interesting, for someone with a historical bent, to remind us of the history of these earlier "publications." Mike Burns - "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in Oz," by Ruth Berman? Could you supply a description of this item? I am a Holmes and Oz fan but have missed this one. You must be a generation X'er if you see "Was" and "Wicked" as "simply different." A twelve-year-old girl and a forty-year-old axe murderer are simply different too, but I wouldn't want the latter in my house. I don't want "Was" and "Wicked" in my house either. Unfortunately, I bought both and read them. I would never recommend either to a twelve-year-old girl or anyone who has the Oz "spirit." There is a lot of pathology loose in the world. One thing it does is to take something "good" and pervert it and call it art. Many examples come to mind. I think we have a sense for such things. Just ask yourself which books you have read that you wish you hadn't because they leave a slimy residue in your mind that you can't get rid of. I don't feel the same way about "Sir Harold and the Gnome King" or "A Barnstormer In Oz." They are, as David Hulan points out, simply "heretical." Both authors clearly loved Oz and were not in need of therapy. "IMO" I think the original "Flatland" appeared as a little paperback. It was reprinted in James R. Newman's four volume set, "The World of Mathematics." It is in volume four, available at most libraries if anyone is interested. Does someone have a reference for "Sphereland?" Regards, Bear (:<) ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 22:39:10 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: Oz and Ends, the Ozette = Mombi Theory, and Prasmthrasm the Warlock , with the Infinite Neck 1) Herman, what is the address for the Oz and Ends Book Shop? I got to get a catalog. 2) Eric, I know my theory that Ozette (Mrs. Pastoria) = Mombi is absurd. I freely admit it was ludicrous from the beginning, when I originally intended it to be a half-truth Plumly the Four-Horned Cow tells over during her trial of Ozma in The Woozy of Oz. Though now I must admit I'm actually starting to buy into it, and trying to work out Pastoria's reaction to seeing Mombi alive. (The Royal Literary Critic of Oz's suggestion: First he kisses her, then he tries to strangle her.) The whole point of posting the idea was to find out whether there were any historical problems with the theory. So if anyone knows of why Ozette couldn't have been Mombi, please tell me so that I don't write it in as THE TRUTH as far as the Lurline's Machine series is concerned. 3) OK, anyone know a good publisher besides Buckethead which is not likely to mangle my book? 4) Bastinda replies to DavidXOE: Broiling? Now THAT would be an interesting form of torture for the disloyal. And my spell can be only be broken by the Wishing Stone of Rugle, which was swallowed by Prasmthrasm the Warlock with the Infinite Neck, so you can forget finding it. So quit this babbling and get back to work in the fields! We have to increase pumpkin exports be 15% this year! Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 22:09:54 -0600 (CST) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-03-96 And happy weekend to all of us...here I go.... 1. I just wondered if anyone said EE-vil-doo, since he evil did. Fred Meyer once suggested that pronunciation to me when I was working on the "Pronunciad," and it's always tickled me. An alternate to the norm for Kalidah is Kol-EYED-uh, which suggests that it's a clumsy sort of beast. 2. Welcome to the DIGEST, Herm. For those who don't know him, Herm Bieber is probably the very BEST source of Oz books. My shop is good, but it's a shop, and that means we have to pay overhead. Herm doesn't. His prices are more that reasonable and his resources are nothing short of phenomenal. (Herman, I guess I've just sent you a valentine here!) 3. Eric -- A while back I'd have agreed with your statement: "I think all of the leads on finding the actual film footage have dried up by now," but then they found the audio recording of the reprise to "over the Rainbow." I know that's not the same as film and that film from that time period is very perishable, but my hope has been rekindled. Let me dream.... 4. Aaron -- Maybe that Ozma Robinma explains why there are so many of us Winkies named Robin! At one time, we had at least four Robins present: Hess, Masterson, Olderman, and some other gal whose last name I've forgotten. And if anyone wonders why a gal who lives in East Texas considers herself a Winkie, all I can say is that only my body is in Houston. My heart is in the Portland, Oregon/Seattle, Washington area and I've been going to Winkies since Gjovaag was a kid/teenybopper. A very cute teenybopper. 5. David, please let me use DIGEST space to thank and compliment Ken Cope for the sketches he's already done in preparation for illustrating a story in this year's OZIANA. Most of y'all probably don't know it, but he's not only quite articulate (which you DID know, if you've read his comments), but he's also a VERY talented fellow with a pencil. Ken, they should know you used to be a Disney illustrator. I don't recall your ever having shared that with the DIGEST group, and I hope you don't mind that I just did so. Guys, he's just as good as you'd anticipate, knowing he was hired by the finest. Buy OZIANA '96 and find out. (Uh, end of OZIANA ad.) (Also, end of longer-than-usual post.) --Robin O. ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 1996 23:56:26 -0800 From: "W. R. Wright" Subject: Eric said: >Er, isn't this what I said in my earlier reply? Nope.........Button-Bright said it......... Bill W. David Bedell asked: > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-31-96 > Can someone refresh my memory as to Krumbic witches? I don't recall that > reference. You can find this answer in the Encyclopedia Oziana (http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/) by navigating to the Characters section, and there select the "Roles" index. On the Roles index page you will find "Sorcery". Select that and it will give you all the names that appear in the first fourteen books (plus a few more) that are characters into magic. Krumbic Witch is in the list. Bill W. ============================================================================= Date: Sunday 04-Feb-96 01:23:50 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy things Well, I got _The Game's Afoot_ from the library today and read _Sherlock Holmes in Oz_. Good, fun story! I don't want to say anything about the plot so as not to spoil it for everyone, but I recommend it! I also finished _Glass Cat of Oz_. I really enjoyed this tale in which Bungle, Trot, Capt'n Bill, the Hungry Tiger and two new "immigrants" to Oz, Barry and Becky Klien, save Oogaboo from the Bad Lads, who have taken possesion of Oogaboo's gun tree and plan to use it to take over the little Ozian provence. My favorite part of the story was Bungle & co.'s visit to the Cows of Cowville who are a hospitable race of bovine equivalents of the Houyhnhnms in _Gulliver's Travels_. George O'Connor's illustrations are the best that I've seen in an ECP book--very whimsical, and I'm intrigued by his somewhat Gene Tierney-looking Ozma! In all, another delightful Oz book from Books of Wonder! Thanks, David and Peter! With the talk about _Sir Harold_, I'd like to ask the group about my *Second* Oz book ( while I wait for the first to be published I'll write another! :) ). This next Ozzy installment of mine will revolve around Ozma and I mean to widely develop Ozma's character (as I did the Adepts' in my now finished Ozzy Opus #1), but I want to ask everyone how they feel about an (heretical?) idea I have: Giving Ozma a beau -- An idea whose time has come, or a definite, complete, unequivocal No-No??? I remember in one of the FF someone proposing to Ozma and her flatly refusing for reasons that make me wonder if giving the most beautiful girl ruler in Baumgea a romantic life is going over the line. Does anyone remember which book this was and/or who made the proposition, as I can't for the life of me remember... Besides David Hulan and myself, are there any other Southern Winkies on this list? ( I'm thinking of throwing a party in April or May, halfway between conventions; Excuse for having the party to be determined...to celebrate Jellia Jamb's birthday or something... :) ) Both _Flatland_ and _Sphereland_ have been re-published as nice-format paperbacks by Barnes and Noble (Harper and Row) and is available at their stores (should be in library too). For all the newcomers to the list, in case you're perplexed by all the abriviations, I'd though I'd post this brief list: FF - Famous Forty (i.e. the 40 original "official" Oz books) ILL - Inter-Library Loan BoW - Books of Wonder (Ozzy publisher) ECP - Emerald City Press (Subsiduary of BoW) (If anyone wants to add to this list, please do.) Also, I'd just like to explain my personal convention for abreviating Oz book names...I abreviate the major words in the title, then use an underscore to represent the word of/in and then 'Oz'. So some names/abrevs. would be: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz - DW_Oz The Emerald City of Oz - EC_Oz The Patchwork Girl of Oz - PG_Oz The Wicked Witch of Oz - WW_Oz The Good Witch of Oz - GW_Oz -- Dave ============================================================================= THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 5, 1996 ============================================================================= Date: Sun, 04 Feb 1996 10:31:49 -0500 (EST) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: Old Ozzish 1) DavidXOE, everything so far in my version of Old Ozzish is based on some sort of source (though the source material gets rather tenacious, e.g. I accepted the names of two dishes that Ozma is disgusted by in The Woozy of Oz which my brother made up as genuine Old Ozzish). My interpretation of the sources is definitely open to question. Currently I'm waiting for someone to post something on Laumer's version of Old Ozzish so I can get my version in sync with his. WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ITEM MAY BE CONSIDERED A SPOILER. READ IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. 2) Dave Hardenbrook, I would strongly recommend against Ozma getting a boyfriend because we have a precedent from Laumer (pardon the bluntness) that Ozma isn't interested in men in such a fashion, and I'm afraid I have to agree with him. Ozma was raised as a male, and while in the real world people raised as the wrong gender usually adapt to their new gender role eventually, there are those who don't manage to adapt. My coauthor, The Royal Literary Critic of Oz, and I happen to consider Ozma to be of the latter group, and as such we have written her thus in The Woozy of Oz, down to her having sworn people to never reveal that she was ever a boy and sneaking out of the Emerald City from time to time pretending that she still is a boy. Contact Tyler to find out who Laumer has her interested in. If Ozma ever gets a boyfriend, it will probably be under very unusual circumstances. By the way, Ozma is proposed to in Kabumpo in Oz by Prince Pompadore (I think). Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ============================================================================= Date: Sun, 04 Feb 1996 08:46:21 -0800 (PST) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-04-96 > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: Bastinda and other stuff > > 2) Currently I'm only toying with including jitterbugs in the Lurline's > Machine series (The Woozy of Oz + Hiergargo and the Queasy in Oz + A Civil > War in Oz + ... + Till Lurline Returns to Oz). In such a case they'll > probably get twisted in some way. For comparison, the Royal Literary > Critic of Oz and I are thinking of having Ev invade Oz and have Evardo XV > have as one of his grudges that years earlier Ozma turned down his > marriage proposal, which is without question a spoof of Ozma marrying > Evardo in Sir Harold and the Gnome King. *sigh* Okay, whatever. You do realize, though, Aaron, that by continuously posting so many details and asking so many questions about your books here, you're going to give too much away and either spoil the stories for your potential readers, or turn enough of us Old Guard fans off with your out-from-left-field ideas that we're not going to want to read it. Moderation is a good thing, as is leaving your readers wanting more. > From: DavidXOE@aol.com > Subject: Ozzy Digest, 2/3/96 > > Nathan Faut: > You can bet that -I- noticed the incorrect title on the copyright page of > GLASS CAT! Besides that, the ISBN numbers on that page are dummies, both > ending in "HH-H" instead of "44-6" for the HC and "45-4" for the PB. However, > the rest of the book is completely different. I dunno, I noticed several words that were the same, such as "the," "Ozma," "Dorothy," etc. But at least in "Glass Cat" they were in different places... > As to what value it might add to the book, probably nothing, since every copy > printed has the same error. Of course, if it becomes wildly popular and they > have to go into a second and third printing, and they correct the error in > those, then the erroneous copyright page would be proof of a first printing. > (Naturally I hope it becomes wildly popular and goes into a second and third > printing, but I'm not holding my breath...) Since "Queen Ann" isn't sold out after more than two years, with quite a few still to go, I think it's probably wise not to be holding your breath. > Eric Gjovaag: > The fact that Yew is civilized doesn't -necessarily- mean that it's not in > the Oz universe; it certainly lowers the probability, but it doesn't rule it > out entirely. We only know for sure that Oz itself isn't civilized, and the > Good Witch of the North seems to attribute that in part to the Deadly Desert. But you've gotta admit, it's a lot less likely to be in the Nonestic Ocean than any place that actually HAS been visited in the Oz books... > My objection to DOT AND TOT isn't that it's offensive, but that it's boring. True . > I don't think most of us who are speculating about whether it was -really- > necessary to alter the text in PG are being critical of BoW; I'm certainly > not. Oh, then you must have missed all the calls for boycotts and speeches about how this will lead to book burning... > It's hard to imagine that the "Oz Squad" comics are any more "adult" than > WICKED - or probably than "Mayhem in Munchkinland". Tik-Tok going on a murder rampage in New York City and Dorothy having an affair with Jack Kennedy is more adult (and I use "adult" in its negative conotation here) than just about any other Oz I've read, IMHO. But at least in the current issues they seem to have gotten away from that. > From: "Aaron S. Adelman" > Subject: Oz and Ends, the Ozette = Mombi Theory, and Prasmthrasm the Warlock , > with the Infinite Neck > > 1) Herman, what is the address for the Oz and Ends Book Shop? I got to > get a catalog. Since it looks like it may be a while before Herm can read and reply to the Digest, I'll give a hand here: Oz and Ends Book Shoppe 14 Dorset Drive Kenilworth, NJ 07033-1417 Ph: 908-276-8368 I know I put this address in the pre-distribution copy of the FAQ, however, and I know you, Aaron read it. Did you not save it? Do I need to get cracking on getting version 1.0 out ASAP? > 2) Eric, I know my theory that Ozette (Mrs. Pastoria) = Mombi is absurd. > I freely admit it was ludicrous from the beginning, when I originally > intended it to be a half-truth Plumly the Four-Horned Cow tells over > during her trial of Ozma in The Woozy of Oz. Though now I must admit I'm > actually starting to buy into it, and trying to work out Pastoria's > reaction to seeing Mombi alive. (The Royal Literary Critic of Oz's > suggestion: First he kisses her, then he tries to strangle her.) The > whole point of posting the idea was to find out whether there were any > historical problems with the theory. So if anyone knows of why Ozette > couldn't have been Mombi, please tell me so that I don't write it in as > THE TRUTH as far as the Lurline's Machine series is concerned. IIRC, Ozette first appears in "Mister Flint in Oz," which I don't have and unfortunately haven't read (Anybody have a spare copy they'd be willing to give up?). Ozette later appears, albeit briefly, in another Buckethead book, ISTR it being "Betsy Bobbin in Oz." I don't know where these books fall in the HACC, but as in both books it's a full-fledged in-the-flesh appearance, and not ghostly fantasms or holographic projections or anything like that, if either book comes after "Lost King" (where Mombi is dealt with once and for all -- as I'm sure you know), then it's probably impossible for Mombi and Ozette to be the same person. (I say "probably" because I know that if you REALLY, REALLY want to, you will make them one-and-the-same, and come up with some odd explanation for why.) > 3) OK, anyone know a good publisher besides Buckethead which is not > likely to mangle my book? I also included a "So you have an Oz book you want to have published, eh?" section in the FAQ... > From: Robin Olderman > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-03-96 > > 3. Eric -- A while back I'd have agreed with your statement: "I think all > of the leads on finding the actual film footage have dried up by now," > but then they found the audio recording of the reprise to "over the > Rainbow." I know that's not the same as film and that film from that time > period is very perishable, but my hope has been rekindled. Let me dream.... Well, perhaps I should have said "current leads." New ones can pop up all the time, especially with John Fricke out there sniffing around... > 4. Aaron -- Maybe that Ozma Robinma explains why there are so many of us > Winkies named Robin! At one time, we had at least four Robins present: > Hess, Masterson, Olderman, and some other gal whose last name I've forgotten. Helfrinch. (For those of you who haven't been to Winkies, guess which of the above Robins is a man!) > And if anyone wonders why a gal who lives in East Texas considers herself > a Winkie, all I can say is that only my body is in Houston. My heart is > in the Portland, Oregon/Seattle, Washington area and I've been going to > Winkies since Gjovaag was a kid/teenybopper. A very cute teenybopper. *blush* The Oogaboos remember me from even further back than you do, Robin. Just ask Karyl or Lynn sometime about what I was like when I was twelve. > From: "W. R. Wright" > Subject: > > Eric said: > >Er, isn't this what I said in my earlier reply? > Nope.........Button-Bright said it......... I think this is getting silly. (Me? Silly? NAH!) > From: Dave Hardenbrook > Subject: Ozzy things > > With the talk about _Sir Harold_, I'd like to ask the group about my > *Second* Oz book ( while I wait for the first to be published I'll > write another! :) ). This next Ozzy installment of mine will revolve > around Ozma and I mean to widely develop Ozma's character (as I did the > Adepts' in my now finished Ozzy Opus #1), but I want to ask everyone > how they feel about an (heretical?) idea I have: Giving Ozma a beau -- > An idea whose time has come, or a definite, complete, unequivocal No-No??? Depends on who it is she falls for, and how it's handled. Remember, however, that Ozma is a powerful fairy, a member of Lurline's band. Fairies may be above such mundane human things as love and relationships -- they are immortal, after all. But if it's handled well, perhaps it could work! (But Dave, I REALLY don't think a week-long mad passionate affair would work at ALL!) > I remember in one of the FF someone proposing to Ozma and her flatly > refusing for reasons that make me wonder if giving the most beautiful girl > ruler in Baumgea a romantic life is going over the line. Does anyone > remember which book this was and/or who made the proposition, as I can't for > the life of me remember... "Kabumpo in Oz."