] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 1, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 10:02:44 -0400 From: RMorris306@aol.com Subject: Recent Ozzy Digests Hi again! I can certainly empathize with Gili's low profile of late. I've also been busy with my litter of puppies for the last 7 weeks, and until they're old enough (in another week or three) to leave for their new homes, they'll take up most of the time I used to use for the Digest and the like. But I'm sure she'll love it at Harvard! The consensus on translated names (now, as opposed to the time of Columbus/Colombo/Colon) seems to be not to do it, even with fictional characters where a pun is lost. Sometimes, especially for a young audience, the puns might be explained in notes by the translator (as was done with EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES, whose original German author, Erich Kastner, had given the characters very Dickensian names). On the other hand, most of the memorable Dickens characters seem to have names less dependent on their meaning than their sound (Ebenezer Scrooge, Samuel Pickwick, Nicholas Nickleby, Wackford Squeers, Fagin, Uriah Heep, Wilkins Micawber) and even the names with English meanings can be largely irrelevant (what does David Copperfield's career have to do with copper? Oliver Twist's character certainly isn't twisted, even if his life is). Besides, Shakespeare's names and dialogue also used puns in languages other than English. (Note the French coversation in HENRY V, though admittedly a lot more English speakers then than now knew French--including slang terms not likely to be learned today even by high-school students who take French.) A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM may include another off-color example...since "ass" does mean "donkey" but also has another meaning in modern America. Did that go back to Shakespeare's time? I've heard not, but I'm not sure that it's complete coincidence that the ass's head was magically given to a weaver named Bottom... Well, it's time I talked about Oz, isn't it? Very sorry to hear about the loss of the legendary Emerald City. But as far as Glinda goes, I stick with my original conception...which seems particularly appropriate for what's been described as an "American fairyland." One distinction between the European and the American tradition seems to be that the Europeans emphasize heroes who are born to greatness, whereas Americans tend to prefer those who come from humble backgrounds and achieve success on their own. Of course Oz and Baumgea are European enough to have hereditary monarchs, but instances of humble people rising to those thrones are common in Oz (the Tin Woodman being the most famous example) and elsewhere in Baumgea (John Dough, King Bud...). Europeans who rise from humble backgrounds tend to be rightful or temporarily humbled rulers like King Arthur, and Baum followed this tradition with Tip/Ozma, but in most other cases (as with Randy of Regalia) it was Thompson who took this more European approach. And so it is with Glinda...she's a mortal (well, a partial immortal, but only because she's presumably an Oz native) who had both skill and study to bring her to the level of power she enjoys today...not to mention teaching enough of it to the Wizard to make him a true and powerful magician. As has been noted, Baum always makes this distinction, and we can write off Thompson's one-time statement that Glinda was a fairy as easily as we can her other statement that the Woozy was made of wood (categorically denied in print by Baum, who should know). Rich Morrissey ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 10:42:03 -0400 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest, 08-30-96 Steve: That's a distinct point in favor of the Universal Translator in Oz - not FLYING BUS, which isn't FF, but the Winkie who lost the ability to understand the speech of animals after cruelty to animals. If the animals (and Ozites in general) were really all speaking English, it would be difficult for the Tin Woodman - who isn't a magic-worker - to stop him from understanding animal speech while he remained able to understand humans. But if there's a Universal Translator, then it's quite likely that Ozma might have given the quadrant rulers the power to cancel its action. (It would be interesting to see what would happen if, say, Dorothy encountered that Winkie...) Ruth: The Munchkin king in the ROAD parade might conceivably have been Cheeriobed, but I think it's pretty unlikely. There's no evidence that I recall in GIANT HORSE that Cheeriobed had even met Ozma. (Though there must have been some communication between the Sapphire City and the Emerald City after Ozma's accession, or the Ozure Islanders wouldn't have known about the three mortal girls who lived in the EC.) Shaggy: Well, I knew that "Mercator" meant "merchant", and that his real name was a German word meaning "merchant". "Kaufmann" was the one that occurred to me, but I added the "something of that sort" because the Germans had more than one word for "merchant" and I didn't remember for sure which one Mercator had originally borne. So OK, it was "Kramer". Dick: Eric lives in Washington, not Oregon. But it's not that far, so I'm sure he's already snapped up that Denslow-signed WIZ... :-) ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 17:53:00 -0400 (EDT) From: "James R. Whitcomb" Subject: MGM Grand article citation The citation for the MGM Grand article giving information about how the Emerald City was created is as follows: Periodical: TCI, formerly Theatre Crafts (this is how it appeared on the article cover sheet I received. It simply indicates a "title change" in library jargon.) Date: 05/94 (pardon me, I was wrong when I initially send the article was written in 1993. The MGM Grand didn't open until Dec.1993. Which means this exhibit was less than 3 years old!) Volume: 28 Issue: 5 Pages: 44-46. I found this citation on the CD-ROM reference database: General Periodicals Ondisc. I am currently trying to locate one re: the mural(s) in the Oz Buffet. This article isn't much in terms of quantity BUT the quality is great in that it gives ALL the details on how the Emerald City was built. After having seen the Emerald City and the laser light show, I found this absolutely fascinating to see how it all worked. Jim:) ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 18:22:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy DIgest Bear: If you thought that the wigs themselves were silly, then I better not tell you what March Laumer does with them in _The Good Witch of Oz_. However, if a 40-ft tall 10 year-old girl walks up to your door and claims to be the king of the Munchkins, I'll accept full responsibility. Time in Oz: Despite the statement "anything is possible with magic", it is likely that the flow of time is constant. I'm sure somebody can come up with something. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 18:31:07 -0400 From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374@compuserve.com> Subject: Ozzy Digest, 08-30-96 Robin: Thanks for the missing Oziana page! I loved it. Looking forward to the other item? Ruth: I do vaguely remember a mermaid story like the one you speak of. Perhaps it was the same one. David: Go ahead and send me that Ozma essay. And what does *foliori* mean? I cannot find it in the dictionary. Is it a misspell or a foreign word? Melody Grandy ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 22:55:49 +0000 From: Scott Olsen Subject: Question Re: WIZARD script/WIZARD for sale/etc. Re: Steve Teller's question re: original WIZARD script: I seem to remember some time ago Robert A. Baum, Jr. sold many items from his collection, and one was an original WIZARD script circa 1901. I don't know who bought it--but it should'nt be too hard to find out--if it hasn't changed hands several times... (The price was well beyond my means). Re: Denslow presentation WIZARD for sale for $11,000 or so. I remember how enormous $1,500 seemed to me when Harvard (I believe) bought a Baum/Denslow presentation WIZARD for that price. Maybe $11,000 won't seem like such a bad price 25 years from now. (And we'll all be telling our grandchildren "I remember back when when you could buy a Denslow presentation WIZARD 1st for only $11,000...." Re: MGM GRAND One more thing: unlike my other 3-4 trips to the MGM Grand, Roger Baum wasn't there this last time. Sincerely, Scott Olsen ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 19:05:31 -0400 (EDT) From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN Subject: Dad as a Subgenius Bear, I don't know how relevant this is (probably absolutely not), but when I read _The Hungry Tiger of Oz_, I couldn't help picturing Dad as that J. R. "Bob" Dobbs figure seen on Subgenius literature. (Who is this Dobbs person anyway?) If it wasn't for the copyright problems, I would love to use him in _Lurline's Machine_ somewhere, during which what little I do know of Subgeniuses would probably show up. In my wanderings around Philadelphia I have found some places with interesting Ozzy material. In addition to Border's Books (which I am not shopping at until the situation in which a woman was fired for union-related activities was fired is resolved; pity) and some places with occassional works (Baum-only) I found some interesting stuff at Fat Jack's Comicrypt at 20th and Samson. This place has, literally, everything imaginable, including Ozzy-related material. This includes _Oz Story II_, some Eric Shanower works (I got _The Enchanted Apples of Oz_, and I wish it was longer), the _Oz_ compilation _Mayhem in Munchkinland_, and various _Oz_ and _Oz Squad_ comics. On this let me recall a prediction I made a while ago regarding what would happen when they introduced the Shaggy Man and Scraps into _Oz_ (something like Rambo in rags and Catwoman respectively). I found the "Romance and Rags" issue, and while I could not look inside (inside a plastic bag sealed with tape), the cover showed Scraps and the Scarecrow smooching. True to the prediction I made Scraps was portrayed as a voluptuous, thin match to the statistically abnormal look known as the socially proscribed ideal body image for women. This is in contradistinction to the Neill illustrations (especially _The Wonder City of Oz_) and pretty much what you would expect from an overgrown rag doll made for indentured servitude. (You wouldn't expect Margollete to make a servant intentionally vixenesque, thereby tempting her husband.) Then again, a vixenesque Scraps is pretty much what you'd expect from a comic book where the Scarecrow looks like Ray Bolger on drugs, the Tin Woodman like a samurai, and the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger like Thundercats. (Sorry about the rant. If you're in Philadelphia...) ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 20:00:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls Robin - Glinda Celtic! Dave! Maybe Enya is Glinda visiting in disguise! :) Robin - >Glinda..... one of the few who always functions as a mature adult. Now it is clear why we both like her so much. :) For those in the SF Bay Area/Sacramento - Wizard of Oz on Ice - will be at San Jose Arena on Oct. 23-27, Arco Arena in Scramento on Oct. 30 - Nov. 3, and the Cow Palace near San Francisco on Nov. 13-17. Unlabored greetings to all, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 22:22:09 -0700 (PDT) From: International Wizard of Oz Club Subject: RE: The Wizard as Ballonist Bob, This is a fascinating account, and I am at a loss to say whether or not Baum modeled his character after Baldwin. He certainly was intrigued by the technological advances and popular figures of his day and wove all sorts of contemporary references into his stories. I'm passing your note on to other Oz enthusiasts for comment in hopes that they may be aware of more details. Sincerely, Jim Vander Noot --- On Tue, 27 Aug 1996 21:05:51 -0700 "Robert C. Southee" wrote: Dear OZ, I am doing research on a turn-of-the-century balloonist named Thomas Scott Baldwin, popularly know as Capt'n. Tom Baldwin. He was probably America's best know airman before the Wright Brothers got airborn, performing at fairs across the country with his balloons and dirgibles, and was the America's first parachutist -- from his own balloon. He was rather portly and a somewhat flamboyant showman who was known to exaggerate a good story now and again. Baldwin was born in Kansas, made his home base in California until the 1904 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his dirigible factory, then moved his operation to Hammondsport, NY, not far from Syracuse. It was at Hammondsport where he introduced Glenn Curtiss (who's motocycle engines he was using for his dirigibles) to flying. Curtiss, who went on to become a great heavier-than-air aviation pioneer, first flew in a Baldwin dirigible. My question to you is: Was L. Frank Baum possibly inspired by balloonist Baldwin to create his balloonist lead character -- The Wizard of Oz? Coincidentally, Thomas Baldwin was also played a major role in my own father learning to fly, in 1916. Your reply will be greatly appreciated. Regards, Bob Southee Annandale, VA -----------------End of Original Message----------------- ------------------------------------- Name: International Wizard of Oz Club E-mail: International Wizard of Oz Club Date: 8/31/96 Time: 10:22:09 PM This message was sent by Chameleon ------------------------------------- ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 22:44:08 -0700 (PDT) From: International Wizard of Oz Club Subject: RE: Amateur performance of OZ Derek, I'm sending your question to the Oz mailing list exploder handled by Dave Hardenbrook so that you can get a variety of responses. If Oz is one of your interests, you may want to add yourself to the list. Sincerely, Jim Vander Noot --- On Sun, 25 Aug 96 17:45:04 -0700 Derek Webb wrote: My amateur dramatic society is proposing to stage Oz in March 1997. We aim to do these things to the highest possible standard that our limited facilities will allow. I would like to hear from anyone who is involved in a similar project to exchange ideas. Derek Webb -----------------End of Original Message----------------- ------------------------------------- Name: International Wizard of Oz Club E-mail: International Wizard of Oz Club Date: 8/31/96 Time: 10:44:08 PM This message was sent by Chameleon ------------------------------------- ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 00:09:42 -0600 From: khackney@hub.ofthe.net (Kenneth Hackney) Subject: Re: RPT in the Fog about Science >Finally, RPT has a really foggy view of the physical world. On p.185, Ozma and >the airman are rising into the sky. "...the sky darkened....Night has fallen. >The higher we go, the faster time flies. It will be daylight in a few >moments....See, it is tomorrow already!." Now why confuse children with this >ridiculous explanation. Agreed, the science is silly. RPT was not writing science. One could look at the "daylight in a few moment's" statement to mean that if one goes high enough it might be possible for the sun to become visible as the horizon retreats, assuming one were not traveling at 180 degrees away from the sun. In that case earth would be "permanently" in the way. Were a "second" sunrise seen, it could be construed as tomorrow. That begs the point about time flying, unless one is speaking "relatively" (time flies when you are having fun) . Maybe RPT did not know about Einstein's theory of relativity , since this was before WW2 and such science did not get much exposure to the general public at that time. Regards, Ken ************************************************************************* "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long ...and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy." ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 2, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 09:37:19 -0400 (EDT) From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN Subject: Tinkerbell's Foul Mouth Regarding meanings of "ass" in England, even until relatively recently (I cannot speak for today), the meaning equaling Yiddish _tuchus_ has been absent. In _Peter Pan and Wendy_, Tinkerbell calls people "You little ass," which would clearly be not proper for children's literature if the US meaning applied. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 07:41:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-30-96 > From: "James R. Whitcomb" > Subject: Wizard of Oz graphics > > Does anyone know where I might be able to obtain Wizard of Oz graphics on > the WWW? Are there any sites where I can download them from. I am > particularly interested in small items that I can use for buttons, bullets, > and bars. I recently saw a web site where someone used a small pair of Ruby > Slippers as bullets but, unfortunately, I can't seem to find it again. Once I get what's currently up on my web page updated, I hope to add a graphics library from which people can download public domain pictures. And I, too, recently saw those ruby slipper bullets, but I can't recall which page it was. You might be able to find it again by trying out my links page. > From: DIXNAM@aol.com > Subject: Ozzy Digest 8-29-96 > > Bear: Imagine what Trevor would be asking for that 1st ed. > WoO if it were in pristine condition! And hold up on that check; isn't Eric > an Oregon resident? He probably ran right over with cash-in-hand. :-) I live in Washington (my co-author Karyl is an Oregonian, OTOH), but if I had $11,000, I could think of better things to spend it on. Like food. (But then again, there is no sales tax in Oregon...) --Eric "I REALLY, REALLY need to get to work on my page soon..." Gjovaag # Come visit my "Wizard of Oz" web site! http://www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/ # ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 12:49:50 -0400 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest, 08-31 & 09-01-96 8/31: Bear: It's pretty plain from all kinds of internal evidence that Oz is in a world where our physical laws don't apply. So the acceleration of time with altitude, although impossible in our world, might very well happen in that world. (It's no more far-fetched than climbing to the moon on a ladder, which Baum described in OZMA.) So if nobody but your mother, when she was angry, called you "Richard Bauman", what did your co-workers call you? "Dick?" "Rich?" "Rick?" I find it hard to believe that they called you "Bear," anyhow. Jim: Oh, OK, that's Maureen McGovern. Style's a little on the strident side for my personal taste (sort of like Streisand), based on the couple of songs you mention that I can remember. My taste in female singers runs more toward Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, and Linda Ronstadt (when she's singing songs I like in the first place). Robin: As I recall, it was Ozma who invited Glinda to go with her to Lurline's council in MAGICAL MIMICS, rather than Lurline herself, but she did go. And I imagine the red hair has a lot to do with the Celtic "feel" of Glinda, since red hair is associated with the Celts. 9/1: Rich: I'm quite sure that the dual meaning of "ass" was in Shakespeare's mind; I don't know when the pronunciations of the words "ass" (donkey) and "arse" (rear end) converged, but it probably was around Shakespeare's time (at least in the south of England). And even if there was a distinction in the pronunciations, the words were close enough that I'm sure there's be an association. Melody: Ozma essay will ship to you today. *foliori* would have been a misspelling of a foreign word, which would make it even more confusing. But I just checked my message and what I wrote was _a fortiori_; either something was garbled in transmission to you or you misread the word. In any case, it's Latin for "even more so" (essentially; literally it's something like "from the stronger point"). Barry: What is Subgenius literature? David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 14:11:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy DIgest All: Monthly blocks of the Ozzy Digest are available thru August 96. David: That, IMHO, is the one weakness of the story in _Giant Horse_. How did this isolated kingdom get an "old history book" with Dorothy, Betsy and Trot? Regardless of your views of the HACC, Trot's arrival was at most 20 years before the story opens, hardly ancient history. The only explanation I can think of is that a bird brought them some books and other stuff from "outside". I continue to doubt that Ozma ever knew Cheeriobed as the King of the Munchkins, since she surely would have wondered what became of him after Quiberon sealed them up. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 18:39:32 -0500 (CDT) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-01-96 Ass: Bless the O.E.D. It confirmed what I thought was so but wasn't sure of:"Ass" meant "an ignorant fellow, a conceited dolt" as early as 1578. You betcher Bottom Shakespeare punned! ;) Plug for '97 OZIANA: Melody has agreed to illustrate a story for it. Yay! All I have to do is to mail it to her.... The issue returns to the multi-story format. I'm aiming for it to be an error-free issue, if such a thing is possible. The printing error this time has given me gray hairs. I'm a redhead and they don't show too much, but they're there. I think I mentioned before that it's loaded with (what do we call ourselves?) DIGESTers. --R. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 21:11:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls Rich - More favorite Dickens names - Mr. Gradgrind, Mr. Choakemchild, Dr. Prunesquallor, Mr. Flintwinch, Mr. Barnacle, ah some of the names are better than a picture. Tyler - The flow of time may be constant, but Ozma and the airman traveled along the flow at a faster rate than the rest of Oz! At least according to RPT :) Barry - The only Dobbs I know about was Jimmy Stewart as in "It's A Wonderful Life." I think. What's subgenius literature? Puzzled once more, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 01 Sep 1996 22:08:53 -0400 From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374@compuserve.com> Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-01-96 On the Internet, there is a cartoon by Windsor McCay from Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, featuring a jealous suitor calling his rival a "tin soldier." Then the jealous suitor proceeds to pound the guy into sheet metal! Apparently, being a "tin" anything was an insult in Baum's time. Exactly what insult WAS meant? That the person was phony? Cheaply built? Or both? Don't have the URL for that cartoon, but I reached it by searching for "Rackham", as in Arthur. Windsor (who was a favorite cartoonist of Baum's) was in this Web page with Rackham. So try "Rackham" to see if you can find the same Web page I did. Melody Grandy ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 3, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 11:11:07 -0400 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-96 Tyler: Since we know that the gulls were frequent visitors to the Ozure Islands, I suppose it's not unreasonable that they might have brought books in - though why, if they did that, the islanders never asked them to take a message to Ozma asking for help is another question. (OTOH, the islanders, with the exception of Philador, didn't seem to be terribly bright. Maybe they'd had some circlets they'd lost...) Robin: "Ass" meaning an ignorant person is clearly an extension of its meaning of "donkey" (though this is something of a slur on the species, which is much more intelligent than its relative the horse - despite the oxymoronic phrase "horse sense"). The question is whether the convergence in pronunciation with the old word "arse" ("ers" in Chaucer, as I recall), which led to the mildly vulgar meaning common in American English today, happened in time for Shakespeare to have had it in mind in MND. My guess is that it did, but I don't know for sure how far back it was when the Southern Brits started dropping their "r"s except initially or between vowels. Good news that Melody is illustrating a story for the '97 OZIANA! Ken Cope's work for this year's was excellent, by the way, as was the story. ***********MILD SPOILER FOR 1996 OZIANA*************** I was a bit puzzled, though, at Speedy's age combined with statements about "a space lab that flies through the sky". The latter presumably refers to Skylab - at least, that was the earliest space lab - which would place the story in the mid-Seventies at earliest, though Speedy must have been born in 1920 at the latest and would have been fiftysomething - not what one usually calls a "young man". (And a bit long in the tooth for a physically-18 Gureeda, one would think...) Oh, well, it's not FF or even HACC material, so it doesn't matter. **********END SPOILER****************************** Melody: I expect that cartoon was alluding to the popular fairy tale (by Anderson, I think), "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". But yes, "tin" was a synonym for "cheap" as recently as when I was a kid. I remember, for instance a joke about "What time is it when two Model T Fords are going down the road one behind the other?" "Tin after tin". (Actually, tin is a relatively expensive metal by weight, but the fact that it's easily worked and can be beaten very thin made it a popular material for cheap toys and the like.) David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 13:49:05 -0400 From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374@compuserve.com> Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-01-96 Dear Barry: I hate those nasty "Oz" and "Oz Squad" comics, too! Yuckkkkk! Who needs harsh reality (or unreality!), anyway? Comic book creators have totally forgotten that reality has its nice side, too. Bought an issue of Oz Squad once, but no more. (Rant, rave, foam, gnash, gnash!) ):-( ):-( ):--( Hope I never stoop to writing material comparible to the above. My writing philosophy is to acknowledge harsh reality without dwelling on it. Dave: You lamented that "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" focused too much on violent action and not enough on the main event--Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding. I agree. It's a disturbing trend in entertainment of all sorts. One writing article I read long ago advises writers to cut their story short after the climax. Indeed, there is a disturbing trend to let the reader suffer with characters through almost an entire book--then rudely stop the story short of the joyful part, dismissing it with, "And they did have a party, celebrate, got married, etc.." The writer of said article so much as claims nobody is interested in the characters' happiness. Well, I am! When I've suffered with fictional characters through an entire book, being cut off from celebrating with them makes me feel cheated. So yes, I agree with you, Dave. The Disney folks should have counteracted the bad effect of the ruined version of Aladdin's wedding by lingering over the fine, unspoiled joyous wedding at the end. Does anyone else besides Dave and I feel the same way? In comics of the 70's it seemed that Marvel superheroes could not relax and enjoy themselves without some villain showing up to spoil things. This "killjoy trend" has snowballed until comic-book characters don't seem allowed, or even capable of, any happiness or joy whatsoever. When even the heroes on the covers look incredibly evil or totally stessed-out, something's awry with the people who create them. Personally, I'd be afraid to marry or befriend anyone who enjoyed putting his fictional creations through relentless torture 'cause I'd be afraid he'd do that to ME! That's why I like the Oz books. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." Despair and hopelessness can kill! That's why I wonder about people who like to wallow in it or sell it. Dave Hulan: Thanks for the essay, Dave! Melody Grandy ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 15:08:01 +0000 From: rri0189@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-96 Bear: Sorry, Jimmy Stewart's character in "Wonderful Life" was George Bailey. I couldn't say if he ever played anyone named Dobbs (probably), or if you were conflating Elwood P. Dowd, from "Harvey", with the title character of "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation". Melody: "Tin" doesn't have to be a generic insult. Calling someone a "tin soldier" is like calling them, um, well, a "straw man". (By George, have we stumbled onto something here?) A tin soldier is (or was) a child's toy, good only for shining brightly and standing at attention, not for any real fighting. -- Eleanor Kennedy ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 15:51:47 +0000 From: rri0189@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-96 "Ass" for "Arse" is rare, and regarded as "American", even in modern Britain, and is not attested anywhere until long after Shakespeare's time. // John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit" ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 15:58:32 +0000 From: rri0189@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-96 "Tin soldier" is not an insult for being "tin", at least not precisely. At the time, "tin soldier" was essentially interchangable with "toy soldier", which is enough of an insult in itself. Since Captain Fyter is not a toy, the fact that he is a "tin soldier" is no offense to him. Of course, "tin" would be an insult when applied to something that ought to be of some other metal. To speak of a "tin sword", for example, would be an insult, as it would be to speak of a "tin badge". But real soldiers are made of flesh and blood, not metal, so "tin" would be an off-target insult, if it were not for the "toy soldier" sense. // John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit" ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 16:13:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls Melody - Tin, hmmmm. Little tin god, tin can, tin roof, tin ear, tin horn, tin Lizzie, etc. It definitely has a negative conotation. The implication is the cheapest metal from which something could be made. As an example, my dictionary defines tin horn as one who is cheaply and noisily pretentious. It would not be good to think of "our tin man" in this light. In contrast we have Superman, "the man of steel." Baum could have made our friend the "steel man." On the other hand, in Baum's day, a lot of things were being made of tin as it is inexpensive and easy to work. David - I was "Dick" through my early career, but "Bear" crept in and spread, especially when my boss was a close friend and would call me that in staff meetings. It has reached the point where I am surprised when someone doesn't call me Bear. Regards, Definitely Bear ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 15:28:52 -0500 (CDT) From: Gordon Birrell Subject: Dissing tin Melody wrote: >Apparently, being a "tin" anything was an insult in Baum's time. >Exactly what insult WAS meant? That the person was phony? Cheaply built? Or >both? A few years ago I read a book by Susan Strasser called _Never Done_, a history of the backbreaking housework that American women used to do. According to Strasser, one of the big breakthroughs for housewives at the end of the nineteenth century was the introduction of aluminum and steel cookware, both made possible by new refining and smelting technologies. The new cookware replaced cast iron (a good conductor of heat, but very heavy and constantly in danger of rusting) and tin (light, but flimsy, easily bent and dented, and not all that effective in conducting heat). In addition, anyone who has used tin-plated copper cookware knows how easily tin wears away. Hence all those derisive terms using the word tin: tinhorn, tin ear, tinny, tinpot (as in "tinpot steamer" in Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ or Evita's furious reference to Buckingham Palace as "that tinpot castle"). Nowadays, ironically enough, tinware commands premium prices. When I bought a pate mold last year and commented on the expense ($40), the salesperson haughtily informed me, "Well, after all, it's *tin*." (Incidentally, the other two big late-nineteenth-century breakthroughs for the American housewife were the invention of the vacuum cleaner and--believe it or not--the rotary eggbeater.) The reputation of tin as a cheap, inferior metal no doubt explains the Tin Woodman's decision to have himself plated in nickle, in _The Land of Oz._ As far as I can see, however, in the later books he is back to a tin surface again. Does anyone have any explanation for this apparent inconsistency? ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 4, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 08:41:11 -0400 From: DAlbright1@aol.com Subject: Neill works Does anyone know anyone who is trying to build a complete checklist of John R. Neill's work? I have a copy of Helen's Babies that includes several signed Neill illustrations. It isn't on the last Baum Bugle checklist (Autumn 1977). I'd forward the info to a researcher if I knew of one. Jane Albright ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 14:05:36 -0400 (EDT) From: MICHAEL TURNIANSKY Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-31-96 Oh boy, oh boy, lots of stuff for me to comment on today, as well as ask new stuff. Sorry for the length: Jim: > [Maureen McGovern] also sang the theme song from one of the "Superman" > movies, I think the first one By "theme song", are you referring to "Can You Read My Mind?" (Not the title theme, which was a strictly (John Williams) instrumental). If so, then yes, it was the first movie. Herr Hulan: > Well, I knew that "Mercator" meant "merchant", and that his real name was a > German word meaning "merchant". "Kaufmann" was the one that occurred to me, > but I added the "something of that sort" because the Germans had more than > one word for "merchant" and I didn't remember for sure which one Mercator had > originally borne. So OK, it was "Kramer". Ah, yes, "Kaufmann" I remember once in Middle School German a dialogue which involved an "import/export Kaufmann" At least we can be thankful that Mercator first name wasn't Cosmo. Rich Morrisey: > (what does David Copperfield's career have to do with copper? Right. Everyone knows it's about magic and Claudia Schiffer. > Oliver Twist's character certainly isn't twisted, even if his life is). I thought it was a heavy martini drinker, and was constantly deciding "olive or twist?" to garnish it. Melody: > Bought an issue of Oz Squad > once, but no more. (Rant, rave, foam, gnash, gnash!) ):-( ):-( ):--( I can see it now: a blurb on the next Oz Squad "Brought forth rave reviews from noted Oz writer/illustrator Melody Grandy" > I agree with you, Dave. The Disney folks should have counteracted the bad > effect of the ruined version of Aladdin's wedding by lingering over the > fine, unspoiled joyous wedding at the end. Does anyone else besides Dave > and I feel the same way? > I'll let you know after my mother-in-law sends us the tape, sometime this week. OK, on to new stuff: OZ ON 45s: Got *two* old references to Oz on 45s this weekend. One was on Allen Lee's "Forgotten 45's" syndicated radio show. He played a 1958 recording of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by a doo-wop group called The Channers (?). And also, I found this weekend, while looking for a record to play on Sunday morning breakfast (don't believe in them new-fangled CD's either for my ears or my computer :-) ), and found a Disneyland 45, LG-786, with the song "Happy Glow" from Disney's "Scarecrow of Oz" It must have come from my wife's childhood collection. Can someone tell me anything about the movie, and/or how much this 45 might be worth? (condition is only fair) (I have not listened to it yet). Strangely enough, my record player used to belong to fellow digester Rich Morrisey. OZ IN BALTIMORE: While trying to find someplace in Baltimore County yesterday, discovered that there a "Yellow Brick Road" around here (connecting a mall and an industrial park, no side streets). Also, on the same map page (about 20 sq. miles) a small "Dorothy Ave.", a "Woodmans Ct.", and a "Lionhead Ct.". Within about 9 miles of these are also a "Quad Ave." and an "Emerald Rd." --Mike "Shaggy Man" Turniansky, still kicking himself for missing out on Delaware.... ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 16:34:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: TODAY'S GROWLS Melody and Dave - Dittoes! My wife the therapist decided she needed us to watch "Leaving Las Vegas" for professional reasons this weekend. I didn't know anything about it so watched too. Let me disrecommend this movie. Afterwards I needed to read Oz for several hours to help clean out my mind. Eric - How about a job hunt status report? Regards, Bear ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 16:24:28 -0500 (CDT) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-03-96 David: Suspend your disbelief about Speedy's age, please. Yes, it's a problem, but the story was so good.... I guess I could/should have edited out the reference. The first instance of "ass" as "bottom" may well be Chaucer. Didn't he use it in "The Miller's Tale"? I'll have to check.(A few minutes later) Nertz! I can't check it at home. All I have is a modern English version which, even if it *does* use "ass," doesn't prove a thing about Chaucer's wording. Now, who do I know with a Caxton? Maybe a dictionary of American slang would help? The fact that the O.E.D. doesn't list it as "bottom" indicates what someone (Aaron, I think) has been saying all along, but my gut feeling is that Shakespeare knew and used the word that way. It certainly would be typical of his writing. This is really aggravating me. Can't any of us find where/when this stupid word showed up in the language with this particular connotation? Y'all did quite well with "tin." ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 17:48:40 -0400 (EDT) From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN Subject: Tin and Nickel Gordon, I would assume Nick Chopper had himself nickel-plated over concerns of his surface wearing. Unless his body became able to grow back like those of ordinary people, he would eventually wear away until he fell apart. This concern is apparently real, since there is mention of other "artificial" people needing repairs. For example, the Scarecrow is mentioned as having the paint on his face regularly replaced, which indicates it does not regenerate as does the skin on a human face. Scraps is mentioned needing wear-related repairs also, such as resewing of seams (probably damaged due to stress) and having her shoes replaced in _The Magical Mimics in Oz_. It may well be that Nick Chopper was taking other measures to preserve himself. In _The Wonder City of Oz_, it is mentioned that he was wearing shoes which were removable, which may mean that the soles of his own feet were wearing thin. Meanwhile, derving from the latest Ozzy FAQ, will writing to Laumer at this time result in anything or is he still in Switerland or Mars or wherever he is when he's not in Florida? ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 22:15:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy Digest David: My only answer is that the birds (perhaps large ones) accidentally dropped stuff on the Ozure islands from time to time, one item of which was the history book with Trot, although it could not have been "ancient". Rin Tin Tin Woodman (hmmm, probably not): Anway, the idea of "tin = cheap" explains my memories of the phrase "not even a tin whistle". --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 22:21:04 -0400 From: Ozisus@aol.com Subject: MGM Jim and all: We knew the MGM Grand was planning to demolish "Oz" even as the surveys were being received. Since the committee members strongly prefer a convention location with an historic connection tied to LFB and/or the publication of The Wizard over a "fantasy" connection (Kansas or Omaha for example where there is nothing Ozzy that's tangible to support a convention program), the MGM -- wonderful as it was -- was not a choice location for those of us who have to figure out the logistics of a program. Though it would have been wonderful to not have to create our own Oz ambiance, we also hope that media attention can focus on the 1900 Wizard. With that soaring MGMish Emerald City as a stunning backdrop, it would have been quite a challenge to keep the "Baum" in any news coverage we might have generated. IMHO, we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot if we can't leverage the convention to let the public know about both our Club, and the centennial of America's favorite fairy tale. You are quite right that the MGM Grand isn't on the timeline. An oversight for which I am entirely to blame. I'm sure it was reported in a Baum Bugle and I should have picked it up. Jim VanderNoot needs to let me know the best way for us to update and correct the document. In the meantime, I'll add it to my list of things to add. I read the Denslow catalog from the Brandywine exhibit and have a growing list already. Jane ====================================================================== Date: Tuesday 03-Sep-96 21:49:44 From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things 1996 OZIANA: David H. wrote: >Oh, well, it's not ... HACC material, so it doesn't matter. Couldn't we make an exception with this, since it's a sequel to an FF book? MY WEB SITE: My refurbished Ozzy Web pages are now up and running! It now includes links to other Ozzy sites, a "History of Oz" page, and the latest version of the Ozzy Digest FAQ. Visit it, and tell me what you think! :) "OZ ON CHARON" UPDATE: I received another reply today regarding the "Campaign to Put Ozzy Names on Charon"...The reply came all the way overseas from Patrick Moore (a.k.a. "The British Carl Sagan"). He said that he is "a little wary of using non-mythological names" (even though non-mythological names are used on the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn's Mimas and Enceladus, and Uranus' Miranda, Titania and Oberon!), but that if Charon's discoverer James Christy is in favor (which of course he is), then "it must clearly be considered". It turns out that Moore is a member of the Nomclature Committee, which decides the naming of features on moons, and he said that he would bring our case before their next General Assembly for consideration. I will also contact them on behalf of the Oz Club myself. I hope, though, that we will get more responses of definite support from others whom I wrote to. So far, Christy, Ray Bradbury, and Astronomer Jay M. Pasachoff have given their support, but I am still awaiting responses from Carl Sagan, Martin Gardner, Harlan Ellison, L. Sprague de Camp, and Astronomer and "Project Ozma" founder Frank Drake. Of course, I will keep everyone up to date... -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 5, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 09:38:43 -0400 From: HermBieber@aol.com Subject: Neill Bibliography For Ozzy Digest: Jane: As far as I know, Michael Hearn if the ranking bibliographer (for Denslow and Baum, as well as for Neill). Judy and I have already found 6 unrecorded Neill items (mostly magazine stuff) and always send Michael xeroxes. He has no e-mail, but can be reached at 18 W. 76th St. (Apt. 4B), New York, NY 10023 (212+580-9126) ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 11:06:17 -0400 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-03 & 04-96 I had problems reading my E-mail yesterday - lost my connection to the host twice in the middle of reading a file - so I had to wait till Dave had a chance to send me yesterday's Digest again. And I'll be at a seminar in downtown Chicago the next three days, so you'll have smaller Digests to deal with until Sunday. :-) 9/3: John: The spelling "ass" for "arse" is rare in Britain, but the two words are pronounced the same today in Standard British English. If that was the case in Shakespeare's day then the pun would be pretty obvious. Gordon: I think there are references to Nick's nickel-plating in later books, but they aren't frequent. I'm surprised that the rotary egg-beater was considered that big a labor-saving device; once it was electrified, maybe, but I've known a number of people who thought it was just as easy to use a fork as a manual rotary egg-beater to beat eggs, even for making things like meringue. The vacuum cleaner, definitely, but I'd have thought things like the electric iron and the wringer washing machine would rank a lot higher on the list than the rotary egg-beater. 9/4: Robin: No real problem with the question of Speedy's age. It might have made things more consistent to change the reference to "flying labs in space" to "aircraft that fly across oceans" or something appropriate to a late-40s date (given that the rest of the events probably wouldn't be appropriate to an early-40s date, when Da Big Wah was on...). I think that was the only reference that implied a time for the story based on anything other than the characters' ages. I don't have a copy of Chaucer in the original Middle English either, but I'm pretty sure that when I read "The Miller's Tale" in ME that he used the term "ers". Barry: I think it's Sweden where Laumer is when he's not in Florida, but I don't know his current whereabouts. Dave: Could you give us the URL on your Web page again? I know it's back there somewhere in the old Digests I have, but finding it would be something else... And I don't recall a link to it from Tyler's or Eric's pages, though there may well be one. David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 12:09:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy DIgest ********** SLIGHT SPOILER FOR A LAUMER BOOK ********** Gordon and Barry: The issue of the TIn Woodman wearing out was addressed in March Laumer's _The Ten Woodmen of Oz_ (which is a misnomer, since the ten men in question have nothing to do with Oz). His hips had given out entirely and his legs were gone. Nobody knew what to do, until it was decided, part by part, to replace him with new material. ********** END OF LAUMER SPOILER ********** Also, Mr. Laumer resides in Sweden when he is not in Florida. Dave and David: I am a little wary of making the Speedy story an exception, even though it appears to be an FF sequel. There are other OZIANA stories that are also sequels to FF stories, and this looks to me like a slippery slope. Chris and I decided a long time ago not to include OZIANA stories, since they are for the most part fanciful writings that rarely fit in with the FF. This is not to say that they are not good, of course. I have enjoyed reading many of the stories in that magazine. Oz on Charon: It's good to hear that you have at last contacted a member of the committee. I have a feeling about this... :-) --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 14:48:31 EST5 From: Mike Burns Subject: Oz Kids on video This may be old news but anyway... Due October 1st on Paramount Home Video at $12.95 each. 5 tapes. Titles include Toto Lost in New York, Who Stole Santa?, The Nome Prince and the Magic Belt, Christmas in Oz, and Virtual Oz. Have a happy... Mike ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 12:38:53 -0700 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: Ozzy Matters Shaggy Man: The SCARECROW OF OZ song you mentioned came from a Disneyland Record called THE SCARECROW OF OZ (which had Ray Bolger as the title narrator) based very loosely on the book. My copy of the record, which came with a fully illustrated story book, is at home; so I will have to check the details and get back to you later today (which means it will be in the same digest, probably. There were two other original Disneyland records, THE TIN WOODMAN OF OZ which ends with the Tin Woodman marrying Nimmee Amee, and three other pairings: Woot and Polychrome, the Lion and a Lioness and the Scarecrow and a Scarecrowess; and THE COWARDLY LION OF OZ which had a completely original plot. I do not believe that any of these were intended for a film version. Cornerning Shakespeare's asses: The word "ass" appears 90 times in Shakespeare's works. In almost every case it means a dolt or a fool, or refers directly to the animal. In only one case does it seem to suggest the meaning arse (a word that never appears in Shakespeare), that is Hamlet's: "Then came each actor on his ass," which cerrtainly supports the meaning donkey but could be a double entendre. The word "arse" goes back to back to Anglo-Saxon times, but Shakespeare did not use it. Robin: Chaucer's spelling of the word (Miller's Tale 3735) was "ers" ("But with his mouth he kiste hir nakid ers / Ful savourly." The earliest recorded use of "ass" for "arse" was in 1860. Tin: Consider the word "tinsel" and the phrase "not worth a tinker's dam." Digressions from Ozzyness can be interesting. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 16:54:59 -0700 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: Disneyland records There were actually four Disneyland records released on Oz stories. All four have music performed by Camerata. THE SCARECROW OF OZ with Ray Bolger was copyright 1965. It contained the song "Happy Glow" as well as "Over the Rainbow" and also an illustrated full sized booklet. It concerns the Jinxland portion of the book including Trot, Pon, Gloria, the Ork, Cap'n Bill (transformed into a grasshopper), King Krewl and the regular characters. It has one picture showing "Glinda and Dorothy watch the magic TV screen and see the Orks flying the travelers to OZ." This Album had the number ST-3930. The other three records are copyright 1969. THE COWARDLY LION OF OZ (ST-3956), says on the album "Based and the book by RUTH PLUMLY THOMPSON, but the story has nothing to do with that book. It concerns a wicked witch named Smarmy who has kidnapped Prince Paul and turned him into a marionette. The Cowardly Lion is sent by Glinda to save the situation. THE TIN WOODMAN OF OZ (3992) contains Loons, a Hippo-gyraf [sic] and Mrs. Yoop as well as Polychrone, Nimmie Amee, and the regulars. It ends with a quadruple wedding. On the jacket it says: "Based on the book by RUTH PLUMLY THOMPSON."[!!!] The last of the recordings was THE WIZARD OF OZ [3957]. It does incorporate several songs from the MGM film, but Dorothy's shoes are silver, not ruby, and the Good Witch of the North and Glinda, the good Witch of the South are differentiated. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 14:01:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Anthony Donajkowski Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-04-96 just to let everyone know they are rerealising wiz of oz on tape again this time its thx style like lucas did with the star wars movies also says last time available this century hugs anthony van pyre ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 14:51:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls Barry et. al. - The way some of you answer questions indicates to me that 1) You have incredible memories for tiny facts or 2) You have access to the Oz books in a computer somewhere so that you can search on key words. Please enlighten me/us. Searchingly, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 17:27:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-04-96 > From: MICHAEL TURNIANSKY > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-31-96 > > And also, I found this weekend, while looking for a record > to play on Sunday morning breakfast (don't believe in them new-fangled > CD's either for my ears or my computer :-) ), and found a Disneyland 45, > LG-786, with the song "Happy Glow" from Disney's "Scarecrow of Oz" It > must have come from my wife's childhood collection. Can someone tell me > anything about the movie, and/or how much this 45 might be worth? "The Scarecrow of Oz," in this case, was not a movie, but a record, adapting the Baum story of the same name, and narrated by Ray Bolger. "Happy Glow" is, IIRC, the only song on the album. --Eric Gjovaag ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 20:37:43 -0400 (EDT) From: "James R. Whitcomb" Subject: Miscellaneous Oz stuff Jane: Thanks for clearing up the choice for the Centennial Oz convention. As much as I like(d) the MGM Grand Oz themes, I agree that it would be nice to return to some place historical for the celebration. In my opinion, it would be wonderful to see the whole concept of Baum's life and his writing of "The Wizard of Oz" come full-circle by returning to its roots. I was going through some of my Oz stuff this evening and found what may be another item you might want to consider adding to your time-line(?) if it's not already there; I didn't see it. In Dec.1993, ca. 425 pieces of Oz memorabilia, collected by Nicholas Salerno, chiefly between 1970 and 1990, were presented to Arizona State University Libraries where it has been cataloged as a realia collection. His collection included commemorative and promotional material from the 50th anniversary celebration of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film. I never heard of Nicholas Salerno, so I don't know if this particular collection is of any significance based on who he was or not. My source for this info is from the OCLC database (#30560192). P.S. This time-line is incredible. I would like to commend anyone and everyone who has worked on it. Is there any plan to have it issued in print format to coincide with the centennial? If so, you've already sold at least one copy. To all interested in the MGM Grand Oz themes: I called them again this afternoon and spoke to public relations. Here's the latest and last scoop for a while. The Emerald City is being "stored" some place in the Grand Adventures Theme Park as it's being disassembled. There has been no final decision to totally eliminate it. I asked about other Oz themes and the person I spoke with said she didn't know. She said that there will be press releases from the Corporation that owns the MGM Grand whenever they decide what changes will be made. This is a 30 month project which just got underway in June 1996 and some of it is still in the planning stages. So, maybe all isn't lost in terms of the Oz themes. Jim:) ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 6, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 08:39:31 -0700 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: TEN WOODMEN ***********SLIGHT SPOILER FOR TEN WOODMEN OF OZ************ I must correct one statement Tyler made concerning this Laumer title. There are 10 woodmen from various parts of Oz who accompany Dorothy on a trip to the "real world." The Tin Woodman was suffering from EYDS (an obvious homophone for AIDS)--I think the name was an acronym for "Electroplated Yeoman's Disease of the Skin" but will not swear to it--brought on by air pollution from the outside world. Thus this book concerns several topical subjects: AIDS and environmental issues. ***************END SPOILER******************* By the way, Baum was interested in environmental issues. In AUNT JANE'S NEICES AT WORK, the neices get involved in a political campaign based on opposition to highway signs that hide the beauty of nature. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 11:56:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@compuserve.com> Subject: Ozzy DIgest David: The only link from my page is to Eric's, since he has links to just about every Oz page out there. I do not know if Eric has a link to Dave's page. Bear: If you go to the Piglet Press Home Page, I believe they have links to some of the Baum books online. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 10:07:12 -0600 (CST) From: Ruth Berman Subject: ozzy digest Regarding previous discussion of Cheeriobed as the King of the Munchkins -- it dawns on me that I never did print the article I wrote on the subject several years back anywhere. It's rather too long to contribute to the Digest, but I've typed it up with some revisions and sent it to the Oz Research Group for their fall (post office) mailing. There's a good deal of overlap between the Digest and the OzRG, but in case there are some here who would enjoy it and are not in it -- it's run by Andrea Kelman Yussman, 2800 Rockhaven Ave, Louisville KY 40220. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 13:43:49 -0500 (CDT) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-04-96 Mike: Disney's "Scarecrow of Oz" was an LP. I guess they released "Happy Glow" as a single from that album. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 13:54:32 -0500 (CDT) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 Tyler: While I certainly agree that no OZIANA story should be included in the HACC, I disagree that "many" of the stories in the magazine do not follow the FF. Most of them that I've edited (since '85) most certainly do follow the FF. If a story doesn't follow the FF pretty closely, I won't use it. Oz Kids: Thanks for the info, Mike. I'm glad they're almost out. We'll have to wait until '98 for the TV series, but at least we'll have the videos. Scarecrow record: I just read Steve's and Eric's responses to the "Happy Glow" query. Unfortunately, I answered the question yesterday and *just* got around to posting it...before I read their responses. I think it's pretty cool that you can just send a question out into the ether and have it answered fairly quickly. "Ers/arse/ass"--Thank you, Stephen. It had bothered me that I couldn't track the dam*ed word down. What source did you use for the dating of "Arse/ass"? I'll bet several of us would like to know where you found it. --Robin ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 15:33:31 -0400 From: Homer Just a thought to Anthony Van Pyres: Not to be picky or anything, but I'm sure more than a few of us would appreciate it if you could manage to take thirty extra seconds and add some capital letters and maybe a period or two to your messages. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 17:46:09 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mark K. DeJohn" <103330.323@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 From: Barbara DeJohn Hi Digest!!! I haven't had my computer for a few days so I am now catching up. I still haven't received the Oziana so I guess I will have to order it again. Perhaps the Ozure Islands have book trees that would give them history as it happens. It would not be an "ancient" book but maybe kind of old. I will be in Cape Cod for the next week. So if anyone knows of any Ozzy place to visit let me know. When I get the artwork for the t-shirts and buttons I will give you an update. Barbara DeJohn 103330.323@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 17:20:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 > From: DavidXOE@aol.com > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-03 & 04-96 > > Dave: > Could you give us the URL on your Web page again? I know it's back there > somewhere in the old Digests I have, but finding it would be something > else... And I don't recall a link to it from Tyler's or Eric's pages, though > there may well be one. There is not one yet, but I am in the process of upgrading the page, and there should be one soon. --Eric Gjovaag ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 19:11:17 -0700 (PDT) From: ahclem@netcom.com (Ken Cope) Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 Tyler Jones said: > I am a little wary of making the Speedy story an exception, even though it > appears to be an FF sequel. There are other OZIANA stories that are also > sequels to FF stories, and this looks to me like a slippery slope. Chris > and I decided a long time ago not to include OZIANA stories, since they > are for the most part fanciful writings that rarely fit in with the FF. > The foundation of the hack IS slippery slope. In arbitrarily imposing continuity retroactively where there was none to begin with, one has no basis more legitimate than subjective biases and repetitious personal pronouncement. While illustrating Umbrella Island in Oz, I had a good reason to read Speedy in Oz. It was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed a Thompson book. Still, her Oz has very little to do with the Oz I visit when I read Baum. Should I mount a campaign to have her work declared anathema and advise others not to read her work because I still don't enjoy it as much as my favorite stories? I recognize that for some people, Baum doesn't deliver the Oz fix that Ms. Thompson's type of tale does. Speedy screams for a sequel, and Umbrella was a respectable effort. One reason Oz is such a successful meme is that it invites completion in the mind of the reader; it fuels the visitor's imagination in just the way television does not. The result is frequently a writer, an artist, and in some cases, a Wogglebug. Christopher Tolkien's work with Middle Earth cannot be transposed to Oz. Oz won't be straitjacketed. You are welcome to amuse yourself and others with your hiccing and haccing, but I have enjoyed multiple and conflicting and inconsistent manifestations of Oz without this sort of painful pedantry filtering my enjoyment of diversity. I have use for neither an Ozian Legion of Decency nor a Ministry of Retcon. Have fun storming the castle! -- Ken Cope Ones & Zeroes SurReal Estate ahclem@netcom.com http://www.ozcot.com/ ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 08:17:59 -0500 (EST) From: cummingss@kenyon.edu Subject: RE: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 Has anyone herad of a new book by Alicia Williams titled THE SCARECROW, THE LION AND THE TINMAN? The author will be signing in Columbus OH at the Media Play oon W. Broad St from 1-3pm on Saturday (Sept 7). Cheers, Scott ====================================================================== Date: Friday 06-Sep-96 10:19:28 From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things DISNEYLAND RECORDS: Thanks for the info. on those record verisons of Oz books...Tell me, did any onf those records have in them a certain Ozite...Perhaps you know her?...She's rather petite, er um...has dark hair with two big poppies... MY URL: Silly me! :) I told everyone to take a peek at my Ozzy Web site, and then didn't give the URL! It's: http://people.delphi.com/DaveH47/Oz.html -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 7, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 15:06:18 -0500 (CDT) From: Gordon Birrell Subject: egg beaters David, Susan Strasser wasn't saying that the vacuum cleaner and rotary egg beater were the all-time most important labor-saving devices, just the first two that dramatically improved the lives of women in the late nineteenth century. Other appliances were soon to follow, including--above all--the gas range and the electric stove, which supplanted the old cast-iron woodburning stove that needed to be tended from dawn to dusk and kept the kitchen at the heat level of a forge all day long. Incidentally, as a person who has done time beating eggs the classical way (with a wire whisk and a copper bowl), I am heartily in favor of not only rotary egg beaters but a big old heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer. And anyone who makes a meringue using a *fork* as an eggbeater ought to be in the Guiness Book of World Records. Robin: Here's my two cents worth (well, maybe one cent worth) on the ass/arse question. The two words have distinctly different roots in West Germanic, and in German they show up as Esel/Arsch, which could never be confused. I've asked a number of colleagues in the English department about this, and as several Digest members have indicated, the British pronunciation of "arse" as "ass" is rare and localized, so there just isn't the same kind of ambiguity about the term as there is in this country. Shakespeare experts I have spoken with agree with Stephen that Shakespeare didn't use the word "ass" with a double meaning of ignorant dolt and tuchus; but certainly the name Bottom resonates in that second direction. (There was some head-shaking amongst those Shakespeare scholars, incidentally, about whether Shakespeare would even use the word "arse": apparently he loved bawdy puns but generally avoided rough language. I was told to consult the complete works of Ben Jonson for a fuller understanding of sixteenth-century usage in this regard. Think I'll leave that task for someone else.) Maybe we can leave this thread now? Gordon Birrell ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 16:11:52 -0400 From: Homer Dave- I like your Oz page. Those pictures are neat. (Emerald City, Flathead Mountain) Did they come from a copmuter program or what? Also, I was thinking, and I realized that one of you Digesters might be my next-door neighbor. No need to answer if you don't, but does anyone live near Elk County, PA? Tony ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 16:41:40 -0400 (EDT) From: BARRY ESHKOL ADELMAN Subject: Where in the world is March Laumer? Thanks to all the people who took the time to tell me where Laumer was when he is not in Florida. However, I intended to ask if anyone knew IF he was currently there. (For those curious why, I recently pulled in some nice extra money in overtime and was thinking of putting a bit of it into a Laumer book.) Bear, I have all the Baum books online on disk somewhere, but as of yet I have not done a search through them for facts. contrary to what people say i have no problem with the way anthony writes it an interesting change from the usual style hugs barry eshkl adelman ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 15:42:10 -0700 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: OZ & others Robin: My source for "ass" being cited as "vulgar and dial. sp. and pronunc. of ARSE" (1860), is the OED first edition), Volume 1, page 489, center of column 2. It is given as a separate entry but, strangely, the word is not in bold type. Dave: The Ozite of whom you inquire does appear in the recording THE TIN WOODMAN OF OZ which (unlike the book) begins (and I believe ends)in the Royal Palace. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 19:18:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy DIgest II Other subjects: Uh, oh. I sense the HACC wars starting again. Let me try to defuse this immediately lest the digest explode again as it did in February and March. First off, let me tell you how the HACC started and why. The HACC (although originally it had no name) was started by Chris Dulabone and the prototype can be found in the back of the Buckethead book _Dagmar in Oz_. Chris wanted to list all Oz books that, overall, fitted in with each other to form a continuous flow of Ozzy history. He asked me to help him out with it. At first I objected, giving many of the same reasons that others have. That is, Oz consists of over two hundred books written by many people at the same time over the past 100 years with little or no knowledge of each other, added to the fact that continuity and inconsistancy with each other has never been a priority. Nevertheless, Chris convinced me that we could get pretty close and the modern HACC was born. We discussed the formation of it and set several ground rules, many of which can be found at my web site. The HACC has never been a demand that all Oz books be written a certain way, and it has never demanded that everybody conform to my vision of Oz and my vision only. The HACC is simply a collection of Oz books, that, to the best of my knowledge, form a reasonably consistent flow of the history of the Land of Oz. I realize that not everyone will agree that this is a good idea. Many people think that consistency cannot be acheived nor should the attempt be made. I have never suggested that certain material not be read simply because I disagreed with it, and if a book does not appear in the HACC that does not mean that I disapprove of it. Several non-HACC books are among the finest material ever written about Oz, such as the March Laumer books and Farmer's _A Barnstormer in Oz_. To those who call me an Ozian Legion of Decency, this is one of the most un-decent books ever written, yet I love it). I have read every Oz book that has ever been published, and I have enjoyed them all on their own terms as well as for their place in the Ozzy timeline. I have no problem with books that are different or go off on their own directions. They do not go into the HACC, but I enjoy them anyway. The HACC has nothing to do with censorship, forced continuity or a strait- jacketed view of Oz. It's main purpose is what I have always said it is: the best approximation of the history of the Land of Oz that can be acheived from a hodgepodge of books written by many different people, each with their own thoughts and opinions. The HACC is not the end-all and be-all of Oz. Each book can, and should, be enjoyed on its own terms as a simple story about a very special place. However, I do not believe that anything is wrong with an attempt to chain some of them together to create a big picture. While it is true that I have judged some books non-HACC-worthy, this means only that, in my humble opinion, that story does not fit in textually with the majority of Oz material. All of this can be summed up by saying that the HACC is just my attempt at creating something else besides just a collection of individual books. Nobody is "required" to agree with it, nobody is even "required" to agree that the HACC is a good thing, or even a feasible idea. All I ask is that the HACC be recognized for what it is, not for what it isn't. I welcome ALL Oz books, however they are written. Whether or not they go into the HACC is just one small item in the big picture. For example, I have been providing information and other ideas to a certain unnamed person who is writing an Oz book. One of his goals was to make it textually accurate enough to go into the HACC. However, he wanted to do several things with the book that would make it unable to go in there. What did I do? Did I rant and rave, and demand that the book be written exactly the way I wanted it to be written? No, I did not, becuase it is not MY book. This story must be written way the author wants it to be written. I am still sending info his way and I am sure I will really enjoy the book when it is finally available, no matter its HACC-ness or HI/RCC-ness. A plea for peace: Please, everybody, let us not repeat the disaster of six months ago. Whether or not you agree with the purpose of the HACC and despite what you may or may not think of the HACC itself, it is simply not designed to crush creativity and destroy diversity, and an infinite loop of "yes it is, no it isn't" will accomplish absolutely nothing of value. If you do not agree with the purpose of the HACC, fine, if you do, then I welcome any suggestions, advice and comments. By the way, for those of you who loved _Umbrella_, why not go the HACC on my web site and take a look at the year 1943. Thank you for your time and attention --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 19:18:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy DIgest Steve: Of course. They went with Dorothy to provide support and/or protection. So much of the story took place in Alaska, that I thought the woodmen were from there as well. Ruth: I can't wait to read your article on Cheeriobed as King. I'm sure it will be fascinating. Robin: I stand corrected. Thanks for the info abot OZIANA stories and their roots in the FF. Barbara: Of course! A bird carried some seeds from Oogaboo and dropped them over the Ozure Isles. The seeds mutated, so that the books would be permanent. Several histories were collected to form a library. The problem has been very neatly solved. Thanks so much. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 19:45:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls Barb - I received a message from Jim Vandernoot saying my Oziana had been returned due to improper addressing. That was weeks ago and still no Oziana. You may be in the same boat. Why don't you give Jim a jingle by e-mail. Briefly, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 19:56:34 +0000 From: rri0189@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 David Hulan wrote: >I'm surprised that the rotary egg-beater was considered that big a >labor-saving device; once it was electrified, maybe, but I've known a number >of people who thought it was just as easy to use a fork as a manual rotary >egg-beater to beat eggs, even for making things like meringue. The vacuum >cleaner, definitely, but I'd have thought things like the electric iron and >the wringer washing machine would rank a lot higher on the list than the >rotary egg-beater. Believe me, I've made meringues with a whisk and beaten pancake batters with a fork, and the rotary egg-beater is a God-send in comparison! I, too, know someone who swore that his mother whipped cream with an ordinary kitchen fork. I actually saw him try to duplicate this feat. After several minutes, the egg-beater made short work of the job. All I can say is, his mother must have an arm of iron. As to the electric iron and the wringer washing machine: The electric iron requires electricity (not all early vacuums did) and thus was not available to all. And the *non-electric* wringer washing machine isn't much of a labor-saver. You just use a different set of muscles. -- Eleanor Kennedy ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 20:33:06 +0000 From: rri0189@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 There is a popular American superstition to the effect that the British pronounce all a's as in "father", but it ain't so. "Ass" is pronounced just the same in Received Pronunciation as in the US, and coudn't possibly be confused with "arse". And unless I misremember, it is extremely unlikely that it was pronounced differently in Shakespeare's time. // John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit" ====================================================================== Date: Saturday 07-Sep-96 10:02:13 From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things VOLKOV AND FAQ: I have received good suggestions for the FAQ, and to the end of continual improvement therein, I need the folowing questions answered: -- When did Volkov write his "Oz" books? -- How popular were they in Russia? WHAT IF WE HAD AN HACC-WAR AND NOBODY CAME?: I second Tyler's plea for peace...NO HACC-WAR! And if you *must* start one, please do it via private E-mail! Let's practice Ozzy brotherhood! Ozma, Glinda, Dorothy, Scarecrow, Scraps, Nick, Wizard, Lion, etc.: "All we are saying is..." :) -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 9, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Sat, 07 Sep 1996 07:37:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Eric Gjovaag Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-06-96 > From: ahclem@netcom.com (Ken Cope) > Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-05-96 > > While illustrating Umbrella Island in Oz, I had a good reason to read > Speedy in Oz. It was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed a Thompson book. > Still, her Oz has very little to do with the Oz I visit when I read Baum. > Should I mount a campaign to have her work declared anathema and advise > others not to read her work because I still don't enjoy it as much as my > favorite stories? You and Jack Snow, eh? > From: Dave Hardenbrook > Subject: Ozzy Things > > DISNEYLAND RECORDS: > Thanks for the info. on those record verisons of Oz books...Tell me, did > any onf those records have in them a certain Ozite...Perhaps you know > her?...She's rather petite, er um...has dark hair with two big poppies... Ozma is on all three non-"Wizard" records, but doesn't have a large part in any of them. --Eric Gjovaag ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Sep 1996 16:18:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy Digest Vokovian stuff: Here are the dates of publication for the six VOlkov books, not counting _Emerald Rain_. _The Wizard of the Emerald City_ 1939 (revised in 1959) _Urfin Jus and His Wooden Soldiers_ 1963 _THe Seven Underground Kings_ 1969 _The Fiery God of the Marrans_ 1972 _Yellow Fog_ 1988 _The Secret of the Witches Deserted Castle_ 1989 That 1939 date is not a coincidence, although it is based on the book and not the movie. The first four of these, by the way, are available from Peter Blystone and the Red Branch Press. They are worth reading. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Sep 1996 22:11:56 -0400 (EDT) From: "Aaron S. Adelman" Subject: The HACC and the HI/RCC Dave, your history of Oz is interesting, but I would like to dispute a few points: A) _The Woozy of Oz_ puts the first fairy settlements on Lurline's World at about 500,000 BCE, significantly before Tottenhots established their settlements. B) I had always assumed that Glinda and Locasta were Ozites. (Indeed, based on my claim that Mombi has three daughters and yours that Locasta is the grandmother of the Three Adepts, I have suspected that Locasta is Mombi's mother, and that Mombi is the mother of the Three Adepts.) The only source I know of that would support the notion that they weren't Ozites is Volkov's work, which has Bastinda, Gingemma, Glinda-Stella, and Locasta-Villina enter Oz from the outside world and impose their rule on the natives. C) It is nowhere near certain that Singra is THE Wicked Witch of the South. I personally favor the unnamed Shannowerian Wicked Witch of the South because 1) she is depicted as THE Wicked Witch of the South, while Singra is just a southern wicked witch, 2) Singra has some chronological problems if she is THE Wicked Witch of the South, and 3) THE Wicked Witch of the South is not copyrighted, being a Baumian character, and I may want to use her someday in _Lurline's Machine_. D) I propose that Glinda, Locasta, Mombi, Bastinda, Gingemma, Singra, the Wicked Witch of the South, Gloma, and probably several other magic workers were politically active in the parts of Oz under the rule of Oz Pastorius II before the takeover. Singra attempted to overthrow Glinda, and instead Glinda put her to sleep for a hundred years. After that, Bastinda, Gingemma, and the Wicked Witch of the South convinced Mombi to ally herself with them, and the four of them overthrew Pastoria and divided them kingdom among themselves. Oz was in a state of civil war for a while, and in the end Glinda, Locasta, Bastinda, Gingemma, Gloma, and maybe a few others emerged as the victors. D) According to the HACC, the Wizard arrived in 1868, at which time Gloma cut off contact with the rest of Oz. Also: What is ABBA? Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelman@yu1.yu.edu ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Sep 1996 22:02:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-06-96 Tyler: I used a friend's cpu to access the net (via Netscape) and saw your page listed, but couldn't access it. Dunno why. I did get the IWOC pages and thought they were pretty cool looking, but maybe I'm easily impressed. I'm a real newbie. BTW, who the heck are "Princess Nanda" et al? Their alternative Oz bears very little resemblance to mine. You wrote: >> Several non-HACC books are among the finest material ever written about Oz, such as the March Laumer books and Farmer's _A Barnstormer in Oz_. To those who call me an Ozian Legion of Decency, this is one of the most un-decent books ever written, yet I love it). Oh my! --------------------------------------------------- OZIANA: Actually, I don't edit out all the glitches to make every story completely HACC. I'll smooth out the ones that bother me enough to warrant my invading and manipulating another person's writing. I'm an editor, not a coauthor. There've been lots of times my fingers have itched to "fix" a poem or a line here and there, but I've almost always been able to resist the impulse. If a story has a real discrepancy between its portrayal of a character or a "HACC-Fact," I probably won't use it. There have been exceptions. I *have* smoothed out a coupla discrepancies in stories I really liked but knew were somehow not consistent enough with the FF. FWIW, I know the FF fairly well. Upon reflection, I think I probably should have edited out the space reference in "Umbrella Island...". It made Speedy too old. I guess I blew it there, according to the mail I've gotten about it. (The mail has been kind and supportive, but uniform in pointing out that Speedy would no longer be a young man by the time we'd entered the space race.) --Robin ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 01:08:37 -0400 From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374@compuserve.com> Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-06-96 Barbara DeJohn: Ah, Provincetown, Cape Cod. Home to sidewalk artists and cozy gift shops. That place seemed rather Ozzy to me.Hope it still is. I was thinking I got my first copy of Land of Oz there, but now I think I got it in Bar Harbour, Me. I was about 17 then. It was the paperback Dover edition, and it had the address of the Wizard of Oz club in it. So I joined up! Melody Grandy ====================================================================== Date: Monday 09-Sep-96 02:36:12 From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things MORE OZ REFERENCES: In the movie _Thelma and Louise_, Geena Davis asks Brad Pitt (shortly before they ), "Who are you?" Pitt, who later takes Geena and Susan Sarandon for every penny they have, answers with no false irony: "I am Oz the Great and Powerful". Also: This wasn't actually an Oz reference, but on C-SPAN about a week or two ago, they reenacted the eloquent speech given by William Jennings Bryan that got him the Democratic Presidential nomination a century ago. The issue on which he so passionately spoke was the gold standard, the issue supposedly satirized in a book called _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_. On that subject, I have downloaded from the Web some political/satirical analyses of _Wizard_, which I will report to you on ( if ever I can weed through them! :) ) -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 10, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 08:11:54 -0500 (EST) From: cummingss@kenyon.edu Subject: RE: Ozzy Digest, 09-09-96 "Melody G. Keller wrote: >I was thinking I got >my first copy of Land of Oz there, but now I think I got it in Bar Harbour, >Me. I was about 17 then. It was the paperback Dover edition, and it had the >address of the Wizard of Oz club in it. So I joined up! That's how I joined the Club, too! Martin Gardner's introduction had me hooked, especially because it mentioned a map of Oz. Cheers, Scott ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 08:14:42 -0500 (EST) From: cummingss@kenyon.edu Subject: RE: Ozzy Digest, 09-09-96 I will answer my own question from a few days ago: THE SCARECROW, THE LION AND THE TIN MAN is a novellete by Columbus author Alicia Williams. It is about the "forbidden" relationships between a woman and her male office workers. She develops three personality types for these men: scarecrows, tinmen and lions. The paperback is $11. Contact me if you would like info about how to order a copy. Scott ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 08:42:54 -0400 From: BARLOW NATE Subject: Wizzard of Oz I went to to a club last Friday night. Their list of upcoming events included a band called "The Wizzard of Oz". No idea what sort of music they play. Nate ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:56:18 -0400 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digests, 09-05 thru 09-96 9/5: Bear: I think a lot of us have reread the Oz books so many times that large parts of them are stuck in our brains. Even if I don't remember exactly what was said on a specific subject, I usually know what book and what chapter and can look it up in a couple of minutes. And then there are some excellent reference works as well. 9/6: Scott: Does the Alicia Williams book you mention have anything to do with the real Oz, or is it just using character-types based on the movie? (I ran across a book by Kathryn Lasky Knight titled THE WIDOW OF OZ, but based on the blurb its only Ozzy connection is that the title character was strongly influenced by the movie in her childhood.) The use of "Tinman" indicates it's probably movie-based... 9/7: Gordon: Ah, I misunderstood what you were saying. I agree that the gas and/or electric range/oven was also a massive improvement, although the wood/coal burning range did have the advantage of providing heat as well as cooking facilities in the wintertime. (In the summer, of course, it still provided heat, which wasn't so good, especially in hot climates.) I do remember, though, that the kitchen at the house of one of my grandmothers still had a coal stove when I was a kid; they had an electric stove as well, but their cook felt that she got better results with the coal stove. I don't know about "better", but she certainly got wonderful results from it! Tyler: BARNSTORMER may be one of the most un-decent _Oz_ books ever written (WICKED is certainly at least as much so), but as books go in general it's pretty tame. Farmer has written far more un-decent books himself, including a couple that were definitely soft-core porn (as evidenced by the fact that they were published by a porn house). A FEAST UNKNOWN, for instance, which involved clones of Tarzan and Doc Savage... Eleanor: Certainly the rotary egg-beater is an improvement over a fork or a wire whisk for beating eggs, making meringues and batters, etc. - but those aren't activities that I'd think most housewives would spend a lot of time doing, so the labor-saving entailed overall shouldn't be that great. I mean, we have a top-of-the-line KitchenAid electric mixer, that even handles kneading bread dough. I do most of the cooking for our family, and I average using it about once a year. I use a wire whisk maybe a dozen times a year. (It's easier to clean when I want to do something like scramble eggs or cut shortening into flour, and not that much more trouble.) I just don't see where the initial labor investment was that would make the rotary egg-beater save that much. Sure, it would save a lot if someone were making meringues, or whipped cream, or the like very often. But my answer to that is that until the rotary beater was available, who would want to make those things very often? 9/9: Aaron: According to the FF, Gloma didn't cut off intercourse with the rest of Oz until after Dorothy destroyed Bastinda, not when the Wizard came to Oz. I'm not sure what Dave meant by ABBA, since I haven't checked his Web page yet, but it's probably a reference to a rock group from, IIRC, the Seventies. Since I don't like rock in general, I don't know anything about them but the name. Someone else will probably give more details. Robin: I've had occasional problems accessing Tyler's Web page. Then the next day it would be there again. Don't know why. Would it not be possible to point out the FF-inconsistencies in a potential OZIANA story to the author and ask for corrections, rather than making them yourself? This would avoid either "invading and manipulating another person's writing" or publishing FF-inconsistent material. Or is this inconsistent with surprising the authors when their stories appear in OZIANA? (At least, I was surprised - albeit pleased - when "A Princess of Oz" appeared there last year.) David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 10:41:23 -0700 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: Bottom's Dream Final word on bottoms: Part of the concern about the word ass that was in the digest last week may have sprung from Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM where a character named Bottom was given the head of an ass. This seemed to some an obvious pun on Shakespeare's part. Unfortunately for that theory not only did the word "ass" have the meaning of a certain fundemental part of the human anatomy, neither did the word "bottom." The OED's first citation of "bottom" to mean "the sitting part of a man" was in 1794, 200 years after Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare's word for that portion of a berson was "bum" as in the line (from MND) "Then slip I from her bum, down topples she." I shall now contentrate on other matters. I spoke to Fred Meyer this weekend. He has been able to walk with a cane, although he still needs a walker much of the time. This is progress. We all hope he can make it to the conventions next year. The Spring 1996 BAUM BUGLE is at least partly at press. It may be out by the end of the month. This may be the first time the Spring issue comes out in Autumn. The reviews for the Autumn issue are being sent off now. If anyone knows of anything that that should be reviewed in the Winter issue, please let me know. Several of the reviewers for the Fall issue came from the digest. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 14:19:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy Digest Aaron and Dave: A) The date when people first settled the Ozian continent is perhaps the most unknown item of information in all of Oz. This date is unknown and may be unknowable, especially if people settled before the invention of the written word. B) This is beginning to sound like a bad soap opera. "Yes, it's true, I am your mother, and this is your cousin's neice, who you thought to be your half-sister-in-law". It is possible that many of the magic workers are related, but I doubt that Mombi is the daughter of Locasta. C) Is THE Wicked Witch of the South in PD? She was mentioned in _Dot&Wiz_, but did not appear until Shanower's story. The same question may be asked of Pastoria, who was mentioned in _Land of Oz_, but did not appear until _Lost King_. D) IS is very likely that all good and wicked witches (with the exception of Abatha, Good Witch of the East) were involved in the political scene. Power can be a lure for some people, and those with magical capabilities would be the natural ones to try and seize it. E) IIRC, Gloma cut off contact when Ozma ascended the throne, or perhaps when the Tin Woodman became Emperor of the Winkies. I'll let Dave describe the group ABBA if he chooses to do so. Robin: One possibility is that you used some uppercase characters. This can be a problem with some browsers and servers. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tyler_jones is entirely lower case and that thing in the middle of my name is an underscore. Yes it's true. It's not Ozzy or HACC-worthy, but I love _Barnstormer_. While I believe editing some parts of OZIANA stories to make them gel with the FF, there is no need to make them gel with each other or the HACC. As someone else on this digest would say, this is a case of just fun stories with no other attachments (except the FF, of course). --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 14:48:11 +0000 From: rri0189@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-09-96 Verious points.... 1) The Volkov books are very popular throughout what used to be called the Soviet Bloc, available in most major languages. One young Russian lady I spoke to, now resident in the USA, told me she thought them superior to Baum. 2) Eric Shanower's opinion is that the two Wicked Witches of the South are sisters who hate each other, sorta like Ann Landers and Dear Abby. 3) ABBA was a Swedish singing group of the 70's who recorded exclusively in English. They were wildly popular at the time. The name is an acronym of the four members' names. (It's also Aramaic (and Hebrew, too?) for "Daddy".) // John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit" ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 17:22:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls One of the things I collect besides Oz books are something called "Big Little Books." These are small books, 3.5 x 4.5 x 1.5 inches that first appeared in 1932. The "golden age" continued until 1949 and Whitman, the main publisher put out about 580 books. There is one Oz book, "The Laughing Dragon of Oz." All this is probably not news to most Digesters. However, I just received an illustrated Big Little Book reference and value guide in the mail and thought some of you might be interested. The art work is really excellent, showing each of the books. There is information on history, where to buy, value, storage, etc. The book also lists prices for good, fine and mint grades. As an example, Laughing Dragon is listed as $55/$125/$225 in those grades. If this seems like a lot of money, the catalog also lists "Blue Ribbon Pop-up Books" including "The Wizard of Oz Waddle Book." Listed as extremely scare the prices in the three grades are: Book Alone $75 $150 $250 With DJ $200 $350 $550 With Waddles $2000 $5000 $8500 Complete and Unpunched $3500 $5000 $14,000 Don't you wish Granny had put a couple of these away for you. Anyway it is a beautiful book regardless of the fact that it establishes prices. The prices, by the way seem very fair to me. If you are interested the book costs $18.95. E-mail me for details. There is also a Big Little Book Collectors club that I can tell you about. Big Little Bookish regards, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 23:00:46 +0000 From: Scott Olsen Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-09-96 Dave wrote: >Also: This wasn't actually an Oz reference, but on C-SPAN....they reenacted the hpeech given by William Jennings Bryan... on which he so passionately spoke was the gold standard, the issue supposedly satirized in a book called _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz<. Oh, no!! Just when I thought the [infamous] "Parable on Populism" theory was dead I find that it just keeps going and going.... Aaron asked: What is ABBA? Isn't ABBA the name of that Swedish pop group from the 70's? Sincerely, Scott Olsen ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 22:34:41 -0400 From: Ozisus@aol.com Subject: Oz chronology on Club home page Thanks for the praise on the Oz timeline. It's nice to hear that someone thinks the work was worth it! I believe Jim included a page of my notes about various revisions and the contributors behind each fresh round of them. I did meet with a local editor about publishing it. He was intrigued -- asked me to leave the draft with him -- but never has figured out a way to do it right and affordably. And awhile back someone else stirred up interest in publishing it as a companion volume to a centennial edition of the Wizard but I've heard nothing from that front for ages. A couple obstacles to Club publication; I wouldn't bet my life on the accuracy of each entry. I was picking up secondary research and in many cases trying to make the best of contradictory information. For the Club to publish it (no one who would be involved in that decision, by the way, has expressed any interest in that) I think we'd feel obligated to assign to someone the overwhleming task of fact-checking the entire thing. As an educational non-profit group, accuracy would seem a requirement. Commiting it to print seems so much more final and less flexible/dynamic than the Club's web site. Plus, what a published version cries out for are literally hundreds of images and the time/photos/separation/layout/printing costs that effort would require make it something that would cost a fortune to do right. (A CD is the ultimate fantasy) While you and I may feel strongly about it, I'm afraid it may be unrealistic to think we could sell enough copies to produce the illustrated version of it in an affordable run size. Meanwhile, we can make text-on-paper versions that are at last useful if not beautiful. And hey, I'm open to suggestions and megga-buck grants! Literally hundreds of hours of my life went into that document and I'd welcome a way to give hard copy widespread availability. Speaking of it, Here are a couple reference in it that might help with the Volkov popularity question: April 1974 Five performances of The Wizard of Oz are given at the Central Childrens Theater in Moscow. An American Troupe from the State University of New York at Albany performs under the driection of Patricia Synder. Russian author Alexander Volkov, credited by most Russian children with authorship of the original story, appears at the final presentation and takes a bow. In 1977, Volkovs 1939 Russian translation of The Wizard of Oz was produced for the stage at the Malaya Bronaya Theater in Moscow. Consistent with the Volkov text, Dorothys name is Elli and her dog is Totoshka. The production was later presented in England as The Scarecrow, The Lion, The Tinman and Me. (Small world if that author Scott asked about is signing the script!) There also are references to Volkov's version being translated into other languages including Armenian, Chinese, Czechoslovakian, Kirghiz (I've never even heard of that one), Lettish, Lithuanian, Serbo-Croation and Ukrainian. And in the error department, I had different dates on a couple of the Volkov publications. Since I've no idea without a lot of searching where the dates I included came from, and most didn't include publisher's info, I'm wondering if anyone with an actual copy of the book can clarify The Truth on this one. Here are the dates posted a couple days ago on the Digest and, in parenthesis, the dates I had: The Seven Underground Kings 1969 (I have 1967) Yellow Fog 1988 ( I have 1974) The Secret of the Witches Deserted Castle 1989 (I have 1976) I made a note to add The Emerald Rain and the Salerno collection. Excuse the length of this post. I try to avoid these wordy ones but from time to time... Jane ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 22:37:18 -0400 From: Ozisus@aol.com Subject: and then I forgot to mention seeing the Oz on Ice toys at a local FAO Schwartz (Sp?) toy store. And I found two kiddie cassete versions of The Wizard at Best Buy. They also had a small point-of-sale sign advertising The Oz in Concert and MGM track CDs in their show tunes section. Jane ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 23:01:09 -0400 From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374@compuserve.com> Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-09-96 > While illustrating Umbrella Island in Oz, I had a good reason to read > Speedy in Oz. It was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed a Thompson book. > Still, her Oz has very little to do with the Oz I visit when I read Baum. > Should I mount a campaign to have her work declared anathema and advise > others not to read her work because I still don't enjoy it as much as my > favorite stories? Ken Cope: I enjoy the Baum stories more because Baum is more believable. There are things I like about the Thompson books, but when I really visualize her words, I see Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Yes, she does know how to write for children. She's lots more inventive than me when it comes to rhymes and puns. Children love action, excitement, adventure. But Baum wrote his Oz books in a way that both children and adults could appreciate. My favorite Thompson books, (despite the improbable plot devices of having all of Terribubble's bones miraculously and correctly welded together by an exploding spring, or the Soldier whose green whiskers turn red for no reason) are Speedy and Wishing Horse. Ozoplaning, which some fans have deplored here on the Digest and which does get too wild in the middle and end, does have a nice believable beginning at least. By the way, I enjoyed your illustrations for Oziana. They look very 3 dimensional. Melody Grandy ====================================================================== Date: Tuesday 10-Sep-96 11:07:16 From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things ABBA IN OZ: As some have said, ABBA is a Swedish pop group ( they're really too polished and sophisticated to be called "rock" :) :) ). 'ABBA' is an acronym of the members' first names -- Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Anni-Frid (a.k.a "Frida"). As with Oz, people who love ABBA have to put up with a lot of flak and snide remarks from mean-spirited folks. :( Obligatory Oz Tie-in: The girls from ABBA, Agnetha and Frida, serve in my illustrarions as models for two of the Adepts (Figure skater Oksana Baiul is the third). :) :) -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 11, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 10:22:26 -0700 From: ozbot@ix.netcom.com (ozbot) Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest stuf Aaron-- ABBA is a palindrome. :) :) (: (: Melody-- I first heard about the IWOC from my Children's Lit teacher at UCLA. It was a wonderful class, and we did a far bit of WIZARD. I had known about Oz books since I was a little kid, and seeing (most of) the class enjoy the book for the first time rekindled my interest, and led me to follow up on IWOC. Any other good stories out there? Well, for those who are IWOC members, anyway. BTW, by the end of the weeks we studied WIZARD, the most of the class was convinced the book was better than the movie! At least in theme, if not in stucture. Dave-- Do you have the addresses of those WIZARD essays you found so that others may "weed" through them if we want? Aloh-Oz, Danny ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 02:42:46 -0600 (CST) From: Ruth Berman Subject: ozzy digest Ken Cope and Melody Grandy: I wonder if you'd find more to admire in Thompson's work if you tried more of it. Her view of Oz is certainly different from Baum's, but it seems to me that it's not so different as to keep me from believing that it's the same country. (Besides, where would the people who are interested in Oz history be without The Lost King -- one of my favorites of hers, in any case, partly for the characterization of Pastoria, partly for the fun of having Mombi back on the scene, and partly because I enjoy her democratically royal little kingdoms tucked into odd corners of the Oz map.) Although I'd agree with you both in placing Speedy high among her books. I hope eventually the Oz Club will get around to deciding to publish a second collection of her short works. I put together such a collection (with input from Doug Greene) at Fred Meyer's request some years back, but the Club has not so far put it on any definite schedule for publication. It would feature her two Sissajig serials from Jack and Jill Magazine (as the earlier collection featured her Wizard of Way Up stories from King Comics), plus stories and poems from other sources. 0Steve Teller: regarding the schedule of reviews for the Baum Bugle -- I hope at some point or other you'll be running a review of the Dunkiton pamphlets I've been doing. Jane: Kirghiz (says my Webster's 9th New Collegiate) is a Turkic language spoken by a Mongolian (with probably some Caucasian intermixture) people of the same name who live in the steppes of Central Asia. ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 21:34:12 +0000 From: Scott Olsen Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-10-96 Re: ABBA Okay, I confess. I bought an ABBA tape back in '76. :) Sincerely, Scott Olsen ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 20:15:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Today's Growls David - I am in awe that you can keep arcane details from 40 books sorted and available with your aging brain. There was a time when I could reproduce whole books verbaitim. Mine sure won't do that anymore. As there is continuing interest in PD and copyright issues here is a resource I ran across from my University: "Stanford is now providing Internet access to those interested in copyright laws and information. Stanford Libraries and Academic Information Resources is the co-sponsor of the Copyright and Fair Use Site on the World Wide Web site. The site is also sponsored by the Council on Library Resources and FindLaw Internet Legal Resources. It includes texts of laws and recent court cases, along with commentary. The Web site address is: http://www.fairuse.stanford.edu/ Good hunting legal eagles, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 20:20:54 -0400 From: DavidXOE@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-10-96 Tyler: I doubt that Mombi is the daughter of Locasta as well. Sister, I could believe. Relative, more likely than not. Daughter, highly improbable. I imagine that one could write a pre-Dorothean story featuring the Wicked Witch of the South (as long as you didn't make her Singra) or Pastoria without a copyright problem, but probably not one set after the time of ENCHANTED APPLES or LOST KING respectively. However, I'm not a lawyer... As I said yesterday, Gloma said she cut off contact with the rest of Oz when she heard about Dorothy's destruction of the WWW. Jane: Kirghiz is a Central Asian language, I'm pretty sure of the Turkic family. There was a Kirghiz SSR in the old Soviet Union and I'm pretty sure there's now a Kirghiz Republic. It's tucked over between the Kazakh and Tadzhik Republics and Tibet, mostly in the Tien Shan mountain range - one of the highest countries in the world. The copyright date on my Russian version of SEVEN UNDERGROUND KINGS is 1971. I don't think the Russians/Soviets were very meticulous about dating their books... Melody: I agree with you on your favorite Thompsons, and that the beginning of OZOPLANING is believable. Unfortunately, from the time they get to the Strat, it starts to read as if Thompson had decided to quit writing the series and didn't really care what she was writing after that. I say that because with that one exception all of her books from OJO on were much better than most of her earlier ones, and I don't believe she suddenly forgot how to plot. Dave: I didn't think that after 1963 or so there was any real distinction between "pop" and "rock". Since I've never knowingly heard ABBA I have no opinion on them either way, other than that I didn't like any popular music I can remember hearing in the '70s (well, I like the score of THE ROTHSCHILDS) so I wouldn't consider the odds to be too good that I'd like them. But I'd be willing to listen to a cut or two given the opportunity. ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 22:41:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy DIgest Top web or not to web: I beleive that the Web Server used by CompuServe is still in the prototype stage. That is, it's sitting on top of a workbench somewhere. This may explain the intermittent access. Scott: It seems the "parable on populism" will never die, but we must keep pressing it down and portraying it for the myth that it is. Dave: Your ABBA tie-in has inspired me! If I can ever get my book started, perhaps some Ozzy illustrator will help me use Svetlana Boginskaia as the model for one of the ancient queens of Oz! Svetlana is a gymnast from Belarus, BTW. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 22:35:49 -0700 (MST) From: "Ozma@asu.edu" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-10-96 I think maybe I should respond to the question about Princess Nanda..."Princess Nanda" is eleven years old! At least, the child who dreamed herself into the story is eleven years old. We really, seriously try not to have anything going on in the Seamonkey Oz Pages which would conflict with any of the Oz books, but hey, if we do, feel free to let us know. We might change it. (Or not, as the case may be.) The kids try to imagine what is happening in Oz *now*. Princess Nanda just really loved the name, and the illustration, but didn't want to play the part of a maid. So she invented a happy ending for Nanda....and while I'm apologizing/explaining: I know the letters don't always get answered; but school has started again! So we'll do better. Our big news: the Scarecrow (with a couple of others) is writing an authorware animation which is going to be added to the pages in maybe a month! It will be, shall we say, way cool. I think. ------------- Sandy Andrews http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/oz/ ====================================================================== Date: Tuesday 10-Sep-96 23:54:34 From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things FAQ: Along with today's Digest, I am sending everyone the new version of the FAQ ( what, ALREADY??? :) :) :) )... PARABLE ON POPULISM: The essay I downloaded from the web outlining the "Oz = Populist/Gold Standard" theory is now re-formatted and ready to send to anyone who wants it. Just bear in mind that I in no way endorse this "The Philosopher's Oz" thesis... Though if I *DID*, I might add to it and draw additional parallels...Perhaps the Nomes represent the Coal Miner's Union or Scraps personifies the Textile Industry? Could the Adepts stand for the three branches of government, or Button-Bright be a commentary on masculine reluctance to ask for directions? :) :) :) :) :) -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 12, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 09:23:47 -0700 From: wizofoz@okway.okstate.edu (Trisha Gedon) Has anyone ever been to OZtoberfest at Liberal, Kansas? I just received info about it in yesterday's mail. It will take place Oct. 19-20 this year. The whole thing is definately geared toward the MGM version of the story. I went back in '93 and had a great time. There doesn't appear to be as much stuff on this year's agenda, however. There were several of the munchkins on hand in '93, including Jerry Maren (aka: The Lollipop Kid), Clarence "Shorty" Swenson and Lewis Croft (both were soldiers), Nels Nelson (I can't recall his role off hand), Margaret Pellegrini (1 of the 5 Sleepyheads), Karl Slover (1 of 3 trumpeters who lead the mayor's procession) and Betty Tanner (an Oz resident). Several of the munchkins who had planned to attend were unable due to health problems. There were giant get well cards for everyone to sign. Also, Aljean Harmetz, author of The Making Of The Wizard of Oz was there. There will be a parade down Kansas Avenue and all munchkins in town for OZtoberfest will ride on a float in the parade. The area where OZtoberfest takes place features Dorothy's House, a life-size replica of her home in the movie. Do you remember in the movie when we see a bottom view of Dorthy's house while it is whirling around in the cyclone? That house (it's only about 3 feet high) that was used in the movie is on display. We bought tickets to a dinner/auction with the munchkins following the day's events in '93. But there was no mention of such an event again this year. They used to sell yellow bricks (about $50 I think) and they would be inscribed with whatever you wanted. These bricks make up the yellow brick road that runs through the area where OZtoberfest takes place. If anyone wants more info on OZtoberfest, they can call the Liberal Convention and Tourism Bureau at 316-626-0170. BTW, are there any Ozzy Digest subscribers who live in this area? -Trisha Gedon =:) ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 09:09:29 -0400 From: BARLOW NATE Subject: For the Digest Learning about IWOC: For me it was the note in one of the Dover reprints of one of Baum's non-Oz works (can't remeber which one). The first time I tried joining I received a letter from the Club about increased dues (the reprints had dates from the early 70's and this was 1985, so it was quite understandable; if I had been somewhat older than ten at the time, I might have expected that to be the case). I forgot about the Club for a few months, but by December 1985 I was a member, and have been so ever since. Thompson: She's different from Baum, but I love her books just as much. There's something about Baum's books which is quite wonderful and which I really can't describe, and while I don't think the Thompson books have this specifc quality, there are just plain fun. ABBA: Sorry ABBA fans, but after about five minutes of their movie on VH1, I had to turn it off. David: Rock and pop are different styles of music, although people who don't listen to either tend to group them together. True, pop can be taken as a very general term, but then you group some very disparate items. In the general sense, pop includes both rock and rap, but these are not the same. Pop in the specific sense refers to Billboard Top 40 type music, which may occasionally include some of what is termed rock (one way to look at it, though not thoroughly accurate since the boundaries aren't firm, is that rock is more on the lines of hard rock, while pop includes soft rock). I could go further, but that's getting outside the scope of this digest. A rock fan, Nate ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 15:27:49 -0400 From: DIXNAM@aol.com Subject: Ozzy Digest 9-10-96 Robin: I recently added considerable more memory to my Mac so that I can, once again, access the Web , and I have encountered the same problems that you mentioned. At times, recently, nearly all of the Oz related sites have been unavailable, but a few minutes later they were! Today, no problems. :) Bear: Between my brother and I, we had a bunch of Big Little books in the 1930's. Oh, to have them today! I also had the first Superman comic and the first Batman. But back in the those dark ages, when I was a kid, when comics were around the house for more than a month, and had been read and reread many times, they wound up at the local barber shop. :-(( Dick (too soon old, and too late smart) Randolph ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 14:25:19 -0500 (CDT) From: Robin Olderman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-10-96 David: Of course I could point out the inconsistencies to an author. I have done so several times or worked with an author in other ways and then used the story. Usually, however, I can find other things from the Oz Research Table or from the Story Circle to use. Did I change anything in your story? If you were surprised that I used it, then perhaps we need to clarify that anything submitted to the Research Table or Story Circle is automatically submittedto OZIANA, unless the author has specifically requested that it not be. ABBA is not a rock group. It's pop. Too soft and melodic for rock, thank heavens...at least the stuff I've heard was. OZOPLANING is an odd book. Some folks have speculated that Neill had something to do with the writing of it. I doubt it, since RPT would not be likely to let anyone meddle with her writing, but she certainly wasn't pleased with her publisher at that time, and some of the book's weaknesses may possibly be attributed to that displeasure and lack of enthusiasm. SANDY: Good luck with the SeamonkeyOzstuff. Parable on Populism: I keep hearing from my customers that "My professor says...." Sheesh, but the populism parable is popular. I've had people from all over the country try to convince me that their professor *must* be right. Hmmm. Bear: My mind is at least as old as David's, and it, too, catalogues Oz trivia. I wonder what this says about David and me? And I wonder why I can remember Oz stuff so readily, but not all the medieval England stuff that I'm in process of teaching. --Robin ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 18:27:25 -0700 From: ozbot@ix.netcom.com (ozbot) Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest Jane-- Interesting that the languages Volkov has been mostly translated into are -er- were Soviet/Communistic at the time. Hmmm. Curious parallels here. Baum's book, especially the communistic overtones in EMERALD CITY were banned because of the "Un-American" themes. Perhaps having Baum-influneced Volkov so popular in the Communist Blok also swayed "their" decision. David, you beat me to the geography lesson! If there's one thing I want to spread the word about, it's geography! (aside from Oz and Christianity I guess) Speaking of banned books-- This week is Banned Books Awareness Week (or something like that-- you get the idea) If your bookstore is participating in this (I know several Barnes and Nobles are) make them aware of EMERALD CITY and the Oz books. These people are putting previously banned books on display, to heighten public awareness. Let's piggyback some Oz awareness to! Next time, Danny ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 21:59:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Tyler Jones <70003.6136@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Ozzy Digest Ruth: I got the impression that Ken and Melody did not dislike Thompson as much as they preferred the Baumian style to that of Thompson. FWIW, I prefer the Thompson books to Baum's overall, though she did have some weaknesses. Bear: That copyright site sounds interesting. If I have time, I'll take a look. Dave and David: There is a tendency in the industry to call EVERYTHING "rock" music. Part of this is simple tradition. Also, it is easier to do this than to take the time to differentiate music into it's component parts. Finally, a musical group saying "we're going to pop the house" or "we're going to rap the house" somehow does not convey the same meaning. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, SEPTEMBER 13, 1996 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ============================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 07:42:33 -0800 (PST) From: earlabbe@juno.com (Earl C. Abbe) Subject: Digest Submission David Hulan writes in the 8/30 Digest Not necessarily so. Magical power may be like music or chess playing abilities, which appear to be largely innate -- but if the person is not exposed to music or to chess, there is little or no chance to express that ability. The Wizard may be a natural b