] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 28 - MARCH 4, 1998 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] Hi all! I guess this is the longest gap between Ozzy Digests ever! I apologize to everyone, but other obligations have left me little time the past week to put the Digest together. But rest assured the Digest is still alive and well! -- Dave ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:59:19 -0500 (EST) From: Jeremy Steadman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 > The Magic Picture isn't too much of a problem with most of the Oz plots, > since Ozma or someone would need to know to look for the hero's > difficulties before it would reveal any useful information. The Great Book > of Records is much more of a problem; I think by and large that one has to > assume that it has a rather oracular style (the only direct quotes from it > that I recall, in _Royal Book_ and _Kabumpo_, certainly indicate that) so > that it's only after the fact that Glinda would recognize what was meant. > Or, as in _Magical Mimics_, Glinda is away from it for some reason. Does the FF state explicitly that Glinda checks the GBR every day? If not, I'd think she might just not happen to read it one day, and so not see the key passage. Even if so, one could still write about a time she is too busy one day or has too much else to do to see a certain event, or that she's away during the important time. There are certainly some conventional ways of getting around it. > I got sick the > second day I was there and had to have surgery to remove my appendix last > Friday. I was released from the hospital in time to convalesce a little > before flying home to Maryland. I've been instructed not to lift more than > 10 pounds for a month, so poor Terry had to carry all the bags and the baby. > I had hoped to check out some of my favorite local bookstores (such as Moe's > in Berkeley) for Oz books, but had no such luck. Oh well, at least I'm > feeling better, albeit still sore. Ouch! I hope all continues to go well--that doesn't sound like it was much fun. > Action and non-Action: > It would probably not be a good thing if all literature was one or the > other. It's better that we have a wide spectrum. I agree. The current trend toward action-oriented fiction is hopefully only a trend. > I, too, was wondering what our Digest > authors will do now that Buckethead > is to be no more. I was/am anxiously > awaiting Seven Blue Mountains, book > two and the others also. I do hope Chris reconsiders! > > [Hmm. Dorothy is blown to Oz in gales. Betsy ends up bobbin' in the > > Nonestic. Trot trots through a tunnel. Bob flies up. Peter keeps petering > > in. Speedy travels speedily. Button-Bright comes to Mo via umbrella, which > > might well have a spokes-release button on it. Could their names be the > > secret to how these particular kids get to Oz? Naaaaah.] > I suppose it means I'll have to climb into a magical rabbit hutch. ;( And I have to think of a way to get there instead, man! > BUCKETHEAD: > David Hulan asked about the fate of mine and Melody's books now that > Buckethead has folded. I E-mailed him and asked him, and he wrote back > saying that "hopefully" he will still be able to publish _Locasta_. > I was hoping for something a little more definite than "hopefully". > It looks like I submit _Locasta_ to Books of Wonder. He did not comment > on Melody's book (if he thinks the only manuscript I care about is my > own, he is mistaken), but I gather the same "hopefully" applies to her... If "he" means Chris Dulabone, I'm glad! (Buckethead was the first, and it published _Ring_, so I feel what is perhaps unjustified loyalty to it. Especially when it hasn't published the sequel yet!) With lots of glitter and sequels, Jeremy Steadman, jsteadman@loki.berry.edu (kiex@aol.com during the summer and school vacations) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619 "The man who thought his wife was a bicycle tire soon found he'd spoke too soon." ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 19:38:15 -0500 (EST) From: Toto Arf Subject: future Oz books (can be posted or paraphrased) Tyler Jones has mentioned to me that there have been some concerns about certain manuscripts that have been in the possession of the Buckethead backlog. I hope that these have by now been set to rest. I had explained this in a private e-mail, but I guess I should have said to tell the Digest... Books such as "Locasta" and the others are hopefully still going to be published under the new name, Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends. That is, if certain people get the rest of their illustrations to me during my lifetime (no pressure intended. There are a lot of illustrators I have in mind as I say this...). ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 22:45:49 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Oz as tale-telling Sender: "J. L. Bell" Dave Hulan wrote: <> And that works fine as long as the hero is a newcomer. But if the hero is one of Ozma's palace friends, the historians have to come up with a reason she doesn't notice their departure and look for them in the Picture. Sometimes Ozma's busy with her own troubles. At other times characters avoid alerting her to their absence: Nick and the Scarecrow in TIN WOODMAN, Sir Hokus in YELLOW KNIGHT. And fetching presents for Ozma herself seems to keep her from peeking (MAGIC, MERRY-GO-ROUND). <> There's also a quotation in GLINDA, which sets Dorothy and Ozma off on their adventure. KABUMPO purports to add a feature that Baum never mentioned: that events which took place in Oz appear in red ink, like the words of Jesus in certain editions of the New Testament. Yes, the Book's spare and oblique reports are a good reason why Glinda doesn't fix *everything* that goes wrong in Oz, just some things. Another likely reason is that Glinda, for all her good intentions and ominous pronouncements, can't really keep track of everything the Book says. There's just too much data coming at her. Rather like modern American life. <> It's interesting that this convenient convention of fairies in Burzee came around the time that having a parent temporarily away on business would make sense to Snow's readers. Earlier generations of kids had known working parents to be away a long time, like Trot's father or Baum himself as a traveling salesman, but less often in one place for just a few days. On Nathan's <>, I have my own thoughts on how that book fits into Oz as history, and why it makes sense that its events don't make sense. I suspect most of it is a sailor's yarn, like Books VII-XII of THE ODYSSEY: fantastic adventures, fights, flights, maidens, monsters, enchantments, and a big fish getting away again and again. The episode of Bucky becoming the new Nome King with the help of a voice from on high is the most fantastic--and least credible--of all. This interpretation dismisses Neill's report that Number Nine observed Bucky and Davy throughout the book. The chance of that seems slim: not just because of Nine's workload, but because it requires him to just happen upon a boy who ends up reaching Oz when he's in the midst of the opening pie fight (not the first pie-throwing Neill had depicted, by the way). The lovely but out-of-place drawing on pp. 184-85 of LUCKY BUCKY somewhat reinforces my view. It, too, seems to be plucked from an earlier yarn to provide extra excitement. Speaking of Neill's odder two-page spreads, a coupla months ago Steve Teller gave us an interesting analysis of the links and disjunctions between WONDER CITY's art and original manuscript. I've been wondering if Neill originally drew the spread on pp. 134-35 for a different part of that book, or even a different book. It's supposed to depict the (off-stage) meeting of Jenny and the "firefly fairies" in the palace garden. Here's why I don't think it does: * That encounter is in the midst of the Heeler invasion, which Steve tells us was an editorial interpolation. * The Heeler episode occurs at night, but the drawing is not a night scene. * The little winged creatures show no links to fireflies. * The young woman doesn't display Jenny's striking eyebrows and long hair; she seems older. * There's little of the sort of cross-hatching so prominent in other WONDER CITY spreads. * Neill's signature is cut off at upper right, hinting that he originally drew this artwork for a wider space. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 02:03:00 -0500 (EST) From: JOdel Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 As a last comment (at least from me) regarding Tik-Tok, before we shut down this discussion. I would like to call people's attention to the situation at the end of chapter 23. I know that I will be refering to this situation in ldiscussions of later books, so I guess it makes sense to make a point of calling attention to it now, before we move on. Ruggedo has earlier been deposed and chased out of the Nome kingdom by a half dozen magic eggs sent through the tube by Tititi-Hoochoo. He ran off before he was even able to gather the cache of jewels that T-H declared that he might take when he left. Once he caught his breath, he went back to get his jewels and found the eggs standing guard at the entrance. Well he knows a back entrance into the great caveren and the metal forest, so he has a housewife sew pockets all over his suit and slips in the back way to gather up his consolation prize. He is discovered in the metal forest later, by the rescue party who are in search of Shaggy's brother. At this point, King Kaliko tells him to take his jewels and go. He does. Later he is discovered sitting and panting, in the midst of a trail of scattered jewels, with burst pockets from having overloaded himself with booty. When found, he makes a humble speech of repentance and his "conquerors" effectively forgive him his greediness. They then return to the main caverns of the Kingdom and he trails along after them. The eggs have disapeared and are no longer standing guard. They settle in to a festive dinner, while he hunkers down in a corner looking pitiful. Betsy takes pity on him and takes him some dinner. He makes another grand speech composed equally of hot air and humility about how power corrupts, and that as an ordinary Nome he should be able to live a blameless life. Kaliko gets suckered in and tells him that he can stay, as long as he behaves himself. (Shaggy and Betsy mistrust this "reform", but figure that they will be long gone before Ruggedo gets up to mischief, and if he does do so, it will be Kaliko's problem.) Our viewpoint characters leave the Nome kingdom shortly afterwards. At which point Ruggedo has been overcome, cast out of the kingdom, and within two days has wormed his way back in! Yes, that's right, at the end of Tik-Tok, Ruggedo is back/still in the Nome Kingdom and ready to kick up any kind of mischief of which he is capable. Remember this situation. I know I will be refering back to it later. I may not be the only one. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 08:53:26 -0500 From: Richard Randolph Subject: Ozzy Digest 2-27-98 Scott O.: The photos you mentioned in the recently received Bugle rang a bell with me, also. I believe I saw them at the '96 Munchkin Convention in Ozma Baum Mantele's slide presentation, which I'm sure she repeated at the other regional conventions. Craig N.: Sorry to hear of your "non-vacation". What a bummer not to be able to enjoy the SF Bay area! And not fun for Terry, either.:( Barbara: Thanks for the charming review of the Plainsmen Players' Wizard of Oz. Reading your post made me wish I'd been there! Was it video taped, by any chance? Dick ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 13:14:04 -0800 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 > From: Richard Randolph > I, too, was wondering what our Digest > authors will do now that Buckethead > is to be no more. I was/am anxiously > awaiting Seven Blue Mountains, book > two and the others also. > > Dick > Although Buckethead is no more, Chris Dulabone has not stopped planning to publish more Oz books. He is simply taking a new imprint: Cowardly Lion and Friends (or something like that). > > PAUL SOLMAN:. . . Hugh Rockoff has written an article > explaining Baum's story as an allegory about the great money > debate of the 1890's, with each character playing a distinct > historical part. Hexing William Jennings Bryan's > lion--William McKinley, the wicked witch of the West. He > came from Ohio. Sweet Dorothy stands for traditional > American values. Toto is the teetotaler, since the > prohibitionists were also pro silver. The decent scarecrow > is the farmer. > Should Littlefield sue Hugh Rockoff for plagarism? > From: Dave Hardenbrook > > BUCKETHEAD: > David Hulan asked about the fate of mine and Melody's books now that > Buckethead has folded. I E-mailed him and asked him, and he wrote back > saying that "hopefully" he will still be able to publish _Locasta_. > I was hoping for something a little more definite than "hopefully". > It looks like I submit _Locasta_ to Books of Wonder. He did not comment > on Melody's book (if he thinks the only manuscript I care about is my > own, he is mistaken), but I gather the same "hopefully" applies to her... Chris operates on a shoestring and never knows when he will be able to publish anything. If you want to see more books from him, send him money, buy his books, pray for his success. The digest has not heard from me lately. I have been in Chicago, Madison, St. Louis and Columbia, busy working on the text of the 1902/03 WIZARD OF OZ play. Dave, I don't know how to tell you this but right out. In the 1903 copyright copy of the text sent to the Library of Congress, the name of the Good Witch of the North is given as LOCUSTA--consistantly. She introduces herself to Dorothy that way, and when Dorothy calls on her, both in the Poppy Scene and at the very end of the play she calls "Locusta." I have so far discovered 68 musical selections that were used in WIZARD between 1902 and 1915." I will be leaving next Thursday for three weeks in London, seeing plays (hard work, but someone has to do it) so I imagine I will have a few digest waiting for me on my return. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 17:06:31 -0500 From: "Kenneth R. Shepherd" Subject: Ozzy Digest X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 David Hulan: >Ken S.: >I'm sure your fiancee is a lovely lady, but as one who grew up with the >Tarzan books (as much as Oz) I can't help getting this certain >image from the name Kala... :-) Yes, that was the same image my brother came up with. I had to pull TARZAN OF THE APES off my shelf and check the reference. She was quite incensed when she found out.... Actually, she tells me that she once met Diane Fossey... Actually her name "Kala" is a shortened version of "Humsakala," which (I think) is Tamil in origin. Posted: ******WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR "GRAMPA" AHEAD******** Day 1 - Fumbo loses his head Day 2 - Grampa & Tatters start on expedition at 8 AM - meet Bill at evening, bandits at night - night in forest - "On the same bright morning that Grampa and Tatters started from Ragbad," Gorba kidnaps Pretty Good from Perhaps City - Prophecy of Abrog ("in four days a monster shall marry the Princess") - Percy Vere meets Dorothy - night in forest Day 3 - Grampa & Tatters escape robbers before dawn - meet Urtha in garden, leave garden at night- Dorothy & Percy breakfast in woodcutter's cottage, taken by washerwomen Day 4 - Grampa's party visits Fire Island & escapes through Blazes - night on lava island Day 5 - Grampa's party visits Iso Poso - flight to Oz - discover Fumbo's head - "The two days Grampa and his little party had been adventuring in the wizard's garden, on Fire Island and Isa Poso, Dorothy, Toto and the Forgetful Poet had spent as prisoners on Monday Mountain" - Dorothy, Toto & Percy escape washerwomen - the two parties meet - camp in field at night Day 6 - The party meets the Playfellows - Urtha escapes to Maybe Mountain - Urtha married to Tatters ("it was the fourth day mentioned in Abrog's prophecy"), disenchanted - marriage celebration in Ragbad late into night Day 7 - "Not until after the loud crows of Bill announced the rising of the sun did the party break up" Day 8 - "After luncheon the next day" Dorothy, Toto, Peer Haps & Percy return to their homes ****************END SPOILERS***************** ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 08:25:08 +0100 From: Bill Wright Subject: Oz Digest Received the following note from someone who was looking at my Oz Encyclopedia website. Does anyone on the digest have any idea where Baum came up with the Horner name? Could it have any relationship to the Horners mentioned in this email Bill in Ozlo > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael A Graham [SMTP:michaela.graham@sympatico.ca] > Sent: 1. mars 1998 16:48 > To: piglet@halcyon.com > Subject: Question? > > I was recently going thru an old scrapbook left to me by my > grandfather, > among its contents was an old menu dated March 6th, 1895. The menu was > for a diner and election of Master and Ward for the Worshipful Company > of Horners. Until I found your web site I had no idea what a Horner > was, > could you please comment. My grandfather was Arthur Shorter and he was > > the head chef for the Royal Family for many years. > Thank you for an interesting web site. > Michael Graham ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 13:25:36 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 J.L.: If Dorothy and Zeb are not related, that would make their marriage on _The Oz Kids_ not so bad. Dave: The M on Ozma's forehead was to represent the Melvins, the punk rock band that put out the album. I listened to some of the samples and found them mildly interesting. I know of only one store in town that carries the album, though. Well, Saturday I watched _Dark City_ by Alex Proyas, and found some interesting Oz references. I highly reccommend the film. Interestingly, Bruce Spence, Chris Lofven's surfie, plays the Stranger, Mr. Wall. Then I came home and read _Tamawaca Folks_. This was an excellent book, full of Baum's clever wit and plotting. This deserves to be filmed on location in Macatawa, as a period piece. It would look superfcially similar to Jeannot Szwarc's _Somewhere in Time_, although the romance plot is limited. _Daughters of Destiny_, which I read yesterday, is loaded with racial stereotyping, including a character called "David the Jew" who spoke with a really bad accent, and whose description reminded me of Stephen Teller. Sorry, Steve! It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that good either, like a good author trying to write something that will appeal to the masses by giving it a soap opera feel. I'm surprised this was never made into a silent film, it probably would have done quite well. There is a French film called _Daughters of Destiny_, but it has nothing to do with it. If you want plot summaries, I'll provide them. Scott ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 12:49:16 -0500 From: "Melody G. Keller" Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-16-98 Sender: "Melody G. Keller" Dave: >Camille then assumes her true form: An icky, slimy, blue-green blob with one eye on a stalk. But by this time Kryten has truly fallen in love with Camille, and he continues to love her, in spite of her looks: "You may be a slimy blue blob, but you're by far the most ravishingly lovely slimy blue blob I've ever met!" Melody, wouldn't Zim approve of a story like this? :)< He probably would. Glad Kryton didn't do the stereotypical "scream and run" sort of thing. :-) Melody Grandy ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 10:59:14 -0600 From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 Back from 5 days in CA and only one Digest to respond to! Ruth: >David Hulan and Bob Spark: According to the Jack Speer/Dick Eney >"Fancyclopedia," the word "croggled" was coined by fan humorist Dean >Grennell. No date given, but he was most active in the 40's and 50's. I should have thought to check FANCY myself; I still have a copy. If Dean coined it I could ask him; I'm still in sporadic touch with him. Though whether I'd get an answer is something else; Dean's so deaf now that there's no point in a phone call, and I'm not sure if he has E-mail. Craig: That's not a very nice vacation. I had something similar happen to me on a vacation once (meaning I ended up in the hospital, though at least I didn't have to have surgery); it's very annoying. Hope the soreness goes away soon. Bob Spark: And the urban legend rolls on and on... David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 18:16:08 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 KICKED THE BUCKET? >BUCKETHEAD: >David Hulan asked about the fate of mine and Melody's books now that >Buckethead has folded. I E-mailed him and asked him, and he wrote back >saying that "hopefully" he will still be able to publish _Locasta_. >I was hoping for something a little more definite than "hopefully". >It looks like I submit _Locasta_ to Books of Wonder. He did not comment >on Melody's book (if he thinks the only manuscript I care about is my >own, he is mistaken), but I gather the same "hopefully" applies to her... Egads. I should have seen this coming from a mile away, but Chris' announcement caught me rather unawares. For months now he's sounded very disillusioned; thus, I can't say it's completely unexpected. I plan to contact him about the situation, particularly since I'm at work on one last Oz book which he actually commissioned from me. That said, I think what he's done in the past 11 or 12 years on a tiny budget is truly amazing, as well as woefully underappreciated. No one else on Earth would have published me at age 11; I owe him my self-esteem as a writer and my incentive to do what all the adults around me deemed impossible or astonishing for a "mere child." Atticus * * * "The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once." Visit my webpage at http://members.aol.com/atty993 ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 18:55:46 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-98 Clarification: Chris Dulabone will still publish Oz books, just not under Buckethead Enterprises of Oz and with far more delegation of duties. A. * * * "The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once." Visit my webpage at http://members.aol.com/atty993 ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 08:24:23 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things 17-YEAR LOCUSTA: Steve T. wrote: >Dave, I don't know how to tell you this but right >out. In the 1903 copyright copy of the text sent to the Library of >Congress, the name of the Good Witch of the North is given as >LOCUSTA--consistantly. She introduces herself to Dorothy that way, and >when Dorothy calls on her, both in the Poppy Scene and at the very end >of the play she calls "Locusta." You mean the name "Locasta" in the _Oz Scrapbook_ is a typo and I'm now faced with giving my heroine an even worse name than "Tattypoo" (What a difference one letter makes!)?? I need a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster... REPORTS OF BUCKETHEAD'S DEATH ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED: As Atticus and Chris himself point out, Buckethead is gone, but Chris will still be publishing books under his new company name, "Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends". Sorry for the confusion of some who might have thought Chris was gone for good. -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave ************************************************************ Dave Hardenbrook, E-Mail: DaveH47@delphi.com URL: http://people.delphi.com/DaveH47/ Computer Programmer, Honorary Citizen of the Land of Oz, and Editor of "The Ozzy Digest" (The _Wizard of Oz_ online fan club) "When we are young we read and believe The most Fantastic Things... When we grow older and wiser We learn, with perhaps a little regret, That these things can never be... WE ARE QUITE, QUITE *** WRONG ***!!!" -- Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit" ************************************************************ ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, MARCH 5 - 6, 1998 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 14:23:21 -0500 From: Richard Randolph Subject: Ozzy Digest Some months back, someone mentioned on the Digest that they were looking for a Del Rey copy of The Magic of Oz. At that time, I had just purchased a copy at a Barnes & Noble store in my area, and I volunteered to look for another one for that person. At long last I have found another one, but, alas, cannot find the name or email address of the Digest member who was searching! Will that person please email me if you are still interested. Dick ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 19:10:20 -0500 (EST) From: Jeremy Steadman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-04-98 A question to any or all: When exactly did Baum write _WWOZ_? I once remembered it being 1900, but the listing of Oz books that IWOZ sent me upon my first entrance to the club (a list of the Famous, er, 44, as IWOZ included its own books too) listed it as 1898. Yet the current IWOZ website says it is 1900. Can anyone help me here? > Well, Saturday I watched _Dark City_ by Alex Proyas, and found some > interesting Oz references. I highly reccommend the film. Interestingly, > Bruce Spence, Chris Lofven's surfie, plays the Stranger, Mr. Wall. Speaking of "The Stranger", there is a Doctor Who-rip-off film by that name in England. Just occurred to me it might be interesting to throw in... > Egads. I should have seen this coming from a mile away, but Chris' > announcement caught me rather unawares. For months now he's sounded very > disillusioned; thus, I can't say it's completely unexpected. I plan to > contact him about the situation, particularly since I'm at work on one last > Oz book which he actually commissioned from me. That said, I think what > he's done in the past 11 or 12 years on a tiny budget is truly amazing, as > well as woefully underappreciated. No one else on Earth would have > published me at age 11; I owe him my self-esteem as a writer and my > incentive to do what all the adults around me deemed impossible or > astonishing for a "mere child." Hear! Hear! > REPORTS OF BUCKETHEAD'S DEATH ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED: > As Atticus and Chris himself point out, Buckethead is gone, but Chris will > still be publishing books under his new company name, "Tails of the Cowardly > Lion and Friends". Sorry for the confusion of some who might have thought > Chris was gone for good. Whew! I was a bit worried there. Until next time, Jeremy Steadman, jsteadman@loki.berry.edu (kiex@aol.com during the summer and school vacations) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619 "The man who thought his wife was a bicycle tire soon found he'd spoke too soon." ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 20:59:05 -0800 From: Nathan Mulac DeHoff Subject: Ozzy Digest On the Great Book of Records: An interesting observation is made by Ruggedo in _Magic_. He tells Kiki Aru that the book only records the actions of people, not of animals. In _Cowardly Lion_, this seems to be proven false, since Glinda sees an entry regarding the title character in the Book. Of course, AFAIK, Ruggedo does not actually see the Book until _Handy Mandy_, so he is probably basing his assumption on inaccurate information (probably given to him by an avian spy). Joyce: >Yes, that's right, at the end of Tik-Tok, Ruggedo is back/still in the >Nome Kingdom and ready to kick up any kind of mischief of which he is >capable. Remember this situation. I know I will be refering back to it >later. I may not be the only one. This is indeed an interesting point, especially since he is out of the Nome Kingdom in _Magic_, and with the jewels. Actually, I wrote a story about this point in Ruggedo's history. If anyone wants to read it, it is located at: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/elementa.html -- Nathan Mulac DeHoff vovat@geocities.com http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/ "All I know could be defaced by the facts in the life of Chess Piece Face." ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 18:55:13 -0600 From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-04-98 Dave: You're forgiven, but don't let it happen again! :-) :-) :-) Jeremy: >Does the FF state explicitly that Glinda checks the GBR every day? >If not, I'd think she might just not happen to read it one day, and >so not see the key passage. Even if so, one could still write about >a time she is too busy one day or has too much else to do to >see a certain event, or that she's away during the important time. >There are certainly some conventional ways of getting around it. I'm almost sure that it does. Let me see if I can find the reference. Yup, in _Tik-Tok_, page 29: "The sorceress always reads her record book every day." But you're right that there are ways around it. Chris D.: Glad to hear that it's only the Buckethead name and not your publishing venture itself that's folding, and that other Oz books will eventually be forthcoming. J.L.: It's true that when it's one of Ozma's palace friends that's in trouble, the historian has to produce a reason why she doesn't just look in the Magic Picture and fix things. But I think they usually do this with a fair degree of plausibility. For one thing, few of the adventures last very long, and it's doubtful that Ozma checks on her absent friends unless they're gone for several days. We know most of them are inclined to go off to visit the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodman or Glinda or Professor Woggle-bug without bothering to tell Ozma about it. >There's also a quotation in GLINDA, which sets Dorothy and Ozma off on >their adventure. I'd forgotten that was a direct quote. But it's another one that's not terribly informative, although it's less cryptic than some of the ones in _Kabumpo_. >It's interesting that this convenient convention of fairies in Burzee came >around the time that having a parent temporarily away on business would >make sense to Snow's readers. Earlier generations of kids had known working >parents to be away a long time, like Trot's father or Baum himself as a >traveling salesman, but less often in one place for just a few days. Maybe. Although I don't think the business trip of a few days became that common until the '50s, when air travel became fairly routine; Snow was writing right at the end of WW II, when travel was still pretty strictly rationed for the general public. >On Nathan's <>, I have my >own thoughts on how that book fits into Oz as history, and why it makes >sense that its events don't make sense. I suspect most of it is a sailor's >yarn, like Books VII-XII of THE ODYSSEY: fantastic adventures, fights, >flights, maidens, monsters, enchantments, and a big fish getting away again >and again. The episode of Bucky becoming the new Nome King with the help of >a voice from on high is the most fantastic--and least credible--of all. > This interpretation dismisses Neill's report that Number Nine observed >Bucky and Davy throughout the book. The chance of that seems slim: not just >because of Nine's workload, but because it requires him to just happen upon >a boy who ends up reaching Oz when he's in the midst of the opening pie >fight (not the first pie-throwing Neill had depicted, by the way). Interesting theory, and certainly entirely plausible. > The lovely but out-of-place drawing on pp. 184-85 of LUCKY BUCKY somewhat >reinforces my view. It, too, seems to be plucked from an earlier yarn to >provide extra excitement. I know Ruth Berman has said that that drawing was almost certainly done several years before the writing of LB; Neill's eyesight had deteriorated enough by that time that he probably couldn't have done it that late. Most likely it wasn't even done for an Oz book. Joyce: True that Ruggedo is still in the Nome Kingdom at the end of _Tik-Tok_. The next time we see him mentioned by name, he's an exile again, at the beginning of _Magic_. But was he whispering in Kaliko's ear in _Rinkitink_? Or did you have something else in mind? Steve: >I will be leaving next Thursday for three weeks in London, seeing plays >(hard work, but someone has to do it) so I imagine I will have a few >digest waiting for me on my return. Sounds like life is tough. ;-) Ken S.: Thanks again for the chronology. Bill W.: I doubt if Baum got the Horner name from the Worshipful Community. "Horner" isn't a particularly unusual surname, any more than "Hopper" is; I think Baum was just being playful, using names of people he knew and giving them peculiar characteristics suggested by the name. Dave: I don't think you need to change your heroine's name. Hardly a man is now alive who saw the stage version of _Wizard_, and except for those of us on the Digest nobody knows that the _Oz Scrapbook_ had a typo. Just tell Steve to keep quiet about it until your book is published. Or there's always assassination... David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 22:42:16 -0500 From: Richard Bauman Subject: Today's Oz Growls Sender: Richard Bauman JOdel - Re Ruggedo. Apparently Baum subscribed to the current view that criminals with personality disorders can be reformed. Not! Dave - Hang in there with Locasta. Locusta sounds like a combination of "low" and "cuss." Not an attractive name at all. Briefly, Bear (:<) ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 19:16:47 -0800 From: ozbot Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-04-98 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Probably Dave can answer this if any one can! Is Tattypoo Baum's name (and thus PD) for the Good Witch of the NOrth, or is that Thompsons' name? I prefer the name Locasta, FWIW. The reason I ask (plug alert! plug alert!) is that the new Wonderland comic that I am drawing has the Good Witch of the North in it and the writer had her referred to as Tattypoo. I told him I'd look into it (the comic is bi monthly and this issue is published in July.) Why is the Good Witch of the NOrth in Wonderland? Well, remember, this WOnderland comic is a spin off of the OZ comic (formerly of Caliber Comics' press) Also for those who didn't like the art of the original series (which, truth to be told, I am one of) the original artist will be a part of teh new OZ series, but will be redesigning the world and its characters when the miniseries (called Dark Oz) is turned into a regular series (called the Land of Oz) Thanks in advance! ozbot Danny Wall ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 03:38:33 +0000 From: Scott Olsen Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-04-98 Re: J.L. Bell's: "Speaking of Neill's odder two-page spreads....I've been wondering if Neill originally drew the spread on pp. 134-35 for a different part of [Lucky Bucky], or even a different book. It's supposed to depict the (off-stage) meeting of Jenny and the "firefly fairies" in the palace garden..." There was a Bugle article awhile back that reported that this illustration was (and I'm working from memory here) circa 1914 or so and was published in (or intended for) an edition of "Boy's Life". In any event, it certainly is an odd drawing, for an even odder book! Sincerely, Scott Olsen ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 09:28:24 -0800 From: "Stephen J. Teller" Subject: Ozzy Digest > > Speaking of Neill's odder two-page spreads, a coupla months ago Steve > Teller gave us an interesting analysis of the links and disjunctions > between WONDER CITY's art and original manuscript. I've been wondering if > Neill originally drew the spread on pp. 134-35 for a different part of that > book, or even a different book. > It's supposed to depict the (off-stage) meeting of Jenny and the "firefly > fairies" in the palace garden. Here's why I don't think it does: > * That encounter is in the midst of the Heeler invasion, which Steve tells > us was an editorial interpolation. > * The Heeler episode occurs at night, but the drawing is not a night scene. > * The little winged creatures show no links to fireflies. > * The young woman doesn't display Jenny's striking eyebrows and long hair; > she seems older. > * There's little of the sort of cross-hatching so prominent in other WONDER > CITY spreads. > * Neill's signature is cut off at upper right, hinting that he originally > drew this artwork for a wider space. > > J. L. Bell I will have to look into this after my return. > > Steve T. wrote: > >Dave, I don't know how to tell you this but right > >out. In the 1903 copyright copy of the text sent to the Library of > >Congress, the name of the Good Witch of the North is given as > >LOCUSTA--consistantly. She introduces herself to Dorothy that way, and > >when Dorothy calls on her, both in the Poppy Scene and at the very end > >of the play she calls "Locusta." > > You mean the name "Locasta" in the _Oz Scrapbook_ is a typo and I'm now > faced with giving my heroine an even worse name than "Tattypoo" (What a > difference one letter makes!)?? > > I need a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster... "Locusta" in the script became "Locasta" on the stage. Probably someone decided it sounded better. The script also refers to the Witch of the South "Galinda" or "Golinda". Big news on the theatrical front. There will be a production of the 1903 WIZARD OF OZ in Tarpon Springs, Florida on April 24 and 25. Except for a production by the Saint Louis Muni-Opera in the 1960's, this will be the first performances since about 1912. Anyone interested in more information should contact Constantine Grame" . This will be the last the digest will hear from me for over three weeks. In a few hours I will board a plane that will take me to London. (Actually I will change planes in St. Louis, but that's more complicated. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 10:25:26 -0600 (CST) From: Ruth Berman Subject: ozzy digest J.L. Bell: Your list of reasons to think that the drawing of Jenny and the firefly fairies wasn't drawn originally for "Wonder City," could include another -- that the drawing stylistically just doesn't look like Neill's 40's work. It looks like something he would have done in the 20's and 30's. There are other elaborate drawings in his three Oz books that look like earlier work -- another example is the double-page spread in "Lucky Bucky" of the wood of witches and wizards. Articles on Neill in the "Bugle" have mentioned these evidently inserted drawings. I wonder if anyone has a theory on whether they were from one unpublished project (the stylistic similarities at least make them look as if they were from one project, not a scattering of projects), and, if so, what it might have been. Joyce Odell: It might make an interesting story for "Oziana" sometime if someone would like to write about how Ruggedo, after talking Kaliko into letting him stick around at the end of "Tik-Tok," nevertheless had gotten himself kicked out as of Kaliko's next appearance ("Magic"). Possibly for trying to get the throne back again, although something less obvious might be more interesting (trying to unionize the Nomes? back-seat driving Kaliko's decisions annoyingly? complaining about his lost love Polychrome not so much because he really regretted losing her but to irritate other Nomes with less prestigious stories of loves lost until they got irritated enough to drive him away to go in search of the rainbow, and what he found in the search?). Bill Wright: I shouldn't think it's likely that Baum had an organization (British?) of "Horners" in mind to come up with his "Patchwork Girl" Horners. He named the Horner leader Jak, after all, so he must have had Mother Goose's Little Jack H. in mind somewhere along the way, and most probably at the start. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 20:28:40 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-04-98 > Does the FF state explicitly that Glinda checks the GBR every day? > If not, I'd think she might just not happen to read it one day, and > so not see the key passage. Even if so, one could still write about > a time she is too busy one day or has too much else to do to > see a certain event, or that she's away during the important time. > There are certainly some conventional ways of getting around it. It's hell for me to check all my e-mail, since I'm on so many listserv, and I get all those confirmations from the IMDb > > Action and non-Action: > > It would probably not be a good thing if all literature was one or the > > other. It's better that we have a wide spectrum. > > I agree. The current trend toward action-oriented fiction is > hopefully only a trend. _Tip of Oz_ is certainly non-action > And that works fine as long as the hero is a newcomer. But if the hero is > one of Ozma's palace friends, the historians have to come up with a reason > she doesn't notice their departure and look for them in the Picture. > Sometimes Ozma's busy with her own troubles. At other times characters > avoid alerting her to their absence: Nick and the Scarecrow in TIN WOODMAN, > Sir Hokus in YELLOW KNIGHT. And fetching presents for Ozma herself seems to > keep her from peeking (MAGIC, MERRY-GO-ROUND). My reasoning in _Tip_ was Ozma being busy with her owb troubles, and the fact that Tip told her not to watch him. > There's also a quotation in GLINDA, which sets Dorothy and Ozma off on > their adventure. KABUMPO purports to add a feature that Baum never > mentioned: that events which took place in Oz appear in red ink, like the > words of Jesus in certain editions of the New Testament. Biblical scholars are at work on a multicolored edition, based on whether or not the Church has been discovered to have put words in his mouth (black), if it is something which is in line with what he would have said (grey), if it was something likely to be His but not certain (pink), or His [in translation from Aramaic] (red). > Yes, the Book's spare and oblique reports are a good reason why Glinda > doesn't fix *everything* that goes wrong in Oz, just some things. Another > likely reason is that Glinda, for all her good intentions and ominous > pronouncements, can't really keep track of everything the Book says. > There's just too much data coming at her. Rather like modern American life. It's supposed to be everything in different colors, that's why stuff has already happed without anyone's knowledge in _Tip_. I believe Indianapolis Civic Theatre's production was taped, but I couldn't tell you how to get it, nor do I know how to reach Sarah to confirm. Does anyone know who the Hurrah Players in the Swann video were? > > > Should Littlefield sue Hugh Rockoff for plagarism? I should think so... and I want someone to confirm that this Littlefield is not the (or related to the) loving cup baby. > of the play she calls "Locusta." I have so far discovered 68 musical Well then, "Locasta" is definitely PD unless you copyright it... > I will be leaving next Thursday for three weeks in London, seeing plays > (hard work, but someone has to do it) so I imagine I will have a few > digest waiting for me on my return. Wish I could have your job... > > > > I was recently going thru an old scrapbook left to me by my > > grandfather, > > among its contents was an old menu dated March 6th, 1895. The menu was > > for a diner and election of Master and Ward for the Worshipful Company > > of Horners. Until I found your web site I had no idea what a Horner > > was, > > could you please comment. My grandfather was Arthur Shorter and he was > > > > the head chef for the Royal Family for many years. > > Thank you for an interesting web site. > > Michael Graham I thought the Horners seemed like early SF with their radium "mutations," apparently before they knew that cancer was basically the only thing radiactivity would do to humans. This sounds like the sort of cult that SF loves to play with... As I was telling Katherine today, I seriously need to reread _Tip of Oz_ and improve it. Perhaps when you get back, Steve, you can tell me if this is accurate. I think I needed to describe abstracts with more similes and metaphors, and get inside the characters as much imposssible without truly being an omniscient narrator, because, as presented, I could not be, logically. I really wanted to get into this more. As I said, I was really writing something for adults, which as an independent is more what I am going for. (BTW, this does not mean it contains objectionable material.) I've said all I really want to say about it. Like Katherine, I don't like rto discuss my writing too much, though I like to more than she does. Katherine doesn't like the stories she wrote that I think are just wonderful, and a lot of other people do, too. I suppose this is a common writer's deficiency. The writers I know who are proud of their work usually are only mediocre, something I'm usually afraid to tell them, though I occasionally allude to it when asked. Scott ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 00:42:37 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Sender: Tyler Jones Dave: No problemo on the wait for the Digest. SInce I'm out of town for the weekend, this was the perfect date to get the thing out. For the record, this was a tie for longest wait for the Digest, with the one for Feb. 12-16. I know what you mean by other obligations. Certain projects have taken so much of my time, that all my Ozzy work has been on hold for months. Hopefully, I can forge ahead on all things (yeah, right). Jeremy: I seem to remember Baum saying that Glinda reads the GBR every day, but I doubt that even she could get a full detailed report every day on the actions of everybody in Fairyland or even Oz, let alone our world (assuming the GBR reaches here). Many people have suggested that the GBR at best gives tiny cryptic hints about important people and events. Still other people have mentioned that what the Book considers important and what WE consider important may not always match. Dave and Steve T: Yoicks. "Locusta" sounds too much like "Locutus", Captain Picard's Borg identity or the slang expression "crusty". Books from Chris: Yes, Chris and his publishing are still around, just under a new name. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 09:26:21 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things BOOK OF RECORDS VERSION 5.25I: Nathan writes: >An interesting observation is made by Ruggedo in _Magic_. He tells Kiki >Aru that the book only records the actions of people, not of animals. In >_Cowardly Lion_, this seems to be proven false, since Glinda sees an >entry regarding the title character in the Book. Of course, AFAIK, >Ruggedo does not actually see the Book until _Handy Mandy_, so he is >probably basing his assumption on inaccurate information (probably given >to him by an avian spy). Or maybe sometime between _Magic_ and _C. Lion_, Glinda got a software upgrade... Glinda: I had a terrible dream last night...I dreamt that Bill Gates took over Smith&Tinker's, and that the subsequent version of the Book of Records had a bug in which it would only record the doings of people whose last names were "Dent", "Rimmer", "McMillian", "Lister", "Beeblebrox", or "Kochanski"! Ozma: Don't worry -- Bill Gates has about as much chance of my admitting him into Oz as Ruggedo has of becoming president of the "Better Business Bureau"! FYI: Because of the problems I had getting the Digests out this week, I have postponed our beginning our discussions of _Little Wizard Stories_ until next Monday (3/9). -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave ************************************************************ Dave Hardenbrook, E-Mail: DaveH47@delphi.com URL: http://people.delphi.com/DaveH47/ Computer Programmer, Honorary Citizen of the Land of Oz, and Editor of "The Ozzy Digest" (The _Wizard of Oz_ online fan club) "When we are young we read and believe The most Fantastic Things... When we grow older and wiser We learn, with perhaps a little regret, That these things can never be... WE ARE QUITE, QUITE *** WRONG ***!!!" -- Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit" ************************************************************ ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, MARCH 7, 1998 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 15:31:09 -0500 (EST) From: JOdel Subject: Ozzy whatever As to the Book of Records; Ruggedo's statement in Magic, that the book does not record the actions of animals, is not "simply" wrong, but it is wrong in context. It does not record the actions of _normal_ animals. Sentient animals, such as those in Oz, qualify as people, and their actions are recorded as such. One must remember that Ruggedo was not from Oz, and that while he had met a few talking Ozian animals before, most of the animals outside of Oz do not talk, and he has not considered that this makes a difference. Also, ILTT, the Book of Records is an ongoing work in progress. We do not know how long Glinda has had the Book, only that she had it by the time of the Wizard's abdication. In fact, given that at least one of the early references to it made the hyperbolic claim that if a child in America stamped its foot in anger, the act would be recorded, we can, if we take this as accurate reporting, easily recognize the origin of the magical principles upon which the Book is based, and when considering the many later references to the Book's cryptic comments and/or highly edited (beyond usefulness) content, deduce that Glinda has been attempting to fine-tune it into the most concise and useful form for some time now. (This could be the reason that the Book has proved no more useful in foiling plots at various times durring the events of the FF. At those particular times the "software" had been overcorrecting and the entries, if any, were not clearly relevant to the situation.) FWIW, I think there was a reference in one of the later FF thatGlinda has someone stationed at the Book at all times, and if something important appears, calls her at once. This adds the factor of the judgement of the monitor into account as well. Somehow, "Locusta" does not sound like any sort of name for a GOOD witch in what was originaly presented as an principly agrarian culture... ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 21:48:59 +0100 From: Bill Wright Subject: RE: Ozzy Digest, 02-06-98 Ruth & others......thanks for the feedback on the Horner question. You are right, I suspect, that there is no connection with this Horner society. I'm still a bit curious to know what they were all about tho. Bill in Ozlo ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 16:47:06 -0500 (EST) From: Jeremy Steadman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-06-98 Writing in Red Ink: This reminds me of the copy of _Neverending Story_ I read wherein the "Real World" was in red and the "Fantasy World" in green, or something like that. Tyler: Do you have a website? If so, what is it? (Just curiosity, and a vain attempt to get a complete list of all Ozzy web pages out there.) In another vain (attempt), Jeremy Steadman, jsteadman@loki.berry.edu (kiex@aol.com during the summer and school vacations) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619 "The man who thought his wife was a bicycle tire soon found he'd spoke too soon." ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 17:50:58 -0500 (EST) From: Ozmama Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-06-98 Ruth:<> O.K., folks. There's a bunch of possibilities here. Someone go for it! --Robin ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 09:15:37 -0500 From: jwkenne@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-06-98 >When exactly did Baum write _WWOZ_? I once remembered it being 1900, >but the listing of Oz books that IWOZ sent me upon my first entrance >to the club (a list of the Famous, er, 44, as IWOZ included its own >books too) listed it as 1898. Yet the current IWOZ website says it >is 1900. Can anyone help me here? The copyright says "1900", but the book actually came out in time for the Xmas, 1899 season. As to when he _wrote_ it, I don't recall offhand, but 1898-1899 seems right. // John W Kennedy ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 12:58:20 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-06-98 Jeremy: There is also a film of the Camus novel _The Stranger_, which was made for either French or British television (I don't remember), but it's not available on videotape. The Strangers are what the humans call the aliens in _Dark City_, the few who know about them. I saw _All You Need Is Cash_ last night, and there is a creature in the "Yellow Submarine Sandwich" portion that looks exactly like the Hyp-o-gy-raf. In my group communications class, I read Ken Cope's assumption of me to be a hate monger while ignoring my protests and explaining what I meant constitutes "mind rape." Proud of yourself? Locusta's name sounds like a play on "elocution" to me... Danny: I still can't find _Dark Oz_, or "Straw and Sorcery" #3. I have only been able to get a few parts of the _Demonstorm_ crossover, including the _Oz_ special, the _Deadworld Special_, and the _Demonstorm_ special. I do have "Romance in Rags" and I think I have _Oz_ up to issue #20. What else am I missing. I for one, liked Bill Bryan's artwork, particularly his depiction of Scraps, as beautiful as the Scarecrow believes her to be... Does anyone know about the opera _Volshebnik Izumrudnogo Goroda_ by Viktor Lebedev. Unfortunately, it's at IU, non-circualting, and is only the score and lyrics. Katherine went down to IU to watch Fritz Lang's _Metropolis_, probably with the ulterior motive of seeing her boyfrined while she was there, unless she still has that writer's group down there. Scott ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 15:42:53 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Oz art from the outside world Sender: "J. L. Bell" Thanks, Steve Teller, for looking into any tenuous link between the art on WONDER CITY, pp. 134-35, and Neill's original manuscript when you return. The early chapters (which in the 1/3/98 digest you reported as: <>) seem like the most likely place. But even more likely, for reasons I listed earlier, would be that this spread came from an earlier project. Scott Olsen, thank you for trying to recall, <> Your reply conflated my comments on two separate Neill spreads: * a "lovely but out-of-place drawing on pp. 184-85 of LUCKY BUCKY" * WONDER CITY's supposed image of "Jenny and the 'firefly fairies'" I presume the former was the BOY'S LIFE candidate because it has a higher measure of masculinity. Ruth Berman, you have an interesting idea that <>. You seem to have more drawings in the mind than those two--yet all the other double-page spreads in Neill's books are Oz-related. And you see more stylistic overlap between the two examples listed above than I; only one has a frame, for instance. Which other drawings would you include in this group? On Joyce Odell's portentous comment about Ruggedo's lingering in the Nome Kingdom, even the first time I read TIK-TOK I assumed that situation wouldn't last. We must remember who ordered Ruggedo into exile: the mighty, merciless Tititi-Hoochoo. Would the Great Jinjin let Kaliko give his predecessor shelter for long? J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 19:10:14 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things RED INK: Well, this is a non-Canonical authority of course so it may only apply to selected parallel universes near you, but the doings of Oz people are *not* written in red ink according to _Red Reera the Yookoohoo and the Enchanted Easter Eggs of Oz_, which includes an authentic page from the Book of Records. (One interesting entry on this page reads "Big Ben lost two seconds". So apparently the Book now records the doings of not only people and animals, but also of inanimate objects!) TYLER'S PAGE: Jeremy wrote: >Do you have a website? If so, what is it? Tyler is out of town, so I'll take the liberty of giving you his page: -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave ************************************************************ Dave Hardenbrook, E-Mail: DaveH47@delphi.com URL: http://people.delphi.com/DaveH47/ Computer Programmer, Honorary Citizen of the Land of Oz, and Editor of "The Ozzy Digest" (The _Wizard of Oz_ online fan club) "When we are young we read and believe The most Fantastic Things... When we grow older and wiser We learn, with perhaps a little regret, That these things can never be... WE ARE QUITE, QUITE *** WRONG ***!!!" -- Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit" ************************************************************ ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, MARCH 8 - 9, 1998 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 19:23:15 -0800 From: Bob Spark Subject: MGM's "Wizard of OZ" errata (can "errata" be applied to movies?) I just came across a website having to do with movie mistakes.  It is http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/E_Sandys/homepage.htm The following is listed under "Wizard of OZ": Wizard of Oz During the sequence where Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, Dorothy's pigtails were first short (above her shoulders) and as the song progresses her hair gets longer (below her shoulders), then short, and then long again. When the witch scares the people in the town where Dorothy lands, she disappears into a cloud of smoke she creates. But you can clearly see her sneak down into a trap door below. In the beginning, when the twister is coming to Dorothy's house and she is trying to get in to the cellar, on the first shot, there are three metal buildings in the background. On the next shot the fields have been harvested and the buildings are gone. When the Wicked Witch first appears in the smoke, Dorothy has a lollipop in her hand. In the next shot, she doesn't have it anywhere near her. Several times you can see the wire that makes the Lion's Tail wag. During the Tin Man's dance, you can see a stagehand caught unaware as he dashes behind the chessy tree props as he tries to hide. The characters change places from one shot to another as the wizard gives the tin man his heart, etc. If you get one of the original copies of the movie, you can see a small figure behind the blue screen in the background climbing up something, then slip, and then swing across the background. Again it is quite small. It happens shortly after the wicked witch of the west throws a fireball at Dorothy and her pals. The album "Dark side of the moon" by Pink Floyd seems to be in sync with the Wizard of Oz if you start it right after the lion roars the second time. Example: the song "brain damage" starts right when you see the scarecrow the first time and the first line is "the lunatic is on the grass". When the wizard is getting ready to take of in the balloon, while most people watch Dorothy climb out of the basket and go after Toto, the Tin Man is unravelling the thing holding the hot air balloon down, then he "accidentally" lets go. Right - final comment, and no arguments, because I've had more mails saying this than anything else. The object in the background which some people think is someone hanging themself is in fact some kind of bird. Definitely. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 23:46:33 -0500 (EST) From: Ozmama Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-07-98 In a message dated 98-03-07 22:55:43 EST, you write: << Ruth & others......thanks for the feedback on the Horner question. You are right, I suspect, that there is no connection with this Horner society. I'm still a bit curious to know what they were all about tho. Bill in Ozlo >> ------ Awwwwww. I wanna believe there's a connection! It would be so "Baumish." Scott H.<> ----- Good grief, are you gonna start that up all over again? I assume the snide "Proud of yourself?" line is addressed to Ken. Let's hope Ken just lets this one pass, since it doesn't deserve even this much of a response. Danny Wall (Ozbot), I need your e-mail address. I'm Ozmama@aol.com Please let me know what yours is. Sorry that I lost it when I switched accounts. (Oops. Now y'all know that I don't save the Digest, which undoubtedly has Danny's address in it.) --Robin ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 23:32:14 -0800 From: Ken Cope Subject: Upanishads and Oz dreams Among the better Oz dreams I've had, was last year about this time. I was in a library which was arrayed like a gallery. Every free standing book case was carved elaborately and angled out from the wall, with a widened base narrowing and slanting toward the wall and ceiling. The shelves were arranged to fit the size of the books exactly, so that some smaller books would fit their shelves snugly, while to the left of three small shelves, one large book would have its own compartment, to display its elaborate cover. I was marveling at the fact that this one was begemmed with cut and uncut stones, arranged in sinuous patterns. I awoke with a start and realized I had forgotten until *just then* about the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair. (I had seen an early edition of King Solommon's Mines which had been covered with gems at the last one, I told myself.) Spouse Gen and I dragged ourselves out of bed and found the place, running into Peter Glassman, Peter Hanff, and, wildly out of context, Eric Goldberg, the animator of Aladdin's Genie. One of the stalls contained the spitting image of the book seen in my dream, with many others. These were elaborately jewelled editions of The Koran. (What did that have to do with Persia and Genies, I'd like to know...) I turned a corner (where Nasrudin says the light is better), and found the book about which I had truly been dreaming, a very fine (as per Peter Hanff) first edition, first state of The Emerald City of Oz, the likes of which I had never seen, and which I now number among the treasures for which I am responsible. What does this have to do with the Upanishads? Or sacred cows? The Ozzy Digest lurker who has written his web page about Baum and Theosophy (and about which only he and I appear to have any interest) sent copies to me of the articles written by John Algeo, the president of the Thesophical Society, that documented Baum's membership in the Society. About the only notable aspect of the article was the recollection by Baum niece, Matilda Jewell Gage, that a book by Theosophical author Charles W. Leadbeater, _The Devachanic Plane_, was among her uncle's collection of books concerning Theosophy, occultism and eastern philosophies. Algeo quoted some more of Baum's writing in The Aberdeen Journal, augmenting Michael Patrick Hearn's quotes from same. MPH had only strongly suggested that Baum had at least spent much time exploring Theosophy. Algeo points out that while "It is not clear which theosophical teachings Baum "could not accept"; possibly that reservation means only that Baum did not consider every idea that had been advanced by individual theosophists to be theosophical-- a reservation that most of us would still want to make." Baum's writing in his newspaper, in response to being accused of being a Buddhist: "The Theosophists, in fact, are the dissatisfied of the world, the dissenters from all creeds. They owe their origins to the wise men of India, and are numerous, not only in the far famed mystic East, but in England, France, Germany and Russia. They admit the existence of a God--not necessarily a personal God. To them God is Nature and Nature God. We have mentioned their high morality; they are also quiet and unobtrusive, seeking no notoriety, yet daily growing so numerous that even in America they may be counted by thousands. But, despite this, if Christianity is Truth, as our education has taught us to believe, there can be no menace to it in Theosophy." Baum's statement characterizes Theosophy well, so far as I can make out, it is primarily a westernized Vedantism mixed with a lot of wishful thinking and imagination. The best books on Occultism and Astrology, the ones I've seen, are so many wood blocked, rough cut cuartos, props in a fantasy film, all Prospero's books... but from my auto-didacticism and personal library, feel that they owe their deepest debt to the Vedas and the Upanishads. The more familiarity you have with those ideas, the more easy it is to see them reflected in Xtianity, which is the wierdest religion I've ever heard of. The idea I can't swallow from Algeo, is his imprint of allegory on TWWOO-- get this, it's about reincarnation, with Oz representing Samsara, the seductive world of earthly beauty, which draws the soul to it in order to incarnate, when it should remain in the cold, grey absolute Truth of Undifferentiated Consciousness of Nirvana, i.e. Kansas. KANSAS? I want some of what he's been smoking. Sure, the Scarecrow is intellect, the Tin Man the Heart, and Lion is action or doing...and her silver slippers are her means to the home she had within all along, etc. etc. But unless only TWWOO is Baum's revealed truth, and all the others merely cynical cashing in on the franchise he'd indadvertently created, I can't buy any of the above for a second. To me, Kansas is a far more illusory place, reality veiled in ignorance and separation from the true nature of the divine self (if you will indulge me in the exposition of one of my oft-juggled world-views). Personally, I've never been able to feel that the no-place-like-home homily was anything other than a tacked- on lesson like some cheesy He-man cartoon, that may as well have been "be careful where you drop your house." Although 'There and Back Again worked well for Tolkien, neither Bilbo nor Dorothy managed to stay home for very long. That Baum incorporated notions of animism, undines, sylphs, spirits of Fire and Earth, and created something of originality that was partly drawn from familiarity with the world-explaining stories of others is hard to argue with. I think that his were the first books that felt to me like holding something truly magic in my hands. Since those, books purporting to contain Magic pale in comparison. (Though many of them are fine examples of the printer's art.) One of my dream sagas (about 15 years ago) contained the epic story of sneaking invisibly into the tower of the slumbering witch, who had trapped some of my friends in the form of illustrations in a small number of books. I had to get them with me out the window without awakening her-- Oops. Fortunately, my other magical allies across the river engaged the witch in a fireball and hand-zapping spree, and got me safely out of the tower, to a safe bank where we opened the books and released our friends from their er, uh, bindage. And that is why I practice and teach 3D character animation... Happy dreaming-- may the Oz in them manifest itself in your life. Sharp change of topic here... My spouse Genevieve just got famous, see the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/design/default.asp I mention it not only because I'm proud of her, but because it also contains an announcement (or promise) that only listers will recognize as Ozzy. --Ken Cope Ozcot Studios pinhead@ozcot.com http://www.ozcot.com "back in '64, before you were born people had no time for pouring scorn (or scoring porn) on dreams of love and peace no one was obese only tight trousers were worn... --The Rutles ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 13:00:27 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: alcott (fwd) Since there are so many Alcott fans on the Digest I thought I'd forward this. Scott ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 17:13:45 -0500 From: Kelly Kathryn Jones Subject: alcott saw this on my email today and thought it may interest alcott fans. kelly ____________________Forward Header_____________________ Subject: InteliHealth Connect for 3/6/98 Author: "InteliHealth Online" Date: 3/6/98 1:28 PM TODAY IN HEALTH HISTORY ____________________________________________________________ Little Nurses? Author Louisa May Alcott struggled for many years as a writer, pumping out romance-type fiction under pseudonyms along with other writings, but it was a book about her experiences as a nurse that brought her true fame. In 1862, during the Civil War, Alcott went to work as a nurse at the Union hospital at Georgetown in Washington, D.C. A year later, a collection of letters she wrote to her family during that time was published as "Hospital Sketches." The book brought her fame and $2,000, which she used to travel to Europe. When she returned, she began her most famous novel, "Little Women." Alcott died on this date in 1888. Copyright Inteli-Health, Inc., 1998. All rights reserved. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 06:34:00 -0800 From: Bob Spark Subject: For the "Ozzie Digest": Camus' "The Stranger" Scott, Jeremy: There is also a film of the Camus novel _The Stranger_, which was made for either French or British television (I don't remember), but it's not available on videotape. The Strangers are what the humans call the aliens in _Dark City_, the few who know about them. "The Stranger" is less a novel than a monograph on existentialism. I will quote a review: Camus illustrates a life of a protocol existentialist. The book is not about individual events of the main character's life (e.g., his indifferent reactions to his mothers death; his senseless act of murder, etc.), rather, this book portrays a man living a life of emotional indifference to all life's events. However, he takes the responsibilities of all of his wrong doings, and he takes the rewards of his benevolent actions. More importantly, his was fully free. That is, he was truly the captain of his boat. No societal pressures altered any of his lifes' action. Bob Spark ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 09:37:06 -0800 From: ozbot Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-07-98 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Ozzy comics--- Scott wrote: > Danny: I still can't find _Dark Oz_, or "Straw and Sorcery" #3. > I have only been able to get a few parts of the _Demonstorm_ crossover, > including the _Oz_ special, the _Deadworld Special_, and the _Demonstorm_ > special. I do have "Romance in Rags" and I think I have _Oz_ up to issue > #20. What else am I missing. Part of the problem may be the creators breaking away from Caliber comics to form their own imprint-- Arrow Comics. Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem with the distributor (who, in suspicious contrast to anti-trust laws, seems to be the only service in North America for such things). Diamond distrubutes Arrow's comics, but seems not to be giving them the same attention it would to a big and more established company (Sorry, ranting there.) In other words, please be sure to order advance copies (or REorder those already published) through your local comic store (ask for Diamond's Previews order form.) _Dark Oz_ issues 1 would be out last month, so try to reorder that (and you may need to reorder issue 2, which was already solicited.) In any case, you can try to order directly from Arrow's offices by calling 810-235-6338, or at least tell them your woes. (I would prefer you order and support your retailer) But anyway, Caliber publised _Oz_ through issue 20, Straw and Sorcery did have an issue 3, I believe, and teh Deamonstorm was teh company's (Caliber's) mega-comic crossover. For any back issues for these comics, again, consult your local comic company, or try an on-line comic store, such as www.milehighcomics.com or perhaps find retailers at www.comicbookresources.com Scott wrote again: >I for one, liked Bill Bryan's artwork, > particularly his depiction of Scraps, as beautiful as the Scarecrow > believes her to be... > Bryan's work definately fit the tone of the series, which was always darker than the books. Well, maybe not Snow's :) That, I believe, is what turned a lot of "Classic Oz" fans off. Tim Holtrop, who took over the art chores when Bryan did several _Oz_ mini series, lent a much more classic "superhero" flavor for the more adventuresome Oz issues, after the initial (and overly dark) threat of the Nome King was dealt with. Things get dark again, (duh) in _Dark Oz_, after which, the character and world designs change and the series becomes _Land of Oz_ IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT for OZ COMICS Remember the old Marvel comics' adaptations of _Wizard_ and _Land_? Well, I've been talking witht he editor in chief at Arrow, and it seems there is an openness to perhaps coming out with a _Classic Oz_ series (and less so, but still open) for a _Classic WOnderland_ series. These series would be aimed for younger readers (not the older kids/teens and adults that Dark Oz, etc is aimed for) and may follow in the "adaptation" route that Marvel did, or may include all new stories set in the "Classical" (non-Arrow) worlds. Please support Arrow Comics by picking up _Oz_ and my own _Wonderland_, and even support this decision with letters. I think this would be a great opportunity to continue to bring Oz to everyone. ozbot Danny Wall ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 13:24:06 -0500 (EST) From: Jeremy Steadman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-07-98 > Jeremy: There is also a film of the Camus novel _The Stranger_, which was > made for either French or British television (I don't remember), but it's > not available on videotape. The Strangers are what the humans call the > aliens in _Dark City_, the few who know about them. I finally saw _DC_ yesterday afternoon! It certainly lived up to its repute as a "strange" film, but I thought it also had a far-reaching moral at the end. > Tyler is out of town, so I'll take the liberty of giving you his page: > Thank you. I'd thought that was what I had, but it certainly didn't work when I tried it yesterday . . . Until we meet again, Jeremy Steadman, jsteadman@loki.berry.edu (kiex@aol.com during the summer and school vacations) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619 "The man who thought his wife was a bicycle tire soon found he'd spoke too soon." ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 12:39:31 -0800 (PST) From: Carol Silva Subject: Oz book order X-Originating-IP: [152.163.206.217] The Digests are sparse this weekend. This makes them all the more easy to respond to. I have to agree with those who stated that the Dulabone/Buckethead effort is not something to let die. I had a phone conversation with Dulabone yesterday. (Warning: Do not call this person unless you have a block of several free hours and a cheap long-distance service). He admits that Buckethead is never going to break even. But he was very excited about a new book entitled "Hurray for Oz" that he has just printed. He intends to offer copies for sale as soon as he gets his webpage re-edited. He also mentioned a new book by the man who wrote "The Healing Power of Oz" that he hopes to see sold at a California club event in a month or two (can anyone fill me in?). So I guess this means he is still offering Buckethead books. Maybe that letter he sent was a mere passing thought. I hope so. However, I find that I have a small problem ordering books from him. There are so many of them, I must order them a few at a time. I can't decide which to order first. "Pegasus in Oz" and "The Joust in Oz" are excellent stories which have inferior illustrations, while some of Marcus Mebes' stories have excellent illustrations with storylines I do not care for. All of these are a cut above what I have seen offered commercially (anyone want to buy a copy of "A Barnstormer in Oz" cheap?) My next order is going to be for "The Disenchanted Princess of the Seven Blue Mountains of Oz" and "Hurray for Oz" (Dulabone says the latter has not been advertised anywhere yet, but he is offering it to me autographed at $12.00. I get the impression he will not refuse money from anyone else who makes the same offer). Any ideas as to what I should order next time? Thank you very much. --Carol P. Silva (ozzy_rat@hotmail.com) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 08:42:00 -0500 From: International Wizard of Oz Club Subject: FW: VHS-video search Gili or any of you internationals - any thoughts on this? Please e-mail me at iwoc@neosoft.com Sincerely, Jim Vander Noot The International Wizard of Oz Club -----Original Message----- From: Joyce van Poeteren [SMTP:joyce@clic.nl] Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 1998 9:11 AM Subject: VHS-video search Dear Sirs, I'm in search of a VHS-tape on PAL-systeem of the Wizard of Os. Living in Amsterdam we have a different systeem then in the US. I know that during the last Xmas Season a Wizard of Oz special edition tape has been distributed through several large Bookstores en Record Shops. This contained the videotape and a the book. However, I was too late. Could you inform me how I can obtain this and what the costs would be. Would be very grateful for a reply. Kind regards, Joyce van Poeteren Bisschop Callierstraat 22 2014 XH Haarlem, The Netherlands email: joyce@clic.nl or poeteren@yahoo.com. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 21:41:05 -0500 From: "Melody G. Keller" Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-22-98 Sender: "Melody G. Keller" J.L. Bell: > If Baum added "Gale" to Dorothy's name to >memorialize this infant, wouldn't it have been cavalier to let that last name >appear first as the set-up for a cheap pun in the musical show (which >opened in Chicago, quite possibly with her parents in the audience)?< The cheap pun may possibly have been written in by someone else. Happens to scripts all the time. Melody Grandy ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 08 Mar 1998 23:37:04 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Sender: Tyler Jones Jeremy: To the best of my knowledge, Baum wrote _Wizard_ in 1899. John Bell and David: IMHO, it is reasonable to assume that a major character would have to be missing for a week or more before Ozma gets concerned enough to look in the magic picture. Danny W: "Tattypoo" is a name invented by Thompson. Baum did not give the Good Witch of the North a name. Jeremy: My web site is http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tnj/homepage.htm as Dave has already so kindly mentioned :-) (thanks). I believe someone who is on the digest has something called an "Ozzy web ring" that links many of the Ozzy web sites. I haven't asked to join yet, though. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 08:04:46 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: LIL WIZARD OF OZ, 1 of 8 Sender: "J. L. Bell" LITTLE WIZARD STORIES OF OZ was a "lost" book to me when I started reading the series. It's not included in WHO'S WHO or listed among the titles at the front of the "white cover" edition of ROAD, my two road maps. I saw references to LIL WIZARD in ANNOTATED WIZARD, but these were Baum's only published Oz tales that I didn't read until I was old enough to vote. With one exception. I read "The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman" when it was reprinted in CRICKET in the late 1970s. At the time, I recall, Michael Patrick Hearn was a contributing editor for that magazine. Hearn was no doubt also the impetus behind Schocken (the imprint that published his Critical Heritage WIZARD) reissuing LIL WIZARD in 1985. So I owe my first look at these stories to him--and to the realization of "The Baum Trust" that the tales' copyright was about to run out. The Books of Wonder/Morrow edition of 1994 boasts three more color illustrations than the Schocken reissue: the endpapers are in color instead of black and white, and there's a color frontispiece. Schocken prints Neill's story-opening art and initial letters in blue, however, and removes the "This Book Belongs to" drawing that Reilly & Britton lifted from POLICEMAN BLUEJAY and BoW reprints. Both editions seem to have been reset. The page breaks fall in different places, as do the illustrations. For that reason I won't quote page numbers when I comment on the stories. For the early tales I think Schocken did a better job arranging the art to follow the plot. The biggest advantage of the Schocken edition is Hearn's introduction. He discusses how the stories developed, quoting Baum's correspondence with Sumner Britton. The publisher's major concern, it appears, was that the tales not be too scary for young readers. He wanted to continue using "our slogan that 'no Baum story ever sent a child to bed to troubled dreams.'" It's ironic, then, that the LIL WIZARD STORIES are full of intense dangers. We see children (including Dorothy and Ozma) threatened with being eaten by a tiger, captured by a giant, enslaved, threatened with a cat-o'-nine-tails, pricked by moving thorn bushes, lost in the forest without food, and tied to a tree by squirrels. We see our non-human favorites from Oz broken in pieces, half-blinded, waterlogged, and hung from a tree by crows. More than enough nightmares! Hearn reports that Baum asked Britton if these stories should have a new artist: "Neill has not been giving satisfaction to my readers lately." I suspect Baum was upset by the lower sales of SEA FAIRIES and SKY ISLAND, and was looking for something to blame. On the question of the WIZARD's date, Denslow actually created a copyright page with an 1899 date. It's on page 6 of the BoW edition, opposite the contents. But Baum and Denslow didn't apply for copyright on what they were then calling THE LAND OF OZ until 18 January 1900. In February Geo. M. Hill advertised it to the industry as THE FAIRYLAND OF OZ. With its penultimate title, THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, the book went to press in March. In an 8 April letter to his brother Harry Baum wrote, "It is now on press and will be ready soon after May 1st." The official publication date was planned for 15 May 1900, Baum's birthday. On 17 May Baum signed a sewn, unbound copy for his sister Mary. On 28 May he sent the first bound copy Hill had given him to Harry. By June the industry magazine was reporting that Hill had gone back to press for a second printing of 5,000. Nevertheless, the official publication was delayed--perhaps to due an illness of Baum's. Hill set a new date for 1 August, and displayed the book at the Chicago Book Fair in July. Baum sent two copies to the Library of Congress in September, but these were lost in the mail; a single new copy from the publisher didn't arrive in Washington until December. (Because the Library requires two copies to complete the copyright registration, that was not done until 1903.) Publishers' official publication dates are artificial choices, meant to cue periodicals when to run reviews. It's common for books to be available before those dates. In the case of WIZARD, Hill seems to have realized it had a hit on its hands and rescheduled official publication closer to the Christmas shopping season. The firm was announcing 25,000 copies in print by October, 55,000 by December, 90,000 by early 1901. These dates and figures are reported in ANNOTATED WIZARD, pp. 28-31. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 09:07:57 -0600 (CST) From: Ruth Berman Subject: ozzy digest A few comments on "The Little Wizard Stories" -- they have some amusing moments (especially Ruggedo and Kaliko interacting with Tik- Tok), but I don't care much for them overall. Too preachy and too sketchy (notice how many characters go un-named as a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, a baby, and the absence of names for the places). Neill's illustrations for it also look sketchy, perhaps done too hurriedly. I recall a "Bugle" article on Neill pointing out the double use of some illos (slightly modified) in "Patchwork Girl" and "Little Wizard." (And "Patchwork Girl" itself was re-using illos multiple times in the story evidently to make an inadequate number of illos go further). The article commented that it was hard to tell which book the re-used illos were done for originally. I'd suggest that at least the illo of Dorothy reading the "Look out for -- " sign must have been done for "Patchwork Girl" originally, as "Yoop" fits the width of the sign better than "Crinklink," which had to be squidged to fit in. A mailing of the Oz Research Group arrived a few days ago, and I was disappointed to find that the contribution I'd sent in for it wasn't there. At that point, thought to look again at the recent mailings, and discovered that my essay on Oz Rulers (the one I've been telling people here every so often they ought to read) hasn't been in, either. So -- apologies for asking people to read it there. (I suspect the problem is that Andrea Yussman has been coping with flood damage the past year.) Steve Teller (although it'll be a couple weeks before he's back Ozdigesting again): I think that the report that the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company put on Baum's "Wizard of Oz" in the 60's is mistaken. At least, I have a program of their 1962 production of the "Wizard," and what they did in that was not Baum's musical, but the standard Frank Gabrielson version of the 1939 MGM script. (They had Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch, too.) Joyce O'Dell: I'd make a guess that "Locusta" was not intended to suggest "locusts" as in "crop-eating bugs," but as in "attractive shade tree." Might also be some influence from "locus" (place) and the name "Augusta"? J.L. Bell: I'll have to check to see if there are more than the two examples that I remembered. (I'll see if I can track down what "Bugle" articles on Neill have said on the subject, too.) Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 12:18:34 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things TO BOB SPARK & OTHERS: Could you please make sure your posts to the Digest are free of HTML formatting? This is a family and vanilla ASCII Digest. :) (It also freaks out the program that generates the Digest when it encounters HTML code.) I WON'T SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS: I certianly envy all you who have lots of Ozzy dreams...Almost all my dreams are _Red Dwarf_-related if anything. My Oz dreams are much nicer, but much rarer. ALCOTT: Funny you should mention Louisa May Alcott, Scott, when I've been reading a lot of her lately...I always think of Phebe from _Eight Cousins_/_Rose In Bloom_ in connection with Jellia. I wish just once though she could have let one of her heroines "have it all", if that was really what she believed in. (The only real "career woman" in her books -- Nan in _Jo's Boys_ -- never marries) And she just couldn't bring herself to make a hero of Dan (_Jo's Boys_ again), even though all the potential was there. I read one commentator who thought that Alcott was in love with Dan, and she got so scared of her feelings that she lashed out at the source of those feelings by making life revert to being utter hippikaloric for Dan and then killed him off a sad, lonely man on the very last page. Just a theory of course...Oh, well... GOOD WITCHES: As Tyler said, "Tattypoo" is Thompson's name and so is *not* PD. Some say that in mentioning Tattypoo's name in _Locasta_ I'm venturing at least into a grey area... -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave ************************************************************ Dave Hardenbrook, E-Mail: DaveH47@delphi.com URL: http://people.delphi.com/DaveH47/ Computer Programmer, Honorary Citizen of the Land of Oz, and Editor of "The Ozzy Digest" (The _Wizard of Oz_ online fan club) "When we are young we read and believe The most Fantastic Things... When we grow older and wiser We learn, with perhaps a little regret, That these things can never be... WE ARE QUITE, QUITE *** WRONG ***!!!" -- Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit" ************************************************************ ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, MARCH 10 - 11, 1998 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 11:44:49 -0600 From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-06 & 07-98 Two Digests to respond to because things have been very hectic here the past week. My wife has accepted an offer of a new job starting 3/30; she's turned in her resignation at her current job effective 3/11; and we're planning trips to Belgium (3/14-20) and Tennessee (3/26-28 for her, till 4/2 or 4/3 for me) in the immediate future. Getting ready for those transitions has kept me busy enough that though I've read the Digests I haven't had time to comment on them. I'll see if I can catch up today; at least they're both relatively short. And to add to the complications, we've had about 8 inches of snow today... (This after the mildest "meteorological winter" - December-February - since 1931-32 here in Chicago.) Jeremy: My copy of WWOZ is copyright 1899, but my understanding is that the book made its actual debut on bookstore shelves in March of 1900. Baum probably wrote it in 1898 or 1899. Danny: I think someone else already answered this, but "Tattypoo" is Thompson's name for the GWN, and it appeared for the first (and only, IIRC) time in _Giant Horse_, so it won't be PD until 2004. Ruth: Some interesting ideas for _Oziana_ stories. I'll have to think about this a bit... Scott H.: >Biblical scholars are at work on a multicolored edition, based on whether >or not the Church has been discovered to have put words in his mouth >(black), if it is something which is in line with what he would have said >(grey), if it was something likely to be His but not certain (pink), or >His [in translation from Aramaic] (red). Not exactly. The meaning of the colors is supposed to be: red - Jesus almost certainly said this, or something just like it; pink - Jesus might well have said this, but it's arguable; gray - Jesus probably didn't say this, but it's just possible; black - Jesus almost certainly didn't say this, because it's inconsistent with things he almost certainly did say. Dave: >Because of the problems I had getting the Digests out this week, I have >postponed our beginning our discussions of _Little Wizard Stories_ until >next Monday (3/9). I thought this was the day to start the LWS discussion anyhow. Joyce: I don't think we know that Glinda had the Great Book of Records " by the time of the Wizard's abdication." It's first mentioned in _Emerald City_ (as her "Magic Book"), and in fact it seems likely that she had only recently acquired it. In _Land_ she's dependent on what her spies had told her about the Wizard; surely, if she had the GBR at that point, she'd have used it instead of or in addition to. (Maybe the power of the Wicked Witches was enough to prevent the book from recording what had happened to Ozma, but the Wizard was a humbug and it would surely have recorded his doings.) J.L.: I assumed the situation at the end of _Tik-Tok_ wouldn't last the first time I read it, too - though this was probably made easier by the fact that I'd already read _Magic_ and _Kabumpo_ at that point... Dave: I don't think _Red Reera...etc._ is authoritative. The first edition of _The Princess Bride_ - now a cult classic, but one that was remaindered early (I picked up something like ten copies for a buck apiece) - used red ink for Goldman's "explanations" of the "cuts" he made in S. Morgenstern's (fictional) "original." David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 19:25:24 -0500 (EST) From: Ozmama Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-09-98 Ruth:<< Steve Teller (although it'll be a couple weeks before he's back Ozdigesting again): I think that the report that the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company put on Baum's "Wizard of Oz" in the 60's is mistaken. At least, I have a program of their 1962 production of the "Wizard," and what they did in that was not Baum's musical, but the standard Frank Gabrielson version of the 1939 MGM script. (They had Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch, too.)>> The first summer in St. Louis for me was 1963, so I don't know about the '62 Muni version; however, sometime after '68--I'm too lazy to go hunt up the program to check the year-- the Muni did do the MGM version with Maggie. I remember it well. Definitely MGM version. Went to that show with Jim Haff and Fred Meyer. Met Maggie for my very first time backstage. Exciting evening, but it was not Baum's *Wizard,* either. If anyone really needs to know if the Muni did produce a Baum version, it could be checked rather easily, since the Municipal Opera has complete records of its past shows. --Robin ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 20:51:56 -0500 (EST) From: Jeremy Steadman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-09-98 Louisa May: Won't Steve T. be surprised when he's finally Alcott up with what he's missing! Until later, when I may have something more substantial to say, Jeremy Steadman, jsteadman@loki.berry.edu (kiex@aol.com during the summer and school vacations) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619 "Whenever I try to recite Murphy's law, I get it all wrong." ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 07:04:45 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: LIL WIZARD OF OZ, 2 of 8 Sender: "J. L. Bell" "The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger" is haunted by the specter of death. Not the death the beasts promise to inflict on the first people they meet, but their own deaths. "I'm getting old, and it would please me to eat at least one fat baby before I die," says the Tiger. After tearing someone to pieces, the Lion says, he would "stalk away...before anyone could attack me or kill me." Was Baum carelessly forgetting that Ozians don't die? Most likely. But another interpretation of these fears begins with what the fat baby's mother tells the Lion and Tiger: "I do not think either of you have [sic] ever had an evil thought." Of course the animals have, but they didn't act on those thoughts. What would happen to the beasts if they killed people? In the same paragraph in which he speaks of dying, the Tiger says, "we will both run out of the city gates and gallop across the country and hide in the jungle." This departure is presaged by the animals' movement away from Ozma's throne: "Out of the palace they walked...they unlatched a gate..." For acting on their evil thoughts, the Lion and Tiger would be expelled from the Emerald City, as surely as Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. Too strange a parallel? Let's examine Neill's drawing of the Hungry Tiger patting the weepy baby as the Cowardly Lion looks on. What do we see in the frame's upper right corner? A red fruit hanging from a tree--in western culture, an undeniable symbol of Eden's forbidden fruit. Applying a Biblical gloss to this story actually helps to explain the beasts' thoughts of death. When they think of succumbing to their temptations, the Lion and Tiger expect to die. But as they meet the fat baby, the forbidden fruit remains intact. The animals won't know evil. They'll stay immortal in paradise after all. From one shaky spirituality to another, I'll take up Ken Cope's plea for some response to David Parker's article on theosophy and Baum. Parker writes: <> [Then comes the passage Ken just quoted.] I wonder if the mysterious X.Y.Z. was not made up by Baum to create a chance to defend himself against what (he thought) people were saying about him. At this time, just before the PIONEER's failure, Baum had become somewhat unpopular in town, even picking a fight with the high school student body. This was the period when he made his ill-considered remarks about Indians. His work for the Republicans was coming back to hurt his business. He may have been on the defensive, and feeling defensive. <> Applewood, the same small Massachusetts press that publishes THE WIZARD OF OZ WADDLE BOOK, also publishes HOSPITAL SKETCHES. I bought my mother a copy last fall; she's a nurse and a Civil War buff. Ma reports that Alcott's entire experience in the military hospitals, and thus the foundation of her success as a writer, was based on just a few months of work. She had the talent to make those months vivid for her readers, and the speed to publish while the war was foremost on people's minds. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 09:47:29 -0600 (CST) From: Ruth Berman Subject: ozzy digest Melody Grandy: The "Gale" pun could have been added to the "Wizard" play by someone other than Baum, but it certainly fits in with Baum's Wogglebuggish love of puns. And if it had been added by someone else, then I doubt that the name "gale" would have been Baum's invention (or a reference to his Gage relatives), as the name is (I think) mentioned only in that one context of the pun. If added by Baum, the choice of a name similar to "Gage" could have been unconscious. (Or could have been entirely concidental, although the similarity of Dorothy Gage/Dorothy Gale seems too close for that to be likely.) For that matter, although J.L. Bell's suggestion that a name like the dead child's used as a silly pun might have been painful to the Gage family is plausible, I suppose it's at least possible that they found puns amusing enough themselves (or were enough aware of Baum's love of puns) to take the pun as affectionately meant. Robin Olderman: A second to your comments on unwisdom of "discussing" hate language again. J.L. Bell: So I checked, and I don't find any double-spread illos in Neill's Oz books (besides the two already mentioned, of the firefly fairies and the assembled wizards) that look like early work being inserted. I also don't find an article on Neill in the "Bugle" that expresses an opinion as to what project either of the two might have been intended for originally. The wizards illo was used as a "Bugle" cover back in 1980, at which time the table-of-contents note pointed out the likelihood that it had been drawn earlier and said it wasn't known what project it might have been meant for originally. Looking at the smaller illos, I started to wonder if the "Wonder City" illo of Number Nine's mother and the two Nomes (p. 206) might have been related to the firefly fairies. The modelling of the two Nomes is elaborate enough to look like something that Neill might have done earlier, although it doesn't stand out as definitely earlier in style the way those two double-spreads do. But: (a) the Nomes don't look much like Neill's usual Nomes (neither one has the top-pointed hairdo, for instance, as one of them does in the illo of the pair of them caught by the chimneys; (b) the woman isn't holding the eggs the text says she is bringing out; (c) the woman doesn't look old enough to be Number Nine's mother; and (d) she does look young enough to be the same woman (Jenny Jump, supposedly, but, as J.L. Bell pointed out, she looks a bit older than Jenny) in the center of the firefly fairies doublespread, and she is wearing what looks like the same outfit -- oddly shaped bonnet, billowing cape with wide pointed collar, etc. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 14:41:48 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-09-98 Ruth: Frank Gabrielson re-wrote the MGM script as a play? He wrote the Shirley Temple _Land_. The film of _The Stranger_ is by Luchino Visconti and Sergio Gobbi, and was made in 1967, a French/Italian/Algerian co-production. Marcello Mastroianni played Mersault. It seems there is a sadistic hostage film called _Surrender Dorothy_, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January. Scott ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 14:51:42 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: Ozzy Digest: Tamawaca Folks On the Xerox that I have from the Hope College Library, it says the following: John Estes Cooke was a pseudonym for Frank L. Baum, author of the _Wizard of Oz_. _Tamawaca_ is a _roman a clef_. Actual setting was Macatawa, Michigan, a resort on the south shore of Lake Michigan. the following identifications of the characters/seem probably accurate: Easton - Westerfeld; Harringford - Harrington; Vanderslop - Van der Sluis; Kerry - Dr. Perry; Diller - Miller; Wilder -Colby. We also know that Wright is Baum, but who are these people? I also could not find a character called Vanderslop, so I'm not certain what this means. But I have to return it today: it's overdue. Scott ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 17:13:09 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Whitcomb" Subject: For Ozzy Digest Bob Spark: The word "errata" really isn't applicable to the scenes that you described in MGM's "The Wizard of Oz". I have always referred to these as "bloopers". The word "errata" is usually referred to as a list of errors [and their corrections] usually issued/published after the main work as been released. An errata is intended to be inserted inside the piece to alert readers of these errors/corrections. And, since this doesn't seem to work the same way with film, I would conclude that "bloopers" is a better term than "errata". Just my two cents worth! Jim Whitcomb. ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 00:15:34 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Sender: Tyler Jones Carol: If you like, you can visit my web page at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tnj/homepage.htm There are several reviews of some Buckthead books and you may be able to use this as a guide to decide which books to order. I would definitely recommend "The Disenchanted Princess of Oz" right off the bat. It is, IMHO, the best post-FF Oz book ever written. Granted, the price is steep but you really get your $$$$ worth. --Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 07:59:44 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: LIL WIZARD OF OZ, 3 of 8 Sender: "J. L. Bell" "Little Dorothy and Toto" in its original form made publisher Sumner Britton nervous, Michael Patrick Hearn reports in his introduction to the Schocken LIL WIZARD. Baum had ended this story with Toto killing Crinklink "on much the same order as a terrier would kill a rat." On the digest I recently wrote of how I preferred Toto as an infrequent talker, finding him thus to be just as intelligent as but distinct from Oz's many speaking animals. In this story Baum states flat out, "Toto could not talk...for he was just a common Kansas dog." Yet he hints that Toto knows more than he lets on: "he looked at the sign so seriously that Dorothy almost believed he could read it, and she knew quite well that Toto understood every word she said to him." And Baum makes clear that Toto can communicate to Dorothy: "'Bow-wow!' said Toto, and Dorothy knew that meant a promise." This story's outcome, in both original and published forms, depends on Toto being a "common Kansas dog." He *is* a terrier (and Crinklink is a rat)! Dorothy is too humane to seize the villain when he shrinks into bed, but "Toto had heard this conversation [with the enchanted buttons] and was not so particular about killing monsters." Dorothy's little dog combines being able to understand speech and acting like a true canine. Rescuing his mistress that way is far more interesting to me than his behavior after starting to speak. Baum rewrote the end of "Little Dorothy and Toto" in response to Britton's complaint that the original was "clearly away from your usual style of not doing any killing." In fact, Britton introduced the "little thought [to] suddenly have Crinklink grow larger again and appear in the person of the Little Wizard of Oz, who would laugh heartily at the joke perpetuated on little Dorothy." As if children like to have jokes pulled on them. As if children like to see lessons manufactured for them. As if children like to read about their world being controlled by adults. What Oz ending could be more annoying? This is as bad as if the Good Witch of the North hadn't told Dorothy the silver shoes could take her home because she had to learn that for herself. Gratifyingly, Baum knows Dorothy well enough to know that she wouldn't appreciate that sort of lesson: "You've given me a good scare, Wizard," she added, with dignity, "and p'raps I'll forgive you, by 'n' by; but just now I'm mad to think how easily you fooled me." The Wizard pulls the same magically-disguise-myself trick on Number Nine in WONDER CITY. It's no more charming there, but the boy doesn't talk back. Ruth Berman seems on target when she sees a sign that Neill lifted his "Crinklink" sign from PATCHWORK GIRL. That sign may well have been part of Baum's rewrite--when Dorothy disregards its warning, the Wizard has more of a lesson to teach. The picture of Dorothy bending to look at Crinklink probably went the other way, from this volume to PATCHWORK GIRL. Dorothy has no reason to bow on page 214 of that book, where the setting has been moved inside. This implies that Neill planned Dorothy's outfit (dress, polkadot sun hat) to appear in both volumes. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 10:08:41 -0500 (EST) From: "James R. Whitcomb" Subject: Ruby Slipper Fan Club oznews@i1.net, wizardoz@westol.com, tiktok@eskimo.com Hello "Oz" Friends: I received the email below from Steve Jarrett re: the creation of a "Ruby Slipper Fan Club". Steve is co-webmaster for the fantastic website "Judy Garland - The Live Performances". Steve and I have been emailing back and forth for quite some time so I thought I would pass this info along to other folks in the "Oz" community who might be interested in joining this club, especially those interested in the MGM film and/or the folklore of the Ruby Slippers. For those of you who have websites, you might want to add a link about this info to your links page. And, for no other reason, I recommend that you check-out Steve's site because he has created his very own pair of Ruby Slippers. And, they look terrific!!! Thanks! Jim Whitcomb of ... Jim's "Wizard of Oz" Website URL: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/6396/ >Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 21:38:37 -0500 >From: Steve >Subject: Ruby Slipper Fan Club >To: stacey@netcomuk.co.uk, Sommers1@aol.com, SgrBear25@aol.com, > SCOUTED@aol.com, pinkfoot@hotmail.com, RedHead621@aol.com, > randi@ntpage.com, Marthy581@aol.com, Leibo21@aol.com, JTRichSr@aol.com, > propst_je@mail.lrc.edu, whitcomb.1@osu.edu, hammer@netpath.net, > CCCSB@aol.com, ephemart@indy.net, asigethy@startec.net >Reply-to: rainbowz@delta.com >Organization: Judy Garland - The Live Performances! > >Hello everyone! > >If you're receiving this note, it's because we've talked slippers, Oz or >just talked in the last year and I thought you'd be interested in the >following. If you're not interested - sorry for the intrusion! > >Just a quick note for you to come to the website and check out the new >page.... It promises to be VERY interesting. Take a look sign up for >the Ruby Slipper mailing list - and if you have any questions - write me >a note and we'll see what we can do to answer your questions! > >The page is at: http://users.delta.com/rainbowz/rubyslipperfanclub/ > >There's not a lot there - but with more people joining the list - things >will liven up as the people do! > >Take care! >-- >Steve Jarrett - >------------------------------------- >Judy Garland - The Live Performances! >http://users.delta.com/rainbowz >Last updated: March 10, 1998 >------------------------------------- > > ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 13:36:57 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things "LITTLE DOROTHY AND TOTO": J.L. Bell wrote: >As if children like to have jokes pulled on them. As if children like to >see lessons manufactured for them... Apparently R&B (like so many other folks...anyone here ever read _Highlights_ magazine when they were kids?) think that kids (and grownups sometimes) have to be preached to. >This is as bad as if the Good Witch of the North hadn't told Dorothy the >silver shoes could take her home because she had to learn that for herself. Hmmm...Where have I heard this scenario before? :) >The Wizard pulls the same magically-disguise-myself trick on Number Nine in >WONDER CITY. It's no more charming there, but the boy doesn't talk back. Dorothy has spunk. >Ruth Berman seems on target when she sees a sign that Neill lifted his >"Crinklink" sign from PATCHWORK GIRL. I'm glad to know I wasn't seeing things. :) OZ REFERENCE?: Last night I was listening to the original radio version of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and in one scene Arthur is wishing he could learn to repair spacecraft and Lintilla replies, "You could take some evening classes...I have a bottle here of little pink ones." I know the Oz books are virtually unknown outside the States ("Oz? You mean where the Kangaroos and Aboriginies live?"), but is there any chance at all that Douglas Adams was aware of the Wogglebug's Education Pills? -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave ************************************************************ Dave Hardenbrook, E-Mail: DaveH47@delphi.com URL: http://people.delphi.com/DaveH47/ Computer Programmer, Honorary Citizen of the Land of Oz, and Editor of "The Ozzy Digest" (The _Wizard of Oz_ online fan club) "When we are young we read and believe The most Fantastic Things... When we grow older and wiser We learn, with perhaps a little regret, That these things can never be... WE ARE QUITE, QUITE *** WRONG ***!!!" -- Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit" ************************************************************ ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, MARCH 12 - 14, 1998 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:10:03 -0500 From: Richard Randolph Subject: Ozzy Digest 3-8/9-98 Carol S.- I agree with you and the others who were please to learn that "Buckethead" lives on, tho' under a new name. Chris D. has done a great service to Oz fans by keeping Oz alive and in print. The quality of books produced does vary in quality of both writing and illustrations, but there are some gems that are not to be missed. Melody Grandy's Seven Blue Mountains - Book 1 is the best of the Buckethead books I've read so far. I also liked Cory in Oz, by Allison McBain as well as The Crocheted Cat in Oz, by Hugh Pendexter III. Robin, David: Do either of you folks know if the '98 Oz calendar and '98 Oziana have been mailed yet? Dick ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 07:05:04 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: LIL WIZARD OF OZ, 4 of 8 Sender: "J. L. Bell" "Tik-Tok and the Nome King" is my favorite LIL WIZARD tale. I see Ruth Berman singles it out for faint praise as well, based on the characters. Baum picks three favorites, all true to what we know from the longer books: Ruggedo rash and reckless, Kaliko shrewd and secretive, Tik-Tok direct and determined. Tik-Tok is uncharacteristically impolitic, but that's the very reason for his visit to the Nomes. Since Roquat/Ruggedo (this seems to be in his nameless period) hates everything associated with Oz, there's a natural conflict; the story isn't moved by generic characters (a man, a crow). And the ending doesn't depend on the Wizard ex machina, like most of these stories. In fact, I theorize that the Wizard is inadvertently behind Tik-Tok's action (or the actions of his action) at the start. Smith & Tinker guaranteed the clockwork man would work for a thousand years. It therefore seems awfully early for "some of his parts [to be] wearing out." Baum tells us, "The skillful little Wizard of Oz had tinkered with Tik-Tok's thoughts without being able to get them properly regulated." The Wizard may have opened Tik-Tok out of curiosity and overconfidence, and then realized he was botching things. That would have voided the mechanical man's warranty (not that Smith & Tinker is in business any longer). In one elemental respect Tik-Tok is not the same mechanical man we've met. Kaliko refers to him as "a cast-iron person," and a Nome such as Kaliko would know his metals. Neill follows that lead by coloring Tik-Tok blue-gray instead of coppery. In ROAD Baum showed us Tik-Tok speaking after his thoughts ran down (one of my favorite moments in the Oz books). In this story Kaliko "wound up the motion machinery and the Clockwork Man walked up and down as naturally [that is, as artificially] as ever" *before* the Nome "wound up the thought works." If I were designing a mechanical man, I'd make him unable to move without thinking, for fear he might cause damage. I would make him able to speak without thinking, as a harmless signal to people to wind up his thoughts. Perhaps Smith & Tinker had a better design, or perhaps the Wizard or Kaliko didn't replace that regulator properly. Dave Hulan wrote: <> Glinda *tells* the Scarecrow and his party that she depends on spies. Whether she's revealing the truth or engaging in statesmanlike obfuscation depends on what we think of Glinda's capable of. The facts her "spies" have told her seem as elliptical and trivial as what her Book is later said to report. Ruth Berman wrote: <> Sharp eyes! Plus, one of those "gnomes" is wearing a kilt and dirk--one of those underground Highlanders, I guess. That makes the small possibility that the "firefly fairies" spread is related to Jenny's first adventures in the first draft even smaller--quite infinitesimal. In both pictures the caped young woman is beseeching the smaller, seemingly magical creatures. Presumably she's on a quest. Dave Hardenbrook wrote: <> I'm a big fan of these radio recordings, but I always linked this tossaway line from Lintilla to her crisis-inducer--she has artificial everything! The IWoOC has issued the "report" to Centennial manuscript submitters that we discussed in this digest a while back. My letter came from New York addressed to Jno. L. Bell, though I don't believe my submission stated my first name. Someone out there's putting two and two together! J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:33:56 -0500 (EST) From: Jeremy Steadman Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-11-98 Toto and speech: If Dorothy had heard him speak right off, she might flea in terrier! (Sorry, but I had to say that.) Douglas Adams and Oz: Of course he knew about the Wizard's education pills! Or, at least, it's more interesting to think he did . . . Until later, Jeremy Steadman, jsteadman@loki.berry.edu (kiex@aol.com during the summer and school vacations) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619 "Whenever I try to recite Murphy's law, I get it all wrong." ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 20:37:03 -0500 From: Richard Bauman Subject: Hopefully Some Oz Growls? Sender: Richard Bauman The Digest lately has achieved the status of "watching ice melt." What's going on? Are we all hibernating this winter? I know I am. Maybe I need to shudder, make a political comment to stir things up. Nah..... Relax Robin. Hulan, are you moving from Chicago to Belgium? Can't your wife hold on to a job for six months? :) Tell her your retirement is supposed to be a time of peace and quiet. Speaking of quiet, when is the last time any of you enjoyed any. It seems like our society is dominated by noise for the last 20 years or so. Muzak in stores, elevators, bathrooms, etc. I just read that restaurant owners think diners like noise because it makes them feel that they are part of something! Arghhh. So they design restaurants to be noisy on purpose! TVs, radios, CD players, leaf blowers, power mowers, traffic, noise, noise noise.... Now I know why I sit in my fairly quiet house and look at my quiet screen and sigh happily. Oh, Oz. I think the fact that no one is discussing the "Little Wizard Stories of Oz" is because there isn't a whole lot to discuss. Sigh. OK. Go ahead. >>>>>---------( o o )-------> Piercingly, Bear P.S. For Laurie King fans. Sigh. I just heard her speak and she says her next "Mary Russell" book wont be out until 2001!!!!! She has changed publishers but this is ridiculous. The next will be a "large" book, probably titled "The Chameleon," if her editor gets her way. ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 07:27:42 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: LIL WIZARD OF OZ, 5 of 8 Sender: "J. L. Bell" "Ozma and the Little Wizard" takes us back to a time when aluminum could be treated as preciously as gold and silver. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much else. The magical ba