] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 1, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 22:42:21 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Munchkinland mysteries Tyler Jones wrote: <> I agree. Jill Moore, I appreciate your passion about defraying Dave Hardenbrook's costs of running this digest. Nonetheless, please don't assume that everyone feels comfortable making a public announcement of donations. Gehan Cooray wrote: <> Baum actually wrote in PATCHWORK GIRL that Unc Nunkie "might have been king of the Munchkins, had not" the people preferred unifying under Ozma. That's not the same as saying Unc Nunkie *would* have become king. And again, Gehan, you're basing your analysis on some assumptions that may not be reliable. Consider these possibilities: * There may have been many claimants to the Munchkin title, as there were three claimants to the throne of Jinxland in SCARECROW; even at the end of that book, Pon "might have been king" because he still had loyalists. Unc Nunkie may have been only one of several candidates the Munchkins would have considered. (As books like WIZARD, GLINDA, JOHN DOUGH, and SKY ISLAND show, Baum liked the idea of nations choosing who would rule them. It was Thompson who put much more value on inherited authority.) * Though Thompson says in GIANT HORSE that Cheeriobed's father was King of the Munchkins, that doesn't necessarily mean Cheeriobed was going to inherit the title. He could have been a younger son. The title may have been conferred by Electors, as Holy Roman Emperor was in the late Middle Ages. Ozma chooses Cheeriobed to become King of the Munchkins somewhat by default; at the same time she chooses Joe King to be her vassal in Gillikinland with no hint that he has a family claim to that territory. * The title "King of the Munchkins" may not have brought authority over all of the territory we now consider Munchkinland, just as the King of France has at times ruled less than half of modern France and the American President has authority in only a portion of the Americas. There may even have been several "Kings of the Munchkins" by mutual consent, as there were different Khans after Genghis. As I recall, Ruth Berman has proffered a theory of how Cheeriobed was the King of the Munchkins mentioned in OZMA and ROAD. I see those brief, bare references as mistakes on Baum's part because I see so little indication elsewhere that there was a Munchkin ruler in that period. While Baum's Winkies often speak of their tin emperor, his Munchkins don't evince any sort of fondness for their king, or regret at having lost him. I suspect that Munchkinland was not a strongly united kingdom just before the Wicked Witch of the East's rule, but a flurry of regional powers in a loose alliance: Seebania, Sapphire City, Halidom & Troth, possibly Keretaria. Powerful magicians tried to take over several of those kingdoms, indicating they were more important than the average corner of Oz; yet none was so preeminent as to overshadow the others and attract notice during Ozma's early decades. David Hulan wrote about LAND: <> Or THERMIDOR IN OZ. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 14:49:06 -0500 From: Jill Moore To: DaveH47@mindspring.com Subject: Response to Mr. Bob Spark re:  Comment from Bob Spark
    "Do you mean to tell us that, after your initial tirade you hadn't sent in your contribution until now?  At any rate, I've had about enough of your lecturing for now.  Fact is, I sent in a donation right after your first note which, as a reminder I felt quite appropriate, but enough of your sanctimonious diatribes!"
In answer to the above comment, your pomposity far exceeds your arrogance and obvious ignorance.  Was there a particular reason you felt guilty when you read my posting?  Since it was intended toward those who had not made a contribution, and I had specifically stated that there were several who had responded (which would have included you), I do not understand why you took it so personally.  But I am glad you did because maybe that means someone is listening and will help Dave out.  Over all your comments were totally uncalled for since I am not asking for these monies for me, or not even for Dave, but for this group as a whole so that the digest can continue being provided to the users.  And as to your comment about my donation, I have been unemployed since March with no income since June, yet I made a $20 donation!  For you who have money, and a job, how generous have you been?  Have you even cared?  So, Mr. Bob, you might want to think about that next time you climb on your high-horse and start spouting off and criticizing others.  Be sure you look in the mirror first, for people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.  Furthermore, if you truly believe in the lessons Oz has taught us, than you should know that the basic lesson is about friends helping friends, and I surely didn't see you trying to help Dave with this problem!

I personally want to thank everyone who did read my letters and who understood Dave's plight and made a contribution to help him keep this Digest up-and-running for all of us to enjoy!  You all deserve a big pat on the back!!

Dave had the following to say:  "I would have liked it, however, if this could have been a totally friendly group effort without accusations that certain Digest members are "sanctimonious".  Can't we all just get along?  Ozma would want it that way."

Hear! Hear!!  I totally agree!  I did not have to hear that first plea, which was ignored by the people in this group, nor did I have to react to that plea and write a letter to the group.  I chose to do so because this Digest is an important part of all our lives, and Dave can't be expected to shoulder all the expense of making this available to us, the users.  Nor did I have to follow-up with a second letter, but since there had been no response to the first, again I felt compelled to try to help Dave out.  If you, or anyone else was offended by this, then you certainly have the right to page down and skip that message entirely.  You do not have the right, however, to put down others for trying to help, for caring enough to help.  Were you going to do it Mr. Bob?  Were you going to start things rolling and take the initiative to keep this digest running?  Some people just need to be hit on the head with a load of bricks before they realize what their responsibilities are, and to learn that you don't get everything in life for free.  Sometimes you have to actually be responsible for supporting that which you take for granted.  And on that note, I will not be bothering you again, and will not be sending any letters to the digest and offending you by my efforts to help out someone in need. ~~~ Jill Return-Path: Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 07:11:14 +0100 From: "W.R. Wright" To: DaveH47@mindspring.com Subject: question Does anyone know if there is an Oz movie out there anywhere that has a scene of a Witch riding on an elephant?? Bill in Ozlo ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 18:54:29 +1100 To: OzDigest@mindspring.com From: Gehan Cooray Subject: The Tinwoodman of Oz Don't you think -Tinwoodman of Oz- should be considered "un-official". It is full of un-fit statements and mistakes. Somebody pointed out most of them a few months ago. For ex: *. Nimmie Amee has lived the WWE when -Wizard- states that she lived with an old woman. */How can a superlatively evil witch live in a hut? She should live in a castle, for the GWN says that she held the Munchkins in bondage. She won't have just one servant. *.If Nick Chopper's head is still alive, then the Tinwoodman can't be Nick Chopper. And who exactly is Chopfyte, if he is mixture of two people? That part doesn't make scense in the least. There are tons of un-fit statements in the book. I don't think it should be considered official. BTW........ *. Why don't we first discuss Jack Snow's books, as they are closer to the Baum ones. We can then turn to the Thompson books and the Neill books. What do you say Dave? --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 25 Jan 99 15:40:53 CST From: "Ruth Berman" X-Minuet-Version: Minuet1.0_Beta_16 Reply-To: Ruth A Berman X-POPMail-Charset: English To: ozdigest@mindspring.com Subject: Ozzings Robin Olderman: Probably most of us feel old some days and young or middling some days? David Hulan: A character description rather than a character name, but "Patchwork Girl" is another one where the title character was a newcomer to Oz readers. // I like the possibility of magic paint. I have sometimes thought there might be other sentient scarecrows in Oz fields, but they enjoyed watching the fields grow and didn't have the curiosity impelling THE Scarecrow to make them want to get down and look for more. Then, too, the farmer who made the Scarecrow might himself have had some quiet magical abilities, and might have gifted his scarecrow with sentience (on purpose or accidentally). // Baum's American magic workers -- and he had a fairy exiled in San Diego in a short story for a Coronado publication (reprinted in the "Bugle" some time back). Gehan Cooray: Why Unk Nunkie's connection to the Munchkin Kings should turn out to be the rulers of Seebania rather than the rulers of the Ozure Isles -- it's quite possible that both a northern Munchkin line of rulers and a southern Muchkin line of rulers had claims (in competition or at different times) to being the THE Munchkin rulers. How Cheeriobed (or his un-named father) could be the King of the Munchkins who takes a tiny part in events in "Ozma" and "Road" if they were then shut up on the Ozure Isles by Quiberon and thus unknown to Oz society -- presumably they were not entirely shut up on the Isles yet. I wrote an article on this subject, "The Elusive Rulers of Oz," and distributed it through the Digest about a year ago, so don't want to repeat it here now. But I am sending you a copy of it individually. (And if other Digest members who have come into the group since then would like a copy, let me know, and I can email it to you, too.) Cohaja: I don't know of websources, but a simple way to get Oz coloring pages for your daughter is just to take some Oz books (your own or a library's) to a photocopier and copy any illos you like. The International Wizard of Oz Club at various times has published Neill's "Oz Toy Book" and two collections of Dick Martin's b&w Oz drawings -- check with them (iwoc@ncosoft.com) as to availability. Tigerbooks@aol.com published a collection of Eric Shanower's drawings of Oz characters, I think. And check with Books of Wonder (plgnyc@earthlink.net) as to whether some of the material in their Oz catalogue might fit in this line. Peter Hanff: Thanks for the information about the San Diego area articles. I'll try sending for them, as they sound interesting. Dave Hardenbrook: Bob Spark may have been too harsh in complaining that it was "sanctimonious" of Jill Moore to scold Digest members for not sending in contributions to you to help with the extra Digest expenses -- but then Jill was probably too harsh in speaking of her "great disappointment" at the absence of immediate contributions and of our "duty" to contribute. We do what we can, and sometimes we can do more if asked more, but not all of us and not always. Continuing to ask because the contributions are needed is reasonable, but scolding those who don't contribute is not really fair. (I had already sent in a contribution myself, but judging the budgetary abilities of a whole group can have a somewhat offputting effect.) Ruth Berman ====================================================================== From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" To: OzDigest@mindspring.com Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-23-99 Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 14:51:13 PST Ted Nesi wrote: >Is Books of Wonder planning to rerelease "The Cowardly Lion of Oz" >anytime soon? Probably not, due to copyright issues. Gehan: >And BTW, Mombi, >the WWE and Blinkie look more cruel, cunning and more wicked than the >WWW. Well, we are dealing with more than one illustrator here. Perhaps Neill's witches just look more cruel, cunning, and wicked than Denslow's. David Hulan: >>*.RPT wrote a book in which Glinda celebrates her 100th aniversary >>as >>Queen of >>the South. What was its name? > >I don't actually remember any such book, so it must have been very >peripheral >to the main plot, whatever it was. I'm reasonably sure that there >wasn't an >actual party on-stage celebrating that anniversary; it would almost >have to >have been either a passing reference to her having ruled the South >for 100 >years, or an event that had taken Ozma and some of the other >celebrities >out of >the EC to let other events unfold. The mention was in _Purple Prince_; General Quakes reached the Emerald City in good time, only to find out that the celebrities had all gone to Glinda's castle to celebrate her hundredth anniversary. >_The Scarecrow of Oz_ is one of the least apt titles, since he >doesn't show up >until well over halfway through the book. _Trot and Cap'n Bill in Oz_ >is >probably the best title; since they'd appeared in two previous Baum >books >(even >if they weren't Oz books) the objection to naming a book after Betsy >wouldn't >apply. Yes, but the Scarecrow was one of Baum's most famous characters, and he was probably hoping to increase sales by naming the book after a popular figure. It's interesting to note that Thompson was often more willing than Baum to name books after previously unknown characters (Kabumpo, Grampa, Handy Mandy, etc.). Also, while Baum usually used "of Oz" for title characters who lived in the country and "in Oz" for those who were just visiting, Thompson sometimes confused these categories. _Ojo in Oz_ refers to a character who lives in Oz, while _The Gnome King of Oz_ refers to an outsider. Ruth: >The books don't say that there are religions in Oz, but don't say > that there aren't any, either. Baum's Oz books don't really have any mention of religion (unless you count the china church in _Wizard_, which might be purely ornamental), but Thompson mentions monks and churches in _Handy Mandy_, and refers to Ojo's "christening" in _Ojo_. -- May you live in interesting times, Nathan DinnerBell@tmbg.org http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:00:48 GMT To: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-23-99 Tyler: You're probably right that it would be a good idea to give at least two weeks' lead time for changing the BCF, to give everyone who's interested the opportunity to acquire and read the new book. That's going to be even tougher soon, since none of the books between _Cowardly Lion_ and _Wishing Horse_ are available anywhere new but from the IWOC, and those between _Yellow Knight_ and _Ojo_ aren't available anywhere new and aren't easy to find used. (I'm not sure that YK isn't available from the IWOC, but I believe _Jack Pumpkinhead_ is the last Thompson PB still in stock. I know _Pirates_, _Purple Prince_, and _Ojo_ aren't available.) People who want to participate in the BCF discussions and don't already have the books should probably order their copies of _Cowardly Lion_, _Lost King_, _Hungry Tiger_, _Gnome King_, _Giant Horse_, and _Jack Pumpkinhead_ from the IWOC soon, since the turnaround isn't always speedy. (Speaking of speedy, the IWOC editions of _Speedy_ and _Wishing Horse_ are very well-made facsimiles and belong in the library of any serious Oz fan who doesn't have the original editions with color plates.) >One thing about Pre-Dorothean history that has always troubled me is how the >Wizard came across Ozma and why she was still a baby after all those years. >Currently, the evidence suggests to me that the Wizard arrived about 15 years >after Pastoria was kidnapped. Aaron Adelman has some interesting theories >about >this, but it is more likely that Lurline regressed her age for a time and when >the Wizard found her, she was a baby, as described in the non-FF _Oz and the >Three Witches_. It's also possible that Ozma wasn't born until quite a few years after Pastoria was kidnapped - that he and his wife were kept confined, but in reasonably comfortable conditions (as was typical for royal prisoners in our own medieval times) and together, so that Ozma could have been born after the Wizard had come to Oz. This seems to me to be more plausible than that Lurline regressed Ozma's age after she had been born and grown to teen-age or thereabouts: that would require imagining a reason why Lurline would do such a thing, and I can't conceive of one. Surely a baby would be in more, not less danger than a teen. If Lurline were going to intervene there are a lot of ways she could have done it more usefully. From the Oz-as-literature POV, of course, Baum didn't decide that Ozma herself was a fairy until well into the series - I think the first mention of it was in _Lost Princess_, and I know that was the first book in which it was an important factor. >I don't know that Gloma could have overthrown the WWW. She was certainly >powerful enough to hold the Southern Winkie Country free of her dominion, but >her magical powers have never been fully qunatified. (Not that anybody else's >have, for that matter). As you say, nobody's magical powers have been fully quantified. But Gloma does quite a bit more magic than we ever see the WWW doing. It might be that she held off challenging the WWW because the latter still had one more use of the Winged Monkeys, who might have been immune to Gloma's magic. The WWW's last use of the Golden Cap came so shortly before Dorothy melted her that word probably hadn't reached Gloma - and since Gloma thought Dorothy was engaged in destroying all witches, not just wicked ones, she went into hiding after that. Robin: I don't think that even in 1900 someone who was 56 would have considered himself more than on the older end of middle age. The reference, incidentally, is when Oz is talking about the Emerald City and the green glasses. He says, "The Emerald City was built a great many years ago, for I was a young man when the balloon brought me here, and I am a very old man now." It's near the top of page 152 of the copy I'm looking at, which is a Bobbs-Merrill edition from about 1940 - has some plates, but few of the other illustrations from the first editions, so I don't know if the numbering is consistent. Ted: BoW hasn't said yet whether they're going to continue releasing the Thompson titles now that the copyright law has been changed and they're no longer going to be entering PD each year. It's possible that they'll make a deal with Dorothy Maryott to print further volumes - they've done that with the Neill estate and with the McGraws for their books - but because of the color plates the early Thompsons are more expensive to produce, so adding a royalty on top of that might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. A lot probably depends on how well their editions of _Royal Book_ and _Kabumpo_ are selling. Gehan: It isn't too difficult to reconcile the various statements about Unc Nunkie, if we assume (as is MOPPeT) that in pre-Dorothean days the Munchkin country was divided into several smaller but still substantial kingdoms. The northern third or so was ruled by Cheeriobed's father, the central third by the WWE, and the southern third by Unc Nunkie's brother. All of them styled themselves "ruler of the Munchkins," but each was ruling a different group of Munchkins. *************Spoilers for OJO IN OZ & GIANT HORSE OF OZ********* Sometime around the time of Dorothy's first visit, give or take a year or so, Mombi kidnapped Queen Orin and transformed her into an old woman, though that old woman had considerable knowledge of magic of her own and was able to defeat Mombi afterward, without remembering her own origin. It's arguable whether this GWN, Tattypoo, is the same one Dorothy met; I rather like Dave's theory that Dorothy met Locasta, an earlier GWN, and that Mombi used the "switcheroo spell" to swap the shapes of Locasta and Orin and then exiled Locasta to somewhere outside Oz, but there's no actual evidence for it in the books. Mombi also installed Quiberon in Lake Orizon so that Cheeriobed and the Ozure Islanders were cut off from the rest of Oz, and destroyed Cheeriobed's father. From then until the time of _Giant Horse_ Cheeriobed ceased to rule anything but the Ozure Islands, and most Munchkins were unaware that he was even still alive. At approximately the same time, Dorothy's house fell onto the WWE, so she wasn't around any more to rule the central Munchkins. This left Unc Nunkie's brother as the sole remaining ruler in the eastern quadrant of Oz, though in fact because of the relatively primitive transportation and communication systems he never really exercised any power in the northern 2/3 of the country. When Ozma came to the throne the majority of Munchkins, like the rest of the citizens of Oz who were in touch with the Emerald City, accepted Ozma's rule. Nunkie's brother retired to the relatively small province of Seebania, which he continued to rule until he was destroyed and his son exiled by Mooj. At that point Stephen (Unc Nunkie's real name) was the only adult relative of anyone who'd ruled a substantial part of the Munchkin country who wasn't cut off from the rest of Oz; based on that, it's reasonable to say that he "might have been King of the Munchkins." (Which is Baum's phrase, not "would have been king.") The Monarch of the Munchkins mentioned in _Road_ was undoubtedly someone Ozma had appointed for pure ceremonial duties, like marching in parades; it's been suggested that it was Boq, but I think that's mostly because he's the only Munchkin we know by name at that point in the series. That parade also included rulers for the Gillikins and Quadlings who are never mentioned elsewhere in the books, but who are definitely not the GWN or Glinda, both of whom are marching elsewhere in the parade. *************End Spoilers**************************** Ruth: It seems not unlikely that Button-Bright's family might have been Muslim; we know one of his ancestors was an Arabian Knight, and his first name is Saladin. He doesn't give any indication of any religious orientation himself, and since he's blond and blue-eyed he probably doesn't have a lot of Arabic ancestry, but... CAHAJA: >I need help. My 3 year old daughter is nuts over the wizard of oz and I am >looking for coloring pages to download for her. If you know of any websites >where I might be able to retrieve some it would be deeply appreciated. I don't know about downloadable coloring pages, and if your daughter is mostly interested in the movie (as I suspect) then I have no idea anyhow, but the CD-ROM collection "Art Explosion 125,000" (which is usually available for somewhere in the $40-50 range) has quite a few illustrations from various of the Oz books (mostly from _Wizard_ and _Tik-Tok_, but a few from others) as part of their "Traditional Images" group. They would be colorable. Dave: I trust you have my contribution by now. I mailed it a week ago today. David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 15:08:59 -0500 From: Richard Randolph Organization: AT&T To: OzDigest@mindspring.com Subject: Ozzy Digest of 1/23/99 Robin: Thanks for questioning Davis G, albeit humorously, for his "shot" at New Jersey. We Garden Staters take a lot of "shots" about our very high auto insurance rates, among other things, and David might be right about Percy's vocation. But my choice, given his personality, would be a used car salesman, kiddo! ;-) Bob Spark: And speaking of "shots", you beat me to it with your comments to Miss Moore. I, too, thought she was being extremely premature in berating those of us who subscribe to this wonderful forum, the Ozzy Digest. Particularly when my check, and I'm sure those of others, had already been mailed. I know Dave has expressed displeasure with "unfriendliness" rearing it's ugly head here, and I certainly don't wish to upset Ozma, but I do hope that Miss Moore will use better judgement in the future, and employ a more "friendly" approach when scolding us. Dick ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:38:05 +1100 To: OzDigest@mindspring.com From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Oz I think Oz is more like the garden of Gethsamane. I mean, animals can talk, everyone is happy and has everything he/she needs. It also has the tree of Knowledge mentioned in the bible, mentioned as the -Encahnted Apple Tree- in Eric Shanwoer's -Enchanted apples-. And if one eats any of them, Oz will become a humdrum place like the rest of the world. It has a very unique resemblance to Gethsamane........... --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 29 Jan 99 13:43:54 CST From: "Ruth Berman" X-Minuet-Version: Minuet1.0_Beta_16 Reply-To: Ruth A Berman X-POPMail-Charset: English To: ozdigest@mindspring.com Subject: Munchkin & Bugle ps Gehan Cooray: A second thought about the possibility of two dynasties of kings with different claims to be considered the rulers of all the Munchkins -- RPT may have been influenced by the description in "Patchwork Girl" of Unk Nunkie as "the descendant of the former Munchkin kings." That really does sound as if Baum was thinking in terms of two separate dynasties. Of course, it's possible that he was thinking of Unk Nunkie as a 4th or 5th cousin of the current king (mentioned in "Ozma" and "Road"), both of them descended from one family. But he could equally well have been thinking of the situation RPT described, of two separate royal Munchkin families, with the current king not related to Unk Nunkie. Steve Teller and Atticus: Enjoyed Steve's discussion of the French- published Oz plays in the Winter 98 "Bugle." I think the Frank Gabrielson version of "Wizard" (based on the movie, but with all that tedious stuff about Tibia the butler added) didn't take over as the standard performing version until around 1960. I think it was that year that the Old Log Theater of Minnetonka (a suburb of Minneapolis) performed a production of the French Co's "Wizard," with original music added. And it was a few years after that when Theater St. Paul put on the French Co's "Ozma" (with me encased in cardboard armor as Tik-Tok and my sister Jean as one of the Princesses), and I think a couple of years later still that the Moppets (the group which eventually became the Children's Theater Company of Minneapolis) also put on an "Ozma." The CTC, a good many years later, put on "Land," but that was an original script, written specially for them, as was the "Wizard" they did later. // Also enjoyed Atticus' Donald Abbottson's recent Oz story. His way of weaving together references from both Oz books and Borderlands of Oz is engaging, and so is his Denslow-based artwork. He's maybe weak on the basic story-telling, though (in his first book, anyhow -- haven't read the more recent ones). // I was pleased to see that my Dunkiton pamphlets 1-6 got a brief notice in the reviews section of the issue. In December, I brought out #7 (except I mis-numbered it as another #6), reprinting RPT's "The Princess of Cozytown," the title story in her (now very rare) collection of her short stories, although I didn't try to reproduce the book illustrations (soft pastel colors that wouldn't look like much in b&w), but instead used the illustrations from the earlier appearance of the story in the Philadelphia "Public Ledger." I plan to bring out the rest of the stories in the collection (also with their newspaper illustrations, generally) in coming years. I haven't yet collated the newspaper versions against the book to see if there will be more examples of substantial paragraphs that got cut out of the book version (for reasons of layout only, I suspect), but if there are I'll restore them to the Dunkiton version, as I did with the Princess. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 15:27:18 -0500 From: "Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman" Reply-To: adelmaas@musc.edu Organization: Pioneer Aviation X-Accept-Language: en To: Ozzy Digest Subject: _Dorothy--Return to Oz_ It has been brought to my attention by Anthony Bernacchi that the date I gave Tedrow's heretical and stupid _Dorothy--Return to Oz_ in the HI/RCC may be incorrect. While I placed it in 1965, Anthony has argued convincingly that, based on context (MGM movie derivations indicating _Wizard_ in 1939 and not 1899, AIDS, Disneyland), it should be placed in the 1990s. However, I somehow remember this book being published in the 1980s, but I don't have a copy to make sure. Could someone who has a copy (presumably in a plastic storage bag so it doesn't contaminate canonical Oz books) please check the publication date to help clear up this issue? Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide. Aaron -- Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelmaas@musc.edu http://www.musc.edu/~adelmaas Pioneer Aviation ====================================================================== Date: Feb 1, 1999 From: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" Subject: Ozzy Things KABUMPO THEY'RE NOT: Bill W. wrote: >Does anyone know if there is an Oz movie out there anywhere that has >a scene of a Witch riding on an elephant?? _Journey Back To Oz_, when Mombi tries to conquer the EC with a herd of pachyderms, on one of which she rides. _TIN WOODMAN_ HERETICAL??: Gehan wrote: >Don't you think -Tinwoodman of Oz- should be considered "un-official". It is >full of un-fit statements and mistakes. Somebody pointed out most of them a >few months ago. Baum was apparently ill when he wrote _Tin W._ and one theory is that it was in his "delerium" that he wrote into _Tin W._ such blasphemous atrocities as that Ozma is a teenager and not "a little girl after all"... (I'd put a "smiley" after the above if there weren't people who really believe this.) >*. Nimmie Amee has lived the WWE when -Wizard- states that she lived with >an old woman. Well, the WWE *was* old... >*/How can a superlatively evil witch live in a hut? She should live in a >castle, for the GWN says that she held the Munchkins in bondage. She won't >have just one servant. Well, Benita Bizarre lives in a jukebox... Wrong Nonestican Continent I know (Sid and Marty Krofft, not L. Frank Baum), but it seems to me evil can come in many faces (and many houses). >*.If Nick Chopper's head is still alive, then the Tinwoodman can't be Nick >Chopper. And who exactly is Chopfyte, if he is mixture of two people? That >part doesn't make scense in the least. The debate of all debates...Will the real Nick Chopper please stnad up... PLEASE!! :) OZ AND ENDS: Gehan wrote: >*. Why don't we first discuss Jack Snow's books, as they are closer to the >Baum ones. We can then turn to the Thompson books and the Neill books. What >do you say Dave? There may be something in this, especially since the Snow books are easier to come by than many of the Thompson books... Shall we discuss this, folks? If anyone cares, we have a new record for shortest Ozzy Digest membership... Someone was a member for 1 minute, 49 seconds. The reason was the usual one: They thought this was a list for Ozzy Osbourne fans. -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave DaveH47@mindspring.com, http://www.mindspring.net/~daveh47/ Take the time to taste the honey on a summer breeze, Touch the love song every bird has learned to sing. Feel the sunlight as it warms you on the coolest day, And you'll feel a part of what we're gathering -- The senses of our world." -- The Bugaloos, "The Senses of Our World" ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 2 - 3, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 17:37:36 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Re:Ozzy Digest and Ozzy Things David Hulan: I agree with those who say that Ozma was a member of Lurline's fairy band, and she was injected into Queeen Ozette's womb and was reborn as a human or maybe she was de-aged into a human child and handed over to Pastoria as -Magical Mimics- states. If this is so, and Lurline had something to do with her birth, Ozma would not have been born after the witches conquered Oz for Lurline would have known that she won't be safe. I think aging was slow in Oz before Ozma's coronation and it stopped completely afterwards. Maybe the queen managed to hide from Mombi when Pastoria was kidnapped and maybe she secretly hid with the baby Ozma, who aged very slowly having being born in Oz. Then when the Wizard came to Oz, she may have been about two or three because of her slow aging, and maybe Oztte handed her to the Wizard and died/left Oz. Then Oscar gave her to Mombi who turned her into Tippetarius, and when she was dis-enchanted, she turned back into the HUMAN Ozma, but not the FAIRY Ozma. As a human she looked about twelve or thirteen but as a fairy she looked about fourteen or fifteen. Then, somewhere around -Lost Princess- she regained her FAIRY form. Anyone know what I mean? That explains why Ozma knew nothing about Lurline or magic in -Land- but knew all about them after -Tinwoodman-. Please tell me if anyone undestood this. Tyler,Ruth Berman and the others: Maybe the Munchkin King in -Ozma- and -Road- is the King of Seebania, who was one of the many Munchkin Kings. Maybe Ozma considered him as the Munchkin King, or maybe the king in -Ozma- and -Road- are different kings:probably someone whom the Munchkins/Ozma appointed. The Gillikin/Quadling/Winkie rulers must be ceromonial monarchs, who just have the title of a ruler, but really do not rule the country. Much like the Royal Family of England. Or maybe Baum made another one of his mistakes.... ..... Dave: Maybe Baum forgot his statement in -Wizard- about Nimmie not living with the WWE herself. But thats an Oz-as-Litreture POV. The Oz-as-history POV is that the old woman handed Nimmie to the WWE later, and when the witch died, Nimmie stole the Witche's magic potions (which she used to build the invisible wall around her cottage) and maybe she never returned to the old woman. Or maybe Baum made a mistake in -WIZARD- and maybe -TINWODMAN- is correct, for it makes more scense. After all, the WWE isn't going to help one of the Munchkins. So maybe -TINWOODMAN- is correct. It fits in better. BTW................. *. I'm writing an article on :"Princess Ozma of Oz" all about the un-fit statements about her in the books, like Ruth's -Exclusive Rulers of Oz-. If anyone wants a copy, please send me an e-mail. --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: "Bob Collinge" Subject: Wizard of Oz Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 08:16:33 -0500 For those of you who are hesitating about going to see the Broadway version of "The Wizard of Oz", do not listen to the critics. I am glad to see that one digester gave in and went, and enjoyed it. I saw the show this past Friday evening in Boston. I and my kids thoroughly enjoyed it. Mickey Rooney, for being in his 80's(?) did a respectable job. The sets and costumes were wonderful. It was MGM from start to finish, with a few one liners added in. Unfortunately, Ertha Kitt did not appear as the Wicked Witch. I assume that she is not doing the show anymore. The girl who did the witch had a terrible accent, and was a poor actor. Other than that, seeing my 5 year old son's face light up was well worth the price of admission. If you get a chance, I recommend seeing it. You won't regret it. Bob C. ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 10:30:02 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-01-99 SANCTIMONIOUS DIATRIBES, POMPOSITY, AND DONATIONS, OH MY: Might have made a good Arlen & Harburg tune, don't you think? Anyway, what the hey, I'll add my own thoughts to the numerous others that have already been voiced. Re: "sanctimonious diatribes"... I felt that Jill Moore employed what could be construed as a slightly sanctimonious tone towards the Digesters. Therefore, I was slightly annoyed. Ms. Moore, I am a college student (or destistudent, a self-coined portmanteau) with bills to pay at the end of the month. My credit card bill--egads--has finally arrived, and I may now determine the size of my contribution. So yeah, I didn't send money right away. Am I a bad person? Am I ungrateful? Feel free to judge. Re: Bob Spark's "pomposity," "arrogance," and "ignorance"... Mr. Spark's post may have been less than euphemistic and even a little insulting, but I note that he cast Ms. Moore's *actions* ("lecturing," "diatribes") in a bad light and made no adjectival qualifications about her personally. Ms. Moore, on the other hand, did so with Mr. Spark. I must say I am disappointed and urge that this cease and desist. Thanks to J. Bell and Ruth Berman for their eminently civil responses. MILES-LONG MISTAKES PARADES: >From: >Gehan Cooray Subject: The Tinwoodman of Oz Don't you think -Tinwoodman of >Oz- should be considered "un-official". It is full of un-fit statements and >mistakes. (etc. etc.) Don't forget, Mr. Cooray, to take the time to enjoy Oz. I think I'd go into paroxysms if I spent any great length of time worrying about inconsistencies. They aren't peculiar to Oz history. Place a few U.S. history texts side by side and you'll find contradictions galore. RUTH BERMAN: Your message came through garbled, but it looked as though you were commenting favorably on my review in "The Oz Bookshelf." Thank you. It was actually a review of a book by William Campbell and Irwin Terry, however; Margaret Berg reviewed the Abbott book. Incidentally, the Digest in general was slightly garbled, and it was much worse when I hit "Reply." All the quoted text was a jumble, and not all of it appeared in my reply message. Ongoing problems with the Digest program, I take it. Atticus * * * "...[T]here is something else: the faith of those despised and endangered that they are not merely the sum of damages done to them." Visit my webpage at http://members.aol.com/atty993 ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 1 Feb 99 11:37:26 CST From: "Ruth Berman" Subject: Oz days Oops note: I described Atticus as having reviewed the new Donald Abbotson Oz book in the Winter "Bugle." It was Margaret Berg who did that. Atticus reviewed the Campbell/Terry "Lavender Bear of Oz." Anyhow, enjoyed the review. // I also meant to mention that it was fun to get one of Baum's "Queer Visitors" ("How the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman Met Some Old Friends:) reprinted in this issue, with the illustrations in color -- a bonus from the change Bill Stillman has made to having a color center-spread. Peter Hanff: I saw an article the other day quoting author Helene Hanff and it occurred to me to wonder -- are you related? J.L. Bell: Clever tie-in of the French Revolutionary calendar (Thermidor was the new calendar's name for July, I think, unless it was August) with Baum's revolutionary Oz. David Godwin: Enjoyed your comments on the touring "Wizard." Gehan Cooray: In October, when "Tin Woodman" was the book under discussion, some of the points you raised were discussed. I'll repeat what I said then about the discrepancy between the "TW" and "Wizard" accounts of Nimmee Aimee's employer: "Perhaps Nick [in "Wizard"] had assumed that his girlfriend couldn't really be working for the ruler of the territory and that the employer and the axe-enchanter were separate people, but later learned they were the same? Or perhaps the Witch had been maintaining a Secret Identity (for purposes of spying on ordinary Muchkin opinions?), and the connection between the two had been learned later?" A secret identity would also explain why someone so powerful chose to live in a hut, but the WW might choose to live in a hut anyway, out of contempt for comfort. Or it might only look like a hut on the outside (like the Phanfasms' homes in "Emerald City"). // The confusion of trying to figure out who is who with those left-over heads hanging around -- realizing that such a situation would be confusing is precisely what the book is (in part) about. // RPT's Oz isn't particularly bigger than Baum's. You are perhaps thinking of her small kingdoms as larger than they need to be, and exaggerating the number of them. (She didn't contribute "hundreds" of subkingdoms -- making a count of the list in the gazeteer section of the "Who's Who in Oz Appendix" I published, I note 142 RPT placenames in Oz, and as a good many of those are underground or refer to things like mountains and forests and rivers rather than kingdoms, the number of her little towns is more like one hundred.) Gehan Cooray and Dave Hardenbrook: Suggestion of discussing Snow ahead of Neill and Thompson -- I'd prefer to take the books in order of publication. Although I like Snow's Oz books about as well as Thompson's (and better than Neill's), I don't think Snow's Oz is really any more like Baum's than Thompson's is. Besides, a discussion of what it means to claim that Snow is closer to Baum than they are can be carried on better after the intervening Oz books have been discussed. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 14:04:52 -0500 From: Lisa Mastroberte Subject: The *Real* Nick and Other Ozings My e-mail account was getting pretty full with messages from spammers so now I have two digests to reply to....sheesh...I hate spammers. Gehan: Tin Woodman un-canonical? From the *same* person who said that only the Baum books should be considered canonical? Give me a break...I rather enjoyed Tin W. The only part that *really* bugged me about it was when he had a conversation with his old head....I was like "So who is the real Nick Chopper? This is impossible. If your head is chopped off and you get a new one are you two different people?" But then again the same things come to mind when I think of reincarnation.... Dave: Cool...you record these kind of things? Who is the digests oldest member? (Not age....the one who's been on the longest) On religion in Oz..... I think that nobody ever really gave it thought. But just for arguments sake, what religion was LFB? The Scarecrow: In _Wizard_, the Scarecrow describes that when the Munchkin farmer painted his ears, he could hear all that went on around him. So, yes, it was probably magic paint. A question for some fellow Ozites: Does anyone have a plot synopsis for the 1902 production of Wizard? Any info would be appreciated. Peace! -Lisa ------------------------------- "A black cat crossing your path implies that the animal is going somewhere." ~Groucho Marx ====================================================================== From: "Bob Collinge" Subject: Snow Books Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 15:50:13 -0500 What are the titles of the Snow Books, and where can we get them? How soon before you would begin these books? Thanks, Bob C. ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 23:56:17 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Anthony Donajkowski Subject: (fwd) RFD: rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz (fwd) REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) unmoderated group rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. Newsgroup line: rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz L. Frank Baum's world of Oz. RATIONALE: rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz There are currently more than 150 Oz Web Sites on the Internet and many more fans. The main forum for discussion about Oz takes place on the Ozzy Digest, a digest that is operated by Dave Hardenbrook. Messages that Dave Hardenbrook receives are packaged into digest form and sent out to almost 200 subscribers. Although extremely successful, the Ozzy Digest does not offer the transparency of a newsgroup. To receive the digest, a person must subscribe to it by sending an e-mail message to Dave Hardenbrook. Thus, the digest cannot be accessed easily without an e-mail account. A newsgroup would allow transparent access to all messages without an e-mail account, just a newsgroup reader or even a web browser. The Ozzy Digest is also growing bigger with each day. The number of messages is, on average, 12-15 per issue. However, each message contaings between 4 and 6 topics. This results in the digests being about 30 kilobytes in length most days. Another problem with the Ozzy Digest is the lack of threaded discussions. Since the messages are in digest form, threads cannot be formed, and if someone wants to look at the message to which a particular person is responding to, he/she must look at the 2 archives currently serving back issues to the members of the digest. A newsgroup would add the threading of messages to discussion, and so make it easier for readers to respond to messages. CHARTER: rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz rec.arts.books.wizard-of-oz is an unmoderated group for the discussion of Oz, Oz authors, and other related works. Topics can include, but are not limited to the Oz books, Oz movies, Oz merchandise, Oz authors, non-Oz books by Oz authors, and other works about Oz. Advertisements: Advertisements about Oz should be kept to a minimum and the subjects of such messages should be clearly marked as an advertisement. Advertisements not pertaining to Oz, money-making schemes, sexually explicit material, chain letters, images, and binaries are not allowed. END CHARTER. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following groups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.arts.books.childrens, rec.arts.movies.past-films, rec.arts.movies.current-films, rec.arts.books, rec.collecting, rec.collecting.books and a message that the RFD has been posted has been sent to the Ozzy Digest mailing list. Proponent: David Levitan ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 00:12:48 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: Aaron Adelman speculated that Mombi transformed Ozma into an animal. She hid out and was somehow untransformed back into a baby. Size does matter: (from an Oz-as-history POV) People on the Digest have speculated that Baum shortened the travel stories by leaving out several repetitious "they woke up, marched for a while, then slept. Then the woke up again, marched for a while, and slept". However, Baum definitely thought of Oz as a smaller, less settled more rural place than Thompson did. Hmmm, the Munchkin Farmer with the Powder of Life is just a bit of a stretch. It was (and is) extremely rare, and I doubt much of it would be scattered around here and there. Some Wishing Sand is a better probability. Everybody imagines people to be different in their own mind before they see them. I used to picture Bob Seeger as having a big blond Afro :-) People have often commented on the reverse-gender portrayal of Baum and Thompson. David Godwin: Your philosophy reminds me of someone I may have heard about once. He suggested that, in times of anger, to write a hate-filled letter, every swear word in the book, etc. then burn it. One thing that people tend to forget, and this has been discussed on the Digest before, is that an e-mail message, with the nuances of voice intonation and facial expressions, can come across as harsher than it was intended. Also, when people write in all capital letters, it makes people think that YOU ARE YELLING AT EVERYBODY. We just have to use common sense. Non-Ozzy observation: E-mail me privately. Has anybody ever noticed any similarities between Major Charles Emerson Winchester (M*A*S*H*) and Frasier Crane? Jonh Bell: The Holy Roman Empire had an ELECTORAL SYSTEM?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Gehan and _Tin Woodman_: >> There are tons of un-fit statements in the book. >> I don't think it should be considered official. Hoo Boy! The Baum purists are going to be screaming for your head after THAT little bombshell! :-) The old woman and WWE is clearly an error, but it's minor, since Nimmie Aimee's residency is not central to the plot of either story. It's no worse than any of the countless other little errors in the series. As for the WWE's living in a small hut, why not? The motivations of people, especially evil ones with a lot of power, may be very different from you and me. Everybody doesn't desire to have a large show of wealth and live in a palace. All people have different motives, and because the motivations, desires or lifestyles of somebody are not realistic is, IMHO, not enough of a reason to judge a book inaccurate. Mombi herself lived in a hut, although we have speculated that she was trying to lay low during that period in history. If they were extremely out of character, that might be different, but we don't know enough about her to make that determination. Her pattern of living, etc. maight make for a fascinating discussion, though. Maybe she did that as a propaganda tool. The question of identity is a central themse in that book. You're confused on purpose. Which one is the real Nick? Who are they? Who is Chopfyt? They could both easily be Nick, or people who think of themselves as Nick. You must not have seen that Star Trek episode with the two Rikers. overall, these points are mere blips on the radar screen, even when all added up. It seems to me that you are describing a book that doesn't "feel right" rather than a story rife with technical errors. The order of the BCF: Discussing the Snow books before the RPT's is a possibility. The FF is not really a tightly plotted series, so we wouldn't be losing much in the way of contintuity. I'd still like to go in order, though. It would give us a sense of the real flow of Oz as it came out. ********** SPOILER FOR HANDY MANDY ********** Gimme that old time religion: One of the strongest cases for the existence of some sort of religion in Oz is the fact that the agent of Wutz was able to use a monk's robe as an effective disguise. If religious figures were not commonplace, then a monk would have shone like a beacon. This does not necessarily apply Christianity, however, or indeed any of the religions that we know of on Earth. ********** END OF SPOILER ********** David Hulan: IIRC, the first nine Thompsons are available from the IWOOC, which would be _Royal Book_ through _Jack Pumpkinhead_. Still another Ozzy record: The last Digest (Jan 24 through 31) broke the record. An eight-day special! :-) Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 16:41:43 GMT From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digests, 01-31 & 02-01-99 1/31: Gehan: There are obviously a lot of ways in which the WWW could have gotten the Golden Cap. I find it fairly hard to believe that if Mombi had ever had it in her possession she'd have let it out, unless she'd already used it three times - and there's no evidence that Mombi had ever done any such thing, though I suppose there's no evidence that she didn't, either. As I mentioned, I took up this question in a story that's in the 1998 Oziana; my solution satisfies me, but I'm not a Royal Historian and it should be considered strictly as MOPPeT. > As Tyler said, Glinda wouldn't >have just let Blinkie go to Jinxland and cause more trouble. Abbott has a reasonably plausible solution for this at the end of _Amber Flute_. It requires making a few more assumptions about the extent of Glinda's power and concerns, but they're not unduly far-fetched. If Glinda could exercise her power directly in Jinxland, why would she have sent the Scarecrow? And apparently she wasn't overly concerned with what happened to the Jinxlanders until the people from Outside arrived. >*.The Baum books show that Oz isn't all that big. Yet, Thompsons books show >that it is enormous. There were hundreds of small kingdoms in her books, but >not as much in the Baum books,. Thompson's books are reasonably consistent with most of Baum's regarding the size of Oz. It's true that _Ozma_ and _Road_ seem to imply a smallish Oz, with foot travel times from the desert to the EC on the order of a single day, but the rest of Baum's books and most of Thompson's are pretty consistent that travelers on foot take two to three days to get from desert to EC or back. There aren't "hundreds" of small kingdoms in Thompson's books; there are probably fewer than a hundred (she wrote 19 books, at least three of which [_Pirates_, _Speedy_, and _Captain Salt_] have no small kingdoms in Oz) and few of them have as many as five small kingdoms. It might be an interesting small research project to do an actual count someday. In any case, her "kingdoms" are generally very small; most of them seem to amount to a few acres at most. Hardly any seem to amount to more than a square mile or so. >Ex: Ketaria and Topsy-town were in the >nothernmost part of Munchkinland. Ojo and Unk.Nunkie would have passed both >places in -Patchwork Girl-, Tinman would have passed them on his way to >Mount.Munch, and Trot and Cap'n Bill would have passed it on their way to the >Magic Isle. Perhaps Oz was larger than Baum thought it was. If you take the Haff-Martin map as being, at worst, consistent with the books then there's no problem with any of those examples. Keretaria and Turn Town (I assume that's what you mean by "Topsy-town") are both well north of Ojo's place, Mt. Munch, or the Magic Isle, so none of the travelers you mention would have come near them. Incidentally, there's one statement in _Handy Mandy_ that does appear to imply that Thompson thought Oz was much bigger - she says Keretaria was a hundred leagues north of the Sapphire City. Since a league, though not well-defined, is usually taken as about 3 miles, and Keretaria and SC are both in the northern Munchkin country, that would imply that Oz is comparable in size to the US - clearly not true based on travel times. My solution is that Thompson (or, again, someone at the publisher) confused the relatively exotic linear measures "league" and "furlong," and really meant that Keretaria was 100 furlongs north of the SC. That would be 12 1/2 miles, which looks about right on the Haff-Martin map. Steve: I've heard of Laumer's solution to the Eureka Problem, but I don't like it much. It may be a good story in its own right (I can't say, not having read it), but it doesn't seem to me to be consistent with the character of Eureka as she appears in _DotWiz_. David G.: >Meanwhile, in order to avoid such crises in the future, I'm wondering if it >might not be feasible to charge for subscriptions? Wouldn't have to be much, >seems to me. It would by no means be a case of profiteering - this thing ain't >cheap, after all. It would just be a way to meet Dave's expenses and perhaps >provide for that inevitable computer equipment failure now and then. How do >people feel about this? I'd have no objection to paying a subscription fee, but I think that it would be better to keep it on a voluntary basis unless that becomes an undue burden on Dave. Because of the nature of the Internet, there's very little additional cost involved in an increased subscriber list (it's not like the print run and postage costs of a magazine or newsletter, where each additional subscriber adds a significant cost), and yet there's a significant advantage to all of us in keeping the subscriber base high, even if most members lurk most of the time. Even the lurkers come up with the occasional provocative insight or question. >As for Gehan, I think he has a right to express his religious convictions in >this forum so long as they are relevant to Oz. No one is being forced to agree >with him, and he hasn't threatened anyone with hell and damnation that I know >of. Agreed. Tyler: See my comment to Gehan about the probability that Glinda might have let Blinkie run loose in Jinxland; "conquer" doesn't necessarily mean "capture." The Romans conquered Carthage in the 2d Punic War, but Hannibal got away and continued to be an effective general for some years in Asia Minor. 2/1: Gehan: I strongly disagree with your statement that Jack Snow's books "are closer to the Baum ones." Than Neill's, well, yeah. Than Thompson's, no. The tone of Snow's books is so much darker than anything of Baum's that the fact that he ignores post-Baum writers comes nowhere near making up for it. In any case, I see no reason why we should step out of the historical sequence of books. I vote for _Royal Book_ as the next BCF, if we're taking a vote. It's as easy to acquire as the Snow books, as is _Kabumpo_; if we want to start discussing whether to continue with the mid-period, harder-to-find Thompsons or to jump to the later ones that are readily available from commercial (i.e., not IWOC) sources, then I'm willing to listen to arguments. Although it's my impression that most of the people who participate most actively in the discussions have all or almost all of the Thompson books already. Still, I could accept a jump from _Kabumpo_ to _Captain Salt_ if enough people are having trouble getting copies of the intermediate books, are interested in the discussion, and say so. I think in your second post you're thinking of the Garden of Eden when you're referring to Gethsemane. The latter was the one where Jesus prayed right before the Romans captured him - thus it's very important to Christians, but it didn't have any mystical properties such as those you mention. A parallel between Oz and Eden could certainly be drawn, though there are a lot of differences as well (especially the size of the respective populations). Nathan: I agree that Baum was probably hoping that naming a book after the Scarecrow would increase sales; however, that doesn't make it a very apt title. As I've remarked before, Thompson had a fairly consistent rule for the use of "of" or "in" in her titles: if the noun modified by the prepositional phrase had a definite article attached, she used "of"; if it didn't, she used "in." This works for all but _Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz_ and _The Silver Princess in Oz_. It's a little difficult to be sure about Baum's consistency, since he only had two "in" titles - it might well have been a coincidence that those were the two whose title characters started the book outside Oz. After all, he also titled a book _Dot and Tot of Merryland_, when the title characters weren't in Merryland at the beginning (or end) of the book. Dave: >>*. Nimmie Amee has lived the WWE when -Wizard- states that she lived with >>an old woman. >Well, the WWE *was* old... However, in _Wizard_ Nick says that the old woman Nimmie Amee lived with went to the WWE and gave her a couple of cows, or something of the sort, to enchant Nick's axe. This surely implies that the old woman wasn't the WWE herself. OTOH, how would Nick have known all this? Would he have kept using an axe that he knew was enchanted? It seems likely that any information he had when he first met Dorothy was at best third-hand (maybe from Ku-Klip after he was completely tin?), so it might be that he learned between _Wizard_ and _Tin Woodman_ that the old woman Nimmie had lived with had in fact been the WWE herself. David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 19:56:23 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: traditions in Oz Should the next Oz book to be discussed be ROYAL BOOK or MAGICAL MIMICS? I think it makes sense to discuss the books in the order in which they were written, especially since ROYAL BOOK was originally presented to readers as a Baum title. Snow's books have references to technology and media that clearly make them post-war, regardless of his attempts to replicate Baum's picture of the Emerald City. David Godwin wrote: <> Interesting. I bet the difference wasn't between America in 1900 and America in 1939, both about a decade out of a severe depression. Rather, the difference was between Baum's image of America and Louis B. Mayer's. As the book THE GENIUS OF THE SYSTEM argues, each major Hollywood studios produced a somewhat coherent body of work reflecting its corporate personality. Mayer built MGM as a glamour studio devoted to down-home, all-American schmaltz: he's rumored to have once said about Andy Hardy series, "Don't make those pictures any better than they already are!" In the same year that John Ford and Warner Bros. were producing THE GRAPES OF WRATH about the Dust Bowl and migrant fruit-pickers, MGM's picture of a farm in crisis is actually a hustling, well-stocked business that employs at least three hands. (Charlie Grapewin managed to be in both farm families.) Baum played up Kansas's dreariness to show how important home is; as long as Dorothy has a home on the farm, she prefers that even over a palace in a fairyland. In contrast, MGM made Oz into a dream because, after all, there couldn't really be a place better than America. Similarly, the screenwriters made Dorothy's melting of the Wicked Witch of the West an accident because good little MGM girls don't throw water just because they're mad. I'm not sure Miss Gulch represents capitalism so much as wealth and simple nastiness. Owning land as she did is one of the oldest forms of wealth; pre-capitalist medieval lords were landowners, too. Her "evil" seems to come from her personality, and tossing her weight around unnecessarily. In contrast, the banks who hold Uncle Henry's mortgage in EMERALD CITY are more clearly images of the dark side of the American economy. Collecting on loans isn't a personality flaw of banks; it's what they're founded to do. Gehan Cooray wrote: <> Your canon is getting shorter and shorter, Gehan! If you read accounts of historical events, you'll find they rarely agree in all points. Rather than reject one, historians look to see if those contradictions can be reconciled, or which parts of each seem most plausible. If you reject the whole TIN WOODMAN because Nimmie Amee's mistress has changed, that means you reject Lurline's enchantment of Oz, too. Isn't it simpler to suspect someone made a slight error about a small point? You also had this critique: <> Those are the fundamental paradoxes that the Tin Woodman (and Tin Soldier) wrestle with during the second half of TIN WOODMAN. Those questions are hard to answer; they may even have no answer. But many questions in life are just as hard. Last week American surgeons performed a hand transplant (an operation already done in France without the same news-media attention here). At least one national radio program ran a discussion among doctors about how people may react to a new hand that wasn't originally their own; they had no more answers than Nick does. If a paradox like Nick/Chopfyte/the-head-who-doesn't-care-anymore makes you suggest we should disregard TIN WOODMAN, how do you respond to the Tin Woodman showing compassion, the Scarecrow showing intelligence, and the Cowardly Lion showing courage in WIZARD *before* they receive the Wizard's gifts? Nathan DeHoff wrote: <> As I recall, Baum was later than usual delivering SCARECROW, so Reilly & Britton had Neill prepare cover art featuring just the title character. They didn't know anything about the story, but thought his name and painted face would sell books. The tactic seems to have worked; SCARECROW is usually said to be one of the strongest-selling titles in the series over time. AN ORK IN OZ is arguably more fitting, but less commercial (outside Orkland). David Hulan wrote: <> Button-Bright's string of names includes some from Arabic, Latin, French, German. It strikes me as possible that the ancestor Button-Bright called an Arabian Knight was one of the European Crusaders who maintained a state in Palestine for a few decades during the Middle Ages--a knight in Arabia, but not necessarily an Arabic knight. The Magic Umbrella would thus be in the same class as the Shroud of Turin and other plunder brought back to Europe. David Godwin wrote: <> I agree. However, I don't think Gehan made his case that they *were* relevant to Oz. Noting the few religious references in the books, discussing the authors' beliefs--those are relevant. Folks have welcomed remarks from Gehan and others about those topics. Insisting that characters who show no sign of worship should pray the rosary is projecting one's own interests onto Oz, as much as telling us whom Glinda would vote for or what laundry detergent the Scarecrow uses. Dave Hardenbrook wrote: <> First no Sabbath, then no Black Sabbath! J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 09:29:57 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Oz etc. Robin and Richard: Why is Percy an insurance salesman from New Jersey? I suppose it's the stereotypical accent that sticks in my mind - that and the fact that I worked in Manhattan at one time and absorbed the local prejudice for what the New Yorkers regarded as the yokels across the river. I apologize to any Jerseyites I may have offended, including, of course, Jenny Jump. As in this case, stereotypes are successful at communicating an image, but they aren't necessarily an accurate reflection of reality. Richard, I will apologize to the world's insurance agents if you will apologize to the used car salesmen. :-) Gehan wrote: >Don't you think -Tinwoodman of Oz- should be considered "un-official". It is >full of un-fit statements and mistakes.' If you throw out _Tin Woodman_, then you are also throwing out the one most definite description of the ages of the girls (Ozma, Dorothy, Trot, and Betsy) as well as, more importantly, Baum's full description and definition of Oz as it finally developed in his mind (or was revealed to him), the whole story of Lurline, etc. >*.If Nick Chopper's head is still alive, then the Tinwoodman can't be Nick >Chopper. And who exactly is Chopfyte, if he is mixture of two people? That >part doesn't make scense in the least. I think Baum was having some fun here exploring the question of identity. If I get cloned, who is the real me? As Weird Al put it: "I think I'm a clone now. There seems to be another one of me around." If Nick's meat head was chopped off and replaced with a tin head, the tin head was part of Nick because it was attached to Nick's body. But the head was just Nick's head, with all his memories intact. Without a body, though, all it really cares about doing is sitting in a dark cabinet and not thinking! Weird. But I think it was this sort of spooky, confusing, yet humorous effect that LFB was going for, following various ideas to their logical conclusion. In the book, IIRC, it was the Tin Woodman himself who was the most disturbed by all of this. >*.The Baum books show that Oz isn't all that big. Yet, Thompsons books show >that it is enormous. There were hundreds of small kingdoms in her books, but >not as much in the Baum books,. ... Perhaps Oz was larger than Baum >thought it was. In Maguire's _Wicked_, Oz is relatively huge, apparently about the size of Texas, being several hundred miles in each dimension. Whatever else one might say about this book, it does give a sense of space and geographic reality that is lacking in most of the FF, esp. RPT, whose descriptions can be a little claustrophobic at times. You can't walk for ten minutes in an RPT book without falling into an underground kingdom of sentient doorknobs or some such nonsense. In one of Neill's books, however, Oz is so small that you can take a trolley around the Emerald City and visit all four countries of Oz in an hour or so. >I think Oz is more like the garden of Gethsamane. I mean, animals can talk, >everyone is happy and has everything he/she needs. It also has the tree of >Knowledge mentioned in the bible, mentioned as the -Encahnted Apple Tree- in >Eric Shanwoer's -Enchanted apples-. And if one eats any of them, Oz will >become >a humdrum place like the rest of the world. It has a very unique >resemblance to >Gethsamane........... Aren't you thinking about the Garden of Eden? Gethsemane is the garden in Jerusalem where Jesus went to pray just before his capture by the Romans. I don't recall animals talking in either garden, and Gethsemane has no Tree of Knowledge that I've ever heard of. Is there some doctrine I'm not familiar with which claims that Eden and Gethsemane are the same place? However, I think it's likely that Shanower borrowed the idea of the forbidden fruit in the Garden (of Eden) for the plot of _Apple_. Tyler Jones wrote: >The only unexplained thread would be >why Glinda would have "conquered" Blinkie and then let her run loose in >Jinxland. She surely would have known that Blinkie would have made the >lives of >the people there miserable. (a) Glinda overcomes the WWS, Blinkie, who flees to Jinxland. There, she makes trouble. (b) Blinkie is born and raised in Jinxland and never leaves it. She makes trouble there. If the GBR said, "Blinkie is making the lives of the people of Jinxland miserable," why would Glinda be more apt to intervene in situation (a) than in situation (b)? Jinxland is in Glinda's domain, so one would assume that she would take some responsibility for it in either case. If the GBR didn't say anything, or said something particularly cryptic, then Glinda would have no reason to do anything in either case. In situation (a), Glinda might reason that Jinxland is isolated, so Blinkie is at least safely out of the way of the majority of the people in Quadling country. But given the vague, oracular nature of the GBR, she might not even know where Blinkie had fled. As for Singra, I am willing to admit that she might have been a wicked witch of the south, but she is far too inept (as Payes portrays her) to have been THE Wicked Witch of the South. - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Feb 99 14:06:58 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things BCF: Based on the input from Digest members, I have decided to just continue to do the FF in order of publication, so _Royal Book_ will be the next one. But I do want to give members a chance to get a hold of and read it. What do you think would be a fair "waiting period" for the Thompson books? Any thoughts on what we're going to do about the ones not available from either IWOC or BoW, or should we cross that bridge when we come to it? TIN WOODMAN: As I've said before, I accept all the Baum books (if nothing else) as "official" Oz. As for the thing about the two Nick Choppers, I guess it's really no bigger headache than the similar paradoxes that arise in _Red Dwarf_ when (a) Rimmer generates a duplicate hologram of himself; (b) Rimmer inadvertantly creates a planet whose inhabitants are all clones of himself; and (c) Lister discovers that he is his own father(!) FYI: Today's Digest is the output of the first successful, crash-free build of my Make_Digest program in weeks! What a difference a Zip Drive makes! (Thanks to everyone for your help!!!) -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 4-5, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== From: "Kris & Mike" (Please respond privately) Subject: OZ Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 00:33:19 -0500 Can you help me? Do you know what type of bicycle Miss Gulch rode? I have an interst in vintage bikes. I would like to know make and model also. Noone else knows. Thanks, kriss@indy.net ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 18:35:19 -0800 From: Ken Cope Subject: The Incessant Sermons In Oz X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Gehan Cooray, in the latest installment of a long-running sermon, missed the point of Bob Spark's quite restrained lament/reqest with his retort: > There's nothing wrong in speaking about God is there? Its not like I'm do ing > anything against Him. If I may be permitted to stir from my coffin to here insert my (not exactly widely shared) opinion on this topic... There are plenty of places where your favorite subject might be more, shall we say, On Topic. I daresay Whoever It Is to Whom you refer would not want you to prattle on about Him to people who were annoyed beyond exasperation by your unshakeable fixation on raphsodizing about how Swell you feel He must Be. If He does, then I especially don't want to hear from or about Him via his anointed messengers. I don't know whether or not Christianity would be tolerated in Oz as much as it is in the US. I can't really see the necessity for it. After all, Oz would seem to me to be a Paradise, with immortality merely one of the benefits of residence. If I were (oh faint hope) to be extended such blissful permanent residence, and, through some unimaginable over- sight of her Royal Highness Princess Ozma, to somehow get myself accidentally killed, Heaven would be Hell in comparison. For one thing, from what I'm told, the place is just *crawling* with Christians. I'd never be able to see my dear atheist, skeptical, Jewish, Hindu, Vedantist, Zen Buddhist, agnostic, Pagan, or Theosophist friends, unless I leaned over "Heaven's" battlements and waved to them, suffering forever in a Lake of Sulphurous Brimstone. Anybody who would do that to such nice people is somebody about whom I will always say bad things. Just because words like christening, or nun, or church, have been found in Oz books is, to me, weak evidence for any such worship being widely spread. I don't think for a moment that Princess Ozma would want any of her subjects to be unhappy, and if they needed to erect places to meet for those who prayed for the day when they would be able to leave Oz forever and go to heaven, then I can't think of any reason for her to prevent them. I imagine if anybody started trying to evangelize Princess Ozma's subjects, you might find yourself being asked to explain your actions to Princess Ozma. Would you attempt to convert her to your faith? What if she were Jewish? What if Ozma's association with the Fairy Band who turned Oz into such a Blessed Land prevented her from accepting the amazing dispensation offered by your pal, the 2000 yr. old carpenter? Would you warn her what was in store for her if she were to die? I would think that if you started telling her about all the horrible things that *might* happen *if* she didn't say some things on her knees with beads, you'd be offered an opportunity to relocate your dwelling to Flutterbudget Center. It isn't inappropriate to wonder what L. Frank Baum might have thought about the issue. His mother-in-law,Matilda Joslyn Gage, was not a fan of the Church. This quotation is typical of her, "Sympathetic contagion, generally connected with some religious feeling, never has force where the intellect is scientifically and philosophically cultivated, and active. It belongs to an age, or a phase of ignorance and religious superstition." She did not feel that a woman could be both a feminist, and a member of the Church which so oppressed women, at the same time. You can learn more about her at this URL: http://www.nyhistory.com/gagepage/ John Algeo, the president of the Thesophical Society, documented Baum's belief in Theosophy and membership in the Society in an article. In the article, he mentions a 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 Baum's paper, 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." Theosophy considers The Nazarene to be a really smart guy, just one of many really smart guys throughout history who is no more, nor less important than any others. You'll notice he doesn't acknowledge that Christianity is Truth. He doesn't state that he believes it to be Truth, merely that *we* have been *taught* to believe it. He says, in other words, that Christianity shouldn't worry about Theosophy threatening it *if* it is Truth. He talks about Christianity as would a Vedantist (a non-native believer in the Vedas, one who believes as but was not born, a Hindu), where Christianity is merely the teaching of another wise sage. The only church in Oz that L. Frank Baum tells us about is in The Dainty China Country and made of glass; it's entirely too small a place for anybody like Dorothy to fit into. The Cowardly Lion smashes its steeple in his hurry to leave such a fragile place. This is not the sort of thing Narnia's Lion, Aslan, would do-- perhaps you might prefer Narnia to Oz? I'm sure singing and dancing about Christianity would be quite welcome on a Narnia Digest. Don't let me come between you and your favorite deity, whatever you conceive Her to be, just understand that each of us have our own conception of Oz, and not everybody wants to think of it the way you do, nor the way I do. Oz has always seemed to me to be about celebrating the differences among people, rather than about trying to get them to all behave and think and believe the same way. This is the nicest way I know to ask you to look for Xtian fellowship via private e-mail, in consideration of those who prefer more Oz and less religion on the Ozzy Digest, which really isn't the Xtian Digest nor the Atheist Digest. I pray I've completely burned this topic at the stake. Do whatever steps you want if you have cleared them with the Pontiff. Ave Maria, gee it's good to see ya. I'd be ecstatic if, we stuck to Ozzy tifs, this ain't no Vatican Rag. Ken Cope Ozcot Studios ozpinhead@ozcot.com http://www.ozcot.com Department of Redundancy Department, Bureau of Western Mythology A Proud Service of the Lost Electricity Reclamation Agency. (Merely a stone's throw from The Tomb of The Unregistered Voter) ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 21:29:17 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: doorknobs into Oz I sent the first part of this posting towards the end of Dave's Zip-zapped trouble (and without "Oz" in the subject line), and it seems to have been etherized. On the assumption that it won't reassemble, I'm sending it again. Since I wasn't making these comments in reply to anyone, just filling time during a long wait between digests, no conversational flows have been harmed in the making of this message. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The winter 1998 BAUM BUGLE has brought an article by Steve Teller about five prewar dramatizations of Baum novels for amateur companies and young audiences. This article is illustrated with a Marshall Field's advertisement (CHICAGO EVENING POST, Jan 1923) announcing a Junior League production of WIZARD in the department store, as well as various Oz-themed bargains: "Don't Look Like the Scarecrow!...Graduation Suits of serge, 8 to 18 years." "We have Silver Shoes, too, and all other kinds of Shoes." This ad adds two more interesting details to Steve's article. It shows that Elizabeth Goodspeed drafted her WIZARD adaptation years before Samuel French published it in 1928. Indeed, since the Junior League was founded only in 1921, WIZARD may well have one of the first children's books the group staged. Even more intriguing to me is one name on the cast list: the Tin Woodman was played by Emily Kimbrough. In later years she would write OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY and many other entertaining memoirs of travel in Europe, growing up in the Midwest, and raising children. In one of those books she described her first job as a copywriter at Marshall Field's--so she may even have written those ads I quoted. Kimbrough's co-author on OUR HEARTS... was the actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, daughter of actor Otis Skinner. What was his tenuous link to Baum's work? Answer at the end of this post. [JEOPARDY theme: Doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo,...] The winter 1998 BUGLE also brings the news that 1999's Munchkin Convention will be held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, not Hershey. This means Oz fans flying in won't have to drive an hour after landing. On the other hand, Harrisburg is a little less convenient to greater Philadelphia, and contains no chocolate factory. Looking west, many ranchers believe cattle and horses step into prairie-dog holes and break their legs, so they try to exterminate the rodents. Wildlife managers haven't been able to document a single case of that really happening--it's the rural equivalent of an urban legend. Baum seems to have heard about the legend while he was in Aberdeen. In LAND he has the Sawhorse step into a rabbit hole and break his leg. Has anyone braved his prairie-dog-town stories to see if it shows up there, too? Back home, the stage version of the movie version of WIZARD has landed in Boston, Mickey Rooney and all. The BOSTON GLOBE's theater critic quotes a friend's assessment: "like the Ice Capades without any skating." He recommends taking two kids before viewing. [...DOO dee-doo dee-doo doo duuu!] In the 1944 movie version of OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY, Otis Skinner was played by Charlie Ruggles, the original Private Files in Baum's TIK-TOK MAN OF OZ stage musical. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gehan Cooray wrote: <> TIN WOODMAN shows the Wicked Witch of the East healing Ku-Klip when he cuts off his thumb. So she *does* help people in some circumstances--perhaps when she gets a lot out of the deal. Tyler Jones exclaimed: <> Charles IV's Golden Bull of 1356 defined a system in which eight German leaders chose the new emperor. If I read the little map in my historical atlas right, these leaders were the bishops of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz; the Palatine Count; and the Dukes of Brandenburg, Bohemia, and Saxony. I think there was also an Elector of Bavaria. The title of Elector was passed down in families on the noble side, and schemed over on the clerical side. Electors often ended up choosing [surprise!] one of themselves, or the son of the previous emperor. A strange way to run a realm, but no more logical than choosing the 47th person through the gates. Tyler Jones wrote: <> Unless he was sneaking through a population used to walking tin men, stuffed people, elegant pachyderms, etc., and the people accepted the man without question as just another fellow from some odd corner of Oz. (Of course, if Thompson was right in reporting this man had deliberately dressed as a monk, he definitely knew what one was.) David Godwin wrote: <> What's wrong with giving doorknobs a turn in Oz? Seriously, aren't the most famous doorknobs in the series in LUCKY BUCKY? I never could figure out why the Gabooches were doorknobs. But neither is it ever clear why they were Gabooches. Lisa Mastroberte asked: <> My guess is...Dave Hardenbrook! J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 23:38:21 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: I'd say I understood your idea pretty well, and I agree with much of it. I must say, though, that the history as recorded in _Magical Mimics_ is completely contradicted by every other piece of pre-Dorothean history in the FF. ********** SPOILER FOR OJO IN OZ ********** It's possible that the Seebanian King was the one marching in the parade, but not too likely, since Mooj overthrew that kingdom very soon after Ozma came to rule. I go with the theory that he was just a stand-in or some appointed official ********** END OF SPOILER ********** Lisa Mastroberte: The Ozzy DIgest was born on December 4, 1995. There are quite a few of us who have been around since the beginning, most of us having bailed from the sinking Oz Mailing List of Chris Heer and The Ozian Times. Bob Collinge: SNow wrote _The Magical Mimics of Oz_ and _The Shaggy Man of Oz_. Both can be gotten from at Books of Wonder or the IWOOC, I'm pretty sure. Next stop on the BCF express (have your tickets and transfers ready): I would have voted for going in order, but Dave must have fortold that and decided to go ahead :-) As to how long a grace period between books, I think that my original two week breather is pretty good. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 23:59:04 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-03-99 TYLER: >Your philosophy reminds me of someone I may have heard about once. He >suggested that, in times of anger, to write a hate-filled letter, every >swear word in the book, etc. then burn it. A suggestion made by many people, really. And probably a good one. >If religious figures were not commonplace, then a monk >would have shone like a beacon. Deacon? GEHAN COORAY: >>I think Oz is more like the garden of Gethsamane. I mean, animals can tal k, >>everyone is happy and has everything he/she needs. It also has the tree o f >>Knowledge mentioned in the bible, mentioned as the -Encahnted Apple Tree- in >>Eric Shanwoer's -Enchanted apples-. And if one eats any of them, Oz will >>become >>a humdrum place like the rest of the world. It has a very unique >>resemblance to >>Gethsamane........... Very unique, indeed. If Oz is like Gethsemane, no wonder Dorothy preferred Kansas. Atticus P.S. Oz is really a secular place on which no particular religion can place its mitts. And that makes me happy. * * * "...[T]here is something else: the faith of those despised and endangered that they are not merely the sum of damages done to them." Visit my webpage at http://members.aol.com/atty993 ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 19:23:09 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Christianity What is so wrong if I talk about my religion? All I asked was wheather ther e were any churches in Oz, and I said that no-one should forget God just because they are happy without his help, and that our friends should atleas t say a prayer if there are no churches. Bob Spark and Ken Cope sound as if I have insulted other religions, which I DID NOT, and WILL NEVER DO. All I said was that no-one should forget God. Do you call this a lecture? What is so wrong in it? Just because there are dis-beleivers on the Digest, that does not mean I have to stop talking about my religion; and any way, I neve r did any harm and never gave any lectures. You al know very well what I said . I never posted any articles about christianity or insulted other religions. I don't see any reason for it to become so annoying! BTW.......... Ken Cope: You won't have to lean over Heaven to see other friends of yours who follow other Religions. To God, everyone is the same, and everyone, including thos e who follow other religions will also join you in Heaven! God never divides people! If my religion has become such a nuisance, and if it will create flame wars , I will not post any religion-related articles again! Satisfied? --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 08:54:04 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Ozzy Things David Hulan and John Bell: Sorry. I posted that message on Eden right after college, so I guess I didn't realise that I made a mistake. However, coming to the WWS:I prefer to accept Singra or even the WWS in -Enchanted Apples-. That also increases the majority of witches in Oz. Come to think of it, the Winkie Country and the Munchkin Country are quite peaceful, while the Quadling and Gillikin Country are filled with strange tribes, shocking inciddents and wild dimensions. The WW of the East and West should have been the Wicked Witches of the North and South while Locasta and Glinda should have been GW's of the east and west. Know what I mean? TINWOODMAN: All right, I'll accept the fact that Baum made tons of mistakes in -Tinwodman-. Just because -Tinwodman- isn't oficial, doesn't measn that it changes things like Lurline's enchantment and Dorothy/Trot/Betsy/Ozma's age e.t.c. They are mentioned in several other books(-Lost Princess-,-Magical Mimics-,-Giant Horse-,-Glinda- e.t.c)The main reason why I don't wan't to accept it as canonical is because of the Chopfyte/Nick/Tinwodman/Cap'n Fyter mystery. As Eric Gjovaag said:"There are no official boks. Only official ones. See the difference? Each Oz fan choses, HIS/HER set of official books". Jack Snow's books: I don't see any reason for Jack Snow's boks to be considered "dark" Oz books. What could be more exciting than a tribe of wicked monster creatures conquering Oz, than a plain old wizard or sorceress? What could be more imaginative than walking through a TV set, than using a magic belt/shoes e.t.c. What could be more pleasent than a vilage of pine-folk, ruled by a sweet,simple princess? I'm not saying that RPT's books are bad. They are very,very ozzy! But I just don't see any reason for JS's boks to be considered "un-ozzy" or "dark". --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: "Bob Collinge" Subject: Oz book on e-bay Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:07:51 -0500 I found this book for sale on e-bay for $1500. Could some of you book experts tell me if this is a good price? http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=62724643 It is a first edition Wonderful Wizard of Oz book. Thanks, Bob C. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 09:47:37 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Movie project No thanks. ******* LIZ AND ROD ON YELLOW BRICK ROAD Rod Steiger says he has been getting together with Elizabeth Taylor twice a week recently to plan her return to the screen in Dorothy and Oz. In an interview with syndicated columnist Cindy Pearlman, Steiger said, "It's about how Dorothy, who is 60 plus, goes back to Oz after her husband dies. Her friends in Oz have become human. I'll play the Cowardly Lion who is now so tough he has become a gangster and scares everyone to death." About having to compete with the image of a film classic, Steiger said, "Nobody is trying to top a great film. This is just what happens to Dorothy years later." * * * "...[T]here is something else: the faith of those despised and endangered that they are not merely the sum of damages done to them." Visit my webpage at http://members.aol.com/atty993 ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 22:51:41 -0500 (EST) From: sahutchi@iupui.edu Subject: I've been published on another website The same magazine that published one of my articles has published another online only. I didn't know it was there until I did a web search for my name. This is a review of Trevor Jones's music from _Dark City_. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/articles/mar98/ 16_Mar---Another_Dark_City_Look-Wild_Wild_West_News.html ============================ Scott Andrew Hutchins http://php.iupui.edu/~sahutchi Oz, Monsters, Kamillions, and More! "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."--Noam Chomsky ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 22:51:14 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Ozness Gehan wrote, in reference to the WWE enchanting Nick Chopper's ax on her own behalf (TW) rather than doing it for some Munchkin woman (WWiz): > After all, the WWE isn't going to help >one of the Munchkins. According to the TW's account in WWiz, the WWE agreed to take Nick out of the running as a suitor in exchange for two sheep and a cow. Lisa wrote: >I think that nobody ever really gave it thought. But just for arguments >sake, what religion was LFB? I read somewhere that he was a nominal Protestant Christian but wasn't too serious about it. He evidently was a contributing member of some church in Aberdeen, though. He was also a Theosophist, of course, but strictly speaking Theosophy is a philosophy rather than a religion, incoporating elements of occultism, spiritualism, Hinduism, etc. I don't know how serious he was about that, either; it was very popular at the time, one might say fashionable in some circles. Everybody and his dog was in touch with a Secret Master on the astral plane. Maybe that's how LFB got his info about Oz. :) Bob Collinge wrote: >The girl who did the witch had a terrible >accent, and was a poor actor. The reviewer for the Saint Paul paper was correct when he said her costume made her appear to be Catwoman's grandmother. The accent didn't bother me, however. Maybe it's because I used to watch "Green Acres" once in a while. >What are the titles of the Snow Books, and where can we get them? >How soon before you would begin these books? Allow me to be one of hundreds advising you that the books by Jack Snow are _Magical Mimics in Oz_ and _The Shaggy Man of Oz_, both available from Books of Wonder. Since we are apparently going to proceed with the RPT books, it will be some time before they come up for discussion. Mark Anthony Donajkowski: I think it is terrific that you are trying to establish an Oz newsgroup. I've looked for one in vain in the past. Thanks and good luck! (I do not see it replacing the Digest, by the way. It's a different sort of animal.) This is slightly out-of-date, but David Hulan wrote: <> ISTR that Malcolm X, on his prilgrimage to Mecca, was struck by the fact that many of the Muslims he met in Saudi Arabia were blond and blue-eyed. Anyway, I suppose it is no harder to imagine Dorothy saying the Rosary every night than it is to imagine Button-Bright saying the Fatihah five times a day (maybe he gets lost a lot on purpose so as to be able to pray privately). J.L. Bell wrote: >Insisting that characters >who show no sign of worship should pray the rosary is projecting one's own >interests onto Oz, as much as telling us whom Glinda would vote for or what >laundry detergent the Scarecrow uses. Glinda would have voted for Woodrow Wilson. The Scarecrow uses Wisk (and the Cowardly Lion washes his ribbons with Bold). Maybe Gehan should have said that this is what _he_ would do in that situation. But I can't understand anyone in Oz saying the Rosary as it exists in the Outside World. The final words are "pray for us now and at the hour of our death." What death? Dave wrote: >Any thoughts on what we're >going to do about the ones not available from either IWOC or BoW, or >should we cross that bridge when we come to it? Let's not put it off as long as most people did the Y2K business (i.e., the eleventh hour), but I think we've got a while. Perhaps the books (between Pumpkinhead and Capt. Salt) will become available again before that, somehow. Personally, I have the old (1986) Del Rey editions, which are evidently no longer available for these titles (_Yellow Knight, Pirates, Purple Prince, Ojo, Speedy,_ and _Wishing Horse_). I never did understand why they thought they had to redo the covers. I suppose to make them look more like modern fantasy novels. Wisdom: Has _The Wisdom of Oz_ been discussed at all on the Digest? - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 13:39:33 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Anthony Donajkowski Subject: NEW OZ MOVIE According to The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Rod Steiger will make his directorial debut with THANKSGIVING, an indie film by ZETA and CUTTING EDGE Entertainment about three senior men who come together for the holidays. Steiger, who also stars in the film, has additionally told syndicated columnist Cindy Pearlman that he has been getting together with Liz Taylor twice a week to help her prepare for the WIZARD OF OZ "sequel" DOROTHY AND OZ, about a 60+ year-old Dorothy who returns to a more-human Oz after her husband dies. Steiger will play a gangster Cowardly Lion in the film. ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 05 Feb 99 12:07:08 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND OZZY: As a big fan of both Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough (not only _Our Hearts_ but their solo books are great too, though hard to come by except by ILL), I'm delighted to hear of these Ozzy ties they have. TO LISA: Sorry, I forgot to answer your question yesterday! As Tyler said, the Ozzy Digest is sort of the descendant of Nate Barlow's _Ozian Times_ and Chris Heer's short-lived Oz mailing list. The "charter members" of the Ozzy Digest are largely people who were on those lists: Me, Nate, Tyler, Eric G., Peter Hanff, Robin O., David Hulan, Jim Vander Noot, and a few others. I'll just differ with Tyler on one small point: Nate's _Ozian Times_ didn't really "sink" -- It just came out infrequently, and the semi-daily Ozzy Digest made it kind of redundant. As for Chris' list, it died with a proverbial "bang"...One day it just started bouncing all new messages and Chris himself vanished from the face of the Internet. Anyway, I then decided to form the Ozzy Digest to fill in the empty niche. End History lesson for today. :) COMMENTS BY DAVID G.: >I have the old (1986) Del Rey editions, which are >evidently no longer available for these titles (_Yellow Knight, Pirates, >Purple Prince, Ojo, Speedy,_ and _Wishing Horse_). I never did understand >why they thought they had to redo the covers. I suppose to make them look >more like modern fantasy novels. I have noted that at Barnes&Noble, the Del Rey Oz books are in the Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi section (the BoW Oz are shelved with "Children's Classics"). >Has _The Wisdom of Oz_ been discussed at all on the Digest? No, but feel free to start a discussion on it. :) OZ FANS, LET US PRAY: I don't know if Oz is religious or secular, but all these things I'm hearing about the movie of _Wicked_ and this Liz Taylor/Rod Steiger Oz film is greatly increasing the amount of time *I* spend at the communion rail. -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave DaveH47@mindspring.com, http://www.mindspring.net/~daveh47/ Take the time to taste the honey on a summer breeze, Touch the love song every bird has learned to sing. Feel the sunlight as it warms you on the coolest day, And you'll feel a part of what we're gathering -- The senses of our world." -- The Bugaloos, "The Senses of Our World" ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, FEBRUARY 6 - 9, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 19:56:13 -0500 From: Jill Moore Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-03-99 Let me preface this note by saying, this does not apply to all members of this group, those to whom is is written know who they are! Talk about SANCTIMONIOUS DIATRIBE!! I am sick and tired of being put down by the pompous, arrogant, condescending members of this group who disagreed with my postings. Take note that NOT ONE OF YOU took the initiative to help Dave, therefore you might want to consider the old adage about "those who live in glass houses" and take a long look in the mirror before you start judging others! In the future please leave me out of your discussions, as you can be certain that you will no longer be a part of my life! Your behavior in this situation has been despicable (no, this does not apply to all members of this group, those to whom is is written know who they are!) and not worthy of anybody who claims to have a loving relationship with Oz, or belief in the values Oz tried to teach some of us. And yes, those of whom this letter does apply should be very ashamed of yourselves. Now, since you are of such obvious high intellect, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to understand this last thing I have to say to you, " take this digest and shove it where the sun don't shine honey!!"! PS: Dave, I'm truly sorry that my efforts to assist you in your efforts to keep this digest available to all have caused such an uproar. I do hope that your Ozade '99 event was successful, and agree with the person who posted the note about charging for memberships. However, I also realize this would result in extra work for you and probably expense as well, so is probably not feasible for which I am truly sorry. Thank you for your kind support and it has been good knowing you! ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:57:54 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Anthony Donajkowski Subject: oz kids can any one tellmme if these are worth watching my local library can get like 5 of them from another library i wanna know if itws worth my time can anyone tell me anything abotu them ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 08:08:42 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Ozma OZMA The mystery on Princess Ozma, her age, her parents e.t.c is perhaps one of the most hard-to-solve mysteries in the Oz books. We have plenty of statements about her in the FF, but when we put al those statements together, it doesn't make much scense. Lots of Oz Scholars and Oz Fans have tried to find a reasonable explanation, but it has been of no use, and most often, each solution only suits the person who invented it. Here is the evidence we get from the books: *.The Land of Oz Ozma's father ruled Oz before the Wizard, who "stole" the throne from him since he died. The Wizard handed the baby Ozma to old Mombi the witch who turned her into a boy. *.Ozma of Oz All the books which were writen since -Ozma- say that Mombi "herself" kidnapped the baby Ozma and turned her into a boy. *.Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz Mombi kidnaped Pastoria and his father. After Ozma was "born" she turned her into a boy. *.The Tinwoodman of Oz Queen Lurline enchants Oz and makes it a fairy country and leaves one of her fairies to rule. *.Glinda of Oz Ozma tells the Su-Dic that she was "with" Lurline when Oz was enchanted. Even though Baum says that she is fourteen or fifteen, he admits in *.The Magic of Oz .......that she is thousands of years old, yet no older than you or me. Ruth Plumly Thompson says the same thing in -Kabumpo in Oz- *.The Lost King of Oz Ozma remembers being with her father. *.The Magical Mimics of Oz Queen Lurline enchants Oz, and leaves the baby Ozma in the hands of Pastoria who acording to the bok, ruled the land at that time. Ozma admits that she was soon kidnapped by Mombi. Here are the un-fit statements *. If the Wizard came to Oz after Pastoria was kidnapped and after Ozma was born, how did he find her? How was it that she stil remained a baby? *. Why do some books say that Mombi kidnapped Ozma? Wasn't it the Wizard who found her first? -Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz- says that Ozma was born while Pastoria was Mombi's slave and that Mombi changed her into a boy soon afterwards. Yet -Land of Oz- says that the Wizard found her and handed her over to Mombi. Which is correct? *. Was Ozma Pastoria's biological daughter and born to his wife, or was she handed over to him by Lurline? *. If Ozma was no more than a baby when the Wizard found her/Mombi stole her, how can she be thousands of years old? If she is Pastoria's biological daughter, how can she be a fairy? *. Did Lurline leave a fairy to rule Oz, or was Pastoria the current ruler when she visited Oz? *.Ozma loks older in -DotWiz- than in -Land- or -Ozma-. How come she couldn't use magic, and didn't know that she was a fairy untill -Lost Princess of Oz-? Here is MRE (My Reasonable explanation): Ok. I'll try to fit in all of the FF statements in such a way, that they are all true, and all make scense...... Queen Lurline enchants Oz. She promised to send a fairy princess to rule Oz someday, so they will all be happy. This fairy was Ozma.That was the fairy ruler mentioned in -Magical Mimics-. Centuries afterwards, Pastoria became king and he,his wife and his parents were kidnapped. Queen Lurline knew that Oz was in trouble, so she decided to have Ozma born imediatly. There was a fairy called Ozma with her when she enchanted Oz who was a 1000 years old. She de-aged her into a human baby and gave her to Pastoria, who was a prisoner in Mombi's cottage/hut/castle e.t.c. Mombi found this out and transported Pastoria out of Oz and turned Ozma into a boy. She aged very slowly, living in Oz, and specially because she was a fairy.Maybe Pastoria managed to run-away from Mombi at first, and hide with Ozma and maybe Mombi used her witchcraft to find her. Maybe thats what Ozma meant by saying that she remebered "being" with her father. I beleive the Wizard didn't have anything to do with her dissapearnce, for he would have mentioned so in -Wizard of Oz-. I think Baum made a mistake when he wrote -Land of Oz- and Mombi did really tell Glinda that SHE was responsible for everything. Trouble is, Glinda says that the Wizard paid three visits to Mombi. Maybe he did so because he had heard that Mombi kidnapped the former ruler of Oz, and went to investigate. Mombi told him that she had everythinmg under control and Ozma would never be discovered, and maybe the Wizard told her to do so too, but he didn't realy LEAVE Ozma in Mombi's hands. Then, when Ozma was dis-enchanted, she didn't remember anything about her fairyhood, because when Lurline de-aged her, she turned her into a human. Therefore Ozma forgot that she was a fairy, and later, Lurline turned her back into her old fairy self. I don't think Ozma was Pastoria's biological daughter, because she never mentioned anything about her mother. I also beleive that ever since Lurline enchanted Oz, aging in Oz was slow, but it completely stopped ever since Ozma regained her fairy self. ___________________________________________________________________________ Thats my story anyway. Hope it fits in well. Please e-mail me, if there are any parts which you don't understand and tell me if it is "understandable". ====================================================================== From: JOdel@aol.com Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:03:18 EST Subject: Ozzy whatevers I seem to have had a posting disappear last week. David Hulan mentioned a somewhat similar observation to the one I had made, but his was not identic al, so I will re-send. MOPPeT; Since it seems unlikely in the extreme that the four (widely separated geographically?) wicked witches should have spontaniously decided to depose the royal family of the green county (who may have had some ceremonial or symbolic function to the rest of Oz as a whole, although I agree that they are unlikely to have ruled it) and take over their four main quadrants of the country at the same time, it seems reasonable to assume that there was a previously existing association between these witches, and that the conspiracy to take control of the county was hatched because of some particular opportunity having suddenly come into their hands--such as the flying monkey's cap. ILTT that they hammered out an agreement to not use it against each ot her and to share it around in turns. Mombi, whose powers were greater than those of most of the others, may have used it to capture and dispose of the various branches of the Royal Family, trusting to her own powers and resourcefulness to hold the North. The WWE may have used it to bring the Munchkins under her control, as the WWW did the Winkies. The WWS, whose powers may have also been strong, never got the chance to use it, due to the WWW'shanging on to it and hording her third command over the monkeys. Glinda overthrew the WWS before she was able to bring the south under her control by her own efforts. The WWS escaped to Jinxland, where Blinkie was already in control, and Glinda did not pursue, both because of the difficulty of access (for her forces, that is, she herself had her stork/swan chariot) and the fact that it took some years to consolidate her own rule, stamp out pockets of rebellion, set up her intelligence network, secure her borders and start to devise the Great Book of Records. Whether the former WWS was one of the associated witches who took part in the Freezing of the Heart is not certain. She may have been. But she may also have tried to sieze control of Jinxland during the intervening period and been eliminated by Blinkie before the incident of the Frozen Heart took place. A residual effect of the totalitarian rule of the witches in the East and West is still seen in these quadrents' remarkable degree of unification. The WWE's greater effectiveness in the more widely settled Munchkin country can be assumed by the fact that her rule appears to have touched everthing but various pockets hidden within the Great Blue Forest, while the weaker and more phobic WWW never seems to have actually controled some fairly sizable tracts of the wilder, and less settled western quadrant, such as the plains where the Cities of Thi and Herku are established at all, and the Good Witch Gloma was able to conceal and secure her own safety and that of all of her subjects by no more extreme measures than that of withdrawing to the forest under cover of eternal darkness (which the WWW feared). In the North and South, where the rule of the wicked witches was never firmly established, the preexisting conglomoration of largely independent city-states has endured. In the North , the largely mountanous character of the land itself would have further hampered any efforts towards unification. To Ken Cope; Amen. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:15:09 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Oz & religion, again That Old Time Religion: In the piece about Oz and Theosophy written by David B. Parker, he mentions that Baum may have intended the destruction of the china church by the Cowardly Lion as an objection to Christian missionaries in China. I doubt it, but who knows? In _Wicked_, Magure does not shy away from speculation about religion in Oz. There appear to be three main sects there: the unionists, who believe in the Unnamed God and behave a lot like Fundamentalist Christians; the Lurlinists, who are essentially pagans; and the pleasure-faith, which appears to be a hedonistic system directed to the party-hearty crowd. The WWW (a sympathetic character in this novel) is an atheist. Of course, none of this has anything to do with the real Oz. I mentioned before about writing angry letters and then not sending them. Now I am at the point where I am almost ready to start writing long discussions about God, religion, belief, and so on - and not send them, either. Except this one: Even though I agree with scarcely anything Gehan says on this subject (I am not RC and am not a member of any church), I am not offended by it and don't really understand why anyone else is, especially to the extent that Ken Cope is. I think I'd feel the same way if Gehan were on about Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Wicca, or anything else. Sure, it's sometimes a bit off-topic and gets a little old at times, but so do some other things. Why take it so seriously? I don't think mockery is called for. As for tolerating diversity vs. wanting everyone to >behave and think and believe the same way,< it seems to me that that critique applies just as well to people who cannot tolerate diversity if it includes Christianity. They often seem to want everyone to think like _them_ in anathematizing it. I don't think Gehan has tried to convert anybody or get them to think and act the way he does. He just won't shut up about it, that's all. So what? OTOH, the Freemasons forbid any discussion of politics or religion in lodge. Why? Because it might disturb the peace and harmony supposed to be maintained there. Maybe it's not such a bad idea? Steiger & Taylor: Give me a break! All this reminds me of the Buffalo Boggs character in Gardner's _Visitors from Oz_. - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:56:43 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: lost in the Ozian darkness Gehan Cooray wrote: <> Yes, a short one [which you later expanded]. That wording implied that everyone--both Oz characters and your fellow digest members--should think in a certain way. David Godwin wrote, <>. That would indeed be less likely to rasp other people's sensitivities and more likely to preserve our respect for your thoughtfulness. Gehan Cooray: <> You're making the case that Snow's novels are "exciting" and "imaginative," but those aren't opposites to "dark." I think Snow's books have less humor and whimsy than his predecessors'; his cute characters (clowns, wooden dolls) are somewhat derivative and sugary. But Snow was good at scary stuff (e.g., the Mimics stealing one's identity). As a result, I bet many readers felt and remember the dark parts of his books more powerfully. Eric Shanower's Oz comics and GIANT GARDEN novel have an even more serious tone, I think. Dave Hardenbrook wrote: <> I don't remember which online Oz discussion group I was in years ago, but it did vanish as swiftly as and even more silently than a LUCKY BUCKY bubble. I enjoyed one lasting result: a remark on that list (I wish I could remember whose) gave me the inspiration for the "Jack Pumpkinhead's Day in Court" story that will appear in OZ-STORY this year. David Godwin wrote: <> Better than "in favor of..." J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:05:22 GMT From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-03 & 05-99 2/3: Gehan: >The Oz-as-history POV is that >the old woman handed Nimmie to the WWE later, and when the witch died, >Nimmie stole the Witche's magic potions (which she used to build the >invisible wall around her cottage) and maybe she never returned to the old >woman. Or maybe Baum made a mistake in -WIZARD- and maybe -TINWODMAN- is >correct, for it makes more scense. As I mentioned recently, the story in _Wizard_ was told by the Tin Woodman, not by Baum. I think the easiest resolution is that the old woman was in fact the WWE (as Ruth said), but Nick didn't know it at the time and assumed that the old woman had gotten the WWE to enchant his axe, rather than doing it herself. Sometime between _Wizard_ and _Tin Woodman_ Nick found out the truth (maybe looked it up in the GBR on a visit to Glinda?) and therefore told Woot a different story from the one he'd told Dorothy originally. Tyler: >Size does matter: (from an Oz-as-history POV) >People on the Digest have speculated that Baum shortened the travel storie s >by leaving out several repetitious "they woke up, marched for a while, the n >slept. Then the woke up again, marched for a while, and slept". However, >Baum definitely thought of Oz as a smaller, less settled more rural place >than Thompson did. Less settled and more rural I'll give you; I don't think there's much evidence that Baum thought of Oz as smaller. When you look at travel times both authors are pretty consistent - at least as much with each other as they are among their own books. I suspect that if Baum had lived to write another dozen books or so that his Oz would have gotten much more settled as well, assuming he kept the books in Oz proper rather than putting many of them outside Oz as he did with six of his fourteen. Each book introduces several new places that have to be fit into the map; I don't think Baum added much less per book than Thompson did, at least after the first two books (which seem to show an Oz that's entirely rural outside the EC). _Emerald City_ adds the Cuttenclips, Fuddles, Utensia, Bunbury, Bunnybury, Flutterbudget Center, and Rigmarole Town. _Patchwork Girl_ adds the Tottenhots, Hoppers, and Horners. _Lost Princess_ adds the Yips, Thi, Herku, and Bear Center. _Tin Woodman_ adds the Loons and Mrs. Yoop's castle (which is as big as many of Thompson's little "kingdoms", like Rith Metic or Catty Corners)_. _Magic_ adds the Hyups, though it's true that the rest of its adventures all take place in forests. And _Glinda_ adds the Spider Kingdom, the Mist Valley, the Skeezers, and the Flatheads - it's possible Reera should also be counted. J.L.: >Interesting. I bet the difference wasn't between America in 1900 and >America in 1939, both about a decade out of a severe depression. America wasn't really out of the Great Depression in 1939; unemployment was still quite high and the stock market was still way down. But, then, they hadn't entirely recovered from the Panic of 1893 in 1900, either. >Similarly, the >screenwriters made Dorothy's melting of the Wicked Witch of the West an >accident because good little MGM girls don't throw water just because >they're mad. Dorothy's melting of the WWW was an accident in the book, as well - the difference was that in the book she did intend to throw water at the witch, without knowing it would melt her, whereas in the movie she was throwing water at the flaming broom and the witch happened to be behind it. (Your point is well taken, but I didn't like your choice of words.) >In contrast, the banks who hold Uncle Henry's mortgage in >EMERALD CITY are more clearly images of the dark side of the American >economy. Collecting on loans isn't a personality flaw of banks; it's what >they're founded to do. I don't think this can accurately be described as "the dark side of the American economy." Collecting on loans is an essential corollary of making loans in the first place; if Uncle Henry hadn't been able to get a loan to rebuild his farmhouse the family would have been homeless at the end of _Wizard_ instead of threatened with it at the beginning of _Emerald City_. >Button-Bright's string of names includes some from Arabic, Latin, French, >German. It strikes me as possible that the ancestor Button-Bright called a n >Arabian Knight was one of the European Crusaders who maintained a state in >Palestine for a few decades during the Middle Ages--a knight in Arabia, bu t >not necessarily an Arabic knight. The Magic Umbrella would thus be in the >same class as the Shroud of Turin and other plunder brought back to Europe . Possible, but I doubt it. In the first place, Palestine wasn't considered part of "Arabia," though many of its inhabitants were Arabs and by the 11th century most of the rest probably spoke Arabic as their main language. In the second, if his ancestors had been crusaders it seems unlikely that his family would choose the name "Saladin" - who was one of the most successful foes the