] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, JANUARY 1 - 3, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] Hi, and Happy New Year! I apologize for the squalidness of today's Digest, but there is a bug in my Digest-creating program so that it is refusing to generate any Digests for 1999! So here is your posts in "raw" form. I'm working on the bug, and praying that it isn't a Y2K (or rather Y1.999K) problem... :) -- Dave ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 15:54:58 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: GLINDA OF OZ and much more Sender: "J. L. Bell" To: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" Content-Disposition: inline Steve Teller wrote of his new purchase: <> One of the benefits of having a common first name! [Poor Atticus.] Scott Hutchins wrote: <> Unfortunately for this derivation, the $ symbol predates the founding of the U.S. About PETER PAN, Ruth Berman wrote: <> I agree that Peter's defiant cry resonates with kids. His situation is similar to that of kids in Oz: few responsibilities but lots of autonomy. For the contrast with Oz, I was thinking of the final scene in PETER PAN (which may also have been in Barrie's play), in which Wendy is grown up, responding with some regret and some superiority as Peter urges her to return. Those seem to be exclusively adult feelings, and there's no corresponding scene in the Oz series. (Dorothy's temporary aging in LOST KING and Speedy's in YELLOW KNIGHT seem to be totally physical, not touching on the psychological.) David Hulan wrote: <> My guide isn't Sagan; it's Baum himself. As I've said in many ways, I think a basic appeal of his fairy adventures is that they take place in the same reality his readers know. There are many indications in Baum's books that Oz is on his readers' Earth. I agree there are also many implications that it's not, mostly journeys which would be impossible according to what we've learned about our planet. Baum says over and over, however, that there are aspects of the world that we mortals can't perceive and don't know about. Without being able to state the physical limits of this Earth as Baum depicts it, we can't say anything is impossible on it. That's indeed a non-falsifiable system, but it's the system Baum left us. (Any fairyland, including an extra-dimensional Oz, is a non-falsifiable system if we don't want to let Tinkerbell die.) As I see it, Baum's books present me with choices. I could say, "By golly, I know so much about this universe that I can disregard what Baum says about its contents and mysteries and decide Oz is somewhere else." I could even go on to say, "Baum didn't understand something fundamental about Oz, but I understand it better than he did." Or I can make an analogy to Sagan's dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and say, "In order to decide that--contrary to a basic tenet of the books--Oz is in a different reality, I must see Baum making a clear statement to that effect, or at least undercutting his 'invisible forces' explanation of whatever may seem impossible." Since I see no such statement, I'll live with the horror of admitting I don't completely understand Earth as Baum depicts it. Science, as much as history, involves recognizing the limits of certainty and living with the unknown beyond them. Sagan was both a leading skeptic about UFO tales and a leading proponent of the existence of extraterrestrial life--in forms he reminded us we wouldn't necessarily understand. Being open to new discoveries is how Baum asks readers to approach his stories. For that reason, I don't see my view of Oz's placement as antithetical to the principles of science or history [or, it seems, to SALLY FORTH]. That doesn't mean there aren't equally legitimate ways of approaching the question of Oz's locale. One can decide the land's most important quality is not that it's part of the young readers' world, but that it's part of an internally consistent reality with connections to our world. One can decide that we need to reconcile all of Thompson's statements with Baum's; that requirement strains even my tolerance for ambiguity [though I don't dismiss her books as Gehan Cooray does]. I see no statement by Baum forcing us to adopt those other approaches, however, and several statements excusing us from that fate. David Hulan wrote: <> Most clearly, in TIN WOODMAN Dorothy is "tired of her embroidery" when she decides to look in the Magic Picture for her friends. She's comfortable enough with needle and thread to carry them on her adventure in PATCHWORK GIRL. Jellia is sewing when Ozma is found missing in LOST PRINCESS. And in MAGIC and GLINDA, Glinda oversees her ladies in spinning, weaving, and embroidery. David Godwin wrote: <> I see two ways this paradox may have come about: 1) Analogous to Ozga on the rose bush in TIK-TOK, Ozma was a fairy in an infant state, without full consciousness or power, when Lurline gave her to Pastoria. 2) Ozma took (voluntarily or not) the form of a human baby, as Baum shows fairies taking human form in ENCHANTED ISLAND OF YEW and QUEEN ZIXI. While those fairies took adult shapes and remained aware of their fairy powers, Ozma as infant didn't. LOST PRINCESS and TIN WOODMAN tell us fairies can be enchanted by powerful magicians when caught unaware. If baby Ozma was as helpless as other babies, she could thus have been kidnapped and transformed. Why would Lurline have endangered her fairy follower and her favored land by doing either of those things? Having Pastoria adopt and raise Ozma would confer royal authority on a fairy ruler--forestalling accusations of a coup. And having Ozma grow up as an Ozian would give her more understanding and sympathy for her subjects. It's also fairly easy to see in Ozma an analogy to the Christ legend: an immortal being made/making himself human to benefit humans. Turning to GLINDA, Robin Olderman wrote: <> Ozma sends herself into that situation, it seems clear. Glinda knows the princess is "the only one in all the land that Glinda bowed to" [14]--indeed, the sorceress placed Ozma in that high position. Therefore, Glinda has only a few options: a) advise Ozma as best she can and create a contingency plan, as she does. b) address the problem at a distance, which she did with the Oogaboo army (a "solution" Ozma eventually undid). c) go with Ozma to help--as if Glinda would leave her castle, her ladies, and her Magic Book to spend time in the jungle when it wasn't absolutely necessary! Turning to a broader question, what do you mean by "Glinda's primary purpose"? Thinking of that either as Glinda's self-appointed mission in life, as a job she's been given by some higher power [Lurline?], or as Baum's view of her role in Oz, I can't help but think of such a formulation as limiting. I see Glinda as a full-bodied personality with various motivations, occasionally pointing in different directions if not opposite ones. One of those motivations is indeed the preservation of order in Oz, as embodied by Ozma on the throne. But another seems to be to know more than anybody else. And having peace in Oz also gives Glinda more uninterrupted time to continue absorbing knowledge, so who can tell which motive is stronger? I find it interesting that Glinda has forgotten about the alarm bell when she first hears it [151]. Ozma wouldn't have been so complacent had their places been reversed, I suspect. But then Glinda would never have gone to Flathead Mountain. David Hulan wrote: <> I think this lady is, as the words below the art say, "Glinda of Oz." But, like the picture labeled "Princess Dorothy" on page 10, I bet Neill recycled a drawing from an earlier project. I had trouble identifying the female figure on page 33 because of the drawing's mismatched scales and because I had to recognize that, as you point out, Ozma doesn't wear poppies in her hair through most of GLINDA. She seems to do so at the start [13], and definitely does so at the end [280], so perhaps she reserves poppies for the Emerald City, where she's sure to have a supply. She may wear poppies in the drawing on page 116; its framing is unlike other full-page art in this book, so it may have been drawn at a different time. Baum seems to differentiate Ozma's "silver wand--tipped at one end with a great sparkling emerald" [55] from the non-magical O-Z scepter he's mentioned in earlier books. Neill seems to draw them alternately, however. Ruth Berman wrote: <> Good eye. Ruth Berman wrote: <> I think the GLINDA portrayal of war is more in tune with the Wilsonian attitude *before* 1917: that war was a foolish drain on nations instigated by ambitious leaders, but that a third party stepping in (as Ozma does) can be swept up into the conflict. If GLINDA had closely reflected American attitudes during late 1917 and 1918, one side of the war would clearly be wrong and Ozma would be justified in allying with the other. A number of phrases or images hint that Baum wrote MAGIC and GLINDA around the same time. Flathead Mountain, with its saucer-shaped living area on top, is much like Mount Munch as Baum describes it in MAGIC (though not in TIN WOODMAN). Both MAGIC and GLINDA have a "Magic Isle" [85]. In addition, there are some parallels with LOST PRINCESS: Ozma held prisoner, a large search party going after her, a room that moves to enclose people (Ugu's domed chamber and Coo-ee-oh's island), a magician turned into a bird and loving it. However, in LOST PRINCESS Baum wrote about (and Neill pictured) Glinda's swan chariot, while in GLINDA Baum twice refers to her stork chariot [153]. (Near this reference Neill draws a sort of stork [149].) On the other hand, both GLINDA and TIN WOODMAN show us an invisible wall, a Yookoohoo, and a monkey wearing a lace apron [208]. One big shift between those books is the value GLINDA places on Nick Chopper's heart, calling it "not of much account" [158]. If we accept that GLINDA wasn't the last manuscript Baum drafted, at some point he made a choice about which would be the last Oz book he presented to the world. It strikes me that MAGIC is a better culmination of his series: Ruggedo brought to heal at last, everyone gathered at Ozma's palace for a party. But the theme of GLINDA (discussed below) seems stronger. What do others think? Ruth Berman wrote of: <> These fine double-page chapter openers were a benefit of Reilly & Lee having the complete manuscript of GLINDA well before publication. The printers had time to create galleys of text they knew was final, measure how much space each chapter's text took up, and assign space for illustrations so each chapter ended on a right-hand page. As a result, some chapters have more art than others: chapter 8 has six illustrations on 14 pages, chapter 9 two on 12 pages. [I recall Neill and the book designers playing similar games with later books like SPEEDY and JACK PUMPKINHEAD. I wonder if those manuscripts also came in unusually early.] Some of Neill's drawings, especially on double-page spreads, strike me as having graphite or crayon elements as well as ink lines. The picture of Coo-ee-oh as a swan on pp. 128-9 is especially notable in this way. One book-mechanics element I can't figure out is why the top line on certain pages [e.g., 91, 114, 178, 222, 267] is unnecessarily spread out. David Hulan wrote: <> From Glinda's point of view, Button-Bright was largely unaffected by criticism from her and the Glass Cat, so she might realize another lesson would be a waste of words. More importantly, it appears that in Oz trying to eat a person (especially a favorite of Princess Ozma) removes you from the benefits of polite society, such as being protected from mischievous boys. It seems to be acceptable for animals, even "civilized" beasts like the Cowardly Lion, to eat other animals as long as they don't talk about it. Those who prey on humans, however, can without regret suffer plunges into canyons, beheadings [WIZARD], stakes through their chests [MAGIC], and so on. David Hulan wrote: <> Not to mention a telescoping bridge and torpedo boats! Notably, Baum has all these effects created by one powerful youthful woman (Coo-ee-oh), using magic taught by three others (the Adepts)--no male members of this group. Baum also says Coo-ee-oh had "a rare genius for mechanics" [264], a trait stereotypically assigned to men. Which brings us to a mystery of the Skeezers' dome. Lady Aurex states, "the three Adepts...built for us this wonderful dome of glass" [112], but also, "The dome was built so that the island could disappear" [123]. Yet Aujah and the other Adepts have only cursory knowledge of the mechanism that raised and lowered the island [264]. Perhaps they built the dome to let the Skeezers hide from the elements, and Coo-ee-oh added the sub-sub-submerging part. Or perhaps Coo-ee-oh tricked the Adepts into building the glass dome in a way that fit her secret plan. After my drive along the Erie Canal this summer, I noted how Baum may have derived the idea for raising and lowering the lake from growing up near the canal in Chittenango. The description of launching the submarine boats on page 259 is even more similar to how canal locks work. David Hulan wrote: <> Yet another sign of how Coo-ee-oh's despotic rule has made most Skeezers unable to act for themselves--even when left alone in the boat, they don't even try swimming or paddling the boat with their arms [183]. Yet another portrayal of citizens--even soldiers--not wanting their leaders' war. And yet more phallic symbols rendered impotent when their female creator vanishes [leaving them in the hands of men]. Miscellaneous GLINDA comments: I've long disliked the conveniently dropped handkerchief on page 39. Baum gave both Glinda and the Flatheads alarm bells, and Neill depicts them in three different chapter-openers [70, 85, 149]. If Baum had had more time to revise the manuscript, he might have made one of those a different sort of noise-maker, so as not to repeat himself. Twice Baum ends chapters with cliff-hangers, a technique he didn't always employ: 83, 189. In the latter, Ervic literally poses the question, "What next?" Useful key to personalities on page 114: "This story filled Ozma's heart with sorrow and Dorothy's heart with indignation." On page 151 Baum has Glinda asking a question of some oracle he calls "the Record"; it replies "No." This may be the Great Book of Records, but he refers to that on this page spread as "the Great Book," not "the Record," and I don't recall any other example of it responding to a reader's question like the Magic Picture. We know Glinda prefers to keep her magic room secret [19]. Therefore, I conclude that Baum the historian never had a clear picture of how Glinda learned about the limit on Ozma's power. Page-164-renders-Tik-Tok's-speech-in-an-unusual-style. The Tin Woodman's right hand has an odd grip on his ax in the drawing on page 193. I believe Neill was right-handed. Artists often have trouble drawing the hand they use to draw; it's easier to pose the other one. Looking at Coo-ee-oh as a swan, Trot says, "It doesn't seem like much of a punishment. The Flathead Su-dic ought to have made her a toad." [194] Too bad Neill didn't show us the Frogman's expression on hearing that. The Wizard is dubious that Glinda has brought enough rope for him to climb down [255, with apologies to Dorothy], yet on the next page he "discovered that the rope was long enough to reach from the top of the Dome to the ground when doubled." Glinda, the Adepts, and/or Ervic must have helped him improvise a pulley from the top of the Dome, though Baum says nothing about that. The Adepts warn against extending the Skeezers' bridge before raising their island, yet the party takes no precautions before they "experiment" with Coo-ee-oh's name [268]. Their chance of making that mistake was 50%, both before and after "Coo" sent out all boats. (Incidentally, now that David Hulan has noted the seemingly prescient use of "dictator" on Flathead Mountain, I'll point out how "Coo-ee-oh" echoes the title of that most powerful modern ruler, the CEO.) I was struck by how many different types of magic GLINDA portrays, and how clearly it shows or states that each is limited. In chapter 1 the Great Book of Records's shortcomings are as evident as its power. On the way north Ozma tells Dorothy, "I am not as powerful as Glinda the Sorceress. . . . Even the little Wizard can do some things I am unable to accomplish, while I can accomplish things unknown to the Wizard" [58]. Glinda can't raise an island [152], though with recipe 1163 she can "make inanimate objects move at my command" [232]. The golden pig "couldn't do any witchcraft [because] a witch has to use her fingers" [80]. Baum even introduces three new types of magic-workers: a Krumbic Witch [103], Adepts [112], and a Yookoohoo [206--if we assume he drafted this part of GLINDA before TIN WOODMAN]. All of these magic-workers can overcome part of the others' powers, but not all. Where do these limitations leave us, or lead us? Glinda explains: "Ozma's magic is fairy magic, while you are a Wizard and I am a Sorceress. In this way the three of us have a great variety of magic to work with" [239]. The Adepts add yet more power--and, it seems, another type of power--as they help to lower Skeezer Lake and figure out Coo-ee-oh's spells. (Their arrival is possible only because of Reera's magic, of course.) But even a range of magic isn't a complete solution. As early as the giant spiders, Baum shows us that Dorothy's inspiration and Ozma's magic are both necessary for escape [43]. Ozma even jokes, "you have at least one magical art, Dorothy: you know the trick of winning all hearts." (Like fairy powers, Dorothy's charm is a natural quality, not acquired: "I am sure I don't know *how* I do it," she replies [62-3].) Magicians' occasional dependence on intelligent ordinary people is also a big theme in Ervic's subplot. Understandably, Baum shows children as crucial participants in solving the book's problems--Glinda can't do it all alone, even in her own book, as Robin Olderman noted. Dorothy finds Coo-ee-oh's Gaulau and sees her name as a likely key to using it. Her value is underscored when Baum shows the Wizard as skeptical at first [265-7]. The need to be open for contributions from all quarters is most clear in Scraps's suggestion to lower the lake. Baum shows the Adepts convinced that "If the Great Sorceress and the famous Wizard and the three talented Adepts at Magic [note how he piles on adjectives] were unable as yet to solve the important problem of the sunken isle, there was little chance for a patched girl stuffed with cotton to succeed" [247]. It's up to Trot and Betsy--two kids--to recognize the value of the Patchwork Girl's idea. Their enthusiasm convinces Glinda to listen. (But we shouldn't forget that the first time Scraps asked, "Why not pump the water out of the lake?"--back on page 163--Glinda snapped, "Do be sensible!") All that leads to a lesson that has floated through most of Baum's Oz books since WIZARD, but never more prominently than in GLINDA: "None of us is as smart as all of us." David Hulan wrote: <> The commercial market for children's fiction demands much shorter short stories than the small set of Oz magazines. OZ-STORY and OZIANA will publish tales 5,000+ words long, while most large-circulation children's magazines top out at 1,000-1,500. That allows very little character development, scene-setting, or plot twisting, alas. I indeed find my Oz short stories involve bumping established characters (usually in the Emerald City) against each other in new ways, with few or no new characters. My novels and novel plans introduce more people and places, largely because that form allows more exploration of them. Scott Hutchins asked: <> Try the reference department at a library, or the careers office at your college. Dave Hardenbrook wrote: <> The last Congress passed two important copyright laws. One, discussed at length on this mailing list, involved terms of copyright. The other dealt mostly with copyright in electronic formats. I don't know as much about the latter law, but my impression is that it gives copyright holders more authority to crack down on people who appropriate images, scripts, and other copyrighted material and say, "It's the Web; it's not really publication; so copyright doesn't apply." I don't think the new law cut back harshly on fair use as it had existed for print media, which allowed some leeway for fan fiction (as long as credit was given, no money sought, and no copyright proprietors yelling) and much more for parody. Do you have RED DWARF IN OZ posted on your Web page? If so, you may need more copyright acknowledgment. But keep your eyes open for experts on this law. Late last night on my screen I saw letters appear: <> Spam, spam, spam. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ================= From: Tyler Jones To: "Dave Hardenbrook (E-mail)" Subject: Oz Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 15:39:39 -0700 Thoughts on _Glinda_: Ozma's encounter with Queen Coo-Ee-Oh gives an insight into Ozma's sovereignty. Really, by what right does she rule the entire area contained in the Deadly Desert? Her birth into an existing royal line may give her legitimate authority over much of the central area, but what of the outlying areas? They never swore allegiance to Ozma. In fact, many of them have never even heard of the Land of Oz (although the Su-Dic apparantly knows all about it). Ozma claims that her authority comes from Lurline. Of course, all Lurline did was to fly over the land and declare that it was hers. I can see it now. A gigantic spaceship lands outside of Washington, DC. Alien: "Sorry, humans, but 10,000 years ago, my ancestor the great Nagorjarogo flew by and declared this planet for himself and his descendants. He never told anyone and never returned, but it's mine, so all of you are now my obedient subjects". However, I say join the crowd. I hereby declare myself Emperor of all Africa. :-) Tyler Jones ================= X-Authentication-Warning: mail.minn.net: Host dialup-pm1-2.minn.net [208.16.89.12] claimed to be [208.16.89.158] Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 20:08:56 -0600 To: DaveH47@mindspring.com From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Oz chimneys Chimneys in Oz: Since it never gets very cold in Oz (except for local anomalies such as Icetown), why does every house have two chimneys? a. For purely decorative purposes. b. One for cooking, one for incineration. c. They aren't chimneys, they're ears. d. It really gets as cold as Minnesota in Oz, but all of the adventures we're told about take place in spring and summer. e. They aren't chimneys, they're ham radio antennae. f. To provide ingress and egress for Santa Claus. g. To symbolize the duality of the universe. h. Because Neill drew them that way. - David G. ================= X-Authentication-Warning: mail.minn.net: Host dialup-pm2-26.minn.net [208.16.89.66] claimed to be [208.16.89.158] Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 20:53:41 -0600 To: DaveH47@mindspring.com From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Copyrights and Oz Dave H. writes: >I am very distressed... I have just heard on another forum that >under the new copyright laws, all fan-fiction is *ILLEGAL* and >*not* considered to be "Fair Use"! Is this true?? Could I get clapped >in irons for _Red Dwarf in Oz_ or any other of the Oz-crossovers >I've contemplated like _Rumpole in Oz_??!! The short answer is "yes." And it isn't just the new laws; it's always been that way. I recall that Isaac Asimov once got really hot under the collar because someone wanted to use his Foundation series as the basis for a role-playing game among friends. He emphatically denied permission for them to misuse his "intellectual property" in this fashion. Had they persisted, one may assume that FBI agents would have crashed into the poor sap's RPG party, scattered the pizza, and marched them all off to the hoosegow. The realistic answer is "no." Why? Because no one's paying attention, and countless copyright violations pass unnoticed. But if the copyright owners _do_ notice, they can get very nasty. The bigger they are, the nastier they get. Whatever you do, don't even _think_ about _Mickey Mouse in Oz._ There were a couple of women in Texas a few years ago who got the pants sued off of them for manufacturing Lardasche jeans for overweight women. On the other hand, it seems to have some importance as to whether you intended to make a profit or not. I've never known anyone to be prosecuted for a copyright violation in fan fiction. You'd probably get by with it in a newsletter, but it would be dangerous to put the same piece in _The Baum Bugle._ (OTOH, you'd probably get by with a lot more extensive quotation of copyrighted Oz works in the _Bugle_ because it would fall under the category of a review. But be careful with _Red Dwarf in Oz_.) In other words, as far as fan fiction is concerned, the law _does_ apply, but it's seldom enforced. It's just one step more sinful than copying a videotape for your private collection. "This posting does not constitute valid legal advice and should not be used as a defense in a court of law. I am not an attorney." - David G. ================= X-Authentication-Warning: mail.minn.net: Host dialup-pm6-24.minn.net [208.16.89.184] claimed to be [208.16.89.158] Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 21:15:29 -0600 To: DaveH47@mindspring.com From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Mindless blurbs in Oz Dave - I am fairly ignorant about some things (i.e., computer things), but I assume that all this super-annoying trash about parasites and exciting lives and Lily Tomlin and so on is an ineradicable part and parcel of all messages sent via e-mail through certain servers. I know we are all poor, and no one more than I, but it bothers me enough that I would like to recommend that everyone start paying for their e-mail service or change servers or whatever it takes to rid the world of these endlessly repeated "witticisms." Is there a term for them? Must be. How about "cockroaches"? - David G. ================= X-Sender: atty242@mail.utexas.edu Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 23:06:25 -0600 To: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 12-29-98 DAVID HULAN: Thanks for the suggestions on what to do in NYC; unfortunately, they arrived too late for me to read them before I left for the Big Apple. I had a great time! If anyone gets the chance, see _Rent_; I saw that musical as well as _Titanic_ (not based on the film) and _Ragtime_. As for your other suggestions, David, I did do the Met but not Natural History. I dropped by Books of Wonder, too. Unfortunately (although not surprisingly), Peter Glassman wasn't in. I did buy a few things, though. It's been a long day of traveling, so I won't bore everyone with all the details. Hope everyone had a great holiday. Happy '99. 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 ================= From: Tyler Jones To: "Dave Hardenbrook (E-mail)" Subject: Oz Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 11:15:16 -0700 My web page: This has been down for a while due to some concern over some reviews. I have gone over them with a fine-toothed comb, and I believe that there are no reviews on my page that could be construed as libelous or contain misinformation. The reviews still go for the throat, but they are now no more than honest opinions of the works in question. http://tyler1@apprentice.com More thoughts on _Glinda_: Another interesting tidbit in this story is a discussion between Dorothy and Ozma about the nature of magic. Ozma mentions that if everybody could do everything, the quality of life would decline. I'm writing this from the office, so I'm relying on memory. Perhaps somebody else could comment more thoroughly. Also, Ozma says that no one person can perform all types of magic at the highest ability. In a way, Baum was foreshadowing RPTs Oz, where this became a realiy. Ozma had so much power at the end of RPT's run, that she could indeed do just about everything with little or no effort. I always liked the idea of an underwater glass city (assuming the dome is fairly strong). At night, when the lights went on, it must have sparkled in great beauty. Upon remembering that the Flatheads were allocated one can of brains each, some questions came to mind (no pun intended). 1. If a child is born, where do it's brains come from? 2. Death and/or destruction could still happen. Would the deceased's can of brains be rendered unto Ceaser? (in this case the Su-Dic). Perhaps the population was relatively constant. With a population of 100 in an isolated area with no danger, the death rate (and birth rate) would be exceedingly low, so that there would always be about 100 people anyway. 3. What was life like for the Flatheads who had their cans of brains taken away from them? Before, when nobpy had brains, they probably just milled around, but now they would be living in a society where everybody else had a leg (or a brain) up on them. In a way, the cans of brains echo a Dilbert Comic Strip, wherein Dogbert's consultants were so intelligent, they had to have their excess brains strapped to their torsos. Okay, it was actually liver, but how many PHB's would know the difference? :-) Tyler Jones ================= From: LionCoward@aol.com Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 14:39:10 EST To: CBa5838178@aol.com, daveh47@MINDSPRING.COM Subject: Re: Classic Wizzard Books, excellent condition Thanks for the note. I am more of a reader than a collector, so any unabridged edition is fine for me. Thus, I haven't a lot of info on the values of the old copies. I will pass your letter along to the Ozzy Digest. I suspect that someone there can advise you better than I can. In a message dated 1/1/99 12:56:58 AM, CBa5838178@aol.com wrote: <> ================= X-Authentication-Warning: mail.minn.net: Host dialup-pm3-21.minn.net [208.16.89.91] claimed to be [208.16.89.91] Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 16:49:31 -0600 To: DaveH47@mindspring.com From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Oz I recently saw a video of _Fairy Tale: A True Story_. The first thing that occurred to me was that the younger of the two girls would make a good Trot. Only later did it dawn on me that the character she was playing was named Frances Griffiths. I had a nice theory going about LFB's sources, until I realized that _The Sea Fairies_ (featuring Mayre Griffiths) was published in 1911, six years _before_ the business with the _Cottingley_ fairies in which the real Frances Griffiths was involved. LFB was, of course, a member of the Theosophical Society, which was heavily involved with the Cottingley affair. Hauntingly strange. Life imitates art. - David G. ================= X-Sender: calamity@eureka.lk Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 08:43:14 +1100 To: DaveH47@mindspring.com From: Gehan Cooray Subject: The Good Witch of Oz Anyone have a synopsis of March Laumers:" The Good Witch of Oz"? Thanks, --Gehan **************************************************************************** ******** Mummy may I go to swim Yes my Darling Daughter Hang your clothes on a hickory limb But dont go near the water. **************************************************************************** ******** ================= From: Kiex@aol.com Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 12:57:41 EST To: daveh47@mindspring.com Subject: Ozzy Digest, catchup notes Hello, all. I've just been away for a week--in Florida, visiting relatives, all that fun stuff. No Internet access ;-( . So that's why I've been so quiet! Playing catchup (mustarding my strength to go on...) DIGEST OF 12/23-- <> Are you claiming software engineers aren't mortal? <> Hear, hear! I could not have put it better. Well, I have to go now, but I'll finish catching up some time later... Jeremy Steadman ================= Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 16:52:43 -0800 From: Bill Wright Reply-To: transxinc@earthlink.net Organization: Trans-X Inc. To: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 12-29-98 Dave L. Hardenbrook wrote: > ATTENTION ALL LEGAL EXPERTS ON THE DIGEST: > I am very distressed... I have just heard on another forum that > under the new copyright laws, all fan-fiction is *ILLEGAL* and > *not* considered to be "Fair Use"! Is this true?? Could I get clapped > in irons for _Red Dwarf in Oz_ or any other of the Oz-crossovers > I've contemplated like _Rumpole in Oz_??!! > > -- Dave > Dave,I don't think this is true in my limited opinion. That would wipe out half the internet websites. Fair use is extremely broad. As long as the Ozzy Digest is not making money and merely servering as a venue to exchanges views, etc, etc, the Fair Use Doctrine should apply. And anyway, since theere is no money to be made by sueing the Digest, no sane lawyer would take on such a quest. And if they did, all they could really do is ask us to make some changes. By the way. I haven't received a digest since the 29th. I'm guessing that none have been issued since that date. But if they have, please let me know so I can sort out why I haven't received them. Thanks, Bill in Ozlo ====================================================================== -- Dave Dave Hardenbrook, DaveH47@mindspring.com, http://www.mindspring.net/~daveh47/ Castles, Castles in the air Take a paper plane through the rain and you'll be floating free Through those castles growing everywhere Won't you let your mind just unwind; Go upstream toward a dream You can ride on a laugh you can glide on; Behind every cloud is a star To light your way -- The Bugaloos, "Castles In the Air" ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, JANUARY 4, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 16:03:33 -0800 From: Barbara Johnson Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 12-31-98 Tyler--- Re your comment: >>>>>"By the same token, you could argue that all "real" Oz books should only mention characters and places mentioned in the very first book. _The Land of Oz_ could be considered heretical, since Baum never mentioned Mombi, Tip, Jinjur or Ozma in the first book.>>>>> Like many authors whose works are of a "serial" nature... I'm not sure Baum had an overall plan for Oz when he started... In fact.. there may be some evidence that he is drawing on events in his life that happened after the first book was published... The author's foreward in "The Land of Oz" is especially interesting...as Baum says he is finally getting around to writing a sequel after being begged to do so by "thousands" of little kids... Maybe Baum had to sort through/digest some of his life's experiences to mine them for adventures he could "fantasize"... Does anyone know if the character Pumpkinhead is modelled after anyone Baum knew in his life time?? I spent last summer reading Baum's newspaper that he published while he was here in Aberdeen... and Pumpkinhead seems to resemble one of the young men mentioned in the social column written by Baum... Also.. the "Take over" of the Emerald City by General Jinjur and her girls also ressembles some events involving the "Girl Guard's of Aberdeen" during the "Indian scare" here in Aberdeen in 1890-91... The escape by King Scarecrow, Pumpkinhead and friends in Land of Oz also seems to ressemble the "timely escape" made by the "young gentlemen" of Aberdeen who did not wish to fight the Indians during that same Indian crisis.. Also.. does anyone know if the "Wooden Saw Horse" might be a metaphor for the "Iron Horse" steam trains of Baum's day.??? Have any literary critics made that connection?? in either Land of Oz... or other works???? ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 17:53:46 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 12-31-98 >Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 21:14:18 GMT >From: David Hulan >Subject: Re: RPT's Oz >Cc: tnj@compuserve.com, d.godwin@minn.net > >>*I* certainly have no reason to love RPT...She killed off the GWN >>and asserted Ozma's "little girlness"... Odd innit, in the Baum >>years Ozma was a teenager and no one seemed interested in her the >>way Dan is interested in her; then RPT comes along and says, "Ozma >>is a little girl!" more persistantly than orthodox herpetologists say >>"Dinosaurs are cold-blooded reptilians and _Jurassic Park_ is full >>of hippikaloric!", and suddenly everyone and his brother seeks Ozma's >>hand in marriage! ("Dyna-Irony, Electra Woman!") So one can't really >>blame me (though people do anyway) for my ideas that Ozma is grown-up >>now, but RPT had to say otherwise to protect Ozma from the other fairy >>queens who say she must remain girlishly innocent. > >When did RPT say that Ozma was "a little girl," with the implication that >she wasn't marriageable, other than in _Kabumpo_? And when, other than in >_Jack Pumpkinhead_, did RPT say anyone wanted to marry Ozma? (As I said in >an earlier post, Pompa didn't want to marry Ozma; he thought he needed to >to save his country.) Am I forgetting something? Bear in mind that "little >girl" was commonly used a generation or so before my time - meaning a >couple or three before yours, of course, since you're younger than my >daughter - for women up into their thirties in some contexts. My mother, >for instance, frequently referred to people as "little girls" who were >married and had kids. And my mother was about 20 years younger than RPT. >Baum himself refers to Ozma as a "little girl" in _Glinda_, and when >Dorothy first sees Ozma in _Ozma_ she thinks that Ozma is no bigger or >older than herself. > >I feel as if I have to come to RPT's defense; I read her books interspersed >with Baum's when I first encountered Oz, and my Visualization of the Ozmic >All was more or less equally influenced by both authors. If I'd read the >books in order I might feel differently, but a rough order of my early Oz >reading was _Wizard_, _Wishing Horse_, _Lost Princess_, _Lucky Bucky_, >_Magic_, _Kabumpo_, _Speedy_, _Tin Woodman_, _Silver Princess_, >_Ozoplaning_...I know those were the first few; after that I was mostly >reading borrowed books, and can't remember the order. I never had a >distinctive feeling for a "Baumian" Oz that Thompson made changes to, >though as an adult I can certainly perceive differences. While the average >quality of Baum's books is higher than Thompson's, I think Thompson's best >books are right up there with Baum's best. Nice evidence re: Ozma, David Hulan. I think a myopic focus on Thompson's alleged offenses ignores her writing's many good qualities and makes for lackluster criticism. Her books are often faster-paced than Baum's and display a remarkable imagination. Both Baum and Thompson have their strengths and weaknesses and each may be appreciated in different ways. Baum was good, not God. Thompson diverged, not destroyed. 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: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 18:45:18 -0600 From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-03-98 JOHN BELL: >Steve Teller wrote of his new purchase: ><From >Ray Bolger.>> > >One of the benefits of having a common first name! [Poor Atticus.] Actually, my *first* name IS rather common. Not that I particularly want Ray Bolger's sig anyway. But it was thoughtful of you to realize my semi-predicament, nonetheless. By the way, I must say that, one, I share your opinion that Oz is in This World somewhere, and two, I am always impressed with the scope and erudition of your comments. DAVID GODWIN: >Chimneys in Oz: >Since it never gets very cold in Oz (except for local anomalies such as >Icetown), why does every house have two chimneys? > a. For purely decorative purposes. > b. One for cooking, one for incineration. > c. They aren't chimneys, they're ears. > d. It really gets as cold as Minnesota in Oz, but all of the adventures >we're told about take place in spring and summer. > e. They aren't chimneys, they're ham radio antennae. > f. To provide ingress and egress for Santa Claus. > g. To symbolize the duality of the universe. > h. Because Neill drew them that way. I personally incline towards h., although the non-FF _Mysterious Chronicles of Oz_ suggests that Oz houses are powered by UV rays and that the two chimneys somehow act as negative and positive poles towards that end, apart from their use in cooking and heating. JEREMY STEADMAN (QUOTING NOTORIOUSLY ICONOCLASTIC GRAMMARIAN GEHAN COORAY): (WARNING: QUOTATION CONTAINS _GIANT HORSE_ ***SPOILER***) ><himself.(The Good Witch of the North).I mean,Baum obvioulsy wanted her to be >a Witch right along,and rule the Gilikin Kingdom.What right does Thompson >have to destroy the character and say that she was actually a princess all >along,under one of Mombi's spells.Ridiculous. >And Besides,I think Baum's books should be considered as the "Officail >Books" ,since he was the creator of Oz.He may not have aproved Thompsons >stories IF he were alive.I mean ,if some other author was appointed "Royal >Historian",he could have done whatever he wanted,used his >imagination,written a story,and it would still be considered "An Officail >Book".Does anyone know what I mean? >But I guess its too late now.Still,the Baum books can be called "Famous >Fourteen".>> > >Hear, hear! I could not have put it better. Actually, you might have put it better with a SPOILER for those who haven't yet read _Giant Horse_ (a book which, in fact, I enjoyed). 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: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 21:03:49 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Oz & RPT Gehan wrote: >I STRONGLY disagree with RPT for many reasons.She has cahnI don't see that >as being any more difficult than how the Son of God, who >existed before the creation of the world, could become a neonate who was >raised by a Galilean carpenter. Not saying that I believe the latter, >either, but billions of people have; Ozma could have had a very similar >transition in her life. ged the World of >Oz which Baum created. My idea is that RPT's books have to be approached as a separate body of work from Baum's. That is, RPT's Oz is only loosely LFB's Oz. That doesn't mean that her books aren't worth reading. I really enjoyed many of them. But my chief complaints against her (other than Notta Bit More, whom I place in the same shoot-on-sight category with Barney) is that she "Europeanized" Baum's unique American fairyland, and sometimes she just gets too silly for my tastes. I can't quite shake the feeling that, after all, Oz is in the Great American Desert (on a different plane of reality, if you like), the Pacific is the Nonestic, and California is Ev (on a _very_ different plane of reality). The Nome King is lurking under Mt. Shasta. Well, that's the _feel_ of the Baum books anyway, and RPT threw in countless little dukedoms and principalities to make Oz into a Grimm-style version of the Holy Roman Empire. This approach finally reached its climax in the Neill books with dragons roaming the EC. I heartily disliked _Royal Book_ (except for the cover), which I consider outrageously non-canonical (not to mention the fact that it harshly stereotypes the Chinese). _Cowardly Lion_ was a bad trip. But I really liked some of the others, including _Silver Princess_ (despite its absurd put-down-the-slave-revolt-'cause-ole-massa-is-a-good-guy scenario toward the end). Nevertheless, this is RPT's Oz, not Baum's. I think the work of almost all the FF authors - and non-FF authors as well, for that matter - has to be read as being strictly self-referential and _not_ as a logical development of LFB's works. Snow is the most faithful to Baum, but even he committed the howler of emptying out the Nome King's tunnel. In other words, non-Baum Oz books have to be appreciated (if at all) on their own, not with reference to how well they align with LFB's vision. This is especially true, IMHO, of Neill's books, which are almost OK on their own, but can only cause prolonged shrieks of horror if you expect him to conform to anything that has gone before. (Has anyone but me detected a strange bathing-suit fetish in Neill's written work?) Incidentally, I like Jenny Jump, but I hate her turn-style. As far as canonicity is concerned, don't forget that the first few LFB books contain enough contradictions to keep apologists (us) busy for years. FWIW, I really did not like _Hidden Valley_, and I found Percy contrived and obnoxious. The main effort at characterization seems to be to have him address everyone as "kiddo" or "pal." But just think - a giant rat. Ish. I had to ignore him as much as possible in order to appreciate _Wicked Witch_. OTOH, I did like _Forbidden Fountain_ pretty well. The McGraws have to be the best writers/novelists of the post-LFB Royal Historians. I didn't much like the basic concept of _Merry Go Round_, and I didn't care much for View Halloo, but the book was very well written and the ending was superb. Royal Historians. Reminds me of the Poets Laureate of England. Some of them wren't really very good poets. Same thing. David Hulan wrote: >I don't see that as being any more difficult than how the Son of God, who >existed before the creation of the world, could become a neonate who was >raised by a Galilean carpenter. Not saying that I believe the latter, >either, but billions of people have; Ozma could have had a very similar >transition in her life. What do you mean, "either"? Dangerous heresy lurking here. :) And J.L. Bell wrote: >It's also fairly easy to see in Ozma an analogy to the Christ legend: an >immortal being made/making himself human to benefit humans. So now Ozma is a Christ figure. Oi veh! Did Baum have this in mind, at least unconsciously? I doubt it. But a woman as a "type" of Christ predates LFB by quite a stretch. Although she didn't incarnate as human (so far as I know), the Sumerian goddess Inanna went through a crucifixion and resurrection scenario on behalf of another. - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 22:49:54 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: There never has been any explanation for Eureka's color change in the FF, although March Laumer came up with one. I forgot what it was, though. Steve Teller would probably remember. Gehan on Glinda and GWN: We don't know for sure that Glinda had transportation power until recently. It wasn't until RPT's Oz came about that the powers of the Oz characters were virtually infinite. In all likelihood, Glinda could not just snap her fingers and teleport anywhere she liked, at least in the time of Baum. You don't believe the Tattypoo-Orin thing because you do not accept Thompsonian Oz. I do accept her stories, though, so I have no problem with the generally accepted belief that the GWN did not have as much power as the other witches. Since you only accept Baum, though, let's look at an Oz-as-history explanation given only the Baum 14. She simply may not have been poltiically motivated, despite being designated as the ruler of the north. In and out of Ozzy literature, most magic-workers (except the super-villains) wish only to be left alone to work magic. Tattypoo might have been as disinterested as possible. As long as there were no major problems, she left people alone. IN the Baum 14, there is no evidence that there was any turmoil in the Gilikin country at all, prior to the very last Baum book. Given only the Baum 14, it is reasonable to assume that all aging stopped permanently after Ozma ascended the throne. The only comment to the contrary is Dr. Pipt's mention that Ojo would someday grow into a man. If your theory is correct, the un-aging would have only been in effect for a few years, and Dr. Pipt may not have realized it, isolated as he was. SInce you don't accept RPT's Oz, then the evidence of Pajonia would not affect your belief. Bob Spark and David Hulan: Definitely no need to branch of into Barsoom-as-history, but I'll just mention that John Carter's favorite weapon was the long-sword, and apparantly this belief was shared by most of the Red and Green races, so this is likely the weapon that would be drawn first, and it is unlikely that someone would in turn meet this with a lesser weapon. Davids (Hulan and Hardenbrook) In _Jack Pumpkinhead_ Mogodore wanted to marry Ozma. I don't count Strut of the Strat in _Ozoplaning_, since his knowledge of Ozma was only heresy. John Bell: What you said is the whole crux of David Hulan's arguement (and myself). Your basis for the location of Oz is based on what Baum wanted and how Baum envisioned it. Using this, and this alone, it would seem that Oz is indeed on our world. Oz-as-History, however, must go beyond Baum, since in this perspective, Baum is not the ultimate authority, but rather Oz itself. For the record, while I believe that Oz is in a different Universe, I do not believe that it is nearly as big as our own. MOPPET is that this Universe is tied intimately to Earth and is reachable only from there, and that it is probably at most as big as our solar system, so in a way, I agree with you that it is part of earth, just not directly. John Bell again: We've discussed the political implications of eating animals before, especially during the BCF discussion of _DotWiz_. My example was that it was OK for the Lion to go off into the forest and find his own supper, but not OK for Eureka to eat a Piglet, a special pet of Ozma/Wizard. Dorothy's heart of indignation: IMHO, Dorothy seems more upset that the Skeezers and the Flatheads do not acknowledge Ozma's rule than the trivial aspect of war. Of course, the Su-Dic knew of Ozma, but ignored that knowledge. Glinda's Oracle indicates that she has other methods of finding out information that the Great Book. This may be used to get specific info about events that are only hinted at in the Record Book. Bill Wright: There was a digest recieved on the 27th, 29th 31st and the 3rd. DId you get all of these? Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 23:10:11 -0500 From: "Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman" X-Accept-Language: en Subject: _American Fairy Tales_ Does anyone know where on the Net _American Fairy Tales_ can be found? I'm going to put an Oz page on my site soon, and I'd like to have a link to it. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide. Note: If it's really not available on the Net, I'm going to post the copy on my portable's hard drive. -- Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelmaas@musc.edu http://www.musc.edu/~adelmaas Pioneer Aviation Attachment Converted: "K:\adelmaas.vcf" ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 13:42:24 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Ozzy Things In -Shaggy Man-, Shaggy claims to have found the love magnet from an eskimo. Yet, in -Road- he says he lied about this, and he actually stole it from a girl in Butterfeild. He can't lie after drinking from the Truth Pond. Why did he lie to Conjo? Did Jack Snow make a mistake? What is shaggy's real name? In -Wizard- the GWN says that there were only four witches in all of Oz. What about Mombi and all the other witches? (Ozma says in Patchwrok girl that there are lots of Witches in Oz) Infact, there are zillions of bloopers in the books. --Gehan Cooray **************************************************************************** ******** Mummy may I go to swim Yes my Darling Daughter Hang your clothes on a hickory limb But dont go near the water. **************************************************************************** ******** ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 13:42:22 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: The Forbidden Fountain Ozma says that Glinda placed the Forbidden Fountain in the EC centuries ago. But the EC wasn't even built then. It was probably done in Morrow, where I beleive the EC was built later. The wizard may not hve destroyed the Forbidden Fountain, hoping to make use of it, when he destroyed the rest of Morrow to build the EC.Do you think Glinda would habve been a royal Adviser to the king?If she was, she would have stopped Mombi from stealing Ozroar and Pastoria. But she aslo knew that Pastoria had a daughter in -Land-.Maybe she lived in another fairy country and saw by means of her magic that King Ozcar (As I call him) was mistreeting the Ozites. So she built the Forbidden Fountain by means of magic and placed it in Morrow which was later turned into the Emerald City.Doesn't that make scense? BTW, regarding my new MOPPET on Ozma, which you probably read a little while ago, I mentioned that the wizard DID hand her over to Mombi. He may have tried to hide the fact in -DotWiz- and Ozma may also have stated that Mombi herself kidnapped her to protect him, for she very well knew the truth through -Land-. Also, she may have repeated a rumor knowing it wasn't true.I have some very good proof to show that Mombi DIDNT kidnap ozma, but the Wizard left her in her custody. If Mombi told a lie about the wizard handing Ozma to her, Glinda's white pearl would have turned black. See? --Gehan **************************************************************************** ******** Mummy may I go to swim Yes my Darling Daughter Hang your clothes on a hickory limb But dont go near the water. **************************************************************************** ******** ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 20:05:10 -0800 From: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" Subject: Ozzy Things *** ALERT! NEW DIGEST ADDRESS! ***: Well, I just made a mega-boo-boo... I posted a message that was meant to be private publically on the Digest! No harm done, but I'd like to provide a cover for errors by the "human element" (i.e. me) in case something more serious slips by in future. To this end, I have set up a special E-mail address just for the Digest. So henceforth, please send all messages for public posting on the Digest to: . Any mail to will now be assumed to be private. And since the Digest now has its own address, the requirement to include the string "Oz" in the Subject field is hereby lifted. Sorry for the inconvenience to everybody! -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave Dave Hardenbrook, DaveH47@mindspring.com, http://www.mindspring.net/~daveh47/ Castles, Castles in the air Take a paper plane through the rain and you'll be floating free Through those castles growing everywhere Won't you let your mind just unwind; Go upstream toward a dream You can ride on a laugh you can glide on; Behind every cloud is a star To light your way -- The Bugaloos, "Castles In the Air" ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, JANUARY 5 - 6, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 17:43:53 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Children in Oz There are several things which puzzles me when reading Oz books. *.As -David Hulan- said, I'm surprised how Button-bright and Trot can just leave their parents and dissapear. Won't their parents get worried? How can they be so heartless? *.Dont folk such as The Wizard, Shaggy Man, Aunt Em, Uncle henry, Dorothy, Betsy, Trot, Button-bright and Cap'n Bill worry about Church? It seems to me that there really ARE Churches in Oz. Dorothy and her friends see one in the China Country. In -Handy-mandy- (Even though I don't consider it official) Mandy hears the church bells ring. Maybe while passing another country. We know that Cap'n Bill seems to be a good christian through -Magic-........... BTW, my earlier questions regarding Nimmie's gaurdian, could have another explanation: In -Wizard- Nick says that Nimmie lived with an old woman who asked the WWE to stop her marraige. Yet in -Tinwoodman- he tells Woot that she lived with the Witch herself. Here are the could be solutions. *Baum forgot his statement in -Wizard- being very ill. *. My own MOPPET is this: Nimmie lived with an old woman in a little cottage in the woods and did all her house-work. The old woman went to the WWE and asked her to stop her marraige with Nick Chopper and promised her two sheep and a cow. (Or was it two cows and one sheep? Anyway....) the old Woman was afraid thinking that Nick Chopper might force Nimmie to elope, so she handed her over to the wicked Witch. Doesn't that make scense? Still, Tinman would have given Woot a brief explanation in -Tinwoodman- and tried to shorten the tale. Because he tells Dorothy in -Wizard- :"She still may be living with the old woman". He must have thought that she would have gone back to the woman, since the WWE died. But instead, she ran away with Chopfyte to Mt.Munch. That is my theory anyway. Dont know wheather its true though...................... --Gehan Cooray **************************************************************************** ****** Mummy may I go to swim Yes my Darling Daughter Hang your clothes on a hickory limb But dont go near the water. **************************************************************************** ****** ====================================================================== From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-04-99 Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 10:10:31 PST Barbara: >Does anyone know if the character Pumpkinhead is modelled after >anyone Baum knew in his life time?? Perhaps, although Nathaniel Hawthorne's Feathertop is often cited as a more likely influence. David Godwin: >My idea is that RPT's books have to be approached as a separate body >of >work from Baum's. That is, RPT's Oz is only loosely LFB's Oz. That >doesn't >mean that her books aren't worth reading. I really enjoyed many of >them. >But my chief complaints against her (other than Notta Bit More, whom >I >place in the same shoot-on-sight category with Barney) is that she >"Europeanized" Baum's unique American fairyland, and sometimes she >just >gets too silly for my tastes. I can't quite shake the feeling that, >after >all, Oz is in the Great American Desert (on a different plane of >reality, >if you like), the Pacific is the Nonestic, and California is Ev (on a >_very_ different plane of reality). The Nome King is lurking under >Mt. >Shasta. Well, that's the _feel_ of the Baum books anyway, and RPT >threw in >countless little dukedoms and principalities to make Oz into a >Grimm-style >version of the Holy Roman Empire. Perhaps it's because I did not travel very much as a child (and I still don't, for that matter), but Baum's Oz being an "American fairyland" was never an especially important consideration for me. This might be among the reasons why Thompson's vision of Oz does not bother me as much as it does some readers. >This approach finally reached its climax >in the Neill books with dragons roaming the EC. Well, Baum also introduced dragons into Oz (in _Tin Woodman_, at least). True, there weren't any in Baum's Emerald City, but they still existed in the country. Gehan: >In -Wizard- the GWN says that there were only four witches in all of >Oz. >What about Mombi and all the other witches? (Ozma says in Patchwrok >girl >that there are lots of Witches in Oz) At the beginning of _Land_, it is stated that Mombi was not technically a witch, but merely a wizardess or a sorceress (due to the GWN's restriction on witches in the Gillikin Country). Therefore, the GWN might not have considered Mombi to be a witch. As for the other witches, the GWN might not have known about them. (This is from an Oz-as-history stanpoint, of course. From an Oz-as-literature standpoint, Baum had only created four witchy inhabitants of Oz at the time of _Wizard_.) >Ozma says that Glinda placed the Forbidden Fountain in the EC >centuries ago. >But the EC wasn't even built then. It was probably done in Morrow, >where I >beleive the EC was built later. For someone who does not support Thompson's books, you place a lot of emphasis on Morrow. _Lost King_ does not really suggest that Morrow was any more than a hunting lodge and hiding place. In Marcus Mebes's _Lurline and the White Ravens of Oz_, Morrow is the kingdom of Ozma's grandfather, but, if you disregard Thompson because of her deviation from the spirit of Baum's work, accepting Mebes strikes me as an odd thing to do. (Of course, Mebes might have gotten the idea from someone else; I don't know.) I do think that the old capital of Oz was in the center of the country, though. Pajuka states that it was there in _Lost King_, and it would seem to be a reasonable place for a capital city anyway. Nathan ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 09:35:02 -0800 From: Barbara Johnson Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-04-99 J.L. Bell and Tyler and David G...... In response to: >>>>>And J.L. Bell wrote: >It's also fairly easy to see in Ozma an analogy to the Christ legend: an >immortal being made/making himself human to benefit humans. So now Ozma is a Christ figure. Oi veh! Did Baum have this in mind, at least unconsciously? I doubt it. But a woman as a "type" of Christ predates LFB by quite a stretch. Although she didn't incarnate as human (so far as I know), the Sumerian goddess Inanna went through a crucifixion and resurrection scenario on behalf of another. - David G.>>>> Any evidence that Baum read anything that would have given him the Sumarian Goddess myth??? I know he refers to Grimm and others... perhaps it comes into his work via that route?? AT this point... I'm tending to read Ozma as representative of the women suffragettes who were so instrumental and prevalent in Baum's life (i.e. his mother in law, wife and sister in law).... Sort of a compliation of them... sort of an "ideal girl.woman".... And now... Tyler and John Bell Re: >>>John Bell again: We've discussed the political implications of eating animals before, especially during the BCF discussion of _DotWiz_. My example was that it was OK for the Lion to go off into the forest and find his own supper, but not OK for Eureka to eat a Piglet, a special pet of Ozma/Wizard.>>>> There seems to be some pretty strong statements against cannibalism in Land of Oz... when Jack Pumpkinhead feels threatened...Jinjur wants to make pies out of him... and.. when the characters are marooned in the Jackdaws nest... the subject of eating Jack comes up again... It seems to be brushed aside fairly briskly...friends don't eat their friends! B ====================================================================== From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 10:47:09 -0700 Web: Now that my web site is turned back on, The Ozzy Digest Archive is now available again. Currently, all of the digests are there through October 1998. If I can remember, November and December will be there tomorrow. _Glinda_ and magic: For me, the use and discussion of magic in _Glinda_ has always been a benchmark for my view of magic in general in the Ozzy Universe, the idea that nobody could do everything and that there are many different aspects of magic. This was turned on it's head by RPT, of course, when their magical power became all but limitless. Ozma's rule on who can or cannot practice magic seems to be stretched a little in this story. The Adepts apparantly are granted an exception to this rule and Reera is not prevented from her own practice. Gehan: Your discussion of RPT changing the GWN led me to an interesting question: Did Baum ever specifically say that she was the ruler of the Gilikins? I dug around and the answer is yes. Baum says so in chapter 1 of _Land_ and he has the Wizard mention it in chapter 15 of _DotWiz_. Changing her character in and of itself is not really a major shakeup to the Oz continuum, though. She is at best a minor character in the Baum 14, only appearing twice and having almost no mention outside of that. If RPT had changed Dorothy (making her twins, for example), that might have been a more extreme example. Still, your objections seem to be based on an Oz-as-literature POV. Baum created Oz, so nobody should be able to change it in any major way except him. From an Oz-as-history POV (which is my usual view) Baum is demoted to simply the first person who knew about Oz. It is unlikely that he was able to discover all of its secrets and it is also unlikely that Oz somehow froze itself into a constant model in 1919. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 4 Jan 99 13:01:32 CST From: "Ruth Berman" Subject: ozzy digest [these are some comments from a bit earlier that don't seem to have got through.] Publication note: I have an article just out, "No Joe Marches," in the December 1998 (Vol. 29 #4) issue of "Children's Literature in Education," on the absence of books for bookish little boys about the joys of growing up a reader/writer compared to the wealth of such books for girls. It has some peripheral discussion of the Oz books. (Thanks, Robin Olderman, for help with the article -- I'm sending you a copy.) The magazine isn't one that would show up on a news-stand, but quite a few libraries take it. The article is too long to put into the digest, but if people want to ask me for copies, I could provide them by mail. Lisa Mastroberte: If you go on with thinking about an Oz-Monopoly, you might want to use Emerald City street-names Neill gives in his Oz books (Banana Blvd, etc.). Judy Pike, in an early "Bugle," had an article on the geography of the Emerald City (building from notes by Bob Pattrick), and provided some additional street-names on the model of the ones Neill gave. David Godwin: Are you planning to go to the "Wizard" when it tours through the Twin Cities in January? I can't quite decide if I want to go and if I do, if I want to spend the money for a good seat (gets to be kind of pricey). David Hulan: Rather than assuming that both Omby Amby and Wantowin Battles are Soldiers With (or in Omby's case, occasionally Without) Green Whiskers, perhaps both names could be accepted by assuming that he went by more than one name. For instance, if both Amby and Wantowin were nicknames for some such name as Ambrose, he might have been an Ambrose Battles who was nicknamed Wantowin as a pun, and perhaps also Omby Amby in the same spirit that produced the word nambypamby from the nickname Namby Pamby for the little-regarded poet Ambrose Phillips. My niece Harriet, when she was about five years old, had a habit of asking if characters were boys or girls and demanding to have the reader change some of the boys to girls if it seemed to her the story didn't have enough girls. When I started to read her "Land," she asked me if Tip was a boy or a girl and was delighted when I told her that Tip thought he was a boy, but was going to discover at the end that he was a girl. She demanded to be shown the illustrations of the girl, and spent the rest of the day draping a long scarf around her head for "Land"-Ozma-style-veiling and playing at being Ozma. (About that time, I had bought her a "white-cover" edition of "Dorothy and the Wizard," and she was disappointed to find no illustration of the Mangaboo Princess. Shortly after, Books of Wonder brought out their facsimile edition, so I was careful to get that for her to replace the other, as one of the color plates is of the Princess.) I'm not sure which way Baum's joke cuts in the portrayal of the sports-loving students at the Wogglebug's college, but it seems to express contempt for competitive sports. I think the references to a pink kitten and a purple kitten may represent an idea of a pinkish-purplish color and uncertainty as to what to call it, rather than multiple kittens in separate colors. (Could well be a typo, though.) [A p.s. based on more recent comments -- on the Oz-as-fiction level, I suspect that Lisa Mastroberte is right in thinking that the purple kitten started out as a confusion of memory between Eureka and the Ev Prince so enchanted. Gehan Cooray asks how Eureka came to be pink outside the lights of the Mangaboo suns anyway -- in connection with the "Magic" discussion, I suggested that Eureka might have enjoyed being pink and might have asked Ozma to make her pink permanently once she managed to get herself into Oz as a permanent resident. David Hulan, by the way, has suggested in his Oz-writings that she got back into Oz by tagging along but staying out of sight in "Dorothy and the Wizard."] [end of re-sent comments] Tyler Jones: You could even lower the title character = protagonist count by omitting "Rinkitink." Inga is probably more the main character than Rinkitink himself? What fan-fiction is -- fiction written by a fan. Sometimes, this means general fiction written by people who don't think they are writing at pro level yet, but want to get some feedback, or fiction written by fans about fandom is like. These don't usually involve any copyright problems -- in fact, if the story turns out to be strong enough, there may be a professional market for it (Anthony Boucher's murder mystery "Rocket to the Morgue," was fan-fiction in the sense of being fiction about sciencefiction fans, for instance). Nowadays, though, fan- fiction usually means stories written within the specific universe of a series of stories (or, more often, dramas) by fans, and such stories do usually violate copyright. Nevertheless, such stories do usually interest other fans of the series, so there's a built-in audience for them (not enough to generate much income, usually, but enough to generate a lot of egoboo -- egoboo, a term coined by sf fans, is whatever boosts your ego, such as praise for a good piece of writing), and a corresponding desire on the part of the writers to share their stories with those other fans. I don't think there's ever been a case that went as far as going to court over copyright-violation-in-fan-fiction, so there have been no precedents set as to whether fan fiction might in some cases be considered "fair use." Most of the lawyers who have offered educated guesses on the subject have been guessing that fan fiction would not be considered "fair use." But there aren't any precedents, so it remains an open question. And there probably aren't going to be any precedents set, because going to court is such a burdensome activity that the copyright holders would rather avoid it, if they can get what they want with cease-and-desist letters, as they've been able to do. With the Internet, there's a new form of publication available, making definitions of terms more complicated, but the basic problem remains the same: an area of conflict between fans' desire to have more stories than the copyright holders can churn out, and copyright holders' desire to protect their financial and artistic interests. With a little luck and fannish courtesy, it should be possible to keep the whole question unprecedented. Ozma's right to rule the whole of Oz -- we don't really know enough about Oz history to know to what extent Pastoria-and-forebears claimed jurisdiction over all the territory inside the desert and to what extent other groups granted it. She might have a good deal of precedent for the claim, or might have very little (apparently she has enough to satisfy her own conscience, and she has a generally scrupulous conscience, after all). Where canned brains come from and go to -- maybe we should assume that the spell includes delivery of a can (by stork? hanging on the umbilical cord?), and that destroying the owner produces spoilage of the brains? J.L. Bell: You're probably right that the portrayal of Wendy as an adult doesn't have an equivalent scene in the Oz books. The scene, by the way, wasn't in the play as such, but Barrie kept changing the ending of the play (sometimes stopping with the victory on the pirate ship and leaving the return home implicit, sometimes stopping with the return home and the Lost Boys retrieved by their mothers, and settling eventually on the published version of having the Lost Boys adopted by the Darlings, and sometimes including or not including the business of letting Wendy return to Neverland on visits). At one point, he wrote a version of the ending with the extra scene showing the grown-up Wendy and her daughter Jane (performed only once, IIRC), and he included that extra bit when he novelized the play. "Glinda" warfare as reflecting stage of WWI while US is still neutral and not later than US entry into the war on Allies' side -- you're probably right. But the "Magic" portrayal of war as an easily-quelled revolution sounds like something still earlier. (David Hulan suggested the monkey soldiers may perhaps not even reflect WWI at all, as the description of them sounds more like operetta-soldiers -- Neill's illo, and the "Magic" dedication would have to be later than that, but, as he pointed out, the illos necessarily and the dedication quite possibly would come later than the text.) Your suggestion that Baum might have been working on both concurrently (and on "Tin Woodman," assuming its lack of WWI references is a matter of theme and not of date) for most of the way sounds a reasonable possibility, though. Interesting point on Ozma's sorrow and Dorothy's indignation as a mark of character difference. I think the Frogman might feel serenely unconcerned in discussions of ugliness of toads. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 20:21:27 GMT From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digests, 12-31-98 thru 01-04-99 I guess it was my ISP somehow; I didn't receive the 12-31 Digest until late on 1-3, although other people seem to have gotten it earlier than that. Maybe it had something to do with our big snowstorm here (biggest single day snowfall in Chicago since they've been keeping records; second biggest snowstorm over the two calendar days it fell), or more likely with the turn of the year. Whatever, by the time I'm getting around to responding I also got one for 1-4. So, to comments: 12/31: Gehan: There are various speculations as to when and how Eureka became pink; she was white in _DotWiz_, but is described as pink in _Patchwork Girl_ and all the other references to her except possibly the "purple" one in _Glinda_. March Laumer had one; Chris Dulabone had one; I have one in an unpublished MS that may eventually see print if I can revise it to Peter Glassman's satisfaction. There are probably others that I haven't heard of. In addition to the color change there's the question of how Eureka got back to Oz in the first place; she was sent to Kansas with Dorothy at the end of _DotWiz_ and isn't mentioned in the next two books. Then in PG she's in Oz again. Again, various writers have explained it in different ways. >But what >annoys nme is, why Ozma and Glinda never use their powers of transport to >get to places. Transportation seems to be relatively difficult magic, except maybe for the Magic Belt. MOPPeT is that a transportation spell requires the use of some rare ingredient - maybe six-leaved clovers, or Gaulau, or something like that - that is consumed in the spell, so that Glinda and the Wizard don't perform such spells lightly. The only instances I can think of in the Baum 14 where transportation magic is done by any means other than the Magic Belt are when the Wizard transports Dr. Pipt and the statues of Unc Nunkie and Margalotte to the EC in _Patchwork Girl_ and when he transports the Oogaboos home and Shaggy, his brother, Betsy, and Hank to the EC in _Tik-Tok_. Otherwise, even when magical transport would have simplified matters considerably, it isn't used. (E.g., transporting the Scarecrow to Jinxland, or the Scarecrow, Trot, and Cap'n Bill from Jinxland, or Dorothy and the Wizard to the Nome Kingdom, or those plus Rinkitink and the royal family of Pingaree from the Nome Kingdom, or Ozma and Dorothy to Jinjur's house, or Dorothy and the Wizard to Gugu's forest and then to the Magic Isle, or the various instances you cite in _Glinda_.) Either they were out of the necessary ingredient during those times or were low enough in it that they thought it best to save it for more important uses. Possibly the concentration of use at the end of PG and in _Tik-Tok_ reflected a "find" of a quantity of the substance that made the Wizard feel free to use it more casually. Jane: >Bill -- Lyman was an uncles name. Don't know why he didn't like it, but I >wouldn't either! I don't see "Lyman" as being a particularly bad name. It's not one you hear that much these days, but it was the name of the father of my best friend in college, and I've known a couple of other people with the name as well. It seems to have lost popularity after 1920 or so. Fashions in names come and go - 50 years ago nobody named their kids Emily or Emma or Joshua or Adam, but they were all popular back in the late 19th century and are popular again today. Me: My second post in this Digest is the one that was intended to be a private communication (mentioned by Dave in the 1/4 Digest). No particular harm done, but some bits of it might have seemed to lack referents in the Digest proper. Tyler: >Robin and Lisa: >For the most part, the title character of Baum's book was rarely the main >character. Here's the breakdown. > >_Wizard_ - Dorothy >_Ozma_ - Dorothy >_Dorothy and the Wizard_ - Dorothy and the Wizard >_Patchwork Girl_ - Ojo >_Tik-Tok_ - Betsy Bobbin and/or Shaggy Man >_Sacrecrow_ - Trot >_Rinkitink_ - Rinkitink >_Lost Princess_ - Wizard and Dorothy >_TIn Woodman_ - Tin Woodman >_Glinda_ - Ozma > >Three out of ten. Even that is stretching it; I consider Inga, not Rinkitink, to be the main character of _Rinkitink_ Though Rinkitink plays a larger role in his eponymous book than most of the others in theirs, except for the Patchwork Girl in hers. >Dave: >Uh-Oh. Could you explain a little more clearly just what fan-fiction is? Fan-fiction is fiction set in an existing fictional universe, written by a fan of that fictional universe but not authorized by whoever owns the copyright on it. In one sense Oz fiction is fan-fiction, but since so much of the Oz universe is now PD, it's possible to write pretty extensively in it without a legal problem. Fan-fiction based on "Star Trek" is pretty common, though, for instance. Nathan: >Turning someone to stone is probably one of the most >common deeds done by evil magicians. It goes back at least to the legend of Medusa (written down ca. 700 BCE, and most likely considerably older in oral form), and probably farther back than that. 1/3: J.L.: We're just going to have to agree to disagree about where Oz is. You insist that Baum has many indications that Oz is part of our physical world, but don't cite any that I can recall. I see many indications in his books that aren't consistent with Oz being part of our physical world, and you invoke miracles to explain them. Since miracles can explain anything, there's no point in arguing about it any more. It seems to me that a continent that's part of our physical world, but that has different laws of physics, different astronomical bodies, and is inaccessible by any means other than a miracle might as well be on another vibrational plane. You have an illustration of Princess Dorothy on page 10 of your copy? In mine, that's the second page of the introduction and there's no illustration at all. What edition do you have? (Mine's an R&L from, I would guess, the mid-'40s; no color plates, but with the old-style thick paper that went out with the editions of the '50s.) > One book-mechanics element I can't figure out is why the top line on >certain pages [e.g., 91, 114, 178, 222, 267] is unnecessarily spread out. I checked several, though not all, of those, and in each case the line is a "widow" (or possibly an "orphan"; I think the former is what it's called when the last line of a paragraph is on a different page from the rest, and the latter when the first line of a paragraph is on a different page, but I might have those backwards). And for whatever reason the typesetter justified the line rather than leaving it ragged right, as is normal for the last line of a paragraph. I don't know enough about typesetting in 1920 to know why that sort of thing would happen, but the basic cause is clear. Leaving widows is considered bad practice in books I've read on typography; it's normal to either do something to squeeze the last line onto the previous page, or to push a second line onto the following page. The typesetter of _Glinda_ may have thought that justifying the widow so you don't see a short line at the top of a page was an acceptable alternative, even though it left wide spaces between words. > Which brings us to a mystery of the Skeezers' dome. Lady Aurex states, >"the three Adepts...built for us this wonderful dome of glass" [112], but >also, "The dome was built so that the island could disappear" [123]. Yet >Aujah and the other Adepts have only cursory knowledge of the mechanism >that raised and lowered the island [264]. I think it most likely that the Adepts built the dome very shortly before Coo-ee-oh enchanted them. Coo-ee-oh probably had already invented the raising and lowering mechanism for the city, but found that making a good watertight dome wasn't the sort of thing a Krumbic Witch did well. So she somehow tricked the Adepts into making it for her, and once she'd done that she got rid of them because presumably they could have removed the dome as easily as they'd created it. I agree with you about the conveniently dropped handkerchief on page 39. Baum handled it better in _Lost Princess_ when they circled Thi; they started and ended at a natural feature of the landscape. Ozma and Dorothy could have done the same with a distinctive tree, for instance. Or at least Dorothy's dropping the handkerchief could have been described, rather than being brought up only when it was found again. > The Adepts warn against extending the Skeezers' bridge before raising >their island, yet the party takes no precautions before they "experiment" >with Coo-ee-oh's name [268]. Well, what precautions could they have taken? I suppose they could have temporarily evacuated the dome via the rope, etc., so that if something happened there'd only be the few magic-workers to get out if the dome sprang a leak. But there wasn't any way to test what word did what except to try one and see. You're right that the magazine market for children's fiction demands very short stories, but there's a fairly decent market for longer stories in book anthologies, or single-author collections. Bruce Coville (a friend of mine) has edited about ten anthologies in the last 3-4 years, and I have another 3-4 anthologies edited by others from the same general period. (I have several friends who write for children, and I try to buy the books where their stories appear.) And I'm sure that I haven't bought every anthology of children's fiction that's appeared recently. David G.: I think the answer to your "chimneys" question is "h" - Neill decided to draw them that way. There's no mention of dual chimneys - nor, as best I recall, of any chimneys at all - in any of the FF except for _Wonder City_. And even in that book I don't think he mentioned dual chimneys. Some of those repetitive items are part of a "signature" - this would include, for example, the tags at the ends of Scott H's and Dave H's posts. It would be nice if these were changed a bit more frequently, but they're not ads. On the other hand, the ones talking about how you get free e-mail are ads. I can skip over all of them without much difficulty, once I recognize them. Tyler: Ozma's assertion that people need to have to work hard for things in order to be happy is certainly an idea that has been put forward many times through history. Whether it's true or not is a separate thing, like the idea that pain builds character. I'm skeptical, myself, but don't have any concrete proof one way or the other. The picture of the child of wealthy parents who is miserable even though he has everything he wants without having to work for it is certainly a popular one in fiction, but from my personal observations it's not all that common in real life. It happens, yes - I could cite a few specific cases I know of - but it seems to me that it's the exception rather than the rule. However, I don't know of any serious study of the issue. 1/4: David G.: I dunno, I've heard this argument about Thompson "Europeanizing" Oz before, but I'm not sure I buy it. Yes, she did make more use of little kingdoms and principalities and such than Baum did, but she hardly invented the idea. Baum had the Dainty China Country, the Cuttenclips, Utensia, Bunnybury, the Horners, Oogaboo, Jinxland, Thi, Herku, Bear Center, Loonville, the Forest of Gugu, the Spiders, the Flatheads, and the Skeezers - all monarchies within Oz. In addition there were Fuddlecumjig, Bunbury, the Tottenhots, and the Hoppers as non-monarchical but oddball little independent realms in Oz. The difference between Baum and Thompson in this respect is one of degree, not of kind; Thompson picked up on these aspects of Baum and used them much more extensively than he did, but she didn't invent a type of country in Oz. What she did do was have the inhabitants of some of her little kingdoms want to make the travelers who encountered them become members of their community, which Baum never did - though he came close in Loonville. But this isn't "Europeanization." It's also true that most of Baum's little communities are incidental to the action of the story, whereas Thompson made one central in a number of cases (Pumperdink, Ragbad, Perhaps City, the Ozure Islands, Keretaria, Regalia, etc.). But again, this is a difference in emphasis, not a radical turnabout. Tyler: _Was_ the GWN designated as the ruler of the North in Baum books after Ozma's accession to the throne? In _Road_, which I think is her only appearance after _Wizard_, she (and Glinda) march separately in the parade from the rulers of the four quadrants. She may have been mentioned as the ruler of the North in another book, but I don't recall it. Gehan: >In -Shaggy Man-, Shaggy claims to have found the love magnet from an eskimo. >Yet, in -Road- he says he lied about this, and he actually stole it from a >girl in Butterfeild. He can't lie after drinking from the Truth Pond. Why >did he lie to Conjo? Did Jack Snow make a mistake? What is shaggy's real name? MOPPeT is that Shaggy had told the story about the Eskimo so often in earlier days that by the time of _Shaggy Man_, when he hadn't told any story about it for a long time, he had forgotten that it wasn't true, and therefore wasn't lying but simply mistaken when he told Conjo the same thing. There's no FF evidence as to what Shaggy's real name is, but in the non-canonical but excellent _Queen Ann of Oz_ he says that it's Shagrick Mann. >In -Wizard- the GWN says that there were only four witches in all of Oz. >What about Mombi and all the other witches? (Ozma says in Patchwrok girl >that there are lots of Witches in Oz) Early in _Land_ Baum says that Mombi isn't a witch, but a sorceress or at most a wizardess. I think we can explain the discrepancies you mention easily enough by postulating two definitions of "witch," either of which may be used depending on context. One definition is "a woman with a high degree of magical power, strong enough that she can make herself ruler of a quadrant of Oz"; the other is simply "a female magic-worker." Mombi, Blinkie, Coo-ee-oh, Gloma, and others are witches only by the latter definition; only four witches - Glinda, the GWN, the WWW, and the WWE - qualify by the former, which the GWN was using. Alternatively, the GWN may not have known of the other witches (except for Mombi, obviously). We know the Wizard had the EC built in its present form, but there may well have been a royal palace with a surrounding village or small town at that location long before his arrival. Glinda certainly says in _Land_ that Pastoria had been the ruler of the Emerald City before the Wizard's time. David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 16:09:55 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Oz mysteries and histories I received three digests (12/31/98-1/4/99) on one day, which may be related to Dave Hardenbrook's Y99 troubles. I hope everyone else is up-to-date. Of course, if you're reading this, you are! Scott Hutchins wrote: <> There is a difference, but copyright covers *all* uses of an author's creations, not just commercial ones. You as an author can legally protest non-commercial works derived from yours if you feel they're cheapening the value of your output, distorting your creations, or just annoying you--you don't have to show those works are meant to make money. Incidentally, folks, OZIANA has permission from Reilly & Lee to publish stories using characters from all the Oz books published by that firm. The BAUM BUGLE publishes non-fiction, usually scholarly or close to it, so its quotations from the books fall under fair use. The Ozzy Digest occasionally includes brief quotations from copyrighted books or jokes put in the mouths of copyrighted characters, but those are fair uses. None of those outlets are affected by the change in copyright law. Nor are OZ-STORY or Books of Wonder affected--they still face the same restrictions as before. However, some members of this digest have stories on their Web sites that use characters still protected by copyright (e.g., Jenny Jump); those are vulnerable under the new law if the copyright-holders or their publishers choose to act. (They were probably actionable before, too, but now it's undeniable.) Gehan Cooray wrote: <> In TIK-TOK Glinda shifts the *path* on which the Oogabooans are marching. Implications are (a) if they'd turned around and gone home, they'd never have left Oz, and (b) if they hadn't been at the edge of Oz already, Glinda would have done something else. Tyler Jones listed Baum's main characters: <<_Rinkitink_ - Rinkitink>> Not Inga? For a couple of chapters Rinkitink is center stage without Inga, but more often the boy is driving the action, and we see the action over his shoulder. Nathan DeHoff wrote: <> Baum's magicians seem to have a specific liking for marble statues: Mombi threatens to turn Tip into one, Unc Nunkie and Margolotte become one, and Kiki plans to make Ruggedo one in MAGIC [49]. Tyler Jones wrote of Ozma: <> Many outlying Ozians accept Ozma's rule (Glinda, Bini Aru), or at least know they should (Pipt, Su-dic, Ann Soforth). To me that's one of the strongest pieces of evidence that Oz was in fact once unified, and that most Ozians were brought up to hope for restoration of the legitimate line of rulers. But your questions do cut to the paradox hanging over inherited monarchs: their authority is based on a combination of divine right and raw power. You're probably right that <> She does tend to jump to emotionally-based conclusions, especially when her friends are threatened. David Godwin wrote: <> Because three would be too many! Even in temperate zones, nights can become too cool for comfort. One chimney might be for the bedroom, the other for the kitchen. Tyler Jones wrote: <> As with the Skeezers, the Flatheads have limited living space, so they may well not reproduce. I recall no children in either society. With destruction rare--especially during the Adepts' peaceful rule--there would thus be no need to address the first two questions. The rise of Rora Flathead and the Su-dic changed that, of course. Based on Baum's depictions of other characters with no or very little brains, I expect the brainless Flatheads functioned at a low level, but not a comatose one. Here's a related question: When Rora was turned into a pig, where did her brains go? Jeremy Steadman wrote to me (I believe): <> I claim they'll all break down in exactly 361 days! (From overwork.) My statement about a certain unpublished Oz manuscript was that as a non-programmer I can't help but dislike any implication that one must know code to break into Ozma's heart--if she grows up to fall in love with anyone, why not someone like me? Barbara Johnson wrote: <> I see the Sawhorse as quite different from the "iron horse"--symbolically opposed, in fact. Before being brought to life, the sawhorse was the rough-hewn tool of a woodcutter. Baum probably viewed it as a sign of a disappearing time in America, when wood (not coal or petroleum) was the major fuel, and a lone worker (not octopus-like corporations) supplied it. Woodsmen like Nick Chopper and Nikobob in RINKITINK had largely vanished from America by 1900, but in Baum's stories they still worked the forests. One could argue that the indefatigable Sawhorse's race against Jim in DOROTHY & WIZARD is like John Henry's fatal contest with the steam shovel. But that would mean making the Sawhorse stand for technology. Instead, he seems to be an earthy amalgam of animal and magic. When Baum wanted to discuss technology, he created Tik-Tok. David Godwin wrote: <> I don't think Baum made a deliberate analogy between Ozma and Christ. Yet the latter figure is so prominent in Western culture that it seems impossible for him to have missed the similarity of their incarnations, consciously or not. Tyler Jones wrote: <> I agree that Oz-as-history must go beyond Baum and his successors *in reconciling contradictions within the Oz books*. But I also made my case that there's no necessary contradiction in Baum's statements about Oz's location and about our mysterious world. Applying an Oz-as-history approach to what is merely a *mystery* of Baum's fairyland, not a clear contradiction, can produce a slippery slope down to saying the Oz books were written by a guy from Chicago who needed money. Furthermore, given that Oz-as-history must still rely on evidence, finding evidence about "Oz itself" outside the books is, at the least, very difficult. In America-as-history, the situation is different because there was an objective reality in past events. For instance, I've been researching a citizen of Revolutionary Boston named David Bradlee. What's been written about him is brief: he participated in the Tea Party with his brothers in 1773, joined an artillery regiment in 1776 as a captain, married his son to his colonel's daughter, and became a respectable wine merchant. Underneath that history-as-written is an objective reality--what Bradlee actually did--which can give rise to additional evidence. In this case, I've found a summons accusing "David Bradley" of participating in a tar-and-feathering in 1769, his court testimony about a protest in February 1770 when a boy was killed, and a deposition saying he carried Crispus Attucks's body away from the Boston Massacre in March 1770. So in his youth that respectable merchant seems to have gone to three riots in six months. The objective reality of the past thus challenges what's been written by producing more evidence. Where do we find additional evidence about Oz's history besides Baum's books? * We can add more canonical books--if everyone agrees on what they are, and how much we trust each author. Gehan Cooray seems to reject Thompson but accept Ozroar and Ozette after seeing them mentioned on people's Web sites. Melody Grandy's essay on Ozma's palace relies on all 46 novels by canonical authors. I doubt Jinjur's appearance in OZMA but accept Bucky Jones living on Lake Quad. Will we ever all agree? * We can rely on biological and physical laws, such as Dorothy's likely rate of growth and the difficulty of making a continent on Earth invisible--but the books say magic can break those laws. * We can make inferences about how people would logically behave. Yet people don't always behave logically, or agree on what's logical. David Hulan is a smarter problem-solver than Ozma, so he often sees possible actions she doesn't take. * We can even apply events seemingly unrelated to Oz--for instance, the "evidence" of a Bermuda triangle--to the mysteries of where Oz is and how one reaches it. In this case, the vanishing of six planes in 1945 could be additional, outside-the-books evidence created by the "objective reality" of a hidden land/alternate universe. Any other sources for info? Two related questions: What are the chances that Gini Wickwar's HIDDEN PRINCE will be accepted (sight unseen) as canonical? Does reading certain books or authors in early childhood irrevocably affect what one accepts about Oz? (Thanks, Atticus, for your kind words about my musings on this interesting, if insoluble, topic.) Gehan Cooray wrote: <> SHAGGY MAN makes clear that Shaggy suspects Conjo is lying to *him*. Perhaps the Truth Pond's spell allows a lie in such a situation when one's goal is strategic, not to build oneself up. [Similarly, in SKY ISLAND Button-Bright lies to a Blueskin guard to gain entrance to a room, despite having bathed in the Truth Pond.] But can we assume the girl in Butterfield wasn't an Eskimo? David Godwin wrote: <> I recall this same episode causes problems in calculating the size of Oz--could Mombi and the Sawhorse run from the Emerald City to the very edge of the country in an hour [and without bumping into any communities of cranky oddballs]? Both contradictions may be erased if we assume "the desert" Baum described in this part of LAND wasn't the Deadly Desert [as he seems to think]. It might be a smaller desert *within* the land of Oz, its climate as odd as Icetown's, where Bedouins bed down and sandmen sleep. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== From: Kiex@aol.com Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 13:49:27 EST Subject: Ozzy Digests past All right, continuing catching up-- DIGEST OF 12-26-- Robin, David Hulan, others: Age is in the mind. And remember, in Oz age has little if any meaning. So don't be overly concerned with numbers. (Or talk to my 103 year-old grandmother, that'd work too.) Purple/pink kitten: Maybe Eureka can change color--as an effect of being painted . . . just a MOPPeT. DIGEST OF 12-29-- Gehan: Your theory sounds reasonable. David Godwin: That graphic novel can't be right, since both the Sawhorse AND the Scarecrow are made of something that was once living (wood and hay, respectively), so that the Desert WOULD have power over them. David Hulan: Please tell me more about _Oz-Story Magazine_ (in a private post if you like, or print it here for all). That is, address, publication info, etc. DIGEST OF 1-3-- Ozma's reluctance to use the belt: Perhaps she is required by some fairy law we don't know about to use the least magic to do the most work--that is, to use magic only when absolutely necessary. I've just been rereading Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series, and a MOPPeT I refuse to really believe is that she is a robot like Daneel (see FOUNDATION AND EARTH) that must do as little adjusting of things--i.e. magic--as possible to manipulate events. No, I don't really think that, it's just an ANALOGY, nothing more! Desert: Boy, I never thought about it not really being deadly at all--just a belief one adheres to unthinkingly . -------SPOILER FOR MY OWN BOOK-------- In my book, THE EMERALD RING OF OZ, two people end up getting "dusted", but one is recovered. The other one--well, read the book! --------END SPOILER--------- Copyright: No offense, but I sure hope you're all wrong, and fan fiction can be published on the web. What I'd do without being able to read Doctor Who fanfics I don't know . . . Chris Dulabone's Oz: I feel I have to come to Chris's defense here. I think that he has taken the FF and _interpreted_ it, looked through the contradictions and picked what he thinks Oz really is as best he can tell. This is just interpretation, in my opinion. Obviously he is no longer on the Digest to explain, so I'm doing the best I can. <> The only Oz characters invented at the time were those of Baum and herself, so I don't think that's much of a compliment. <> Perhaps. DIGEST OF 1-4:-- Ozma as a Christ figure: If you consider her transformation to a male as death, I guess you could make an analogy to that effect. Eureka! I've changed from pink to purple!: I like an effort of will explanation. (As I said above.) Dave: The idea of a new address is nice, but I notice you posted from the old address . . . just an observation. ;-) Now I'm caught up! For the moment . . . Until next time, Jeremy Steadman ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 21:51:29 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: Shaggy also repeats his lie in _Road_, although we may have to explain that as an error from Baum, even from an Oz-as-History perspective. We can speculate that the water from the Truth Pond eventually wears out, much like the water from the Fountain of Oblivion. When the GWN mentioned that there were only four witches left in Oz, she was probably referring to herself, Mombi, Glinda and the WWW. She may not have known of Gloma, Mrs. Yoop, Reera, etc. You're falling into the trap of assuming that the powers that be in Oz know everything. They don't. Even I don't know everything :-) The EC as we know it may not have existed, but the gren area certainly was there, and those 57,000 people had to live somewhere. Pajuka says that there was a small establishment there in _Lost King_, although you don't accept Thompsonian Oz.. I assume that the green area was a collection of small settlements before the Wizard built EC. Dave: The new address should help the situation. Just to be safe, I'll keep the "OZ" in the message string for the Digest and I'll keep the "private" in the subject heading for personal stuff, not that I ever send anything all that embarassing to you anyway, except that cherries-and-whipped-cream thing :-) Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 18:04:57 -0500 From: Jim Reale [Non-Digest member] Subject: what type of dog? X-Accept-Language: en What type of dog is Toto? Reply to zahran@foto.infi.net ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 5 Jan 99 09:04:31 CST From: "Ruth Berman" Subject: ozzy digest ps Oops -- that was idea of Eureka tagging along in "Road" I meant, not in "Dorothy and the Wizard," where she's part of the main character team. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 01:20:34 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Oz Eureka: Regardless of what color she is, when and how did Eureka come to live in Oz? At the end of DotWiz, she is in disgrace and no one is speaking to her and she returns to Kansas with Dorothy. That is the last we hear of her until she suddenly pops up in the EC in some later book. I guess that's a cat for you. Consistency: Peter Glassman remarks in his afterward to DotWiz that "One of the interesting things about L. Frank Baum's writings is that he was never overly troubled by a need for consistency." Apparently the same thing applies to John R. Neill. Compare the color plate on page 197 of DotWiz, where Ozma looks like an adult to Dorothy's child (Ozma has aged and Dorothy has not?) and the one facing page 292 of the later ECOz, where Dorothy and Ozma are the same size, both dwarfed by Glinda. (Page numbers are from the BOW editions.) Marvelous Land of Oz: Recently saw a video of this Children's Theater production. I didn't really care too much for the tunes (or the singing) - certainly no competition for MGMWiz. But the characters were all made up to look exactly like the Neill drawings, which was very nice, and it followed the book fairly closely. I always thought Ozma looked a lot younger than Tip in the drawings, but the boy who played both parts in this musical adaptation somehow managed to look just like the drawings of _both_. Also, Glinda wore her tall, impossible crown (evidently made of thin cardboard) without its falling off. Dust Jacket of ECOz: The BOW edition reproduces the original dust jacket of ECOz, and the afterward states that the design was simplified in later editions. When I was a kid, I had most of the LFB Oz books in R&L editions published during the late '40s. None of them had color plates. Whenever I see a reproduction of the cover of one of these books, it resonates strongly in my memory. But this one doesn't; I don't remember it at all. What did the dust jacket illustration look like on ECOz as published by R&L during the 1940s? Barbara Johnson: _Very_ interesting post concerning _Land_ and Aberdeen. Thanks. - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 06 Jan 99 13:07:43 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things NEW DIGEST ADDRESS: As some people have asked for a repeat, and others are still sending Digest posts to my private address, here is the message again: From now on please send all messages for public posting on the Digest to: . Any mail to will now be assumed to be private to moi. And since the Digest now has its own address, the requirement to include the string "Oz" in the Subject field is hereby lifted. OZMA'S HEART 95: J.L. Bell wrote: >I claim they'll all break down in exactly 361 days! (From overwork.) >My statement about a certain unpublished Oz manuscript was that as a >non-programmer I can't help but dislike any implication that one must know >code to break into Ozma's heart--if she grows up to fall in love with >anyone, why not someone like me? I'm afraid you've lost me...I still don't understand what programming has to do with the "heresy quotient" of aforementioned unpublished Oz manuscript... SIGS: David H. wrote: >Some of those repetitive items are part of a "signature" - this would >include, for example, the tags at the ends of Scott H's and Dave H's posts. >It would be nice if these were changed a bit more frequently, but they're >not ads. What I'd really like is for Eudora to allow you to maintain a library of sigs so that I could make them more varied instead of having just a "Standard" and "Alternate". (Does EudoraPro do this by any chance?) NOT TO FISH FOR SYMPATHY, BUT...: Your "fearless leader" isn't feeling fearless at the moment...My Zip Drive has just contracted the dreaded "Click of Death" (Thanks, Ruggedo!), so that drive is shot and my archived data on my Zip disks is inaccessable. I need another Ozade...! -- Dave ====================================================================== ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, JANUARY 7 - 8, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-06-99 Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 18:45:45 PST J. L. Bell: > However, some members of this digest have stories on their Web >sites that >use characters still protected by copyright (e.g., Jenny Jump); those >are >vulnerable under the new law if the copyright-holders or their >publishers >choose to act. (They were probably actionable before, too, but now >it's >undeniable.) I'm wondering whether or not to keep my Oz stories that contain copyrighted characters up on my web page. On the one hand, I want people to be able to read them. I don't want to have my website terminated because of their presence, though. Any advice? >What are the chances that Gini Wickwar's HIDDEN >PRINCE will be accepted (sight unseen) as canonical? I suppose it depends on how consistent it is with the rest of the canon. It might well gain canonical preference over books published by Buckethead and the like, simply because of its wide availability. If people don't have access to a book, they're probably more likely to ignore it (even if this is unintentional). Jeremy: >That graphic novel can't be right, since both the Sawhorse AND the >Scarecrow >are made of something that was once living (wood and hay, >respectively), so >that the Desert WOULD have power over them. Yes, but neither wood nor hay counts as flesh, and (at least according to _Forgotten Forest_) it is only flesh that is affected by the desert. Under this theory, Carter Green or a Mangaboo would probably be able to walk on the desert without being "dusted." -- 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: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 20:18:54 -0800 From: bspark@pacbell.net Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-06-99 ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 00:18:03 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: Actually, we're not sure of the reaction of the parents of Button-Bright and Trot (Trot has only one at the time). For all we know, they may have been frantic at their loss, although the two kids never seemed all that concerned. From hints in _Scarecrow_, we gather that the parents may not be very worried. Church attendance depends on faith. White Americans at the turn of the century, which is the profile of most of the people we're talking about, would tend to be very devout Christians and attendance would be important to them. This was especially true of Roman Catholics prior to the 1960s. However, people adapt, and I'm sure that our friends would find a way to worship without the edifice itself. For example, I am a devout Christian and member of the Religious Right, yet I do not attend church. You already mentioned that you do not consider the church scene in _Handy Mandy_ valid, or I would have harped on it more than I am now. :-) Ruth, David Hulan and John Bell: Well, this borders on a top secret project that I'm working on, but I'll just say that although Inga is probably the character of main focus in _Rinkitink_, it is Rinkitink himself who says the most and does the most in the story. It's interesting that three people caught Inga as the main character. He probably is, in a sense, and most of the story is from his POV, but still Rinkitink played a larger part than Inga. I dare not say any more. David Hulan alone: A "widow" is the first line of a paragraph that is on the bottom of one page while the rest is on the next. An "orphan" is the last line of a paragraph that made it to the top of one page while the first part is on the previous page. Some Word Processors have options to eliminate these automatically by adding carriage returns. While Baum specifically mentions the GWN as the ruler of the north (or at least a part of the Gilikin country) in _Land_, the only time that Baum ever mentioned her as ruler after Ozma's ascension was in a conversation in _DotWiz_. The Wizard commented that she was the ruler at that time. SHe probably would, though. The Tin Woodman and Glinda were allowed to continue their rulerships, so she must have as well. JOhn Bell: I'll jump on the David Hulan bandwagon and say that we'll have to agree to disagree. I'll also agree with you that the specific books we read when we were young have a great affect on how we see Oz. I read the FF more or less in order, and some people read them in a much more mixed fashion, and tend to depress Baum's individual importance. Jeremy: Regarding Ozma's level of intervention and your recent reading of the Foundation series, remember one of the highest laws of the Second Foundation: "Do nothing except when you must, and when you must act, hesitate". David Godwin: IN the FF, Eureka goes home at the end of _DotWiz_ in disgrace, as you said. THe next we hear of her, she is a respected character in _Patchwork Girl_. That last part may just have been propaganda from the Shaggy Man. However, there is no indication in the FF about how she got back to Oz. Someone (I forgot who) postulated that Eureka secretly followed Dorothy in _Road_, and then when she was found out, nobody had the heart to send her back to Kansas alone, since her people were already in Oz. March Laumer has written an extremely complicated plotline about Eureka getting to Oz. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 00:15:59 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Oz David Hulan wrote: >I dunno, I've heard this argument about Thompson "Europeanizing" Oz before, >but I'm not sure I buy it. Yes, she did make more use of little kingdoms >and principalities and such than Baum did, but she hardly invented the >idea. Baum had the Dainty China Country, the Cuttenclips, Utensia, >Bunnybury, the Horners, Oogaboo, Jinxland, Thi, Herku, Bear Center, >Loonville, the Forest of Gugu, the Spiders, the Flatheads, and the Skeezers >- all monarchies within Oz. In addition there were Fuddlecumjig, Bunbury, >the Tottenhots, and the Hoppers as non-monarchical but oddball little >independent realms in Oz. The difference between Baum and Thompson in this >respect is one of degree, not of kind; Thompson picked up on these aspects >of Baum and used them much more extensively than he did, but she didn't >invent a type of country in Oz. What she did do was have the inhabitants of >some of her little kingdoms want to make the travelers who encountered them >become members of their community, which Baum never did - though he came >close in Loonville. But this isn't "Europeanization." It's also true that >most of Baum's little communities are incidental to the action of the >story, whereas Thompson made one central in a number of cases (Pumperdink, >Ragbad, Perhaps City, the Ozure Islands, Keretaria, Regalia, etc.). But >again, this is a difference in emphasis, not a radical turnabout. > The difference between the places you mention from Baum's books and those from Thompson's books tends to make my point, I think. There is a definite distinction between a locally governed village or encampment (which may not even be aware of anything much beyond its borders) and some little country with a castle, a hereditary king, a queen, a grand vizier (perhaps a minor wizard), a court jester, and assorted courtiers all hanging around the throne room. Seems to me you don't find that in Baum much except for countries outside Oz, such as Ev. The major exception I can think of is the Emerald City itself! Also Jinxland, which is completely isolated. (Oogaboo is somewhere in between.) It's the difference between a tribal village ruled by a chieftain and a medieval dukedom with a court straight out of King Arthur or comic opera, the men wearing tights and capes - the difference between Dodge City and Poictesme. What makes the first instance "American," I don't know, other than the fact that Aberdeen in Baum's time may have been "a locally governed village that may not have even been aware of anything much beyond its borders." (Hmm, I suppose that's also true of New York City today.) Baum had scattered villages, or in some cases entire regions, that were self-governing and that may or may not have acknowledged the central authority in the EC, but the local ruler was likely to be an ordinary citizen. Thompson's principalities were also self-governing and owed ultimate allegiance to Ozma, but RPT's arrangement is much more feudal than Baum's. She had plenty and to spare of the village-chieftain type of community as well, but they are all just IE fodder. Once again, I'm not objecting to this, merely observing that it is definitely different. It may amount to nothing more than a difference in emphasis, as you say. but that difference seems to me a big one - between modern America and medieval Europe. Another difference - neither better nor worse, IMHO - is that Baum used girls as protagonists while Thompson used boys. Nothing American vs. European about that, just another difference between the two authors. I suppose this says something about my sexual identify or something, but I always liked the girls better and wasn't able to identify with RPT's boy heroes. At the time, however, I was more of a fan of Rick Brant (anyone remember him?) than RPT's Oz. As for the Shaggy Man - Shagrick Mann, eh? I assume his middle name was Edward - Shag E. Mann. J.L. Bell wrote: >But can we assume the girl in Butterfield wasn't an Eskimo? Yes, if we believe that the Eskimo was, as Shaggy says, in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) when Shaggy got the love magnet from him. I hate to keep bringing up stuff like this, but I think "Eskimo" is now considered a prejudicial term, at least by some of the Inuit. In fact, the term "Eskimo" isn't used by the Canadian government. Gehan wrote: >.Dont folk such as The Wizard, Shaggy Man, Aunt Em, Uncle henry, Dorothy, >Betsy, Trot, Button-bright and Cap'n Bill worry about Church? It seems to me >that there really ARE Churches in Oz. Dorothy and her friends see one in the >China Country. In -Handy-mandy- (Even though I don't consider it official) >Mandy hears the church bells ring. Maybe while passing another country. We >know that Cap'n Bill seems to be a good christian through -Magic-........... I wouldn't say that Cap'n Bill's comments in _Magic_ are necessarily Christian. Could even be Muslim. They _are_ religious, however. If there are churches in Oz, the Royal Historians seem to have been unanimous in ignoring them as much as possible. You'd think folks from rural Kansas in 1900 would be fairly religious, but there likely wasn't a church within easy distance of the Gale farmhouse. It wouldn't seem incongruous to have Uncle Henry leading family prayer every evening, however. The Wizard, being a carnival type, probably wouldn't have been a church-goer. Although churches in Oz are seldom mentioned, the dust jacket of _ECOz_ seems to show a synagogue, or at least a building with the Magen David on its facade. But since Christianity is all about eternal life obtained through faith in the sacrifice of Christ for our sins, it wouldn't necessarily be relevant in Oz, where everybody lives "forever" anyway, and without much in the way of sin (if you're not a witch). If Oz had a religion, I would expect it to be closer to Shinto or Zen (of which LFB knew nothing, I expect). Maybe everyone in Oz is, like LFB himself, a Theosophist. They do seem to celebrate Christmas, however, and they do use that term for it (rather than something like Yuletide). Also Easter, according to the McGraws. But these holidays are as if seen through the eyes of children, with the emphasis on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny rather than on Jesus. Barbara Johnson wrote: >Any evidence that Baum read anything that would have given him the >Sumarian Goddess myth??? I don't think so. I was going to say that his interest in Theosophy might have led him to it, but I don't think the relevant Sumerian texts had even been translated in his time. (I could be wrong.) Ruth Berman wrote: >Are you planning to go to the "Wizard" when it tours >through the Twin Cities in January? Sort of. There was going to be a group including at least two children, but interest seems to wax and wane among this group. I might go by myself, even though I've never been a Mickey Rooney fan. I do have the soundtrack CD, and it seems to be mostly a dramatization of the MGM film script. The real question is: can I live with myself if I skip it? - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 20:05:46 -0500 From: Jill Moore Subject: Re: Fishing For Sympathy Well Folks, I think the following message is Dave's way of tactfully telling us it's time to "put our money where our mouths are" (so to speak) and dig deep, low, or anywhere else, and send in our (ahem) 'annual' contribution to our favorite digest! "NOT TO FISH FOR SYMPATHY, BUT...: Your "fearless leader" isn't feeling fearless at the moment...My Zip Drive has just contracted the dreaded "Click of Death" (Thanks, Ruggedo!), so that drive is shot and my archived data on my Zip disks is inaccessable. I need another Ozade...! -- Dave" It seems only fair and fitting to me that we should make contributions in return for the pleasure we receive of having an open forum to express our views, pro and con, on all things Oz. So Dave, let me be the first to begin the "1999 OZADE EVENT" (does anybody know what Whoopi Goldberg is doing?) by requesting your address so that I can send you a check for my contribution to the fund to keep the digest running! Your friend in Oz always ~~~ Jill ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 19:07:55 -0500 From: David Levitan X-Accept-Language: en,ru Subject: New address for archive (again) Hi, I moved the digest again. Sorry for any problems. The good thing it that the server it has been moved to (my new ISP's server) supports CGI scripting (running programs from the web). This means that I can add interactive features to the archive, including a search engine. Now, you can search all the digests that I currently have up for any phrase you want, and the search engine will give you a list of all the digests contaning the search words. The address is: http://www.bestweb.net/~dbl/digest Sorry for and inconvenience. Thanks, David Levitan ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 16:25:37 -0800 From: "Peter E. Hanff" Subject: Bibliographic identification sought Hi Dave, Recently two different individuals have sought help from me in identifying an Oz-related publication. Each person kindly provided full-color scanned images (that's how I could tell they were both describing the same publication), but I haven't yet been able to determine what the item is historically. Briefly, the publication "is an 8 1/2 by 11 inch soft cover book of 48 unnumbered pages with 16 illustrations in full color (including the front cover), plus black and white or blue and white margin illustrations on every page." From the scanned images, I can tell that the illustrations are facsimiles of Denslow's original illustrations for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. However, the format of the book (or should we call it a pamphlet, because it has soft covers) is larger than the original edition of Baum's book. The pamphlet reproduces 16 of Denslow's color plates (in renderings that appear in the scanned images to be very true to the original edition), and several of the original text illustrations set into an abbreviated form of the story. I speculated to one of the individuals that perhaps the pamphlet was produced about the time Life magazine produced its special feature reproducing illustrations from the original edition (December 1953 I think), but that was simply a guess based on the quality of the reproductions. The front cover of the pamphlet is a full-color reproduction of the title page of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There are apparently no internal pieces of evidence indicating anything about the publisher or the date of publication. Does anyone know the source of this publication and when it was produced? For those who would like more information, I can supply as a graphic attachment a jpg image of the front cover (about 250k bytes). Inquiring minds and all that . . . Happy New Year all! Peter Hanff ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 22:56:49 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: leaving "Oz" out of the subject line Barbara Johnson wrote: <> I have a hard time seeing Ozma as representative of America's suffragists. (I seem to recall "suffragettes" was coined by opponents of female suffrage, belittling the movement by using a suffix denoting small and/or female.) The women who march in Baum's books with the political goal of ending their confinement to housework are Jinjur and Ann Soforth. Those ladies are Ozma's antagonists. Baum treats their dreams more sympathetically than some authors of his time would have, but they're still objects of fun, not respect. Furthermore, Ozma embodies no democratic decision-making, as the suffragists wanted. Finally, the picture of Maud Gage Baum that's come down is a fairly muscular wife and mother, not the young and delicate Ozma. Ozma and many other female rulers in Baum's books do represent an ideal of power and goodness (which seem to naturally bring beauty). Envisioning such power in a female form probably helped Baum support, or reflected Baum's support of, women's suffrage. But the relationship between Ozma and suffrage is more likely that Baum felt having women vote meant bringing more of the ideal she represented into American politics. Ruth Berman wrote: <> Did you try JOHN DOUGH & THE CHERUB on her? And thanks for the fascinating run-down of Barrie's versions of PETER & WENDY for the stage. David Hulan wrote: <> The alternate universe/dimension/vibrational-plane explanation also invokes "miracles"--i.e., mechanisms unknown to science. The difference seems to be that it uses longer and more modern terms than "magic" and "fairies," but those are the words that appear in the Oz books. As for indications that we should read Oz as part of this Earth, it doesn't take long to find them. The first sentence of WIZARD is "Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies..." Thus, this fairy story doesn't start once upon a time, or in the days of knights and ladies, or at the back of some wind. Nor is it some unspecified grassland in an unknown world. Rather, it's two states over from where Baum was living, in the middle of his readers' country. Before the end of that first paragraph in WIZARD Baum has prepared us for "one of those great whirlwinds..., mighty enough to crush any building in its path." He invokes no genies or dreams to move the scene to a fairyland. Nor are there firm indications of a trip into another reality. Instead, Baum details a natural weather phenomenon: "In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles as easily as you could carry a feather." Even as Baum's stories move Oz farther away from the continental U.S., he continued to use explicitly natural elements as a bridge to fairylands. And the more he portrayed magic, the more he connected it with Earthly phenomena. In ROAD, Dorothy recognizes Polychrome's rainbow from Kansas; Polly herself would be invisible in America, she says. In EMERALD CITY Glinda fears flying machines spotting the country--unlikely if it's on another world. In TIK-TOK the Queen of Light tells Betsy that electricity was around long before Edison, with the implication [as the Daemon in MASTER KEY echoes] that more powers await discovery. In SCARECROW Trot feels the sea fairies' arms around her in the water--the same fairies who had popped up in a cave off the California coast, the same who had previously transported her hundreds of nautical miles in minutes. Of GLINDA, David Hulan wrote: <> I have a "white cover" edition, and often the frontmatter of those reissues was shuffled (usually the "This Book Belongs to" page became a page of text called "The Famous Oz Books"). This illustration is opposite the contents table. "Princess Dorothy" appears in profile looking right, with a ribbon in her hair and a bonnet in her hand. The "white cover" edition of GLINDA contains no introduction at all--no doubt because a discussion of Baum's death was unnecessary by the 1960s. About the odd spread-out lines in GLINDA [e.g., 91, 114, 178, 222, 267], David Hulan wrote: <> The mystery is that spreading the words to fill top lines isn't consistent: pages 136, 164, and others have widows/orphans without the same extra spacing. Pages 184 and 185 are normal, while page 182 in the same chapter is right-justified. The spreading may have been a quirk of linotype machines that was corrected only in some places, or a designer's choice inconsistently applied, but either way it's an oddity. David Hulan wrote: <> I agree that there's more a degree of difference than a stark shift between Baum's and Thompson's treatments of little kingdoms within Oz. But there do seem to be significant contrasts. First, Baum rarely if ever created small kingdoms of ordinary humans; they tended to be animals, freaks, or distant, isolated human populations. Second, Baum tends to treat the institution of monarchy less respectfully than Thompson. In Thi and the Flathead society, for instance, the king goes by another name and partly disguises his power. In Loonville a subject insults the king's intelligence. Baum enjoyed lese majeste, sparing only Ozma and Glinda. Thompson shows many of her kings as silly, like Pompus, but rarely undercuts the notion of kingship itself. Far more of her heroes have the object of restoring power to crowned heads [or, in GRAMPA, restoring a crowned head], or deposing a bad ruler for a good one. This goes against what made distinct America at its founding; it reflects more conservative, Old World political traditions. Tyler Jones wrote: <> Daniel Mannix's "Annotated ROAD" in two 1990 BUGLEs does indeed say the Shaggy Man "repeated the false story in the Tin Woodman's castle." But all Shaggy tells Nick is that he doesn't want 15 cents back from a man in Butterfield [165]. That's no contradiction with the story he tells Ozma about stealing the Love Magnet from a girl there [208]. He probably spent time in Butterfield since he knows the girl's pastorauling history--time enough to loan 15 cents. And having stolen something valuable would have been a smart reason for Shaggy to leave town before collecting his debts. About Eureka, Ruth Berman wrote: <> Interesting suggestion, David. How'd she cross the Desert without being spotted (or sniffed out) on Johnny Dooit's sand boat? Ruth Berman wrote: <> Last year Paramount stopped Carol Publishing from issuing a book with STAR TREK in the title. This was a trivia book, not fiction, and the legal issues involved a trademark as well as a copyright. But Carol, even while caving before the dispute reached court, complained that Paramount was breaking with precedent and/or creating a new precedent that would stifle future books for fans. Ironically, the STAR TREK franchise is probably the best evidence for the value of fan fiction to the original copyright holders. Tolerating fan fiction and other forms of devotion has allowed Paramount to increase the appeal of its two-year TV series from 30 years ago. Even the "K/S" or "slash" sub-genre, in which Kirk and Spock are lovers, brings in more fans. None of that affects the legality of those unlicensed writings, however. If Paramount wanted to crack down on fan fiction, it could. David Hulan wrote: <> This is one thing that baffles me about some Oz-fan fiction: a seeming wish to fill holes that don't need to be filled. Was anyone losing sleep over not knowing Shaggy's original name? Couldn't Baum have easily revealed Shaggy and his brother's names in TIK-TOK, and didn't he opt not to? Hasn't Shaggy made clear he wants to be just "the Shaggy Man"? Of course, if QUEEN ANN makes this revelation in tight connection to its plot, and Shaggy's response is consistent with how he's behaved before, that wouldn't conflict too harshly with Baum's creation. Otherwise, such "disclosures" seem to undercut an Oz author's credibility: purporting to know new facts about what goes on in Oz and yet being tone-deaf to an Oz tradition. That sputtered, thanks for the recommendation of QUEEN ANN as one of the better recent titles. Dave Hardenbrook wrote: <> Nothing. You've been spooked by some criticism of OZZY FEELING, I fear, into regarding any quibbling comment as an indictment. In this case, Gehan Cooray had suggested that folks hearing about the manuscript disliked how it shows Ozma marrying a non-fairy--an American mortal yet. That detail plays no part in my thoughts on the concept, as you know. Indeed, I confess that, if Ozma *has* to marry, I'd prefer to think of her marrying a thin, bookish fellow with sideburns and a dry sense of humor whose rarest technical skill is driving a stick-shift. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 14:22:41 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Ozzy Things John Bell: Well, actually, I generally have my own moppet on the ozian history, but what I mean is that the Baum Books should be considered official.This does not mean that I hate thompson or any of her books.Infact, I enjoy reading them, but I don't consider them to be "Official". I guess a few Thompson books COULD be considered official, but not most of them: (Very specailly Giant Horse). Here are a few BLOOPERS in her books: *. Glinda would obviously have read about Skamperoo and the wishing emeralds in her GBR. *. What became of Lorna the wood nymph? Was the green mountain even in Oz? Didn't Ozma help the dwarf king? How can Lorna enchnat him without the aid of another person? She isn't a wizardess.........She'll need the Wishing Emeradls *. According to Thompson, Orin was turned into the GWN 25 years ago from the 1920's. Who dealt with Mombi and saw Dorothy then? (I know Dave: It was Locasta, and I accept that, but speaking :"canonically......") *.I don't quite undestand the history of Wunchie, the hammer elf, Ketaria and the Wizard of the Silver Mountains and all that. Can anyone explain? Tyler : I think there really WAS a kingdom earlier in the center of Oz, which the Wizard turned into an Emerald City. In my own history, this kingdom was called Morrow. I dont think the GWN was a minor character. It was SHE who sent Dorothy to the EC. it was because of her that Dorothy met her friends, and you know.......... It was because of her tht the WWW was killed and Tinman became Winkie Emperor. **************************************************************************** ****** Mummy may I go to swim Yes my Darling Daughter Hang your clothes on a hickory limb But dont go near the water. **************************************************************************** ****** ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 13:20:37 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Anthony Donajkowski Subject: oz products <<- - - - - - - - - - - - FOOD - - - - - - - - - - - ->> VITAFORT continues to roll out its WIZARD OF OZ-branded product, shipping more than $400,000 worth of OZ-brand lollipops and gummy candies to WAL-MART outlets across the country. Both the lollipops and gummy candies are packaged in collector's tins with high-resolution color scenes from the film, with candy shaped like Dorothy, The Scarecrow, The Cowardly Lion, and The Tin Man. ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 14:31:43 -0800 From: Steve Teller To: ozzy digest Subject: zzy matters > From: Gehan Cooray > Subject: Children in Oz > > *.Dont folk such as The Wizard, Shaggy Man, Aunt Em, Uncle henry, Dorothy, > Betsy, Trot, Button-bright and Cap'n Bill worry about Church? It seems to me > that there really ARE Churches in Oz. Dorothy and her friends see one in the > China Country. In -Handy-mandy- (Even though I don't consider it official) > Mandy hears the church bells ring. Maybe while passing another country. We > know that Cap'n Bill seems to be a good christian through -Magic-........... > Perhaps I am missing something, but I never thought as Cap'n Bill, or any of the others as being good (or not good) Christians. The only exception is, "being a good Christian woman" in the 1939 movie. Steve T. ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 15:20:30 -0500 (EST) X-Sender: jwhitcom@pop.service.ohio-state.edu To: OzDigest@mindspring.com (Ozzy Digest) From: "James R. Whitcomb" Subject: If anyone can help this person ... Hello again folks! If anyone can help this person please email directly to the address below. I thought with so many Oz "literary"/fantasy/science fiction fans on this newsgroup that someone might be interested. Thanks! Jim. From: JawaHutt@aol.com Save Address Block Sender Hello! I am currently writing an Oz story called Star Wars: The Wizard of Oz. The idea for this came around last October and I had never taken any kind of action towards writing it until I saw that "Star Wars Vs The Wizard of Oz" page. That sort of encouraged me to fulfill the idea. I am currently in the writing and research stage and I am planning to base it on L. Frank Baum's first three Oz books ("The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," "The Marvelous Land of Oz," and "Ozma of Oz") because those three will be the ones that are most familiar to people because of MGM's "The Wizard of Oz" and Disney's "Return to Oz." I am referring to the official sript of the 1939 movie for inspiration and not a transcript. I am also considering using a few elements from the early silent films, but not much since they will be way too obscure to the average reader. What I need is a proofreader that is pretty familiar with Baum's books and style (which I slightly based on "The Dreamer of Oz"), the MGM movie, and at least slightly familiar with main characters and events of Disney's movie. While this is a parody, I don't want to get too far from the characterizations used in Baum's books and/or the two movies. This is why I need a proofreader -- to be a second opinion, mainly. I already have a Star Wars fan that is willing to work on Star Wars elements, so the Oz proofreader wouldn't need to worry about too much. Would you be willing to help proofread it when I am finished? If not, could you reccomend somebody? It may be a while before I get it finished since I mostly have time to do it only on weekends. So far, it is at four chapters (plus the introduction), five pages long. It may be about as long as one of Baum's books, but probably shorter. To give you an idea of the characterizations I'm using, here's a list of a few of the characters I plan to use: Uncle Owen (in the role previously played by Uncle Henry) Aunt Be (aka Beru) (Aunt Em) Luke (Dorothy) R2-D2 (Toto) Professor Kenobi (Professor Marvel, Obi Wan Kenobi) Darth Vader (Wicked Witch of the East) Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Witch of the West, Darth Vader) Emperoress Mombi (Princess/Wicked Witch Mombi, Emperor Palpatine) Han Solo (may slightly change his name, but hasn't got the spice (maybe a reference that Star Wars fans may understand more)) (Scarecrow) Chewbaca/Cowardly Wookie (Cowardly Lion) C-3PO (Hasn't got an emotions chip) (Tin Woodman) Jawas (Munchkins) Yellow Winkies (Winkies, Stormtroopers) The Wizard of Oz (I'm making this one as a surprise ending) Other characters that are undecided as of this moment: Leia (either in a Glinda or Ozma role. Characterization will need to be compromised with these since Leia isn't as cheerful as these two.) Jaba the Hutt (undecided, may not use) If you have any suggestions for the above characters, or have suggestions for other characters, feel free to send them. If you would like to see the logo that I've made for the page that it will go on, let me know and I'll send it to you. Thanks for any help you can offer! -Timothy ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 15:20:28 -0500 (EST) To: OzDigest@mindspring.com (Ozzy Digest) From: "James R. Whitcomb" Subject: If anyone can help this person ... Hello folks, I received the following email from a visitor to my website. If anyone can help this person, please email directly to the address below. Thanks! Jim. From: "Leslie Miller" Save Address Block Sender Reply-To: "Leslie Miller" Just to let you know your website is great! Was wondering since you seem to be on top the the Wiz stuff if you could help me with this. I have a paperback book. It has a red cover, on the front reads The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, has a 50 cents cost stamp on it, Alward Books, Inc logo, inside illustrations by WW Winslow. In the introduction it reads Chicago, April, 1900. This is the only date I can find on this book. It is in such great shape I don't think it could be that old. Anyway, if you have any clues to this book that would help me or know where I can check into it I would be very thankful. Please let me know and thanks so much for you time. Leslie Miller............MICHIGAN ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 08 Jan 99 11:14:05 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things Jill wrote: >So Dave, let me be the first to begin the "1999 OZADE EVENT" (does anybody >know what Whoopi Goldberg is doing?) by requesting your >address so that I can send you a check for my contribution to the fund >to keep the digest running! Dave Hardenbrook 9502 Erskine Drive Huntington Beach CA, 92646-6007 Thanks ahead for everyone's help! -- Dave ====================================================================== -- Dave Dave Hardenbrook, DaveH47@mindspring.com, http://www.mindspring.net/~daveh47/ Castles, Castles in the air Take a paper plane through the rain and you'll be floating free Through those castles growing everywhere Won't you let your mind just unwind; Go upstream toward a dream You can ride on a laugh you can glide on; Behind every cloud is a star To light your way -- The Bugaloos, "Castles In the Air" ] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, JANUARY 9 - 12, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] I apologize to everyone for the squalidness of today's Digest, But there is a bug somewhere in my Digest generating program. (Which I can't fix because all my source code is on my dead Zip drive) So please bear with me folks. -- Dave ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Ozzy Things John Bell: Well, actually, I generally have my own moppet on the ozian history, but what I mean is that the Baum Books should be considered official.This does not mean that I hate thompson or any of her books.Infact, I enjoy reading them, but I don't consider them to be "Official". I guess a few Thompson books COULD be considered official, but not most of them: (Very specailly Giant Horse). Here are a few mistakes in her books: *. Glinda would obviously have read about Skamperoo and the wishing emeralds in her GBR. *. What became of Lorna the wood nymph? Was the green mountain even in Oz? Didn't Ozma help the dwarf king? How can Lorna enchnat him without the aid of another person? She isn't a wizardess.........She'll need the Wishing Emeradls.She cant wish him to be a frog without help. *. According to Thompson, Orin was turned into the GWN 25 years ago from the 1920's. Who dealt with Mombi and saw Dorothy then? (I know Dave: It was Locasta, and I accept that, but speaking :"canonically......") *.I don't quite undestand the history of Wunchie, the hammer elf, Ketaria and the Wizard of the Silver Mountains and all that. Can anyone explain? Tyler : I think there really WAS a kingdom earlier in the center of Oz, which the Wizard turned into an Emerald City. In my own history, this kingdom was called Morrow. I dont think the GWN was a minor character. It was SHE who sent Dorothy to the EC. it was because of her that Dorothy met her friends, and you know.......... It was because of her tht the WWW was killed and Tinman became Winkie Emperor.There are four main characters(Dorothy,The Wizard,Toto and the Good Witch of the North), who can be considered heroes and heroines, although they each didn't do it on purpose. I mean, if Glinda came to help Dorothy, she may have told her to use the silver slippers to return home. If it weren't for the GWN and specially Toto, by now, Dorothy would be long-gone in Langwidere's tower.Betsy will be put to death in the Rose Kingdom and Trot and Cap'n Bill and Button-bright will be long-gone in Jinxland......... Coming to the location of Oz, I do beleive its in some enchanted corner on our earth. I doubt the fact that its on another planet or a so-called parreral-earth. The GWN says:"We are cut off from the rest of the world"; Queen ann wants to conquer the whole world, including Oz; Ozma tells Dorothy tht Erbs existed on earth before man and they want to make life miserable for the earth folk including the Ozites; The Nome King lives near Oz. How could he have kidnapped Shaggy's brother all the way from another planet; How can Betsy and Dorothy and the shaggy man reach another planet without flying? Likewise, there is plenty of proof in the books that Oz IS ON OUR EARTH. --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: What if...... What if the Wizards balloon didn't land in Oz.................? ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest David Hulan: As someone else said, how could Eureka have crossed the deadly Desert if she followed Dorothy? She would have been spotted in the sand boat. I think she just felt lazy in Kansas and asked Dorothy to take her back to Oz. And Dorothy asked Ozma to transport her to the EC by means of the magic belt. That seems to be the only reasonable explantion............ Tyler: Well, maybe our friends do tell a short prayer as they wake up or as they go to sleep. If they don't: "Now, I call that gratitude!". They are ignorant to think that they can live happily in Oz forever, for remember:" God can do anything! He can punish our friends if they forget him. (Slow down Gehan! Whats gotten into you?) Just one more question: *. If the WWW needed the Golden Cap to conquer the winkies, how did the other witches fare to do so? Specially Mombi and Singra who are weak in magic? *. No-one knows wheather the wizard is a man or a beast in -Wizard-. Come on, they saw him during his first visit . The EC may have taken agood twenty years to be built, and untill then, the Wizard didn't shut himself up from everyone. L.F Baum made a mistake there...... --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" To: OzDigest@mindspring.com Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-08-99 Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 08:10:20 PST Gehan: >*. Glinda would obviously have read about Skamperoo and the wishing >emeralds in her GBR. The GBR has been known to be sketchy and cryptic, and not to always give sufficient information. Even if Glinda had read about Skamperoo in the GBR, she might not have considered him to be a threat to Oz. >*. What became of Lorna the wood nymph? Was the green mountain even >in Oz? Melody Grandy answers this question in _The Disenchanted Princess of Oz_. I won't spoil the story for you, but I will state that the mountain is almost certainly in Oz. >Didn't Ozma help the dwarf king? How can Lorna enchnat him without >the aid >of another person? She isn't a wizardess.........She'll need the >Wishing Emeradls Lorna DID have the emeralds. After the dwarf king gave the necklaces to the wood-nymph, she used them to enchant him. >I think there really WAS a kingdom earlier in the center of Oz, which >the >Wizard turned into an Emerald City. In my own history, this kingdom >was called Morrow. Morrow is already the name of another castle in Oz. While it's possible that this could also have been the name of the kingdom in the green country, why not just come up with another name for it? >I dont think the GWN was a minor character. It was SHE who sent >Dorothy to >the EC. it was because of her that Dorothy met her friends, and you >know.......... It was because of her tht the WWW was killed and >Tinman became Winkie Emperor. She was an important plot motivator, true. That doesn't necessarily make her a major character, though. If it weren't for the giant spider, the Cowardly Lion wouldn't have become King of the Forest. Does that make the spider a major character? -- 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 Return-Path: Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 15:36:11 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Oz and ends I saw an edition of WIZARD at Borders the other day which had no interior illustrations, but for the exterior used Neill's ROAD endpapers colorized. (As we recall, those endpapers picture WIZARD characters Neill never drew elsewhere, as well as characters from succeeding Oz books and from JOHN DOUGH.) This book was issued by Borders itself as part of its "value publishing" program--i.e., a book that goes immediately on the remainder/special price table. Nathan DeHoff wrote: <> Start with the golden rule: if your family were looking after your creations, and someone else wrote stories using them, what would you see as the fair thing for that author to do? Would you want a notice acknowledging you created those characters and that they remain under copyright? Would you want a link to where readers could buy your original writing? Or would you want to bar anyone from messing with your creations? That's just a start. Even if you add credit, copyright notice, and recommendations to buy the original books, the copyright-holders could still ask you to remove your stories from public view. But at least you'd be acting fairly by your values first. About the upcoming HIDDEN PRINCE, Nathan DeHoff wrote: <> That is, if the Oz Club manages to make it widely available to people outside the club. Books of Wonder titles are in Borders, Amazon.com, and other bookstores, but I haven't seen the club's editions for sale outside the ~iwoc site, mailings, and events. Anyone know if the Oz Club has plans for retail distribution? Tyler Jones wrote: <> Says the most, definitely. Does the most--if so, that's indeed a secret now. David Godwin wrote: <> Shaggy spoke of the Sandwich Islands *before* bathing in the Truth Pond. Gehan Cooray was comparing two statements he made *after* that bath, and I was pointing out those two are incompatible only if we indulge in stereotypical thinking and say no Eskimo could have been in Butterfield. The problem some Inuit (not all) see with "Eskimo" is that it's not an Inuit term, but derived from the name Algonquians used for their neighbors. Its original meaning isn't pejorative the way "Anasazi" is (that's Navajo for "enemy ancestors"); the Algonquian term seems to mean "woman who wears snowshoes." Therefore, I don't see Eskimo as any more prejudiced than "German" (English for a man who'd call himself "Deutscher"), and I use whichever fits the context. It's even possible that now, as the Canadian Inuit regain political autonomy, there will be value in distinguishing between the people who live in that Inuit territory and people with the same ethnic background under other jurisdictions. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com Return-Path: From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Oz Spread-out lines in _Glinda_: IMHO, the typesetter accidentally justified these lines and no one ever caught most of them before it went to press. I don't know what typesetting method was used in this case, but ISTR vaguely that, on a Linotype, two keys had to be punched at the end of each line: a justify and a return. If the line was to be flushed left and not justified, you would punch quad left, return. A short line at the end of a paragraph would justify if you hit justify, return, by mistake - easy enough to do if you've got a rhythm going. Also hazardous. But that doesn't explain why, in this particular instance, it only occurred with widows. Nathan DeHoff wrote: >I'm wondering whether or not to keep my Oz stories that contain >copyrighted characters up on my web page. I don't think anyone is going to sue you over it out of the blue. You'd probably be safe to keep everything unless or until the copyright owners ask you to take it down, which will most likely never happen. OTOH, Timothy wrote: >I am currently writing an Oz story called Star Wars: The Wizard of Oz. In this case, it looks like a matter of courting trouble. It's true that all of Baum's stuff is pd, but Star Wars sure isn't, and from what I've heard they'e pretty aggressive about protecting Star Wars copyrights and trademarks. You might get by with it for a while, but there is a great risk that they would eventually ask you to cease and desist, in which case your work would be lost. Worst case scenario: a lawsuit. Writing fan fiction like this and sending it to friends or posting it on the web is one thing, but by asking for help with it, you are publicizing it in a public forum, telling us what characters you're going to steal - uh, borrow - and so on, in detail. Not a good idea if you intend to go through with it, and certainly it could never be a commercial effort. I am assuming, of course, that you don't have written permission from Lucasfilm. Back to Nathan DeHoff: >Yes, but neither wood nor hay counts as flesh, and (at least according >to _Forgotten Forest_) it is only flesh that is affected by the desert. The words on the sign, "sands will turn any living flesh to dust in an instant," in _Forgotten Forest_ are taken verbatim from _Road_. But could straw and wood not be considered flesh if they are living? Is not Nick Chopper's "flesh" made of tin? The sign does say "flesh," not "meat." Here's another desert puzzle: RPT in particular makes repeated reference to the deadly fumes of the desert, which make crossing difficult even for high-flying birds. But if the fumes are so powerful, why don't they affect people on a carpet or in a sand boat? In the case of the carpet, we can say the magic protects from fumes as well as the sand itself, but the boat is not particuarly magic. This seems to throw us back on the idea that the desert is deadlier in some places than others. Steve Teller wrote: >Perhaps I am missing something, but I never thought as Cap'n Bill, or >any of the others as being good (or not good) Christians. The only >exception is, "being a good Christian woman" in the 1939 movie. In _Magic_, Cap'n Bill remarks "Most folks forget to thank God for given' 'em two good legs, till they lose one o' 'em, like I did; and then it's too late, 'cept to praise God for leavin' one." As I mentioned before, this statement is certainly religious, and it's typical of the Christian religious attitudes of the day (1919), but it's not _necessarily_ Christian. Good catch about Em's remark in MGMWiz. I noticed it, but it didn't register as important. _Wicked_: I am now reading this novel, and so far I have mixed feelings about it. In order to uphold my reputation as an old curmudgeon, I have to ask, "Why does everything modern and significant also have to be disgusting and depressing?" The discussion of the line of Ozmas is clever and interesting, although I expect everything to culminate in someone named Oozma of Ooze marrying the Nome King. Maybe that could be an idea for a novel, and all the Ozzy Digest contributors go to Oz (or Ooze) to register their objections to the marriage. :) - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 17:22:58 -0500 From: "Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman" Reply-To: adelmaas@musc.edu X-Accept-Language: en I am pleased to announce my new Oz page, reachable at http://www.musc.edu/~adelmaas/Oz.html . This is to be the permanent home of the Historically Inaccurate/Rejected Chronological Chain. Also, in response to being unable to find _American Fairy Tales_ anywhere on the Web, I have converted the copy on my hard drive to HTML and made it available from my Oz page. Enjoy. Aaron -- Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman adelmaas@musc.edu http://www.musc.edu/~adelmaas Pioneer Aviation Attachment Converted: "K:\adelmaas1.vcf" ============================================================ Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 23:22:12 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Jill: I agree with you that those who are able to do so should part with a few $$$$$ to help out the cost of his network time. Dave: Are you making your appeal now or later? John Bell: I detect a new line of reasoning in your arguements for the location of Oz (and some other things). You appear to be concerned that authors and theorists advance such claims and therefore purport to know more about Oz than Baum himself. Where is it written, though, that Baum himself fully understood every aspect of Oz and knew everything there was to know about it? From an Oz-as-history perspective, anyway, it is doubtful that the very first perosn to hear about a new place would gain full knowledge about the place. Christopher Columbus thought that he was in Asia, for example. Gehan: A few points. 1. How do we know that Glinda would "obviously" have read about Skamperoo? On the digest in ages past, we've had a lot of discussion about the scope and detail of Glinda's book. From bits and pieces, we've deduced that it cannot give a full description of what everybody in the world is doing at every moment. Even if it did, it would amount to billions of pages every day and I doubt that even Glinda would be able to read through it all, decided what warrants attention, and act on it. Also, it does not always report on events that we consider important. It may in turn give copious amounts of information on things we don't care about. ********** SPOILER FOR KABUMPO IN OZ ********** When THe Nome King grew into a giant and carried away the entire Emerald Palace, all the book said was that "Ruggedo has something on his mind". ********** END SPOILER ********** For Skamperoo's entire operation, the Book may only have said "The King of Skampavia is polishing his new necklace". Again, you're falling into the trap of assuming that the Ozzy powers know all, hear all, and see all. They don't. They may be fairies, wizards, sorcerers, etc., but they are not infinite. 2. We don't know much about Lorna at all, but just because we are not given a full dissertation on her history does not mean that the book isn't official. 3. If you only accept the FF, then the date of 25 years was an estimate that may have been a few years off. 4. Hmmm, this is quite a bit to handle. Could somebody else mail Gehan privately with the straight dope on _Handy Mandy in Oz?_ ********** SPOILER FOR GIANT HORSE ********** Gehan again: It really depends on what you mean by a major character. Joe King, for example, is one of the most important people in Oz, by virtue of his being ruler of the Gilikins, yet he is almost never mentioned in the series. Is he a major character or not? I would say no; you would say yes. ********** END OF SPOILER ********** More thoughts on _Glinda_: When I noticed the difference in how Coo-Ee-Oh and the Su-Dic reacted to Ozma's rule, I figured that Coo-Ee-Oh was not much form informational magic. Her magic seems to be fairly mechanical in nature. Then I remembered her ability to hear all words in her city, until Ozma put the kibosh on it. Coo-Ee-Oh may not have had any long distance magic, and either the Su-Dic (or his wife) did, or he employed spies. I almost abbreviated Coo-Ee-Oh as CEO, but I decided not to. :-) Tyler Jones ====================================================================== From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Oz Clothing in Oz: This has been discussed before, at length, but I have a new point to make. I assume that most of the natives of Oz dress much as they always have, at least ever since Lurline. I also assume that immigrants to Oz would either continue to wear the type of clothing they were used to (i.e., clothing appropriate for 1900-1920, for the LFB bunch, and later for later arrivals) or adapt the styles of the Ozites around them. I seem to be virtually alone in assuming that they are not going to change all this because they suddenly become aware of more modern styles, even if they are much more "comfortable" and/or "practical." (I notice, by the way, that even when Dorothy, Trot, etc. are depicted wearing shorts or jeans, the Wizard retains his turn-of-the-century garb.) Just because a female immigrant arrives wearing jeans and a T-shirt and sneaks - undeniably way more practical for tredding the Ozzy landscape - every woman in Oz is not going to suddenly realize the advantages of the new style and start emulating it. I can't imagine some Munchkin lad saying, "Oh, you mean I don't _have_ to wear this silly peaked hat with the bells around the rim? I can wear a baseball cap, or even go bareheaded? Why didn't I think of that before!" The reason I doubt this sort of sartorial satori is threefold: (1) It detracts from the charm of Oz. Everything that makes Oz less exotic and more like contemporary America is a downer. (2) It doesn't happen in the real world, except very gradually over a long period of time. The Romans did not start wearing trousers when they encountered the barbarians, despite the fact that their legs got cold a lot. Admittedly, religious motives may be involved - although I think it's actually more of a cultural thing - but women in Iran have not started wearing shorts and tees, undeniably far more comfortable and practical than those black hooded things, just because they know that Americans do. (3) My mother, who will shortly be 95, and her sister-in-law, my Aunt Hazel, who is a contemporary of Dorothy (having been born in 1894), both continue to dress in conservative styles. They regard pantsuits, shorts, and other garb worn by 1990s women as inexcusably slovenly. "Why do they want to dress so sloppy?" my mother says. "Don't they care what they look like? Those outfits are ridiculous!" This attitude may be reasonable or not, just as you choose to see it, but it is also an attitude typical of that generation, which is D orothy's generation. Appearance was much more important to them than comfort or practicality. That's why men are cursed with ties and tuxes even to this very day, Betsy Bobbin: In several of the later RPT books, Betsy is consistently spelled Bettsy, with two ts. Is this a "Thompsonism" or a misprint? If a misprint, is it confined the the Del Rey editions (which is what I have for most of these books)? If a mistake (or refinement) on the part of RPT, is there any reasonable explanation for it? - David G. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you all Kansas." "That is because you have no brains," answered the girl.... The Scarecrow sighed. "Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains." ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 18:09:13 GMT With other writing deadlines the past few days I'm behind again, but now I should be able to keep up for the foreseeable. 1/6: Gehan: >*.Dont folk such as The Wizard, Shaggy Man, Aunt Em, Uncle henry, Dorothy, >Betsy, Trot, Button-bright and Cap'n Bill worry about Church? We don't know that they don't go to church, though we never see them doing so. My guess would be that none of them but Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and Cap'n Bill would be likely to go to church even if there are churches in the EC. (Dorothy might as a courtesy to her aunt and uncle.) The Wizard has never struck me as the churchly type, and Shaggy was a tramp in the US, a type who rarely goes to church except sometimes in search of a handout. And kids mostly don't go to church if they're not coerced. Tyler: >Ozma's rule on who can or cannot practice magic seems to be stretched a >little in this story. The Adepts apparantly are granted an exception to this >rule and Reera is not prevented from her own practice. Ozma's rule on who can or cannot practice magic seems to be highly flexible, actually. We see characters other than Ozma, Glinda, and the Wizard practicing magic in almost every book where much of the action takes place in Oz. Sometimes Ozma stops them; more often she doesn't. Dr. Pipt in PG is stopped, and Blinkie in _Scarecrow_, but Blinkie's associates aren't tracked down and stopped. Ugu is stopped in LP, but there's no evidence the bear king is told not to use his magic. Mrs. Yoop is stopped in TW, but Nimmie Amee is still using magic and nothing is done about her. Bini Aru voluntarily stops using magic in _Magic_, and Kiki Aru is stopped, but nothing is done about the Lonesome Duck or the Kalidah King. And there are the examples you mention in _Glinda_. And that's just Baum; there are even more magic-workers who get no condemnation in the Thompson books. Ruth: It might well be that Omby Amby and Wantowin Battles are the same person with multiple names - although Thompson does say in _Ozoplaning_ that the SGW's parents had named him "Wantowin," so it doesn't seem as if it could just be a nickname. But they might have named him Ambrose Wantowin Battles, with the rest of the derivation of "Omby Amby" as you say. Is your niece Harriet the one I met that time over at Jean's? It sounds like her personality that you describe, but I'm terrible at remembering names. I think Baum was expressing, if not exactly contempt, amused condescension toward competitive sports in his characterization of the Wogglebug's college. The ending of _Peter Pan_ with grown-up Wendy and her daughter Jane is used in the musical version of the play, most classically done by Mary Martin (back in the late Fifties IIRC, often repeated on TV). J.L.: > Two related questions: What are the chances that Gini Wickwar's HIDDEN >PRINCE will be accepted (sight unseen) as canonical? Does reading certain >books or authors in early childhood irrevocably affect what one accepts >about Oz? I would say that the chances are that Gina Wickwar's _Hidden Prince_ will be accepted as canonical by the same people who accept the other post-FF books by FF authors as canonical, and not by the rest. I don't expect to consider it canonical, though I'll accept it as Historically Accurate if it is. And probably with more authority than the Buckethead or ECP books. As to whether reading certain books or authors in early childhood irrevocably affects what one accepts about Oz - "irrevocably" is a strong word, but I think it can't help but affect one's view of Oz. I've already discussed my own childhood reading, and should probably also mention that I owned certain books from childhood and reread them much more often than I could reread the ones I'd only borrowed, hence my view of Oz is undoubtedly more shaped by those books than by the rest. (FWIW, they were Wizard, Land, EC, Rinkitink, LP, TW, Magic, Kabumpo, Speedy, Wishing Horse, Silver Princess, Ozoplaning, and Lucky Bucky. Magical Mimics and Shaggy Man were added when they appeared, but I was already 11 or 12 when the first of those came out and a teen for the second.) Naturally I've refined my ideas about Oz since then, both as a result of having read the remaining books more often (after acquiring my own copies) and because of discussions with other Oz fans, at conventions and especially here on the Digest. But my fundamental view of Oz was surely shaped by the books I read many times when I was young. >I recall this same episode causes problems in calculating the size of >Oz--could Mombi and the Sawhorse run from the Emerald City to the very edge >of the country in an hour [and without bumping into any communities of >cranky oddballs]? I would say that the Sawhorse should be able to run from the EC to the southern edge of Oz in an hour without much difficulty, and if the griffin was able to stay ahead of it then it could do so as well. My estimate of the size of Oz puts the center of the EC about 45 miles from the desert due south. If we assume that Glinda's camp was some miles to the south of the city center, that means the Sawhorse only needs to sustain about 40 mph. That's not unreasonable; we know the Sawhorse was about twice as fast as Jim, and although he was an old horse he was undoubtedly straining, and horses can certainly go faster than 20 mph for short distances. We also know from _Glinda_ that the Sawhorse can get to Glinda's palace (which I believe is supposed to be near the desert; it is on the map, but I think it's also stated somewhere in the FF though I can't cite a reference), pulling the Red Wagon, in less than two hours. While the weight of the wagon might not slow the Sawhorse much, I'm sure it would still not be traveling at top speed because even minor bumps in the road might overturn the wagon. Jeremy: >That graphic novel can't be right, since both the Sawhorse AND the Scarecrow >are made of something that was once living (wood and hay, respectively), so >that the Desert WOULD have power over them. The sign Dorothy and Co. see in _Road_ says the desert destroys "living flesh," not "anything that is organic." >Please tell me more about _Oz-Story Magazine_ (in a private post if you like, >or print it here for all). That is, address, publication info, etc. OSM is published by Hungry Tiger Press, which is basically David Maxine and Eric Shanower. I forget the address and it isn't handy (somewhere down in the basement), but I'm sure you can get it by E-mailing David Maxine at HungryTige@aol.com. >Ozma's reluctance to use the belt: >Perhaps she is required by some fairy law we don't know about to use the least >magic to do the most work--that is, to use magic only when absolutely >necessary. If so then it's odd that she uses it for something like providing a meal for herself and Dorothy in _Glinda_. (Not the belt, but magic.) ><herself.>> > >The only Oz characters invented at the time were those of Baum and herself, so >I don't think that's much of a compliment. But nevertheless, Snow's refusal to use Thompson characters didn't prevent him from inventing his own - so by what standard should he be considered more faithful to Baum? David G.: >Consistency: >Peter Glassman remarks in his afterward to DotWiz that "One of the >interesting things about L. Frank Baum's writings is that he was never >overly troubled by a need for consistency." Apparently the same thing >applies to John R. Neill. Oh, definitely. Neill was constantly changing the appearance of characters, aside from the fact that his illustrations frequently are contradicted by the text. We had a bit of discussion about Toto a couple of weeks ago. >What did the dust jacket >illustration look like on ECOz as published by R&L during the 1940s? Ozma is riding the Sawhorse, sidesaddle, wearing a green gown with a fitted top, with the EC in the background. This was a new cover done by Neill in 1929, IIRC. It's rather similar to a b/w illustration in _Yellow Knight_ (p. 25), except that in the latter illustration she's wearing a sort of sleeveless jump suit. That illustration in YK, by the way, is the first appearance of Ozma in fitted clothing (unless the "slinky Ozma" cover for _Ozma_ or the above-described one for EC came first - I think they're all from the same year). Dave: I'll try to remember to send to the new address, but it would be helpful if you could arrange to send the Digest from that address so that we can just hit "Reply", as of old, and don't have to remember to manually change the "To:" address. If that's a problem then we'll do what we must. Sorry to hear your Zip drive bit the dust. Will try to remember to send something toward its replacement. 1/8: Nathan: >I'm wondering whether or not to keep my Oz stories that contain >copyrighted characters up on my web page. It depends on how paranoid you are. Technically, what you're doing is almost certainly illegal. Practically, what are the odds that Dorothy Maryott or the Neill or Payes heirs are going to notice? Or care enough to bother doing anything about it? At worst you'd probably get a cease-and-desist letter. (If you're using McGraw characters you should be more worried, though not unduly.) Tyler: OK, I misremembered the distinction between "widows" and "orphans." As I said at the time, I wasn't sure. .Someone (I forgot who) postulated that Eureka secretly followed Dorothy in >_Road_, and then when she was found out, nobody had the heart to send her >back to Kansas alone, since her people were already in Oz. That was me, sort of at least. In an unpublished MS I have Eureka following Dorothy in _Road_ and hiding out (with Professor Nowitall) until Dorothy returns to Oz for good. Then the Professor appeals Ozma's original sentence and successfully argues his case, so Eureka can stay in Oz and not be confined to Dorothy's quarters. David G.: Sure, I remember Rick Brant - I even reread the whole series about a year and a half ago (all that I have, that is - there are four or five late ones that I've never been able to find). Ken Shepherd, who used to post here fairly regularly but hasn't lately (I don't know if he's even still reading the Digest; I think he just got married last year) is also a Brant fan. I still think Rick Brant was distinctly the best-written of the "boys' adventure" series from the Forties and Fifties, although some of the "science" wasn't accurate. J.L.: >This [Thompson's respect for monarchy] goes against >what made distinct America at its founding; it reflects more conservative, >Old World political traditions. Well, yes, but Baum made all Oz a monarchy, remember. And each of the quarters has its own monarch, acto _Road_, and most of the small political units I mentioned a couple of posts back are monarchies and not republics. <> >Interesting suggestion, David. How'd she cross the Desert without being >spotted (or sniffed out) on Johnny Dooit's sand boat? Toto and Polychrome knew she was with them all along, and had agreed not to give her away. She got onto the sandboat and across the desert by hiding under Polychrome's skirts. The revelation of Shaggy's real name in _Queen Ann_ is not one of its more successful bits. However, it's not particularly obtrusive; just a couple of paragraphs. The book is still very good, my favorite of all the ECP books. (My own being outside consideration, of course.) Gehan: >*. Glinda would obviously have read about Skamperoo and the wishing emeralds >in her GBR. Not necessarily. Glinda was in the EC for the Big Party by the time Skamperoo (or more accurately, Chalk) discovered how to use the emeralds. Before she left the max the GBR probably said was something like: "The ruler of Skampavia has acquired the emeralds of Lorna the Wood Nymph and used them to get himself a horse." Which wouldn't sound particularly threatening. >I dont think the GWN was a minor character. It was SHE who sent Dorothy to >the EC. it was because of her that Dorothy met her friends, and you >know.......... It was because of her tht the WWW was killed and Tinman >became Winkie Emperor. The GWN certainly had a major input to the story, but as a _character_ she was minor, appearing on less than 4% of the pages of the book, all in one block. The major characters of _Wizard_ are Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion; I consider all the others (including the Wizard, the WWW, and Glinda) as relatively minor, with the WWW and the Queen of the Field Mice probably having the next best claims to being major. David Hulan ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 07:22:16 -0400 (EDT) From: earlabbe@juno.com (Earl C.Abbe) Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission - Oz Park Commentary >From the Reporter's Notebook, Kansas City Business Journal, January 11, 1999 "'Wonderful World' best reserved for Disney, not Oz" by Jim Davis "DISNEYLAND -- The magic of this kingdom lies in its endless capacity for regeneration. "The memories that are spawned span generations -- as witnessed last week by my 5-year-old son Spencer, when he joined me on his first visit to the legendary theme park. "But Disneyland has changed markedly since opening in 1955, and its evolution holds lessons for planners of the long-anticipated Wonderful World of Oz, who believe their vision can reclaim the old Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in De Soto. "The Oz project, whose leaders avow taking cues from Disney, has encountered widespread skepticism since its unveiling more than seven years ago. "Not enough people live near the proposed attraction, so the thinking goes, and even if Oz's reach could be extended to capture a sufficiently large population, our sometimes-harsh climate cuts the season too short to make the grandiose scheme work financially. "My visit to Southern California confirmed these realities. While the Midwest braced to be walloped by snow, Disneyland basked under a smog-shrouded sun (hey, no place is perfectly idyllic -- and don't forget about those earthquakes) that pushed afternoon temperatures into the 70s. "Nor were we the only winter-numbed visitors who found ourselves squinting at palm trees in the unaccustomed warmth. Perhaps the largest such contingent was made up of University of Wisconsin backers, who trekked down to cheer their team to a Rose Bowl win. "Kansas City, for all its self-effacing charm, holds no such allure. "Perhaps the most charitable assessment recently rendered came in 'The Nine Nations of North America,' a regionalist examination that identified Kansas City as the capital of the so-called Breadbasket. "But even that characterization -- which has been cited frequently by backers of the Power & Light District, another ambitious entertainment-driven endeavor, as evidence that their dream will become reality -- carries baggage. "For while the Breadbasket is hailed as having built a prosperous, renewable economy based on food production, its populace is characterized as being on the other side of the cutting edge. "'In a time of change in the way we look at the value of work, the desirability of marriage and having a family, how trustworthy our governments are, and what constitutes patriotism,' the text reads, 'the Breadbasket has come to be the ratifier of what constitutes a truly mainstream continental idea.' "Of course, a convincing argument could be made that these qualities are perfectly aligned with the demographics of the proposed Oz park's audience. If nothing else, Midwesterners' tastes for wholesome pursuits -- in what 'The Nine Nations' describes as the land for which the 1957 Chevrolet and warm summer nights were invented -- should provide a friendlier atmosphere for family-oriented recreation than trendy L.A. "But here, too, lies a rub. For while the Oz imprimatur continues to brand our collective psyche -- as was most recently evidenced by the Kansas State University marching band's Alamo Bowl performance -- it's questionable how many ways this tale can be told. "What works for a casual reference or a song or even a movie won't necessarily translate into the basis for an entertainment empire. And while the Oz library includes 40 books by L. Frank Baum as well as the 1939 film classic, its appeal is questionable because these stories are little known to generations raised on 'The Wonderful World of Disney' and its descendants. "My analysis, based on a one-person focus group made up of my son, suggests the Oz franchise needs updating. This fall, when Spencer and I saw 'The Wizard of Oz' at the Midland Theatre in downtown Kansas City, he was less than enthralled by special effects that can't help but pale in comparison to computer-generated animation. "By contrast, Spencer reveled in the myriad of characters roaming Disneyland. "When it came time for him to choose a memento, Spencer's choice was telling. After eyeing merchandise tied to 'A Bug's Life,' he opted for a stuffed incarnation of Mickey Mouse. "Aware of the character's ties to Kansas City through its creator, who once lived here, Spencer explained that he wanted to take Mickey Mouse home because he's the truest representative of the Disney theme. "There's a reason why our culture's most beloved figures attain that status. "If the Wonderful World of Oz's proponents can find a way to update their concept, embodied by a movie whose flashiest trick is adding color to black-and-white images, they might have the start of an idea to build upon." Earl Abbe ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 18:01:39 -0500 From: David Levitan X-Accept-Language: en,ru Subject: Oz Newsgroup RFD Posted Hi, I have submitted an RFD (Request for Discussion) for an Oz Newsgroup. To participate in the discussion, please go to news.announce.newgroups. Thank you, David Levitan wizardofoz@bigfoot.com ====================================================================== From: "Bob Collinge" Subject: 2nd Annual Wizard of Oz Fiesta of New England Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 17:00:03 -0500 Greetings, Fellow Oz Fans, I am now planning the 2nd Annual Wizard of Oz fiesta of New England. It will be on Saturday, April 17th, from 10:00am to 4:00pm, in Fitchburg, MA.. I need ideas, all ideas, any ideas, on more events to do this year. Any help at all would be appreciated. Thank you in advance, Bob ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 18:02:38 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things Tyler wrote: >Are you making your appeal now or later? It's true I usually do my annual "handing of the cap 'round for contributions" in the Summer; but I *need* it now, so I'm doing it now... -- 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, JANUARY 13 - 15, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 22:39:51 -0500 From: Lisa Mastroberte Organization: :-) X-Accept-Language: en Subject: How Eureka Got to Oz and Other Tales :-) <> Hmmmm....maybe. Or.......maybe when in _Emerald City_ where Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are tranported to Oz Ozma brought the kitten to Oz, too, only we don't know it. But do you think that LFB thought about all this when Eureka appears in _Patchwork_? =:-0 Gehan: <> Then, the EC wouldn't be built....and... if Dorothy still landed in Oz, the GWN would probably say "I'm so very sorry, Ms. Gale, but nobody can help you. You'll have to stay here." Or, maybe, she would direct her and Toto to Glinda and then they would have a very different adventure. (Follow the Red Brick Road, maybe? :)) They would come across the Hammer-Heads, the Dainty China Country, and hey, who knows? Maybe the princess would join the gang and become a main character. Then Ozma wouldn't be hidden away by the Wizard and she wouldn't be changed into Tip. Then she would directly become queen of Oz and then.......well, a whole lot of stuff would happen. J.L. Bell wrote: <> I've seen the book for sale at Walden Books. It's a nice editon, perfect for those people who you want to get started on the Oz series. : ~Lisa mastroberte ------------------------------ "The last thing I remember is walking through a forest and hearing a loud noise. Now here I am, flying through the air. What AM I, anyway?" ~The Gump, Return to Oz, 1985 ====================================================================== From: JawaHutt@aol.com Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 23:28:22 EST Subject: Oz "In this case, it looks like a matter of courting trouble. It's true that all of Baum's stuff is pd, but Star Wars sure isn't, and from what I've heard they'e pretty aggressive about protecting Star Wars copyrights and trademarks." So far, the only aggressive action that I'm aware of has occured in the following cases: 1) Prequal information being released on the web (when they saw they couldn't really stop it, they bought all prequal related domain names) 2) The www.starwarsdvd.com domain name (most likely copyright was the only way to get this domain name without releasing information about the upcoming DVD release too early because the lawyers for this case weren't their usual lawyers and Lucas is very aggressive when keeping things a secret until they are ready. Also, domains like theforce.com and jedinet.com go untouched.) 3) Midi files from LucasArts games -- may be a rumor. I've seen a few sites saying they heard of other sites get letters from lawyers, but I have not actually seen any sites that actually have. I've seen plenty of sites that LucasArts do know about that have just about every midi from their games, yet they have said nothing to them about neither the graphics or midis used. These are also sites that don't have permission of any kind. "Writing fan fiction like this and sending it to friends or posting it on the web is one thing, but by asking for help with it, you are publicizing it in a public forum, telling us what characters you're going to steal - uh, borrow - and so on, in detail. Not a good idea if you intend to go through with it, and certainly it could never be a commercial effort." My intent wasn't to publicize it in a public forum. My original intent was to privately e-mail an Oz fan to help me with Oz aspects of the story or reccomend somebody that would be able to help me. After that, I would've probably done some publicizing to a few friends, who may link to it on their page, by their choice, and then whatever goes after that. "I am assuming, of course, that you don't have written permission from Lucasfilm." This is also whether you use the "fair use" clause or not. In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled that copyrighted things, such as parodies, did not need permission or royalties as long as it is made clear that part of it is not original and credit is given where needed and in other uses as well (may be surprising, but this law came because of 2 Live Crew). Parodies and such can act as a "fair use" of an original. There are boundaries there, I'm sure. According to JediNet.com's disclaimer, it is defined in Title 17 of the US Code. I looked up Title 17 and found the Fair Use amendment to be in section 107. Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-- (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Since a song parody brought this amendment, it would probably include any kind of parody as well, including non-profit stories that include characters that may be copyrighted. But, it may also be a judgement call -- depending on whether the . As of now, I have not seen any suits from Lucas over pictures or fan fics -- even when the picture is distorted (such as in the Official Site Gag). -Timothy ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Ozzy Things Thoughts on the GBR: Well I guess Glinda may NOT have read the book before going to Ozma's party since it has billions of pages day after day. Come to think of it, the book only seems to record important events in fairyland, though she says:"Every Action that takes place in the world". If she knows all this, why not help US for once? Why not help the thousands who are dying in Sri-lanka thanks to this terrible war trhan preventing a silly battle between the Skeezers and Flatheads? Why not help all those who are in hunger in places like Ethiopia? Why not help those who cant share all the comfortsthe Ozites do?....... Thoughts on RPT, Jack Snow, GWN, Orin and Cheeriobed: *. Dont you think RPT should rather say that Mombi enchanted Gayallette and turned her into an old witch who forgot about her past rather than having Orin? Wouldn't itr make more scense if Mombi conquered Gayallette's kingdom in the North, turned her into an old witch who forgot that she was actualkly enchanted? Then, the enchanted witch managed to defeat Mombi and rule the north and was later dis-enchanted in one way or another? It would have been better if the Witch of the east enchanted the Sapphire City and the Royal Family and they too were discovered one way or another. Otherwise, if Thompsons theory IS true, the only sensible theory is Dave's theory on Locasta and Orin and Mombi. But still, I'd have preffered if the GWN was always a normal witch. *. Jack Snow says that Glinda and Ozma went tyo the Forest of Burzee for 3 days, yet Ozma visited Glinda for weeks in -Shaggy Man-. I think it would have been better if they visited Burzee for weeks(atleast one week), yet Ozma visited Glinda for 3 or 4 days. There would have been an even more exiting adventure then because....... SPOILER FOR MAGICAL MIMICS IN OZ: Queen Ra and King Umb have more time to conquer Oz, and Ozana,Dorothy,Uncle Henry, the Saw-Horse and the Wizard may have come to Oz and........ END OF SPOILER. BTW........................... *.How does Shaggy know Johnny Dooit? He seems to be a kind of fairy, and there are no fairies in the states. It seems as if Shaggy has dealt or associated people with magic. Know what I mean? How did the girl in Butterfeild find a powerful love magnet which can win hearts? Glad Jack Snbow filled that one. But I cant imagine how Shaggy could have met a fairy who can appear in minutes, in the states. Anyone know the answer? *. What do the High prists have to do Oz? *.RPT wrote a book in which Glinda celebrates her 100th aniversary as Queen of the South. What was its name? ........................................ --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: "Ruth Berman" X-Minuet-Version: Minuet1.0_Beta_16 Subject: oz stuff A note for those worried about the purchase by Barnes & Noble of Ingram, the main supplier of books to independent booksellers -- someone on another list-serve I belong to forwarded a petition protesting this purchase as monopolistic that people were being asked to sign and (if a multiple-of-50-signer) forward to the American Booksellers Association for them to use in turn in petitioning Congress, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to block the sale. If some of you would be interested in signing this, let me know, and I'll e-mail you a copy. Gehan Cooray: Besides what Nathan DeHoff mentions about Melody Grandy's "Disenchanted Princess" -- "Wishing Horse" doesn't specify where the Lorna and the Green Mountain were, but since the wizard Wam was active in Ozian history in "Cowardly Lion," it's at least likely that Lorna was an Ozite in getting hold of a Wam-spelled necklace. I suspect the Haff/Martin map may have placed the Green Mountain in the Quadling Country because there was already a green mountain there, Big Enough Mountain ("Speedy"). (You might think it would go better in the Emerald territory, but I suppose they were avoiding putting it there because some of the books speak of the green central area as not very hilly.) If the Wizard's balloon hadn't landed in Oz -- well, one amusing possibility (depending on how you date his arrival and Nolandian/Ixian history) might be that he could have landed at the Nole city-gate just ahead of Bud and become the king of Noland. Or, of course, he could have dropped in the Deadly Desert, and been heard of no more. It's probably not a mistake on Baum's part to have the Emerald Citians unsure about the Wizard's real form. Even those who saw him in man-form before he shut himself up in the castle might be have been feeling some doubt about whether that was his real shape, especially if he did something in the way of displaying his various (and apparently convincing) costumes to them as well as to Dorothy & Co. David Godwin: Your reaction to "Wicked" is similar to the ones mentioned earlier by various Digest-commenters -- certainly interesting and clever, but not pleasant reading. Some hated it intensely, and some enjoyed the clever ideas enough to think it worth reading overall, in spite of the depressing side of it. (I don't think it works overall, and probably won't re-read it, but was glad to have read it the once.) The double-t spelling of Bettsy is probably RPT's preference in spelling the name rather than a misprint by R&L typesetters (she also used that spelling in some of her Philadelphia "Public Ledger" writings). At the Oz-as-if-real level, though it could be considered simply an error, even so, though. (Or maybe Betsy was experimenting with changing the spelling of her name temporarily, as some youngsters do.) David Hulan: Yes, Harriet is the niece of mine you met. Now she's 12, and isn't much interested in the Oz books at present. But I hope she may come back to them later. Right now she finds sf more interesting than fantasy. (J.L. Bell -- No, I didn't introduce her to "John Dough and the Cherub," although if she gets interested in the Oz-world again later, and if there's a nice edition of "John" available by then, I probably should. My own copy is too fragile to be shared around much.) And yes, most performances of "Peter Pan" nowadays use the grown-up Wendy scene. I think some just re-dramatized it from the narrative version in the novel, but several years ago the script for that scene got published as a small book, "When Wendy Grew Up" (1957) and so is widely available. Dave Hardenbrook: Discussion of "Glinda" seems to be about at an end now. Time to set a date to begin discussion of "Royal Book"? Ruth Berman ====================================================================== From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Royal Book of Oz ****SPOILER _Royal Book_ and _Visitors_ SPOILER**** It states in _Royal Book_ that the Scarecrow "received the spirit of the Emperor Chang Wang Woe" when he was placed on the magic bean stalk. According to some, this is supposed to account for the fact that he, unlike every other scarecrow in Oz, is alive. But WWiz plainly states that he first became aware when the farmer painted an ear on the sack that was to become his head and heard himself being discussed - a good while before he ever came near the pole. Is this a case of possession, or what? Or could it simply be an error on the part of RPT? Personally, I never cared at all for this tale of the history of the Scarecrow for various reasons. Has anyone else ventured to explain why he is alive, and other Ozzy scarecrows are not (ignoring _Royal Book_)? In the same scene in which this revelation takes place, the Scarecrow says, "That accounts for my cleverness." But in every other instance before and after, he attributes his cleverness to the brains given him by the Wizard and it doesn't seem as if he would even consider any other alternative. (If we're discussing Oz-as-literature, then we have to say, "Ah, it was her first Oz book. Give her a break." But Oz-as-history requires a better explanation. He was disoriented from his slide down the bean pole, right?) I find it ironic, by the way, that Martin Gardner has Ku-Klip criticizing the crazies in the U.S. who believe in "astrology, flying saucers, reincarnation, and hundreds of other ridiculous things," when the Scarecrow (according to _Royal Book_) represents an example of reincarnation. (In fact, Gardner's whole book had an air of irony about it because of the unexploited tension between the reality of Oz on the one hand and the appearance of several of Gardner's hard-nosed skeptic buddies on the other.) ****end SPOILER**** David G, ====================================================================== From: Wallace Hubbard Subject: March Laumer (via friend, Wally Hubbard) March Laumer has just had the opportunity of seeing what is stated about the VANITAS PRESS Oz books in the Ozzy Digest Internet entries and comments as follows: "Thanks for the effort to be impartial on reporting judgments on Laumer-Oz book contents. I am sorry to disappoint readers who have been looking for violence and pornography in the said books. Alas, there isn't a speck of it; certainly nothing to compare with axing 40 wolves to death or wringing the necks of 40 crows. Or, if there is, I would be grateful to have interested readers point out where such lapses occur. Incidentally, some may be glad to hear that two new VANITAS PRESS offerings are now available at $20 each, by check to Laumer, 1029-B 10th Street, N.W., Largo, FL 33770. They are: DRAGONS IN OZ, 206 pp., and THE WOOZY OF OZ; THE TALKING CITY OF OZ (by R. Baxley, Jr.) a two-short novel volume, 211 pp." ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Books Speaking about the main characters in each books. Here MPOV (My point of View) *The Wizard of Oz Although the main character is Dorothy,Dorothy in Oz wouldn't have been a good name. The Wizard of Oz is better because if the reader was reading the book for the first time ever, he will be curious to know about the mystery of the Wizard. the book is really sort of based on the mysterious Wizard. What is his proper shape? From where did he come from? Will he grant Dorothy's request? e.t.c . Anyone know what I mean. *.The Land of Oz This book should have been called Ozma of Oz because the mystery is on Ozma: her dissapearnce. Its not really based on the "land" of Oz. *.Ozma of Oz I'm not so sure about this one. Any iedias? Dorothy's adventures in Oz (actually Nomeland) might be good. *.DotWiz Good Title *.Road to Oz Good Title *.Emerald City of Oz The Land of Oz would have been better. Remeber: Dorothy comes to live in OZ, they go on a tour around OZ, and Roquat wants to conquer OZ.Its really based more on the "land" of Oz. *.Patchwork Girl of Oz Good Title *.Tiktok of Oz Hmmmmmmmmmm......Any iedias? *.The Scarecrow of Oz Any iedias? *.Rinkitink in Oz I haven't read the book. From what i've heard, it seems to be a good title *.Lost Princess-Good Title (Its based on a lost princess) *.Tinwoodman of Oz -Good Title. Since the story is about TINMAN"S search for Nimmie Amee. (BTW, Nimmie sounds more like a Sinhalese nick-name for someone) *. The Magic of Oz- Not bad. *. Glinda of Oz- As Daid Hulan said: this should have been called -The Magic of Oz-. But since -Magic of Oz- seems to suit the other book as well......... *.The Wishing Horse of Oz- Its not really about the Wishing Horse. Wishing emeralds would have been better. Since the background is on the wishing emeralds. The Reader is most curious on how the emeralds work. There! This shows that a title of a book doesn't have to be based on the main character. Its really the main iedia, or rather the background or what the story is about thats important, and should be used as a title. Anyopne know what I mean? --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 08:37:25 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Christopher Columboz A while back, I praised a pamphlet called "L. Frank Baum in Aberdeen" for both its production values and its portrait of a frontier city. I now understand this pamphlet is available for $2 (including postage) from the author, Don Artz (dartz@iw.net), for folks who can't make a trip to the Dacotah Prairie Museum in Aberdeen, S.D. Gehan Cooray wrote: <> This view assumes that (a) there's a guiding force in the universe; (b) it's a single, willful being, i.e., God; (c) God cares about what we humans do; and (d) God changes our lives in response to what we do. Philosophers have questioned all of those assumptions in the last few centuries. Only the first is supported by statements from Baum's fantasies. David Godwin quoted the most explicitly religious statement in the Oz series, Cap'n Bill's remark, "Most folks forget to thank God for givin' 'em two good legs, till they lose one o' 'em, like I did; and then it's too late, 'cept to praise God for leavin' one." As David G. points out, that's probably but <> It's also not necessarily reliable. The first thing we ever heard from Cap'n Bill, after all, was that mermaids were awful creatures, and no one ever lived to tell the tale of seeing them. We should therefore be skeptical of his remarks about the immortal realm; they may be based on received wisdom as much as his real wisdom. Gehan Cooray wrote: <> For all the Ozians knew, the Wizard could have been a beast come in the *shape* of a man, just as the Li-Mon-Eags arrived in the Forest of Gugu in assumed shapes. David Godwin wrote: <> Thanks for this recollection. It definitely appears to be a mechanically-eased mistake. A printer's devil setting by hand would have checked the manuscript before going to the trouble of justifying the lines. Tyler Jones wrote: <> I don't claim that Baum nails every "fact" about Oz in his books. Indeed, in addition to noting contradictions and suggesting ways he might have been misinformed, I've advanced theories about how he might have knowingly misled his readers for publishing reasons [adding Jinjur to OZMA, leaving a false impression about the date of events in RINKITINK]. But I critically weigh pronouncements from Oz authors or scholars that go well beyond Baum and (to a lesser extent) his Reilly & Lee successors. I'm especially skeptical if the claims are grand [Oz on another planet] or specific [name of Ozma's mother] with no strong evidence from the canon. Sometimes those pronouncements are meant to plug holes in the series, though what constitutes a hole [e.g., the Shaggy Man's name, the source of the Sawhorse's red wagon] is debatable; a little mystery in life is healthy, I think. Other pronouncements take aim at contradictions in the series; for those, I have to be convinced that there really is a contradiction, and that the new theory is simpler and more beautiful than anything else. Columbus's belief that he was exploring Asia until his last voyage is a good analogy. He changed his initial theory because he gathered more evidence. There was a huge land mass of evidence for him to gather. We aren't in that situation with Oz; there's no objective reality that we can all test out. People who doubted Columbus reached Asia in 1492 were right, but that doesn't mean they would have been right to say, "Actually, he found the kingdom of Prester John," or "Actually, he sailed through a wormhole into an alternate universe." Above, I mentioned beauty as one criterion for accepting new ideas about Oz. Many scientists instinctively take beauty-- simplistic elegance--as a sign that a new theory is valid. For a non-objective reality such as Oz, I think beauty also plays a role in what we accept. If a non-canonical book about the Oz universe is entertaining enough, I'm open to the new or corrected "facts" it imparts. Even Ozma getting married! David Godwin wrote: <> Actually, I think among major Oz illustrators only Neill and Shanower depict the American children who move to Oz as wearing fashions that keep up with their readers'. The later Oz illustrators kept Neill's pre-war dresses on Dorothy. (Even Shanower keeps Button-Bright in an outmoded sailor shirt.) Your mother and Aunt Hazel may well represent what Dorothy would be wearing *if she'd let herself grow up in America*. But people don't usually settle on "a look" until after adolescence [thank goodness]. Children tend (or tended) to be more flexible about dress. As you point out, the Wizard continues to wear the type of clothes he arrived in, as does Cap'n Bill; Aunt Em and Uncle Henry seem to adopt an Ozian-Kansan mix. Furthermore, lively as your mother and Aunt Hazel no doubt are, I doubt they've been adventuring through swamps and mountains and forests as Dorothy likes to do. Therefore, what they consider comfortable for their lifestyles isn't the best yardstick for what Dorothy would wear. That said, I'll repeat how I imagine Dorothy dressing: in early 1900s tea-party garb (as drawn by Neill) for ordinary days; and in hiking boots, down jackets, bathing suit, or other special equipment when she expects an adventure. Even at the turn of the century Americans had clothes made particularly for labor, travel, and exercise. Other immigrant Ozians' fashion preferences would also hew to the periods in which they left America: no flip-flops for Trot, no backwards baseball cap for Bob Up, and no ripped jeans for the Shaggy Man. Bob Collinge wrote: <> Last year you showed the MGM movie, Bob. Perhaps RETURN TO OZ should be on the planetarium screen this year. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 16:28:11 GMT Gehan: >*. If the WWW needed the Golden Cap to conquer the winkies, how did the other >witches fare to do so? Specially Mombi and Singra who are weak in magic? There's no proof that Mombi or Singra were any weaker in magic than the WWW. Judging by what each of them is shown capable of doing, they're all about equal, but less powerful than Glinda or the GWN. (In _Giant Horse_, which you say you don't accept, Mombi actually shows considerably more power than the WWW ever does.) Singra, of course, isn't official even to those who accept the entire FF as canonical. Although Ozma does say in _DotWiz_ that at one time four wicked witches ruled the quarters of Oz, it seems likely that their rule in the north and south was very short-lived indeed. We know Glinda was already in Oz before the wicked witches deposed Pastoria (or his father, depending on which account you accept), because she created the Forbidden Fountain while a king ruled Oz. I can't see her letting a wicked witch rule the Quadlings for any length of time. (Incidentally, the latest book from ECP, _The Amber Flute of Oz_, proposes that the WWS was actually Blinkie, who eventually fled to Jinxland after a final defeat at Glinda's hands. This makes a good deal of sense to me; Blinkie is clearly a witch comparable in power to Mombi and the WWs E/W, and is a Baum character so that it's not required to invent a whole new WWS as both Payes and Shanower have done.) In fact, I doubt if Mombi or the WWS ever truly ruled their quadrants; MOPPeT is that the four witches did indeed conspire to remove the current king of Oz and succeeded in that, but that when they scattered to their four quadrants to impose their rule, only the WWE and WWW were successful - the latter with the help of the Golden Cap. I suspect that the WWE was the most powerful of the four wicked witches; apparently the GWN was powerless to help the Munchkins against her, whereas she was able to defeat Mombi with relative ease, and her kiss was powerful enough to protect Dorothy from the WWW. >*. No-one knows wheather the wizard is a man or a beast in -Wizard-. Who says no one knows whether the wizard is a man or a beast in _Wizard_? I've checked out the obvious places (when the GWN first mentions him, when Dorothy arrives in the EC and talks to the Guardian and the SGW, and when she returns from melting the WWW) and it's not in any of those. If it's said by Boq or the country family they have a meal with shortly before reaching the EC, then I don't think it can be considered an authoritative statement. Whoever says it may not know of anyone who knows whether the wizard is a man or a beast, but as you say, some people surely do. Though since this was probably before Ozites became ageless and immortal, which seems to have been the case pre-Ozma, it's quite possible that there are few people left alive who knew the wizard when he first arrived. It seems likely from his statement that he was a young man when he arrived and was a very old man when Dorothy arrived that he'd been there for around 50 years. (There is, incidentally, an interesting sidebar here. He says he was born in Omaha, but the city of Omaha as such didn't exist until, IIRC, 1848, which would mean he was at most 52 at the time of _Wizard_ - hardly a "very old man" even in 1900. However, there was an Indian trading post on the site of Omaha starting in 1825, and it's plausible enough that Diggs would have said he was born "in Omaha" when he really meant on the site that would later become Omaha. In the 1820s and 1830s the Nebraska territory was closed to white settlement, which brings up the intriguing possibility that the Wizard's mother might have been Native American.) Nathan: >>Didn't Ozma help the dwarf king? How can Lorna enchnat him without >the aid >>of another person? She isn't a wizardess.........She'll need the >>Wishing Emeradls > >Lorna DID have the emeralds. After the dwarf king gave the necklaces to the >wood-nymph, she used them to enchant him. I think Gehan was referring to the fact that someone else has to be wearing the emeralds and doing the proper blink at the time the wish is made. But it doesn't have to be a human (viz. Chalk); Lorna probably enlisted an animal friend in the forest. David G.: > But could straw >and wood not be considered flesh if they are living? Is not Nick Chopper's >"flesh" made of tin? The sign does say "flesh," not "meat." In most contexts "flesh" is pretty well synonymous with "meat." The question arises as to whether, say, a pair of plastic-soled shoes would protect one from the sands. Wouldn't want to try it (what if I tripped?), but it's an interesting question. In the 19-oughts, though, I think just about all shoes had leather soles (though some might have had rubber even then), although they certainly wouldn't be "living" flesh. Baum was the first one to speak of the deadly fumes of the desert, when Kiki Aru flew across it in _Magic_. I think the Magic Carpet undoubtedly protected its users from the fumes as well as the sands, but it's true that you'd expect the occupants of the sandboat to have problems. Maybe Johnny Dooit - who clearly has magical powers or he wouldn't be able to build a boat as fast as he did - was able to protect the boat's occupants from the fumes as well. Some women in Iran _did_ start wearing shorts and tees (and mini-skirts, and halter tops, and so on) for a while; this was one of the things that the Ayatollah ranted against when he was raising his revolution. They don't wear the chador now because they want to (at least, a lot of them don't), but because they'd be arrested and punished severely if they didn't. I don't suppose you'd think Ozma would offer similar opposition to a change from traditional costume, do you? As to your mother and aunt's opinion of pantsuits, shorts, etc., I think that's more characteristic of your mother and aunt than of their generation as a whole. My mother wasn't quite as old as yours, nor any of my aunts as old as your aunt, but they were the same general generation (my mother born in 1914; my aunts born 1898-1912), and every one of them wore pantsuits when they came into fashion - not exclusively, but frequently. I know my mother wore shorts when she was younger, and I suspect my aunts did though I can't prove it. Even my grandmothers (born 1879 and 1886), though they never wore pantsuits and shorts themselves, thought they were fine for the younger generation of females. I don't think that everyone in Oz would start wearing shorts, jeans, etc. when they became aware of the possibility, but I think quite a lot of people would. If we accept Neill's pictures then we know that Dorothy's wardrobe changed considerably between _Ozma_ and _Wishing Horse_, say. And sometime between _Scarecrow_ and _Lost Princess_ she quit wearing big hair ribbons in favor of her coronet. (In _Rinkitink_ she only appears wearing a sunbonnet, so we don't know if she has a hair ribbon on or not.) Trot changes her hair color between _Scarecrow_ and _Rinkitink_, and its style before _Giant Horse_. The "Bettsy" spelling is in all the editions. I don't think there's a reasonable explanation, other than that RPT temporarily forgot how Betsy spelled her name. If we assume that she got her information orally somehow, it may be that during this stretch she had a friend who spelled her name "Bettsy" and she transcribed it that way reflexively. Tyler: It might be that the Su-dic found out about Ozma's rule by non-magical means; e.g., a little bird told him. (I guess that's "magical" in a sense, but only in the sense that everything in Oz is magical.) Possibly Coo-ee-oh didn't find out in the same way because the Skeezer city is enclosed, and she wasn't outside when the bird passed by. Even if the bird had told one or more of the other Skeezers about Ozma, do you really think they'd have told their cruel queen that she was supposed to defer to another ruler? David Hulan ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Demi Moore I just heard that Demi Moore and co. are making a new film based on WICKED about the WWW. Isnt it thrilling? I can't wait! ====================================================================== -- 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, JANUARY 16 - 18, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 17:40:14 -0500 From: Jill Moore To: OzDigest@mindspring.com Subject: HELLO! IS ANYBODY LISTENING?! I am very disappointed in the members of this digest! Over a week ago we made an appeal to the members of this digest, the USERS of this digest, to support Dave in his efforts to give you this forum to discuss your views and ideas relating to Oz. Dave told us, several times, that his zip drive had bit the dust, and I wrote a letter kicking off the annual "1999 OZADE EVENT" to help collect funds to pay for this equipment. With two exceptions, there has been NO response to this appeal! You, the users of this forum, must be willing to commit yourselves to a small donation toward maintaining this digest. Dave does not charge membership fees, this forum is open and free to all to participate in. But it is your duty, as a member, to put your money where your mouth is, and make a donation to keep this forum alive and available to everyone. I feel it is unfair for the members of this digest to expect Dave to shoulder all the expenses and responsibility of keeping it running and active. It is time for the members of this digest to take an active part in running this digest and supporting the cost of doing so. If you are unwilling to commit to sending a contribution, then you will have no right to complain when this digest disappears and is no longer there for you when you want it. Dave, even though I've been out of work since last March, my donation is on it's way and should be there any day now. I hope that I see a response from other members, for if I can make a donation certainly the employed members of this digest can do the same! So come on guys! Show Dave that you care, show him that this digest does mean something to you, that it is an important part of your life, and that you want to keep it going by sending him a generous donation to assist in that cause. Thank you! Jill Moore ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 08:26:18 +1100 From: calamity@eureka.lk Subject: Ozzy Things Lisa Mastroberte: Its possible that Eureka secretly followed Dorothy and co. in -Road- and then hid under Polychrome's skirt in the sand-boat. Your explanation makes scense too, but theres another solution. Maybe Eureka got bored in Kansas and asked Dorothy to ask Ozma to wish her back in Oz.........But thgats only an Oz-as-History POV. L.Frank Baum may have forgotten about Eureka after -DotWiz- , and it may have suddenly struck him after -Patchwork- . Ofcourse, he may not have wanted her to be in -Road- . Back then, Baum says that children sent him a number of letters. Some of them may have asked such questions (What happend to Eureka? who was the mysterious invisible person who allowed Ojo and co. to spend the night in his cottage? e.t.c and other mistakes in the books.) Baum may have answered all of these questions. John Bell: What I mean is that no-one should forget God just because they can be happy and contented without his help. Its not like Dorothy or Betsy could say:"Oh! Who needs God, when I have all a little girl could possibly want in Oz!". It was God who brought them to Oz and made them happy, and sought out Uncle henry's troubles in kansas, NOT Ozma! They should thank him for all this. They must be atleast saying the rosary each night, and ask for protection from the blesssed virgin Mary? The trouble in today's world is that nobody takes much notice of God. They dont beleive that he can do ANYTHING...................... David Hulan: I agree with you: The WWE was the most powerful of the wicked witches. Come to think of it, Mombi seems to be more powerful the WWW. IMHO the WWW had the lowest ammount of powers. It is possible that Blinkie was the WWS, since she too has many incredible powers. Infact, its more sensible than Singra. Letsd take a look at MOPPET: *.The Witches plan to conquer Oz, despose the Royal Family and divide the land among themselves. They tell Mombi to do the kidnapping *.Mombi kidnaps King Ozroar, King Pastoria and the rest. *. The WWW conquers the Winkies (how did she get the golden cap from Gayalette?) The WWE conquers the Munchkins. (She may have threatend to turn them into bumblebees or something unless they bowed to her). *.Locasta was already in the North and dealt with Mombi before she could conquer the Gillikins. Glinda was already in the south, and dealt with Blinkie/Singra. She either cast her sleeping spell on Singra/banished Blinkie to Jinxland. *.Its difficult to beleive that the Wizard handed Ozma over to Mombi because pastoria was already kidnapped. Then how did the Wizard find Ozma? Whom was she with? She wonuldnt remain a baby for all that long. Unless Pastoria's wife(who may have been a fairy) managed to hide from Mombi, and have Ozma de-aged back to a baby, and maybe the queen left her in Oscar's care and died. If Mombi herself had kidnapped Ozma and lied to Glinda, the white pearl would have turned black, so the most sensible explantion could be what I just mentioned.......... Come to think of it, Gloma could have easily conquered the WWW. Even though I reject RPT's writings. BTW........................ *. Who do you think would make a suitable actress for Glinda? Dorothy? The Wizard? The WWW? I'm reffering to the upcoming series -Lost in Oz- by Tim Burton. Don't you think Alicia Silverstone would be good for one of the adepts? Do any of you watch Sunset Beach? Won't the actress who plays the role of Caitlin Ricahrds do for another adept? Won't Annie Douglas (Sarah Buxton) do for Coo-ee-oh? *.In my upcoming book -The Lost Queen of Oz-, I introduce a new character: Belinda! She is Zeb Hugson's great granddaughter. She tells Ozma many un-fit statements in the FF, and Ozma gives her "reasonable explanations". I'm sure you will all like her because she is quite stuck-up, inquisitive and bossy...... ....................................... --Gehan Cooray ============================================================================= Margaux : Baby Jim, whats on T.V tonight? Baby Jim: Same as everyday. The goldfish bowl, Mom and Dad's wedding picture and the flower vase and...... ============================================================================== ====================================================================== From: Tigerbooks@aol.com Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 23:24:19 EST Subject: For Ozzy Digest: Boy Fortune Hunters books finally available Hungry Tiger Press's new editions of The Boy Fortune Hunters in Yucatan and The Boy Fortune Hunters in the South Seas by L. Frank Baum are ready. All pre-publication orders for the regular edition were filled before Christmas, all pre-publication orders for the Special Edition were filled by the end of last year, and we have now filled all orders to date. I hope that those of you who ordered have the books in your hands by now. Hungry Tiger Press would like to apologize for the lateness of these two books which we originally announced for the end of summer 98. We ran into delays that were no less frustrating to us than to those of you who were expecting to receive your books. Hungry Tiger Press would love to hear your reactions to these books, and to know how you'd welcome reprints of other titles in the series (or reprints of other Baum and Oz books--either on their own or in Oz-story). You can e-mail us at: Tigerbooks@aol.com. Eric Shanower ====================================================================== From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Ozzy things Timothy wrote, concerning his proposed Star Wars/Oz project: >My intent wasn't to publicize it in a public forum. My original intent was to >privately e-mail an Oz fan to help me with Oz aspects of the story or >reccomend >somebody that would be able to help me. My point was that the Ozzy Digest _is_ a public forum, and you outlined quite a bit of information here. The Digest may not have a huge circulation - I have no idea how many subscribers there are who never contribute - but it's easily available to anybody without restriction. As for fair use, you may be okay if your work is to be a parody. However, the fair use doctrine has been stretched way beyond the breaking point on the Internet in many, many instances and in most cases no one has bothered to go after the scofflaws. Yet. Apparently you know much more about Lucasfilm's tolerance than I do, so you are probably safer than I thought. It's just that, having worked for publishers (including one who had been sued for using a copyrighted photo on a book cover), I may be more leery than most people about copyright infringement. Gehan wrote: >I just heard that Demi Moore and co. are making a new film based on WICKED >about the WWW. Isnt it thrilling? I can't wait! Well, it sounds...interesting. As Elphie says in the book, "Is that meant to be ironic?" David Hulan: I like your idea that Blinkie was originally the WWS. I'm not sure whether Singra (in the Payes book) is weak or just not very bright. But I don't see the necessity of inventing new characters if old ones are available to fill the same niche. By the same token, I don't much care for the way RPT disenchanted the GWN and replaced her with Joe King as ruler of the Gillikins. I don't really understand why this was necessary - except that RPT apparently had more sympathy for her male characters than her female ones - and it upsets the balance of North-South being ruled by women and East-West by men. Of course, I don't much care for Cheeriobad, either. I always thought that the Scarecrow should have been Emperor of the Munchkins; he seemed a natural for it. I think John R. Neill did promote him to that position in at least one book. However, I learned a long time ago that my opinions don't have much influence on reality - or on Oz, either. Ushering a character out of any meaningful action more or less permanently by "disenchanting" him/her seems to have been a technique that RPT used on more than one occasion. But she had good precedent: the same thing happened to Tip and Bilbil. If I ever write an Oz book, perhaps I'll disenchant some character I don't much care for. Or perhaps not - all the ones I can think of at the moment are still under copyright. But what if Percy turned out to be an insurance salesman from New Jersey? Belief: I don't know what anyone else's experience may have been, but when I was about ten years old, I convinced myself that Oz really did exist. It took me about a year to get over it. However, I now think that it has at least as much reality as Atlantis. - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 01:16:21 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: My belief is that while Oz is in another world, it is a very small area that is closely and intimately linked with earth. Therefore, the Erbs can make the whole world miserable and easily mean our world as well. This is a very small movement from your theory that Oz is on our earth, yet generally inacessible. For such a small difference, this argument has generated a lot of words on the digest, myself included. A long time ago we discussed what would have happened had the Wizard never arrived in Oz. Also, what if Dorothy had never done so. I think the long and short of it was that even if Dorothy never showed up, Glinda would have deposed all of the Wicked Witches and would have eventually found Ozma anyway. Granted, there would have been fewer celbrities and Oz, while a fairyland, would be a little more tame than it is now. As for the Wizard, the four witches might still be in control to this very day. Dorothy (assuming she made it and not the Wizard) may have made it to Glinda and would at least have helped her out by smashing the WWE. David Hulan: The King of the Winged Monkeys also had a sizeable role in _Wizard_, although that was entirely in his monologue on the history of his people. Star Wars: A while back, there was a Rap Group called @ Live Crew. Their leader referred to himself as "Luke Skywalker". George Lucas was not amused, and his wrath was felt. I'm on George's side in this. He's still alive, and is still actively doing Star Wars stuff. Now, if in 300 years, Star Wars is no longer popular, and somebody wants to write a story involving Chewbacca, and George Lucas's 10th generation descendant sues him, then I'll reconsider. :-) Gehan: Your Mombi/Gaylette story would have made a much more fascinating and detailed story, although it would have entailed some changes in Baum. However, the GWN was more of a character, since she actually appeared in the story, while Gaylette was only part of a story within a story. It would have been better, though, so overall I agree with you. >*. What do the High prists have to do Oz? Sorry, Gehan, but you've gone just a tad over my Event Horizon with this one. :-) I know that RPT mentioned a party celebrating Glinda and her 100th anniversary as ruler of the South, but I can't for the life of me remember which one. IMHO, it must have been before _Captain Salt_. Wally Hubbard: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Thanks for the press release! March Laumer rules! Off I go to dig my checkbook from under a pile of... something, and send away for more of his golden words. :-) Gehan: Ahh, I beleive you're trying to tempt me into bringing more of my secrets out. No such luck. You'll have to wait. :-) David Hulan: I'm definitely with you in doubting that any of the Wicked Witches ruled the entirety of their quadrants, especially given the evidence in _Giant Horse_, _Ojo_ and _WIshing Horse_. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 01:16:19 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Digest: Was there a Digest for January 13th? According to Dave's filing system, I may have missed that day. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Aging in Oz As David Hulan said, if the Wizard was around 52 at the time of -Wizard- he couldn't have been a very old man as he says. Since Omaha didn't exist untill 1848, we can assume that Oscar Diggs was born in some other place (ex:Kansas)and maybe the family moved to Omaha around 1850. Oscar may have been around 7 at that time. Assume he ran away from home when he was 17 (1860), went for training for two years (60-62)) Joined the circus in 64, and carried on, untill he was blown away to Oz.(1868, when he was 25). The EC may have taken about five years to be built, because I'm sure the Ozites could work faster than normal people, because they were in an enchanted, fairy country. I think -Wizard- happend in early 1898 because that was the year Baum started telling his story. The Wizard would now be an old man:56, yet not a very old man. Coming to Dorothy's age (here we go again), I thinkn aging stopped in Oz ever since Ozma came to the throne. I think Dorothy was 6 in 1898 when -Wizard- took place, 7 in 99 when -Land- took place, 9 in 1901 when I beleive -Ozma- took place, 10 in 1902 when -Dotwiz- took place, and in 1903 , she was 11, when -Road- took place. I think -EC- happend somewhere in 1907, since Baum tells us at the end of Road which was written in 1909 that he has heard some very remarkable news from Oz, meaning ofcourse, how Glinda made it invisible. At the end of -EC- he says that this was written on the left wing of a bird. (What an imagination!) So, Dorothy would biologically be 15 at the time of -Ec- which I beleive took place in 1907. I think Ozma cast a spell on Dorothy at the end of -Road- in 1903 (when she was 11) that she would never grow older once she returned to Kansas. This seems to be the only reasonable explantion. David Hulan says that -EC- took place in 1902, but the airships weren't known at that time.If -EC- did happen in 1902, how did Baum find out about Dorothy's previous adventures. He didn't comminucate with her through the "wireless" untill 1913. Know what I mean? Thats my MOPPEt anyway. Your's may be different. --Gehan Cooray ============================================================================ = Kimber: Thats not fair, Pizzazz! Pizzazz: Who said life was fair? ("Last resorts"- Jem 1987) ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 13:22:50 -0600 From: d.godwin@minn.net (David Frank Godwin) Subject: Oz the musical The stage musical version of The Wizard of Oz has arrived here, but now I doubt that I will be able to see it. $45 for a decent seat is too rich for my blood. $20 for a lousy seat wouldn't be worth foregoing lunch at MacDonald's four or five times. However, I am not especially influenced in my decision by the fact that the production got an unfavorable review in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Written by critic Tim Claussen, the review says that you can't enjoy or even understand the stage play if you haven't seen the Garland movie. "Why bother?" he says, and calls the production "a breezy and sloppy staging of a film..." And so on. He didn't like it. David G. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 10:58:11 -0500 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Eureka! I've found her. David Godwin, your thoughts on the Scarecrow's animation seem appropriate for the discussion of ROYAL BOOK that Ruth Berman proposed. I'll toss out this straw-man argument for later: cleverness is a relative quality, so even before receiving his brains the Scarecrow was more clever than the average, inanimate man of cloth. About Glinda, Gehan Cooray wrote: <> On page 21 of GLINDA, the sorceress counsels Ozma, "Had you not learned of the existence of the Flatheads and the Skeezers, through my Book of Records, you would never have worried about them or their quarrels. So, if you pay no attention to these peoples, you may never hear of them again." That is, sad to say, not an uncommon human attitude toward catastrophe on the other side of the world. And Glinda is human--Glinda the Good, not Glinda the Perfect. Lisa Mastroberte wrote: <> There are indeed many moments when Ozma could have brought Eureka to the Emerald City, especially if folks theorize that untold years pass between EMERALD CITY and PATCHWORK GIRL. On any day between the events in those books Dorothy may have sat in front of the Magic Picture and said, "I wonder where my old pussycat is now. Hmm, looks like she's still in Kansas. But she's thin as a fish bone! Serves her right for running away when Uncle Henry couldn't buy her any more catnip. I guess she's learned her lesson now. I'll ask Ozma to bring her here, so Toto will have someone else to play with." There's no reason Eureka's arrival necessarily coincided with anyone else's. It makes sense, by the way, that Waldenbooks would carry the cheap Borders edition of WIZARD since the chains are part of the same company. Ruth Berman wrote of her niece: <> I had the Dover JOHN DOUGH when I was growing up, so I can't help but think of it as "nice" enough. I've seen an original (contest entry form intact), but don't recall if it has color plates or the like that don't appear in the Dover paperback. J. L. Bell JnoLBell@compuserve.com ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 18 Jan 99 12:08:37 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things DIGEST: Tyler wrote: >Was there a Digest for January 13th? According to Dave's filing system, I may >have missed that day. I think the 14-15 Digest should have covered the 13th as well... WWE MOST POWERFUL?: I guess my impression about the WWW being most powerful stems solely from the movie: "She's worse than the other one was"; "When I have those Ruby Slippers, my power will be the greatest in Oz!" "WICKED" MOVIE: Gehan wrote: >I just heard that Demi Moore and co. are making a new film based on WICKED >about the WWW. Isnt it thrilling? I can't wait! I heard it was going to be Cher playing the WWW. "OZADE": So far, only two people have contributed to my "Ozade" drive in as many weeks... Please guys, if you can spare a little, I'd appreciate it... (Note: I *am* doing it now because of personal need... I have *not* made it a bi-yearly thing...) -- 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, JANUARY 19 - 23, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 16:19:30 -0700 My address book was wrong, so this got bounced twice today. Third time's the charm... BCF: It seems to me that of late, we're rushing to start another BCF as soon as one ends. I'm not saying that we're not giving each book its due, but I don't think that we're giving the Digest members enough time after one to read and ponder the next sufficiently. Therefore, I suggest that the start date for _Royal Book_ be set one weeks after the Superbowl, or February 8. This should give us enought time to recover from the festivities and get a healthy dose of RPT's first volume. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 21:16:58 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: It is doubtful that Dorothy, Betsy, etc. were members of the Catholic Church. As white, midwestern farm people of the turn of the century, they were in all likelihood Protestant. Gehan: 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_. 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). Southern Witches: If you accept Eric Shanower's _The Enchanted Apples of Oz_, then there may have been as many as three Wicked Witches in the south, although that one was never named. I'm sure one of them was the main one, I just don't know which one, although it is higly unlikely that Glinda would conquer Blinkie, and then let her run loose unsupervised to torment the people of Jinxland. John Bell: Glinda's attitude regarding ignoring the problem of the Flatheads and SKeezers seems to indicate that her primary function is to keep Ozma's throne secure, and not necessarily to help improve the general welfare of the Oz people. Ozade Drive: Remember, there was no mail today, so things might be backed up until the end of the week. Running the Digest takes a lot of effort. Dave's program helps to automate it somewhat, but downloading all of the messages and the sending the digest off takes a lot of connect time, which ain't cheap. So thanks to everyone who can help out a little bit, and my check will be on the way soon. The Greatest One of All... I always used to think that Mombi was the most powerful because she did the most, according to background material later on in the FF, but now I believe she was more or less a lackey of the others. As to who was strongest, I'd say I'm undecided between WWW and WWE. The Southern ones do not seem to have done much. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== From: Ozmama@aol.com Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 22:00:55 EST Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-18-99 David G:<< If I ever write an Oz book, perhaps I'll disenchant some character I don't much care for. Or perhaps not - all the ones I can think of at the moment are still under copyright. But what if Percy turned out to be an insurance salesman from New Jersey? >> I like that! I shuddered when I found out that Rachel Payes was planning to use Percy as a main character in _Wicked Witch_, since I really couldn't stand him in _Hidden Valley_. I was hugely relieved that she softened his character in _WW_. I was actually able to enjoy him. But he'd still be a terrific insurance agent. Btw, what have you got against New Jersey? Tyler wrote:<> FWIW, me too. That's one of the nifty things about Oz. There are always nooks and crannies that don't get touched by who's supposed to rule them. Some don't even know that Ozma is their queen! Gehan:<< The Wizard would now be an old man:56, yet not a very old man.>> At that time, 56 would have been considered past middle age. And if Oscar says he's old, he may feel old! I'm 54, and there are certainly days when I feel old. Also, he may have had a self-deprecating sense of humor. Odd, I don't recall his ever having said he was old, but I'm sure that if you say he did, then he did say it. Too lazy to bother checking, and I trust y'all. John Bell:<<...even before receiving his brains the Scarecrow was more clever than the average, inanimate man of cloth.>> If he weren't, then Baum's theme wouldn't have worked very well in _...Wizard_. And Dorothy probably wouldn't have made it to the Emerald City in the first place! Think of how many times the Scarecrow shows real intelligence in that first Oz book. ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 19:29:16 -0500 From: Ted Nesi Is Books of Wonder planning to rerelease "The Cowardly Lion of Oz" anytime soon? And does anyone know of Dover's future Baum plans? I picked up their new version of "The Sea Fairies" a week or two ago, and am thoroughly enjoying it. Ted -- ************************************************************ * THE LUCILLE BALL FILE ~ CLASSIC TELEVISION ~ * * THE UNOFFICIAL "WIZARD OF OZ" HOME PAGE ~ CLASS ACT * * http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/6066/ * ************************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Re:Ozzy Digest Tyler: What did you mean when you said:" I'm trying to get secrets out of you?". What secrets? Dave: Well, we can't exactly take info. from the movie, since its not the REAL Oz. I think the WWW was the most weak in magical powers, compared to what Mombi did. I think that once upon a time, Mombi was the most powerful of the witches (she still seems to be regarding the way she acted in -Giant Horse-, -Land- and -Lost King- and even -Blue Emperor-) Its not every witch who can kidnap a king and a royal family, enchant them, deal in transformations and things like that. I think Locasta reduced Mombi's powers, when she conquered her. (In the same way the Jinjin reduced Ruggedo's powers). Second highest would have been the WWE, but if Mombi lost most of her powers, the WWE would come first. I like David Hulan's statement considering Blinkie to be the WWS. It makes alot more scense than Singra. But since -WWOZ- is nearly canonical, its possible that Singra and Blinkie both tried their hands at conquering the South and were overthrown by Glinda. If Blinkie really was the WWS, oho! She has a fair amount of magic too! Its not anyone who can freeze ones heart, deal in transformations and all that stuff. It seems that Mombi, the WWE and Blinkie (considering her to be the WWS)were all "humble" witches, since none of them live in castles or towers. They all lived in little cottages or huts. Yet, the WWW lived in a castle: That makes her "high and mighty" although she doesn't seem to have many powers. What kind of a witch would be afraid of a lion or be afraid of the dark? And BTW, Mombi, the WWE and Blinkie look more cruel, cunning and more wicked than the WWW. ....................................... --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: "Bob Spark" Subject: Various grumbles Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 20:58:06 -0800 Importance: Normal Jill, 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! My other complaint. Gehan, is that if your excessive Christianity haven't caused them to drop out the Digest has believers of several persuasions both Christian and non-Christian. It also has at least one dog of an unbeliever (me). I doubt I am the only one. I also doubt I am the only one who is offended by your proselytization. Please tone it down. Bob Spark ====================================================================== From: Gehan Cooray Subject: The Munchkin Country In -Patchwork Girl-, Baum states that Unk.Nunkie would have been King of the Munchkins, had not they united with the other Ozites. He also says that Nunkie stole away to the forgotten Blue Forest with his nephew Ojo. If Unk.Nunkie was the Munchkin King, he would have had to be King Cheeriobed's father. Why does RPT say that he is the father of the King of Seebania? Ojo isn't his grandson, Ojo is his nephew. If RPT's Oz is the True Oz, then the only reeasonable explantion is........ Unk.Nunkie had two sons. One became King of the Munchkins and the other became King of Seebania. But that makes Ojo his grandson, and not his nephew. BTW, what became of the Munchkin King Baum mentioned in his books? Was he a relative of Cheeriobed, and did he give the throne back to Cheeriobed after he was discovered. How can Cheeriobed be Munchkin King if nobody has ever heard of him? And did the WWE enchant him? Mombi enchanted him 25 years ago since -Giant Horse- took place. What was he doing then? Ozma must have heard of him. It just doesn't make scense! Unless Mombi enchanted him more than 25 years ago. Maybe the WWE told her to enchant him , before Dorothy's house landed on her. That seems to be the only reasonable explantion. Maybe Mombi or even the WWE enchanted the Munchkins so they would forget about Cheeriobed and Orin: There true rulers, and thats why they forgot him. Maybe Unk.Nunkie is the father of Cheeriobed's realtion, who ruled the Munchkin Country after the WWE, untill Cheeriobed was discovered. And maybe the King of Seebania is actually his nephew(he can't be his brother) and maybe Ojo is actually his grand-nephew. That seems to be the only reasonable explantion. Anyone agree with me? Does anyone atleast have another explanation? I'm getting totally confused. --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 17:23:08 GMT From: David Hulan Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-15 & 18-99 1/15: Lisa: Sure, there are all sorts of other ways that Eureka _might_ have gotten back to Oz. Someone (maybe you) asked me how she managed it in my story, and that's how it was done. But I make no claim to writing Oz-as-history; anyone else's idea is just as valid (provided the mechanics of it work, and there are plenty of ways it could). ><> > >Then, the EC wouldn't be built....and... if Dorothy still landed in Oz, >the GWN >would probably say "I'm so very sorry, Ms. Gale, but nobody can help you. >You'll have to stay here." Or, maybe, she would direct her and Toto to Glinda >and then they would have a very different adventure. (Follow the Red Brick >Road, maybe? :)) They would come across the Hammer-Heads, the Dainty China >Country, and hey, who knows? Maybe the princess would join the gang and become >a main character. Possible, but unlikely; Dorothy encountered the Hammerheads and the Dainty China Country because she was traveling due south from the EC. If she'd been traveling from the mid-Munchkin country she'd have bypassed all those places. If you accept the Haff-Martin map, the most direct route to Glinda's would still take her past the Scarecrow's bean pole, so she might have him as a companion, but from there her path would take her through Troth and/or Halidom and past Tappy Town and the land of the Good Children, and then a straight shot across fairly civilized Quadling country to Glinda's. This assumes she'd avoid going into the Blue Forest but would skirt its edge. Gehan: >*. Dont you think RPT should rather say that Mombi enchanted Gayallette and >turned her into an old witch who forgot about her past rather than having >Orin? From an Oz-as-literature POV, maybe. But from an Oz-as-history POV, she didn't say that because that wasn't what happened. >*.How does Shaggy know Johnny Dooit? He seems to be a kind of fairy, and there >are no fairies in the states. I don't think Johnny Dooit is a fairy; more a wizard of some sort. And according to some of Baum's _American Fairy Tales_, there are wizards in the US. (There are also knooks and ryls, so there might well be fairies too - though IIRC none actually appear.) So there's no reason why Shaggy couldn't have met him here. >*.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. But I don't think it was the latter; I've checked all the books where it would have been plausible, and couldn't find such a reference. >*.The Land of Oz >This book should have been called Ozma of Oz because the mystery is on Ozma: >her dissapearnce. Its not really based on the "land" of Oz. The question of Ozma's disappearance only becomes a factor in the last fifth or so of the book; before that Ozma is never mentioned nor does the story revolve around her. Naming the book in retrospect, _Revolution in Oz_ might be the most apt title, since that's really what most of the book deals with - Jinjur's revolt, and then her replacement by Ozma. And I agree that _Land of Oz_ would fit _Emerald City_ better than its actual title, since in fact the book doesn't have that much to do with the capital. _Tik-Tok of Oz_ is probably as good a title for that book as any; Betsy is really the most important character, but she's an unknown to Oz fans at the start of the book, and that's usually enough to rule out being a title character, at least for Baum. The Wizard is an exception, but that's a title, not a personal name, and "Wizard" is always a good word in the title of a fantasy novel. Rinkitink is the only other one. _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. David G.: >Has anyone else ventured to >explain why he is alive, and other Ozzy scarecrows are not (ignoring _Royal >Book_)? Do we know this? I don't think we ever see another scarecrow in Oz; maybe any scarecrow would be alive, but nobody else ever made one. The most likely explanation, imho, is that the paint the Munchkin farmer used for painting his face had magical properties (possibly he bought it from the WWE?) and brought him to a form of life, though it might not have been until Chang Wang Woe's spirit entered him that he became capable of movement and rational thought. J.L.: >Actually, I think among major Oz illustrators only Neill and Shanower depict >the American children who move to Oz as wearing fashions that keep up with >their readers'. The later Oz illustrators kept Neill's pre-war dresses on >Dorothy. Martin's Dorothy seems to me to have more of a late '50s-early '60s look than pre-war. It's a look fairly contemporary to the first book he illustrated (_Merry-Go-Round_, in 1963), though it's rather dated by the time he shows a similar style in _Ozmapolitan_. And Kramer was so close to Neill in time, and illustrated so few books, that it's hard to say whether he did or didn't keep up with the times in Dorothy's fashions. 1/18: Jill: Some money on its way to Dave from me today; I meant to send it Friday and forgot. Gehan: You're apparently a devoted Christian, probably Roman Catholic, and have your opinions about God which may very well be true, though you'd have a hard time proving them. But from what we know about Baum he wasn't more than a nominal Christian, if that, and beyond allusions to a Supreme Master who apparently created the world, along with the other Masters and fairies and so on (and Awgwas and Erbs and Nomes as well...), he doesn't give much evidence of believing in an activist God. >*. The WWW conquers the Winkies (how did she get the golden cap from >Gayalette?) If you get _Oziana_, the 1998 issue will include a short story of mine that explains that. I won't go into it until that issue has appeared, though. (Robin, how's it going?) Gloma was very probably more powerful than the WWW, but like most magic-workers in Oz, she seems to have had a live-and-let-live attitude. She ruled the southern part of the Winkie country, and as long as the WWW confined herself to the northern part Gloma would leave her alone. I don't think 56 is even an "old man," much less a "very old man." I'm older than that, and I don't think of myself as an "old man" by any means. (I've read that for most people, "old" means about 15 years older than they are...) I think the Wizard was born in the late 1820s; that would have made him 70-something when Dorothy arrived, and that's about as young as I think anyone would be and still refer to himself as a "very old man," even in 1900 or so. >David Hulan says that -EC- took place in 1902, but the airships weren't >known at that time.If -EC- did happen in 1902, how did Baum find out >about Dorothy's previous adventures. He didn't comminucate with her >through the "wireless" untill 1913. "Airships," in the sense of dirigible lighter-than-air craft, were known well before 1902, and I think those were the kind Dorothy and the Wizard and others referred to. The multiple references to their sometimes going where the pilot intended and sometimes not seems more characteristic of dirigibles than heavier-than-air craft. Even in 1910 the latter weren't capable of long-distance travel; just getting across the English channel was a feat. Dirigibles, on the other hand, were being used for passenger service by that time. As to how Baum found out about Dorothy's previous adventures, he could have found out about everything through _Road_ directly from Dorothy while she was back in Kansas; she wouldn't have needed to be there very long to tell him the stories. Then he presumably waited to write about them until he found that he needed to produce another Oz book to pay his bills. How he found out about the events of EC is of course a puzzlement, but it has no effect on how the books should be dated. As an argument against your theory that Ozma cast a spell on Dorothy that stopped her from aging even when she was back in Kansas, consider that the years from 11 to 15 are ones of very dramatic physical change in girls. It's hard to believe that Uncle Henry and Aunt Em wouldn't show any concern if their niece stopped growing and developing for four critical years. We went through this argument two or three years ago; I could accept Tyler's slowing of her aging by a year, but not your four. Especially when I see no need for it. J.L.: The early editions of _John Dough_ didn't have color plates as such, but did have a good deal of color work in association with their illustrations. More like _Ozma_ or _Patchwork Girl_, though not as colorful as either of those two. David G.: It wasn't really "my idea" that Blinkie was originally the WWS; I was citing Donald Abbott's new ECP book, _The Amber Flute of Oz_. Although the idea isn't original with Abbott, either; I've seen it proposed elsewhere, though I forget offhand just where. (Possibly in the _Bugle_, or in the early days of the Ozzy Digest.) David Hulan ====================================================================== From: "Ruth Berman" X-Minuet-Version: Minuet1.0_Beta_16 Subject: Oz comments Lisa Mastroberte: The Wizardless-Oz speculations -- I suspect that you're right that Ozma wouldn't get changed into Tip, but I'd make a guess that she wouldn't make it through to queen. Some combination of the wicked witches, including Mombi, might then be more likely to team up to try to take over the country as a group, and with Mombi on the team effort, they might succeed much more thoroughly than they did in "reality"? (Of course, as Tyler points out, Glinda might have succeeded in overcoming even the combined team, eventually.) Timothy: I doubt that fan-fiction would be considered a type of parody if any cases went to court. David Godwin is probably right in suggesting that it's asking for trouble to announce in a semi-public way (i.e., to any large group) that you plan to write a "Star Wars" story and make it available to the public through the Internet. You might want to write a draft of a humble apology letter to have ready if you get a cease-and-desist letter from a Lucas lawyer eventually. Gehan Cooray: There's nothing wrong with RPT's chronology of the Good Witch of the North as such. The problem comes with trying to move the pre-"Wizard" events further into the past than RPT assumed they were so as to make room for the events of fan-written Oz stories that came out later, but there isn't a problem inside the R&L line of the Oz-40. Your concern over the absence of religion in Oz seems to assume far too much. The books don't say that there are religions in Oz, but don't say that there aren't any, either. Ozites might have lots of religions, if you want to think so, or the mortals living in Oz might be practicing the religions they learned outside Oz, if you want to think so. Or they might not, but then there still isn't a basis for assuming that if they don't practice religion it's because they are ungrateful people. As J.L. Bell pointed out, they might just be non-believers of various sorts. (You seem to think that being a non-believer necessarily means being the cause of troubles in the world, but the assumption is a dubious one and offensive to those of your associates who are non-believers.) Keep in mind, by the way, that the world is full of religions. "They must be at least saying the rosary each night" is statistically unlikely for children from America, where Catholicism is a minority religion; their options would include many other brands of Christianity, not to mention Judaism, Theosophy, or various others found in turn-of-the-century America (not many Islamics or Hindus or Confucianists, but lots of Native American religions, and maybe some African pantheons). David Godwin: Mike Steele in the Minneapolis Star & Tribune doesn't care for this "Wizard" production, either. What with the reviews and the priciness, it sounds as if neither of us is going. // I think I'll wait to comment on "Royal Book" issues until it's the book-under-discussion. David Hulan: The "Amber Flute" idea of Blinkie as the Wicked Witch of the South does sound attractive. I tend to stretch the "canonicity" of the R&L Oz books to include those Oz books by R&L authors (or artists, in Dick Martin's case), so I suppose if I ever wanted to include the WWS in a story I'd follow Cosgrove in assigning that title to Singra, but I'd at least be tempted to "explain" that there was really more than one WWS, and that Blinkie also laid claim to the title. // Nice discussion (both yours and J.L. Bell's) of the factors that could lead Americans in Oz to change fashions over the years in spite of the comfort of sticking with what they're used to. Ruth Berman ====================================================================== From: Spoon626@aol.com Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 19:04:53 EST Subject: Oz book collection I am in need of an appraisal of an Oz book collection that my sister and I were given from my grandfather. The collection contains an essentially complete set of the "Oz" books, including not only the fourteen titles by L. Frank Baum, but also eighteen titles by Ruth Plumly Thompson, three titles by John R. Neill, one title by Jack Snow, and one by Rachel Cosgove. Most of the Baum and Thompson books are early printings with the original color plates. Also included in the collection are seven additional books by Baum and Thompson (some of which have characters who overlap with those in the "Oz" books and are therefore part of a full "Oz" book collection). We have been unable to find anyone willing to give us an appraisal for these book because we are not interested in selling them. If you have any resources to provide us with one or two appraisals we would appreciate it. Jenny Frerichs [I don't she's a subscriber, so please mail her privately, guys -- Dave] ====================================================================== From: JawaHutt@aol.com Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 20:54:34 EST Subject: Oz In a message dated 1/18/99 4:08:58 PM Eastern Standard Time, DaveH47@mindspring.com writes: > *. Who do you think would make a suitable actress for Glinda? Dorothy? The > Wizard? The WWW? I'm reffering to the upcoming series -Lost in Oz- by Tim > Burton. Don't you think Alicia Silverstone would be good for one of the > adepts? > Do any of you watch Sunset Beach? Won't the actress who plays the role of > Caitlin Ricahrds do for another adept? Won't Annie Douglas (Sarah Buxton) do > for Coo-ee-oh? For all of the roles in Lost In Oz, I think some lesser-known actors/actresses should portray all of the main characters. I won't mind an occasional popular star to make a cameo, but nothing way too often. When well-known celebrities play a role, it is sometimes hard to believe them in that role when they are better known for a role that would be totally opposite of what Oz may have. But this isn't the major reason. I just want to see some new faces. Although Judy Tenuta may make a good, maybe slightly annoying, Mombi. I think the bigger roles should go to Hallmark's Land of Oz. Does anybody know how production of that is going? > However, the > fair use doctrine has been stretched way beyond the breaking point on the > Internet in many, many instances and in most cases no one has bothered to go > after the scofflaws. Yet. There's been an occasion of that. The Odor Formerly Known as Prince, or whatever he's called by now, just after showing all of his fans how net- friendly he is, sent letters to all of the unpronouncable symbol web masters, from his lawyers, asking them to take his pictures down or face a large suit. Don't we wish MGM/Warner Brothers was as net friendly to the Oz sites that O->~+-<:-) (or however we do it) is to his fans? C)>;-) > Star Wars: > A while back, there was a Rap Group called @ Live Crew. Their leader > referred > to himself as "Luke Skywalker". George Lucas was not amused, and his wrath > was > felt. For some reason, I have a feeling that this was mainly because of the nature of 2 Live Crew (been listening to too much novelty -- I accidently typed 2 Live Jews :-) ). 2 Live Crew never has been known as a family friendly group, like LucasFilms stuff is, in general. I believe it was their "Banned In the USA" parody that brought the fair use amendment, which is one of the few things they have ever won. I haven't heard of this 2 Live Crew incident -- was it before or after 1996? > I'm on George's side in this. He's still alive, and is still actively doing > Star Wars stuff. Now, if in 300 years, Star Wars is no longer popular, and > somebody wants to write a story involving Chewbacca, and George Lucas's 10th > generation descendant sues him, then I'll reconsider. :-) From what I heard, after George dies, there will be no more LucasFilm, no more Star Wars, etc. Haven't actually heard from anybody at one of Lucas's companies, but it's supposed to be part of his will that whenever he does die, the Lucas dynasty will be destroyed. I guess he doesn't trust that anybody will handle it in the same way that he has. Maybe he doesn't want people to complain about how his company is being run, like in the Henson case. -Timothy ====================================================================== Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 18:19:44 -0800 From: "Peter E. Hanff" Subject: Two Scholarly Articles on L. Frank Baum in San Diego County! Hi Dave, Ozzy Digest readers will be interested in learning that two very good articles about L. Frank Baum's days in San Diego County have been published in scholarly journals. Southern California Quarterly, Vol. LXXX, No. 3, Fall 1998, includes "L. Frank Baum: the Oz Man at Hotel Del Coronado," by Benjamin Sacks, pp. [261]-292. The article gives a good sense of the work Baum accomplished over the years he spent winters on Coronado Island, including his books The Marvelous Land of Oz and Queen Zixi of Ix (both cited in a contemporary newspaper interview with Baum). The article is illustrated with historic photographs, most familiar to readers of the Baum biography, To Please a Child, and The Baum Bugle. The front cover of the Fall 1998 issue reproduces in full color a publicity photograph of the cast of the MGM version of The Wizard of Oz (referred to erroneously in the caption as the Warner Brothers' 1939 film. Information about ordering individual copies isn't given, but the Editorial Office of the Historical Society of Southern California is located at Lummis House, 200 East Avenue 43, Los Angeles, CA 90031. The Journal of the San Diego Historical Society, Volume 44, No. 4, Fall 1998, includes "L. Frank Baum's La Jolla: Halfway to Oz," by Bard C. Cosman, pp. 245-257. The article focuses primarily on Baum's Trot and Cap'n Bill books (The Sea Fairies, Sky Island, and The Scarecrow of Oz), identifying geographical landmarks in La Jolla that resemble Baum's descriptions. This article, too, is illustrated with photographs, but includes some illustrations of illustrations by John R. Neill. The San Diego Historical Society is located at 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101. Baum enthusiasts may wish to try to order copies or offprints. Sincerely, Peter Hanff ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 18:59:24 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: What if.... Here's a what-if story, if the Wizard's balloon didn't reach Oz, and Dorothy never came to Oz........ Glinda and Locasta may have dealt with Mombi and Singra/Blinkie,leaving out the WWW and the WWE. The Land of Oz would then no-longer be one united country, but four cut-off lands. Mombi may have still been Ozma's jailor, and turned her into a boy. Then, assume Dorothy's house fell on the WWE (without Dorothy or Toto inside). The Munchkins and the GWN may have thought a sorcerer or another witch did this. The WWW may have tried to conquer the east too, but perhaps Glinda or the GWN manged to stop her in time, and maybe one of them ruled both countries. Tip would have indeed run away from Mombi and brought Jack and the Saw-horse back to life. There would be no EC, and so perhaps they would wonder about Oz, having adventures and so on, and maybe they would visit Glinda or the GWN who would discover that Tip is really Ozma. Even if he didn't visit the good witches, the GWN may have found out that Mombi was trying to find Tip (without the aid of Jinjur)and maybe Ozma would be restored to the throne. Suppose Dorothy went to Ev with Billina. Ozma would probably have rescued her from Langwidere's tower, and she would have set the Royal Family of Ev free. If she fell into the Mangaboo country, (there would be no Wizard then), Ozma would probably save her by means of the magic belt, and maybe she would finally end up living inn Oz. There would be no Tinwoodman, Scarecrow or Cowardly Lion, so perhaps someone else will become Winkie Emperor. The Scarecrow suggested to put dust in the Nome King's tunnel, so perhaps he would conquer Oz, among the other tribes. There will be plenty of destrucytion in the future, if Roquat conquered Oz, for many others (ex:Wizard of the Silver Mountain, Queen Ra and King Umb and King Skamperoo..) would also try to conquer Oz. Unless Glinda, Ozma or the GWN managed to stop them in time. ====================================================================== Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 19:45:14 -0500 From: Lisa Mastroberte Organization: :-) X-Accept-Language: en Subject: ozzy matter <<*. Who do you think would make a suitable actress for Glinda? Dorothy? The Wizard? The WWW? I'm reffering to the upcoming series -Lost in Oz- by Tim Burton. Don't you think Alicia Silverstone would be good for one of the adepts?>> Hmmmm.....this would be something to think about. I know some people might disagree with me on this, but I think Gillian Anderson would be a great Glinda. :)) -Lisa ====================================================================== From: COHAJA@aol.com Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 19:47:20 EST Subject: Coloring pages 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. ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 16:55:54 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Oooops..... Oooops, sorry. I re-checked -Wishing Horse-. Unk.Nunkie IS the uncle of the King of Seebania. Its just the other bit which I mentioned earlier that doesn't make scense. --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== Date: Sat, 23 Jan 99 15:48:37 (PST) From: Dave Hardenbrook Subject: Ozzy Things NEXT BCF: Tyler wrote: >Therefore, I suggest that the start date for _Royal Book_ be set one weeks >after the Superbowl, or February 8. That's fine by me, if it is for everyone else... I suppose as we get into the midst of the Thompson books that are hard to come by, I should give everyone ample preparation period. TO ALL "OZADE" CONTRIBUTORS: Thanks to everyone who has made a contribution so far... If I haven't E-mailed you personally it's not because I'm ungrateful...I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart and promise to continue to provide a high-quality Oz forum! 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. -- 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, JANUARY 24 - 31, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 13:02:39 +1100 From: Gehan Cooray Subject: Re:Ozzy Digest and other Ozzy Matters David Hulan: I just thought of another way as to how the WWW got the Golden Cap. First off, I don't think Mombi really conquered the North. I think she was the most powerful of the lot, but not "superlatively evil" unlike the other witches. I think the other witches used her to conquer the Royal Family of Oz, and maybe the WWE got her to enchant the Royal Munchkin Family. I think she merely helped the other witches in their evil deeds, and maybe the GWN managed to stop her by "trying" to conquer the north. As Tyler said, Glinda wouldn't have just let Blinkie go to Jinxland and cause more trouble. I think the WWS was actually Singra, or even the witch in -Enchanted Apples-. Maybe Mombi managed to convince Gayallette to give her the cap, and she presented it to the WWW, who may have asked her to get it. Maybe Gayallette left Oz to some other fairy country, for she being a good sorceress would not practise magic illegaly. Shje would have confirmed herself to Ozma IF she were in Oz. Or maybe Mombi enchanted her too, and kept it a secret. (Lot of enchanting isn't there?)BTW, yes, I'm Roman Catholic. Thats why I mentioned the holy rosary and the blessed virgin Mary. Bob Spark: There's nothing wrong in speaking about God is there? Its not like I'm doing anything against Him. Tyler: Thats what puzzles me too. If Oscar arrived in Oz long after Pastoria's kidnapping, how can Ozma still be a baby? Here's another story: Mombi kidnaps Ozma when she kidnaps Pastoria, and hides her in a magic mirror/painting. Then, she realised she needed a servant, and dis-enchanted Ozma and turned her into a boy. Maybe L.Frank Baum made a mistake in -Land- and maybe Ozma/Dorothy told him the real story later.Because ever since -Ozma- Baum says that MOMBI kidnapped Ozma herself. Ozma may have sent the latest happenings in Oz, before -Emerald City- by means of a bird or so. She may have given him a berif explanation as to what happened and Baum wrote it as a book. That explains why he/and the other historians made so many mistakes in the books. They didn';t know the "whole story". Maybe Glinda only made Oz invisible for a short period, and then removed the spell for some reason. Maybe Baum just wrote this as an excuse for writing more books. Maybe Ozma gave him permission...... BTW........... *.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,. 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. *.I've always wondered how Scarecrow came to life. Maybe the Munchkin Farmer, had a dose or two of the Magic Powder of Life, and maybe he un-knowingly spilled some of it on the Scarecrow, and joked to his frined:" I wish old stuffed boy would come to life". And perhaps, unknown to the farmer , his wish came true! *. Don't you think Coo-ee-oh doesn't look all that "Coo-ee-ohish" in Neill's Drawings. I first read -Glinda- in a text-only edition, and I imagined Coo-ee-oh to have long dark hair, a cruel look on a fairly "beautiful" face, and an eaqually beautiful, not-so thin body. She looks more like a lazy lizard-woman in Neill's drawings. Neill didn't draw Jinjur well too. She looks more like the baker's wife in his drawings. And her face doesn't have the pretty lok which Baum mentioned.I imagined her to have long auborn/red hair, and a tall height............. *.Isn't it strange as to how Baum sympathized and took morer interest to female characters, while RPT took more interest on the male ones? --Gehan Cooray ====================================================================== From: JawaHutt@aol.com Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 16:04:42 EST Subject: Oz "I doubt that fan-fiction would be considered a type of parody if any cases went to court." I'll have to disagree with that. It really depends on how it's handled, actually. If it's done in a way similar to the SNL parody, then it's a parody no matter how you look at it. If the parody is more than 50% original work, but the use of copyrighted characters is present and all claims are that it's original, that probably wouldn't be considered as a parody. "David Godwin is probably right in suggesting that it's asking for trouble to announce in a semi-public way (i.e., to any large group) that you plan to write a "Star Wars" story and make it available to the public through the Internet." Realise that when I had sent that letter to him, I was doing it through private e-mail and I wasn't on the Ozzy Digest. I had e-mailed one person, who reccomended another, but I didn't know that the second would help make it public in any way. I'm not exactly sure why making it public to a private e- mail group would exactly make much of a difference. Word of mouth could get me into about as much trouble if a parody is able to get me into trouble now. "You might want to write a draft of a humble apology letter to have ready if you get a cease-and-desist letter from a Lucas lawyer eventually." Again, I don't think that this will ever go into any legal action. Look at all of the amateur song-parodists who don't get permission, yet make all of these Star Wars songs (many having clips from the movies in them), they do it for profit, and Lucas knows about them, yet they do not take legal action. I think that the biggest factor in Lucas' law suits is whether its helping them or not (or at least that's what it has seemed like so far). On another note, Wizard of Oz on Ice is coming here (Columbus) soon. Is this based on the MGM movie or something totaly different? -Timothy ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 17:55:48 -0800 From: Steve Teller Subject: Eureka The subject of Eureka's return to Oz seems to have had much interest in the digest in recent days, so I feel I should present the Laumerian solution to that mystery: ****SPOILER FOR THE CARELESS KANGAROO***** The story takes playce shortly after the events in THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ. The Shaggy Man had a secret passion for Dorothy and wanted to do something for her, so he returned to America (with a wishing pill to bring him back to Oz) with the intention of bringing Eureka back with him. Meanwhile Eureka had gone to live with Almira Gulch, who had a China Dog (which Eureka had a fancy for) and famcied herself a witch. The Shaggy Man used his wishing pill to bring the China Dog to life just as Miss Gulch raised a useless spell to do the same thing. In time the Shaggy Man, Eureka and the China Dog were rescued by Polychrome (who had a secret crush and the Shaggy Man) using Sky Island. These were only a few of the many overlapping plots woven into the most complex of Oz books. Eureka and the China Dog later became characters in anothe March Laumer book, THE CHINA DOG OF OZ. END OF SPOILER********* Steve T. ====================================================================== From: d.godwin@minn.net (David G.) Subject: Oz things Sanctimony: There have been and continue to be many things on the Ozzy Digest that I diagree with to one degree or another and a few things that actually upset me. In the latter case, I have learned that the best policy for all concerned is for me to write a blistering, sarcastic comment - and then never send it. It lets off steam and doesn't hurt anyone's feelings or make anyone mad. One of the hazards of e-mail is the tendency to write and send, with no period for reflection (as there must be with snail mail). Of course, no one likes to have the finger of shame unjustly wagged in his face, but at the same time no one likes to be accused of being sanctimonious, either. As we come closer to the centennial of WWiz, it might be nice if we remembered what Ozma had to say about love. 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? 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. WWiz on stage: After deciding not to go see Mickey Rooney et al. in the stage production of MGMWiz, I ended up going after all. My ticket was part birthday present from a friend, part fee for escorting another friend's kids (ages 3 and 7). I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. I should have known not to trust the critics. I loved Return to Oz when it first came out despite the fact that Siskel and Ebert hated it because it wasn't like the Garland movie. In the case of this musical, I would recommend it to anyone who can afford it. (As for Rooney, he was so determined to be over the top that, imho, his was the weakest performance.) Sociology: Has anyone ever published anything comparing WWiz the book with MGMWiz the movie and demonstrating how the respective treatments reflect the difference between America in 1900 and America in 1939? For example, the one-room shack of the book versus the Andy-Hardy-down-on-the-farm layout of the Gale property in the movie. The presence of Miss Gulch the evil capitalist (owns half the county, etc.) in the post-Depression era versus her nonexistence in the book. And so on. Cute? There was a piece in the Pioneer Press recently about a family planning to dress up as Wizard of Oz characters this coming Halloween (9 months away). After reviewing all the characters, they couldn't remember who that magic guy was that they were all going to see! (Maybe this belongs in Tales of Induhviduals in the Dilbert Newsletter.) - David G. ====================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 22:24:40 -0500 From: Tyler Jones Subject: Oz Gehan: My comment about secrets is itself top-secret. It's part of a project I'm working on about the FF. I shouldn't have said anything. You know too much :-) I should be done within a year. Gehan: Once again, you have fallen into the trap of assuming that every quadrant has always had one unbroken line of rulers that ruled over the entire area. This is unlikely in the extreme, and there is no evidence for this anywhere in or out of the FF. It is quite reasonable to assume that Cheeriobed and his father ruled much of the northern Munchkin Country while Ojo's family ruled much of the south. In this way, each could with some accuracy claim to be the King of the Munchkins, just not necessarily ALL of the Munchkins. There is no need for a soap-opera like situation where everybody is related :-) Glinda and the Great 100: It was definitely a peripheral mention in one of RPT's books. It had nothing to do with the plot and IIRC, it was never mentioned again. Many David's and Blinkie: ISTR that the idea of Blinkie as the original WWS may have originated with Michael Patrick Hearn or Robert Pattrick. 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. Timothy: The 2 Live Crew incident was well before 1996, back in the Dark Ages. :-) Gehan: Interesting what-ifs about the Wizard never showing up, yet most things turning out the same way. The only nit I can pick with you is my belief that there was something there at the place we call the Emerald City. According to Pajuka, there was at least a small castle there and I assume that there were several small settlements in the green area that the Wizard consolidated when he built EC. Tyler Jones ====================================================================== -- 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"