Day 1 - Dorothy meets Zeb & Jim around 5 AM - earthquake - descent to Mangaboos
  & arrival of the Wizard - the party kills Gwig & picks the Princess
Day 2 - Fire trick before the Mangaboos
Days 3-4 - "Two or three days" pass
Day 5 - Party driven into Black Pit - pass through Valley of Voe - sleep in country
  of Gargoyles
Day 6 - Escape from Gargoyles during "night" - the party encounters the
  Dragonettes - Ozma uses the Magic Belt at 4:00 PM
Day 7 - Jim meets the Sawhorse - holiday and procession in honor of the Wizard's return
Day 8 - Festivities continue
Day 9 - On "the third morning after Dorothy's arrival" Ozma misses the
  piglet - trial of Eureka begins at 3:00 PM
Day 10 - Dorothy looks in the Magic Picture "the next evening after the trial" - party for Dorothy and Zeb 
Day 11 - Dorothy and Zeb return to their homes in the AM

Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 17:46:14 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Ozmopolitan and DotWiz
 
 
Dotwiz:
We've tossed this book around a good deal already over the past year and
a half, so saying something fresh may be difficult. It's certainly the
darkest and gloomiest of Baum's books, without much humor and what there
is rather black. It's also an Idiot Plot, in that if Dorothy had just
remembered in the beginning that Ozma would bring her to Oz if she made
a sign at 4:00, most of her adventures would have been avoided. And it
doesn't reflect well on Ozma that, even though Dorothy didn't make the
sign, she left her little friend in serious danger when she must have
seen the problem.
 
The trial of Eureka is also a classic kangaroo court, and again doesn't
reflect very well on Ozma. Eureka is probably not more than eight or ten
weeks old (she seems to have just started eating solid food); sure,
she's sassy and even offensive in some of her remarks, but putting her
to death is about the equivalent of capital punishment for a human
10-year-old. This is not what I think a wise and warm-hearted ruler
would do.
 
As a final query: does anyone know if there was a fashion in posing
little girls around 1907-8 with their upper bodies tilted forward and
their derriere sticking out? Dorothy takes up this pose frequently in
the illustrations to DOTWIZ, and to the best of my recollection she
doesn't do it in any of the other books.
 
OK, there's something for people to chew on.
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 21:23:33 -0400
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
DotWiz:
This was the first "modular" book of the FF. That is, a story that contained
many sub-stories. It is true that earlier FF books had some of the same
elements (such as the Dainty China Country), but this was the first story
that was totally constructed out of smaller elements.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:11:00 -0500
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Thoughts on _Dorothy and the Wizard_:
Everyone seems to agree that this is one of Baum's least appealing Oz books:
it's dark, gloomy, morbid, badly plotted, etc. etc. etc.  But one thing
struck me about Richard Tuerk's article in the Winter 1996 _Bugle_. While he
dutifully catalogued all the disagreeable features of the book, the editor's
note at the beginning of the article indicated that this was in fact one of
Tuerk's favorite Oz books when he was a child.  My own experience is
similar:  I enjoyed it thoroughly when I was first reading the Oz books (age
8 or so).  Perhaps we should start with a more positive point of view:  what
is *good* about this book?  Why does it apparently appeal to children
(beginning with Baum's own contemporary readers, who continued unabatingly
to clamor for more Oz books after _Dorothy and the Wizard_), even if adults
find it inferior?  
 
A while back we were discussing the location of Hugson's Ranch in
California, and David surmised that it was probably near Salinas rather than
northward in the Sacramento Valley.  I'd like to back that up.  If Dorothy
caught a train from San Francisco, she couldn't be heading up into the
Sacramento Valley.  If you're going in that direction, you still have to
cross the Bay, though no longer on a ferry, and catch a train from Oakland.
It seems to me, though, that the ranch is probably farther south in the
Central Valley, around Fresno or possibly even Bakersfield, since Dorothy
has crackers in her bag from "luncheon" on the train, and the train doesn't
get to Hugson's Siding until five in the morning.  Even allowing for a very
slow ride because of the earthquakes, a trip this long would no doubt take
Dorothy more than a couple of hundred miles.
 
Notes on the printing of the book:  Does anyone know why the running title
inside the book, at the top of the pages, is "Little Dorothy and the Wizard
in Oz"?  Was this perhaps the original idea for the title?  And another
question:  the word "Ozite" on p. 224 (p. 222 of the BoW edition) has an
asterisk following it.  Was there supposed to be a footnote there?
 
I wonder if it has occurred to anyone else that the entire book, from
beginning to end, is dominated by the motifs of eating and being eaten.  Of
the four principal phases of the underground journey, only the Gargoyle
episode doesn't involve the threat of being eaten.  The Mangaboo Princess
plans to throw Dorothy, Zeb, and the Wizard to the Twisting Vines, where
they will be "devoured" to make the plants grow bigger; the red bears of Voe
attack and eat anyone they meet; the hungry Dragonettes would readily devour
the travelers if they weren't tethered to the walls of the cave. By the same
token, the theme of Eureka's desire to eat the piglets runs through the
whole book, and there is a more or less steady discussion of what the
travelers are eating, beginning with their landing in the vegetable (!)
kingdom, fashioning a fishing hook to get food for Eureka, eating fruits and
crackers in the Mangaboo land, eating a sumptious lunch in Voe, and eating
(or not eating) dama fruit in Voe.  They face death by starvation in the
cave just below the surface of the earth.  Even in the concluding episode in
Oz there is an odd emphasis on eating, not only in the trial of Eureka and
the usual mention of fat babies in connection with the Hungry Tiger, but
also in the rather long description of the palace servants' attempts to find
the right food for Jim.
 
Hungry protagonists and hungry enemies:  I'm not sure what to make of all
this, but it most assuredly is a unifying theme, and it also ties in with
other motifs of deprivation (the lack of sound in the Gargoyle land, the
lack of visibility in the Valley of Voe, the lack of emotion in the Mangaboo
country).
 
Dorothy's green stripe:  the Mangaboo suns create a green streak through the
center of her face where the blue and yellow lights come together (p. 25).
Just three years before the publication of _Dorothy and the Wizard_, Henri
Matisse had produced a sensation in the art world by exhibiting "Green
Stripe (Portrait of Mme Matisse", which depicts his wife with a green stripe
running down the center of her face.  I'm not saying that this parallel is
anything but a historical coincidence, but it is certainly an *interesting*
coincidence.
 
On p. 218, the Imperial Cornet Band of Oz (stop for a minute to think what a
band composed solely of cornets would sound like!) marches out playing the
National air, followed by standard bearers with the Royal flag, which is
described as being "divided into four quarters, one being colored sky-blue,
another pink, a third lavender and a fourth white.  In the center was a
large emerald-green star. . .The colors represented the four countires of
Oz, and the green star the Emerald City."  Any ideas about why the colors
have become washed out to the point that the Winkie yellow is white?
 
There is internal evidence that Baum may have been aware of (and was
prepared to defend) the belated use of the Magic Belt to rescue the
travelers, but I'll write about that later.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 15:49:34 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
A sort of postscript comment on "Dorothy and the Wizard" --
 
   It's interesting to note that it's one of the many examples of influence 
of sf on Oz.  I haven't read the various early examples of 
journeys-to-the-center-of-the-earth myself, but looked up what J.O. Bailey 
had to say on that motif in his landmark study of early sf, "Pilgrims 
through Space and Time."  He traces that motif back to the 18th century, 
but there was a big boost to the popularity of the theme early in the 19th 
century, when John Symmes came up with his crackpot, but appealing, theory 
that the Earth was hollow inside, with openings at the poles, and sailing 
into the inside through the polar openings would be possible.  Even 
when journey stories did not draw directly on Symmes (for instance, Verne's 
"Journey to the Center of the Earth" portrays a large cavity in the Earth, 
rather than an entirely hollow inside, and does not assume polar access to 
the cavity), they drew on the popularity that Symmes had given to the 
notion of journeying inside the world.  Some of the stories that Bailey 
discusses make use of details that show up in the "Dorothy/Wizard" 
interior-of-the-Earth, including the artificial sunlight in many colors, 
and the near-weightlessness that makes it possible to walk on the air.  (It 
doesn't match up very well with the physics of the situation, and works 
better in a world below Oz than in the early sf stories Baum was following, 
probably.)
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:36:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kiex at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-11-97
 
On DOTWIZ:
Does anyone think Ozma really intended to follow through on her threat to
kill Eureka?  I don't, although maybe the fact that I am fond of cats has
something to do with that.
 
--jeremy and KIEX, partners in incoherency

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 12:21:04 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
David Hulan:
   You'll probably get general agreement on seeing problems in the ending 
of "Dorothy and the Wizard."  Even Cal Dobbins, who wrote an article, 
"Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz Revisited" ("Bugle," Spring 1983), on its 
good qualities, didn't like the ending.  I think Baum plotted himself into 
a hole (literally, too), as it would have been an anticlimax to get the 
characters all the way up that mountain and out onto the surface and then 
still have to get them across the Desert and to the Emerald City.  Of 
course, he could have had the mountain surface at the Emerald City, but 
that would have established a road to Oz too easy of acess (well, easier 
than most).  And it would be hard to plot the surface leg of the journey so 
that it would seem like a continuation of the rise in the action, rather 
than an anticlimax (rather like the trip -- after getting all the way back 
to the Emerald City -- to Glinda's to finish up in "Wizard").  So he got 
them all the way up the mountain, but not to the surface.

   I'd make a guess that the business of having Zeb and Jim and Eureka in 
their different ways unhappy in Oz society was also partly at attempt to 
find an interesting action to occur in the Emerald City, so that the 
closing section would also not seem like an anticlimax, but the device 
doesn't work very well, particularly as regards Eureka.  I kind of wish 
he'd closed off the theme of Eureka's desire to eat the piglets by having 
her go see Ozma privately to explain that she'd tried to eat one but 
failed.  She could then have said that she enjoyed being able to talk and 
wanted to stay in Oz, but would agree to obey the "house rules," as Greg 
Gick referred to it in his article on Ozma's governance in the recent Oz 
Research Organization mailing, and would not hunt her fellow-citians.  And 
possibly then her later pinkness could have been explained as a sort of 
mild punishment that Ozma imposed on her, by way of reminding her how she 
came to Oz and her guest-status.)

   Besides disliking much of the plot, I very much dislike Neill's artwork 
in this one book.  (In the other books, I like his work very much.)  The 
drawings in this one are too busy in many instances, the the drawings of 
the Wizard are so exaggerated that he looks as if he is wearing clown 
makeup or has been drinking too much.  Like you, I think the poses of 
Dorothy bent at an angle look peculiar.  You may be right in guessing that 
the odd slant was a fashion that year, but I don't know.

   My niece Harriet Sogin, however, liked the book a good deal when I read 
it to her a few years ago, especially for the Mangaboo Princess.  She had 
been noticing that many books use few female characters and put those few 
into subordinate roles, so was enchanted to discover that Tip was really 
Ozma, and went on taking note of women rulers that show up in the Oz 
books.  She was disappointed that there was no picture of the Mangaboo 
Princess in the b&w copy I was reading to her out of.  Fortunately, just 
about then Books of Wonder brought out its edition, with the color plates, 
so I bought her one of those, and she enjoyed the color plate of Dorothy 
and the Wizard picking the Princess.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 11:39:20 +0300 (IDT)
From: Gili Bar-Hillel <gili at scso.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
Hi Digest!
  Thanks to all for the friendly welcome back.
 
some thoughts on "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz": I have always been rather
fond of this book, myself. The reasons may be in part personal, as it was
a copy of this book that launched what is now my collection. I paid $8 for
it in a bookstore in San-Francisco when I waaas only nine years old.
Though the spine is cracked, many pages are discolored, the label is
rubbed, some of the clolor plates are loose and one may even be missing, I
am still pleased with the bargain I got...
 
D&W also reminds me of another fantasy book which I have already mentioned
here as an Oz imitation, but I'll describe it again. The book is called
"The Amazing Land of Wew" by John Kaufer. The plot mixes elements from
different Oz books, especially "The Pastchwork Girl" and "Dorothy and the
Wizard". There is one episode especially that is like the kingdom of the
mangaboos: the hero and his friends reach a land inhabited by tree-people.
The monarch, who is very cruel, has just "sprouted", which means his acorn
must be replanted so a sucessor can grow. By accident, the visitors cause
the ebony acorn to be ground up in a grinder with acorns of other, common
trees. The tree people are furious and want to execture them, but the
visitors quickly plant the ground-up acorns, which grow instantly into a
large bush, on which is growing a beautiful queen who is made of a
combination of different types of wood. She ends up joining them in their
quest (they are looking for ingredients for a magic potion to release the
capitol city from an evil sorcerer) because her subjects refuse to be
ruled by a mixed breed.

execture should have been execute, sorry
 
 
   |\      _,,,---,,_
   /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_      Gili Bar-Hillel,
  |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'      gili at scso.com
 '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 07:28:13 -0700
From: Bob Spark <bspark at pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
Talking about DOTWIZ,
     First, a couple of quotes:
> the word "Ozite" on p. 224 (p. 222 of the BoW edition) has an
> asterisk following it.  and:
> On p. 218, the Imperial Cornet Band of Oz 
 
     I have a Rand McNally paperback edition (these comprise the bulk of
my Oz books) which I had always assumed to be an exact copy of the
original.  My pagination appears to be completely different than yours.
My pages 222 and 224 fall after the end of the story.  Both are part of
a list of all the Oz books by L. Frank Baum.  The Imperial Cornet Band
of Oz is discussed on my page 185.  Do I somehow have an abridged
edition?

     Second, for some reason I have just been re-reading H. Rider
Haggard (don't ask me why, I don't know myself.  It seemed a good idea
at the time).  I find myself drawing parallels with DOTWIZ.  The
protagonists find themselves (willingly or not) in an undiscovered
society completely different than the one to which they are
accustomed.     Disregarding any value judgements, these societies had
been perking along fine until the arrival of our heroes.  They then
proceed to wreak havoc and then leave with said society in shambles. 
All of this is viewed as good and proper.  A similar situation could be
found with our recent involvement in Vietnam (Oops, bite my tongue. 
Politics has reared it's ugly head.  Disregard the previous comment.) 
Possibly I am just in some kind of weird mood.  Haggard can do that.

     Third, (and not on DOTWIZ),
> A while back we were discussing the location of Hugson's Ranch in
> California, and David surmised that it was probably near Salinas 
> rather than northward in the Sacramento Valley.  

     I agree.  As a resident of Sacramento I can attest to the fact that
we are not nearly as subject to earthquakes as the San Francisco Bay
Area and the Salinas valley.  The San Andreas and its related faults are
located 100 or so miles west of us. There is, however, a small town
named Hughson near Modesto (about 60 miles south of Sacramento).  I had
wondered about that.  Probably just coincidence.
 
Bob Spark 
 
-- 
"Outside of a dog,
a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read."
    Groucho Marx

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 14:06:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: JOdel at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
DOT/WIZ was another survivor of Ma and her sibs, and in almost as good a
condition as LAND. Which should have warned me, not that I was of an age to
take warnings of that nature yet. I agree. This book is damned hard to
actually LIKE. It's scary, it's unpleasant, Eureka's trial is a blot on
Ozma's escutchion and there is the "idiot plot" detail to have to contend
with. (Although to be honest, didn't someone comment that at the time of
DOT/WIZ Ozma was only looking in on Dorothy on Saturday afternoons?) Unlike
LAND, the story never gets tiresome, and the characters are excellent, which
is what saves it, IMHO, but even the intermittant comic relief is on the
grisly side. Which is probably its worst flaw. With better comic relief, it
would make an excellent Indiana Jones story.
 
This is the first book in which we actually get a picture of the Wizard's
character. And if he was not quite so good a man as he claimed himself to be,
he was a lot more resourceful one. But I agree with whoever it was (David?)
that pointed out that this was actually Zeb's book. This is unquestionably
the "Boys' Adventure Story" version of the Oz universe, with Dorothy very
much along for the ride. I also agree that even though Zeb is drawn to look
about twelve or so, in an e-text version, he comes across as easily 14-15,
making his return to California much easier to understand. In fact, it was
inevetable, Zeb was already too old to really enjoy Oz. 
 
I also get the distinct impression that Baum didn't really seem have much
admiration for horses. Both Jim and the Sawhorse have a distincly nasty
streak to their dispositions, and perhaps intentionally, they appear to have
very much the SAME kind of nasty streak. Jim's kicking the Sawhorse in a snit
was no more than a dose of the Sawhorse's own medicine, given some of the
Sawhorse's own past (and future) behavior. This seems all the more noticable,
since during the early part of the book, when the party was all in danger,
Jim was a valuable and honorable member of the group. (Hank, who is refered
to interchangably as a mule and a donkey, does not seem to share this trait.
He has a much less distinct personality overall, but he only kicks someone in
defense.)
 
As to the odd stance in which Dorothy is posed throughout the book, it was
not necessarily a fashionable stance for little girls but it was the
characteristic stance used in drawings of fashionable grown women. The
straight-fronted "health corset" which was introduced in 1902 enforced it.
And Neil does seem to have very much followed fashion when drawing his
characteres. (I think it was Melody who pointed out that Neil's Dorothy
looked like a rich relative of Denslow's. She was certainly far too
well-dressed for an inpoverished farm child.) 

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 11:34:38 -0700
From: ozbot <ozbot at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
 
DOTWIZ--
 
What was good about it?  Well, when I look at it now with my adult eyes, I
can see the character studies that I find interesting.  Dorothy's character
as a stoic adventurer comes clear, as does the Wizard's self-grandiosity
(ooh, a new word!) and American imperializism (which you can parrelell to
his character in WIZARD)  Zeb and Jim remain a counterpoint-- the more
"realistic" and horrified responce to all of this strangeness.  Eureka is
just a perfect cat-- an independant jerk but you gotta love her.  DOTWIZ
remains a series of character studies, rather than a strict adventure story
a la OZMA's "let's go save Ev"
 
As a child, perhaps the appeal is that this story follows along the same
lines of Hansel and Gretel-- the wayward travellers attempting to get home.
 There was a study (I can't remember who wrote about it ugh.) that asked
kids which fairy tales they preferred.  The overwhelming responce was
Hansel and Gretel.  However contrived the dues ex machina is, Dorothy
nonetheless retains the power to save her party-- the child empowered uses
her ability to escape horror.  
 
Interesting that the "eating" motif can be parrelleled to HandG as well. .
.  Food can always play a big part in kids lit for whatever reason. Even
WIZARD is preoccupied with it, as is OZMA (especcialy with eggs being the
key for Roquat's undoing.)
 
Danny

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 19:46:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
Gordon: Great questions. I wish I knew the answers. Maybe Peter Hanff 
will know, but he's outta town right now. I checked my 1sr. edit. and, 
sure enough, there was the mysterious asterisk. I don't recall having 
ever before noted it, so I checked my childhood copy (from the '50s with 
the odd redrawn cover...matching the equally odd Russian Mosque cover on 
the LAND of that vintage). The asterisk in my childhood copy is so 
heavily inked that it looks more like a blob than an asterisk, and I 
s'pose that's how I interpreted it as a kid.  Maybe Baum was going to add 
a footnote about the term "Ozite," but was convinced that footnoting a 
kiddy book was a bad idea. I know that there's a footnote in OZMA 
--something about even princesses must darn socks--and one in MERRY GO 
ROUND., but I think that's it for the whole series. Hmm.

        Theme of deprivation. Another "Hmm." What was going on in Baum's 
life at that time? Any connection? Eating as a unifier. Fits even the 
discarded chapter which was to have been "The Garden of Meats." Very 
grim. Very scary. And this from the man who started the series with the 
intention of keeping nightmares out of fairyland. He's got almost every 
nightmare possible in there, other (oddly enough) than one about a witch. 
(O.K., he has a heartless male magician instead.) Even dragon(ette)s, 
although I don't think a youngster would be too scared of them, since 
they're tied by their tails. But Mother was to have returned soon, right? 
I guess I'll reread the book. Too many gaps in my memory. I'm one who 
isn't fond of it, but your comments genuinely intrigue me.

        ...and I love the Matisse connection. I'll bet it's deliberate.
 
                                        --Robin

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 00:13:22 -0400
From: Richard Bauman <RBauman at compuserve.com>
Subject: TODAY'S OZ GROWLS
 
Now for DotWiz - This was the first Oz book I ever read, at about 7 years
of age.  This is the second time I have read it.  What I remembered from
the first reading was the "quest."  This was the first book I read that had
characters going on an interesting trip.  I loved it and this is still a
favorite type of literature for me.  The second thing was really being
taken aback when the characters were transported to Oz by Ozma.  I was
really disappointed.  It seemed like cheating at the time.
 
On this reading I noticed the violence.  Jim commits assault and battery on
the Sawhorse.  His punishment?  Implied threat by the "big cats."  Eureka
only attempts murder and that is apparently all right?  Try that in your
local hood! The Wizard and the Tin Woodman conspire to conceal her alleged
felony! This is kindhearted?  Dorothy's feelings are more important than
the piglets life?  Well, I guess you can tell, I am one of those law and
order types.  I'm also a cat lover - what a quandry.  =
 
Finally, sometime in the fifties my family was invited to a cabin on the
slopes of Mt. Hood in Oregon.  Nearby us kids found an old run-down cabin
which served as a post office at one time.  In it I found a turn of the
century "Munsey" magazine, still in reasonable shape. (Of course I still
have it.) Many of the models in the magazine looked like Dorothy.  Above
the waist vertical and flat-chested and below the waist puffed out behind
(probably with a bustle).  I think Neill was just reflecting the current
fashion.  Ladies?????
 
Do any of our older members remember the expression "VOE!"  Answer later.
 
Cryptically, Bear  (:<)

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 15:47:10 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
Tyler:
Good point, that DOTWIZ was the first Oz book entirely constructed from
smaller blocks. This practice became so common in the later books that
it's worth remarking that the first three books, with occasional
exceptions (the Dainty China Country - and really the whole trip to
Glinda - in WIZARD; the Jackdaws' Nest in LAND), had plots where
everything in the book was integral to the main story. Of course, many
of Baum's non-Oz fantasies used this modular approach well before
DOTWIZ; DOT AND TOT, MASTER KEY, SANTA CLAUS, JOHN DOUGH - even ZIXI, to
a considerable extent.
 
Gordon:
Good question: why _do_ children seem to like DOTWIZ quite a lot, even
though most adults think it's inferior? I can't speak for myself; it
wasn't one of my favorites even when I was a kid, though since it was
one I borrowed rather than owned I only read it once or maybe twice, and
didn't have very distinct memories of it until I acquired my own copy
while in my 30s and read it again. Of the books I borrowed but didn't
own as a child, the ones I remembered most fondly were OZMA, ROAD,
PATCHWORK GIRL, TIK-TOK, ROYAL BOOK, LOST KING, HUNGRY TIGER, YELLOW
KNIGHT, PIRATES, and OJO. As an adult rereading all the books I
understand why I didn't remember DOTWIZ, COWARDLY LION, GRAMPA, GNOME
KING, JACK PUMPKINHEAD, and PURPLE PRINCE very well, but I don't know
why SCARECROW and GLINDA made so little impression on me - or, for that
matter, why I liked ROAD and TIK-TOK as much as I did, when as an adult
I find them rather lacking. (Of the Thompsons, my adult opinions are
pretty close to my childhood ones. Note that OJO was the latest Oz book
I was able to read as a child by borrowing; the later books I either
owned or didn't read for the first time until I was an adult.)
 
But I suppose one reason why kids liked DOTWIZ is that it's an exciting
story, with several episodes of serious danger to Dorothy and her
companions, and kids generally like that kind of thing. Starting with
ROAD, episodes of actual physical danger to the child protagonist of a
story seem to drop, by and large, to no more than one or two a book. I
think it likely that children remember the exciting incidents and ignore
the general lack of intelligence in the plot.
 
I agree that Salinas itself is no doubt too far north for Hugson's
ranch; I had missed the mention of Dorothy's "luncheon on the train"
when I made my earlier post. That would imply that she had boarded
around noon, if not earlier, and the train was due at Hugson's Siding at
midnight, though because of the earthquakes it was nearly dawn. Even
assuming that it was a milk train (and one that stopped at Hugson's
Siding probably would be) that didn't average more than 20-25 mph, you'd
expect it to get 250-300 miles from San Francisco in no less than 12
hours. If it were heading down the Central Valley that would put it
somewhere between Fresno and Bakersfield; if it were taking the more
westerly route then it would be between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
 
In either case, though, I think it's pretty conclusive that the quake in
question could not possibly have been the 1906 San Francisco quake. Even
in Salinas and Monterey that quake didn't do any significant damage, and
as far south as Dorothy evidently was it's doubtful she'd even feel it
if she were in a moving buggy, though she might if she were standing
still on the ground.
 
The green streak in Dorothy's face where the light from the blue and
yellow suns comes together is pretty implausible, in that based on the
description of them all the suns were visible at the same time. The only
way you could get such a green streak would be if something were between
the blue sun and the left side of her face, and something between the
yellow sun and the right side of her face, but both could illuminate the
center. (You might expect this, for instance, if she were looking
through a narrow slot in something opaque. But not if she were standing
out in the open.) In fact, the human eye adjusts very rapidly to the
changes in the color of the illumination source, and nobody would notice
anything unusual about colors unless they were in a partial shadow.
 
A cornet band seems plausible enough, as an extension of the classic
"drum and bugle corps". Cornets are, after all, basically bugles with
valves that allow a wider range of notes to be played. I expect the
cornet band included a few drums as well.
 
Ruth:
Dorothy & Co's experience in the Land of the Mangaboos doesn't fit much
of any kind of physics. Weightlessness, if they were indeed at the
center of the earth, would be correct - that is, there's no net
gravitational force inside a hollow sphere, if the hollow is concentric
with the outside of the sphere. But if there were no net gravitational
force it would be like being in free fall in space; you couldn't walk
anywhere, or keep your head "up", unless you were holding on to
something.
 
Also, clearly they weren't near the center of our earth. The journey of
a thousand miles may begin with a single step, but this would have been
a climb of over three thousand miles, and it isn't going to happen in a
few days. They couldn't have been more than, oh, 40-50 miles down at
most, I'd say.
 
Jeremy:
If Ozma didn't intend to put Eureka to death if she'd been found guilty,
why did she cause Dorothy a great deal of distress by saying she would?
 
Ruth:
It seems to me that having the tunnel in the mountain surface near the
Emerald City would have been less anticlimactic than the Magic Belt
solution Baum resorted to. In fact, all he'd really have had to do was
stick to Ozma and Dorothy's original agreement, that Ozma would look for
her every Saturday morning, to get around the whole problem. Because the
only plausible place they could have stopped was Voe, and the only way
they could do that was to eat the dama-fruit and become invisible - in
which case Ozma wouldn't have been able to see Dorothy's signal. So they
just kept climbing until they got to the surface or Saturday came,
whichever was first.
 
I agree that the art in DOTWIZ isn't up to Neill's usual standard.
Especially compared to ROAD, which immediately followed and is among his
best. Maybe Baum - who was obviously having trouble with the book -
delivered the MS late and Neill didn't have as much time as he usually
did? Does any information of that sort exist?
 
David Hulan

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 17:37:16 +0600
From: rri0189 at ibm.net
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
Gordon Birrell wrote:
>Everyone seems to agree that this is one of Baum's least appealing Oz books:
>it's dark, gloomy, morbid, badly plotted, etc. etc. etc.  ...
>Why does it apparently appeal to children
>(beginning with Baum's own contemporary readers, who continued unabatingly
>to clamor for more Oz books after _Dorothy and the Wizard_), even if adults
>find it inferior?  
 
Except for the one plot hole, what is _artistically_ bad about any of these
things?  "Because they don't go in kid's books.  They're bad."  Thank you,
Barney; we will now sing you the anvil song....  I recall C. S. Lewis observing
somewhere that he placed only two restrictions on "The Chronicles of Narnia"
-- no scenes of romantic love, and chapters of roughly equal length (for
bedtime-reading convenience).  D&tW was one of my favorites, too.
 
>stop for a minute to think what a
>band composed solely of cornets would sound like!
 
Errr....  Like a drum corps (or, as we called them in my youth, a drum and
bugle corps)?  Nothing odd about a "cornet band" at all, at least at that
date.
 
>Any ideas about why the colors
>have become washed out to the point that the Winkie yellow is white?
 
Obviously the flag was between Baum's informant and the sun!
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
> Some of the stories that Bailey 
>discusses make use of details that show up in the "Dorothy/Wizard" 
>interior-of-the-Earth, including the artificial sunlight in many colors, 
>and the near-weightlessness that makes it possible to walk on the air.  (It 
>doesn't match up very well with the physics of the situation, and works 
>better in a world below Oz than in the early sf stories Baum was following, 
>probably.)
 
Not really.  The near-weightlessness is quite accurate, although the
"walking on air" per se is nonsense.  Baum is more nearly correct than
Edgar Rice Burroughs (there would be no gravity whatever in Pellucidar).
Of course the hollow Earth itself is pretty much nonsense; Cavendish's
initial calculation of G pretty well determined the mass of the Earth, so
that long before Baum's time, it was known that the Earth _couldn't_ be
massively void.
 
// John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit"

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 97 23:07:56 (PDT)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
David H. wrote:
>One thing that's puzzled me about the Magic Belt is that it's supposed
>to protect its wearer from harm - but it did not, at the end of OZMA,
>protect the Nome King from having the belt stolen from him. This seems
>inconsistent with Dorothy's later use of it in LOST PRINCESS and GLINDA.
>(Something that protects the wearer from harm while it's being worn, but
>that can easily be removed from its wearer by a hostile person, isn't
>all that much protection.)
 
Jellia: The Belt's magic had run down [in accordance with Aaron's et. al 
        theory of the Belt's reserve of magic periodically running out like a 
        battery and it then having to be "recharged"] by the end of _Ozma_...
        Oddly enough, the Belt's power runs down much faster while it's in the
        possesion of someone evil...
Wogglebug: BTW, in regard to Dorothy's "green streak", I'll add that it 
        wouldn't work anyway, because in *optics*, which is what sunlight
        would be governed by, yellow and blue don't make green -- they 
        make...white!
 
                                                       -- Dave

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:09:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: atty242 at mail.utexas.edu (Atticus)
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-16-97
 
_DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD_ AND DEUS EX MACHINA:
my theory about why baum had the adventurers come to a stand-still and have
to be rescued by ozma is to establish right off the bat the wizard's
subservience to ozma.  throughout the previous chapters, the wizard uses
humbug magic or other ordinary devices to lead the children and animals out
of danger.  at last they've reached a point where the wizard fails and only
ozma's magic can help them.  it's kind of like "pay no attention to that
man behind the curtain" all over again.  plus, the sudden disappearance of
dorothy and his own instant teleportation disconcerts diggs and further
augments his feelings of inferiority in relation to ozma.  he must, after
all, be humbled since he has up to this point exhibited a certain amount of
braggadacio.

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:37:51 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-16-97
 
Bob:
I don't think the Rand McNally Oz books are abridged, but their type was
reset and so the page numbers are inconsistent with R&L editions. That's
why I don't try to give page references for Oz books, but just chapter
references (which do seem to be consistent from edition to edition).
 
I don't think Modesto is far enough from San Francisco to require the
long train journey Dorothy apparently had, so Hughson is probably not
relevant. Down around Camarillo or Ventura might be plausible, and
that's definitely ranching country where it isn't urban - which it
wasn't then.
 
Joyce:
At the end of OZMA Dorothy and Ozma agree that Ozma will check Dorothy
every Saturday morning, but in DOTWIZ Dorothy says Ozma checks her every
day at 4:00 PM. I find this evidence that Dorothy must have made at
least one unrecorded visit back to Oz between those two books, at which
point she and Ozma changed their arrangement. As I said in my last post,
DOTWIZ would actually have made more sense if Baum had left the
arrangement in its original form; I don't know why he made the change.
Since he didn't specify a day of the week at any time during the book,
it would have been easy enough for Dorothy to say something like, "Well,
now that we've survived until Saturday morning, I can signal Ozma and
get us out of this."
 
I disagree that Zeb was too old to enjoy Oz - _I'm_ not too old to enjoy
Oz, should I be fortunate enough to get there! However, Zeb was too
prosaic to enjoy Oz, and his age might have been a factor there.
 
Robin:
I noticed that missing footnote the first time I ever read DOTWIZ (which
was in a fairly early edition, probably ca. 1920), and have noticed it
every time since. There are at least a couple of other footnotes I
recall from Baum - one in TIK-TOK where he explains the Nome King's
change of name, and one in MAGIC where he tells how to pronounce "patio"
(which isn't the way it's pronounced today, if it ever was). There may
be others.
 
Bear:
Eureka's attempted murder wasn't "all right"; she was confined to
Dorothy's rooms - in effect, imprisoned - because of it, and chose exile
to Kansas in preference to that. And Jim's "assault and battery" on the
Sawhorse has to be considered in the context that the Sawhorse doesn't
feel pain; if Jim had kicked a flesh-and-blood creature I'm sure his
punishment would have been much more severe.
 
John K.:
There's nothing intrinsically bad artistically in a book - even a
children's book - being dark, gloomy, and morbid, but it's a kind of
writing that I don't think Baum did very well, and it isn't what most of
us love in the Oz books. YMMV.
 
Dave:
You're right about yellow and blue light adding to make white, rather
than green. I hadn't stopped to think about that. You can't get green by
adding two colors of light, because green is an additive primary.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 12:24:12 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-11-97
 
Did you guys notice that the Oz National Air is "The Oz-Spangled Banner?"
Ironically, "The Star-Spangled Banner" did not become the U.S. national
anthem until 1931.  Does anyone know who made the Oz flag in the new
documentary?
 
Scott

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:44:02 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Gordon Birrell and Bob Spark and Robin Olderman: "Dorothy and the Wizard"
was the only Reilly & Britton (or Lee) Oz book that varied significantly in
pagination between editions.  That was partly because they counted the
color plates in the first edition as being pages, and then had to
re-paginate when they dropped them.  Bob's edition is probably full-length,
not abridged, in spite of being shorter.  Robin is probably right in saying
that the asterisk on "Ozite" was meant to refer to a footnote that was
dropped at the last minute.  Baum did put a couple of footnotes into later
Oz books.  There's one in "Glinda" defining "patio" (probably less common
outside California then than now), and I don't remember for sure if the
information (in "Rinkitink?") defining "nome" as "one who knows" was worked
into the text or presented as a footnote.
 
Gordon: Interesting comments on the motif of eating and being eaten. //
The pastel flag should probably be considered an experiment (by Baum in
effective flag descriptions; by Ozma early in her reign in designing or
re-designing a national flag).  Pastels really cannot work very well on
flags -- bright colors and strong contrasts are needed to show up on
something meant to be viewed at a distance.  So it's not surprising that
the experiment was later revised.  (It's still a bit difficult as a flag
design -- the yellow contrasts nicely on the one side, but the central
green and the borders with purple, blue, red are probably a bit difficult
to distinguish when the flag is flown.  Still, if the green portion is a
sparkly "emerald" green, say, and the blue a pastel blue, the design is
probably distinguishable enough.)
 
Gili Bar-Hillel: "The Amazing Land of Wew" does sound like an Oz clone.
When did it come out, do you know?  A curious "Dorothy and the Wizard"
imitation is Grace Duffie Boylan's "Yama-Yama Land," which came out the
year after "Dorothy and the Wizard" (from Reilly & Britton), and features
a little San Francisco girl, who gets caught in the earthquake and
follows the opened crack down into the lands inside the hollow Earth.
(Although when I say "the" earthquake, I am funding on whether it is,
say, 1906 or not.  Perhaps it's the same as Dorothy's earthquake,
regardless of what year it is?)  Some of the other characters make their
way there by boat through the Polar opening, so this one is more Symmesian
than Baum was.  Some of the territories of lost objects (lost dolls, lost
pins) sound a bit like "Dot and Tot in Merryland."  It's an enjoyable
story, with nice artwork.
 
David Hulan: Yes, weightlessness in a hollow Earth with the hollow
symmetrically centered on the Earth's center is correct enough.  But
some of the early hollow-Earth books Bailey describes were like "Dorothy
and the Wizard" in assuming a kind of near-weightlessness, with people of
lighter weight able to go "higher," and the effect falling off as
one went further "up" from the surface -- and that's a situation more
plausible with magic in an Oz book than when presented as "scientifically"
likely.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 15:57:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kiex at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-16-97
 
And on to Oz?
I agree, the magic transport via Ozma's wish does cheat the reader out of a
more complex and well-thought out plot.  But then again, Baum did about reach
the length of the average Oz book with no end in sight . . . which hardly
excuses it!  Still, there are admirable things about the book, as many have
pointed out, and I always liked it just as much as the others.
---
Somewhat instrumental to the plot...:
As a cornet and trumpet player, I can give informed knowledge to the effect
that cornets are basically the same as trumpets, just with more coiled tubing
so they seem smaller.  The tubing in cornets becomes gradually wider from
mouthpiece to bell, giving them a mellower sound, while in trumpets the
tubing remains the same diameter until it gets abruptly wider at the bell.
 [The bell is the wide part at the end of the horn, where the notes come
out.]  Trumpets are generally used for marches whereas cornets are used for
softer, melodic pieces.  I always found my cornet easier to play, because it
takes less air for me to get a higher note [but that may just be me].
---
Ozma: Cat-hater or Not?
Okay, good point; she did cause Dorothy a lot of pain at the idea of putting
Eureka to death--pain which was probably not unfounded.  I would say Ozma was
still getting used to ruling Oz and didn't always know how justice is
administered properly.
 
--Jeremy and KIEX, partners in ... well, partners at least  :-)

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 21:29:17 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 06-14-97
 
David & Ruth:
 
On Dorothy's strange pose---Top leaning forward with bottom pushed back--I
remember one time seeing an illo of a grown Victorian woman in exactly this
pose, accompanied by copy that said women's corsets of the time pushed them
into this fashionable pose, which was known as "the dyspepsia front."
 
Ruth:
 
I agree with you on Neilll's pics of the Wiz--yecccch. I like his simple
style in "Land" better than the busier style he uses in later Oz books.
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 23:28:27 -0400
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Gordon:
Ok, I'll try. Probably the one thing that appeals to most people about
_Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz_ is the return of the Wizard. While not a
saint in the first book, he was an important fixture in early Oz, and his
return closed a very important loop.
 
Kiex:
While we may never know if Ozma really intended to kill Eureka or not, she
was certainly acting quite seriously, even to the point of having a formal
jury trial. David Hulan wrote about this once, and IIRC, he concluded that
Ozma was not likely to put Dorothy through such needless torment if she never
intended to put the kitten to death.
 
Tunnel:
Clearly, the ending would have been better if the crew in _Dot&Wiz_ could
have gotten out of the tunnel and found themselves in Oz.
 
Hollows:
While our own Earth cannot be hollow (our density is 5.5, much more than
water and surface elements, therefore the center must be even more dense
than that), the world of Oz probably could be, with different rules for
gravity. BTW, this is another reason to believe that the world of Oz is not
physically the same as our own.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 00:36:56 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 06-16-97
 
        The first Dotwiz I ever saw was one a friend showed us at her
house--and she thought the story really wierd because it wasn't "Wizard."
The first Dotwiz I bought and read was the Rand McNally whitecover
paperback edition. I found the story as dark and morbid as many of you did.
 
        Baum seems to knock "lookism" in Dotwiz--the Mangaboos are
gorgeous, but heartless and cruel. The people of Voe cannot be seen, and
therefore cannot be judged by their looks, but they are very hospitable and
concerned about the travelers' safety. The Gargoyles are stereotypical ugly
and mean. (Chris Dulabone tried to correct this "Braided Man of Oz" a book
that features a good Gargoyle.)
 
        The Mangaboos, don't seem to be completely emotionless. The
Mangaboo Prince states that they become angry when rocks fall and break
their glass buildings. Later, when the Mangaboos drive out the strangers,
Baum says that Eureka's claws ruined so many vegetable complexions that the
Mangaboos *feared* her as much as the flyilng heels of Jim. So the
Mangaboos, at least at that time, could feel anger, fear, and probably hate
as well. As Zim observes in SBM1,  they seem to  feel only negative
emotions. It's their veggy faces that don't express any feeling at all.
 
        Beauty is apparently very important to them--they are angered when
falling rocks spoil their fine buildings and the Mangaboo prince would
rather destroy Dorothy & Company than let them "ruin our pretty melon vines
and berry bushes" by eating them. *****Plot spoilers for SBM1**** There's
another reason featured in SBM1--when Tip eats veggies, it really grosses
out his Mangaboo companions. To vegetable folk it's like watching somebody
eat live mice, lizards,canaries, etc. Tip also saves himself from being
killed right away by the Mangaboos by using the importance they place on
beauty.
 
        "DotWiz" does seem like an Idiot Plot--especially since Baum or
Dorothy forgot that Ozma is supposed to look in on them every Saturday, not
every day. I agree with David--Baum *could" have strengthened Dotwiz and
saved it from Idiot Plotting with only a modicum of tinkering--by having
Dorothy say, "Ozma agreed to look  in on me every Saturday at 4:00, but
it's Monday!"
        Zeb: And the Mangaboos are after us!
        Wizard: We must find a way to stay alive until next Saturday...!
 
        David:
 
        Clever of you to point out that while Voe was relatively safe as
long as Dorothy & Company chose to be invisible, Ozma would not see
Dorothy's hand signal. Of course, on the other hand:
 
        Ozma: Why, I asked for Dorothy and the Magic Picture showed
Nothing! Dorothy must be in trouble. I had better consult Glinda! Or try to
transport Dorothy here. Maybe Dorothy's just invisible....
 
        Or:
 
        Ozma: The Picture just showed me a meadow. Oh, no! What if--if
Dorothy's b--buried there? What if she's---de-e-ead! Boo-hoo-hoo-----!
 
        JOdel:
 
        Indeed Baum may not have admired horses very much. Phyllis Karr
once made a very good point--that the horseless Emerald City would be
paradise to someone who had to put up with the smell and mess of horse
droppings in the streets of Baum's era. Indeed, I tend to prefer cars as
transportation despite their problems--yes people get disabled by car
wrecks but people were disabled by horses, too, when they were used for
transportation. People have been disabled and killed by horse kicks, being
thrown from them, falling off of them, etc. Give me untemperamental
transportation any day! :-) The Sawhorse's future behavior: he kicks the
poor Woozy in "Patchwork Girl."
 
        Different animals have different personalities. Hank was probably a
more mild-mannered mule than most--mules have been known to kick, too!
 
        Dave:
 
        You're right--different colors of *light* blended together do add
up to white--if you add enough of 'em.
 
        I didn't think much of the "Eureka on Trial" sequence, either.
 
        If more children love DotWiz than adults, it's probably for the
reasons that you folks mentioned. A.) It's the sort of exciting
action-adventure kids do love. B.) It's episodic--able to hold short
attention spans.I've loved certain shows or stories as kids--then come back
to them as a grownup and wondered what I ever saw in them. Example: kids
love (or loved?) the excitement of Power Rangers, but adults think the show
silly--because adults can see the shallow characters, outrageous plots,
unscientific science, the dumb dialogue, obvious pandering to power
fantasies, etc. The ideal is for a writer to appeal to children without
insulting the intelligence of grownups. Even if, as someone says, nobody
ever got poor underestimating the intelligence of the public, still-- if
the intelligent ones think something is dumb, think they're *all* going to
refrain from telling everyone else? (Eh, David? Elbow, elbow. :-) :-)  )
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 20:29:36 -0400
From: Richard Bauman <RBauman at compuserve.com>
Subject: TODAY'S OZ GROWLS
Content-disposition: inline
 
David - This is a perfect example of the dichotomy between conservatives
and liberals.  It seems as though the liberal usually relates to the
criminal while the conservative relates to the victim.  Did Jim know the
Sawhorse didn't feel pain, when he kicked him, hmmmmmm?  And, some might
not consider exile to Kansas punishment. :)
 
Cryptically, Bear  (:<)

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 21:58:31 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-17-97
 
Atticus:
>From an Oz-as-literature POV your comments make perfect sense. But from
an Oz-as-history POV you're saying that Ozma didn't rescue Dorothy, at
least, because she needed to teach the Wizard a lesson - which doesn't
sound like Ozma's character in most of the books, though given her
attitude toward Eureka, maybe she was Going Through A Phase in DOTWIZ?

Jeremy:
Actually, DOTWIZ is one of the shortest of the Oz books even with all
the miscellaneous happenings in Oz after Ozma does her _dea ex machina_
trick, including the Wizard explaining his origins, the conversation,
race, and fight between Jim and the Sawhorse, and the extended trial of
Eureka. Whatever Baum's reason for running Dorothy & Co. into a dead end
and calling on Ozma, fear of making the book too long couldn't have been
one.
 
I agree that my books will never be as "Ozzy" as Baum's better ones -
though I think that
he wrote several books that weren't in the spirit of his better books
(and DOTWIZ is one of them), and that other authors (Thompson, Snow, and
McGraw at least) have written books that are Ozzier and better than
Baum's lesser works, and I don't concede that I might not, whether or
not  I have so far notwithstanding. YMMV.
 
Melody:
Sure, there are ways around Dorothy's invisibility in Voe preventing
Ozma from knowing she was signaling. But at least it would make sense
that Dorothy might not know that, so she'd choose to go on until
Saturday...
 
It's not just the smell and mess of horse droppings. They breed flies -
FLIES - and those are more annoying, and unhealthy, than the droppings
themselves. Having grown up, off and on, in communities that still had
large horse populations and in ones that didn't, I can confidently state
that the "shmutzige fliegen - from the stable to your table" were far
commoner in the former. As was typhoid fever.
 
David Hulan

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 20:51:02 -0700
From: Bob Spark <bspark at pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-17-97
 
David Hulan,
> I don't think Modesto is far enough from San Francisco to require the
> long train journey Dorothy apparently had, so Hughson is probably not
> relevant. 
     You are probably right, although I don't believe that the trains of
that day were any speed demons.  I used to work for the Southern Pacific
and can recall that the trip on a freight train from Roseville (near
Sacramento) to Sparks, NV (next to Reno) was a little over 100 miles and
took around 13 hours.  That was in the 60's.  Stopping to load coal and
water was not even a necessity then.  Mainly a matter of weight and
crossing the Sierra Nevada, but a trip from San Francisco to around
Modesto could (at that time) certainly fall within our time limits.
-- 
If a man is makes a statement 
in the forest with no woman 
around is he still wrong?

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 23:23:07 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-17-97
 
DOTWIZ: I'm slowly convincing myself that this book was created with a 
stage play in mind. Neill's illos back this up...esp. the Wizard's comic 
mask and the fact that Zeb looks like a real person, not a standard Neill 
face at all...not even when he draws members of his family. Neill's style 
was in transition for this book. In LAND, he was required to look 
something like Denslow. In OZMA, he's still heavier of line than 
usual...figures squatter than in later versions...still experimentint. By 
DOTWIZ, we see some of his more delicate stuff showing up, but mostly in 
incidental drawings. The cp's, however, look like sketches for the stage. 
Look at the one, especially, of the Mangaboos on their parent plants. 
Boy, is that stagey. (Also, BTW, it contradicts the text in having a 
woman instead of the prince with the star there.)  I can't help but 
wonder if the Princess of the Mangaboos is the forerunner to Ozga and if 
the Mangaboos themselves aren't forerunners to  the roses in TIK TOK.  
TIK TOK was definitely meant as a stage play...mostly a rewrite of OZMA, 
but did Baum salvage the live plants from DOTWIZ as good stage stuff? Is 
that why the section is there in the first place?  And when were the 
Fairylogues? Couldn't Baum have planned to have glass slides projected to 
a screen at the back of the stage as a special "Floating down to the 
glass city" effect? And I'm pretty sure they could "fly" actors by 1908. 
Great special effect.  I don't know how farfetched this is, but I'm gonna 
play with the idea some more before I abandon it...if I do abandon it. 
Baum was theatrical at heart and wanted to repeat his stage success. Did 
he try to repeat it with DOTWIZ? Feedback, please.

Thanks to those who reminded me of footnotes I'd forgotten. 
 
--Robin

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 07:55:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission - Rally Round the Flag!
 
In the 6/14 Digest, Gordon Birrell asks, <Any ideas about why the colors
[of the Oz national flag carried in the grand procession in _DotWiz_]
have become washed out...?>

Perhaps this particular flag has some special meaning for Ozma -- a relic
from her father's reign, perhaps.  If so, it would continue to be
displayed, no matter how faded it became.
  
Earl Abbe

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:01:11 -0700
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-17-97
 
> I agree with you on Neilll's pics of the Wiz--yecccch. I like his simple
> style in "Land" better than the busier style he uses in later Oz books.
> 
> Melody Grandy
> 
*I* liked Niell's portrait of the Wizard so much, when I had a terrible
copy of DOTWIZ that was being junked I removed the portrait page and had
it mounted.
 
Steve T.

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 15:07:23 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-18-97
 
DOTWIZ: Gee it's slow reading for me. I'm surprised at how strong my 
antipathy towards it is...makes it hard to be objective. One of the 
reasons I love Tolkien is because he knew how to relieve the darkness of 
a story by inserting a gentle, warm incident into just the right place. 
Baum wasn't good at that, and it shows most in DOTWIZ.  RPT, BTW, *did* 
use the relief incident; the Soup Sea in KABUMPO and the Box Wood/Ix 
scene in SILVERT PRINCESS come to mind.
 
--Robin

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:06:04 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Bear: Interesting point about Jim's intent, and whether it should make a
difference in punishment for kicking the Sawhorse.  I wonder if someone
in the group has formal legal training to comment on how "intent" matters.
I seem to recall a theory that good intent matters in law (if you didn't
mean to kill someone but did, it's not murder), but bad intent doesn't
matter much (assulting someone with the intention of killing, if the assault
fails to kill, is not worse, or only a little worse, than simple assault).  But
I'm not sure I'm recalling the source accurately, and don't know for sure if
the source (a magazine article) was authoritative.  Actually, though,
considering that Jim has been fighting Gargoyles earlier in the story, I
suspect that he has reason to believe that a wooden Sawhorse can be
injured but will not feel pain.
 
Robin Olderman:
     You might be right in thinking that there's some stage influence on
how Baum was thinking of the characters and how Neill was drawing
them (and in idea that Baum drew on the Magaboos and their Princess
when he was working up Ozga and the Roses for the stage "Tik-Tok"),
but I don't think "Dorothy and the Wizard" as a whole was intended for
the stage.  Journey stories, where the scene keeps changing, and the
different scenes are about equally important, are hard to stage (it can be
done, as with the "Wizard," but it isn't usually the plan that someone
intending a play chooses -- "Tik-Tok" is formally a journey, but the not all
the places are scenically important), and the characters don't include any
choruses-of-pretty-girls such as extravaganzas of the time aimed for
(unless you count the one paragraph description of the Cloud Fairies --
the Mangaboos and Ozites are of both sexes), and the invisible Voe-ans
would be hard to present.  I don't remember when the Fairylogues were,
but think it was a bit later -- will try to remember to check.
 
Earl Abbe: Faded flag as a relic from Pastoria's reign -- that's a touching
idea.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 22:39:36 -0400
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Bear:
 
I'm not sure that Eureka was really exiled to Kansas. It seems to me that the
Ozites simply assumed that she would return there with Dorothy, perhaps as a
"cooling off period", after which she would be welcomed back to Oz.
 
That, of course, is another can of worms altogether. Eureka's return to Oz is
a little unclear. She is not mentioned in _Road_ or _Emerald City_, yet she
suddenly appears in _Patchwork Girl_. Some have suspected that she sneaked
along in _Road_ and jsut stayed there until she was discovered. Nobody
wanted to send her to Kansas where nobody would take care of her.
 
March Laumer has a very interesting story of how Eureka got to Oz, but it's
too lengthy to go into here.
 
On yet another related note, I remember the Shaggy Man talking about Eureka
to the Glass Cat. He hints that Eureka is very popular and has a lot of
influence, but I think he was just blowing smoke trying to "scare Bungle
straight".
 
Which brings to me to yet another side-issue. People have commented that
Baum did not like horses. Since Eureka and Bungle are of less than stellar
reputation, I submit that he did not care too much for cats, either.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 08:02:20 +0600
From: rri0189 at ibm.net
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-17-97
 
"Jeremy and KIEX" wrote:
>As a cornet and trumpet player, I can give informed knowledge to the effect
>that cornets are basically the same as trumpets, just with more coiled tubing
>so they seem smaller.  The tubing in cornets becomes gradually wider from
>mouthpiece to bell, giving them a mellower sound, while in trumpets the
>tubing remains the same diameter until it gets abruptly wider at the bell.
>[The bell is the wide part at the end of the horn, where the notes come
>out.]  Trumpets are generally used for marches whereas cornets are used for
>softer, melodic pieces.  I always found my cornet easier to play, because it
>takes less air for me to get a higher note [but that may just be me].
 
The two modern instruments are quite alike, and sound much alike, but that
was not always so.  The trumpet has always been made of metal, and resisted
the introduction of valves for a long time, and until valves were in use,
was typically much longer than it is now.  Since a brass instrument with
no valves or toneholes has notes that grow closer together as you go higher,
that gave it more usable notes, but also gave it a nobler tone.  Until quite
recently, it, not the bugle (which has a still wider bore than the cornet, 
making it still easier to play) was the military signal instrument, and 
many countries required a government license to own or play a trumpet.  
The cornet, on the other hand, was originally a wooden folk instrument 
with tone holes (like a recorder).  The infamous "serpent" was the bass 
member of the family, and the saxophone was originally invented by sticking
a clarinet mouthpiece on an instrument of the family (which had changed to
brass by that time).  Soon after the introduction of the cornet-a-piston,
however, it swept away the older forms.
 
Yes, the cornet is easier, and less tiring, to play.  That's why it is the 
usual main brass instrument in military bands, while orchestras use it only
for special effects (although theatre orchestras, apart from grand opera,
used to use the cornet until quite recently; all of Sullivan's theatre
scores except "Ivanhoe" specify the cornet).  Jazz also originally used
the cornet, until Jazz players discovered that they could coax extremely
high notes from a trumpet that they couldn't get from the other instrument.
 
// John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit"

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 10:39:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Melody:
You're right about the Mangaboos' showing a certain range of emotions.  
When I was cataloguing the theme of deprivation in the novel, I should 
have spoken of lack of compassion rather than lack of emotion in the 
vegetable kingdom.
 
* * * * * * SPOILER FOR _THE DISENCHANTED PRINZESS OF OZ * * * * * * * *
One of many pleasures of Melody's wonderful book is the section in which 
Dinny and Gilo retrace the journey of the Wizard's party in _Dorothy and 
the Wizard_ and we get to see the trail of anguish, confusion, and 
desolation that the earlier visitors from the upper world had left behind 
them as they ascended to the surface of the earth.  The land of the 
Gargoyles is a nightmare landscape of charred and blackened ruins.  For 
the Mangaboos, the visitors have passed into legend as an 
incomprehensible visitation, a terror that came from the sky.  The 
Wizard's balloon, a surviving remnant of the visitation, has assumed 
totemic functions as a ritual instrument of death (the "Cloak of 
Darkness").  By way of contrast, Dinny's stay in the Mangaboo country 
eventually leads, through Zim's botanical work, to the gift of extended 
life and the birth of feelings in the Mangaboos.  The Age of Imperialism 
(in Baum's work) has been superceded by the Age of the Peace Corps.
 
I might add that Dinny's adventures in the underworld are recounted with 
considerably more good humor and high spirits than are present in the 
original story.
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * END OF SPOILER * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * **
 
On hard-hearted Ozma:
It's not just the death penalty for Eureka that bothers me about Ozma's 
behavior at the end of the book.  Almost as disconcerting is her "merry 
laughter" when Zeb beats up on the Munchkin and hurts him so much that he 
cries.  Apparently the readers of 1908 had different attitudes about the 
acceptable levels of physical violence than the readers of today (or at 
least *this* reader of today!).
 
On the much-disputed Trial of Eureka the Kitten:
Amidst all the negative things that have been said about this trial, it's 
been overlooked that this is in fact one of the funniest episodes in the 
book, with all that silly repartee about the "mind's eye," ineptitude on 
the part of the prosecution as well as the defense, and a defendant who 
angrily rejects as libelous the efforts of her own legal counsel to 
exonerate her.
 
Beyond that, I think there may be a parallel here to _A Midsummer Night's 
Dream_, in which a seemingly unrelated closing episode (the little drama of 
Pyramus and Thisbe) actually recapitulates significant themes of the 
principal action of the play.  Eureka goes through a trial in which her 
very life is at stake knowing all along that she has the means to save 
herself:  isn't this precisely what Dorothy did in the preceding episodes 
of the book, enduring one life-threatening situation after another but 
aware (at some level) that Ozma was always there to rescue her and her 
friends?  (This may be one reason why Baum changed the schedule of Ozma's 
checking the magic mirror from every Saturday to every single day.)  And 
Eureka's explanation for her withholding the crucial information about 
the missing piglet explains as well why Dorothy didn't act earlier in 
asking for Ozma's assistance:
 
"But why didn't you tell us at first?" [Dorothy] asked.
"It would have spoiled the fun," replied the kitten, yawning.
 
It was David IIRC who suggested some months ago that Dorothy is reluctant 
to call on Ozma from the start because basically she loves a good 
adventure and it would "spoil the fun" to go straight to Oz at the first 
sign of trouble.  Even during the hair-raising descent into the depths of 
the earth she is looking forward to "another adventure, which promised to 
be just as queer and unusual as were those she had before encountered."
 
I think, in other words, that the trial of Eureka *may* have been Baum's 
way of signalling to the reader that he knew exactly what he was doing in 
delaying the use of the magic belt, and the delay is best understood not 
as an inept plot device but as a way of understanding the motivations 
(conscious or otherwise) of the heroine.
 
David & Dave:
Good points about the green stripe.  Baum was clearly thinking about the 
mixing of pigments rather than light.  I wonder though about whether the 
combination of yellow and blue light would produce white light:  don't 
you have to combine all three primaries (red, green, and blue) to get 
white light?  I admit that my information is gleaned from the chapter on 
color channels in _Photoshop 3 for Dummies_, not perhaps the most 
reliable source.
 
Ozzy note:  the title of that chapter is "Auntie Em versus the Munchkins 
(Death Match)"  :)  Auntie Em representing b&w and the Munchkins the 
world of color.
 
On the geography of _Dorothy and the Wizard_:  it's interesting that the 
travelers follow a spiral pattern in their ascent:  cross a valley, climb 
through the interior of a mountain, enter a new country, cross a valley, 
climb through the mountain, enter a new country, etc.  I've generally 
assumed that the various countries were immense but finite caverns 
stacked vertically.  This time around it struck me that maybe the 
countries are in fact concentric shells in the earth, each one a separate 
"globe."  What do the rest of you think about this?
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 23:21:02 -0400
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Gordon:
True, the coutroom scene, on it's own terms, was hilarious. I especially
liked the Tin Woodmans song defending Eureka about demanding meat. Not the
best defense, in all likelihood.
 
The concentric shell theory is intriguing. Certainly, the Mangaboos had
their own suns, although Voe had no discernible light source. Also, Baum
never made mention of any "roofs". We'd need to figure out an explanation
for the sevens underground kingdoms in _Yellow Knight_, though.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 00:02:53 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 06-19-97
Content-disposition: inline
 
Gordon:
 
        It *is* infuriating and/or saddening to be laughed at when hurt.
Pouring salt in the wounds, so to speak. My only defense for Ozma's
behaviour is her youth at the time. And as Tip, she wasn't above  pulling
the occasional pig's tail. 
 
        Thanks for your positive review of the underground adventure in
SBM. I'll also add The Peace Corps only does their improvements because the
Mangaboos agree to them. :-)
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 00:47:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: JOdel at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy odds and ends
 
Blue+yellow=white; Yes that's right. In the additive palate, yellow is a
secondary color made by adding red to green. With the addition of blue, all
three primary colors are present.
 
Baum and cats; Yeah, I think it is fairly likely that he found the little
savages irritating. Seems to have preferred dogs, anyway. Somehow, though,
you'll notice that while Bungle and Eureka may be obnoxious as all get out,
they don't seem to get in the way, or spoil other character's set plans one
quarter as often as Toto does. (Dorothy would have been safely in the storm
cellar--except for Toto. She would have been aboard the balloon, headed home
with the Wiz--except for Toto, etc.) 

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 00:51:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-19-97
 
DOTWIZ: Eureka's trial strikes me as stagey, too. It would certainly play 
better than it reads.  As for whether this book was meant to any degree 
to be staged, we'll probably never know. But there are very strong 
theatrical elements. On t'other hand, no real plot--which kinda spoils it 
as much onstage as in the book. Maybe Baum started off with one thing in 
mind and then had to switch. Dunno.
 
--Robin

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:42:38 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Robin Olderman: I checked on the Radio Plays, and you were right in seeing a
connection between them and "Dorothy and the Wizard."  The Radio
Plays performances toured September 24-December 16, 1908, in the
Midwest and East, so were probably written during 1908; "Dorothy and
the Wizard" came out 1908, so was probably written during 1907.  (And it
occurred to me belatedly that what I said about the non-stage-like
qualities of the book didn't really apply to film.)  The show as performed
did not include any "Dorothy and the Wizard" film, but slides of scenes
from the book were shown during the intermission.  And an adaptation of
the book was filmed at some point (either filmed at the time, and left out
because the film + live-theater-material combination was too long, or
filmed two years later when Selig tried to recoup the Radio Play losses by
packaging the filmed material as one-reel movies) -- at any rate, Selig's
1910 five one-reeler Oz films included a "Dorothy and the Wizard" reel.
 
Gordon Birrell: Like you, I enjoyed the revisionist revisiting of "Dorothy
and the Wizard" sites in Melody's "Disenchanted Princess."

   Parallel between Eureka's and Dorothy's knowledge of how to get out
of their "trials" is interesting, but the difference that Eureka is conscious
and Dorothy unconscious of having that knowledge undercuts it a good
bit?

   Mixing yellow and blue light to get white vs. needing three primaries --
yellow is mixture of red and green, so all three are there (counter-intuitive,
but there it is).

   Idea that Mangaboo country, Voe, Gargoyles, and maybe Braided
Man's and dragon's levels could be surfaces of entire interior shells
rather than individual cavities along one underground mountain is
appealingly spectacular, but doesn't really fit with the "feel" of the
descriptions.  They don't sound big enough.  There would have to be lots
and lots of "mountains" to hold the various layers apart (and probably
heavy-duty magic to keep the whole shebang from collapsing anyway),
and there is no mention of other such mountains in view anywhere.  And
it would be hard to match up the geography of global-wide layers of
these countries with the geographies encountered by other trips
underground in the Oz books ("Tik-Tok," "Hungry Tiger," "Grampa,"
"Speedy," and assorted Nome spaces).
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 11:22:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: atty242 at mail.utexas.edu (Atticus)
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-19-97
 
TYLER:
>Which brings to me to yet another side-issue. People have commented that
>
>Baum did not like horses. Since Eureka and Bungle are of less than stellar
>
>reputation, I submit that he did not care too much for cats, either.
 
of course not.  he was a dog person.

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 14:19:39 -0700
From: Tyler Jones <Tyler at apprentice.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Ramblings:
All this talk about the trial in _DotWiz_ got me thinking of the time when this
was discussed before. Many people were of the opinion that, in and of itself,
eating animals in Oz is not wrong. After all, there are instances of this in the
Baum 14, and nobody does much about it. It is only this one time that much
of a fuss was made.
 
Many of us concluded that the reason for the difference was due to one of
two factors: That the incident happened in a civilized area, or that the piglet
was the pet of Ozma, and thus "special". The first theory has some parallels
in _Magic_, and was also mentioned in Farmers non-HACC _Barnstormer_.
 
Anyway, it reminded me of an episode of "The Simpsons".
 
It was the episode where Homer goes back to college for Nucelar Phyics 101.
As  a prank, he and some other students kidnap a neighboring school's
mascot, which happens to be a pig.
 
Things go a little wrong, the pig becomes ill, and the Dean appears.
 
Dean: "Gosh, guys. I've never expelled anyone before, but that pig had
powerful friends."
 
Richard Nixon: "Oh, you'll pay. Don't think you won't pay"
 
Omby Amby: "Well, we've never had a trial for eating animals before, but that
piglet had powerful friends"
 
Wogglebug: (see Nixon)
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 22:26:01 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 06-19-97
Content-disposition: inline
 
Steve:
 
Were you referring to the Wizard "picture taken by the Royal Photographer"?
Yes, that is a compelling pic of the Wiz. The problem seems to appear more
in the color plates than Neill's B&W pics. The Wizard's face looks too
red--but he worked outside as a a circus balloonist before they invented
modern sunscreen.  But the Wizard also looks like he's wearing lipstick,
and I think men stopped painting and powdering by the Victorian era. (Would
circus men of that era have painted their lips? Oh, it's tricky to give a
man's lips a natural shade of pink without going over the line into the
"lipstick look" in a drawing.)   It *could* be related to faulty
reproduction of Neill's art. One colorized "Elfquest" collection had that
problem--the artist complained the reproductions came out much redder than
the original colorized illos.
 
        On the other hand, Neill's color illo of Dorothy and Ozma in the
Emerald City is wonderful. He put in some time and care drawing the folds
in Ozma's gown. 
---
In the Mangaboo sequence again--Baum does specify that the colored suns
sent colored rays darting in every direction, so SBM describes the colored
suns as being like fiery glitterballs shooting rays unevenly in all
directions--making shifting multicolored lighting on the ground possible.
Steadily-burning colored lights could not do this. It would have been
interesting to see how Baum might have rigged the Mangaboo suns in a stage
play of DotWiz, eh, Robin? Modern theatres (or Disney) might do it in the
form of a lasershow.
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 19:39:42 +0000
From: Scott Olsen <ScottO1440 at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-21-97
 
Some recent digest observations:
 
Re: _Dorothy & the Wizard_
 
I have to admit that this was my favorite Oz book when I was young
(younger?). Anyway, I think alot of the problems with the "darkness" of this
book has to do with the Neill color plates, which I didn't see until later.
Many of the color plates in this book are, well, frightening.
 
As has been stated before, the ending of this book leaves a little to be
desired--but the same can be said of such books as _Patchwork Girl_ and
_Rinkitink_. If someone wants to read a good book like _Rinkitink_ that
isn't ruined by a "god from the heavens" plot device, I suggest you read
_Sky Island_. 
 
Sincerely,
 
Scott Olsen

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 09:37:56 -0700
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-21-97
 
Melody:
 
Yes, it is the picture taken by the royal photographer I had mounted. 
But Neill should not be blamed for the color in DOTWIZ.  He did not do
the color, did he?
 
Steve T.

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:10:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kiex at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Notes
 
I just wanted to add two thoughts before the discussion of _DotWiz_ ends:
 
-- On rereading _D&W_ I noted how the escape from the Gargoyles (using the
wings stolen from unsuspecting Gargoyles) paralleled the escape with the Gump
in OZMA.  No Powder of Life--but the Gargoyle wings are already alive in
their own right.
 
-- Contrary to what some Digesters have been saying (I think), it doesn't
sound like Dorothy has made any other trips between _Ozma_ and _D&W_, judging
by what the characters say; so I see no reason for Ozma to have changed the
time she checks in on Dorothy.  As I said before, I think she might have
wanted to see Dorothy solve her own problems--or she might have had too much
to do to look in on Dorothy more than once or twice a week.  (None of which,
of course, explains why Dorothy didn't remember--the pleasure of being with
old friends distracted her and made her forget?
 
Anyway, sorry for the extra post.
 
--jeremy and KIEX

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:32:37 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-23-97
 
DOTWIZ illos: I wish I were sure of this, but I *think* Neill did his own 
color work for this book.  I believe it's one of two (the other is 
E.CITY) for which Neill did paintings for the illos. For the rest of the 
series, he'd just indicate  colors to the colorist.
--Robin

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:01:23 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Ruth Berman:
After I had posted my idea about the possibility of concentric 
underground shells in _Dorothy and the Wizard_, it occurred to me that 
the description of the Mangaboo land, with those colored suns centered 
over the glass city, strongly suggests a cavern configuration.  And of 
course you are right in saying that other FF books don't support the 
concentric-shell theory.  To the ones you mentioned I would add _Royal 
Book_ and perhaps _Tik-Tok_.
 
About the illustrations in _Dorothy and the Wizard_:  Neill seems to have 
been intentionally striving for a nightmarish effect in the color plates 
depicting many of the underground scenes.  Another unsettling thing about 
those illustrations is the way he works against his own medium.  I have 
thought for a long time, and an artist friend of mine recently agreed, 
that Neill uses water colors like oil paint in many of those plates.  
While the illustration of Dorothy and Ozma near the end of the book has 
the typical transparency and delicacy of water colors, the earlier plates 
tend more toward the density and opacity of oils, which gives them a 
heavier, more oppressive feeling.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:44:45 +0000
From: Scott Olsen <ScottO1440 at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-23-97
 
Re: Steve Teller "Neill should not be blamed for the color in DOTWIZ.  He
did not do the color, did he?
 
It is my understanding that Neill did watercolors for  _Dorothy & The
Wizard_ and _Emerald City_. These are the only two Oz books where he did the
color work.
 
Re: _Dorothy and the Wizard_
 
Just one more thing. I know _Dorothy and the Wizard_ is the shortest Baum Oz
book, and may well be the shortest Oz book. ...Just some useless trivia....
 
Maybe it's time to ease on down to _Road_.
 
Sincerely,
Scott Olsen

Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 11:39:43 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-24-97
 
On rereading DOTWIZ:  This was a fairly quick read, less than three hours.
It started off magnificently in its descriptions in the first chapter.  It
was dark in places, but the ending was just berilliant in its wordplay as
well.  I think the dark parts were very effective.  Also, I was reading
from the Del Rey edition, but examined the color plates at Borders last
eveining.  This was perhaps Professor Wogglebug's funniest appearance in
the books.  Now I am certain my MS is less violent than this one.  I was
curious why Neill pictured Eureka in odd clothing Baum never described her
as having.
 
Scott

Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 16:44:30 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-25-97
 
Another thing on DOTWIz, what are those little creatures in the black pit.
They look kind of like Mifkets, but nowhere are they mentioned in the
text.  Perhaps they are kobolds, which , interestingly enough, is the root
of the element "cobalt," because both were considered useless.
 
Scott

Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 21:42:52 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 06-23-97
Content-disposition: inline
 
Steve:
 
>Yes, it is the picture taken by the royal photographer I had mounted. 
But Neill should not be blamed for the color in DOTWIZ.  He did not do
the color, did he?<
 
It is possible he did--if the photographic color separation process existed
then, he could have painted the illos in full color himself. The coloring
job (besides the Wizard's lipstick)--well I am working from memory now, but
the illos are not a simple "coloring-book" job. Many of the *outlines* are
in color themselves, and seem so well-integrated with the areas of color,
it seems one artist MUST have drawn and painted the original color illos.
The color illos simply seem to be too much of a piece. As noted earlier,
the Wizard may have very red lips because of faulty reproduction. (Color
sep creation was in its infancy then.)
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 15:49:49 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-18 thru 24-97
 
6/18:
Bob:
I could see a 100-mile trip that was uphill most of the way taking quite
a while on a train, but it seems unlikely to me that the run from San
Francisco to Modesto would take anything like that long, even in 1900.
But I could be wrong; I'm no expert on old train schedules. (Query:
would a train for Modesto leave from San Francisco? That would imply it
would have to go down to San Jose and then turn east over some fairly
steep hills. I'd have thought such a train, like one for Sacramento,
would leave from Oakland. Anybody know?)
 
6/19:
Robin:
I think the Braided Man incident, and maybe the dinner in Voe as well,
were attempts by Baum to relieve the tension in DOTWIZ. They just didn't
succeed very well.
 
Tyler:
If my book, EUREKA IN OZ, is ever published it explains Eureka's return
to Oz and to favor. At the moment I'm revising the original version to
editorial request, but I think when I'm done it will see print. Of
course, it doesn't agree with Laumer's or any other solution to the
problem, but I'll leave that to the HACC people to work out. It's
consistent with Baum, anyhow. (And I don't think any of the other FF
writers even mention Eureka; if they do, she doesn't do anything.)
 
Jeremy:
If Dorothy didn't visit Oz between OZMA and DOTWIZ, how did her
agreement with Ozma get changed? And if nothing happened but a short
visit at teatime, say, then why should Baum have alluded to it? Dorothy
doesn't say anything like, "I haven't seen you since we whupped Roquat,"
either. I expect that some Saturday while Uncle Henry was visiting
grown-up friends in Sydney, Dorothy decided to pay Ozma a visit, and
they worked out a more frequent check so she could pay other quick
visits when things were slack after she got back to Kansas. (As Joyce
hypothesized in a later Digest.) Saturday is usually a busy day for
farmers - that's when they go into town for supplies and such - so it's
much less likely that Dorothy would have time for a visit that day than
at other times.
 
Gordon:
Agreed that the trial of Eureka is funny, and as I recall I really
enjoyed it when I was a kid. But it doesn't fit with what we're told
elsewhere of Ozma's character. Roquat and his allies, for instance, are
intending to do something much worse than eating a piglet in EMERALD
CITY, but she refuses to use force against them, and does nothing to
punish them after they drink from the Forbidden Fountain.
 
While it's conceivable that the different levels the travelers pass
through are concentric shells, it seems unlikely to me. If they were,
then I'd think Dorothy and Zeb would have noticed them on their way
down, and nothing of the sort is mentioned. And, as others have pointed
out, it would be inconsistent with other books, like TIK-TOK and ROYAL
BOOK and YELLOW KNIGHT, that have underground segments.
 
David Hulan

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 09:08:16 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-25-97
 
Scott O.:
I assume you mean that DOTWIZ may well be the shortest FF Oz book? There
are a lot of shorter ones outside the FF; there's one I have that's only
two pages, and it's probably not the only one or the shortest. Anyhow, I
can't think of an FF book that's likely to be shorter than DOTWIZ.
 
Scott H.:
I wondered about Eureka's clothes, too, and had meant to say something
about it earlier but forgot. It's the only instance I can recall where
Neill dressed an animal in human-style clothes. (Kabumpo, of course,
wore his robes, but those were the kind that real elephants often wear.)
Anyone remember another instance?
 
David Hulan

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:35:31 -0800 (PST)
From: w_baldwin at juno.com (Warren H Baldwin)
Subject: Oz Digest
 
Scott: DOTWIZ in not the shortest Baum Oz book. The Wizard of Oz, Ozma of
Oz, The Road to Oz, The Magic of Oz and Glinda of Oz are all shorter --
at least by wordcount.
 
W. Baldwin

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 10:08:59 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
David Hulan: The post-Baum authors don't use Eureka as a character in
the action, but she gets brief mentions in "Lost King," "Yellow Knight,"
"Wishing Horse," "Ozoplaning," and "Mimics."  (And shows up in an illo in
each of "Royal Book" and "Giant Horse.")  In the IWOC-published books,
she plays a large role in Dick Martin's "Ozmapolitan," although I don't
think it has any statements about her history that would conflict with
anything you have in your "Eureka."
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:53:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Peter Hanff <phanff at library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-26-97
 
Dave,
 
As some of the Digest readers know, I am Deputy Director of The Bancroft 
Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Bancroft has the 
strongest California history collection in the Far West, so I decided to 
see what I could track down about train travel for the period under 
discussion.
 
Travel by train from San Francisco to Modesto in 1905 required a San
Francisco Bay ferry crossing from the foot of Market Street to the Oakland
Pier (the crossing took about 25 minutes). The service to Modesto was
offered by Southern Pacific. Santa Fe also offered a trans-Bay service, 
but this went from the foot of Market to Richmond (about three cities 
north of Berkeley) and then followed a different route through the 
Central Valley, bypassing Modesto. Three SP trains with service to 
Modesto departed each day: 7:40 p.m., arriving at Modesto at 11:58 p.m., 
10:20 a.m., arriving at 3:05 p.m., and 8:20 a.m., arriving at 12:30 p.m.
 
Trains traveling south from San Francisco were not routed over to the 
Central Valley.
 
The above is from a 1905 copy of Peck's Railway Guide. I was intrigued by 
David Hulan's comments, and was delighted to learn how the train travel 
was set up just before the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed so 
much of San Francisco. The train services were extensive in virtually 
every direction from San Francisco. There was even a direct train to 
Pacific Grove (where the Winkie Convention takes place each July).
 
Peter Hanff

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 22:58:03 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 06-27-97
Content-disposition: inline
 
Gordon:
 
        A topic related to the theme of deprivation you spoke of in DotWiz.
Have you noticed how some of Baum's non-human characters rhapsodize about
how great it is to have no needs at all? Characters like the Tin Woodman,
Scarecrow, Scraps, etc, who do not have to eat, sleep, wear clothes, etc.
This accords with the Buddhist philosophy that need and desire are the
causes of earthly unhappiness, and the road to happiness (Nirvana) is to
rid oneself of all need and desire. No needs or desires = impossible to
experience the misery of deprivation. (No, I'm not a Buddhist, but it's
interesting how this Buddhist-style thinking surfaces in Baum's work. Maybe
all of us love to eat, but haven't there been times we wished we didn't
*have* to?)
 
         Though they verbally extoll the simple life from time to time, 
the Tin Woodman & Scarecrow nevertheless live in luxury. Scrap prefers the
beauty and luxury of the Emerald City and flatly refuses to return to
Pipt's "wizard's den." Was Baum being ironic, here?
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:29:04 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-27 & 29-97
 
6/27:
Warren:
DOTWIZ is longer by wordcount than WIZARD, OZMA, MAGIC, and GLINDA? I'm
really surprised at that; it feels much shorter. I haven't run
wordcounts myself on the various books, but I assume you have, so I'll
take your word for it.
 
6/29:
Peter H.:
Thanks for the info on train travel in 1905! It seems to me to confirm
my opinion that Modesto was much too close to San Francisco for Dorothy
to have boarded before lunch and not be scheduled to arrive before
midnight.
 
Melody:
I think another example of the "no needs" thrust in Baum is his
invention of the "square meal tablets," which IIRC turned up in
PATCHWORK GIRL and weren't mentioned again. These allowed Shaggy to
resemble the animated inanimates like Scraps and the Scarecrow in not
needing ordinary food, but also in losing the esthetic pleasure of
eating. I believe that their disappearance after that one mention is
evidence that Baum thought this "no needs" business could be carried too
far.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:31:03 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-26-97
 
I noticed in DOTWIZ that there is a reference to the Great Outside World
as "the real world," but I can't remember if this was spoken by Zeb,
Dorothy, or Eureka.  This wouldn't seem to make sense were it Dorothy.
 
Scott

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 18:43:57 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-29-97
 
Remember, "The train from 'Frisco was very late." (as far as runtimes go for CA trains).

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 11:33:31 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Scott Hutchins: The little creatures in Neill's picture of the black pit
("Dorothy and the Wizard") might be Nomes wandering about in the
earth.
 
Melody Grandy: It isn't so much the odd coloring in the "Dorothy and the
Wizard" color plates of the Wizard that bothers me as the odd shading in
the b&w illos.  The Wizard looks in many of them as if he is wearing
clown makeup and/or suffers from redness of the nose from too much
drinking.
 
David Hulan: Strictly speaking, the cornet was originally (as the name
implies) a small horn, and made out of an animal's horn.  When the
technology developed to make "horns" out of wood and out of metal, it
was something of a toss-up which things developed as "brass" and which
as "woodwinds," and there was some experimentation back and forth.
The flute is still considered a woodwind, although sometime in the 19th
century the switch was made from boxwood to silver  as the material of
choice.  (And James Galway plays a gold flute.)  Of course, it would
seem peculiar to call something made out of silver (or gold, either) a
brass.
 
Peter Hanff: Thanks for the train schedule info.

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 12:38:46 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-30-97
 
More on _DOTWIZ_:  I think Ozma seemed totally out of character, except
that she was bored because there was no one her age to talk to (doesn't
this throw a monkeywrench into your idea of Ozma reaching womanhood,
Dave).  She was probably trying to figure out her place, whether she was a
leader and representative of her people, or whether she was lord over her
people, and wanted to see the stretch of her power.  She seemed to have a
superiority complex which she had far less of in _Ozma_, as well as
subsequent books.  Note her attitude toward the piglet, and her "bring it
here, I want to play with it" attitude.  Perhaps she thought of it as
displaced revenge against Mombi, or was being temporarily corrupted by her
absolute power.  These are interesting examples of this, though Eureka's
trial is the more obvious one.  Eventually, she learned the proper
restraint and manners that were truer to her nature.  I think she realized
that to be a proper ruler she just had to be herself.
 
Scott

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 97 15:03:47 (PDT)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
Scott wrote:
>More on _DOTWIZ_:  I think Ozma seemed totally out of character, except
>that she was bored because there was no one her age to talk to (doesn't
>this throw a monkeywrench into your idea of Ozma reaching womanhood,
>Dave).
 
My assumption is that Ozma *was* a little girl in the *early* books, but I
won't state my full opinion, since so many on this Digest insist on treating
me like I'm Galileo standing before the Inquisition... :( :( :(
 
                             -- Dave

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 21:23:12 +0000
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 07-02-97
 
Scott H.:
True, the train was late, but that's what made it arrive at five o'clock
instead of midnight. It was clearly _scheduled_ to arrive at midnight,
so it had to be around twelve hours' normal travel from San Francisco.
(Incidentally, I noted that it said "gray dawn was breaking" at five
o'clock AM. This should give us a fairly accurate estimate of what the
date was for the book; dawn breaks in central California around 5 AM
only in early April and early September. The former date seems highly
probable; we know that at the end of OZMA the hired hands were in "the
harvest fields", which would indicate an early-fall date for that book,
and it seems unlikely that Uncle Henry and Dorothy would have stayed in
Australia for over a year.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:47:18 -0400
From: Michael Turniansky <turnip at mail.bcpl.lib.md.us>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 06-19-97
 
(shades of Scott H.!)
        Dave quoted DOTWIZ on 6/19:
 
"But why didn't you tell us at first?" [Dorothy] asked.
"It would have spoiled the fun," replied the kitten, yawning.
 
        Does this foreshadow the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
 
Eddie:  you mean you coulda got out of those handcuffs at any time?
Roger: N-n-n-no!  Only when it was funny!
 
                    --Mike "Shaggy Man" Turniansky, only a month behind now
:-)

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 07:59:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
One last word on _DotWiz_ (which seems to has disappeared from the
discussions):  The video of the same name showing Rob Roy MacVeigh's
watercolors with a simplified version of the story (1993) is probably no
longer available, but serious collectors should pick up a copy if one is
found -- both for completeness and as a remembrance of Rob.
 
Earl Abbe

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:50:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at mail.pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 07-17-97
Cc: steller at mail.pittstate.edu (Stephen J. Teller)
 
Earl Abbe mentioned the videotape of DOTWIZ that was illustrated with
watercolors by Rob Roy MacVeigh.  Rob had originally been asked to do some
illustrations to go with a playing of the old 78 rpm recording of DOTWIZ
that came out about 1948 for a Winkie Convention (1993 I believe).  This
was later shown at the Ozmoploitan Convention in 1994.  IWOC had a
videotape made that combined the recording with Rob's illustrations, and
this was sold (as far as I know) only at IWOC conventions.
 
Steve T.

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 14:54:25 -0500
From: David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com>
To: regalia at pauahtun.org
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Footnotes

Nathan:
>> And I recall a couple more -- one about
>> Dorothy as a dreamer ("Emerald City"), and one about the meaning of
>> "Nomes"
>> (I forget which book).
>
> If you're talking about the passage in RINKITINK explaining that "nome"
> means "one who knows," then that wasn't a footnote.  I'm not sure
> there was
> one in EMERALD CITY, either, but I could be wrong.

The passage about Dorothy being a dreamer isn't a footnote, but a
statement of Uncle Henry's thoughts - that Dorothy was a dreamer "like
her dead mother." The fact that it was Uncle Henry rather than Aunt Em
who thought about Dot's mother is the main reason I believe that Henry
is the one who's Dot's blood relative, though I think it more likely
that he's actually her mother's uncle rather than her brother. Henry
and Em are described as being "old," which to me would imply
considerably older than her mother would have been likely to have been
had she lived. Even in 1900 being in one's 50s wouldn't have been
considered "old" (OK, maybe to a little kid, but it's Aunt Em who says
that, not Dorothy.) though older than it would be considered now. If we
say they were roughly 60 years old, and Dorothy about 10 or 11, then
there would have to have been something like a 20-25 year gap in age
between Henry (or Em, if my inference is wrong) and Dot's mother. While
not impossible, that's a very wide spacing between siblings, especially
in the mid-19th century, and would almost certainly imply that they
were half-siblings with different mothers. Imagining Henry as the
modestly younger brother of one of Dot's mother's parents fits much
better. I know that growing up I always referred to my great-uncles and
-aunts as "Uncle" or "Aunt," so that would be no obstacle.  Baum never
did define the relationship exactly.

There's a mild confirmation of this when Zeb says his Uncle Hugson
married Em's sister, which made him and Dot "second cousins." They'd
truly be second cousins if both "uncles" were in fact great-uncles,
which given apparent age differences would make sense. Although it has
been argued that by "second cousins" he just meant "related, but not
very closely," which is also possible. This whole issue was discussed
at length some years ago (probably when DOTWIZ was the BCF, if not
before); there wasn't any consensus, as I recall. Just another
interesting possibility, and there are probably people on Regalia who
weren't on the Ozzy Digest back then.

David Hulan

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 14:34:51 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] the gales of kansas

David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> The fact that it was Uncle Henry rather than Aunt Em who thought about
> Dot's mother [in "Emerald City"] is the main reason I believe that Henry
> is the one who's Dot's blood relative, though I think it more likely that
> he's actually her mother's uncle rather than her brother. Henry and Em are

> described as being "old," which to me would imply considerably older than
> her mother would have been likely to have been had she lived. ...  There's
> a mild confirmation of this when Zeb says his Uncle Hugson married Em's
> sister, which made him and Dot "second cousins." They'd truly be second
> cousins if both "uncles" were in fact great-uncles, which given apparent
> age differences would make sense. Although it has been argued that by
> "second cousins" he just meant "related, but not very closely," which is
> also possible. This whole issue was discussed at length some years ago
> (probably when DOTWIZ was the BCF, if not before); there wasn't any
> consensus, as I recall. Just another interesting possibility, and there
> are probably people on Regalia who weren't on the Ozzy Digest back then.
>

Although, as you mention, this is repeating an old argument -- Zeb's comment
isn't really relevant. He speaks of "your Uncle Henry," and, as you say,
that makes Henry Dorothy's uncle by birth (and Em her aunt by marriage).
Then when Dorothy asks "Is Mr. Hugson your uncle?" Zeb answers yes, and goes
on: "Uncle Bill Hugson married your Uncle Henry's wife's sister; so we must
be second cousins," -- and the narrative says that he says that "in an
amused tone." The (apparent) fact that Dorothy is Henry's niece by birth,
and Zeb is Bill Hugson's nephew, means that they are no relation to each
other at all. The families are connected because Em and Mrs. Hugson are
sisters, but that does not make the two separate families relations to each
other. Further confirmation of their lack of relationship is shown in the
narrative description of Zeb as amused at his own comment. He's joking. What
he is doing is making up a relationship to describe a
connection-through-connected-families that is not a relationship at all (not
in our culture, that is -- different cultures have different ways of
counting kinship), but is often felt as close enough to count. (I remember
once telling someone who was about to introduce my aunt's husband's sister's
son to me that we were already acquainted, being -- and then stammering as I
suddenly remembered that although Bobby felt like a cousin, with the
families visiting together everytime our mutual relatives were in town, he
wasn't. I started to say "second cousin," then remembered that wasn't right
either, and settled for saying "We're sort of cousins." But we aren't 
technically cousins of any sort.)

That doesn't disprove your belief that Uncle Henry, considering his age,
might be likely to be Dorothy's great-uncle rather than her uncle. Zeb
probably wouldn't know for sure how his uncle's wife's sister's husband was
related to "niece" Dorothy, since, as you say, most people call a
great-uncle "Uncle X" in conversation. But it does imply that Zeb is
thinking of Dorothy as Henry's niece rather than great-niece, and of himself
and Dorothy as being in the same generation -- as cousins who would be first
cousins if they were cousins at all. But they aren't, so, "in an amused
tone," he offers "second cousins" as a way of describing the connection.
Inaccurate in genealogical terms, but just about right emotionally.

As Bill Hugson and Uncle Henry are not related to each other, the only way
Zeb and Dorothy could be second cousins would be if they were the
great-nephew and great-niece of Mrs. Hugson and Aunt Em -- and Zeb's
agreement that Bill Hugson is his uncle, and his description of Henry as
Dorothy's Uncle Henry (and the "Emerald City" description of Henry's
recollections of Dorothy's mother) show that Zeb and Dorothy are related by
birth to Bill and Henry, not to the missuses. (And if they were in fact
related by birth to the missues, then Zeb wouldn't answer the question "Is

Mr. Hugson your uncle?" in the way he does -- he'd say something on the
order of, "Yes, he married my great-aunt -- your great-aunt, too, you know,
because she and our great-aunt Em were the sisters of my grandpa/ma and your
grandpa/ma." But then he wouldn't be saying all that in an amused tone -- it
would just be straight family history.)

Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 14:13:29 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] earthquake centenary

A reminder for next week -- 100th anniversary of San Francisco earthquake is
April 18, and discussion of "Dorothy and the Wizard" would be appropriate
then.

Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 19:03:07 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Gaelic Ozish Dot and Wiz phonetics

Key to the phonetic alphabet. Letters between slashes are in the alphabet
  /*/ the u in burr /b*r/
  /a/ the u in cup /cap/, /a:/ the a in father /fa:88*r/
  /e/ the e in bet /bet/, /e:/ the a in make /me:c/
  /i/ the i in bit /bit/, /i:/ the i in machine /mas'i:n/
  /o/ the aw in law /lo/, /o:/ the o in cold /co:ld/
  /u/ the oo in book /buc/, /u:/ the oo in boot /bu:t/
  /ae/ the a in bad /baed/
  /'/ following a letter is a slight "y" offglide
  /2/ tenses the following vowels, /2a:/ is a voiced /a:/, /2o:/ is a
voiced /o:/, /2u:/ is /wu:/, /2'/ is a tense voiced /y/
  /3/ voiced equivalent of /x/, /3'/ voiced equivalent of /x'/ on the end
of a word like a z
  /7/ the unvoiced tongue flap of little /li7*l/, /77/ the voiced tongue
flap of doddle /da:77*l/
  /8/ the th of think /8i9c/, /88/ the th of this /88is/
  /9/ the ng of sing /si9/, /9'/ ng with a slight y after it, /99/ is a
nasal /9/
  /b/ the b in bet /bet/, /b'/ as in beauty /b'u:ti:/
  /c/ the c in cat /caet/, /c'/ k with a slight y after it
  /d/ the d in debt /det/, /d'/ the j of judge /d'ad'/
  /f/ the f in face /fe:s/, /f'/ as in few /f'u:/
  /g/ the g in get /get/, /g'/ g with a slight y after it
  /h/ the h in hear /hir/, /h'/ h with a slight y after it
  /l/ the l in loon /lu:n/, /l'/ l with a slight y after it, /ll/ is a
very throaty /l/, /lh/ is an unvoiced /l/ with a lot of air moving past the
tongue, same as Welsh "ll", /ll'/ like /ll/ with a slight y after it, /lh'/
like /lh/ with a slight y after it
  /m/ the m in moon /mu:n/, /m'/ as in music /m'u:zic/, /mm/ like /m/ with
a very closed mouth, /mm'/ like /mm/ with a slight y after it
  /n/ the n in noon /nu:n/, /n'/ as in new /n'u:/, /nn/ is almost /9/,
/nh/ is an unvoiced /n/ with air coming out the nose, /nn'/ like /nn/ with a
slight y after it, /nh'/ like /nh/ with a slight y after it
  /p/ is p without a puff of air, /p'/ as in pew /p'u:/
  /q/ is a very short pause, /qq/ is a glottal stop as in Scots bottle
/ba:qq*l/
  /r/ the r in ruin /ru:n/, /r'/ like a z way back in the mouth, /rr/ is a
trilled /r/, /rr'/ like a trilled /s'/ or a trilled /z'/, /rh/ is like /r/ with
a moderate amount of air moving past it, /rh'/ like a breathy /s'/ or a breathy
/z'/ with the tongue bent back, sounds like the /rr'/ without the trill
  /s/ the s in soft /soft, /s'/ the sh in shoe /s'u:/
  /t/ is t without a puff of air, /t'/ the ch of church /t'*rt'/
  /v/ the v in van /vaen/, /v'/ as in view /v'u:/
  /w/ the w in one /wan/, /ww/ is a nasal /w/, /ww'/ like /ww/ with a
slight y after it
  /x/ the ch in German buch /bu:x/ or Scots loch /lox/, /x'/ the ch in
German ich /ix'/
  /y/ the y in year /yi:r/, /yy/ the g in Greek gyros /yyi:ro:s/, /yy'/
like /yy/ only a lot tenser, on the end of a word sounds like g
  /z/ the z in zaftik /za:ftic/, /z'/ the s in pleasure /plez'u:r/

Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 19:03:45 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Gaelic Ozish Dot and Wiz

I haven't finished the Gaelic/Ozish dictionary yet but if Gaelic is the
language they speak in Oz and environs, then the following would be the case.
  ..So they fall through a hole in the earth and meet a sorcerer named
"Invoker" who asks them why they have intruded their unwelcome persons into the
land of the inhabitants of "Twig Valley". The wizard shows up who was called by
the name of the Land of "Youth" where no one grows old unless they want to. He
mispronounces the name of "Twig Valley" as "Loathsome Valley" or "Thorny
Valley". Leaving the veggies they come to the Valley of "Hide and Seek" where
if you eat the fruit called "Unseen" you become invisible. They meet a little
boy named "Johnny". They are told about the great Champion, Overman-"Overman".
Later the queen of the Land of "Youth" whose name is "Mother of the Youths"
rescues them from a caveual prison. Dorothy met her in the Land of
"Nonexistance" a while back. The wizard was very happy among the "Little Men",
"Little Women", "Little Girls" and "Little Boys" when he ruled them. The queen
of the Land of "Youth" informs the wizard that the word "Youth" means !  "Great"
and "Goodness" in the language of the Land of "Youth" punning "Oz", "Woz" and
"Yoz". She informs him that the witch "Witch" used to rule the north and that
"Pure" the good rules the south. Dorothy is addressed by the "Yearling" stuffed
head on the wall.
  
  Glossary --standard Gaelic spelling of the late 1800s in quotes "xxx",
phonetic representation of the word as if it were pronounced as the word is
spelled in double slashes //xxx//, actual pronunciation which is usually much
softer in single slashes /xxx/ and the English equivalent in parens (xxx)
  Gwig --(invoker) the sorcerer of the Mangaboos --"Guidh" //guiyy'// -
/gwiyy'/ (gwigh) --"Guidh" = "one who prays, invokes" --in extension
"Guidheadoir" //guiyy'e:dor'// - /gwiyy'e:dor/ (gwizaydor) --"Guidheadoir" = "a
spell caster, an enchanter"
  Oz --(youth) the Land of --"Oigh" //o3'// - /oz/ (oz) --"Oigh" = "youth"
from "Og" //oc// - /oc/ (oc) --"Og" = "young" the traditional spelling is
without spiration or offglide indicators so that The Land of Youth, "Tir nan
Og" is pronounced (Tay nahn Oz) rather than (Teer nahn Ogg) as you are like to
hear it on TV
  Mangaboo --(bud valley, twig valley) valley of the veggies --"Maothan
Gabuidh" //ma:h*n ga:bu:yy'// - /ma:n ga:bu:gh/ (man gaboogh) --"Maothan
Gabuidh" = "bud valley, twig valley" from "Maothan" //ma:h*n// - /ma:n/ (mahn)
--"Maothan" = "bud, twig" combined with "Gabuidh" //ga:bu:yy'// - /ga:bu:gh/
(gaboogh) --"Gabuidh" = "long valley with flat land" from "Gaibeal"
//ga:b'e:l// - /ga:b'al/ (gabul) --"Gaibeal" = (gap, chasm) from "Gab" //ga:p//
- /ga:p/ (gap) --"Gab" = "gap, mouth"
  Gabazoo --(loathsome valley, thorny valley) the wizards mispronunciation
of Mangaboo --"Gabuighuath" //ga:ba3'u:h// - /ga:bazu:/ (gabazoo) --
"Gabuighuath" = "loathsome valley, thorny valley" from "Gabuidh" //ga:bu:yy'//
- /ga:bu:gh/ (gaboogh) --"Gabuidh" = "long valley with flat land" from
"Gaibeal" //ga:b'e:l// - /ga:b'al/ (gabul) --"Gaibeal" = (gap, chasm) from
"Gab" //ga:p// - /ga:p/ (gap) --"Gab" = "gap, mouth" combined with "Thuath"
//hu:h// - /hu:/ (hoo) --"Thuath" = "loathsome, rustic, perverse" or with
"Uath" //u:h// - /u:/ (oo) --"Uath" = "thorny, dreadful"
  Voe --(hide and seek) the valley of --"Bhfogh" //vo:3// - /vo:/ (voh) --
"Bhfogh" = "would find?, name of game of hide and seek" from "Fogaibh"
//fo:ga:v'// - /fo:gaw/ (foga) --"Fogaibh" = "find"
  Dama --(unseen) good tasting fruit, interesting side effect --"D'amarh"
//da:ma:rh// - /da:ma:/ (dama) --"D'amarh" = "unseen" from "Amharc"
//a:wwar*c// - /amax/ (amagh) --"Amharc" = "sight, vision" combined with "Do-"
//do:// - /da/ (da) --"Do-" = "negative prefix, un-, mal-"
  Ianu --(johnny) a little boy of Voe --"Ianbh" //i:anw// - /i:anu/
(ee-ah-nuh) --"Ianbh" = "johnny" from "Ian" //i:an// - /i:an/ (ee-ahn) --"Ian"
= "john" combined with "-bh" //w// - /u/ (uh) which is an affectionate and
diminutive ending
  Anu --(overman, superman) known as Overman Anu, overman being a direct
translation of Uebermensch, Nietzsche's perfected person. 'Superman' is more
popular now and Kal-el seems stuck with it, though I really liked the idea that
Star Child spelled backwards is Ignatowsky --"Anu" //a:nu:// - /a:nu:/ (anu,
anoo) --"Anu" = "mentsh" in Yiddish. No English word. This is someone who is
trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,
thrifty, brave, clean, reverent, prepared and responsible. Kind of like Captain
Carrot in Ankh Morpork. Stand-up Guy. Boy Scout without any negative immature
connotations. From "An" //a:n// - /a:n/ (ahn) --"An" = "noble, pure, pleasant,
elegant" combined with "-u" the intensive ending equivalent to English "-er" --
"Anu" = "someone who is, well, just super"
   Ozma --(mother of the youths) --"Oighmamh" //o3'ma:// -
/ozma:/  (ozma) --"Oighmamh" = "mother of the youths" from "Oigh" //o3'//
- /oz/ (oz)- "Oigh" = "youth" from "Og" //oc// - /oc/ (oc) --"Og" = "young"
combined with "Mamh" //ma:ww// - /ma:/ (ma) --"Mamh" = "mother"
  Ev --(nonexistance) the Land of --"Aimh" //eww'// - /ev/ (ev) --"Aimh" =
"un-, not, without" the Land of Nonexistance, first land of call on the Ocean
of Nonexistance
  Munchkin --(mannikin) inhabitant of the blue part of Oz, where the sun
rises --"Mandcain" //mantx'can'// - /mant'can/ (munchkan) --"Mandcain" =
"manlet, small man, a mannikin" from "Mand" //mant// - /mant/ (mant) --"Mand" =
"man" from Norse "Mandur" combined with "-cain" //can'// - /can/ (can) --
"-cain" = "diminutive ending, equivalent to English -kin"
  Winkie --(ladykin) inhabitant of the yellow part of Oz, where the sun
sets --"Mhaindhchagh" //wwinqqi:3// - /winci:y/ (winky) --"Mhaindhchagh" =
"small woman, dear woman, little lady" from "Mban" //ma:n// - /ma:n/ (mahn) -
"Mban" = "female" from "Bean" //b'a:n// - /b'a:n/ (ban) --"Bean" = "woman"
combined with "-cog" //co:c// - /coc/ (cok) --"-cog" = "feminine diminutive
ending"
  Quadling (lassie) inhabitant of the red part of Oz --"Cuadlinn"
//cuad'li99// - /cuadli9/ (cwadling) --"Cuadlinn" = "little girl, dear girl"
from "Cuad" //cuadd// - /cuad/ (cwad) --"Cuad" = "girl, female servant"
combined with "-linn" //li99// - /li9/ (ling) --"-linn" = "feminine diminutive
ending, equivalent to English -ling" perhaps one of the reasons that the name
Kathleen was so popular in its numerous forms, regardless of its actual origin.
It sounds just like "dear girl" or "sweetiepie"
  Gillikin --(laddie) inhabitant of the purple part of Oz --"Giollacain"
//g'ilacan'// - /gilacan/ (gilikan) --"Giollacain" = "small boy, dear lad, a
lad-kin" from "Giolla" //g'ila// - /gila/ (gila) --"Giolla" = "boy, lad, male
servant" combined with "-cain" //can'// - /can/ (can) --"-cain" = "diminutive
ending, equivalent to English -kin"
  Oz --(great) a pun on Oz --"Mhoir" //wwor'// - /woz/ (woz) --"Mhoir" =
"great" from "Mor" //mor// - /mor/ (mor) --"Mor" = "big"
  Oz --(goodness) a pun on Oz --"Fheairr" //2'a:rr'// - /ya:z/ (yoz) -
"Fheairr" = "goodness" from "Fearr" //f'a:rr// - /f'a:r/ (fyahr) --"Fearr" = "best"
  Mombi --(witch) my favorite witch --"mBan Buith" //ma:mbi:h// -
/ma:mbi:/ (mombi) --"mBan" //ma:n// - /ma:n/ (mon) --"mBan" = "female" from
"Bean" //b'a:n// - /b'a:n/ (ban) - "Bean" = "woman" - "Buith" //bi:h// - /bi:/
(bee) - "Buith" = "witch" - "mBan Buith" = "witch woman" which pretty well sums
it up, a very witchy witch
  Glinda - (pure) known as "the Good" - "Gloinda" //glin'da:// - /glinda:/
(glinda) - "Gloinda" = "one who is pure" from "Glan" //gla:n// - /glan/ (glon)
- "Glan" = "clean, pure" used for holiness, clarity and general all-around niceness.
  Gump - (yearling) this Gump was shot in the forest and is thus a Forest
Gump - "Gamb" //gamp// - /gamp/ (gump) - "Gamb" = "yearling of cattle, sheep,
goats and deer" from "Gamh" //gaww// - /gaw/ (gaw) - "Gamh" = "winter" or from
Norse "Gymb" = "ewe lamb" or maybe from both. Bit early for horns then. Perhaps
an early maturing species.

Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 15:18:44 -0400
From: "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com>
To: "A discussion and idea list for fans of OZ" <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Gaelic Ozish Dot and Wiz

On 4/8/06, Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>  Gabazoo - (loathsome valley, thorny valley) the wizards mispronunciation
of Mangaboo - "Gabuighuath" //ga:ba3'u:h// - /ga:bazu:/ (gabazoo) -
"Gabuighuath" = "loathsome valley, thorny valley" from
"Gabuidh" //ga:bu:yy'// - /ga:bu:gh/ (gaboogh) - "Gabuidh"
= "long valley with flat land" from "Gaibeal" //ga:b'e:l//
- /ga:b'al/ (gabul) - "Gaibeal" = (gap, chasm) from "Gab"
//ga:p// - /ga:p/ (gap) - "Gab" = "gap, mouth" combined
with "Thuath" //hu:h// - /hu:/ (hoo) - "Thuath" =
"loathsome, rustic, perverse" or with "Uath" //u:h// - /u:/
(oo) - "Uath" = "thorny, dreadful"

Assuming the rest of what you say is accurate, would the Wizard know
enough Gaelic to make this mispronunciation on purpose, or would it
have been a coincidence?

>  Ianu - (johnny) a little boy of Voe - "Ianbh" //i:anw// -
/i:anu/ (ee-ah-nuh) - "Ianbh" = "johnny" from
"Ian" //i:an// - /i:an/ (ee-ahn) - "Ian" = "john"
combined with "-bh" //w// - /u/ (uh) which is an affectionate and
diminutive ending
>  Anu - (overman, superman) known as Overman Anu, overman being a
direct translation of Uebermensch, Nietzsche's perfected person. 'Superman' is
more popular now and Kal-el seems stuck with it, though I really liked the idea
that Star Child spelled backwards is Ignatowsky - "Anu" //a:nu:// -
/a:nu:/ (anu, anoo) - "Anu" = "mentsh" in Yiddish. No
English word. This is someone who is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly,
courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent, prepared
and responsible. Kind of like Captain Carrot in Ankh Morpork. Stand-up Guy. Boy
Scout without any negative immature connotations. From "An" //a:n// -
/a:n/ (ahn) - "An" = "noble, pure, pleasant, elegant"
combined with "-u" the intensive ending equivalent to English
"-er" - "Anu" = "someone who is, well, just super"

Isn't it likely that the names "Ianu" and "Overman-Anu" are connected?
Maybe "anu" is a common ending for names in Voe.
--
Brick is red, and Hitler's dead,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org or fablesto at gmail.com

Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 02:20:16 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Re:re: Gaelic Ozish Dot and Wiz

"Nathan DeHoff"
  >  Gabazoo - Assuming the rest of what you say is accurate, would the Wizard know
enough Gaelic to make this mispronunciation on purpose, or would it
have been a coincidence?
  
  I think that Baum's concept of entry into Faerie is consistant as a
transition in frame of reference. In this case, passing the Raja Yoga -
Theosophical Multi-sun acting as a gate.  So it appears to me to be a
level 5 translation (as previously mentioned in my comment on Emerald Wand) and
so they would simply be speaking, not actually aware of what language they are
using.
  
  >...might well involve the syllogismic process as in de Camp's
Enchanter. That is, besides being a relocation in space it would also be
a translation from one frame of reference to another. The translation
might have six parameters of time, space and probability as per
Heinlein, thus the degree of fit would involve six degrees of compliance.  ...
5 Coordinating comprehension within the extelligence, which would
naturally involve understanding the local language and gestures as if one
had grown up with them.
>...
 
I think pointed puns (pun intended), in Baum's books are seldom a coincidence,
especially from the point of view of the speaker.
 
>  Ianu - (johnny)
>  Anu - "Anu" = "someone who is, well, just super"

>Isn't it likely that the names "Ianu" and "Overman-Anu" are connected?
Maybe "anu" is a common ending for names in Voe.

  In the absence of any other Voe-ish names, I would guess that Baum chose
the name Anu, meaning Overman, first. And then Ianu as a suitable boy's name
came second, chosen specifically to sight rhyme with Anu.

Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:39:58 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy

A bit on theosophical gates and Raja Yoga.

  If this material has already been covered let me know. I read about
theosophy in the 40s and 50s and all that was available to me then was from the
1800s so what I do remember should be appropriate, if not complete. From the
point of view of the Theosophy of the late 1800s as I recall reading about
it...

  Hatha Yoga is primarily for the purpose of calming the mind and training
the body to be comfortable in symbolic postures. Hatha Yoga acts as a
foundation for progress through Raja Yoga which is the combined use of symbol
and concentrative meditation to establish a revised relationship with reality.

  Reality is supposed to be neither objective nor subjective but a faceted
reflection of underlying unitary I-am-ness. The practices of Raja Yoga are
rationalized and guided by Jnana Yoga which is cosmological theory.

  Jnana Yoga is highly structured and purports to be the underlying
pattern of everything. Among other pattern concepts is that of the gates of
self awareness which are pictured as a central white circle with six colored
circles around it. Reading clockwise from the bottom circle, they are purple,
orange, green, yellow, blue and red. Each of these colors is associated with
planets, kinds of actions, senses and perceptions, types of concepts and pretty
much every thing else.

  Each colored circle is surrounded by six more colored circles which are
each surrounded by six more and so on, and on etc. One can only see seven at a
time. Then as the person concentratively meditates on one of the six
surrounding circles it becomes invisible and the person enters into the
relationship defined by that invisible circle.

  In the case of the suns over Mangaboo, the invisible sun would be the
green one. That indicates an entry into perception or the lack of perception,
empathy (in this case the lack of it) and the world of vegetation.

  Lights combine additively and pigments subtractively. Anyone with any
much stage hand experience today knows that very well. Whether it was common
knowledge in Baum's time I don't know but it was determinative within Jnana
Yoga. Yellow and blue combining to make green on Dorothy's face would indicate
that the light was negative light, that is, the specific absence of light. In
other words, that they were seeing by a sort of colored darkness.

  I'll skip over what leads into green. Green can lead to red or yellow or
orange depending on which of the four paths of development is being followed.

  The path of transformation leads to red and animalia and knowledge and
from there to blue. The path of creation leads to yellow which is completion
and contemplation and then to a new white. The path of karma also leads to
yellow which is unity and from there to orange. The path of absence leads to
orange which is individuality and from there to blue.
In this case I suspect the next color was red and Voe. Then blue and the
Gargoyles and finally yellow and the Dragonettes and so on to the new white
which is Oz. Kind of a theosophical Pilgrims Progress or Journey to the West
(Monkey).

Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:59:56 -0400
From: Blair Frodelius <blair at frodelius.com>
To: regalia at pauahtun.org
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Dot Wiz Theosophy

For more on the connections between L. Frank Baum, the Oz books and Theosophy
go here: 

Blair Frodelius
The OzProject

Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:33:00 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Theosophy

>theosophical oz

  Thank you. No hard stuff then. Blavatsky/Besant were (accused of/admired
for) producing Sunday School Theosophy. When I read Isis Unveiled at the age of
nine I had to take it in small chunks to keep my brain from turning into
cottage cheese. I didn't find many raisins in the oatmeal. Of course, I was a
trifle judgmental back then.

  The actual concordances (according to my notes) were.. the specific
absence of Recursion/Return produces the specific absence of I-am-ness. The
specific absence of I-am-ness produces the specific absence of Love/Causality
and the specific absences of Return, I-am-ness and Love produce the specific
absence of Will/Mindfulness.

Which do rather correspond to Absence of Return/Dorothy, Absence of
I-am-ness/Scarecrow, Absence of Love/Nick and Absence of Will/Lion.

Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:40:58 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy

If the sequence previous to Ozification is the path of transformation, then that
is as follows. (miraculously I found some of my notebooks from 49 through 52 so
I don't have to do this entirely from memory)
  White - entry into the path of transformation
  Purple - Time and space. Emptiness. Void. Chaos.
  ..then as purple comes back upon itself it becomes empty and becomes
  Orange - Emptiness of emptiness. Response. Matter. Rocks. Physical interaction.
  ..then as orange comes back upon itself it becomes empty and becomes
  Green - Response of response. Awareness. Vegetation. Chemical awareness.
  ..then as green comes back upon itself it becomes empty and becomes
  Red - Awareness of awareness. Knowledge. Animals. Conflict. Action and reaction.
  ..then as red comes back upon itself it becomes empty and becomes
  Blue - Knowledge of knowledge. Understanding. Humans. Rulership.
  ..then as blue comes back upon itself it becomes empty and becomes
  Yellow - Understanding of understanding. Paragnosis. Limits. Angels.  Gods.
  ..then as yellow comes back upon itself it becomes empty and becomes
  White - entry into the path of creation
  Sooo..
  White - arrival at Hugson's siding in the midst of violent upheaval
  Purple - fall into the void
  Orange - stones and clay rattling around them on every side and more void
  Green - passing the suns of heatless negative light and arrival at Mangaboo
  Green/Purple - (void) discovery that one can walk on air
  Green/Orange - (rock) trial about rocks and arrival of wizard, more rocks
  Green/Green - (awareness) predictions vindicated
  Green/Red - (conflict) contest between wizard and sorcerer
  Green/Blue - (rulership) the royal bush
  Green/Yellow - (limits/ends) escape to the black pit
Void - travel through the void of the tunnel

Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:19:21 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Symmesian influence

I'm still in the process of re-reading DOROTHY/WIZARD, but thought for
openers I'd repeat gradually some comments from when it was the book of
focus several years back, with some additions in brackets.

Symmesianism:
The idea of exploring beneath the surface of the world of Oz (more than just
the glimpse of the Nome Kingdom in OZMA) is intriguing. It's interesting to
note that this theme is one of the many examples of influence of sf on Oz. I
haven't read the various early examples of
journeys-to-the-center-of-the-earth myself, but looked up what J.O. Bailey
had to say on that motif in his landmark study of early sf, PILGLRIMS
THROUGH SPACE AND TIME. He traces that motif back to the 18th century, but
there was a bi boost to the popularity of the theme early in the 19th
century, when John Symmes came up with his crackpot, but appealing, theory
that the Earth was hollow inside, with openings at the poles, and that
sailing into the inside through the polar openings would be possible. Even
when journey stories did not draw directly on Symmes (for instance, Verne's
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH portrays a large cavity in the Earth,
rather than an entirely hollow inside, and does not assume polar access to
the cavity), they drew on the popularity that Symmes had given to the notion
of journeying inside the world. Some of the stories that Bailey discusses
make use of details that show up in the DOROTHY/WIZARD
interior-of-the-Earth, including the artificial sunlight in many colors, and
the near-weightlessness that makes it possible to walk on the air.

[Bailey's descriptions don't indicate that anyone before Baum used the
combination of multiple suns and different colors, but the 1820 SYMZONIA by
one Captain Adam Seaborn (maybe a pseudonym for Symmes) has two suns,
refracted inside through the two polar openings, and William N. Harben's
1894 THE LAND OF THE CHANGING SUN has a cavern inside the Earth lit by a
ball of light that changes colors with the hours.]

Weightlessness in a hollow Earth with the hollow symmetrically centered on
the Earth's center would be correct enough. But near-weightlessness [as in a
couple of Bailey's examples], with people of lighter weight able to go
"higher" and the effect falling off as a character goes further up from the
surface doesn't match up very well with the physics of the situation, and
works better in a world below Oz, where magical effects can be assumed, than
in the early sf stories Baum was following.

A curious imitation of DOROTHY/WIZARD, also drawing on
journeys-to-the-center-of-the-earth, was Grace Duffie Boylan's YAMA-YAMA
LAND, which came out in 1909, the year after DOROTHY/WIZARD (from the same
publisher, Reilly & Britton).  [Boylan was a friend of Denslow's and through

him also acquainted with Baum.] It features  a little San Francisco girl,
who gets cuahgt in an earthquake (presumably the San Francisco Earthquake of
1906 -- which was also the inspiration for the one in DOROTHY/WIZARD,
although both are unlike the original in featuring great big cracks opening
deep into the ground). Some of the other characters make their way to the
Yama-Yama territories by boat along the polar route, so YAMA-YAMA LAND is
more Symmesian than DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD. Some of the Yama-cities of lost
objects (lost dolls, lost pins) sound much like the valley of Lost Things in
Baum's DOT AND TOT IN MERRYLAND.

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:30:21 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] more dorothy/wizard

Also an older comment with bracketed interpolations --

Plotting.
The ending of DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD is a problem even for readers who like
the book as a whole, such as Cal Dobbins, whose "Dorothy and the Wizard in

Oz Revisited" (BAUM BUGLE Spring 1983) argued for its good qualitites, but

who didn't like the ending. I think Baum plotted himself into a hole in the
book, as it would have been an anticlimax to get the characters all the way
up that mountain and out onto the surface and then still have to get them
across the Desert and to the Emerald City. Of course, he could have had the
mountain surface at the Emerald City, but that would have established a
"road to Oz" too easy of access (well, comparatively easy). And a
surface-crossing episode would be hard to plot so that it would seem like a
continuation of the rise in the action, rather than an anticlimax (rather
like the trip after getting back to the Emerald City to finish up at
Glinda's in WIZARD). So he got them all the way up the mountain, but not to
the surface.

[Incidentally, I wonder where they were when they got to the end of the road
up the mountain, in sight of sunlight, but not able to reach it. Presumably
just below the surface and not at any more of the under-earth communities
like Voe and the Gargoyle's Wooden Land where a sky that is apparently
artificial shines with a light of its own, without having any sort of
visible sun, as the Mangaboos do. It is presumably not underneath
California. At least, I suppose it might be, but since magic can change
their location from the cave to Oz, I tend to assume that Baum was thinking
of some kind of magical change in physical location and not just a change in
perceptions when his characters start out in "civilized" lands with no
witches or wizards or sorcerers and then find themselves in Oz or across the
desert from it. So if Oz is in some other world, and Dorothy and friends
have crossed into it when they first fell under the surface of California,
then perhaps the under-earth mountain is below one of the Oz Borderlands,
and it would be possible to imagine a set of adventures if some later
travelers got past the blocked door to the same dead end and managed to get
out by climbing up to and digging through the crack to the surface. Or, of
course, a story following the adventures of travelers who took the Mother
Dragon's route would be possible, if they didn't get themselves eaten en
route. Perhaps an encounter with Nomes in the process might be likely? Once
at the surface, would they be someplace Baum had explored already, such as
Ev, or somewhere less well known, maybe the tantalizingly unknown Kingdom of
Dreams?]

And perhaps the business of having Zeb and Jim and Eureka in their different
ways unhappy in Oz society was also an attempt to avoid the feeling of
anticlimax in the closing chapters, but it doesn't work very well,
particularly as regards Eureka. (I kind of wish he'd closed off the theme of
Eureka's desire to eat the piglets by having her go to see Ozma privately to
explain that she'd tried to, but failed, and considering Ozma's desire not
to have the piglets eaten, and her own enjoyment of being able to talk to
people, she wanted to stay in Oz and would agree to obey the "house rules"
(as Greg Gick termed it in an article on Ozma's governance in the June 1997
Oz Research Organization mailing). And possibly then Eureka's later pinkness
could have been explained as a sort of mild punishment that Ozma imposed on
her for her attempted pig-eating, meant to remind Eureka of how she came to
Oz in the first place so that she would remember to go on obeying the "house
rules."

[David Hulan had Eureka's pink coloration be the result of a later
adventure, when she gets back to Oz by secretly following Dorothy in ROAD.
That works well as a way of explaining how she gets back to Oz and in the
pink, as she is found later without explanation, getting mentions as being
there in PATCHWORK GIRL, TIK-TOK, SCARECROW, and LOST PRINCESS, and taking a
major part in the action in MAGIC, and much later in Dick Martin's
OZMAPOLITAN. In between, though, she got mentions only -- although quite a
few mentions, one more in Baum, in GLINDA, several in RPT and one in Snow's
MIMICS. I can't help thinking, though, that it would be nice to have an
explanation that would involve the temporary pinkness she experiences under
the Mangaboo's shifting suns, whether as a delayed magical effect or as
someone's choice as a deliberate reminder, since Baum obviously was thinking
of her as pink from remembering as she looked under the Mangaboo suns. But
he presumably made the shift by error, not by intention, and at any rate he
never provided an explanation.]

Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 14:50:09 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] neill's dorothy/wizard

Also mostly an older comment with bracketed interpolations and an
afterthought --

Pictures.
Even Neill's artwork seems off in this one book. Normally, I like his work
very much. But the drawings in DOROTHY/WZIARD are too busy in many
instances, and the Wizard looks as if he is wearing clown makeup and/or
suffers from redness of the nose from too much drinking. (My niece Harriet
Sogin, however, like the book a good deal when I read it to her a few years
ago [rather more years ago now], especially for the Mangaboo Princess. She
had been noticing that many books use few female characters and put the few
into subordinate roles, so was enchanged to discover that Tip was really
Ozma, and went on taking note of women rulers that show up in the Oz books.
She was disappointed that there was no picture of the Mangaboo Princess in
the b&w copy I'd bought her. Fortunately, just about then Books of Wonder
brought out its edition, with the color plates, so I bought her one of
those, and she enjoyed the color plate of Dorothy and the Wizard picking the
Princess.)

[However, I do like the hidden gnomes -- some kind of rock sprites,
anyway -- peering out from among the rocks in one of the full-page b&w
illos, and the concealed profiles of human-faces showing up as some of the
rock-faces.]

--------------------

This completes my comments from previous discussion, and I've almost
finished re-reading the book. I don't so far have comments on the re-reading
beyond the bits I've been adding to what I was saying before -- but maybe on
Monday. I watched an interesting PBS special on the Earthquake earlier this
week, with some movie footage taken of the Earthquake itself, and the
devasting fire that followed. Some surviving survivors talked about their
memories of the quake and living in camps afterward and the long, slow
recovery process. (Were all the survivors over a hundred years old, or were
some filmed in previous years? -- I'm not sure.) A curious Oz connection is
that MGM producer Mervyn LeRoy was one of the survivors of the quake, if I'm
remembering correctly.

Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 12:04:37 -0400
From: "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com>
To: "A discussion and idea list for fans of OZ"
<regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] more dorothy/wizard

On 4/20/06, Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
> So if Oz is in some other world, and Dorothy and friends
> have crossed into it when they first fell under the surface of California,
> then perhaps the under-earth mountain is below one of the Oz Borderlands,
> and it would be possible to imagine a set of adventures if some later
> travelers got past the blocked door to the same dead end and managed to get
> out by climbing up to and digging through the crack to the surface. Or, of
> course, a story following the adventures of travelers who took the Mother
> Dragon's route would be possible, if they didn't get themselves eaten en
> route. Perhaps an encounter with Nomes in the process might be likely?  Once
> at the surface, would they be someplace Baum had explored already, such as
> Ev, or somewhere less well known, maybe the tantalizingly unknown Kingdom of
> Dreams?

We see such a journey in Melody Grandy's DISENCHANTED PRINCESS, in
which the surface is in Boboland (as shown on Haff and Martin's map).

> [David Hulan had Eureka's pink coloration be the result of a later
> adventure, when she gets back to Oz by secretly following Dorothy in ROAD.
> That works well as a way of explaining how she gets back to Oz and in the
> pink, as she is found later without explanation, getting mentions as being
> there in PATCHWORK GIRL, TIK-TOK, SCARECROW, and LOST PRINCESS, and taking a
> major part in the action in MAGIC, and much later in Dick Martin's
> OZMAPOLITAN. In between, though, she got mentions only -- although quite a
> few mentions, one more in Baum, in GLINDA, several in RPT and one in Snow's
> MIMICS.

While Baum seems to be pretty consistent about Eureka being pink in
his books from PATCHWORK on (aside from Dorothy's mention of "my
purple kitten" in GLINDA), Thompson has Dorothy refer to her as a
white kitten in LOST KING.  I believe she's also drawn as white on the
cover of OZMAPOLITAN, although I don't think the text mentions her
color at all.
--
Brick is red, and Hitler's dead,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org or fablesto at gmail.com

Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:39:26 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy

Entry into Voe
  Red/Purple - (void) clear light without a source, apparent lack of
inhabitants
  Red/Orange - (response/knowledge) explanation of the locale
  Red/Green - (awareness/desire) eat, but not the dama
  Red/Red - (conflict) the bears
  Red/Blue - (understanding) use of the leaves, on the river
  Red/Yellow - (limits/ends) exit from Voe, enter Pyramid mountain
  
The dama not only seems to make for invisibility but also unawareness in
general. Not only do the bears not sniff out the human inhabitants but they
don't seem to hang around the cottages. Open door? Perhaps general unawareness
is what keeps a bear from hanging around a cottage, noting that food was being
eaten and barging on in for a snack. Or just hanging around till somebody bumps
into it. Or perhaps something unexplained keeps the bears away from the
cottages.

Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:36:48 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] boboland & eureka

"Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com> wrote:
> We see such a journey [underground in the Mangaboo-Voe-etc. realms] in
> Melody Grandy's DISENCHANTED PRINCESS, in which the surface is in Boboland 
> (as shown on Haff and Martin's map). >

Yes, I should have remembered that it's on the map (as the Silver Island
princes would say). It's in/under Boboland on Baum's "Tik-Tok" map as well
as the Haff/Martin map. Boboland isn't quite as mysterious as the nearby
Kingdom of Dreams, since it gets mentioned in the books when we meet some
Bobolanders in Baum's "Rinktink" and again in Neill's "Scalawagons," but
it's fairly mysterious, since it's one that we don't get to visit in any of
the books. In terms of "Dorothy/Wizard" alone, it would be possible that
Baum was thinking of that set of underground realms as being under
California, or under some undefined territory in the Oz Borderlands.
Considering that he'd already written the non-Oz version of "Rinkitink,"
maybe it's likely that he had described Boboland, had already started
thinking that his various countries were all connected, and was actually
thinking of this set of underground realms as under Boboland?

> While Baum seems to be pretty consistent about Eureka being pink in his
> books from PATCHWORK on (aside from Dorothy's mention of "my purple
> kitten" in GLINDA), Thompson has Dorothy refer to her as a white kitten in
> LOST KING.  I believe she's also drawn as white on the cover of
> OZMAPOLITAN, although I don't think the text mentions her color at all.
<

Maybe the coloration had started to fade in later years? Maybe even fading
from a bright pink to a dull purple to white? Curiously, Neill refers to a
lost pink kitten as one of the lost beings Number Nine searches for in
"Scalawagons." There's no indication that this pink kitten is Eureka
(although perhaps once found the finder might exclaim "Eureka!" without
regard to the particular kitten's own name, if any). But if it isn't Eureka,
it's puzzling to speculate where it came from. (Quadling Country?)

I notice a small discrepancy in Eureka's comments during her trial. At one
point she comments that she can't see how they'd think she'd be stupid
enough to eat a Piglet, knowing that she'd be in a lot of trouble if she
did. After she's rejected the Tin Woodman's kindly plot to get her off on
perjured evidence, she admits that she did try to eat the Piglet, but didn't
succeed. I can see a couple of ways to reconcile these claims. One is that
Eureka, in spite of her nonchalant attitude, is worried about getting
punished, and tries to sneak in the false claim that she wouldn't be so
stupid; and the other, that she's angry enough that they thought she WAS
that stupid to make the false claim that she was. But I'm not sure if Baum
would have been intending something like one of those, or if he just didn't
notice the discrepancy.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:14:42 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy Gargoyles

Void - view of the black sea of causal chaos and meet the man of emptiness
  Blue/Purple - (void) the land of naught where all is deadwood, even the trees
  Blue/Orange - (response) instant antipathy
  Blue/Green - (awareness) sound in the silence is their only real weapon
  Blue/Red - (conflict) they lose the battle
  Blue/Blue - (rulership) they are imprisoned
  Blue/Yellow - (limits/ends) they fly off to an escape hatch and light a fire
  
  There are only two specific theosophic images in the book. The sun gate
of potentials and the black fiery sea of chaos. Were it not for them there
would be no reason to suspect a theosophic underlying message.

  And will the Land of Naught burn down? Probably not. The splintery grass
should burn well if there's any near the cave but the lively fire will likely
go out.
  
  Gargoyle is a old word. In Baum's time the most popular non-folk
etymology was from a word for throat. Back when springs were an important
source of water, the way to turn what was usually a seepage into a flow that
gushed was to drive a pipe of wood, or build a pipe of stone into the main
seepage and then wall it around so that the water would mostly go through the
pipe and be easy to collect. All very well, but springs were chancy. If near a
sea they might be sweet water or salt, or vary between the two on a seasonal
basis. Inland they might be sweet or bitter with alkalis etc. An immediate
magic to make them sweet was to have them gush out of a mouth and thus be
necessarily drinkable. Especially around the Mediterranean you can still find
springs, or where springs were once, where the outlet is a more or less human
face. Fountains for drinking water were fixed up the same way. It became
traditional long after the magic had faded away. (this is 1800s talking
remember)

Water spouts to collect water into cisterns were made in fanciful figures,
again to keep the water sweet. Devils and angels. Priests and hunters. Lots of
etceteras. And called "throats". A source of living water.
In the Land of Naught they are devil monsters and are dry, dry, dry. This is a
dead land. All of it is active death. There is no accommodation. No
negotiation. Instant antipathy. Total hatred. Evil eyes. The wizard would just
as soon the whole thing was utterly destroyed.

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:52:04 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy Dragonettes

Void - doors to rooms, for what?
  Yellow/Purple - (void) on up the inclined tunnel
  Yellow/Orange - (response) rifts and cracks, zigs and zags
  Yellow/Green - (awareness) lights all around, in pairs
  Yellow/Red - (conflict) invitation to be eaten by the paragnostic dragons
  Yellow/Blue - (judgment) not a fair question
  Yellow/Yellow - (limits/ends) the end of the road
  
  There is a very approximate fit throughout, but it's not so tight an
outline that it couldn't be entirely fortuitous, or perhaps background at best.
The question of whether this is a theosophical Pilgrims Progress lies in its
relevance to the path of transformation.

  The four paths are physical, metaphysical, noumenal and paranoumenal.
The path of transformation is physical.

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:59:16 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy   reprise 1

Supposing that you were to watch a movie some really muchly number of times.
Say, the first Star Wars, in 1977 because you really, really liked it. In fact
you saw it so many times that you were very familiar with it but had not
actually learned the dialogue by heart. Then a year or so later you saw it on
TV with the sound turned off. What might happen is that as long as you could
see the lips of the characters speaking, that you would hear a kind of
soundless sound. No timbre, no volume and heard in your head not in your ears.
Not lip-reading as you could "hear" the dialogue even if their heads
were turned to the side and you could just barely see the moving lips. Call
that soundless sound heard with the eyes a "virtual sound".

  By using various techniques and exercises it is possible to develop
virtual analogues to all of your senses. And, moreover, virtual knowledge and
understanding. In fact you can develop a sort of heads up view of your
surroundings simultaneous with your normal cockpit view. Or in videogame terms,
a third person view to go along with your normal first person view.

  At least that's the theory. The third person view would allow you to
mess around with the cabin controls (biofeedback) and help you to avoid
difficult situations by going around them or not doing something that you might
have otherwise done.

  That's what the path of transformation is about. Personal change brought
about by the appropriate exercises and experiences to change you from being an
ordinary old 18 sense person to a more physically advanced 36 sense person.

  If the gate of self awareness and the causal sea of chaos are anything
more than a bit of window dressing, the experiences of the party should
parallel the virtual development. "//" for the parallel, it there is
one.
  
  White - arrival at Hugson's siding in the midst of violent upheaval //
major dissatisfaction with the meaninglessness of one's life, desire to find
out what's going on and willingness to change.
  
  Purple - fall into the void // beginning the practice of contemplative
meditation and the stilling of judgmental thought, observing one's own thoughts
without being involved in them
  
  Orange - stones and clay rattling around // one's thoughts not giving up
that easily and demanding to be attended to. Uninvolvement not being possible.
  
  Green/White - (awareness of transition) passing the suns of heatless,
"virtual" light // being aware that a certain position of equilibrium
has been tentatively and tremulously reached. Entry into the Green realm of
awareness of the process of thinking
  
  Green/Purple (awareness of void) discovery that one can walk on air //
discovery that virtual perception is not dependant on immediate causality but
is defined by absence rather than presence
  
  Green/Orange (awareness of rock/response) trial about rocks and arrival
of wizard // thoughts demand to be dealt with and if equilibrium is maintained
eventually quiet down
  
  Green/Green (awareness of awareness) predictions vindicated // thoughts
are adaptable to any interpretation as long as they receive the attention that
they demand.
  
  Green/Red (awareness of conflict) contest between wizard and sorcerer //
between deception and actuality, deception and emptiness wins. Decisive
division of concept a major factor.
  
  Green/Blue (awareness of judgment) the royal bush // allowing judgment
to judge itself. Direction of judgment by influence rather than by force.
  
  Green/Yellow (awareness of limits) escape to the black pit // awareness
that allowing judgment to judge itself has immediate limitations and is not
actually acceptable when dealing with anything more complex than obvious
immediate cause and effect.

Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:02:34 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy  reprise 2

In dealing with awareness one discovers that it is insufficient to solve the
problems of awareness. How about the awareness of awareness, that is,
knowledge? If the valley of Voe actually represents the theosophic problem of
knowledge there are two questions it should address. Negative and positive self
reference of knowledge, truth and falsity.

  Consider the sentence - "This sentence is false." If it is
true, then it is false. If it is false, then it is true. It is contradictory.

  Consider the sentence - "This sentence is true." If it is
true, then it is true. If it is false, then it is false. It is indeterminate.

  Negative self reference of knowledge is contradictory and cannot be
resolved by knowledge. Positive self reference of knowledge is indeterminate
and cannot be resolved by knowledge.
  
  Red/Purple - (knowledge of void) clear light without a source, apparent
lack of inhabitants // discovery that virtual knowledge does not depend on
stored experience but is defined by absence in context rather than presence.
Deja vue or anamnesis can exist in familiar as well as in new contexts.
  
  Red/Orange - (knowledge of response) explanation of the locale //
contradictory nature of the valley. The people hide from the bears in order not
to be eaten. The bears hide from the people in order to sneak up on them. A
state of tension exists in which sometimes people are eaten and sometimes bears
are killed. Coexistence is tense. When allowing ones thoughts to be whatever
they care to be and to observe them without involvement, sometimes those
thoughts are cute and interesting and sometimes they are downright icky.
Knowledge is incapable of resolving its' own contradictions.
  
  Red/Green - (knowledge of awareness) eat, but not the dama // decision
not to be part of the contradiction. One must not get involved in the icky
thoughts even by pushing them away.
  
  Red/Red - (knowledge of conflict) the bears // the contradiction cannot
be ignored. Icky thoughts cannot be avoided, pushed away, ignored or in any
other way obviated by the capabilities of knowledge.
  
  Red/Blue - (knowledge of recognition) use of the leaves, on the river //
entry into the state of indeterminacy. When they're on the land, it's bad. When
they're on the river, it's good. There is no possible resolution with the
bears. Knowledge in a state of indeterminacy is no improvement over knowledge
in a state of contradiction. No indeterminate state can be maintained indefinitely.
  
Red/Yellow - (knowledge of limits/ends) exit from Voe, enter Pyramid mountain
and a spiral staircase // when knowledge is brought back upon itself without
regard to contradiction or indeterminacy it becomes void in regard to itself
and becomes a transition into understanding and recognition. Data loses
individual significance to become meaning.

Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:17:59 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy  reprise 3

The self reference of awareness distinguishes relevant and non relevant but not
good and evil. Self reference of knowledge solves good and evil but does not
deal well with true and false. The self reference of understanding aces true
and false but...

  Consider the definition - "That which can not be defined in any way
whatsoever." It is definitely a definition, but what does it define?

  Not undefinability by characteristic. That would be data too fuzzy,
indistinct, overlapping borders etc. That sort of undefinability is easily
defined.

  No, that sentence is saying that what it says cannot be said.
Undefinable per se.

  It could also be stated as "That which can not be referred to in
any way at all." It is a reference but what does it refer to?

  It's somewhat like the street sign that says "Nameless
street". Is it that the street has no name? Or is "Nameless" the
name of the street? And if it's "Sans Nom" and you don't speak any
French is "Sans Nom" the name of the street until you learn French,
and then the street doesn't have any name?

  Is there a concept which is inherently undefinable and cannot be
referred to in any way whatsoever? And didn't I just refer to it? That concept
surely exists but it must non-exist without actually non-existing. That concept
is what the self reference of understanding / recognition does not understand
or recognize and so should be the problem met in the Land of Naught if this is
all theosophicalicalical.
  
   Void - view of the black sea of causal chaos and meet the man of
emptiness // now if the man had used a better packing algorithm for those post
holes he could have nested them rather than stacking them and so stayed in
Maine(?) the dairy state of the time and continued making superior holes for
swiss cheese. Here in Wisconsin we store swiss cheese holes in swiss cheese and
so avoid packing problems entirely.
  
  Blue/Purple - (recognition of void) the land of naught where all is
deadwood, even the trees // trees made of wood with leaves of shavings and a
coarse bark like surface. Considering that the wooden birds were flying around
and the wooden cows were grazing on the wooden splinter "grass", it's
fair to suppose that those wooden trees function as trees in some fashion rather
than being carved to resemble a tree. And yet are wooden. Wooden trees rather
than trees of wood. Zombie trees. A zombie countryside.
  
  Blue/Orange - (recognition of response) instant antipathy // inherent
contradiction. The silent living dead meet the noisy living mortals. When
allowing ones thoughts to be whatever they care to be and to observe then
without involvement, sometimes those thoughts are self contradictory and
sometimes they are incomprehensible. Understanding can deal with the self
contradictory if it's not too complex but the incomprehensible is really a
bummer.
  
  Blue/Green - (recognition of awareness) sound in the silence is their
only real weapon // self contradictory thoughts sometimes involve themselves.
They can't only be observed, they take an active part in getting involved with
the observer and then the fit hits the shan.
  
  Blue/Red - (recognition of conflict) they lose the battle // they expect
to be put to death but how would zombie gargoyles have any concept of death.
They imprison them.
  
  Blue/Blue - (recognition of recognition) they are imprisoned // self
contradictory, incomprehensible thoughts put a stop to any progress. Nothing
happens or ever will. The only resolution is to use the capabilities of self
contradiction to contradict self contradiction. Incomprehensibility brought
back on incomprehensible doesn't make it comprehensible, but rather,
supportative. The incomprehensible supports the mind to use incomprehensibility
to open new doors of perception, which is the whole point of doing this stuff
in the first place.
  
Blue/Yellow - (recognition of limits/ends) they fly off to an escape hatch and
light a fire // and muck around with some doors. One path leads away from it
all, and so bidding a fond farewell to zombieland, off into a new void.

Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 12:57:49 -0400
From: "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com>
To: "A discussion and idea list for fans of OZ"
<regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] pink kittens

On 4/24/06, Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
> "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com> wrote:
> > While Baum seems to be pretty consistent about Eureka being pink in his
> > books from PATCHWORK on (aside from Dorothy's mention of "my purple
> > kitten" in GLINDA), Thompson has Dorothy refer to her as a white kitten in
> > LOST KING.  I believe she's also drawn as white on the cover of
> > OZMAPOLITAN, although I don't think the text mentions her color at all. <
>
> Maybe the coloration had started to fade in later years? Maybe even fading
> from a bright pink to a dull purple to white? Curiously, Neill refers to a
> lost pink kitten as one of the lost beings Number Nine searches for in
> "Scalawagons." There's no indication that this pink kitten is Eureka
> (although perhaps once found the finder might exclaim "Eureka!" without
> regard to the particular kitten's own name, if any). But if it isn't Eureka,
> it's puzzling to speculate where it came from. (Quadling Country?)

Maybe another cat decided to dye its fur pink?  After all, this WAS a
period of fashion obsession in the Emerald City.
--
Brick is red, and Hitler's dead,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org or fablesto at gmail.com

Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 13:34:36 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy  reprise 4

Paragnosis is to understanding as understanding is to knowledge. Response of response
becomes awareness. Awareness of awareness becomes knowledge. Knowledge of
knowledge becomes understanding. Understanding of understanding becomes
paragnosis. Paragnosis of paragnosis becomes paragnosis. It deepens, broadens,
and becomes more complex but remains paragnosis.

  Of all entities, the oriental dragon is the epitome of paragnosis.
Baum's dragons are an interesting blend of oriental and occidental. They are
oldest and wisest but they also eat people and get away with it. Oriental
dragons get punished for that sort of thing.
  
  Void - doors to rooms, for what? // new doors of perception? False
starts?
  
  Yellow/Purple - (paragnosis of void) on up the inclined tunnel // One
path leads away and is quite difficult and unreconstructed. Growing up to have
understanding receives the support of the social structure. Very few social
structures support the transition from understanding to paragnosis.
  
  Yellow/Orange - (paragnosis of response) rifts and cracks, zigs and zags
// the path to paragnosis is not only difficult but it's not even a path. The
path to paragnosis is the voidness of a void.
  
  Yellow/Green - (paragnosis of awareness) lights all around, in pairs //
virtual perception is on the inside, the dragonettes see by light of internal
fire. The dragonettes are the beginning of paragnosis.
  
  Yellow/Red - (paragnosis of conflict) invitation to be eaten by the
paragnostic dragons // to those with understanding, others with understanding
are people. To the paragnostic, those with understanding but not paragnosis are
something less.
  
  Yellow/Blue - (paragnosis of judgment) not a fair question // paragnosis
is self consistent and not wicked at all from its' own point of view. It is
totally self judgmental, such that if it disapproves of itself, it does not
exist. Understanding is judgment. Paragnosis is judgment of judgment. It cannot
be anything except self consistent. Not necessarily nice, just self consistent.
  
Yellow/Yellow - (paragnosis of limits/ends) the end of the road // there is
nothing beyond paragnosis in the path of transformation. No exit. The only way
out is to become a dragon. By digestion. Self annihilation. They will either
come out of their final cave as dragons or they wont come out at all. The self
that understands is not the self of the paragnostic. Annihilation of the self
sounds remarkably like self annihilation.

Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 23:32:29 +0100 (BST)
From: Boq Aru <boq_aru at sbcglobal.net>
To: regalia <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dot Wiz Theosophy  last bit

It occurred to me as I was writing this stuff that Baum may have intended to
highlight possibilities and difficulties of paragnosis by what goes on in Oz.
That's a heady thought. The shift to Oz from the cavern would not be a story
discontinuity then but a paragnostic discontinuity and thus necessary. Not a
matter of not having the book space to crawl around on Ozography at all.

  The transition to an operative paragnostic environment would fail for
those whose understanding fails to make the leap. Jim, Eureka and Zeb. Dorothy
and the Wizard would have made the transition but of course Dorothy still had
unresolved issues.

  If their problems with Oz are theosophical, then the difficulties of
Jim, Eureka and Zeb would have to correspond to the difficulties with the three
viewpoints of development of paragnosis.
  
  The first stage of virtual perception is to view the virtual, heads up
point of view, from the real point of view. That is I-am-ness, Underlying
Structure, Reality.
  
  Second, to view the real point of view from the point of view of the
heads up, virtual point of view. That is Love, Causality, Potential, Virtual.
  
  Third, to view both of those from the view point of Recursion, Return.
  
  Jim is a real horse. He views the sawhorse as unreal. The resolution by
Ozma is that the sawhorse is real and Jim is an imitation. Absence of adaption
to Reality corresponds to the first stage.
  
  Eureka acts like a cat and becomes imprisoned, and wishes to be less
constrained and to go someplace where she could enjoy herself better. Absence
of adaption to Love corresponds to the second stage.
  
  Zeb just doesn't feels that he fits in. No one's especially missing him,
he just doesn't feel right and he's homesick. Absence of adaption to
Recursion/Return corresponds to the third stage.
  
  Each of their viewpoints just won't shift.
  
  Hippo fatso, tipsy dixie.

Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 14:03:39 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Regalia Digest, Vol 22, Issue 11

 For those who haven't so far commented on "Dorothy and the Wizard" (and, for
that matter, "Magical Monarch of Mo"), I'd be interested in knowing: have
you read it? Did you like it? (And what parts you particularly liked or
didn't like.) If you haven't read it, did what was said about it here make
it sound like something you'd want to read later, or not?

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 17:44:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
To: A discussion and idea list for fans of OZ <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dorothy and the Wizard catch-up

Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
  
  >For those who haven't so far commented on "Dorothy and the Wizard" (and, for
that matter, "Magical Monarch of Mo"), I'd be interested in knowing: have
you read it? Did you like it? (And what parts you particularly liked or
didn't like.) If you haven't read it, did what was said about it here make
it sound like something you'd want to read later, or not?<

DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD was one of the first post-WIZARD books I read because it
was available in the library, and for a long time it was one of my
favorites.  I did re-read it just before discussion began, but I find it
sometimes difficult to separate my early enthusiasms for a book from my adult
reading, especially since a book like DOT&WIZ doesn't stand up to critical
analysis very well despite its very obvious charms.  
  
  As a young person, my main criteria for liking an Oz book was whether or
not it featured Dorothy prominently, and in some ways DOT&WIZ offers the
quintessential Dorothy experience: she's lost during a natural disaster, comes
to odd communities where she either bosses the inhabitants around or escapes
them successfully, and eventually reaches the Emerald City for a happy reunion
with friends.  Now, however, the book seems a little weak in the plotting
precisely because it follows the formula so tightly that the adventure becomes
much less important than the characters having them. 
  
  There's also the strange undercurrent of melancholy and horror in this
book; I can't think of another Oz book where the characters face death or
destruction quite so often.  Gwig is destroyed as is presumably the prince
of the Mangaboos; Eureka eats a fish; the bears of Voe kill the champion of the
land; the adventurers burn down the land of the Gargoyles; and the Dragonettes'
mother is out hunting for their supper.  Plus there's the trial of Eureka
where the punishment could be death for the murder of Ozma's piglet.  Some
of that bleakness must come from the underground setting, but a lot of it comes
from the kinds of people Dorothy and her friends encounter.  The Mangaboos
are heartless vegetables; the people of Voe are pleasant, but not even there;
the silent gargoyles are perhaps Baum's most terrifying monsters. 
Normally Dorothy encounters a friendly shepherd or a generous family on her
journeys.  This time there's no relief from the ill will of those she meets.  And
even once she gets to Oz, there's very little of that sense of joyous
homecoming because of Eureka's trial and the feeling of displacement felt by
Zeb and Jim. 
  
  But there's also a lot of funny bits in this book, mostly in the absurd
conversation of fantastic creatures in which Baum excelled.  The
Dragonettes made me laugh out loud, and Eureka, like Billina before her, offers
an indelible, tart-tongued performance that was never equaled in any subsequent
appearance in the series. 
  
  The Wizard's return to Oz, I think, is some of Baum's best
writing.  I find the moment when Jellia Jamb tells him that his old rooms
are waiting for him quite affecting.  It seems to me that Baum was just
beginning to realize how important it was that his characters find a perfect
home in Oz, the theme that drives much of the plot of EMERALD CITY. 
  
  My final point for this evening, is less about the book as a story, and
more about it as, well, a book.  I know in the past some have mentioned
the quality of something "feeling" like an Oz book, and for me,
DOT&WIZ is one of the books that does.  The library copy I read was a
Reilly & Lee "white edition" and there's something about the
sturdy simplicity of those books that really communicates that feeling of
Oz-ness to me.  They feel good in the hands, there's not the bothersome
(though beautiful) dust jacket to contend with, and I think the orange
endpapers from ROAD and the myriad faces they show really communicates the kind
of expansiveness the Oz books can bring. 
  
  Alan Wise

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 10:03:36 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Dorothy/Wizard

Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  As a young person, my main criteria for liking an Oz book was whether or
> not it featured Dorothy prominently, and in some ways DOT&WIZ offers the
> quintessential Dorothy experience: she's lost during a natural disaster,
> comes to odd communities where she either bosses the inhabitants around or 
> escapes them successfully, and eventually reaches the Emerald City for a
> happy reunion with friends.  Now, however, the book seems a little weak in
> the plotting precisely because it follows the formula so tightly that the
> adventure becomes much less important than the characters having them.  <

An interesting discussion! In addition to the appeal of having Dorothy
herself as the protagonist, the reunion with the Wizard was something the
readers were rooting for before it came out (as Baum comments in the
preface), and it's appealing to readers now, too.

>  There's also the strange undercurrent of melancholy and horror in this
> book; I can't think of another Oz book where the characters face death or
> destruction quite so often.  <

Yes, and the gloominess is reflected in Neill's illos, too. I suppose that
may be appropriate in a sense, but I don't enjoy Neill's work in this book,
as I do in the others.

>  The Wizard's return to Oz, I think, is some of Baum's best writing.  I
> find the moment when Jellia Jamb tells him that his old rooms are waiting
> for him quite affecting.  It seems to me that Baum was just beginning to
> realize how important it was that his characters find a perfect home in
> Oz, the theme that drives much of the plot of EMERALD CITY.  >

Yes, there's a sweetness in having the Wizard so welcomed back. A
side-note -- Snow's assumption that Jellia Jamb is the same person as the
un-named maid who waited on Dorothy in "Wizard" seems the more probable
because her acquaintance with the Wizard shown here indicates that she was
around during the events of "Wizard," although not introduced as a named
character until "Land."

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 09:24:02 -0600
From: Ivan Van Laningham <ivanlan at pauahtun.org>
To: A discussion and idea list for fans of OZ <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Dorothy/Wizard

Hi All--

Ruth Berman wrote:
>
> Yes, there's a sweetness in having the Wizard so welcomed back.

I loved this book.  I'd known for years that Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote
some sequels to Wizard, but hadn't a clue that Baum did too.  I even had
copies of Cowardly Lion, Gnome King and Purple Prince, had read Zixi and
Mo, but somehow or other it had completely escaped my notice that there
were Baum Oz titles I'd never read.  I was in seventh or eighth grade
when I ran across Dorothy & the Wizard in my branch library in Peoria
IL, and I was immediately entranced.  I loved the dragonettes, the
invisible people, the mangaboos.  I've read it a few times since then,
but I find it impossible to be anything close to objective about it.

I didn't read it again until 1968, when Rand McNally brought out the
white editions and I snapped them up, along with the Dr. Dolittle
reprints that came out with the release of the Rex Harrison movie.

It's irrational to love it so, I suppose.  But I do.

Metta,
Ivan

--
Ivan Van Laningham
God N Locomotive Works

Army Signal Corps:  Cu Chi, Class of '70
Author:  Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 11:44:07 -0400
From: mspote at aol.com
To: regalia at pauahtun.org
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Dorothy/Wizard

Ruth wrote: << Yes, there's a sweetness in having the Wizard so welcomed
back. >>

I suppose I am jaded and have too much of a desire to have Oz be
"Tolkienized," but I really find the complete lack of continuity with
"Land of Oz" a drawback.  Some acknowledgment of what the Wizard
did to baby Ozma would have been nice.  Instead, Baum invents an entirely
new backstory and expects readers to swallow it whole.  Yes, yes, I know,
these are kids' books . . . but even so, it might have been even sweeter to
have some reconciliation scene between Ozma and the Wizard.  If anything,
such a scene might have enhanced Ozma's sweet, nice, lovely character.

Again, I realize I am asking Baum to do something Baum never did -- I can't
think of a single backstory that stays the same throughout the first 14
(although no doubt there are some -- I suppose Rouquat's name change to Ruggedo
because he drank the Waters of Oblivion is close, although wouldn't he forget
his hatred of all surface-dwellers, too?  Yet in "Tik-Tok" he
recalls Dorothy and Ozma's near-conquest of hiim . . . I digress) -- but I
throw it out there for discussion all the same.

Ozzily yours,
Mike Poteet

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 10:33:08 -0700
From: <tyler.jones at cox.net>
To: regalia at pauahtun.org
Subject: [Regalia] Thoughts on the Nome King

Mike Poteet wrote:

> although wouldn't he forget his hatred of all surface-dwellers, too?
Unless hatred of surface dwellers was an inborn thing in Nomes, so that this
would not be something that he could "forget".

> Yet in "Tik-Tok" he recalls Dorothy and Ozma's near-conquest of hiim
Since he remembered everything by the time of Magic of Oz, some people have
theorized that, as a pure fairy creature, the waters of the Fountain only had a
temporary effect on his memory.

Tyler Jones

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 15:12:43 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
To: <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] D/W & continuity questions

Ivan Van Laningham <ivanlan at pauahtun.org> wrote:
> I was in seventh or eighth grade when I ran across Dorothy & the Wizard in
> my branch library in Peoria IL, and I was immediately entranced.  I loved
> the dragonettes, the invisible people, the mangaboos.  I've read it a few
> times since then, but I find it impossible to be anything close to
> objective about it. >

Baum was always deft with dragons.

mspote at aol.com wrote:
> I suppose I am jaded and have too much of a desire to have Oz be
> "Tolkienized," but I really find the complete lack of continuity with
> "Land of Oz" a drawback.  Some acknowledgment of what the Wizard did to
> baby Ozma would have been nice.  Instead, Baum invents an entirely new
> backstory and expects readers to swallow it whole.  Yes, yes, I know, 
> these are kids' books . . . but even so, it might have been even sweeter
> to have some reconciliation scene between Ozma and the Wizard.  If
> anything, such a scene might have enhanced Ozma's sweet, nice, lovely
> character. >

Actually, even "Land" is to some extent out of continuity with "Wizard" on
that side -- the Wizard claimed to be a "good man" although a "bad wizard,"
and in "Wizard" his claim seemed to be truthful. But "Land" was influenced
by the stage version of the "Wizard," and with the Wicked Witch of the West
omitted from the story, and Sir Wiley Gyle not powerful enough to be the
lead villain, the Wizard got stuck with it, and his stage-role in dethroning
Pastoria got carried over into "Land." Some kind of reconciliation scene
between Ozma and the Wizard would have been nice to have, but I think it
would have been hard to come up with something that would have worked as
part of the action of "Dorothy/Wizard," without seeming like a lump of
awkward "oh by the way" exposition. Hugh Pendexter's short story of "Oz and
the Three Witches" provides a plausible explanation for the Wizard (he
didn't realize that Mombi was a wicked witch), and by making it the center
of the story, was able to take time to develop the explanation in a way that
I suspect would have been hard to do as part of the action of
"Dorothy/Wizard." (Of course, that leaves the question of whether Baum might
have had any explanation of the Wizard's behavior in mind himself and, if he
did, if Pendexter's idea would have been it. Could be, I suppose -- although
it could also just be a lapse in continuity that Baum didn't feel able to
explain away and chose to ignore, or managed to forget enetirely.)

> Again, I realize I am asking Baum to do something Baum never did -- I
> can't think of a single backstory that stays the same throughout the first 
> 14 (although no doubt there are some -- I suppose Rouquat's name change to 
> Ruggedo because he drank the Waters of Oblivion is close, although
> wouldn't he forget his hatred of all surface-dwellers, too?  Yet in
> "Tik-Tok" he recalls Dorothy and Ozma's near-conquest of hiim .  . . I
> digress) -- but I throw it out there for discussion all the same. >

Well, there are backstories that stay closer than those two. The Tin
Woodman's story shifts in terms of whether the WWE was employed by or the
same person as Nimmie Aimee's employer, but that's not as important a detail
in his story. Even Tolkien had some small lapses in continuity, and Baum's
carelessness is more typical than Tolkien's carefulness of what happens any
time an author has a long series going over many years. (The existence of
the Baker Street Irregulars is basically a tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle's
Baumish carelessness.) ("Come to my arms, my baumish boy, he chortled in his
joy"? -- well, no, maybe not.)

<tyler.jones at cox.net> wrote:
> Since [Roquat] remembered everything by the time of Magic of Oz, some
> people have theorized that, as a pure fairy creature, the waters of the
> Fountain only had a temporary effect on his memory. >

Yes, that works pretty well as a way of reconciling the discrepancies.
Another possibility is that the other Nomes, although they didn't correct
him on his name, reminded him of what his previous policies had been, with
the result that he learned a lot of what he'd otherwise forgotten and took
to remembering the learned memories as direct memories of the events
involved.

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 16:46:56 -0400
From: mspote at aol.com
To: regalia at pauahtun.org
Subject: Re: [Regalia] D/W & continuity questions

Ruth Berman pointed out:

<< Actually, even "Land" is to some extent out of continuity
with "Wizard" on that side -- the Wizard claimed to be a "good
man" although a "bad wizard," and in "Wizard" his
claim seemed to be truthful. >>

Of course, anyone can claim to be a "good man" or woman. 
Judging from the events of "Wizard," sure, it seemed to be true
(although one does have to question the character of a ruler who deceives so
thoroughly), but "Land"'s revelations about Oz (Oscar) and Mombi call
the Wizard's assessment of himself into question with no bumps in continuity.

Anyway, you're quite right about the BSI.  The difference is that
Sherlockians play The Game (i.e., pretending the stories are really by Watson
about real historical events), and I haven't yet run across any Ozophiles who
do, at least with the same degree of seriousness -- Baum's epilogue to
"Emerald City" and preface to "Patchwork Girl"
notwithstanding, no one really "plays in earnest" that Baum was
dictating the royal histories as relayed by Dorothy.  (Or do they?) 

Thanks for the interesting response.

Ozzily yours,
Mike Poteet

Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 15:34:21 -0400
From: "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Dorothy/Wizard and continuity

On 5/18/06, Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
> Yes, there's a sweetness in having the Wizard so welcomed back. A
> side-note -- Snow's assumption that Jellia Jamb is the same person as the
> un-named maid who waited on Dorothy in "Wizard" seems the more probable
> because her acquaintance with the Wizard shown here indicates that she was
> around during the events of "Wizard," although not introduced as a named
> character until "Land."

Thompson also puts forth this same assumption by having Jellia attend
the party at the beginning of OZOPLANING.

On 5/18/06, mspote at aol.com <mspote at aol.com> wrote:
>  Ruth wrote: << Yes, there's a sweetness in having the Wizard so welcomed back. >>
>
> I suppose I am jaded and have too much of a desire to have Oz be "Tolkienized,"
> but I really find the complete lack of continuity with "Land of Oz" a drawback.
> Some acknowledgment of what the Wizard did to baby Ozma would have been nice.
> Instead, Baum invents an entirely new backstory and expects readers to swallow it whole.

I agree.  I get the idea that continuity is usually a lot more
important to the fans than to the authors themselves, though.

> Again, I realize I am asking Baum to do something Baum never did -- I can't think of
> a single backstory that stays the same throughout the first 14 (although no
> doubt there are some -- I suppose Rouquat's name change to Ruggedo because
> he drank the Waters of Oblivion is close, although wouldn't he forget his hatred
> of all surface-dwellers, too?  Yet in "Tik-Tok" he recalls Dorothy and Ozma's
> near-conquest of hiim . . . I digress) -- but I throw it out there for discussion
> all the same.

Even the explanation of Ruggedo's name change seems to have been a
last-minute decision, seeing as how it's in a footnote and all.  Near
the end of EMERALD CITY, Ozma tells Roquat his name.  "Ruggedo" was
the name used for the Nome King in the TIK-TOK MAN play, so I get the
impression that Baum just used that name in the book because he liked
it better, and then then added in the footnote so as not to confuse
people who'd read the earlier books featuring the character.

As for his hatred of surface dwellers, that seems to be a common trait
among Nomes, so it makes sense that, after returning to his kingdom,
he'd soon end up redeveloping that opinion.

Nathan

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 14:48:54 -0700
From: <tyler.jones at cox.net>
To: A discussion and idea list for fans of OZ <regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Dorothy and the Wizard

> Dorothy and the Wizard"
> "Magical Monarch of Mo" 
> what parts you particularly liked or didn't like

I haven't read Mo in a long, long time, so while I can say that I
liked it, I'm not really sure what it was that struck me in a positive way.

As for Dorothy and the Wizard, I enjoyed the return of the Wizard. Given
the title and cover art, I wasn't particularly SURPRISED when the Wizard
arrived, but I liked that fact that He came "home" to Oz at the end.

A very funny part to me when I first read this book (I must have been about
6 at the time) was when the Wizard showed up, and the Prince told Vig that
his prediction of "no more people" was false, then Vig defended himself by
saying that the Wizard, by himself, was a person, and did not count as "people".

Tyler Jones