Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 10:51:30 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-22-97
 
Some comments on _The Sea Fairies_:
The early part of the book, where Trot and Cap'n Bill are given a tour of
the ocean and encounter a lot of improbable sea-creatures, isn't very good.
Once they're captured by Zog, however, it becomes quite tense and exciting
- in fact, probably the most tense and exciting sustained sequence in all
of Baum that I've read. (John Dough's perils on the Island of the Mifkets
may be comparable, but John Dough isn't human, which puts his danger at a
remove from the reader.) The problem is that this doesn't happen until more
than halfway through the book.
 
And Zog, as I said in a preliminary remark a week or so ago, is probably
the most evil character who's onstage for any length of time in a Baum book.
 
There are a couple of printing problems I noticed - two lines in Chapter 8
(at the bottom of page 95 in my edition) are reversed, and one line in
Chapter 14 (in the middle of page 156) seems to have been left out. My copy
is a R&L reprint bought in 1970; I don't know if these problems are
specific to that edition or if they're in all the R&L editions (and maybe
the BoW ones as well). Anybody else notice these problems?
 
Also, Neill seems not to have read the MS very carefully; Sacho is
described in the text as a delicate, frail little boy, but in illustrations
that seem to portray him, he's quite old-looking besides being distinctly
homely. It's not unusual for Neill's illustrations to vary from the text,
but this is the most extreme example I can think of.
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 09:13:46 -0700
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-23-97
 
If we are now considering THE SEA FAIRIES I will make some early
comments.  When I was young (in the dark ages), it was NOT one of my
favorite Baum Books.  I did, however, very much enjoy the chapter about
the "Holy mackeral."   They proclaim "Flippitry's gone to glory!" when
one of their fellows has been caught, and Trot unsuccessfully tries to
inform them that Flippity has actually been caught to feed humans.  This
seems a delicious satire on religious fanatics which is as fresh today
as it was in 1911.  I also liked the Octopus who complained when he
learned he was being compared to a Stannard Oil Millionaire, although
this may be rather dated today.  The first half of the book is quite
episodic and has little tension in it; in this way it resembles THE
EMERALD CITY OF OZ Uncle Henry and Aunt Em action.
 
Steve T.

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 17:15:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ozmama at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-24-97
 
 
_Sea Fairies_ weirdities:
<<  1) two lines in Chapter 8 (at the bottom of page 95 in the R&L) are
 reversed.  I find the same error in the same place in my hardbound BoW.
 
    2) one line in Chapter 14 (in the middle of page 156) seems to have
 been left out. Similarly, on page 156 in the BoW edition, a line --
 possibly only one or two words long -- appears to be omitted (right
 after, "'You did; you pulled that bell cord,' said the one-legged"). >>
 
Both errors originally occur in the first edition, first printing.
 
--Robin

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:38:53 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-24-97
 
Steve:
"Flippity's gone to glory!" and the "Stannard Oil Company is an octopus"
lines were ones that I remembered best from _Sea Fairies_ as well between
reading it the first time when I was about 9 and the second time when I was
36 or so. Other bits I remembered well were Anko's reconstruction of names
(Julius Sneezer/Caesar, Nevercouldnever/Nebuchadnezzar, Napoleon
Bonesapart/Bonaparte, etc.) and Zog's servants having gills on their necks.
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 21:45:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: CrNoble at aol.com
Subject: Re:  Ozzy Digest, 09-24-97
 
David:
 
Has anyone gotten to _The Sea Fairies_?  Well I have, but I havent' finished
it.  I've been stuck in AOL land for so long that I don't know if we're
supposed to be discussing it yet.
 
Initial reaction to chapter one:
 
I wonder if Capn Bill's ungrammatical English had anything to do with the
poor favor in which Baum's books were held by librarians later in the
century.
 
-- Megan's Dad
    (Craig Noble)

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 21:28:10 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-24-97
Sender: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
 
Steve:
 
> They proclaim "Flippitry's gone to glory!" when one of their fellows has
been caught, and Trot unsuccessfully tries to inform them that Flippity has
actually been caught to feed humans.<
 
I thought that part interesting, too. Sounds like Baum agrees with the
Bible's view of Death as enemy, not friend.
 
On Zog: His reversed emotional reactions (frowning when happy and laughing
with furious) seem typical of some Irish faeries. Read a tale of one faery
who married a human, on the condition that he not abuse her. Then the
husband, annoyed by her faery behavior (laughing at funerals, crying at
births and weddings) chided her for it. This was abuse enough--the faery's
father came and took her away. One wonders if Baum (whose mother Ruth
Berman discovered was Scots-Irish) got the idea for this aspect of Zog's
personality from hearing  or reading such tales. 
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 08:40:51 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
David Hulan: I'm still in the process of re-reading "Sea Fairies," so don't
have new material to add here yet, except to note that I checked the two
typos you mention, and they're present in my copy (a first edition).  I
vaguely recall having noticed the pair of reversed lines on previous
readings, but don't think I'd consciously noticed the missing line.  (What's
missing is likely to be only the single word "man.")  Also, like you, I had
always been puzzled by Neill's adult-looking drawings of the boy Sacho.
I wonder if perhaps he was worrying about keeping the character
sufficiently distinct from Chick in "John Dough."  Or maybe he'd recently
seen a beaky adolescent and thought the facial type was so amusing
that he wanted to work it in somewhere.  I had some comments on "Sea
Fairies" a couple of years ago in my "Dunkiton" pamphlet #3 ("Mermaid
Tales"), which contained my essay on Oz mermaids, two short stories
about mermaids by RPT, and one by Walt McDougall (with McDougall's
drawing of "Lurline" -- the mermaid -- as front cover, and a b&w
reproduction of Neill's color drawing of Trot-as-mermaid with Princess
Clia as bacover).  (You have a copy of it already, but if other people are
interested, I have copies available.)  What I had to say about "Sea Fairies"
in the essay was:

   "L. Frank Baum was one of those [like Charles Kingsley in "The Water
Babies" of 1863, which probably started it, or like E. Nesbit in "Wet Magic"
in 1913) who portrayed mermaids as benevolent nature-spirits, in 'The
Sea Fairies' (1911).  Despite the name, Baum's Sea Fairies are quite
unlike Tennyson's ddangerous, Siren-like Sea-Fairies.  In fact, Baum's
tale is set going by Cap'n Bill's superstitious fear of Siren-like mermaids,
and Trot's wiser confidence that supernatural powers couldn't possibly
be like that.  In the preface, Baum commented: 'The ocean has always
appealed to me as a veritable wonderland, and this story has been
suggested to me many times by my young correspondents in their
letters.  Indeed, a good many children have implored me to "write
something about the mermaids," and I have willingly granted the request.'
At the opening of the story, the narrative describes the beauty of the
lights and colors of the sea, as Trot and Cap'n Bill row into Giant's Cave,
which glows like a sapphire, and this natural splendor is echoed in the
mermaids' magical kingdom, with its brilliantly colored sea-shrubs, coral
walls, and mother-of-pearl panelling.

   "John R. Neill evidently delighted in the curving, fluid mermaid shapes,
and did some of his best work for 'The Sea Fairies,' especially in the
color plates, where he followed up on his use of metallic green for
borders in 'The Emerald City' (1910).  The bright green was as
appropriate to a water-world as it had been for a city of emeralds, and he
also enjoyed playing on the mixed beauty and comedy of such scenes
as Trot, in her plain jacket and cap, swimming with Princess Clia, both of
them curling their tails as they glide into the fishy waves; or Cap'n Bill,
braced on his side-fins and the curve of his tail as he lights his pipe."
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:46:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: JOdel at aol.com
Subject: Re:  Ozzy Digest, 09-24-97
 
I have to say that I am in agreement that the first half of Sea Faries is
lacking in tension. The book certainly starts well. But by the time one has
the introductory stuff out of the way and is expecting an adventure to begin,
it is a bit flat. On the good side, the "tour" is rather better handled than
in Emerald City, closer to the level of Road, and the vaudville skits are
MUCH better handled than in Land. 
 
Which leaves one to wonder why Baum did not do a bit of forshadowing of the
(excellent) Zog sequence during the tour. All it would have taken was to have
a few surviors of Zog's evil actions show up, interspercing the tour stops. 
 
And, as to Zog himself, this is one very peculiar villian. He is presented as
being absolutely evil. And yet, apart from capturing and trying to kill
mermaids (and their human guests) -- for bad and sufficient reason, as such
things go -- he is appears to do absolutely nothing to which one could make
all that much objection. While he is callous enough to laugh at drowning human
s, no one else under the sea seems to do much for them either. And while he
may be criticized for not saving more of them, when he clearly is able to, he
is under no obligation to do so. He treats the ones that he saves very well
by all accounts. The "evil" of Zog, somehow does not come across particularly
well. (Nor does the intrinsic horridness of octopi. What does come across is
a determination to see what is ugly as being wicked.) At least not to me.
What filters through simply seems to translate as being personaly repellant
and having unpleasant minions. We have certainly met nastier characters, some
of whom have not even been regarded as particularly bad. The DANGER of Zog,
however, is quite clear and very well handled. 
 
This is one of the books which I did not encounter until I was an adult, so I
may be getting a different slant on it than some others here. I do like the
intro to Trot and Cap'n Bill, even though I could do without Trot's sloppy
diction and the Captains "arr-arr" dialect. But there was a vogue for this
sort of thing at the time, and Baum was certainly not the only practitioner.
Trot seems very like the Dorothy of Wizard, although lacking in forwardness
and the budding aggressive streak of the older Dot. The Captain is not
particularly like the Wizard, although he serves in much the same function as
the Wiz did in DotWiz. It would have been interesting to see how these
characteres would have developed if they had had a few more books of their
own.

Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 16:35:13 -0500
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
David:
According to Patrick Maund's bibliographical article on _Sea Fairies_ in the
Spring 1997 Bugle, the BoW edition is an off-set copy of the R & B first
state, in which the last two lines on p. 95 (and also lines 14 & 15 on p.
105) are transposed.  I have the R & L edition--second state--from ca. 1922,
in which the lines are correctly set.  However, in my edition there is a
missing line in the middle of p. 156, as there is in your copy.  I wonder if
Patrick overlooked that printing error.
 
Incidentally, the pictorial label on my copy depicts Trot holding up a round
mirror to a mermaid who admires her reflection.  I'm willing to bet that
this is an allusion to the famous Cluny tapestry series in which one panel
depicts the Lady holding up a mirror to the Unicorn.  The mermaid even has
her arms raised the way the unicorn does in the tapestry.
 
I agree that Zog is profoundly scary.  The typical satanic touches (horns,
hoof feet, glowing eyes) make him look evil in a conventional way, but he's
not only evil, he's degenerate.  He's a melancholy aesthete of terror, an
elegant sadist with a handsome countenance and long feminine eye lashes who
lives in refined luxury but hates his existence. The only pleasure he
experiences comes from witnessing the heartbreak and despair of his
prisoners in their futile struggles against him--i.e., witnessing them reach
the point where they hate their lives as much as he hates his.  The
monstrousness of his body, carefully concealed beneath the folds of his
embroidered golden robe, corresponds to the monstrousness of his twisted
mind, likewise concealed beneath a veneer of refined manners.  There is a
degree of psychological horror here that makes Mombi and the Wicked Witch of
the West look positively homespun in comparison.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 20:51:06 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-25-97
 
 
Megan's Dad:
>I wonder if Capn Bill's ungrammatical English had anything to do with the
>poor favor in which Baum's books were held by librarians later in the
>century.
 
Doubtful. For one thing, Cap'n Bill isn't an important character in that
many books, and he's the only adult character I can think of with poor
diction. For another, lots of books that were highly approved by librarians
had characters with poor diction - _Huckleberry Finn_, for instance. Or the
Uncle Remus stories. (Both of which sometimes come under fire today for a
different reason, but which were very popular during the time when Baum was
least approved.)
 
Joyce:
Baum did do a bit of foreshadowing of the Zog segment in the first part of
the book - there are references to the danger from the devilfish, and I
think even a mention of Zog at some point - but they aren't really
sufficient to build up tension.
 
Zog wants to do more than just kill the mermaids; he wants to torture them
and break their hearts. It's true that he seems to treat his
servants/slaves reasonably well in the course of the book, but I think
there's a strong implication that when he gets upset about something he's
as likely as not to have one of them tortured and killed. Certainly all of
them except Sacho - who's constitutionally incapable of it - seem to fear
him, and if he'd never done anything bad to any of them that doesn't seem
likely.
 
Any of the language mavens out there know - is "octopi" really the plural
of "octopus"? I mean, the word looks like an after-the-fact Latinization of
a Greek "octopos" (because most Greek nouns in "-os" went to a Latin
"-us"); if it had been Latin in the first place it would have been
"octopes". I know I have an instinctive urge to make the plural
"octopodes", but instincts aren't always that reliable.
 
9/26:
Gordon:
Interesting. Then it seems that R&L corrected the error on pages 95 and 105
in their 1922 edition, but went back to the error when they reprinted in
1970 or so. I wonder why? (I guess they lost the plates from the later
edition and went back to the original?)
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 19:28:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Peter Hanff <phanff at library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-25-97
 
Robin Olderman's notes about reversed lines in _The Sea Fairies_ do help 
distinguish between the original printing and later ones (until the Books 
of Wonder photofacsimile from the original edition). The error she points 
out on page 156 appears never to have been corrected in any edition. I 
hope other Ozzy Digest readers will point out anomalies and errors of the 
sort Robin has called to our attention. They're a big help to the 
bibliographers.
 
Cheer!
 
Peter Hanff

Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 00:18:57 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-25-97
Sender: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
 
Jodel:
 
>He treats the ones that he saves very well by all accounts. The "evil" of
Zog, somehow does not come across particularly well.<
 
        This proves Zog is a more intelligent villain than Ruggedo.
 
        It has been said that Adolf Hitler, in person, seemed just like an
ordinary nice guy to the casual observer who didn't know what he stood for.
(Right, Steve?) It is also said that smiling villains can be scarier than
outrightly nasty ones.
 
         Zog would have set himself up for an outright mutiny had he been
as nasty to his servants as Ruggedo was to his Nomes. The Nomes did not
exactly miss Ruggedo when he was deposed in "Tik-Tok." (Of course, Zog's
servants didn't miss him when King Anko did him in, either. Oh well...) 
 
        There may be an ugly-evil (Zog), good-beautiful (mermaids) bias in
"Sea Fairies." But Zog, as I recall, is actually rather handsome in the
face and hands--the parts of him that he lets show. The "rest" of him that
he hides under his robes is hideous, though. Baum could be using the
good-beautiful, evil-ugly stereotype to show what sort of villain Zog
is--he appears benign, hiding his evil nature. I'd consider evil anyone who
tried to freeze or boil *me* to death--as Zog tries to do to his mortal and
mermaid prisoners. But it might've been more unbiased to let Zog be an
entirely handsome villain like Mrs. Yoop or Wutz or the Mangaboos, and let
some of the mermaids be plain or ordinary.
 
        By the way, though Anko of "Sea Fairies" is an extreeeeemly long
(more than a mile) sea serpent,  the King Anko  of the Oz Kids cartoon
looks to be an extremely stubby eight feet(?).  Otherwise, the cartoon did
a great job of portraying him--complete with underwater sounds and Marc
Lewis as his voice. 
 
        Melody Grandy

Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 00:39:18 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 09-26-97
Sender: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
 
Gordon:
 
>The monstrousness of his body, carefully concealed beneath the folds of his
embroidered golden robe, corresponds to the monstrousness of his twisted
mind, likewise concealed beneath a veneer of refined manners.  There is a
degree of psychological horror here that makes Mombi and the Wicked Witch of
the West look positively homespun in comparison.<
 
You said it even better than I. By contrast, King Anko, in his own way, is
no more handsome than Zog--yet this does not warp his mind or heart. In
fact, Anko is proud of *his* lengthy snakelike body (unlike Zog) and shows
it off to Trot and Cap'n Bill. King Anko likes who and what he is, and, in
contrast to Zog, is a hero instead of a villain. 
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 10:55:18 -0500
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
A couple of questions about the pronunciation of names in _Sea Fairies_:
 
Since "Aquareine" brings together Latin and French components to produce
"Queen of the Water", am I right in assuming that the name should be
pronounced "Aqua-rain", with the final syllable more or less as in French?
Or do the rest of you anglicize it to "Aqua-reen"?
 
Trot's real name ("Mayre") looks as if it is a variation of Mary, but
pronounced May-ree--a little like the way Murray used to pronounce Mary's
name on the old Mary Tyler Moore show.  This is the first time I have
encountered that spelling, though.  Does anyone know if this variant was in
use at the turn of the century?
 
--Gordon Birrell 

Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 08:54:27 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-25-97
 
SEA FAIRIES: Looks like we all remember the same lines from it. 
Zog is very reminiscent of Milton's description of Satan in _Paradise
Lost_. I've always thought Baum had that description in mind.
 
--Robin

Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:07:24 -0700
From: Douglas or Lori Silfen <Duglor at connectnet.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest
 
Gordon: Aquareine, if pronounced correctly, should be
 ak-wa-ren (ren rhyming with hen and you roll the "r")
 (reine also rhyming with the Seine river...prounounced sen)
 
Douglas

Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 17:21:31 -0700
From: Nathan Mulac DeHoff <vovat at geocities.com>
Subject: The Past Few Ozzy Digests
 
Regarding Zog:
I've enjoyed reading the discussions of Zog, who is certainly one of 
Baum's more interesting villains.  Regarding whether or not he is evil, I 
would have to say that "good" and "evil" are largely subjective terms, 
but I would have to consider someone as sadistic as Zog to be evil.
 
I wonder how much Zog's "ugliness" (yet another subjective term) 
contributed to his evil.  I'm sure everyone who has read _Yew_ recalls 
the case of King Terribus, whose evil results almost entirely from a low 
self-image.  I think that Zog, unlike Terribus, would probably have had 
the same personality no matter what he looked like.
--
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
vovat at geocities.com or lnvf at grove.iup.edu

"I'm having a wonderful time, but I'd rather be whistling in the dark."

Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 21:06:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ozmama at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-28-97
 
David:
Octopus: Good for you! Your instincts were correct.  Greek derivation.
 Pl.=octopodes *or* octopuses.  Never thought much about it before...have
always used "octopuses," but the "foot" root makes absolute sense.  Think
I'll use it in class.  
 
_Sea Fairies_: This is a really neat discussion, y'all. I'm glad we decided
to include it as a BCF (is that the correct acronym?)  
 
--Robin

Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:16:30 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-28-97
 
Peter H.:
As I mentioned yesterday, the 1970-or-so R&L reprint of _Sea Fairies_ has
the reversed lines on pages 95 and 105 that the first printing did, but
that were corrected in some printings in between. That edition also has a
different DJ, by Lois Axeman, showing Trot (with legs, not a tail) holding
a mirror which a mermaid (probably Aquareine - she's wearing a crown,
anyhow) is looking into while she combs her hair. The figures are B&W, but
multicolored bubbles are scattered over the jacket, including the spine and
the back. I don't know the exact date of this reprint, though I know I
bought it new in 1970 and that the bookstore where I bought it hadn't had
it earlier that year.
 
Melody:
>         Zog would have set himself up for an outright mutiny had he been
>as nasty to his servants as Ruggedo was to his Nomes. The Nomes did not
>exactly miss Ruggedo when he was deposed in "Tik-Tok." (Of course, Zog's
>servants didn't miss him when King Anko did him in, either. Oh well...)
 
If I recall aright the Nomes were happy to get Ruggedo back when he
returned to the kingdom in _Gnome King_. Or at least, they didn't protest
when he reasserted his rule there. (I guess Tititi-hoochoo's eggs had been
deactivated by that time.)
 
Gordon:
I've always thought of "Aquareine" as being pronounced "AH-qua-rain", but
since Baum didn't leave a pronunciation guide I guess all of us can decide
how we want to pronounce all the names and do it that way.
 
And I too have always considered "Mayre" as just a variant spelling of
"Mary" - one that I've never seen elsewhere, though. It's clear from Baum's
spelling when Trot's mother was calling her early in _Sea Fairies_
("May-re!") that Baum intended it to be pronounced as two syllables, and
that would certainly give an approximation of "Mary". Although in
California - at least, if people in California talked in 1910 the way they
do now - "Mary" tends to sound pretty much like "merry", in the Northeast
where Baum grew up I believe the first syllable does have the same vowel as
"may".
 
Speaking of Trot's mother reminds me that as early as this book Baum starts
establishing that she's something of a shrew. Trot does show concern that
she'd worry about them, but I get the impression that it's as much a
concern about what she'd say and do to them when they got back as about not
wanting her to worry. This becomes almost complete indifference to what
she'll think in _Sky Island_, which makes their lack of concern at staying
in Oz in _Scarecrow_ more believable.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 18:52:07 +0600
From: rri0189 at ibm.net
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-28-97
 
David Hulan wrote:
 
>Any of the language mavens out there know - is "octopi" really the plural
>of "octopus"? I mean, the word looks like an after-the-fact Latinization of
>a Greek "octopos" (because most Greek nouns in "-os" went to a Latin
>"-us"); if it had been Latin in the first place it would have been
>"octopes". I know I have an instinctive urge to make the plural
>"octopodes", but instincts aren't always that reliable.
 
The word is Greek, but got into English by way of Modern Latin.  "Octopodes",
"octopi" and "octopusses" are all acceptable.
 
// John W Kennedy -- Hypatia Software -- "The OS/2 Hobbit"

Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 09:25:40 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Gordon Birrell: Drawing of Trot holding up a hand-mirror for a mermaid to
see herself in might be influenced by Cluny tapestry as you suggest, but
probably also reflects (sorry) the heraldic tradition of showing mermaids
as looking into hand-mirrors.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 10:57:25 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-01-97
 
Douglas:
>Gordon: Aquareine, if pronounced correctly, should be
>ak-wa-ren (ren rhyming with hen and you roll the "r")
> (reine also rhyming with the Seine river...prounounced
 
That's how it would be pronounced if it were French. But the mermaids
appear to speak English, and in English it would most likely be ak-wa-rain.
(Granted, pronunciation of English words is much less regular than of
French ones, but the only English word ending in "-eine" I can think of -
"seine", a kind of net - has the long-a vowel.)
 
Sarah:
King Anko and Zog both appear in the Oz Kids video "Journey Beneath the
Sea," which is a pretty close copy of _Sea Fairies_ except for some
character changes and a different introduction.
 
Scott H.:
>David, if "octopus" is second declention, the plural would be "octopi,"
>but long is are really pronounced as long es, at least how they taught us
>when I took Latin.
 
That's how they were pronounced by the ancient Romans. Standard English
pronunciation of the Latin long "i" is the English long "i" - as for
instance in "alumni". (Latin and English pronunciations of "alumni" and
"alumnae" are exact opposites.) As we pronounce "Caesar" "seezer" and not
"kaisar". Generally today we tend to use the ancient Latin pronunciation
for actual quotes from Latin, but the English versions for Latin words that
are sufficiently naturalized into English that they're not italicized, but
not so naturalized that they take the standard English "s" plural.
 
Also, there are a lot of Latin words whose nominative singular is in "-us"
that are either third or fourth declension, though admittedly the majority
are second.
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 22:01:49 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 10-01-97
Sender: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
 
Nathan:
 
>I wonder how much Zog's "ugliness" (yet another subjective term)
contributed to his evil.<
 
Indeed, if Zog was such a great magician, why could he not change his
physical appearance? Guess transformations weren't his speciality. :-)  
Probably it was envy and his resultant self-hate that made Zog evil more
than his physical appearance--as I said in a previous post, Anko's no more
handsome than Zog, but *he* likes his physical self. Zog could just as
easily have been as proud of his part-mammal, part-bird, part-reptile, etc.
make up as the mermaids were of their part-human, part fish makeup. Or, for
that matter, as proud of himself as some of the "fantastics" of Oz. 
 
Nick: I love being tin!
Scarecrow: I love being stuffed with straw!
Scraps: Whee! There's a gaudy dame! Makes a paintbox blush with shame! I
love my multicolored, cotton-stuffed constitution!
Zog: I hate my ugly patchwork makeup! Blech!
Bungle: Oh, be quiet, you pessimistic malcontent! I love my glass body and
my wonderful pink brains!
Aquareine: We are not part fish, we are all mermaid!
Anko: I am quite lengthy and proud of it!
Zog: I said I hate my part-reptile, part-mammal, part-fish, part-human,
part-everything else body! Yecch! Blah, humbug!
Woozy: I'm glad I'm always square.
Herby: I am proud of my medicine chest!
Zog: I hate my body! You hear me? I HATE MY BODY! I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!
The Wizard: You know what, Zog? Your attitude stinks! (POOF!)
Zog: Hey, look everybody! I'm part reptile, part bird, part fish--just
about every part of the natural kingdom you can imagine! I'm unique! I'm
wonderful! I'm one-of-a-kind!
The Wizard (thought balloon): Too bad this magical attitude change only
lasts ten minutes.
Zog: Look at my marvelous wings, folks! I can water fly! Whoopee.....
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 20:04:36 -0700
From: Bob Spark <bspark at pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-28-97
 
Hi y'all,

     I'm just back from a GREAT trip and am going through the Digests
that have piled up.  I'm sure that I will have more to say later, but in
reference to the plural of octopus, this is from _Between Pacific Tides_
by Edward F. Ricketts, Jack Calvin, and Joel W. Hedgpeth.  Right, Edward
F. Ricketts is the "Doc" that Steinbeck characterized in _Cannery Row_.
His son, Ed Ricketts Jr. is in a birding group that I belong to, one
that meets in the San Francisco area's Marin Headlands every week.

     On page 575:
"Class CEPHALOPODA, Octopods (or Octopuses), Squids, Nautilus
  The -pus of octopus is from Greek pous ("foot"), and is usually
rendered -pod or -poda in English.  The word Octopi, though now listed
in many dictionaries, is an incorrect plural, which apparently arose by
a false analogy of octopus to Latin second-declension nouns (such as
amicus,"friend") whose nominative plurals end in -i."
 
Bob Spark

Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 16:11:01 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Melody Grandy: Enjoyed the self-esteem riff on unusual bodies.  A
cheerier portrait than Zog of a reptile-bird-fish-what-is-it is Edward Lear's
"The Scroobius Pip" (a nonsense poem that didn't get into his collected
nonsenses somehow, but what published in this century with some other
"lost" Lear nonsense).  By the by, this may be over-obvious, but I enjoyed
Baum's naming that makes Sacho of Saccharineolaland an overly sweet
child.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 19:48:33 -0700
From: Bob Spark <bspark at pacbell.net>
Subject: Comments about _The Sea Fairies_ for the Ozzie Digest
 
Greetings and felicitations,

     Well, I just finished _The Sea Fairies_ and, on the whole, find
myself well pleased by it.  I suspect that if I had read it initially as
a child it could well be one of my favorites.  It's hard for me to make
unbiased judgements in these cases.  Suffice it to say that I found it
fairly enchanting.

     Following are a few observations: 

     First, I believe someone had commented earlier on the excellence of
Neill's illustrations in this book.  I agree.  Among other things, I
found the swordfish on page 47 to be delightful.  The USN on their
sides  and their belts full of swords (with no obvious ability to use
them) were wonderfully whimsical.  My only problem with the
illustrations was Anko.  I wish Neill's drawings of him had been as
detailed and graceful as those of the rest of the characters.  In
comparison, Anko almost seems a cartoon.

     I wonder where the tradition of seamen and wooden legs originated. 
Long John Silver, perhaps.  Given the hazards of many occupations in the
past, prior to the OSHA regulations that those of us of the more
conservative persuasion decry, I imagine that missing limbs and other
personal bits and pieces were not any more common to seafarers than to
persons of many other lines of work.

     On page 42:
>      "Why, how old are mermaids, then?"asked Trot,
>  looking around at the beautiful creatures wonderingly.
>       "We are all ladies of an uncertain age,"rejoined
>  the Princess, with a smile.  "We don't care to tell."

     I thought that the expression was "ladies of a certain age".
     On page 49:
>      "...Shall we go in?"
>      "I'd just as soon," replied Trot, rather timidly...

     The above seems awkward to me.  "I'd just as soon" doesn't sound
timid, just not very enthusiastic.

     On page 50:
>      They could not sit down as we do, Trot readily
>  understood, because of their tails.

     I don't see any problem with mermaids sitting.  The "Little
Mermaid" in the harbor in (is it?) Copenhagen seems to do it quite
gracefully.

     On page 59:
>      "Hurt!" exclaimed the Sea Serpent, groaning at the
>  recollection.  "My dear, those creatures have been called
>  lobsters ever since!"

     Could someone please explain this to me?  I've tried, but can make
no sense out of it whatever.

     On page 78:
>      "I've heard tell of codfish aristocercy," said Cap'n
>  Bill; "but I never knowed 'zac'ly what it meant afore."

     I've never heard tell of this.  I still don't know "zac'ly what it
means, just by the context.  Help, please.
 
Later,
Bob Spark

Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 22:01:50 -0400
From: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 10-05-97
Sender: "Melody G. Keller" <harmonyarts at compuserve.com>
 
Hello, Mr. Bear!
>
The great Aquareine controversy.  Like David I thought this was
"ak-wa-rain."  However, I thought Baum was doing a sort of play on words.
Aqua-reign or she who reigns in water.  Jeremy?<
 
I'm not Jeremy, but I've always pronounced Aquareine the same as you. The
French word, "Reine," is pronounced "rain" and means "Queen". And in
English "reign" means to rule over. So it seems Baum achieved a double pun
here.  "Water-queen" and "Water-reign."
 
>      "I've heard tell of codfish aristocercy," said Cap'n
>  Bill; "but I never knowed 'zac'ly what it meant afore."

     I've never heard tell of this.  I still don't know "zac'ly what it
means, just by the context.  Help, please.
 
Indeed! One problem I had with "Sea Fairies" was with the dated material in
it--as when the octopus is compared with a monopolistic oil company. This
is a shot in the dark, Bob, but there is a rhyme that goes, "Here's to good
old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the Taylors talk only
to the Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God." Could this be referring to
codfish aristocracy? (Peter Pan, in his story, calls the foppish,
aristocratic Captain Hook a codfish.)
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 09:27:56 -0700
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-05-97
 
> From: Bob Spark <bspark at pacbell.net>
> Subject: Comments about _The Sea Fairies_ for the Ozzie Digest
> 
>      On page 42:
> >      "Why, how old are mermaids, then?"asked Trot,
> >  looking around at the beautiful creatures wonderingly.
> >       "We are all ladies of an uncertain age,"rejoined
> >  the Princess, with a smile.  "We don't care to tell."
>      I thought that the expression was "ladies of a certain age".
 
It is. That is what makes the princess's remark so delightful.
 
>      On page 78:
> >      "I've heard tell of codfish aristocercy," said Cap'n
> >  Bill; "but I never knowed 'zac'ly what it meant afore."
>      I've never heard tell of this.  I still don't know "zac'ly what it
> means, just by the context.  Help, please.
 
This is an poser.  I have always assumed that the "codfish aristocracy
referred to Bostonian families whose wealth had come from fishing.  Note
the old poem:
 
        Here's to dear old Boston,
        The home of the bean and the cod,
        Where the Cabots speak only to the Lowells,
        And the Lowells speak only to God.
 
Steve T.

Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 10:23:12 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-05-97
 
Bear:
>I can see "The Sea Fairies" was a real disappointment for many of us as the
>discussion so far has revolved around typos and art.  Sigh.  It left me so
>cold I don't have a single comment.
 
There was also a good deal of discussion of the character of Zog, which to
me was the only really interesting part of the book.
 
"Reine" is the French word for "queen," which Baum probably had in mind,
though "aqua" is not French for "water," but Latin.
 
Welcome back, by the way!
 
Bob S.:
I think I've mentioned before that _The Sea Fairies_ was the only Baum/Oz
book that my daughter liked when she was a child. I think this is because
she was much more into natural history than fantasy, so that even though
she knew that Trot's encounters with undersea creatures weren't realistic,
she enjoyed them.
 
>     I wonder where the tradition of seamen and wooden legs originated.
>Long John Silver, perhaps.  Given the hazards of many occupations in the
>past, prior to the OSHA regulations that those of us of the more
>conservative persuasion decry, I imagine that missing limbs and other
>personal bits and pieces were not any more common to seafarers than to
>persons of many other lines of work.
 
I don't know of any statistics, but one-legged sailors are a pretty common
theme in books; Captain Ahab antedated Long John Silver, IIRC, and I doubt
he was the first. Climbing around in the rigging of a sailing ship was
probably more hazardous than most land-based jobs, and in the days before
antibiotics almost any compound fracture required amputation to save the
victim's life.
 
>>      "I've heard tell of codfish aristocercy," said Cap'n
>>  Bill; "but I never knowed 'zac'ly what it meant afore."
>     I've never heard tell of this.  I still don't know "zac'ly what it
>means, just by the context.  Help, please.
 
"Codfish aristocracy" was a term coined in the mid-19th century to refer to
a class of nouveau riche Bostonians who'd made their fortunes in the
codfishing industry, which was a major one in Massachusetts in the 18th and
19th centuries. Wallace Irwin wrote a poem on the subject that was
apparently popular around the time Baum wrote _Sea Fairies_; the first
stanza goes "Of all the fish that swim or swish/ In ocean's deep
autocracy,/ There's none possess such hautiness/ As the codfish
aristocracy." The "codfish" aristocracy were distinguished from the _true_
aristocracy - people like the Lowells and Cabots and Adamses - by being
just rich, not cultured. (This information courtesy of _Heavens to Betsy!_,
a compendium of colorful phrases by Charles Earle Funk, published in 1955.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 06:35:35 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Bob Spark: Those questions you raise on various small points of usage --
I don't know why "an uncertain age" rather than the usual "a certain age"
(maybe parody poking fun at it?), or why creatures that hurt would be
called lobsters (maybe this is the same sort of joke as Mark Twain's
Eve's calling the tiger a tiger because that's what it looks like)?  On "I'd
just as soon" and "timidly" -- the phrase itself is not timid, but presumably
it could be said in a timid voice.  Problems for mermaids sitting -- they
could bend the tail to sit on the tail as the Copenhagen Little Mermaid
status does, but then it would be hard to "sit down as we do," i.e., in a
chair.  "Zac'ly" is Baum stumble-tongue-talk for "exactly."  "Codfish
aristocracy" -- Lowells and Cabots, I assume.  "I come from the city of
Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells speak only
to Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God," as the old verse has it.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 21:29:51 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-07-97
 
General comment:
I was interested to see so many different versions of the "land of the bean
and the cod" verse, which I'm quite familiar with. The version I remember
was "Here's to the city of Boston,/ The land of the bean and the cod,/
Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots/ And the Cabots speak only to God."
Ruth was the closest to that one.
 
The Official version, however, per _The Oxford Dictionary of Modern
Quotations_, is "And this is good old Boston,/ The land of the bean and the
cod,/ Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots/ And the Cabots talk only to
God." It's attributed to John Collins Bossidy (who has nothing else
attributed to him), at a Holy Cross College alumni dinner in 1910.
 
When in was in college, incidentally, the same general phrase was applied
to the two snootiest sororities at Vanderbilt: "The Gamma Phi Betas speak
only to the Kappa Alpha Thetas, and the Kappa Alpha Thetas speak only to
God." That was the first time I ran across the idea.
 
FWIW
 
David Hulan

Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 07:36:26 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest ps
 
It occurred to me that as Melody and Steve and I all quoted versions of the 
toast to Boston, it would be nice to look up the precise wording and see 
who the author was.  "Bartlett's Quotations" explains that it was John 
Colins Bossidy, 1860-1928 (who has no other claim to fame, it seems), who 
delivered a Holly Cross Alumni toast at a dinner in 1910, with verses on 
various places, including: "And this is good old Boston,/ The home of the 
bean and the cod,/ Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots/ And the Cabots 
talk only to God."  His toast was patterned on an earlier one (1905 
apparently -- given by a Harvard class of 1880 alum at their 25th reunion), 
which said, "Here's to old Massachussetts,/ The home of the sacred cod,/ 
Where the Adamses vote for Douglas/ And the Cabots walk with God."
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 08:56:12 -0700
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Codfish and Lobsters
 
> From: Bob Spark 
 
>      On page 59:
> >      "Hurt!" exclaimed the Sea Serpent, groaning at the
> >  recollection.  "My dear, those creatures have been called
> >  lobsters ever since!"
>      Could someone please explain this to me?  I've tried, but can make
> no sense out of it whatever.
 
None of my dictionaries solved this one.  However, "lobster" was
American slang for a stupid clumsy person, and therefore it might be a
clue.
 
>      On page 78:
> >      "I've heard tell of codfish aristocercy," said Cap'n
> >  Bill; "but I never knowed 'zac'ly what it meant afore."
>      I've never heard tell of this.  I still don't know "zac'ly what it
> means, just by the context.  Help, please.
 
I found a book by John Ciardi, _A Browser's Dictionary_ which provided
the answer:  The term "codfish aristocracy" was indeed a Bostonian term,
it means the "nouveaux riches" (the newely rich).  It was a term
contemptiously used by the old money Back Bay residents for those who
made their fortunes in fishing and then built houses in the Back Bay.
 
Steve T.

Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 19:49:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: JOdel at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
A little puzzle to play with before we move on from Sea Faries. 
 
We are given to understand that Zog's emotional displays are deliberately (or
just naturally) perverse acording to human observation. Meaning that the
signs he appears to display do not match his actual feelings. 
 
If this is the case, what may we suppose his actual feelings ARE when is out
there LAUGHING at the drowning humans from shipwrecks and saving the lives of
the ones who manage to drift close to him?
 
May we suppose that Baum didn't really think this one through before he wrote
it...

Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 11:59:31 -0500
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Ruth Berman:
>Gordon Birrell: Drawing of Trot holding up a hand-mirror for a mermaid to
>see herself in might be influenced by Cluny tapestry as you suggest, but
>probably also reflects (sorry) the heraldic tradition of showing mermaids
>as looking into hand-mirrors.
 
I have to admit that I forgot about the heraldic motif.  Still . . . it
seems to me that Neill significantly reconfigured the motif by associating
it with the unicorn image.  The traditional figure of mermaids looking into
hand-mirrors reflects the original conception of mermaids as vain, seductive
sirens (like Heine's Lorelei:  "Sie kaemmt das goldene Haar . . .").
Neill's cover, on the other hand, modifies the heraldic motif to link it up
with the configuration in the unicorn tapestry:  the mermaid, like the
unicorn, is now a fabulous creature characterized by purity and innocence,
and her reflection is supplied by an equally pure and innocent maiden.
This, of course, would reinforce Baum's reinterpretation of the mermaids as
benevolent creatures rather than lethally dangerous cold-hearted temptresses.
 
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries weren't discovered until the
mid-nineteenth century (by Georges Sand!) and created a considerable stir in
the art world.  Rilke wrote a stunning passage describing the tapestries at
the conclusion of Part I of _The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge_,
published in 1908.  All in all, I think there is good reason to believe that
Neill would have been familiar with these images.
 
If anyone is interested in comparing the 1920's _Sea Fairies_ cover and the
tapestry, I've put both images on my web site at

Before we leave _Sea Fairies_, I'd like to put in another plug for Melody's
wonderful book, which revisits Aquareine's realm as well as the Mangaboo
land. There are a lot of passages in this book that have really stayed with
me (Vega's rapturous redirection of lightning bolts to create a Picture
Storm; the line "I'm going to live with the Withy Girl!"), but one of the
most memorable is the scene in which the dreaded sea slug menaces
Aquareine's mermaids with his jolting electricity.
 
* * * * * * * * SPOILER FOR _THE DISENCHANTED PRINCESS OF OZ_ * * * * * * * * *
 
It turns out that the sea slug is in fact a good-hearted creature who has no
idea that he is causing such terror; he sees the mermaids going into
convulsions and thinks that the pretty little things are dancing in response
to his electricity.  I think this passage sends a couple of very important
messages to the children (and adults) who read the book:  first, that you
shouldn't automatically assume that ugly people have ugly motivations, even
if their actions are distressing.  Second, those actions may well be the
result of ignorance and thoughtlessness, or even good intentions that are
frightfully misdirected.  How many of us have thought we were doing a good
deed when we were actually causing pain?
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * END OF SPOILER * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 12:15:00 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-12-97
 
Joyce:
I think we can safely assume that Baum didn't work out all the implications
of Zog's reversing normal human expressions of emotion. Baum frequently
didn't work out all the implications of his ideas, which is one reason it's
so much fun to write new Oz stories. (Do you see a lot of people writing
stories in the Tolkien universe?)
 
David Hulan

Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 21:54:51 -0400
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
Sender: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
 
Joyce:
Remember, the purpose of deception is to deceive. If Zog always displayed
the opposite emotion than the one he was feeling, people would pick it up
and be able to tell what he is really feeling. Every once in a while, he
shows his true self to trip up his enemies.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 15:56:02 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-13-97
 
Tyler:
>Joyce:
>Remember, the purpose of deception is to deceive. If Zog always displayed
>the opposite emotion than the one he was feeling, people would pick it up
>and be able to tell what he is really feeling. Every once in a while, he
>shows his true self to trip up his enemies.
 
Did Baum ever say that Zog's reversed expressions of his emotions was
intended to deceive? I don't remember that; I thought it was just an oddity
of his.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 11:30:18 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Gordon Birrell: As you say, the heraldic mermaid-with-mirror was intended
to be a symbol of vanity (in fact, the pose was specifically referred to as
"the mermaid in her vanity").  I've seen in suggested, though, that the
pose is older than heraldry and could originally have meant something
else, possibly with the round mirror as an image of the world, and the
mermaid as a goddess who sees all that is occurring.  (Magic Picture, so
to speak.)  I like the idea, but don't know if there's evidence for it beyond
the logical possibility.  I think you're probably right that Neill would have
known the Unicorn tapestries and might have intended to suggest the
idea of "purity" in mermaid as in unicorn.
 
Joyce O'Dell: Probably Baum forgot about the reversed emotions in
describing Zog as laughing at the drowning sailors, as you suggest.  Still
-- maybe Zog doesn't always reverse emotions?  Maybe in this case the
specific reversal is not from amusement to sorrow but from amusement to
contempt (not exactly a reversal, but not entirely the same)?
 
Bob Spark: "Sea Fairies" is one of the books where Neill did different
cover illos, as used in different editions.  The mirror drawing isn't the
original edition (it's 1920) -- I think the Books of Wonder edition with the
three heads above the water follows the original.  I think the figures are
Cap'n Bill (even though beardless -- beard hidden or slicked back by the
water?), Trot and Princess Clia.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 22:43:28 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz and organized religion
 
   For those who've been reading SEA FAIRIES, Zog is modeled on the
traditional Western devil (how many cloven hoofs do we need to read
about?), but Anko isn't a deity--is he?
 
John
 
J. L. Bell          JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 22:55:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ozmama at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-07-97
To: DaveH47 at delphi.com
 
 
 
<<  >       "We are all ladies of an uncertain age,"rejoined
 > >  the Princess, with a smile.  "We don't care to tell."
 >      I thought that the expression was "ladies of a certain age".
  >>
The French expression, IIRC, is "d'un certain age."  Baum may well have been
playing with the "d'un" part of the idiom and deliberately mistranslated it.
 I'd like to believe that of him, anyway.  --Robin (who isn't always certain
of her age...

Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 11:14:45 -0700
From: Nathan Mulac DeHoff <vovat at geocities.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
J. L. Bell:
Is Anko a deity?  Well, that's an interesting question, and it really 
depends on your definition of the word "deity."  Some religions maintain 
that there is only one deity (God), and that he is omnipotent and 
omniscient.  Others are more liberal with their definitions of "god" and 
"deity," and allow less-than-perfect beings to be gods.  Anko is the 
ruler of the Pacific Ocean (as well as the Nonestic, if we accept 
information in certain Buckethead books), so I guess he could be 
considered an ocean god, but this wasn't how Baum referred to him.  As 
far as I can remember, the only mention of God in the Oz series was by 
Cap'n Bill in _Magic_.
--
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
vovat at geocities.com or lnvf at grove.iup.edu

"I'm having a wonderful time, but I'd rather be whistling in the dark."

Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 15:52:15 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-15-97
 
John B.:
I don't think there's much connection between the Ozian cosmology and
Christianity. There is, according to SANTA CLAUS, a Supreme Maker, but he
seems more like a deist First Cause than the activist God of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. The vast array of immortals with responsibilities
for various forms of life, with the three Masters in sort of overall
charge, don't really seem consistent with any orthodox interpretation of
angels, though I'll acknowledge that I'm not that much of an expert on
orthodox interpretations of angels. It's interesting, by the way, that the
responsibilities of the three Masters seem to
be divided geographically (woods, fields, and seas - wonder who's in charge
of deserts and mountains?). The lesser immortals don't seem to be under one
particular Master; the wood nymphs are presumably all under Ak, but ryls
and knooks could be under Ak or Kern, and fairies might be under any of the
three.
 
Anko doesn't act like a deity, but he seems to be a major factor in the
undersea world. Probably he and the other two (IIRC) sea serpents are Bo's
primary lieutenants, as Ak, Kern, and Bo are the Supreme Maker's.
 
And welcome to active participation! I hope you'll keep it up; you have
some interesting ideas.
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 08:35:58 -0500
From: rri0189 at ibm.net
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-15-97
 
J. L. Bell wrote:
>For those who've been reading SEA FAIRIES, Zog is modeled on the
>traditional Western devil (how many cloven hoofs do we need to read
>about?), but Anko isn't a deity--is he?
 
Well, if I had a brief to reconcile the Ozian corpus with Christianity,
I would reply that if Zog is a devil, Anko can be an angel.  (And more
like the real thing than the current Hollywood "angel" that cannot
be distinguished from a Hollywood "good fairy".)
 
But as a matter of fact, Baum found "the Devil" an offensive doctrine,
why I cannot imagine, unless he was merely being sloppy and said "the
Devil" when he meant "Hell".
 
// John W Kennedy

Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000 22:19:50 -0600
Subject: Oz
From: "David Godwin" <d.godwin at minn.net>
 
John W. Kennedy wrote:
 >The only specifically "capitalist" episode I can recall
 >offhand is the distinctly negative one of impending foreclosure in
 >"Emerald City".
 
Outside of the FF, Trot compares a disagreeable, greedy octopus in _Sea
Fairies_ to "Stannerd Oil." The octopus is insulted by the comparison, but
Cap'n Bill agrees with Trot. So it looks as if LFB did make the distinction
between (a) the initiative and risk associated with low-level
free-enterprise businesses and (b) the abuses of the "trusts."
 
David G.

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 13:35:16 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: a la recherche du roi perdu
 
David Godwin wrote:
<<Trot compares a disagreeable, greedy octopus in _Sea Fairies_ to
"Stannerd Oil." The octopus is insulted by the comparison, but Cap'n Bill
agrees with Trot.>>
 
I recall this as a discussion about usage, and whether surface people used
"octopus" in a disparaging way. I didn't come away thinking Baum or his
characters were necessarily endorsing the anti-trust movement, or
denigrating it.
         One of the ongoing themes of the two Trot & Cap'n Bill books, I
sense, is that even wise people like Cap'n Bill don't know everything that
goes on in this world (e.g., mermaids aren't predatory, there's a real Sky
Island). This theme asks us comically to think of the plight of the poor,
weepy octopus when we use him as a metaphor for bad things.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 19:31:27 EST
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 01-15-2000
 
 
John Bell, re: Standard Oil and _Sea Fairies_:<< I recall this as a
discussion about usage, and whether surface people used "octopus" in a
disparaging way. I didn't come away thinking Baum or his characters were
necessarily endorsing the anti-trust movement, or denigrating it. >>
    I was startled when I first read the line, since I was old enough to
catch the reference.  It surprised me to see Baum go for the low pun on a
topical basis.  It sounds more like his stage dialogue than book fare.

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 00 11:24:32 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: witches in oz
 
 
Robin Olderman: One factor in Baum's reference to Standard Oil was
probably family dislike.  His father was one of the many bankrupted by
Standard's aim of driving competitive oil-dealers out of business.
 
Ruth Berman