Twitterpated

• 11:07 We're back home again, and very tired. I'll have more details on the trip when I get up. #
• 11:12 It's going to be hard for me to not go back and read all the Facebook and Tumblr entries I missed, but I know that would be a futile task. #
• 11:13 I kept up pretty well on Twitter, though, and I don't think I'm too far behind on LiveJournal. #
• 19:16 @eehouls is a good hostess. #
• 19:19 Our cat Reagan is pretending she didn't miss us. I missed her, though. #
• 19:27 Photo: My dad sent me this picture of a Wizard of Oz balloo
  n from the Balloon Fiesta. tumblr.com/xpy3ervld #
• 20:41 Photo: dariuswhiteplume: tumblr.com/xpy3et1wo #
• 21:11 Photo: trixietreats: tumblr.com/xpy3etjah #
• 21:41 Photo: dariuswhiteplume: tumblr.com/xpy3eu11y #
• 22:11 Photo: suicideblonde: tumblr.com/xpy3euisv #
• 22:33 My vacation beard is now gone. #
• 22:41 Photo: Not to
  play the sad sack, but I think people started being mean to me well before I turned 11. And I... tumblr.com/xpy3euzp7 #
• 22:56 Photo: mudwerks: tumblr.com/xpy3ev7qx #
• 23:26 Photo: Here’s milk in your eye! thedailywhat: tumblr.com/xpy3evo2h #
• 23:57 Odd that the Shroud of Turin has been in the news recently. I was planning on writing about it sometime soon. #
• 23:57 Photo: thedailywhat: tumblr.com/xpy3ew52j #
• 23:58 In Atlanta this mo
  rning, the TV sets were playing some ad for stuff you can get at the airport...to the tune of Coolio's "Fantastic Voyage." #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Adventures in Oregon

Man, I wrote this hours ago, but I wanted to get my pictures up before posting it. That took much longer than I thought it would, so here it is, at long last.

bethje and I are back home from Oregon now. If you've been following my tweets, you know a little bit of what went on, but I'm going to describe the whole trip in this post. Basically, the trip came about because therealtavie's parents were attending a Lovecraft convention in Oregon, so Tavie decided to take the opportunity to visit our mutual friend not_glimmer. Then Beth arranged for us to visit at the same time. Our original plan was to take the bus and train to the airport, but since we missed the bus (my fault, since I decided to wait in a long line at the bank when I really didn't have time to do so), I ended up driving there instead. That probably worked out better in the long run. Our flight included a layover in Salt Lake City, where I got a Cinnabon (the first I'd had in some time, and probably the last I WILL have in some time; they're good, but so sugary that I can pretty much feel my blood sugar getting messed up) and Beth got a coffee, which surprisingly IS available in Utah.

I know some of you reading this are frequent flyers and probably think nothing of air travel by this point, but I'm still not that comfortable with it. The thing is, I don't so much mind the parts where we're actually in the sky, but the loading and unloading parts make me feel very claustrophobic. Anyway, we got into Portland on Thursday night, and were met at the airport by Erin and her dog Goblazers. There was a time zone difference of three hours, but I guess the one advantage to being unemployed is that I'm used to going to bed and getting up at weird times, so adjusting wasn't particularly difficult. Tavie showed up the next morning, and we went to a few places together, including a store of vintage stuff (it looked like the kind of place radiantwterror would have liked) where I purchased a few postcards. We had dinner at Andina, a place that served Peruvian food in the form of tapas, and I learned that I like octopus. Not that this is too surprising, considering that I already knew I liked squid. Our tentative plans to see a fire dancer that night didn't work out, but that's okay.

On Saturday, we spent a fair amount of time at Powell's City of Books, which is a pretty cool place. I like that they mix in both new and used books, so that there's an occasional bargain, but the inventory isn't limited to resold items. I was kind of impressed that they had two copies of the Del Rey edition of Grampa in Oz, and I ended up buying one to replace my old copy (which is also a Del Rey, but is falling apart). While we were there, a manager (I guess?) was giving a tour, and he seemed very proud of the small amount of power he had. Some of the questions he asked the tour group included whether they recognized a computer, and if they knew "who wrote Bart Simpson." The guy also told a story about how Stephen King's wife refused to let him sign the pillar at the store because there weren't enough of HER books there. Talk about coattail-riding! This was also the day we ate at Zell's for brunch (I had a really good Eggs Benedict), some place with outdoor seating for lunch, and the Davis Street Tavern for dinner.

Sunday included our trip to the shore with Erin's boyfriend. While there, we ate at a seafood place called Mo's, which had some really good seafood pasta. And it was the first time I'd ever been to the Pacific Ocean, so that was kind of a landmark for me. {g} Our dinner was at Burgerville, where they were featuring smoothies and other desserts made from blackberries. Pretty tasty, as was the fish and chips I had before that. Tavie left for the airport that night.

We spent most of Monday walking around the city, shopping at a few stores and eating at a few different restaurants, including one called Melt where I had a grinder, and a bar where I had appetizer portions of pizza and spaghetti. I bought a 1-Up Mushroom full of candy at one store (I probably won't eat the candy, any more than I did the stuff that came with my Mario Kart candy dispenser), a Ganesh figure at another (no, I'm not converting to Hinduism, but how can I help liking a guy who combines my interests in mythology AND elephants?), and copies of Cornelia Funke's Inkspell and L. Frank Baum's The Twinkle Tales at Daedalus Books. We caught the plane back home that night, and after a layover in Atlanta, it was back to Philadelphia and New Jersey for us. We were both pretty exhausted by that point, but we're up now. And, well, I guess that's about it. Be sure to check out my pictures!

Okay, I guess it's time for bed. Past time, really. Happy birthday to gick, and happy belated birthday to obsessical and zimbra1006! Since I'm behind on my usual blogging schedule, I'll probably write an Oz post tomorrow (i.e., today) and a video game one on Thursday.

The Undersea World of King Anko

In honor of my first visit to the Pacific Ocean, this post will be primarily about L. Frank Baum's Borderlands of Oz book, The Sea Fairies. Actually, I was planning on writing about that book anyway, but it coincides nicely.



In The Sea Fairies, Cap'n Bill tells Trot the old legend about how anyone seeing a mermaid would commit suicide, and a group of real mermaids decides to set him straight. With a touch, they turn Bill and Trot into mer-folk, and give them a tour of the underwater world. The mermaids reveal that they don't need gills because they are each surrounded by a thin layer of air, and that, as immortal fairies, they actually predate both humans and fish. Their ruler is Queen Aquareine, and her daughter Clia and niece Merla also play significant roles in the story. Interestingly, there are no merMEN seen in the book, except for Cap'n Bill's own mer-form. Ruth Plumly Thompson does bring a merman into The Giant Horse of Oz, though. His name is Orpah (which is a woman's name in the Bible, but oh well), and he's the keeper of the riding seahorses for the people of the Ozure Isles. King Cheeriobed provided him with golden crutches that enabled him to move around on land as well. Since there's a scene where he comes out of the lake dripping wet, he might not breathe in the same manner as Aquareine's people, but this is never clearly stated.


Many of the sea creatures encountered in the course of the story are based on puns or other sorts of humor: fiddler crabs that play violins, singing barnacles that sing nonsense tunes, swordfish that serve as guards, evil devilfish, etc. Perhaps the most interesting denizens of the deep, however, are the sea serpents. There are said to be only three in the world, each ruling a different ocean. Anko is in charge of the Pacific, and his brothers' names are Unko and Inko. King Anko is 7482 feet, five and a quarter inches long, but he usually leaves part of himself behind at home when he goes out, reserving glimpses of his full size for honored guests. His length was measured by Adam when Cain was a baby, perhaps the only explicit reference I can recall to Biblical characters in Baum's fantasy. His dialogue is littered with vaudeville-style humor, particularly evident when he refers back to his three pains, which occurred in the times of Nebuchadnezzar (whose real name, according to Anko, was "Nevercouldnever"), Julius Caesar (or "Sneezer"), and Napoleon. Thompson introduces a sea serpent with goblins for teeth in Captain Salt, but I assume this is a different species from Anko's ilk.

And since I devoted most of a paragraph to the ruler of the ocean, I might as well also write about its scourge, the evil Zog. This name would later belong to a real-life King of Albania, a villain in the first Breath of Fire game, and (in initial form) the Zionist Occupation Government; but all of these post-date Baum's story. Zog is described as a hideous creature, being "part man, part beast, part fish, part fowl, and part reptile." He usually kept his body coiled and covered in a robe, which did not stop others from seeing his horns, fiery eyes, and cloven hooves. When fighting his enemy Anko, he revealed the rest of his body, which was eel-like aside from its feathery wings. Zog was 27,000 years old, and spent his time trying to get revenge on Anko for driving him into hiding, as well as giving drowning victims gills so that they could serve him in his hidden palace. Although his facial features were actually rather pleasant, he had a disconcerting habit of smiling when he was most upset. He didn't survive his final battle with Anko, but I can't help wondering if he has family anywhere. Maybe there's a Mazog somewhere in the world. {g}

One somewhat confusing aspect of the story in light of Baum's later mythology is that Rinkitink takes place on the Nonestic Ocean, which becomes established as the body of water closest to Oz. But if Anko and his brothers rule the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, then who rules the Nonestic? Actually, a few later stories have had Anko himself show up there, so maybe the Nonestic is actually a local name for part of the Pacific. That would seem to fit most of Baum's references, anyway. Perhaps it's better not to think about it, as the location of fairyland might well be something we can't really wrap our mortal minds around.