Stratovania

I haven't felt like doing a whole lot as of late. There's some Oz writing I could be doing, but I haven't been in the mood. Yeah, I know writing is all about discipline and sticking to it even when you don't feel like it, but this IS supposed to be for fun. I've gotten kind of bored with Twitter as well, although I occasionally still make comments there. I have been reading the Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter book The Long Earth, which I'm hoping to finish by Monday because that's when it's due back at the library. In terms of blogging, I'm largely drawing a blank on ideas for Oz posts. I have a few ideas, and I'd been wanting to write about the Rain King, a very minor but still intriguing character in the series. I can't find my copy of The Hidden Prince of Oz, though, and that's the only book I know of to have a picture of the Rain King. And in Dragon Quest VI, I defeated Jamirus on the Isle o' Smiles.

The latest Futurama episode, "Fun on a Bun," was better than the last two. It started out with a futuristic take on a holiday, in this case Oktoberfest, and that's usually fun. The plot involved Fry falling into a lost world inhabited by Neanderthals and prehistoric animals that was trapped under ice. Neanderthals were first discovered in the Neander Valley in Germany, so that makes a certain amount of sense. It was funny and used ideas from science fiction, which is what I look for on this show.

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I'd say mostly fantasy, but not so much the sword-and-sorcery variety, although that's okay on occasion. A lot of what I read might be classed as either comic fantasy or children's or young adult fantasy. Mind you, for me, Oz is pretty much a genre in and of itself.

Speaking of fantasy, I wrote a post on Gandalf today, which addresses some of the pros and cons of Tolkien, at least in my own mind. I'm not as much into Lord of the Rings as many of my fellow fantasy fans are, but I did enjoy both the books and the movies. There are quite a few nerdy things on which I can converse at a certain level, but I'm hardly an expert. One idea I had for a post is a comparison between the Houyhnhnms from Gulliver's Travels and the Vulcans, but I don't know that I'm enough of a Trekkie (or is that Trekker?) to really pull it off. Maybe I'll try it someday anyway; I'm sure there's enough information on Vulcans available online to supplement what I already know.

I've been working on adding the cast of Chris Dulabone's A Viking in Oz to my list of apocryphal Oz characters. I'm pretty sure I included them before years ago, but that version must have gotten lost somehow. It's a short book, so it's not a big deal. Anyway, I'd like to get someone to look over my list, but it's really sloppy in its current format. That's not something I care a whole lot about, but other people might. Maybe I should post a sample and see if anyone has format suggestions. I don't know. Would anyone care to look this over?

Yesterday, bethje and I went up to New York to see John Waters' Christmas show, which we did last year as well. I had wanted to go a few other places in Manhattan as well, so we arrived there a few hours early. First, we stopped at Books of Wonder, a children's bookstore that has a fair amount of Oz stuff. Honestly, it seems that they de-emphasizing Oz a bit (I guess it just didn't sell that well, unfortunately), but they still have a better selection in that area than any other store I've been to. I picked up a comic adaptation of "A Kidnapped Santa Claus," Donald Abbott's Speckled Rose of Oz (which got pretty bad reviews from other Oz fans, but it was the only Baum-consistent Oz book there I hadn't read yet), and Mark Evan Swartz's Oz Before the Rainbow. I also noted that they had some copies of Phil Lewin's The Master Crafters of Oz, which I didn't buy because I already have it, but it was nice to see a more recent Oz book getting exposure. After that, we went uptown to Nintendo World, which is located in Rockefeller Center, making for a rather long walk. We stopped along the way at the Sanrio store in Times Square, which has kind of become a tradition for Beth, even though it's been some time since she's actually bought something there. They seem to have decreased their stock considerably anyway, and don't feature very many characters. I can understand why most stores only carry Hello Kitty, as she's obviously the most popular by far, but wouldn't you think a specialty store would have a little more variety? Anyway, I like going to Nintendo World because they usually have some new Nintendo-related toys, and yesterday I bought a stuffed Hammer Brother. I wish I knew someone else who would appreciate a gift like that, as I feel kind of guilty buying stuff for myself so close to Christmas. I've made a bit of a collection of toys like this by now, but I have nowhere to display them. By the way, the store also now has stuffed Wigglers and Cheep-Cheeps.

When therealtavie got out of work, we met her for dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. I had a small pizza with pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms. Pretty good, but the crust was a little weird for me. For dessert, I had the apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. After that, the three of us met Tavie's boyfriend Sean at B.B. King's in Times Square, which is where the show was. That's the same place it was last year, as well as where we saw Peter Noone a few weeks ago. Thankfully, they gave the four of us a booth this time, instead of cramming us in at a table with strangers. The show was similar to last year's, but he did add a few things. For instance, he mentioned how he met Justin Bieber, who told him, "Your 'stache is the jam!" He also discussed his proposal for a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, which was prefaced by a story about asking a kid if he liked the movie, to which the child replied, "No, it's basically just walking." Just wait until this kid sees Lord of the Rings!

We hit a traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike on the way back, so we ended up getting back home much later than expected. And really, that's about all there is to tell. Well, except maybe that I retrieved all seven fyggs in Dragon Quest IX, and now I have to chase some guy on a black dragon. Happy Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Yule, or whatever else it is you celebrate! I'm not at all ready for Christmas, but what else is new?

I was thinking recently about how much my love for fairy tales influenced my taste in what I find aesthetically pleasing, including with members of the opposite sex. It's not that I sexualize children's literature, and in fact I'm a little disturbed by those who do. I don't care about your private fantasies, but I don't think Jellia Jamb is the type to bathe naked in public. Nonetheless, I think children's fantasy and its illustrations were such a significant part of my formative years that they couldn't help influencing my preferences. I don't have a sexual attraction to Ozma (after all, she's only supposed to be, like, fifteen in her appearance, despite actually being older), but I can't say John R. Neill's pictures of her didn't contribute to my love for girls with flowers in their hair.

I feel that the pin-up style, which has recently become a minor obsession for me, owes quite a bit to classic illustration, and that's definitely a point in its favor.


Along with this is an attraction to some physical features that might be considered childlike, like pigtails and cute dresses.

Okay, that's a wig, but I think it illustrates my point.

I have, however, seen some pictures of girls who took this WAY too far. I feel that this kind of thing too often gets lumped in with a fetish for helplessness, and I'm not into that. It hits way too close to rape and pedophilia for me. I'm attracted to forthright, mature women who are still in touch with their childlike sides. My wife bethje carries a Sanrio purse (her current one has Chococat on it), and she's asked whether it's too childish for a girl of thirty-one to still use something like that. I don't think it is; in fact, I find it endearing. If you're the kind of person who thinks it's immature to watch cartoons or browse the young adult section at the library, I'm not sure we could be friends.

I was just thinking last night that I'm not really a movie person. Not that I don't LIKE movies, just that they're probably the type of media in which I find it most difficult to invest. I think a lot of it has to do with the time commitment. Books usually have convenient stopping points, and there are always bookmarks if I can't make it to one. (FINDING bookmarks is a different matter, but that's another issue.) You can save most video games these days. I can listen to music and do other simple tasks at the same time. I don't watch a whole lot of TV either, but at least you get that in manageable chunks. Movies, though? You really have to put aside time for those. Sure, you can pause a movie you're watching on DVD, but I don't like to. It just doesn't seem right to start a movie and not watch the whole thing at once (provided you WANT to see the film, that is), and that's time you really can't do anything else. I realize that this is all based on my personal hang-ups, but I'm just wondering if it explains why I've never really been a film buff. In fact, most of the movies I see totally of my volition are based on books I've read. I guess I'm mostly into fantasy and absurdist comedy, which are somewhat underrepresented in the theaters these days anyway. bethje likes horror and disturbing movies (Requiem for a Dream is one of her favorites), so I've watched a fair number of those with her. It sometimes seems like I prefer things that are better than real life while she likes things that are worse, but that's oversimplifying. It's not that everything I watch has to be happy (and indeed, things that go too far in that direction come off as saccharine, and I'm not too fond of that), but I like movies (and books, TV shows, etc.) that provide an escape from reality. Anyway, it doesn't help that most of the movies that come out look like crap. That doesn't mean they necessarily ARE crap. Some of them could be awesome, but the commercials and descriptions I've seen do nothing to reflect that. Let's look at what's currently playing in my area, and what I might actually want to see:

Burlesque - Everything I've heard about this movie makes it sound terrible.
Due Date - I know practically nothing about this, but the description says it's a race against time. Okay, that's not necessarily bad, but it doesn't sell it for me either. Besides, ever since I've heard of Robert Downey Jr. falling asleep in the neighbor's kid's bed, I've had a hard time differentiating him from the Bogeyman.
Faster - Okay, can we stop with these generic-sounding titles? I know you can't judge a movie by its title, but that name does nothing to differentiate your movie from any other. It's apparently about The Rock trying to get revenge on his brother's killer. Yeah, the description sounds just as generic as the name. I have a feeling I won't even remember this movie exists next time I see a commercial for it.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - Now here's a movie I actually want to see, but, well, I've read the book and seen the other movies. I can't understand why one of the slower-paced books in the series is the one they decided to split into two films, but maybe it'll make sense once I see both of them. I just wish this had come out back when the Harry Potter series was still fresh in my mind.
Megamind - Wow, a Dreamworks film that's NOT about talking animals with celebrity voices! Well, the celebrity voices are still there, but they're not talking animals, so that's something. Still not interested, though.
Morning Glory - Romantic comedies in general tend to rub me the wrong way. Rachel McAdams is cute, but that doesn't make me want to see everything she's in.
Skyline - A movie about invading aliens? They should have called this Clichéline!
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Definitely want to see it, although I'm still kind of bummed out that Prince Caspian left out my favorite part of the book, and I hope this one doesn't do the same. It should be worth it for the visuals even if nothing else, though.
Black Swan - I've already seen Suspiria, so I figure I don't need to watch any more movies about ballerinas. By the way, isn't there a Tori Amos song with that title?
Love and Other Drugs - Hey, another romantic comedy! I'll pass.
Red - Hey, another action movie with a generic title! Again, I'll pass.
Tangled - I feel I really should see this, but I'm not so keen on the computer animation. Is it just because it's not what I'm used to? I don't know.
The Next Three Days - The only thing I want to see Russell Crowe in is a phone-throwing contest with Naomi Campbell.
The Social Network - This movie bugs me for some reason. Maybe because I don't think Facebook is anything worth making a movie about, or maybe it's just a knee-jerk reaction against what's popular. I don't know. I understand that it paints Mark Zuckerberg as unlikeable, though, so that could be a point in its favor.
The Tourist - The tourist in question isn't Twoflower, so who cares?
The Warrior's Way - I've never gotten into the whole martial arts scene, even though I did do Tae Kwon Do for a little while in my high school years.
TRON: Legacy - The original movie came out when I was a kid, but I didn't see it then, so it doesn't have the nostalgia factor for me that it does for some of my peers. I did watch it a few months ago, but it doesn't really hold up, seeing as how it focuses on computer effects that were state-of-the-art at the time, but that now look like they were made by a ten-year-old with access to Flash. So, yeah, no desire to see the sequel.
Unstoppable - How many action movies do they need at one time?

Actually, two movies I definitely want to see and one I might is a pretty good showing. Two of them are based on fantasies I've read and the other on a classic fairy tale, however, so it's not like I'd be leaving my comfort zone with any those.

bethje went to two Glee shows at Radio City Music Hall this weekend, and I came along even though I wasn't going to the shows. While she was at the Saturday show, I visited the World of Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center. They had some Wii games available to try out there, and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I had to observe other people to see how to work the controller. I'm out of touch, I suppose. I tried New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I'm sure I would have been terrible at them even if I had been experienced at the controls. I also bought Shyguy and Lakitu figures, and stuffed versions of King Dedede and Toad.

After the show, we met Stephanie, and went to some dumpling place that had pretty cheap food. I really liked the shrimp dumplings I got. Then we spent the night at therealtavie and Gina's place, and had breakfast with Gina at some restaurant in Hoboken. Later in the day, we met Lucy, and had dinner at Heartland Brewery with her. Then she took us to Magnolia Cupcakes, which is apparently featured on Oprah and in Sex and the City. I wouldn't know about that, but the cupcake I got (pecan caramel cheesecake) was good. And since I felt I'd spent enough money the previous day, I occupied my time while Beth and Lucy were at the show by reading The Red Pyramid. And that's about all, really. But we're going back to New York tomorrow to see Conan O'Brien, and I'm glad about that but not too anxious to make the drive there and back twice in the same week. Oh, well.

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell - This book discusses the Puritans who settled Boston, clearing up some common misconceptions about them, and suggesting how their beliefs might have influenced modern American interventionist ideas. Not my favorite of Vowell's books that I've read, but I do like her writing style, which is intellectual and casual at the same time. And hey, I learned something!


A Practical Guide to Racism, by C.H. Dalton - An amusing satirical work about racist attitudes, with a joke in pretty much every line. The humor ranges from sarcasm to referential to just plain absurd (for instance, one of the races Dalton mentions is merpeople). It doesn't shy away from somewhat controversial humor, either.

When L. Frank Baum came up with his map of Oz for the endpapers of Tik-Tok of Oz, he included a few locations that he'd go on to use in later books. Whether he actually had plans for them or just threw on a few names he thought sounded good is unknown, but he labeled an area in the northwestern Gillikin Country as "Skeezer," and we finally learn who the Skeezers are in Glinda of Oz. As it turns out, the Skeezers live on an island in a lake, and Ozma becomes aware of them when their neighbors, the Flatheads, declare war on them. The reason for this is revealed during the course of the story, but can largely be traced back to the time when the Flatheads were ruled by three women known as the Adepts at Magic. They taught some of their magic to Queen Coo-ee-oh of the Skeezers, but she betrayed them by turning them into fish. One of the transformed Adepts revealed that, if any one of them died, Coo-ee-oh would lose her powers, so she kept them in the lake. One of the Flatheads took over the mountain after this transformation, calling himself the Supreme Dictator, or Su-dic for short. In order to retain his own power and lessen Coo-ee-oh's, he planned to poison the fish in the lake. The Adepts obtained the help of a Skeezer named Ervic in getting a Yookoohoo to restore their true forms, and they assisted Ozma and Glinda in restoring order. The Adepts regained their rule over Flathead Mountain; and since Coo-ee-oh had been turned into a vain and foolish diamond swan by the fish poison, the Skeezers made a friendly noblewoman named Lady Aurex as their new queen, with Ervic as his prime minister.


While that's the general story, it leaves out most of what's unusual about the two small societies, each with a population of around one hundred. As suggested by their name, the Flatheads actually have flat heads, and live on one of the infamous Ozian mountains with steep sides and a flat top. Access to other lands is accomplished by means of a staircase in the middle of the mountain. Because of their unusual heads, the Flatheads had no room for brains, so the Fairy Queen Lurline gave them canned brains that served them well enough. Once the Su-dic took power, however, he and his wife Rora began stealing brains from their enemies, giving them the extra knowledge they needed to become accomplished magicians. Coo-ee-oh removed Rora's skill in witchcraft by turning her into a golden pig, but not before she had mixed up some fish poison that apparently had additional magical properties. After ending the war, Glinda rounds out the heads of the Flatheads and places the brains inside, hence preventing any more mind-stealing. As for the Skeezers, the Queen used what she'd learned from the Adepts to make the island into a marvel of mixed mechanics and magic. Her power to expand and contract iron enabled her to submerge the entire island and restore it to the surface at will. She also constructed what might well have been the first submarines in the Land of Oz. The primitive science fiction effect of the island is augmented by the palace guards being "armed with queer weapons that seemed about half-way between pistols and guns, but were like neither," but they never have any occasion to use them during the story.


The term "Flathead" was used to refer to the Salish tribe, which was native to Montana. The rather derogatory-sounding name apparently came from the fact that, unlike their neighbors, the Salish did not practice vertical head-binding. I think it's likely that Baum just took this name and made it literal for Oz. "Skeezer" was probably just nonsense, although the term has since come to refer to crack whores, or loose women in general. I assume this doesn't have anything to do with Coo-ee-oh's reputation, but who knows? :P It might also relate to "skeezicks," an American slang term for "rascal" or "rogue" dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the name of a creepy crow-like creature from the Uncle Wiggily series (whom I remember from the Uncle Wiggily board game that I used to play a lot as a kid). There's also a character named Skeezix in the comic strip Gasoline Alley, but he wasn't introduced until a few years after Baum's death (although the strip itself did exist while Baum was still alive).

In Oz, there are a few small countries with economies based on the making of clothing. The first one to feature in a book is Ragbad, in the deep southern Quadling Country near Jinxland. This kingdom is where various textiles grow, although it fell into ruin in the time of King Fumbo, who is presumably still the ruler. He was a well-read but lazy man who spent the majority of the royal treasury on books. Kind of an odd way for an author to devise for a kingdom to be ruined, but there you go. Actually, Ruth Plumly Thompson mentions Fumbo spending money on books AND TOBACCO, so maybe it's the latter that really bankrupted the monarch. Thomspon's Oz books contain a lot of smoking with no real value judgments on the subject, but perhaps Fumbo's plight is a subtle indication of how expensive the habit can be. (Quite frankly, I'm not sure how ANYONE can afford to smoke, especially nowadays.) Anyway, due to the economic collapse, nearly all of the workers, guards, and courtiers leave the kingdom. The only remaining inhabitants were the royal family (King Fumbo, his wife who goes by the nickname "Mrs. Sew-and-Sew," and their son Prince Tatters), twenty-seven families (reportedly about one hundredth of the original population), the wise man Pudge, the footman Scroggles, and the soldier Grampa. Oddly, Grampa isn't actually a grandfather, and it's never explicitly stated whether "Grampa" is a given name or a nickname. I suppose anything is possible in Oz. Anyway, when King Fumbo's head blows off in a storm, it's Grampa who accompanies Tatters in trying to find it, and his name (such as it is) that features in the book's title. Without giving too much away, I'll reveal that Tatters' new father-in-law provides Ragbad with a fortune, and the kingdom's prosperity is restored. Given what we're told in The Emerald City of Oz about the Ozian economy, I'm not sure how one of its kingdoms could become so destitute, but Thompson wasn't always one for following the rules when they interfered with the stories she wanted to tell.


The very next book, The Lost King of Oz, begins in a small Gillikin kingdom called Kimbaloo. Here, the main crop is buttons, which grow on trees. The rulers are King Kinda Jolly and Queen Rosa Merry, and their subjects 250 boys and 250 girls. The boys sell buttons for the king, while the girls sell bouquets from the queen's bouquet bush. While there might well be more children in Oz who hold down jobs than there are in the United States (hey, Ozma herself is a perpetual teenager), it still strikes me as kind of odd that there would be this many children living in a small kingdom with no parents. Are they orphans? We don't really know. While Kinda and Rosa are quite friendly, I doubt they really fill a parental role for 500 kids. And this story is centered around finding Ozma's long-lost father, who also becomes sort of a surrogate father to Snip, a button boy who leaves Kimbaloo when he accidentally stumbles on Mombi's evil plot. King Kinda, not realizing Mombi's past as a wicked witch, had hired her as the castle cook. When the witch leaves the kingdom with Snip and Pajuka, the royal bodyguard General Whiffenpuff goes in search of an invisible cook who lives near the Emerald City.


Finally, Gnome King introduces Patch, identified as the seven hundred fifth small country in Oz, although the order in which these places are organized is unclear. Patch is in the Winkie Country, but doesn't follow the typical yellow color scheme, instead laid out as a patchwork of many different colors. The people, known as Quilties, make patchwork quilts and mend clothing. Because of how hard they work, the Quilties tend to have cross attitudes, and they're prone to falling into pieces. As the country is in Oz, they don't die when this happens, but instead are swept into a scrap bag and left there for about ten years, after which they come back to life. The king or queen actually works harder than anyone else, and goes to pieces more quickly than any of the other Quilties. Rulers are chosen by the golden Royal Spool of Succession, which unravels to point out the next king or queen. As the story begins, the Prime Piecer and Chief Scrapper of the realm (who appear to be its actual leaders) follow the thread to the Emerald City and take the Patchwork Girl to be their queen. She is excited about this at first, but upon learning how much work it is, she escapes in the company of Peter Brown and the former queen's pet bear Grumpy. The Wizard of Oz eventually finds that the person actually indicated by the thread is actually a palace mender named Susan Smiggs. Ozma promises to reform the laws of Patch in order to make being queen less of an ordeal for Susan than it was for Scraps, but we never find out exactly what happens in that respect. Patch is actually another kingdom that Thompson introduced in another story before bringing it into Oz, the tale in question being called "Land O' Patch." According to this story, Patch is located in between the witch and fairy countries, and its king at the time (possibly the original ruler) is half witch and half fairy.

Brewster Bunny and the Case of the Purloined Pachyderm of Oz, by Marin Xiques and Chris Dulabone - Another tale of Brewster Bunny, the rabbit detective who previously appeared in several other books published by Buckethead/Tails of the Cowardly Lion. He's a well-realized character, with his starring adventures usually written in sort of a comic noir style. This time, it's told in first person. Brewster teams up with a lagomorphic jester-in-training named Martin Hopwell; as well as Kabumpo, one of my favorite Oz characters. It's a fun story, although it becomes a bit overloaded with characters toward the end. The authors find a clever way to get around the standard problem of Ozma and Glinda being able to magic away just about any threat to Oz, by having them totally unable to read books of Gansheri magic. I do think the modern references and slang, while funny at times, were a bit overdone on occasion. Overall, though, I enjoyed it.


The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde - The first book of the Nursery Crime series involves the investigation of the murder of Humpty Dumpty. Kind of a familiar scenario, not just because the story was sort of previewed in Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots, but because Robert Rankin's The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse also involves the murder of the famous egg. Both books also go on to involve many other nursery rhyme characters, but they're really not all that similar for all that. While Rankin's story is pretty wacky all the way through, Fforde takes a comical scenario and plays it pretty straight. Not only are nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters real in this world (many of them living in Reading, England), but police work has reached the point where people care more about stories that will sell than actual justice being done. While Jack Spratt (yes, the guy who eats no fat) is a good detective, his work lacks the flair of his rival and former partner Friedland Chymes, a famous and egotistical Holmes-style investigator. The satire on the media is pretty similar to that in the Thursday Next series, and while I don't like the characters as much (not yet, at least), I get more of the references. There are some hints that the two series take place on the same alternate world, due to the references to former actress Lola Vavoom and some of the same media outlets, but the series is treated as fiction-within-fiction in Well.