Stratovania

Ah, Halloween, the time of year when witches, ghouls, superheroes, and licensed cartoon characters walk the streets and beg. You really don't see too much of the simple sheet ghost anymore, do you? I'm not sure if this is because of the limited mobility or the unfortunate resemblance to a KKK robe (which would certainly be scary, but not at all in a fun way). Anyway, not that much happened this Halloween, but I think I can still make a post out of it. At least there was no superstorm this time.

On Sunday night, bethje, her cousin Dorothea, and I went on another haunted hayride. We were actually the only people on it, which was pretty lame. I'm all for adults participating in these activities, but it's weird when there are no kids at all. It was typical in many respects, but there was a lot more narration and joking around from a guy who rode on the wagon with us. Also, some people on motorcycles occasionally showed up, and at one point they used a ramp to jump over the wagon. Quite impressive, really.

I had to work from 7 AM to 4 PM on Halloween itself, and when I received back in Secaucus kids were already trick-or-treating. Is it just me, or is doing that in daylight kind of sad? I took the train into Manhattan and met Beth to see the Village Halloween Parade. Word from New York residents was that it wasn't that great but was worth seeing once, and I'd say that's accurate. We didn't stay for the whole thing, but I think there wasn't a whole lot left. Anyone is allowed to participate in the parade, which is a cool idea, but means it can come across as quite disorganized. Most of the costumed people walked by so quickly I couldn't get pictures. The advertising floats with annoying DJs on them stuck around for longer, but who wants to see those? Halloween has gotten too commercial! There were a lot of repeated costumes, including Alices, Dorothys, Queens of Hearts, Pikachus (I wouldn't think this one would still be so popular, but a new Pokémon game DID recently come out), and Mario characters. Most of the Marios and Luigis, as well as a few Warios and Waluigis, were of the store-bought variety. I'm not opposed to store-bought costumes, as not everyone has the resources (or the willing parents) to make their own, but it kind of seems like you could throw together just as good a Mario as this:

I wasn't wearing a costume at all, however, so who am I to talk? One group of people dressed as Mario Kart characters, complete with the karts and the Luigi guy spinning out. Even a few more unusual costumes showed up a few times, like several NSA guys and representations of the Rene Magritte painting of the guy with an apple over his face. Here are the pictures I was able to take, all from pretty early on in the parade:
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I recently received my copy of the 2013 Oziana, which includes a Christmas story I wrote. I keep wanting to write a Halloween Oz story, and I've had an idea floating around in my head for years about Jack Pumpkinhead coming to an island inhabited by minotaurs. I'm not sure where to go from there, though, and I've lost the little bit of it that I wrote.

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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?

There's nothing like the holiday season for making a fellow feel guilty for having no clue what to get anybody. Isn't exchanging gifts supposed to be fun? When it comes to be an obligation rather than something pleasant, aren't we abandoning the spirit of the season? I guess it's different when you have kids, but even then it appears to be overly common for people to worry more about how much they're spending than whether the kids will actually like the presents. Still, it's pretty much common courtesy to get something for someone when you know they're doing the same for you. I don't know. I just wish I could go back to feeling the way I did around the holidays when I was a kid, but what adult DOESN'T want that? Well, maybe the ones who had terrible experiences at the holidays, but that goes without saying.

Anyway, in case anyone cares, I'd like to direct your attention to another Oz story I wrote recently. When I was writing about brownies for my WordPress blog, I remembered the story about the Reddies in Ruth Plumly Thompson's Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, and how I always thought the rough account Glinda gives could use some expansion. I actually came up with a beginning for it years ago, but I've since lost it. No big deal, though, as I hadn't gotten very far. Blinkie and her associates were from L. Frank Baum's The Scarecrow of Oz, but it was Phyllis Ann Karr's Gardener's Boy that gave the three unnamed witches the names Bilkie, Bikkie, and Bittie. I went with this, although I didn't actually use all the names in the story. The fifth witch, Bleakie, was my own addition. Jakgar was actually a character I invented for a collaborative story on the old Oz Club message board. I'd also already named the last King of the Quadlings Jandor IV; I'm not sure whether the Jandor in this new story should be the same one or an earlier monarch of the same name, but probably the latter, as Jair is specifically identified as Mogodore's great-grandfather in Jack Pumpkinhead. As such, I assumed people still died at this point in Oz history. This is getting to be a lot of background information, and I'm thinking back to how my Creative Writing teacher in college said that this stuff should be included in the story itself if it's important, but I think a lot of it would interrupt the flow. I forced myself to write the story in a few days, so I'm sure there's a lot that can be edited. Any comments are more than welcome.

In other news, I'm working on my typical end-of-the-year mix. I've pretty much given up on burning these mixes to CDs (although I probably should, if only to preserve them in case of data loss), so I'm not sure whether I should limit myself to the length of a CD or not. Any ideas? Even if I do make it longer, it won't be MUCH longer, as I've already put on songs from all the new albums I can recall hearing this year. I realized that I hadn't included anything from Paley & Francis, though. Regardless, would anyone be interested in hearing the mix when I'm done with it?

So, here's some stuff I've purchased recently:

I've never really been much of a collector, but I do often find myself buying Mario-related things when I find them for prices that aren't that steep. When I first saw the pink Yoshi at Walmart, I thought it was Birdo, which would have been cooler.

Picture by Jared Morgan
I still liked it enough to get it, however. I tend to prefer the somewhat odder figures over the more famous ones. I'll have probably something to say on the two Oz items when I've finished reading them. I bought The Son of Neptune on the day it came out, but I don't intend to start reading it until I've finished at least one of the books I'm currently working my way through. I also have a few Robert Rankin books waiting in the wings. As for the game, we still haven't hooked up the Wii, but I figured I might as well get this while it was only $20.

Speaking of video games, I've taken the opportunity to play a bit of Dragon Quest IX recently. I've completed the quests in Bloomingdale, Zere Rocks, and Gleeba; and obtained the ship. I can't remember if it was ever mentioned how many fyggs there are left to find. I've been considering getting back into The Sims 2, since it'll probably run more smoothly on my new computer. The game takes a huge investment of time, however, and it seems like most of my free time these days is spent on the Internet. (Yeah, I say "these days" like that's some kind of change, when it obviously isn't.) I know The Sims 3 has been out for a while now, and The Sims 4 probably isn't long behind. I feel there's still a lot I can do with the second one, though, and I can justify it to myself by saying the characters I create as Sims are prototypes for ones I want to use in my writing. This is true, but it's not like I've made much progress in that department. Anyway, for anyone who has played Sims 3, is it true that you have considerably less control over your characters? I guess that could be both a good and a bad thing, but I'm not even sure it's true.

I'm still at work on my list of characters from apocryphal Oz stories, which is looking pretty sloppy at the moment. It's gone through several changes in format over the years, so I'm going to have to decide on a consistent look for the whole thing, but that's not my top priority at the moment. I also keep getting ideas for stories, some Oz and some otherwise, when I'm at work or otherwise in a situation that gives me time to think; but I haven't written most of them down. For me, ideas come easily, but actually writing is rather challenging. Part of it is that, even though I have characters and situations in mind, fitting them into a coherent storyline that logically progresses from one point to the next is the hard part. I really should try to get something down, though, since my ideas aren't doing all that much good remaining inside my head. They might be terrible, but I'm probably not the best one to be the judge of that. There's just so much to do, and none of it profitable. Not that I'm someone who only does things for the money, but my day job (which has mostly been a night job as of late) gets in the way of my creative pursuits. Mind you, sometimes I get just as little done when I DO have the entire day free, but there's something to be said for having some rest as well. I don't know. I think there's something in my brain where, even if I really could index Oz characters for a living, I'd consider it a hassle instead of fun once it became an obligation. It kind of already is that way when I go back into a book I didn't particularly like, but I'm trying to be thorough.

If there's one thing I can't complain about these days, it's not having enough to do. It's just that work and other obligations are always getting in the way, and when I'm at home all I generally want to do is sleep and write blog posts. I guess that's something, though. I just wish I received more feedback. It's not like I pour my heart and soul into every post (more like my black bile and skin flakes), but I do write about things I think are interesting, and wish more people would share my interest. I guess that's what happens when you have oddly specialized interests. Anyway, things I probably should do in the near future include:

• Work on editing my Oz stuff, and hopefully get some of it published. It seems easier to do that now, what with print-on-demand and all that, but I'm still not sure exactly how to accomplish it. I have three basically-finished longer manuscripts, and I'm more or less satisfied with one of them, which is actually the one I churned out rather quickly. The one that took me years to complete still needs some changes, but I'm not sure whether the most recent changes I've been contemplating are for the better or not, since they add complications to the plot.
  
• Clean this room, at least as much as I'm able. That's something I should probably do in stages, which is how I often do things I don't find all that pleasant, and even sometimes things I enjoy. I'm never really sure where good stopping points are, though, and leaving it too long often means I generate more mess.
  
• Apply for jobs. (Yuck.)
  
• Check out some of the DVDs and video games that I've had sitting around for a while. I wouldn't say that's exactly productive, but it makes me feel bad that there's stuff I specifically asked for some time ago and I still haven't gotten around to even opening it.
  

Anyway, here's a survey I got from poisonyoulove:
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While I'm never opposed to it, I tend to think some fandoms really support it more than others do. I've written Oz fanfiction myself, although most of that was prior to ever having heard the term "fanfiction." I think the common term back in the pre-Internet days was "pastiche," although I feel that this is really only appropriate when you're purposely trying to ape the original writer's style. I think the fact that the publishers found other writers to continue the series after L. Frank Baum's death means it always kind of came across as a collaborative effort to me. Even Baum wrote in his introductions about using ideas from readers. Since many of the books are now in the public domain, that means there have been some professionally published fan-written Oz books. On the other hand, I know there's Discworld fanfic, and I can't bring myself to read any of that. It just seems to me that Terry Pratchett's own style is integral to those stories, and stuff written about the same universe by someone else just wouldn't be the same. Then again, maybe that's how I would have felt about Oz books by anyone other than Baum if I'd lived in the early part of the twentieth century. I guess a lot of it is precedent.

As far as TV-based fanfic goes, I really don't read it, but since TV shows are usually collaborative efforts anyway, I don't think I'd have the "not the original writer" objection to it. I'm just not really interested, even if it's based on shows I like. Overall, though, if you like the characters and want them to have other adventures, I don't see any problem with writing them yourself. I'm not entirely sure why it's so popular among fanfic writers to make unlikely characters have sex, but even then I think the important thing is making sure they remain in character. If you're going to make the established characters act like they wouldn't really act in anything other than a parody, why even use those characters?

L. Frank Baum had an interest in reversing stereotypes, which was most obvious with the Cowardly Lion, but perhaps even more blatant with the odd couple known as the Foolish Owl and the Wise Donkey. I believe John Bell once listed the two of them as being akin to a married couple, which they sort of are, despite being different species, and so presumably not taking part in THAT aspect of marriage. They do keep a home together, and work as partners.


The Wise Donkey is actually a crossover character from another Baum fantasy, The Magical Monarch of Mo. In this book (specifically in the Fourth Surprise), we learn that he was once not very bright at all, but after being locked in a schoolhouse and eating all the textbooks, he absorbed the knowledge in them and became quite intelligent. He gives useful advice to the King of Mo and his subjects on various occasions throughout the book. When he appears in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, he explains that he was visiting Oz from Mo when Glinda placed an invisible barrier around the former land, resulting in his being stuck in Oz. He never specifies how he managed to cross the desert, but I'm actually thinking of making that a plot point in a manuscript I've started.

The Foolish Owl is presumably native to the Munchkin Country, being blue in color, and dressing in a blue sunbonnet. She (yes, the Owl is female, which people tend to forget) speaks in verse that's largely nonsensical, but does sometimes show insight into character. Both the Donkey and the Owl appear in dennisanfuso's The Astonishing Tale of the Gump of Oz, and I have plans to use them in a story myself, although I haven't actually written any parts for them yet.

Speaking of my own Oz writing, does anyone want to read any of my works in progress? Any input on them would be welcome, and I'd be glad to try to help out anyone else who's doing Oz writing.

There are quite a few rabbits in the Oz books. In The Emerald City of Oz, there's a town of rabbits called Bunnybury, set up by Glinda. It only houses white rabbits, which seems to be a bit of bigotry on the part of the so-called Good Sorceress, but I like to think they integrated at some point. Also, the Easter Bunny himself has his own kingdom in a burrow beneath the Munchkin Country. There are a few other bunnies in minor roles, but my favorite Ozian rabbit is Wag, from Kabumpo. I'm not sure why a rabbit would be named Wag, but since Bunnybury has a singing group called the Winsome Waggish Warblers, perhaps there's some early twentieth century play on words involved that doesn't hold up in the modern era.


Nowhere in the book does Ruth Plumly Thompson describe Wag as wearing blue pants, but John R. Neill consistently draws him with them. Incidentally, I originally tried searching for "Wag Oz" and didn't come up with anything relevant, but did get this as a result. So I guess it wasn't a total loss. ;)

When Wag is first introduced, he's the companion of Ruggedo, the former Nome King, who's taken up living in a cavern underneath Ozma's palace. While Wag recognizes Rug's nasty personality and scheming tendencies, he also finds the Nome amusing, and is paid by the former Metal Monarch in jewels and stolen goods. When Ruggedo comes across a box of mixed magic, he tests out an Instantaneous Expanding Extract on Wag, making him grow to an enormous size (about six feet tall on his hind paws, I believe). Thus, he joins the ranks of oversized Ozian animals like the Woggle-Bug and the Frogman, and later Percy the Personality Kid. From the beginning, Wag is kind-hearted and short-tempered, and hitting his head in the process of growth adds the new character trait of being mixed up. He often speaks in spoonerisms, or uses the opposite of the word he means ("come ashort" instead of "come along," for instance). It's kind of a cheap characterization, I'll admit, but it works. I've always liked Wag, and he has a major role in one of the manuscripts I'm working on.

So where does Wag live now? The end of Kabumpo implies that all four main characters settled on Sun Top Mountain after Prince Pompadore's marriage to Princess Peg Amy, but Lost King and Purple Prince have the two of them and Kabumpo residing in Pumperdink. There's no indication of Wag being there, though, so I take this to mean that he remained on Sun Top.

All right, as I indicated last week, this week's myth will be that of Perseus. This Greek hero's story started when his grandfather, Acrisius of Argos, was told by the oracle at Delphi that he would be killed by his own grandson. In order to prevent this, he locked his daughter Danae up in a tower, apparently unaware of the mythological rules that: 1) any attempt to thwart fate will simply set into motion events leading to its fulfillment, and 2) a tower is hardly an effective means of birth control when your chief god is a horny bastard. Sure enough, Zeus showed up in a shower of gold and impregnated Danae, who gave birth to Perseus. Upon learning of this, Acrisius put the both of them in a wooden chest, which he set afloat on the sea. They ended up on the island of Seriphos, where King Polydectes fell in love with Danae. Wanting to get Perseus out of the way, he set the demigod up on a wild goose chase. Actually, more accurately, it was a wild Gorgon chase, to fetch the head of Medusa.



I'm sure everyone knows about Medusa, the woman with snakes for hair who would turn anyone to stone at a glance. While early mythology tended to speak of only one Gorgon, there were later three, quite possibly to match all the other triads of sisters in ancient lore. Perseus had to consult another one of these groups of three, the Graeae, in order to find out the whereabouts of the Gorgons. These three monstrous women shared one eye and one tooth between them, which must have been a hassle during mealtimes. Perseus wasn't left on his own to face all these monsters, however, having been given a helmet of invisibility by Hades, winged shoes (and/or a sword) by Hermes, and a mirror shield by Athena. There are many stories, both ancient and modern, in which supernatural assistance basically means the hero doesn't have to do anything but go through the motions, but Perseus must have had some skill of his own, since he was able to decapitate Medusa while looking at her through a mirror. The Gorgon's head retained its power of petrifaction, and Perseus used it in several subsequent adventures, sometimes including his encounter with Atlas. But his most significant exploit before returning to Seriphos involved his rescue of the Princess Andromeda from a sea monster at Joppa. So where's Joppa? Well, it's actually in Israel, and is more commonly known as Jaffa. Yet its rulers, King Cepheus and Queen Cassopeia, are referred to as Ethiopians. I've seen some speculation that this was a different Ethiopia than the one in Africa; but there's also Isaac Asimov's speculation that this was a time when Israel was dominated by Egypt, and they myth-makers confused the two African nations, or something like that. Regardless, Perseus rescues Andromeda, and they get married and eventually go on to become the ancestors of the Mycenaean rulers. But if Andromeda is Ethiopian, does that mean her union with Perseus was a mixed-race marriage? This was presumably not the intent, but I think it would have been cool. These nineteenth-century paintings definitely show her looking awfully white, but it's not like painters didn't do the same thing with Jesus.

( There's nudity in these pictures, but it's art. So that makes it cool, right? )

Anyway, Perseus went on to use the Gorgon's head to petrify Polydectes, and ended up accidentally killing his grandfather with a quoit or a discus. I remember this last part being presented as almost an afterthought in the versions of the myth I've read, as if the author had finished and then thought, "Oh, harpy crap, I forgot to resolve this bit about the oracle from the beginning!" I have to say I know how that is, since one of my Oz manuscripts has the Soldier with the Green Whiskers receiving a mysterious box, and then its barely being mentioned again after that. I have an idea for how I can use this box if I ever get around to editing the story, but that's another topic entirely. With myths, however, there are always multiple versions and no single recognized author, so it might just be that the editors of the versions I read (many of which were geared toward kids) chose to focus on the action scenes instead of the fatalism.

The story of Perseus was immortalized in the stars, with Perseus, Andromeda, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and the sea monster Cetus all being constellations. The Ethiopian king and queen actually look more like a child's drawing of a house and the letter W, respectively, but we can chalk that up to astronomical license. The constellation Perseus is right next to that of Pegasus, who is incorporated into less famous takes on the myth with the winged horse as the hero's means of transportation, rather than Hermes' footwear. The most interesting constellation, however, is Andromeda, as that's where the nearest spiral galaxy to our own can be seen from Earth. Because of this it's known as the Andromeda Galaxy. And if there are any camels there, I assume they're Andromedaries.

So, what is Munchkin government like? Well, there's a King of the Munchkins mentioned in both Ozma of Oz and The Road to Oz, but The Patchwork Girl of Oz says that Unc Nunkie "might have been King of the Munchkins, had not his people united with all the other countries of Oz in acknowledging Ozma as their sole ruler." The implication seems to be that the Munchkins don't have their own ruler at this point, even though the other three quadrants do. In The Giant Horse of Oz, we're told at the beginning that the Munchkin Country "is governed by a King of whom nothing much has been heard for many a long year," and it ends with Cheeriobed being crowned king in place of his vanished father. But since the same book reports that this father disappeared three years before the beginning of the Good Witch of the North's career, and this Witch appears in Wizard, Cheeriobed's father couldn't very well be the king from Ozma and Road.

Cheeriobed and his wife Orin rule through the rest of Ruth Plumly Thompson's books, but for some reason John R. Neill makes the Scarecrow ruler of the Munchkins (with his title alternating between King and Emperor). My preferred explanation is that Cheeriobed was taking a vacation, but there's also March Laumer's idea that the Scarecrow gradually took over government from Cheeriobed when it turned out he couldn't handle reigning over an entire quadrant. I don't believe any of the official books after Neill's make any reference to the ruler of the Munchkins, but since the Scarecrow appears frequently with no sign of his having any ruling duties, I tend to think Cheeriobed is back on throne after his brief absence.

I remember John Bell suggesting that the Munchkin kingship might be rotating, rather than strictly hereditary, which could explain how Unc Nunkie "might have been King of the Munchkins" even though he turns out to belong to a royal family other than Cheeriobed's. I've considered that the country could have had electors like the Holy Roman Empire, and that, together with the election season, inspired this brief piece:

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