Stratovania

Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates, and I guess anyone who doesn't as well, although maybe you prefer not to be reminded of it! It's weird to think about how Christmas traditionally had twelve days, but for me it's basically over on the first. I've even seen some people doing Twelve Days activities that END on the twenty-fifth. We do still have to exchange gifts with my family around New Year's, though. Since the last time I wrote a life update, we saw the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, got our own, and attended a holiday concert by the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra.

I've already written about most of the stuff we watched this year on WordPress, although there were a few repeat viewings as well, including Rudolph, Frosty, Garfield, the Grinch, Claymation, and Home Alone. Beth got the complete DVD set of Tales from the Darkside for her birthday, so we watched the Christmas episode of that first.

Called "Seasons of Belief," it's about a dad telling his kids (one of whom is Six from Blossom) a story he makes up on the spot about a monster called the Grither, who lives at the North Pole and goes after anyone who says his name. The kids' mom and uncle join in on scaring the jingle bells out of the children, even improvising lyrics about the monster to the tune of "O Come All Ye Faithful." SPOILER AHEAD! It ends with the Grither showing up and killing the parents, the implication being that belief brought it to life. You only ever see his arms, which are gigantic. END SPOILER. Earlier on, the mom mentions that, if kids don't believe in Santa Claus, then their toys will break, which is much more subtle a punishment than being hit with a switch or stuffed in a bag. Tavie and Sean came by on Thursday, and we watched Whoever Slew Auntie Roo, a rewatch for Beth and me. They gave me a DuckTales T-shirt, which reminds me that we still need to watch the newer series.

On Christmas Eve, we saw the Christmas episode of The Odd Couple, "Scrooge Gets an Oscar," where Felix really wants Oscar to play Scrooge in the play he's directing, but Oscar wants nothing to do with it, as he and his ex-wife were married on Christmas Day. Of course he changes his mind after having a Scrooge-themed dream.


We'd tried two other times to go to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, but Beth's mom was sick the first time, and the second it was sold out. We finally went on Saturday evening. During the pandemic, they changed it from a wagon ride to a drive-thru, but more recently they've had both. I don't really like driving through, though, as the view isn't as good. The wagon takes the same road as the cars. Most of the lights were the same this time, but they're always fun.

The music played during the ride included a Christmas song adapted from the Flintstones theme, even though they could have chosen from a few actual Flintstones holiday songs instead.


They had a giant inflatable Bumble near the entrance, and a Grinch a little further on.

I also noticed some rather sinister-looking decorations inside.


Beth and I tend to sleep late when we don't have to get up for work, although I sometimes find myself waking up and doing something for a little while before trying to get back to sleep. I played a little bit of Animal Crossing, and delivered presents for Jingle, the reindeer who comes to visit for Toy Day. As with Easter and Bunny Day, it's an equivalent of the Christian holiday that only keeps the more secular elements. Santa Claus is mentioned, but doesn't show up.

Anyway, we didn't open our presents until afternoon. Beth gave me tickets to see Spamalot in January, as well as a CD of the original cast recording.

That's something that's likely up my alley, but I hadn't really thought about seeing. Along the same lines, Uncle John gave me a set of Song of Ice and Fire books. I remember starting to read the first one and not being that invested in it, but I'll definitely give it another chance. Then maybe I'll need to watch the TV show. We'll see about that. I'm late to most popular things. Nellie enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper.

She's staying back in New Jersey for the next week. And tomorrow we have work, because we don't do Boxing Day in this country.

In an attempt to remain somewhat current on writing about seasonal events, I'll start this with what Beth and I did the Saturday before last. There's a Halloween event called Halloween House set up in malls around the area, and it's advertised as being not scary. Of course, what's scary is very subjective, but there's no one jumping out at you or anything. See, this guy is just chilling on the couch.

And this witch looks friendly, right?

We went to the one at the Menlo Park Mall, and walked around for a while before we found it. It has several rooms, each decorated in a different spooky theme. One had witches and potions, others were themed like a pumpkin patch and a graveyard, one was based on Stranger Things (which I haven't seen, but Beth has), and another on The Nightmare Before Christmas.

It didn't take long to see everything, but you could throw bean bags at targets.

There weren't any employees in the individual rooms, just at the entrance, so I have to wonder if kids are touching stuff when nobody is watching. Maybe they have cameras or something. The mall also had a store with Batman holding Pikachu in its display window. Has that crossover happened yet?

And Wonder Woman was getting in on the Halloween spirit.


On Thursday, we went to Green-Wood Cemetery for their Nightfall event, which was pretty similar to Moonrise last year, although we didn't get tote bags and they didn't have any food. While there were lanterns lighting the paths where stuff was happening, it was still kind of confusing to figure out which way to go, and to make sure we weren't just passing the same stuff over and over again.

One person was giving a lecture about ancient Egyptian beliefs on the afterlife, and comparing it to going on vacation. The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus was there again, and we saw a magician, jugglers, a tightrope walker, and a guy on stilts playing the ukulele.

I also went to the eye doctor that day, and it turned out my prescription hadn't changed. That's good, as I only just got new glasses a few months ago.


Friday's activity was the Haunted Junkyard for the Scullville Fire Company near Egg Harbor, New Jersey, which had both a maze and a hayride. What was kind of interesting about the maze was that the way through, while it twisted around a lot, was pretty obvious, except for one dead end near the exit. One thing they did quite a bit in it was to have colored lights to make your eyesight go wonky. There were costumed people sneaking up on customers in the maze and in line. The hayride was fairly standard, except with more old cars and trailers along the route. And this wagon had actual hay in it. Some kid sitting near us kept pointing out that he didn't find it scary, which is annoyingly common on things like that. What, do they expect people to be impressed? That happens at amusement parks, too. Anyway, we went to a Spirit Halloween for the first time this year on Saturday, although we didn't get anything. I noticed they're still really emphasizing creepy clowns. They had several of this guy, whom we saw outside a grocery store in Brooklyn a few days earlier.

Anyone want to stand under a clown crotch? Beth tried it, but the pictures didn't come out well.
And quite a few costumes were identified as "union suits," which really just means it's a one-piece outfit, but some of the labels made me think that maybe animals are starting to participate in organized labor.


That's it as far as actual activities, but I will mention that we've eaten at Panera Bread three times this month, once before Dorney Park, once at the mall, and once yesterday. Beth hadn't even been to one prior to last year. They're kind of pricey, but I do like it. The past two times, I had flatbread pizza and chicken noodle soup, kind of a weird combination, but it worked for me. I remember Panera having annoying commercials where they said it had "good, clean food," as if implying that the food was dirty elsewhere. There's also a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike (I think) that says "Eat clean, bro," although I can't remember what it's actually advertising. I guess I kind of see it as a combination of shaming people for liking unhealthy food and accepting that something IS healthy because the people selling it tell you it is. But plenty of things are much better than their advertising would suggest.

On Thursday evening, we went to see Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk Cinema in Park Slope. That one is more convenient to get to than the one in Williamsburg. Before the show, we got some food at Dog Day Afternoon, a nearby hot dog place. I had the kielbasa with mustard. Kevin Maher's co-host this time was Amber Dextrous, and the theme of the evening was dinosaurs. Kevin started by listing the various types of media stories involving dinosaurs, including the period piece, the period piece with liberties, time travel, dimensional travel, the lost world, and the dinosaur theme park. The liberties usually mean humans living alongside dinosaurs, The Flintstones being the obvious example, but there were plenty of old movies that did the same thing in a less intentionally comedic way. The example for dimensional travel was Land of the Lost, but I actually thought of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was addressed later on in the show. For theme parks, Kevin forwent the one everyone knows in favor of the Martin Short film Clifford. I forgot if there were any more categories; I guess dinosaurs on another planet could be one, but that's kind of just the lost world with space travel. Paleontologist Riley Black, who had consulted on the Jurassic Park franchise, did a remote segment discussing prehistoric animals. Corey S. Powell talked about whether dinosaurs and humans could be friends, bringing up Sleestaks, Barney, and Dino. And Chris Cummins had some thoughts on comics featuring dinosaurs, starting with a batshit crazy Chick Tract that I remember talking about before, and also bringing up how DC's Star Spangled War Heroes series eventually started using dinosaurs. He showed some of his favorite dinosaur-related panels, including Fred and Barney talking about participating in a genocide from the gritty Flintstones comic, and the Kool-Aid Man meeting the Purplesaurus Rex.

I'm kind of surprised he didn't include this Spider-Man one that I see a lot online.

The Kindest Cut was something called Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills, with a medicine man turning Beverly D'Angelo into...well, you can figure that out from the title. They finished with a clip from the last episode of Dinosaurs, where Earl accidentally causes the Ice Age and extinction. I actually saw that one when it was new. Incidentally, they showed a few clips from Tammy and the T-Rex before the show, and I thought the dinosaurs from that movie looked similar to the ones from Dinosaurs. I don't think there's any real connection, but it was made during the run of the TV show.


On Saturday, we went to Six Flags Great Adventure. We used to go there kind of a lot, and even had season passes for a few years in the early 2000s, but it's been a while since our last visit. While we went to a lot of amusement parks last year, this wasn't one of them, even though it's fairly close. It's in central New Jersey, so it's about the same distance from where Beth grew up and where we live now. Fright Fest, their Halloween event, had already started, so there were a lot of appropriate decorations, and at night some employees walking around in costume, many of them dragging shovels along the pavement.

If nothing else, that's certainly a grating sound. Perhaps because it's so long before October, the park wasn't all that crowded, and most of the rides had pretty short lines. The longest wait we had was for Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, and that was more because of the way the ride works than because there were all that many people waiting; there's no way the lines can't move slowly for something like that.

It's a park that really focuses on roller coasters, and there are a lot of them there. We rode two that hadn't been there on our last visit, the Joker and the Jersey Devil Coaster. The former is one that not only goes along a track but also flips the cars around, while the latter has a narrow track that's quite twisty.

One weird thing about both of these is that they don't have anywhere to temporarily leave loose items while you ride, so Beth and I took turns on them. If the lines had been longer, I probably would have sprung for a locker. Skull Mountain, Nitro, Superman, and the Runaway Mine Train were all the same as they ever were, as far as I could tell.

Batman: The Ride is the same, but they got rid of a lot of stuff to see while waiting in line, and Alfred no longer does the ride announcements. We'd only been on the Dark Knight Coaster once before, but I remember it as having TV screens along the route, and they aren't there now.

Medusa was briefly rebranded as Bizarro, with a new paint job and some relevant decorations added along the track; but it was later restored to how it was before. I have no idea why the rebrand didn't stick, but I like the classic design better anyway. Presumably because it's right next to where the Joker is now, the small coaster Blackbeard's Train is now Harley Quinn's Crazy Train.

It's short, but they ran each load of passengers twice. I don't know if that's standard practice or just because there weren't many people in line. Kingda Ka and El Toro, which apparently both have a lot of problems, were both closed. We've ridden both before, but the former was having technical difficulties when it was new as well. The non-coaster rides we went on that I haven't mentioned yet were Houdini's Great Escape, the SkyScreamer, the Swashbuckler, Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, Cyborg Cyber Spin, the Big Wheel, the Carousel, and Parachute Training Center. I'd never been on the first one, although it's been there for a long time; I don't think I really noticed it before. The seats move up and down a bit, but most of the movement is illusionary, with parts of the room moving around. The SkyScreamer is like the standard swing ride, but goes up a lot higher; while the Swashbuckler is the kind of ride that pushes riders against the outside.

Battle for Metropolis is the kind of ride that's also a game, where you ride along a track and shoot at stuff on screens, with a story involving trying to rescue some captured members of the Justice League from the Joker and Lex Luthor. I don't think we'd been on any rides of this sort prior to this year, when we went on three (this, Toy Story Midway Mania at Disneyland, and Reese's Cupfusion at Hersheypark). By the way, Six Flags seems to have started doing candy promotion themselves in addition to the Looney Tunes and DC Comics stuff, with Mars as their sponsor.

Ferris wheels used to scare me despite being very tame rides, and I think the reason was that, due to the way they have to load, you're just stuck sitting up in the air for a while. Other rides go a lot higher, but don't stay there long enough for you to really absorb it. But the Giant Wheel didn't bother me this time. 


We don't see a lot of plays, but Beth was drawn in by an online ad for Death of a Salesman, so we saw it at the Hudson Theatre on Monday. She didn't really know anything about it, while I sort of did. I think it was something I was supposed to read in high school and didn't, but was able to gather the gist of it from class. Maybe I would have read it if I hadn't had so many other assignments at the same time. Or maybe I was just lazy. I don't know. Anyway, this production has Black actors playing the Loman family, with Wendell Pierce as Willy and Sharon D. Clarke as Linda, both reprising their roles from the recent London production.

Andre De Shields appears as Willy's rich brother Ben, who pretends to be wise but is really just full of crap, kind of like the Wiz.Its critique of measuring success through money and the American dream is still relevant today, although nowadays I'm pretty sure even a more successful traveling salesman wouldn't be able to afford a house in Brooklyn. Before the show, we ate at a nearby family style Italian place, which was quite good, and not that expensive when you consider that we were sharing the entree, baked ziti bolognese.

Okay, I guess that's all there is for now. It's supposed to get a little on the chilly side this weekend, but our building really cranks the heat up starting around the fall, so we'll probably still need fans and such.

After OzCon and our visit with Stephanie, we checked in at the hotel in Anaheim. It's one of those ones that isn't on Disney property, but has an arrangement with the park, including transportation as part of the price. It also included a breakfast buffet, including a station where a cook made omelettes and waffles.

Even Beth liked it, and she's normally against typical breakfast foods. Driving around the Los Angeles area is kind of fascinating because of how so many entertainment media are based there, so you come across a lot of place names that you've heard in movies and TV, but were largely meaningless to someone growing up in Pennsylvania. We did a lot of freeway driving during the time we were there, and it's too bad they had to destroy Toontown to build that. We also drove by the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank when we went with Stephanie to a coffee shop near there.

Considering how spread out Walt Disney World is, it's kind of fascinating that Disneyland is relatively small, and there's an IHOP right across the street from the entrance with a sign forbidding parking for Disney.


The first thing we rode on at the park was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, although we did the walkthrough of Sleeping Beauty's Castle before that.

A lot of the stuff we were most interested in was in Fantasyland. The Mr. Toad ride is one that seems to get mentioned quite a lot. I remember one Simpsons episode with something called "Mr. Frog's Mild Ride," maybe not a great joke but one that stuck with me.

The ride itself runs along a curving track with scenes from The Wind in the Willows, and ends up in Hell.

I guess that's the moral message, that if you drive recklessly and try to outrun the cops, you'll be eternally damned. Was this ride the inspiration for Grand Theft Auto? Other rides in the area had the same basic theme of riding through scenes from an animated movie.

Snow White's Enchanted Wish, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, and Peter Pan's Flight are all right in there together, although we ended up not riding that last one until Wednesday. They all give some sense of the story while you're waiting in line, and I found it strange that the Snow White one didn't even mention the Queen trying to kill her. The poison apple is part of the ride, but the part with the huntsman is glossed over.

The Casey Jr. Circus Train and Storybook Land Canal Boats are right next to each other, and go past a lot of the same stuff, largely miniature versions of places from movies.

When I first saw Monstro, I figured it must be part of the Pinocchio ride, but it's actually the beginning of the boat ride.

The Matterhorn was another one that's exclusive to Disneyland, and that was fun. The theming reminded me of the Germany section of Busch Gardens in Virginia.

I know the real Matterhorn is in Switzerland, but it's close enough for jazz. Or polka. Or theme parks. Apparently the Yeti on the ride is named Harold, and the one at Expedition Everest in Disney World is Betty. Hmm, that's my dad and Beth's mom.

Next, we rode Alice in Wonderland, and had some dinner at the Red Rose Taverne. Beth had a cheeseburger, and I had pepperoni and cheese flatbread. (Is there really a difference between that and pizza?)

After dinner, we rode Indiana Jones Adventure and Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not sure why it was necessary to add Jack Sparrow to the ride, but I've only seen the first one of those movies. I liked the film pretty well, but there's something to be said for preserving the original layout. And Johnny Depp is rather problematic these days. Then we unsuccessfully tried to get a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade. Fortunately, there was another one later that night.

The parade has been running on and off since 1972, and still has the relentlessly cheerful yet somehow a bit unsettling electronic music. They Might Be Giants did a cover of it, and it's so well suited to them.

I noticed that the floats included both Goofy and Dopey driving trains.

Also, there were several that had heroes and villains hanging out together. I saw Colin Ayres at the ice cream shop before the parade; he and a few other OzCon attendees were also visiting the park that day, but I didn't run into anyone else I knew. Our last stop before leaving the park was Tomorrowland, where we rode the Astro Orbiter (okay, that one was actually before the parade), Autopia, and Space Mountain.

I believe I'd first heard of Autopia in the NES game Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, which my family rented once back in the day. Space Mountain was different from the one at Disney World.


Next time, we have a California Adventure!

I miss having the cats around, but they couldn't stay with us where we're currently living, so they're at Beth's mom's house. I saw them this past weekend for the first time in about a month, and they were pretty aloof.

Reagan, who used to want attention from me all the time, wouldn't even come out from under the bed the first night, and that made me sad. Later, however, she got up on the bed and wanted me to pet and scratch her for quite a while.

I wonder if she doesn't fully trust me now. I'm not sure I blame her if she doesn't. She has a habit of rubbing her face against things, and while that's normal for a cat, she does so frantically and urgently that I think she's hurting herself. The area above her eyes looks kind of scratched up, and we thought it might have been from fighting with Wally, but we're pretty sure now she does it to herself. They both spend most of their time upstairs in the room where I sleep when I'm there (Beth and I sleep apart there, not for reasons of modesty, but because the beds aren't very big), probably because it's less noisy and the dogs don't come up there. I don't think they have anything against the dogs, but they like to have their own space. While we were down there, we also went to a birthday party for Beth's aunt's friend, although the aunt in question didn't attend.


I never said anything about Kevin Geeks Out on the week before last. It was a night of supercuts, which are basically a movie or television episode trimmed down to its most significant parts. They show one at each of his shows, but this particular show was nothing else. The cut-down movies included a kung-fu wizard film, a made-for-TV Tobe Hooper movie with a particular focus on Hooper's hatred of neckties (his bad guys, including the psychotic redneck Leatherface, pretty much always wear them), and Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. I haven't seen any of the Godzilla movies, but that title always stuck with me. It apparently was one of the least successful films in the series, but what struck me was how everyone basically seemed to take a gigantic atomic reptile at face value by this point. Well, that, and how over-the-top the acting was for the English dub of the main kid, who was a total Godzilla fanboy. There was also a video essay on monsters leering at human women. One thing I'm kind of sorry we didn't see was Wonder Woman fighting a Nazi gorilla, but that was an audience choice up against Jeff Goldblum as the Big Bad Wolf on Fairy Tale Theatre, and how could you not vote for the latter?

I've already written about how I couldn't beat Rhapthorne in Dragon Quest VIII, so I switched to Kirby Triple Deluxe for a little while. Maybe I'll write about that this week, if I get the chance. I also checked out where I'd left off in Dragon Quest VI, but while I remembered what I had to do next, I couldn't quite recall how I'd gotten there. From what I recall, it's one of the more convoluted games in the series. And OzCon is coming up later this week, so I'm excited for that and nervous about the trip there.

So, I'd been kicking around the idea of a story where Jack Pumpkinhead and some other Oz characters visit a Halloween-themed island at least partially inhabited by minotaurs for maybe twenty years now, and never got around to writing it. I did start it, but I've long since lost the file. I remember most of what I'd written, however; it wasn't that much. I finally decided to go ahead and finish it this month. Let me know what you think. It's not very spooky, but there are ghosts and monsters in it. There are probably some elements that could use some fleshing out (which would make more food for the ghouls). When I can actually think of an ending, I'm often in a hurry to get there. I have considered the question as to how there could be a lot of minotaurs when the one in Greek mythology had a unique and thoroughly disgusting origin story, but I ultimately decided not to answer it here. Let's just say a wizard did it. Or maybe multiple wizards, working on some sort of monster breeding program. There's a spell in Melody Grandy's Zim Greenleaf of Oz that can combine multiple beings into one, which could enable the creation of more minotaurs without the need for mechanical bovine sex. And a minotaur did show up in Marin Xiques and Chris Dulabone's Brewster Bunny and the Case of the Purloined Pachyderm of Oz. She even provides a somewhat toned-down retelling of the original myth, although she doesn't explain where she came from.

HALLOWEEN ISLAND

By Nathan M. DeHoff



Out in the middle of the great Nonestic Ocean that surrounds the fairy continent on which the Land of Oz is located, Trot, the Wizard of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead, and the Scarecrow were guests aboard the Crescent Moon, the ship of the Royal Explorer of Oz. The Explorer was a man named Samuel Salt, a former pirate who now served Ozma of Oz. Also on board was his friend Ato, accomplished sea cook and King of the Octagon Isle besides; and his faithful companion Roger the Read Bird. As many of the ship’s functions were automated and enchanted, there was no need for a large crew, despite the size of the vessel.

“We should be comin’ up on the new island in a day or two,” announced the Captain. “Uninhabited, as far as we could tell, but you can’t always tell.”

“I’ll say,” agreed Roger. “Remember that island with the man-eating grass?”

“Ho, DO I?” roared Captain Salt.

“That reminds me of when Cap’n Bill and I were trapped on that island with the Magic Flower,” said Trot. “It was slowly absorbing our bodies.”

“The flower?”

“No, the island itself. Oh, be careful, Jack!”

The girl was right to say this, as Jack was leaning over the side of the boat, engrossed in a nearby school of orange and black fish. Sure enough, the pumpkin that served as his head fell into the water. His wooden body, having no common sense without the pumpkin seed brains in its head, immediately followed suit.

“Man overboard!” shouted Roger, causing everyone to run to see where Jack had fallen.

“Do we need a life preserver?” questioned King Ato.

“I wouldn’t think so,” stated the Wizard. “Jack is made of wood, and can float. I might be able to manage a quick levitation spell to bring him back, if I can find him.”

Despite the fact that very little time had passed since Jack’s fall, the crew could see no sign of him. So the Wizard used his Searchlight, a handheld device that that can track people and objects, and used it to follow Jack’s body.

************************************************************************************

Jack’s head had been dragged by the fish to an island, where they promptly deposited it on a beach of orange sand. A man with a bull’s head was sitting nearby, reading a novel. When he noticed the pumpkin, he picked it up and began to rush away toward the center of the island.

“What an excellent specimen of a pumpkin!” exclaimed the bull-man. “This will work perfectly for the festivities tonight.”

“Festivities? What festivities are you talking about?” asked the pumpkin head.

“What? You can talk? What sorcery is this?”

“It was the Powder of Life that did it. Of course, my heads do die eventually, but this one was still quite good.”

“Well, a talking pumpkin is good enough. By Hades, it might actually be better.”

“Better for what?”

“You’ll see. Oh, by the way, my name is Ferdinand.”

“I’m Jack. Is everyone here a bull-man like you?”

“Minotaur, if you please. And no, there are several different sorts on this island, but we minotaurs are the most civilized. The ghouls are always just shambling around, and the Rodentians spend all their time gnawing. We have a society based on that of ancient Greece.”

“Sounds fattening.”

The two did not talk after that, with Ferdinand bringing the pumpkin through a maze to a wide-open area that served as a marketplace and grounds for public activities. Minotaurs were busy setting up decorations, and many of them were holding pumpkins.

“Ah, Ferdinand!” called a man in a wig. “That’s a nice pumpkin you have there. Where did you find it? They rarely grow that big around here.”

“I found it on the beach. And not only is it large, but it talks.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Jack. “Is there any way you can help look for my body? We really can’t bear to be separated.”

“You have a body?”

“Yes, it’s made of wood. My father made it for me.”

“Oh, well, you’ll have no need of it after the festivities.”

“You’re not going to eat me, are you?” inquired Jack, who himself often prepared pumpkin pies from pumpkins not fit to be new heads.

“Oh, no. We’re just going to smash you.”

**********************************************************************************

“Land ho, Captain!” shouted the Read Bird, after about half an hour of sailing.

“Land? I haven’t heard of any land ‘round here. Did it pop up out of nowhere?”

“Sometimes I suspect that kind of thing happens in Fairyland,” observed the Scarecrow. “How else would we still be discovering new lands within Oz, when we’ve had years to explore, and it only takes a few days to walk across?”

Regardless, the Captain continued sailing the ship toward the newly found island, which was fairly large in extent. Beyond the orange sands of the shore could be seen some rather gnarly, foreboding trees.

“I’m sure glad we aren’t here at night,” observed Trot.

“My Searchlight is pointing in two different directions, probably for Jack’s body and head,” stated the Wizard. “It’s likely that they’re both here, though.”

After dropping anchor, the small crew used a boat to reach the island. The Searchlight led them through the grim forest, where strange toadstools grew at the bases of the trees, and bats napped in their branches. Eventually, they came out into a clearing, and to some high marble walls.

“What’s this?” asked Roger. “It looks like some kind of maze.”

“Aye, a labyrinth of sorts,” agreed Captain Salt.

The entrance was nearby, and the Captain hurried in, quickly followed by Trot and King Ato, with Roger flying overhead. The Wizard was about to enter, when the Scarecrow called his attention to something happening nearby. A man on a large black horse had found what appeared to be a collection of wood on the ground. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a wooden body without a head. The horseman, who himself had no visible head, grabbed the body and galloped off. The Wizard and the Scarecrow chased after him, eventually seeing the horse enter the mouth of a cave. The magician and the straw man pursued the horseman down a dark tunnel into a large cavern lit by red torches set in the walls. Slouched people with grey or blue skin and tattered clothes wandered here and there through the cavern, some of them carrying various items. At a nearby table sat a rather strange crew of people. At the head was a woman with green skin, a long nose, and black hair, dressed in the traditional garb of a witch. On one side of her was a kindly-looking woman wearing many items of jewelry, and on the other a rather large and ungainly man with a flat-topped head and bolts in his neck. A tall skeleton in a high silk hat like the Wizard’s and a goat-like devil were seated in other chairs.

“Ah, greetings, Mr. Dullahan,” said the witch. “What is it you have found?”

The horseman replied in sign language, with the horse translating. “It’s a wooden body. It has no head, but I can tell it’s alive, much like myself.”

“Interesting. I wonder if it ever had one.”

“Yes, it did!” exclaimed the Scarecrow, as he rushed toward the table. “It’s my friend Jack Pumpkinhead, and his head was a pumpkin.”

“Sounds like he’d fit in well,” chuckled the skeleton.

“Yes, and so would you, if you didn’t have such a friendly face,” added the witch. “You’re a scarecrow, aren’t you?”

“I am, but I was never much good at scaring crows. It’s why I was made, but I soon gave up on it, obtained my excellent brains, and went into politics, which I’ve been told is a good career for a stuffed man.”

“You’re from Oz, aren’t you?” inquired the woman with the jewelry.

“I see my reputation precedes me. I am the Chief Counselor to Her Majesty, Ozma of Oz. And here you see the Great Wizard of Oz, otherwise known as Oscar Diggs.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said the witch. “My name is Emjiem, and I’m sort of the unofficial leader down here. This is Zinaro, a gypsy…oh, I’m sorry, do you prefer Romany?”

“I’m not too particular,” said the woman. “I hail from neither Egypt nor Romania, after all.”

“Very true. This is Adam, the famous creation of Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Actually, he never received his doctorate,” corrected the monster, in a surprisingly erudite voice.

“Frankenstein? I’ve read that story!” said the Wizard. “Didn’t you die in the Arctic after hunting down your creator?”

“Yes, that part was true, but someone who’s been brought back to life once can be again. Unfortunately, the magician who rescued me and brought me here dropped my head in the process, which is why it’s flat on top and he had to bolt it back on.”

“If Frankenstein is here, what about Dracula?”

“That sanguine-sucking snob Vlad?” said the devil incredulously. “He’d never show his princely face in a place like this. How often do you think royalty visits us?”

“Well, the Wizard and I were both rulers of Oz,” declared the Scarecrow.

“Then you’re a lot more personable than the Transylvanian,” said the witch. “This is Tom Bones, our living skeleton. I’ll wager you’ve never seen one of them before.”

“Actually, I’ve met a live dinosaur skeleton before,” said the Scarecrow.

“Well, la-de-dah,” said Tom, in a dry tone. “We can’t all of us be prehistoric monsters, you know.”

“Oh, no offense intended, Mr. Bones.”

“A dinosaur skeleton sounds like it would be a good addition to our society,” mused Emjiem. “Do you think it would want to relocate here?”

“He seemed quite happy where he was.”

“Oh, well. The gentleman with the tail is Arbarax, and the man on the horse is Abraham Dullahan. We’re all of us symbols of terror here.”

“Unfairly, I should say,” stated Arbarax. “Why would red skin and the features of a goat automatically make people flee in terror? They’re not actually scared of goats, are they?”

“Well, maybe when they’re charging,” said the Wizard.

“Cash or charge, it’s all the same to me. Poor Adam here was disowned by his creator based on how he looked. Everyone said he was an unnatural abomination.”

“I’m sure there are people who would say that about a living scarecrow,” said the straw man.

“So, would you people from Oz like to join us for dinner?” questioned Emjiem. “We were having pigs in blankets.”

“Those are sausages in blankets, not actual pigs,” added Arbarax.

“Well, I don’t eat, but I’d be glad to stay if we weren’t looking for our friend’s head.”

“Hmmm,” said Zinaro, closing her eyes and pressing her fingers to her temples. “The head you seek has been taken by the minotaurs who live above ground.”

“Minotaurs? Like part man, part bull?” questioned the Wizard. “But I thought there was only one of them, who was slain by the hero Theseus.”

“When’s the last time you ever saw just one of anything?” questioned Tom.

“My friend the Woozy is one of a kind, at least as far as we know,” replied the Scarecrow. “And I don’t know of any other live scarecrows.”

“What about your friend Jack?” asked Adam.

“While there are indeed scarecrows made of wood instead of stuffed with straw, I would hesitate to place Jack in that category. He wasn’t made to scare crows, whether successfully or not, but rather to scare a witch.”

“There are witches who would be scared of wooden men?” inquired Emjiem.

“Well, I never said he succeeded. Mombi ended up using him to test her Powder of Life.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of Mombi. She was very successful for a witch who mostly only dealt in transformations.”

“So, anyway, how do we get to the surface?” asked the Wizard, who did not like to be reminded of his own dealings with Mombi.

“We have an elevator, but it’s on the fritz, so I’ll just take us there.” With that, Emjiem stood up, spun around a few times while holding her nose with her left hand, and promptly disappeared in a puff of green smoke smelling of sulfur. The Wizard, the Scarecrow, Zinaro, and Jack’s body promptly followed suit, promptly emerging in the clearing where the minotaurs were debating over the fate of Jack’s head.

“Why are we even trying to get through this maze?” asked Ato. “We don’t even know what’s on the other side.”

“They wouldn’t have put it here if there weren’t some purpose to it. Besides, the Wizard said part of our friend Jack was in this direction,” replied Captain Salt.

“There’s a sign over on this wall. Does anyone know what “ayopa” means?”

“It’s Greek to me,” said Trot.

“You know, it COULD be Greek,” mused the Captain. “Roger, do you know Greek?”

“I was planning on learning it, but Ato said it wouldn’t be appropriate for an official of the Octagon Isle to know NINE languages,” said Roger in an irritated tone. “He said I’d have to either forget one of the languages I already know or relocate to Nonagon Island.”

“Look, Roger, I have an image to maintain,” stated the King. “I’d never actually send you to Nonagon Island, though.”

“There’s a Nonagon Island?” inquired Trot.

“Aye, ‘tis a small, barren place due north of Ev, inhabited only by nine fishermen,” explained Captain Salt.

“Hey, that’s one more fisherman than we have on our island,” said Roger.

“I think we’re coming to something,” observed the girl. “It looks like a marketplace. Oh, of course! That sign meant ‘agora,’ which I think is some kind of old Greek market.”

“It looks to be full of upright bovines, a fascinating new species,” said Samuel.

“I think they might have been in Greek mythology, too.”

“Well, for an Outside World country, the Greeks seem to have been rather familiar with unusual species. From what I’ve heard, they knew about the Pegasus, the Chimera, the Hydra, and the Centaur. I understand that you call centaurs something else in Oz, however.”

“Equinots. That’s their name for themselves, anyway.”

The visitors proceeded to explore the agora, nodding politely to the minotaurs they passed, many of whom were engaged in putting up decorations in autumn colors. There were also tubs set up for apple bobbing. The minotaurs did not seem to find anything all that strange about humans being in their public space, and mostly ignored them.

“They must be getting ready for some sort of celebration,” said Ato.

“Yes, esteemed visitors, the Spirit Festival is tonight,” stated a nearby minotaur, who was carrying a box of noisemakers. “I figured that’s why you would have come here.”

“What day is today?” asked Trot.

“October the thirty-first,” answered the Captain, checking his log book.

“That must mean the Spirit Festival is their version of Halloween. It’s also Betsy’s birthday. Too bad I’m missing it.”

Roger promptly noticed a puff of green smoke near the center of the agora, and led the others toward it. It turned out that the Wizard and the Scarecrow had just appeared there, in the company of a green lady and a gypsy.

Ferdinand had brought Jack’s head to a minotaur in a white wig, who congratulated him on finding such a fine specimen of a pumpkin. When Jack objected to being smashed, the wigged bull-man checked a tablet, and claimed that there was no exception to the rule for talking pumpkins. In fact, he agreed with Ferdinand that a shouting pumpkin would be much better at making noise.

“Why are you so intent on making noise, anyway?” questioned Jack.

“Why, to scare away the ghosts, of course!” replied the minotaur in the wig.

Before Jack could ask what ghosts these were, the Wizard and his companions promptly appeared in a puff of smoke, and Captain Salt and his friends came hurrying over from a different direction. The head called out, “Am I glad to see you! These crazy cows want to smash me on the ground to scare some ghosts!”

“That doesn’t sound all that likely,” said Trot. “I’m sure it takes more than a broken pumpkin to scare a ghost.”

“It’s not JUST the pumpkins,” explained the minotaur in the wig. “We fill the space with all kinds of noise and chaos. Otherwise, who knows what they’ll do? Destroy our crops? Steal our calves? Turn our togas inside out?”

“Have they ever actually done any of these things?” questioned Roger.

“Well, no, but that’s because we always scare them first. They usually only show up at this time of year. I’ve heard stories about them being seen at other times, but no conclusive evidence.”

“The borders between the worlds of the living and the dead ARE weaker during the last days of autumn,” confirmed Emjiem.

“Has anyone tried talking to them?” asked Jack.

“We can’t, even if we wanted to,” answered the minotaur. “They only seem to speak Greek.”

“Wasn’t that sign in your labyrinth Greek, mate?” inquired Captain Salt.

“Our ancestors spoke it, but now we just speak Ozish.”

“I might be able to get around that,” stated the Wizard, rummaging through his black bag. “And if all else fails, I’ve exorcised ghosts before.”

“They all seem to be in pretty good shape,” said Ferdinand.

“No, I mean I banished them. So, is there any way to call them?”

“I should be able to do that,” declared Zinaro. First, the Wizard took a few language pills from his bag, and gave one to the gypsy and one to the minotaur judge. After the three of them swallowed the pills, Zinaro directed everyone present to hold hands in a circle. Soon, the wispy form of a man in bronze battle armor and holding a sword appeared in the center.

“Well, what is it YOU want?” asked the ghost.

“I can understand you now!” exclaimed the judge.

“Yes, it’s the result of the language pill,” explained the Wizard. “Its effects only last a little while, unfortunately. So, are you one of the ghosts haunting this island?”

“We prefer ‘shades’ to ‘ghosts,’ and I wouldn’t say we’re haunting it. We’re stuck here, and we’d much rather not be. The minotaurs are just so noisy and rambunctious. We can only materialize at this time of year, but we have to listen to them all year ‘round.”

“But how did ghosts come to be stranded here?”

“To tell you the truth, it’s a punishment. We were monster hunters a few thousand years ago, just after the Trojan War. We’d thought Theseus, the King of Athens, killed the only minotaur in the world, but then we started seeing others. They weren’t really doing much of anything, except for occasionally knocking things over, but we thought we could achieve glory by hunting them down and slaying them. They all ended up leaving, though.”

“According to our history,” began the judge, “our ancestors requested help from the god Poseidon, who brought us to this island.”

“Well, Poseidon must have told his brother Hades, because our shades were forced to live here among the beasts we once hunted. We all learned our lesson, but that was centuries ago. Why are we still here?”

“The will of the gods is not something we have the power to explain. We’re not even sure they still exist, but we still pay tribute to Poseidon.”

“I wonder if there’s something else we can do,” suggested the Wizard. He explained the dilemma to his friends, who had been unable to understand them when they were conversing in Greek. After a bit of thinking, Jack suddenly remarked, “If the noise is their biggest problem, why not just put them somewhere where they can’t hear?”

“That won’t do much good if they’re stranded here,” objected Ferdinand.

“What about a sound-proof building?”

“Jack, I don’t know how they did it, but your pumpkin seed brains might have devised the solution. I’ve been experimenting with sound-proof materials, and I believe we could accomplish such a thing.”

With some help from minotaur carpenters, ghouls, and the monsters from the cave, the Wizard had soon constructed a wooden shelter large enough for the shades, from which they were unable to hear the noise outside. It was a crude dwelling at first, but the minotaurs and shades were soon making plans to construct a full-size haunted house, which would draw in tourists. When Trot mentioned that the day celebrated on the thirty-first of October in other parts of the world was called Halloween, Jack suggested that for the name of the island, having remembered hearing that Easter Island was discovered on Easter Sunday.

“I’d say that’s your right as discoverer,” said Captain Salt.

“Don’t forget that we were living here for a long time before you discovered us,” put in the judge. “Still, I like the sound of the name. What do you think, Emjiem?”

Since everyone was agreeable, that became the official name of the island, which was promptly recorded on the captain’s charts and log book, giving Jack Pumpkinhead credit for being the first Ozite to set foot, as well as head, there. The islanders presented the visitors with several gifts, including a small golden carving of a minotaur that Trot would give to Betsy Bobbin for the birthday she missed. And Halloween Island remains a popular attraction to the inhabitants of the Nonestic region.

Since I've had my mind on water monsters recently, I figured I might as well turn my attention to that pillar of cryptozoology, the Loch Ness Monster. I'm not entirely sure why Nessie would capture the public imagination more than any other monsters that conspiracy nuts claim to have seen, but it has, being right up there with Bigfoot. Nessiemania started in the early thirties, with the Inverness Courier publishing a supposed sighting of the creature in 1933. The following year was when the most famous picture of the monster, known as the Surgeon's Photo, was taken.

In 1994, it was revealed that this picture was a hoax, with its actual subject being a toy submarine with a sculpted head. A faked photograph doesn't necessarily mean that the monster isn't real, however, and some still hold on to the hope that it is. Really, though, how would a monster of that size get to a freshwater lake in Scotland, and continue to thrive there for years? Has it been the same creature the whole time? If not, doesn't that require a family of monsters? When you get down to it, it's an absurd conspiracy theory. But at least it's a FUN conspiracy theory, without the offensive nature of other such theories.

Whether stories of the monster predate the sightings in the thirties isn't entirely clear. There are a few older mentions of monsters in the area, beginning with the account of the sixth century monk St. Columba. Adomnán of Iona's account of this saint's deeds has him stopping a monster on the River Ness by making the sign of the cross. Some people have apparently also tried to tie Nessie to ancient stone carvings in the Scottish Highlands.

Nessie is commonly identified as a plesiosaur, although the pictures and reports of its lifting its head and neck out of the water make this pretty much impossible, even if some plesiosaurs DID miraculously survive into the modern era.

Some have linked the Loch Ness legends to those of kelpies, tricky shape-shifting water sprites from Scottish folklore. Traditionally, the kelpies would fool people by turning into horses and then drowning anyone who mounted them, but I suppose one could turn into a big plesiosaur-like monster as well. In fact, the Harry Potter tie-in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them identifies Nessie as a kelpie.

Since I did a bit of discussion on sea monsters on Saturday, I might as well continue the theme in this Oz post by writing a bit about Quiberon from The Giant Horse of Oz. This sea monster, who shares his name with a peninsula in western France, was placed by Mombi in Lake Orizon to cut the Ozure Isles off from the mainland. Who's Who in Oz claims that she produced him from her closet. He's described as having "the head scales and talons of a dragon and the long hideous body of a giant fear-fish." At another point in the book, however, he's described as a fear-fish himself. It's never stated exactly what a fear-fish is, but Neill draws the monster with a rather serpentine body. He also has a lock of hair between his horns. Quiberon breathes smoke and fire, and can write in the sky with his smoke, but is capable of speaking in the more usual fashion. When the monster lived in Lake Orizon, he ate the giant sea horses on which the Ozurians had ridden, and kept the people as servants. Eventually, the Wizard of Oz learned about Quiberon, and used magic to petrify the monster.


Some much more pleasant Ozian water dwellers are the Scooters from Lost King, who live on the surface of the Gillikin River. They have ski-like devices attached to their feet and sails on their backs, which enable them to scoot along the water. They tend to be tall, and have moss for hair, which they cover with waterproof hats. When young, they're known as Scoots, and only become full-fledged Scooters when their sails grow. The Scooters are generally friendly and playful, and eat raw fish.

When thinking of sphinxes, two images immediately come to mind. One is the giant statue in Egypt, and the other the mythological monster who asks riddles like "What goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?" and "What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?" [1] The two are obviously related, yet they seem to have arisen from different cultures. As I mentioned a while back, the sphinx is cut from much the same metaphorical cloth as griffins and cherubim. They're carvings of creatures that are part human and part animal, and are often used as guardians for holy sites. Most Egyptian sphinxes had the faces of men, but some of them also had rams' heads. The face of the best-known sphinx, that of Giza, is commonly believed to be that of the Pharaoh Khafra, with whom the pyramid behind it is also associated. A statue of Khafra does bear similar features, but it's probably difficult to make a face built on such a large scale resemble anyone in particular. The fact that the Great Sphinx no longer has a nose has been variously blamed on Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Disney's Aladdin.


I believe there's only one Sphinx known to be mentioned in classical Greek mythology, referred to as Phix by Hesiod. The Sphinx had the head of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle; and was related to various other composite monsters. She stood near the entrance to the city of Thebes, and when Oedipus successfully answered her riddle, she committed suicide. Now that's what I call a fine Phix! Why she couldn't just get another riddle isn't really clear. Anyway, when the Greeks first saw the Egyptian statues, they called them sphinxes because of their similarity to the mythical creature. I don't believe there's any record as to what the ancient Egyptians themselves might have called them. And the rest is history, or mythology, or something. Because of the connection that the Greeks saw, the riddling sphinx is often identified with Egypt, even though the myth placed it in Thebes. Then again, there was also a Thebes in Egypt, wasn't there? Blame that one on the Greeks' giving their own names to everything.


[1] The answers, of course, are "a man" and "Michael Vick doesn't kill hockey moms, at least as far as we know."

Considering all the odd and fantastic creatures that turn up in Oz, it's not too surprising that there would be some giants, is it? There are a few in the Baum books, and a LOT in Thompson's additions to the series. Here are some of the more notable appearances of giants in the Oz books:

• First of all, the Yoops, perhaps the most famous giants in Oz. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Ojo's party comes across the cage of Mr. Yoop, advertised as the largest untamed giant in captivity. According to his identification card, he's twenty-one feet tall, weighs 1640 pounds, and has the typical ogrish habit of eating human flesh, which he prefers with orange marmalade. Even though he's caged, he still poses a threat to passersby, as the corridor in front of his prison is narrow, and he can reach pretty far. In Tin Woodman, the protagonists come across Yoop Castle in the Gillikin Country, and assume it's unoccupied. As it turns out, though, it's still the home of Mrs. Yoop, giantess and expert in transformations.
  
  
• The giant slaves of the super-strong people of Herku.
  
• Crinklink, a giant ferryman with the ability to change size and talking jacket buttons. He imprisons Dorothy, but later reveals himself to be the Wizard trying to teach her a lesson.
  
  
• The giant subjects of King Terribus of Spor, on the Enchanted Island of Yew. Considering that the Red Rogue grew to be bigger than any giant, yet he could still walk around a castle built for humans, I have to suspect that these giants aren't quite as big as the Yoops. Still, they're feared fighters.
  
• The inhabitants of the Giants' Peak, who have an unusual arrangement of eyes, with one in the forehead and one in the back of the head. They feature in the story "The Littlest Giant," which is really only linked to Oz by its subtitle "An Oz Story" and a brief reference to the Gillikins. It's suspected that Baum might have added these bits in as marketing tools. I'm currently reading Chris Dulabone's The Giant King of Oz, which better ties in the Giants' Peak with the Oz series, and also features Mr. Yoop as commander of the giants' army.
  
• Bangladore, the Candy Giant, who's addressed in this post.
  
• Ruggedo, the former Nome King, who's normally pretty small but used Glegg's Instantaneous Expanding Extract to turn himself into a giant three-quarters of a mile tall during Kabumpo. In this form, he ran away to Ev with Ozma's palace stuck on his head. In the same book, Tik-Tok mentions a three-legged giant living in Ev.
  
  
• Crunch, a stone man three times the size of an ordinary person, animated by the wizard Wam and later de-animated by Glinda and the Wizard of Oz.
  
  
• The Big Wigs of Immense City in Ev, who are only giants while they wear their wigs. See this post for more details.
  
  
• Nandywog, who was kicked out of the giants' colony on Big Top Mountain for never growing to be more than twenty feet tall. He settled in the triangular Gillikin valley of Tripedalia, where all the people and animals have three legs each. The Tripedalians are willing to accede to Nandywog's every request, but they're afraid of him, and the giant longs for companionship. When Randy and Kabumpo visit in Purple Prince, they befriend Nandywog, although the elephant is secretly jealous of pretty much everyone bigger than he is. Is Big Top Mountain the same as the Giants' Peak? Probably not, as there's no indication that Nandywog has the peculiar eye arrangement of those giants. Melody Grandy has indicated, however, that she thinks of her Huge Mountain as the same place as Big Top, only with a different name to stave off copyright issues. Her own giant protagonist, Orlando, becomes king of this mountain.
  
• Loxo the Lucky, a giant who seems to be about the same size as his home of Big Enough Mountain, and possesses a magic magnet that will attract anything he desires. When King Sizzeroo accidentally runs Umbrella Island into his head in Speedy, Loxo demands restitution in the form of a boot-lacer, as he finds this task difficult to perform himself. The wizard Waddy tricks him into eating a sponge cake that shrinks him down to normal human size, but he's apparently satisfied with this. According to a Fred Otto short story in Oziana, he settles down to become a farmer in Grapelandia. The Umbrellians read about Loxo in the Encyclopedia of Giants, which is a book I wouldn't mind seeing.
  
  
• Snorpus the Mighty, whom the Wizard of Wutz employed to guard the entrance to the Silver Mountain. Snorpus has only one eye, which rotates between four eyeholes. When Handy Mandy tricks him into letting her into Wutz's lair, the wizard reduces him in size and plants him in a flowerpot, apparently a common punishment in Wutz's domain.
  
• Terp the Terrible, who grows to giant size by eating from the magic muffin tree in the Hidden Valley, and then sets a monstrous guardian at the tree to make sure no one else eats the muffins. The Tin Woodman cuts down the tree, and his companions trick Terp into the smokestack of his jam factory, where he presumably shrinks back down to human size.
  
• Badmannah the Terrible, a rather uncouth black-bearded cave-dweller on Upandup Mountain in the Gillikin Country. Like Loxo, he also has a magical tool, in his case a drag net. Unlike the fairly sedentary Loxo, however, Badmannah uses his net to steal castles, which he then despoils of their treasures, keeping their princesses as slaves. Jinnicky deals with him by commanding his own drag net to send him to the middle of the Nonestic Ocean.
  
• The gypsy giants who are passing through the Winkie Country at the time of Enchanted Island. One of them, Jerry, tries to keep the camel Humpty as a plaything. Giants apparently pass through the area often enough for Nick Chopper to employ a watchman named Ben Tover to look out for them.