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Well, I only talked about freedom and justice for everyone
Rabbit, rabbit! How is it March. It was several years ago the last time I looked around.
I have been up to my elbows in eleven-year-olds since the afternoon. The triplets loved The Wizard of Oz (1939). I was asked if the film was a hundred years old, if it was going to be in sepia tone the whole way through. I got the impression they knew some of the story already, at the secondhand reflection of retelling: "Is the Wizard good or bad?" Children of the twenty-first century, the Technicolor transition got them. "Whoa," one breathed, and another asked, "Is this the Land of Oz?" and another said knowledgeably of the stiff lustrous platters of flowers and the spiral of yellow brick, "It's over the rainbow." I had not seen the film since the centenary extravaganza of the Somerville Theatre in 2014 and I keep forgetting how much of it is stashed in my head, in the layers of memories from before I knew some of the idioms, or the humor, or the artifice. The Scarecrow remains talismanically important to me. (The Scarecrow has a terrible case of Tiny Wittgenstein.) I can read now that it was the vestige of a wisely deleted romance, but it always made sense to me that he would be missed most of all. It was not a sleepover movie, but the twins lingered with my niece afterward, spellbound by my mother's stories of her own Kansas twisters. "Was it the one in the movie?"
I opened the olive-green used hardcover of Jacquetta Hawkes' A Land (1951) which arrived as a late Christmas present from my brother and got immediately:
Midway in time between these contemporaries of our own and their earliest Ordovician ancestors, sea-urchins were abundant in the Cretaceous period and left the Chalk full of their neat fossil cones with fine inscribed lines radiating from the apex. Because their shape and these rays made them natural sun symbols, the Bronze Age peoples of Britain had magical uses for them, sometimes burying them with the dead. On Dunstable Down in a grave cut into the Chalk itself, a Bronze Age man was buried lying crouched within a ring of scores of fossil sea-urchins; for those who left him there, he lay underground warmed by as many suns.
We never had a fossil urchin in the house when I was growing up, just a blown-white beaded shell that used to sit on the sash of a window in my grandparents' house along with the rose quartz and what I heard once as a child as Venusian glass, although my grandmother actually said Venetian.
Слава Україні.
I have been up to my elbows in eleven-year-olds since the afternoon. The triplets loved The Wizard of Oz (1939). I was asked if the film was a hundred years old, if it was going to be in sepia tone the whole way through. I got the impression they knew some of the story already, at the secondhand reflection of retelling: "Is the Wizard good or bad?" Children of the twenty-first century, the Technicolor transition got them. "Whoa," one breathed, and another asked, "Is this the Land of Oz?" and another said knowledgeably of the stiff lustrous platters of flowers and the spiral of yellow brick, "It's over the rainbow." I had not seen the film since the centenary extravaganza of the Somerville Theatre in 2014 and I keep forgetting how much of it is stashed in my head, in the layers of memories from before I knew some of the idioms, or the humor, or the artifice. The Scarecrow remains talismanically important to me. (The Scarecrow has a terrible case of Tiny Wittgenstein.) I can read now that it was the vestige of a wisely deleted romance, but it always made sense to me that he would be missed most of all. It was not a sleepover movie, but the twins lingered with my niece afterward, spellbound by my mother's stories of her own Kansas twisters. "Was it the one in the movie?"
I opened the olive-green used hardcover of Jacquetta Hawkes' A Land (1951) which arrived as a late Christmas present from my brother and got immediately:
Midway in time between these contemporaries of our own and their earliest Ordovician ancestors, sea-urchins were abundant in the Cretaceous period and left the Chalk full of their neat fossil cones with fine inscribed lines radiating from the apex. Because their shape and these rays made them natural sun symbols, the Bronze Age peoples of Britain had magical uses for them, sometimes burying them with the dead. On Dunstable Down in a grave cut into the Chalk itself, a Bronze Age man was buried lying crouched within a ring of scores of fossil sea-urchins; for those who left him there, he lay underground warmed by as many suns.
We never had a fossil urchin in the house when I was growing up, just a blown-white beaded shell that used to sit on the sash of a window in my grandparents' house along with the rose quartz and what I heard once as a child as Venusian glass, although my grandmother actually said Venetian.
Слава Україні.
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The trapped ammonites themselves echo your Slava Ukrainy.
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Sunflowers of fossil seas.
*hugs*
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The whole book is like that. I love it.
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The Wizard of Oz is one of those films I saw SO MANY times as a kid and knew SO WELL (my high school even put it on as the spring musical my freshman year), that I've never really felt the need to rewatch it as an adult, but this is making me think I probably should. (If only to experience those lingering romantic vibes for myself, as that's something that definitely went over my head as a kid, pfft.)
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It made me so happy. I love the durability of the practical effects.
The Wizard of Oz is one of those films I saw SO MANY times as a kid and knew SO WELL (my high school even put it on as the spring musical my freshman year),
That's incredible. I've never seen a stage production. How does it work?
that I've never really felt the need to rewatch it as an adult, but this is making me think I probably should.
I recommend the experience! It's one of the films I saw so early that it was my introduction to the entire concept, but unlike Singin' in the Rain (1952) or Splash (1982) or Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) it's had little chance to desensitize with repeat viewings in adulthood. Watching it last night was like a mille-feuille of childhood imprints and current impressions. I can remember when I understood the joke in "That's you all over." I can't remember if I had noticed all the register-shifts in the performances before.
(If only to experience those lingering romantic vibes for myself, as that's something that definitely went over my head as a kid, pfft.)
It works no matter what because the Scarecrow is the oldest of her companions in Oz, but I am fascinated that someone in the script stage just shipped them. (Ray Bolger has a nice face!)
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I wish I could tell you! Alas, the only detail I remember with any real clarity was that a 5'10" classmate hilariously played a munchkin. (She played basketball irl, and I think there were jokes about how her character was obviously the star player for the munchkin basketball team--something everybody decided existed, in some sort of collaborative fanfiction.)
It works no matter what because the Scarecrow is the oldest of her companions in Oz, but I am fascinated that someone in the script stage just shipped them.
I love seeing those artifacts of early drafts/ideas seep through into the final product (see also: the way Alan Ladd is fourth-billed on the original This Gun For Hire posters, because the part was originally meant to be smaller). But yeah, the idea that there was officially a Dorothy/Scarecrow shipper at some point in the production is just too good/weird to pass up!
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I love that explanation, but also the image of a munchkin basketball team comprised of normal-sized munchkins and then just this one player.
(see also: the way Alan Ladd is fourth-billed on the original This Gun For Hire posters, because the part was originally meant to be smaller)
Sorry, Robert Preston! That's hilarious.
But yeah, the idea that there was officially a Dorothy/Scarecrow shipper at some point in the production is just too good/weird to pass up!
Enjoy!
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Tell them to keep their pants on! They have a month A MONTH GEVALT and they're going to be great!
Notable for the tap-dancing middle schoolers doing the Jitterbug Dance in black-and-red spangled combies and the Actual Standard-Issue Jewish-American Princess who played Dorothy.
Beautiful. If any teens are around next talkie window, I will ask them about The Wizard of Oz.
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I love that they loved it. So far all of the late-night classic movies have been a hit. I feel we are serving the purpose of a local TV channel.
I must have seen it for the first time (on TV) when I was quite young. Then I became obsessed with the novel and the whole series.
I was talking about the books with
[edit] Do you have work of your own engaging with Oz, books or films?
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I've written three Oz poems, I think. I should really write more Oz stuff. Online there's "Dorothy's Prayer". In CSZ (and reprinted in People Change), there's "a tipping point" (about Tip/Ozma).
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That's wonderful! I never owned any Oz books that I can remember. I hope the Cambridge Public Library still has the whole collection.
I've written three Oz poems, I think. I should really write more Oz stuff. Online there's "Dorothy's Prayer". In CSZ (and reprinted in People Change), there's "a tipping point" (about Tip/Ozma).
Brain. Thank you. You absolutely should write more.
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My favorite Oz book changes by the moment as I think about them. So many nifty moments!
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Yes! I know that and I still can't see it: it just looks like color spilling into the world.
My favorite Oz book changes by the moment as I think about them. So many nifty moments!
Which ones at the moment?
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Lost Princess for the complex plot.
Magic, for Pyrzxqgl.
Patchwork Girl for my favorite title character, especially the scene where Ojo adjusts her personality :-)
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And I never saw that marvelous transition when I was a child. My mother would say, "Now it's in color," and I had to take her word for it. We painted a mural of The Wizard of Oz in Saturday morning art school, and argued fiercely over what color things should be. Except that the Emerald City should be green, we agreed on nothing, and the landscape and the fellowship changed colors as many times as the Horse should have. On our little screens, he was grey throughout.
Nine
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They have companioned you well.
And I never saw that marvelous transition when I was a child. My mother would say, "Now it's in color," and I had to take her word for it.
I did see it as a child, because my birth introduced the household to color TV—if my mother was going to be glued to the couch nursing for hours when she couldn't read, she was at least going to watch television transmitted properly. I would have been at least four the first time, although it's not like I can tell from the memories.
We painted a mural of The Wizard of Oz in Saturday morning art school, and argued fiercely over what color things should be.
Did the teacher imagine you had all seen it in theaters?
Except that the Emerald City should be green, we agreed on nothing, and the landscape and the fellowship changed colors as many times as the Horse should have. On our little screens, he was grey throughout.
Did it look as you imagined it when you finally saw it Technicolored?
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Thank you for saying it!
*hugs*