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Off to see the Wizard…

April 3, 2013 /

You don’t have to be ‘off’ to see the wizard. States of inebriation help, perhaps, but are not required. (Kidding…) In reference to the classic from L. Frankie, Mr. Baum – he had his own wizardry and I finally got around to it.

Restless sleep last night. Weird nightmare. Had nothing to do, I pretty sure, with the late night reading.

I finished up The Wonderful Wizard of Oz before shutting off the light.

When I was a kid, I remember those scary flying monkeys that whipped Dorothy off to the Wicked Witch’s lair. That was pretty scary stuff. The part that REALLY got me was that airborne, bicycle riding, dressed in flowing-black, cackling crazy-laughter, outside-in-the-wind, schoolmarm-from-heck. Oh, man.

Then, there were those Ooompa-looompa-kind-of guards marching around like stormtroopers, chanting in unison, Yo-oh! Yo-ee-oh! Yo-oh! Yo-ee-oh! Maybe I was a sheltered child, but those guys made me pretty nervous, too.

In his preface, L. Frank Baum explains that he wanted to write a children’s story that was free of all the scary elements of the Grimm Brother’s fairy tales. No children-eating witches. No woodcutter’s wives leaving the kids out in the forest. He wanted a pleasant little story that could be taken in without the risk of nightmares.

For the most part, he succeeded. And for the most part, the famous movie did Mr. Baum justice. All the elements are there from his book: the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto the dog. The Yellow Brick Road leads to Oz and there is that dreadful field of poppies that is so vast that it cannot be crossed without being overcome from breathing in the pleasant but poisonous scent.

The twister lifts Dorothy in the farmhouse and lands her on the Wicked Witch, saving the Munchkins – same – movie and book. The witch’s feet sticking out from underneath wearing Silver Slippers.

What?

Silver slippers?

Everyone knows Dorothy inherited ruby slippers. In fact, the shoes that Judy Garland wore in the 1939 film are in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It was just last October that the Museum announced it was making a rare loan of the slippers to a British museum.

In the book, though, they are silver slippers. They do have a magical power, but in an unusual occasion of the screenwriters getting it correct, the visual magic works a lot better than Mr Baum’s version.

You see, in the novel, Dorothy can wish herself home while wearing the silver slippers, and she does so – with not an ounce of pizzazz.

Dorothy: I wish I was back in dreary Kansas.

Shoes: Seems like a wasted wish, but – Boom! There you go.

Dorothy, back in Kansas: Should have picked Vegas. Or even Branson.

Everyone knows that – in the movie – Dorothy clicks the heels of her ruby-red slippers together and repeats “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

Whiskety-whisk! She’s back in Kansas, on the bed with all her friends gathered around. Ahhhh. It was all a dream. A drug-induced psychedelic meth-trip (just kidding… We know what a straight-shooter Dorothy was.). All her friends were there, and it was all beautiful, but…

There’s no place like home.

Mr. Baum played it a little more low-key. Slippers (Silver) on, got the wish working. Bang! Dorothy is back in Kansas, tossed-down-like in the dusty farmland.

Dorothy, picking herself up: I’m back in dreary Kansas!

Aunty Em: There you are, Dorothy. Get washed up for dinner now. There’s chores later.

The return from the Wonderful Land of Oz and the Emerald City is about as matter-of-fact as it could possibly have been written. Oh, you’re back then. Good deal. Let’s go clean out the pigsty.

On second thought, maybe that troubling end had something to do with my sleep issues. Something about a plot-stealing monster that made off with the great ending for L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I Woke up and didn’t recognize any of those people standing around my bed.

Come get a copy and read it for yourself!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow, OK
918-258-3301

Back when dinosaur tech was Normal…

April 1, 2013 /

The suspect’s car disappeared around a corner, and the police – slowed by a backing dump truck that momentarily jutted into traffic – lost sight just long enough to end the chase.

“Over there,” said the officer riding shotgun. “We’re out of our jurisdiction. Better call it in.”

The car had barely stopped rolling when he threw open the door and trotted over to the phone booth, jerked the handset off the hook, and slammed a quarter into the slot.

Phone booth?

Dr. Who fans will recognize the “callbox” but there are plenty of folks who have grown up as dinosaur technology has gone extinct. I was reading a book by suspense novelist Sue Grafton – the first in her long-running series – and was taken aback by the prehistoric references. The novel was written in the 1980s. Some things have changed a little. Some things have changed a LOT.

I should have gone into it understanding that it was historical fiction at this point. The forensic pathologist (and I think Ms Grafton was a little ahead of her CSI-time back then) and her associates had to share a behemoth computer that squatted on a desk like an elephant. There was a point where, if I remember correctly, the police DID have to pull the patrol car over to make a phone call.

It was before cell phones were in wide enough usage for readers to be familiar with the terms.

John Nance writes fiction set in the airline industry and one of his early works has the pilot comfortably smoking in the open-door cockpit as the passengers are boarding. Airline-related stories are certainly among the most-dated. The rules of flying changed dramatically post-911.

Tom McBride and Ron Nief have put together a collection of generational ‘Normals’ and called it the Mindset Lists of American History. They don’t list every year, but skip five to seven years in documenting what was important to graduating classes in their own diploma-year. For example, the Class of 1983 were mostly born in 1965, and include comedian Chris Rock and actor Robert Downey Jr. For this class, Malcom X, Alan Freed, and Nat King Cole were already historical figures.

There was no armed forces draft, the ecology movement had been around forever. Radio ads for cigarettes were long gone. Separate-but-equal facilities for different races were a thing of the past. Those of the class of 1983 never did and never will see the Beatles in a live performance. They never saw a slide rule in a classroom, and did not have to wait until age 21 to vote.

Plenty of things that I considered ‘normal’ are completely unheard of by younger groups. Rotary-dial telephones. CB radios. 8-Track tapes.

It seemed like it was only yesterday that the corner grocery offered S&H Green Stamps with every purchase, to be pasted in a book and saved until redeemed for some frivolous purchase at the ‘Stamp Store.’ Now, it seems that even US postage stamps are threatened.

The authors make some bold predictions for future classes as well, including an outbreak of ‘carpel thumb syndrome’ brought on by excessive texting.

We’ll have to see how that turns out. Meanwhile, I’ll keep tapping away on the massive laptop that my son-in-law makes fun of, the one with the Cinemascope-sized screen and fonts the size of billboard lettering. You know – something big enough for me to see.

Here now, the weather from BEYOND…

March 30, 2013 /

Clichés. Don’t you love them? Maybe yes, maybe no – but they are painfully difficult to avoid and just plain painful when they get mixed.

Case in point?

Live storm coverage from Dick Faurot. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not picking on Mr Faurot, as I appreciate his style and experience. Those guys doing the weather on television get a lot of grief, and it isn’t my intention to pile on here.

The radar was indicating tornadoes Saturday night and I was watching an interesting Sherlock Holmes show that fell victim to the storm coverage. (Sometimes I think we all are victims of the advanced technology that allows the TV weather folks to ramble on about “what’s going on.” Mr. Faurot’s words, not mine.)

Oh, wow. We’re going back to programming now. The show, that gives clues leading up to a conclusion, will have presented the evidence during our storm-break. We’ll see how that turns out when we are returned to regular programming.

Back to those mixed clichés. The phrase “In the Field” has been around for awhile. We have a reporter “in the field” and will have a report from him/her shortly. Maybe this one has gone by the wayside a bit, although I remember it well. Just as I am dismissing it here – Mr. Faurot has just used that phrase to describe one of his weather reporters. In the field. Oh, yeah. That guy is most certainly out “in the field.” Not in a car, truck, or van. He’s in the field. Yeah. Sure.

“On the Ground” is a new cliché that reporters these days try to work in at any opportunity. I’m not exactly certain why clichés are better than simple words. Maybe there is a cachet that is attached to phrases that are thrown around by the network big-boys/girls. Hearing them in a news report may cause other reporters to “jump on the bandwagon” (an old-school cliché) and work them into their stories.

Oh. Severe weather coverage is over. Back to network TV programming. Ooops. I’ve missed the conclusion of the program I was watching, due to the storm coverage. No more Sherlock Holmes. He was quick to present his own suppositions, and I suppose I can make up my own ending, based on the clues presented before the storm interruption.

Back to the case in point: here is the mixed cliché result from Mr. Faurot, part of his description of the weather activity in the Muskogee area. A tornado was indicated by radar, but there was no visual confirmation from spotters, which he wanted to point out.

Dick Faurot: We don’t have confirmation from anyone IN THE GROUND.”

Not “On the ground.” Not “In the field.” He landed on a mix of the two to tell us that nobody confirmed – from their graves, presumably – that a tornado had passed over. That is to say: No one IN THE GROUND confirmed the passage of a twister in the Muskogee area.

Spotters, they are called. Those folks who call in to assist the TV station in their coverage of serious weather events. Wouldn’t those reports be so much better if all those who are currently six-feet-under could add to the reporting?

Mr. Faurot, during a severe weather outbreak: We go now to Mount Carmel Cemetery and the Earthly remains of Miss Joyce Wachthewether, who – during her regular life – loved to watch the weather. Miss Joyce? What are you seeing from your vantage point IN THE GROUND?

Ms. Wachthewether: Well, to be honest, it’s mostly dark here – but I’m guessing that’s due to the bad weather. I’m hearing some whisking winds and it may be a good time to seek shelter underground.

Mr. Faurot: Thank you Ms. Wachthewether. We go now to John Adriver, who is on the Muskogee Turnpike, on the fringe of the storm.

The programming that had been ended tonight on KOTV for storm coverage has not been interrupted for the past fifteen minutes, which tells me that that previous break-in… the one that caused me to miss the end of the show I was watching – was mostly frivolous. Aaaaahh. I take that back. Not frivolous. But certainly, unnecessary.

Better to be safe than sorry – from a meteorologist’s point of view.

But many of us weren’t in the Muskogee area. Maybe most of us. It’s too bad that those TV weather reports, in this age of technology, cannot be targeted to the specific region in potential danger.

It’s also too bad that we can’t get on the scene reports from those correspondents IN THE GROUND. When I’m six-feet-under, I plan on making regular reports on the weather, the expressway traffic, and national politics. Check in with KOTV for reports from those of us – In the ground.

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