What you might not know about The Wizard of Oz...

Audio books are my favorite means of wiling away the miles on a long drive. As I begin my drive from East to West, it seems appropriate that I should listen to the story of another adventurer as she follows her own road home. No, Pricilla, Queen of the Desert was not a novel; I'm talking about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum. Everyone has seen the film, but not everyone knows that Baum's Oz spanned a series of a baker's dozen novels as well as some posthumous publications. And unsurprisingly, the film Is not a perfect translation of the novel, although it is wonderful in its own right. With that in mind, here are some tidbits you might not know about the classic that has left an indelible impact on our culture:

-Baum wrote Oz as a modern fairytale, intentionally withholding the moralization of classic fairy tails (although he doesn't let a good lesson go to waste, either).

-Dorothy is an orphan.
-Her ruby slippers were written as silver shoes. 

-Blue is the color of Munchkins and white is the color of witches--the colors that make up Dorothy's famous gingham dress--a main reason why the Munchkins are so stoked on her.

-The Yellow Brick Road had potholes.

-Dorothy's adventure lasts for weeks.

-The Tinwoodsman once was a man of flesh and blood, but was destroyed when a spell was placed and his ax, which chops him to bits. A kind tinsmith rebuilds his parts.

-The Tinman and Scarecrow never sleep or eat.
-The Tinman is pretty freaking murderous.

-Along the way, each of Dorothy's friends demonstrate that they already posses the traits they wish to gain, but they are not content until the Wizard works his stuff.

-On entering the Emerald City, green tinted glasses are locked to everyone's faces. It is suggested (but never stated) that the glasses that all inhabitants wear create the emerald effect in a colorless city, evoking dystopian themes. 

-The Wizard will only see one member of Dorothy's party each day, and takes a different frightening form for each of them. He assigns each character with the task of killing the wicked witch before he will help them. 

-The flying monkeys are enslaved through the use of a magical golden cap. After killing the witch, Dorothy uses the cap for her own purposes before the Good Witch sets them free. Themes of slavery and reconstruction abound. 

-Scarecrow takes over as ruler of the Emerald City after the Wizard floats away in a balloon that Dorothy helps him build. 

-Dorothy does not awake from the adventure as if from a dream, but finds herself rolling in the grass to her guardians' surprise and relief at her arrival home.

Book Thug Nation

In Williamsburg! I made $45 selling old books there. You might, too!
Carries an awesome selection of used books in a peaceful atmosphere, and they kindly hosted my friend Ben's book release party for his novel Harvits as to War.

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http://www.bookthugnation.com/

Can't take it with me

To many readers, our personal libraries not only represent a collection of favorite books, but also a collection of friends and memories. Giving up books can be difficult. Still, I need to pare down my collection before I skip town.
 My friend Hathaway has promised to adopt the library while i'm away, but I can't burden her with every book that has lodged in my shelves over the last few years. Three criteria will let me save a book:
1. Do I love it?
2. Will I want to refer to it again?
3. Do I have other books by that author?

Each book to keep gets a stamp in the back:

The BookTote (tm) will hold the "small" collection of books I want to read while I am on the road:

 The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
Native American Testimony Ed. Peter Nabokov
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
The PowerBook by Jeanette Winterson
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
The Bostonians by Henry James
Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Angels in America by Tony Kushner
The Waterfront Journals by David Wojnarowicz
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathusra by Friedrich Nietzsche
Kinship with All Life by J. Allen Boone
Letters from Hawaii by Mark Twain
Holy Bible
The Kingdom of Heaven Within
Billions & Billions by Carl Sagan
The Life and Death of Planet Earth by Peter Ward & Donald Brownlee
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Okay, so that's a lot of books. Might take me a couple weeks to get through ;) Stay tuned.

Isherwood's erotic athletes

    "They are passing the tennis courts at this moment. Only one court is occupied, by two young men playing singles. The sun has come out with sudden fierce heat through the smog-haze, and the two are stripped nearly naked. They have nothing on their bodies but gym shoes and thick sweatsocks and knit shorts of the kind cyclists wear, very short and close-fitting, molding themselves to the buttocks and the loins. They are absolutely unaware of the passers-by, isolated in the intentness of their game. you would think there was no net between them. Their nakedness makes them seem close to each other and directly opposed, body to body, like fighters. If this were a fight, though, it would be one-sided, for the boy on the left is much the smaller. He is Mexican, maybe, black-haired, handsome, catlike, cruel, compact, lithe, uscular, quick and graceful on his feet. He body is a natural dark gold-brown; there is a fuzz of curly black hair on his chest and belly and thighs. He plays hard and fast, with cruel mastery, baring his white teeth, unsmiling, as he slams back the ball. He is going to win. His opponent, the big blond boy, already knows this; there is a touching gallantry in his defense. He is so sweet-naturedly beautiful, so nobly made; and yet his classical cream-marble body seems a handicap to him. The rules of the game inhibit it from functioning. He is fighting at a hopeless disadvantage. He should throw away his useless racket, vault over the net, and force the cruel golden cat to submit to his marble strength. No, on the contrary, the blond boy accepts the rules, binds himself by them, will suffer defeat and humiliation rather than break them. His helpless bigness and blondness give him an air of unmodern chivalry. He will fight clean, a perfect sportsman, until he has lost the last game. And won't this keep happening to him all through his life? Won't he keep getting himself involved in the wrong kind of game, the kind of game he was never born to play, against an opponent who is quick and clever and merciless?"

Sometimes I feel very much the blond surrounded by clever cats.

More from A Single Man: the dance of the couple

By Christopher Isherwood

   "Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other's bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love--think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them! The doorway into the kitchen has been built too narrow. Two people in a hurry, with plates of food in their hands, are apt to keep colliding here. And it is here, nearly every morning, that George, having reached the bottom of the stairs, has this sensation of suddenly finding himself on an abrupt, brutally broken off, jagged edge--as though the track had disappeared down a landslide. It is here that he stops short and knows, with a sick newness, almost as though it were for the first time: Jim is dead. Is dead"(p.13).

It is incredible the way our movements will adapt to those of another once our spaces must be shared. I almost miss this dance.

Just begun: A Single Man

by Christopher Isherwood

   "Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face--the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man--all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us--we have died--what is there to be afraid of?

   It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I'm afraid of being rushed.

   It stares and stares. Its lips part. It starts to breathe through its mouth. Until the cortex orders it impatiently to wash, to shave, to brush its hair. Its nakedness has to be covered. It must be dressed up in clothes because it is going outside, into the world of the other people; and these others must be able to identify it. Its behavior must be acceptable to them.

   Obediently, it washes, shaves, brushes its hair, for it accepts its responsibility to the others. It is even glad that it has its place among them. It knows what is expected of it.

   It knows its name. It is called George"(p.11).

Sometimes I avoid the mirror to avoid the disappointment in the other faces waiting there.