This Week's Oz Short Story

We wrap up this little diversion into short stories published in The Baum Bugle with what I believe is the final one, another complete-the-story contest, "Scraps and the Magic Box" by Fred M. Meyer, published in the Winter 1979 issue. Scraps is put out that Ozma has asked her to fetch the Magic Belt, taking away from her time to have fun. Before she can bring the Belt to Ozma, she tries it on and wishes for a way to avoid running errands. Sure enough, just outside Ozma's room, Scraps stumbles over the Choice Box, a box that temporarily grants wishes when you press the red button, and harmlessly undoes them when you press the black button. So Scraps wishes to be Queen! Sure enough, everyone bows to her and follows her wishes, and she lives it up for a bit. But then, during an event in the throne room, Scraps drops the box and Tik-Tok crushes it! Uh-oh! Who can write their way out of this situation?

Fortunately, Camilla Townsend has the perfect solution, and her conclusion was published in the Autumn 1980 issue. Scraps quickly realizes that she's not cut out to be Queen, and of course she misses Ozma. After several weeks, she finally discovers someone else who remembers her—the Gump's head! He was in the hall where Scraps found the Choice Box, so since he saw it and knew about it, he concludes that he is immune to its effects. The Gump begrudgingly mentions the Wishing Pills that got lost in the jackdaws' nest in The Marvelous Land of Oz and how Tip had wished he hadn't swallowed one of them, which he hadn't. So Scraps plans an expedition to the jackdaws' nest, taking the Woozy with her because he's tough and can swallow. The Wizard transports them there, and after a day of searching they find the box. Scraps drops one pill, but the Woozy manages to swallow the last pill just as the jackdaws are returning! As he counts to seventeen by ones and makes his wish, the jackdaws spring upon them and try to carry them away&ellips;

&ellips;and then Scraps is back in the hall, having never found the Choice Box just as the Woozy wished. It's a great conclusion, making a lot of use of Oz history and established characters and bringing everything to a satisfying end.

I also found in my copy of the latter issue another ending, submitted by my friend Robin Hess. Clearly he mist have given me a copy nearly forty years ago. While his is good, I can see why it didn't rise to the top. His take involved Ozma becoming aware of what was happening, and disguising herself as an old woman to find out what's happening. She observes that Scraps has learned her lesson, and forgives her. (Interestingly, both conclusions appear to presume that Ozma has the Magic Belt. In fact, it plays a central role in Hess's version. But I can't figure out when Scraps gave it to Ozma, and it would therefore follow logically that Scraps would have the Magic Belt. But that would probably make for an extremely easy and unsatisfying wrap-up.)

Next week, back to Oziana!

Even more Oz reading!

Wow, amongst everything else (both Oz and otherwise), I forgot to mention here that I got the latest issue of The Baum Bugle a couple of weeks ago. Surprisingly, it took me about a week to read it (normally I tear through it in a matter of hours), just because I have so many other things going on right now. So, if you want to know what's in the latest issue, go on over to my website's news page.

(Is this the first time I've put up four blog posts in one day? At least it doesn't look terribly likely that there will be a fifth today!)

Talk Like Captain Salt day

Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties. Or, as it be known around Oz, Talk Like Captain Salt Day. Yarrgh!

By a wild coincidence, I received me the latest issue of The Baum Bugle, the journal of the International Wizard of Oz Club, in yesterday's mail. Why be that a wild coincidence? There be pirates in it! That saucy wench* Barbara S. Koelle wrote of "Buccaneers, Bandits, and Bad Guys in the Oz Books", which included Captain Salt and his pirate band. To add to the merriment, the Bugle also reprinted two of that scurvy dog L. Frank Baum's poems about Pirates ("Captain Bing" from Father Goose: His Book and "The Naughty Pirate" from The Navy Alphabet), two pirate illustrations from that bilge rat W. W. Denslow, and the story "Pirate Gold" from that rapscallion, Ruth Plumly Thompson. I very much be doubtin' that all this pirate booty was meant to coincide with Talk Like a Pirate Day, but it be most pleasin' to me that I should get this on the eve of such an auspicious day.

* (Barbara, if you or someone who knows you better than I do is reading this, I just want to make it clear here and now that the "saucy wench" remark was in the spirit of the holiday, and not in any way meant in a bad way. Really.)

The latest Oz reading

My current Oz reading has been interrupted by a flood of magazines arriving. But the good news is, one of them is the Spring 2010 edition of The Baum Bugle. And wouldn't you know, it's still spring of 2010! I think the Bugle may actually be consistently on schedule for the first time in ages. This is a witch issue, with profiles of Glinda, Margaret Hamilton, and Billie Burke. Judy Bieber also has a couple of interesting articles about the connections between L. Frank Baum's first pseudonymous novel, The Fate of a Crown, the republican movement in nineteenth century Brazil, and the upstate New York college scene. I'll have a detailed report over on my website's news page soon.

Oz reading update

I'm getting back into a cycle of Oz reading here again very soon, so I thought I'd peview that with two recent-ish acquisitions.

• First up, we discovered a gap in the comics, so I went ahead and ordered Land of Oz: The Manga #4 straight from the publishers. This issue includes Mr. H. M. Wogglebug, T. E., entering the scene, and the field mice making their entrance (and exit), with the inevitable results. Good stuff here, and I really hope David Hutchison and Antarctic Press go ahead with Ozma of Oz: The Manga, even if it would be competing with Marvel's adaptations. I think there's room for more than one interpretation, and I would buy them both.
  
• The other recent read is the latest issue of The Baum Bugle, the journal of the International Wizard of Oz Club, which arrived yesterday and I finished well before bedtime. This is the Bugle's once-a-decade-on-its-anniversary issue devoted to the famous MGM movie version, and after seventy years they still managed to find new material. (Can I just say, thank goodness that Ogden Nash's version wasn't the version of the script they made?) I'll have details of this on my website's news page soon.