Never Work with Children or Animals

Terry Byrne at the Boston Globe really liked the Wheelock Family Theater's production of The Wizard of Oz. Of course, that might be an overdose of the cutes:

All four friends are nearly upstaged though, by Toto, played by second-grader Sofia Pilar Villafane with just the right amount of spunk and enthusiasm. Although she is adorable, and just the right size to be picked up by the Commander of the flying monkeys and by the Cowardly Lion, she never overdoes it, punctuating songs with little barks, while understanding her role as loyal friend.

As a corrective dose of reality, the review also includes these comments from the audience:

Dalice Rodriguez, 8, who was there with her brother Johann, 5, tapped along to the beat of “Jitterbug” and later said the dancing in that number was her favorite. Toto, however, was her favorite character, while Johann preferred the Tin Woodman, not because of his sensitive soul, or his dancing, but because “he had an ax.”

Someone needs to discover Axe Cop.

Three Dick Graysons and the Representation of Change

Reviewing the Robin news this week, I was struck by a statement in Vaneta Rogers’s interview at Newsarama with current Nightwing scripter Kyle Higgins:

Nightwing is one of those few characters that is actually defined and built on a core of change, which is very weird in an industry and a medium that relies on the illusion of change. Dick Grayson is one of the few characters that are built around the idea of growing up.

Dick started out serving Reason for Robin, #9: Robin is still a kid. He represented potential. He was learning, making mistakes, but held the promise of being better. For almost thirty years he barely changed, but he always represented the possibilities of change in the future.

When Dick Grayson became Nightwing in the 1980s, he gained a new symbolic significance. He had been a kid; now he was a young man. But he was still younger than Batman, Superman, and the other heroes he’d looked up to. As Higgins says, his growth now defined his role in the DC Universe saga. He was a twentysomething looking for his place in the world. Would he ever match up to his mentor, or had he unknowingly already done so?

Grant Morrison’s proposal to make Dick Grayson into Batman brought that grand storyline to a close. Dick stepped into his mentor’s boots, and successfully. There was no place new for him to go, or grow. DC Comics would almost certainly have made him Nightwing again, to preserve the trademark if for no other reason, but the company never came up with a satisfactory way for Dick to make that choice which would imbue his character with significance again.

Instead, for a variety of commercial, legal, and creative reasons, the publisher rebooted its entire universe. That change let the editors put Dick into a new Nightwing costume, a few years younger than before. We never saw his choice to step away from being Batman; characters seem to treat his time in the cape as a job everyone knew would be temporary, as in Batman: Prodigy. Once again Nightwing is a young man looking for his place in the world. Higgins’s first story even took him back to his roots at the Haly Circus.

I view the current Dick Grayson character as separate from the character of 1964 through 2011, just as that was a different character from the Dick Grayson of 1940 through 1964 and beyond on Earth-2. The original Dick Grayson came of age as an adult Robin. The second came of age as Nightwing and took over as Batman when almost everyone thought Bruce Wayne was dead. Now we have a third Dick Grayson, also Nightwing. What will his future hold? The possibilities are open once again; all we know is that he still symbolizes growth and change.

In other Robin news, Bleeding Cool reported a rumor that Jeff Lemire would write an adventure for the present DC Universe’s four former and current Robins. But can we trust a gossip website that can’t even spell Damian Wayne‘s name right?

Probably so, for two reasons. Once ideas leak, it appears they’ve been approved. Furthermore, this idea is a no-brainer in terms of serving fans’ wishes. Of course, the potential for disappointment is very high since no actual all-Robins adventure comic could satisfy everyone’s hopes. There’s too much nostalgia to compete with.

Finally, Bully had the Dynamic Duo meet the Infinite Canvas of Scott McCloud. Even more impressive, the little stuffed bull got that scene to work within the confines of a Blogger template!

Teleprompter Fixation as a Sign of OIP Derangement Syndrome

After winning the Republican primary in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich (shown above in June 2009) threw out an unrealistic plan to challenge President Barack Obama to seven “Lincoln-Douglas debates” and added, “I will concede up front that he can use a teleprompter.” In saying that, Gingrich was repeating himself and repeating a cliché of today’s American right. Folks have even set up a blog for the presidential teleprompter (now inactive).

Everyone can see that President Obama uses a teleprompter when delivering prepared remarks. So do many other politicians, such as Gingrich himself (as shown above), Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Sarah Palin. It’s standard equipment for television personalities and convention speakers.

Obama uses a teleprompter in more locations and situations than his predecessors, as the New York Times has observed. He eschews note cards and papers for three reasons. First, the machines have become more portable. Second, he’s very good at reading from a screen so that he seems to be speaking naturally. (In contrast, John McCain struggled with that task.) And third, he values good writing and precision, as every profile of the man has said.

The teleprompter goes away (I understand the traveling version telescopes down to the floor) after the President has finished his prepared remarks. Then he speaks extemporaneously, as anyone can see—anyone who doesn’t suffer from OIP Derangement Syndrome, that is. Many of those people have apparently convinced themselves that President Obama can’t express himself without a teleprompter.

Large audiences saw Barack Obama speak extemporaneously in twenty-five Democratic debates and three presidential debates in 2008. As for press conferences and interviews, President Obama did more of those in his first years in office than his predecessor. In May 2010, Mark Knoller at CBS News reported:

By my count, Mr. Obama has done six formal, full-scale White House news conferences, including the one on February 9. Four of the six were prime-time events in the East Room that lasted between 52 minutes and 59 minutes. Then there was a 53 minute session in the Briefing Room on June 23 and the disputed 35 minute event on February 9.

But add up all the press availabilities Mr. Obama has done, including abbreviated sessions with foreign leaders, and some solo news conferences at home and abroad, and the number of press events he's done since taking office climbs to 49.

During the same period of time in his presidency, George W. Bush took part in a total of 33 press availabilities of all varieties of which five were formal, solo White House news conferences. Only one was an evening event in prime time. The others were daytime sessions lasting about half an hour.

Besides press conferences, Mr. Obama has also sat for 190 interviews with members of the press, far more than any of his recent predecessors during their first 16 months in office.

And then there are televised events like the “health care summit” in February 2010. You’d think Gingrich’s followers would have seen that Obama can express his ideas (whether or not they like those ideas) without needing a machine.

But some apparently people can’t see that. They’ve convinced themselves that the President is an inarticulate puppet. Either that, or they’re using the “teleprompter” meme to let themselves sidle up to saying this black man is naturally too stupid to think for himself. Since they vociferously deny being that bigoted, the only explanation left is OIP Derangement Syndrome.

The Real Glinda

From the penultimate chapter of L. Frank Baum’s The Emerald City of Oz, as Ozma, Dorothy, and her family go south to visit their friend:

With hearts light and free from care they traveled merrily along through the lovely and fascinating Land of Oz, and in good season reached the stately castle in which resided the Sorceress.

Glinda knew that they were coming.

"I have been reading about you in my Magic Book," she said, as she greeted them in her gracious way.

"What is your Magic Book like?" inquired Aunt Em, curiously.

"It is a record of everything that happens," replied the Sorceress. "As soon as an event takes place, anywhere in the world, it is immediately found printed in my Magic Book. So when I read its pages I am well informed." . . .

"Then," said Ozma, "I suppose you know what is in my mind, and that I am seeking a way to prevent any one in the future from discovering the Land of Oz."

"Yes; I know that. And while you were on your journey I have thought of a way to accomplish your desire. For it seems to me unwise to allow too many outside people to come here. Dorothy, with her uncle and aunt, has now returned to Oz to live always, and there is no reason why we should leave any way open for others to travel uninvited to our fairyland. Let us make it impossible for any one ever to communicate with us in any way, after this. Then we may live peacefully and contentedly."

"Your advice is wise," returned Ozma. "I thank you, Glinda, for your promise to assist me."

"But how can you do it?" asked Dorothy. "How can you keep every one from ever finding Oz?"

"By making our country invisible to all eyes but our own," replied the Sorceress, smiling. "I have a magic charm powerful enough to accomplish that wonderful feat, and now that we have been warned of our danger by the Nome King's invasion, I believe we must not hesitate to separate ourselves forever from all the rest of the world."

"I agree with you," said the Ruler of Oz.

"Won't it make any difference to us?" asked Dorothy, doubtfully.

"No, my dear," Glinda answered, assuringly. "We shall still be able to see each other and everything in the Land of Oz. It won't affect us at all; but those who fly through the air over our country will look down and see nothing at all. Those who come to the edge of the desert, or try to cross it, will catch no glimpse of Oz, or know in what direction it lies. No one will try to tunnel to us again because we cannot be seen and therefore cannot be found. In other words, the Land of Oz will entirely disappear from the knowledge of the rest of the world."

"That's all right," said Dorothy, cheerfully. "You may make Oz invis'ble as soon as you please, for all I care."

"It is already invisible," Glinda stated. "I knew Ozma's wishes, and performed the Magic Spell before you arrived."

She doesn’t say, “I did it thirty-five minutes ago,” like Ozymandias in Watchmen, but she’s still mighty high-handed.

And from the third chapter of Tik-Tok of Oz, after Queen Ann Soforth has set out to conquer all of Oz from her little corner:

Princess Ozma was all unaware that the Army of Oogaboo, led by their ambitious Queen, was determined to conquer her Kingdom. The beautiful girl Ruler of Oz was busy with the welfare of her subjects and had no time to think of Ann Soforth and her disloyal plans. But there was one who constantly guarded the peace and happiness of the Land of Oz and this was the Official Sorceress of the Kingdom, Glinda the Good.

In her magnificent castle, which stands far north of the Emerald City where Ozma holds her court, Glinda owns a wonderful magic Record Book, in which is printed every event that takes place anywhere, just as soon as it happens.

The smallest things and the biggest things are all recorded in this book. If a child stamps its foot in anger, Glinda reads about it; if a city burns down, Glinda finds the fact noted in her book.

The Sorceress always reads her Record Book every day, and so it was she knew that Ann Soforth, Queen of Oogaboo, had foolishly assembled an army of sixteen officers and one private soldier, with which she intended to invade and conquer the Land of Oz.

There was no danger but that Ozma, supported by the magic arts of Glinda the Good and the powerful Wizard of Oz—both her firm friends—could easily defeat a far more imposing army than Ann's; but it would be a shame to have the peace of Oz interrupted by any sort of quarreling or fighting. So Glinda did not even mention the matter to Ozma, or to anyone else. She merely went into a great chamber of her castle, known as the Magic Room, where she performed a magical ceremony which caused the mountain pass that led from Oogaboo to make several turns and twists. The result was that when Ann and her army came to the end of the pass they were not in the Land of Oz at all, but in an adjoining territory that was quite distinct from Ozma's domain and separated from Oz by an invisible barrier.

In Baum’s books, Ozma has a tendency to want to talk nicely to people threatening Oz so as to convince them of the error of their ways. Glinda doesn’t play by those rules. You threaten Oz—she will take you down. And she may not even bother to tell anyone about it.

What if the Deadly Desert Isn’t Deadly?

Yesterday I described how over the course of five books L. Frank Baum developed the desert around Oz from a natural barrier that apparently hid that fairyland within North America into a magically fatal barrier that protected Oz from its magical neighbors and everyone else.

But was the Deadly Desert really deadly? Certainly folks in the Oz books believed it to be. Someone even went to the trouble of erecting signs warning travelers not to venture onto the sands or be turned into dust. For understandable reasons, no one tested that. No one we read about, at least.

A few years back, in an Oz discussion group I put forward the cheeky hypothesis that the Deadly Desert isn’t actually deadly at all—that the legends and signs are simply a way to scare off potential invaders. Again, the books never show us anyone turned to dust.

Who could or would construct such a hoax? The obvious candidate is Glinda, the Good Sorceress of the South. She has a record of taking swift, unilateral, and somewhat ruthless (though far from cruel) actions to protect Oz. She has the intelligence and magical resources to put up those signs.

Not many Oz fans like my realpolitik conception of Glinda, I’ve found. And, to be honest, I don’t actually ascribe to that Deadly Desert theory. In my own stories the swirling sands are still a threat to people made of flesh, even if no one’s died yet.

In the latest Baum Bugle, Nathan M. DeHoff of the VoVatia blog kindly acknowledges my question of whether the Deadly Desert is actually deadly, but he devotes most of his “‘Great Dates and Deserts!’: Some Thoughts on the Deadly Desert of Oz” article as he should: assembling a coherent picture of how the desert works across all the Oz books, including those by Baum’s successors. It’s a thorough overview, useful for writers wanting to review that feature of the Nonestic world.

Also in that Bugle is Marilynn Strasser Olson’s paper about how a humorous article on Death Valley published in the Los Angeles Times in 1890 might have maybe influenced Baum’s invention of both the Deadly Desert and the Emerald City. Unfortunately, Prof. Olson can’t actually show a link from the article to Baum. And I don’t think the parallels are that compelling.

As with Evan Schwartz’s Finding Oz, that if we read late-1890s US newspapers and magazines looking for “Ozzy” details it’s easy to find material that reminds us of Baum, in either its topic or its tone. But that was the cultural milieu. The American press had a lot of humorists in the mode of Twain and Nye. Baum set out to create a fairy tale that seemed modern and American, so of course it reflected the same general topics and concerns tackled by other writers of the day. I want to see a clear link to Baum, not just an assumed connection.

(Illustration above by Eric Shanower.)

Developing the Deadly Desert

The new issue of The Baum Bugle, the International Wizard of Oz Club’s main journal, includes two articles about the Deadly Desert that surrounds and protects Oz.

The desert wasn’t deadly at first; like a lot of details about Oz, L. Frank Baum developed the desert gradually as ideas and plot points occurred to him. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a sandy waste cuts Oz off from the rest of the world, particularly that odd place (the Midwest) where the Wizard and Dorothy came from.

In The Marvelous Land of Oz, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and their companions fly over that desert out of Oz, where they find a country that apparently uses paper money denominated in dollars. As Michael O. Riley pointed out in Oz and Beyond, Baum’s first two books implied that Oz was nestled somewhere in arid southwestern North America.

But then in Ozma of Oz, Baum had Dorothy travel to Oz by starting in the Pacific Ocean, landing in a fairyland called Ev, and finally crossing the desert on an unrolling carpet. So the countries beyond the desert from Oz are definitely not America. In fact, they seem far from America. Furthermore, while the previous book showed characters standing on the desert, this one implied that doing so would be harmful, or at least unpleasant.

A couple of books later, Baum introduced the alliterative phrase “Deadly Desert.” He quoted this sign erected in front of it:

ALL PERSONS ARE WARNED NOT
TO VENTURE UPON THIS DESERT

For the Deadly Sands will Turn Any Living Flesh

to Dust in an instant. Beyond This Barrier is the

LAND OF OZ

But no one can Reach that Beautiful Country

because of these Destroying Sands

Curiously, that signs stands in an inhospitable, unpopulated spot, so we have to assume that either (a) it was placed there for the benefit of Dorothy and her companions at that moment, or (b) there are a lot more signs elsewhere along the edge of the sand.

Thereafter, the Deadly Desert is always said to be deadly, even when characters like the Wise Donkey manage inexplicably to cross it. In Baum’s penultimate book, The Magic of Oz, it even gives off nauseating fumes that force birds to fly at high altitudes.

And yet, for all the desert’s deadliness, in the entire Oz series no one ever dies on it.

TOMORROW: Tossing out a theory.

“On the shelf, he noticed another novel…”

A story from Nicholas D. Kristof’s New York Times column yesterday about Judge Olly Neal:

One day in 1957, in the fall of his senior year, Neal cut…class and wandered in the library, set up by Grady, the English teacher whom he had tormented. Neal wasn’t a reader, but he spotted a book with a risqué cover of a sexy woman.

Called “The Treasure of Pleasant Valley,” it was by Frank Yerby, a black author, and it looked appealing. Neal says he thought of checking it out, but he didn’t want word to get out to any of his classmates that he was reading a novel. That would have been humiliating.

“So I stole it.”

Neal tucked the book under his jacket and took it home — and loved it. After finishing the book, he sneaked it back into the library. And there, on the shelf, he noticed another novel by Yerby. He stole that one as well.

This book was also terrific. And, to Neal’s surprise, when he returned it to the shelf after finishing it, he found yet another by Yerby.

Four times this happened, and he caught the book bug. “Reading got to be a thing I liked,” he says. His trajectory changed, and he later graduated to harder novels, including those by Albert Camus, and he turned to newspapers and magazines as well. He went to college and later to law school. . . .

At a high school reunion, Grady stunned Neal by confiding to him that she had spotted him stealing that first book. Her impulse was to confront him, but then, in a flash of understanding, she realized his embarrassment at being seen checking out a book.

So Grady kept quiet. The next Saturday, she told him, she drove 70 miles to Memphis to search the bookshops for another novel by Yerby. Finally, she found one, bought it and put it on the library bookshelf.

Twice more, Grady told Neal, she spent her Saturdays trekking to Memphis to buy books by Yerby — all in hopes of turning around a rude adolescent who had made her cry. She paid for the books out of her own pocket.

Neal told his own story at Storycorps and to NPR.

Sitting with the Tiny Titans

DC Comics is bringing Tiny Titans to a close soon at issue #50. I’ve read only occasional issues and pages of this magazine, mostly those with an especially high Robin quotient. A put-upon version of Robin is at the center of its cast, who are school-age versions of the second generation of DC superheroes.

The third and fourth generations, each with their own Robins, appear as babies and toddlers. That leaves plenty of opportunity for the older kids to babysit. But not really all the kids, at least equally.

I think the babysitting theme started in issue #4, which DC marketed with this line:

Meet the Little Tiny Titans as they show Wonder Girl just how tough babysitting can be!

Inside, Wonder Girl and another heroine named Bumblebee babysit four teeny-Tiny Titans while Robin, Speedy, and Cyborg go play baseball.

The copy for #15:

And it’s Rose's turn to babysit the Terror Titans when a group activity yields fiery results.

In #23, Robin visits Batgirl and meets two of his little fans.

In #27:

When Raven has to watch Kid Devil for the weekend,…

Have you noticed a pattern?

The cover at top is #29, which came with this copy:

It's Supergirl's turn to toddler-sit the tiny Tiny Titans! Can she handle this crisis of infinite toddlers – or will she burst into tears?

But I don’t recall seeing Robin take on that job. Sometimes he hangs around Batgirl as she does the job because he has a crush on that little red-haired girl. In the “All-Robins Issue” he volunteers to pick up her charges from a daycare center (run by a woman), but he doesn’t actually look after them.

The story in issue #26 has Beast Boy watching over Miss Martian, but the word “babysit” wasn’t part of its marketing copy, and Beast Boy actually insists it’s not his turn. Even if we agree that he really is babysitting here, he’s the only example of male parity I could find. (Did I miss an important panel?)

Most recently, Tiny Titans, #47:

It’s Mrs. Atom’s turn to babysit the Baby Titans – Damien [sic], Arthur Jr., Smidgen, Kid Devil and Jason Toddler. Can she do it alone? Maybe Miss Martian can help!

And Bumblebee is back to babysitting as well. Even when a Tiny Titans story involves multiple baby-sitters, all three are female. Furthermore, Mrs. Atom is a character with no equivalent in the regular DC Universe. [Trust me, Ray Palmer’s love interest Jean Loring is not the same.] She seems to have been created to care for her children and others.

Overall, Tiny Titans appears to perpetuate the idea that child care is naturally a job for girls rather than boys. Ironically, some of Tiny Titans’s biggest fans include readers vocal about pressing DC to expand the exposure and range of female superheroes.

Rick Santorum’s OIP Derangement Syndrome

For this week’s example of OIP Derangement Syndrome I’m indebted to Nathan DeHoff for his pointer to this report by Charles M. Blow. Because without that evidence, I would have had trouble believing a major politician—even Rick Santorum—would come out strongly against education.

Before finishing a distance fourth or fifth in the New Hampshire primary, Santorum criticized President Obama this way:

I was so outraged by the president of the United States for standing up and saying every child in America should go to college. Well who are you? Who are you to say that every child in America go … I mean the hubris of this president to think that he knows what’s best for you. I … you know there is … I have seven kids. Maybe they’ll all go to college. But, if one of my kids wants to go and be an auto mechanic, good for him. That’s a good-paying job – using your hands and using your mind. This is the kind of, the kind of snobbery that we see from those who think they know how to run our lives. Rise up America, defend your own freedoms. And overthrow these folks who think they know how to orchestrate every aspect of your lives.

This statement exhibits OIP Derangement Syndrome in two ways. First, Santorum’s mind had obviously been unable to take in and repeat President Obama’s actual policies. For instance, in an address to Congress in February 2009, the President said:

I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship.

Not only did Obama say nothing against becoming an auto mechanic, he acknowledged that possibility when he spoke of “vocational training or an apprenticeship.” As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, American manufacturers like educated workers.

Santorum must have felt there was something wrong in Obama’s policy simply because it came from Obama. Under OIP Derangement Syndrome, his mind came up with a distorted version of that policy that enabled him to express his actual gut response to President Obama: “Who are you [my emphasis] to…run our lives”?

Santorum vocally opposes the power of ”this [my emphasis] president to think that he knows what’s best for you.” Of course, Santorum thinks he knows what’s best for us in a lot of ways, and he thinks the government should have to power run many parts of our lives. But to him “this president” is different.

Moorcock: “the prose of the nursery-room”

From Michael Moorcock’s essay “Epic Pooh,” as archived at Revolution SF (it was originally written in 1978, revised in 1989, and revised again to note recent authors):

The sort of prose most often identified with "high" fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies. It is soft:

One day when the sun had come back over the forest, bringing with it the scent of May, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.

Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926

It is the predominant tone of The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down and it is the main reason why these books, like many similar ones in the past, are successful. It is the tone of many forgotten British and American bestsellers, well-remembered children's books, like The Wind in the Willows, you often hear it in regional fiction addressed to a local audience, or, in a more sophisticated form, James Barrie (Dear Brutus, Mary Rose and, of course, Peter Pan).

Unlike the tone of E. Nesbit (Five Children and It etc.), Richmal Crompton (the 'William' books) Terry Pratchett or the redoubtable J.K.Rowling, it is sentimental, slightly distanced, often wistful, a trifle retrospective; it contains little wit and much whimsy.

Wait a minute! Milne’s characterization of Eeyore is hilarious. But his narrative voice is indeed the voice of an adult looking back/down on childhood. Nesbit’s narrative voice, on the other hand, is an author in conspiracy with young readers.

Perhaps the “voice of the nursery-room” is one reason why some of the novels Moorcock mentions—Lord of the Rings and Watership Down among them—are treated as books for young people even though their authors conceived them as books for adults.