{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1425",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1425,
    "subject": "Ozflash Revised, Part 4",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-10T23:59:28+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-10T23:59:28+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0054@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "William H. Ansley",
        "address": "wansley at warwick.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-10T23:59:28+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Ozflash Revised, Part 4",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The New Improved Wonderful Eyeflash of Oz\nOz References in \"The Eyeflash Miracles\" Part 4\n\nLittle Tib, Nitty and Mr. Parker are picked up while hitchhiking by the\ndriver of an old school bus which has been converted into a temple of the\ngod Deva. The driver's name is Dr. Prithivi. He is a \"Doctor of Divinity of\nthe University of Bombay.\"\n\nThe bus stops at a \"road-side park\" which has a \"lookout point\" from which\nyou can see \"parts of seven counties.\" Dr. Prithivi comments on how he once\nsaw a leopard at a summer cottage his family rented in the Himalayas.\n\nHearing this, Little Tib tries to remember what a leopard looks like but\ncannot. He then tries to visualize a cat. At first he cannot, but then he\nsucceeds and an image appears in front of him. But it is not a cat, but a\nlion standing on its hind legs with a red ribbon knotted in its mane. It is\ndancing and Little Tib joins it in the dance. After he has danced for some\ntime he is grabbed from behind by many hands. He realizes that he has been\ndancing in the air over the lookout point, with a very long drop below him.\n\nI am counting this event as the third miracle. The lion Little Tib sees is\nalmost certainly the Cowardly Lion from the movie _The Wizard of Oz_, at\nleast in part. The lion's face starts out as a \"kindly blur\" and as they\ndance it becomes \"clearer and clearer\" until \"it was a funny, friendly,\nfrightening face.\" This certainly could be a description of Bert Lahr's\nlion makeup in the movie. After he got spruced up in the Emerald City, the\nCowardly Lion did have a red ribbon in his mane[16]. The Cowardly Lion in\nthe books also wore one or more ribbons but he was always described as\nwalking on all fours like a real lion, so the dancing lion seems closer to\nthe movie version. However the dancing lion never speaks and the Cowardly\nLion doesn't dance in the books and the dancing he does in the movie is\nquite different from the dancing Little Tib's lion does, so the fit is not\nperfect.\n\nLater, when Little Tib described what he thought was happening when the\nother people at the lookout point (there was a small crowd of them) saw him\ndancing on the air by himself, Dr. Prithivi decided that the lion might be\nVishnu in his lion-headed form. There was a picture of Vishnu portrayed\nthis way, destroying the demon Hiranyakasipu, painted on Dr. Prithivi's\nbus. Since Little Tib's lion was dancing to Indian flute music, this also\nseems to be a valid interpretation. Dr. Prithivi goes on to list other\n\"significations\" of the lion: among the Jews, an emblem of the tribe of\nJudah; in Islam, the son-in-law of Mohammed was known as the Lion of God;\nin Christianity, a winged lion is the badge of St. Mark and one without\nwings indicates Christ. When Dr. Prithivi asks Little Tib, \"George, when\nyou were dancing with the lion man, did you perhaps feel him to be the\ngod?\" Little Tib replies, \"No, an angel.\"\n\nDr. Prithivi takes Little Tib to his bus/temple and asks him to pray to\nDeva. While Little Tib tries to do this he thinks about the rocks he might\nhave fallen on when he was in the air. He dreams of a rocky land where\nnothing grows. It is sunny and very hot and when he finds a cave he goes\ninto it to try to escape the heat. But even though it is dark in the cave\nit gets hotter and hotter. Little Tib hears a tapping sound like a bag of\nmarbles poured out, bouncing, onto a stone floor and stops to listen. He is\ncaptured by small, grotesque-looking men with torches and axes[17]. They\nare gnomes[18]. They take him before the Gnome King in his throne room,\nwhich is full of gold and jewels. Little Tib and the Gnome King have this\nexchange. The Gnome King speaks first.\n\n-------------------------------\n\"You have trespassed my dominions,\" he said. \"How do you plead?\" He looked\nlike the other gnomes, but thinner and meaner.\n  \"For mercy,\" Little Tib said.\n  \"Then you are guilty?\"\n  Little Tib shook his head.\n  \"You have to be. Only the guilty can plead for mercy.\"\n  \"You are supposed to forgive trespasses,\" Little Tib said, and as soon as\nhe had said that, all the bright lamps in the throne room went out.\n-------------------------------\n\nAt this point Little Tib escapes. He finds his way to a lighted area with\ntrees and grass and thinks he is outside for a moment. Then he notices that\nthe trees are made of silver with gold leaves, the grass is a carpet of\ngreen gems and the sky is a vault of stone. Mechanical birds sing and fly\nabout. The light comes from the trees somehow.\n\nLittle Tib is very thirsty by this time and nearly cries when he sees there\nis no water in the cave. Then he notices the trees have gold fruit. He\npicks one. It is the size of a grapefruit and he finds that he can unscrew\nit into two halves. Inside is a meal that is too hot to eat. Little Tib\nfinally finds a container of scalding tea and he is so thirsty he tries to\ndrink some, even though it blisters his lips.\n\nSuddenly he is in the dark again, except for a small spot of light. He\nhears the tapping noise again and realizes this time that it is the\npounding of hundreds and hundreds of picks. The gnomes are digging for gold\nin their mines. He sees the gnomes coming for him from the lighted area and\nhe wakes up.\n\nThe nomes are introduced in _Ozma of Oz_. The land outside the Nome King's\ncave is very much as Wolfe describes it. Baum's Nome King's throne room is\nsimilar to Wolfe's description, but there are differences. Baum's nomes are\nconstantly digging with picks and shovels when they are not smelting gold\nor hammering it in their smithies. They only stop when the Nome King needs\nthem to serve as soldiers.\n\nThe Metal Forest is described in _Tik-Tok of Oz_ (Chapter 19, \"King\nKaliko\"). It is a sort of treasury for the nomes. Again some details differ\nfrom Wolfe's description[19]. The major one is that the cave of the Metal\nForest also contains living trees called Hotel Trees which bear\nThree-Course Nuts (described in Chapter 22: \"Kindly Kisses\"). The fruits\nare cocoanut-sized and unscrew into three sections (soup, main course and\ndessert) but they are obviously the source of Little Tib's golden fruit.\n\nThe constant heat in Little Tib's dream was apparently due to his fever and\nhe probably dreamed of drinking the scalding tea when Nitty was giving him\nhis medicine with ice water.\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n[16] In the Oz movie, the ribbon in the Cowardly Lion's mane was red. In\nthe book _Ozma of Oz_ the Lion had a blue ribbon tied in a bow in his mane\n(in Chapter 8: \"The Hungry Tiger\"). Somewhat surprisingly, the color of\nthis ribbon has no significance in the book.\n\n[17] The description of the gnomes is based mostly on the illustrations in\nthe book, as before.\n\n[18] Baum consistently used the spelling 'nome' because he thought the word\ngnome with its silent 'g' would be too hard for a child reading the Oz\nbooks to himself. (Thank you, alga.) Wolfe \"corrected\" nome to gnome.\n\n[19] Baum's metal trees are all gold and the underbrush is silver. There\nare no mechanical birds in Baum's Metal Forest, but in the twelfth Oz book,\n_The Tin Woodman of Oz_ (Chapter 3, \"Roundabout\") the Tin Woodman has tin\nmechanical (clockwork) birds in the tin garden near his tin palace in the\nCountry of the Winkies."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}