{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1438", "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": 1438, "subject": "Ozflash Revised, Part 7 (The End!)", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1999-03-17T23:48:12+00:00", "last": "1999-03-17T23:48:12+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1999-03-17T23:48:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ozflash Revised, Part 7 (The End!)", "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 7\nThe Slam-bang Conclusion!\n\nThere is a long complex scene where Little Tib's father tries to explain\nwhy he tried to kill him. When Little Tib touches his father's face, his\nfather seems to be wearing a thin, plastic mask, under which is a hard\nmetal face. Little Tib tries to change his father back to the way he\nremembers him in \"the old place\" the first home Little Tib can remember. He\nfeels great pressure building up in his chest, just under his breastbone.\nAnd he experiences some of the same symptoms that he did when the gas\ngrenade stopped working--his nose fills with mucus, his mouth with\nsaliva--but there is no tear gas this time. Then the pressure in his chest\nbursts out in a flood of tears. The metal mask flies off his father's face\nand clangs on the stage. When Little Tib feels his father's face it is back\nto normal. But this time Little Tib's miracle doesn't seem to work. While\nhis father is still trying to justify himself, Little Tib hears the sword\nslowly scraping along the stage. Fearing his father will strike again,\nLittle Tib runs away, heedless of what he may run into.[27]\n\nHe runs into Nitty, who has been looking for him, but Nitty never thought\nLittle Tib would have stayed out on the stage in the rain, so he didn't\nlook for him there. Nitty takes him back to the motel room.\n\nI have fallen a little behind in counting miracles. By my count, the Metal\nMan saving Little Tib from the sword (which I described in the previous\nsegment) is the sixth miracle and Little Tib's attempt to transform\n(reform?) his father is the seventh, even though it seems to fail.\n\nLate the next morning[28], a nice-smelling woman named Mrs. Munson comes to\nthe motel to take Little Tib to a class for blind children. She says she\nwas asked to come by the new, acting superintendent, Mr. Parker. Little Tib\nasks if Mr. Parker got his old job back. Mrs. Munson says she doesn't know\nif he had the job before, but when the computer was found to be\ninoperative, Mr. Parker presented his credentials as an educational\nprogrammer and offered to help. After school another, thicker woman, whose\nname Little Tib can never remember afterward, takes him to her home,\napparently a foster home. Little Tib isn't very happy there. This woman\ntakes Little Tib to school in the mornings and brings him home in the\nafternoons.\n\nOn the fifth day, Little Tib hears his father's voice in the school. His\nfather is calling himself Mr. Jefferson. He tells the school officials he\nis a government agent (which, as far as we know, is true) and takes Little\nTib away with him. He tells Little Tib he is going to bring him to Niagara\nfor examination.\n\nWhile Little Tib is being led to his father's car, he sees a little man\nwalking in front of him. The little man turns around to face Little Tib,\nwalking backwards. He has a bald head with upcurling hair on the sides, a\nlarge hooked nose and dark eyes that seem almost as if they are going to\nshoot sparks, but he does not look cruel. He is wearing a green coat with\ntwo sparkling green buttons and long tails.\n\n-----------------------\n\"And what can I do for you?\" he asked Little Tib.\n \"Get me loose,\" Little Tib said. \"Make him let go of me.\"\n \"And then what?\"\n \"I don't know,\" Little Tib confessed.\n The man in the green coat nodded to himself as if he had guessed that all\nalong, and took an envelope of silver paper out of his inside coat pocket.\n\"If you are _caught_ again,\" he said, \"it will be for good. Understand?\nRunning is for people who are not helped.\" He tore one end of the envelope\nopen. It was full of glittering powder, as Little Tib saw when he poured it\nout into his hand. \"You remind me,\" he said, \"of a friend of mine named\n_Tip_. Tip with a _p_. A _b_ is just a _p_ turned upside down.\" He threw\nthe glittering powder into the air, and spoke a word Little Tib could not\nquite hear.\n-----------------------\n\nLittle Tib is transported back in time to the classroom where/when his\nfather came for him. This happens slowly; the present sort of slides and\nfades away while the past slides and fades in. While this is happening, he\nhears the little man's voice say, (even though the little man has\ndisappeared) \"Tip turned out to be the ruler of us all in the end, you\nknow.\" Then Little Tib hears the beating of big wings.\n\nLittle Tib is in the classroom and he hears his father's voice. This time\nhis father is calling himself George Tibbs and he says he is Little Tib's\nfather. He tells a school official that he is with the federal government\nand starts to talk about a case he is working on. But before he says\nanything, he suggests Little Tib wait outside. Mrs. Munson leads Little Tib\nto a chair in the hallway and tells him to wait there.\n\nLittle Tib thinks about Krishna and decides that Krishna probably didn't\nrun away. He thinks about Jesus and how Jesus fled into Egypt but came\nback, not to Bethlehem (where he had fled from) but to Nazareth, because it\nwas his real home.\n\n-----------------------\nThe chair was hard--harder than any rock he had ever sat on. He felt the\nunyielding wood of its arms stretching to either side of him while he\nthought. There was something horrible about those arms, something he could\nnot remember.\n-----------------------\n\nThe bell rings and children start to leave the school. Little Tib gets up\nand leaves with them. He hears a train whistle and turns towards the sound.\nHe prefers to walk along train tracks rather than roads because he is less\nlikely to meet people and it is less dangerous. After walking a long\ndistance he finds his way to the tracks. Along the way, he picks up a\nstick, with which to feel his way. He climbs the embankment the train\ntracks are on and begins to walk along the rails, balancing with his stick.\nHe can see a little girl ahead of him. Because he can see her, he knows\nshe's an angel.\n\n-----------------------\n\"What's your name?\" he said.\n \"I mustn't tell you,\" she answered, \"but you can call me Dorothy.\" She\nasked his and he did not say George Tibbs but Little Tib, which was what\nhis mother and father had always called him.\n-----------------------\n\nDorothy tells Little Tib that she is going with him because he fixed her\nleg, although Little Tib doesn't think she sounds like the same girl.\n(Remember, Little Tib couldn't see the girl whose leg he healed.) She says\nshe can help him and tell him what to look out for. She says there is a man\nup ahead.\n\n-----------------------\n \"A bad man?\" Little Tib asked, \"or a good man?\"\n \"A nice man. A shaggy man.\"\n-----------------------\n\nThe man turns out to be Nitty. He says he is surprised to see Little Tib,\nalthough he supposes he shouldn't be. He also says that Mr. Parker seems to\nhave forgotten all about getting him his old job back. Little Tib\nintroduces Dorothy to Nitty.\n\n-----------------------\n Nitty said, \"I can't see any Dorothy, George.\" His voice sounded funny.\n \"Well, I can't see you,\" Little Tib told him.\n \"I guess that's right. Hello, Dorothy. Where are you an' George goin'?\"\n \"We're going to Sugarland,\" Little Tib told him. \"In Sugarland they know\nwho you are.\"\n-----------------------\n\nSugarland, Texas, is where the first home Little Tib can remember, the \"old\nplace,\" is located.\n\n-----------------------\nThe light of the sun, now setting, made the railroad ties as yellow as\nbutter. Nitty took Little Tib's hand, and Little Tib took Dorothy's, and\nthe three of them walked between the rails. Nitty took up a lot of room,\nbut Little Tib did not take much, and Dorothy hardly took any at all.\n When they had gone half a kilometer, they began to skip.\n-----------------------\n\nThe lines I have quoted above are the last lines of _The Eyeflash\nMiracles_. I don't know if Wolfe intended this, but they make me feel\noptimistic about the fate of Little Tib and Nitty, which is one reason I am\nso fond of this story.\n\nThe eighth miracle is Little Tib going back in time [29] to replay his\nfather coming to school and making it come out differently. The little man\nhe sees just before this happens (the \"angel\" who seems to make it happen)\nis the Wizard of Oz himself, as he appears in the John R. Neill\nillustrations, specifically. Of course the Wizard appears in the book _The\nWonderful Wizard of Oz_ and the movie. In both, he leaves in his balloon,\nwithout taking Dorothy with him. The Wizard doesn't appear again until the\nfourth book, _Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz_, although he is mentioned in\nthe second and third books. He appears in all of the remaining Oz books by\nBaum.\n\nThe Tip the Wizard mentions is a boy (full name Tippetarius) who appears in\nthe second Oz book, _The Marvelous Land of Oz_. This whole book builds up\nto the surprise of Tip's real identity. It turns out Tip was enchanted\nwhile a baby by an evil witch named Mombi. Tip is really Ozma, the rightful\nruler of Oz, who was hidden by being turned from a baby girl to a baby boy\nand who was then raised by the witch in a very isolated part of Oz (in\nGillikinland). In the original version of events (as given in _The\nMarvelous Land of Oz_), the Wizard is responsible for stealing baby Ozma,\nturning her over to old Mombi and persuading Mombi to enchant and hide her.\nBut, via Baum's \"revisionist history\" in _Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz_,\nthe Wizard becomes blameless (Mombi was acting on her own) and he is\ninvited to stay in the Emerald City by Ozma as the official Wizard.\n\nThe _The Marvelous Land of Oz_ ends with Tip being restored to his rightful\nform and status in Oz. The fact that Ozma was a boy is why I said, in Part\n2 of my essay, that Little Tib had a reason to refer to the beautiful woman\nin his dream (whom I identified as Ozma) as a \"king.\"\n\nI find it quite amusing that the Wizard's final statements seem to conflate\nOzma and Christ. The Wizard says Little Tib reminds him of Tip. Little Tib\nis a Christ-like figure (or possibly Christ, see below). Tip becomes/is\nOzma the \"ruler of us all\" in Oz, just as Christ becomes/is God, the ruler\nof us all on earth. (I am adopting the Christian point of view here for the\nsake of the argument, although I don't necessarily share it.)\n\nI am not sure what the sound of the beating of big wings is. In _The\nMarvelous Land of Oz_, Tip, with the help of the Tin Woodman and the\nScarecrow creates a bizarre flying contraption with big wings made out of\npalm fronds to escape from the palace in the Emerald City, which is\nbesieged by an enemy army. This may be what Wolfe has in mind here, but I\ndon't have any great confidence in this guess.\n\nI quoted the passage about the chair Little Tib is sitting in after he is\ntold to wait at the school because it took me a long time to figure it out,\nmuch longer than it probably should have. But now it seems obvious to me\nthat horrible thing Little Tib is being reminded of, but cannot remember,\nis the wooden arms of the cross of the crucifixtion, stretching out on\neither side of Jesus. This passage can be interpreted to meant that Little\nTib is remembering being crucified and therefore is Christ come again, but\nI don't think this is a necessary interpretation. He may just be almost\nremembering what he knows about the crucifixtion.\n\nThe little girl who Little Tib sees on the railroad tracks is, of course,\nDorothy Gale, the little Kansas girl who first makes the trip to Oz in a\ncyclone in the book _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ and, of course, in the\nmovie _The Wizard of Oz_. But she is not quite Dorothy. She implies that\nher name is something else, although I have no idea what it might really\nbe. She also identifies herself as the girl whose leg Little Tib healed in\nthe doctor's office, although she doesn't really seem to be that girl,\neither.\n\nThe final Oz character referred to in _The Eyeflash Miracles_ is the Shaggy\nMan. A character with this name first appears in _The Road to Oz_, the\nfifth Oz book. He is a hobo Dorothy meets in Kansas, near her Uncle's farm,\nwhen she is trying to find her way home. He and Dorothy become magically\nlost and, after many adventures, find their way to Oz, just in time for\nOzma's birthday party. The Shaggy Man appears in most of the Oz books that\nfollow _The Road to Oz_, at least briefly.\n\nWolfe breaks the pattern of the story here. Until this point, all of the Oz\ncharacters were in Little Tib's dreams or visions and they had very little,\nif any lasting reality in the \"real\" world of the story. But Nitty is a\nreal person and he also is identified with an Oz character.\n\nWolfe's portrayal, in words and actions, of the Oz characters he refers to\nvaries. Although the gnomes act pretty much as Baum's nomes would, they\ndon't talk the way Baum's nomes did. Tik-tok's actions and speech are quite\nclose to Baum's version although Wolfe does not adapt Baum's annoying\ngimmick of putting a hyphen between each syllable of polysyllabic words to\nindicate Tik-tok's monotonous way of speaking. It gets ti-re-some ve-ry\nquick-ly. Since Wolfe's Cowardly Lion doesn't speak and is only shown\ndancing, a comparison with Baum's version is difficult, but they have the\nribbon in the mane in common. The Scarecrow is very well portrayed and is\ncloser to the version in Baum's books than in the movie. After all, he\nmentions that the Wizard has already given him his brains[30]. Considering\nhow short a time he appears in the story, Wolfe manages very well to\ncapture the essence of the Tin Woodman as he appears in the movie and\nBaum's books too, since his character is quite similar in both. The Wizard\nalso appears briefly and is well portrayed by Wolfe, matching the Wizard\nfrom Baum's Oz books rather than the movie version. Dorothy isn't quite the\nDorothy of the movie or Baum's books, since she is also somehow the girl\nwhose leg Little Tib healed, but she doesn't really say or do anything out\nof character. The Shaggy Man is a special case, since he is really Nitty,\nbut since they are both hoboes, there is a certain correspondence there as\nwell.\n\nI have taken much longer than I intended to finish this essay. (If it can\nbe called finished; I think it still needs some revision. But I think I\nneed to call a halt at this point, at least for the moment.) I hope that\nanyone who has read this far has gotten some information and enjoyment out\nof it.\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n[27] In this last paragraph I have been doing more interpretation of the\ntext than before in order to summarize more effectively, since Wolfe leave\nmany things unsaid. It is not absolutely sure that Little Tib is trying to\nwork a miraculous change in his father in the scene I describe, nor that\nhis father is definitely trying to kill him again. But his father is still\ntrying to justify himself even after his metal mask is removed, which is an\nindication that he hasn't really changed.\n\n[28] Wolfe seems to be making a subtle joke here based on a nursery rhyme.\nWhen they leave for the school Little Tib asks Mrs. Munson if it is noon,\nsince it seems too hot to be morning. She answers that Mr. Parker called\nher at ten o'clock, but she couldn't leave the school until now.\n\nA diller, a dollar,\nA ten o'clock scholar.\nWhat makes you come so soon?\nYou used to come at ten o'clock,\nBut now you come at noon.\n\n[29] This certainly foreshadows how Wolfe treats miracles and miracle\nworking in _The Book of the New Sun_.\n\n[30] In the book _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ the Wizard actually fills the\nScarecrow's head with bran (mixed with pins and needles to give him sharp\nwits) instead of handing him a diploma and making a speech. (Yes, I know--I\nlike the movie version better, too.) Not surprisingly, Baum's description\nof exactly what the Scarecrow's brains are made of changes from book to\nbook later in the series." } ] } ] }