Eyeflash/Sugarland

Thanks to Ranjit for the offline pointer to the searchable archives. Mr. Ansley, I did read your wonderful posts about 'The Eyeflash Miracles'. You did a good job of pointing out the links between the two stories. I think further exploration about why the links are there at all is in order. Perhaps we'll find that it's just a little fun two-headed story that Wolfe whipped up. There are two possibilities I can immediately think of for the Oz references - 1) Oz is an actual alternate reality of which Little Tib is a doorway, or 2) Tib's powers simply conjure spirits that due to various reasons take the form of Oz characters. Regarding Alice's post: "But I think Sugarland, in context, is the Big Rock Candy Mountain. You know, er, Heaven." To which Keven responded: "Nothing in the rules says it can't be both." I think it is most definitely both. Since the experiments conducted on the children took place in Houston, it is likely that they are still in or around Houston. And another cool fact: I live near some train tracks (which split River Oaks and the Galleria Area) that I think run straight to Sugarland (actually spelled Sugar Land, home of Tara Lipinski, the lil skatin' gal). From now on, whenever I hear that train, I'll be thinking of them. :) Cliff Drane

You can call me William, Clifford. Although I put a lot of effort (probably far more than is evident from the haphazard result) into my Ozflash posts, I was doing the easy part compared to answering the "Why?" question. It is very likely unanswerable, but that shouldn't stop us from trying; it never has before. There are many other questions I would like to have answered about the story. Here are some: Why doesn't Little Tib recognize any of the Oz characters? When is it taking place? Is it our near future, or an alternate history line? Where is it taking place? It seems to be the United States, but why is the capital in Niagara? Has the US broken up? If it is our time-line, what happened to get us from here to there? Something big seems to have been left out (as usual with Wolfe.) Did Little Tib's parents really both become government agents? Was Little Tib's father complicit in his blinding? Little Tib's first dream suggests this. And on and on...

I don't think (1) is likely. Little Tib's contacts with Oz are either through dreams which are (to me at least) obviously dreams (albeit with many Oz elements) and not visits to an alternate reality (unless it is an alternate reality that is dream-like in a way that Oz, in Baum's hands at least, never was) or by interacting with a single Oz character in the "real" world. These Oz beings never talk about being transported from Oz in any manner, although they may mention Oz related people, places and things. (2) fits in with the way I read the story much better. As to why the "spirits" Little Tib's "conjures" up take on the form of Oz characters, I still can't come up with a better answer than my suggestion in my Ozflash postings that the Oz images are coming from the mind of Little Tib's father, Big Tib. Of course this leads to another why. Perhaps part of Big Tib's (subconscious) mind is trying to offer Little Tib a safe hiding place or help and the best hiding place and source of help it can come up with is (childhood memories of) Oz. It is interesting to compare Little Tib's angels with Silk's Enlightenment in TBotLS. The angels seems to help Little Tib, but it may well be that Little Tib is actually causing the helpful events to occur, with the angels as a guiding rather that effective force. Little Tib may be the help that was sent to him, as well. William Ansley