Learning that the past is still alive is a special thrill, especially when it involves something with real meaning to us. Case in point: the section of yellow brick in Peekskill, N.Y. that made the network news this week. The Early Show on CBS News tells the remarkable story originally relayed in Finding Oz:
The episode of how a teenage Baum must have come upon this road is told in Finding Oz. And a recent front-page story in The Wall Street Journal has brought renewed attention to what should be a famous footpath. In "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," the yellow brick road leads to happiness. In this Hudson River town, it ends in a parking lot. For close to a decade, city historian John Curran has been waging an uphill battle to preserve a collection of crumbling golden bricks tucked near a commuter railroad station here that he believes inspired the yellow brick road in L. Frank Baum's children's novel and in the movie classic based on it.
Since the story appeared, there's been a flurry of interest from as far away as The Times of London and the BBC. Now, network news cameras are illuminating the issue. Tune in to The Early Show on CBS News tomorrow morning to follow the latest twists and turns.
It is with sadness but also in celebration of a remarkable life that we hear today of Mr. Raabe's passing. His immortal scene in which he proclaims The Wicked Witch of the East "really most sincerely dead" lasted only thirteen seconds but unleashes one of the most joyous eruptions of glee ever put to film, when the Munchkins break out into "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead." Certificate of Death
Name: The Wicked Witch of the East
Residence: The Land of Oz
I HEREBY CERTIFY that I attended deceased from May 6th to May 6th, 1938
I last saw her alive on May 6th 1938:
Death is said to have occurred on the date stated below at 12:30 p.m.
Date of Death: May 6th 1938
Month Day Year
Signature: W.W. Barister, M.D.
Address:
A few people have asked me about the
subtitle to Finding Oz,
wondering whether it would be more accurate to say that L. Frank Baum
"created" the great American story rather than
"discovered" it. The question gets to the heart of invention and
imagination.
Baum himself noted that he did not
actively set out to create The Wizard
of Oz, even though in a sense you could say he was searching for it
his whole life. "It was pure inspiration," he once said.
"It came to me right out of the blue. I think that sometimes the Great
Author has a message to get across, and He has to use the instrument at
hand. I happened to be that medium."
His sudden discovery of a story that
had been brewing for many years is consistent with what many
great artists have related in describing moments of inspiration.
For instance, Paul Simon has said that
his most inspired songs were not actively created. "If I make it up,
knowing where it's going, it's not as much fun," he tells Paul Zollo in Songwriters on Songwriting (2003).
"It may be just as good,
but it's more fun to discover
it ... in the underground river of the subconscious ... it comes to
the surface occasionally and you have to capture it when it happens."
Then he switches metaphors. "It comes through you, but you don't possess
it. You can't control it or dictate it. You're just waiting
... waiting for the show to begin."
Stephen King, in his memoir On Writing (2000), reveals something
similar about his story generation process. "My basic belief about the
making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves," King writes.
"Stories are found things, like fossils in the
ground ... stories are relics, part of an undiscovered, pre-existing
world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as
much of each one out of the ground as intact as possible."
So which is it? A divine
message? A signal from space? A river of dreams? A buried
treasure? It's whatever works. But if I had to pick one word for the process, I
would say 'discover' fits a bit better than 'create.'
Well, I remain a beginner at yoga, but listening to the teacher, Becky, and knowing Oz, it's clear that both are about self-discovery, about finding inner strength, and about realizing that home is really a state of being. As readers of Finding Oz know, these and other spiritual concepts informed L. Frank Baum in the years leading up to his creation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
at Chicago's Art Institute are commemorated with a street naming, a reminder of the spiritual enlightenment that the Swami brought to America... Namaste.Now that James
Cameron has surpassed himself with a new all-time global box office
champ, a lot of people are calling Avatar "the
most popular movie of all time." At first glance, it seems so.
But seriously, it's
not even close. Not by a long-shot. Adjusted for inflation, it currently ranks
#14, about even with Ben-Hur,
according to boxofficemojo, with
1939's Gone With the Wind still
fluttering at the top. But in terms of total number of viewers, that other film from 1939 takes the cake.
CBS calculated in 1983 that
a billion people worldwide had seen The
Wizard of Oz. The Library of Congress has called Oz the most-seen movie of all time.
Estimates now range from Two to Three Billion viewers, including
old-style network TV and home video.
By comparison,
about 200 Million people have seen Avatar
so far (if average ticket prices are $10). So it's the Munchkins over
the Na'vi, as the film based on L. Frank Baum's novel seems fairly secure as
the reigning champ of our collective consciousness.
In related news, Cameron tells NPR's Terry Gross that The Wizard of Oz is hands down his favorite film.
AVATAR takes place in the year 2154, when the Earth is dying or dead, and when a corporate-sponsored colonel marshals troops and technology to conquer planet Pandora and its blue natives, the Na'vi, in order to obtain the ultimate MacGuffin, a precious mineral called "Unobtainium." There are sly references to the war in Iraq, including a "shock and awe" line. More generally, the parable alludes to the mindset that goes along with any conquest, especially America's own conquest of the Native Americans in the 19th century and European mining of Africa. Through his avatar body, the main character, ex-Marine Jake Sully, experiences a glowing landscape and meets its nature-bound people before the destruction is to commence. And we are transported to this wonderland along with him. That is why the story and the spectacle cannot be separated. They go hand in hand. The visuals were created so we can enter this world, so this exact tale can be told.
The message of the movie is not subtle. AVATAR is a direct strike at the arrogance of human greed and militarism and how it is accelerating the destruction of our planet. Why do this, many are asking? Why not use the stunning visuals to tell a different story, a more comforting one, so I can simply just be entertained? The answer is because James Cameron is a great storyteller in addition to a great filmmaker. He taps into the symbolic dream language we all share (see Jung post below), and he does it for a purpose. 
This was a reprise of the program we all did in Peekskill in September, but now the act is more together. In 90 minutes, we cover over a century of storytelling and song. 
My talk about L. Frank Baum and his inspirations was followed by Carol de Giere's presentation about the making of Wicked, as told in DEFYING GRAVITY, her biography of composer Stephen Schwartz. Then came the music, from a pair of true talents: Carole Demas (the original "Sandy" in Grease) performing tunes from the 1939 classic film as well as rare numbers from the 1902 Oz stage musical, and Lara Janine ("Elphaba" from Wicked in Japan) singing "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity." Add a sing-a-long, a book signing, some coffee and cookies, and you end up with a magical night at the library. 
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