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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Wizard of Oz

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 Bipolar freedom: click your heels three times

 

“You're glowing,” says my friend. “You must have had a good year.”

It's been three since last we talked: Paganicon as family reunion.

Actually, the year has been anything but good: difficulty after difficulty, setback after setback.

He's right, though, and not the first to remark on it: I am glowing. These are the people among whom I can be my truest self, people that speak my mother tongue.

“I'm always at my best among my own,” I say.

He laughs and shakes his head. Corny, maybe, but it's true for him, too. His family threw him out, literally, when as a teen he came out of the broom closet. Pagans have been his people, too, for more than 40 years.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 famous lines from the Wizard of Oz movie | The Enchanted Manor

Wizard of Oz: The Scariest Moment

 

As a child, there was one scene in The Wizard of Oz, a film not lacking in scary scenes, that I found uniquely terrifying.

No, not one of the transformation scenes: when Miss Gulch on her bicycle, caught up into the winds of the tornado, becomes the cackling Wicked Witch of the West on her broom, or that awful moment in the Witch's Tower when the one that Dorothy loves best of all, Auntie Em, seen remotely in the crystal ball, transforms into the one that she fears most of all, the Witch herself.

No, nor the moments of sheer weirdness: the Wizard's disembodied head—as green as the WWW herself, be it noted—on his throne flanked by roaring gouts of fire, nor even the “Fly! Fly! Fly!” scene in which the Witch unleashes a skyful of shrieking, flying monkeys.

(Gods: what's creepier than the flying monkeys? So weird. So blue. Winged monkeys, so blue, dressed in weird little bellhop uniforms. And they're so blue!)

No: for me, the moment of deepest fear was existential.

 

Dorothy, fleeing the tornado, finally manages to get back home. Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands have already gone down into the storm cellar. Dorothy stomps frantically at the door, but with all the noise of the cyclone, they can't hear her.

For the sheltered little kid growing up in the protected suburbs that I was, that was the most frightening moment of all. You're in trouble, you finally manage to make it back home, and even there they can't protect you.

Kid, you're on your own.

 

Masterpiece that it is, WoO (the Movie) is a film about the terrors (and joys) of growing up.

In it, Dorothy's quest is twofold: both finding Home, and escaping it.

(Salman Rushdie remarks in his truly brilliant Guide to the Wizard of Oz that, for a film supposedly about getting back home, the real theme is the simultaneous need to escape home as well. As a boy growing up in Bombay, he knew the film so well that it influenced his dreams. He describes one particularly terrifying nightmare in which, looking out his bedroom window, he sees a broom-riding Miss Gulch morph into—who else—Indira Gandhi. “The Wicked Witch of the West,” he observes wryly, “transformed into the Wicked Witch of the East.”)

The ineffectual father (Uncle Henry/the Wizard of Oz), the over-controlling mother (Aunt Em/the Wicked Witch): these are the parents/un-parents from whom Dorothy longs to escape, and with whom she longs to be reunited.

No, mom and dad can't protect you forever, kid. You've got to grow up and make it on your own.

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Dear Boss Warlock:

When I heard about the conviction of killer cop Derek Chauvin, I wanted to dance in the streets and sing “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead.” As a triumph song, it's hard to beat.

But now I'm wondering: is it OK for witches to sing that song?

Munchkinning in Madison

 

Dear MM:

My friend, you're golden to go, and here's why:

By virtue of the fact that we're insane enough to call ourselves witches, anything with the word “witch” on it ipso facto (as Professor Marvel would say) automatically belongs to us.

So: when it comes to “Ding Dong,” feel free to dance, sing, and ring the bells out. It's our song, and we'll sing if we want to.

To be sure, I would recommend a certain amount of situational editing. Boss Warlock can fondly recall hearing the dulcet strains of “Ding Dong the Nazz Is Dead” ("Which old nazz? the nazzty nazz!") on the streets of Paganistan after the unlamented demise of the late Jerry Falwell,

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  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    Mr. Posch, One major thing I can't forgive Falwell for, is his response to 9/11. We Pagans were the first people he blamed. "Y
13 Things I Learned from "The Wizard of Oz"

1.  Being a Christian can get in the way of saying things that really need to be said.

2.  Even if you do manage to make it back home before the twister hits, they still might not be able to help you.

3.  Watch out for falling farmhouses.

4.  Only bad witches are ugly.

5.  Possession is 12/13ths of the law.

6.  Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking.

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  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    And if you really want to succeed, you need to befriend Animal (Lion), Vegetable (Scarecrow), and Mineral (Tin Man). And if that'
  • Anne Forrester
    Anne Forrester says #
    And if the Scarecrow is "TO KNOW", the Tin Man is "TO WILL", and the Cowardly Lion is "TO DARE"; they all need to work together wi
Yellow Brick Road to Awakening Spread - Symbols from the Wizard of Oz

As I mentioned in my post A Halloween Divination Spread:

When it comes to spreads--positions for Tarot/Oracle cards, Runes, charms or other divinatory objects--it's easier than you may think to create custom layouts based on holidays, stories, songs, sacred texts, deities or themes using symbols for positions. 

...
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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I've read that L. Frank Baum was a theosophist so it's not too surprising that there should be a lot of layered meaning in "The Wi
  • Janet Boyer
    Janet Boyer says #
    Interesting! I didn't know that, Anthony.

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Taking a Slitch

You know the song I mean. The one that begins:

Let the joyous news be spread....

Just to refresh your memory: first, the house begins to pitch. Then the kitchen takes a slitch, and lands on the wicked witch. In the middle of a ditch, no less. How humiliating.

It had been raining off and on for a week before we got to the festival site, and there were mud slicks everywhere. A friend of ours came limping into camp, clearly a little the worse for wear.

"What happened to you?" someone asked.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
St. Margaret Hamilton Rides Again

Wicca-schmicca. The iconic witch of the 20th century is Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West. If you've ever wondered why she's green, any Midwesterner can tell you. Tornado skies really are that color.

My friend Stephanie and I are big Wizard of Oz folks. Is that really a filmic epiphany of the Triple Goddess there in Munchkinland, or are you just glad to see me?

Stephanie's doorbell hasn't worked for years. Why have it repaired when you can hang a Bell Out of Order: Please Knock sign on your front door instead? For all I know, the doorbell actually does work.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Ruth Pace
    Ruth Pace says #
    the stereotyped picture of a witch came out before Wizard of Oz - half-healed bruises will take on a greenish tint. Add to the pic
  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Being a good Christian Witch, I do so love this story

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