A Geek History of Time - Episode 172 - L Frank Baum, Accidental Allegorist and Prophet Part II

Episode Date: August 20, 2022

The World Disney Yes, beloved, beloved figure of our pop culture. That's how they get you. And out of Yada, she eventually causes her own husband to be born to death. And that makes me so happy on cold nights. Especially in and badly for the idiot Pecker Woods.

You have a bottle of scotch. Okay, that's twice that he's mentioned redheads. It is un-American to get in the way of our freedom to restrict people's freedom. That was the part where I was. I know plenty about this thing. I love me some Bobby Drake. Well, if that's all we've got then we're being really lazy. Yeah.

Y'all bone. You can literally poke a hole in it as soon as someone gets pneumonia. Well, I'm not as old as you. Well, ha ha mother fuck motherfucker, I got a wizard. 1.0-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1. This is a T-Caster of Time. Where we connect nursery to the real world. My name is Ed Blomock. I'm a World History and English teacher here in Northern California. And in recent news, my son is showing a very strong talent for logical thinking. Like I am now watching the development of his ability to follow a train of logic. The cognitive development is, you know, coming along.

He's four now. And the other day, we were on our way to the park. And I was telling him, I was pushing him in his wagon. And his wagon has, it's one of the, you know, kind of fold up ones that, you know, you can fold out. And it has a sunshade over the top of it. And I was mentioning to him that, it's a good thing that he had the sunshade because I'd get in big trouble if he got sunburned. Mommy would not be happy with me. And of course, my son has a complexion

very similar to his mother's, which is to say it's German, so it's pale, so the boy could get sunburned. So this is a worry. And I mentioned this to him, and this then got us into a conversation. And I mentioned putting on sunscreen and he said, well, you know, would Rory need to put on sunscreen? And Rory is one of his stuff toys. It's an Ankylo source named Rory. And I said, well, you know, I mean, if he was going to be out in the sun, he might want to put some on. And we went through talking about the rest of his stuffies and he said, yeah, I know we'd want to make sure they all put on sunscreen because we wouldn't want them

to get sunburned. And then he said, well, and then he left one of a notable one of the cast of characters off of his list. And I said, well, you know, what about Habanero? He said, well, Habanero doesn't need sunscreen. I said, well, why not? He said, well, because Habanero breathes fire. Habanero for those of you who aren't here with me and my son, Habanero is a dragon that was a gift from one of his godmother's or Christmas, Brightred and Fire Breathing Dragon. And he said, well, you know, he doesn't need sunscreen because he's fire.

So he doesn't, he wouldn't get a sunburn. And I blinked a couple of times and I went, yeah, well, you're right, I guess that that does make perfect sense. And that's, that's the most nerdy example of this that I can think of right now at the top of my head. But just a few minutes before we started recording, I was listening to my wife having a conversation with him in his room, reasoning with him about why he doesn't need to be afraid of the dark in his room, touching on such points as well. Okay, if that looks scary in the dark, just think for a minute, if that were to actually jump down off of your shelf, would it really be able to do anything to you?

Okay. Are you the biggest thing in this room? And sounding like there was progress being made there. So, you know, it's a remarkable phase to be watching and trying to figure out how to leverage it for good. So that's what I've got going on. How about you? Who are you and what's happening in your life right now? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin and US history teacher up here in Northern California and

most recently I had to reschedule something for my daughter because I blew it on the scheduling So there was a bit of a lesson there in She has every right to be angry. She doesn't have to forgive me for her disappointment. And it's still a reality that we have to deal with. And it's a disappointment we have to deal with. And essentially, I just double booked two things. And so then I rescheduled it. And unfortunately, the next date that she can have all her friends over to start them on session zero for D&D isn't for several weeks because of her resolve at camps and doing things like that. So, you know, she spent a day being disappointed and frustrated. And finding ways to express it without being an asshole about it too, which is really, you know, that's the goal of all parents, is that their children don't do this to do that.

Now, I must say, I had several ideas as the elder parent of the group, but not the elder parent of the group. It changed the words. So whatever my person, or whatever you got for me, but you have a golden opportunity to do a couple things. Number one, You have a golden opportunity to do a couple things. Number one, next time he talks about that with Habanero and you get the logic thing, take him to the next step and then create stories with him. Like, I don't know if you put him down for naps, but let's talk, let's tell a story about Habanero

and how he saved somebody from a hot planet. Okay. Go, you know, and stuff like that. And then as far as the, you know, he's still scared of the dark. I did hear a turn of phrase, and I don't know if it was a ed phrasing or if it was a direct quote, but you don't have to be afraid of any of the dark in your room. Implies that there's a lot of darkness elsewhere. They want to ought to be.

So if that's where you're going, I can understand that because it'll keep him in his room at night. In theory, using parenting for evil. Right. But one, you know, just maybe, you know, also, you know, I love the, are you the biggest one in your room? But there's great courage and little things too. And I, and I think it's a great place to start of like, you know, and I remember I've turned it around where my son was afraid of something. I'm like, dude, it's so much smaller than you.

It's afraid of you. And then he immediately started empathizing with it. Mm-hmm. Now, in fairness, my son is forever like, I mean, he writes letters of remembrance for fish that died, that he doesn't even know their names because it was a sister's fish. So, yeah, that's my boy, but it is a cool thing to do is like, hey, I'm a big believer of turning your weaknesses into your strengths. What's that you're afraid of the dark? So is that other thing in the room and you need to show it how you get through your fear.

Not put your fear away, not be brave, but how do you get through your fear? And I've, we've talked about this before in the unsolicited advice section of the show, where you give a kid something to do and suddenly they're able to pull themselves through a thing. So, yeah. Anyway, there's the unsolicited advice of, of this episode. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. Absolutely.

But you're, you really do, especially given your love of storytelling, make that boy a bard, let him multi-class. Yeah. Yeah. That's worth trying definitely. Speaking of story tellers, we were talking about the most benign upper class twit in literary history. Yeah.

Last time we were together. Last time we literary history. Yeah, you referenced Garb. Actually, what you did. What you did. I ended up rewatching that movie last night and the amount of sense memories that came flooding into my head. I mean, she wears a sweater later in the movie, like his wife does, that my mom had.

Because fashion was fairly ubiquitous in 1981. There are so many lines that I can remember what the carpet in my house smelled like. Their bed spread was the same one that my grandma had. So I remembered watching Frago Rock because they had HBO. And petting that that that comforter. I remember various scenes and what it smelled like the secondary smoke that was in the house because it was the 80s. And and just I remember, you know, my mom's haircut the way my dad looked at everything. I remembered so much. It really, yeah. Oh god. And I didn't realize how I'm gonna say formative, but I don't know in any way that it was formative, but how I don't know companion piece

it was. Yeah, I guess so. To my childhood. It was it was quite something. I was I was looking at it because I was like, oh, maybe I can show this with my kids. I will not be sharing this with my kids. Jesus Christ. No, wow, not not youngster appropriate. Yeah. And I told my girlfriend about it and she'd never seen the movie. She'd only ever read the book to which I said, there's a book because I have a brand to protect and being not particularly literate. So with that in mind, let's talk about L-Frankbaum. So as I told you last time, the second edition sold out at 15,000 copies. So like first edition was 10,000, second editions, 15,000.

So if anybody claims that they have those, you have literally one of just a few thousands. What I found fascinating about Oz, the story of Oz, is that ultimately at its very, very basics. You know, kind of like there are certain movies where like if you break it down, you're like, oh, this is actually just a love story. And people are like, oh, Jesus Christ, that's not a love story. It's like, well, it has this and this and this. You're like, oh my God, it is. You know, that kind of thing. Or, you know, when I, you know, somebody explains,

you know, Harry Potter is just, you know, Lord of the Rings and or Star Wars. Yeah, you know, or any, any Cambillion, you know, hero myth. Yeah. So, Oz is a phase story. Okay. Um, it's also an allegory of an American history. Uh, and it's wild to me that a man who is so unenvolved with the world that he lived in,

who lived in all the places where big shit was happening. Remember? Oh, yeah. He's at a dinner party, or a Christmas-type party, shortly after Chester Arthur becomes president in the same state that Arthur was from. And there's no mention of any of that. He's in Chicago during the Haymarket affair and stuff like that.

And there's no mention of any of that. And so he's so uninvolved in the world that he lives in that he's writing a story that's escaping from it still. Like what need does he have to? He already got that. He, he, he, yeah, he by, by dent of his privilege. Right. He escaped from it already. Yeah. Right. So like, there's no overwhelming psychological need. And he's not dialed into the zeitgeist in any way that I've been able to find. And at the same time that he's here for all these things, he's not present for all these things. And yet he makes an incredibly allegorical story that one would only be able to make if one were dialed into all of these things.

Well, there's something to be said for the subconscious. I mean, you know, and, and, you know, pattern on the wallpaper being, you know, one of our taglines, even though he was insulated from all of it, like, like, like, fiberglass inside a space blanket insulated. Yeah, the pink pamphor called would like to make a commercial about his surroundings, you know. But even even with the extent to which he was insulated from it, like, he had to see the headlines, the newspapers, he had to. That's true. He was a reporter. He was. He was not a great one, but he was a reporter. And or he's not well known for his reporting. Right. And certainly, even though he was, you know, the again upper class, Twitt, I just, you know, the ultimate, um, a dilatant. Yes. You know, a dilatant. Yes. You know, he was still surrounded by people who who would have been very, very heavily concerned. His mother-in-law, for instance, his mother-in-law, and his father-in-law.

His father-in-law. Yeah. And, you know, everybody, everybody else in, in the extended social circle, like his immediate social circle was writers and theater people, but beyond that, anytime he went to a family function, friends of the family, who were all industrialists and upper middle class and above kind of people,

they don't be- And reformers on his wife's side. Yeah, and activists on his wife's side, one way or another that would have been the topic of conversation that would have been stuff that was going on. Yeah. That would have been on everybody's mind. So, you know, he was not involved in any of it. He did not make any direct kind of statements that have survived for us to read about

any of it. Or if he did, my research didn't yield that. statements that have survived for us to read about any of it. Or if he did, my research didn't yield that. I mean, I am by no means an L Frank Baum scholar. And there I met somebody when I was 24, 25, who was getting a PhD in studying L Frank Baum. Really? Oh, yeah, and they were not the only one. Like it is a whole field. It's kind of like being a Walt Whitman scholar. Like there's a lot of them, you know? Or a whole scholar.

Yeah. Which has its own, you know, controversies and issues. But yeah. So, all right, yeah. I mean, you know, if there's any research. But in my research, who knows anybody who's done that research, like by all means, please hit us up on Twitter. Let us know. Oh yeah, no, he actually, you know, if there's But in my research, who knows anybody who's done that research, like by all means, please hit us up on Twitter.

Yeah, just, oh, yeah, no, he actually, he like sends him shit. Yeah, send me a picture of the diary page where he's like, I cannot fucking believe these people did this in this place. You know, like, no, that's, that's fine. Because otherwise, I've got him making hamburgers, which are actually chickens. So that will always stay with me. The ultimate dilatant. I'm just saying.

It's like breeding sheep that are called eemu. It's weird. Anyway, his wife, Maud, never had a daughter. The only good boys. Anyway, his wife, Maude, never had a daughter. The only good boys. Yeah. Her brother Thomas and Thomas's wife Sophia gave birth to a lovely baby girl in June 1898. So I'm going to go back just a little bit. Okay.

Her name was Dorothy Louise Gage. Okay. Now there are those who say that the name Dorothy was simply a popular name at the time of the publication of this book. And that's possible, though, in my research, it never cracked the top 10 of girls' names until 1903, well after his book. It doesn't mean it wasn't still popular. I mean, you take the name Damien. It is never cracked the top 10. But in 1977, it was the 210th most popular name,

and there were four kids in my eighth grade class, all of us named Damien. No kidding. No kidding. And just for fun, I decided to deep dive a little bit on my own name. It peaked in 77, and it didn't get any more popular for the next 20 years.

And through the 80s, it dipped quite a bit from the peak at 210th most popular. But in 1997, it dropped back to 206th. In 2012, it cracked the top 100 for the first time since its debut at 942nd in 1952. Wow. For two years, it remained the 98th most popular name after that, and then it hasn't been under three digits since. OK. I think it has a lot to do with a point guard

in Portland, Oregon on the Trailblazers' name, Dilly. OK, yeah, I can see that. Yeah. But back to Dorothy Louise Gage. Yeah. Now Dorothy Gale, Dorothy Gage, right? Yeah. She was by all accounts or sweet little thing with whom Maude was absolutely smitten. I mean, this was a girl. This was a girl that she did not have to throw in a barrel to show why you shouldn't do that to a cat. She didn't have to suspend this child from the second story window by her ankle to show why you don't throw cats from windows. A beautiful, perfect, lovely little girl, one who could grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer. So she could carry on what

mod had stopped at and what grandma had had wanted. Yeah, okay. Unfortunately, Dorothy Louise Gage died on November 11th, 1898 from something called congestion of the brain. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, I cannot even imagine. Yeah, for like the whole family, but yeah, oh, board. Now, back then, child mortality was not super rare. Yeah.

But like we've spoken before, it does not make it any less devastating. Yeah. Um, now this devastated mod, the ant of this child, right? Not the, not the mom, not the dad, but the aunt devastated her to the point of needing medication. not the dad, but the aunt who devastated her to the point of needing medication. Now, evidence suggests that Frank, because he loved his wife so, because he didn't have much in the way of practical skills, he did the only thing that he knew how to do to console his beloved heartbroken wife. He changed a little boy who got pitched from a cyclone into a Feyworld that he told his children about into a girl named Dorothy Gail immortalizing

the niece that they had lost. And there's a fair amount of debate about whether or not this was so given that he used the name Dorothy in a story they'd written in 1897 as well. So before that child was born, all the same like it 100% sounds like something he would do. Yeah, yeah, totally makes sense. And you know, going back to the name, Dorothy, it occurs to me that I had a great hand Dorothy. My grandfather's younger sister, okay, I would have been born around about the tens or teens or actually earlier probably just

before the, just before like 1907, 1908. Yeah, by then it's starting to pick up in popularity. Yeah. And it's, it's always kind of hovered. Yeah. You know, it, it, it, hovers through the movie and then it gets more popular and then it drops off About the 70s now money from Oz had not come in yet in 1900 royalties were due in January of 1901 And mod insisted that Frank approaches publishers and ask for an advance on those royalties Because you know, they're still living a little bit hand him out, despite the incredible success.

It's like, okay, you've got incredible success and by the way, you know. Now they granted it and he took the check. He said, thank you very much, put it in his pocket without looking. And of course he came home and Maude was ironing one of his shirts and he gave her the check. Here you go. And that's what he does her the check. He's like, here you go.

And that's what he does, right? He always does that, right? Yeah. She was gobsmacked at the amount on the check to the point where she burned his shirt. They'd been expecting $100, which would have been $3,300 of our dollars, which is pretty good.

A sizeable, sizeable check. That's more than Christmas, you know? Yeah. She found that the check was for 3,432 dollars and 64 cents, which in our dollars would be 115,000 dollars, 595 dollars and 96 cents. Remember that scene in the jerk. Remember that scene in the jerk? One hundred. Macarena. Yes. Wait.

Okay. It was 50 big one. 50 big ones. Yeah. How? Say that number for me again in modern dollars. One hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred ninety five dollars and ninety six cents. Say that number for me again in modern dollars, $15,595.96. $1.09.

Holy shit. Yeah, no, no wonder she burned one of his shirts. It's, it's a miracle she didn't break her foot dropping the iron. Right. Oh my God. So now you get an advance on this money, right? You're going to get it the next month anyway. Yeah.

Right. So it's not like you're even like, okay, I really, I financed, you know, next year with this. Yeah. Yeah. So you get an advance by by a month. Being L Frank bomb, what are you going to do with that money? You absolutely follow up this massive success with this book and with all this money with

an attempt to put it into theater. Oh, shit, really. Yeah, so he writes the play and it actually was pretty successful ending up on Broadway for three different extended runs. It opened first in Chicago in 1902 under the name The Wizard of Oz. Okay. That's the first time that title was used because previously it was the wonderful, right? Yeah.

It differed quite a bit from the children's book because bomb was seeking to entertain adults this time with a musical play, because he's still smitten with the idea of a music. Yeah, okay. Royalties from the musical play, paid for a six-month tour of Egypt, Greece, Italy, Northern Africa, France, Switzerland, for Frank and Maud.

Like, I love these two. Like, they go to Egypt, Greece, Italy, Northern Africa, France, and Switzerland. They're on a Caesar tour. I know. Yeah. I mean, they're going in order too. Plus, North Africa. But that's what they do with the royalties from this.

So he's starting to pull like, this is the beauty of being a creative, I've heard. Yeah. Wow. Now, when you manage, when you manage to find something that hits the zip-guys like that, oh, Jesus. And, and you milk it as hard as you can because it's America, and that's exactly what he does.

He writes 13 more books based in the land of Oz. Yep. All 14 of his Oz books were bestsellers, and you could imagine he got in pretty deep into the history of the topography and the politics and the cultures of Oz, because what they're supposed to do. Yeah. And at the time reviews were pretty favorable from the New York Times. Quote, the book has a bright and joyous atmosphere and does not dwell upon killing the, indeed, the violence. Enough stirring adventure enters into it, however, to flavor it with zest

and it will indeed become strange if there be a normal child who will not enjoy the story. Okay. Now, it's gonna hit different in 1986 in Tennessee because always Tennessee, a group of parents sued to have it removed from the curriculum. One parent said, quote, I do not want my children seduced into godless supernaturalism. What?

Well, there's a wizard, you see, and a witch. Okay. Yeah. Successful children's book. That is like 80 plus years old. 80 plus years old. And and now you're still in to get it out now. Now you're right. Okay. Yeah. Others objected to the equality between male and female characters. Like that's the problem. It's like do you know what public aggiation is for? And actually they've proven since then that yes they do. And that's the problem. It's like, do you know what public aggiation is for?

And actually, they've proven since then that yes, they do. And that's why they're trying to dismantle it. Others objected that they were talking animals. You can't understand it's a children's part. Nope. Can't have talking animals. It's a fantasy. No bears do not talk. Bears attack children for making fun of a bald guy. Nope, can't have talking. It's a fantasy. No bears do not talk.

Bears attack children for making fun of a bald guy. Stay in your lane. It's a fairy tale. Nope. It's, I don't want no tales about gay tales. Ah. You can't tell me. Yeah.

And they objected that human attributes weren't simply God given but actually developed by the people themselves. Which I just like. Like, oh my God. The judge ruled that they could have their kids exit the class when the Wizard of Oz was being discussed in the classroom. This was the compromise. So you want your kid to stay dumb, go ahead, step outside. It's fine. Yeah. So I want to examine the two aspects of the story that I find stay dumb, go ahead, step outside. It's fine. Yeah. So I want to examine the two aspects of the story that I find most fascinating because eventually I'll need to

make my way over to the thesis of this. That the movie was indeed a prophecy while the book was equal parts allegory and face story. So that is the thesis. Bomb himself said that the reason for the animals speaking, for instance, the cowardly lion in Oz was because it was a fairy This is a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb.

It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb.

It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. It's a bomb. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say I'm not going to dive into the later books, wherein he clearly states that it's all a fairy land because that would be too easy.

So I'm just going to stick to the first book, even though I can literally just, you know, it's kind of like being the lawyer who's trying to point out that the cops are guilty in 1992 is like, ladies and gentlemen. I Refer you to Sony here. They are for 83 seconds on film beating this man Yeah, like open and shut case one would have thought Yeah, but so I'm not gonna go that easy. I'm gonna. I'm gonna just make make this one book sweat a little more

We know that bomb hadn't meant to write 14 books by the way way, as evidenced by his sixth book, in which he meant to seal off the Emerald City from all the rest of the world for good. But seeing how unpopular that was, he re-nigged on it because they got a lot of letters saying no, and he went on to write eight more books that were also best sellers. So this mythos that he created grew organically at first. Add to that the fact that he didn't write the second book until he got thousands of letters from kids asking for more. Yeah. Since in 1904, he and Maude were looking

at financial difficulty again. So for that, among other reasons, I'm only gonna focus on the wonderful Wizard of Oz. Because there's a lot of other things that go into it. Now although he clearly pulls off, or pulls on this stuff and develops it further in the later in the books, the denizens of Oz resembled humans, but also had the characteristics of the Wii folk. There are solitary and group ones, move the magician, the, or on stuck up on,

move your mountain, for instance, but also the occupants of Shuttertown, Sapphire City, where I think people can actually sprout wings if they eat the special pair. Munchkin village. Yeah. So, so just taking a look at wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is a young girl. Yeah, so you immediately have the child of that abduction aspect.

Okay, yeah. Specifically of that girl, okay? Yeah, so boom, check that box. Almost immediately Dorothy ends up in the Munchkin City and attends a banquet and gets kissed on the forehead by the good witch of the North's protector. Yes, so the protection of a counterspell against a witch. Yeah. She is now induced into the fairy lands in two ways and has to embark on a quest to seek an audience with the high fairy king, the wonderful wizard of Oz, in the Emerald City. Green being associated of course with the Emerald Isle, which was first mentioned in a poem in 1795 by William Drennan called When Aaron First Rose.

So obviously there's some ties there. Yeah. Because the official color of Ireland has actually always been blue. Yeah. And the wizard, after receiving her audience appearing to Dorothy and her party, each as a different representation of himself, by the way.

So you got your changeling aspect there. The wizard sends her to kill a rival queen, the wicked witch of the west. And if this isn't some seely and unseely Scottish shit, um, the seely, the seely court, the Scottish lowland fairies, seeks favors from humans and helps them. The unseely court, the Highland fairies, would attack without provocation and most importantly, was tied specifically to witches. And when the Wicked Witch sees them coming, she has a single telescopic eye, of course, which by the way, so evil eye, grie-eye sisters, you take your back. Also, evil eye, grie-eye sisters, you take your back. Okay. Anyway, she sends wolves to tear Dorothy,

the twig blight, the construct, and the lycanthrope to pieces. Okay. You know who else sends dogs to attack people? The unceiligord. Okay. They call them Yeth Hounds. Oh, yeah.

And Danny Dogs. Yes. So, yeah, I was thinking we were going to mention the wild hunt. And I was going to say, no, that's not. Yes. Okay. But all right. She sends a swarm of black bees, a murder of crows and a group of slaves who are called

the Winkies, all of whom are rebuffed. And how is that very different at all from the Gabriel Ratchets, the black hellhounds who can shapeshift and make specific sounds as they do so? How are the winky slaves that different from the black dwarves and the Derragar? And the, I can't say these words because they don't have any fucking vowels. C W N A N N W N. You untutored heated. You're a kelp. You can't, okay. It's a Welsh.

Okay. I figured it's Welsh. There's a lot of Ws and Ns. Kuna noon. Kuna noon. Oh, I could have done that. Yeah. I could have. If you just looked at a pronunciation guide,

come on now. Got a brand of protect. The hounds, the hounds of a noon. Yeah. Who, by the way, in the Mabinozian the the Kuna noon are or a noon is associated with the underworld and the land of the dead. Right. So Yeah, there's all the yeah, and she's using the murder of crows. I mean, you've got, you know, all kinds of things. Yeah, well Ravens, Ravens show up all over all kinds of Northern European mythology.

Yeah. In, in ominous kind of context. Harbin jury kind of, yeah. So, and after melting the wicked witch, they were turned to the wizard, who turns out to have been a man from Omaha this whole time. And while that's cute and all, regularly, fairies would abduct people and trade them out for one of their own in our world. Yeah. So he gives her companions' talismans to get them what they want. But as

he's leaving in his balloon to go home, Toto wrecks it for her. She then has to quest to Glinda, the good witch of the south. And in the meantime, she helps the flying monkeys to receive their freedom, for which their leader gets a golden cap that changes their status from good slave to free. I'm sorry, changes their status for good, from being a slave to free. To being free.

Yes. This is similar to the Pelleus, of course, the felt cap that you give to a freedman in Rome, but also to the need for fairies to dawn some sort of cap to change their status, often going from visible to invisible, but also in other important ways. So the golden cap that's given to each of her friends once, to also magic them to where they want to be. Now eventually, she whirlwinds home, she loses her silver slippers

and she winds up home with hardly any time having passed in the real world. The difference in time continuity between the worlds is a very well known, although usually it's the inverse of this, like you don't notice any time passing there and then when you come home, your five generations gone. You better not get off of your horse because the moment your feet touch the ground, you're going to disintegrate to dust. Exactly. Yeah. But it does bear noting that there's a golden cap silver shoes as well as the

Emerald City. So why is Elf rank bomb writing fairy stories for kids in 1900? There's been nothing in my research that I could find that showed me that Elf rank bomb particularly loved fairy stories or anything like that. When he was born, America was receiving its largest influx of Irish immigrants, though, due to the British famine. Okay. In the 1850s, nearly a million Irish came over, which supplemented the over 700,000 who came

over the prior decade, which was a huge increase over the 200,000 who came over the prior decade, which was a huge increase over the 200,000 who came over in the 1830s, continuing on from 1861 through 1900, two million more Irish came over to the United States, two million, in addition to the other two million who'd already come over prior to 1861. That's four million out of a total population of 76.3 million Americans. It's a lot of kids. Yeah. And given that compulsory nature of education was being passed state by state from 1852 forward, Mississippi finally came on board in 1917. came on board in 1917. And they've managed to stay in the last place almost ever since, although sometimes California

gives them a run for their money by closing all the libraries. Yeah. But what that means is that every state had free schools by 1870 and granted these schools are only in urban centers, but urban centers in 1900 is where fully half of the population lived. And if you're looking at Irish immigrants, they almost always go to urban centers. This means that there's because when they came over, if you're going to go out to rural

anywhere, you're going to be going out in order to get land in order to get a farm. If you come over as someone who's in the circumstances of most of the immigrants who came over from southern Europe, Italy, Spain, Sicily, all the Greece, all of those folks, or if you came from Ireland, you were coming over without capital. Right. So you've done it where stuck where you were. Yeah, you were going to arrive were you yeah you were going to arrive almost certainly in New York. Mm-hmm. And and then it was going to be on you to figure out just exactly like what you were going to do from there. And you didn't have the money to be thinking about oh yeah no I'm going to head out to the Midwest and you know far. I mean there were indenturing systems that allowed you transport that you'd have to work off that got you out of Chicago or got you You know out to Ireland out to San Francisco. Yeah, that was a very popular place actually for the Irish

And the Italians, I mean, yeah, absolutely But yeah, but but just based on circumstances most of of them are going to be we're going to be in urban areas. Yeah, which meant their children were going to be attending those public schools, which means you have a sharp increase in literacy where you previously didn't and therefore you have a need for children's books. Okay. And so what are you right? So that kids, you know, 5% of the country at this point is Irish Like fully 5% of the United States was Irish so it makes sense that he's pulling from that cultural and literary tradition

So did he mean to write about a fairy land that would appeal to an increasingly Celtic influence population? No Did he do so? Yes, absolutely Now about that allegory. Unlike in the movie that everyone knows, the slippers were silver. Silver slippers on a yellow-baked road. In 1900, there was a debate raging over how to base the Americans currency. Those who were already wealthy or had a lot of money owed to them continued to advocate for a gold standard based economy. Those who saw a growing population, the crushing weight of that debt and the possibility of expanding the economy, argued for the free silver approach. They wanted to have as much silver currency as was demanded, thereby expanding the money supply so that more people could have access to it and therefore it was worth less in which meant that your debt wasn't everything that it took to keep yourself alive. Okay. and rich people who caught the cent in the wind and who owned silver mines already stood again quite a bit of this. And who already owned the means of production. Yeah. Yeah. So if the money

supply expanded, gold would be less heavily sought after and silver would inflate the economy. And with the economy inflated, the debts owed by farmers, especially, but also by urban folks who borrowed on credit, would be able to pay their debts back and have it be less of a percentage of how they feed their families. In short, the grip that creditors, robber barons, and capitalists in general had with the support of Eastern Midwestern corn farmers and the Republican Party in the East on the people, had on the people in debt would be less tight. So you do have groups that are like, no, we got a stick

to gold. And sometimes they're working against their own, their own interests, of course. But there you have. And then there was a group called the Bimetalists, those who are also called silver rights. They prefer to bring in silver, but to pin it's value against gold at one 16th of its value. So, which is, I mean, that's basically pound to ounce. Okay. So pound of silver is equal to an ounce of gold. I mean, honestly, D&D does this just with a decimal system. With, yeah, essentially. So anyway, talking about gold and silver standard, I want to back up a little bit, because there's there's actually one of the most famous uh oh I'm gonna get speeches. I'm gonna get there. Oh okay.

Oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. He serves two masters in this. Oh. Okay. All right. Okay. So uh so one sixteenth right. So that's an ounce to a pound. So having the silver shoes bouncing along the yellow brick road in the land of the emerald fairy stories. No, in the land of Oz and Oz is short for Oh, uh, ounces. Oh, shit. What? Okay. Now it's a hell of a coincidence. If it's a coincidence, it's a hell of a good job of an allegory. If it's an allegory, it's one of those things. You're like, how the right only one beer in you can't be blowing my mind like that. This early. God damn it.

Oh man. So that could be seen as allegory for Bimetal representation. It could. You okay. Yeah. So so there's there's an awful lot of stuff in speaking of children's books. In in Alice in Wonderland. Yeah, one of the theories about Alice in Wonderland. And I don't know enough right now

off the top of my head to know whether it's like, no, no, this is actually confirmed. Or if it's just like, you know, I'm going to, you do that one over over heated academics. But, um, I'll darn it. Alice in Wonderland written by totally. Carol. Yeah. Uh, Lewis Carol. Lewis Carol. Yeah. Frank. Uh, yeah. Frank. Carol. Carol Burnett. Carol O'Connor. But, but Lewis, Lewis, so much better. Yeah, you are a treasure meathead. I like that. But, Lewis Carol was a mathematics professor. And a lot of the absurdity in Alice in Wonderland is... They're logic puzzles. Well, it's logic puzzles and it is argued that it was Carol essentially creating a children's story,

spinning a children's story as a satire of developments that were going on in mathematics at the time. As he wrote the book, I want to say is when mathematicians theoretical, you know, area fairer mathematicians started talking about things like irrational numbers. Okay. Yeah. And, and that kind of stuff. And he was essentially against all of that. He didn't think it was quite cricket. And the mad hatter. And like there's ways that you can look at a great many of the things in that book

and see them as satire of this kind of divorce from reality, theoretical kind of mathematics. It's all irrational. We're all mad here. We're all mad here. Right. Additionally, the walrus and the carpenter is east meets west in terms of religion. That's one possible theory. The other one is it's the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Oh, that was a close one. And it's political satire.

Yeah. And because they're still devouring us, the oysters. Yes, pretty much. Yeah. And so it's just, it's interesting to me that, you know, that was, that has forever been marketed as a children's book. Right. But it was, but, but if you, if you scratch the surface of it, you find this incredibly cutting satire of politics and, you know, academia and all of this kind of stuff.

Sure. And now that you give me this and what is Oz short for, like, I feel like, you know, that's like the tagline in the prisoner. What is us short for? Who is number one? You know, like, like, like, that, that feels like it has to be a coincidence because bomb is a twit, but, but it can't be. Right, right. It's too perfect. It can't be. Right, right. It's too perfect. What the fuck, man? How do we get that exact coincidence?

Yeah. So remember, 1900 is only seven years removed from the great panic of 1893, which lasted until 1897. And you remember how unstable things were for Frank and mod during that time. Oh, for, yeah. And that reliance, that fight over what kind of metal we're going to use and that push

toward it has to stay gold is partly why. Essentially, capitalists who are benefiting from expansion-based economic policies and practices were living on the edge of the bubble, especially the railroads. And as it turned out, the railroads had absolutely overextended themselves, so investors were keen to grab their money, catching the scent of failure in the air. And to do this, many of them went to the banks to pull their money out. Now of course, banks began to fail to do to these runs, which made banks less likely to extend credit to farmers. And more likely to call in debts from those who borrowed from them to be able to pay their

members. And on and on it went. And you who you remember when they were in, uh, uh, where was it? South Dakota. What happened to his business, right? Oh, yeah. Um, and, yeah. And so pretty soon the economy was fairly crippled. And people were left owing a lot of money and getting foreclosed on. This is through the mid 1890s. And this leads to a massive upheaval politically, which shifted how Republicans and Democrats appealed to the voters and made way for some very effective, populist candidates. It also led to and was pre-saged by several brutal crackdowns on workers demanding more economic parity with their bosses, including

the homestead strike, the Pullman strike, and the Haymarket massacre. Workers were rising up and usually getting gunned down by agents of the government, or thugs privately paid like the Pinkertons. Politicians had to start appealing to agrarianists as well as industrialized workers. And the Republicans were largely on the side of capital, though there was still plenty of leftover goodwill due to their initial plank of free labor, free soil, free men. Yeah. Still populists like William Jennings-Brayon were elevated during the panic. Bryan was the consument Democrat populist from the Midwest. He held office as a legislator from

Nebraska. He came to away from the bourbon Democrats who were northerners and some southerners who wanted to limit the size of the federal government. He said, no, it should be expanded. He threw in his lot as a legislator with the other group. They didn't have as cool a name, but they cited largely with the agrarian concerns of the growers and the farmers in the south in the Midwest. There was lots of federal intervention to keep those people going since they grow our food. And he saw that and he's like,

we need to keep these people afloat and I'm important. Yeah, now he lost a bid for Senate in 1894 because back then we actually didn't just keep voting in the incumbents. In fact, you had about a 50% chance of keeping your seat every time at most. Wow. On average.

Now that, I mean, again, there were some guys like Sumner that absolutely, you know, pushed that average upward, but there were other guys who was at Davey Crockett. Remember, he gets voted out and he's like, well, I'm going to Texas, you can go to hell. Like, you know, now he lost you can go to hell. Like, yeah, you know. Now, he lost his bid for Senate in 1894, but he took his popularity on the road,

really took his popularity on the rails, and he began promoting free silver to all who'd listen, and to many who wouldn't. He made enough money with his speech making, that he actually didn't even have to practice law. Essentially, he was a podcaster. Some of them make money at this. Yeah.

In 1896, he ran for president. And he was part of the wing of Democrats whose plank included repudiating Cleveland for his failures to secure economic security for most Americans and for blocking the more move toward free silver. So he said, no, we absolutely don't stand for Cleveland. He didn't do these things. Fuck him. All right.

Now most importantly, it was at the 1896 Democrat National Convention that he delivered his cross of gold speech. This gave him the nomination ultimately, but he didn't actually stretch out to do that. At this time, most of the Democrat front runners for the nomination were Midwesterners. So he's one of many. Ryan was from Nebraska. Horus Boyes was from Iowa. John G. Carlisle from Kentucky. Adley Stevenson, the first was from Illinois. He was the grandfather to the Adley Stevenson that my dad hates so much from episode one. Joseph Blackburn also from Kentucky and Henry Teller from Colorado. The Democrat plank ultimately included the following mission statement regarding money. Quote, we demand the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present

legal ratio of 16 to one without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand that the standard silver dollar shall be a full legal tender equally with gold for all debts, public and private. And we favor such legislation as will prevent for the future of the demonetization of any kind of legal tender by private contract. Okay. So no no loopholes. Silver is good. Brian's Cross of Gold speech contains the following excerpts and this one highlights the Midwestern focus on the difference between the robes and the fighters that we saw in Ohio in the 1870s. Quote, and by the way, I found a couple versions of him actually recorded.

Oh, really? Yeah, you can find these because they had the, clickety-clackety accelerators. And they've, some people have taken great pains to digitally recreate them. Oh, wow. Because you can measure it in like in a CAD program and stuff like that now.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So, quote, we say to you that we have made the definition of a businessman too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is a much as much a businessman as his employer.

The internee in a county in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation council in the great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the corporation council in the great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day who begins in spring and toils all summer and who buy the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the

country creates wealth is as much a businessman as the man who goes up on the board of trade or who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain. So fighter, rogue. The miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth or claim or who climb 2000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places, the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.

We come to speak of this broader class of businessmen. Okay, definitely a really good example of populism in rhetoric. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I'm hearing it, you know, saying it again, and I've typed it out a few times and stuff. It's really interesting to me that Nixon, 80 years later, 70 years later,

is speaking of the silent majority. Because Brian is showing like, hey, all of these people working compared to these few who aren't. They're the same businessmen, right? Brian continually casts the businessman as a gambler and the farmer is an honest fellow. City businessman, he's gambling, he's speculating,

he's making deals, he's cornering money, the farmer, the toilet, the the miner, they're all doing an honest day's work. This is some Catoanian level shit here. This is Jefferson like sitting up at his grave going, you have to wait a minute that that farmer needs to be slightly aristocratic, doesn't he? Like, I mean, wait, hold on now. Can I be aristocratic? I mean, y'all can be yeoman, but I'm gonna. I'm like, you know, yeah. He goes, he continues with the distinctions too. He says, quote, the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day begins, oh, I think I did that part.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's the same quote. Now as he drives it home, he's making the populist us versus them claim that definitely holds the most weight. He says, quote, we come to speak for this broader class of businessmen. Oh, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic coast,

but those hearty pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose, those pioneers away out there rearing their children near to nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds. Out there, where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their creator, and the cemeteries were sleep the ashes of the dead, are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak.

We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and our posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have been treated, and our Entrides have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We begged no longer, we entreat no more, we petition no more, we defy them.

All right. Right. And then he finishes with the kind of biblical flourish All right. Right. And then he finishes with the kind of biblical flourish that would appeal to the agrarian and the Midwesterner. If they dare to come out into, or if they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost having behind us to producing masses of the nation and the world.

Having behind us the commercial interest and the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interest and the laboring interest and all the twilling masses, we shall answer their demands for gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon across of gold. He was an amazing orator. He was. He absolutely was. It's truly, truly remarkable. And that is, that is a remarkable flourish.

Like the biblical metaphor and the parallelism. Yeah. Where Jesus, yeah, the y'all are Romans. Without, without actually saying that. Yeah, where Jesus? Yeah, y'all are Romans. Without without actually saying that. Yeah. And you could even say that he's actually picking up a little bit of anti-Semitism there because by this point, when you when you mentioned in the earlier quote, what he said about, you know, a few financiers controlling things. I'm like, oh, Rothschilds. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's. Yeah. I know I'd like to, I tried to write an entire podcast that wasn't tying back to Henry Ford, 1970s. Yeah, pretty much. Like, you know, it is what it is, man. Yeah. What are you going to do? what it is, man. Yeah. What are you gonna do? Um, that's American history in a nutshell.

Yeah. And is there is there any part of this that that racism doesn't touch? No, no, no, it's all, it's all racism. The call is coming from inside the house. Yeah. It puts me in mind of the quote from Rosencrantz and Gilden Sterner, dead. Uh-huh. Who heard of the love, blood and rhetoric school? You can have love and rhetoric. Or no, you can have love and blood without the rhetoric or blood and rhetoric without the love.

But you can't have love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see. I like it. It's it's all racism. You know, it's all white supremacy. You see, you know, all the way down. It's like a turtle. All the way down. It's a turtle. It's all the way down. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm sorry kids, but no. Yeah. This is this is actually why I'm teaching you this because I need to understand that to fucking fix it.

Yeah. Yeah, because we didn't. Because every generation before yours has fallen short of the mark. Yeah. We stopped at World War II. Sorry. Sorry. You know, we started after reconstruction.

It's a really narrow band that we did. Yeah. So. Now what's fun is this description that I found of his final words on the speech. Quote, he then placed his hands to his temples, fingers extended. When Brian spoke with the Cross of Gold finale, he extended his arms to his side straight out like a cross and held that pose for about five seconds as the audience watched in dead silence. Then he lowered them and went back to his

seat as the stillness held in the audience. At first, Brian later admitted, he thought that the speech had failed due to the total silence. He'd gotten a couple of five minute applause breaks earlier on the speech. Oh wow. Yeah. But before he could reach his seat, he was mobbed, raised up on everyone's sharing shoulders and paraded around the hall. After nearly half an hour of this, this, this frankly weird orgy of lifting the fat and a brasskin up on your shoulders and going over with no air conditioning, he retired to his hotel room and awaited the convention's vote. It took five ballots before he took the clear lead, but he ended up the nominee without the vote of the pro-gold

Democrats, many of whom just went home. Oh, wow. Yeah. Now, all right, we're out. Yeah, fucking clearly. Clearly nobody wants us here. Fuck all of you. Yeah, or, or I can't believe, I'm not going to stand for this. I will not be a party to it. Oh, yeah, well, I think it was more than that. Some combination. combination. Some welcome. Some combination thereof. Now I've found nothing to indicate that Elf rank bomb was in support or against the free silver. But did I mention that the Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago in 1896? He's major event adjacent as always. Always. It's like like sharp, always manages to make it to every major battle of the peninsula

campaign. Right. You know, only he's a fictional character and there's like, you know, compelling, compelling story telling reasons for that. This is just, no, this is a historical fact. He was, you know, He was down the street. The fuck, how do you do that? Right.

And how do you miss it? Well, I'm sure he did, again. And that's the thing, he didn't miss it. But he clearly, again, he loved being a dad so much. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, I don't know if you remember where you were for January 6th, but I was at home teaching my students.

And if I didn't have it on right there in front of me, my entire world was just in a zoom box. Oh, yeah, well. I could have missed the whole thing and then heard about it after. Yeah. So now the Chicago Tribune wrote, praiseingly of this speech, of course,

Brian ends up losing the election in November to William McKinley, who specifically courted corporate votes and efforts due largely to a split in the Democratic Party that could have made the difference for Brian and possibly for the Philippines and for Cuba, although there's some interesting scholarship on Brian and that very issue.

I'm not here for that today. However, in 1900, it was literally a rematch. And this time, it's over imperialism. So, bomb lived in a world where the convention had been held in Chicago, where he lived and had seen a second presidential campaign come and go with the very same issue at stake. It's safe to say that such things were

definitely in the air and his use of a young Kansas born farm girl letting silver lead her back to the safety of her farm is pretty well on the nose. Okay. So now there's there's an anvil there. The question is was it a conscious one or an unconscious one? Right. Now let's talk about the Emerald City. Yeah. Okay. That is. Let's talk about the Emerald City. Yeah. The easy one is obviously that the the goal is shown by the Yellowbrook Road and it's the road to the White House, right? And the Emerald City is a stand in for Washington DC and it just makes it's Emerald E and ferry E. Okay. And you can, you know, I mean,

it doesn't have to be, you know, you know, I mean, like the allegory doesn't have to be so not clever. So the yet end with the allegory doesn't have to be perfect. Right. Yeah. So you could say that Emerald said it's DC and that the wizard could easily be the president and the man behind the curtain could be the industrialists really operating things you could do that or You could go a bit deeper and get a little stranger emerald is green and the greenback movement making money no longer

Specia but fiat Could be the emerald city Okay, in that case she's being led astray naively going toward paper currency But then realizing that silver isn't what, or realizing that it's silver that's going to bring her home. The wizard, the wizard then, is every conniving and lying politician, and the good witches become the publicity machines, including the press that continue to fool and lie to Dorothy. In this case, the cyclone that lifted up her house was the panic of 1893,

or even the depression of 1873, upheaving farmers' homes and dropping them into this current monetary crisis. It could be? It's sweaty. It's very sweaty. There's a lot more evidence for Alice in Wonderland being about, you know, irrational mathematics. Then I feel like this is very much an allegory hunting for for. Yes. I agree. I think I think I think taking it that far. I agree. I agree. Regis is at the point of me being like, okay, look, you know, the what is I was short for thing? Like, okay, I have me there. Sure. But but all of that is a bit much. Now, if I done it in a reverse order, maybe it would have been more compelling, because I did hit you with the most glaring obviously clever one first, but yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm her back. So it's still pro silver anti greenback, not pro silver anti gold. Yeah, I feel a bit more like the allegory of for Oz. Okay. Is a little bit less like, oh,

hey, now we're going to talk about monetary policy. Have you heard about the World Bank? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, you know, based on my own memories of reading the book, having the book read to me, I think it, Oz is more an allegory of any kind of glittering metropolis, any kind of big city, any kind of, you know, the urban fantasy land that it's like, oh, yeah, no, but you got to keep the glasses on. Right. Because if you take the glasses off, you realize that, no, it's all just, you know, lead crystal and, you know, everything, everything isn't actually green. Yeah. You know, yeah. And, and there is a very strong, um, agrarian agrarian bent to it. There is.

There is. Which is, I think, the green mushroom movement would have fucked the farmers. Yeah. So. But yeah, I get it. And I think there's a certain level of just, you know, basic cynicism slash satire about, oh, yeah, and the wizard isn't really a wizard. He's, you know, a carny. Yeah, I mean, that's just what the lose kind of moment. Yeah, you know, yeah. Or it could be a

reference to the theosophic society, specifically this theosophical society to which bomb belonged, which had started in 1875, and to which Matilda Jocelyn Gage also belonged. In that case, the Emerald City is a reference to the Emerald tablet, which is an Islamic alchemical text in the whole story of Dorothy's wandering through Oz or her ascension into learning cool shit and becoming enlightened. That seems too far fetched for me. That does seem too far fetched, but I'm here for it. Yeah. Like that's way too much of a stretch, but I would want to be able to do.

That one? That one seems like that's what supernatural was going for. Yeah. I've gotten to those episodes. Yeah. So definitely. Or, or, or in Chicago in 1893, there was also a world's fair that featured a white city. And there were plenty of other Midwestern and upstate New York based references to things that resembled the Emerald City.

Yeah. And it seems to me that the Emerald City being the capital of Oz where the big leader is found and it's most likely an Amalgamation of the classical yet sort of future revive of the white city if you look at pictures of it Which was credited as the impetus of the city beautiful movement Which was a plan to update and beautifully beautify urban centers largely by pushing out marginalized communities out of prime spots and rebuilding it with a new age in mind And why? Hey, gentrification by another name. Oh, yeah. I think the guys named Robert Moses.

Yeah, Bob Moses, the guy who fucked over like a lot in New York. Yeah. Yeah. See. So that's the white city thing. I can, I can, I can groove with two. Again, yeah, because he was, he, it would have been in all the papers.

Yeah. And well, and, you know, I mean, something like the world's fair, I'm trying to remember when, when his kids were born. Oh, uh, earlier. And then because, because, you know, he writes it in 1900, I think they'd come back to Chicago and I wanna see 96, 97. Okay, all right.

But yeah, but he's living in rural areas that are that's the closest metropolis. Okay, so. And it's the world's fair. Yeah, you know, so I think all of that, I'm again, I I, you know, I think, I think all of that, I'm again, I'm gonna point to, I think the allegory can all be interpreted from it because obviously because of death of the author,

but also there were all these things percolating in the back of his head and what wound up on the page Mm-hmm reflected all of it. Yeah, and I'm going to come to at least right now I don't know how much how much farther your your you know statements about the stuff are gonna go But at this point I'm going to come down. I'm still coming down on the side of this was not conscious He yeah, you know, he he was and down on the side of this was not conscious. He was instrumental in all of these things. His brain was marinating and all of the stuff going on around him. Yeah. And that's how his sense of humor and his imagination tied them together. Tie them all together. So we've covered Dorothy. We've covered her clothes. We've covered the road.

We've covered the emerald city. And now let's look at some of the characters. Let's start with Uncle Henry. Okay, father-in-law was Henry Gayle. Okay. Henry Gage, right? Henry was similar to Frank in that he was frankly yielding to a fairly assertive wife. Okay. was frankly yielding to a fairly assertive wife. On to M was definitely an amalgamation of those two men's assertive wives.

My wife and her mom, the witches seem to have been partially influenced by his respect for the research that Matilda, his mother-in-law, had done on witch hunting throughout history. Yeah, and if you remember, you might not, but Kentucky and my mom and dad can tell me exactly the year, but Kentucky had killed someone for witchcraft within the same decade as L Frank bomb writing the Wizard of Oz. It was like 1893 or 95 or some shit. Oh shit. No, there was a historical marker for it. I have a picture of it somewhere in my computer.

They executed somebody for, for, for, for, for, which craft? Which craft? Yes. In the 1890s. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah.

So, so, so, Christmas. The scarecrow. Clearly the American farmer who's been remembered are completely impotent by the changing nature of commerce. He can't even scarecrow. He's also deathly afraid of fire for obvious reasons, right? And notably, he's got no brain. But in fact, he's capable of all kinds of clever thinking, really.

Yeah, the the the stereotype he, he does not recognize, he does not recognize his own intelligence and everybody else thinks he's a dumb hick. Right. But in fact, he's, he's the home spun wisdom versus that good old book learning thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Ten Woodsman. Ten Woodsman is clearly the American industrial worker, right? Okay. Yeah. He lacks heart because he's been hollowed out by the process of machinery and industry. That is insights. Though some would say that these two both actually represent the owning classes of both. That is the the 10 Woodsman and the the scarecrow. I think their prosanification definitely makes them much more the everyman for those things, not the not the. Yeah, the characterization, characterization is a lot more everymanish in both cases than it is a risk to crack.

Right. And the Tin Woodsman, if you recall, he still has rural roots. I mean, it's in his name. So yes, his dependence on oil to keep moving is definitely call out to how the industrial workers job is dependent on foreign trade. And it both leave him mechanical and without anima. Now, to be honest, I always saw the cowardly lion as William Jennings Bryant. Well, bark, no bite. Okay, I can see that. Big loud mouth, but when it came down to winning, he fucking didn't, you know?

Okay, but how much of that is because Jennings Bryant didn't have the willingness to participate in debates or stand up and fight for things? Well, just that he can't win the big game though. Like, well, it talks a big game, but can't seem to win it, right? Okay. But like, I would, I would think that makes it total. You know, like, no, no, no, he will, he will bark and yap and scare the shit out. Anybody needs to scare the shit out of because there's all the fight the dog, but there's no size in the dog. Yeah, but this is all size, but no fight.

At the end of the day, he can't win the big one. Okay. So that's how I always saw him, but we could also say that he is the American soldier. He's dressed up and has nowhere to go after the quick conquest of Cuba. He's also proven completely incapable by the Philippines. Okay. Or you could say that he is a motorcycle. The Wicked Witch of the West could represent the actual pull of the American West, the danger and the lawlessness that it entails. Remember, boom towns were a fairly recent thing, and while Bill Hickock had just been killed in 1876 in South Dakota.

The frontier had been declared closed by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893. So it's possible that the witch with her command of the flying monkeys could represent the dangers of the West. Okay, you know what's what's okay. What I find weird about that interpretation though is everything else in this is very clearly an agrarian polemic. Like if we're taking all of the other characterizations, we're looking at agrarian polemic. And the thing is, anybody pushing an agrarian polemic, I don't see the chain of logic to, oh, and we need to be worried about the dangers of the West. I would be expecting in an agrarian polemic for it to be, you know, the good witch of the West.

Well, you know what I mean? Yeah, but if you look at expansion westward as being a capitalist scheme, And it fucks over the farmers because now you have spiked towns and stuff like that. And if you take a look at the monkeys, they kind of fit the noble savage trope in the book. And there is some meat on the bone here, given that the not quite sympathies that bomb expressed in a number of editorials in different publications,

years prior to 1900, he wrote sympathetically about sitting bull in 1890. And at the same time, he stated that white civilization necessitated genocide. He seems to feel like it's an unfortunate inevitability and said that the massacre at Wounded Knee was unfortunate but likely necessary. Quote, the pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends on the total extermination

of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better in order to protect our civilization. Follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety of our, in this lies future safety of our in this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as yet full of trouble with the slur redacted as those that have been in the past. I want to I want to interject here. Sure. The interpretation of the cowardly lion is the American soldier. Uh-huh. I'm going to do you one better.

Oh, good, good. And I'm going to say the cowardly lion is the personification of the higher echelons of the military class. Yeah. Not the foot soldier. OK. Yeah, because everything else in this is

Populous agrarian blemage, right? He's the generals. He's the the kernels and above right, you know Especially when when he's pointing out things about you know, an opinion of incompetent command Which you know is reasonable based on the posture. Part of you. Well, not even, you know what? Here's the thing, Custer is the one we all learn about. Right, because Custer is the obvious example of,

okay, look, I'm not kidding, the entire goddamn su-nation is down that hill by the river. You don't wanna fucking go that way. Whatever, now you're full of shit You know what you're talking about it. It's really you are Custer is is the easiest hubris story to tell yes, yes The the Greek tragedy aspects of custer story are too good to to let lie yeah But in the wake of the civil war, mm-hmm

There were systemic problems with the management and leadership within the US Army. It was bad. And yeah, Custard is the most obvious example. And I'm just, I'm so pissed at Elf rank mom right now because right up until this point, I know. He was such an unproblematic cinnamon roll. Yes.

And now, like, God damn it. And now he's like, well, you know, we did all this horrible shit before. And now we just need to follow it through because otherwise they're gonna come and cut our throats in our sleep. It's like, dude, what? Right. Like, really, what?

What? I can't even bring myself to swear. I'm so taken aback. Like, dude. Well, and yet he still does the whole noble savage shit, because if you look at what he has the monkey say to Dorothy, the head one says to Dorothy, quote, once we were a free people living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. This

was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land. Yeah. And oh yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I mean, that even that even sounds like the quote from Native American tribes talking about the great father in Washington. Exactly. Like now, it could be. So and again, allegories are absolutely shoving things together too, because if you really think about what the monkeys do, the flying monkeys do specifically to the scarecrow and to the tin woodsman, they pull out his stuffing and dent the shit out of the ten woodsman in two brutal assaults. Yeah.

Ultimately, the Wicked Witch could represent bureaucrats who pass laws with little regard to whom they're going to hurt. And the monkeys then are the gen-darms that carry those laws out. So it could be that the Wicked Witch is actually a robber baron and the monkeys are Congress. I don't hate that theory. It certainly gets around the the racism part. And it does fit with the rest of it. Yeah, and it could be a little column in, a little column B. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, where the characterization trips are infected by the races, but the allegory is based on, you know, the idea of them being, you know, Congress.

Now, there may be a more racist component to it after that. Oh, no. In the 1800s, there was one group that was specifically likened to apes and their huge amounts of numbers combined with their ability to hurt industrialized workers and farmers as well as their leader being a witch. Could mean that the monkeys represent Irish immigrants coming to a 1900s city. Oh, because there's so many so many cartoons, um, political cartoons. Oh, yeah. Oh, you have Neanderthal looking Irishman with the Irishman's beard looking like it's framing the curious George face. Yeah. And he's got, you know, like monkey

features like the I was a lot of people don't realize it. I hate to be the guy that says a lot of people don't realize the Irish were picked on in the same way that black people were picked on. But in this instance, it's so very true. And urban centers, the Irish were much more a plague to the powers that be than black people were in 1900. Well, because there wasn't you didn't have the immigration yet. Yeah, you had to have the great migration yet. And in northeastern urban centers, which was all the biggest cities in the country. Exactly. Again, because the Irish showed up

and they didn't have anything. Right. They showed up with shawls on their back and that was it. Right. They were this influx of people that, what the fuck are we going to do with them? were this influx of people that, what the fuck are we gonna do with them? Hey, hey.

And, you know, they were restive because, you know, they had to work to try to, they had to struggle to try to find work. Yep. Which would make anybody angry. They were poor, which would make anybody angry. And, you know, and, and, thank you for New York and established a police department like, I don't know how many of them would have gotten employed.

Right. That's awful, but it's true. It's absolutely true. Yeah. You know, I mean, there's a reason they called them patty wagons. Exactly. Well, they called them Irish whales. Yeah, it's both because who was who was who was driving it? Who was driving it? Who was driving it? Who was in them? But you know, I mean, you know, there's a reason that, you know, the TV series bluebloods to this day. Mm-hmm. You know, features a family that's, you know, three generations in the room of cops. They're in New York and they're named Reagan. Yeah, there you go. You know, like,

there's a reason that Hulk Hogan was called Hulk Hogan. Yeah. Because Vince McMahon senior was like, well, we already have an Italian. We already have a Puerto Rican in New York loves its ethnic heroes. So you'll be Hulk Hogan. Because it's an Irish name. Yep. So there you go. You know, and so yeah, I mean that makes sense. And now that's the allegory. And without ever claiming to write one, in fact, with his own son actually explaining away half of these characters with cute stories about his dad

actually, it's entirely likely that L Frankbaum didn't actually mean to write one per our usual. Yeah. Hi. I'd like to, hey, Frank, I'd like to introduce you to John. All right. Yeah. So congratulations on an incredibly writing

a masterful allegory. Good work. Now, at that time, automated storefront window displays in early Chicago could actually account for the man behind the curtain. And at that time, you gotta keep in mind that Elf rank bomb edited trade papers for window dressers, which until I did this research,

I didn't realize there were enough window dressers for a trade paper for it. The Tin Woodsman was tied to that same fascination with window displays. Every part of the Tin Woodsman could be a metal item sold for household use. The body is a boiler. The hat is a funnel.

The stove pipes is the arms and the legs and the face is a saucepan. So could it be that this whole time, he's like, I really like the storefront windows. Like, now, yeah, now, here's the thing. Can I break you again? We go back to upper class to it. Right.

Like, but now I'm going to take you back down the slope of the sine wave because, okay, remember, he did write a play version, right? Right. And in which he inserted all kinds of jokes about modern politics in 1902. There's a reference to Teddy Roosevelt. A guy who has to be. Yeah. A guy who'd paid a substitute to fight in the Civil War. A guy who joined a non-combat battalion. substitute to fight in the Civil War, a guy who joined a non-combat battalion, and a guy who managed to be absent when it was actually activated briefly, and who'd used his well to get McKinley elected twice. That guy's name was Hannah. There was a standard oil reference. There's all kinds of stuff, like there's these people that like archerops, right? So he wasn't totally unaware.

He just didn't put anything like that directly and overtly into the children's book. And the stage version was the first one to use the phrase Wizard of Oz, like I said before. Toto was replaced by a cow named emoji. How? Yeah. Easier to put on stage. You can have two people in it. Yeah, easier. Okay. All right. Oh, waitress. I don't actually have to have a dog. Right. Okay. A waitress and a trolley operator get blown into Oz with Dorothy, which actually makes sense in a city because it's a service worker and a mechanic mechanic worker. Okay. The Wicked Witch was entirely missing and the whole plot actually revolved around being hunted by the rightful King of Oz. It's weird, but it was a success

financially and critically. And that's I think where I'm going to leave it because in the next episode, I'm going to talk to you about all the fucking movies because it wasn't just one. Okay. Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm I'm primed for this. Yeah. So I mean, this is a big one where you can glean stuff because we talked allegory out the was that I always probably beaten it to death, but anything in general, any kind of skin you can wrap around the whole thing. in general, any kind of skin you can wrap around the whole thing? That. Well, number one, that if you look at anything that was created during any given time period in any point in human history, yeah, any creative work, you were going to be able to find a way to to allegorize it after the fact. That's true. You know, my dad for years, like up to when I was in college, and I'm sure if you got him started talking about it today,

he'd go on about it. When he took his first literature course in college, he took the bare minimum of lower division English courses and then walked away because it just pissed him off that his professor would not shut up about like how the white whale symbolizes this, that and the other thing, okay, and let's look at this scene where the sailors or all holding the harpoon and all this symbolic

is, you know, probably had some homosexual something going on, like, what are you? And my head's like, I read the book, and the book is about a fucking whale. Like, how do you, like, how do you, and then you go on about, you don't know that that's what, you can't get into the author's head, you don't know that that's what you can't get into the author's head. You don't know what that means.

And, and like, yeah, you're not wrong, but on the other end, and, and, and I always have that in the back of my head whenever we're going into these, these, you know, wildmask guessing apocalyptic trees, kind of, you know, this is now a great for, you know, monetary policy and whatever. But at the same time, like that shit's there. Yeah, what is it? And like, you know, when, yeah, and what does a stand for? 16 to one, apparently, but amongst other things, but, you know, and, and, you know, a board of a relationship, you've got, you know, a hundred guys stuck on a boat for months at a time. Some gay shit's gonna happen, man. Like, you know, so, you know, it's, I mean, you know, the very phallic nature of the weapon they're holding and yet the fact that it's called a poon.

They're clearly doing some transference. I want to say I'm not even mad, but I kind of am. Yeah, that's okay. But, you know, and I think I'm still, I'm still reconciling, bomb as, you know, largely benign, God damn it, originally benign upperclass twit. Sure. With this potential that, hey, some of this is actually really deep satire go on here right

and You know and his and his son apparently you know writing off is no it was he wasn't My dad just like storefront one does just like storefront one which is even greater Which which like god damn it. I don't know which one of those things. I want to believe more like you know like, God damn it. I don't know which one of those things I want to believe more. Like, you know, he's this, he's this cinnamon roll who like at night sits down and vents all of his cynicism in the symbolism of the background of his children's story.

On the one hand, that's amazing. And I want to buy that guy a beer on the other hand. It's, no, no, he was, he was all upper class twit through and through like, you know, watch, watch the body python skit. That was my dad, like 100%. And I can't wait that guy a beer. Yeah. How reliable and errative is someone's son though, looking up at their dad. Yeah. I mean, I played Bosnia in a play. up at their dad. Well, yeah, I mean, I played Bosnia in a play. I think I've told you about this where I was changed to a post and beaten 82 times per night, right in front of two people having a pancake or a pancake, a picnic. I didn't know I was playing Bosnia. Yeah. You know, I was just a guy who has chained to a thing. So I was not a reliable

narrator. Somebody said, Hey, what's your play about? I don't know. I just, I know that I get beat a lot. I genuinely don't have something to do with human apathy in the face of suffering. Right. Oh, you mean your body? No, no, that's that's too easy. That's that's weird. Yes. I don't know, man. Yeah, that's that's too much of an handful. I don't know about that. That's that's no, that's too, that's, that's too on the nose. Oh, yeah.

And then the director told me, he's like, yeah, I wrote it exactly for that. I was like, Oh, lower class, twin. So. So there you go. Yeah. It's gentleman. It's yeah. So what you're saying is your dad is perpetually disappointed by your podcast? No, I wouldn't say that. I think he would be probably consistently bothered by the amount of swearing I do. But, you know, he knows I'm a pointy-headed intellectual.

So, like I said, perpetually disappointed. And so, what's your reading? Well, actually, in a departure from the usual fair, what I have been doing a lot of reading of, give me a second here, because I want to properly credit this, is just about every night for the last month, I have been reading to my son, the picture book, Dragon's Love Tacos.

Oh, it's such a good book. By Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Selmy-Ary. And I might be mispronouncing Selmy-Ary, but it is a wonderful whimsical little book about, hey kid, if you wanna make friends with dragons, tacos are key. But, but, very important, you need to lay off the spicy ingredients.

Right. And there's a page where it tells you what good ingredients for tacos are. Yep. And my son always wants me to pause reading so he can point to them and say, tomatoes, check, lettuce, check, cheese, check. Very nice.

And yeah, it is a wonderful sweet whimsical book that gives you some very practical pointers on the Taco Party for Dragons. You know, he's done a number of other books. I don't know if you've done those darn swirls. No. Or the secret pizza party. Oh, dear. And there's even a sequel to Dragons Love Tacos. Okay. And I think there's one I think called the ice cream machine, but it's almost like this weird roshamon children's book. It's kind of fun. Okay. All right.

Well, you mentioned roshamons, and I'm going to have to look it up because you know, Kurosawa. Sure. Oh, but that is what I've been reading and I highly highly recommend it. How about you? I'm going to recommend something far less saccharine. It's called three ordinary girls the remarkable story of three Dutch teenagers who became became spy saboteurs Nazi assassins and World War two heroes

by Tim Brady Has nothing to do with anything that we've done. Yeah. But it's just I really, I needed something in my, in my readings. That's face. Yeah, in my headspace that was about badass women. So I went with that. However, if you're interested because we

are going to be doing movies, uh, of the Wizard of Oz, which invariably means Judy Garland in her life. I strongly also recommend, uh, get happy the, the life of Judy Garland, um, by Gerald Clark. Uh, it's a pretty good. Remarkable, remarkable title for a biography of Judy Garland. Uh, well, that's kind of the point. Yeah. Uh, so I recommend that. And of

course watching the Wizard of Oz. So we got a week because next week we are going to do the movies. All right. Cool. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, follow the Yellowbrick Road. And until next time, follow the Yellowbric Road.