It's Storytime! (featuring Baum's Ozma of Oz)

Hello children, today our story is from Frank L. Baum's third Oz book, Ozma of Oz. When we last left Dorothy, she had just been reunited with her friends the Scarecrow and the Tinman, as well as just meeting Princess Ozma for the very first time. We now find her looking for her newest friend, Billina the chicken.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin:

Without waiting to hear more Dorothy ran to get Billina, and just outside the door she came upon the Cowardly Lion, still hitched to the chariot beside the great Tiger. The Cowardly Lion had a big bow of blue ribbon fastened to the long hair between his ears, and the Tiger wore a bow of red ribbon on his tail, just in front of the bushy end.

In an instant Dorothy was hugging the huge Lion joyfully.

"I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried.

"I am also glad to see you, Dorothy," said the Lion. "We've had some fine adventures together, haven't we?"

"Yes, indeed," she replied. "How are you?"

"As cowardly as ever," the beast answered in a meek voice. "Every little thing scares me and makes my heart beat fast. But let me introduce to you a new friend of mine, the Hungry Tiger."

"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.

"Dreadfully hungry," answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.

"Then why don't you eat something?" she asked.

"It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."

"Why, it is the same with me," said Dorothy. "Yet I keep on eating."

"But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies."

"How dreadful!" said Dorothy.

"Isn't it, though?" returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No, hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for."

"I think you are a very good tiger," said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast.

"In that you are mistaken," was the reply. "I am a good beast, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted. That is why I left the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion."

"But the Lion is not really cowardly," said Dorothy. "I have seen him act as bravely as can be."

"All a mistake, my dear," protested the Lion gravely. "To others I may have seemed brave, at times, but I have never been in any danger that I was not afraid."

"Nor I," said Dorothy, truthfully. "But I must go and set free Billina, and then I will see you again."

-From Chapter 8, titled "The Hungry Tiger"

July Re-cap: Super-short mini reviews

Books

• Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley- A book I started in college but quit 3/4 of the way through because I found it too similar to McKinley's other Beauty and the Beast adaptation, Beauty, only longer and boring. Now it's been enough time between reading both of them, and this go around I found this enrapturing, quite slow and meandering, but a wonderful, rich novel.
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman- Listened to an excellent full-cast audio at work. I never read the third book in the trilogy so I decided I should revisit the first two. First read this one when I was 12 and it was mind-blowing. It more than holds up.
• Castle in the Air by Diana Wynn Jones- The Arabian Nights-flavored sequel to Howl's Moving Castle is a delight, very funny and full of whimsy. More reason why Jones is becoming one of my favorite authors.
• White Cat by Holly Black- I normally don't care for Holly Black's YA novels, as her female heroines are normally too mopey and unidentifiable, and they tend to have this pissed-off tone about them. Maybe it's a fluke, or maybe because the protagonist for this one is a boy, but I did like this, and I like the Curse Workers world she's created much more than her hard-assed Faerie world.
• The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson- Brilliant and often heart-wrenching story about a slave in a scientists commune in Revolution-Era Boston.
• Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern- Considering that it's based on Twitter feed, there's not much you can expect from this book, but it's actually a great memoir centering on Halpern's relationship with his ultra-crass father. It also becomes unexpectedly touching, as while his dad may be blunt, he does love the hell out of his family.

Movies

• Inception- Where's my spin-off with Arthur and Eames being ass-holes to each other??!!
• Hamlet- BBC/Royal Shakespeare Company production starring David Tennant, with Patrick Stewart as Claudius and the King's Ghost. As awesome as it sounds.
• The Fantastic Mr. Fox- Re-watched, still delightful. I love Wes Anderson's non sequiturs, though I'm sure most of the best random moments were ad-libbed.
• God of Cookery- <3 Stephen Chow. Best part: Roundhouse kicking that school girl in the face.
• That Hamilton Woman- The British Gone With the Wind with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Apparently Churchill considered it his favorite movie.
• Black Dynamite- "Your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!"
• Dinner for Schmucks- Whatever you're expecting from it, you're gonna get it. Am I the only person in the world who things that the French film this is a remake of is over-rated and pretty mean-spirited?
• Starman-  The closest thing John Carpenter has ever done to a romance film? Of course, it's a romance involving Jeff Bridges as an alien.
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- Was really not expecting to like this, but my first-impression of non-Pixar CG animated films tends to be wrong.
• Les Miserable (1998, Bille August, dir.)- Not very good, but I've been obsessed with Liam Neeson and Claire Danes lately.

Comics

• Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley- Awesome ending to one of my all-time favorite series. Surprisingly, it has a bit of an easier pace than it's manic predecessors, but it's still all the way boss. Can't wait for the movie.
• Fractured Fables, edited by Jim Valentino- not the best fairy tale-themed comic anthology out there, but the hits are pretty fantastic and the art's fantastic. Includes contributions from Jill Thompson (cute murderous sausages!), Terry Moore (disappointing and a little mean spirited), Bryan Talbot (a cool twist on Red Riding Hood).
• Secret Iditities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, & Jerry Ma- A really neat collection of comics that explores Asian Americans in comics and in historical and contemporary social constructs. My personal favorite is Gene Yang and Scottie Young's take on a Kato-like chauffeur who is the real muscles and brains behind a crime fighting duo.
• The Marvelous Land of Oz by Eric Shanower & Scottie Young- I'm not the biggest Oz fan, but I really dig Scottie Young's artwork. I'm also glad that this can expose more people to how messed up the gender-bending ending is!
• Pulse by Brian Michael Bendis, et al.- Got all three volumes on the cheap. Love, love Jessica Jones.
• Okimono Kimono by Mokona- Pretty random little book by one of the women who make up CLAMP. All about Mokona's love for kimono, with designs and tips on wearing them.

Television

• Avatar: The Last Airbender- Finished the entire series and, hoo boy, I can call myself a fan.
• True Blood- This show is out-trashing itself and I'M LOVING IT! (It's funny though that I'm looking forward to a Sam sub-plot while getting annoyed by Jason's storyline; normally it's the other way around.)
• Black Adder III- As wonderful as can be expected from a classic and much-loved BBC series, but I think most American audiences will be shocked to see Hugh Laurie as the ultra-foppish Prince Regent.
• Firefly- Why do I have a feeling that once I'm done with this show I'm going to be ultra-disappointed that they canceled it after only 14 episodes? I mean, I know that it happened over five years ago, but it doesn't mean that I can't still be glummed-out about it.

Movie Review: Stardust

Saw this last weekend, and I have to say that this has been the best movie I've seen this summer. One of those sheer delights that you don't want to end.

However, now that I'm starting to read the book, I'm afraid that I might end up being disgusted with how they changed things. I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan, but Stardust never appealed to me until now. Just by flipping through and reading passages and looking at Charles Vess' illustrations, I can tell a lot has been changed, most notably that the world beyond the wall is in fact Fairie. In the movie, it's just an original fantasy world, so much of the old ballad elements are lost. This said, I'm still optomistic that I will like both book and movie as individual works in their own rights, especially since they are so different. I already find the movie's ending more satisfying than the book's (I peaked).

The film is sweetly romantic, well-paced, and visually exciting. With the special effects, I was initially not empressed with moments like the pet-sized elephants at the fair, but the sky ship, the dead princes, and Yvaine's starshine were enchanting. Most rememberable were probably the performances. Charlie Cox was your standard charming but bumbling Gaiman hero, and you fall in love with him, even at his stupid moments. I haven't liked Claire Danes so much since Little Women, but she was excellent as Yvaine, just the right proportions of ethereal and spunky. I'm a little torn over that Michelle Pfeiffer is mostly playing villainesses now, but I cannot deny that she plays them well. I'm glad I had forgotten that Peter O'Toole and Ricky Gervais were in it, because it was fun to be surprised by them. Robert De Niro hasn't been in a movie like this since Brazil, and he obviously had a lot of fun with it. He steals whatever scene he's in without being too overpowering.

Telling from the trailers, which included Beowulf, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and The Golden Compass, fantasy is the most bankable in-thing to do in the post-Lord of the Rings industry. Maybe with movies like Stardust it'll be a fantasy-film Renaissance, like it was in the 80's. Imagine this decade creating movies more in line with the Neverending Story and Legend!

Stardust worked, but it was more aimed at adults, but some movies, like the dreaded upcoming Dark is Rising, seem to be pandarizing to tweens, ripping out its literary elements and simplifying its mythology. However, The Golden Compass looks very promising, and the Narnia movie appears to be respectable to its source.