I'll get you, my pretty!
And your little dog, too!

By Jayne Spencer

International Wizard of Oz Club to stage Baum publication centennial next July at IUB

Later this weekend, chances are you'll encounter a witch or two on the doorstep. A tinman with a heart may turn on his heels to run down a windswept street at dusk. Maybe you'll see a cowardly lion or a scarecrow with a Ph.D. skipping through campus.

It is, after all, the end of October.

But if you don't see a familiar face during Halloween rounds, mark your calendar for July 20-23, 2000.

The International Wizard of Oz Club (IWOC) is coming to Bloomington.

Rumor has it that an original Munchkin or two from MGM's famous film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, will be in town to help the IWOC honor the book's publication centennial.

Ozzy fast facts ...

Ozma Baum Mantele, L. Frank Baum's first granddaughter, died earlier this month at the age of 83. Her grandfather insisted that she be named Ozma and dedicated his next Oz book, The Lost Princess of Oz, to her. Baum partnered with others to create a musical extravaganza of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that toured nationally and was a Broadway hit in 1903. By the 1970s, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had become one of the 15 bestselling books of the 20th century. There was no truth to the legend of a murder/suicide/hanging during the filming of MGM's The Wizard of Oz. In the background of one of the forest scenes, there is movement that is suggestive of a body swinging from a tree. In reality, the movement is one of the large birds that had been rented from the Los Angeles Zoo Park to roam the set and give the forest its creepy appearance. The 1939 MGM film was preceded by feature-length films of Oz in 1910 and 1925--the latter starred Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodsman--and early silent films of Baum's sequels used special effects that had never been seen before. One early Oz film, The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914), prompted what may be the very first toy ever made to promote a film--a doll of Baum's animal character, the Woozy. An early NASA project trying to find life on other planets was named Project Ozma after the ruler of Oz. In 1961, the International Wizard of Oz Club held its first convention. The location was the Hoosier community of Ozcot at the Wizard of Oz Lodge located on the shores of Bass Lake.

Imagine Kirkwood Avenue paved with yellow brick. Or an Emerald City that looks very much like the Indiana Memorial Union. Ozians or Ozzys, as some affectionately call themselves--much like the Trekkies who adore Star Trek--have a "thing" for the wizard and all things Ozzy. And they're bringing that enthusiasm to the Indiana University campus.

"We were originally looking at locations that had an historical connection to the author when the Lilly Library offered to mount a centennial exhibit of its impressive Oz collection," said Kansas City, Mo., resident Jane Albright, chairman of the IWOC centennial committee. Albright, incidentally, won a book-collecting contest on the University of Kansas campus a couple decades ago and has been hooked on Oz books since she was knee-high to a flying monkey.

Community groups followed the lead of Lilly Library, and possibilities for the conference began to twirl about like a cyclone above a Kansas prairie.

Bloomington's Ryder Film Series agreed to sponsor a vintage Oz festival, and WonderLab will offer "hands-on Oz projects for kids," Albright said. Oz scholar and Baum biographer Michael Patrick Hearn will give a keynote address, the Bloomington Playwrights Project will participate, Dorothy is scheduled to go on trial for murder, research papers solicited by the International Association of Children's Literature will be read, and 50 topical presentations of interest to Oz fans of every age are in the works.

The decision to choose Bloomington for the conference was serendipitous, said Janet Brady James, director of IU Conferences. And already the IMU is booked. At least 400 Ozzys are expected, and community involvement continues to grow. John Neel, an IU alumnus who has retired to Bloomington, has been an IWOC member for 25 years and has been instrumental in forging some university and community connections. The IU Russian and East Asian Institute, for instance, will be cooperating to bring Russian Oz illustrator Leonid Vladimirsky to campus.

"Baum's book was the best-selling juvenile work of the year 1900," said Albright, who works for Hallmark Cards. "And it was a real adventure, not a dream. Sequel followed sequel until a series of 40 books was established. Today, fans of Oz continue to write new Oz books. Some, like Russian author Alexander Volkov (Vladimirsky's collaborator), develop their own vision of Oz, but others take great pains to mirror the imaginative fantasy land created by Mr. Baum."

The Lilly Library's collection includes the publishing files of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., which owned rights to the book during the production of the 1939 MGM film, according to Albright. The Lilly collection also includes drafts and revisions of the 1939 screenplay.

Why all the fuss about Oz?

As American cultural icons, Baum's characters--portrayed in century-old text, on 60-year-old celluloid or in a new Russian storybook--address the human condition and its timeless struggle for expression and validity.

"The centrality of courage, heart and mind to all of us--and the fact that we must find these in ourselves--has certainly contributed to the work's long lasting appeal," explained Jerry Harste, the William Armstrong Chair in teacher education at the IU School of Education. "If literature awakens the imagination, then clearly, the Oz qualifies, as this is a message each of us in each generation must address."

Want to know more Ozsome stuff? Go to these Web sites:

http://www.geocities.com/~ozfan/Ozcenten.htm

http://www.ozclub.org/

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