If the regular readers of this column are not forgiving enough, I fear I must ask your further forgiveness today, as I depart from our normal topic of Sherlock Holmes for just a moment, and speak about another bit of classic literature, because I just can't stand it any more. I can't.
The Scarecrow and Dorothy have gone to the Emerald City of Oz, you see, and the Munchkins just won't quit singing. I don't know why the Munchkins are singing so merrily, because the Scarecrow and Dorothy have been quit from Munchkinland for some time now. Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe the Scarecrow is easier to love when he just not actively in one's life. Or maybe it's that they've grown bold with no visitations by wicked witches for a time.
Would that I could find a broomstick, do a flyover of the Emerald City, and skywrite "SURRENDER DOROTHY!" in hopes of removing that lady from her brainless companion and the fraudulent pursuits some bogus wizard has sent them on. Ah, that would be a happy dream, wouldn't it? Just get Dorothy on that ol' broom, fly her back to Kansas, and let her remember how good her past times with the people who truly loved her were. Because Dorothy was so much better in Kansas. And Nebraska. And Oklahoma. And all those places that weren't paved by goldbricks. (Oops, make that "with gold bricks.")
It seems like I've been frustrated by the Wizard of Oz for an eternity now. I expected it to see monkeys fly out of someone's butt before I'd see what went on with the Scarecrow and Dorothy and the way the Munchkins keep singing about it, but there you go. Flying monkeys. Un-freakin'-believable. But like the story goes, we had what we really needed all along, didn't we?
There's no place like Holmes . . . oh, sorry! Home.
Excuse me, I have to go throw water on myself now.
Because it's summer. And it's hot.
Damned munchkins.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
This topic does have crossovers with the world of Sherlock Holmes (of course). I once read a story that had Holmes visiting Oz, where I read it I don't recall, but ... In 'The Baum Bugle' mag for (Ozians?) Volume 35, Number 3, Winter 1991 - 'Cyclic Mysteries: Parallel Tracks in the Detective Fiction of L. Frank Baum and Arthur Conan Doyle.' by Richard R. Rutter.
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing about flying monkeys - the things they may throw at you!