[COMPLETE] The Magical Mimics in Oz - philc

[philchenevert]

The Magic Mimics in Oz by Jack Snow (1907 - 1956).

This project is now in our catalog at https://librivox.org/the-magic-mimics-in-oz-by-jack-snow/

The land of OZ is the happiest fairyland anywhere, but there are evil creatures whose only ambition is to destroy that happiness. Lurking inside Mount Illuso, just south of the Deadly Desert, live the Magic Mimics, a race devoted to causing the maximum chaos and unhappiness everywhere, but mainly in the land of OZ. Until now they have been kept at bay by a spell, but when Princess Ozma leaves OZ for 3 days, their foul machinations are quickly put into play. Princess Dorothy is left in charge of OZ and must deal with these happiness crushing beings. Can she do it? Will Toto help? You bet!!! Listen to this rip snorting adventure in oz and enjoy. (by Phil Chenevert )

• Text source (only read from this text!): http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56555
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  Magic Window:

  
  
  BC Admin
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  Genres for the project: Children's Fiction/Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales
  
  Keywords that describe the book:
  
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  Title: ## - [Section title]
  Album: The Magic Mimics in Oz
  
  
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[DrPGould]

Phil--

Shall we tee up another? I'll gladly DPL if you need one (and aren't too bored with my style).

Many thanks,

Philip

[philchenevert]

Phil--

Shall we tee up another? I'll gladly DPL if you need one (and aren't too bored with my style).

Many thanks,

Philip

Absolutely! The question should be whether you are not too bored with MY style since you will need to isten to my voice for many chapters of OZ adventures! Thanks Philip.

[philchenevert]

The first two chapters of t his exciting epic are in the MW.
EDIT: Just curious; have you listened or read many OZ books?

[DrPGould]

Phil:

I'll get those sections PL'd by sometime tomorrow.

To answer your question, no, before I joined librivox, I had only seen the Wizard of Oz movie. I knew about the books, but had never read them. I have since read the Wizard of Oz, and am currently involved with this project and one that Beth Thomas is reading, both are Oz books.

Side note--are you aware that the Wizard may have been a political allegory for the progressive movement in the 1890s/1900. There are a couple of journal articles pointing out the possibility, and another couple suggesting that that is ridiculous (bolstered by Baum's own words on the subject). I use the allegory when I teach--regardless of whether Baum intended such--because it makes the material more accessible/memorable/interesting for my students. (If you're interested, I can get you citations to the articles--I do think they are available on the web.)

Second side note--I've had a couple of thoughts on which I would appreciate your perspective. A while back, I noticed librivox years 2,3,4 had no anniversary collection. I also noticed that the year 1 collection, instead of being pieces chosen by readers specifically for the collection, consisted of pieces selected from the readings done at the end of the year.

So I got to thinking what if we (the collective librivox we) used the methods of the year 1 collection and retroactively created anniversary collections for years 2, 3, and 4? I would be willing to do the "grunt work" and would suggest that a starting point would be selections from readers who were important in the early years or who cannot be with us any more. Pick about 2 dozen or so, readings, put them in a collection (we could even do a blurb which notes that the collection was put together retroactively)..... ON the flip side, if there are others who would prefer to do this instead of me, that's ok, too--I'd be willing to help out in any way...

Second, I'm thinking about starting a librivox word menagerie thread. People in the projects I work on seem to come up with the most interesting and obscure words--but they're strung out on different project boards. Do you think there would be enough interest to sustain something like that?

I'll try to quell my wild ideas for awhile. Thanks for your thoughts.

Philip

[philchenevert]

Oh please Philip, never quell your imagination! It is a wonderful asset.

About the Wizard being a political allegory for the progressive movement, yes I remember hearing that but, while not really understanding the full reasoning behind it, don't believe that was at all in Baum's mind. Oz is a utopia sure, and money is not used at all there because everything is available to everyone but I don't think he went beyond making his version of a fairyland for his adventurers. He wrote many other books and they were all simple children's books to make money. But literary exegesis is far from my strong point and something I've never studied so I would love to see any article that explains this as an allegory. As a professor, how do you feel about this.

Anniversary collections for LV years 2, 3 and 4? why not? I admit to not having listened to any LV anniversary collection so my knowledge is lacking here too. yep, not a one. A search turned up only year 5 and up in our catalog so, where do I find 1 and 4? We should run this by the other admins but I am very much in favor of doing something to honor our first readers and I feel they would be very supportive. Our search engine now would give us the date cataloged but this would be the entire catalog, right? Anyway, I would love to see this done, please send more ideas about how to implement it.

Word menagerie thread. ?? Not sure what this woujld be like, a forum thread where new and obscure words are noted? Please tell me more. I just recorded a poem by Francis Thompson and it had WAY too many words that I had never heard of. Made me struggle. tsk, tsk.

[DrPGould]

Phil:

With respect to the anniversary collections, the first one is in the catalog as something like the "First Anniversary Program 2006."

It was divided into a number of sections:

A Listener's Guide (which could include the explanation for why these collections were completed retroactively)

Segment 1 was an interview with founder Hugh McGuire
Segment 2 was a Commentary by librivox volunteers
Segment 3 was called Bloopers and Noises
Segment 4 was a Poetry Contest Winner
Segment 5 was a Sampler of Librivox Recordings
Segment 6 was birthday wishes and a list of names

The duration was 55:09.

(I haven't listened to it yet--but if years 2-4 develop into viable projects, I will--hopefully there will be some guidance and direction as to the poetry contest and other unfamiliar matters. Something approximating this framework could be used to retrofit an Anniversary collection for the missing years. (I noticed two names on the list of participants that I have seen still on the boards, kayray and Ezwa. There may have been others)

I found out the deficiency when I put together this:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OYyyDZlOtdH97fYPs-895wqBFWjFp46IZe8DzMeUHy4/edit?usp=sharing

I put it together after I stumbled on to (entirely by accident) the Coffee Break Collection and wondered how many other collections I didn't know about. (I asked Lynne T, who was MC-ing the Coffee Break Collection if anyone had done this previously, and she said to her knowledge it had not been done. At her suggestion, I posted it tonight (I thought I had already done so) here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=69482&p=1446064&hilit=Collection+of+Collections#p1446064 (Being fallible, hopefully others will catch the errors I did not and hopefully find it useful.) I used archive.org to sort the completed works by date and then verified what I found by checking against the catalog. This process could be used in constructing the retro anniversary collections.

I would hope that some of the senior members among us librivoxers would assist in the selection of specific readings, etc. If they need to be edited or something like that, I would be willing to do that.

I think I've fleshed that out about as far as I can for now. I'll post separately (probably tomorrow) about the word menagerie.

[DrPGould]

Phil:

One small correction at 1:51 in Section 1 the phrase "not always had Ozma" should be "not always had Oz"

Sections 2,3,4,5 are PL-OK!.

What a great story.

Many thanks,

Philip

[DrPGould]

Phil:

Here's a link to an article which summarizes the academic debate on the matter (it contains a reference list at the end of most of the literature that has been written on the piece:

http://www.usagold.com/publications/landofoz.pdf

I have read and used the Littlefield article (in the reference list) in my teaching--but I don't think that it is possible that any definitive conclusion will ever be reached. Baum's newspaper columns/editorials and other statements come down on both sides of Progressive Populism and the hard money question. I do think that it is possible to read Oz as either supporting or opposing populism...a tribute to Baum's gift for ambiguity.

I do know that even if he did not intend it as an allegory, it makes an effective teaching device (and when I teach it, I tell which I just told you...that the story could be read either way--but they tend to remember the elements of populism and the controversy of the times with Dorothy, et al to hang their thinking on.

I had forgotten that I had bought a copy of the Wizard republished with the controversy in mind...The work is entitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and is written by William R. Leach. It contains a biographical note about Baum, followed by the full text of the Wizard, ending with another article about whether it is allegorical and supports or opposes populism.

I had copies of some of the other articles referred to in the pdf, but I cannot lay my hands on them just now.

Philip

[philchenevert]

Phil:

One small correction at 1:51 in Section 1 the phrase "not always had Ozma" should be "not always had Oz"

Sections 2,3,4,5 are PL-OK!.

What a great story.

Many thanks,

Philip

Section 1 fixed and uploaded.

[DrPGould]

Section 1 PL-Ok.

Philip

[philchenevert]

Chapteer 7, the shortest chapter in the book, is now in the MW. Dorothy and the Wizard find a way out!

[DrPGould]

Phil:

6-8 PL OK! Well done!

Many thanks,

Philip

[philchenevert]

Thank you Philip. I had recorded these first 10 and just had to edit them, that's why they are popping up so fast. Will get to the remaining 13 later this week.

I notice that your collections idea is getting traction. it is a good one and I plan to get involved when we do the retroactive 2, 3 and 4th ones. Those pioneers deserve some recognition.

[DrPGould]

Phil--

Thanks for your support for the anniversary collections idea. I see someone else has been reading my word menagerie suggestions. Annise has offered to help with that, too. I need to get busy and flesh out this idea. (See what happens when I have to quit reading and sit silently..... )

This is a terrific story and your reading is excellent!

Philip