Guilty

Okay, so I just finished reading my archive of The Baum Bugle. I didn't re-read issues I'd received since I joined the Club or ones I'd read recently, or re-read Best of collections.

I read and discovered a lot of information. Do I remember it all? Probably not, though I do have a weird way of having it come to the surface when needed. But then sometimes I remember one thing and forget another...

I was really grateful for the information about Ruth Plumly Thompson. Before I'd read all her Oz books, my opinion of her was low. After reading them all, it went up. After all these articles about her and some even by her, my appreciation of her is very high.

Now, as I read often I always like to have something to read next lined up. Hence, an archive of The Baum Bugle meant there was no worries there. My coworkers once made "What is Jared reading" a point of curiosity. Now they accept it as a given.

Over Christmas, I got a couple Amazon gift cards. I used them to further my Oz collection, which... There's some things that the less-informed might wonder at the Oz connection! I have Jack Snow's Dark Music and a number of Eloise McGraw's non-Oz books.

For Christmas, I bought an Oz video game I can't play (the system is long obsolete, though it is being reproduced for collectors and retro-gamers), a record (that I also can't play right now), Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation (which I rejoiced to find it was a Reilly & Britton edition when I opened it), The Seventeenth Swap and Merlin: The Complete Second Season. (It's a good show.)

Now to why I named this post "Guilty." You might remember my mentioning PaperBackSwap.com and that is where some of Eloise's books came from. However, a friend had the credits and said he'd send them to me if I wrote blogs about them. I wrote about The Moorchild, but have neglected to do the rest. So, some catching up will be in order soon.

I'm reading The Seventeenth Swap, and I have to wonder, since it was published in 1986 (my birth year, coincidentally), if the main character's name "Eric Greene" might have been inspired by some Oz acquaintances. However, both names are pretty common, so I probably over-thought it.

I've ordered Mara, Daughter of the Nile. Like L. Frank Baum, Eloise McGraw was rather struck by Egypt and it inspired a number of her books, like The Golden Goblet, which is one of the ones I have read.

And in non-reading and blogging news, I've started a search for a very special thing in a film archive. And yes, there is an Oz connection there. A very big one. It is possible my hope is in vain, but it could be rewarded. If so, I'm not sure how we'd announce it. All I will say is that if it does turn up, we've already got a screening arranged.

Also, I have over two and a half hours of audio to edit where Sam and I talk about the MGM movie. It is by far the most audio we've ever recorded for one episode. We may have to split into two episodes, really.