Mix CD Reflections: Cold

            One night I was looking for the song "Cold" by The Cure on my computer. I typed the word “cold” into the search bar on Windows Media Player, and it came up with a list of songs that had the word “cold” somewhere in the title. I started listening to the list, and realized a lot of the songs went well together. Each has a unique way of using and defining the concept of cold. I then started a playlist and added songs that use the word “cold” in their lyrics somewhere too. I probably should have been doing something more productive with my time, but, that’s how the idea for this mix came about, as well as others I plan on making centered around other concepts. I may do an extended cassette version of the mix later on, but for now, it’s a CD mix.

            The Cure – Cold

“I was cold as I mouthed the words, and crawled across the mirror. I wait, await the next breath, your name like ice, into my heart.”

            This song is darkly beautiful. As far as my tastes in music goes I prefer The Cure’s darker albums, such as Pornography and Disintegration. Their pop music is okay, but a bit more shallow, in a way. "Cold" in this song is more of a feeling, an emotion, than literal cold. Perhaps it’s a song of lost love. The lyrics are hard to comprehend, but I think that’s what it’s about. What would it take for someone’s name to be like ice into your heart? Like being stabbed in the heart with an icicle? If even the mere mention of a name brings such an association to mind you’d have to have very strong feelings, either negative or tragic. Perhaps of a lover that left you or died. Or perhaps not of a lover at all, I could be way off. The singer doesn’t have to be singing about a woman, or even a person. 

           

            Ornamenti d’Oro – Humedad 72% ( A Cold Wind)

            I can’t find the lyrics to this one anywhere, and since the title is in Spanish, I probably wouldn’t understand them either. But this is a very atmospheric track, the last one on Obscura Undead’s UnObscured 2019 compilation, which I’ve discussed numerous times already. The description that came with the digital album suggests this song wouldn’t be out of place in a fog-shrouded cemetery, and I have to agree. Although the image that I get listening to this song is a desolate, frozen tundra, lit only by moonlight, whipped by freezing winds. It continues the energy of the previous track.            

            Coldwave Kids (South Park Goth Song Cover) – Accumortis

             

This song may be cheating, because it has no lyrics, and “coldwave” refers to the musical genre. But it has the secret word in the title!

"It's the secret word of the day! AAAAHHHHH! HA-HA!!"

 This was made by the Youtube user Accumortis, and is a cover of the song that the goth kids from South Park listen to. However, let us consider for a moment why the genre of coldwave has that name. The genre was apparently first applied to Kraftwerk, yet another of the dozens of genres they helped launch, and came to refer to music which uses minimal synth,usually with sparse, monotone vocals. Listening to music in this genre, for some reason I do feel a certain coldness. A robotic, emotionless type of coldness, perhaps. I can’t properly articulate why coldwave in general, and this song in particular, elicits thoughts of coldness. The song makes me think of a clear, starry winter night. It also makes me ponder why we associate coldness with the things that we do. We associate it with emotionlessness, to be unkind, unforgiving, even cruelty. And we associate warmth with kindness and love. It’s strange if you think about it.

            Mortiis – Marshland

“I’m stuck and cold, I’m stuck and cold in Marshland. I’m stuck and cold where life is plentiful but nothing lives.”

            Perhaps the marshlands of Norway where Mortiis is from get cold. They’re not cold in Florida or California, really, which are the only marshlands I’ve ever been to. I’ve written about this song on this blog before and dissected its lyrics. The use of the word “cold” in this song goes along with what I’ve mentioned; emotionless, lifelessness, cruelty. The chorus goes on to talk about the machine”, which doesn’t care what you think or feel and will keep moving on if you die. To me, the machine represents our society, where materialism is valued over people. Thus, though the word “cold” only plays a minor role lyrically, the associations that it brings permeate throughout the whole song.

            And One – Years

“Years are getting colder, just memories left behind.”

            This is another song I’ve previously discussed. Lyrically the song doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but I like this particular line. It reminds me of becoming more jaded and cynical, i.e. “colder”, as the years go on and you lose more and more of your innocence. Cold here can mean jaded, depressed, bitter, hardened, as the dreams you had when you were young seem more and more unattainable as soon as you start to grasp the cold reality of how the world works.

            Ministry – Cold Life

“Earth gets colder every day, if scientists could have their way, they’d study us from far away and watch as people’s minds decay.”

            An early Ministry track from their synthpop days (but it never made it on With Sympathy, so Al Jourgensen can't really claim the record companies forced him to make it), although this one has more of a funk sound to it, like early Red Hot Chili Peppers. The use of “cold” here is much as I said in the previous song. I don’t know if I agree with him on scientists. Maybe some scientists are that “cold” and detached from sentiment. The ones who do animal testing probably are. The song is about a cold, pessimistic outlook on life, and the world. Later in the song we have lyrics such as “Earth is such a filthy place and humans such an awful race.” In actuality the world is overall becoming warmer every day due to rampant climate change that’s going to doom us all pretty soon, but metaphorically, I think it is becoming a colder place as well. Of course, that said, the world has always been a harsh place, and humans have always been an awful race. The “good old days” are an illusion. The world is a colder place for those of us entering adulthood.

            Bella Morte – Break this Cold

“Walk this winter mile, under the snow, knowing the sun won’t ever break this cold.”

            At long last, a more literal meaning of the world “cold”. Days like this are sadly very rare where I live, in Florida. But this song is about those winter days where it’s sunny, but paradoxically, still bitter cold. Not even the sun is enough to warm the day. I sometimes wish I lived in an area where it snowed. But everyone I talk to who does seems to hate it. Yet snow gets romanticized every year around December even in areas where it never snows. When I lived in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, everyone would get so excited when little Mt. Diablo (just under 4,000 feet high) got snow. In Florida people make “sandmen” instead of snowmen. The bigger cities in both states will often have parades or events where fake snow is generated from machines. Ice skating rinks can be found in both states, even in the town which I find myself in now, Rockledge. Snow is one of those things. Those who don’t have it, want it. Those who get it, don’t want it. As for the song, it’s about a winter cold that defies even the sun. A cold that I miss and long for. Especially when it gets over 80 degrees Fahrenheit in December here in Florida.

            Hante – In Cold Water

“And I’m scared I won’t survive tomorrow if I let myself sink deeper. You can’t go back from the abyss of sorrow. How could I keep breathing in cold water?”

            Hante is a coldwave band (insert Pee Wee Herman scream here) from France, that I’ve been a fan of for a couple years now, ever since I heard the song “Empty Space”. In the lyrics to this song, the singer is walking along the beach and is drawn toward the ocean, walking deep into the cold waters, and wondering how deep they can go before they drown. I think the “cold water” here is a metaphor for depression, the clue being the reference to the abyss of sorrow. How deep can they sink and still survive? As someone with depression, I definitely relate. It can give you a sinking, drowning feeling when it becomes overwhelming. The word “cold” isn’t overall very important to the lyrics as a whole; in fact, it may only be there to make the number of syllables add up. But its inclusion does bring with it its own implications. She could have substituted “warm”, “blue”, or “deep”, but the song writer chose “cold” for a reason. Likely because of its nonliteral interpretations, all of which I’ve mentioned.

            Le Matos – Cold Summer

“In the forest, why does it feel so cold? Feels so cold in the summer. In the forest, I’m growing cold, feels so cold in the summer.”

            Having it be cold outside in the summer sounds amazing. Especially in Florida. The only places I’ve been where it can get cold in the summer are Monterey, California, Vanadzor, Armenia (as well as anywhere on around Lake Sevan), and maybe up in the mountains anywhere. All places I wish I lived. Anyway, as for the song lyrics; no one expects it to be cold in the summer. It doesn’t sound like the singer is happy that it’s cold (like I would be). So here, cold symbolizes an unexpected disappointment. If taken literally, maybe this song is about a summer camping trip that went awry due to unexpected weather. But if you look into the alternate implications which the word ”cold” has in the English language, you can make your own metaphorical interpretations from there. Perhaps this is a metaphor for being treated “coldly” by a loved one from whom you expected “warmth”, or affection. It could mean any number of things.

            Hoffen – Cold Tears of an Angel

“Cold tears of an angel, are devastated with treason and lies.”

            This one isn’t the easiest song to interpret, but I found the full lyrics on Hoffen’s Bandcamp page. Tears are generally warm, coming from the body which is a steady 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps angels are different? It’s a song about being betrayed by someone, and if angels are generally seen as pure and innocent (though they aren’t always in many myths), the lyrics give the sense of a loss of innocence. The betrayal of someone who is not used to shedding tears. Someone who is now “cold” on the inside, and therefore so are their tears.

            Paula Abdul – Cold-Hearted

“He’s a cold-hearted snake, look into his eyes. Uh-oh, he’s been telling lies.”

            Oh goodie, time to admit to a guilty pleasure. I spent much of my early childhood watching MTV in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, where I inevitably became a fan of Paula Abdul. She was probably my first crush. I never stopped liking her music, even after I got into metal and then goth music. Pop music in the 1980’s is still way more tolerable than pop music from the late 1990’s onward. Singers still had to have some degree of musical talent back then. In any case, the usage of the word “cold” in this song is related to its use in the previous song. The singer is warning others about their ex-lover who cheated on them. To be “cold-hearted”, by this song’s definition and in the general sense of the idiom, is to have the ability to betray the love and trust of someone who loves you without any remorse. I’ll be doing another mix like this with the word “heart”, where I can discuss the implications of that word in its literal and metaphorical senses.

            New Order – Blue Monday

“Tell me how does it feel, when your heart grows cold?”

            People have analyzed the meaning of this well-known song already in the past. It seems to be about being in some kind of a relationship (whether romantic or not isn’t stated, but somewhat implied) with someone who is manipulative and controlling. This made it a very good break-up song for me with my first girlfriend. Ah, fun times. The last line in the song is the one above. Again, we have the “cold-hearted” idiom, which can only be taken metaphorically. The person being sung about in the song is unfeeling and unsympathetic, and the narrator wonders how it feels to become that way, to no longer care about others. This is what it means to be cold, or cold-hearted.

            Kamelot – On the Coldest Winter Night

“On the coldest winter night, this moment is our right.”

            Let’s look at a song that’s not about a failed romance now (well okay, the romance does fail in a major way later in the album, which is a concept album based on the story of Goethe’s Faust, but nevermind that). This song just makes me feel all warm and toasty inside. It’s all about cozying up with your true love on the coldest night of the year and having a moment of passion with them. The world outside is cold, maybe in both the lyrical and metaphorical senses, but love warms this couple in spite of all that. I’ve always loved this album, Epica. I suppose Kamelot is a melodic power metal band, but you’d never be able to tell with this song, which is mainly soft piano and vocals. If more people only listened to this album it would be more popular.

            Serj Tankian – Garun a

“My sweetheart has become cold. Akh, I wish for my rival’s tongue to dry up.”

            Serj Tankian covers an old Armenian folk song popularized by Komitas Vardapet in this track. The full lyrics aren’t very long. It’s spring yet still snowy, the singer’s lover has ”become cold”, and it seems to somehow be the singer’s rival’s fault (if the final line is connected to the other two at all). I have an intermediate understanding of the Armenian language, but I can’t say I know if the word for cold has the same several meanings it has in English. The word specifically in this song is սառել, meaning “to become cold”, as the act of becoming cold is it’s own one-word verb in the language (nifty, isn’t it?) Has she become cold because the singer is in a love triangle with their rival, and she’s choosing the rival over him? Or is she literally cold, perhaps even dead, and the rival is to blame? I can’t really say for certain, unfortunately. Wishing for someone’s tongue to dry up must be an old-world curse, I take it. Maybe someone else knows the correct interpretation of this song. I’ve heard renditions of this song that are upbeat, danceable even, but this one sounds tragic and heart-wrenching. It’s a tear-jerker. I remember it best because I listened to it on repeat on my last day in Armenia and moped because I was leaving my beloved country. This song brings me back to that last day. I’ll blog about that day on its anniversary this October.

Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars

“It’s getting cold, picked up the pace. How our shoes, make hard noises in this place.”

            Following the sentimental tear-jerker theme this mix is now on, we have this gem from my 1990’s childhood. It’s hard to say what this song is really about when you look at the lyrics. “Tell me all your thoughts on God, because I’d really like to meet her.” Having God be referred to as a female is kind of interesting.  Maybe the singer is Wiccan. Anyway, the word “cold” isn’t doing a whole lot in this song. Perhaps if I find a song more centered on cold I would eliminate this one from the list. Not that I don’t like it, of course. It’s a song from when I was pure and innocent, before Middle School destroyed it all. But yeah, if I make a mix of songs about God I’ll have more to say about this.

Eisbrecher – Eiskalt Erwischt

“You smell me, you chase me, you have me, captured ice cold.”

            And now for some German. We’re kicking it up a notch now after the last several songs to a speedy industrial metal song. Maybe I should have put more of a mid-level heavy song between this one and the previous as more of a buffer. But, I consider this mix kind of a work in progress anyway. The band, “Eisbrecher”, translates to “ice breaker”, and the song roughly translates to “Captured Ice Cold”. Coldness is a common theme in Eisbrecher’s songs, unsurprisingly. The band sounds a lot like Rammstein to the untrained ear, making it even more amusing when he says “Du has mich” several times throughout this song. The song is very carnal, about being chased down and captured by your lover and enjoying it. But with lyrics like “I tear the cold heart from your chest every night with lust”…yeah, maybe it’s more than just sado-masochism. As long as it’s consensual, whatever floats your boat I guess. I’m unsure if “eiskalt erwischt” is a common German idiom. My last German class was a long time ago now. I’m better at Armenian at this point. Maybe it means something akin to being “caught red-handed” in English. That would be my guess. If true, that would be an altogether different way to look at the word “cold”.

The Kovenant – Through the Eyes of the Raven

“My tears no longer turned to frost, my eyes they gleam no more. Triumphant pride forever lost. King Winter, where’s thy cold?”

            I’ve discussed at length Covenant/The Kovenant’s debut album In Times Before the Light, an important album of my formative years. This song is almost like a prayer, or a summoning. A summoning of the cold of winter. Later on in the song the singer even makes offerings (“Make me frozen cold as ice, I give to thee my blinded eyes”). King Winter here is kind of a representation of winter, like a God of Winter. This is sung by someone who misses winter and hates summer, but is also steeped in dark fantasy. They want winter back. Their glory and pride depends on it being winter again. At least they don’t live in Florida. I found this to be a suitably grand finale to the mix. An ode to coldness and winter.

Honorable mention:

            Clan of Xymox – Under the Wire

“So tired, so cold, as stone I’m told.”

            Missing the boat on the CD mix was “Under the Wire” by Clan of Xymox, because I only realized after I’d burned the CD already that it had the word “cold” in it. It will have to be on the cassette version, whenever I make it (I may wait until next winter). Or if I have to remake the CD Mix (which is inevitable after a couple years when the CD eventually gets too scratched up) I’ll put it on there, possibly instead of “Counting Blue Cars”. If I were to keep “Counting Blue Cars”, this may be the track I was looking for to bridge between that and “Eiskalt Erwischt”; and this is what I did for the Spotify version of this mix. Anyway, looking at the lyrics for this one, it seems like a depressing one, about having reached your limit, being fed up with everything, close to the brink. Maybe I should add happier songs to my music library? Eh, that’s what my synthwave music is for.  “Cold” here is used as part of the idiom “stone cold”, as popularized by the wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. It can mean literally cold (as in “your tea is going to be stone cold if you don’t drink it soon”), or it can basically mean the same thing as cold-hearted, more in the sense of being emotionally stoic than a heart-breaker.

Anyway, as I said I did my best to reproduce the playlist on Spotify, although of course, Spotify doesn’t have the really obscure ones. For that there’s YouTube. Who knows what songs I may have missed, they’ll probably turn up over time and the playlist will get longer. In the meantime, my next mix will have to do with the Moon.

Cold - Spotify Playlist

The Lost Tales of Oz: A Review

            When you start really getting into the Oz books, you always keep wanting more. I don’t know what it is about the series, but it’s extremely addicting. It’s the reason the original publisher put out forty of the books, and it’s the reason they kept being written decades after L. Frank Baum died and are still being written now. They may vary in quality from book to book, but there’s nearly always something to enjoy about each of them. It’s an escape from the dreary Outside World, as the Ozites refer to our realm. When I finished binge-reading all of the public domain Oz books online while stuck working at a call center, I needed something else to treat my newfound Oz addiction with. There are plenty of good modern Oz books available online for free as I discovered. In my search for more, I was inevitably led to the website of the small publishing house The Royal Publisher of Oz, which handles newly-written Oz fiction that sticks to the canon of the original books. Their website has a comprehensive timeline which includes basically any piece of Oz fiction that stays true to canon (so no Wicked or Dorothy Must Die for example) and all sorts of other canonical information; which is helpful to those of us who don’t have the time or means to read thousands of books and short stories. And since Oz canon is notoriously inconsistent, it even does all of the mental gymnastics needed to make sense of all the contradictions in L. Frank Baum’s works as well as the further inconsistencies introduced by later authors in the series. It’s really a monumental task.

            So once I found myself with a little bit of disposable income, I decided to get one of their books. I chose The Lost Tales of Oz, a collection of short stories written by various authors, with illustrations by Eric Shanower, a renowned illustrator within modern Oz works. The edition I got was paperback, although I kind of wish I’d spent a little more for the hardcover version because it’s a shame to get such a beautiful cover bent out of shape while reading it. At least after one read-through it’s still in fairly good shape. Anyway, I enjoyed the whole book overall, it did the job as far as satisfying my Oz addiction. Out of the stories, I pretty much liked them all, but I have my favorites. I’ll go ahead and speak briefly about each of the stories, plus the framing device. I’ll try to steer clear of spoilers, but there are a couple stories where I think to properly discuss them I’m going to have to spoil them; I’ll warn you when I do it.

            We start with Dorothy, Betsy and Trot, three girls who’ve come to live permanently in Oz (and if you didn’t realize Dorothy eventually came to live in Oz permanently after visiting several more times you need to get with it and read the original books, it wasn’t just a dream!), deciding to spend a rainy day in the Emerald City Library. Betsy and Trot first speak with the librarian, Ann Tiquarian, who explains that every time someone in the Outside World writes an Oz book it eventually ends up in the library, sometimes before they’re even finished being written, and she has to sort through the true stories and the false ones (like Wicked and Dorothy Must Die, the former story is mentioned). The girls soon find Dorothy already in the library, studying some “lost histories” of Oz from this section of the library, each of which is a short story presented in this book. I really loved the whole concept of it. It should probably be mentioned that since no one ages or dies in Oz, all three of these little girls are actually over 100 years old by the time this is taking place, and have had so many adventures they don’t remember them all. Each story in the book has an introduction presented by one of the girls, and we return to the framing device every now and then throughout the book.

            The first story is The Great and Terrible Oz Mystery by Michael O. Riley. Ojo, the Munchkin boy we first met in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, has developed a hobby for pretending to be a detective. But, what started as an innocent game soon takes a terrifying turn when, upon spying on the Wizard of Oz, he finds reason to believe the Wizard isn’t human at all. He comes to this conclusion after hiding out in the Wizard’s private magical laboratory and seeing a shape-shifting grotesque monster enter and leave, and then discovering a realistic mask in the Wizard’s likeness. He goes to his adult friends for help, and they plan to expose the Wizard at an upcoming public event. The twist at the end is something that will make sense if you’ve read the 6^th Oz book The Emerald City of Oz; anyone who hasn’t likely won’t get it. But if you do get it, it’s a nice twist.

            The second story is The Witch’s Mother of Oz by Paul Dana, who’s written a series of Oz books that I really want to read, but haven’t yet. This story reveals the backstory of Mombi, one of the antagonists of the 2^nd Oz book The Marvelous Land of Oz, as Mombi’s mother decides to contact her. Mombi is a character that didn’t really reach her full potential in the original books, having been forgotten by Baum until the next author of the series Ruth Plumly Thompson eventually decided to use her and kill her off via execution, in a way which fans didn’t really like since it involved Princess Ozma being uncharacteristically cruel. So later stories brought her back. But the reveal in this short story does explain a lot about Mombi, and is a good character building sketch.

            The third story is The Trade: A Langwidere Story by Mike Conway. Languidere appears in the 3^rd oz book, Ozma of Oz, as the princess of the land of Ev who has a collection of heads which she switches day by day. If you saw the movie Return to Oz and this sounds familiar, that’s basically her except in the movie they made her more villainous and named her Mombi. In this story, a young woman named Cari with a severe case of body dysmorphia approaches Langwidere in hopes that she’ll assist her suicide by removing and putting her ”homely” head in her collection. Let’s just say they come to another arrangement. This one’s a very short story, but interesting for its themes of body image and what beauty is.

            The fourth story is Ojo and the Woozy by J.L. Bell. It’s a cute little slice-of-life story about Ojo and his friend the Woozy, who is a somewhat doglike creature whose body is completely cubed (think of Minecraft). Ojo is playing fetch with the Woozy, and a group of other young boys witness this and offer to play catch with the ball and challenge one another to throw the bar the furthest. Ojo has to learn how to throw properly, but once he does, he upsets a beehive and they all get attacked by bees. The Woozy eats bees though, so you can imagine how it all turns out.

            The fifth story is the first of three stories by Nathan DeHoff that give us insight into the other searches for Ozma in the book The Lost Princess of Oz. In that book, one of the original 14 by by L. Frank Baum, Ozma gets kidnapped by an evil magician and Glinda gathers four search parties to scour Oz for her. We only ever really follow Dorothy’s search party into the western Winkie Country, which is the one to eventually find Ozma. These stories tell us what happened to the three search parties that were unsuccessful. It’s something I thought about when reading The Lost Princess of Oz; what was everyone else doing? The first story follows the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman in their search in southern Quadling Country, where they meet characters from the book Dorothy of Oz by Roger Baum (such as Marshall Mallow, a living marshmallow, and the China Princess), which may be more widely-known from the CGI animated film Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return. Dorothy of Oz isn’t part of the Oz canon since it dismisses all of the original sequels (and I could go on about why it irritates me they made a movie based on this book and not the original sequels, but maybe I’ll save that for another blog post), but I guess these characters are canon now. The writing style here is full of puns and very funny, almost more like something Ruth Plumly Thompson would write. I enjoyed it. The second follows Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-Tok, the Shaggy man and his brother on their journey north to Gillikin Country where they meet the seldom-seen Good Witch of the North; I didn’t really find this one as memorable, honestly, but it’s always good to see these lesser-known characters get a spotlight put on them. The final story has to do with Ojo, his Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt and their expedition into Munchkin Country. This story gives us some more insight into the characters, as their past was never really properly explored in the books (Unc Nunkie was once the heir to the Munchkin throne). We meet some of their old friends the “Cookywitches” who practice magic under the radar of Ozma’s ban on magic in Oz and get a preview of a later story in the compilation, also by Nathan DeHoff, concerning the Wicked Witch of the East’s daughter Vaneeda. The three stories in all are a treat for those who’ve read the original books and will get something out of all the references to continuity and Easter eggs.

            Next up is Chop by Eric Shanower. Now this is one of my favorites. It goes to show that you can tell a dark story about Oz without changing anything about Oz itself. The fact that you can’t die in Oz may not always be a good thing, especially when you can be chopped into pieces and have no way out from your suffering. In The Tin Woodman of Oz we find out that the Tin Woodman’s former lover from when he was human, Nimmie Amee, found another man after he rusted, and this man also had his body parts replaced with tin ones. But then he rusted too. The tinsmith had leftover body parts of both Nimmie’s former lovers that were still alive, so he decided to stitch them all together and make a new person named Chopfyt, and Nimmie Amee became the lover of this Frankenstein’s monster. And this is Baum writing. The original Oz could get pretty creepy. Now this story takes it a step further; the young boy Button-Bright happens upon Nimmie and Chopfyt’s cottage, and Chopfyt shows him all of the sentient bunny body parts and mutilated animals he has in his collection, before he turns on Button-Bright. It’s a good horror story. As a light spoiler, the only thing I wish was done differently was how it was wrapped up in the interlude; Nimmie chooses to stay with her abusive partner after he has his memory wiped clean, Button-Bright somehow escaped unharmed. Maybe I think they should have gone all the way with it. And having one’s memory wiped clean by the Waters of Oblivion doesn’t always turn an evil person good, just look at Ruggedo the Nome King. I think Chopfyt will go insane again.  (Edit: I understand this was the editor’s choice and not the original intent of Eric Shanower, who expressed regret about the interlude following the story as well.)

            In Flesh of Burnished Tin by Jeffrey Rester is a very short story, which takes place with Nimmie Amee was a servant to the Wicked Witch of the East, giving us a glimpse into that chapter of her life. Yes, that poor girl never has any luck at all does she? Forced to serve a wicked witch, has not one but two boyfriends be turned to tin by said Wicked Witch and lost when they went to the middle of a forest and rusted, finally seems to find happiness with a Frankenstein monster only for him to become a sadistic psychopath. If you want proof that Oz is not just a happy-go-lucky, carefree world of rainbows and kittens, just have a look at Nimmie.

            Diplomatic Immunity by David Tai is something where you really need to have read L. Frank Baum’s Sky Island beforehand. This was part of the fantasy series Baum tried to quit Oz to do, only to be forced to return to the Oz series for financial reasons. Luckily this book is also public domain and as freely available as the Oz books. Anyway, in the story, Sky Island descends on Oz and Trot, who was made princess of Sky Island, has to choose between the two magical lands.

            The next story is The Scrap Bag Circus of Oz by M.A. Berg, in which Scraps the Patchwork Girl meets some relatives of hers, as it were. Animated stuffed animals made from the same patchwork quilt she was made from. They get to bond and put on a circus show. This is another really short one. It was almost a slice-of-life story, but one with supernatural elements. Whether or not you’ll be into the story probably depends on how you feel about Scraps.

            The next couple of stories, The Wizard in New York and Ali Cat in Oz by Sam Sackett, go together and could really be its own novella, being just over 100 pages. The Wizard of Oz gets a little homesick for the real world and wants some new ideas for his inventions, so he gets Glinda to send him to the World’s Fair in 1939. We get to watch as he beholds how the world has changed in the almost forty years or so since he returned to Oz. The World’s Fair is described in great detail, and it seems that the author either did a ton of research or was actually there. The Wizard also makes it to a movie theater to watch Laurel and Hardy and of course The Wizard of Oz, which he has critiques on, but overall likes. And we get the Wizard’s candid thoughts on pre-World War II America from the perspective of someone accustomed to a moneyless, classless utopia. He’s disappointed that after the horrors of the First World War the world hasn’t learned its lesson and appears to be on the brink of another world war. I tend to agree with the Wizard’s critiques on the Outside World. For some reason the Wizard really wants to bring Laurel and Hardy into Oz, even though of course they’re actors who have little in common with their on-screen personas.

They even have an amusing illustration. 

Eventually when he does get back to Oz, Glinda finds some terminally ill Laurel and Hardy impersonators to send to Oz instead, which was probably a good call, I think. I’m guessing the inclusion of Laurel and hardy into the narrative is just something the author really wanted to do, because the story really didn’t need their inclusion. I do wonder if there were any legal potential entanglements that could have happened when their likeness was used. But, more than likely if it is some kind of copyright violation no one is going to say anything. I guess it’s interesting if you know Oliver Hardy played the Tin Woodman in a silent movie version of The Wizard of Oz. Why not bring The Three Stooges to Oz as well? Or Buster Keaton? Imagine the stunts they could do in Oz without worrying about death. Anyway, during the Wizard’s stay in New York he takes in an alley cat and names it Ali. So the second part, Ali Cat in Oz, is all about the adventures Ali has in Oz, during which he is kidnapped by gargoyles and has to find his way back to the Emerald City. This is a bit more of a traditional Oz story in that sense. Maybe this is because I read it first, but it reminded me a lot of the other modern Oz story Eureka in Oz, another story about a cat being lost in Oz. It was still a good read though.

            The next tale is Lurline and the Talking Animals of Oz by Joe Bongiorno. This tells the in-depth history of what it was like when Lurline first enchanted Oz and made it a fairyland, and the ensuing chaos that resulted when animals suddenly started talking and the like. It is written via journal entries from someone who lived through it. Stories like this serve to make Oz seem more like a real place, by fleshing out the exact circumstances under which Oz was enchanted. I particularly found the genesis of the country of Mudge interesting (this is a small kingdom of Oz from Thompson’s The Cowardly Lion of Oz which is shut off from the rest of the country due to their general violent and thieving nature), which according to this story was started by people who rejected Lurline’s offer of utopia and peace and treating animals as equals. It’s full of nice little touches like that for those who know the original books pretty well. 

            Next we have Tommy Kwikstep and the Magpie by Jared Davis. This one concerns a minor character from The Tin Woodman of Oz who wished himself to have ten pairs of legs by mistake (thus giving John R. Neill something fun to draw), but through magic is able to get just one pair of legs again. I’m sure Handy Mandy would be disappointed in him for not embracing his unique number of appendages. At any rate, this short story happens to be a romance, and is about how Tommy Kwikstep meets the son of Jinjur from The Marvelous Land of Oz. This being Oz, no one really questions the same-sex relationship, except for Dorothy, who is from the Outside World, and we must remember, was probably born in the 1890’s. It was tastefully done, the author probably chose wisely by having the romance be between a very minor character and an original one. I can’t imagine anyone starting a shipping war over Tommy Kwikstep.

Any resemblance to orange persons, living or dead, is purely coincidence.

            Ozma and the Orange Ogres of Oz by Nathan DeHoff starts us off with a very familiar-looking illustration that simply could not have been an accident. The story itself is a traditional “Oz gets invaded” story, which as I’ve begun to notice as a trend in Nathan DeHoff’s writing, really reminds me of something Ruth Plumly Thompson would have written. The Orange Ogres are a warlike tribe from elsewhere on Oz’s continent Nonestica that conquer surrounding countries, somehow find themselves in Oz, and decide to invade the Emerald City. Amusingly, this has happened so many times that Ozma and her friends really aren’t worried. They simply wait patiently for the ogres to be defeated by someone. Which they eventually are.

            Another favorite of mine in the collection is A Quiet Victory by Marcus Mebes. This story involves the poor, downtrodden phonograph named Victor who was accidentally brought to life in the same magical mishap that brought Scraps the Patchwork Girl to life in The Patchwork Girl of Oz. But everyone was mean to him and hated his music, even the usually easy-going Shaggy Man was nasty towards him and threatened to disassemble him. He didn’t ask to be brought to life; I mean it’s basically the equivalent of yelling at and threatening a newborn child for crying loudly. I suppose he was created as an effigy for L. Frank Baum’s apparent utter hatred for prerecorded music, which may seem irrational today when we have CDs and Mp3s, but given the poor sound quality of early phonographs may have been at least somewhat justified; although it’s not as if prerecorded music has ever replaced live music. Well Marcus Mebes must have felt the same way I do, because he gave Victor a bit of a redemption arc. We’re given a brief little biography on the phonograph’s many misadventures after striking it out on his own, eventually coming to live with the Musicker, another hated musician from the Oz series, who renovated Victor and tried to teach him to be quiet so that he would be accepted by society. Kind of a bitter sweet story, and open-ended. Which is a bonus for those of us who may want to use Victor in their own stories too. 

            After that we have Vaneeda in Oz by Nathan DeHoff, a character-driven story that concerns the daughter of the Wicked Witch of the East, Vaneeda. One of the old royal families of Munchkin Country has apparently been turned to glass, and of course Vaneeda is a suspect because of who her mother is. Vaneeda may still have political aspirations of her own, but as we’re told, she’s not her mother. I like that Ozma, raised by the wicked witch Mombi, tries to relate to Vaneeda since they were both brought up in that environment. It’s a nice little adventure which might even work expanded into a full-length novel; I think Vaneeda is an interesting enough character to carry a novel. There are some good ideas in this story.

            And the final story just might be my favorite, if only due to the concept; and this is one I’m going to have to spoil to properly discuss, so be warned. The Puppet Mistress of Oz by Andrew Heller begins with Ozma, Trot, Betsy and Dorothy having a simple tea party in their garden, during which the conversation turns to how each of them first ended up in Oz. Dorothy of course by now is reluctant to tell that old story for the millionth time, but when she does, Betsy starts to wonder how it was that Dorothy’s house landed exactly on the Wicked Witch of the East. They start to see more holes in the story. If Glinda knew how the Silver Shoes worked, why didn’t she show up immediately after Dorothy landed in Munchkin Country? Why force an innocent girl to risk her life again and again? And why did the Wizard order Dorothy to assassinate the Wicked Witch of the West? Was there perhaps some higher power pulling the strings? The signs point toward Glinda, and Ozma is distraught to think her good friend could be so manipulative. They go to ask the Wizard what really happened, and eventually they coax it out of him. He was being manipulated by Glinda the entire time, because she knew he wasn’t a real wizard. However, as soon as he spills this secret, Glinda herself appears and explains that sacrifices needed to be made to turn Oz into a paradise, and that Dorothy isn’t even the first girl to be put through this; the other girls sent to kill the Wicked Witches before Dorothy all died. She then erases their minds with a magic spell, all except the Wizard’s, and they forget the whole thing (and apparently this isn’t the first time they’ve figured all this out for themselves before and had to get their minds erased, either). I am so glad all of this is canon now, at least as far as the Royal Publisher of Oz is concerned. I knew there was something more to Glinda. Just because someone is “good”, doesn’t mean they’re nice. I mean “good” and “evil” (or wicked) really only exist in the mind anyway; they’re completely man-made and subjective concepts. Nobody thinks they’re evil. I mean how convenient was it that her political rivals were killed in suspicious accidents, and then she herself was able to install an obedient puppet ruler on the throne of the Emerald City in Ozma? Glinda has all of Oz completely under her thumb.  Further proof that you don’t have to change anything about Oz to tell a dark and twisted story.

            Although it probably really helps to have read most of the original books first to fully grasp the stories, I do recommend this book to anyone who finds themselves wanting more about Oz. It’s well worth your money and time to read. There wasn’t a single story I didn’t enjoy at least to a degree. I’ve really only read the public domain books at this point (plus a couple lucky library finds) and I still got through it fine, so you don’t have to have read all of them. It’s definitely aimed at fans of the book series; who are sadly small in number these days. Perhaps if you have a kid who’s into Oz they might enjoy it, although Chop might be a bit scary for them. I’ll probably share this book with my son one day anyway when he’s older. This book deserves more attention than it’s gotten in the two years since it was published, it really does.

            Anyway, I’ll likely post a somewhat shortened and simplified version of this review on Amazon and Goodreads just to help some fellow authors out.

Top 3 Songs of the Month – February 2020/Մեհեկի 4512

It’s the month of Մեհեկի (Meheki) by the old Armenian calendar. Been a while since I posted anything, hasn’t it? I wasn’t sure how to follow up the last blog for a couple days. It got quite a few views. That won't be the last time I blog about Urartu, but I don’t know if I’m doing it again for a while. Anyway, I've actually been working on a new blog post for the past couple days, a book review this time, and it was almost finished, but then this date snuck up on me, so now I need to do one of these Top 3 Songs of the Month blogs first; because I said I would, not because anyone’s really waiting with bated breath for them. See musical tastes are like fingerprints. No two people’s are exactly the same. So I’m not even sure people get anything out of reading these posts, but I want to keep doing them anyway. I’ll have something else ready for tomorrow.

Last month, after being buried under an avalanche new music, I vowed to take time off from seeking out new music to enjoy what I have for a while. And that’s what I did, resulting in the songs you’ll see on this little list. The songs aren’t brand new, but I haven’t given them the proper attention until recently.

Click here for an explanation of my tradition of keeping track of my top 3 songs each month, and here for last month’s picks.

Lebanon Hanover – I Believe You Can Survive

I’ve been on a Lebanon Hanover kick as of recently, this will be the first of two of their songs on the list. The song is kind of a character sketch, the singer speaking to someone who is dark and gloomy, loves reading books, and has a lot in common with the singer, in both likes and dislikes. You have to appreciate a music video where a copy of Fifty Shades Darker gets ripped up. “I believe you can survive” seems like a strange thing to say to someone you like. Maybe if you’re in a war or in the midst of an apocalypse it might make sense. But the final line of the song, “I bet your bookshelf looks similar to mine,” might be one of the best pickup lines I’ve ever heard. I think the main reason this song has been running through my head a lot lately is because it reminds me a lot of the main protagonist of the novel I’m writing, who herself is a goth bookworm. I like putting together unofficial soundtracks to my novels.

https://lebanonhanover.bandcamp.com/

SYZYGYX – Blood Moon

 

Yes, it’s SYZYGYX again (pronounced kinda like “scissor kicks”). I bought all the SYZYGYX albums that were out at the time about a year ago for pretty cheap on Bandcamp. I don’t know how I overlooked this song, but it happens when I come across huge batches of new music like that. The song grips you as soon as it starts, and doesn’t let go. It reminds me of being transfixed by the blood moon, and perhaps transforming into a werewolf. I came across this song again because I was putting together theme mixes again, and was gathering up all the songs in my music library that had to do with the moon.

I’ve been playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild too, and this song strikes me as a perfect soundtrack to the rise of the blood moon in that game. 

https://syzygy-x.bandcamp.com/album/hexn-equinox

Lebanon Hanover – The Moor

 

Here’s the other Lebanon Hanover song I’ve been into lately, which I first came across some time ago but finally gave proper attention to this month. I love it when saxophones are used in music other than jazz, for some reason. It surprisingly goes really well with darkwave music like this. Makes me want to put together a saxophone mix. I just love the energy behind this song, the atmosphere it creates. I wish it were a longer song.

https://lebanonhanover.bandcamp.com/

Honorable Mention: Golden Apes – Oblivion

 

This a song that was on the UnObscured compilation I purchased back in December, full of promising new bands that emerged in 2019, and has grown on me as of recently. I should probably check out more from Golden Apes. It’s an interesting band name to be sure. My next planned mixtape will be called Oblivion, so I might as well make this the opening track.  

https://goldenapes.bandcamp.com/album/kasbek

Let’s Learn Ancient Urartian!

Urartian Cuneiform, taken at Erebuni during my 2014 trip to Armenia.

            The ancient Kingdom of Urartu, also known interchangeably as the Kingdom of Ararat, Biainili (as they called themselves) or Van, was a mighty kingdom to the north of Assyria, stretching across the modern borders of Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and parts of Iraq and Iran, existing from about 860-585 B.C. by most estimations. “Urartu” was a name given to them by the Assyrians and what the kingdom is most known by today. It’s best understood as an Armenian kingdom, directly preceding the Orontid dynasty of Armenian rulers under the authority of the Median Empire and the earliest traceable mentions of Armenia from Persian sources in the 500’s B.C. The language they spoke is of Indo-European origin, and basically the only living language directly related to it is modern Armenian. They used a cuneiform alphabet, much like Assyria.   

Since my late teens, I’ve wanted to write a historical fantasy novel set in Urartu. For about 15 years I’ve worked on it off and on; I have a finished draft that I’m hoping to publish. When I went to Armenia in 2015 in an internship with Birthright Armenia, it was a perfect chance to do research for it (I plan to go through the journal I kept during this trip and publish entries from it on this blog throughout the year). I visited Erebuni, an ancient Urartian fortress located in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, several times while I was there. At one time I was going through the library of books in the Birthright Armenia office and found an archeology textbook about Urartu. I wish I knew the title and author now, but I sadly neglected to save it, and it was almost five years ago now. But it was one of the only books on Urartu I found in Armenia that was in English. It had a few Urartian words, phrases and names of deities in it. I copied several Urartian words into my notebook so that I could pepper them throughout the fantasy novel I want to write and make it more authentic. 

The notebook itself was quite a find, with Tatev monastery on the cover, and only 50 drams (that’s about 10 cents in US money). I’d been using it for my Armenian language classes. I felt like copying these notes onto the blog, mostly for my own private amusement but also for anyone who might just be interested in learning a few words from a nearly 3,000-year-old, long-dead language. Who knows if this notebook will last forever, so I might as well copy and preserve this information somewhere. This is in the interest of preservation. And if any archeologists read this and see any mistakes, or perhaps know of any Urartian deities not on the list, go ahead and let me know in the comments. It’ll be a learning experience.

Armenian – English Pronunciation – English Translation

Words

Բելի – Beli – Weapon

Քումեմուշէ – Koomemoosheh – Harmless

Գունուշինիէի – Goonooshini-eh-i -Military

Գազուլի – Gazooli – Wonderful

Շուրի – Shuri – Sword

Բիայինիլի – Biainili – Urartu (the native term)

Եուրի – Yoori – Lord

Հութութուհի – Hootootoohi – Luck, Success

Deity Names

I’m assuming these names come from Mher’s Door, a door-like carving into a cliff face near the city of Van which lists all 75 deities worshiped in Urartu and what to offer them.

Քիլբանի – Kilbani – The 35^th God in the Urartian Pantheon, who ruled Mt. Varaga (which overlooks the city of Van, which was the site of Urartu’s capital Tushpa)

Եիդուրրու – Ehidooroo – The God of Mt.Sipan

Շիուինի – Shivini – A solar God

Հութուինի – Hootoo-ini – The God of Fate (see also the word for Luck)

Շեբիթու – Shebitoo – A God that King Rusa the First was mentioned to have worshiped (that’s all the book said about it unfortunately)

Սելարդի – Selardi – A Moon Goddess

Քուերա – Kooera – A God of Earth and Water

Ելիպուրի – Elipoori – A Hurrian God (that’s all the book said)

Իրմուշինի – A protective deity who cures illnesses

Ուա – Oo-ah – An important deity, however it’s unknown what they were a God of.

Նալաինի – Nala-ini – God of Mt. Nal

Ուրա – God of Ur

Բաբա – Baba – A Goddess possibly associated with Heba (that’s all I got)

Թուշպունիա – Tooshpoonia – The winged Goddess of the Dawn

Ադիա – Adia – Goddess of the city of Adia

Սարդի – Sardi – A Goddess, connected to Ishtar

Աիա – Aia – The Goddess of Aia (a city perhaps?)

Ինուանի – Inoo-ani – The Mother Goddess, also the general Urartian word for Goddess

I know of a few other deities not on this list too, such as Khaldi, Theispas (a storm and lightning God) and Arubani (Goddess of arts and creativity). It’d be great to find a list of all 75 deities printed somewhere. By the time of the pagan Kingdom of Armenia, the number of deities would be reduced to about eight.

Phrases

<<Խալդինի Քուրունի:>> - “Khaldini Kuruni” – “Khaldi is strong.” (Khaldi (or Haldi) is the Chief God of the Urartian Pantheon. This phrase would be the equivalent to “Praise Khaldi”.)

This phrase is seen at the end of declarations, such as that on the stone tablet unearthed at Erebuni which detailed King Argishti’s conquest of the area and establishment of the settlement. I’m guessing the “-ni” suffix is the equivalent of the word “is”. Armenian does this with definite articles. So substitute Khaldi with whatever name you like, adding “ni” to the end. Then again, I don’t know how this would work with the name Arubani. “Arubanini kuruni”? Don’t take my word for it, I don’t claim to be a scholarly resource for your term paper.

Anyway, that’s all I was able to copy down back then. However, the Erebuni Historical and Archeological Museum Reserve periodically posts more Urartian vocabulary on their Facebook page. I’ve been collecting these images too. So as a bonus, I’ll post them here; I hope no one from the museum minds. In return I'll advertise their Facebook page.

"I" in Armenian is pronounced "yes". Note the similarity with Urartian.

In Urartian it's "eeyoo", in Armenian, "yerp". Vaguely similar.

And I had this word for "lord" in my notebook too! A good sign I was on the right track.

Pretty sure the Urartians used some kind of solar calendar with the Spring equinox as "new year". But look how "year" in Armenian is "tari" and in Urartian it's "shali". 

"Tsue" has an obvious connection with the Armenian "tsov".

And here's how they wrote their numbers.

The cuneiform alphabet. I actually don't remember where I came across this image so I can't credit it, but it was on my computer.

In closing, it’s actually really hard to dig up much on Urartu, at least online, but I’ve been at it for years. It’s one of those extremely obscure academic topics where a simple internet search really isn’t going to get you anywhere far. If you want to know more, I can point you to at least a couple different resources.

Resources

https://www.facebook.com/Erebunimuseum/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6BfziEo1mU – A brief History of Urartu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMJ_X364XYY – A nice two-hour documentary about Urartu

And if you want a book, I’d suggest starting with People of the Hills: Ancient Ararat and the Caucasus, by Charles Burney and David Marshall Lang. I've had this book for a number of years. 

Thanks for reading the only blog in existence that can go from talking about pro wrestling to Norwegian dungeon synth artists to 3,000-year-old forgotten languages and mythologies. What’s next? Even I’m not completely sure.