Timothy, an only child, feels like he lives in the middle of nowhere. He is alienated from his parents; they seem more like an aunt and an uncle who he connects with only occasionally. The neighborhood bully teases and threatens him, calling him “Timid Timothy.” He feels different from those around him. Except for his pet dog, nobody understands him; no one knows what he’s going through. He fantasizes about living somewhere else, where people appreciate and understand him. He is not exactly sure what sets him apart, but he thinks that perhaps in a larger city, where people are more sophisticated, he would be more accepted.
 
At the end of a particularly brutal and exhausting week at school, Timothy falls asleep in the back seat of his school bus. When everyone has gotten out, the driver doesn’t realize he’s still there. Since the driver is planning to use the bus to go to the big city over the weekend, she parks the bus at her own home. Early Saturday morning the driver takes the bus to the metropolitan center quite a ways away, parks it and goes to visit some friends. Stretching and yawning, Timothy wakes up, and is surprised he’s in the school bus. But where is he? He looks out of the window of the bus. People of all ages and colors are carrying signs and chanting. There are large buildings, beautiful skyscrapers. Billboards with amazing colors. Nothing looks familiar. Timothy he realizes he’s in for an adventure. Unsure of himself, but curious, he decides to explore a little.
 
As soon as he pokes his head out of the bus, people crowd around. At first he thinks everyone is mad at him, but then a gentle man with nice eyes explains that the chief of police was going to attend a law enforcement convention, but the bus was parked in a diplomats only parking area, and not wanting to get any closer to who he thought were the demonstrators, the chief left. The demonstrators hail Timothy as their hero and welcome him out of the bus.
 
“Where am I?” asks Timothy. “The Javits Convention Center,” the man replies. Someone else shouts “The Big Apple.” Timothy is still confused. Various helpful people say, “Manhattan,” “New Yawk,” “A really big city.” He is embarrassed to explain how he got to this place. He has no idea where the bus driver is, and wonders what to do next.
 
The gentle man says, “You must have had quite a ride getting here.”
 
Overwhelmed, “I’m hungry,” is all Timothy can manage. The young man with the kind eyes (Timothy now realizes he’s not all that much older than himself) reaches into his backpack and offers Timothy an apple (too Snow White), a banana (too phallic), (I know) a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
 
Realizing his confusion, the young man puts his arm around Timothy. “You must be here by magic. The bus driver probably is gone for the day. Welcome to New York. I’m Glen. Who are you?”
 
Glen introduces Timothy to three younger friends of his, Ray, Jack and Bert. They seem the exact opposite of Timothy’s swaggering school mates.
 
Ray is sweet and smart, “Do you want to go home? I wonder if we can figure out where the driver of this bus is.”
 
Jack is kind and caring, “Timmo, do you miss your parents? Don’t you want to go home?”
 
And Bert is timid and tentative, “Me, I’d be afraid to be alone here in the big city. If I had a home far away from here, I’d rather be there, I think”
 
Timothy relaxes and feels at home with these new friends. “No, I don’t want to go home, I hate it there. I wanna see what there is to see here. Besides, the driver will be gone for hours, I’m sure.”
 
Glen has other stuff to do, and leaves Timothy in the care of his three younger friends. Ray and Jack and Bert treat Timothy like a king, or a queen. Very soon he feels like a real New Yorker.
 
The four are surprised to discover they have all sorts of connections. They like the same movies and TV shows. When teams chose up for baseball, they were all picked last and put in right field where their lack of skill would do the least damage to their teams. They’ve had parallel fears and insecurities. In spite of their weaknesses, Timothy feels strong and happy with them. Timothy feels like he’s known these guys all his life. He tells them things he’s never told anyone before. Some things he’s never even thought about consciously himself.
 
In the course of the weekend in the fabulous and exciting city, Timothy and Ray and Jack and Bert have many adventures. They go shopping, dress up and see a Broadway musical. On Sunday they go to a pride march, and attend a youth group. Fill in your own adventures.
 
Late Sunday evening Ray and Jack and Bert put Timothy on a different bus back to New Jersey. Timothy has seen this commuter bus stop near his house, but never thought he’d be riding on it himself. Suddenly he’s home. He runs up to the door. His parents are glad to see him safe and sound and ask him where he’s been. Timothy is full of pride and joy and wants to share his discoveries. He tells them breathlessly about his new best friends and all his adventures, that he’s realized he’s gay.
 
“You can’t be gay. What a silly thing to say, honey,” his Mom says. “It doesn’t sound like you had such a great time to me.”
 
His Dad doesn’t say much.

In early January I acquired some fun French Ozzy images. Here’s how.

The Cité de La Musique, Philharmonie de Paris is a music complex with concerts, exhibitions and more. I was there in January, and saw their exhibit about film musicals. My friend Zack, who had told me about the exhibit, was in Paris with his partner Gianni and I was there with my bf Richard. Although only Zack and I are diehard musical fans, the four of us went.

The exhibit mostly focused on Hollywood musicals, especially Singing in the Rain with Gene Kelly, but images from the 1939 MGM Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland were also in abundance, as were those from La La Land. French films were also featured: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Triplets of Belleville.  

Selections from several film musicals were displayed on a huge screen. When the soundtrack of a film was in English, there were French subtitles. Captions and descriptions were also translated into English and sometimes other languages as well.

Other areas were devoted to various aspects of film musicals, such as awards, costumes, and choreography, and there were even tap dance lessons!

An area set up specifically for kids had clips from several movies, including Oz, and included a quiz.

Richard and I tried on hats in the costume area at the end.

MY GOODIES

The gift shop had posters, videos, recordings, books and more.

I couldn’t resist buying three books with Ozzy content.

1. Be Happy contains a cd with songs from film musicals, each musical has a two page spread with text and image.

2. Comédies Musicales! is a workbook, with games and activities to help you create your own musical film.

3. Natalie Dessay Raconte’s Le Magicien d’Oz is a combination of Baum’s original story, the MGM film, and her own ideas, such as Dorothy seeing a rainbow when she is back in Kansas at the end of the story. The book has marvelous illustrations and comes with a cd of songs from the MGM soundtrack.

On March 21, 2008, as I was leaving Forbes Library in Northampton, MA, I noticed what looked like a bag of popcorn in a cake holder at the check-out desk. Next to it were flyers advertising a fund raiser; a handout entitled “The Friends Edible Book Event Guidelines” said “your edible book is your interpretation of a book you find of interest.” Entries “must be 100% edible and preferably fresh!” The popcorn bag was an interpretation of Tomie dePaola’s The Popcorn Book, a cake and covered with red and white striped fondant with real popcorn overflowing the bag.

The idea of an Edible Book was intriguing, so I took an application. After showing it to my partner Scott, we decided to create our own edible book. After batting around ideas, we settled on gingerbread cookies in the shape of birds in homage to Audubon’s Birds of America. Our entry garnered two awards: ‘Outstanding Sculpture,’ and ‘Most Likely to Pass for Sculpture in Our Living Rooms.’ 

Edible books have been around formally at least since the turn of the millennium, when co-founder Judith Holmberg of Santa Monica, CA got the idea during a 1999 Thanksgiving dinner with book artists. The festival honors French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), famous for his book, The Physiology of Taste. Since 2000, Edible Book events have been held in Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, and Russia. The organizers are generally art centers, academic institutions, restaurants, and book arts spaces, and sometimes libraries. More info about the international event can be found at the books2eat website.

Here in Northampton anyone can create an edible book: kids, adults or any combination. Attendees (who don’t have to be creators) get to admire the entries, and judges come up with clever awards for each. Then everyone chows down and eats the ‘books’! Past entries and awards have included a Catcher in the Rye made out of vegetables, dip and rye bread [‘Best Veggie Pun’]; Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham made of green eggs and ham [‘The Al Gore “Let’s Be Green Award”’]; a Very Hungry Caterpillar fashioned from cupcakes; and "How to eat a poem" in which the words of the poem were inscribed on refrigerator magnets made of chocolate wafers covered with white icing [‘Most Metaphorically Layered’]. You can see photos of past entries at the Edible Book Northampton Facebook page.

This year I created an edible Friends of Dorothy and enlisted the help of Scott McDaniel, my collaborator on Birds of America. We used images of Dorothy’s companions from my title page. They were made out of fondant decorated with black food color markers. The title cookies were based on the shiny green letters on the cover that look like an Emerald City. I made gingerbread with honey instead of molasses and with green food coloring, sprinkled with green shiny sugar sparkles. They were set on a jelly roll sponge cake, to represent a page in a book. Our Friends of Dorothy was awarded ‘The Follow the Rainbow Brick Road Award.’ Most of the title was consumed at the event, but a week later, I still have a fair amount of sponge cake and much of the three companions. The cake may end up in tiramisu.

This past August, I did my first book tour. The International Wizard of Oz Club was holding its annual convention in Pomona, which is about an hour east of LA. I was on the program to talk about my book, and also had a special book signing slot in the dealers room. My friend, retired librarian Steve Klein, put me in touch with the West Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library, and we scheduled a reading. Palm Springs was hosting a ComicCon, and the Prism Comics folks who support queer fans and creators invited me to join them at their table. I now had three venues: the OzCon at Cal Poly in Pomona, West Hollywood Library and ComicCon at the Palm Springs Air Museum. This lead to an almost 3-week trip to Southern California, flying in to LA on Aug. 8 and out of Palm Springs on Aug. 27. 

​LA
I got a rental car at the LA airport and spent the afternoon of Wed Aug. 8 with my cousin Margot Parker, who was delighted to learn about my reading in West Hollywood. Then stayed overnight with my friend David Chun in Santa Monica, who put out his copy of my book for me to sign.

POMONA
Drove to Pomona on Thursday and checked in at the Kellogg West Conference Center at Cal Poly. Oz Club Board member Gina Wickwar couldn’t attend and was greatly missed. Angelica Carpenter, another Oz Club friend, suggested I donate a book to Gina and Angelica would have all the Board members sign it. So I dropped into the Board meeting to offer a book. 

​Angelica has written books about L. Frank Baum, his mother-in-law Matilda Gage, and about other authors of kids books, and we had arranged to share the rental of a table in Baum’s Bazaar (aka the Dealers Room). I spent most of Thurs afternoon making the table look pretty. Friday afternoon I gave a talk about the implications of my research for Oz and for the real world. I was in a big auditorium, and there was a medium-sized crowd, including a smiling Steve Klein who came out from Long Beach just to hear me. Lots of laughter in appropriate places and many good questions after

LA
I was back in LA from Mon Aug 12 to Thurs Aug 23. I saw cousins and old friends from high school and college, bought show tune recordings at several used record stores, and went country dancing and inside roller skating. When I explained I was in Southern California on a book tour for FRIENDS OF DOROTHY, many folks expressed interest in my book and I got to give them shiny marketing cards.

​4) The TABLE OF CONTENTS (second page after cover) has most chapters, appendixes and sections highlighted and you can jump directly those.
​

​I am the author of a new book, “Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz.”

Researching, writing and getting this book out there has been a long process (twenty years!), but things have accelerated in the last few weeks. As a first time author, I thought readers might be interested in the process of writing, publishing and marketing my first book. As well as reflecting on the past, I will be talking about what is happening currently with the book: readings and other special events.

So, what is the story with Oz and gay men? It’s not simply a matter, as many people assume, of gay men being into Judy Garland. I have interviewed over 100 gay Oz fans and it turns out gay men are also fans of the Oz books, as well as Wicked and The Wiz. Also my respondents became fans when they were as young as 3 or 4 or 5 years old. Even if their first exposure to Oz was the MGM film with Judy Garland, they were not signing on to fandom because they gave heard that Judy is a gay icon, or that they themselves were aware of being gay. Something is going on at a much deeper level. Themes of all sorts in stories set in Oz resonate with young gay boys. “Friends of Dorothy” details the existence of the Oz-gay connection, presents responses of individual fans to Oz stories, and then puts the phenomenon of gay love of Oz into a broader social and cultural context.

Stay tuned and I look forward to your responses here!