With the presence of Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile Virus here in Massachusetts, we’re hoping to get some tenants in our new bat house next spring. It has a Batman emblem on it, so I couldn’t resist. The bats will eat the mosquitoes, and that’s good, but what about rabid bats?
Clicking here will open a previous posting in a new window. Start the video clip there and let it run a bit before starting the one on this page. You’re watching an example of how some widescreen movies are actually cropped regular format movies.
See how the composition of the uncropped version seems to have empty space at the top and bottom? Some old comic strips did something similar to this.
This posting is mostly an excuse for me to play with wide format video capturing. But it also provides an opportunity to show a bit more of The Searchers. I’ve spliced together four scenes that represent what I feel is the core of the movie. Ethan’s search for his … niece?
The Wonderful Wizard of OZ should be the title of the old audio book I’m posting, but the LP album is named after the movie, The WIZARD of OZ. Although the publisher shortened the title of the book, the adaptation is unabridged. There are, however, numerous minor changes from the original text, obviously done for the sake of readability.
Previously, I posted a song from an old record that appeared in a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here’s the scene
I’ll get back to OZ soon, but first, as promised, here is a Winsor McCay Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend cartoon. Keep in mind that The Pet is from 1921, twelve years before King Kong.
My home page has a link to the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA. Carle is a children’s book illustrator and author, famous for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Until October 22, the museum has an exhibit called “The Wonderful Art of OZ.” I’ve seen it and I recommend it highly. The exhibit includes about 20 original W.W. Denslow drawings from the first OZ book, and that should be incentive enough.
Starting with the next posting, I will begin an audio presentation of the 24 chapters in The Wonderful Wizard of OZ. The adaptation is from a 4-disk LP album published by Crown in 1961. My family received it as a Christmas gift from our maternal grandfather over 40 years ago.
