Reshaping the Weirdness of Oz to Something New

I have not yet read the novel “Wicked,” but I do plan to, having recently seen the musical movie of the same title.

“The Wizard of Oz” was always a bit of a strange tale to me. I read the book when I was young, and it was OK but not one of my favorites. That also sums up my feelings about the 1939 movie, too—it’s OK, it was on TV in my childhood and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something that I was all that gaga over.

Never mind, the world of “Wicked” is a radical re-imagining of L Frank Baum’s and Hollywood’s imaginings, and Oz isn’t exactly the same. Yes, in the 1939 movie, the wizard was willing to hoodwink the crowd with his tricks—but in Wicked, we see a much darker Wizard of Oz.

And I like it. It’s relevant to today. I feel that we follow too many wizards in our lives now—fakers whose only talent is to play to the crowd, and who feel that you unite folks by giving them someone to hate.

My wife saw the stage musical “Wicked” in London, but I have not experienced the stage show, so the movie was my first introduction to this alternative alternate reality. I am a fan, and I find myself really enjoying the songs, too.

When they do work, musicals can be magical. I think part of what they do is what the songs in the musical episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” did—the singing is a convention that allows the characters to think aloud, to reveal themselves. It also helps like a musical when there is a great ensemble song.

“Wicked” is wickedly good partly due to the quality of its songs. It’s also good because of they way in which both the songs and the plot beyond the songs subverts expectations of what or who is truly wicked.

I liked that Glinda (or Guh-Linda), while good at heart, is also vain and shallow. That the most intelligent and empathetic characters, Elphaba, is the one who will be falsely branded as “wicked.” That much of the social life of Shiz concerns ephemeral fads and shallow criteria of what or who will be popular—sort of like school actually was, although more high school than university.

Wikipedia image of book cover.

Popularity as a goal is a strong cultural force in this era of orange ogre Presidents and social media and success measured by clicks—and “Wicked” is partly a rumination on how far some people may go in order to achieve popularity.

Plus, it has all those scary parallels with the world we inhabit: “What you need to bring people together is to give them a real good enemy.” Yikes, Mr. Wizard, that’s so sadly true and sad that it seems so true.

I don’t have an opinion of the way Wicked was “Hobbit”-fied—that is, a shorter story was somehow expanded, for “The Hobbit” was a short children’s book somehow morphed into a trilogy of movies. For “Wicked” a Broadway play was somehow doubled in length and made into two movies.

Poster from www.Wickedmovie.com web site.

I do think that the pace of the first movie was a bit slow at times—I liked the climatic song, but it just went on for a bit too long.

Yet, I can only judge the movie, not it in comparison to the stage show. And I give the movie two thumbs way up. I am excited for part two to come out later this year so this wicked saga can continue. I predict that it’s going to popular, even without a makeover from Gah-Linda.

Celebrating Human Intelligence in AI Era

Grandson noticed how light shone through his picture when he put it up in a window.

I am not always that thrilled with AI. I see lots of images crop up on social media showing pictures created by AI, and I find it discouraging.

I don’t want my art created by AI programs that are basically just ripping off large collections of human-art. I don’t want Chat GPT creating my sentences for me. I know that AI is all around, and I’m sure I benefit from it in many ways, but I still worry that we’re in danger of forgetting ourselves. I suppose the algorithms at Meta and Google that are always watching take advantage of AI technology, too. I don’t want to be a Luddite, but I’m not ready to say it’s OK to serve up AI-created gruel rather than humans taking the time to create.

So, I enjoyed several reminders of human intelligence, inefficient and limited as it is, in the past few days.

In one of my classes, we held a spelling bee on Friday. That is a rather quaint and old-fashioned exercise in the era of commonplace spell check and more sophisticated writing aids, but as I told the students, tuning into the actual spelling of the words you use means getting to know those words better.

In five students participating, one young woman stood out and handily won. We chatted after class, and she credited her upbringing. Her mother, a school teacher, had emphasized language skills and reading to her children, and this student had been an early reader.

The winner of the spelling bee.

True, spelling is something you should use computer aids for, in my opinion. But I liked the old exercise, emphasizing that your own understanding of words in your own brain still matters.

That Friday afternoon, my wife and I attended a musical, “The Lion King,” at Kennedy High School. The play was well cast, the teens really got into their parts, and the young kids and older folk in the audience enjoyed the show.

There is something raw and real about live theater, and this was a very pleasant experience. Sunday, I’m planning to attend “The Wizard of Oz” at TCR—another point of contact with the possibilities of human creativity.

Then, on Saturday, Dec. 2, the Cedar Rapids Art Museum had a Family Fun Day. The museum was free to enter that day, and there were various activities for kids. My wife, one of my daughters and I accompanied three grandsons to the day. They enjoyed moving about the galleries, and we created little games for them there, such as “find the painting with a lobster” in one room, or “find the picture of the father and son” in another.

Grandsons watching video as part of display in Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

They created greeting cards, pop-up books and “blind” art drawn with their eyes closed. It was a fun time to enjoy images that reflected the humanity of their creators, not an AI compilation of what a genre of image should look like.

I am unsure about the implications of AI, and I need to learn more. I hope that it evolves into tools that we can control to enhance our lives and not the robot overlords who will end us.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy some human efforts. A young woman who can sure spell. Teens who can become animals on stage. Grandsons scurrying about an art gallery, enjoying the images there.

At the dawn of the AI era, I take some comfort in simple, human skills and creativity.