elegant ruby slippers
The other day Ms B's Christmas-shopping perambulations took her to a natural cosmetics shop called Lush, which beckons like the Emerald City of Oz to Mlle B and her friends. They love nothing more than a big powdery ball that turns their water blue, or leaves flower petals stuck to the side of the bathtub for weeks after. The shop looks as madly crowded and colourful as Munchkinland, with 'bath bombs' like giant sweets piled up everywhere, and it has to be smelled to be believed - of course Ms B quite likes it in there too.
Imagine her delight on seeing a tall heaped-up mountain of red, glittery, and satisyingly heavy-looking bath bombs called "Ruby Slipper." They are just so right. I can't really imagine wanting your bath to be full of red glitter, it would be all over the towels, and in the carpets for weeks, but that seems beside the point in the biggest way. They're £2.95 each, and if I had one I'd want to keep it forever.
Back in the crazy days of my childhood, when even third-graders (okay, just weird ones) understood the importance of reading the newspaper, I remember a story that caught me eye. MGM Studios was selling lots of old costumes and props to clear space in their warehouses, and Dorothy's ruby slippers were to be auctioned off. Yes: Dorothy's real, red, ruby, magic, Wizard of Oz slippers. The ones she really wore. The paper had a picture of the shoes. I didn't care about the picture: I had the shoes in my head. What amazed me was that someone could just, you know, buy them, it was like two different worlds coming together.
I followed the story, and later it emerged that the slippers had sold for a disappointingly unreal $15,000. They're now in the Smithsonian. And if you want to know more about ruby slippers than you ever thought possible (there's even a conspiracy theory), try here.
I still haven't forgiven Noosa Lee for her elegantly dressed Wednesday the other week, by the way. I so should have thought of that.
9 comments:
I was never shown the film as a child, but knew from studying American politics that the ruby slippers were a sham; in the book they were silver. The reason is that the book was a political tract, whose arguments included advocacy of the silver standard over the gold standard (hence the yellow brick road). And of course all the parallels about the Wizard and the President.
None of the stuff about Pink Floyd and the film is true, however.
Political Umpire, I am just glad I never knew you when I was seven. Did you study American politics as a child? (Incidentally, the film was too scary for me at that age; my kids now would never understand that. For some periods of my childhood I hated it.)
Anyway, I can tell you those slippers were not 'red', they were 'ruby', which is a thing every little girl can instinctively understand. And they were magic.
You think they weren't?
I bet Pink Floyd is also magic, by the way. So that bit probably is true.
What stuff about Pink Floyd? Please do forgive me for the Wednesday Addams thing. Inspiration is so rare these days it would be nice if it could be celebrated in a meaningful way. I went to see the musical Wicked the other night. Dorothy is definitely the baddy in that.
Yes I read an article bgy the guy who wrote it! He sys the Wicked Witch of the West was unfairly maligned, and thinks the Wizard of Oz was a villain. I must say, it turned my perceptions on their heads! And I hear the singing is amazing.
I thought that being openly jealous was the best way to celebrate your inspiration.
And I'm not sure what the thing about Pink Floyd is, I was kind of hoping Political Umpire might come back on that one.
Ms B, I am STILL a child at heart, and thought that much was obvious . . .
If you start Dark Side of the Moon at the same time as the film, all kinds of strange parallels occur between changes and sound effects in the album, and different scenes in the film. Or at least they occur to those who look for them – that is to say, those who think there’s a face on Mars, that one of thousands of reflections on a wall happens to be the Virgin Mary (who you’d have thought might have dreamt up better ways of communicating, but then I suppose it’s harsh for anyone born a couple of thousand years ago to get to grips with email). Sadly Waters, Gilmore and Alan Parsons (who co-produced the record) deny it all. Maybe they’ve something to hide. Or maybe they’ve just got a life (or lives, I suppose).
One thing I certainly was in younger days was a heavy metal fan. I couldn’t quite work out all those people who said they’d found messages in records played slowly, or backwards. Who does that sort of thing with their records? If you’re that bored, buy some different ones.
I know the Great Gabbo on the Simpsons used subliminal advertising very effectively, but even he failed in the end, much as I managed to resist killing myself despite the apparent suggestions from Ozzy Osborne and Judas Priest. Maybe that was due to Roger Waters’ reassurance “and if you’re head explodes with dark foreboding tunes ...”
My inner prodnose is suggesting I've rambled enough ...
PU, now I know you are still a teenager at heart. I got stuck at seven.
And I can remember as a kid playing records backwards (back when you cold do that) - it seemed so important at the time to get the message!
That bit about Pink Floyd makes a sort of sense. Those flying monkeys...
I'm slightly hurt, here:
" Political Umpire, I am just glad I never knew you when I was seven."
Then: " PU, now I know you are still a teenager at heart. I got stuck at seven."
Still, you're in good company. Most girls when I was seven, and most aged that now, are generally regretful about knowing me. It'll scar you for life. You have been warned.
P Ump
Dear PU, "I never meant to hurt you..." as Boy George might say. I must REALLY be stuck at seven if I keep saying it like that! Lordy. Pause for reflection there. I'm sure I'd have loved you at that age, & I'm sure I'm already so scarred that I can afford to run the risk of knowing you at this age. Never fear.
Hope you are slightly lerss tired and frazzled than I am this weekend - and, if not, I hope it wasn't the Baroque Effect.
And anyway, I'm envious: I was a crap teenager. Never got the hang of it.
Frazzled, knackered and stressed, in the way only adolescent boys know. Far worse than usual - I'm following two very important cricket matches, both are being played on the other side of the world (hence no sleep) and my teams are losing both. Badly. It can't get much worse than this. It's caused me to ape the behaviour of the worst of my peers, as always with teen boys, so hence I'm leaving all these messages in a similar style to the Periodic Englishman. Woe is me. Where's a joint and a dvd of Apocalypse now to go with beer stolen from my dad ...?
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