Hi dear,

"Book of Shadows" was the title Gerald Gardner (founder of Wicca, which started out life as a lineaged Witchcraft Tradition and now is a popular teen role-playing game spreading amongst fans of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD releases) gave to his book of spells and ritual lore.  At one point, he had titled it "Ye Bok of ye Arte Magical" and then he spotted a title in a catalogue of books published in South Asia, "The Book of Shadows."  He decided it would be the perfect title for his own workbook.

It's an ironic title since so many of today's tele-Wiccans reject "the dark side" as something evil and ugly... sigh.

Steve (sure he's boring everyone to tears with this latest recital of arcana)  PS Dear hope you are feeling better!  When I get bored with DS I usually switch to another of my cults, such as "Dr. Who," "The Avengers," or "Blake's 7," or "UFO."

Luciaphil, darling,

you remind me again that Happiness is a good pot of strong tea, a plate of chocolate biscuits, and the latest edition of Luciaphil's Idle Thoughts.

Grazie, Bella!

G.

And now one of these wretched smilies has crept into my post above--AARGGHHH!!!

Where's Garth Blackwood when you need him?

G.

Everybody I know who has read it just loves Wicked.  As you probably know, it's now an off-Broadway musical that has been a huge success, too.

My personal experience of Wicked was that it was a wonderful thing to read, UNTIL the author had to follow the Baum narrative which then brings us to the end of his own book.  The events as he collapsed them into what was already a far more complicated tapestry than anything Baum ever wrote (I'm pretty sure I read them all back when I was a teenager, including The Sea Fairies which was much better than any of the Oz books) made less and less emotional/narrative sense, TO ME as a reader, as he got further along with the events of the novel.  [spoiler]his basic thought seems to have been that what has happened to Elphaba drives her psychotic by the time Dorothy arrives... it wasn't plausible to me.  I think he meant the events of Dorothy's visit to seem like a waking nightmare to Elphaba--I found it all to be a pointless jumble.[/spoiler]

Anyhow, like I said, everybody but me loves it.  He's written several other books as well.  I think the latest one is about the Wicked Queen in Snow White, which certainly sounds like a promising topic!

G.

Luciaphil, my darling, I lap this up with a silver spoon!

thank you for bringing a few smiles into a most wearying day.

your servant,

Gothick

Excellent work!  I also was bothered by the over-the-top gown Liz wears in the first shows, but since Joan looks so stunning in it, I do my best to suspend disbelief.

I think KLS said in the original Scrapbook Memories that they worked on the first episode for a month. It may have been two weeks,and that may have included the first trips to film in Essex and Newport.

G.

Yeah, but the good ones (including the ones by Lad Karlen) are quite performative, and they've obviously read over it a couple of times and perhaps made notes... I would guess that Lela or Kaplan or whoever it was decided during the morning read-through of the script.

G.