A thousand crystal towers, a hundred emerald cities

 Regular readers may know I'm a little obsessed with all things Oz, so imagine how overcome I was when I first saw this beautiful souvenir of my childhood actually available for sale

 A reproduction of the original key to Oz made by Zara Taylor in tribute to the 1985 kids film Return to Oz, a personal favourite of the designer

At £35 it's more than I would usually pay for a piece of jewellery, but as soon as I saw this necklace I knew one day I would simply have to own one

 I waited a fair while but Mr N eventually gave in to my constant haranguing and the giant thudding sound of hints being dropped and realised he would get no peace until he caved

It hasn't left my neck since

 Getting my Oz on

Ever since I started blogging I have wanted to do a post about this film but I have always been put off as I thought I could never do it justice. It's my favourite ever Disney film but one of it's least successful commercial outings.  I'm not surprised.  It's creepy as heck.  I mean what kind of kids film starts with the main character (a child) visiting a sanatorium for 'electric healing'?

"Bad dreams"

"Why do you need to tie me down?"

So basically, Dorothy ends up escaping from the 'clinic' amid a thunderstorm and the anguished cries of the "damaged" people in the cellar and finds herself back in a desolate Emerald City

Along with all kinds of strange creatures, including the maniacal wheelers

The film is based on the books "The Marvellous Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz".by L Frank Baum, and incorporates the original character of Princess Langwidere, ruler of the city of Ev.  In the film Langwidere, complete with her hall of interchangable heads becomes Mombi, princess of Oz under the Nome King.

who likes to wear womens shoes 

I've kind of always wanted to be Mombi

Is it a dream or is it real?  I found this post which gives a much better in depth analysis of the plot and symbolism therein than I could ever give

As for me, I'm now fully equipped to escape should I ever be surrounded by wheelers

xxx

Four score and seven years ago...

Well hello to you!

This is a bit of a tribute post to my mister (not the greatest post in the world - just a tribute) who has long since been an American Civil War geek, in no small part down to his admiration of this gentleman

Source

He's read anything he can get his hands on about the subject, most notably 'The Civil War: A Narrative' by author Shelby Foote and many others.  Our bookcase is practically collapsing under the weight of history books.

Obviously he was chomping at the bit to see 'Lincoln' the critically acclaimed biopic of the man himself.

We went to see it on Friday night and it didn't disappoint.  Daniel Day Lewis was absolutely mesmerising in the lead role. 

Source

He completely inhabited it to the point where you stopped actually seeing the actor.  

Other notable performances include Tommy Lee Jones (always good value) as Thaddeus Stevens, the radical republican from Pennsylvania and James Spader as the rather corpulent, not altogether above board, but likeable, 'fixer' Mr Bilbo

 I thought of wearing something in keeping with the civil war theme, but, oh my, those necklines and sleeves do me no favours...  also I'm just not sure about the bonnets!

Pauline Cushman, Union spy

Love this gown though

 

So I played it safe with a black dress, lace collar and some Victorian style boots

and of course, stripey tights

Not the best quality shots, just some phone snaps taken when we got home

Here I am posing with the book that the film was based on.  It has sat on our bookcase forever but I have finally lifted it out and added it to my reading queue.

Thank you Mr N for your contagious enthusiasm for history and for introducing me to this fascinating era and this remarkable character, so troubled and so old for his years. 

I would heartily recommend the film 

Of course one of the other great things about the cinema is getting to eat like a 9 year old 

xxx