“Dorothy is surrounded by manifestations of the 4 Sticks dude, Hucka D. They appear to revolve around her. This is 4 sticks, because each dude has a single cane or stick. Walking stick, like was in one of the Jasper collages.
Hucka D.:
Several. Thank you for waking me up at such an early hour.
bb:
Well you’re welcome. You always seem to want to be a part of these interpretation posts.
Hucka D.:
I do. But thanks again.
bb:
Right. My feeling I had last night after reviewing what we’d said about the collage [“Rock, His Story”] so far is that Dorothy is cursed somehow — surrounded by a curse. In the primary or original Oz story she also crash lands[ in her aunt and uncle’s farmhouse] in a foreign world. I’ve made that assoc. before. So Rock is her and her is Rock. I wonder if she is already at 4 Sticks, waiting on Rock.
Hucka D.:
She’s not in this story. She’s just a stand in for Rock.
bb:
But[ on the other hand], we have The Emerald as perhaps a final destination, or at least it is in the framework of this collage. The Emerald is front and center. Dorothy and her new friends seeked the Emerald City. The green lined log at the bottom of the collage may stand in for the Yellow Brick Road. They would have quote unquote reassuring green thoughts[ of the Emerald City and gifts to be received there] while journeying down that sometimes dangerous road. Safety and an endpoint was ahead.
Hucka D.:
You mean the big green dude. Well, he *can* remove his head, obviously, and live to tell the tale. So that’s like Brainard from the Wizard of Oz.
bb:
But he’s not called Brainard in the book.
Hucka D.:
I’d check before saying that.
bb:
I don’t have to check, Hucka D. I made the character Brainard up based on the Wizard of Oz and also a map name. Remember?
Hucka D.:
No. [But I’ll take your word for it for now]. This is Oz the Terrible if not Brainard the Terrible, then. They get there and they encounter this enormous, ferocious head instead of the kindly wizard they seeked. And then they’re sent away without receiving any gifts atall. They’re told to kill a powerful witch, a seemingly impossible task. If we weren’t watching a movie, we’d say balderdash and turn away to avoid seeing the carnage.
bb:
Truth, Hucka D. But fairy tales don’t work that way. Usually. (pause to look at collage) Rock’s climbing on the green dude’s head. What’s that mean?
Hucka D.:
He’s scaling the problem. He has superhuman powers within the confines of *Gene Fade’s* movie. “Fade to Moss”, I believe. So Rock crash lands in *that* movie just like Dorothy does in the original Oz film. He walks past Seal Stone and Grey Rock. They’re bickering, like Newton and Jasper sometimes do in your virtual villages.
bb:
Interesting new take on the subject (!)
Hucka D.:
Grey Rock just wants to be left alone. But Seal Stone is there pestering him most of the time. They can become one and move about. They’ve been all over Whitehead Crossing together. Alone they are sedentary. As such they’re pictured like a grey seal, often with a ball or something manifesting about the nose area, like in “Sky Diamond” [another recent Whitehead Crossing collage].
bb:
So in the movie, Rock encounters an actual, grey seal.
Hucka D.:
Yes, according to the script (Hucka D. is heard rustling papers here), on page 51 there is an encounter with a grey seal soon after landing. It is trying to cross Green Stream, but a branch is in its way. It doesn’t want to jump in the water and wade across — apparently (more paper rustling) — checking back a page — the seal doesn’t like water. Strange seal! And it says here that 4 Sticks — that’s his name in the script as well — he’s on the opposite side laughing at the seal all the time. He’s, um, apparently put a curse on the seal so that it can’t cross Green Stream in that direction; has to remain in Whitehead Crossing proper. But 4 Sticks can cross the bridge and visit The Fairy any time he wishes. The Fairy does not like Grey Seal.
bb:
Is the Fairy Elton John?
Hucka D.:
He wears red ruby slippers[ like John does on the cover of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road]. Apparently John has given up on Whitehead Crossing. He steps backwards across the Green Stream, never to return. We last see him walking backwards up Greene Knob to the east.
bb:
Are you sure you’re still reading the script and not off the map now?
Hucka D.:
No. I’m improvising[ true enough].
bb:
Well maybe we should get back to the script.
Hucka D.:
There is no script. It’s just me rustling some old newspaper. Sound effects. Effective in Nowhereland[ where we talk in].
bb:
I believed you!
Hucka D.:
Do you want me to continue[ anyway]?
bb:
Eh. Sure.
Hucka D.:
… steps backwards across the creek, never to return. He keeps walking backwards up to the top of neighboring Greene Knob to the east. He build as hut on top, but he still can only walk backwards. You found his hutch.
bb:
Yeah I guess I did. Go on sir…
Hucka D.:
The Fairy obviously abandoned his home on the opposite side of Green Stream, but he still stayed there sometime. Instead he went elsewhere. He went to Doug. That’s another stream to the west. There he met additional fairies. For there were fairies in Whitehead Crossing already. And toy avatars of course. And bees. And Mossmen — but that’s kind of a toy.
bb:
Are they really, though?
Hucka D.:
We better return to the collage[ however much I’m enjoying this].
bb:
Well (looks again), the green being is The Emerald is the Emerald City of Oz. An ultimate destination, seemingly. Once you pass Green Turtle you know you’re there. Edward Stone.
Hucka D.:
In the center of the collage we have 3 figures. We have the green guy, with the branch Rock hands from representing his spine or backbone. Rock may then be a chiropractor adjusting the spine. This is your spine.
bb:
I suppose it could be.
Hucka D.:
That’s your Emerald City right now. To find a back specialist and allow him to help you.
bb:
Suppose.
Hucka D.:
Rock is that specialist. That’s his occupation.
bb:
Hmm. What about the strange looking artist. She’s acquired an eye and a beak, like a bird-woman now. But it’s a composite figure. Eye from 12 Oz Mouse returns, as he was in the Dock Tarn related collages (coming just before the Whitehead Crossing related collage under discussion).
Hucka D.:
She’s painting a picture so that she can move into it, as before (“Painter>Painting” collage).
The painting is also your collage or collages, and your Falmouth Gallery is positioned just below the canvas to reinforce that. You enter the collage just as she enters her painting. And your gallery is also pictured on that earlier collage (above). This is Little Whitehead.
bb:
That’s a whole ‘nother chunk of information, Hucka D. The Little Whitehead, Maine to Little Whitehead, NC bridge.
Hucka D.:
It’s another bridge. We know it can be a time bridge now. Can 4 Sticks cross[ and so on]?
bb:
I’m not sure.
Hucka D.:
Can 4 Sticks cross the Big Log and get out of his namesake berg?
bb:
Something to think about.
Hucka D.:
Maybe the *curse* also keeps him confined to 4 Sticks. He cannot cross Whitehead Crossing in that direction. He must remain south of the stream.
bb:
Interesting new development, Hucka D.[ if so].
Hucka D.:
*But*, if someone enters 4 Sticks improperly, across that Big Log or perhaps another bridge or log, then *they* are trapped. Black Dog. So it’s interesting we have Kevin in the new collage, from Up. Kevin is the one cursed, unable to reach True Home. He is hauled back to the Charles Muntz lair in the zeppelin. Big Balloon. The zeppelin approximates Carl’s house.
bb:
Interesting. Let me take a look at him[ in the collage]. One of his eyes subs for one of Boss Moss’ eyes. The two are one. In an earlier Falmouth collage…
… one of Kevin’s eyes similarly substitutes for an eye of Howl’s Moving Castle. We associated the 2 together at the time because both are main characters, as it were, from single movie carrcasses, Hucka D. One is about Up, and one is about Howl’s Moving Castle, the movie named for the object or character. Because it is a living thing in the film. Both are desired objects in the film.
Hucka D.:
Kevin is being used *as stilts* in the film, in the collage. You better end.
bb:
Thank you.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 