Today is May 15th. It is L. Frank Baum’s birthday today, 5/15/1856. He gave us The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book, along with 13 sequels. It is a great book to read. When my sister was born (over sixty years ago), our grandmother came to help. Every night she would read a chapter of Dorothy’s adventures in OZ. She left the book for us to finish reading, when she left a week later.
I have a beautiful pop-up book that was printed for the 100 anniversary of the original book (1900 and 2000). It keeps many selections of the original text, along with artwork similar to the original stye of W.W. Denslow. The pop-ups were designed by Robert Sabuda. If one was to read only one book about The Wizard of Oz, and own only one pop-up book, this is the book to have.
The pop-ups are stunning. The tornado actually spins. Dorothy’s house has fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East. You will note that the slippers in the book are actually silver. The Emerald City is greenish, but everyone who lived there, had to wear green glasses in the book. There are a pair glasses in this book to help visualize. On the sides of each page of pop-ups, are foldouts that include smaller pop-ups, along with many passages of the actual book. I cannot recommend this book enough. (when I went to the bookcase to get this book, I found, or rather re-found a book on Peter Pan by this same pop-up artist. I went back to edit it into the May 9th entry.)
May 15th, 1905 is the day Las Vegas was founded, with a sale of 110 acres by the railroad. I have written about gambling with books on how to gamble, and my souvenirs of tokens. I thought I would show a few books on the dangers of gambling.
“Slime Pits” by John Elward Brown, 1920, is a series of talks about different vices of man. Each chapter begins with “And the vale of Siddin was full of slime pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorroah fled, and fell there” Gen. 14:10. It seems to be a horrid place to be and die.
On Talk Number Seven, the author explains that “cards were invented by the Chinese for the amusement of the concubines;” or “for the amusement of an idiotic King-Charles VI of France.” For certain, “almost from there inception, (cards) were passed into the hands of the idle and the vicious, and immediately became the chief tool of those who gained their livelihood by robbing the unsophisticated and the weak. Wherever cards have crawled throughout the nations of the world they have left wreck and ruin in their path.”
The author believes that one should not use playing cards at all.
Then, in “The Ethics of Gambling” by W. Douglas Mackenzie, 1896, he quotes “Wealth gotton by vanity shall be diminished; but he that gathereth by labour shall have increase.” He then goes on in his book to develop a theory of gambling.
He discusses “the feeling of intoxication, the uncertainty as to whether a particular sum of money is to be mine or not. This uncertainty contributes largely to the gambler’s pleasure, and it is around this that the emotions gather with such unnatural concentration as to produce in some a kind of moral or spiritual inflamation which we call the gambler’s craving or passion.”
This book, in details, explains that the gambler’s passion can easily grow out of control. It is a very interesting book on the subject, and written well over one hundred years ago.
So today, one may decide to build a house of cards, or drop a house on a witch. Both are interesting. Have a great read.
Librarytomes 