Oztoberfest

Oztoberfest came to Wamego, KS this weekend. The festival featured the return of two of the original munchkins. This is a major decline from last year when a whopping seven munchkins showed up for the event, but it was still a lot of fun.

According to the organizers, Oztoberfest was packed on Saturday, but things were pretty calm on Sunday morning (makes sense in small town Kansas, being so churchy and all). I was able to chat with Karl Slovak, one of the sleepy-head munchkins who also worked with Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Duranty and Laurel and Hardy in his post-Oz phase. Slovak signed my dvd and I was able to purchase a DVD featuring four silent Oz films made by franchise creator Frank L. Baum between 1914 and 1925.

The other item I'd hoped to pick up at Ozfest was a copy of the Pennyroyal Press 1986 edition of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz featuring woodcut prints by Barry Moser. Moser's prints, the focus of a critical article I penned while a graduate student, reimagine Kansas as a depression era-wasteland and Oz as a wicked place ruled by the Reagan administration. The book moves from its populist roots to become a scathing commentary on Reaganomics due to the new illustrations.