EDUCATION by MARK SHAPIRO

They say we all need to go to school
So then everyone wont end up a fool

It takes twelve years to finish high school and pass
Taking classes from A to Z and in mass

Problem is what you learn you may never use
Then find out later when you get a job the boss will abuse

Algebra and Spanish is said we all need
But half the students in class are stoned on weed

Test after Test they make you take
Sadly you find out its all a fake

For the truth is that the lessons of life do not come easy in life
And through experience does it come with alot of trial and error and strife

House payments, income tax, mortgage and loans and good credit should be taught
So students can achieve in life all that their parents sought

Then students wont graduate high school after twelve years to work at a fast food place


And realize that going to school in hindsight wasnt a disgrace.

AMERICAN BEARD YEAR by MARK SHAPIRO

AMERICAN BEARD YEAR

The beard in America is to have long seasons, but comes as goes as regularly as leaves in autumn, budding anew in the spring.

It was autumn on the male face and beards were out of favor when the colonists settled the easter seaboard. Only such hardy individuals as capt. john smith, clung to the glorious foliage.

Capt. Myles Standish of the mayflower company of plymouth, is usually depicted sporting a pointed military beard, and so are other pilgrims in arms. But
most of the colonists seem to have been clean shaven, and by the late 1600s beards were seldom to be seen.

The revolutionary soliders were clean shaven almost to a man. Likenesses of 49 signers of the declaration of independence show not a beard, moustache or any serious sideburns. The leaders of the time set the trend, and the rest followeed, as the art work of the period indicates.

Beards began to bud again about 1810. Suddenly, whiskers and sideburns began to sprout, But the style was slow to gather momentum, and beards kept coming in, without being in, right up to the civil war.

Abraham Lincoln really triggered the beginning of the american beard period. He entered the white house whiskerless, but grew a glorious beard while residing there. He ended a drought of 72 years in which no president had a beard or moustache. Only two had even wore sideburns, John Quincy Adams and Martin VAn buren.

In the 30 years after the civil war, full beards were evident from the halls of congress to the baseball diamonds. A beard had become a mark of conservatism and dignity.

President rutherford hayes sprouted the crowning glory of the era, the most magnificent of the many grand presidential beards after lincoln.

President william mckinley ended the string of bearded presidents. Following him, ted roosevelt and william taft compromised mckinleys facial nakedness with moustaches, but the american beard had run its first full cycle in our history. It took about 270 years.

The 1960s now seem to hard back to 1810, as the beginning of a new long spring. Discounting the beatniks in the 1950s bearded cult and the extreme hippie, beards sprung up on the faces of the bolder junior executives on madison avenue, and on the more "common people".

Yes, it is 1810 again. If history repeats, we are in for another 50 year spring, when beards slowly will come back in favor.


It will be climaxed with the president growing a beard in the white house about 2019...UNLESS , OF COURSE, THE PRESIDENT IS A WOMAN.

HOMAGE TO L. FRANK BAUMS 150TH BIRTHDAY

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://rexee-16.vo.llnwd.net/d1/video_img/611/51855116/51855116_13094.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.videosurf.com/l-frank-baum-9297&usg=__DEsHX-zPr5KJTD0ye2JKsOPoTkI=&h=120&w=160&sz=6&hl=en&start=84&tbnid=WzNSPDsK0ibhIM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwizardofbaum%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D80

MGM ANNOUNCES WIZARD OF OZ REMAKE FOR CHRISTMAS 2009..2010 UPDATE WITH NEW OZ NEWS

MGM ANNOUNCES WIZARD OF OZ REMAKE
September 21 2008
Hollywood, CA – MGM and Sony Pictures made a surprise announcement today, saying that a remake of the nearly seventy year old classic was in the works and is on track to coincide with the original film’s anniversary next year.


“MGM is proud to announce that we are deep into production on a remake of one of the most beloved film stories of all time. The Wizard of Oz is classic that generations have grown up on, and we feel that this is the right time to explore a new version so that all future generations will have a classic to grow up with,” said the company in a statement.


While no details were released, the company did say that the story would be updated to reflect a modern philosophy, eliminating the hope and wonder that the classic embodied “We live in different time than they did then. We live in a time of economic uncertainty and war, things they simply didn’t have to deal with in 1939. The new film will reflect our times while still speaking with the voice the original sang so beautifully with.”


Rumours about the supposed plot line has Dorothy propelled into the future by another unfortunate Tornado and dropped into modern day Kansas or possibly Iraq. ‘Taxi Driver’ scribe Paul Schrader has been tapped to write the screenplay; no director has yet been announced.


Rumours have already begun to swirl as to who will play Dorothy, with names such as Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Selma Blair, and Ellen Page topping the list.
“Deschanel isn’t famous enough, and Portman is a little too ethnic. Page would give that kind of hard edge they seem to be looking for, especially with Schrader scripting. I can see that as a real possibility,” said Scrape TV Entertainment analyst Tracey Temple. “It’ll be interesting to see who they get for the supporting roles. Willem Dafoe as the Tin Man? Deniro as The Cowardly Lion”


This of course will not be the first remake of the film, 1978’s ‘The Wiz’ was the first remake of the classic. MGM promises that the newest version will differ from that rendition as well.


“We’re not going to have any of that singing and dancing stuff. Some musicals have done well recently but we’re seeing this as a far more accessible film. We want as broad an appeal as possible and a musical just won’t allow for that.”


When reached for comment, screenwriter Schrader was mired in misery and self loathing and offered no comment. The film if scheduled for a Christmas 2009 release.

NEW 2010 WIZARD OF OZ MOVIE UPDATE...MARCH 9, 2010


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A new 'Wizard of Oz' could make its way down the Hollywood road
March 9, 2010 | 5:00 pm

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off Disney's massive success with Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," Warner Bros. wants to remake another childhood classic. Like, really classic.

The studio is examining two existing "Wizard of Oz" projects, with an eye toward giving one of them a modern gloss and moving it toward the screen.

One project, called "Oz," currently lives at Warner's New Line label. It's being produced by Temple Hill, which is behind a little franchise called "Twilight," and has a script written by Darren Lemke, a writer on the upcoming "Shrek Forever After."

A second "Wizard of Oz" project, set up at Warners proper, skews a little darker -- it's written by "A History of Violence" screenwriter Josh Olson and focuses on a granddaughter of Dorothy who returns to Oz to fight evil. "Clash of the Titans" producer Basil Iwanyk and his Thunder Road Pictures are behind that one. ("Spawn" creator Todd MacFarlane is potentially involved in a producerial capacity, to give you some idea of the tone.)

While the idea of a new "Wizard of Oz" movie is said to be in the development, let's-bat-this-around stage, it's been advanced seriously enough on the lot that representatives for some of the top directors around Hollywood have been briefed.

The Judy Garland-starring "The Wizard of Oz" from 1939 -- we could give you the refresher on witches, tin men, Dorothy and everyone else, but really, do we need to? -- has been given alternative treatments before. There was the 1978 black-themed film adaptation of the stage play "The Wiz." And of course about six years ago came the Broadway adaptation of Gregory Maguire's "Wicked," an alternative story of girls, witches and Emerald City politics. The property proved a huge stage hit, prompting a film version that's in development at Universal and "Wanted" producer Marc Platt.

Audiences are likely to respond to the idea of a new silver screen "Wizard of Oz" with gusto ("at least the first one was good," said one colleague we told) or with horror, precisely because the original is such a classic.

But for Warners, there's plenty of appeal in trying to take the story of Dorothy & Co. back to the big screen. For one, there's the bonkers $210 million global opening for "Alice," which shows that if you're trying to create a mega-blockbuster, one smart way to do it is to take a title people know and update it for the effects era. And there's a neat symmetry, since the Technicolor version of the classic film did for color in the movies what a lot of people say that "Avatar," "Alice" -- and now, perhaps, "Wizard" -- could do for 3-D in the movies.

With its Harry Potter series drawing to an end, Warners also likes the idea of a franchise, and "Wizard of Oz" and the many books L. Frank Baum wrote featuring many of the same characters (all of which are in the public domain) fit the bill nicely. And let's not forget the property's strong, young female protagonist, hugely in vogue now in the post -Twilight" and -"Alice" eras.

There could still be questions about the project's title (the book's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is in the public domain but the movie's "The Wizard of Oz" is not; it's owned by MGM, whose library is partly owned by Warner Bros.). And then there's the matter of whether filmmakers would make the movie with musical elements, as the original, of course, did. Those questions aside, it could be the moneymaking formula.

Follow the yellow brick road. It's strewn with CGI, tent poles and 3-D. And, of course, a little green.

-- Steven Zeitchik

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBERS WIZARD OF OZ PRODUCTION

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Variety gives a bit more information on Andrew Lloyd Webber's proposed new stage production of "The Wizard of Oz."


The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye previously reported that the 1939 MGM classic motion picture, The Wizard Of Oz, one of the most famous and iconic movies in the history of film, is getting a total makeover, including new songs and score, for a planned stage production that will hit London late next year.

The man behind the melodic musical rehaul is Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber and his associates have spent months seeking permission from those who control the rights to the film and to L. Frank Baum's original story to be allowed to add five or six new songs. These will be added to the classic E. Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen numbers that include Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Follow The Yellow Brick Road and If I Only Had A Brain reports Bamigboye.

Lloyd Webber explained to Baz in the Mail that when The Wizard Of Oz has been done on stage in the past "they attempt to do it exactly the same as the movie. That's completely wrong! You've got to think of it as a theatre piece, which just happens to have three or four of the greatest songs of all time." The composer has enlisted his 'LOVE NEVER DIES' partner Glenn Slater to write the lyrics for the new numbers. Slater pointed out that there are many 'obvious' slots in the Wizard Of Oz where new songs could fit.

'It doesn't have an opening number; it doesn't have a song for the witch,' the lyricist told me, adding that even the poor old wizard doesn't have a number of his own. 'It's missing what it needs to become an actual theatrical piece', explains the man who'll be breathing new life and words into the classic property. To read the full article in the Dail Mail, click here.

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical-fantasy film mainly directed by Victor Fleming and based on the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The film stars Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Frank Morgan, with Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick, and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins. The source material also features in current worldwide hit WICKED.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is The composer of The Likes of Us, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Variations and Tell Me on a Sunday combined as Song & Dance, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of The Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down The Wind, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White. He composed The film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File, and Requiem, a setting of The Latin Requiem Mass, for which he won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition. He has also produced in The West End and on Broadway, not only his own work, but The Olivier Award-winning plays La Bête and Daisy Pulls It Off. In 2004 he produced The film version of The Phantom of The Opera. In 2006 he oversaw a new London production of Evita, Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular and pioneered television casting for musical Theater with The hit BBC series "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" which won an International Emmy. He followed this with The equally successful series "Any Dream Will Do." His awards include seven Tonys®, three Grammys, six Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, an International Emmy, The Praemium Imperiale and The Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre. He was knighted in 1992 and created an honorary life peer in 1997. He's a 2006 Kennedy Center Honoree. He is currently working on the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, 'LOVE NEVER DIES', which is set for release later this year.

CONTACT MARK SHAPIRO ON BLOG OR FOR ANY REASON...WIZOFBEACH@YAHOO.COM

I am Mark Shapiro of Huntington Beach, California and my email is wizofbeach@yahoo.com and email me with any questions or comments on my blog.

I am one of if not the worlds biggest collector of L. Frank Baum first edition and first state books with over 350 books (multiple titles) in great condition.

I have been written up in various newspaper and magazine articles and have been a featured speaker at collector conventions and other such arenas. Feel free to write and ask any question and its FREE.

GREATEST CATCH EVER..BY A BALL GIRL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpdBxq2mLv0