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Cyhist Mar 12 1997 E
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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 12:39:07 -0500
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: John Cowan <cowan@CCIL.ORG>
Organization: Lojban Peripheral
Subject: Re: CM> Zzyzx
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
keith reid-green wrote:
>Don Senzig said: "I have not read this myself but have been told that xyzzy is a magic word in one of L. Frank Baum's "Wizard of Oz" stories."
I think Don Senzig may have a garbled memory of the word "Pyrzqxgl", a magic word used in _The Magic Of Oz_. As others have stated, "xyzzy" comes from the original Crowder and Woods ADVENTURE.
>It's been over 30 years since I read the "Wizard of Oz" to my son, but the way I remember it from the movie, the Wicked Witch of the West said something like "Zizzy, zuzzy, zik," whatever the hell that means. It may be different in the book(s).
That was part of three magic strings for making the Golden Cap summon the Winged Monkeys. It was in the book, too. Stand on one foot, say "Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke". Stand on the other foot, say "Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo". Stand on both feet, say "Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!". And the Winged Monkeys appear, but only if you have called them at most twice before (and if you are wearing the Cap). As some may deduce, I am even now reading the Oz books to my daughter.
ObCommunityMemory: Pyrzqxgl was also the name of a tree-structured BBS in Santa Cruz that I used to frequent before it went down. I've been trying to convince the former sysop to extract the database from the old Victor machine's hard disk (which involves making the machine run again, if only briefly), as I have some software to export it to the WWW. The corpus (corpse?) of another tree-structured BBS named Stuart II, Pyrzqxgl's spiritual ancestor, which ran on an Apple ][, is already available at http://www.ccil.org:6502 (that port number is no accident!)
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
e'osai ko sarji la lojban
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: John Cowan <cowan@CCIL.ORG>
Organization: Lojban Peripheral
Subject: Re: CM> Zzyzx
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
keith reid-green wrote:
>Don Senzig said: "I have not read this myself but have been told that xyzzy is a magic word in one of L. Frank Baum's "Wizard of Oz" stories."
I think Don Senzig may have a garbled memory of the word "Pyrzqxgl", a magic word used in _The Magic Of Oz_. As others have stated, "xyzzy" comes from the original Crowder and Woods ADVENTURE.
>It's been over 30 years since I read the "Wizard of Oz" to my son, but the way I remember it from the movie, the Wicked Witch of the West said something like "Zizzy, zuzzy, zik," whatever the hell that means. It may be different in the book(s).
That was part of three magic strings for making the Golden Cap summon the Winged Monkeys. It was in the book, too. Stand on one foot, say "Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke". Stand on the other foot, say "Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo". Stand on both feet, say "Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!". And the Winged Monkeys appear, but only if you have called them at most twice before (and if you are wearing the Cap). As some may deduce, I am even now reading the Oz books to my daughter.
ObCommunityMemory: Pyrzqxgl was also the name of a tree-structured BBS in Santa Cruz that I used to frequent before it went down. I've been trying to convince the former sysop to extract the database from the old Victor machine's hard disk (which involves making the machine run again, if only briefly), as I have some software to export it to the WWW. The corpus (corpse?) of another tree-structured BBS named Stuart II, Pyrzqxgl's spiritual ancestor, which ran on an Apple ][, is already available at http://www.ccil.org:6502 (that port number is no accident!)
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
e'osai ko sarji la lojban
______________________________________________________________________
