"Wicked: For Good" — Your Pre-Flight Checklist for Oz

I just saw "Wicked: For Good" in 3D last night. Having been a fan of the musical for over a decade, I was delighted to be in the theater entirely alone, which allowed me to sing along when I felt like it. Because it is both a long movie and has a lot of context from previous iterations, I thought I'd share a few things to pay special attention to, in order to more fully appreciate the magic of this magical land of Oz. 

Before You Go

Refresh yourself on the dance scene in the first movie. It has a pretty good callback in the second movie. 

In fact, while re-watching the first movie, notice the cloaked figure on a horse in the beginning scene. 

Should the shoes be red or silver? In the first "Wicked" movie, they're silver, and that's because of the original book. The "Wizard of Oz" movie made them ruby. That's all I'm going to say here. 

While You Watch

There's a scene in which Elphaba confronts the animals leaving Oz, and she has a vision. See if you can pick out who those characters whom are in that vision. 

One of my favorite countries, Australia, is often called "Oz." See if you can find the Easter eggs that seem to nod to this. 

The window pane shattering in the first movie makes a cute callback, or maybe better labeled a callsign. 

Blink and you miss it: The Wizard hits himself with a yellow brick. And he talks about his worst pupil. It's hilarious.

Pay attention to the very last moment in the last scene - it’s a cute little nod to the Broadway show. 

Enjoy the show! I hope your own viewing is as magical as mine was.

And I hope that, like so many characters in Oz, you too feel that you've been "changed for good."

"Big Stone Gap" book review

Imagine knowing all your life that when you hit 35 years old, your life would change completely. Then, at the age of 35, like clockwork, your world gets turned upside down, the people around you aren't who you thought they were, you aren't who you thought you were, you upheave your entire life's work and prepare to skip town for good with no particular long-term plan. Only love, the greatest power on earth, can save you now, but you've spent your whole life running so hard from love that you can't even recognize it in your dreams. 

That's my synopsis. The one I read for the book "Big Stone Gap" was this: "A long-buried family secret disrupts the quiet life of a single, middle-aged woman in 1978 Virginia." I was expecting much darker secrets and more of an action-packed mystery to play out, with crime scenes and police investigations and suspects. Instead, the plot was rather simple, borderline quaint: small town girl seeks answers about family, learns about herself and sets things right. But it was so genuine and relatable, that there were many moments that made me laugh, cry, get mad at, and be embarrassed for the main character. I could just as easily put myself in the main character's shoes if I was born and raised in a small town in the deep south, and in the end, the book made me reflect on my own life, and appreciate my friends, family, and my love so much more.