Everything but the Internet --

novels, children's books, articles, criticism, short stories, plays, poems and book reviews by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com www.samizdat.com


Hyperbio www.samizdat.com/richard.html Resume www.samizdat.com/resumesh.html Photo www.samizdat.com/richard.jpg

Richard's collected non-Internet works (listed below) are available on CD ROM as Everything but the Internet: Fiction, Plays, and Articles by Richard Seltzer, available from Amazon and from his online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat. There you can also buy "a library for the price of a book" (hundreds of classic books on a single CD).

Stories

Children's stories

Audio versions of children's stories (made with free eBookIt from www.cottagemicro.com You need the RealPlayer to hear the narration.) All of these are available as both text and audio (narrated by the author) on CD ROM from our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat

Poems

Articles

Books and articles by and about Alexander Bulatovich (Father Anthony Boulatovich) and related research

Ethiopia through Russian Eyes consists of two books: From Entotto to the River Baro and With the Armies of Menelik II, both written by Alexander Bulatovich and translated by Richard Seltzer. This is a unique and detailed first-hand account of Ethiopia in 1896-98 -- at the change of an era -- by a Russian officer with remarkable understanding for the many varied people who lived there and keen insight into their destiny. Related Articles Excerpts from Bulatovich's books

The Name of Hero

The Name of Hero is an historical novel based on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia, a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900, and later, as a monk at Mount Athos, led a group of "heretics" who challenged the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the Name of God. (Originally published by Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin). You can buy the hard cover edition of this book at Amazon.com or at our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat Related documents:

Heresy on Mount Athos: Conflict over the Name of God among Russian Monks and Hierarchs, 1912-14 by Tom Dykstra, same as above, as an Acrobat (.pdf) file. You can contact the author at dykstra@u.washington.edu, His Web site is http://students.washington.edu/dykstra

Letters from Princess Mary Orbeliani (sister of Alexander Bulatovich) to Richard Seltzer (author of The Name of Hero)

Timeline for Alexander Bulatovich from 1870 until he became a monk in 1907, with excerpts from his military record
 

The Name of Man

Sample chapters from this unpublished novel (a sequel to The Name of Hero): Related documents: Email from the great-great grandson of Emperor Menelik II, and news of the fate of Vaska
 

Sandcastles

Sandcastles is a modern family saga in which hopes, beliefs, and dreams pass from generation to generation. The story centers around an uncle, his nephew, and the two women they both love, as they dance in and out of one another's lives. Chapter 1 Mansions and Castles
Chapter 2 Aunt Rachel and the Wizard of Oz
Chapter 3 Charlie's Coming of Age
Chapter 4 Recruited
Chapter 5 The Pictures from Charlie's Wedding
Chapter 6 Irene in Munich
Chapter 7 Irene at the Beach
Chapter 8 Sixtieth Anniversary
Chapter 9 Romance in Camelot
Chapter 10 Traffic Jam
Chapter 11 Ghosts
Chapter 12 Frank and Marge
Chapter 13 Giving Thanks
Chapter 14 Mistakes
Chapter 15 California Dream
Chapter 16 The Reverend Schumacher and Son
Chapter 17 Modelling for Charlie
Chapter 18 Rebirth
Chapter 19 Cabin Fever
Chapter 20 Dreams are Contagious
Chapter 21 With God
Chapter 22 Pair of Dice
Chapter 23 Voices from the Past
Chapter 24 Charlie's Daughter
Chapter 25 Camelot's Ghost
Chapter 26 Alarms
Chapter 27 Dream House in the Woods
Chapter 28 How to Build a Roof
Chapter 29 Time to Tell
Chapter 30 Sharing Sandcastles

The Lizard of Oz

When an elementary class sets out on a quest to save the world from disenchantment, their adventures reveal paradoxes of the human mind and ways of awakening the magic within us.

Library Journal -- "An intriguing and very entertaining little novel"

Aspect -- "Carroll and Tolkien have a new companion"

Lancaster (PA) Independent Press -- "a work so saturated that the mind is both stoned with pleasure and alive with wonder"

Philadelphia Bulletin -- "A commentary on our times done delightfully"

Audio-book version of The Lizard of Oz (complete text, plus illustrations by Christin Couture and audio narration by the author). To hear the audio, you must have the RealPlayer. This is a new, expanded version of the underground classic, originally published in 1974. This edition (which includes new episodes and changes throughout) is not available in print. You can buy the audio-book version of this book plus Now and Then and Other Tales from Ome, See You Later Elevator, Hundreds and Hundreds of Gerbils, and Tiger in the Intercom on CD ROM for $19 at our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat  You can also buy a paperback of the first edition there.

If you would rather read The Lizard on your palm device, for $5 you can buy an 84K zip file with the full text at www.palmgear.com  To read that file you need iSilo (software available for from www.isilo.com). (Thanks very much to David Gilford for doing this.) 

Text-only version of of the second (expanded) edition of The Lizard of Oz:

The children's play version of THE LIZARD OF OZ

Review from Plays for Children and Young Adults, an Evaluative Index and Guide, Supplement 1, 1989-1994 by Raschelle S. Karp, June H. Schlessinger, and Bernard S. Schlessinger, Garland Publishing, New York, 1996.

"1101. K-12 (+) Seltzer, Richard, The Lizard of Oz. CAST: 6f, 14m, u. ACTS: 1. SETTINGS: Bare stage. PLAYING TIME: 50 min. PLOT: Two fish, in a fishbowl in a basement classroom, remark on the boredom of the students. One of the fish, Mr. Shermin, explains to the other, Mrs. O'Rourke, that the boredom is caused by the Humbug's tune, which can only be changed by the Lizard of Oz. One of the children Eugene, overhears the conversation and conspires with the fish to travel to Oz in a little green VW with several classmates. On the way, the car falls into a pothole, and encounters a witch who gives them directions. They meet the potheads, people with pots for heads, who help them with more water for the fishbowl. The witch reappears at various times, and the group meets Sir Real, who has a cereal bowl for a head; eggheads, including Humpty Dumpty; a wallflower; an empty-headed pothead with blue eyes (Mr New Man); Mr. Francis Bacon, the librarian; Mr. Charon, the ferryboatman/undertaker; Lewis Carroll; William Shakespeare; Mark Twain; and Plato and the Muses. Mrs. O'Rourke swims off and Mr. Shermin becomes a human teacher. The gang reaches Oz and a bevy of further odd characters and returns to the classroom, refreshed, and with a new teacher, Mr. Shermin. RECOMMENDATION: The adventures and the characters are out of Alice in Wonderland, but the overall effect is comic and interesting."

The full text of the play, as an HTML file is available here. You can also get it as a pdf file (with all the illustrations embedded). You can buy this playscript at our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat

Without a Myth (or Amythos) -- a stage play

Without a Myth (three-act stage play) -- The characters are assigned roles in a fantastic myth. They can either go ahead and act out their lives in accord wth their given script or drop out and never have any role in life. They have 24 hours in which to decide. A flaw in the rules of this absurd, cosmic games makes the choices and actions of the two main characters a matter of life and death.

This play has not yet been been published in paper form. It will be produced for the first time by High Impact Theater at the Met Performing Arts Center in Spokane, Washington, in the spring of 2000. They first found the play at this site. If you have any suggestions on how we could get this produced elsewhere, please let us know.

Making sense of the myths behind Greek tragedy, in particular the mythos of Pelops/Atreus/Agamemnon, article by Richard Seltzer

Mercy (a stage play)

Mercy (a two-act historical comedy) is based on the lives of Mercy Otis Warren and General Johnny Burgoyne. A recent biography of Burgoyne, entitled The Man Who Lost America, focuses on his defeat and surrender at Saratoga in 1777. A recent biography of Mercy Warren, entitled First Lady of the Revolution, indicates that she was intimately connected with principal actors and actions of the Revolution.

Both Burgoyne and Mercy Warren were playwrights. After the Revolution, Burgoyne wrote several "hit" plays for the London stage. In 1775, during the British occupation of Boston, he wrote The Blockade of Boston. Mercy replied with a play entitled The Blockheads.

These two historical figures are natural antagonists who should be made to meet on the stage.

(If you have any suggestions on how we could get this produced, please let us know.)

Mercy Warren home page, where we are posting her history of the American Revolution and her plays

The Death of the Federalist Party, essay by Richard Seltzer

Rights Crossing (a stage play)

Rights Crossing (a two-act historical play) was written for Columbia, Pennsylvania, where it was performed December 1-4, 1976, as part of that town's bicentennial celebration. The events of the play take place in December 1777 and center around the Conway conspiracy.

The action focuses on the strategic importance of the ferry crossing that would one day become Columbia; situated between Congress in York and the army in Valley Forge. The fates of the town-to-be and the nation-to-be are interwoven, with local historical figures playing significant roles in a plausible confrontation with Conway and Mifflin.

Conway, plotting to overthrow Washington, tries to seize the ferry. But he underestimates the determination and resourcefulness of old Susannah Wright, the owner of the ferry, and her nephew Sam, the future founder of the town of Columbia.

(If you have any suggestions on how we could get this produced, please let us know.)
 

Spit and Polish (a full-length screen play)

HTML version of Spit and Polish

Acrobat (.pdf) version of Spit an Polish, in standard movie-script format

Spit and Polish (AKA "The Barracks", AKA "The Summer of Our Discontent") has never been produced nor published. The setting is basictraining at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in the summer of 1970 ( just after the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State shootings). The trainees are reservists, national guardsmen, and four black draftees who have been "recycled." The draftees want nothing to do with the war. They have been through basic before and deliberately failed in order to postpone being shipped to Viet Nam. For the others, basic is a brief, but painful interruption in their normal lives. So long as there is no major foul-up, they'll return to their school or job in a few weeks. But the disappearance of one of the blacks threatens them all.

(If you have any suggestions on how we could get this produced, please let us know.)
 

Traffic Jam (a short screen play)

HTML version.
Word document in standard script format

An ordinary ride down a crowded superhighway becomes surreal when the drivers realize that htey have no control over their vehicles. (10 pp.)
 

Criticism and books reviews

Lists of books read by Richard Seltzer


This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com

For a library for the price of a book, visit our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat.

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