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understand.
        Now, Quilla, you know how many times I've bemoaned the fact that I came to Oz with all this great music, only to fnd that I a) had the only CD player; and that b) my poor headphones were the only speakers here. Which meant that I could listen to Tom Waits, The Genritals, Patti Smith, Scriabin, Johnny Cash, Ween, Lester Loose, Mrs. Miller, Frank Zappa, or Frank Sinatra; I could pop in The Beatles, The Beastie Boys, ABBA, Smegma, The Sardonics, Grand Funk Railroad, Yma Sumac, Spike Jones, Patsy Cline, Porkchop Bones, Cab Calloway, Oingo Boingo, Kitty Krum or Nitzer Ebb; I could turn on Herman's Hermits, Mikki Bobbit, Lump, The Monkees, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic, Booker T. & the M.G.s; I could groove to Miles Davis, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Tori Amos, Billie Holiday, Bjork, Beck, The Mean Puppets, Me'Shell Ndegochello, Pongo Domingo, or Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; I could worship at the altar of Tchaikovsky, Chet Baker, John Coltrane, Nirvana, and easily hundreds more.
        But only on my headphones. And only by myself.
        Yes, I could listen, any time I wanted, to the crowning glory that is human music: far and away the best thing that Earth people ever made. I could even turn on others, Ozlings who had never heard. Only one at a time.
        Those days are over now.
        Now picture, with me, what this moment is like. Behind Mikio— grinning and sweating and toting—comes a happy procession of Ozlandic goofballs. I recognize Ginko and Faffo Boff, the quadling brothers who both love cheese. They are restaurant regulars, hilarious guys, and they're huffng and puffng with a cabinet between them.
        Also grappling with the speaker-type units are a winkie, two gil
    likins, and a clunkety robot, none of whom I know. Evidently, Mikio makes friends fast. I note that the winkie and one gillikin are girls, but I'm barely even jealous, so overwhelmed by the moment am I.
        Above us, the sky is orange, purple and pink, on its way to brightest blue. The bobblestone streets and emerald-encrusted storefronts that line them are, of course, glowing green. The quadlings wear yellow. The winkie wears blue. The gillikins both favor orange, and Pinky's all in red. The robot, a-glinting with unburnished brass, looks like Tic-Toc's bohemian cousin. And Mikio, pale-skinned, is dressed in black.
        As it happens, so am I.
        The keys are still in my hands. They, too, seem to glimmer with magick light. "Omigod," I say. "Umm…did you want to come in?"
         Mikio says, "That's the whole idea!"
        So I step inside and get out of the way as they struggle through the doorway. There's a pileup in the foyer as they set down the speakers, gasping for breath; and though the shock has only just begun to set in, I fnd myself strategizing.
        Looking around at the Emerald Burrito.
        As if for the very frst time.
         The interior of the restaurant is large yet intimate, dark enough to be cozy, with hacienda arches and squared-off pillars in glorious symmetrical splay. There are twenty-three tables of dark burnished wood, in a variety of sizes, to accomodate all guests. Each table has a green stained-glass votive candleholder affxed to its center, awaiting spark and fame .
         There are lanterns on the pillars as well. The walls are festooned with faux-Mexican tapestries, woven for us by Fonzie's old girlfriend, Tatale. (For a witchling who's never been out of the city, I think she did an astonishing job.) Though we played down the gleaming gem pocked look—you get enough of that in Emerald City—strategic strings of ficker-stones are draped at the creases of walls and arches; and mounted on the cracked tile ceiling are ffty-seven upside-dow n fourescent sombreros: a multi-colored touch I stole from El Chavo , one of my favorite restaurants back in seamy L.A.
        It's a beautiful room. A great place to eat. Already, I can feel it transforming. I look at Mikio's