That’s the land of maze and Shiraz and similar AZ things, those whose names have the letter-sequence AZ in them; Aslan is something entirely different (see below). I was taken to AZ-land yesterday on Facebook by Aric Olnes (who is, among other things, a floral artist), in one of a series of alphabetic flower photos from Casa Thomas / Olnes in Pioneer (Amador County) CA — where Aric and his husband Mike Thomas live these days — which come with lengthy alliterative captions, in this case for the letter A:
(#1) The photo, of a Pioneer Azalea; the caption:Astonishingly attractive Azaleas arrest acrimonious assumptions ascending aloft angelic amiability
(Look, Aric wasn’t aiming for elegance or poetic facility, just alliteration playfully carried to ridiculous lengths; otherwise, all it has to do is make some sense)
And my response, also on Facebook, taking things in a direction Aric probably didn’t anticipate:
— azaleas are from AZ-land, like azure, azimuths, and azithromycin, in a region that embraces Azerbaijan, the Azores, and Azusa [but not Anaheim or Cucamonga] — and is next to the Plaza Hotel, the Amazon River, and Jason Mraz‘s recording studio (among many many other things)
