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Today at therapy was really hard. I was sitting here crying, and generally being miserable, when I felt a nudge at my knee. I looked down to see that Zeus, my service dog, was doing his job… and brought me a potato. it is very hard to cry with a gift of potato.

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... And they've just turned booping off :(

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Finally finished this one after working on it incrementally in my spare time for the better part of a year 🐍

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I woke up in the morning, thinking that I should maybe move to a smaller, calmer town, instead of my current city, to re-adjust and be more chilled, and to wind down -- after the realization that I need sth and that I really don't expect all the shops to be open 24/7, and could've easily done the shopping the day before, if only I remembered about that thing -- and I joked internally that maybe I should try living in New York, the city that never sleeps, before I get too old for its hecticness...

And then it hit me that technically I have a reason to live in NY, other than just curiosity -- and that I might have a possibility to do so, as well, though maybe it would be challenging to organize this...

And it's just: wow. Wow. This sounds inconceivable! Me, there? For real? Not just a pipe-dream??? Me, in New York, real??? Wow. Just wow.

W. O. W.

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Oh, okay! Sorry for the mansplaining, then -- I read your post twice to see if you're differentiating between Goldman-real_author and Goldman-fictionalized_narrator and didn't quite catch it.

So I guess it's yet another layer, then -- with Goldman-fictionalized being as annoying as S. Morgenstern in the intro, and needing an abridgement... ;)

It makes me think it would be interesting to see other people's versions of the book, which parts they'd cut or substitute with bracket explanations, and what they would have left (but with no other changes!), making it like a huge tumblr post... So, for you, would you just cut the intro, or rather leave it as is, just with a disclaimer to keep reading?

Currently at page 210 of The Princess Bride, and I'm just here to ask:

Who is William Goldman abridging the book for?

Right at this point, he includes a paragraph about how life isn't fair and he adds this line: "(Grownups skip this paragraph.)"

I was surprised to see it. Then I was surprised that I was surprised to see it. After all, the story of The Princess Bride, while not a "kid's" story, definitely isn't solely for mature audiences. It's largely (though not exactly) like the movie, and I loved it when I watched it as a child. I'm going to show the movie to my future children whenever I have them. AND the movie's framing device, which I love to pieces, is a grandfather sharing this wonderful story with his young grandson. So why was I surprised that the book's Goldman had included a paragraph addressing younger readers, that he had apparently bet on at least some of those readers being kids?

I realized it was because it didn't feel like he was abridging this for kids in the first place.

Maybe he thinks he is, since he's doing this out of the desire to share the story with kids in the way his father (in the book, his dad reads it to him, not his grandpa) shared it with him. But the book as a whole, or at least his interludes, don't feel like he's speaking to kids. I don't mean in a "he should be friendlier or brighter or simpler" way, that would be patronizing.

I mean that my largest impressions of Goldman are that he lusted after a starlet and considered cheating on his wife, that he considers his wife to be cold and is annoyed when she's intelligent enough to see through him, that his marriage is loveless, that he's disappointed in his fat and spoiled son, that he LOVES to complain about how his son is fat (don't get me STARTED on that aspect of his life), and other things that I just don't think would've entertained me or endeared me to him as a young reader. They don't entertain me or endear me to him NOW.

Of course, this could all be moot if he only added that line in jest. But this still ties into the fact that the movie feels like everyone and anyone could watch it. It's not a kid's movie, but you sure as hell will show it to your kids because it's an adventure that everyone will love.

This book, so far, is a mostly amusing tale that, sure, a kid can pick up and read. Maybe they'll even like it. But it doesn't have that same feeling of being made for everyone to enjoy.

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Hi, I follow 'the princess bride' tag and wanted to jump in ;)

Spoilers below? (if you call the writer's bio a spoiler)

__ The intro is actually mostly fiction: can't say about lusting after younger women, but WG had 2 daughters (and no son), and there were several other info debunking the story. It's just as ironic as he describes Morgenstern to be… And the line between what he's serious about, and what is satiric, is very much blurred. When I first read it at 13, I adored this constant breaking the fourth wall, and it felt like he was winking at us, the readers, checking how literally we take his words ;) (I think I took them very literally, at first :P)

So, I guess that might be the answer: there are many myths surrounding the book, and Goldman dropped fake clues right and left regarding what is true in his writing and what isn't, that it kind of *has* to impact your reading. Especially if you're hooked enough to look for more info, want a sequel, etc. Feels like a big inside joke for me, and that's why I still call this book my favourite after over 15 years... even though I would be angry about certain aspects, if I read it right now for the first time :P

Cheers!

Currently at page 210 of The Princess Bride, and I'm just here to ask:

Who is William Goldman abridging the book for?

Right at this point, he includes a paragraph about how life isn't fair and he adds this line: "(Grownups skip this paragraph.)"

I was surprised to see it. Then I was surprised that I was surprised to see it. After all, the story of The Princess Bride, while not a "kid's" story, definitely isn't solely for mature audiences. It's largely (though not exactly) like the movie, and I loved it when I watched it as a child. I'm going to show the movie to my future children whenever I have them. AND the movie's framing device, which I love to pieces, is a grandfather sharing this wonderful story with his young grandson. So why was I surprised that the book's Goldman had included a paragraph addressing younger readers, that he had apparently bet on at least some of those readers being kids?

I realized it was because it didn't feel like he was abridging this for kids in the first place.

Maybe he thinks he is, since he's doing this out of the desire to share the story with kids in the way his father (in the book, his dad reads it to him, not his grandpa) shared it with him. But the book as a whole, or at least his interludes, don't feel like he's speaking to kids. I don't mean in a "he should be friendlier or brighter or simpler" way, that would be patronizing.

I mean that my largest impressions of Goldman are that he lusted after a starlet and considered cheating on his wife, that he considers his wife to be cold and is annoyed when she's intelligent enough to see through him, that his marriage is loveless, that he's disappointed in his fat and spoiled son, that he LOVES to complain about how his son is fat (don't get me STARTED on that aspect of his life), and other things that I just don't think would've entertained me or endeared me to him as a young reader. They don't entertain me or endear me to him NOW.

Of course, this could all be moot if he only added that line in jest. But this still ties into the fact that the movie feels like everyone and anyone could watch it. It's not a kid's movie, but you sure as hell will show it to your kids because it's an adventure that everyone will love.

This book, so far, is a mostly amusing tale that, sure, a kid can pick up and read. Maybe they'll even like it. But it doesn't have that same feeling of being made for everyone to enjoy.

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#Schmidt is a Ken confirmed.

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MY MOLECULES HAVE STARTED TURNING PINK

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When Tina Turner left her first husband - who was also her boss, captor, and brutal tormentor - she snuck out of their Dallas hotel room with a single thought in her mind: "The way out is through the door." From there she fled across the midnight freeway, semi-trucks careening past her, with 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. As soon as she decided to walk out that door, she owned nothing else. When she filed for divorce, she made an unusual request. She didn't want anything: not the song rights, not the cars, not the houses, not the money. All she wanted was the stage name he gave her - Tina - and her married name - Turner. This was the name by which the world had come to know her, and keeping it was her only chance to salvage her career. Things could have gone a lot of ways from there. She could have labored in obscurity for decades, maybe making records on small labels to be prized by vinyl connoisseurs in Portland. She could have stayed in Vegas, where she first went to get her chops back up, and worked as a nostalgia act. And, of course, given what she had been through, she might have … not made it. What happened instead is that Tina Turner became the biggest global rock star of the 80s. I'm old enough to barely remember this, but if you aren't, it was like this: The Rolling Stones would headline a stadium one day, and the next day it would be Tina Turner. A middle-aged Black woman - she became a rock star at 42! - sitting atop the 1980s like it was her throne. She managed this because of whatever rare stuff she was made of (this is a woman whose label gave her two weeks to record her solo debut, Private Dancer, which went five times platinum); because she decided to speak publicly about her abusive marriage and forge her own identity, and in doing so give hope and courage to countless women; and also because - in a perhaps unlikely twist for a girl from Nutbush, Tennessee - she had her practice of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism, to which she credited her survival. She remained devout until the end. Tina's second marriage - to her, her only marriage - was to Edwin Bach, a Swiss music executive 16 years her junior. Of him, she said, "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right, has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame." In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina's kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, "He didn't want another woman, or another life." He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm. Born into a share-cropping family as Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, she died Tina Turner in a palatial Swiss estate: the queen of rock 'n roll; a storm of a performer with a wildcat-fierce voice; a dancer of visceral, spine-tingling potency and ability; a beauty for the ages; a survivor of terrible abuse and an advocate for others in similar situations; an author and actress; a devout Buddhist; a wife and mother; a human being of rare talent and perseverance who, through her transcendent brilliance, became a legend.

Credit: Will Stenberg

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Jamie tartt running to his mom because someone on Twitter said his hair was blonde when it’s clearly walnut mist

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Roy went to hug Jamie's mom as revenge for Jamie calling his sister fit the week before and you cannot convince me otherwise.

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It's World BEE DAY! :D So here are a few illustrations from my short anthology "Die sieben Gartendrachen" (eng. "The seven Gardendragons") of friendships between dragons and bees! Or, well, rocky friendships, if you happen to bite into the flowers of your best friend…