#pl travers

[nuttersincorporated]

Mickey Mouse does not need your protection

Since Mickey Mouse became public domain, I’ve seen some really wild takes and misinformation going around. Yes, Mickey Mouse is public domain. No, you do not need to protect him. It’s fine if people other than Disney make Mickey Mouse stuff, even if you don’t like the things that are made.

You are not protecting Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is not real. Even if he was, you STILL wouldn’t be protecting him. You’re just sticking up for a megacorporation. Disney has more money and resources than you will ever have and they horde them. You shouldn’t be trying to help them do it.

Disney is a company that loves using public domain properties to make things. They have just tried their absolute hardest to make sure that nobody else could do the same thing. If you think Mickey Mouse should only be used by Disney, you should be upset that Disney made money off public domain stories like Snow White and Rapunzel.

What about things like Winnie the Pooh? Disney didn’t come up with him but they were happy to make money off him. They bought the rights to him and then didn’t share.

‘Ah!’ I hear you say. ‘But Winnie the Pooh actually helps prove our point! When Disney – that poor poor super rich company that should be protected – lost the exclusive rights, a Winnie the Pooh horror movie was made! That’s not in the spirit of the original character!’

Firstly, you can just ignore that movie if you want. I did. Nobody is making you watch it. You are responsible for your own media consumption.

Secondly, there are nice Winnie the Pooh stories out there that aren’t by Disney or the original author. The Pooh books by Jane Riordan are lovely. Her stories are much more in the spirit of the original character than a lot of the Disney comics were.

This is an official Disney comic with Winnie the Pooh

This is a picture from one of Jane Riordan’s Winnie the Pooh books

One of them is sweet, kind and in the spirit of the original character. The other is Disney owned and approved.

What would the original author A.A. Milne think of the different adaptions and new works? Well, we don’t know because, at the end of the month, he’ll have been dead for 68 years. However, I can quote one of the original Pooh books about sharing,

And really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.

Thirdly, Disney does not respect authorial intent.

PL Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, did not want Disney to make a movie based on her work. She got coerced into letting them make one. She hated the movie and refused to let them make any more.

What happened after she’d died, the ban on them making more Mary Poppies movies ran out and they got their hands on the rights? They made a sequel.

I think you should be more upset that Disney went against the direct wishes of an author than the fact regular people can now use a character that megacorporation uses. PL Travers was a person. Disney is a company. There is a difference.

I love the original Mary Poppins movie. I don’t care about or like the sequel. However, PL Travers died in 1996. People should be able to use the character now, no matter how you or I feel about those newer stories. Again, you can just ignore them if you want.

The original stories are still there.

Royalties are different to public domain. The profits from PL Travers original books go to her descendants and the Cherry Tree Foundation. They will continue to go there for 80 years after her death and then the royalties will be shared out among any decedents who are alive at that time. The money from those books will continue to go there, no matter what new stories with Mary Poppins get made.

You all seem okay with Disney making money off public domain stories and buying the rights to other stories. Why can't you extend that right to other people?

No one has stolen Mickey from Disney. Disney can and will continue to make money off him. All that’s change is that other people can now do that too.

[marvelmaniac715]

The film Saving Mr Banks is one of my guilty pleasure movies, and I’m not the biggest Mary Poppins fan, although I’ve read all of the books. It balances comedy with tragedy, and I know that a lot of it was clearly dramatised for the sake of a good story, but I still teared up watching the relationship between the real Travers and Helen Goff, and the effect that Travers’ alcoholism had on his family, because it was all so heartbreaking. There was a slight sense of karma in PL Travers battling against Disney, not taken in by the glossy facade that the company displays, and Tom Hanks was a very believable Walt Disney - I just can’t believe that they included his smoking habit! Disney worked hard to keep that little tidbit out of the public eye, photoshopping it out of pictures with the flimsy excuse of ‘The Disney Point’ which cast members are still forced to do, all in the name of maintaining a family friendly image: I know this movie was made by Disney and is therefore slightly biased, but as someone who loved bonus features on dvds as a child, the chance for a peek behind the curtain on one of the most famous Disney films is wonderful, and it just feels so real. Go and watch Saving Mr Banks if you haven’t already, it’s a great movie.

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[the-invisible-queer]

GOOD MORNING!

Happy Monday!

Wrote about PL Travers on my blog

Check it out! Or don't. I can't tell you what to do.

[who-canceled-roger-rabbit]

Mary Poppins and Bert are either a bi woman/bi man couple, or each other's beards

[elijones94]

☂️🐧 Mary Poppins and Wendy Darling ✨✨

[heavenboy09]

10 Years Ago , On December 13th & December 20th

Disney Presents

The Based On True Story Of How The Wonderful & Great  Walt Disney was able to win the Heart Of P.L. Travers on making a Disney film of the Magical & Loveable

Mary Poppins ☂️

Spurred on by a promise he made to his daughters, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) embarks on what would become a 20-year quest to obtain the movie rights to "Mary Poppins.

" The author, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), proves to be an uncompromising curmudgeon who has no intention of letting her beloved characters become mangled in the Hollywood machine.

However, when the books stop selling and she finds herself in need of money, Travers reluctantly agrees to consider Disney's proposition.

Witness The Story Of How 2 Icons Made A Magical Adventure Of A Woman's Tragic Life story Become A Story Of Hope

Because 1 Mouse 🐁

& 1 Nanny Of Pure Magic ☂️

Came Together ❤

Where Her Book 📖 Ended....

Their Story Began ....

Disney Presents

TOM HANKS AS THE GREAT WALT DISNEY 🐭

&

EMMA THOMPSON AS THE LEGENDARY P.L. TRAVER'S

IN

DISNEY'S SAVING MR. BANKS ☂️🐭✨

HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY TO DISNEY'S SAVING MR. BANKS

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL #SavingMrBanks #WaltDisney #PLTravers #MickeyMouse #MaryPoppins #Disney #HappyHolidays

[meret118]

These documentaries were both very interesting, especially the bottom one.

ETA: I enjoyed the documentaries, but neither mention she and a woman lived together for years, so I wanted to include a link to the wikipedia article too.

[nickytea]

97 years ago today, Mary Poppins made her first appearance in a newspaper short story.

I found it a few years back, after searching for more than a decade, and have presented it for comparison at MaryPoppinsAndTheMatchMan.com

[siamkram]

“How does one get to be a bit of a bee? I've always remembered that phrase and have come to believe that the way to it is to recognize that in spite of one's knowing - all the stuff that has been picked up, or poured in along the way - one is always in some very deep sense in from of the Unknown; and I mean the Unknown as absolute and unknowable, that which unremittingly evokes the question without ever guaranteeing the answer. I think that it is only by taking this far from comfortable stance that one becomes able to receive the intimations that the Unknown is continually sending back to us, as a river at its sea-mouth sends back news of the sea to its source.”  -PL Travers, What The Bee Knows

[comodebeser]

Mary Poppins

Título: “Mary Poppins” Autor: P.L. Travers Año: 1934 País: Reino Unido Idioma: inglés

Este lo escuché en audiolibro, al igual que Ángeles y Demonios. Me daba curiosidad porque había visto dos veces la película “Saving Mr. Banks”, que es sobre el proceso de convertir este libro en película. Me llamaron la atención las diferencias con respecto a la película. Lo más crucial es la poca importancia que tiene el personaje Bert en el libro (es el personaje que hace Dick van Dyke en la película). Por lo que tengo entendido, el personaje aparece en varios libros, y de esa manera se convierte en recurrente. Pero en el primer libro aparece en un solo episodio, y sin los niños. Parece ser que el capítulo en el que visitan muchas partes del mundo y se encuentran con diferentes animales fue editado en 1981. En la versión original, visitaban gente de diferentes partes, y los estereotipos eran un poco fuertes, con lo cual el libro estaba un poco estigmatizado a causa de ese capítulo. Los tiempos cambian, las cosas cambian. Es el mismo pensamiento que tuve leyendo “El mundo de ayer”, de Stefan Zweig.

[captorkinnie-deactivated20187224]

this is an old ass post but i'm about to go off anyways. 

 say it with me folks. MARY. POPPINS. WAS NEVER. INTENDED. TO BE. NICE. 

 she was meant to be rude. she was meant to be vain. she was meant to be a GOVERNESS, not a nanny. she was not given toddlers (well, she was, but this is excluding john and barbara because they cannot talk to other people), she was given children! naughty children! they are explicitly naughty! they've driven out dozens of other nannies! mary was a last resort! hell, mrs. banks was explicitly exhausted with her! but she got jane and michael in line.

 something i like to say to people who've only ever seen the movie is that mary poppins herself was not a "spoonful of sugar" type of woman. she was a "take your goddamn medicine" woman. literally. i presume you've read the chapter where she makes all of the children take their medicine. 

 as for the "practically perfect", iirc that's in mary poppins comes back (i have read all three), not in mary poppins. she returns, checks michael and jane (both of which read that they're naughty), and then herself, which, of course, mary poppins is practically perfect in every way. she loves herself. 

 the reason she's so rude and snarky in the books is because it makes all of the magical moments all the more magical, especially when she's telling stories to jane and michael or helping them. mary is rude, vain, stern, firm, and snarky, yes, but that makes those moments where her voice goes soft and her eyes get distant and she looks off and she calmly tells jane and michael the story of the red calf or the story of the cat who looked at the king or the stupid king, all the more sentimental. mary poppins is closed off, cold. "but nobody ever knew what mary poppins felt about it, for mary poppins never told anybody anything." she is only soft in the moments that matter. when dancing with the sun, when under the sea with the terrapin, when conversing with the hamadryad. she is soft in those moments. she was never meant to be "wonderful". she was meant to be "magical". which she was.

 to conclude this rant, please don't watch the movie and then shit on the book. the book was first, first of all, and it pulls off the character of mary poppins fantastically. travers' depiction of her, in my opinion, is the only correct one. but i'm not here to shit on julie andrews- i loved hers as well, even if it wasn't accurate. i'm just here to say that the book was good, and don't be upset that the real mary poppins doesn't fit sugary-sweet julie andrews just because it's the only one you've seen.

oh and yeah michael and jane are little shits at times so.

Mary Poppins Book Review

just cause I’ve been moaning a heck of a lot while reading this book to the people unfortunate enough to work with me and sometimes need to listen to what I say, I thought I’d try and get all the complaints out here, before I start the second book. And hey, it’s been years since I wrote anything resembling a book review too, so let’s have a go!

Straight off the bat, I did not enjoy the book very much really, besides a couple of chapters, it honestly felt at times like Travers didn’t actually know the characters she was writing about. Even if the practically perfect measurement hasn’t happened yet, and I’m curious when that bit from the film will appear or to find out if it came only from the film, I cannot at all think of Mary Poppins from the book as perfect at all. 

The only way any reader would believe she’s as wonderful as she is apparently meant to be is from the reactions of the characters around her, because frankly, there is not one description that I can now recall of her acting cheerfully, or nicely except for the single chapter where she has an afternoon off and visits Bert. Every description outside of that is of her being haughty, cross, or admiring herself in windows.

In fact the only time she seems to be at all gentle with Jane and Michael is towards Michael after leaving her magical compass out when he’s been misbehaving all day and he effectively traumatises himself with it.

Speaking of that day, has anyone Anyone ever woken up and just decided to be bad all day? Like intentionally done that? because I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that or seen someone do so, but apparently that’s what Michael does for that chapter. I could not believe or even invest a little in the entire chapter because it just felt forced. For goodness sake, have a character be in a bad mood, and act out because of that, but not just decide their going to be bad deliberately. Some of how he acted did seem to just be bad mood actions but the rest seemed to be mischievous boy playing in ways adults don’t like but since everything was supposedly from his view, none of it worked, it was all the same, all cruelty I find extremely hard to believe even a Michael having a bad day would do from how he acts in the rest of the book.

Frankly with that chapter and how a lot of the children’s characterisations are, I can’t decide if Travers just doesn’t know how children act, if I’m too used to how modern children act, or if this is really how adults used to view kids, but whichever it is it definitely leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

One of the chapters I actually enjoyed was John and Barbara’s Story, because it was so charmingly written and definitely had the view of adults you receive when young, even if it was over a starling and Mary. Even that wasn’t done well, because one trope/idea I despise is that at a set age, or stage, children lose all knowledge and start learning something else and that’s exactly what happens with the babies. They can speak with everything until they turn 1 and get their teeth then suddenly forget it all, and for me that just seems absurd; have them forgetting bits of knowledge slowly as new things are learnt but not all at once.

Seriously, thing book reads like a lecture on how not to be liked, and I cannot empathise more with Mrs Brill when she says Mary Poppins has ‘A heart of stone’ at the end, because in this book is sure as hell seemed like she did.

[savvylittlecoxswain]

Following their win at the Olympic Trials, the boys had several days off. In the book it is described how they spent every afternoon they at an island owned by the New York Athletic Club called Huckleberry Island. Described in the The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, the island was “twelve acres of paradise,” with “small granite coves” and “stone ledges.” An environmental refuge, the boys found “they were in their element in a way they could never be in Manhattan for all its glitter and glamour.” The island was a taste of home and they adored it.

The boys would swim in the cool water and then laze about on the “warm flat slabs of granite.” They would horse around with one another or explore the island, but there wasn’t much else

And yet “Bobby Moch tried to organize activities, hustled the boys about, and got unceremoniously tackled and tossed in the water three or four times for his trouble.“

What activities? What could he have possibly wanted to organize? Trust me, I know all about making your own fun in the woods like I’m from BFE in the Midwest. But I feel like my answers are not what Bobby would have had in mind. If I could ask Bobby one question, it might just be ‘what activities?’

If you have any ideas, please let me know. I’m trying to come up with ideas to put in my current WIP for legitimate plot reasons.

[thestirringpot]

its so hard to compliment old people because i cant use tag tones and i have no idea how to explain 'its giving nice granny helps me draw' without sounding condescending :"(

[neil-gaiman]

hi neil! sorry to bother you with an ask you probably get a lot, but how do you make your writing captivating to read? I have a decent plot and some nice characters, but i feel like my writing is still very bland, and it's not doing the concept justice. there are a lot of books that are an absolute joy to read because of how wonderful the actual writing is, and i'm wondering how one goes about adding that element to their writing.

neil fans pls don't angry dm me like last time, that was really weird

A lot of it is experience. Do it enough and you will. As with anything— learning to play the piano, say — you are going to get more accomplished as you do it. That being said, some things you can learn. And one way to learn those things is to copy.

Find authors with recognisable and delightful styles, whose work you love, reread them and then try writing a paragraph in their style. Pretend to be Dickens or Ray Bradbury, PL Travers or e e cummings and see what happens. See what you do with words.

My first book (unpublished and not very good) doesn’t read like me at all. It reads like a weird mixture of Noel Langley and Hugh Lofting and Roald Dahl. But there is a page about 3/4 of the way through that reads just like me.

[fuckyeahilike]

TOP 25 MOST ICONIC LINES IN A NOVEL, ACCORDING TO BRITISH BOOK LOVERS:

1. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - 29%

2. 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.' 1984 by George Orwell - 24%

3. 'All children, except one, grow up.' Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie - 22%

4. 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien - 22%

5. 'Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K Rowling - 22%

6. 'It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.' Matilda by Roald Dahl - 21%

7. 'Thursday January 1st BANK HOLIDAY IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES These are my New Year's resolutions:

I will help the blind across the road

I will hang my trousers up

I will put the sleeves back on my records

I will not start smoking

I will stop squeezing my spots

I will be kind to the dog

I will help the poor and ignorant

After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.' Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend - 17%

8. 'I'm pretty much f**ked.' The Martian by Andy Weir - 16%

9. 'Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy…' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - 16%

10. 'James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami airport and thought about death.' Goldfinger by Ian Fleming - 16%

11. 'My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.' The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - 15%

12. 'When I think of my wife, I always think of the back of her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brain, trying to get answers.' Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - 15%

13. 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.' Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 15%

14. 'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.' Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger - 13%

15. 'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - 12%

16. 'January: An Exceptionally Bad Start. Sunday 1 January. 129 lbs (but post-Christmas), alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year), cigarettes 22, calories 5424.' Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding - 12%

17. 'As I sit here with one foot on either side of the ledge, looking down from twelve stories above the streets of Boston, I can't help but think about suicide.' It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover - 12%

18. 'Call me Ishmael.' Moby-Dick by Herman Melville - 11%

19. 'I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.' Breakfast at Tiffanys by Truman Capote - 11%

20. 'When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.' The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins - 11%

21. 'If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.' Mary Poppins by PL Travers - 11%

22. 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - 11%

23. 'You better not never tell nobody but God.' The Color Purple by Alice Walker - 10%

24. 'If you're going to read this, don't bother.' Choke by Chuck Palahniuk - 10%

25. 'I am an invisible man.' Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - 9%

<3