I’m upset because I want to change the world but the world is too big and people are too mean
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” – Rabbi Tarfon
I was in a mall with my friend and then suddenly his watch started beeping and I asked him why he had an alarm set for 3:00 and he told me that it was because it was Wendy’s time. Immediately after, we found a Wendy’s and when we walked in, all the employees were chanting “Wendy’s time” and it sure was something.
sometimes i worry about the people on this website and their weird experiences and then i notice their username
sometimes i worry about my willingness to shrug off stories like that like “eh it’s wendy’s, weird shit happens there”
The Fair Folk: “I can’t believe this. Twenty years I’ve cleaned your house and you DARE to try to REPAY me with GIFTS. This is such an insult. Fuck you, you insolent humans. I’m leaving here and never returning because you have insulted me so deeply.”
Also the Fair Folk: “Remember that one time you pulled a thorn out of a cat’s foot? That was me. To show my gratitude, here is a house made of solid gold, a life-debt, my daughter’s hand in marriage, and a promise that all your children will be gorgeous and successful at all that they do. I can also throw in a blow job if you want. I hope this is enough. I don’t want to seem ungrateful.”
The year is 2042. Your daughter is awkwardly silent as she eats her dinner. “Something wrong sweetie?” She sighs and puts down her fork. “I was digging really deep in AO3 last night…Why didn’t you finish that coffee shop au?” It happened. Your past has come back to haunt you. Nay, it never truly left.
U CANNOT OUTRUN UR CRIME
OKAY BUT WAIT. This has happened to me. Recently. Because I am old and I have things out there from previous fandoms with previous pseuds and one day my teenager begins a rant at me about people never finishing any WIPs on the pit of voles (which he does not call the pit of voles because he has No Knowledge of such a thing but yet he still reads on which I didn’t think anyone did any longer) and he points out an example to me of something I WROTE AND LEFT WIPing for ages and he has NO IDEA #1 that his mom wrote this and #2 How much it still haunts me to this day that it will. sit. there. for. eternity. because I am too lazy to pull it down.
Sometimes being an adult is basically like being both a very young child and that child’s parent simultaneously. Like “Okay, if you go buy toilet paper you can get ONE TREAT.”
Would you like to read a book in which this happens?
It’s one of my all-time favorite books. It’s called Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. He describes it as an “progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable.”
It is written in the form of letters between the citizens of the fictional island of Nollop, an independent nation off the coast of South Carolina and home of Nevin Nollop, who invented the phrase “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” That phrase is written in tiles over a statue of Nollop in their town square, and when one night a storm causes one of the tiles to fall, the council decides that it’s a sign from Nollop that they are no longer allowed to use that letter, in speech or writing, on pain of progressive punishments including public beating and up to banishment.
Then another tile falls. Then another.
The citizens, who are all very attached to their words and writing, mount a campaign to come up with a phrase that uses all 26 letters but is shorter than Nollop’s, thus proving that he was not divine and negating all the edicts.
Because the novel is told in the form of letters the citizens write, and this is the genius part…the author must also stop using the letters as they fall. So the book gradually stops using letters until at one point I think they’re down to just five.
The resolution literally made me get up and dance around the room.
It’s clever, creative, and a not-really-veiled-at-all parable about monotheistic oligarchy. It’s not a long book, you can read it in an afternoon.
GO READ IT RIGHT NOW.
WOW I want to read that book
Very rarely is there a book that I must read at any cost This is now one of them
Note: locate book
I actually bought this book because of this post and let me tell you, it was a fucking great decision. Besides having a brilliant concept, it’s also so well written that in the beginning you don’t even notice when another letter is removed. There was one part I had to re-read because I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a single ‘d’ in the last five pages. Seriously, this book is fantastic
I had to read this for high school and I loved it. I have no idea where my copy went though 😦
I’ve owned 5 copies of Ella Minnow Pea because the people I’ve loaned it out to have refused to part with it, ha. Ended up investing in a copy for the Kindle where it’ll always be safe. But yes, it is a very cleverly written book!
just moving along like everyone else 