ETA: What follows takes on extra resonance with the news reported in the post below.
************
Just when you thought the ammosexuals couldn’t get any creepier, they do:
The world of make-believe can be a scary place, but never fear: Thanks to a series of reimagined fairy tales published online by the National Rifle Association, classic characters like Hansel and Gretel are now packing heat…
In the N.R.A. version, Little Red Riding Hood set off through the forest to visit her grandmother, just like in the original. But the Big Bad Wolf did not scare her this time, because she “felt the reassuring weight of the rifle on her shoulder.”
Grandma’s got a shotgun, Hansel and Gretal round up an armed posse to take care of the witch and….
The NRA says this is all about making fairy tales less scary, and teaching gun safety. (After all, H & G go tell grownups when they spot danger!) Others see a different motive:
“The intent here is to create future customers” for the gun industry, said Mr. Everitt. “I think it is wholly a marketing thing.”
Sounds right to me. As we await the next tale in the series — “The Three Little Pigs, with guns…” — I reflect: nothing says childhood like 125 grains of hot lead traveling at 1700 feet/second.
I f**king hate these folks.
*Not quite as honest Abe put it, but close.
Arthur Rackham, Little Red Riding Hood, 1909
dedc79
The bigger I laugh, the harder i cry
redshirt
Snow White could have solved a lot of problems much more quickly if she was packing.
Iowa Old Lady
These packing fairy tales are so stupid I can’t stand it. The gun actually ruins the point of most of the stories anyway.
Feudalism Now!
But why isn’t the Big Bad Wolf packing heat? Or do they cover Little Red Riding Hood accidentally shooting her Grandma, thinking she was the wolf in disguise?
raven
I’ll post it here too:
UPDATE: The Secret Service, at least, has not been persuaded by the logic of a petition asking that guns be allowed into the Republican National Convention in July.
Damn!
redshirt
I’ve watched the series a ton but I can’t recall if Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever used a gun. I know guns can’t necessarily kill vampires, but they certainly slow them down. And what about vampire’s rights to own guns?
Randy P
It’s been pointed out elsewhere that James Thurber already did a Red Riding Hood with guns. So it’s not even original. Of course, Thurber’s intent was satire.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: Those specific Treasury dudes are no fun and clearly no longer love me. ::pouts::
Misterpuff
OT: Tweety continues to flog Kasich’s soon to be expired horse. Gives him 10 minutes and only talks process. Kasich spreads his reasonable Conservative BS and not once in three or four interviews with him has Tweety asked about women’s issues, i.e. the right to choose or even PP.
Maybe he doesn’t care.
His wife is running for Congess in MD, what are her views on that topic?
Roger Moore
We all know that the real NRA fairy tale is “The Big Bad Obama Who’s Coming For Your Guns”.
Anoniminous
@Randy P:
And here it is:
sharl
Totally stolen from SCTV! Alas, yanked from You-Tube (again), but here’s a synopsis:
~
This summary doesn’t do the bit justice. G. Gordon Liddy (Dave Thomas) lovingly describes each of the firearms used as Mrs. Falbo, Mr. Messenger, and Liddy conduct a full-on blazing assault on the Three Bears’ house.
ETA: And of course, Liddy – with black mustache and yellow wig – was Goldilocks.
raven
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs -Little Red Riding Hood
redshirt
Goldilocks should have been shot dead as the home intruder she was. EAT MY PORRIDGE WILL YOU?!
Tom Levenson
@raven: Thanks. A not-quite-lost classic.
Anoniminous
More Thurber.
Because.
Iowa Old Lady
@redshirt: Wouldn’t you think a bears’ house would smell kind of funky? Really, what was Goldilocks thinking?
raven
@Tom Levenson: Talk about a sleeper
Duane Allman & Sam Samudio Going Upstairs
Bill E Pilgrim
It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train full of clowns to cry.
scav
@efgoldman: Course they couldn’t put humpty back together again. King’s horses and king’s men over-reach with their king Obamacare!
Villago Delenda Est
1. The NRA is a terrorist organization
2. These people love their guns much, much more than their own children.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@redshirt:
Not in the TV series, but in the comics that make up Seasons 8-10, a number of the slayers do. Buffy, though, doesn’t warm up to them.
Cermet
@efgoldman:
And don’t forget Christ took out his sub-machine gun and killed all the soldiers and that, little boys and girls is why their are no christians in the world …
raven
Tennessee man who interrupted Congress last year was shot by U.S. Capitol police inside the building’s visitor’s center Monday afternoon.
Larry Russell Dawson, a minister, was armed with a pellet gun when he was shot, NBC News reports. Capitol Police said he appeared to be drawing his weapon when he was shot.
Major Major Major Major
I’d read a version of Der Jude im Dorn where they give ‘The Jew’ a gun.
(Oh, you’ve never heard of that one?)
Bill E Pilgrim
Gary Larson got there first, as usual.
Preemptively satired.
redshirt
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: For Buffy, the comics don’t count.
I know there were guns on Angel, but that wasn’t a fairy tale based show either.
Ultraviolet Thunder
The popular phrase around the office is “Constitutional carry” this and “Constitutional carry” that. Tacking the 2nd Amendment to whatever the hell they feel like doing with their firearms.
One of these days I’ll start asking how things are going with their militias. After all, it’s in the same damn SENTENCE as ‘shall not be infringed’.
joel hanes
Props for the Arthur Rackham illustration, who used to be everwhere, but is now too seldom seen.
His trees and witches are the very soul of Hallowe’en
Ohio Mom
I think the gun industry went wrong when they didn’t adopt planned obselence as an MO. If you take care of a gun, it will last longer than you do, and the next generation will inherit it.
Compare this to say, washing machines. We’ve lived in this house 15 years. It came with a washer that died after a few years, the next one didn’t last ten. Now on washer number three.
There is simply not that level of turnover in guns. The market is saturated. Pun intended, gun manufacturers shot themselves in the foot when they didn’t design their products to break after a limited number of uses.
pseudonymous in nc
Roald Dahl also had a version of a heat-packing Red Riding Hood that was better and funnier.
Iowa Old Lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I left a review on Amazon, TTP. I used a different pseudonym, Avid Reader, I think. Amazon sometimes removes reviews if they find links between the writer and reviewer on social media, so I hope they don’t mess with this one.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Ohio Mom:
True. I stand to inherit my father’s, grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s guns, going back to the 19th century.
But all of that firepower didn’t stop them from buying more. Strictly for hunting in this case. Locked up separately from the ammo.
WereBear
I loathe this post-irony age.
pseudonymous in nc
@Ohio Mom:
Hmm. The gun peddlers are marketing to the ‘tactical’ gun fondler who wants MOAR gunz and MOAR shit to attach to guns. The social misfit male with the personal armory, not the family heirloom rifle.
Troublesome Carp fka Geeno
@raven: As I said in the last thread: Man, oh, Manischewitz, THAT would’ve been some must see TV right there.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: love Rackham. His Wagner drawings especially.
NotMax
Most fairy tales would boil down to a single sentence.
“Eat hot lead, step-parent!”
Enhanced Voting Techinques
It hasn’t happened until they start dressing like Conery in Zardoz.
SiubhanDuinne
@Misterpuff:
I definitely want the right to PP, and my right — nay, my obligation — to PP asserts itself most vigorously every night around 3:00 a.m.!
Jay S
@raven: Maybe the delegates could boycott the convention. March around with their peace-keepers until the feds relent? Shut ‘er down until they git ‘er done.
smith
@pseudonymous in nc:
Yep. The percentage of households with guns is actually going down, so they either need to push the nuts to expand their arsenals or find new customers. The latter is the likely aim of the fairy tales, but nobody but pre-existing gun nuts is going to show those to their kids anyway, so the effort will probably be a wash.
debbie
This is just so freaking sick.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Iowa Old Lady: Thanks. As I said last night, once I’m caught up on the comics that redshift says don’t count, Finders Keepers is close to the top of my list.
Iowa Old Lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That’s kind of you.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
I don’t know which specific stories have been rewritten, but weren’t the parents or step-parents the bad guys in more than a few fairy tales? Unintended consequences…
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
“So Prince Charming gave Sleeping Beauy a kiss, and she came bolt awake, grabbed her shotgun from under her pillow, and shot the Prince in the face.”
*************
“‘Off with her head!’ roared the Queen of Hearts. So Alice reached into the rabbit-hole, grabbed her shotgun, and shot the Queen in the face.”
*************
“‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,’ ordered the crone. So Rapunzel unbound her hair, braided it into a thick rope, and lowered it to the ground. The old witch climbed up to Rapunzel’s tower, whereupon Rapunzel grabbed her shotgun and shot the old hag in the face.”
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: Yes. You wonder about the bedtime discussions of those episodes.
debbie
@efgoldman:
@SiubhanDuinne:
They need to bring Fractured Fairytales back!
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: Yes! Was that Rocky and Bullwinkle?
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yes, along with Sherman, Peabody, and the Way Back Machine!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Iowa Old Lady: We’ll see how it goes. I’m not usually a big fan of YA, though there have certainly been some exceptions.
I’m also trying to figure out if “New Adult” has simply replaced “Coming of Age” as a genre descriptor, or if it’s more tied to romance. For the moment, I’m listing that as the genre for Becoming Phoebe, but I’m not sure I have it right.
redshirt
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I’m a comics fan, obviously, but a comic book continuation of a tv show is not the same thing. It can’t be compared at the same level as the TV show. Buffy cannon is seasons 1-7 and Angel seasons 1-5. Everything else is lesser cannon.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
O/T, but I get periodic emails from Amazon calling my attention to books they think I’d like to read, and this morning Becoming Phoebe was among their recommendations! I was thrilled to see it, and will download it to my Kindle app this evening (although I must tell you, I have a huge backlog of reading in my queue, and an actual paying job to complete, so I may not get to it right away).
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yes, it was every kid’s introduction to Edward Everett Horton, or at least his vocal talents.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
Me too!!
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Yes!
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yes!
Iowa Old Lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: New Adult is a mystery to me. I think you’re there with an MC who’s mostly college age though.
JaneE
If more guns make you safer, why isn’t the United States one of the safest places on earth? It is actually far safer than the gun nuts would have you believe, but we still have a better chance of being shot on the streets than most countries not openly at war, civil or otherwise.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Stoopid antecedents.
Bill E Pilgrim
@WereBear:
The age when you don’t have to iron any more? AKA retirement?
boatboy_srq
Reposting this from elsewhere:
Does the “Little Red Riding Hood” rewrite include the moment when Grandma, escorting Red safely back to her parents, accidentally shoots Red and has to watch her bleed to death on the wooded path? Oh, right, this is fantasy: all the good characters always follow proper gun safety practices. But then, once the two were out of danger, wouldn’t she follow best practices and unload the shotgun? Oh, right: this is fantasy: who knows what other evil beasties lurk between Grandma’s and home, so she needs to remain vigilant for stranger danger or carnivorous beavers or abusive grandchildren or wandering Other People™ up to no good.
The Dangerman
What’s this I hear that the FBI was able to hack the San Bernardino phone? Shock me to the core.
Lesson, everything is hackable.
Bill E Pilgrim
“Then the three little pigs were disarmed, arrested, and locked up so they could never threaten decent people again”.
The secret to these things is getting the ending right. Then they’re sort of okay.
SiubhanDuinne
The only thing that can stop a bad wolf/bear/witch/stepmother with a gun is a good wolf/bear/witch/stepmother with a gun.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: And Glinda asked, “Are you a good witch with a gun, or a bad witch with a gun?”
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@SiubhanDuinne: Great! I hope you read it and enjoy it, but knowing that it’s starting to percolate up through the algorithms is wonderful. I would bet that this instance mostly involves the system tracking Balloon Juice denizens who have ordered other books written by BJ denizens, but it’s a start.
Matt McIrvin
@boatboy_srq: Grandma and Red get swallowed alive by the wolf, whereupon the kindly woodman attempts to rescue them by shooting the wolf, perforating both of them in the process.
jl
NRA better do at least as well as this version:
Red Riding Hood as told by Jonathan Winters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sha_CZ1KQ2M
trollhattan
It’s almost as though folks have forgotten about the delightful kids book, My Parents Open Carry.
trollhattan
@The Dangerman:
Yup, got the big ol’ “Never mind!” Litella moment.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@redshirt: I mostly don’t care whether something is canon. The only difference that makes is that I am fond of extended, character based soap operas, and if something isn’t canon, it doesn’t get built upon in that way. But official canonization doesn’t interest me at all.
Are the comic book stories the same as the TV show? Not really. I don’t think it’s as effective a medium for telling these stories, and they’ve made me appreciate the acting performances of some of the cast even more, especially Nicholas Brendon and Sarah Michelle Geller. But Season 8 was still great, and Season 9 damned good when it kept its focus. (I’ve just started Season 10.)
The only real downsides are that comic books are just fucking expensive, and there was a whole bunch of Angel material that you have to get through before you’ll really understand what’s going on in Season 8. I was never as much of a fan of Angel as I was Buffy (though most of Season 5 was brilliant), and After the Fall is an unholy mess.
Gravenstone
Ah, the cult of the gun. A somewhat related tale. We have an ammosexual at work (actually several, but this one is in my building) who brings in all his NRA propaganda magazines. Since I was bored at lunch today I thumbed through a copy of Guns and Ammo. One of the LTE was from someone who claimed they’d read a tale wherein a WWII era Japanese veteran responded to a question of why Japan didn’t simply invade us after Pearl Harbor, since “they caught us with our pants down”? Their supposed reply was that they worried about all the Americans with guns. Really? You were worried about the salt of the earth with their rifle or shotgun? Not the daunting logistics required to embark on an invasion across the fucking Pacific Ocean? I can only conclude that for some reason the Japanese gentleman (if there even was such an individual) felt compelled to spare the feelings of his inquisitor, because claiming to worry about a lightly armed general public is pure bullshit. But anything to mythologize the cult of the almighty murder enabling phallic symbol.
MD Rackham
@SiubhanDuinne:
So you’re inserting Dick Cheney as the heroine in the fairy tales too?
Gin & Tonic
@jl: That man was a genius.
ThresherK (GPad)
@sharl: I loved the credits to Mrs. Falbo’s Tiny Town, with the outsized John Candy in a jester outfit squeezing into a car and getting the bells on his hat ripped off in the door.
redshirt
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: All true, especially about the cost. It almost makes no sense to buy individual issues when you know they’ll be collected at a cheaper price down the line.
And the comics take of what happens after the Angel TV show is a perfect example of why I don’t like them. That show had the best ending of any TV show ever and it was literally perfect for its material.
Kathleen
@sharl: SCTV was the best. I had forgotten about Mrs. Falbo. Loved that show.
trollhattan
@Kathleen:
For whatever reason I’m recalling John Candy as host of “The Fishin’ Musician.”
“Today, we’re fishing with The Tubes!”
? Martin
@The Dangerman:
Well, the talk within the community is that an outside contractor did develop a novel way of unlocking the phone that they were willing to allow into the US legal system, so I suspect that part of it is true.
Once it’s unlocked, the FBI no longer had a case, so they almost certainly had to drop.
The real question then is why the FBI agreed to the contractors approach over continuing with the lawsuit. They had a choice here, and they chose the route that would guarantee the case would be dropped. If they only wanted the phone unlocked, why the public campaign against Apple? I think we have to assume that the FBIs lawyers determined they were going to lose after Apple’s last filing.
? Martin
@efgoldman:
That’s because none of them had a gun.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: So was he a faithful follower of brother John Birch and a member of the Antioch Baptist Church?
Kathleen
@trollhattan: Yes! And what was the name of his character that hosted the horror films and tried to hypnotize the viewer with a watch? (It’s hell being old).
SiubhanDuinne
@? Martin:
ZACKLY!!!
WereBear
@Enhanced Voting Techinques: Why did you put that in my head?
Now I’ll have to track down a Vermeer and gaze at it.
father pussbucket
Gonna float this one again:
Man loses leg shooting rifle at lawn mower packed with explosives
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan:
OMFG.
redshirt
@Kathleen: The Cryptkeeper?
Villago Delenda Est
@Gravenstone: Amateurs and dilettantes talk tactics.
Professionals talk logistics.
WereBear
@father pussbucket: I’m not looking until I ask: Was he in Florida?
WereBear
@WereBear: Georgia. Close enough.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: So I got picked to go to a ceremony at the Golden Dome tomorrow and it turns about Obama is going to be downtown! I hope I can get out of there before the shit comes down!
raven
@WereBear: Up to Munroe.
father pussbucket
@WereBear:
Sorry — somewhere in Georgia.
raven
@father pussbucket: Just up the road.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@redshirt: I think there could have been very good follow ons to Season 5 of Angel, and even that the basic premise of After the Fall had real potential, though it was still stuck with the problem that Angel was the least interesting character on his own show. The execution, though, was abysmal. The storyline was disjointed and it took me about 12 issues to be able to figure out what was going on. Then the ending blew yet another giant hole in the continuity of the Buffyverse. (I love what Joss Whedon does with characters, but he is one of the worst world builders I’ve ever seen if logic and consistency mean anything to you.)
It did do very interesting things with Illyria and Wesley, and there are two follow on miniseries of dubious canonality, Angel: Only Human and Illyria: Haunted that I like a lot. Despite the title, the first is entirely about Gunn and Illyria, with maybe one page of Angel right at the beginning, which, come to think of it, is probably one of the reasons it’s so good. The various Spike miniseries are much more hit and miss.
hamletta
@Kathleen: Dr. Tongue? Dr. Tongue’s 3-D House of [whatever]!
WereBear
@raven: Dang. I had no idea they sold explosives to shoot at.
And now that I do know, I am just baffled and aghast.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I also get annoyed by artists who don’t remember that Dawn is several inches taller than Buffy.
raven
@WereBear:
redshirt
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: The best follow on to season 5 of Angel would have been season 6 but Whedon (Wesleyan grad FYI) apparently wrecked that in a fit of hubris. That said, in retrospect, I’m not sure it’s for the worse. Such a sweet, sweet ending.
raven
Dumb motherfucker youtubed it!
sharl
@Kathleen: John Candy played Dr. Tongue in the movies featured in Monster Chiller Horror Theater, hosted by Count Floyd (Joe Flaherty). Who can forget “Dr. Tongue’s 3D House of Stewardesses” (Catherine O’Hara couldn’t keep from cracking up in that), or “Dr. Tongue’s 3D House of Pancakes”? “Blood Sucking Monkeys from West Mifflin PA” never quite made it to the air for some reason, after the big build up it got from Count Floyd.
And Count Floyd hawked the requisite 3D glasses in every episode, with the price fluctuating randomly and wildly from show-to-show.
There are a bunch of those on YouTube.
raven
jl
@efgoldman: Why does anyone need exploding targets for firearms practice? Honest question.
redshirt
@jl: Coolness factor?
trollhattan
@raven:
Can they at least change the name to Darwinite? Sheesh, I so don’t want to live anywhere near these maroons.
ArchTeryx
@father pussbucket: Isn’t this classic Southern, “Hold ma beer and watch this?” sort of hijinks?
It’s all fun and games until you dismember yourself.
dr. bloor
@jl:
Will Hayden wouldn’t have it any other way.
Kathleen
@redshirt: Boy was I off the farm. It wasn’t John Candy – I think it was Joe Flaherty’s Count Floyd, host of Monster Chiller Horror Theater. He also played Guy Caballero, the President and owner of SCTV.
Steve in the ATL
@raven:
Cool! Unless it’s one of those “Come collect your prize!”/actually get arrested for your outstanding warrant situations.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@redshirt: Yeah, Whedon has a ridiculous ego and it gets in the way of his work. You have to figure that, with his track record, one of the cable networks would likely have given him all the support he claimed that Fox didn’t provide to Firefly, but he only wanted to be on a broadcast network. It’s a shame, because, as much as I like his Avengers work, his best medium is clearly television, where he has a 22 episode window to really explore the characters and let plots develop slowly and with digressions.
dexwood
@raven:
Beer drinking patriots practicing, gettin’ ready for Red Dawn. Weasels!!! Now hold my beer.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Steve in the ATL: There are outstanding warrants on Obama?
Steve in the ATL
@jl:
Pretty sure there is no good answer to this question….
WereBear
@raven: Thanks. Very modern.
Steve in the ATL
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I was thinking raven might have warrants, but I’m sure Obama is going to be indicted any day now. Possibly for conspiracy with HRC in her plot to kill Vince Foster.
Kathleen
@hamletta: @sharl: Thank you! I knew John Candy was part of the Monster Chiller Horror Theater but I couldn’t remember his part. Thanks for the help and the links. I need to watch that show again. It was brilliant.
@redshirt Thank you for your help!
redshirt
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I don’t know that his ego is any larger than others on that stage but he made a bold choice to try and get Angel renewed early and it failed and it was on him. He accepts it. For his career and for Angel the show itself, it might have all been for the best.
But after not only directing Avengers but largely designing the MCU, he had a falling out with Marvel too and is likely done there. I’ll be interested to see where he goes now.
Kathleen
@Steve in the ATL: Yes, by sending him those guns disguised as emails.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Punchy
@raven: rhe guy was shot for drawing his weapon? Did he explain that he was an artist? Did he use banned watercolors? Was the charcoal hues too menacing?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hahaha.
No wonder Putin is ready for President Trump.
Amaranthine RBG
@Steve in the ATL:
I don’t think anyone “needs” them. But they sure are fun. We had to shoot apples and watermelons and canned goods from the dented and spoiled bin when I was a kid to see things explode when you hit them.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Steve in the ATL: I think all raven’s warrants got redeemed in the Nam.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Love it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kathleen: How bout those new guns Ingeniously designed to look like smartphones?
What could possibly go wrong?
John Revolta
@raven: Great synergy here with the SCTV stuff BTW.
“Wooo! Blowed up good, didn’t it?”
“Blowed up realgood!!”
Kropadope
@Iowa Old Lady:
That’s why guns are so awesome, they obviate the need for morals and other lessons.
Steeplejack (phone)
@trollhattan:
He went antiquing with the reggae group Third World.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman: Superb idea. I didn’t read closely enough to see what the anticipated release date is. Will you be selecting the prize?
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: It’s probably a vanishingly small minority of gun owners, but I, for one, can understand fetishisizing machined/engineered objects for the quality of their engineering, mechanical design or manufacture. There have been firearms I’ve thought about owning (although I don’t), and I do own some knives that most would consider stupidly expensive, some beautiful handmade corkscrews, that sort of thing. I appreciate really good metalwork, and I suspect something in a clean, minimalist handgun like an H&K VP9 or a Glock 17 would be an exemplar of industrial design.
I suspect most don’t think that way, though.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Canon, not cannon. Please.
opiejeanne
@Anoniminous: I love Thurber. A lot of his drawings survived because E.B. White fished them out of the wastebasket, inked over the faint pencil lines, and saved them.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Boom! Thanks for the correction.
Sincerely, can you explain when and where to use “Affect” versus “Effect”? Thanks in advance.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: Fucking thugs.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Julia Roberts.
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: Anybody can use “effect,” but you have to know what you’re doing to use “affect,” so if you don’t, don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: ‘Cuz the shitt done blows up. Obviously.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: But isn’t it cool that they’re both nouns as well as verbs, though one has a pronunciation clue to its status.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: Context, please.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I own a shotgun that my grandfather bought in 1921. It is beautiful piece of machinery. I shoot skeet with it every five years or so.
opiejeanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I read it; it’s good. Took me a while to get to it because Things.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I envy you. I never knew either grandfather and own nothing that belonged to them.
opiejeanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I just downloaded your book and will read it as soon as I wade through a couple of other books that I’ve already downloaded and haven’t started yet.
Looking forward to reading it.
Glad this came up during the discussion because I’ve been meaning to download it for a little while now.
John Revolta
@opiejeanne: White once found Thurber practicing drawing, putting in shadows and crosshatching and such, and told him “Don’t do that. If you ever got good you’d be mediocre”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I have been quite lucky. I knew two of my great-grandmothers and only lost my first grandparent (the 12 gauge owner) when I was 26. Lost the last one when I was 48.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman: Are you calling my good buddy Omnes as sissy? We may have some talkin to do, you and I.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I don’t keep ammunition in my apartment. No need for it.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I have a sword.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: What style?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t, and now I’m envious. Also, too – all I got from the grandfather I knew was an English accent as a young child. ::pouts::
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: This.
MaryRC
@Anoniminous: Thurber said that he got a lot of questions from puzzled readers as to what the first Mrs. Harris was doing on top of the bookcase. Did she stay there all the time? Had she died and had Mr. Harris had her stuffed? In fact he was trying to draw her crouching in a sinister manner at the top of the stairs but somehow the staircase turned into a bookcase and it seemed to be his custom to let his drawings turn out however they may. I think it makes the cartoon funnier this way.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack (phone):
Too, too perfect!
How I miss John Candy.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: I meant what style of sword. There’s a variety, or so I’ve read on the internet.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Click on the fucking link.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Gosh you swear a lot. It’s unbefitting, frankly.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Fuck you.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Shameful response. Especially for one of your position.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: My position? I comment on a blog.
Peale
It’s really a dillema. Do you hold a gun to Rumplestiltskin’s temple, are you asking for his name, or are you asking for the secret for spinning straw into gold? A gun certainly adds tension and complexity to the story.
redshirt
@Peale: Spin me some gold, ‘Skin. Said every elve slaver ever, right? Hashtag #spingold
No One You Know
@Gin & Tonic: I fell in love with a pen knife featuring a Damascened blade. As it was on my birthday, I bought it, but it’s too beautiful to use. I’ve no idea how I’d get it sharpened if I got into the habit of using it. Do you use your blades?
opiejeanne
@MaryRC: I remember reading that about Thurber and that drawing. Somewhere I have a copy of “Is Sex Really Necessary” which he and White co-authored. As a 20-something I thought it was very clever.
Kathleen
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Ammosexual Selfies on Twitter and Facebook. What could go wrong?
Paul in KY
@redshirt: If I was a vampire, I would be packing.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: They were definitely trying to warn the kids back then that you need to watch any step parents.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: That would be killer! Always have liked the Tubes. The Completion Backward Principle is a great album!
Paul in KY
@Kathleen: I’ll always remember The Cool Ghoul, who hosted some kind of horror movie show. Wiki tells me he was Dick Von Hoene. Blop Bleah!!!!
Paul in KY
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Anyone who buys one of those should have a forehead tattoo: Certified Dumbass.
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: Both my grandfathers died before I was born. Also have nothing that belonged to them.
Peter VE
I look forward to the three bears shooting Goldilocks in self defense after she broke into their house.