the garden of madeline

TODAY'S PAPER

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WHAT THE CAVES ARE TRYING TO TELL US

by sam kriss

Every so often, I get the urge to drag someone into a cave, and show them something unspeakable.

The urge grabs me suddenly — in the middle of a conversation, for instance, when someone airily remarks that humans are just naturally competitive, or starts talking about social dynamics in terms of mate selection and maximum utility, or sometimes when they just say that words have meanings.

I feel it when I read about diets or workouts that are supposed to replicate the diets and experiences of healthy peak-performance prehistoric humanity.

I felt it most of all a few weeks ago, reading a blithe little jab in the now-infamous Google memo, in which the subsequently fired engineer James Damore remarks of the gender differences that apparently make women unable to properly use the computer that “they’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective.”

To the cave, take him to the cave.

Grab Damore by the scruff of his awful crew-neck white T-shirt, pull his twitching dangling body up the scrub and rocks of some remote hillside, and into the cave.

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WHY GANDALF NEVER MARRIED

by Terry Pratchett, 1985 talk

I want to talk about magic, how magic is portrayed in fantasy, how fantasy literature has in fact contributed to a very distinct image of magic, and perhaps most importantly how the Western world in general has come to accept a very precise and extremely suspect image of magic users.

I'd better say at the start that I don't actually believe in magic any more than I believe in astrology, because I'm a Taurean and we don't go in for all that weirdo occult stuff.

But a couple of years ago I wrote a book called The Colour of Magic. It had some boffo laughs. It was an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns. It was also my tribute to twenty-five years of fantasy reading, which started when I was thirteen and read Lord of the Rings in 25 hours. That damn book was a halfbrick in the path of the bicycle of my life. I started reading fantasy books at the kind of speed you can only manage in your early teens. I panted for the stuff.

I had a deprived childhood, you see. I had lots of other kids to play with and my parents bought me outdoor toys and refused to ill-treat me, so it never occurred to me to seek solitary consolation with a good book.

Then Tolkien changed all that. I went mad for fantasy. Comics, boring Norse sagas, even more boring Victorian fantasy ... I'd better explain to younger listeners that in those days fantasy was not available in every toyshop and bookstall, it was really a bit like sex: you didn't know where to get the really dirty books, so all you could do was paw hopefully through Amateur Photography magazines looking for artistic nudes.

When I couldn't get it -- heroic fantasy, I mean, not sex -- I hung around the children's section in the public libraries, trying to lure books about dragons and elves to come home with me. I even bought and read all the Narnia books in one go, which was bit like a surfeit of Communion wafers. I didn't care any more.

Eventually the authorities caught up with me and kept me in a dark room with small doses of science fiction until I broke the habit and now I can walk past a book with a dragon on the cover and my hands hardly sweat at all.

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5 Times The Animatronic Fox On Splash Mountain Addressed Me By Name And Told Me He Was Going To Marry My Dad

by clickhole

I recently went on vacation to Disney World with my family. It was a lot of fun until I went on Splash Mountain.

There are a lot of animatronic animals on that ride that sing and dance before you go over a big drop at the end, and although most of these robotic animals are wonderful to watch as you float down the river, there was an animatronic fox that started addressing me by name halfway through the ride. He told me that he was going to marry my dad. He did that five times.

1. The Time The Animatronic Fox Made Eye Contact With Me

I was riding Splash Mountain, and the animatronic fox was doing his preprogrammed speech about how he wanted to catch the animatronic rabbit. The fox said, “Now’s our chance to set a trap for Br’er Rabbit!” Then it turned and looked me right in the eyes and said, “I’m going to marry your dad, Ryan.”

Then the fox leaned in real close to my face, which I’m pretty sure it was not programmed to do, and he said, “Call me ‘Mrs. Dad,’ Ryan. I’m going to be your dad’s bride at his wedding.” Before he could say anything else, I had floated away from him to enjoy the rest of the magic of Splash Mountain.

2. The Time The Animatronic Fox Kept Talking About How Long The Wedding Would Take When He Married My Dad

The big drop at the end of Splash Mountain was so fun that I decided to get back in line and ride it again. I was having a blast listening to all the robotic animals sing and move around until the animatronic fox once again turned to me as I floated past. It started to say, “You sure done made a fool of yourself, Br’er Bear!” but about halfway through the line he trailed off, turned around, and said,

“Welcome back, Ryan. I’m going to marry your religious dad and the wedding is going to take forever. Everyone’s going to talk so slow and your dad and I are going to kiss 100 times. Your dad is going to get down on his knees and thank Christ for making his wedding to the robot fox take so long.” I tried to tell the robotic fox that I didn’t want that to happen, but I had already floated away from him.

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STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES

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