Posts Tagged ‘video’

Over on the YouTube, my obsessive butt has pretty much all of Pratchett’s various talks and suchlike from the conference. The bit above might be my favorite, and it’s from his long discussion on the 2nd day of the Con.

Here he’s talking about his first (successful) trip to the US, when he was finally starting to catch on. At that point, Doubleday had just moved into 666 5th Ave in NY and there was quite the issue about the physical address of the building, leading Pratchett to exclaim “you’re all a bunch of religious loonies!” and then to one of my favorite quotes ever. It reads well enough, but you’ve got to listen to him.

Having been told that several of the publishing house’s religious writers quit because they didn’t want to be connected with such an ‘evil’ address:

That’s rather dismaying, isn’t it?

I’m a humanist, I think. And the power of the Lord cannot be that good if it can be defeated by a few hundred yards of neon tubing.

As you can see, the Alzeheimer’s is really biting deep.

Just love the man.

I’ve always been a huge Gaiman fan. He’s both softened and sharpened himself since he became a grown up and had his kids. He just seems a genuinely decent sort. Anyway, I guess I’m feeling mushy on a humid Sunday afternoon, so here’s Gaiman reading one of his poems, “Instructions,” about how to behave if you find yourself in a fairy tale.

My favorite verse:
Walk through the house. Take nothing. Eat nothing.
However, if any creature tells you that it hungers,
feed it.
If it tells you that it is dirty,
clean it.
If it cries to you that it hurts,
if you can,
ease its pain.