I enjoy a joke about fucked up German fairy tales as much as the next nerd, but it's genuinely striking how often the source for the really fucked up stuff turns out to be "yeah, this is only in the Brothers Grimm version and doesn't appear in any extant oral tradition, and we're like 80% sure they added it themselves". To a large extent it's not German fairy tales that are fucked up, it's two specific German dudes.
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āFor me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, āOf course.ā When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.ā
this was submitted as a one sentence horror story, but it feels like it could be an old jewish joke, like the one about the two rabbis proving g-d doesn't exist or the saying 'people plan, g-d laughs'
Even more, it sounds like the beginning -- the set-up -- of the joke. Canāt you hear Carl Reiner opening a bit with this line, or Shalom Aleichem using it to kick off a story?
Well I'm not quite an old Jewish man just yet, but let me give it a shot...
Losing confidence in Himself, G-d became an atheist. He decided to go down to Earth, to walk among humans and see how they found meaning.
He wandered the world until he came to a town, where he happened upon a pastor. "Come to our church this Sunday!" said the pastor. But G-d shook his head. "I don't believe in G-d anymore," he told the pastor sullenly. "And besides, I really shouldn't be working weekends." . . .
He continued wandering, and as night fell, he realized he had no money for a hotel. Walking down the darkening sidewalk, he passed many shivering folk, some young and thin, others old and worn and grizzle-bearded, looking not unlike himself. Just as the rain began to fall, he happened upon a priest. The priest looked him up and down, and said, "You look cold, my son. We're hosting a men's shelter at the church tonight; you can sleep there, and come to Mass tomorrow." This time G-d agreed. He slept well and was warm, and in the morning sat for Mass. They blessed him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but he felt beside himself and decided to leave.
By this time G-d was quite hungry. He stopped by a deli, but still had no money, so all he could do was watch the fresh steaming bagels be made. On a bench outside the deli, a man was eating a bagel with lox. As he finished eating, G-d noticed there were still some scraps of food on the waxpaper. Unable to help himself, he asked if he could have the scraps, before the man threw it away. "Please sir, I'm so hungry. I'd just like that crumb of bagel there, and that little shred of lox. I think I could make a bisl of fish last quite a while." The man shook his head. "I cannot in good conscience give you my trash," he said, "But come inside, I'll get you your own bagel. I'd offer to get you coffeeābut that's trash too."
So the man bought G-d some breakfast and sat with him on the bench. "Thank you so much," said G-d. "How can I ever repay you?" But the man just shrugged and said, "I'm a rabbi. Buying bagels I don't get to eat is part of the job description."
G-d thanked the rabbi again, and ate in silence. "Rabbi, can I ask you a question? I feel I haven't been on this Earth too long, but already I've seen much misery. How do you do it? How do you still believe in G-d?"
The rabbi pondered this. "I believe in joyful things. I believe in kindness, and people choosing to help each other. And isn't that a kind of godliness?" (G-d suspected there was a bit more to godliness than that, but he let it slide.) The rabbi continued: "I've prayed to G-d every day for the last 30 years, and I will every day til I die. And if He answers my prayers, all the better! But tell me, my new friend, what's your name?" G-d hesitated and said, "It's a little hard to pronounce..." The rabbi chuckled and said, "No matter. Say, it won't be anything like Shabbos dinner, but my wife is baking a delightful fig pie today, and I'd like to have you over for dinner to enjoy it." G-d nodded. "I do like figs..."
That evening, G-d sat for dinner with the rabbi, the rabbi's wife, and their four children. The meal was delicious, the rabbi's family was incredibly welcoming. Their conversation was friendly but never prying, and the children laughed and played with each other. Several times, the youngest child tugged on G-d's sleeve for his attention before her father motioned for her to go play with her siblings. G-d began to see what the rabbi had meant about the joyfulness of life.
At the end of the night, G-d stood up to leave, and felt renewed. The rabbi said, "My friend, don't leave us so soon!" And G-d replied, "I will always be with you, for I am the Lord Your G-d." And they understood it to be true.
He had done this sort of thing a few times before and generally knew how it went. As expected, the rabbi and his family fell to their knees, weeping with joy and awe. He did not expect the youngest child to walk right up and tug G-d's sleeve again. He smiled graciously down at her, and she looked up with the wonderful bright eyes of a child who understands nothing but the urge to play. In a high voice, she said, "Knock knock!" G-d couldn't help but laugh. "Who's there?" He replied cheerfully.
Suddenly from across the room, the rabbi swore loudly and rudely. Dismayed, G-d asked, "What troubles you?" He saw the rabbi was trembling, half in rage and half in embarrassment. "I'm sorry Lord! Thank you for this, thank you so much for gracing us with your light, Baruch Atah and so on, it's just..." The rabbi swore again. "Thirty years of daily prayer, Lord, and a KNOCK-KNOCK JOKE is what you'll answer?"
hey captain-acab, this is the highest compliment i can bestow: it would not have surprised me had i found that story in a book of traditional fables in the shul library
Look, someone has to be the first to make up any traditional Jewish story, why not @captain-acab? If we all keep telling it, then in a generation or two it'll be traditional.
If you could have one Shakespeare play done by the Muppets what would it be?
obviously a Midsummer Night's Dream, can you imagine? Kermit as Oberon, Miss Piggy as Titania, the non-fae characters are played by the only humans, when Bottom is transformed he physically becomes a muppet, Puck is naturally Gonzo with bonus Rizzo
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"I don't want to cook my chickens before they're hatched. wait. wait that's not the phrase is it. cooking your chickens before they hatch is just eggs. eggs is normal I think."
I really want to put the phrase "eggs is normal I think" on something now but idk what
My favorite headcannon I have going for LOTR right now is that the elves that are still around by the time Frodo gets on the scene are the elvish equivalent of doomsday preppers.
I forget where I read it, but I'm pretty sure that at some point there were millions of elves on Middle-earth, and by the end of the third age, it's down to a few thousand, aka a very small portion. These are the elves that got told way back in the first age, "Hey, just so you guys know, you're totally welcome to come back and live in heaven now without any worries" and responded, "No thanks, we're good!" and then proceeded to not only hold to that but survived the next 7.000 years of bullshit including but not limited to:
Multiple continents sinking into the sea
orcs
dragons
balrogs
multiple wars with Sauron, a literal divine being
The rise and fall of several human empires
more orcs
wargs
a bunch of their territory being overtaken and burned to the ground
And all of their loved ones either dying or sailing, even though we know that grief can and will kill an elf
Like, you can't tell me that third age elves start showing up in the undying lands, where everyone has spent the last few thousand years basking in the magical equivilant of free therapy and probably have as many defence measures as a suburban coldesac, and aren't viewed as the most feral, twitchy, paranoid mother fuckers; held together by suspicion, stubornness, and at least 25 contingencies for every situation they've collectively encountered during their time in Middle-earth.
My favorite examples of feral, hyper-vigilant behavior include:
Elrond: Security clearance; sure, Turgon may have threatened to kill anyone who tried to leave his hidden city, but he also took an entire army out of and back to the city at once, and then also didn't realize that his own nephew snitched on where the city was. His security protocols sucked. Meanwhile, Elrond had hundreds of strangers coming in and out of Rivendell for over 3,000 years, at one point completely surrounded by enemies and full of nothing but a bunch of refugees, and Sauron still never found it. You can't tell me that he didn't have at least 25 security checkpoints on the way into his city(sorry, house-that means it's private property, right?), even if you didn't know they were there.
Galadriel: Paranoia; This woman was magically keeping track of everyone she knew and even did it often enought that she knew what to look for of those she couldn't directly track (gandalf) and looking into their minds and testing them. All while having Sauron constantly clawing at the walls of her mind, at least for a few years
Thranduil: Spite; it was basically only his sheer audacity holding his nuclear bunker- cough cough- sorry, I meant vast underground halls together, while his next-door neighbor was some cursed ruins, a dragon-infested dwarf kingdom, and evil, man-eating, car-sized spiders on his front lawn.
Haldir: he blindfolded the fellowship when they tried to enter his city (super secret hideout), need I say more?
Multiple examples of groups of elves jumping out of trees fully armed and ambushing anyone who wanders into their territory. And while the characters seem surprised to be ambushed, they don't seem surprised that elves ambush people in general, leading me to believe this is normal behavior.
In summary, while the elves in the LOTR and the Hobbit seem all chill and fun, I like to imagine them as the crazy raccoons of the elvish family trees that wandered in 5 hours late.
If I might add, concerning Rivendell, in The Hobbit, Gandalf struggled to find a path there. He would have gotten there soon enough even without the aid of tra la la lally elves, but nonetheless, according to the elves, Gandalf and the company were a bit out of the way of the path.
Gandalf. Who has been to Rivendell a shitton of times, probably. Gandalf struggled to fimd his way in.
And in LotR, Elrond clearly controls Bruinen in a way to deter intruders
The siege of Rivendell by Witch-King's armies during wars with Angmar lasted 50 years. Rivendell is a house, not a fortress, and it lasted half a century.
Elrond has very successfuly barricaded Rivendell against enemies. He, cannonically, had the above mentioned 25 security checkpoints
#lotr#hobbit#silm#->#when you're singing tra la la lally no one pays attention to the fact that you've id'ed every single member of the group trying to get in#and have them covered by archers who can hit a mouse in the dark (@jaz-the-bard get peer reviewed!)
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Thank you!! Somehow I had completely forgotten that this post is over a decade old, lolā I was digging up a quote and then found it via this post and was like āhuh, this looks veryā¦ familiarā and realized I put it together, but not that it was that far back.
my friends held an intervention for me to "stop asking intimidately specific questions". i tried to explain that i am just a good listener but there is apparently "a line between follow-up questions during small talk and interrogation tactics that gets crossed sometimes". turns out my curious nature is "scaring the hoes"
when i asked for examples i was told that "do you think your tendency to show appreciation through restoration is part of a greater life philosophy or is that coincidental?" and "is your communication with allied forces satellite or radar based and is it vurnerable to cyber attacks?" are apparently "inappropriate questions to ask someone you just met at a club". but i disagree. as if you wouldn't be a little bit curious about the answer? yeah that's what i thought
[ID: question by anonymous: did they answer the question though ///end ID]
the navy officer i asked about cyber attacks did answer my question very thoroughly. he also answered other questions such as "when refueling on sea, which boat is the primary course holder?" and "would switching to another government branch affect your retirement benefits?" and generally provided a lot of information over the course of a fascinating hour that as a former government employee myself i am pretty sure he should not have told me. but i also think he would have told me his social security number if i asked nicely (i didn't, I was busy learning about the tactical advantages of speedboats).
the guy obsessed with boat refurbishment that i asked about his tendency towards preservation gave me a really haunted look, said "holy fuck" and then after a moment of consideration "i think i am too drunk. i'm going home" and proceeded to leave. in my defense, it was well and truly meant as genuine curiosity and not as the attempt at psychological warfare it turned out to be. he unfortunately did not answer my question.
...he was also the catalyst for the intervention i received.
OP your friends are 100% wrong and āthat person at the bar who asks you the question that makes you rethink your whole life because they Actually Listenedā is a long, storied and honourable place in the pantheon of strangers you will meet. Sounds like youāre doing a bang up job, well done.
You said something in āSmithā which I hope I grasped, and there was a feeling almost of recognition. An odd feeling of grief overcame me when I read it. I cannot explain my feelings any clearer. It was like hearing a piece of music from way back, except that it was nearer poetry by Gravesā definition. Thank you very much for writing it.
Terry Pratchett, in a letter to J. R. R. Tolkien, 22 November 1967
Thank you very much for your letter. The first one that I have received with regard to Smith of Wootton Major. You evidently feel about the story very much as I do myself. I can hardly say more.
J. R. R. Tolkien, in reply to Pratchettās letter, 24 November 1967
And he did in fact say on at least one occasion that it was this that pushed him to always engage with his own fans in the same kind and conscientious manner.
I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it
I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally
First thought: animals aren't smart enough; humans can only no-thoughts-just-panic use magic if it's something they've practiced enough for it to be something they can do instinctively.
Second thought: "electricity" is also a primal force, but you don't see animals harnessing it to make heating lamps.
Third thought: a fire-manipulating lion would be absolutely BADASS, there SHOULD be animals that use magic in fantasy.
Fourth thought: ...but if let's say it's difficult to learn just from experience, then only older wild animals are likely to be able to reliably do any magic, which would then make them more likely to survive thus learn even more magic.
Fifth thought: OLD CANNY MONSTER ANIMALS THAT CAN USE MAGIC. DOMESTIC ANIMALS THAT ARE TAUGHT MAGIC AS PART OF THE TRAINING FOR THEIR PURPOSE.
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My recent post speculating on Glaurung with the ability to mimic voices has me once again thinking about just how terrifying of a villain he is
Heās something so much worse than just a dragon.
Indeed most descriptions of him call him a spirit or creature in the form of a dragon, an ominous ambiguity similar to descriptions of Ungoliant as taking the form of a spider.
Glaurung is capable of both catastrophic, widespread violence and destruction, as well as devastatingly personal annihilation.
He can warp minds and steal memories and make you wander for weeks all while thinking your journey was your own idea. He can make your friends appear as hated enemies and your family appear as corpses.
He can eat you of course but he can also lure you into constructing your own finely woven trap.
His very presence, his very breath, can wrap a land in disorienting mists and hazes for months
He can imbue rivers and springs with a terrible madness, rendering them worse than poison.
And, despite being a creature of such incredible power, just like his master, he can hold a grudge that is so terribly, cruelly human. He can remember your face, your voice, your mind, among tens of thousands of victims.
(Note: I have a separate post about the cultural loss present in Glaurungās theft of memories so I didnāt go into that here but thatās something I think about a lot too)
ā¦..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment
likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post
the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like.Ā
