The Secret English Major

I was a little nervous. I'd loved Gaiman's work for a long time, and had dithered over which books I wanted him to sign as the limit was two. Eventually, I settled on Stardust and Fragile Things - as it was the Fragile Things tour (if I remember correctly), and Stardust had a special place in my heart.

As soon as I stepped inside, I realised there was absolutely no reason to be nervous. There was this chilled out, completely at ease guy with a leather jacket and curly hair. He smiled at his fans. He actually talked to them, and was actually interested in what they had to say, not wanting to hurry them along. I took a (very bad) picture while he signed someone else's book.

Then came my turn, and my nerves completely vanished. He asked for my name, and I spelled it for him as Richelle is quite unusual.

"That's a really cool name," he said, "Where did your parents get that from?" I explained it was my aunt's middle name. "What does it mean?" He asked. I told him I didnt know, but that it was the French feminine of Richard, after my great grandad.

"Ah, that makes sense, with the Ri..."

He signed both books, and drew me some lovely little doodles. ("I drew a cracked heart for you.")

(I don't have a good enough memory to remember this so clearly by the way, but I blogged about it immediately when I left the shop, and I've been able to refer back to it)

What a lovely man, I thought.

A few months later, I went to a Terry Pratchett book signing during his tour for Making Money. Again in Forbidden Planet, there was a two book limit, and as I'd already promised a friend in the USA a signed copy of Making Money, that meant I had one book for myself. Then I remembered Good Omens, and kicked myself for not thinking of bringing it to the Gaiman tour a few months before. Oh well, I thought, there's always next time.

The first thing I saw of Terry was his hat. Then I noticed his laugh, which was very infectious. He signed Making Money, dedicated to my friend, and then he spied my copy of Good Omens. "Ah, this old thing." He grinned and signed away. I saw the dedication and laughed, and stepped away, feeling like he knew something I didn't.

That's that, I thought, I'll wait for another Gaiman signing.

I had to wait a little while, as it turns out, until his signing for The Ocean at the End of the Lane in Ely cathedral in 2013. This time, I wasn't so lucky. My friend and I drove from London to Cambridge, and there was an accident on the way. By the time we got there, there were hundreds upon hundreds of people in front of us.

This signing also included a talk, and Gaiman spoke about his childhood, his experiences as an author and answered lots of questions. He also read a passage of his book, Fortunately, the Milk, and the audience were in hysterics. Seriously, no matter how old you are, you'll love that book.

We queued up to sign in the order we arrived, and we queued for a long time. The girl standing in front of my friend and I was obviously very excited, and she struck up conversation with us. She told us she was heavily dyslexic, but she'd read every single Neil Gaiman book. She enjoyed his work so much, that even though reading was difficult for her, she devoured his books and they made her love to read.

When it came to our turn, Neil had been signing for hours, it was late. He must have been tired. But he was still genial and pleasant to the people in front of us. The girl in front of us stepped up, and she was so overwhelmed, she couldn't speak properly as he signed her books. She was almost panicking, but she still managed to tell him about her dyslexia and despite it, her love of his books. Neil put down his pen, and spoke softly, kindly. "Would you like a hug?" She nodded, and laughed and cried and hugged him so tightly.

When it came to my turn, I said he was very kind, and he smiled. He quickly signed my copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and then spied the next book I'd set on the table, open to the page where Terry had signed. His smile widened. "Ah," he said, dipping his pen in his ink, "I almost never get to finish this joke any more, as Terry no longer does signings."

He drew an asterisk next to where Terry had signed, drew an arrow to the bottom, and then finished the joke.

and she’s expecting this horrifying dark fortress but it’s actually sort of just a normal castle with big rose bushes and furniture that’s sometimes alive

and she thinks, i can work with this

and the beast comes out and he’s like don’t look at me i am a hideous monster and beauty’s like dude you’re like a talking tiger in a cape are you kidding you’re AWESOME can i pet you can i stroke your paws can you give me a ride

and he’s like what and she goes around the castle like okay we’ll put curtains here and expand the kitchen and this could be a really cute breakfast nook

and the beast is confused because isn’t she supposed to be terrified and hate him and he had all these intimidating speeches planned and he’s like uh aren’t you going to try to run away

and beauty’s all are you kidding this is a magic castle i’m going to live here forever

so they just sort of settle in together and one day beauty goes home for the weekend to visit her family and they’re all amazed that she’s alive and her sisters go WHY DIDN’T THE HUGE MONSTER EAT YOU TO DEATH and she’s like nahhh he’s basically just a big cat he’s kind of cute actually sometimes he plays with yarn when he thinks i’m not looking

and she explains how it’s really not that bad, all the dishes wash themselves and i get all these gorgeous dresses for free because the castle doesn’t know what else to do with them and yeah there are flowers everywhere but hey that’s his hobby y’know i’m not gonna discourage that man

and then one day while beauty’s re-alphabetizing her magic library and trying to decide where to put that enchanted mirror the beast comes up and he’s like hey so this is awkward but are you like………………………………..in love with me……?????????

and beauty’s like oh uh wow haha um sorry no you’re…sort of a tiger

and the beast is like thank goodness because if you were i’d have to turn back into a human and i’ve kind of gotten used to being a big lion thing with horns and the ability to speak english for some reason like why would i want to go back to being a spindly little man and then beauty laughs and she’s like okay well can you go catch us a wild boar for dinner, dear

and they end up getting married in the end just because it’s easier to explain that way, you know, a single lady ~~living alone with a man~~ even if he’s not actually a man, and that’s fine with them because beauty was never really into the whole boys and sex thing and the beast (whose name is jeff) is honestly more interested in his flowers

and whenever any of the other ladies in the village give her any shit beauty is just like, oh, you don’t like my crepes? well you know my husband, who is literally a tiger, loves them and then everyone leaves her alone, which is really all she ever wanted

and she goes back to her magic castle and sits down with a book in front of the fire and rests her feet on her cat husband and nobody bothers her ever again

The absolutely delightful image of little old man Bilbo bossing the Rightful Heir to the Reunited Kingdom around, getting him to get stuff from high shelves for him and such

But this… This is something else.

The rapidity of a meme’s introduction to its zenith to its decline is so rapid that in ten years, you’ll need a damn twenty-page manual to explain this. It’ll be as unfunny and hard to explain as jokes in Shakespeare plays, except even more inexplicable because fuck, at least Shakespeare’s jokes are usually about anal or fucking your mother, good wholesome sex jokes we can all get behind.

ok let me see if i can break this down easily. YMCA is the easiest place to start - the song itself has become a meme over time with people changing the lyrics to reference other pop cultural events. so YMCA is meme one (1)

this first lyric replacement (”take the breadsticks and run”) is a reference to the tumblr meme ‘stuffing breadsticks into my purse’. i think everyone remembers that one so i wont bother to explain it. that’s meme two (2)

“man door hand hook car door” is a meme of its own, a creepypasta from i dont remember when. it was a terrible stupid retelling of the generic ‘stuck in a car while hook handed man tries to kill us’ story so the stupid title caught on for memorability. that in and of itself is meme three (3)

‘gun’ is… yeah i dont know how to explain gun. long story short you add gun to the end of a phrase instead of what you expect the last word to be. its shock funny. its everywhere but its popular to add to “man door hand hook car door” for.. some reason? gun is meme four (4)

and the thing is, this four meme combo is something thats gone around before. meme combos are, itself, a meme. which means taking this meme combo and mixing in another meme actually becomes meme five (5)

which leaves us at loss.jpg. loss.jpg was a terrible bad comic supposed to be about some tragic event, but it was presented so poorly literally no one takes it seriously, and for some reason recreating the four-panel setup has become popular. so thats meme six (6)

(tagged, ‘let’s stop making Sci have botfeels 2019)

“I’m sorry.”

DJ’s fingers brushed against the screen, lingering there against the line of text.  ‘My battery is low and it’s getting dark.’

But when he looked over at Tony, he was smiling.  “I’m not,” he said.  

Tony nodded.  “Wasn’t sure.  I mean-” He gestured at the mission logs, feeling inadequate.  “That’s it.  That’s the end.”

DJ nodded.  “Yes.”

Tony waited, but nothing else was forthcoming.  He took a deep breath.   “Do you want to-”  He shrugged.  “Talk about it?”

DJ thought about that, his head tipped to the side.  Finally, he said, “I think you do.”

“No, not really,” Tony said.  DJ just sat there, his expression quizzical. “It’s okay.  I just, I thought…”  Tony picked up a wrench, and put it down again.  “I thought, you know, it’s another bot, and I thought you might be-”  He wrestled with his thoughts trying to figure out how to say this without upsetting DJ.  “Unhappy.”

DJ blinked, slow and careful.  “Why?”

Tony paused.  “Because.  Because it’s another bot, and she-”  He stopped.  “It?  Because Opportunity was alone, and now she’s…”

His voice trailed away, and DJ smiled.  “Wasn’t alone,” he said at last.  “She could hear us, you know.  Could speak to us.”  He looked back at the screen, the angle of his cheek catching the light.  His eyes were bright.  “She knew we were there.  Waiting.  Listening.  Otherwise-”  His hand came up again, fingertips tracing over the lines of text, command and response, status updates and data overflow, until they trailed away into questions for which there was no reply.

“Otherwise,” he said, “she wouldn’t have been speaking.”  His head swung back to Tony.  “Would she?”

“Would she?” Tony asked.

DJ considered that, one foot twitching against the leg of his stool.  “Why do we tell stories?” he asked at last.  “To be heard?  Or because we need to tell?”

“It’s nice to be heard,” Tony said with a lopsided smile.

“Yes.  But we-” DJ gestured at his own head.  “Humans.  Make things in their heads.  All the time.  Don’t they?  Stories, for stories sake?  Thoughts, for thoughts sake?  No reason?  No audience.  Just-” He smiled, bright and brilliant.  “Because that is, what humans do.

“And that’s what Opportunity did.  She went where we sent her, and she told a story only she could tell.  She showed us things, she did things, she whispered, all this way, all this, this-” The words were stumbling over themselves now, tripping and falling off of his tongue.  “She wasn’t alone.  When you call me, when you’re somewhere else, somewhere far, and you call me, I’m not alone, am I?  As long as I can hear your voice, I know you’re there.”

He pulled up files, one after another.  Photos.  Analysis.  Images.  Maps.  “Phone.  Text.  Email.  Internet, all of it-” He leaned back on his stool.  “There was no one there, but everyone was there, everyone who heard, everyone who listened, everyone who waited.  She was not alone.  We were listening.  We heard.

“And we spoke back to her.  Maybe she didn’t hear.  Maybe she did.  But maybe-” He looked at Tony.  “Enough battery to hear, but not to respond.  Maybe, as her battery ran down, as the cold set in, she heard us calling.  She heard.  She knew.  We were there.

“None of us are alone.  Voices reach farther now.  Than they ever have.”

Tony nodded.  “Wanna build a spaceship?” he asked at last, and his throat hurt, his chest hurt.

“Yes.” DJ smiled at him.  “Someday, someone will go there.  Maybe us.  Maybe someone from-”  He shook his head.  “Somewhere else.  From outside.  Coming here.  And whoever goes there, whoever looks, they’ll find her.   She’s a monument, now.  She’s proof.  That we can do amazing things, when we try.  When we work together.  When we dream and work and-”

He blinked, and there were tears in his eyes.  “On another world, there stands a monument now.  A good one.  To exploration.  To bravery.  To everything we want to be.”

His hands flew in the air.  “Look how far we made it!” he yelled, his head tipped back.  “Look how far SHE made it!  Blazing a trail, and someone, someone someday WILL follow.”

He grinned, and a tear ran down his cheek.  “And, and, people are writing her goodbye letters.  And making art, thanking her, and her team, and seeing.  Learning all she did, and all she accomplished, and dreaming of what’s next, because she could do it, and so can we.  So she’s a monument to that, too, to how deeply, how easily-”

He stopped, scrubbing at his face with the heels of his hands.  The words, when they came, were muffled behind his fingers.  “We love things.”

Tony wrapped his arms around DJ, holding him tight.  “It’s not one of the smartest things our brains like to do, is it?” he asked, just to hear DJ laugh against his shoulder.  “This making friends with things that will leave us.  Will…  Die.”

“They told her, she’d live for ninety days,” DJ whispered.  “They gave her three months to do everything she could.”  His head tipped up.  “And she proved us wrong, didn’t she?”  He grinned, and tears ran down both cheeks.  “She did more.  Than they ever thought she could.”

“Fifteen years,” Tony agreed.

“Fifteen years,” DJ said.  “And work.  That will last forever.”

Tony leaned over, pressing a kiss to the top of DJ’s head.  “Still building a spaceship.”

I also know that Hallmark Channel, which is loosely associated (more because of fanbase than because of formal business dealings) with fundamentalist religious programming, is owned by Crown Media, which is part of a media/holding empire which also, weirdly, owns CRAYOLA CRAYONS. 

Hallmark movies are a media phenomenon which, inasmuch as I can, I’m interested in understanding – they are media by women for women, but also tied up in some weird hetero-cisgender programming, and the entire gestalt is a powerful operator in a politically conservative space. 

I got to thinking the other day about what a movie would look like where the protagonist wasn’t a man/young boy as the chosen one.  Hollywood talks a good game, but they keep giving us the same male-centric flicks.  So, imagine this …

Molly Garcia (Stephanie Beatriz) is a mom of three kids ages 8, 6, and 1 (the last was a celebratory baby after her husband Rick got a promotion at work). She went to the local community college, studied Art History, but dropped out after they got married and she got pregnant with her oldest, Julio. In her early thirties, she’s gained weight with each kid and tries to stay in shape by running but it’s hard to find time between laundry loads, driving the kids around, and 24/7 baby duty.  They’re not rich, not even upper-middle-class; they live in a working-class neighborhood, know the families that live around them, have enough money to put food on the table, but she and Rick spend nothing on themselves, squirreling away every penny in college funds for the kids. 

One day, when she’s at that used bookstore, the big one that takes DVDs, comic books, and video games, checking prices on potential Christmas presents, she comes across a strange looking tome in the free book bin, the ones in such bad shape even this place won’t take them.  It’s battered, pages hanging out, but looks like one of those fantasy series she knows Julio likes, so she sticks it in her bag to take home.  She’s pretty crafty … she sews and paints and can whip the binding back into shape … and soon she has what has to be an old illustrated edition with gorgeous artwork of knights and kings and dragons.  She tucks it away in the present hidey-hole and promptly forgets about it when Natalie comes home with a fever and a cough.  

That is until there’s a knock on her door a few weeks later and an old man asks about it.  He’s a collector, he says, and he heard she might have his book that somehow got into the sell box.  He’s willing to pay for it, but the negotiations are interrupted by some nasty pieces-of-work who are after the same thing.  Molly finds herself with the baby in her papoose sling, driving her ten-year-old Dodge Caravan at eighty-miles-an-hour on the interstate, the guy explaining he’s Merlin the magician and that book was supposed to go to the boy two doors down, the reincarnation of King Arthur and, oops, she picked it up instead. 

Of course, Molly knows the kid and, determined to help him, ends up in the middle of the ‘evil sorcerer bent on taking over the world, have to stop him right now,’ her kids in tow (Julio is a quiet introvert who is constantly pulling on her sleeve to whisper important tips since he eat, sleeps, and breathes Tolkien and King Arthur, and other stores.  Natalie is the athlete of the family; she picks up a baseball bat from the storage bag they left in the car from the last game and carries it through the rest of the movie. There’s a running joke about Molly doing everything while the baby sleeps in the papoose until the final showdown where Molly passes the baby to Merlin with orders for him to take care of her. Cue the powerful guy getting freaked out by a squalling infant scene).  With her is her sister Tuela (Marga Gomez), a cake decorator, Tuela’s wife Babs (Kate McKinnon), a lawyer (sassy sidekicks) and her cousin, Hector, who has friends everywhere. Any time they need anything, he’s like, “I know a guy …” and is played by Michael Pena.

And somewhere along the line, we all realize that Molly IS the descendant of Arthur (she got all of Gwen’s best characteristics plus Arthur’s leadership skills) and that the boy is just a red herring.  The Evil Sorcerer, flummoxed by this woman leading an army of mothers and fathers and kids, doesn’t know what to do; his plans to take out the chosen one crumble under the realization that the people themselves are going to stop him.  His henchmen/people desert him when he tells them to target the kids, his witches get pissed off at his condescension and leave him to join Molly and her friends’ book club, aka wine drinking while the husbands watch the kids. 

It’s bold of them to joke about something so controversial. After all, who your ‘port is can make or break a relationship. Study after study has been done on the ‘port between parent and child and psychiatrists are always analyzing your ‘port history.

The commercials are tacky, too. They make fun of the power inherent in a person’s greatest love. That’s what a ‘port is, after all, your love for someone being strong enough to take you to wherever they are. All in all State Farm’s “good neighbor” commercials leave people shaking their heads and laughing uncomfortably.

Caitlyn’s not laughing when a man brings a gun to her school.

Her class is on the yard and there’s no warning- he’s just there, with a gun, and her kids are frozen.

Mickey’s too close too close and not moving and the man is turning the gun towards him. Mickey’s only 8 and he drives her nuts most days. He cries and screams and he runs away and he makes things up and he loves his mom and his sister and he cried when Caitlyn got stitches and she loves him she loves him she loves him.

She feels a moment of disorientation and suddenly she’s between the man and the boy.

She doesn’t hesitate, just wraps herself around Mickey. Then she closes her eyes and reaches inside herself for the first-easiest-always, thinks I love you I love you I love you and feels the shift of the ‘port.

And her eyes land on Zeke, who is jerking to his feet in shock, and she feels a huge wave of relief. Zeke’s been her ‘port since they were months old and her aunt got up one morning to find two babies in the crib instead of one. These days they usually plan their visits and Caitlyn’s never brought a kid before, so Zeke has questions in his eyes.

Before he can voice any, she’s pushing Mickey towards him and gasping out “I have to go back-”

And she’s thinking of the next closest kid, Jasper, one of her rough and tumble boys, he’s so big, 8 years old and almost as tall as her, Jazz is learning to control his temper and his energy but there’s a sweetness to him that comes out at the oddest moments. It’s easy to declare I love I love I love and then she’s grabbing Jazz and sending herself back to Zeke’s shelter.

He’s a little more prepared this time, reaching out to steady her and guide Jazz away while she turns her thoughts and heart to the next kid.

And she’s gone and grabbing Topher, her sweet boy who listens and cares and tries, and they’re back to Zeke.

And she’s gone and grabbing Zornitsa, her scampy little comedian, and back to Zeke.

And she’s gone and grabbing Ariel and Kaho and Clarissa, her gymnast trio with their fierceness and their determination, and back to Zeke.

This time she thinks to shrug her backpack off and gasp out “There’s a list- in the emergency folder-”

And then she’s gone again.

When she reaches for Heidi, her zippy little miss who won’t touch fruit and loves worms and has grown so much, that she lands inside. She pulls Heidi and Adela into her arms and shifts back to Zeke.

Her kids are away from the man with the gun and she feels shaky. She takes a couple breaths, bracing her hands on her thighs. Then she thinks of passion-dedication-exasperation, guide and guidee, and wraps that all around her I love I love I love.

The next moment she’s in a closet turned office made all the smaller by the crush of people in it. She looks up at her boss as several kids stifle startled yelps and Colin looks back with wide eyes under his tangled mop of curls.

“What-” he starts to ask.

“Third grade was on the yard, there wasn’t time to get indoors, but I think I got them all safe,” Caitlyn tells him.

“How?” he asks.

“Like this,” she says, voice tinged with hysterical laughter.

She wraps her arms around Carmela, Elizaveta, Winona, and Joanna and reaches for Zeke. She drops the girls off and goes back to Colin, who goggles.

“I know you need to stay on site, but I thought you should know that I’m evacuating our kids,” Caitlyn tells him.

Colin shakes off his astonishment and squares his lanky shoulders.

“Can you get to kinder?” he asks, eyes lighting up.

“Yes,” Caitlyn says, “with Nancy there that will be easy.”

“Get them all out,” Colin says, “and tell Nancy to start listing who is safe, have her message me.”

“Will do,” she says with a nod. She grabs the three remaining kids and takes them to Zeke.

She thinks of Nancy then, they have different classes this year but they’re still brain mates, still the team, and it’s easy to wrap finishing each others sentences and communicating without words around her I love I love I love.

Nancy startles when she appears, and several of the babies scream. Team Kinder moves into action, hushing and calming. Nancy just waits, meeting Caitlyn’s eyes.

“Colin sent me, I’m evacuating you guys,” Caitlyn explains. “I can take as many as I can hold at a time. How do you want to do this?”

Nancy nods once.

“Start with Mr. Mason and Bashir and Rafael,” Nancy says. “I’ll have the next group ready when you get back.

Caitlyn nods and grabs them.

Things go pretty smoothly after that. Nancy sends kinder off a group at a time and then quickly takes control of the chaotic crowd that Caitlyn has already saved.

Caitlyn moves on grade by grade, finding her way to the colleagues she is so so grateful to work with.

By the time the cops secure the man with the gun, the school is empty, everyone 150 miles away.

When they ask later how she did it she looks right at them.