I am So Angry

So, I've been slowly rereading the Sandman series.  I have all ten trade paperback collections of Neil Gaiman's series.  And I started rereading when the first season dropped.

I was so impressed with the adaptation, and I wanted to recapture my feelings of the series and when I first read Sandman.

Last night, I finished book IX - The Kindly Ones.

This arc is about the revenge of a woman who thinks she was wronged by Dream, and she engages the Erinyes for her revenge.  For a while they go through the Dreaming killing various residents. And [spoiler alert], Dream dies at the end of the arc.

I remember the first time I read this and how sad it was.  I cried over the deaths of the residents.  And I cried over the death of Dream.

Last night, while I shed a few tears, I just got more and more angry.

Because since Gaiman is accused of some horrible things, Netflix has cancelled their Sandman series after the second season.

I don't know how far the second season will get into the series.  Maybe on through the arc of finding Destruction, if we're lucky.

But what made angry was that the amazing arc of emotion I felt will never be adapted.

And his whole legacy is forever tainted.

I am more angry about this than I was Bill Cosby.  I haven't been able to listen to any of Cosby's stand-up since the allegations against him were made public, and getting out on a technicality only makes it worse.

But the impact Gaiman's writing has had on me...

We've all imagined that Dream is an avatar of Gaiman's with hsi look and style.  So now when I look back at the series and remember Dream's treatment of his lovers both during and after their relations, it makes me wonder if the series were a bit of confession.  And for Dream to be finally brought down by a woman and the Erinyes as well feels like he's telling everyone what happened and that he wants to be punished.

Now sure, I could be making all of this up in my head, but the parallels are disturbing.

And my last though last night when I closed the book was, "Terry [Pratchett] would have been disgusted by Neil's behavior."

Quotes - Forty-Two

 So, since I started this list, I came across some more quotes, and I didn't want them getting lost.  Enjoy.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.  The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

--Isaac Asimov

Can priests bless stuff other than water?  I just think “holy guacamole” should mean something.

--@BootsMcGoot

An extra hour in 2024 is like a free bonus track on a Yoko Ono album.

--Ruth Buzzi

My life got better when I realized I didn’t have to be nice.  Nice got me ran over, stressed out, and disrespected.  I’m not nice.  I’m a good person.  There’s a difference.

--@cactustate

If you can’t explain something to a first-year student, then you haven’t really understood.

--Richard Feynman

Better sexy and racy than sexist and racist.

--Stephen Fry

I said everything was okie dokie artichokie, but to be honest it’s been extra horrendous asparagus.

--@geekysteven

As I hurtled through space, one though kept crossing my mind… every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.

--John Glenn

An early objection I had with Christianity at school was being told I was part of a flock.  Shepherds don’t just look after sheep because they like them!  They either want to fleece them, fuck them, or eat them!

--Christopher Hitchens

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

--Christopher Hitchens

How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.

--Christopher Hitchens

One must state it plainly.  Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody had the smallest idea what was going on.

--Christopher Hitchens

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

--Christopher Hitchens

What is more plausible?  That God impregnated a girl in the Middle East or that a Jewish girl lied to her betrothed about how she got pregnant?

--Christopher Hitchens

That’s the problem with gods; their pleasure and their wrath often look the same.

--@madmaudlingoes

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.  On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.

--H.L. Menken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

The March to Dispel Negative Perceptions of Clowns is still happening this Sunday at dusk, right at the edge of the woods near the abandoned children’s hospital.  The calliope we rented is out of tune but we’re going to go ahead and play it anyway.  Come join us!  Join.  Us.

--Patton Oswalt

To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels, and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comic-book character worthy of laughter and derision.  I accuse the Christian god of murder by allowing the Holocaust to take place – not to mention the “ethnic cleansing” presently being performed by Christians in our world – and I condemn and vilify this mythical deity for encouraging racial prejudice and commanding the degradation of women.

--James Randi

What an astonishing thing a book is.  It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.  But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe someone dead for thousands of years.  Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.  Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.  Books break the shackles of time.  A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

--Carl Sagan

Death is nothing at all.  It does not count.  I have only slipped away into the next room.  Nothing has happened.  Everything remains exactly as it was.  I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.  Whatever we were to each other; that we are still.  Call me by the old familiar name,  Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.  Put no difference into your tone.  Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.  Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.  Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.  Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.  Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.  Life means all that it ever meant.  It is the same as it ever was.  There is absolute and unbroken continuity.  What is this death but a negligible accident?  Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?  I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near. Just round the corner.  All is well.

--Henry Scott-Holland

Dreams save us.  Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better.  And on my soul, I swear that until my dream of a world where dignity, honor, and justice are the reality we all share, I’ll never stop fighting.  Ever.

--Superman

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.  Do justly, now.  Love mercy, now.  Walk humbly, now.  You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

--Rabbi Tarfon

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory.  If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?...  If we value freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.

--J.R.R. Tolkien

Once your faith, sir, persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd, beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.  In days gone by, there were people who said to us, “You believe in incomprehensible, contradictory, and impossible things because we have commanded you to; now then, commit unjust acts because we likewise order you to do so.”  Nothing could be more convincing.  Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

--Voltaire – Questions on Miracles (11^th Letter), 1965

As a dwarf, I feel like a disappointment because I never learned to forge.

--Brad Williams

 

Brave enough to get tattooed, too scared to make a phone call.

Well, aren’t we just two scoops of grumpy in a bowl full of bitchy this morning.

Quotes - Forty-One

 1.                   A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

2.                   A user and his leisure time are soon parted.

3.                   The Vatican Express card. Don’t leave Rome without it.

4.                   Virtual reality is its own reward.

5.                   Visualize Whirled Peas

6.                   Visualize Using Your Turn Signal

7.                   War doesn’t determine who’s right, just who’s left.

8.                   We are all Cthulhu’s Children… especially those of us with tentacles.

9.                   We are the people our parents warned us about.

10.               We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it

11.               We’re going to assume a few things about reality.  One, it exists.  That’s not a necessary assumption, but I find it comforting.

12.               We’re making progress. Things are getting worse at a slower rate.

13.               Wear short sleeves! Support your right to bare arms!

14.               What a nice night for an evening.

15.               What boots up must come down.

16.               What do little birdies see, when they get knocked unconscious?

17.               What has four legs and an arm? A happy pit bull.

18.               What is a free gift? Aren’t all gifts free?

19.               What was the best thing before sliced bread?

20.               What’s another word for “thesaurus”?

21.               What’s another word for “synonym”?

22.               What’s the difference between a bitch and a whore? A whore goes to a party and has sex with everyone. A bitch goes to a party and has sex with everyone but you.

23.               When a man talks dirty to a woman, it’s sexual harassment.  When a woman talks dirty to a man, it’s $3.95 a minute.

24.               When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults.

25.               When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

26.               When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

27.               When evolution is outlawed, then only outlaws will evolve.

28.               When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.

29.               When I was in high school, I got in trouble with my girlfriend’s Dad.  He said, “I want my daughter back by 8:15.”  I said, “The middle of August? Cool!”

30.               When sign makers go on strike, what do they carry at the picket lines?

31.               When you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?

32.               When you have secured an area, don’t forget to tell the enemy.

33.               When you’re tempted to fight fire with fire, remember the fire department uses water.

34.               When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you’re just sitting there, staring at carpeting?

35.               Where are we going? And what’s with this hand basket?

36.               Where do forest rangers go to get away from it all?

37.               Who is General Failure and why is he reading my disk?

38.               Whoever said the hand is quicker than the eye obviously never tried rolling them down a ramp.

39.               Whose cruel idea was it for the word “lisp” to have an “s” in it?

40.               Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?

41.               Why do they sterilize needles for lethal injections?

42.               Why doesn’t DOS ever say “EXCELLENT command or filename!”

43.               Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?

44.               Why don’t they just make mouse‑flavored cat food?

45.               Why, in a country of free speech, are there phone bills?

46.               Why is it that the most unattractive people in this world insist on being nudists?

47.               Why is the universe here?  Well, what’s the alternative?

48.               Why isn’t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

49.               Will someone tell me how many days it takes before breaking news becomes continuing coverage?

50.               Women like silent men; they think they’re listening.

51.               Work fascinates me. I could sit and watch it for hours.

52.               Wouldn’t marathons be a lot more interesting if after the race started, hungry wild animals were released onto the course?  Tigers would be fun.

53.               Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

54.               Yes, black dragons are powerful.  So are level-20 fireballs, demi-gods, and huge mythic beasts.  But there is no force in the game as powerful as the combined selfishness and apathy of your players.

55.               You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.

56.               You are truly one in a million. Which means there are nearly 8,000 other people just like you.

57.               You can have my Oxford comma when you pry it from my cold, dead, and lifeless hands.

58.               You don’t change horsemen in mid-Apocalypse

59.               You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

60.               You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.

61.               You have to feel sorry for all the convicts in New Hampshire, stamping out license plates that say, “Live Free or Die.”

Quotes - Forty

 1.                   Sarcasm: the ability to insult idiots without them realizing it.

2.                   Save the Save the Whale Foundation.

3.                   Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

4.                   Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

5.                   Scrute the inscrutable, eff the ineffable.

6.                   Sears says Kenmore appliances are found in one out of two homes in America. I wonder which two homes they took the survey at?

7.                   SENILE.COM found… Out Of Memory…

8.                   She never looked nice.  She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

9.                   She’s human… well, she’s a lawyer, but reasonably human.

10.               Shell to DOS… Come in DOS, do you copy? Shell to DOS…

11.               Smash forehead on keyboard to continue…

12.               Smokey the Bear says, “Strip mining prevents forest fires.”

13.               So many stupid people, so few comets.

14.               So this Irishman walks past a pub…

15.               So what’s the speed of dark?

16.               Some changes can have unexpected consequences.

17.               Some infinities are bigger than others.

18.               Some people are only alive because it is illegal to kill.

19.               Some students drink at the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle.

20.               Sports: The opposite of reading.

21.               Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a hollow-point .38 slug could take out my entire liver.

22.               A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam.

23.               Studies have shown what makes the football season so popular.  It’s the only time of the year when a fellow can walk down the street with a blonde on one arm and a blanket on the other - and not encounter any raised eyebrows!

24.               A sucking chest wound is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.

25.               Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!

26.               Support bacteria ‑ they’re the only culture some people have.

27.               Teaching STEM without teaching the Humanities is how you get Spider-Man villains.  Teaching Theater without teaching the Humanities is how you get Batman villains. 

28.               Teamwork is essential, it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.

29.               Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars, and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint, and he has to touch it.

30.               That which does not kill you only makes you stronger. That which does kill you is no longer your problem.

31.               That which does not kill you was simply not permitted to do so for the purposes of the plot.

32.               The virtues of being punctual are largely offset by having to wait for people who aren’t.

33.               The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful.

34.               The world is coming to an end. Please log off.

35.               There are 10 kinds of people: those that know binary, and those that don’t.

36.               There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can’t.

37.               There is intelligent life on Earth, but I’m just visiting.

38.               There is no problem so large that it cannot be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.

39.               There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing.

40.               There was some brilliant work done with rats, which makes it scientific.

41.               There will be no crisis next week; my schedule is already full!

42.               There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

43.               There’s a large amount of evidence saying that the man’s point of view is largely irrelevant.

44.               There’s no place like http://www.home.com

45.               There’s nothing more restful than taking orders from fools.

46.               There’s too much blood in my caffeine system.

47.               They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

48.               They’ve got drive‑by shootings in Philadelphia now.  Where they park to reload, I don’t know.

49.               This reaction calls for hydrochloric acid, but we can’t afford that, so you’re just gonna drink the reagents.

50.               This statement cannot be proven!

51.               Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.

52.               Three words: poor numeracy

53.               To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked, but to see what no one else has seen.

54.               To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.

55.               To err is human. To forgive is unusual.

56.               To George Carlin, the cup is too big.

To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

To the ironist, the glass is half full of air.

To the optimist, the glass is half full.

To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.

To the pragmatist, the glass’ liquid contents are at 50% capacity.

To the psychoanalyst, the cup is your mother.

The Zen master says, “There is no cup.”

To the punk sitting next to you, the cup is also your mother.

To the romance novelist, the cup is a willing receptacle to the wild gushing torrents of pure passion from the hard chiseled urn.

57.               Too many clicks spoil the browse.

58.               To this day, the most unrealistic things Disney ever did was portray Zeus as a loving family man.

59.               The topless beaches in France would’ve been so wonderful, if just a few French girls had some of those large American breasts that I love so dearly.

60.               A topologist is a man who doesn’t know the difference between a coffee cup and a doughnut.

61.               The trick is… not to suck.

62.               The trouble with finding your perfect soul mate is that she would probably want to get married, then four weeks after the wedding you would meet another perfect soul mate, with larger breasts.

63.               Try to look at the big picture… we’re all in it and you’re not!

64.               Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.