You've outdone yourself. This is one of my favorite installments ever. I loved the Dune stuff. I understand it better/at all now. You have a gift for making complicated things fun. But, that is not news. Those toads rule
When I first learned about it, I think I spent maybne an hour reading round in an attempt to understand it better than I thought I did. But no. I'd understood it perfectly. They really, really thought they'd bought an entire intellectual property, rather than a single book. They reaaaaaaally thought that.
At the end of that hour I laughed, and then I just kind of sat there, looking at my laptop screen. Because - how. Three million dollars. All those people. How did it not occur to any of them that....
Sorry, I just blanked again. It's now two hours after I started writing this comment.
How...?
.......
Five hours.
Anyway. Science writer Ferris Jabr has a fascinating Twitter thread on the real-life inspiration for Dune, which is the Oregon coast, and how a threat to its ecology attracted a young writer called Frank Herbert: https://twitter.com/ferrisjabr/status/1447988135657295874 It's a lovely read and I had no idea, despite priding myself on being a Dune nerd for at least two decades now.
Oh my gosh, Mike - thank you for that link. The thread itself was fascinating, but one of the replies actually led me to discover that a publishing company I worked for - Chilton Company, my first "real" job - was actually the original publisher of Dune! That's crazy! Chilton published trade magazines and auto manuals; some extremely dry stuff. My mind is utterly, utterly blown. I now have to go poll all my old coworkers to see if they knew this.
OK, You know how officially nerd-cool this makes you? You need to start casually tossing this into polite conversation at parties: "...oh, yes, and we published a little book, you may have heard of it? Name of 'Dune'. I hear it's done moderately well. Oh dear, are you ok, did your drink go down the wrong way?"
You've outdone yourself. This is one of my favorite installments ever. I loved the Dune stuff. I understand it better/at all now. You have a gift for making complicated things fun. But, that is not news. Those toads rule
Oh, thank you so much, Edith! I was worried I went on too long about it, but it's all so bananas I couldn't stop. The toads were an apology gift, lol
I agree. What a strange tale!
Thanks, Elle! It really is pretty mind-boggling.
Kyle MacLachlan and sand!! The 80's were awesome.
It was truly a special time. :D
As always, a delight. My brain thanks you.
The Spice DOA thing:
When I first learned about it, I think I spent maybne an hour reading round in an attempt to understand it better than I thought I did. But no. I'd understood it perfectly. They really, really thought they'd bought an entire intellectual property, rather than a single book. They reaaaaaaally thought that.
At the end of that hour I laughed, and then I just kind of sat there, looking at my laptop screen. Because - how. Three million dollars. All those people. How did it not occur to any of them that....
Sorry, I just blanked again. It's now two hours after I started writing this comment.
How...?
.......
Five hours.
Anyway. Science writer Ferris Jabr has a fascinating Twitter thread on the real-life inspiration for Dune, which is the Oregon coast, and how a threat to its ecology attracted a young writer called Frank Herbert: https://twitter.com/ferrisjabr/status/1447988135657295874 It's a lovely read and I had no idea, despite priding myself on being a Dune nerd for at least two decades now.
Oh my gosh, Mike - thank you for that link. The thread itself was fascinating, but one of the replies actually led me to discover that a publishing company I worked for - Chilton Company, my first "real" job - was actually the original publisher of Dune! That's crazy! Chilton published trade magazines and auto manuals; some extremely dry stuff. My mind is utterly, utterly blown. I now have to go poll all my old coworkers to see if they knew this.
Whattt. How did I miss this reply?
OK, You know how officially nerd-cool this makes you? You need to start casually tossing this into polite conversation at parties: "...oh, yes, and we published a little book, you may have heard of it? Name of 'Dune'. I hear it's done moderately well. Oh dear, are you ok, did your drink go down the wrong way?"
Someone's going to turn that Dune crypto bro story into an amazing podcast. Thanks for sharing the story.
(Btw we all need dog jewelry and dueling toads!)
Boy, I hope so! What a tale.
Not sure why, but I want the frogs. And...Jules Holland was a definite upgrade.
definitely!
Oh wow, that peacock necklace...!