Chungus stance

I am very disappointed in the people praising the censoring / editing of Roald Dahl's books.   Let me tell you a little story.   About five years ago I decided to re-visit Treasure Island.  I found an unabridged version.   I was surprised to discover that Long John Silver had a black lover.   Because the book used the term "n--ress" the mention of her was removed from many American editions of the book when I grew up.

Note: I am not saying they removed the N word.  I am saying they removed her *all together.* I didn't know Long John Silver had a love interest until I was in my thirties and read an unabridged version of the novel. It revealed so much about the story that I hadn't noticed before. 1.  That Long John Silver believed in love despite what was considered a cultural norm of the time.  He didn't care about what others considered proper and he was in love. 2.   It shows that even Robert Louis Stevenson acknowledged the existence of interracial couples and yet no movie version I can think of addressed this until the TV series Black Sails. 3. It helped remind me of the culture of the era in which Treasure Island takes place and when it was written, the stigma against interracial relationships that existed in America right into the twentieth century and in some places is still a thing. Sometimes books tell us more than just a story.   They show us how a world was once viewed.   I felt like this was an important discovery, that Long John Silver had a black lover (or wife).   And I was even a little angry that I had been robbed of this in previous readings of the book.   I think the removal of words like "Fat" and "ugly" from Roald Dahl's books does us a disservice.   It "cleans up" the past and denies a chance for us to learn some of the less pleasant aspects of the past and how and why language has changed since then.    What should be a teaching point and experience is lost in the name of sensitivity.   I felt cheated and it even felt a little racist that Long John Silver's love interest isn't mentioned in many editions of Treasure Island.  And I feel that one day there may be similar feelings if people discover they aren't reading the original versions of Dahl's books. Try to remember the original reason Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit  451.  It wasn't about an evil government taking away people's blooks. It was about this group and that group getting offended at various titles until they just banned everything to try to make everyone happy.    

Me on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19th, 2006: "Yarrr, ahoy matey!"

Me on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19th, 2022: "When a king brands us pirates, he doesn't mean to make us adversaries. He doesn't mean to make us criminals. He means to make us monsters."

‘Blue Dream,’ Long Island, New York,

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS R)

Battle of the Captains

Round 3 Part 2 Poll 2

Propaganda

Captain Flint was the captain of a pirate ship, The Walrus, which accumulated an enormous amount of captured treasure. On August 1, 1750, Flint and six members of his crew bury the plunder on an island located somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. Flint then murders his six assistants, leaving the corpse of one with its arms outstretched in the direction of the buried treasure. The location of the treasure had been marked by Flint on a map and while he was dying it entrusted to his first mate William "Billy" Bones. The only person Flint was said to fear was his quartermaster John Silver, who later even called his parrot "Captain Flint" in mockery.

[The poll runner -hi !- has been informed that Nemo is so against propaganda he'd refuse to use any for his sake]

ATTENTION pirates, pirate lovers, & #piratecore perusers: PLEASE listen to ship in a bottle by fin aka steffan argus - & his whole album lost at sea. i really like the song abandon ship too. thank me later

They!

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BOB'S BURGERS 14x06 "Escape from Which Island?" airs tonight at 9pm on FOX

Cistus Nursery, Sauvie Island, OR © Robert Pallesen

This is a personal reminder that, despite the intense urge not to shower when struggling, showering does, in fact, help that much

Long John Silver pulling together his crew:

The Last Dinner Party: Prelude To Ecstasy (2024)

Signed copy of the “Midnight Black” variant of “Prelude to Ecstasy.” Signed by all 5 band members.

Island Records

Peruvian guanays hunting anchovies By: Robert C. Murphy From: The Fascinating Secrets of Oceans & Islands 1972

7 years ago today, Kong: Skull Island was released. I swear this movie had some of the best posters.

think itd have been so interesting if the iron islands had been subjected to a foreign lord paramount until the greyjoy rebellion. the tension of the greyjoy rebellion, it validates balon as a leader, it emphasizes the old ways as a return to tradition precipitated by a newfound cultural unity, it contextualizes the disdain for greenlanders, it gives direct momentum to house greyjoy, it contextualizes the iron islands as both repressed and oppressed. think itd be cool if the lord of harrenhal was also the traditional lord of the iron islands, who doesnt even live in the islands, doesnt know its people, lives in a wreck of a decaying castle and yet gains the taxes and iron from the islands......

plus it contextualises the jockeying for the seat of harrenhal in a very fun way to me