So many feels
So many feels in the last 24 hours, all tangentially Good Omens related.
Yesterday afternoon I was delighted to discover, and spent a giddy hour reading, the Tumblr blog Aziraphale's Books (https://www.aziraphale.com/). Great writing by some mysterious person (at first I thought it might be a sneaky side project of Neil Gaiman's, but I'm pretty sure it's an American fan who really is a rare book dealer) as if he's Aziraphale writing a blog for his bookstore. Filled with references to other Gaiman books, Monty Python, Wings of Desire, Black Books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even the movie Cars. Witty, clever, poignant. I shared my favorite post on Facebook and only one person read it, sigh.
Last night I watched the DVD of "Far From the Madding Crowd." I felt sorry for Michael Sheen's character, Boldwood, who really did love the main character Bathsheba--who played a romantic prank on him but never loved him; in the end he goes quietly mad and shoots her returned-from-the-presumed-dead husband and she eventually marries the shepherd like she should have done in the first place and saved everyone a lot of trouble. Anyway, Victorian melodrama with amazing views and costumes and a lovely, nuanced performance by Michael Sheen.
This morning Google News tells me that Sheen is dating a 25-year-old Swedish actress who's posting pix of their West Wales "glamping" trip on Instagram. Why do men of a certain age want to date women half their age? This bugged me more than it should have, really. I guess he's just a man, after all. But it put a damper on my new celebrity crush.
Then on the way to work in the shuttle, I saw a new story in my Google news feed about a teacher in a juvenile detention center who loved the Good Omens book, showed the series to her students who then wanted to read the book, and took to Twitter to ask for help obtaining copies for her students (https://www.today.com/parents/good-omens-fans-author-neil-gaiman-help-students-need-t158654). The response was overwhelming (Neil Gaiman re-tweeted it) and strangers sent books and many other classroom supplies. For some students it was the first indication that people besides their teacher cared about them. I got all teary reading some of the student responses that the teacher posted:
"dear twitter: that was a nice thing you did. And the end of the world show was a really good show. Ms. R said everyone has good and bad in them but I've only ever been told I was bad, maybe now I can find the good."
"Twitter: old people always say social media is bad. Maybe they just need to see more things like this? Old people tell me I'm bad too, so if they are wrong about social media maybe they are wrong about me."
Yesterday afternoon I was delighted to discover, and spent a giddy hour reading, the Tumblr blog Aziraphale's Books (https://www.aziraphale.com/). Great writing by some mysterious person (at first I thought it might be a sneaky side project of Neil Gaiman's, but I'm pretty sure it's an American fan who really is a rare book dealer) as if he's Aziraphale writing a blog for his bookstore. Filled with references to other Gaiman books, Monty Python, Wings of Desire, Black Books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even the movie Cars. Witty, clever, poignant. I shared my favorite post on Facebook and only one person read it, sigh.
Last night I watched the DVD of "Far From the Madding Crowd." I felt sorry for Michael Sheen's character, Boldwood, who really did love the main character Bathsheba--who played a romantic prank on him but never loved him; in the end he goes quietly mad and shoots her returned-from-the-presumed-dead husband and she eventually marries the shepherd like she should have done in the first place and saved everyone a lot of trouble. Anyway, Victorian melodrama with amazing views and costumes and a lovely, nuanced performance by Michael Sheen.
This morning Google News tells me that Sheen is dating a 25-year-old Swedish actress who's posting pix of their West Wales "glamping" trip on Instagram. Why do men of a certain age want to date women half their age? This bugged me more than it should have, really. I guess he's just a man, after all. But it put a damper on my new celebrity crush.
Then on the way to work in the shuttle, I saw a new story in my Google news feed about a teacher in a juvenile detention center who loved the Good Omens book, showed the series to her students who then wanted to read the book, and took to Twitter to ask for help obtaining copies for her students (https://www.today.com/parents/good-omens-fans-author-neil-gaiman-help-students-need-t158654). The response was overwhelming (Neil Gaiman re-tweeted it) and strangers sent books and many other classroom supplies. For some students it was the first indication that people besides their teacher cared about them. I got all teary reading some of the student responses that the teacher posted:
"dear twitter: that was a nice thing you did. And the end of the world show was a really good show. Ms. R said everyone has good and bad in them but I've only ever been told I was bad, maybe now I can find the good."
"Twitter: old people always say social media is bad. Maybe they just need to see more things like this? Old people tell me I'm bad too, so if they are wrong about social media maybe they are wrong about me."