welcome to the end times
I have consumed an entire pot of PG Tips and I have a wonderful story to tell. So Good Omens is out today on Amazon Prime, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this day, and about 2 weeks ago I decided to make a small celebration for the premiere. I reserved a table for two at Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe for afternoon tea at 12. My sister and I were going to have an End of the World Tea Party and then go home and binge the series.
So we’re browsing the tea shop before we’re seated, and two women in maybe their 30s walk in. I noticed them immediately because one of the women was very much dressed like Aziraphale. It’s not something most would notice right away, but I’ve been watching the trailers lol. I pointed her out to my sister and said look it’s Aziraphale :’) and at that point it seemed merely odd and coincidental.
As fate would have it, they are sat at the table next to ours. About 20 minutes into our tea service I hear them say something about the end of the world and my ears perk up, and then the one dressed in black (as Crowley) pulls out these round black sunglasses for a picture, which is when I was certain that there was no coincidence. I finally find the courage to get their attention and start talking, and we are astonished to find out we had done the exact same thing:
Planned an Doomsday Tea Party for the day of the premiere, at Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe, at noon, showed up as a duo dressed as Aziraphale and Crowley, and afterwards we were both going to go home and watch the show. And we were sat at neighboring tables. What are the chances?? We chatted and laughed a bit then wished each other a good end of the world. It was so lovely and so surreal (and so fitting for the end times), and I hope I get to tell @neil-gaiman about this someday. Stuff like this is why I would choose to stay on earth, too. ☕️
Awww.
Crowley & Aziraphale’s New Year’s Wishes
From http://www.harpercollins.com/author/AuthorExtra.aspx?displayType=essay&authorID=3417
Crowley:
Resolution #1: I must accept that Super-Gluing valuable coins to the sidewalk and then watching events from a nearby café is not proper demonic activity.
Resolution #2: The same applies to rearranging the letters on wayside pulpits.
Resolution #3: Try to come up with something as good as cell phone ringtones, following one last stab at convincing Downstairs that cell phone ringtones are right up there in the whole Human Misery stakes. And iPods. Has anybody Down There even said thank you for iPods? Or “Googling yourself?” Frankly, I deserve some kind of award for “Googling yourself.”
Resolution #4: I must encourage greedy people to use the term, “Low-hanging fruit,” because that’s just like old times.
Resolution #5: This year, I will get a desk near the window.
Resolution #6: I will try to understand why Hell is a no-smoking area. I just think it’s ridiculous having to stand around outside the gates, that’s all.
Resolution #7: On the orders of Head Office I will encourage the belief in Intelligent Design, because it upsets everyone.
Resolution #8: Stop Googling myself.
Aziraphale:
Resolution #1: Spread peace and love and glad tidings of great joy throughout the world. Also try to get out more.
Resolution #2: I will be charitable to people who use the term “core values,” however difficult this may be.
Resolution #3: Notwithstanding Resolution #2 (above), I will redouble my efforts to have the utterance of the phrase “core values” classified as a deadly sin. I believe Himself is with me on this one.
Resolution #4: I will try to be nicer to the customers. They want to buy books; I want to sell them. It can’t be that hard. (Memo to self: Regular opening hours? Mark prices on books?)
Resolution #5: I will try to be polite to Gabriel, no matter what the provocation.
Resolution #6: Find out exactly what an “Internet” is.
Resolution #7: Really must resume dancing lessons. Learn the “Galloping Major,” the “Gay Gordons,” the “Mashed Potatoes.” Possibly even the “Twist”?
Resolution #8: Thwart Infernal Wiles (ongoing).
Resolution #9: I will try to understand why Heaven is a non-smoking area.
Resolution #10: On the orders of Head Office I will encourage the belief in Intelligent Design – despite the fact that the human airway crosses the digestive tract. Who thought that was intelligent?
Resolution #11: Feed the ducks.
…
PS: If you are a person who wrote Good Omens, do not EVER look at the Tumblr Aziraphale tag to find a nice picture of Crowley and Aziraphale to put into a New Year’s blog. There are things you can never unsee.
There are 17 of them altogether. I’d give a prize to anyone who could correctly identify which are mine and which are Terry’s, except there are a few I can’t remember.
(Thinks. Goes and finds the original email chain. It’s from December 2005.)
Ah. Terry wrote 4 Crowleys and 2 Aziraphales. Then I wrote 2 Crowleys and 6 Aziraphales. Then Terry added another 2 Crowleys and another 3 Aziraphales, including one I would have sworn was mine.
So now I know.
If anyone can correctly identify whose are whose (and I’ve done a fair bit of the work for you in the numbers above) post it here, and if I notice a correct one, I’ll find something fun and Good Omens related from the edit suite to send you.
(This is definitely not the sort of official contest that needs rules and stuff. It’s not the kind of thing you can “win” by picking every combination and posting it, because I’m going to be checking the replies to this, and that’s just going to irritate me. It’s more of a vague curiosity stop.)
Artwork above by mizzkatonic
I don’t know how long ago you started this thread, Mr Gaiman, but will you post the answers to this at any point? I’m itching to know (and love the resolutions!). @neil-gaiman
Not until someone gets it right. (Nobody has so far.)
And it’s a nice feeling to have this post as somewhere to send anyone who suggests to me that only very stupid people can’t tell immediately exactly who wrote what in Good Omens.
(via headdeskingisntenough)
A little song, to send you off to sleep…
trastrashtradhtrashtrash-blog asked: Hey sorry to bother you with an ask like this but it’s been plaguing my mind since the first time I read Good Omens. When the book says “angels are sexless beings unless they really want to make an effort”, which meaning of the word sexless does this refer to? Is it “he isn’t gay because he’s not technically a male” or “he isn’t gay because he feels no sexual attraction”? Sorry if you’ve already answered this. (You’re my inspiration and books are literally the reason I’m still alive by the way)
The former was the way we meant it. The angels and demons in Good Omens aren’t human, they aren’t male (nor are they female). Not that they couldn’t be male etc if they wanted to make that effort. As it says in Good Omens, For those of angel stock or demon breed, size, and shape, and composition, are simply options.
As of late, I was thinking about how literary translation is absolutely fascinating. It has the opportunity to become a complete disaster at every other sentence but when it is done well it is absolute delight to read and to compare with the original. Like, have you ever thought about how hard it is to translate puns? It is practically a god tier of literary translation.
So, I’ve been thinking about this and I know what my most favorite instance of wonderfully translated pun is: it is the gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide one, from Good Omens.
I’ve read three different fan translations of Good Omens in Russian (when it was published officially I picked it up in a library specifically to look up how had they translated this phrase) and some of them were better and some of them were worse but all of them were centered on the fact that in russian language word blue can mean both color and ‘a gay man’. My favorite vertion of this phrase was something like bluer than the sky on a booklet advertising a tropical island vacation, and others were some kind of generic like a sky in the spring or something.
I’m not really sure where I was going with this except that I’m really curious now how it was translated into other languages. So pls, tell me?
Reblogging because I want to know too…
Back to waiting
I mentioned while I was on my talking tour a few weeks ago that we were a couple of days out from announcing some of the casting for Good Omens. Which I said because that was what I’d been told was happening, and because I’d just written my quotes for the press release.
I just learned that the BBC and Amazon are holding off on announcing because of reasons. (Sensible ones.)
You probably have a month left to speculate, place your bets, and hypothesise. Who will play Crowley? And who Aziraphale? And what about Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell?