bitterkarella:

Midnight Pals: Sunsweet Prunes

Ray Bradbury: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the lazy summer of youth
Bradbury: long days down by the river, fishing in miller’s pond, afternoons at the soda shop, ice cream sundaes with fabulous unicorn worlds built of whipped cream, nickels for a dime
Bradbury: and becky miller’s freckled-face kisses
Bradbury: sweeter than sunsweet prunes

Bradbury: sunsweet prunes, i tell you
Bradbury: the only prune that’s sweeter than a nostalgic midwestern childhood
Bradbury: and they come in these little individually wrapped plastic packs too
King:
Poe:
Barker:
Koontz:
Lovecraft:
Bradbury: I just think they’re neat

Bradbury: according to my stories, in the far distant future of 2001
Bradbury: we shall travel in tubes
Bradbury: we’ll have flying cars
Bradbury: and we’ll all be eating our sunsweet prunes out of individually wrapped plastic packs
Poe: wait you never said that in your stories
Bradbury: i wish i had
Bradbury: i would have been 1 for 3 at least

Bradbury: look, they individually wrap these sunsweet prunes in plastic
Bradbury: what a world!
Bradbury: its like living in the not too distant future
Poe: doesn’t that create a lot of waste
Bradbury:

Bradbury: tearing open this individually wrapped snack pack reminds me of tearing open presents on christmas morning, snow on the ground, ma and pa taking the day off from working the farm, the whole family arriving in a caravan of automobiles, aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozen, oh my! oh my! uncles a little too loud after three egg nogs, cousins playing cops & robbers in the hay loft

Bradbury: and the feasting, the jollity! too many voices all at once, raised in laughter, in song. the twinkle in dad’s eye, the red roses in mom’s cheeks, grandpa’s baritone chuckle. falling asleep to the sounds of bing crosby on the tombstone radio, surrounded by the warm glow of early evening
King: wow these prunes sound pretty incredible
King: i’m sold!
Koontz: [tearing open sunsweet prune container] guys
Koontz: i think my prunes are broken
Koontz: i didn’t feel any of that stuff ray said

Poe: ray are they paying you to advertise for prunes
Bradbury: no no of course not!
Bradbury: i would never accept money to tell you about the incredible health benefits of america’s favorite prunes, sunsweet
Bradbury: full of 12 different antioxidents
King: can i buy them with my american express card

Neil Gaiman: but ray!
Gaiman: using the limitless vista of your inpirational mind to advertise a mere consumer good
Gaiman: such a tawdry use of the gift of imagination!
Gaiman: it cheapens us as writers just as the low low prices of chipotle cheapens organic rice and GMO-free beans to bring wholesome healthy Mexican inspired fusion cuisine to the masses

Gaiman: you can’t leash the phoenix of creativity to the millstone of commerce!
Gaiman: she must fly free!
Gaiman: free like the secret dragon sauce available now at now extra charge at your local chipotle
King: neil’s right!
Poe: about chipotle?
King: about everything!!

Also, for anyone who wonders about the Chipotle connection – it was this piece on refugees for a long ago promotion. (Still proud of it.)

“I am thinking about the fragility of civilization. Look around you, at the building you are in, the road you travel on. What you see was made by people who agreed that they would get up in the morning and go to work and nobody would shoot at them or fire mortars at them; there would not be checkpoints at which they could be taken out and never seen again; that there would be food in the shops, and water in the taps, and shoes to buy and to wear. People who believed that the place you go to sleep tonight will be here tomorrow.
I have started to think of humanity as family.

There are now fifty million refugees in the world today, more than at any time since the end of the Second World War. And at some point, for each one of those people, the world shifted. Their world, solid and predictable, erupted or dissolved into chaos or danger or pain. They realized that they had to run.

You have two minutes to pack. You can only take what you can carry easily. You are going to have to walk a long way. You hope that somewhere, someone is going to take you in. I have started to think of humanity as family: a family that quarrels, but which must, when things get hard, put aside old arguments and divisions, and care for each other. Sometimes someone needs somebody to take them in, and that’s the function of family. It’s time to care.

You have two minutes to run. What will you take with you?”

(via neil-gaiman)

bitterkarella:

Midnight Pals: Sunsweet Prunes

Ray Bradbury: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the lazy summer of youth
Bradbury: long days down by the river, fishing in miller’s pond, afternoons at the soda shop, ice cream sundaes with fabulous unicorn worlds built of whipped cream, nickels for a dime
Bradbury: and becky miller’s freckled-face kisses
Bradbury: sweeter than sunsweet prunes

Bradbury: sunsweet prunes, i tell you
Bradbury: the only prune that’s sweeter than a nostalgic midwestern childhood
Bradbury: and they come in these little individually wrapped plastic packs too
King:
Poe:
Barker:
Koontz:
Lovecraft:
Bradbury: I just think they’re neat

Bradbury: according to my stories, in the far distant future of 2001
Bradbury: we shall travel in tubes
Bradbury: we’ll have flying cars
Bradbury: and we’ll all be eating our sunsweet prunes out of individually wrapped plastic packs
Poe: wait you never said that in your stories
Bradbury: i wish i had
Bradbury: i would have been 1 for 3 at least

Bradbury: look, they individually wrap these sunsweet prunes in plastic
Bradbury: what a world!
Bradbury: its like living in the not too distant future
Poe: doesn’t that create a lot of waste
Bradbury:

Bradbury: tearing open this individually wrapped snack pack reminds me of tearing open presents on christmas morning, snow on the ground, ma and pa taking the day off from working the farm, the whole family arriving in a caravan of automobiles, aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozen, oh my! oh my! uncles a little too loud after three egg nogs, cousins playing cops & robbers in the hay loft

Bradbury: and the feasting, the jollity! too many voices all at once, raised in laughter, in song. the twinkle in dad’s eye, the red roses in mom’s cheeks, grandpa’s baritone chuckle. falling asleep to the sounds of bing crosby on the tombstone radio, surrounded by the warm glow of early evening
King: wow these prunes sound pretty incredible
King: i’m sold!
Koontz: [tearing open sunsweet prune container] guys
Koontz: i think my prunes are broken
Koontz: i didn’t feel any of that stuff ray said

Poe: ray are they paying you to advertise for prunes
Bradbury: no no of course not!
Bradbury: i would never accept money to tell you about the incredible health benefits of america’s favorite prunes, sunsweet
Bradbury: full of 12 different antioxidents
King: can i buy them with my american express card

Neil Gaiman: but ray!
Gaiman: using the limitless vista of your inpirational mind to advertise a mere consumer good
Gaiman: such a tawdry use of the gift of imagination!
Gaiman: it cheapens us as writers just as the low low prices of chipotle cheapens organic rice and GMO-free beans to bring wholesome healthy Mexican inspired fusion cuisine to the masses

Gaiman: you can’t leash the phoenix of creativity to the millstone of commerce!
Gaiman: she must fly free!
Gaiman: free like the secret dragon sauce available now at now extra charge at your local chipotle
King: neil’s right!
Poe: about chipotle?
King: about everything!!