Warning, this post contains the following: profanity, anger, logic, & adult situations. If you or someone you might have met one time are not able to handle the things listed above, you need to leave now.
Good evening Minions. I posted my find on Twitter last week so for some of you this is old news. For the rest, I found all three volumes of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz with illustrations by Stephen Gammell at Half-Priced Books for about $2.00 each. This is a good thing for too many reasons, not the least of which is that these books are flippin’ awesome!
I bought all three and scoured the store for any more. Unfortunately, mine were the only available, though I will keep an eye out in the future.
These books were scary as shit when I was a kid and I loved them.
But did you hear…
…that after 30 years of best-selling success, of loyal following, of a generation of cherished memories, the publisher finally bowed to the whim of a large and apparently growing bunch of obnoxious shitheads and changed the art because it was too scary.
And I know I’m late to the party because this happened a year or so ago and all the anger has already happened in its own little Facebook click-a-page outrage sort of way but I say fuck that.
Fuck. That.
To the parents who bitched and to all those who will. Fuck you.
If your kids can’t handle the book, then all you have to do is be an adult and a good parent and don’t let them read it. You don’t have to ruin it for everyone else.
There exists on this plant an infinite number of people with an infinite number of ideas, both good and bad. We have a quantity of paper that long ago surpassed the amount of paper necessary to question, “What the fuck are we supposed to do with all this paper?” We have pencils, pens, markers, etc. such that everyone writing all day long would probably never be able to use them all up. And we’d still have more paper, and we’d still have more people, and we’d still have more ideas for stuff.
What I mean is, if you have a better idea, fucking write it down. Go find entertainment that fits your requirements. Stop changing what already exists to fit your Utopian bullshit worldview. Stop fucking up wonderful childhood memories because you’re afraid your little brat won’t like it.
I’m talking to both the religious zealot and the liberal atheist.
You are both at fault and you are both to blame.
The religious want to ban books because they say “fuck” or discuss things they don’t want to read about and decide you shouldn’t read about them either. They impose their will upon you and take away your freedom to choose what to read and see.
The non-religious want to ban books because they say “politically incorrect” or “insensitive” things, or else discuss things they don’t want to read about and decide you shouldn’t read about them either. They impose their will upon you and take away your freedom to choose what to read and see.
It’s the same goddamn thing from both sides disguised as “right” and I’m fucking sick of it!
Minions, you master compels you. Buy the oldest version of any book you can. Do not accept the “new editions” of old books. Do not accept these, especially when it comes to fiction books that you treasure. This is not special edition DVD with (intentionally deleted for DVD) scenes. The next “special edition” of Huckleberry Finn might be about space pirates and sparkly fairy vampire unicorns if we’re not careful.
And when that does happen, because it will, we all lose.
I’m putting these originals into a box so that when Spawn of Scarydad is old enough, she can enjoy the books as I and millions of others did; back before when people enjoyed things; back before the whole damn world lost its mind.
