Good morning Hank; it’s Wednesday.
In case you missed the news yesterday, I can
finally tell you the title of my new-- video
title, you ruined it! The title was inspired
by a line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Which is an easy thing to say if you’re
like, you know, Shakespeare or a Roman nobleman,
but in the broad sense, I don’t know that
I agree with Shakespeare a hundred percent
so, that’s the title, The Fault in Our Stars.
I actually kind of stole the title from a
Nerdfighter, MissxRojas on youtube, so thank
you Nerdfighteria!
In other thank you Nerdfighteria news, these
are the top three bestselling books on Amazon
right now, Hank. The Fault in Our Stars is
number one on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
YES! I have an exclamation to use in such
situat-- French the Llama.
Thank you so much to everyone who’s pre-ordered
the book; there’s a link in the doobly-doo,
dft.ba/tfios-- that’s not a very good title
for shortening-- uh, at which you can pre-order
the book, so yeeedadababoobok! It’s only
like nine dollars!
Also Hank, if you pre-order The Fault in Our
Stars, there is a one hundred percent chance
that it will be autographed by me, and when
I say one hundred percent chance, I mean that
I am signing every single copy of the first
printing. And I don’t mean some machine
is gonna sign it, I mean I'm gonna sign it
with my hand, also probably a Sharpie.
Speaking of which, Hank, a couple days ago
I was at Target and I was in the Sharpie aisle
and I was trying to decide like which Sharpie
to use for signing these, uh, tens of thousands
of books. And I had a bit of an existential
crisis, because I was like do I sign it in
black Sharpie but if I do that then they might
not even think it’s real, if I do like blue
or red it might be kinda like ostentatious,
if I do green they’re gonna think I’m
punning on my name! So Hank, I’m just gonna
delegate this whole Sharpie-color fiasco;
there is a link in the doobly-doo to a poll
in Your Pants. That sounds dirty.
Also Hank, in the last twenty-four hours,
Nerdfighters have made hundreds of covers
for The Fault in Our Stars, some of them really,
really good; in fact, there are so many really,
really good ones that I want to show them
all to you, but I don’t have anything left
to say so I’m just gonna throw you a Sing-a-ma-jig
concert.
[Sing-a-ma-jig noises]
God, I’m good at the Sing-a-ma-jig.
So, to summarize, Hank, pre-order link in
the doobly-doo, all pre-orders will be signed,
thank you so much for making it the number
one best-seller on Amazon, and [Sing-a-ma-jigs
four notes] also for your amazing covers.
In retrospect, Hank, I don’t know why I
spent four years writing this book when I
could have just made a hit Sing-a-ma-jig album.
In other news, Nerdfighters, I don’t know
if you’ve started reading The Great Gatsby,
but I’m going to start talking about it
today, but I’m only going to talk about
the epigraph and the first sentence, so no
spoilers. At this rate it’s going to take
me like twelve hundred videos to get through
the book.
Right, so Hank, you know how pretentious novels
like this one always start with quotes at
the beginning of the book-- those are called
epigraphs. Well The Great Gatsby has a famous
epigraph by the poet Thomas Park D'Invilliers
that goes like this: “Then wear the gold
hat, if that will move her, if you can bounce
high, bounce for her too, until she cry lover,
gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have
you.”
So here’s an interesting thing about that
epigraph, Hank: Thomas Park D'Invilliers doesn’t
exist. So two things to remember about the
epigraph: one, it’s made up, and two, it
contains the word ‘golden’ twice. Both
of which are important, because Gatsby is
essentially a book about things that are made
up and/or golden. So keep that in mind as
you’re reading. Other things to keep in
mind: anybody wearing glasses and the green
light. God, I love the green light, it’s
my favorite metaphor in any book ever! Except
maybe Holden’s hunting hat.
And the last thing I would ask you to notice
is the lyricism of the novel, I mean you can
almost hear the rhythm of it from the first
sentence. “In my younger and more vulnerable
years my father gave me some advice I have
been turning over in my mind ever since.”
Ok now I feel like a teacher. To give you
an assignment, you have until two weeks from
today to read the first six chapters of Gatsby,
and there will be a quiz, and I don’t want
any sass!
Alright Hank, just to remind you, don’t
forget about the poll in Your Pants; I’ll
see you on Friday.
