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Sixty years of Green Eggs and Ham
- drrevjj 6y ago...and an eloquent, nuanced, and powerful reading of the tome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mqg4C0awA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mqg4C0awA
- qrybam 6y ago...or a more modernist rap of the same: https://youtu.be/nwDGRUzv3SE https://youtu.be/nwDGRUzv3SE
- a_e_k 6y agoMoxy Fruvous also did a song inspired by the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzUdmFecExo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzUdmFecExo
- crtasm 6y agoAnd don't forget Bob Dylan's* cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhuWipIDhwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhuWipIDhwI *not actually Dylan but it's a great take on him and there's six more Seuss songs on the album.
- martythemaniak 6y agoCame here to post this. A must-listen.
- branweb 6y agoha this was wonderful, thank you! Tangent: his fox in sox one is epic.
- Jtsummers 6y agohttps://brianjayjones.com/2020/08/11/sixty-years-of-green-eggs-and-ham/ https://brianjayjones.com/2020/08/11/sixty-years-of-green-eg... For the those who don’t want to read a twitter thread but want a posting by the original author.
- kanobo 6y ago“Cerf bet me fifty bucks I couldn’t write a book using only 50 words,” he said later. “I did it to show I could.” This encapsulated the lesson I learned from the recent Michael Jordan documentary - take silly bets and trivial insults seriously and you can be driven to do great things.
- yesenadam 6y agoGee, just 5 minutes ago I was thinking on how Werner Herzog bet Errol Morris that Morris wouldn't finish the documentary he'd started, or Herzog would eat his shoe. Now that is a friend, and a great motivating bet. And I loved Gates of Heaven. "After a few unproductive months, he happened to read a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle that read, "450 Dead Pets Going To Napa Valley". Morris left for Napa Valley and began working on the film that would become his first feature, Gates of Heaven, which premiered in 1978. Herzog had said he would eat his shoe if Morris completed the documentary. After the film premiered, Herzog publicly followed through on the bet by cooking and eating his shoe, which was documented in the short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe by Les Blank. ...Critic Roger Ebert was and remained a champion of the film, including it on his all-time top ten best films list." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Morris
- powersnail 6y agoHemingway also allegedly won a bet with a six-word fiction: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
- dang 6y agoThis is a job for QuoteInvestigator! https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/28/baby-shoes/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/28/baby-shoes/ (It was not Hemingway.)
- powersnail 6y agoThat's quite an extensive investigation to read!
- CarbyAu 6y agoFor me the genius of "green eggs and ham" is that you read it to your kid at about the time they become more picky with their food. So the book is a lesson too. Some days I really want to read this book to my kid: https://www.amazon.com.au/You-Have-F-king-Eat/dp/1501238663 https://www.amazon.com.au/You-Have-F-king-Eat/dp/1501238663
- koolba 6y agoI like this one by the same author: https://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/145584165X https://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/145584165...
- CarbyAu 6y agoThat one was first and I think the best. Novelty of the thing I guess. I am not as tempted to use that as a lesson, but this morning we had our "creepy stalker child" moment. It's weird. When parents watch kids sleep they think "Aww, aren't they cute..." but when the kids watch the parents sleep it's "...Holy motherfucker!!! ... oh, don't do that to me kiddo."
- unityByFreedom 6y agoDid you offer your kids food with a goat, on a boat?
- CarbyAu 6y agoWe are not so desperate yet! :-) We wish he would learn the "try it" strategy for food, like the end of the book does. Once he tries it, he stuffs himself! But he seems to have learned the "deny eating strenuously" strategy of the whole story. Maybe we should apply authoritarian censorship and read him only the last few pages...
- unityByFreedom 6y agoEat the food he won't touch and exaggerate how good it tastes. If he doesn't want it after that, no sweat, otherwise it may become a power contest where he's asserting his independence (as he should be). You can also try giving a choice between "this green thing" or "that green thing".
- genericone 6y agoOfftopic, but on the topic of green eggs, several differents breeds of chickens can lay green, and even blue and lavender colored eggs.
- dmurray 6y agoDo you mean the shells, or the yolks? The illustrations in the Seuss book show lime-green yolks.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoYou just have to let them mature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg
- jjgreen 6y agoThe Legbar breeds lay eggs with pastel blue shells (and deep orange yolks), delicious and widely available in the UK.
- gumby 6y agoThis was a great book to try to get my six year old to use English. He liked to read it aloud. It took a few years to get to a second one though.
- ggcdn 6y agoIts a great catchy book, and it was interesting to learn more about the origins of it. Both my 3yo and I can recite it from memory.
- RickJWagner 6y agoFor those too young to have seen it, I present the Reverand Jesse Jackson narrating 'Green Eggs and Ham'. A classic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mqg4C0awA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mqg4C0awA
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- monkeycantype 6y agoI learnt to read from this book. It had been read to me so many times I knew every word, and while watching along, the change from `i am sam` to `sam i am` is where it all clicked.
- DonHopkins 6y agoGreen Eggs and Ham, narrated by the Reverend Jesse Jackson on SNL in 1991, after the death of Dr. Seuss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mqg4C0awA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mqg4C0awA
- rectang 6y agoRead with conviction in a complete deadpan. Hilarious! What a good sport.
- kupopuffs 6y agoLaugh tracks do make things funnier
- vanderZwan 6y agoSNL is filmed in front of a live audience
- DonHopkins 6y agoThat's what the "L" stands for! ;) It's also why they always say "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" at the beginning of each show. I disagree that laugh tracks make things funnier, though.
- btilly 6y agoFor the record, my 10 year old self actually made green eggs. I was trying to make scrambled eggs. I put some Cayenne pepper in. I dumped a bunch. I realized it was hot. I had heard that mint would make food taste less hot. So I dumped in more and more and more and more. Eventually it turned green. But didn't stop being waaay too hot to my 10 year old self. (I'm sure that my 50 year old self would find it mild.)
- sidewinder128 6y agoThis is a great article and the content very interesting about the books.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoGreen Eggs and Ham is a great starter book, but IMHO the greatest of Dr Seuss's many great books is Oh, the Places You'll Go!. His mastery of "simple" English is stunning, kids find it enthralling, and the messages are surprisingly deep. Here's the text, but the original illustrated version is so much better: https://www.poetrygrrrl.com/oh-the-places-youll-go-by-dr-seuss/ https://www.poetrygrrrl.com/oh-the-places-youll-go-by-dr-seu...
- JKCalhoun 6y agoOnce again we are faced with limitations, restrictions, being the fruit of creativity. Or maybe it's money and a gentleman's honor.
- qubex 6y agoI’ve always been profoundly “creeped out” by Dr Seuss’ books—the text and the illustrations, now as much as when I was a kid and part of the target demographic.
- 082349872349872 6y agoYou probably want to avoid The Seven Lady Godivas then.
- qubex 6y agoThanks, I hate it. :) Speaking of creepy kids’ books, what gives with Marianne Dreams? It felt like real nightmare material when I read it as a mature adult.
- 082349872349872 6y agoWow, that sounds like a juvenile Videodrome.
- qubex 6y agoYeah... now that you mention it...
- master-litty 6y agoI often battle an odd insecurity about taking too long to do things. I've taken some time to write this comment, for example, and I can't help but wonder how long all these other comments took to write -- How normal do I compare? If I'm slower than average, is there something wrong with me, and is there something wrong with that? Surely, I tell myself, I must be focusing on the wrong things, and my time would be spent more productively elsewhere. I once thought it was an issue of intelligence, but my wife has helped me see the careful thought I put into every word, every stroke of the pen, every movement I make. The time I take is deliberate, purposeful. The issue I've recently faced is justifying the time spent to create a certain quality of art and work. It feels quite normalizing to read about Dr. Seuss and his year-long struggle to create this book. Inspirational, even. Look at all the joy this man has brought into the world. Look at how his time spent has served everyone well. Look at the fun he had along the way. You can't quantify that against time. If you find a way, perhaps you shouldn't.
- gregwebs 6y agoThe newer Dr. Seuss books feel like they have a fraction of the effort put into them. Sometimes a couple sentences seem like ones written by the original Dr. Seuss but then they decided it was too hard and just gave up on quality.
- billpg 6y agoThis is a story of capitulating to bullies. "Sam" is a bully.
- piceas 6y agoI came across an old copy of Come Over to My House which we have now read _many_ times. It is nice to have an accessible cross cultural theme where the characters actually interact with each other. At our local library newer books sometimes make an attempt but mostly limit themselves to token depictions of a head coverings, black kids, and wheelchairs. I hope even the somewhat sanitized recent edition will have the staying power of the other more well known stories.
- billpg 6y ago"I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam-I-Am." At this point, the character has realized that his quite firm refusal is having no effect. Growing weary of being ignored, he makes a show of capitulation and eats, exclaiming faux appreciation to Sam for his efforts. After this episode, he never eats green eggs nor ham again. In adulthood, he would often think back to this moment with regret for having failed to stand up for himself.