#mcelligot's pool

[chaifootsteps]

So I’m lucky enough to have gotten McElligot’s Pool as a gift and my god, the art in here is stunning. Sublime. Some of the prettiest in all Dr. Seussdom.

It contains a single, solitary page that mentions Eskimo fish, and I guess the cheapest option for dealing with that was to just stop printing the book and write off anyone who objected as a racist Trumper, and because of this, no one is allowed to hold this book in their hands and run their fingers over the artwork. It’s been pulled from libraries, banned from sale on Ebay for “offensive content,” and whether or not you can get a legitimate physical copy depends on the mercy of whoever’s selling it. 

Fucking protect books, and not just the ones you like.

[sarcasticcynic]

Dr. Seuss Books Are Pulled, and a ‘Cancel Culture’ Controversy Erupts

The beloved author’s most famous books, like “Green Eggs and Ham,” were untouched, but his estate’s decision nevertheless prompted a backlash and raised questions about what should be preserved as part of the cultural record.

A theory.

“Classic children’s books are perennial best sellers and an important revenue stream for publishers. Last year, more than 338,000 copies of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ were sold across the United States, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks the sale of physical books at most retailers. ‘One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish’ sold more than 311,000 copies, and ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ — always popular as a high school graduation gift — sold more than 513,000 copies.

“‘And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,’ one of the six books pulled by the estate, sold about 5,000 copies last year, according to BookScan. ‘McElligot’s Pool’ and ‘The Cat’s Quizzer’ haven’t sold in years through the retailers BookScan tracks. ...

“Regardless of the content, books go out of print every day if they don’t sell, and indeed, some of the Seuss books would likely be in that category if they had been written by another author.”

Fans of children’s literature are sadly familiar with favorite titles going out of print due to lack of sales. If Dr. Seuss Enterprises had decided to stop publishing these six books because they weren’t selling--as, indeed, they weren’t--odds are high no one would even have noticed. Instead, the company announced they were discontinuing these Dr. Seuss books due to their potentially offensive content.

Free publicity ensued, with attendant outrage. While right-wing pundits loudly decried this supposed “cancel culture” from the “woke left,” conservatives scrambled to purchase copies of these suddenly beloved books at outrageously elevated prices. And not just those six books, because who knows what might be next? Within two days:

“Dozens of his books shot to the top of Amazon’s print best-seller list; on Thursday morning, nine of the site’s top 10 best sellers were Seuss books.”

Y’all got played.

[annemeier]

Gone fishing...a tribute to my favorite ever Dr. Seuss book, McElligot’s Pool

[justice-for-general-schmitz]

i was reading your seussical animated movie script, and was wondering why you cut out the scene where jojo yells at the cat in the middle of havin a hunch, but then i realized that it wouldn't make much sense to have that scene there given that throughout your movie script, jojo's been thinking all these things up on her own instead of the cat putting them in her head.

also, props to you for actually using characters from the mcelligot's pool book in the bathtub/ocean scene! it doesn't get enough love and now that it's been pulled from shelves hardly anyone knows it :(

Thanks! :) I didn't actually "cut out" the scene; it was added in later after Broadway from what I could tell. The version of Havin' a Hunch in my animated-film script is based on the Broadway version, which you can see here.

And yes- I do also love McElligot's Pool! It is disappointing that they decided to stop publishing it (which is not the same as "pulling it from shelves", btw- I found a copy of it at a local library recently), when they could have just changed the E-word to "Inuit" or something in the same vein. I especially love how the book alternates between color and black-and-white illustrations with each page turn!

[whichchick]

A while ago, I posted the list of odonates I *should* find in my county.  It’s here, if you want to go look at it, but I’m thinking it’s an unambitious list because it had like six things missing from it when I first looked at it.  If a comprehensive list is missing ten percent of the things (was missing 6 but had 53), then it is not a very good list.  The list is now 59 because I am over here improving the scientific record with proof.  (Pix or it didn’t happen!)  

Thing is, the odonatacentral.org county level checklists, generated from Actual County Observation Records, suck. They're better if you live in a county with a major land-grant university (Centre County, PA, home of Penn State, comes to mind), a flashy and substantial water feature (Raystown Lake, Huntington County, PA, I am looking directly at you), or a couple of state parks. But if you live in plain old Greater Rednecklandia, the county records for your county probably suck and the more Greater Rednecklandia you are, the worse the records are likely to be. As a consequence of the paucity of the scholarly record, the procedurally generated county level checklists from over at OC... suck.  (Science needs more boots on the ground, is the real problem.)

The OC county checklists are better than nothing, but they are not as good as they COULD be.  So wah wah, my county list from OC is not particularly great because whiny amateur me half-assedly proved it wrong in a month or so. Could there be a better county list? Certainly!  

I want a better county list because observers see, a lot of the time, only the things that we are looking for.  (That video with the gorilla suit person amongst the basketball players comes to mind) Basically, an insufficient checklist might lead someone to not look for or recognize stuff that could totally be out there.  Totally.  Like in McElligot’s Pool.  

So, the current science-y records over at OC for my county (Fulton County, PA) are shittastic and I whine a lot.  Fulton County is a rural county with very few people (less than 20K residents).  It lacks universities, fancy water features, or any other reasons for the presence of a gung-ho odonate observation force.  The records for my abutting counties (Bedford, Huntington, Franklin in PA, Washington in MD) are fuller.  I feel like the records for “possibly available in Fulton County” would be more informed if I included in the “possibles” list all the stuff found in neighboring counties.  Odonates do fly, after all, and if my own county is poorly surveyed, maybe... maybe I should be looking for more things than are on the official list.

So, I’ve gone and done that -- pulled the species checklists for the above listed counties from odonatacentral, thrown them into a text file, and pushed them through assorted linux command-line script filters to generate some information that might be useful to me in terms of What To Look For and How Likely Finding Them Might Be.

Methodology:  Pull the county checklists off of odonatacentral, paste into a flat text file on the dumbest text editor you can find, using “paste as plain text”.  You’ll get entries that look like this:

Aeshna canadensis Canada Darner

Aeshna constricta Lance-tipped Darner

(etc)

These need to be cleaned up and made all one line, which I did with shell scripting.  I am THE WORLD’S SHITTIEST SHELL SCRIPTER, just putting that out there right now.  I do not shell script for a living any more than I chase the odonates around for a living.

Here’s what I did:

cat fivecounties.txt | xargs -n3 -d'\n' > test1.txt

(In english:  read file fivecounties.txt, which is the plaintext paste file of all the county checklists, go through and take out the newline character three times (one for after scientific name, one for after common name, one for blank line), throw the result in new file called test1.txt)

Your output should look like this:

Aeshna canadensis  Canada Darner Aeshna constricta  Lance-tipped Darner

(One line per species, no blank lines)

Next, I sorted the file:

sort test1.txt > test2.txt

Output should look like this:

Aeshna canadensis  Canada Darner Aeshna canadensis  Canada Darner Aeshna constricta  Lance-tipped Darner Aeshna constricta  Lance-tipped Darner Aeshna tuberculifera  Black-tipped Darner Aeshna tuberculifera  Black-tipped Darner...

 (All like kinds grouped together and this is not a big enough text file for it to matter what mechanism linux uses for sorting.  Does Not Matter.)

Then I did 

cat test2.txt | uniq -c > test3.txt 

for an output like this...

     2 Aeshna canadensis  Canada Darner      2 Aeshna constricta  Lance-tipped Darner      3 Aeshna tuberculifera  Black-tipped Darner

Finally, I picked out the ones I wanted (by number) and formatted them for easy pasting in tumblr, an effort which took about eight tries and a lot of google because I freaking SUCK at sed.  sed hates me.  I did each iteration (1 through 5) seperately because I am no coder.

cat test3.txt | grep '5' | sed -e s/[[:space:]]*5[[:space:]]*//g  > 5counts.txt

for an output of: 

Anax junius  Common Green Darner Argia fumipennis  Variable Dancer Arigomphus villosipes  Unicorn Clubtail...

So what did we get?

STUFF IN ALL FIVE COUNTIES (my county of Fulton plus the ones around it:  Bedford, Huntington, Franklin in PA and Washington in MD), ones I do not have a verified photo record of are bolded:

Anax junius  Common Green Darner (I can’t catch them.  We have ‘em.) Argia fumipennis  Variable Dancer Arigomphus villosipes  Unicorn Clubtail Calopteryx maculata  Ebony Jewelwing Celithemis elisa  Calico Pennant Dromogomphus spinosus  Black-shouldered Spinyleg Enallagma aspersum  Azure Bluet Enallagma civile  Familiar Bluet Enallagma signatum  Orange Bluet Epitheca cynosura  Common Baskettail Epitheca princeps  Prince Baskettail Erythemis simplicicollis  Eastern Pondhawk Hagenius brevistylus  Dragonhunter Ischnura posita  Fragile Forktail Ischnura verticalis  Eastern Forktail Libellula cyanea  Spangled Skimmer Libellula incesta  Slaty Skimmer Libellula luctuosa  Widow Skimmer Libellula pulchella  Twelve-spotted Skimmer Macromia illinoiensis  Swift River Cruiser Pachydiplax longipennis  Blue Dasher Perithemis tenera  Eastern Amberwing Phanogomphus lividus  Ashy Clubtail Plathemis lydia  Common Whitetail Sympetrum rubicundulum  Ruby Meadowhawk Sympetrum semicinctum  Band-winged Meadowhawk Sympetrum vicinum  Autumn Meadowhawk

These All-Five-Counties odonates are the guys I should be able to find in my county.  The official list says they’re here and they are also in all the bordering counties.  I should make more of an effort on these because they’re probably here.

Next, I have four-out-of-five. These are likely but not 100%.  Bolded the ones I do not have and probably I should read up for better stalking of these jobbies.  Lurking in the usual hangouts, etc.

Aeshna umbrosa  Shadow Darner Argia apicalis  Blue-fronted Dancer Argia sedula  Blue-ringed Dancer Argia translata  Dusky Dancer Basiaeschna janata  Springtime Darner Boyeria vinosa  Fawn Darner Calopteryx angustipennis  Appalachian Jewelwing Chromagrion conditum  Aurora Damsel Didymops transversa  Stream Cruiser Enallagma basidens  Double-striped Bluet Enallagma divagans  Turquoise Bluet Enallagma exsulans  Stream Bluet Enallagma geminatum  Skimming Bluet Enallagma hageni  Hagen's Bluet Epiaeschna heros  Swamp Darner Hetaerina americana  American Rubyspot Lestes rectangularis  Slender Spreadwing Leucorrhinia intacta  Dot-tailed Whiteface    Libellula semifasciata  Painted Skimmer Phanogomphus exilis  Lancet Clubtail

And three out of five.  Maybes but worth looking at if I have the appropriate habitat.  Need to up my darner game.  I’ve bolded what I don’t have.

Aeshna tuberculifera  Black-tipped Darner Aeshna verticalis  Green-striped Darner Argia moesta  Powdered Dancer Boyeria grafiana  Ocellated Darner Cordulegaster maculata  Twin-spotted Spiketail Cordulegaster obliqua  Arrowhead Spiketail Enallagma traviatum  Slender Bluet Enallagma vesperum  Vesper Bluet Helocordulia uhleri  Uhler's Sundragon Ladona julia  Chalk-fronted Corporal Lestes vigilax  Swamp Spreadwing Pantala flavescens  Wandering Glider Somatochlora tenebrosa  Clamp-tipped Emerald Stylogomphus albistylus  Eastern Least Clubtail Tramea carolina  Carolina Saddlebags Tramea lacerata  Black Saddlebags

Two out of five.  Here we’re going to bold and italicize what I do have.  I don’t have most of these.

Aeshna canadensis  Canada Darner Aeshna constricta  Lance-tipped Darner Amphiagrion saucium  Eastern Red Damsel Celithemis eponina  Halloween Pennant Cordulegaster bilineata  Brown Spiketail Cordulia shurtleffii  American Emerald Enallagma antennatum  Rainbow Bluet Epitheca canis  Beaverpond Baskettail Gomphaeschna furcillata  Harlequin Darner Gomphurus fraternus  Midland Clubtail Gomphurus vastus  Cobra Clubtail Hylogomphus abbreviatus  Spine-crowned Clubtail Ischnura hastata  Citrine Forktail Ladona deplanata  Blue Corporal Lanthus vernalis  Southern Pygmy Clubtail Lestes congener  Spotted Spreadwing Lestes dryas  Emerald Spreadwing Lestes forcipatus  Sweetflag Spreadwing Lestes inaequalis  Elegant Spreadwing Libellula axilena  Bar-winged Skimmer Libellula vibrans  Great Blue Skimmer Macromia alleghaniensis  Allegheny River Cruiser Nehalennia irene  Sedge Sprite Neurocordulia obsoleta  Umber Shadowdragon Ophiogomphus rupinsulensis  Rusty Snaketail Pantala hymenaea  Spot-winged Glider Phanogomphus spicatus  Dusky Clubtail Rhionaeschna mutata  Spatterdock Darner Somatochlora linearis  Mocha Emerald Stenogomphurus rogersi  Sable Clubtail Sympetrum obtrusum  White-faced Meadowhawk Tachopteryx thoreyi  Gray Petaltail

1 of 5 -- I figure this stuff is longshots but do note that the lilypad forktail, bolded and italicized below, the ONE record in the five county area -- that’s my record.  I found that.  That was me.  So possibly...  

Anax longipes  Comet Darner Archilestes grandis  Great Spreadwing Argia tibialis  Blue-tipped Dancer Calopteryx amata  Superb Jewelwing Cordulegaster diastatops  Delta-spotted Spiketail Cordulegaster erronea  Tiger Spiketail Dorocordulia libera  Racket-tailed Emerald Enallagma anna  River Bluet Enallagma annexum  Northern Bluet Enallagma carunculatum  Tule Bluet Enallagma ebrium  Marsh Bluet Gomphurus lineatifrons  Splendid Clubtail Hetaerina titia  Smoky Rubyspot Hylogomphus viridifrons  Green-faced Clubtail Ischnura kellicotti  Lilypad Forktail Lanthus parvulus  Northern Pygmy Clubtail Lestes australis  Southern Spreadwing Lestes disjunctus  Northern Spreadwing Lestes eurinus  Amber-winged Spreadwing Lestes unguiculatus  Lyre-tipped Spreadwing Leucorrhinia frigida  Frosted Whiteface Leucorrhinia hudsonica  Hudsonian Whiteface Leucorrhinia proxima  Belted Whiteface Libellula auripennis  Golden-winged Skimmer Libellula flavida  Yellow-sided Skimmer Libellula quadrimaculata  Four-spotted Skimmer Nasiaeschna pentacantha  Cyrano Darner Nehalennia gracilis  Sphagnum Sprite Neurocordulia yamaskanensis  Stygian Shadowdragon Ophiogomphus carolus  Riffle Snaketail Ophiogomphus mainensis  Maine Snaketail Phanogomphus borealis  Beaverpond Clubtail Phanogomphus descriptus  Harpoon Clubtail Phanogomphus quadricolor  Rapids Clubtail Somatochlora elongata  Ski-tipped Emerald Somatochlora walshii  Brush-tipped Emerald Stylurus laurae  Laura's Clubtail Stylurus spiniceps  Arrow Clubtail Sympetrum internum  Cherry-faced Meadowhawk

Anyway.  That’s how I buffed up my “things to look for in my area and how reasonable they are for me to be looking for them” list for dragonflies.  Seems legit to me, anyway.

[musical-theatre-encyclopedia]

1. "Die, Vampire, Die" from [title of show]

2. "Pop! Flash!"  from Weird Romance

3. "Havin' a Hunch" from Seussical

4. "McElligot's Pool" from Seussical

5. "Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!" from Seussical

6. "Consider Yourself" from Oliver!

7. "Consider Your self (Reprise)" from Oliver!

8. "Open a New Window" from Mame

9. "My Best Girl" from Mame

10. "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful" from Hairspray

11. "It's a Woman's World" from The Full Monty

12. "Let It Go" from The Full Monty

13. "I Can Do That" from A Chorus Line

14. "Rockstar" from Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson

15. "I'm Not That Smart" from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

16. "I'm Not That Smart (Reprise)" from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

17. "Whatcha Got?" from Zanna, Don't!

18. "The Kite" from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

19. "If I Could've Been" from  Working

[thewho-manity]

I'm just saying, some weird cat starts playing with my kid in the bathtub? If I was the Mayor, I'd have 911 on speed dial. And who the fuck is McElligot, and why is he letting kids into his pool??

[the--life--of--hannah]

Seussical Bloopers

*During McElligot's Pool*

Jojo: Anything's Possible!

Random Who *Stands up in audience*: "NO FAIR! WHY DOES ONLY JOJO GET TO HAVE A FLASH MOB IN HIS BATHROOM? I WANT TO HAVE ONE TOO!"

Me: Falls out of chair laughing

SOURCE: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8718722/9/