Good morning Hank, it's Friday, and my time in the Netherlands is almost coming to an
end, sadly. There is so much that I will miss about Amsterdam: I will miss the elm trees
and the amazing public transportation and my little slivery view of the canal. I'll
miss the cafés and the bicyclic abundance and living in an apartment that is older than
my country - and those are just the things that I will miss that I can see outside my
window!
By the way, Hank, if you hear any background noise, that's mom. Say hi, mom!
Mother Green: Hey darling. Your mother misses you.
John: Your mother misses you. She'll come all the way to Amsterdam to visit me, but
you don't see her in Montana very often. I don't know who the favorite son is!
Right, Hank, so a couple notes about your last video: first off, your punishments are
very mean, and I will talk more about that when I get back to the States; secondly, when
you had that ice cream truck and it was playing "Sexy Back", it reminded me of the one thing
that I won't miss about Amsterdam, and that is the soundtrack in the stores.
So Hank, you know how, when you're shopping for stuff, they generally pipe music in so
that you're happy and you want to purchase goods and services? Right, but when they do
that here, they don't use muzak, they use real music, which is great. But they also
use a lot of gangster rap, and they don't, like, edit the lyrics. So basically, your
experience of buying baby wipes and/or shoes is like this--I'm going to replace all the
curse words with the names of British Romantic poets:
"I'm a William Blake gangster, so of course you want my Samuel Taylor Coleridge, you're
going to want to be all up IN this William Wordsworth, like OH Percy Shelley, OH OH Percy
Shelley! I'm the Lord Byron-ing Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake!"
It's just an unpleasant way to buy diapers, Hank, so I won't miss that. But I will miss
a lot. I want to thank all the Belgian and Dutch Nerdfighters who came out to events,
and I also want to thank the Dutch Literature Foundation for making this possible.
In other news, Hank, I was recently on tour in Hoogeveen--file under places that seem
made up but aren't--and a Nerdfighter gave me this "This Star Won't Go Out" bracelet
which I've been wearing ever since because my "This Star Won't Go Out" bracelet was broken
by a member of my household who will remain nameless, although he is quite small.
Anyway Hank, the generosity of this present reminded me to tell you that "This Star Won't
Go Out" bracelets are available at dftba.com. 100% of the proceeds go to benefit This Star
Won't Go Out, a foundation that was established in memory of Nerdfighter Esther Earl. All
the money from This Star Won't Go Out goes to support families who've been affected by
cancer. Hank, believe it or not, it's been almost ten months since Esther died. In that
time, we've raised more than $10,000 for This Star Won't Go Out, which I think is pretty
awesome. Nerdfighteria, thank you for your support, and there's a link to get your bracelet
in the doobly-doo.
Also Hank, being on tour in the Netherlands has reminded me that you and I are going on
tour in the United States when my new, as-yet-untitled, but soon-to-be-titled book comes out. Nerdfighters,
we really want this tour to be amazing, but we're also not that creative. For instance,
Hank, did you know that the probable title of my new novel was stolen from a Nerdfighter?
As, in fact, was the central observation of the book, so... thanks, Nerdfighteria!
Right, so but we're not that creative, so we want to know from you, Nerdfighteria, what
you would like to see happen. Don't tell us where you want us to go; that's a separate
conversation. Just what you would like to see, what you'd like to do, what should happen.
Also, one last question, Nerdfighteria: would you like it if I read the audiobook? Uh, it's
a little bit weird because the book is narrated by a young woman, and I am not a young woman,
so you'll hear my voice being like, "And then I took off my bra." [laughs] I mean - I don't
- she doesn't take off her bra in the book that I can remember, but you know, whatever,
like, it might be a little weird.
All right Hank, I've got to go back to editing. DFTBA, I will see you on Monday - I got the
day right! Nerdfighters!