I’ll tell you an interesting story about André. He couldn’t fit on a schoolbus on the way to school. He told me this. So he had to be driven, in a car, to school every morning. And his parents couldn’t afford one. But his neighbor had a big car. And his neighbor used to drive him to school every day. And I said, “Oh, really?” He said, “Oh yes, he was a very nice man.” I said, well, “Really.” He said, “Yes, yes. You may have heard of him, I don’t know.” I said, “Really? What’s his name?” He goes, “Samuel Beckett.”
Transcribed from actor Cary Elwes’s commentary on the “Princess Bride” dvd. Footnotes by Mike Benedetti. Beckett stencil by Ben Cummings.
Notes:
1. André Roussimoff, as “André the Giant,” was one of the greatest and most beloved professional wrestlers of all time. He had gigantism, and was claimed to be 7 ft 4 in, 540 lbs.
2. The Roussimoff family farm was in Molien, a village miles from Paris. André attended school at nearby Ussy-sur-Marne until around 1957, when he dropped out to work on the farm.
3. Irish writer Samuel Beckett was part of the French Resistance against the Nazis and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He is best known for his play “Waiting for Godot.” According to his friend James Knowlson, in 1953 Beckett took some money from an inheritance and built a house near Molien, which he used as a retreat for the rest of his life.
4. Princess Bride. Great movie. Cary Elwes was the pirate, André was the giant.
We are surprised as anyone to be celebrating 2 years of Happiness Pony.
If you’ve had trouble finding issues from our first two year, please e-mail editor@happinesspony.com and let us know where we should drop off a stack each month.
Or, download this zip file with the first 24 issues in PDF form: Link
We celebrated 2(!) years of Happiness Pony this week with an appearance on Soapbox, the flagship talk show of Worcester’s cable access station, WCCA TV13.
Just in time for Christmas, a new issue of Worcester’s Journal of Fossil Fuel Exploration. Mining coal and punk; the Mu koan; worms; true action tales; the Christmas Dimension; Unitarian Transylvanians; and the New Kids.
(Would you like to help revise “Who Rules Worcester”? Click here.)
New issue of HP hits Worcester’s coffee shops and libraries today, with a big article on Fruitlands, an account of Joseph Palmer’s beard resistance, “Who Rules Worcester” circa 1970, Louisa May Alcott making fun of her father, foxes, dressing warmly, and a word about Dr. Chege.
The latest Happiness Pony can now be found on the streets and on the sorting table of your favorite neighborhood library. Seadragons, “nasturtiums,” knife ordinances, Sqwincher, Sun Tzu, judgement, Callista Perry on admitting ignorance, Joe Scully on the start of King Philip’s War, and the Snow Ghost himself.
