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John Reads the First Chapter of Turtles All the Way Down

2017-09-05 · story · John · 10:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: self promotion, song or performance, heavy topic

John reads the Schopenhauer epigraph and first chapter of his forthcoming novel Turtles All the Way Down: at lunch in White River High School, 16-year-old Aza Holmes spirals into fears about her microbiome and C. diff while her friend Daisy raises Davis Pickett, whose fugitive father carries a $100,000 reward; John ends nervous and points to pre-orders.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; John will read the first chapter; the narrator is 16-year-old Aza Holmes

00:00:13 — Reading the Schopenhauer epigraph and Chapter One: lunch at White River High School, Davis Pickett's fugitive father, Aza's thought spiral about her microbiome and C. diff, Daisy's hair and Star Wars, the memory of Davis at camp

  • ★★ Arthur Schopenhauer (quoted): The novel's epigraph, from Arthur Schopenhauer: man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills. — 00:00:13
  • ★★ Aza Holmes: Aza opens on when she first realized she might be fictional: lunch at White River High School in Indianapolis at a time set by forces too large to identify. (fiction) — 00:00:19 · Indianapolis

  • ★★★ Aza Holmes: Aza says your life is a story told about you, not one you tell: you pretend to be the author, but the bell chooses; you are the canvas, not the painter. (fiction) — 00:00:49

    “You think you're the painter, but you're the canvas.”

  • ★★ Aza Holmes: Aza likens her lunch table to a long-running Broadway play: Mychal the Artsy One, Daisy her Best and Most Fearless Friend, and herself the Sidekick, somebody's something. (fiction) — 00:01:49

  • ★★ Aza Holmes: Aza reflects that by cell count humans are about half microbial, with a thousand times more microbes in her than people on Earth; it isn't irrational to worry about being a bacterial colony. (fiction) — 00:02:51
  • ★★ Mychal Turner: Mychal says Davis Pickett's father vanished the night before a raid over bribery, with a $100,000 reward out for him; Aza knew Davis from camp. (fiction) — 00:03:31
  • ★★ Aza Holmes: Fearing her stomach noise signals a C. diff infection, Aza rereads Wikipedia on the human microbiome and recalls a Cleveland Clinic case; her self replies she has no fever yet. (fiction) — 00:04:22 · Wikipedia
  • ★★ Daisy Ramirez: Daisy tells Mychal his Photoshop project averaging the faces of a hundred Mychals should average exonerated prisoners instead, making it about race, class and mass incarceration. (fiction) — 00:05:04
  • ★★★ Aza Holmes: Aza wonders whether, if half your cells are not you, the notion of 'me' as a singular pronoun, let alone author of her fate, holds. (fiction) — 00:05:27
  • ★★★ Aza Holmes: Aza describes her compulsion to reopen a callus on her finger to drain imagined infection: once she starts thinking about it, she literally cannot not do it. (fiction) — 00:05:48
  • ★ Daisy Ramirez: Daisy shows off her dyed hair; her self-proclaimed life motto is 'Break Hearts, Not Promises'. (fiction) — 00:06:42

  • ★★★ Aza Holmes: Despite Dr. Karen Singh's breathing advice and warnings not to look things up, Aza rereads the article; a thought spiral, followed inward, never ends but tightens infinitely. (fiction) — 00:07:52 · Wikipedia

    “if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.”

  • ★ Aza Holmes: Daisy plans to watch Star Wars Rebels with Aza; she loves all of Star Wars, even the Lego show, and writes fan fiction about Chewbacca's love life. (fiction) — 00:09:13

  • ★★★ Aza Holmes: Aza recalls lying beside Davis on a camp dock looking at the same sky, maybe more intimate than eye contact: it is rare to find someone who sees the same world. (fiction, hedged) — 00:09:53

    “It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”

00:10:21 — Thanks, nervousness, pre-order links; sign-off

  • ★★ John thanks viewers for listening and admits he is very nervous. — 00:10:21
  • ★★ John points viewers who want to pre-order the book to links below. — 00:10:25 · Turtles All the Way Down

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description points to pre-ordering a probably signed copy (out October 10) or an unsigned one anywhere, and invites viewers to see Hank and John on tour. — video description · Turtles All the Way Down, Hank Green
  • ★★ The description says the chapter introduces Aza, whose obsessive thought spirals do not make her a particularly good detective. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Aza Holmes · Turtles All the Way Down

Also: People: Arthur Schopenhauer

Works: Star Wars · Star Wars Rebels

Organizations: Cleveland Clinic · Wikipedia

Concepts: Clostridioides difficile infection · fan fiction · free will · human microbiome · mass incarceration · obsessive-compulsive disorder · personal identity

Places: Broadway theatre · Indianapolis · Paris

Characters: Chewbacca · Daisy Ramirez · Davis Pickett · Karen Singh · Mychal Turner · White River High School

Products: Adobe Photoshop · Dr Pepper · Lego

Also centred on Aza Holmes: Hello! Meet Aza!

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