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What is That Plane Rainbow? (It's Question Tuesday)

2018-02-02 · Q&A · Hank · 3:50 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing (also: Nerdfighteria, Science & nature, Personal life, Pop culture) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: recurring series, self promotion, community lore

In a Question Tuesday held on a Friday, Hank answers Twitter questions: he recommends Octavia Butler's Dawn, reports stressful editing of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (out September 25th), explains glories and Brocken spectres, sings a text message and picks an Elton John outfit.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Question Tuesday on a Friday; questions from Twitter; are numbers real?

  • ★ Hank holds Question Tuesday on a Friday, complaining that John always gets to do question videos just because he posts on Tuesdays. (playful) — 00:00:04 · Question Tuesday, John Green
  • ★ Hank's first question from Twitter is whether numbers are real or made up; he balks that they started out hard when question videos should be easier. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:14 · Twitter

00:00:21 — Best recent book: Octavia Butler's Dawn and its TV adaptation by Ava DuVernay

  • ★★ Hank often avoids promoting books by dead authors, because so many great books are being written by people working right now. — 00:00:25
  • ★★★ Hank's best recent read is Dawn by Octavia Butler, part of the Xenogenesis trilogy. — 00:00:33
  • ★★ Hank says Dawn is being made into a TV series by Ava DuVernay, shockingly the first time an Octavia Butler work has been adapted for TV or film. — 00:00:38
  • ★★ Hank says Dawn is very good and gives enormous insight into what it is like to be human and what 'human' means. — 00:00:48

00:01:01 — Book editing stress, an emoji for the book, release date, staying informed without stress

  • ★★ Asked how book editing is going, Hank says not great: a busy week, a deadline he may miss, and a lot of stress. (hedged) — 00:01:01 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Asked for an official emoji combination for his book, Hank asks people to come up with one and promises to return to it at the end of the video. — 00:01:17 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Hank's book An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is available for pre-order now and comes out on September 25th. — 00:01:21 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★ Asked how to stay informed about current events without stress, Hank says everyone would like to know the answer if the asker figures it out. (hedged) — 00:01:27

00:01:35 — What Hank did after finishing his first book: an accordionist in the airport, flying home from PodCon

  • ★★ After finishing his first book, Hank watched a French man play accordion in an airport while his children played, thinking that weird things happen both in his book and in the real world, then flew home. — 00:01:35

00:01:57 — The rainbow under the plane wing: glories and Brocken spectres

  • ★★ Hank says the rainbow seen under a plane wing is a glory: like a rainbow, an effect of light diffracting on water droplets, but with smaller droplets. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank says a glory is seen only from between the sun and the cloud, so rarely from the ground; before planes, glories were seen mostly from mountaintops. — 00:02:07
  • ★★ Hank says mountaintop observers were often inside the cloud's fog, so besides the glory they saw a Brocken spectre, very cool and super creepy. — 00:02:20

00:02:36 — Hank sings his last text message: Julie's birthday and recording DadCast

  • ★★ Singing his last text message, from Marianne, Hank learns it is Julie's birthday and confirms he can record DadCast on Monday; he thanks Marianne for keeping his life in order. (playful) — 00:02:38

00:02:58 — Which Elton John outfit Hank would wear

  • ★★ After googling Elton John outfits, Hank picks the one he calls Sparkly Banana Beetlejuice. (playful, hedged) — 00:03:27 · Google

00:03:30 — Emoji sequences for the book from Katherine and April May; sign-off

Humor (significant)

  • Hank's first Twitter question asks whether numbers are real or made up; he stalls and whispers. — 00:00:14

    “I feel like we started out hard!”

  • Asked to sing his last text message, Hank sings the reminder from Marianne. — 00:02:38

    “Good morning to things!”

  • Googling Elton John outfits, Hank describes his favourite. — 00:03:15

    “Beetlejuice, but with a sparkly banana.”

  • Hank now wants an Elton John outfit review podcast, but admits one shortcoming. — 00:03:23

    “I definitely cannot compete with the chest hair.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Dawn (Butler novel) · Glory (optical phenomenon)

Also: People: Ava DuVernay · Elton John · Julie · Katherine Green · Marie Ann

Projects: PodCon

Works: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · DadCast · Lilith's Brood

Organizations: Google · Twitter

Rituals: Question Tuesday

Concepts: Brocken spectre · rainbow

Characters: April May

Only in the description or credits: Octavia E. Butler

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