Read a Never Published, “Subversive” Chapter from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

in K-12 | September 1st, 2014

chocolate factory unpublished chapter

50 years after the pub­li­ca­tion of Roald Dahl’s beloved chil­dren’s book, Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, The Guardian has post­ed online a nev­er-before-pub­lished draft of the book’s fifth chap­ter. It was cut from the first print­ed edi­tions of Dahl’s clas­sic, writes The Guardian, because it was con­sid­ered “too wild, sub­ver­sive and insuf­fi­cient­ly moral for the ten­der minds of British chil­dren.” You, the read­er liv­ing in 2014, will like­ly have a hard time fig­ur­ing out what the fuss was about.

The lost chap­ter, appro­pri­ate­ly illus­trat­ed by Sir Quentin Blake, begins:

The remain­ing eight chil­dren, togeth­er with their moth­ers and fathers, were ush­ered out into the long white cor­ri­dor once again.

“I won­der how Augus­tus Pot­tle and Miran­da Grope are feel­ing now?” Char­lie Buck­et asked his moth­er.

“Not too cocky, I should­n’t think” Mrs Buck­et answered. “Here – hold on to my hand, will you, dar­ling. That’s right. Hold on tight and try not to let go. And don’t you go doing any­thing sil­ly in here, either, you under­stand, or you might get sucked up into one of those dread­ful pipes your­self, or some­thing even worse maybe. Who knows?”

Lit­tle Char­lie took a tighter hold of Mrs Buck­et’s hand as they walked down the long cor­ri­dor. Soon they came to a door on which it said:

THE VANILLA FUDGE ROOM

“Hey, this is where Augus­tus Pot­tle went to, isn’t it?” Char­lie Buck­et said.

“No”, Mr Won­ka told him. “Augus­tus Pot­tle is in Choco­late Fudge. This is Vanil­la. Come inside, every­body, and take a peek.”

The chap­ter con­tin­ues at The Guardian.

Relat­ed Free­bies: If you head over to Quentin Blake’s web site, you can find some items that are “fun & free” — like free e‑cards designed by Blake; free wall­pa­per for your iPhone, iPad and desk­top; and free draw­ings that you can col­or in. Mean­while Audible.com offers The Roald Dahl Audio Col­lec­tion, which fea­tures Dahl him­self read­ing sec­tions from Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry. You can get the col­lec­tion for free by join­ing Audi­ble’s 30-day Free Tri­al pro­gram. Please read the details about the Free Tri­al pro­gram here, and know that we have a part­ner­ship with Audible.com. So, if you make a pur­chase, it will help sup­port Open Cul­ture.

via Men­tal Floss

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Miranda July’s Quirky Film Presents Somebody, the New App That Connects Strangers in the Real World

in Creativity, iPhone, Technology | September 1st, 2014

Hav­ing owned an iPhone for all of one month, I’m still a bit leery of all it can pur­port­ed­ly do for me. Con­ve­nience is great, but I’m not sure I’m ready to cede con­trol of all the lit­tle tasks, chal­lenges, and puz­zles my own imper­fect brain has been han­dling more or less well for near­ly half a cen­tu­ry.

I don’t hate blun­der­ing. And I real­ly like inter­act­ing with librar­i­ans, local res­i­dents, and strangers who might be will­ing to use my cam­era to take a group pho­to in a restau­rant or scenic loca­tion. 

Film­mak­er Miran­da July’s just released Some­body is, I sus­pect, some­thing of a niche app.

If you cringe at the idea of flash mobs, Improv Every­where, and audi­ence inter­ac­tive the­ater, it is most def­i­nite­ly not for you. 

It’s absolute­ly per­fect for me (or will be once I get up to speed on my touch­screen.)

Basi­cal­ly, you take a self­ie, cre­ate a pro­file, and wait for a stranger to select you to deliv­er a live mes­sage as his or her proxy. In addi­tion to trawl­ing the area for the des­ig­nat­ed recip­i­ent, you may be called upon to weep, hug, or get on your knees to get that mes­sage across.

Will you make a new friend? Prob­a­bly not, but you will def­i­nite­ly share a moment.

And because no good deed goes unre­ward­ed, your per­for­mance will be open to the vagaries of cus­tomer review, a humil­i­a­tion July does not shy from in the pro­mo­tion­al video above.

Is this app for real?

Yes, espe­cial­ly if you live in LA, New York, or anoth­er cul­tur­al­ly rich Some­body hotspot.

If you don’t—or if receiv­ing a mes­sage deliv­ered, in all like­li­hood, by a tech savvy hip­ster, makes your flesh crawl—you can still enjoy the film as a com­ment on our dig­i­tal exis­tence, as well as a reflec­tion of July’s ongo­ing desire to con­nect.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Miran­da July’s Short Film on Avoid­ing the Pit­falls of Pro­cras­ti­na­tion

Learn to Make But­tons with Film­mak­er Miran­da July

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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