The Lorax

Yep, then you have J.K. Rowling, who landed two entries, both very high in the top thirty, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone at thirteen and Harry Potter and the Prisoner Azkaban at twenty-eight.

And we certainly cannot forget Dr. Seuss claiming two spots with The Cat in the Hat at sixty-seven and The Lorax at eighty-one.

When I look at these specific authors, it feels like they accomplished something beyond just writing a good story.

They effectively created the literary equivalent of cinematic universes.

[gasps]

And it is called The Lorax.

Yes.

Nice.

I like it.

So let me take you through this.

So for anybody who doesn't know what The Lorax is, The Lorax is a book that Dr. Seuss put out, and it's about the conflict...

Well, it's about a lot of things.

The vandalism, the threats, the slur from a boss or a teacher, the incidents that never became a headline because nobody was killed.

One of her sisters started calling her the Anti-Semitism Lorax, the little figure from Dr. Seuss shouting into the woods while the trees keep coming down.

So October 8th didn't shock her, but the speed of it did, and how organized it was.

Her new book is an attempt to explain why.

...

in, in a little bit.

Your sister had described you as the antisemitism Lorax.

Yes.

Yeah.

I think, I think one of my favorite things is, like, um, Dr. Seuss's, Dr. Seuss's books, um, The Lorax and, and all that.

And, um, um, Tamba Oga Wanangu, if you know that book, I read that as-

Okay, I hope Sekuru can hear you-

If you don't catch it early, dude, it's just going to keep going and you're going to keep needing the, the, like a dope fiend, right? It's going to be, you need a bigger and bigger dose each time.

You ever read the story of the Lorax

from Dr. Seuss? I think so.

Were they living like the little world?

Where the sidewalk ends.

The Lorax.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

James and the Giant Peach.

Explain this to me.

Dr. Seuss's environmentalist, Lorax.

Yes, he wrote a book.

called the Lorax, and that was a creature in the book called a Lorax, and he was very, yes, environmentally conscious.

I see.

Mm-hmm.

Christ.

In my view, this raises the troubling possibility that this particular plant is only unique in that it exhibits behaviours that allow us to experimentally confirm that it can see and that, in fact, all plants are constantly watching and judging us, that your houseplants have been watching you jack-at-silly-style to feed Steph on DeviantArt and have read all of your embarrassing diary entries and that you are a targeted individual being gang-stalked by the Lorax.

You didn't have to say that stuff.

From the classic kid's tale by Dr. Seuss, the Lorax.

Thank you for clarifying who the

Lorax is.

I've been working on that assumption.

Yep.

[laughs]

Um, you begin the book by talking about one of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories as a kid, which was The Lorax.

[laughs]

The Lorax was this little creature that would come out and say, "I am the Lorax.

I speak for the trees." And somehow he didn't seem to prevent all that much harm from happening.

And you, you say that you have begun to feel like the anti-Semitism Lorax.

Seuss.

And he said this, and he... "Unless..." This is from The Lorax.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.

It's not." And in fact, I think all of the speakers, that's what we've come acro-- That's why we have chosen this path, because we realized that unless we spoke out, nothing is going to change.