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Stephen King On Growing Up, Believing In God And Getting Scared
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Stephen King, has written a new novel. It's got a horror house and a torture chamber, but it's not exactly a horror novel. It's set in an amusement park called Joyland, in 1973. The park's funhouse may be haunted by a ghost, which may explain the dead bodies; but the book isn't exactly a supernatural thriller.
King's new novel, "Joyland," combines elements of crime, horror and the supernatural. The main character is a college student who aspires to write for The New Yorker. After his heart is broken by his girlfriend, he wants to get away from his life in New England; and takes a job in North Carolina at the Joyland amusement park, where he enters a different world.
"Joyland" is published by the small press Hard Case Crime, which publishes new, hardboiled crime novels as well as lost ones from the past, with original cover art in the style of old, pulp-fiction paperbacks. We're going to talk with Stephen King about the new novel, and lots of other things.
Stephen King, welcome back to FRESH AIR. It's really a pleasure to have you back on our show. I would like you to start with a reading from "Joyland," and there's probably an official word for this page. The detective books I used to buy when I was like, in my early teens used to have this kind of page. It's like a page with a lot of like, drama in it. I want you to read that page.
STEPHEN KING: Hi, Terry, it's a pleasure; and this is the tease for "Joyland." (Reading) I stashed my basket of dirty rags and Turtle Wax by the exit door in the arcade. It was 10 past noon but right then, food wasn't what I was hungry for. I walked slowly along the track and into Horror House. I had to duck my head when I passed beneath the screaming skull, even though it was now pulled up and locked in its home position.
(Reading) My footfalls echoed on a wooden floor painted to look like stone. I could hear my breathing; it sounded harsh and dry. I was scared, OK? Tom had told me to stay away from this place, but Tom didn't run my life any more than Eddie Parks did. Between the dungeon and the torture chamber, the track descended and described a double-S curve where the cars picked up speed and whipped the riders back and forth.
(Reading) Horror House was a dark ride but when it was in operation, this stretch was the only completely dark part. It had to be where the girl's killer had cut her throat and dumped her body. How quick he must have been, and how certain of exactly what he was going to do. I walked slowly down the double-S, thinking it would not be beyond Eddie to hear me and shut off the overhead work lights as a joke, to leave me here to feel my way past the murder site with only the sound of the wind and that one slapping board to keep me company.And suppose, just suppose, a young girl's hand reached out in that darkness and took mine.
GROSS: That's Stephen King, reading from his new novel "Joyland." So why did you want to write a crime novel? What do you like about that genre as a reader and as a writer?
KING: When I was a kid, my mother used to read Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason mysteries and Agatha Christie's. And I never really cared much for the courtroom drama. The Erle Stanley Gardners and the Perry Masons always seemed even as a kid to be a little bit stylized to me and a little bit fake. But I loved the Agatha Christie.
The thing that I really enjoyed was that it was all there in front of you so that when Miss Marple got everybody together in her room and said this and this and this should have been obvious to me, I'm thinking to myself, well, it should have been obvious to me too. There was a puzzle element to it, and you know, I just couldn't figure out how anybody could plot that way.
And I guess the reason why was because I was never built to be the sort of writer who plots things. I usually take a situation and go from there. So with "Joyland," there is a trail that you can follow that leads to the killer. But you know what - if you figured out who it was in advance, you were doing better than I was because I got near the end of the book before I realized who it was.
GROSS: Uh-oh.
GROSS: You might have been in trouble.
KING: No, no, that's good. I think that's good.
GROSS: Is it? Why?
KING: I don't want the reader to feel like this is all a sort of pre-fab creation. I want it to feel organic, to feel like it grew by itself. I've never seen novels as built things. I have a tendency to see them as found things so that I always feel a little bit like an archaeologist who's working to get some fragile fossil out of the ground. And the more you get out unbroken, the better you succeed.
GROSS: So this is a crime novel that's set in an amusement park in North Carolina, but there's also an element of the supernatural in it. What did an amusement park that's kind of very carny seem like a good opportunity to combine crime and the supernatural?
KING: Well, I always wanted to write a novel set in an amusement park, and in the original concept of "The Shining," that was going to be a family that was caretaking an amusement park at the close of the season, and I had sort of an idea...
GROSS: Instead of an old hotel.
KING: Instead of an old hotel, yeah, and I had a title for the book. I was going to call it "Dark Shine," and I think I had a name for the amusement park too. It might have been Skyhook or something like that, named after one of the rides. Ever since I was a little boy and I went to the Topsham Fair, I've loved the rides and the barkers. I think those people in particular, the shy bosses, they're called, they're the people who turn the tips, they're the ones who stand out in front and tell you, you know, everybody wins, folks, everybody wins, come on over, it's just a quarter of a dollar and everybody wins.
Hey Mister, you want to win this big stuffy toy for your girlfriend? She's a beauty and she deserves - you know, that kind of thing. In a way it's a little bit like revival preachers but in a secular version. So I've always been kind of fascinated by those things and in love with it, and I just kind of wanted to visit that world for a while. I had an idea for the story, which by the way has been in my head for about 20 years now.
And all it was to begin with was an image of a boy in a wheelchair, flying a kite on a beach. And that picture was just as clear in my mind as it could be; and it wanted to be a story, but it wasn't a story, it was just a picture, as clear as clear is clear. And little by little, the story built itself around it. And I thought, well, there's an amusement park down the beach from where this kid in the wheelchair is trying to fly his kite. And the name of the amusement park is Joyland.
Then I went to the Internet, which is every writer's newest crutch, and I looked at amusement parks. I wanted one that was nice and clean and sunlit, but wasn't too big. So I didn't want a Disneyworld; I didn't want a Six Flags park. And I settled on a place called Canobie Lake, which is in Massachusetts, just about the right size. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: Canobie Lake is in New Hampshire.]
And I got a map of the place, and I printed it out, and then I started to think, well, this is going to be my funhouse, and it's going to be called Horror House. And this is going to be my Ferris wheel, and it's going to be called the Carolina Spin because it's going to be in Carolina, on the beach there. And little by little, these things came together.
And then as I wrote the book, this thing happened where it became less and less like a standard amusement park, and more and more like the carnies I remembered from my youth; and the more carny it got, the better I liked it, actually. And I started to go to websites that had various carny language, some of which I remembered a little bit, pitchmen called shy bosses and their concessions called shies and the little places where they sold tickets and sometimes sat down and rested were called their dog houses.
And then other stuff I just made up, like calling pretty girls points. I can't remember some of the other ones; it's all mingled together now in my head.
GROSS: My guest is Stephen King. His new novel is called "Joyland." More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: My guest is Stephen King. His new novel is called "Joyland." So you mentioned the boy in the wheelchair was the first image that came to you, and that boy in the novel is a 10-year-old named Mike who has muscular dystrophy, but a special kind which usually kills you in your early teens or 20s.
But Mike has the sight. What is the power that he has?
KING: He has a power to see a little bit beyond this world, and he has a very small talent compared to some of the other characters in books that I've written. He's got a little bit of precognition.
GROSS: And his grandfather in the novel is a famous preacher, third to Oral Roberts - and who's the second one you mentioned? Jimmy Swaggart.
KING: Yeah.
GROSS: And his grandfather says that the muscular dystrophy is Jesus' punishment. This preacher is not a generous person.
GROSS: He's not an emotionally generous person, and his name is Buddy Ross, and he hosts "The Buddy Ross Hour of Power" on TV. And I'm wondering if you watched preachers on TV when you were growing up and put some of that into this guy.
KING: Yeah, I watched a lot of them when I grew up, mostly because they were always running in the house where my family lived. My mother and my sister had a tendency to turn on people like Oral Roberts, and there was another guy, a real hellfire guy named Jack Van Impe. And I'm aware of people that are sort of in that same ballpark, if you will, in that same church pew today, like Pat Robertson, and they always strike me as a little bit on the shady side, people who are just as interested in making sure they get the collection plate filled as they are in saving souls.
And that's an interesting part of American life, and I've always thought that someday I would really like to write a novel about that kind of guy. And I think the reason that Buddy Ross is not a very sympathetic character in the book is that he never steps onstage in the course of the book. One thing that we do know is that Mike Ross, his grandson, likes him.
He says he's a little bit crazy on the Jesus stuff, but otherwise he seems like a pretty nice guy. And that's one thing about the characters in the stories I write. I always try to show that we all have our good side. Sometimes with some people it's very small, but it's usually there.
GROSS: Did you watch Oral Roberts for religion or for entertainment value?
KING: Mostly for entertainment and also because of the rhythm of speech. I enjoyed all those revival preachers because there's a certain poetry in the way that they speak, and I always enjoyed that. I know W.H. Auden said thou shalt not read the Bible for its prose, and I suppose you're not supposed to watch televangelists to enjoy the sound of their voice, but man, sometimes it's hard not to.
GROSS: Are you trying to make a connection in your book between the preaching that you say ends with the collection of the plate and the kind of carny pitchman?
KING: Yeah, I think it's there. It isn't overt in the book, but sure. We have a lot of carny aspects to life in America, everything from television and the movies to our religion, and we can see from the mega-churches that, my goodness, Terry, people love a show, so that you can have a nice Methodist church somewhere in Oak Park, Illinois if you want, and people are going to come, and they're going to sit there, and the organ's going to play. And that's all terrific. But what I want is down in the amen corner, Jesus jumping, I want that big choir with the people swaying from side to side, oh God, and I want the electric guitar. Then I want the preaching, you know, where the guy's going to walk back and forth and not just stand like a stick behind the pulpit. He's going to, you know, shake his fist a little bit in the air and then he's going to smile and throw his hands up and say God's good, God's great, can you give me hallelujah.
I just absolutely adore that, and it's really only about two steps from the carny pitchmen, because I like that, too.
GROSS: Is that what you had in church? What did you have in church when you were growing up?
KING: Oh no, I went to a Methodist church for years as a kid, and Methodist youth fellowship on Thursday nights, and it was all pretty - you know, think of a bottle of soda with the cap off for 24 hours.
KING: There weren't very many bubbles left in that stuff by then. It was pretty - it was Yankee religion, Terry, and there's really not much in the world that's any more boring than that. They tell you that you're going to go to hell, and you're half-asleep.
KING: What kind of preaching is that?
GROSS: But you always believed in God. You were just bored in church.
KING: Well, I guess that the jury's out on that.
GROSS: About, about which? About God?
KING: On God and the afterlife and all that. It's certainly a subject that's interested me, and I think it interests me more the older that I get. And I think we'd all like to believe that after we shuffle off this mortal coil, that there's going to be something on the other side because for most of us, I know for me, life is so rich, so colorful and sensual and full of good things, things to read, things to eat, things to watch, places to go, new experiences, that I don't want to think that you just go to darkness.
I can remember as a kid thinking to myself, oh God, I hope I don't die because I'll just have to lie down there in that box and I won't be able to play with my friends or go to baseball games or any of those things. As a kid, death seemed boring to me. As an adult, I think that it seems more like a waste of everything. Somebody once said every time a professor dies, a library burns.
And there's some of that feeling. But as far as God and church and religion and the Buddy Rosses and that sort of thing, I kind of always felt that organized religion was just basically a theological insurance scam where they're saying if you spend time with us, guess what, you're going to live forever, you're going to go to some other plain where you're going to be so happy, you'll just be happy all the time, which is also kind of a scary idea to me.
GROSS: I remember you telling me the last time we spoke that you always believed in God, and it's a choice that you made, and you just, you choose to believe it.
KING: I choose to believe it, yeah. I think that - I think that that's - I mean there's no downside to that, and the downside - if you say, well, OK, I don't believe in God, there's no evidence of God, then you're missing the stars in the sky, and you're missing the sunrises and sunsets, and you're missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together at the same time.
Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design. But at the same time there's a lot of things in life where you say to yourself, well, if this is God's plan, it's very peculiar. And you have to wonder about that guy's personality, the big guy's personality. The thing is, like, I may have told you last time that I believe in God. What I'm saying now is I choose to believe in God, but I have serious doubts.
And you know, I refuse to be pinned down to something that I said 10 or 12 years ago. I'm totally inconsistent.
GROSS: I'm all for that.
GROSS: Really. So is your interest in the supernatural connected to your interest in or questioning of God? Because they're both in some way about powers beyond our perception.
KING: Well, belief in the supernatural or belief in wild talents like precognition and telepathy and telekinesis and things like that, it seems to me that belief in those things is just very, very freeing. I can remember talking to the late Stanley Kubrick, who called when he was getting ready to start filming "The Shining," and whatever else you could say about him, he was a thinking cat.
You know, he really thought about what he was doing. He didn't just go out there and shoot film. So he said to me, Stephen, don't you feel that anybody who tells a ghost story is basically an optimist because that presupposes the idea that we go on, that we go on into another life? And I said, well, yes, I can see that, but what about hell?
And there's this long pause on the other end of the line, and then Stanley Kubrick said in this very stiff voice: I don't believe in hell.
KING: And to me it was the voice - to me it was the voice of somebody who was denying their own maybe deeply held belief in something that they were unable to root out. You know what the Catholic Church used to say: Give them to me when they're young and they're ours forever. And there might have been some of that in Stanley Kubrick's voice.
GROSS: It sounds very selective to decide to like believe in heaven but not hell.
KING: Yeah, I know. Well, it doesn't seem quite fair, does it? It's like only allowing one team to have their batters-ups in a baseball game. So he said I don't believe in hell, and I said no, you choose not to believe in hell. And that was the only time I ever really spoke to him on subjects theological.
GROSS: Back to the question of whether your interest in the supernatural connects to your thinking about God, and some people I know will hate this question, I'm not trying to compare God to the supernatural. However, they're both about a belief in things beyond our powers of perception.
KING: Well, you have every right in the world to connect God to the supernatural because God is a tripartite being, and one of his beings is the Holy Ghost. We've rearranged that in our minds. I'm sure that Cotton Mather would be rolling over in his grave. So now that you go to church, and they'll say Holy Spirit, which comes down to the same thing, but to me that's a milk water way of saying what was the original Christian translation of that: God is a ghost, God is a holy ghost.
And he's there, supposedly, and watches what we do, and he is sort of the ultimate, what can I say, spook, because he's there. He watches you while you're doing this, while you're doing that. And I can remember actually being in a Boston movie theater about 12 years ago or so, going to the bathroom in the middle, and going into one of those stalls in the movie theater bathroom, and there were posters on all the inside of the stall doors that had Jeff Goldblum from "The Fly."
And it had this caption that said: Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop.
KING: And he had this horrible, intense look in his eyes, and I was thinking, well, it isn't Jeff Goldblum that's watching us have sex with people that we're not in relationships with, or stealing stuff or this or watching us poop. It's God. So that is basically a supernatural theme. I have no problem with collating those two things together.
GROSS: Stephen King will be back in the second half of the show. His new novel is called "Joyland." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Stephen King, who's famous for his horror novels and stories of the supernatural, including "Carrie," "The Shining," "The Stand," "The Dead Zone" and "Cujo." A new CBS summer TV series adapted from his novel "Under the Dome" premieres June 24th. His new novel is called "Joyland."
When you were in your formative years, what were your supernatural fears, and did you always wish you had some of the supernatural powers that you've given some of your characters?
KING: I think it's built-in. I think it's just part of human nature. I've been queried a lot about where I get my ideas or how I got interested in this stuff. And at some point, a lot of interviewers just turn into Dr. Freud and put me on the couch and say: What was your childhood like?
And I say various things and I confabulate a little bit and kind of dance around the question as best as I can, but bottom line: My childhood was pretty ordinary, except from a very early age, I wanted to be scared. I just did. I was scared afterwards. I wanted a light on, because I was scared that there was something in the closet. My imagination was very active, even at a young age.
For instance, there was a radio program at the time called "Dimension X," and my mother didn't really want me to listen to that, because she felt it was too scary for me. So I would creep out of bed and go to the bedroom door and crack it open. And she loved it, so apparently, I got it from her. But I would listen at the door, and then when the program was over I'd...
KING: ...I'd go back to bed and quake.
GROSS: So you wanted to be scared, or, I mean, did you have a...
KING: Yeah.
GROSS: ...avoidance thing with being scared? Or did you just want to be scared?
KING: Terry, I loved it. It was a classic attraction-repulsion thing. I wanted to be scared. I wanted that reaction. And, I mean, I can self-analyze to a degree, and it might be right and it might be wrong. But here's what I really think: I wanted an emotional engagement with something that was safe, something that I could pull back from. And I basically, I had a big imagination, I wanted to put it to work, even at an early age.
So I would ask my mother to take me to movies like "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" or "Them," where the giant ants came out of the subway drains in Los Angeles. And she was OK with that. She was down with that, because she liked it. I can remember her reading us - my brother and I - "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." We would get the classics comic books with things like "Oliver Twist." And "Oliver Twist" was a wonderful story, but what I really liked was the death of Fagan, where, you know, he was just sort of ah, with his eyes bugging out, because the classics comic books, in a lot of cases, were just dressed-up easy horror comics. So I think it's built in. I think it's like a piece of magnetic steel that draws a needle.
GROSS: Are there things that scare you as an adult that you were not aware enough of or smart enough for when you were a kid to understand that these were frightening things?
KING: Well, you grow up, and you become frightened of different things, and they have a tendency to be real-world things.
GROSS: Yeah.
KING: It's been quite a while since I was really afraid that there was a boogeyman in my closet, although I am still very careful to keep my feet under the covers when I go to sleep, because the covers are magic, and if your feet are covered, it's like boogeyman Kryptonite.
KING: So I'm not as afraid of that as I used to be. The supernatural stuff doesn't get to me anymore. But here's the movie that scared me the most in the last 12 or 13 years: The movie opens with a woman in late middle-age, sitting at a table and writing a story. And the story goes something like, then the branches creaked in the - and she stops, and she says to her husband: What are those things? I can't think of them. They're in the backyard, and they're very tall, and birds land on the branches. And he says, why, Iris, those are trees. And she says, yes, how silly of me. And she writes the word, and the movie starts. That's Iris Murdoch, and she's suffering the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
GROSS: Yeah.
KING: That's the boogeyman in the closet now.
GROSS: Why is that the thing you're most afraid of?
KING: I'm afraid of losing my mind.
GROSS: Losing your memory?
KING: Mm-hmm. Well, you don't just lose your memory. You lose your mind, basically.
GROSS: Yeah.
KING: You lose your identity, your sense of who you are, where you are. If you're a block away from the house, you may forget how to get home. I think I could put up with a lot of things and a lot of pain. I have put up with a lot of pain. I got hit by a car in 1999 and got most of the bones on the right side of my body broken, and I bore up under that and I got better. But you can't get better if your mind is stolen away from you.
So here's what I'm saying: As we get older, our fears, in some way, sharpen and become more personal, because we can no longer - let's say take a book like "It" or maybe "Christine," and say these are make-believe fears. Instead, we have more of a tendency to focus on things that we know are out there. We fear for our families. We fear for our mental abilities. We fear for diseases.
You may see a dark spot on your arm or an irregular mole and say, gee, I better get that checked out. If you're woman, doing a self breast exam and you feel a lump that wasn't there before, these are very real fears. So when you ask me what I'm afraid of, I'd say I still go to see ghost movies when I get a chance or some sort of supernatural being, that kind of thing, but it doesn't scare me as it scared me when I was a child. But on the other hand, if I see a wonderful writer like Iris Murdoch losing her mind, I have more of a tendency to focus on that than how loving her husband was, which is supposed to be the uplifting part of that film.
GROSS: My guest is Stephen King. His new novel is called "Joyland." More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Stephen King, and his new novel is called "Joyland." And it's published by the crime press, Hard Case Crime.
So, you know, you mentioned your car accident from 1999. Are you still in chronic pain as a result of that?
KING: I guess I am, but I don't think about it very much anymore. I exercise a lot, and I try to stay as mobile as I possibly can. I can remember the doctor saying to me, well, after the accident I asked the guy: Will I ever be able to play tennis again? And he said no, but you'll be able to walk. Well, I can play tennis again, and I think that...
GROSS: Wow. Really?
KING: Well, you know it...
GROSS: I mean, your leg was crushed, basically.
KING: It was crushed. But I think that doctors have a tendency to lowball, so that if you get a little more than they say, you say, wow. I'm really beating the odds here. I'm doing a terrific job. But you just go ahead and you do the therapy and you bear the pain, because you're told that if you do the therapy and bear the pain, things will get better. And that actually seems to be the case.
GROSS: So one time when we spoke after the accident, you were saying, you know, you had had an addiction problem with pills, and you'd kicked that. You were clean. And then you're in this horrible accident and you're own painkillers that are addictive. And as much as you wanted to not take them, like, after a certain kind of accidental like the one you are in, you really need help.
KING: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: You really need painkillers. So were you able to successfully get off of them?
KING: Yeah. This was - I had the accident in 1999, and at that time, Oxycontin hadn't been on the market very long - two years, maybe three. You could check me on that, but it wasn't a long time. And I was a mess, Terry. I mean, the muscles were just hanging off what remained of my leg, and they talked very seriously about amputating the leg and ended up doing something called a fasciotomy instead that let out just enough of the blood and the swelling so that I could keep the leg. But it was broken everywhere. You couldn't even count the brakes.
He said that - the doctor that worked on me said it was like marbles in a sack. And the pain was terrible, and they said, you know, we have this wonderful drug called Oxycontin, and we think that it's going to be a game-changer for you. And it was. And I loved that stuff. I loved the fact that I was able to finish the book that I had been working on, called "On Writing."
The pain was terrible, but the pills made the pain better. They helped the physical pain, but they also cheered you up the way that...
KING: ...addictive drugs do. So by, I would say, two years down the road, post-accident, I was a total junkie again. I was using probably somewhere between 280 and 400 milligrams of Oxy a day, and my leg hurt as bad as it ever did, because your brain basically wants that dope and refers the pain or creates the pain so that you'll continue to get it.
And finally, that just had to stop. That's all. And I kicked it. And it's not, for anybody out there who's doing Oxy, who thinks you can't kick it, you absolutely can. It's a three-week process. It's a physical process where you shiver and shake. They don't call it kicking the habit for nothing. But when it's done, it's done, and there's no residual urge to use that I ever felt. So I've been clean - totally clean for a long time now.
GROSS: Do you think your writing has changed, or what you want to write about has changed in the years since the accident?
KING: I don't know. I'm on the inside.
GROSS: Because at first you said you weren't going to write for a while, but, you know, you're still writing.
KING: Yeah. But the thing is, when I said that I wasn't going to write or when I was going to retire, I was doing a lot of Oxycontin for pain, and I was still having a lot of pain. And it's a depressive drug, anyway, and I was kind of a depressed human being because the therapy was painful. The recovery was slow, and the whole thing just seemed like too much work. And I thought, well, I'll concentrate on getting better, and I probably won't want to write anymore.
But as health and vitality came back, the urge to write came back. Now, here's the thing: I'm on the inside, and I am not the best person to ask if my writing changed after that accident. I don't really know the answer to that. I do know that since then I've - that was close. That was really being close to stepping out, the accident. And a couple of years later, I had double pneumonia. And that was close to stepping out of this life, as well. And I think you have a couple of close brushes with death like that. It probably has...
KING: Somebody said the prospect of eminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind. And I don't know if that's true, but I do think it probably causes some changes, some evolution in the way a person works. But on a day-by-day basis, I just still enjoy doing what I'm doing.
GROSS: Since, you know, we've talked a little bit about your interest in the supernatural and in whether or not there is an afterlife, did you have any of those, you know, like near-death experiences that are, you know, sometimes described by people who came very close to dying, but were then revived?
KING: I never saw the white light. I'm sorry. I can't tell a lie. I never saw the white light. So, no, I can't say that I've ever had a near-death experience where, you know, angels rose fluttering from the end of my hospital bed or anything. I just felt really sick, and I had a couple of - my wife would say - bad drug interactions where I started to rave. And I don't remember any of those things. And that's it, man. I'm just glad to be alive now, and I'm very curious about what, if anything, comes next. But I'll wait. I'll wait.
GROSS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hope you'll be waiting a really, really long time.
KING: Yeah. From your lips to God's ear.
GROSS: If there is a God, right?
KING: If there is a God.
GROSS: So...
KING: What do you think, Terry? Is there, or is there not?
GROSS: Oh, I'm not even - I'm not going there.
KING: You're not even going there.
GROSS: It's my show. I don't have to go there.
KING: That's right. I have to go there, because I have to promote my book. And because I have to promote my book, I have to talk about whether or not I think there's a God. Well, I just don't know, actually.
GROSS: I think that's a fair bargain, don't you?
KING: Yeah.
GROSS: You've got a book, and you've got to answer that question.
KING: That's right. You know, the whole thing is a little bit like a carnie, isn't it? The whole book promotion deal or the movie promotion deal. You do this thing, and it's inside the tent. So then you have to kind of come out and do a little cooch dance to get people to come inside.
GROSS: I know. I know. I know you must feel that way. From my point of view, on the other side of the mic, this is, like, this is my chance to talk to you about things I'd love to talk with you about. And I know the reason why you're here is that you've got a book to promote. But to me, it's like what a wonderful opportunity to have this conversation.
KING: I don't mind. I mean, people generally go in a barbershop or in a diner and get a cup of coffee and start talking about these things. And it's kind of like, hey, see you later. I've got a job to do. But this is your job and my job, so I get to talk about all these things. It's kind of cool.
GROSS: I want to point out to our listeners the cover of "Joyland" - which is your new crime novel on the Hard Case Crime press. First of all, I want to ask you - this is not - you're the kind of successful writer that can get a really large advance for a book. I doubt Hard Case Crime can pay you the kind of advance that you get because, I mean, they're this really little press devoted to a certain type - like a certain niche of, like, the hard-boiled crime novel. They love those, like, old-fashioned pulp covers. Your book has one of those.
KING: Yeah.
GROSS: They do, like, original paperbacks and I think some, like, republications of paperbacks. Why did you want to write for them? It's not going to be - you know, it's not going to be your biggest moneymaker. Because of...
KING: It's - it - Hard Case Crime is a throwback to the books that I loved as a kid. We lived way out in the country and my mother would go once a week shopping and she would go to the Red and White or the A&P to pick up her groceries. And I would immediately beat feet to Robert's Drug Store where they had a couple of those turnaround wire racks with the hardboiled paperbacks that usually featured a girl in scanty clothing on the front.
She'd usually, you know, be kind of dressed like a cigarette girl and it'd be a Lucky Strike hanging from one corner of her mouth. And she'd have an automatic pistol in her hand.
GROSS: Yeah.
KING: The teaser line that I always loved the most was for a novel called "Liz," where it said: She hit the gutter and bounced lower.
GROSS: That's great.
KING: I love that. And, you know, the one on the front of "Joyland" says: Who dares enter the funhouse of fear?
GROSS: And I want to mention there's a teaser line. There's a limited edition hardcover version of the book though the book is largely paperback.
KING: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: And the teaser line on the hardcover version is: Beyond the lights, there is only darkness. I like that.
KING: I wrote that line.
GROSS: Did you? I like that.
KING: Yeah, I wrote that line.
GROSS: And that's the lights of the amusement park that it's set in.
KING: What is it? Beyond the light there's only darkness.
GROSS: Yeah.
KING: Read the line again.
GROSS: You like it that much you want to hear it again? OK.
KING: I didn't hear the end of it.
GROSS: Beyond the lights there is only darkness.
KING: Can I write or what? God.
KING: Just kidding.
GROSS: Stephen King, I want to thank you so much for talking with us. It's really been great to talk with you again. And I'm so glad to hear that, in spite of the car accident, like, you're playing tennis and stuff like that. That's great.
KING: Yeah. Yeah, it's good to be alive, Terry. And some time when you're up here we'll play doubles.
GROSS: Oh. Yeah. I'll tell you who will win that one.
KING: How about shuffleboard? Maybe shuffleboard.
GROSS: That's right. And ping pong.
KING: Pac Man.
GROSS: Pac Man. Even better.
KING: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
GROSS: Thank you so much. Be well. Stephen King's new novel, "Joyland," will be published June 4th. You can read an excerpt and see both book covers on our website freshair.npr.org. Next week is also the release date for a new CD of songs from King's music theater collaboration with John Mellencamp called "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County" and a new CBS summer TV series adapted from King's novel "Under the Dome" premiers June 24th.
Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews "Vampire Weekends" new album. This is FRESH AIR.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


text:
What's the best way to set up a consultation or an appointment with a wedding officiant during the COVID-19 pandemic?
The safest way to conduct a consultation during COVID-19 is virtually. Ask wedding officiants near you if they can have a phone call or a virtual appointment over video chat. If they can, make sure to ask them any questions you have about upcoming work. Discuss what precautions, if any, they have in place to ensure safety. You might consider asking if they accept digital payments or if they can complete the work remotely, without any in-person contact.
Do wedding officiants offer remote or virtual services?
Reach out to wedding officiants in your area, and ask them if they can offer a remote or virtual ceremony. Some officiants may be willing to meet in person while maintaining 6 feet of distance, while others may prefer to conduct the entire service over the phone or a video call service such as Skype or Zoom.
Familiarize yourself with the social distancing rules in your community, city and state, and move forward only if both you and the officiant are comfortable with the arrangement.
Can I use digital payments to pay for a wedding officiant?
Ask your wedding officiant if they accept digital payments. Many professionals are accept payment via Venmo, PayPal, Square Cash, Apple Pay, Zelle and other online platforms. Professionals may be more willing to switch to digital payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, as this is typically considered safer than using cash or credit cards. You can see which digital payment options officiants accept by reviewing their online profiles.
Are there ways to be safe if I hire a wedding officiant when social distancing?
If you decide to hire a wedding officiant when social distancing, ask if the officiant can offer remote services. Some wedding officiants are choosing to conduct services virtually and/or stand more than 6 feet away from the parties. Discuss possible arrangements with your wedding officiant, and familiarize yourself with your local community guidelines, as well as the CDC's guidelines for social distancing. Only move forward if you and the officiant both feel comfortable.
You may want to implement extra precautions, such as using digital payments instead of exchanging cash, sanitizing all involved spaces and waving instead of shaking hands.
How can I find out if a wedding officiant is considered an essential COVID-19 service provider?
The definition of essential services varies by location, so you will need to visit your state or city government website to learn what is considered an essential service in your area.
For more information on a national level, read CISA's publication on critical infrastructure workers. Some, but not all, jurisdictions follow CISA's definitions of critical infrastructure.
Does a wedding officiant need to enter my home?
This depends on the location of your wedding. Unless the ceremony is being held in your home, a wedding officiant will not need to enter your home before the ceremony. Some couples are choosing to stand outside or go to a vacant public place, so the officiant can conduct the ceremony while maintaining 6 feet of distance. Ask your wedding officiant what kinds of arrangements they offer, including virtual or remote services.
How much does it cost to officiate a wedding?
The national average cost to hire a wedding officiant is $150-$200. Wedding officiant rates are affected by the date of the ceremony, the time of day, and how far the officiant has to travel. Some officiants may charge extra for additional ceremonies like unity candles or sand ceremonies, as well as the cost of the supplies. Many wedding officiants have higher rates for larger weddings and lower rates for smaller, more intimate ceremonies. Personalizing the ceremony means a lot to some couples. Wedding officiants may have flat rates for standard ceremony templates, perhaps $100-$125, and charge more for a more customized experience, such as $150-$200. This allows the couple to collaborate with the wedding officiant as they are building a unique ceremony script. At the pre-wedding meeting, the officiant will ask whether the couple plans to write their own vows and how much input they have about the rest of the wording and flow of the ceremony. Additional planning meetings and extra communication can add up to a higher overall cost. If your venue has parking or other fees, you may need to pay on behalf of the officiant. Often wedding officiants can rent sound systems and wireless mics if you have an outdoor wedding location or venue that is not wired. These extras will also increase the overall cost.
What does it mean to officiate a wedding?
To officiate a wedding is to oversee the official union of two people in marriage. A wedding officiant is vested with the power to legitimize your union in the eyes of the court. An officiant also sets the tone for your ceremony, leading the couple through their vows and shaping the experience with the words they choose and the pace they set. An officiant may be based in a religious faith, may be an interfaith officiant, may be a secular officiant, or may be a friend or family member who has received ordination online.
You can have a traditional wedding officiated, or you can also have an officiant oversee a commitment ceremony, a vow renewal or an elopement. Once the wedding is complete, the officiant will ask you to sign the wedding certificate, and will then submit the document to the court on your behalf. This makes your marriage legal. Wedding officiants work with you no matter how simple or elaborate you would like your ceremony to be. The more involved wedding officiants are in the planning and customization of the ceremony, the more they will typically charge.
Who performs a wedding ceremony?
Anyone who is authorized by the court or a credible online source has the power to perform a wedding ceremony. Traditionally, wedding officiants were ordained members of a religious organization or civil officiants authorized by the court to legally marry two people. With the increasing customization and personalization of weddings, many couples are asking a friend or family member to become ordained and act as their wedding officiant. Wedding officiants can represent a wide range of backgrounds including Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, nondenominational, interfaith or nonreligious. There is no legally required structure for a wedding ceremony, so couples can customize the language of the ceremony and their vows in any way they desire (though members of some religions may have specific requirements). To legally validate the marriage, the couple and the wedding officiant must sign a marriage certificate after the ceremony verifying the date and names of those involved. The wedding officiant should then submit the certificate to the court, which will in turn mail an official marriage certificate to the newly married couple.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sunset and Sunrise Photos
From all-creatures.org
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"And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" (Genesis 1:31)
Sunset and Sunrise Photos
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| Sunset and Sunrise Photos - Page 1 - Page 2 | Art and Photos |
Presented here are just a few of the countless components of God's creation. Just as we cannot have human and animal life without water and plants, neither can we have lasting peace without love and compassion. It is our hope and prayer that this series will motivate people to live and act in a cruelty-free manner; that we would no longer hurt or destroy each other, the animals or our environment.
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The themes of these All Creatures Art and Photo Journals and Galleries Directory cover such subjects as - creation, earth, environment, ecology, plants, flowers, birds, trees, creature, animal, animals, fine arts, watercolor, painting, paintings, pic, pics, pictures, photos, vegetation, restoration, preservation, vegetarian, vegan, cruelty free, love, joy, peace, kindness, compassion, humor, poetry, quotations, lifestyle, Bible, recipes, sermons, stories, human, animal rights, God, Jesus, Christ, Lord, Holy Spirit, Jewish, Christian, Judeo Christian, health, ethical living, meditation, Sunset and Sunrise Photos (d-30)


text:
Who is ready for summer? Several of us are finishing up our schoolwork, dealing with stress, and ready for a quick breather. Here are a few summer reading recommendations from your dear HackLibSchool editors. We've broken the list down into Leisure and LIS reading. Please add your own recommendations in the comments!
Leisure Reading
- Rose
- The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson – Annie and Buster Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves from their famous artist parents, Caleb and Camille. But when a bad economy and a few bad personal decisions converge, the two siblings have nowhere to turn but their family home. Reunited under one roof for the first time in more than a decade and surrounded by the souvenirs of their unusual upbringing, Buster and Annie are forced to confront not only their creatively ambitious parents, but the chaos and confusion of their childhood.
- The City and the City by China Mieville – Twin southern European cities Beszel and Ul Qoma coexist in the same physical location, separated by their citizens' determination to see only one city at a time. Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad roams through the intertwined but separate cultures as he investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, who believed that a third city, Orciny, hides in the blind spots between Beszel and Ul Qoma. As Mahalia's friends disappear and revolution brews, Tyador is forced to consider the idea that someone in unseen Orciny is manipulating the other cities.
- Annie
- The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus – A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of children's speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people are going into hiding. The Flame Alphabet invites the question: What is left of civilization when we lose the ability to communicate with those we love? Both morally engaged and wickedly entertaining, a gripping page-turner as strange as it is moving, this intellectual horror story ensures Ben Marcus's position in the first rank of American novelists.
- Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain – At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled "quiet," it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society–from van Gogh's sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer.
- Paul
- Cat Girl's Day Off by Kimberly Pauley – For the YA fiction readers, a fun sci-fi novel about Natalie Ng, a teenage girl whose superpower is the ability to talk to cats. Nat and her best friends tackle a mystery centering on a kidnapped celebrity gossip blogger when the blogger's cat screams that the woman he is with is an imposter.
- Chris
- What Should I Do with My Life? by Po Bronson – Bronson tells the inspirational true stories of people who have found the most meaningful answers to that great question. With humor, empathy, and insight, Bronson writes of remarkable individuals—from young to old, from those just starting out to those in a second career—who have overcome fear and confusion to find a larger truth about their lives and, in doing so, have been transformed by the experience.
- Good, Better, Best Wines by Carolyn Evans Hammond – When it comes to wine, your "wants" are pretty simple: a good wine, at a price you can afford, that's stocked at your local wine shop or supermarket. Good Better Best Wines gives you just that. It reveals in plain English, the good, better, and best wines available for the dollars you're willing to spend–up to $15–along with photos of clearly labeled bottles to make wine shopping easier.
- The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith – Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante.
- Julia
- Re-reading We Heart Libraries by John Ira Thomas and Jeremy Smith (a library-friendly version of the Zoo Force comics) and all the other Candle Light Press books (I recently was gifted with a complete collection). Should be a good time!
- The Essential Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter and Willow Rosenthal – Shows you how to do all sorts of exciting gardening/homesteading projects. I am reading it to review it for a journal, but I secretly wanted to read it anyways!
- Joanna
- Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore – If it follows the vein of previous Moore romps it will take a heavy dose of history and completely upend it to the suspension of all disbelief. "Oh lÀ lÀ, quelle surprise, and zut alors! A delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history—with cancan girls, baguettes, and fine French cognac thrown in for good measure—SacrÉ Bleu is another masterpiece of wit and wonder from the one, the only, Christopher Moore."
- Game of Thrones by George RR Martin – I've been holding off starting the series until I had time because I've been told by many that you will stay up all night reading through them. I haven't seen any of the tv series and am greatly looking forward to a fun escape for a while.
- Ashley
- Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin – To borrow one of my recent blog posts… "Yelchin gives us a glimpse into Soviet Russia through the eyes of a child. In a flash a young Soviet boy loses everything…but it takes a day for this reality to sink in. Join Sasha on the eve of his communist Pioneer induction. Watch as he moves from total faith in his party and leader…to alienation. Don't worry–the story is also peppered with humor and hope. The illustrations are works of art worthy of their own book. It's in my top five favorite children's books. A must read."
LIS Reading
- Chris
- Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) [pdf]
- My Data Management Plan – a satire by C. Titus Brown
- The Legal Framework for Reproducible Scientific Research: Licensing and Copyright by Victoria Stodden [pdf]
- Annie
- 3 Ways College Libraries Are Exploring Pinterest by Nick DeSantis
- Puppies in the Library and Social Media by Andy Burkhardt
- Rose
- Who Owns Oral History? A Creative Commons Solution by Jack Dougherty and Candace Simpson
- Joanna – I am going to read through the papers Rebecca linked to in her last article (gearing up for a fiction purchase battle) and then these writing/education/reading resources:
- Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott "Lamott's ( Operating Instructions ) miscellany of guidance and reflection should appeal to writers struggling with demons large and slight." She states that her goal is to not only make you a better writer, but a better reader and (marginalia pen in hand) I'm already finding that to be true.
- Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin "School was invented to create a constant stream of compliant factory workers to the growing businesses of the 1900s. It continues to do an excellent job at achieving this goal, but it's not a goal we need to achieve any longer. In this 30,000 word manifesto, I imagine a different set of goals and start (I hope) a discussion about how we can reach them. One thing is certain: if we keep doing what we've been doing, we're going to keep getting what we've been getting."
- You are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins Goins is a blogger and writer I admire and have gotten a great deal from already. I'm looking forward to delving into this and maybe even finally embracing that I am a writer. "In You Are a Writer, Jeff Goins shares the truth about writing. He provides the tools and insights you need to build your platform, develop an audience, and make meaningful connections. No writer should embark on his or her writing journey without reading this first!"
- Teresa
- The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton
- Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators by Char Booth
What are you planning to read over the break? Do you have any recommendations?
Categories: To Read


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How much does it cost to haul off junk?
The average cost to haul away junk is $150, though this price can be expected to vary between around $75 and $375, depending on several factors.
The first factor is the quantity of junk removed. Most junk removal services charge by the truckload, and most residential projects only require filling up part of a truckload.
Another factor is the type of junk. E-waste like computers and TVs may cost more to dispose of, as will more hazardous materials like mercury, paint and used motor oil. It also may cost more to remove big items like beds and couches.
To find out how much it will cost to get rid of your junk, get free estimates from the best junk removal companies near you.
How do you prepare for junk removal?
To prepare for junk removal, start by listing all the items you should get rid of. Organize your list by which items are appropriate for the junk collection team and which may have some resale value or could be donated.
Move through your house and hit problem spots like closets, attics and basements. Make a pile of items you plan to keep, give away, sell, donate and have the junk removers pick up. Finally, contact at least three junk removal companies for price quotes.
How can I get rid of junk fast?
To get rid of your junk fast, start by organizing and making a list of what you have. Sell what you can, and give away items that you value but you don't want to friends and family.
If you don't have the means to transport items or if you have too much junk to get rid of on your own, it's time to hire a pro. A junk removal service can quickly and efficiently get rid of junk for you, including lifting heavy objects and making sure nothing is damaged.
Find a junk removal service near you and start asking for free estimates.
Do you tip junk removal guys?
You may want to tip your junk removal team if they did an exceptional job. For instance, if they show up on time, are courteous and professional, take extra care not to damage your possessions and home, and leave a clean site afterwards, you may feel like giving them a tip. A reasonable tip might be $20 per crew member.
It's also nice to tip them on especially hot days, or when the weather is inclement. You can also provide food and drinks for them.
How do you throw away a couch?
You can get rid of a couch by hiring a junk removal pro who can get it safely out of your house and dispose of it. There are other options as well, including renting a trailer and hauling it to a proper disposal facility, or leaving it out for someone to pick up.
However, a junk removal service is the easiest option. This keeps you from having to lift a heavy object or risk scuffing up your walls. Furthermore, a licensed junk removal service can responsibly dispose of a couch, saving you from having to find a site.
What's the best way to set up a consultation or an appointment with a junk removal service during the COVID-19 pandemic?
You can set up consultations and appointments with a junk removal service near you during the COVID-19 pandemic by messaging the professional of your choice in an online search. Ask if they are willing to set up a video call to assess the project and answer any questions you have. Discuss a strategy for staying safe during the job, including sticking to guidelines on social distancing as well as paying through digital platforms instead of cash or check.
Does a junk removal service need to enter my home?
A junk remover may not need to enter your home if all of the materials are located outside. If a junk remover needs access to your home and the project is deemed essential, you'll need to discuss a strategy for safety. For example, avoid being near each other, sanitize involved surfaces and conduct payments using digital platforms. Discuss potential strategies with junk removal companies in your area.
Do junk removers offer remote or virtual services?
Because junk removal requires manual labor, it is not typically a remote service. However, if you see a profile that states the junk removal company is offering remote services, ask the company what those services include. And schedule a phone or video consultation with local junk removers, and ask what precautions can be taken to comply with social distancing guidelines.
Are there ways to be safe if I hire a junk removal service when social distancing?
If you hire a junk removal company near you, take precautions to avoid person-to-person contact, sanitize involved surfaces and use virtual payments. If possible, it might also be a good idea to move the items that are getting picked up outside so the junk remover doesn't need to enter your home.
How can I find out if a junk removal service is considered an essential COVID-19 service provider?
Junk removal may be considered essential in certain cases during the COVID-19 pandemic. A good place to start is by searching your city or state government's website for a list of guidelines.
For national guidelines, visit CISA's Identifying Critical Infrastructure During COVID-19 webpage, which identifies 16 types of essential infrastructure sectors that can continue operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, not all jurisdictions follow CISA's definitions of critical infrastructure.


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Cold Rib Of Beef With Show Show
Normalized frequency per year
Appears in 1 menu:
Low: - → High: -
Date appearing
Earliest: 1937 → Latest: 1937
More information on
"Cold Rib of Beef with Show Show":
- Images
NYPL Digital Gallery, Flickr, Google Images.
- Recipes
Epicurious, Google Recipe.
- Books etc
NYPL Catalog, Hathi Trust.
- Restaurants
Menu Pages.
- General info
Google, Wikipedia, Twitter.


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Visit our Discord community hangout and have a real-time talk with the regulars, and keep track of UnrealSP.org developments.
Development on a new site is currently in-progress.
Until then, site contents are available on the Legacy site!
Additionally, newer content written by our staff is available in a temporary subforum.
We sincerely apologize for the delays in recreating the site.
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text:
Great Lakes shipping cargo was down in 2012
Great Lakes freighters carried less cargo in 2012 compared to 2011.
That's according to the annual report released this week by Ohio-based Lake Carriers' Association.
U.S.-flag ships working on the Great Lakes carried 89.5 million tons of the dry-bulk cargo last year, which is down 4.6 percent from 2011. The Green Bay Press-Gazette reports it's also down 1.5 percent from the five-year average of 90.8 million tons.
Iron ore shipments dropped 4.3 percent from 2011 but the total was above the five-year average of 42 million tons.
Coal shipments fell to 17.6 million tons last year, below the five-year average of 22.5 million tons. The decline has been partly attributed to the phasing out of Canadian coal-fired electrical plants.
Cement and limestone shipments were slightly ahead of the five-year average.


text:
Installing a new roof is a big decision. You will have to hire a roofing contractor and pay thousands of dollars in roofing materials. If you are constructing a new home, the best bet is to go with what the architect advises and what will be the longest lasting investment.
Unfortunately roof shopping is not like shoe shopping. These materials cost a lot and will be what is protecting your family from the elements. So you will want to do some research and make some calculations about the overall costs and benefits of each product. The roofing contractor you choose is also important. Don't let them tell you that shingles will last longer than Denver metal roofing.
Although asphalt shingles are everywhere and have been the cheapest roofing choice for years, most roofing contractors do not recommend them anymore. Sure, the roofer will probably get more business because he will have to replace the whole thing every 10-20 years. In the meantime the roofing contractor will also make money as shingles break and need to be replaced. However, this results in significant extra costs to you, and significant waste in terms of old shingles. Those shingles are made of a petroleum byproduct, asphalt and do not bio degrade. So for economical and ecological reasons we do not recommend asphalt shingles.
To determine if you want a roofer, consider their track record. Ask about their other jobs and customers. If they offer any product or construction warranties, make sure you get those in writing. They should be helpful and give you a written proposal, not try and convince you to let them start work immediately. That is unless you have put off roof replacement for so long that your roof damage is starting to damage the interior of the home as well. Denver metal roofing is probably the hardiest type of roofing and it is not complicated to install.
Once you decide on a roofing contractor and type of roofing, price will probably influence your final roofing choices. When doing roof replacement, oddly shaped roofs or an excess of protruding roof structures like vents will make the job more difficult and expensive. The base price is found by multiplying the cost per roofing unit by the amount needed to cover the roof. The roofer then adds expenses like fasteners and labor. Labor often costs more than the total costs of roofing supplies. If you had a poorly designed roof or suffered damage, the roofer may have to tear off the old roof before installing Denver metal roofing. This is a much more expensive process than just laying tile shingles.


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- Description
- 🚚 Shipping & Returns
- ⭐ iLoveMy.Pet Reviews
Entertain and Inform all visitors with this hilarious Fawn Chihuahua Signboard.
Warn them that there's an overly affectionate Fawn Chihuahua on the prowl - and they'll need to love, pet, and play if they're spotted.
Made of tin, measuring nearly 12" Tall x 8" Wide - place this cutest Beware of Chihuahua signboard outside or inside your house for the benefit and amusement of all. Get it for yourself, or gift this unique Fawn Chihuahua item to your Chihuahua-loving family and friends!
View more Chihuahua Signboards, view more Chihuahua Decor.
Material: Metal
One Size: 11.8" Tall x 7.8" Wide
NOW SHIPPING to Doggo Moms and Dads WORLDWIDE! 😍
- United States - 14 to 28 days with USPS
- UK - 10 to 15 days with Royal Mail
- Australia - 14 to 28 days with Australia Post
- Canada- 14 to 28 days with Canada Post
Most Other Countries - 20 to 40 days Delivery with Package Tracking.
View Full Shipping Country List
Get a full refund if your purchase doesn't arrive at your doorstep in 60 days.
Also, avail 7 Day Returns if the product is not as described, or if you are unhappy with the quality.
In rare cases, our products can get damaged in transit. If that's the case please let us know and we'll send you another.
We will however need your help with a few photos of the product so we can assess what went wrong.
Our products may take a few weeks to deliver. But once they arrive, they'll be sure to bring you and your loved ones smiles for years to come! 😃
7-Day Return Details 🧐
1) If the product is defective or not as described - we'll ask you to discard or donate the product you've received and refund you 100% of the purchase amount or send you another product. (whichever you prefer)
2) If you're unhappy with product quality - we'll ask you to discard or donate the product you've received and refund 75% of the amount you paid. We need to keep 25% as Restocking Fees because PayPal, Shopify, and the Shipping Company still charge us, even if we refund. We appreciate your understanding.
3) If the product arrives at your doorstep but no one is at home to collect - here it depends on the local postal system in your country.
Packages in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Europe are usually attempted for delivery again in 1-3 days after the first delivery attempt. Or are available at the local post office for collection. But in countries like Columbia or Brazil, in our experience thus far, this does not happen.
So we may not be able to help if the package does arrive at your doorstep, but no one was home to collect it, and the local postal system did not attempt redelivery.
We will however send you an email on the day your package is to be delivered, and also in case there was a failed delivery attempt.
We request our customers to order to an address where the package can be delivered safely and there is a greater likelihood of someone being available to receive the package.
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text:
Poetry Dispatch No. 313 | February 22, 2010
Bertolt Brecht
Brecht, it seems to me, still remains under the radar in this country. Invisible. An enigma of sorts. Much of this dealing with his Marxist politics, no doubt, though he lived here in exile from 1941 to 1947 — escaping Hitler, Nazi Germany. And wrote three of his best known plays at that time: Mother Courage, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and The Life of Galileo.
I can't recall any student in the past twenty years telling me he studied or was taught Brecht in college. I suspect most college students, English majors today even know his name—with the possible exception of theater arts majors. (And some may have heard the music, his songs, or have seen a production of his world famous "The Three Penny Opera", in collaboration with Kurt Weill, and/or "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny."
Poet, playwright, theater director, social critic…his cause was relentless. His voice, heard throughout Germany, Europe, and pockets of America, perhaps.
His poems, not that well known, are rock bottom real…flinty: the common tongue wagging uncomfortable images/ideas to ponder, entering the reader's psyche, harboring there a long time…Don't you see? Do something. Be something. —norbert blei
THE BURNING Of THE BOOKS
When the Regime commanded that books with harmful knowledge
Should be publicly burned and on all sides
Oxen were forced to drag cartloads of books
To the bonfires, a banished
Writer, one of the best, scanning the list of the Burned, was shocked to find that his
Books had been passed over. He rushed to his desk
On wings of wrath, and wrote a letter to those in power ,
Burn me! he wrote with flying pen, burn me! Haven't my books
Always reported the truth ? And here you are
Treating me like a liar! I command you!
Burn me!
Yes, I know: only the happy man
Is liked. His voice
Is good to hear. His face is handsome
The crippled tree in the yard
Shows that the soil is poor, yet
The passers-by abuse it for being crippled
And rightly so.
The green boats and the dancing sails on the Sound
Go unseen. Of it all
I see only the torn nets of the fishermen.
Why do I only record
That a village woman aged forty walks with a stoop?
The girls' breasts
Are is warm as ever.
In my poetry a rhyme
Would seem to me almost insolent.
Inside me contend
Delight at the apple tree in blossom
And horror at the house-painter's speeches.
But only the second
Drives me to my desk.
In the early hours I read in the paper
of epoch-making projects
On the part of pope and sovereigns, bankers and oil barons.
With my other eye I watch
The pot with the water for my tea
The way it clouds and starts to bubble and clears again
And overflowing the pot quenches the fire.
[from Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913-1956, Routledge, 1987]


text:
Arafat grave opened; remains tested for poison
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yasser Arafat's political heirs on Tuesday opened his grave and foreign experts took samples of the iconic Palestinian leader's remains as part of a long-shot attempt — eight years after his mysterious death — to determine whether he was poisoned.
Arafat died in November 2004 at a French military hospital, a month after suddenly falling ill at his West Bank compound, at the time besieged by Israeli troops.
The immediate cause of death was a stroke, but the underlying reasons were unclear, leading to widespread belief in the Arab world that Israel poisoned the 75-year-old symbol of Palestinian nationalism.
Israel has denied involvement in Arafat's death.
The exhumation began before dawn Tuesday, under the cover of huge sheets of blue tarpaulin draped over Arafat's mausoleum in his former government compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. By mid-morning, the grave was reclosed, and officials from Arafat's Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization laid wreaths at the mausoleum.
Palestinians had launched an investigation after Arafat's death, but made no progress. The probe was revived this summer when a Swiss lab detected elevated traces of a lethal radioactive substance, polonium-210, in biological stains on his clothing.
The lab said the tests were inconclusive and that it needed to examine the remains for a clearer picture.
Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, authorized the exhumation despite strong cultural and religious taboos against disturbing a gravesite, apparently to avoid any suggestion that he was standing in the way of a thorough investigation.
Abbas was absent during Tuesday's proceedings, instead heading to the United Nations to seek a General Assembly acceptance of Palestine as a non-member observer state. Abbas has said the request, strongly opposed by the U.S. and Israel, is meant to strengthen his leverage with Israel.
In Ramallah, workers have been drilling through thick layers of concrete encasing the tomb since mid- November. The grave was opened before dawn Tuesday, said Tawfik Tiraqi, head of the Palestinian team investigating Arafat's death.
A Palestinian official initially said some of the remains were moved to a nearby mosque. However, Palestinian Health Minister Hani Abdeen later said samples were taken without having to move the remains to another location.
The exhumation was attended by experts from Switzerland, France and Russia who will examine the samples in their home countries, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the exhumation. Earlier, samples were also taken from Arafat's bedroom, office and personal belongings, he said.
Dr. Abdullah Bashir, a member of the Palestinian investigative team, said it would take at least three months for results to come back.
Public reaction in the West Bank was mixed.
Nidaa Younes, a Palestinian government employee, said it was unnecessary to dig up the remains. "Our religion forbids exhuming graves. It is not nice at all to do this, even if religion permits it in some cases," she said, adding that she believes Israel was responsible for Arafat's death.
Ramallah resident Tony Abdo said he supports the exhumation, expecting it to prove that Arafat did not die a natural death.
Suspicions about Arafat's death flared again over the summer, when the Arab satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera took some of Arafat's belongings, provided by his widow Suha, to a Swiss lab for testing. The belongings included what Mrs. Arafat said were her husband's fur hat and a woolen cap with some of his hair, a toothbrush, and clothing with his urine and blood stains.
The Institute of Radiation Physics discovered elevated traces of polonium-210, the same substance that killed Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer turned Kremlin critic, in 2006.
Mrs. Arafat urged the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank-based self-rule government headed by Abbas, to exhume her husband's remains and also asked the French government to launch a separate investigation. Eventually, Abbas also requested that Russia join the probe.
But the exhumation and the testing of the remains might not resolve the mystery. Polonium-210 decomposes rapidly, and some experts say it is not clear whether any remaining samples will be sufficient for testing.
For decades, Arafat was the symbol of the Palestinians' struggle for an independent state. After returning from exile to the Palestinian territories in the early 1990s, as part of interim peace deals with Israel, he zigzagged between leading negotiations with Israel and condoning violence as a means of obtaining political goals.
Arafat, along with two Israeli leaders, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his commitment to work toward peace with Israel. He later presided over the Palestinians as they waged a violent uprising against Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories they seek for an independent state.
Israel accused him of ordering attacks against Israelis, and confined him to his Ramallah compound. He stayed there for more than two years before falling ill.
In his later years, Arafat also faced criticism at home, with some accusing his political circle of corruption and the pocketing of large amounts of aid. But he remains a widely revered figure in the Palestinian territories, and his portrait frequently appears in government offices and street posters.


text:
SZKLARSKA POREBA, Poland — Sonja Miskulin has forgotten her beloved cat, Pooki. She can't remember whether she has grandchildren and has no memory of her nine-hour journey one recent Sunday to forever leave behind her home in Germany.
Suffering from dementia, the wheelchair-bound former translator celebrated her 94th birthday in a Polish nursing home last month. Her daughter sent her there in a bid for a better life and more affordable care.
Miskulin has joined the vanguard of a controversial movement: emigrant nursing home residents. The "Grandma export" trend has set hands wringing in Germany, where Munich's leading newspaper denounced it as "gerontologic colonialism" and compared it to nations exporting their trash. Yet more families like Miskulin's say it's their best option to provide a dignified old age for elderly parents — and save money — amid a lack of affordable quality care at home. One in five Germans would now consider going abroad for a nursing home, according to a March survey by TNS Emnid, one of Germany's biggest pollsters.
"I can only say, children, when your parents get older, send them to Poland," said Miskulin's 66-year-old daughter, Ilona von Haldenwang.
Germany's migrating seniors are an early warning sign of a challenge of global proportions. As birth rates drop, life expectancies increase and the baby boomer generation heads into old age, the United Nations estimates the world's population of people older than 60 will more than triple to almost 2 billion by 2050. Meanwhile, even for seniors cushioned by government aid in countries like Germany, the cost of nursing home care is rapidly becoming prohibitive. German spending on long-term care for seniors is expected to increase from 1.4 percent of gross domestic product to 3.3 percent of GDP by 2060, the European Commission said in a report last year.
Miskulin's new home is in a picturesque Polish ski resort called Szklarska Poreba, which roughly translates to Glassmaking Clearing, named for the many glassworks that once defined the area. Her daughter chose the nursing home sight unseen after studying its website and meeting with a nursing-home placement broker. What began as an act of desperation — exporting her own mother — quickly began to make sense.
For four years, Von Haldenwang watched with increasing despair as her mother's health deteriorated in what she says was a poorly run German facility, even as it strained the women's finances. Now, at about a third the price for the care she received in Germany, Sonja lives in a restored century-old luxury villa where she enjoys fine meals, around-the-clock nursing and extensive physical therapy.
Miskulin is adjusting to her new surroundings. Still, the trade-off for both mother and daughter is the 350 miles separating them. The two women used to live only a two-minute walk apart. Von Haldenwang recalls the friend who helped move her mother protesting in disbelief as they climbed into the fir- covered Karkonosze Mountains that mark Poland's border with the Czech Republic.
"Oh God, oh God, where are we going? It's the end of the earth," she remembered her friend saying. "Then we drove up the hill and she said, 'Oh! It's a palace!' And I said, 'See, I told you, everything will be good.'"
The owners say half the residents will soon be Germans, who have state-mandated long-term care insurance through a nearly 20-year-old program, a benefit out of the reach of most people beyond Europe, including the United States.
The insurance pays out 1,550 euros ($2,060) a month to German citizens who, like Miskulin, need the highest level of care. That's less than half of the 3,250-euro average monthly bill for such care inside Germany. Nursing homes in Poland are marketing care that in some cases may be similar or better for about 1,200 euros per month. The German government will pay as much as 700 euros toward nursing care outside the country. Though less than half the amount provided for in-country homes, it's enough, together with most retirees' pensions, to pay for monthly care costs — with cash to spare.
The arithmetic is compelling for older Germans and their grown children. And costs in Germany are only likely to go higher: The country's population is expected to be among the world's oldest by 2050, on par with Japan, South Korea and Italy, with about 15 percent of residents over the age of 80, according to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report.
Ingrid Fetz, 74, did the math after four back operations got her thinking about her financial vulnerability.
"I worked so hard for what I have," said Fetz.
She fears her savings won't last if she has to pay for a nursing home near her 52-year-old daughter's Munich home, Fetz said. And she worries she'll eventually have to sell the apartment she had hoped to leave her family. In Poland, Fetz said she figures she would have money left over each month after paying for her care costs.
She began her search at a German-language website that promises affordable homes in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and the country that piqued her interest most of all: Poland. Like many of the German seniors searching there, Fetz has roots in the country: her mother grew up speaking a Polish dialect in an ethnic German family near Warsaw, and she spent her own childhood in what is now Poland before the end of World War II.
"It would break my heart to give my apartment to a nursing home someday," she said. "I thought to myself, why would I have to stay in Germany at all?"
The lure of elderly Germans with money in the bank has caught the attention of Polish entrepreneurs and owners of resorts that have seen better days.
One new facility has sought to transplant a piece of Germany into the Polish town of Zabelkow. Like Szklarska Poreba, Zabelkow is in Silesia, a region that had long been part of the German-speaking world. It was once ruled by Austria's Habsburg Empire and by Prussia, eventually becoming part of Poland after World War II.
At the Zabelkow home, nurses speak German, the elevator announcement is in German and the kitchen comes from Robert Bosch. Residents dine on classic German meals, such as a cold supper of bread, cured meats and cheese, while German Bundesliga soccer stalwarts like Wolfsburg and Muenchengladbach face off on the large flat-screen television. The linens, the emergency-call system and the hospital gloves all come from Germany. Even the teaspoons are made by German brand BSF.
Since its Easter opening, the home has filled its 34 beds and is finishing six more single rooms in the attic, which are already reserved for this November, said Fabrice Gerdes, who managed it at its opening. A management consultant, German-born Gerdes built the home together with his Polish father-in-law across the street from the farmhouse where his mother-in-law was born.
"We have significantly beaten the goals we set for ourselves," Gerdes said this month.
Not every Polish nursing home advertising in German on the Web is necessarily what it seems. One, Pensjonat Ania, a small residence in Tomislaw near the German border, promises rooms that sleep four for an unusually low price of 400 euros per month, complete with an on-site nurse and excursions including mushroom hunting. The only sign of life during a visit in April, however, was a skinny dog barking behind a metal fence.
Owner Lidia Straszak said she decided to convert her bed- and-breakfast in part because, unlike tourists, seniors will stay through the winter. The first Polish residents were due to arrive that weekend, and Germans had also expressed interest, she said.
On two subsequent visits, Straszak would not allow access to the home's interior. Straszak declined to comment by phone on Sept. 9.
Another ad on the website Fetz used promises a "very well- equipped senior home in a delightfully scenic setting," in a renovated three-star spa hotel called Piastow Grod. The website features photos of happy seniors at play and uniformed young nurses and doctors looking on. That nursing home, in Duszniki- Zdroj about 75 miles along the hilly Czech border from Szklarska Poreba, has yet to open.
Though the would-be senior home found some interested customers, there weren't enough to cover the cost of opening. Only a faded set of brochures tacked under the glass of the defunct hotel's old sign remind passers-by that inside there's a "spa grotto for harmony of mind and body."
"This is a tough business," owner Andrzej Pietrucha said.
The home Von Haldenwang eventually chose for her mother had initially been conceived as a nursing residence for wealthy Poles. After it opened in September 2012, the owners, who also run a medical center in nearby Karpacz, found most of their customers were Germans as well as Polish people living abroad.
Von Haldenwang said her mother pays 1,200 euros a month for 24-hour care, physical therapy, a double room, board and medical care. The interior decorating is in natural wood and stone; the care philosophy is to avoid sedatives and help residents regain mobility using physical therapy. Like Miskulin, most of the other residents have dementia.
"For Polish people, this is expensive, but for German people, this is an attractive price," said director Helena Grab, who also headed the facility in its previous incarnation as a children's respiratory clinic.
Von Haldenwang said the decision to send her mother to Poland was not an easy one. She lay awake at night weighing practical considerations and a sense of duty colored by a lifetime of strained and sometimes distant relations with her mother. As a young mother, Miskulin left her daughter behind to pursue a career as a theater translator in the tumultuous post- World War II Soviet Union where they then lived.
Miskulin shuttled between Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and Moscow, leaving her daughter with her mother in Riga, more than 300 miles away. The two saw each other about four times a year until they were able to emigrate to West Germany in 1962.
"She was a woman I barely knew," Von Haldenwang said. She remembered her mother's fear during their first night in a German holding facility for Soviet bloc immigrants, waiting for U.S. officials who were due to question the new arrivals from Russia the next morning.
"My mother was crying the night before, and I — who was sad to leave my beloved grandma, my friends, my school — I had to comfort her," Von Haldenwang said. "The camp was a real barracks. In Riga, I lived in a beautiful Art Nouveau apartment. I thought, 'My god, where has this woman brought me?'"
She soon moved out on her own, gaining a scholarship at age 16 to a residential arts school and eventually making a modest living performing Russian folk music.
In 2007, Miskulin's husband of 38 years, a Croatian man 16 years her junior, became ill. Von Haldenwang moved her mother, already suffering from dementia, to her own home in the Bavarian spa town of Bad Brueckenau.
"When she got sick I thought, it doesn't matter if she didn't raise me, I have to take care of her," Von Haldenwang said. "No question about it."
The pitfalls of caring for an aging parent in a fourth- floor apartment with no elevator quickly became apparent. The home health aides Von Haldenwang hired often quit. Miskulin would wake up at night and call her cat, Pooki, from the balcony at 3 a.m. — forgetting that she had let the pet in before she went to bed.
Von Haldenwang moved Miskulin into a shared assisted-living apartment a few doors down from her own home, and then, when the assisted-living project closed in 2009, into the nursing home next door.
Miskulin was lucky. She had spent part of her life in public service and thus had a relatively generous pension of 1,500 euros a month. That was almost enough to cover her share of the bill for the nursing home next door to her daughter. Even so, bills flowed in for such extras as haircuts, manicures, and pedicures, sometimes as much as 250 euros a month, "just to make money," Von Haldenwang said.
Von Haldenwang said she also became dissatisfied with the nursing care. She disliked the sedatives the staff used to manage her mother's sometimes imperious behavior, believing they made Miskulin more confused and lethargic. Her mother had lost weight, and Von Haldenwang suspected it was because the staff failed to ensure her mother ate properly. She began supplementing Miskulin's diet with powdered nutritional drinks.
Von Haldenwang asked that the German nursing home not be identified. Its director said his staff only use sedatives when doctors prescribe them. Von Haldenwang and the nursing home both say they are disputing a bill.
In the meantime, she had started looking for a new nursing home, first close by, and then, put off by the price of top- quality care, farther afield.
She heard about Germans sending elderly relatives to Poland. For Von Haldenwang, the prospect of care in Poland was more blessing than parental exile. The state's 700-euro stipend plus her mother's pension would be more than enough to pay for a Polish nursing home. The rest she sets aside for future medical bills. And she said she believed that Polish people, who put their own relatives into nursing homes at rates lower than much of the rest of Europe, would be respectful caregivers for her mother.
To find a Polish home, Von Haldenwang turned to a fixer: businessman Guenter Stobrawe. A retired traveling salesman, Stobrawe started a placement service for Germans in Polish nursing homes last year with his wife, who is Polish and a former nursing home administrator in Germany, and a friend.
Business has picked up in the past few months, Stobrawe said. The company has advised more than 100 families, placed eight seniors and signed contracts for seven more to move to Poland in coming months. It has partnerships with eight nursing homes in Poland.
"Our clients aren't on welfare," Stobrawe said over cappuccino and mineral water at the train station in Wiesbaden, an upscale city outside Frankfurt famous for its baths. "They're people who have saved something."
Some have come to regret sending relatives so far away. Joerg-Christian Henningsen, 67, brought his 63-year-old wife, Annegret, to the Zabelkow home for a month's trial in late March, saying that he needed help after Alzheimer's disease had left her unrecognizable from her former self. He soon discovered one of the biggest drawbacks of distant nursing homes: it's difficult to bring a spouse or parent back home when things go wrong.
A late night phone call about a sudden turn for the worse four weeks after his wife moved into the home led him to make a panicked eight-hour drive from their home near Hamburg to Zabelkow the next day. He arrived, his 93-year-old mother in tow, to find his wife could no longer communicate.
Henningsen said he desperately wanted to bring her home. In order to do so, he had to get a letter attesting to her condition from her Polish doctor.
He spoke to the doctor over a mobile phone set on loudspeaker while one of the Polish nurses helped translate. It was 9 p.m. on a Saturday; he wanted the letter that evening so he could take his wife back to Germany the following day.
Believing they could return to Germany by air, Henningsen argued that the trip would be quick. The doctor was skeptical his wife could travel at all.
"It'll only take an hour and a half," Henningsen argued. "That's nothing. I want to have her in a hospital in Germany."
The nursing home instead proposed sending her to a Polish hospital, but Henningsen refused, said Gerdes, the Zabelkow home's founder.
Henningsen eventually got his way, and arranged for a German ambulance to pick up his wife. She spent 10 days in a German hospital and two more months in a German nursing home before moving back to where she began: at home with Henningsen, cared for four days of the week by a day care 20 minutes away.
While Henningsen says his wife got worse during her stay in Poland, Von Haldenwang maintains that her mother is in better health now than while she was living right next door. She isn't given sedatives and is more awake and aware of what's going on around her, Von Haldenwang said. She has remembered her Polish – – one of the many languages she spoke as a translator — in conversations with Grab, the director, who in turn is taking German lessons from another resident.
"Nationality doesn't seem to make the slightest difference," said Grab. "We'd been a little nervous about anniversaries of wartime events, but it turned out that one of our residents, a Polish woman who'd fought in the Warsaw Uprising, sat right down at the same table with two Germans and made friends."
One Saturday in late August, about eight weeks after she dropped off her mother, Von Haldenwang made the long trek back to the nursing home to help celebrate Miskulin's 94th birthday. Staffers spent a diligent hour singing songs, dancing and dishing up cream cake and sparkling wine.
"Are you happy that your daughter is here, that I'm here for your birthday?" Von Haldenwang asked her mother. "What did you like about your birthday? The nice cake? The many flowers? Did you hear how beautifully they sang? And the many guests, you liked those too?"
Miskulin told her daughter she was happily surprised by the visit.
"But I didn't really understand what was going on," she said.
Her daughter reassured her that it didn't matter. Grab, the nursing home director, hugged Miskulin. Then Von Haldenwang headed off for a look at the mountains. Her mother went to bed.
_ With assistance from Maciej Onoszko and David McQuaid in Warsaw.
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text:
From Amanda Berry, 27: "I want everyone to know how happy I am to be home, with my family, my friends," she said.
"I would say `thank you' for the support," said a soft-spoken Gina DeJesus, 23, in response to prompting from a narrator.
And from Michelle Knight, 32, who wasn't a familiar face on a milk carton around town like the other two, came a sometimes halting yet defiant reading of a statement.
"I may have been through hell and back, but I am strong enough to walk through hell with a smile on my face and with my head held high," she said. "I will not let the situation define who I am. I will define the situation. I don't want to be consumed by hatred."
The 3 1/2-minute video, produced last week and posted at midnight Monday, was filmed in a Cleveland law firm overlooking treetops, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and Lake Erie.
DeJesus' parents, Felix DeJesus and Nancy Ruiz, joined the heartfelt statements of gratitude, thanking the public for donations to a fund set up to help the women. More than $1 million has been donated.
Ruiz encouraged parents with missing loved ones to reach out for assistance. "Count on your neighbors," she said. "Don't be afraid to ask for the help because help is available."
The women have turned aside media interview requests and appealed again for privacy since they were rescued in May when Berry broke through a door and yelled to neighbors for help.
The women had disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16, and 20 years old. The owner of the home where they were found, 52-year-old former bus driver Ariel Castro, was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to a 329-count indictment alleging he kidnapped them off the streets and held them captive in his two-story home.
In the video, none of the women had any visible scars of the abuse they said they suffered. Castro fathered a 6-year-old daughter with Berry and is accused of starving and punching Knight, causing her to miscarry.
"I am getting stronger each day," Berry said. "Having my privacy has helped immensely."
The trio wants to maintain that privacy, according to a statement from the team of lawyers and crisis management experts helping them without charge.
Castro's trial is scheduled for next month but could be delayed if the defense asks for more preparation time. Last week a judge rejected Castro's request to see Berry's child fathered by him.
Castro's lawyers did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the video and on whether they were concerned it might bias jurors.
In the video, the women were smiling and appeared upbeat.
Berry, the only one who has been in photographs that have appeared publicly since her release, had shorter hair with a blonde streak in it. Knight, who authorities said had been taken captive first, wore glasses, had closely cropped hair and spoke a bit haltingly.
Kathy Joseph, Knight's attorney, said in a statement that the three women wanted to "say thank you to people from Cleveland and across the world, now that two months have passed."
She said they're being recognized in public, "so they decided to put voices and faces to their heartfelt messages."
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