h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here it is, end to end:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/stanislaw-lem-google-doodle-the-best-interactive-cartoon-animation-ever-rendered-by-google-seriously/2011/11/23/gIQAYrzfoN_blog.html

Today is the 176th birthday of Mark Twain. As Mrs. Stephen Fry tweeted, "Let's hope rumours of his death haven't been greatly exaggerated . . ."

That was really

I'm currently about half way through Mark Twain's Autobiography, so I particularly enjoyed it.

Does he mention getting drunk and running and jumping
across the rooftops of Washington DC with his friend
and fellow satirist Artemus Ward?

Nobody remembers Artemus these days.
Back in the day he was just as popular
and much in demand as a public speaker.

Ward's writing, available online, does not
quite hold up as well in modern times, in
part because he also wrote in odd dialect
dialogues of the American West which have
not proved as enduring as Twain's southern
drawls and negro patois.

~jwf~

He hasn't mentioned him in the first half. Currently, in the section I'm reading, he's speaking of the "battle" of Moro Crater ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Bud_Dajo ) and commenting on President Roosevelt's pro forma and very brief "congratulatory message" to General Wood on his "victory" and the nearly complete silence from editorial writers in the nation's newspapers in the first days after the reports hit the headlines.

Which autobiography is it? I read "Roughing it" years ago and felt it explained a whole lot about government and law enforcement in the US.

Roosevelt, eh?
I think Artemus was well dead by then.
The Mormons never forgave him.
Ah well.



~jwf~

Mark Twain's method of writing his autobiography is one of writing about whatever he is thinking about at the time regardless of chronology. The part I'm reading about now is just what was on his mind after reading the papers that morning in 1906.

I love the loose articulateness of writing at that time. They knew how to write incredibly well-constructed prose, but just did it on a whim.

G K Chesterton's like that too.

Two doodles today:

http://www.google.co.uk/

http://www.google.fr/

Twain's autobiography - wasn't that just released last year (or earlier this year? Time goes by so fast.), because he'd left instructions that it must not be published until 100 years after his death?


Geggs

Yes, it was released last year. I'm currently reading it. One very interesting thing about it; he talks about how he envisions it being released in sections each quarter decade with the full version not being released until a century after his death at which time all those about whom he speaks will be long dead and most likely all their immediate family members. But he also mentions that by that time it may be released possibly "in electric form". I'm reading the Google Books version.

In electric form? That's amazing foresight!

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but Clemens died in 1910. He hobnobbed with the great futurists of his time (here he is with Tesla in Tesla's lab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Twain_in_Tesla%27s_Lab.jpg ). All sorts of wonderful predictions for the future in general and electricity in particular were in the air toward the end of Clemens' life. This http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/09/french-prints-show-year-2000-1910.html set from 1910 has been making the rounds for some time on the intertubes. I bring your attention particularly to 'at the school' http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RuSSRaUYz8I/AAAAAAAABC4/WiaKbdhqWRE/s1600-h/At+the+School.jpg in which old fashioned printed books are put into a sort of mill and converted into electricity which is fed directly into the 'reader's brain through a little metal cap. I think it would be reasonable to argue that this sort of arrangement is what Clemens may have imagined rather than a kindle or googlebooks.

Not really being a wet blanket. I never thought he predicted e-readers as they are now. And he was living in a time when the future was quite fantastic. Electricity in a practical sense was brand new with whole cities being wired up for the first time and also the telegraph system and the brand new invention of radio was making transcontinental communication nearly instantaneous.

It's still neat though that he said that in his autobiography and that electronic books are just now, 100 years after his death, becoming widely accepted, ubiquitous and mundane.

He might have been amazed that it took a century. After all, it was only sixty years after his death that we managed to land on the moon.

slightly off topic but Google related

http://googleimageslideshow.com/

put in any search term... its amazing
i put in 'street musician'

http://www.google.de/

I enjoyed the slideshow, fluffykerfuffle.