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

Nice entry, a deservedly famous story.

It reminds me of the bizarre element of other works, e.g. Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". An excerpt:

"The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white."

Coleridge reportedly got a little "boost" to the imagination from opium, a factor I've never heard linked to Kafka. But it is certainly linked to our more recent "artists", rock musicians. In a recent article on ex-Beach Boy Brian Wilson ("Drugs ruined my brain very badly"), UNCUT Magazine lists a number of other "dumb angels and adult children", including:

Syd Barrett, "Laughing madcap genius of early Floyd who took a trip too far and never came back".

Roky Erickson, "13th Floor Elevator ... whose excessive hallucinogenic intake led him to believe he was a Maritan. ... (now) reputedly keeps 30 TVs going at once to drown out the voices in his head."

coleridge was actually discussing slimy things and the bird but in one story beauty and the beast a prince is transformed by a witch into a beast

Right, I'm not familiar with the story, but here is the plot based on the '91 Disney movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/

Sort of the reverse of the princess kissing the frog and turning it into a prince ... lots of bad jokes based on that one ...

http://www.gwu.edu/~folktale/GERM232/frogp/cartoons.html