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

Ahem. Let us see if I have grasped this correctly.
A Muse inspires something called "creativity" in others.
Therefore, we must presume that Muses are rarely drawn from the ranks of the pedantic, the scrupulously methodical and those given to bouts of administrative behaviour.

For this reason, I have until now eschewed all pretentions of Museship...(Excuse me; are you still awake? Well, really!...Please try to pay attention...)

As I was saying, I have never previously troubled you, since I considered myself to be conspicuously unsuitable material. However, I have recently become aware of the real need for one Muse (just one) who is totally lacking in creativity of any kind.

My premise is as follows. There are those in this World who tend to be boring and unadventurous, but who are at the same time deeply unhappy about this aspect of their personality. Or lack of it. They lurk in frustration at the fringes of our Conversations (well, YOUR Conversations, at any rate. No-one, of course, lurks anwhere near mine). They wonder at your wit, repartee, elan and other words that they will only find out about when they look at the crossword solution in tomorrow's newspaper.

Kindly stop yawning and think about the point that I'm making here. Imagine, if you will, a Chartered Accountant who yearns to become an anarchist, or to develop some vestige of dress-sense, or to talk to that secretly-adored supermarket checkout clerk, or to dance in public using more than one limb at a time. Would your conventional Muses really inspire such a person? More likely the Muses would reduce them to despair, unconsciously setting an example of social dexterity to which no ACA can never aspire.

You've gone to sleep again, haven't you? Look, just poke yourself in the eye or something, and hear me out. I want to be the Anti-Muse, someone so dull and tedious and utterly devoid of discernable talent that anal retentives everywhere will shudder in revulsion and run a mile. But, and here is the important point, buried as usual in the depths of paragraph six - they will develop a glimmer of relative self-esteem in the process! They will continue their lives in the knowledge that someone out there is even sadder than they are. A wonderful contribution to the emotional well-being of our Community, I'm sure you will agree, just as soon as you return to a state of consciousness.

There are of course niceties, minutiae, and divers technicalities to clear up (in my experience, these are always the fun part). We can pore over these interminably in the coming aeons - I'm so looking forward to it! - but for the meantime my principal concern is over an appropriate descripitive appurtenance. A simple title of "Anti-Muse", while admirably succinct, does imply a certain inopportune overtone of dark forces, sinful behaviour, decadence or similarly enjoyable activity. I would thus suggest the appendage of an explanatory parenthesis, thus creating a more pertinent epithet as : Anti-Muse (Muse of People Who Like to Go to Bed Early and Associated Accounting Professionals).

I see that you are not wholly convinced by this idea. Since I am naturally unable to present my suggestions in a more interesting way, I can only warn you that, unless you appoint me as the Anti-Muse, I will be compelled to reiterate my request again and again at ever-increasing length.

Yours, exasperatingly turgidly,

The Speak-Your-Weight-Machine
(replies c/o Pinniped , please)

Herrrmmm... I like this idea...

The Muse of the trite and uninspired!???

Oi! Look here...

The Speak-Your-Weight-Machine just woke me up, shouting something about someone liking one of his ideas

OK. Giving the SYWM that kind of encouragement is your lookout (definitely inadvisable, but your lookout). Just don't get him too excited, or the rest of us'll lose sleep, OK?

Anyway, what's "trite" mean? I thought it was some kind of fish. I think I remember it being in a crossword once


Don't bother answering that. I'm off back to bed for the rest of the day

Yours,
Pinniped

[Now what?!?

...OK...the SYWM now wants to know whether you'll form a committee to discuss his proposal and whether he'll be kept informed of administrative progress...

I told him the Muses probably don't do committees. They do cheesecake and languid decadence, yeah?

Like I said, I'm going back to bed...]

...?
{One last thing - you do realise he's a two-ton elephant seal, don't you?)

See ya,
P.

Wail. Beat breast. Genuflect. Ahem.

Can we please assume that the proper method of address has been employed? Only my Dictionary of Etiquette is a little vague about Divine Beings such as Yourself. I feel sure that the above is approximately correct, but somehow it just doesn't look right in print.

Please also accept my most sincere apologies for that churlish and disrespectful interjection by Pinniped. I was mortified when I saw it. I feared that all of us might be struck down, and so I lay on top of him for two hours by way of punishment. I only hope that this will assuage Your Hallowed Wrath. Pinniped hasn't spoken (or indeed moved) since, which I take to be evidence of his contrition.

I would also like to crave absolution for my surprise and delight at the promptness of Your reply. It was sinful of me to presume that punctuality would be less than the highest of virtues among immortals of Your Kidney. This presumption is surely the explanation for the sudden outbreak of numerous boils which currently afflict me.

Nonetheless, I am quite overwhelmed by the revelation that You "like my idea". Someone liking my idea is a bit of a first for me. I seldom win approbation from even moderately-evolved life-forms, let alone Angels. You will therefore understand my eagerness to learn Your next intention.

You were a little brief and, dare I say, vague about what You plan to do concerning my possible elevation to Museship. Of course, I fully appreciate that Moving in Mysterious Ways is both Your Right and Your Normal Practice. Might I be so bold, however, as to beseech You to "draw back the curtain" just a little, so to speak?

...?...

Wherever did that phrase, come from, I wonder? Come to think of it, this letter is coming out rather oddly. Under normal circumstances, I would write with meticulous formality, and of course post in triplicate. And yet today, I feel strangely moved...moved to write in a lighter, more carefree style...

Oh my word. Some of this stuff is barely prosaic at all...

...!...

I sense it! A flash of enlightenment. Could this be what a Muse does to one?!?

...Oh bugger. You've gone to sleep again, haven't You?

Your obsequious and devoted servant,
The S-Y-W-M

Trouts are fish, something trite is like a cliche; it can be an action or phrase that is "over done".

You can address me as Mom, or Mum, or MuseMum, or D, or Archie(short for Archangel). I really don't like formal address!!!

Oh!!! I hope that hug wasn't too much of an "invasion of your space"!!!

Can you please briefly state your requested Museship title!?? And please stop sitting on Pinniped ::blinks:: But you ARE Pinniped... ah!!! So you sometimes speak to yourself... good good!!! I do as well!!!

Consider yourself an Honorary Muse until I can add you to the Roster. Please ad the link to the Musehome, ad "Muse" to your nickname if you like, and involve yourself in conversations or begin your own anywhere around the Musehome, as explained at the top of the Musehome Roster page....



I am sure you will find other muses who LIKE YOUR IDEAS, so best get used to the concept...

Thank you Mom. Ahem.

Forgive me for hiding my suggested title somewhat deeply in an earlier posting.

I would very much like to be known as the "Anti-Muse (Muse of People Who Like to Go to Bed Early and Associated Accounting Professionals)".

This Space has several occupants, some of whom are genuinely different people, if you take my meaning. Only we swap characters rather freely. And, yes, we have been known to talk to ourselves if we are scrupulously honest about it.

Be that as it may, the rules dictate that the Speak-Your-Weight-Machine feels contempt for the loathsome Pinniped, and vice versa, even if they should briefly happen to be one at the same person. In fact all the denizens of the Pier hate everyone else here, which keeps things delightfully simple.

So it's the SYWM who's the Muse, rather than anyone else. Simple really. I'll amend the Space to link to the Musehome ASAP.

Here's to a long and happy relationship with plenty of administrative detail.

Yours,
The SYWM

PS - the hugs are lovely and greatly appreciated. I hope you don't mind the smell of fish. Do have a cod-liver-oil on the rocks. I borrowed it from the vile Pinniped (who, incidentally, has started breathing again). He's the one who keeps the Smiley Cabinet.

YAY!!! I don't eat seafood at all, thanks...

Oh dear. I have so much to learn, I fear.


I will apply myself to finding some chocolate milk to offer guests. It may take a little while, owing to the Pier's remoteness from anything edible except...well...seafood...

No shortage of ice, though.

In the meantime, please accept my apologies for proffering the wrong tincture.

Your devoted pupil,
SYWM

It is quite alright. I encourage you to keep your idiosynracies thriving... however, other muses might not be happy about that... drink...

... but it makes a fine lubricant! ::: oils joints :::

OOO...

Yeah