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

7rob7,

I'm putting this here, because it's longish. I just picked some stuff out, that caught my eye:

Theatre design was originally invented on a Thursday by a sadly-anonymous prehistoric showoff when he or she stood up in front of the tribe to pray for supper, much like karaoke1 today
##If you rearrange it to say 'prehistoric showoff who stood up', you lose the gender-pronoun problem here.

The Greeks refined these elements, ....deus ex machina
##Little problem: 'deus ex machina' is Latin, not Greek...

the Inquisition turned out not to be a great deal of fun and games either, eh?
##Just my opinion, but that paragraph seems to me to be in, ahh, *questionable* taste.

most performances in inclement weather were done in the nude.
##REALLY?

There is no truth to the popular story that the name derives from the designers’ habit of ‘thrusting’ [wink, wink, nudge, nudge] their assistants
##This would be an example of 'too-too', by my standards. I don't see that it adds much, and it detracts from the substance of the article, which I really like.
##This is also an example of Microsoft 'smart quotes' turning into rubbish directly they are put into normal text. The best way to avoid this is: Write in whatever program you like, then convert the .doc to a .txt file (losing a lot of the 'smart' formattimg, or deleting as appropriate). Copy and paste said .txt file, add Guide ML (on which you did a very good job) with italics and boldface as Guide ML. SAVE THAT MARKED-UP TEXT as a .txt file. Otherwise, the sub-eds have to take all the gobbledygook out, and that is a waste of their not overabundant time.

most set designers like their knickers as tight as possible
##I think 'knickers' is Brit for 'panties', so there's a gender-specific problem. What about 'undergarments'?

carefully explaining the differences between a 15th century Norwegian nobleman’s goblet and a 19th century Bolivian hairpin to the slower members of the props staff on a past project
##Laugh out loud funny, and probably true!

men and women have really bad PMS
##It kind of looks like a mistake, rather than a joke. 'PMS' jokes are always sexist (to women, unless made by women and trusted men). You might want to change the condition to something like 'borderline homicides' or, 'really bad personality problems', or 'fundamentally ugly attitudes'.

and sincerely believe that each and every performer who says so will unfailingly lose weight before the show opens.
## Again, laugh-out-loud funny, and definitely true!

ethereal of elements, lighting designers require an astounding array of very heavy equipment
## Ditto, great imagery, good point, and true.

In some situations where thought appropriate, the Sound Designer may also be known as the Sound Guy; or, in those instances where things are turning out not quite the way one expected, the Silence Guy. Probably the sexiest person you will ever meet, particularly if a experienced roadie for an incredibly sexy rock band
##This is a case where the fix for non-sexist writing did more harm than good. Women are seldom roadies, too. I'd take the 'situations' sentence out, leave the Sound Guy/Silence Guy alone, because it's funny, and leave 'person' and 'roadie', and let the reader jump to conclusions. It read better the other way.

but appearances, like padded bras, can be deceiving
##Choice of example? How about 'prosthetic noses'?

as likely as finding a dodo in your living room rolling a joint one morning,
## Really, really hilarious! Love it.

Angels rush in and fools fear to tread and the rest of us remember why television is furniture.
## YES! That bit is great. Those times when it all 'gels' are why people keep doing it. You describe it really well, and it sounds almost as exciting as it really is. Nice bit, really, really nice.

9 Where the audience is surrounding the stage like the erroneously called "Indians" attacking a wagon train in the American Old West.
##Could you try maybe an entirely different simile? This is still not really okay, by my (admittedly radical '70s egalitarianist) standards.

10 The ancient Chinese art of doodad arrangement
##In order not to trivialise this art, of which there are many, many militant (in a gentle and ever so centred way) adherents, I suggest adding the word 'harmonious', making it 'harmonious doodad arrangement'.

Rest of my comments are back at the normal thread.

Arpeggio, trying not to monopolise the conversation...
for LeKZ

Just skimmed through and will come back to it in depth later. I did know what knickers meant - a deliberate choice I made. Thanks.

Arpeggio -

[Time has passed.] I seriously considered everything you suggested, and actually implemented most of 'em in some fashion or other. Nothing like a fresh eye to make you look at things again. I still prefer the knickers reference and kept the padded bra [but it does have a friend, now], but I tweaked a lot of stuff - some you didn't even mention. You still may not like the Inquistion paragraph, but I believe my intent is clearer now anyway.

I have no clue about the .doc and .txt business. I created the document in AppleWorks (iMac, remember), then transferred it to SimpleText to rewrite it in code, then copied and pasted it here. I found a suggestion on h2g2 to do the same process in Notepad, but I just found Notepad and didn't use it this time. Would it help? Should I maybe learn what I'm doing sometime soon?

Thank you for the specific advise. Whether or not I paid the slightest bit of attention to any of it is moot, but at least I know exactly what you think. Or thought. Check out the revisions when you get a chance.

Thanks again.

7rob7,

Revisions checked. Inquisition makes sense. Sharks/raft image good one. Codpiece addition helps lots.

Actually, it looks really excellent. Give more people than me a chance to really go over it, because feedback from one person is... well... not enough. I'll yell at Barton to come read, if he already hasn't.

Some typos, but there are *fussy* people who can mess with that. I like what you did with the footnotes. I still don't know whether or not this meets Edited Guide criteria, but I'm too new here myself. You need input from other sources.

I really like it. Take a week or so, some comments here, some suggestions there, and you'll have a super article that is long, substantive, and entertaining. They have worse. Heck, my current article is not so good.

Nice fix up job, you keep this up, and you're going to make friends out of All the Wrong People around here: Barton, Lucinda, me....

Arpeggio for LeKZ

PS Idle drive-by thought: does the dope, discussed in the Green Room, detract from the dodo rolling the joint, in your living room? I love the dodo, and would hate to see hir upstaged by some dopeheads in a Green Room.

Thanks. My wife likes the tweaking, too, and so do I. And I do hope somebody else takes a look. Maybe this weekend.

Typos!?!?!????!?!?! You dare?!?!?!?!?

Don't think 'dope' supersedes 'dodo joint' - distance between references ought to take care of it.

!!!!!! They have OED's in Colorado?!?!??!? I am so jealous. Spent a summer in Denver one week. Never much liked fennel, though...

-7rob7, who really ought to start picking up some nifty nicknames for hirself

Hi hon, I thought it was a very well written article, and arpeggio did make an interesting note, Deus ex machina is latin isn't it, I wonder what the greeks called it... effing get out I shouldn't wonder! (it is the worst plot device since "they all woke up and it was all a dream")

I take it you are a theatre designer? I'm an ex Drama student (got the degree and got the hell out of student drama) who always wanted to go into costume, and is no on course... to teach GCSE Drama in a girls school. Still not bad really.
I would call this article nicely tweaked! I couldn't get on to the link on the peer review page, it was down for some reason. But well done
Hxx

Thank you, and good luck with the upcoming gig. I myself am trying to return to teaching [university level again], but in as specialized a field as I picked, the options are few and far between - particularly when you need for other reasons to stay in one particular part of the country.

The Greeks' version of what came to be called 'deus ex machina' [literally - "god out of the machine"] was a contraption of moving platforms that delivered the gods front and center without having to do anything as mundane as walk there. It was called the 'Ekeklayma', er...'Eccyklaima', um... 'Eckiklayma'... 'That moving thing the gods ride in on'. You perhaps begin to see my problem. It is difficult to base a joke on a word you can't spell well enough to even look up in your Dictionary of Ancient Greek Theatre Argot.

Mayhap I'll figure out a resolution. Mayhap I'll ignore it some more.

Thanks again for the visit and the compliments.

-7rob7

The only Greek dict'y I have is a New Testament kind which is really short on Classical Greek Theatre Slang, but a web search should get you results. Try the following spellings:

-Ekkeklama
-Ekkeklema
-Ecclama
-Ecclema

Or just enter 'Deus ex machina'+origins into a search engine.


Arpeggio, for LeKZ

Hey 7rob7,

I dunno about 'They', but *I* have an OED in Colorado. Don't leave home without it. It's really old, from back where they got it down to two volumes by putting 4 pages per page. Now it's down to one volume, with 9 pages per page. This was a 'have a good time in College and here's your OED; more useful, if somewhat heavier, than a towel' gift from the fa**ly (you know, the f-word, blood-kin) friend who was *really* a parent.

'They' *might* have one at the Denver Public Library; a sort of curiosity-seekers' attraction: 'Wow, dude... ten volumes! Dude! English is BIG, dude'. I never bothered to check. Half the time all my dict'ies lie on the floor, surrounding my desk, barricading regional illiteracies (and my old man - not a boyfriend, he's 47 - what are we supposed to do but resort to '70s biker slang?) out.

Fortyish and pedantic,

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

In order to become a Keeper, you'd need to visit Archangel Galaxy Babe's 'space' http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/U128652, read what other Keepers keep, and then drop a thread on her page. She is the Keeper of Keepers.

Arpeggio -

I am getting very embarassed stumbling over the nice things you're spreading around, trying to get people to read my piece. How do you say 'blushing' in smiley?

What's a Keeper? I found a list of who, but not a list of what. And how do I add all the cool titles to my nickname after I come up with them? Are they put there by the person in charge of the title 'domain'? For instance; I've thought of a Muse designation for myself. Does Dragonfly add the title if I'm accepted, or do I add it if I'm accepted?

The reply I just posted to Azara on the other '...Designers...Pizza' thread sums up my thoughts on the outcome of the Peer Review perhaps a bit better than I may have put it before.

Yer killin' me. What typos?

2 1/2 weeks ago I was the same age as your old man. Now I'm not anymore. Seem to be a lot of Geminis around the joint - figures, don't it? [ Hmmmm... Ya think Mina could use a sub-Muse? (Oops: a designation that could easily be misunderstood, given the context...) You know: work that Gemini connection network thingie.]

"English is big." made me laugh a lot. Thank you.

-7rob7, who learns fast and is cheap, too.

I can't get the hang of foreign languages lack of thesaurus, I just think they need to invent more words! I didn't even think to go get my dictionary of theatre!
(mainly becasue I hated being a Drama Student, I just needed a way to get into the theatre and that was the best bet at the time)
Hxx

i like it, i like it a lot!!! very funny.

i might add, though, that most techies aren't sexy in the most conventional use of the word...

Everyone is sexy to someone. Heck, both George Bushes have reproduced...

Thanks, sea. You've seen the threads - too funny for the edited guide? It's a learning experience for me, so fire away.

Chow.

-7rob7

'Everyone is sexy to someone'. Not that the current Presidential Dynasty's repro had anything to do with 'sex', necessarily... GB the Elder is from Connecticut, where, in certain WASP circles, reproduction is a chore and an obligation. (High-school chum's step-dad knew GBtE when they were both little boys in a part of CT where they put actual, non-clip bow-ties on little boys for dinner...WOW... Frank also happened to say that GWtE was the *stupidest* little boy he ever met. Frank was also a Yale Law grad, and a Republican who voted Dem out of disgust with the 'Right Wing Lunatic Fringe', such as it was in 1978.) As for GBtJ, he's Kur-IS-chun, and they have Rules about that s-word, and enjoyment.

(I went to seminary and am therefore permitted to say rude things as long as they are not defamatory. Alternate spellings, Nice Moderator, do not constitute defamation.)

This makes me wonder about people I knew in high-school, who were on the Ten Least Appetising Teenagers in New York list, and what they're doing now, at 40... married, with children... probably.

Gross me out the DO-or!

Kassandra, wondering how Sxxx Mxxxxxxxx ever found anyone who would have sex with him... Maybe he didn't. Or maybe he's been divorced six times. Naah. He had less sex appeal than road-kill, and thought he was the entire Olympiad's Gift to Theatre... and Maths.

EEwww... what a revolting train of thought... I'm getting offline before it gets worse.

Thank you for sharing that concept, 7rob7. It was an enriching moment for us all.

I once did an Off-Broadway show for a producer who swore to me, the gay choreographer and the lesbian director that there were no homosexuals in the state of Connnecticut. *sigh*

??? Maybe that's not too offtopic at that...

-7rob7

What all producers are mad? Similar thing happened to a freind of mine, before she was out, she had to stop herself from laughing too hard when her brother said there weren't any homosexuals in the nasty little town where we lived!
Hxx

is it too funny for the guide? i think not. but then again, i'm no italic. *grin* i mean, there are a LOT of hilarious edited entries the the Guide... i think it has a very good chance. after all, there isn't much out there on Tech. Theatre.