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

One of the great overlooked author/illustrators of America was the dearly departed Edward Gorey (1925-2001). His memorable pen and ink style (intense crosshatching juxtaposed with vast blank spaces) and creative verse, including such captions as "Was there an extra charge for the deck chairs?" (writen in Japanese) and "after instructing his servants to fill the baths, he seized the tongs, and set out at once for the edge of the lake...to await the coming of Autumn" and illustrated limericks like:

Little Zooks, of whom no one was fond,
Was shot towards the roof and beyond
The infants's trajectory
Passed him over the rectory
And into the lily-choaked pond

Gorey illustrated the covers of over one hundred books, aside from his own. Most notably are his illustrations for TS Elliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
Gorey also wrote plays and musicales in which his bizarre late Victorian/twenty's flapper characters run amock through two-dimensional scenery. He won a Tony Award for his set design for Dracula on Broadway.

Dearly departed indeed: perhaps some other poor schmo (viz me) will get the chance to corner the market in black and white Deco Gothic.

Excuse tone of bitterness; 'tis born purely of professional envy and lust (and just lust: those dark eyed girls...)

Another point of interest: Gorey proclamed the lack of gender bias in his work by his own lack of a gender, as he considered himself to be sexually neutral. Try to figure that one out.

Hm... some of my characters could be considered androgynous but that just means that I have more than enough lust to go around (though mainly for women in ties and girlish boys). Sexually neutral seems an odd phrase. You're either interested in one, either or both, or uninterested in the same. Perhaps the poor old stick couldn't admit to whatever it was he really liked: loo roll dollies perhaps...?

He also loved ballet and cats, which may be a clue. I read two of the Gorey biographies and am looking for the other one.

Hm, I wouldn't assume to infer anything from that: I like ballet but hate cats. Perhaps poor Mr Gorey lived in more limited times... all the same, anything goes and who cares, his art is sublime.

I shall assume you're agreeing to all of my points and swear life long allegiance to you as a fellow cat hater (actually, it's only sentimentality about them that I hate: I have a grudging respect for the fiends themselves, just don't let one near my trousers).

I am neither a dog nor a cat person. I prefer fish or plants. Recently, a chipmunk has been plaguing my Bonsai collection.

Poor bonsai. Must look like b-movie sci-fi horror: invasion of the fifty foot chipmunk!

'Look out Brad, it's cheeks aren't quite full!'

It knocked over a 2" oak and borrowed to the bottom of my 18" green maple. I had to re-pot them in the rain, as it is raining here. That would make an interesting independant comic book, "It Came From The Garden".

'Must re-pot oak! Gah! How this rain stings!'

'Oh, those Hell-spawn mosquitoes!'

Peerless Christ! The wasps! The wasps are crushing the petals!

The time of day demands that I shed morning garments and garments and garments of mourning and re-attire in something more vespertine.

I ride a GS scooter with my hair cut neat.

Great Scott!

And so, throwing caution to the winds and wind to the four corners of the earth from the dark secret envelopes of their bowels, they charged the wasps, screaming:

BONZAIIII!

The wasps were not able to pay and were thereafter declared bankrupt, morally, physically and amorally.

Here endeth the episode. On to something more epicene, appropriately for Mr. Gorey.

And before you profess amazement:

http://www.oed.com

For all your pretentious linguistic needs!

I actually started this entry as a reference to Mr. Herriman, of late memory and Mehitabel, among others, but I got sidetracked, eight-tracked and otherwise lost in the trackless wastes of record and recording. You think you've got it taped. I'll shut up now.

Bicycle clips aside for the moment (a risky ploy, says Terry), I like wasps. Bumble bees are all very well, with their bumbling and embarrassed air of does my bum look big in this (yes), but wasps know where they're at. The more I hear people say 'but what are they for!' as if every living creature on earth had to come and justify its existence...

I'm a toad. I may look slimy but I eat slugs and other pests in the garden. Good, pass.

I'm a hedgehog. I eat slugs and garden pests, like the toad, but I'm cute with it. Excellent, pass.

I'm a giant panda. I look extremely cute and everyone adores me. Is that it? Why yes. Step over there will you (break out the machine guns men).

...the more I like the little fellows.

Their right to exist unjustified is of course implicit, as is my right to hate the little beggars for their viciousness. One climbed the interior of the leg of my trouser once when I was at school (as a devotee of the flared leg I cannot wear bicycle clips when not on a bicycle, and the regulations would not have permitted it, Masculine Sport [footnote had it only been possible: "Masculine Sport" is here used for the first time as an epithet of this kind]) and this I consider to be in the following nature of thing.

Perhaps tired of being asked for what they exist, wasps as a species have determined to wreak terrible and stingy vengeance upon me. Therefore I consider it my bounden duty to smite the blighters with an frying pan if they should choose to attack me (it is the LORD who speaks) and yea, woe shall be to them and to their descendants unto the third and ninth generations.

Fish, of course, are a different kettle of worms. I've opened something of a can of beans with that sentence. Oh, no, mixed metaphors. I'll have the most diabolical hangover.

You see, I don't believe they are vicious, just misunderstood. Crawling up one's trouser leg to make friendly hullos with one's goolicular protruberances (as who wouldn't given the appropriate size?), and encountering nothing but frying pan villification, I'm sure they try to make good their escape, apologising as they go. Suddenly they feel something go off behind. 'Oh drat, has that thing happened again? I say, I'm most awfully sorry, I've no control over it you know.'

Perhaps if the trousers had been Oxford bags I might have more sympathy.

I know how they feel about things Going Off Behind. Perhaps I can be induced to a position of sympathy after all.

And who, seeing my goolicular protuberances, could resist feeling a little hornet?

Wasp?

Watchng gm, drinkg bd.

Tr. Tr.

Wasp where is thy sting? Oh, there it is. Well, seeing as you've shown me yours...

Stingfooz was of course a brilliant, if mispronounced, piece of work, about a caz, as I recall.

Vive le Viv.