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

I once heard the frogs croak - it's incredibly loud. I've never seen them do it, though. That must be a fascinating sight.

Depends on which frogs. We have some tiny ones with very loud voices.

Every once in a while, one falls into the swimming pool and has to be repatriated...

Don't they make those bubbles while croaking? Oh, and is that where the speech bubble in comics derives from?

All the frogs I have seen swell up when they croak. Though the ones in the trees are shy and don't want you watching.

I think that's a cool idea, Bel. Maybe that's where those speech bubbles come from. The ones in my Word program drive me nuts...

Now I will never again see speech bubbles in a normal way, and will always think of desirous frogs. heheh. Interesting poem with a deep twist. A deep twist? A deep twist.

It is desirous cats that get me. All the cats in our neighbourhood seem to do their mating howls outside my bedroom window. Weird sounds. Edgy. If I was a cat, I would run.

True story:

We lived in Athens in the early 80s, in an old house with windows you had to leave open because of the heat, and a tiny balcony.

Athens has about 5 cats per square metre, so you run into a lot of them. Independent lot, too. One spent his days across the street, sitting in a hole in the stone wall, watching everybody with apparent disapproval. He was white, with a black cap.

Now, Athens doesn't get quiet till about 2 am, and you're trying to sleep then, but the brown dogs are doing their grocery shopping by rummaging through the plastic bags left out on the corner for the Demos (=dustmen, nobody deigned to use wheelie bins in Athens), and the cats are out looking for Love and entertainment, not necessarily in that order.

A quartet of them stationed themselves under our balcony, no lie, all of them singing in four-part disharmony. This went on for awhile, even though our cat was neutered and completely uninterested. Bored, even.

Finally, Elektra could stand it no longer. Getting a saucepan from the kitchen, she exercised her right of Higher Musical Criticism by pouring water on them all. I heard the yowling from the bedroom, and chuckled. Elektra came back to bed.

Fifteen minutes later, the serenade started again in full force...

From the OTHER side of the street.

When things got too dull, the cats went around triggering car alarms on the street. ALARM. Long wait while Stavros gets his robe and slippers, comes downstairs, curses, turns off car alarm, goes back in. Brief period of silence. ALARM. It begins again. Happy cats, sleepless Greeks, enlightened foreigner who has learned some new cuss words...

All of which explains why everybody in Greece takes a nap in the afternoon.

Love it! What a pictorial story. I can see it and most definitely hear it. heheh. Ah, and I realise that I am still in love with Athens. Now I will yearn and pine.

And that wild quartet with its four part disharmony will follow me through my dreams and (cheeky wink) hey Elektra, I am learning how to make mp3 sound files, so when I have mastered the art, I can send you one of my original and nerve jangling creations. hahah. I will add Athenian cat effects just to add to the surreal sonic disharmony heheh and then you can chuck water all over them. that is so funny. I can just see Elektra chucking water all over the computer. . Get these sound files outta here. . So then they stray to the other side of the street, and start again in the neighbour's computer. yeeeeeowwwwww yeeeeowwwww .

You guys spark my imagination. .

And now I shall worry about the safety of my computer.

No water. No. Do Not Want. (But music, sure, even with kitty chorus. We can test this out - if it makes our cats sing, too, it's a hit...)

I've always found that amorous cats sound as if a toddler is crying.

Some researchers believe that this is how cats evolved, by imitating children so that people would feel sorry for them.

But cats don't need people.

As long as they can't open doors, boxes, and tins, they still need us.

Besides, Clancy is very needy. He thinks he's a dog, and feels jealous if he doesn't get enough attention.

That's if they are locked in pople's homes. If they are free to go where they want, they don't need us. I've seen that in Turkey.
I much prefer them to be locked in people's homes.

Bel, I'm worried that you may have ailurophobia.

I agree that cats should stay home, because they are so efficient as predators that they're a danger to the bird population.

But we always thought the large groups of cats in Greece were mostly picturesque. No shuddering involved.

Ailurophobia????

That's a new one to me. . I never heard of that before.

My father adored TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. I never got on with it for some reason. Perhaps I was being a scaredy cat. haha. When I got my first copy of Alice in Wonderland, the John Tenniel illustration of The Cheshire Cat sitting in that tree with its weird grin scared me so much that my mother had to stick a label over it. I wonder if I have ailurophobia. I don't think so. Maybe I have a fear of whimsical English cat art. haha. Wonder what that's called.

OK off to write the Howl of the Athenian Cat part one. In E minor. Put an umbrella over your computer. Fear not. It will take me the rest of my life to figure out mp3 files. heheh.

What's the German word for cat?

Kater=male , Katze=female cat. A male cat is also a hangover...and then there's the noise of cats, Katzenjammer, which is also a hangover, which is why the cartoonist in the old days called 'em the 'Katzenjammer Kids'. Anyhoo.

I think there should be a Greek word for 'fear of English cartoon art', anyway...maybe 'punchophobia' or 'terryjonesophobia', or similar...? I hated all Tenniel drawings on sight. That one of Alice with a stretched neck bugged the life out of me. I thought the Cheshire Cat one was an insult to felines.

Have you ever noticed how few cartoonists can draw cats? Dogs, yes. Not cats. Charles Schulz pointed out that he couldn't. I think cats are too complicated.

! I will say to the neighbour's cat, next time he sits outside our door, on the communal landing, looking oh so innocent and waiting for breakfast. He will stare at me, then a thought bubble will appear above his head saying . .

yeeeeow Punchophobia! . You got it.

Hmm. I'm just thinking about dog cartoons. Fred Bassett. I loved him. Yes, Snoopy of course. Not scary. Just the cats that were scary. There were the Edward Lear illustrations for The Owl and the Pussycat etc. They weren't so scary, but still unnerving somewhere. hmm. Interesting.



My favourite dog cartoon character was Tige from the Buster Brown comic strip. I don't know what kind of hound he was supposed to be. He was kind of a chunky hound. Could have been scary, but wasn't. My mother had a relative who lived in New York, so she must have sent over the Buster Brown cartoon books. I grew up with Tige. He was so great. He talked, but the grownups couldn't hear him. I think he was a bit of a wideboy philospher. heheh. .



Interesting, though, about the John Tenniel illustrations. Paradoxically, I found that no other Wonderland editions were ever the same, without those scary drawings. heheh. I'm going over to GoogleImages to check out Mr Tenniel.

If you never see me again heheh. ...

PS. What about me?? said Felix the Cat. I just heard this plaintive voice, en route to find out about John Tenniel. heheh. Except Felix didn't speak, because he was a b/w silent movie cartoon cat. Well, he was when I knew him. Magic. My Dad had a film of Felix the Cat. Used to show it to us through a cine projector. Felix wasn't scary.


OK, back to research. .

'Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks...' That was the song from the 'Felix the Cat' animated series I saw as a kid. Silly.

There's Krazy Kat, I like her. She's Goth. Her unrequited passion for Ignatz, the mean mouse, is typical of that surrealism that is the only valid excuse I know of for making cartoons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1937_1107_kkat_brick_500.jpg

Then there is Mehitabel:

http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/song.html

For those not in the know, Archy the Cockroach snuck into Don Marquis' office every night, and typed (on a manual typewriter) by jumping from key to key. He was orthographically challenged by being unable to hit the SHIFT key.

Archy told fascinating stories, especially about his friend Mehitabel the transmigrated cat, who was once Cleopatra. You can learn a lot from this...

NB: When Marquis was writing this, 'gay' had two meanings: a) cheerful, and b) morally loose, as in a 'gay woman'. It did not imply same-sex relationships.

Remember 'My Gal is a High-Born Lady'? (That's the PC version.) 'Feathered like a peacock, just as gay...?'</>