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

Nice drawing, my son, my sun, and Michel would be proud. And all drawn to scale and everything. I will think of you at sunset sunset.

It was your idea. I steal from the best.

ah yes, my son, (that's the last time I call you my son) , I've had this master plan, concerning contributions to the noohootoo, that you were talking about in your editorial. Every twenty seven minutes, more like months , I will email you photographic postcards from the bluebell valleys and fictional cities of my fevered brain, you rearrange them in funny colours and write masterpieces all over them, and I will disappear to raise llamas and maybe some cows on a farm in some green hills that speak to me in faltering greenhill languages.

I only said that so I could get in the bit about the greenhill languages, , but you know, I am willing to contribute in my own patchy way, and you can always nudge me for contributions, although you will have to have getout excuses in faltering greenhill languages, when I send you 4,500 photographs of my favourite llama, .

Yes, I am totally bonkers tonight.

I love llamas, don't you? Feisty and cute.

I like greenhill languages. I also like desertsand languages, and saltspray ones.

That's okay, Elektra emailed me the idea for the G'plex for two weeks from now. I think you people are beginning to think like Nigel...what have I done...

A recommendation to anyone reading this, but particularly to CC:

We saw a film last night called 'Troll Hunter'. It was in Norwegian. We recommend it highly. It is an amazing documentary-style film about, well, a heroic troll hunter in Norway, if you must know. Thrills a-plenty. We laughed and laughed.

Remember, it's Norwegian. That means jokes that take an hour to come to the boil...

Desert and saltspray languages. Ah yes yes yes. Now I am language haunted and feel a 2.34 am poem coming on, one of those nothing to lose inspired rambles to the spirit of everything..

...except I just read the synopsis for the aforementioned Troll Hunter film , and so I am really spooked about three headed .. erm ... ssshhh don't give away the plot, OK but I am reallly spooked , but maybe in a minute I will get the joke

Where do you guys find these films? heheh. You are film buffs extraordinaire. Inside knowledge, that's it. haha. I think you drink absinthe with Directors in obscure bars, and write the scripts for them. .

Perhaps the three headed sssshhh don't give away the plot will turn up in my poem, along with the spirits of everything.

Funny you should mention absinthe. I was just writing a column for a future issue, and a quote involved absinthe. Which I've never drunk. Since it's green, I always thought it was like NyQuil, which I drink every night. (Because I have sinus problems.) I always imagine that absinthe tastes like NyQuil, really nasty...

Anyhow, the way we find these things is called Netflix. It's a subscription service in the US. You pay a few dollars a month, and strange films are available on your computer by streaming video. I hunt out weird movies, like 'Troll Hunter' or Romanian New Age Cinema.

Another hot tip for movie buffs: http://www.archive.org/

This free site contains many fascinating public-domain films. (Including the ones they just forgot to put a copyright card on.)

For instance, you can view 'Tales of Tomorrow', an early television scifi program. Commercials and all. I recommend this one, called 'The Window':

http://www.archive.org/details/TalesOfTomorrow-LostPlanet

it's practically postmodern.


Also, you may view such wonders as US government propaganda. This one is classic:

http://www.archive.org/details/DuckandC1951

Of course, you may also see the puppet farmer showing us how to nuclear-proof our cows:

http://www.archive.org/details/rural_civil_defense_tv_spots_1965

hah! the secret maps to filmland! Splendid. This could take care of the winter months. Close the curtains, goodnight snow, cross over the borderline to filmland. I love those flickering black and white thumbnail previews. Thankyou.

(Sips absinthe).

What?? Only kidding. Its 8am. heheh. I have never drunk absinthe either. I don't think I have even seen it. hmm. One hears a lot of strange tales, mostly involving green entities, . It does have an interesting history though, I think, although I suspect that NyQuil might be the better option.

At one time there was a bar in Brighton which advertised it, absinthe that is, not NyQuil, and I often thought I might nip in there in the early hours, pretend I was Arthur Rimbaud, and write a fevered cult novel, induced by the green liquid.

However,I had to accept that I am a useless boho when it comes it to it .

I don't think I could have survived that Parisian bohemian artist culture. Presumably absinthe was a cheap drink then. Its not so cheap now. One might have to make sacrifices for ones's green muse. Think I will stick to green tea. Actually, I never drank green tea either. hmm.

Talking of early Postmodern, what? wait a minute, I thought we were onto the green tea, , check out The Strange World of Gurney Slade. I just got the DVD. There were only 6 episodes, four of which were aired in the middle of the night. Early 60s. British public not ready for it. heheh. Its brilliant. David Bowie was inspired by it. Suburban postmodernism sort of thing.

I shall try to find this Gurney Slade.

A recommendation from last night: a 2007 film called 'Being Michael Madsen'. (Not to be confused with 'Being John Malkovitch', which is a funny science fiction film.)

'Being Michael Madsen' is a mockumentary. Very intellectual sort of amusement, but terribly funny. Michael Madsen and his sister are successful actors (in real life), and their mother is a producer/poet/playwright whose stuff appears on our 'educational' channel. They participate in the fun, along with a few of their actor friends.

The mockumentary is a farce involving the conceit that a paparazzo pursues Madsen until he, enraged, hires a documentary film crew (played by actors) to torment the paparazzo by giving him a taste of his own medicine. The result is a hilarious send-up: Hollywood tabloids vs artsy documentarians. Guess who wins?