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

You know, Elektra and I said that last night. That your Colours of Wildlife would make a terrific book.

When you get ready to do that, if you need any editorial help, please let me know. (Like, transferring the texts from GuideML to Word, etc.)

And I am with you on the public encounters. We've just come back from the supermarket. There was this woman behind the service counter...she's not a *bad* person, but she secretly wishes the customers would all drop dead. She stares at the world deadpan, while chewing her gum...she looks like a chipmunk, because she has round cheeks and she chews in a circular motion...Elektra says, hamster...

I keep thinking, it could be worse. I could be shopping in Germany...or trying to buy a ticket in Romania...

Completely off-topic (what topic?):

Elektra and I were talking, and she said 'Willem might move to Peoria', and I said, 'That's Pretoria', and it reminded me of the Smothers Brothers. Do you know this routine?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpntX3efBiU

Of course, they also sang about Peoria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlDXjyQqUM&feature=related

(Peoria's in Illinois.)

HI Dmitri! No, no topics here that I can see! No, I haven't heard of the Smothers Brothers before, thanks! But I have heard of Peoria. It's not just in Illinois, it's also in Calvin and Hobbes, and in The Deeper Meaning of Liff! There - (n) the fear of peeling too few potatoes.

I didn't know that. And I'd forgotten about Calvin and Hobbes.

I think you'll enjoy the Smothers Brothers. They had a banter that was always fun (they're really brothers, and pretend to bicker constantly during the song), and they used folk music. They were influential in the 1960s because their variety show on TV expressed a countercultural viewpoint in an amusing way.

Hi again Dmitri! Seems a bit quiet over here. Anyways I'll try and post here more, but I'm very busy these days. Tomorrow I'm giving those kids art lessons again. Maybe I'll write a report about it!

I wonder if Peoria is as big as Pretoria? Did you know that the name Pretoria is pretty much doomed now? They want to rename it Tshwane. Anyways, I've lived there from 1972 to 1980 and studied there as well, I've a lot of fond memories of the town.

Pretoria according to wikidpedia has about 500 000 people ... I think it's more. These days there's no clear division between Pretoria and Johannesburg and a few other towns thereabouts, and the whole region has many millions of people.

I see there's a Peoria in Arizona as well! It seems to be a suburb of Phoenix. Now Phoenix is an interesting place to me, because it is one of the few places in the USA where plants from South Africa can be grown outdoors!

Wow. I'm not surprised about Phoenix. People move to Arizona for the dry heat.

I've just been thinking about you. I was over getting lost in the wonders of Constantin Brâncuşi:

http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/brancusi.php

It turns out there was an amazing trial about one of his 'bird' sculptures in the 1920s. US Customs wanted to charge duty on it, because it 'didn't look like a bird'. So they called it a kitchen utensil...the trial made art history...

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2002/story_giry_sepoct2002.msp

Oh, and now I'm singing:

'Tshwane, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Tshwane...'

Sorry.

Hello again. Thanks for those Brancusi links ... I haven't seen his art in a while! (Sorry I don't know how to make the fancy characters on h2g2)!

That's another benefit of living in Pretoria: there will be much more art. There are art museums close by, there will be more exhibitions, and there will be better art books in the shops and libraries.

The legal hassles with importing the Bird In Space sculpture made me think of the story 'Pigs is Pigs' by Ellis Parker Butler:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2004/2004-h/2004-h.htm

There's a Disney cartoon about it as well ... I'm sure you and Elektra will like it (about ten minutes in length):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYXlF3sa9xs

Willem, we think alike. When I explained the trial to Elektra, I said, 'The customs people said 'Pigs is pigs'.'

We love that cartoon.

I see Brancusi's name didn't even come out in cut-and-paste. I really have to get back to Pastey about the Romanian issue.

Heh heh! I had to do some googling to see what that song was! I think it's not a bad 'template' for making a Tshwane anthem. Tshwane is also the name of a river ... in Afrikaans we call it the Apiesrivier (Monkey river). There was a story about Winston Churchill 'swimming the mighty Apies' ... for anyone who knows what this river is like it's a good joke. I think I might already here have mentioned what *most* South African rivers are like ...

Sorry that was a simulpost as I was responding to your second posting!

I love it.

My late mother had a good laugh about a postcard she got hold of when they lived in Horseheads, New York, which is near Elmira. Mark Twain used to live in Elmira, and the locals make a big fuss over it. There's a Mark Twain Motel and a Huckleberry Finn Motel and a Tom Sawyer Motel..you get the idea.

The postcard showed the pilot house-shaped study that Twain gifted to Elmire College. It explained that when Twain used the study, it was on a bluff 'overlooking the Chemung River, which reminded him of the Mississippi'. In this study, of course, he wrote 'Huckleberry Finn'.

My mom used to laugh about the idea of the Chemung - which is practically a wadi, since there's not much water in it part of the year - resembled the Mississippi. We called it 'the mighty Chemung', and we intended deep irony here.

Maybe you can write that 'Tshwane' song? Al Jolson style?

Even further offtopic:

Have you heard of Irvingism? I've been trying to sort out the history of Joseph Smith's candidacy for US President, since he was the first Mormon candidate for that office. (He was assassinated, which sounds strange until you realise that his theocratic compound was the second-largest city in Illinois at the time - 12,000 people. There was a lot of nervousness.)

And I keep getting in deeper. It seems that the Reformed Old Apostolic Church, which is supposed to be part of Irvingism, and practiced in the Cape in South Africa, also baptise for the dead. So I wondered if you'd heard of them.

Hi Dmitri! Yes, we have the Old Apostolic Church here in South Africa. Not only that, my grandparents (mother's parents) belonged to it. My mom got out of it as soon as she was 18, and went to the N.G. Church which is the main SA church for Afrikaans people. I don't know much but my mom told me they prophesied in the church services and saw evil spirits afflicting car engines and so forth. I'll see about doing a bit of reading about them and the Irvingites.

Hey, great. I'd love to hear what you find out. I wonder what kind of exorcism you'd need to do on a possessed car engine. (And don't let them read 'Christine'. )