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

Perhaps I was born too late...

So was I.

I would like to have been a saloon pianist
way out west. There's something about the
easy cadences of ragtime piano music that
draws me to it. I wrote several pieces of it
for myself, and I play them whenever I get a
chance.

If there are brawls in the saloon, they would
rarely involve the guy at the piano. Ideally,
there would be free beer as one of the perks
in the saloon.

When things are quiet, and nobody needs my
playing, I could also tip my hat over my eyes,
go off in a corner, and snooze.

I, too, must agree. I would love to be the proprietor of a phonograph and camera shop in 1915.

Hopefully you won't be of draft age,
Mr. C. There was a war going on then.
I just don't want your fantasy to be interrupted
by unwelcome conscription.

That was a theme explored in the movie Photographing Fairies in which a photographer has to set up his camera on the bettlefields and be a standing target for ten minutes waiting for the glass plate to register.

I can just imagine his chances of survival
in the Battle of the Somme.

That's the funny part - he kept surviving.

Sounds like a fun movie, then.

It was very good - the lovers died, then realized it was just a dream and lived happily ever after.

They lived in Switzerland.
Here's a story you and Spimcoot (if I could find him again) should like.


A Bit of Fiction


"You know what's funny about fiction writing?" asked Bob.

Margarette said noting in response. She was on the last page of a short story in her Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and really wished Bob would let her alone for a few more minutes. Bob continued unfettered.

"Every so often, not every day at least, something comes true."

Bob had just finished reading a story in The Post about woman who poisoned her husband after getting the idea from a novel she had read. The newspaper, smudged with jelly, was open and taking up most of the café table.

Margarette honestly did not care if the stories were true or not; she just liked reading them. This feature was about a cook stabbed with a steak knife, and she was certain the killer was the tennis coach. She was slightly annoyed at having to hold the small magazine in her hands, as the table was full of plates and Bob's newspaper.

"Take murders, for instance. Now everyone likes a good murder. Well, everyone except the person murdered of course, and their families and loves ones... Oh, never mind that. Let me rephrase: Everyone loves a good mystery and murders are the best kind. There can only be so many stolen necklaces and lost Wills before that gets boring. But murder! No, murder is never boring. Just think of all the amazingly different ways for a person to die."

Once again, Margarette did not want to think about all the "amazingly different ways for a person to die." She wanted to read that last five paragraphs and be verified in her accusation of the tennis coach.

"Poisons are fine and can be administered a great number of ways. Then there are guns, but everyone in the news today uses guns and there really aren't that many alternate uses for the average projectile firearm. It's so impersonal, and I think murder should be a personal experience."

Margarette was unhappy. Bob had distracted her enough that she had to reread the page. Worse than that, the killer was identified not as the tennis coach, but as that damned gardener who only showed up in the last three pages. She hated rushed endings like that.

"Take this knife, for instance." Bob leaned back in his chair and snatched a steak knife from a dirty plate on a neighboring table. "This knife could be extremely deadly. I mean it could be jabbed in anywhere. Or it could be used to cut arteries and veins and such. Here," he handed the knife smugly to Margarette, "Now you could kill me."

And so she killed him.