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

Claude Levi-Strauss, introduction to his 1977 Massey Lecture "Myth and Meaning"

'I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to myself as the / place where something is going on, but there is no "I", no "me." Each of us is a kind of crossroads where things happen. The crossroads is purely passive; something happens there. A different thing, equally valid, happens elsewhere. There is no choice, it is just a matter of chance.'

University of Toronto Press, 1978, pp. 3-4.





A few days more than eight years ago, while reading the Salmon of Doubt, I registered here and started puttering around. In the first three years or so I earned my '25 Edited Entries' badge and then took a break of about five years from putting things into PR. Perhaps ironically, in a microcosmic way, on the very day that my first Edited Entry in five years hit the front page, the announcement came that the BBC intended to be relieved, one way or another, of responsibility for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I started out here wanting to be very anonymous and I've tended to be that way consistently, but I'm sure many long time fellow hikers have a pretty clear idea of who I am, although few will actually know my real name (I'm not about to change that.) But I thought under these circumstances I'd make a little bit more of a personal comment about what this place has meant for me over the last almost decade.

I am, by youthful training, a literary scholar, specifically, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Although I've not published in the area for over a decade (timing oddly parallel to my time involved with something else), I have tried to keep myself up to date with the field and I have continued to remain close to the poetry, plodding along on a verse translation of the whole stinking corpus (Beowulf was finished ages ago. I really should shop it for a publisher).

I have also been a short order cook of sorts, a poet of equivalent sorts, a bartender, a golf course superintendent, a single parent of a child with a disability, and, most recently, a fine artist with modest success (I'm thinking of trying 'Stage Actor' and 'Rock Star' next). But it is the scholarly work which is most comparable to what is the original core of the Guide, the Edited Entries.

I am very proud of some of my scholarly publications -- particularly the one in which I stood toe to toe with some giants in the field and seem to remember the sound of their shining armour clattering in the dust -- but hootoo took me off on another journey. And of everything I've written, I'm not prouder of anything than I am of some of the Edited Entries I've made here. Hootoo has given me the opportunity to cut loose and try to make readers feel something of what I feel about the place I live, the people who have made this place and the people I share it with.

I am so proud of my entry on the front page today A76774549 which has been fermenting in my head for the five years I wasn't in PR. I think my entry on Estipah-skikikini-kots A2654697 is some of the best writing I've ever done.

My entry on the place I live, Edmonton A997833 caught the eye of a prominent doctor at the biggest hospital in town and inspired her to recommend that a link to it be added to their webpage recruiting doctors from around the world. A Hootoo Entry was being recommended, as the internet face of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, over anything the City itself, or Wikipedia, or the Government of Alberta or the Government of Canada had made. You can bet I'm proud of that writing.

I could go on and on about:

being so moved by my involvement in the entry on Stan Rogers A2586495 which shows up as collaborative, but cl zoomer is the reason that entry exists

being so flattered by being asked by deemikay for suggestions about 'Wodwo' - the Poem by Ted Hughes A1012492 an entry about a poem which I had never read

Milton A1093466

The oldest mosque in Canada A1081225

A most marvellous place I missed on my one visit to one of my favourite places, Baia A1035127

The War of 1812, a most overlooked and a most important moment in my country's history: A1021294

All the Mediaeval things, all the obscure historical things, all the First Nations thing, the entry on a Canadian donut shop I rewrote A241930 . . .


But, most importantly, of all my entries here, Edited and not http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/MA215480?show=25&type=2 , I think I am most proud of my first Edited Entry on the now iconic Canadian symbol, the Inukshuk A950203 and more than anything else, my memorial to fourteen people: A2225639


The reason I took a break from writing for PR is that when I write, the only way I know it is good is when I start to , which, encouragingly, I did in buckets while working on the Cave and Basin entry and which I continue to do while working (with a feeling of futility) on my current entry on Dinosaur Provincial Park.

But hootoo has done something else for me besides providing an outlet for my writing urges. hootoo has been with me as I've gone through a very challenging time in my life. I've been able to vent here, I've been able to share things which have excited me, and, despite having an older person's hesitation about this whole online friendship thing, I've developed what I consider to be real friendships, friendships which run parallel with the friendships I've continued to develop in real life (those of you who keep track may remember the advent of the crew at the local brewery, and the sausage man, and the Mexican grocers, and my remarkably diverse bunch of neighbours.)


I wouldn't trade the writing opportunities I've had here for anything. I also wouldn't trade the friendships I've developed. There are people I miss greatly who have simply disappeared (Blaue Augen, where are you?), those who have drifted a little from hootoo who I can still contact, but not with the comfortable ease of a pop by their message space, and there are those still around with whom I have great fun. One of my dreams is to get everyone who has ever posted to Chief Gordon's thread together in one room (perhaps in Mr. Lightfoot's house: mine is too much of a mess) to just say "hi", have a , to have everyone say 'Gee, you're fatter than I expected', and to see if we could actually get along in real life the way we do online.


I'm proud of much of what I've done here, I'm proud of what we've done here, and I'm so grateful for what you've all done for me. Facebook couldn't have done these things. Twitter couldn't have done these things. Wikipedia couldn't have done these things. Only hootoo could be hootoo.

I'm honoured beyond words to have been a part of this place/process. I hope it will continue somehow. But if it doesn't, I'm honoured beyond words.

This place is what the internet could have been, and should have been.


Maybe it will be some day.

I popped by from the Latest Official News thread. That's beautiful, Anhaga.

Thank you.





I was doing a while I wrote that post, too.

Hi anhaga!

I know we have crossed swords in the past, mate, but that lot made even my eyes water!!

Hope hootoo carries on. We are trying this side of the pond!!



GT

I'm too upset to

We've had a good run, and who knows what crossroads lie ahead..

Wow!

Anhaga, you're about the most interesting guy on the planet, and I mean that in the best possible way. But I won't explain further because Mary Poppins (whom you quote on your PS) told me not to.

I agree that Twitter and Facebook coyuld not do what H2G2 does, though I can't prove it, not having been to those sites. Why would I need to? I have here.....

( before Mary Poppins changes her mind)

Do not write hootoo off yet, paulh!

Details at

http://groups.google.com/group/h2g2communityconsortium

or

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2classic/A80173361

Things are afoot!!!


GT

OOps

Correction needed...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A80173361


Better!


GT

Thanks paul, but I'm just this guy, you know?





(I've also milked goats, made illegal hooch, prepared seal flipper pie, and been mistaken for a physician by an ER doctor.)

Milking goats and maiing seal flipper pie are just the sorts of talents that the new owner(s) of H2G2 will need advice about. Actually, Julie Andrews is very nearly as interesting, and I doubt that she can milk goats at all.

I'm not writing H2G2 off, GT. I'm still in the bemusement stage, wondering if it will stay primarily U.K.-based, or become truly international.

The BBC never had a complete understanding of our value, in my humble opinion. It had the right to use our writings in any way it saw fit, but didn't do anything to turn that value into revenue to sustain the site. Did it ever publish the best of what our site has? No.

While I'm hoping, of course, that somehow this place continues, I've been thinking for some time about submitting something to 'Canada's History' magazine http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine.aspx Recent events have stoked the fires of that idea.

Then I'd be getting paid for it, too.

I've also had an idle fantasy of the CBC taking over h2g2.

That last thought crossed my mind, too, Anhaga, but the chicken distracted it, and the road rose up to meet them. .

My opinion is that expert advice is sorely needed. We're like beginning climbers clustered around the flanks of Mount Everest. We may have the necessary mountain-climbing skills in aggregate, but it would take an expert to assemble us into an effective group. The expert wouldn't necessarily have to climb the mountain with us...