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

Now that I've started writing guide entries, I find that I like the process.

I've started a second round, leading off with an entry about the Burns and Allen TV show.

Where do I go from here?

One direction would be to tackle contemporary themes. The pandemic has made it advantageous to be able to create virtual choruses. I briefly tried to sing in a virtual church choir, but I didn't have the right equipment, and other things happened in my life (no water for ten days, e.g., a huge distraction). But there are singers who were already making recordings as virtual singing groups. Peter Hollens and Julien Neel are examples of singers whose vocal range is wide enough that they can sing all the parts of a standard Barbershop group. I could write an entry featuring Neel, whose output I have heard pretty much in its entirety. The downside? Very few people on the Internet have done reviews of his work. It would be a challenge to do an entry
and keep my personal opinion at a minimum.

Another contemporary issue is that of ugly, racist songs from the 1930a being discovered in the recorded output of Kate Smith. There are definitely two sides to this, and some eloquent spokespeople on both sides. Smith died in 1986, and undoubtedly forgot about the controversial songs soon after she recorded them. They do not seem to have entered into the repertoire that Smith regularly turned to in later years. Were she still alive, she would have the opportunity to make an apology if she so desired. But she's not alive. A sports team that used her as a sort of good-luck mascot has severed ties with her recordings of "God bless America" and removed a statue of her. I personally think they should stop living in the past and look for new directions.

I could check the Edited Guide to see if either Kate Smith or Julie Andrews are represented reasonably well. At the moment, guide entries for ither of them would be long shots, but who knows?

An Entry on Julien Neel sounds promising - important to keep an Edited Entry quite factual, yes, but you could have one or two comments along the lines of, 'This Researcher thinks...', or 'In this Researcher's opinion...'

An Entry on the Kate Smith controversy could have potential, too, as you describe it...

Julie Andrews is not well represented in the Edited Guide, sadly - I read a biography of her a few years ago, but decided I wasn't quite bold enough to take on an Entry about her life story. I did write about Victor Victoria, though A87829582

Good luck - it is a pleasure to see you in Peer Review

I've seen more than half of the movies she's made. I read "Home work," her autobiography about "Mary Poppins" through "Victor Victoria." I memorized every song she sang "My fair lady," "Camelot," and "Star" and "Thoroughly Modern Milly." She's still alive, and might do a few mroe things, but most stars her age (86 this year) don't have much more in them. George Burns and Betty White are exceptions.