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

Entry: The Many Careers of Sol Bloom - A88047138
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - Post Editor - U1590784

I always wondered how Sol Bloom became the organiser of the Columbian Exposition Midway at the age of 21. So I read his autobiography. Fascinating guy. Here's an entry about him, with pictures and sheet music.

Very interesting! He did so many different things, and with great success!

Yeah, he did. I can't believe how much he did as a kid. I couldn't tell it all - wild stories in San Francisco.

Excellent Entry - thank you. Superb concluding paragraph

Just one suggestion for improvement:

"you will recognise this tune" - I think it would be better to rephrase for the benefit of people who can't read sheet music, or can't sight read.

How about something like: "You may not have heard of Sol Bloom (1870-1949) but you will probably have heard the 'snake charmer song', or the 'Arabian riff', or 'There's a place in France where the alligators dance/ladies wear no pants', etc." then put the image after that?

Good thought! Otherwise that's just frustrating. There's a link to a video of the whole song later. It's a really funny song about a young lady who gets paid 'to appear each night in abbreviated clothes.'

I reworded it, see if that works better.

That reminds me of how frustrated I used to get growing up reading Edgar Allan Poe. Like a lot of educated people from his time, when he had something to say in Greek, he printed it in Greek, not transliteration. Used to frustrate me until I got to university and made sure I learned to read Greek.

Excellent - that's very clear now

I don't think I've seen any Greek in the few Edgar Allan Poe stories I've encountered, but I have struggled with the French in Charlotte Bronte's works lately as it is way beyond 'GCSE studied 25 years ago' level... Occasionally she will say something like "He gave it in French, but we must translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers." but not as often as is probably necessary

I learned to read Greek letters at University, too, but for mathematics purposes - I roped a linguist friend into sitting in a Euclidean Geometry lecture with me to help with deciphering the hieroglyphics the lecturer had drawn, and she deduced it was Greek, although not like any Greek she had seen! Somehow the lecturer managed to draw Xi completely back to front, and Eta like Cyrillic Ch, but the Alpha at least was recognisable Funny in retrospect, but not funny at the time, especially when the lecturer's dog ate my homework one week as well It worked out in the end, as the lecturer just gave me 10/10 rather than making me redo it

Sol Bloom's sheet music by mail service foreshadowed the internet Could do with a trusty name on internet download sites, though, as there are a few around, and I wouldn't know which one is best to choose... My local musical instrument shops all closed in the 1990s - must have been just a bit too niche to survive, even though they were an asset to their fans...

'My lecturer's dog ate my homework...' That's a new one on me!

I know what you mean about download sites. I am reluctant about them and prefer to use Amazon.

For really old music, have you tried archive.org? Sometimes they have surprising bits of sheet music that you can copy.

My sister subscribes to a music service - but as she's a church pianist, the selection is limited to religious music.