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

Entry: One note song - A3941859
Author: dancingbuddha - U238893

rhythms of a recent trip to portland

I got a great deal of pleasure from reading that.

Not only that but I now know why I prefer old cars to the new ones which make you feel as if you're sitting in an armchair. Alright for commuting I suppose, but not for a real journey.

Thanks for posting it here dancingbuddha.

>> Not only that but I now know why I prefer...

Am totally thrilled to know that one of my wanderous attempts at extracting subtext from an experience actually made sense to someone else.

oh, and thank you

~ db

You're a classy read, db.
The meaning is sometimes difficult, but the cadence is always intriguing.

meaning difficult? i guess i never write to conclude... what did this one mean, if anything?

~ db

The general meaning's clear, sure. Sometimes specific phrasing is elusive.
I'm guessing you choose to write like that : you lay down the message, then you embellish in the mood.
Or maybe that's just me, transposing my own way onto others.

Pin
(Love the title, btw. So rare, that a title is a perfect set-up)

Hmm, specific phrasing is elusive... gimme an example?

I sat down at my hotel desk one night for this one, burning with the idea of writing it. Wrote it in one go, each sentence not typed until its image formed clearly in my mind, no revisions or stops until I hit "She had eyes...".

Then I stopped, because I couldn't write about rhythms any more *hunts for melancholy smiley...*

So that's how I wrote that one. Most of my work gets done like that. Pent up feelings, intuitions, instincts, perceptions just burst forth and onto paper. Sometimes I think about the effect, and the apparent meaning, and sometimes I revise, but not usually.

~ db

if i had to do this again, i would write as a stream of consciousness, and use the 10 minutes of sounds of the streetcar coming and going on the road below and the signals sounding their "walk" signs on and off, on and off, on and off that i recorded, as a soundtrack...'twould admittedly have been an unusual genre of storytelling, but i'm betting i wouldn't need video. this *was* originally called 'night song', by the way, because at the moment of writing that's what it was: an electronic cuckooing at 1 am reminding no one at all on the road to walk across because no traffic at all was stopped. That, and the occasional streetcar, wending its way home on its last trip. That, combined with the fact that there were actually two signals (for both perpendicular directions of the intersection), and thus two sounds, would've made this a *three* note song. But that would have only been about the moment of inspiration (desperation?), not the message itself.

~ db

Congratulations dancingbuddah ! This entry has been selected from the Alternative Writing Workshop and accepted for the <./>UnderGuide</.>

An UnderGuide Gem Polisher will shortly be in touch for final revisions or tweakings before creating a UG copy of the entry to be featured on h2g2's Front Page. Hopefully, someone will let you know when the entry is on the front page, and you'll soon see your entry in the UG Archives at A2112490.

Congrats again, and thank you for contributing here .

-The UnderGuide Editors

Wah Wah, said the Sultan.
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Wah Wah, said the Sultan.

>> Congratulations ****dancingbuddah**** ! This entry has been selected from the Alternative Writing Workshop and accepted for the UnderGuide <<

Only goes to prove that people write words the way they speak them.

Thank you, of course. I always think I'm just writing interesting forms of nonsense. It's continuall good to know that people can find interest in them.

~ db

A good read. Impresses the senses, makes me relive/remember my own travels, inspire images of your travels and generally allows the thoughts to wander from one living moment to another, one contact to another.

A new and fresh description of travel by plane. There is motion and sound though. The take off and the landing - my favorite bits. Like being on a rollercoaster.

Very UG worthy and simply a joy to read, congratulations

I would echo the praise given here, DancingBuddha.

The only thing that strikes me as a flaw, however, is the 'That is a myth' note. However, upon retrospect, that may just be a signal to the end of a smooth flow of brilliant prose. Thank you for sharing it with us.

xantief

Come come, good sir. Perhaps we differ on our usage of the word 'myth'. To me, to talk about myth is not to talk about belief or disbelief. Myths are beyond all that - a myth is an axis of sense-making, a necessary fiction whose fictionality is irrelevant. By calling those things myths, I'm only saying that they exist entirely internal to us as well as being constructed, by us, as external entities.