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

Last first, first last.

The Illuminatus Trilogy was written by Robert Anton Wilson. It's a mishmash of 20th-Century carry-on that is, to me, hilarious. The John Dillinger Died for Your Sins Society, the rock concert at Lake Totenkopf...if you know the Western Occult Tradition and anarcho-capitalists, you'll die laughing.

You guys are a hoot...I can imagine these readings...I doubt I could compete.

It is warm and sunny today, but somehow, there is a hint of fall in the space/time continuum...

I hope you like the mushy peas...

I am writing now because we are victims of raging tool-bugs at work...I have been nostalgic all day, missing other times, other places...

When the birthday thing comes up for the AWW, there will be a tribute story about hamsters...

My brain doesn't work right today. Somebody is doing maintenance in there...you Goths get out, Gael union rules...hey, stop it...

I will enjoy visiting your submarine. And you are always welcome in mine.

And I know *exactly* what you mean about the washing-up. I saw so many people who tried to make utopian communities fall down like that...the one bunch who ended up stuffing envelopes.

I avoid these things like the plague. Who would want to live with me, huh?

Will write more later, there appears to be movement on the computer front, maybe...

strange coincidence .... a couple of days ago I put aside an obit from the paper of this fellow Ken Campbell .. who I had heard of but didn't know anything about .. RIP Ken Campbell ..



.....got around to reading it just now ....first thing it mentions ... his 12 hour theatre adaptation of Robert Wilson's Illuminatus ... seems he adapted Hitchhiker's Guide for the stage in '79 ... and tried to adapt Valis also ....also appeared in Derek Jarman's version of The Tempest ...

hmm .. thereby proving that whatever I think I know, I don't in fact know .. unless I do ..

...

also just followed a van on the road home .. which was advertising a cargo of frozen chips, pies and mushy peas .. a sign! a sign! so onward into weekend and catching up with stories ...



Dear Doctor Daktyl ... how do I rhyme these daydream picture-title visions ..... of six angel impersonators wearing green tinsel halos, smoking herbal cigarettes in the Valley of the Scarab ... with pink tangled lines encircling a headache ... with new rhythms arising out of fractals in the orchard of sweet green apples ...

answer kid .. forget it ..... go home and eat sugar .....OK heheheheheheh



laters ...............

and then there are hamsters ......

hmmm ...

Your mentioning the Hitchhiker's Guide on stage tickled my memory...ah, yes, Philadelphia, a few years ago...

A9539995

I wrote them up, you see. A more modern adaptation. Trying to help them sell tickets, I was...

Busy day here. The hurricane is on its way to us. Hard-Hearted Hannah, the vamp of Savannah? Maybe. We're supposed to worry about Ike. (Do we like Ike?) My head is full of irrelevant trivia...

Okay, haircuts. Lunch out, since we finally, for the first time in about three months, had the *same day off*...home for coffee. We had a quick swim, but are expecting torrential downpours later...

Angel impersonators...hey, why not?

Eat sugar. (I will answer your wonderful email later.)

You will be sorry you were away this weekend. I have spammed your inbox (with music and pics, no less).

And when you have a minute's leisure, I will trouble you further with this: A40662795

ah yes ... lemurs ... matter of fact just been in google images for about half an hour .. checking lemurs ... lemurs? why am I talking about lemurs? and hamsters? I don't know, Mr DG-Brains .. why am I? heheheheheheheh..

(and D's tartan towel ... ah yes ... .. and sparkly spiders' webs in the Arbo .. and S singing 'bout marrying his sister off to a spider ... and erm .... )

what?

its all to do with the company I keep ... .....



spam wonderful spam ...ah yes ... those Monty Python guys .. heheheheheheh .. .. I always loved the Terry Gilliam animations ..



my brain cells ... circa 1060-73 .... what??? I just typed 1060 .... heheheheheheh .. wow .. knew I was the (his)torical type ... heheheheheh .. 1960-73 .... are entirely formed from spam ...spam fritters ....mmmmm .. lovely lovely pink greasy spamfritters ... ...

it explains why I am so deeply and incredibly intelligent ... heheheheheheheh .. and vegetarian ... .. given that erm .... I forgot the stat .... something like 20 per cent of what we eat goes straight to the brain ... or is more than that ...


hmmmmm .... ..yum .. yummy yum .... school food of the 60s! .. along with tapioca pudding .. that we used to call frogs'eyes ...

whoooooargh .... ... s'cuse me .. having a rough moment here ..

and because I was later at boarding school I could have spamfritters and tapioca pudding for breakfast lunch and supper! ah yes ..



what was the typical American school food of the 50s and 60s? or did the kids take a lunchbox from home? need to know .. to see what your braincells are formed of .. ...

'course there's the delicate question that the sparse effects of the depression era etc might have still be in place ..so tell me to take my questions elsewhere .. I think the UK school (and home) diet was still affected by WW2 rationing ... right into the late 60s ...


I digress before I even begin ...



OK .. first things later .. A Woman Is Only A Woman .. ah yes yes yes ... heheheheheheh .... meatpies mushy peas and lager .... ... ..wrapped in the dim ochre sleepy smoky light of pub-world ... (well .. they used to be smoky) ... then (to me) ..the sudden erotic gloriousness of the last line .. which is guaranteed to make me faint and pine .. well it would wouldn't it ... me being me n' all ..

<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>> .....



right ....

I have taken a vow of silence ... in reverence .. what????? yes .. I am not going to talk for a year ... well .. maybe for another few hours ... its all your fault ... you put me onto E.E. Cummings ... and now I'm in possession of a glorious hardback edition of his complete poems .. and am deep in it already ... whoah and wow and holy holy ..



the dustjacket info informs me that <>>>..........

cool American poetry readers! .... .. that's amazing .. 'cos he's doesn't write in the most obviously mainstream style does he ... or perhaps American poetry readers in 1962 weren't mainstream ...

?? talk to me ....

then it goes onto say that ... <<>>>>

yay .. I'd say ..




I wonder who the most widely read poet in the UK was, in 1962 ....



I was going to go on and talk more about hamsters, guinea pigs, puppies and ghosts ... I will talk to you about hamsters, guinea pigs, puppies and ghosts .... I will I will I will .. and try to find a not very good poem I wrote last year about someone I knew who got lost in the loop ... but I have to go now ..and anyway I've taken a vow of silence ... ..



and ..... catch up with two more fizzing blue A numbers ... (love that title .. All Around the Loney-O) ....

and ........get to our spammy in box ... heheheheheheheh ... ... hmmm lovely ....

can't wait ...

but have to .... have to ....have to .....go

PS ... talking of vows of silence .. did you ever see that enchanting film called Little Miss Sunshine? ...about this crazy family on the road from AZ to Cali .. .. involves an adorable little geeky girl who wins a place at a beauty contest in Cali ... her teenage brother Dwayne who reads Nietzsche all the time .. and has taken a vow of silence till he can become a test pilot ...but then has a massive freakout when he finds out he is color blind .... suicidal Uncle Frank the Proust scholar .. the grandpa who ODs in a motel so they have to conceal his body in the back of the campervan ...

it goes on ..

and so do I ...

ssshhhhhhh

We read ee cummings in school. Most notable for the lack of punctuation and capitalisation. I love him. I loved 'The Enormous Room'.

You will love him for his mindset. He's like you. Very much so.

School food...

First day of school, battle of wills with strange teacher supervising lunchroom, who insisted I should eat red beets. What Dmitri don't know, Dmitri don't eat. My mom said I didn't have to, she hated the things. (I likek pickled beets now.)

Elementary school hot lunches were wonderful, though...homemade vegetable soup, and chili, and twice-baked toasts...yum...

I always tried to snag the chocolate milk. Didn't realise why until later...nobody had heard of lactose intolerance, and nobody admitted to those Red Indian great-great-great grandmothers...

In the area around Pittsburgh, strange new foods...sticky rice one of my favourites, can't find it now...

Hoagies (submarine sandwiches)...a different take on food in the land of Germans, Italians, Hungarians, and the ubiquitous Scotch-Irish...we 'redd up our rooms' around there, and pronounce Andrew Carnegie's name right.

Hsven't seen 'Little Miss Sunshine'. Elektra says she will order it.

Glad you liked the mushy-peas story. Hope you will like the other one...

Be good. If you can't, be careful.

strange coincidence you mentioned Andrew Carnegie ... 'cos a few hours before guess who just mentioned him out of the blue and we spent some time checking him on Wiki ....



then I was also thinking about hamsters .. tho' this seems days ago now ... many considerations since then ... and I strolled into the Arts Centre straight into a huge poster advertising a show from a band named Hamsters ..

strange huh ...

listening to one of my fave albums right now as I type... its called Flapjacks from the Sky ... by the band Gandalph Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams ... the blessed Joziah Longo singing about sitting drinking espresso with the Buddha in Joe's Diner ...



been listening to it for hours ... do you ever feel sooooo sore 'bout something that you have to put on an album reeeeeely loud ... and wail and howl your way through every single track about fifteen times ... and then you get healed .. till the music ends .. then you fall apart again and have to start over ... ....


<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(from Sunday in the Rain) .. written by Joziah Longo ...)

ahhhhhh .. what medicine ...

.. I'm alright now ... heheheheheheh .. but now I'm addicted to the album ... heheheheheheheh



been doing some weird wordpic daydreaming though .. kind of inspired right now .. despite funny order of flow ..



and red and yellow lines that squiggle through the niggle in my certainty ... heheheheheh ..




and I am wrapped in night and check and fleck



and pylon-totems loom out of shadowland .. I hear a low chant .. schoom schoom schoom .. uh oh uh oh here comes feverbrain .....



and then enter the dove ... uh oh ... the dove ah yes ... the healerdove ...that I wish I could pay to go away but hey all in a day's dovedream .....



dear doctor daktylic ...help ...

and in my waking dream I see a patch of urban earth ..somewhere between the cemetery and the war memorial ....where birds peck at seeds that have been scattered by passers by .. as tokens of new life and new hope ..



and I'm walking past this patch of earth and a scruffy hungry dove perches on my shoulder and coos and attempts to peck raw my conscience and my flawed intentions ..... and I said wait a minute .. doves are just doves and they don't coo love ...so go away dove .. you are just a humanbrain archetype sent to ruin my waking dream ...



so then the dove starts to peck me right open .. wedges its beak into the hairline crack that runs from behind my left eye and onward through the folds of my mind ....

..and I split open like a seed pod and then the dove starts to devour the seeds of me .. leaving nothing but an empty pod where my heart once reigned ....crowned with tears and kisses and sugarcake and petals and fairylights and a grief too awful ........



... and into this empty pod crowds the whole world ... with all its scream and keen and yearn and dream ... and I am overwhelmed by a billion billion souls grappling and clamouring for seeds .... for love seeds ....

... and I let out a roar .. and I lay down and surrender my physical self ... on a patch of urban earth somewhere between the cemetery and the war memorial ...



and a dove appears .... a scruffy shiny otherworldly dove ... which hasn't come to feed as its already bursting full of love-seeds that it extracts from the hearts of those who are too much pining and dying from the yearning and the longing for love ...



and waking-dream-legend suggests that it protects these seeds inside itself until they are healed and ready to be scattered ... in this case on a patch of urban earth somewhere between the cemetery and the war memorial .. so that they can germinate and flourish and become love love love .................



hey dove ... erm ... right what?????

dream analysis ... go away ... OK OK OK ..

for split open ... dehisce dehisce? yes yes yes fine word dehisce ...OK OK ... forget dehisce ... heheheheheheh



how are you feeling? allergies huh .. I don't know about allergies much .. you ever written about them? I'd be interested but probably the last thing you want to think about right now ...

still not caught up with A numbers and E mails and other alphabetical considerations .. but all in good time if time is good which I think it is ... most of the time ....

going going goin goi go go go go

gone

Wow. I'm not sure I'm qualified to analyse that dream. But the doves are interesting, very.

There are two dogs dancing around my stepmother's kitchen - Ariel and Hallie, the Sheltie.

We drove down, dodging bad drivers, on a cloudy day. The great pointless mass of the Piedmont. Doggie good as gold, as always, drivers changing lanes without warning, as always.

Got here to impatient folks who wanted their supper - why does your suppertime move up by an hour for every decade of your life after 70?

Hilarious two hours at the Cracker Barrel (this is a country store cum restaurant chain, with rocking chairs outside and Kenny Rogers inside).

Unfortunately, it was the waitress's first day.

Okay, there was tomming out. We were ironic with the manager. Lack of food will do this to you...

I guess your neighbours didn't eat you yet?

It is only 8 pm. I am exhausted. This is usually my supper break time.

I will make more sense tomorrow, I hope...

just checking the Sheltie here on google images ... ah yes .. so beautiful ... .. so Ariel can share your attentions then?



... logo in The Post looking good guys! .. await next issue with anticipation ! ..

also The Penny Dreadful! ...

so so many treasures! will have to learn to read way faster .. need espresso for fast reading .. ....



ah yes .. those doves .. not sure 'bout those crazy luvvy-doves .. .. heheheheheheheheheh .. think they are shapeshifting shaman healers doing their trickster bit on me ... heheheheheheh ...

yesterday they tried to get me again .. this time in different guise ....

.. The Promise strolled into the Cafe Jasmine, chewing on spearmint sugarfree gum .... and I said hey Promise ... and Promise looked at me with curious eyes from that world between poetry and prayer and ...

and .....

and go away ....trickster spirits ...




found this poem from my backtrax that I wrote last year for a loved friend who disappeared into uncertainty .. don't usually care for digging up backtrax .. kind of shy ... like old photos .... ... but feel like putting here as practice for casting Bread onto the Waters ...

reworked this one a bit but its not structurally re-arranged .. as I don't really know structural reworking kind of things ..

what? well you know what I mean ...

realised also that there's no such thing in my world as saying 'ah that's it ... this piece of writing is complete ...' ... it might be complete emotionally .. like a ritual .. you know .. phew .. dunnit .. its outside of me now .. even if its just fragments .. which I love .. fractal fragments ... but never technically/structurally .. an ongoing process .. know what I mean ..

do you know instinctively when a piece of writing work is complete? like a click inside or something ? wonder how your process works .

oh ..

gotta go eat ..

here's the (incomplete) wordpainting .. called Lost

so where did you go
with your essence so raw?
with your quicksilver laugh
and your one fatal flaw?



with your outsider vision
and magazine eyes
and your quick-fixing cure
in its wounded disguise



were you really so lost
in the streets of your mind?
were the echoes too lonely
the ache too unkind?



well I've searched all those echoes
for signs of your name
risked all for a question
yet no answer came



should I travel again
down the tracks of our story?
through nights of our longing
and hungering glory?



through freefalling musings
and borderline art
should I search all the kisses
that bled from my heart?



Will I wander the streets
in my wounded disguise
in search of your laughter
and quicksilver eyes ?



Or just wish you farewell
From the ache in our story
And kiss you forever
Through freefalling glory

...history is erasing itself, maybe.

That poem has an ache in it. I hope...well, I hope a lot of things.

We have arrived back home, with peaches and apples. Stay me with peaches, for I am sick of driving...

I forgot to answer a question, and the net was too slow down there. I apologise.

Clancy is Clancy because he 'lowered the boom' on Ariel when he was only a tiny thing the size of my hand...Ariel picked him out of the ivy...

Do you know the horrible Planet-Ireland song 'Clancy Lowered the Boom'?

Buzzardina is supposed to be Isis, but hey. Elektra is around. Elektra calls naughty pets 'boo-zards'. This is a female naughty pet, the soup-stealing cat, so she's 'Boo-zard-in-a'.

Ariel is the Lion of God. He deserves poetry.

I dreamt two nights ago of talking to Brent Spiner, who had golden eyes...last night, I was sitting with Kenneth Branagh, making mock of the human race...

I think I'm losing it...

.... a laughing Buddha type fellow .. bit of a dodgy Buddha ....long droopy moustache .. (nothing wrong with long droopy moustaches ooops .. you might have one .. heheheheheheheh ) ... but he was kind of magic .. very laughy ... .. anyway he was moving these large shiny green red and orange silk cushions over the floor just by staring at them and projecting energy .. what do you call that art .. telekinesis? .. then this little tiny figure .. like an animated marble statue .. in fact an extremely annoying slightly edgy tricksy pixie type ...( I suspect those shapeshifters again .. ) .. about four inches tall .. starts leaping all over the cushions and all over my dream .. in an incredibly annoying way ... heheheheheheh ...



analysis ... yes! art! ... as have been thinking about the structure of communication! ......moving silken shapes of brain energy around until the story surrenders its pattern ... and then that pattern leaps around all over my mind ... or page .. .. or out of the piano ... in an incredibly annoying way ...oh no please ... heheheheheheheh .. no no no !

heheheheheheheh ...



conclusion! ... erm .. yes! .. definitely! ... realisations! just been eating cake and toast for Sunday breakfast ... washed down with black coffee ...in an Exeter coffeeshop ... looking at a photoshow on the wall ... with pics of zebras and cherry blossom ... been thinking about communication through various mediums .... various channels ... .. select the channel of choice .. (need a TV guide perhaps ) ....the route with a heart ... and presto! ...

lots of different types and ways of communication .. depending on circumstance context and urgency ....



very astute MrCelticWriterBrains! ... ...(with or without droopy moustache?) .. .. what you said re recent wordpainting .. Lost ...and thankyou for insights ..

this painting is an essence but wouldn't perhaps communicate the entire story ... if an unsuspecting reader was involved .... heheheheheheh ...



then realised ....yikes .. reader! .. erm .. hmm ..I'm kind of sociable .. but reader? .. erm .... ... heheheheheheheheh which is why I wear the mask of wordpainter ... heheheheheh .. not writer ... so that I have an excuse to disappear into a coffeeshop and cover the galleries of my mind with cryptic paintings of orange owl sounds and fragrant slithers and stripes of uncertainty ....



however... if driven to do so ...by greater forces ...like astute and brilliant AWW type critique .. ..... I either attempt to write the missing story into the existing structure .... or place the painting into a different context .. so that it becomes a fragment of another story ..... in this case it would be from a theatre piece .. heard as a strange plaintive lament coming out of a blue haze .. shrouded by silken curtains (decorated with silver and gold patterns) moving in an otherworldy breeze .. and erm .. not sure I could put that into AWW .. so erm .... ....

serious though .. thanks for insights ...

leads to freedom! leads to treasure ..

and where my treasure lies .. there will my also reside



isn't this the most interesting posting you ever read? no? oh .. erm .. OK ..

next posting I will give you a lecture on the wild foxglove ... as seen in British hedgerows ... and



where you gone?



....ah yes .. thanks for Clancy Boozardina information ..

oh gotta go ... trade you a dodgy Buddha with droopy moustache for Kenneth Branagh or Brent Spiner? no ? awwww

wink wink

hey and yay

Nope. Shave religiously (like Buck Milligan).

Sunny day here. Got to go back to work this afternoon.

Many weird dreams, don't wanna think about them...some were not nice...

Go google on Youtube 'Kenneth Branagh Billy', and look at clips from Billy Martin plays, get Chris to translate, bet he can...

You're right, the indirect quality of your verse is very suggestive...like the song 'Fire and Rain'. Dunno what it means to James Taylor, don't care, it means what it means to me. Major contribution there, keep painting, you Jackson Pollack of wordsmithing, you...

I don't think I would have a moustache if I was a man ... or a beard .. although it would be tempting to go all pretentious designer and have a kind of coffeehouse winebar writer/poet type beard ....hmm .. I like that .. think I fancy myself .. ...

... but now I've established I'm not a writer .. or a man ... .. I can go away and become a wordpainting of an estranged rodent ... that neither speaks nor squeaks to bearded man, woman nor beeste ..




C has this recurring nightmare that he can't find his razor and ends up with a beard that is so bushy that he has to hide away in a forest of twisty trees and pines (hah pines) away from Google addiction ... he's v clean shaven .. like Buck Milligan? who is Buck Milligan? ..

remember Edward Lear ...

<<<>>>>>>>

Edward Lear .. from the Book of Nonsense

my Dad loves that book ... used to read it to me all the time .. and we would look at the magic funny drawings ..



ah yeh oh yeh ah yeh oh yeh

oh yay!!!!!

Dear Doctor Daktylic

s'posed to be resting ... but have to come in to go ah yeh oh yeh .... 'bout what DG said about the suggestive interactive interplay of images .... I love that .. its my vocation .. yes ...ah yes .. only taken me fifty years .. ah well .. hey .. the interplay of images ... yes! ...the exchange of images .. yes! ...



....kind of like ... trade you a vision of singing library books (oh yes!!! what heaven rpg) .... for the song of 4,500 starlings coming out of a bluecheese ... which is the most ridiculous thing I ever wrote .. except for all the other things ..



trouble with me is, that when I free myself from pressure to be all these things I am never going to be .. I get really happy and get biro-hyper ...



trying to come up with title of paper magazine today ... attempting new contexts and all ..v grown up .. I don't think ... wrote <<>> about fifteen times ...with all curly inky spiral music shapes around it .. then to the rpg ... saw singing library books .. huh ... does coincidence love me or do I love it? would it fancy me with my coffeehouse designer beard?



I wonder .................


I wonder why I dream of birds
that flutter out of clocks? .........
find diagrams and question marks
engraved on ancient rocks? .............

or why I think of honeycake
when sweeter times are broken? ..........
or see translucent butterflies
in rhythms yet unspoken ?...................

I wonder when I'll hear again
my symphony in gold ?...................
which warms my random afterthoughts
when reasoning turns cold .................

and will I find that secret road?
and will the jester wink ?...........
and will I play the idiot
through words of candypink? ...........

will fragrance fill my senses
like a honeysuckle ghost?
I wonder why I think of you
on trainrides to the coast?

And will ....

..I like the birds and the clocks.

My father brought back a cuckoo clock from the war. My grandmother broke it, because she found the cuckoo annoying...

I was in the Kottenforst with friends, at 4 pm. I heard a cuckoo for the first time. He called three times...I looked at my watch, said, 'He's slow.'

Do you have any idea how long it takes a group of Germans to get that joke?

Buck Milligan is a character in 'Ulysses'. He appears in his martello tower, carrying a shaving bowl and towel, intoning 'Intrabo ad altare Dei...' (I probably got that wrong, too lazy to check my Latin.)

A rainy evening.

I want to see you be a pretentious designer. And C hiding in the bushes...I feel like doing that lately...

right .. erm ..oops .. rustybrains here didn't recognise a character from Ulysses .. .. thanks, as always, for valuable knowledge ... and apologies to JJ ... hmm ..



you feel like hiding in the bushes? .... OK I'll order some coffees for you .... .. in the secret coffeeshop in the blackberry bushes .. hmmm .. full of peculiar dodgy elfin characters sitting around with notebooks and pretentious designer blackberry-colored T-shirts with written on them ..

you have blackberries in NC?



life can get weird sometimes can't it .. pressure pressure pressure piling in at work and everywhere ... do you find it goes in phases? like schlooping through quagmire quicksands that seem to go on forever ... then suddenly for no apparent reason things seem get easier .....even if they're not ..



if you understand that paragraph, pal, you're a geniusbrains .. which you are anyway but this paragraph maybe needs a few coffees itself .. ... hmm .. s'cuse me .. think I'll change my T-shirt .. .. ah .. that's better ..the logo of this T-shirt reads

heheheheheheheheheh ..

its all because I am so excited about the cuckoo clock .... .. ah yes ....

firstly ... that's so funny ... your joke ... ....





Dear Doctor Daktylic .. I need to talk to you about the cuckoo clock ..

the cuckoo clock! the cuckoo clock! ah yes! this proves my point .. and puts further shine on my tiny brain .. that the interactive interplay of energy between minds ... and from the mysterious fizzing pool of energy in the ether .. which sometimes manifests as images and other things .. through the channel of the senses .. what? sssshh .. I'm on a roll here .. wink wink erm ... is very exciting and gives me more of a buzz than even mochachino and carrot cake ... .. well maybe not quite but almost ..... ..

what is mochachino? .. never drunk it in fact ... must try it one day .. think its a city drink ... hmm .. is it? ..

and carrot cake .. how like retro 80s is that ...so we are always told .. by scowling teenagers .. heheheheheheheheheh ... hmm .. ah well ..



I digress! I digress! of course I do! I have no life! as yet ... but wait but wait ... the cuckoo clock will point the way ..



see .. when I wrote something about birds fluttering out of clocks I never even thought about cuckoo clocks! never further from my mind .. I don't know what exactly I was on about ... ... but DG saw cuckoo clocks! and now I am richer because I am thinking about them all the time .. when did I last see one? ... did I grow up with one? is there a mystery here? heheheheheheheheh .. worse .. is there a story? ..

the interactive interplay of images .. hmmmm .. thankyou ...



like the other day I was looking at a photograph of zebras in a photo exhibition .. and I kept thinking about liquorice allsorts (in UK ..a type of sweetie .. ) ... tasting them and everything .. what? is this what this photographer intended? for the audience to think of liquorice allsorts??? hmm .. ... then I remembered that in my bag was a squashed liquorice allsort that someone had given me a few days before ... it was yellow and white ...with black stripes of liquorice running through it ...

zebra ... black stripes ... hah! ...

'course I might have thought of marzipan .. that would be most peculiar ... in the hands of a gifted storyteller it could lead to a mysterious romantic story .. something to do with an African safari and wedding cake and onward ..



with me it might lead to a coffee stained wordpainting about a scuzzy sofa in an even scuzzier flat in south London .. sitting eating chunks of marzipan from the packet ...... ... watching endless zebras trotting through flickering nature programmes ... in the black and white stripy all night TV light ..



ah yes .... ah yes ...



Hitchcock's Spellbound .. to me that's the masterwork for all this kind of thing .. IngridB and GregoryPeck managing to look so fine and handsome and misty romantic even when Gregory is going bonkers every time he sees black lines on a white background ... and of course the dream sequence as scripted by Dali ... ah yes ... what a film ...

Gregory would have gone completely nuts if he'd seen a zebra photo .. ....

you like Spellbound?

oh .. gotta go ..



take care doc

and take care DG pal and love to Elektra and all ...

...especially in Tennessee, where as a child I picked them at the 'old home place'...

In Tennessee, when they are ripe, you grab a blackberry...this shakes the bush, which erupts in June bugs...

http://sanangelo.tamu.edu/agronomy/sunflowr/carotbtl.jpg

These bugs are harmless, but they buzz like helicopters...and hover...my country cousins knew that they were toys.

You tie a string to them, like a balloon...

Like catching lightning bugs in a jar, for release later...

I'll tell you about huckleberries some other time.

When Jamie and Morgan went to the Gael Sanctuary on Rigel V, they picked blackberries... Ate them by starlight, got very messy, as I recall...

Cuckoo clocks and zebras...we don't have cuckoos in the US, you see...that is, our cuckoos don't go 'cuckoo!' like that...so I thought it was a made-up bird until I heard one in the woods. (Felt dumb, but it was a fun moment of enlightenment, hey, dummy, they're real, not just a woodcarver's joke, hi, birdie...)

I'm not a Hitchcock fan - as far as I am concerned, the LONGEST movie in history is 'Strangers on a Train', must be about eight hours long - but I rather liked 'Spellbound'...

Which reminds me: See if you can find one of the following:

A copy of the book 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane', by William Peter Blatty (yeah, the guy who wrote 'The Exorcist', but don't let that fool ya, he was educated by Jesuits).

The movie 'The Ninth Configuration', based on same.

Or both.

If you read the book, you'll know why. (The reference to 'Spellbound' did it, it's mentioned in the book.)

Plot: In a crazy Hollywood castle, there is an insane asylum containing air force pilots who won't drop bombs (this is the 60s) and a nutty astronaut who refuses to go to the moon. They have sent for a new psychiatrist. Col. Kane arrives. But he's not really the psychiatrist - there was a clerical error. He is Killer Kane, terror of Vietnam. Who says, 'I never killed a lamb.'

Please read the book, if you can. The movie leaves out my favourite part - the Consuelo Endicott School for Girls, which is next door.

C. will love the astronaut Cutshaw.

Okay, shutting up now.

ah yeh ah yeh ah yeh!!! ... jeepers! that June bug is a noble handsome fellow ...kind of .. not sure I'd kiss him though .. under the moon in June .. ... your description of blackberry bushes erupting in buzzing 'copter bugs was so vivid ... a lightning flash of filmic magic ... that I nearly fainted .. in a good way .. an artistic faint .... such beauty such beauty ... pining for beauty kind of thing ....



...OK OK I think I've made my point .. .... wait a minute ... June bug? but blackberries ripen in September? like now ... ? perhaps they're born in June .. the bugs that is ..



you don't have cuckoos in the States? that go cuckoo? <huh?

bird sounds are strange ...especially in type ...


sparrow sound .... trrrreeep trrrreep ..

gull .........waaaaarch waaaaaaarch .. no not screechy enough ... waaaeeeearreech ...

hmmm

I remember in childhood .. the sound of the rockdove .. doo doo/doo/ do-do/doo doo/doo/do-do .. and my Mom said they were going

wonder what that's about? must check .....




OK OK ... off to check up on this cult literature of yours .. heheheheheheh .. sounds kind of compatible .. magic and thankyou ...



what about Francis Thompson then? The Hound of Heaven? you know the Hound of Heaven? keep thinking about it right now .. I love that poem .. the way it gets more and more intense as it goes on ... by the end its like whoah ... easy Francis mate .. like he's about to go right over the edge ... glorious intensity ....

hmm

oh have to go .. just getting going here ...

laters laters

...different climate...strawberries are gone by the end of May...in upstate New York, they are there in fall...

Blackberries in June? Can't remember, July or August, maybe, certainly very hot weather, and June bugs are there all summer...

In the American South, almost all the produce is gone by September, although they still have peaches, and mountain apples, and I just talked to my stepmother, who said my dad came back from the farmers' market with okra...yum...

Have you ever picked okra? One day it's an inch long, then you turn around and it's 8 inches and a piece of wood...sneaky plant, okra... But delicious, especially in soup.

Take two cows, Taffy...cool, I want a bird that says, Take two cows, Taffy...

'Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,
Taffy came to my house, and stole a side of beef...'

'The mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter,
And so we deemed it meeter, to carry off the latter...'

'High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam, islanded by Severn stream...' - AE Housman

The old belief that the Welsh are nothing but livestock rustlers...I love the way folklore persists in children's rhymes...

Like when I was five, and my aunt promised me a Yankee dime in return for an errand. Then she gave me a kiss...

Reconstruction joke (late 1860's): Yankee dime=kiss.

Off to reread the Hound of Heaven...'I fled him down the days'...thanks for reminder, I love that one...

For a real boost, try William Cowper...

And try this, or get C. to: Sing 'God Moves in a Mysterious Way':

http://www.nisbett.com/hymns/tlh/tlh514.htm

...to the tune 'Clonmel'...

which I cannot find on the web.

I have just become VERY angry...the tune the English use is freely available...but the wrong tune.

I believe some obnoxious American person has actually COPYRIGHTED this folk tune...how dare he?

If a Gael curse is worth anything......he won't enjoy the next world.

Someday I will have to figure out how to put a microphone on this computer, just so I can send you the tune...

Otherwise, you locate a hardcopy of the Baptist Hymnal from 1956...apparently the moneychangers from the temple here will only SELL it...and look up 'Thy Word is Like a Garden, Lord', tune Clonmel.

I don't mind people protecting their own intellectual property. But this isn't...

Sorry about the rant. I think the Goths get mad about copyright...

As if...as if it didn't...as if it didn't come from somewhere else to begin with...

Oh, never mind.

Am feeling melancholy. Enjoyed Francis Thompson again...Deliberate speed, majestic instancy...

Warp 5?

Oh. Have you ever seen a tv show called 'Picket Fences'? Elektra and I have been watching the first season on DVD...it is from the early 90s. I think the postmodern insanity of it would appeal to you...

We also went to see 'Burn After Reading' yesterday...you'd like it, it is very funny. Coen Brothers strike again...

good morrow Mister

I love that ... deliberate speed .. majestic instancy ... warp 5 ... that's very mysterious .. like a Zen koan ...

only you could write that .. .. then follow with a William Cowper quote ..... then get me once again obsessed with stories that lurk in jigsaws .... what? ...and in magic treasure boxes .... all in one easy brilliantbrains in-breath .. love it ..



William Cowper .. .. my Dad used to speak to me of him ... funny how thoughts and tides return .. in a new shape in a new way .. at different times of life ...



talking to you keeps the shine and the fizz on that sparkle and crackle of curiosity that infests .. nay infuses .. my burning brain ....



nope .. never heard of Picket Fences ... not sure if it was shown in the UK ... grrrr .. just been reading about it on Wiki ... which isn't kidding when it says the show deals in difficult and controversial subject matter .. what a list! amazing! long live! wow! .... I see the DVD is Region 1 only .. not sure if our DVD player is compatible .. grrrr ..




rant on mister ... love that rant .. and so interesting what you say ...an intelligent and deep thinking rant .. but of course .... rants are so great ... spontaneous .. ... C says I come out with some of my very best lines when I am on a rant ... most of which are unrepeatable .. and apparently hilarious (hmmmm .. ) ...



I always want to beat a gong when I am ranting ... ... all sweaty and fevered ... wrapped in torn leopard print ... what????? .... preferably standing on a stage ....andin between frantic unrepeatable lines I bash the gong! making a deeeeeep gong sound which reverberates throughout the atmosphere and does nothing for my tension headache ..... heheheheheheheheh ... or anyone else's ..



hang about ... am I deluded ? .. ahem ... ... just had a memory ...or perhaps a secret erotic fantasty that I've now just blurted .... ...were there certain films that used to start with a shot of a very shiny muscular fellow bashing a gong ???? ... mmmmm ..... kind of like the MGM lion logo .. only it was this chap .... must try to find out .. you know anything about the gong chappy? as if you would ...... ....



so my Mom's talking rockdoves were rooted in folklore then? ... ... .hmmm .. sorry Taffy ... better clear your name ... heheheheheheheheh . next time I hear one it will say

see twooooo moooons Margie
see twooooo moooons Margie ....

Margie? yes Margie .. my middle name ... Margery ... after my grandmother ... been teased for years ... heheheheheheheheh ... don't even think about it .... .. thinking of using it as my pen-name ... you know my surname, right .... Marge M ... think it fits? C says it makes me sound like I am about to bake Scottish scones ....what? ... ah well ..



s'cuse me .. back in a minute .. my gong chappy was too much for me .. .. have to go cool off ...