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

Hi Helen, just wanted you to know that my comments about Woolies are on the strecher thread on The Dry Stone Wall story by Beatrice in the AWW thread,which talked about the problems of coming back to your own country after having lived abroad for a few years. It really gives you a whole new outlook on your "own" country. I hope you don't mind me "ressurecting" this old thread of yours, but I miss hearing from you directly and seeing all the smileys you use. D is kind enough to share his emails to and from you. But Helenless days are flat and stale.

yay hey! hullo Elektra(g)dear sweet luv .. how lovely to hear from you ... this is a surprise .... and lovely what you said ....



delighted that you appear on the Daktyl thread here ... ... I am supposed to be retiring from h2 ..... but failing ...always failing .... .... just takes a hullo and a mention of a smiley ... oh no ... the smileys .. my smiley-addiction .... .. ah well .. could be worse ...



so now I've returned here .. I might as well return here ... all your fault ...not really ... .... thankyou ... have some chocco ...



OK .. thanks for directions to your paragraph in AWW thread ... it kind of awakened my attention .. like the start of a story or a series of thoughts ... Barbie's fancy car and condo set .... mixed with thoughts about Woolies ... five and dime stores ... and all those thoughts and sensations on seeing one's own country anew after time away .....

lots of pictures awakening in me ... feel free to expound .. is expound a word? hang on .. hmm just checked .. not quite what I meant .. the dictionary I checked suggests it means .. as well as .... hmm ..

what I meant was .... I am so curious .. I want to hear more more more .. if you ever want to feed an always-hungry duck like me .. swimming on a pond of dreams and miracles ....



or anything.. and everything ...

and now I want to think about Woolies .. and memories thereof ... I must admit that it was only when it hit the rocks did I start read about its history ...

and I want to make 1,290 smiley patterns ... and think about fragments in treasure boxes ...

laters ....

hmm ...

H

Scents remind the soul
of days in treasured gardens
"Summer always comes

...anyway."

treasured gardens ... treasured gardens ...

hullo brother-Xantief ... ..did you write this poem about treasured gardens? ....

.... is the Cali sun warm yet? ... heheheheh .. soon time to leave our with warm feet ... ah yes ... I think about you oftentimes ...



ah yes .... I daydream about treasured gardens ... I see this garden behind mine eyes .. its an ornamental garden ... with crystal clear fountains ...(not water .. some other elixir ... ah yes ... a wellspring) .... and hotsprings .. amazing hotsprings ..in which I swim naked with Love ... can I say that here? swimming naked with Love? and what do I mean? I know not ... but I love this garden ...

and there's a maze made from yew hedges ... ... there are trees with huge fragrant blossoms .....like magnolias and camelias .. and strange flowers I never saw before ..with music coming out of them .... and birds ... such bright birds! (so bright I have to put my shades on ....) .. and moths and butterflies and .........

(this vision could go on a while ... heheheheh .. edit! edit! I need a vision editor! ... )



....then I would hassle of course ....get all arty .. .. and throw pencils at myself ...

hey vision-editor .. come back with my green and purple striped afterthoughts .... return my archetypal symbols immediately to the halls of my subconscious .... so I can analyse my intentions and dance backwards down the avenues of time ... with my gold teeth in my pocket .. ready to meet the mirror reflection of my own idiocy ... return to me my shadow garden ... where the plants are twisty and the atmosphere is misty and the bugs and slugs slime and scuttle through tunnels of dark earth ...



what?? see what you've done now Elektra? you got me talking to myself again ... and thankyou ...

hey Dr Daktyl .. I think I might be you ..



I've been thinking about the theme of returning to one's homeland after time away .... many levels of thought ... the awesome awful pain of exile .... travelling .. the journey of life .... the forces that take us onward ... whether we choose it or not ..... and then returning ....

its such a theme ....its intense ... so many levels ...

Interface! Interface! then I thought about Interface .... which I thought was originally a technological/computer term .... but according to the Cambridge online dictionary it can also mean ... and I quote ....

<<>>>

so one returns ...... and there is an Interface .... between oneself and the situation one is returning to ..... and that Interface is very interesting .... could be the archetypal in fact ... could have an energy of its own .. its own culture .. cafes and a main street ... a library ... ornamental gardens ... and people .. interface people ... and maybe a cat ...

interface cat ...

uh oh ...

wait a minute .. dear Dr Daktyl ... have to go pour some coffee on my brain ... it just got hyper and went in a funny direction .. I think it thinks its trying to write a book .... one of those books written in weird stream of spontaneous absurdity .... that no-one is ever going to read .... except perhaps for a distant relative who went looking for the interface and cupcakes .. and never returned ...

In the realm of bright music
I called out your name
And I thought about journeys
And who we became




...... interface ... and then I realised that there might be an interface between all things ... even molecules and cells and numbers and thoughwaves and question marks .. and interesting symbols that you find in physics diagrams ..(this is the science section ... ..)



and the interface maybe is a zone of creative energy .. creative potential .. except in my case all I find at the interface are fragments .... which is OK ... I love fragments ... I have become fragments ...if I ever find a way then I could link these fragments ... write a story .. explaining how they got there .. but that's for the future .. because I don't in fact know how they got there ... and I need a vision editor .. who doesn't steal my green and purple afterthoughts ... but who can tell me how to write a story ..



and if I got the word wrong .. if it isn't interface ... then I'll change the name ... and ask ... what is that strange energy field .. that exists between me and you? ... in the valley of the hyacinth ... where our hearts ache in the fragrance ...

?????????????????

Dear Dr Daktyl .. from now on these postings will become a gallery of fragments .... unless anyone arrives on a sunswirl energy wave of mandala flame ... to take me away ... to offer me a life ...or a cupcake ....



interface windmill fragment ....

windmill ... the windmill ... it was always there ... on the horizon of my childhood ... it had no sails .. it was derelict ... I used to fear the windmill spirits who lived in there ... who were they? I saw them in my dreams ... just shadows .. fleeting ..



Over the years I have returned many times to the village of my childhood ... the windmill was always the same ...I still dreamed the spirits .. ..

then two years ago the windmill was restored ... now the sails turn .. it is floodlit at night .. a proud entity that dominates the horizon .... I wonder what happened to the windmill spirits? .... I don't dream them any more .... perhaps eventually I will dream new spirits .. spirits of the turning sails ...

ah yes ...

do smiley patterns have an interface?


..... yes

Gosh Helen, thanks so much for the lovely pictures and thoughts - a very way to start the day!

Here is a song you and Chris might like about windmills:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApPJtVFTJOE

May you and Chris have a day as well.
Cherish each other and the wonderful moments when you can interface.

?

Lovely writing...

Wish I had a life to offer...maybe later I can get one...

Meanwhile have another ...

Helen, you and Chris have a great and colourful day full of and

I baked D a gluten free birthday today.

hey! !!!



... I am about to be visited by a footprint fragment ... this is intense .. my mind just decided to wake-up and lay it all down ... heheheheheheh ....all of it in its flawed absuridity .. all of it??? oh no .. there could be fragments .. expect fragments ... heheheheheh ... I need some years .. do I have years? I don't know .. who does know .. best to lay it down ... interweave our footprints ...sort of thing ... hmm ... I need wine ...



..... oh oh Elektra luv .... .. the Tommy Makem/Liam Clancy Windmills song you sent just made me cry .... ... I love it when music wrenches my heart from its ..... its like a soundtrack to a film ... I saw a film when I listened to it ....

I wish I could make a film ....

or bake a cake ... .... I have never ever baked a cake ... ... true ... hmm ......tease me at your peril ... heheheheheh .. .... I think I now have no passport for cake-heaven ... why have I never baked a cake ... my life just kind of .... is it too late? is it my fate to bake a cake when I am seventy eight? yes! .. that's a prophecy ...

...


will you put candles on the cake? then DG will blow them out in one breath and make a wish ? ... ... ah I just rememebered many things about birthdays ... another fragment! ... ... from the interface ... oh no!



.. when my birthday was over I would cry because I was just such a girl .. even though I thought I was an almost-boy till I was 35 or so... ... and I kept the little plastic candleholders in a treasure-box till the next year ... with my sixpences and squashed bugs and crayons and teacards ... except every year I needed one more candleholder ... ...

but these days its just one candle ... on a piece of .... in a scuzzy coffeshop .... washed down with black coffee .... hmm ...

birthday fragments ... hmm ... it's intense on the interface right now... and now I'm thinking about verbs ... because E used it as a verb ... to interface .... this is really interesting ... very interesting .. to interface ....



ah Phred my friend and Blue Bus spirit traveller .... cupcakes please ...<cupcake) .. lit with a candle from the highway heaven .. where the roadstops are full of lost hungry wordpainters waiting for the Blue Bus to arrive ... ah yes ...



this morning I realised that the interface is perhaps the void ... the void .. the void ...that tiny crack of abstract energy .. that exists between realities ... waiting to be transformed and re-arranged and given word ... or music .. or light .. or .....



I would go on .. and will ... ... but right now this is the Realm fragment .... part one .. to be reconsidered when I get there .. get where? there ....

Realms

In the realm of bright music
I called out your name
And I thought about journeys
And who we became

And somewhere between
All these moments in space
I remember the shine
On your beautiful face

Will a taxi appear
in the quicksilver rain?
Can I travel once more
Just to kiss you again?

Just transient memories
Fibres of light
Are all that remain
Of our earthly delight

Yet here on the borderline
Love will endure
Through an infinite joy
And a wonderment pure





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

<cupcake) = ... but there's a difference ... an interface .. between the typo and the graphic ...

...

oh no no no don't start me on archways ... ...

****************************************







*************************




(clue ... David Bowie ... ) hahahaha

******************************

the first cake I bake will be a fruitcake ... lots of exotic dried fruits .... and juicy cherries ... and curious liqueurs .. mixed with ... mixed with what? ... I don't know .... ... (heads off for recipe ....)



my Mom once gave my kid-bro a birthday cake in the shape of a racing car .. I don't think she baked it .. I don't think she could bake racing car cakes .. although she baked lovely sponge cake .. all yellow with strawberry jam in the middle ....

the wheels of the racing car cake were made of marzipan. I ate one. whole. I wasn't popular ... ....

*****************************



........I am glad there is chocolate on earth ........

*****************************

fragment >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> notes >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

river photo (Autumn light)
willows/marshes (geese in flight)
woman singing (ancient land)
pure white feather (in her hand) >>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

My mother always baked our birthday cakes, whatever kind we wanted.

Back when I could eat cake, I always asked for Red Velvet with white butter-frosting.

Shame on you over there...I baked my first cake when I was 10...

ten??? hullo you ... ten???? you baked a cake when you were ten???

s'cuse me .. just have to go for a run round the edge of the world .... to consider this matter .....

(puff splutter) .. cor honestly .. wish there was a smiley ... or a .. maybe even .. or .... ......

I'm not the spring lambkin I once was ....

(puff) .. I often think about lambs .. they are supposed to represent springtime and leaping light happy things ..and new life and some other things that I forgot .... in reality they seem to have an awful time .. always born around now .. I see them in the fields cowering from the cold March wind ... nuzzling into their mothers ... bleating plaintively ... with snow all over them ... baaa ..wah .. baa ..

they do leap though ... its funny when they leap .... whey hay .. just clear this clump of snowdrops ... ...ooh this is good ... just leap over my cousin .. ..

that is the most stupid thing I ever wrote ... apart from all the other things ...

..puff splutter .... and I'm still running .. round the edge of the world ... now where was I .... ah yes ...

ten??? who is this kid? some kind of prodigy? ... erm yes ... mind you he could probably bake a cake before he was born .... I don't know what that means ... just that all his cakes had a strange star-map in the raisins .. cut a slice .. you got a map ...raisin constellations now he'll come back and tell me he doesn't like raisins ... never did

Elektra where are you ... this is all your fault ... hahaha .. all these graphics ... hahaha ... can I stop now please?

(faints) (falls off edge of world)

that's the last time I do that ... from now on I take a taxi .. round the edge of the world ...

or a ... that would be a good .. a tour round the edge of the world ...

*******************************************************

Dear Dr Daktyl ...

hope I have the right passport for all this interfacing .. .. ....check my passport please doc ...

ah tea .. thanks .. .. got a biscuit-graphic? no? OK ... .. thanks ...

I daydreamed the lit up snow today ... oh no not snow .. .. had enough snow this winter .. ... but its not really snow .. its like lit-up snow .. or dust .. like dust in the atmosphere that is lit up by a slanting sunbeam ..... all these snowflake-pattern type shapes .. extraordinary patterns ... each one unique ... falling through the atmosphere .. and each one is a .... fragment .... each one has an echo .....each one has a ........ has a ... I was going to say a story but I'm not there yet ... and they try to speak to me ...

munch munch slurp ...

sometimes they hurt ...really hurt ...they are wounded fragments ... bleeding fragments ... as if they have the echo of the pain of the world within them .... and they sound like this ... and feel like this ...

a pain that splits my mind apart
and bleeding whispers pierce my heart
while horror prowls the chaos-zone
through crosses carved from grief and bone

.. then I get weird for a bit .. and all my biros bleed ...



and then sometimes they get incredibly stupid .. ah! a shopping list fragment! wonder if it rhymes .....

pies/potatoes/frozen peas
can of peaches/cheddar-cheese

bike to menders (fix that spoke)
(wheel it turned then wheel it broke)



slurp munch munch

I think these fragments might have something to do with that treasure box ....maybe they have escaped .. maybe they have been in there all this time .. along with the crayons and beads and that tiny plastic spaceman that I found in the cornflakes packet ..all those years ago ..

They told me I should forget about the treasure box ........but I told them that I was guided by the light of a different lighthouse for now ... and who are They? ...

lighthouse??? ?? ... what ?? uh oh .. ... ah strange journey ..


have you checked my passport yet Doc? come back in a day or two? OK ...

I love raisins.

Can't stand grapes, though. But I like grape juice.

Welch's Grape Juice is Communion wine, did you know that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bramwell_Welch

He was from Glastonbury, Helen...

(Do I know what evil deed I just did? Heh-heh, yes, I do, for it will cause more poetry....that shopping list was cool....)

Hey Lovely lady! Thanks for all the poetry and all the smileys! How did you discover them all, you clever creature you! Have you seem "The Magic Flute" film Kenneth Branaugh made? I think you'll go over the about it. Also, birthday boy D wrote:

The Brecht/Ives Syndrome, a Manifesto - A48280241

I think you'll enjoy it!

hah! more treasures! ....hey luvs ...



Mr Thomas Bramwell Welch .. what a fine fellow and Son of Glastonbury .. ...fine beard he is sporting there in the picture .... .. I wonder is there any reference to him in G'bury ...like a blue plaque on the house where he was born .. ... (hahahahah .. that's funny .. because he eventually became a dentist ...plaque .. oh never mind) .... must check next time we are there .. which is soon I hope ....



you have blue plaques in the States? I like going through towns checking the blue plaques ... en route
for coffee .... ... I would like my name on a blue plaque .. on the side of some cafe ... commemmorating my lost hours ...heheheheh ... .... but you have to be famous to deserve one ... or have done something useful .... ... .. hmmm ... I don't think you get blue plaques just for consuming too many double espressos ... ...



The Magic Flute .. La Flute Enchantee .. (can't type accents) .. .. so it says on Amazon ... and now .. grrr .. DVD costs twenty three quid .. must be a cult classic .. and now I am totally obsessed ... The Magic Flute as in Mozart opera? I will prowl and howl and yowl till I find it ... heheheheh ... ...

..prowling through town ...in the light of seven s ... what?? looking for blue plaques and Kenneth Branagh Magic Flute DVDs ...

and talking of classics ....

The Brecht/Ives Syndrome, a Manifesto ....

is a classic .... I just read it .... its a classic .... what can I say? say its a classic .. OK .. its a classic ... and I think it just re-arranged my brain and somehow spoke for me ... and made me not feel so lonely and worried about Art and everything ...and thankyou ... and the writing style is kind of crisp .. crisp? like an apple? well .. I suppose its a bit like biting into a juicy crisp apple ...

where's the smiley? .. I got but they're not crisp .. I got .. they're not crisp either ... have to go read The Brecht/Ives Syndrome again .. that's crisp ...

back in a minute for incredibly stupid dragon posting ...

.... first of all its the incredibly interesting rhyme posting .... .. .. where you gone??

yesterday I was talking to a friend .. about writing and snakes and things ... she's a writer by trade .. but she also knows about snakes .. although this posting isn't about snakes ...

(fermented) .. ...

and I said I have a desire to write 678 paragraphs in stream of rhyming consciousness .. and she reckoned that if it rhymed it wasn't truly stream of consciousness ...because you have to think about rhyme ...

I wonder ....

and I said what if the stream of consciousness comes out in numbers then? or even rhyming numbers .. but then I could only think of seven and eleven that rhymed ... do numbers rhyme?

anyway .... rhyme ... rhyme ..

And yet perhaps this call to rhyme
Does link me to some ancient time
When rhyming was a sacred force
Which guided stories to their source

When rhymers stood upon a stage
To read aloud from scripted page
And those who heard these rhythms rare
Did laugh or mock or weep or stare



I think rhyme might have sacred magic origins .. maybe ..something about the rhythm ... ...something about mystery plays ... magic theatre .. you know .. that realm .... I am waiting for a dream .....or Knowledge .. whichever comes first ... ..



tomorrow for incredibly stupid dragon posting ... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

here's a preview .... .. but it also has a snake it in ... ...

'Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream...'

-Longfellow

Isaac Watts was said to have been afflicted with rhyming as a child. We could ask him if we could catch him - although he's busy tomming out on Starfleet these days, betcha, betcha...

ah yes .... Longfellow ... prompted me to read out loud about thirty-eight times ...and the s on the ceiling ... my audience ... are going nuts with me .. ..or maybe they're not because you can't really tell if spiders respond to poetry readings ... ..but hey ...I do ... ... rhythm rhythm magic rhythm ....................

...

Dear Isaac Watts .. ...I just read about you on Wiki and now I think I might need to talk to you as I feel a bit sore about you getting beat up .. like corporal punishment ... for writing verses that didn't conform even though you were just a kid .. .........

even though your rhymes drove your parents nuts .. and I haven't suffered half as much as you .. (clutches brow) ... all that happens to me is that I get called Rupert .. ... but you wouldn't know about this because you didn't have the Rupert Bear comic strip in your time .. and I would explain about the now iconic rhyming couplets under the pictures in the Rupert comics ... .. but I can't right now ... so maybe I will just have to try find your spirit in the lit-up snow ..

...

.. unless you are tomming out on Starfleet .. betcha betcha ... I love that verb .. tomming out .. now I want to evolve into a verb of my very own ..

(heads off to evolve into a verb ....)

(comes back in again ... to post the Incredibly Stupid Dragon Posting)