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

First song on in the car, thought of you:

Hey Joe take it slow, you ain't livin in a video!

Says Alice.... Cooper!

heheheh. I love it.

Hey Jo(urnal)

Don't judge a book by its cover.

So goes the saying, meaning don't prejudge the value of someone or something, by outer appearance alone.

Looking at the phrase literally, oh no! I've spent my entire life judging books by their covers.



I've often been drawn to books simply because of their cover design. My relationship to the text can be worked out later. Or not.

What can I do? Its a cover art thing. There is no cure.

Many years ago I was lured by a magical pathway, snaking up a cactus covered hillside. There was a mysterious white bird flying overhead.

This, of course, was the cover design for Journey To Ixtlan, a book by Carlos Castaneda.

I followed the path into the text. After a few chapters I wandered off, and made my way back to the cover. Ah, the path was waiting for me, so thrilling and mysterious with all its unexpressed potential!

I should go to Google images, find the path and apologise for everything. Will it try to lure me again? I'll have to explain.



Around this time I also encountered a drawing of an enigmatic beetle. The words Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka hovered above its antennae.

I followed the insect into the text, and found myself under a sofa with a fellow named Gregor Samsa, who was experiencing a terrible loss of self worth, involving insect hallucinations (discuss).



This time, though, I didn't wander off. The story was as good as the cover.



There is one drawback. Franz Kafka apparently never wanted the beetle to be drawn. On the cover of an early edition was a picture of a young man in a distraught state.

Oh no! Again. Now I am low down. A mere bug.

Of course, I didn't know about the distraught man drawing. If I'd seen it first, I'd have turned away from all beetle drawings.

I must go over to Pinterest and delete all my Kafka-beetle cover art collection.

Or maybe not. After all, who am I to be so pure? Its a cover art thing, there is no cure.

Don't delete your beetle drawings. They may not be Kafka's cockroach but they're your beetles.

I think probably a lot of people can identify with Gregor Samsa, feeling alienated, or misunderstood, an odd one out.

But when I tried to read The Trial, I got bored and bogged down.

I don't blame you, MVP. I'm not much of a Kafka fan, myself. And I believe he took those chapters and shuffled them randomly...no, really, I think that's what my prof said...

Students were always being asked to read Kafka or Brecht because of the deceptively simple styles and sparse vocabulary. Which I thought was horribly unfair.

"Kafka said the insect should never be drawn, because Gregor was going through a terrible imaginary transformation, he wasn't really turning into a beetle."

Glad to hear it.

The cover is not the book, so open it up and take a look. That's a movie song sung by Emily Blunt. I won't say more about it.

Publishers can be forgiven for wanting to sell books. They make covers that try to attract buyers.

Really?? About the chapter shuffle? Oh, so *that's* how you get famous, eh? Now I'm off all things Kafkaesque, not that I was ever much on them. Apart from roaches having a breakdown, of course. heheh.

All very fascinating insights here, about the cover art.



You h2g2 thinkers and dreamers are so great, because if a topic is raised you often add insights from a range of perspectives that I haven't considered before because I'd never heard of 'em, and they expand my tiny world.

Erm, I think its called learning, me luv. heheh.

Well, whatever,h2g2 is the best!!!



On a related train of thought, I've always been fascinated by a work, in any medium, that inspires all kinds of reaction and interpretation. Perhaps because of an ambiguous image, or some other enigmatic quality. Other artworks, in other mediums, can appear from out of it. Creative offshoots. Different to copies.

Perhaps sometimes the offshoot process can be more lively, even more productive, than the source material.



Bit of a wide subject, in fact. . Hah! Yes. Definitely. I need cupcakes! cupcakes!

Hey Jo(urnal)

Mobius Strip. (I think I'll Live In Cover Art.)

What???

That's the title. I'm shuffling the chapters. I might get famous. What chapters?? Erm. Here, have a cupcake.

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

There's a flame orange sunset over the sea.

In the beach carpark, a pug on a long leash stares accusingly at a guy on a skateboard. An Adidas clad jogger outpaces the dusk. Soon it will be the time of silhouettes.

A silver mobius strip floats overhead, catching the orange light. Is it a kite? Perhaps it means that something mathematical is about to happen.

It's odd, that detail, the mobius strip. I pasted it onto my sunset photo, to make a story picture, but the narrative has escaped me. I'm happy about this. Narratives don't need me to interfere.

I want to live in this picture, though. I'll leave the strip there, catching the light, all silver and orange.

************end**************

/////Mobius mix///

///Define mobius strip?? erm ... well its a single surface, an unbroken circle, but it twists so that the inside surface becomes the outer and the outer becomes the inside, what?? actually its more mathematical than that, you can make them with paper, I have an app that makes them from photos. They are very beautiful when you know what they are, which I don't, really./////

//If I had a pug I'd call him Mobius.///

There ought to be a Meaning for the Mobious strip - a message. 'Everything changes and yet there is a continuity to life' perhaps.


My husband was messing about with the Mandlebrot set, producing a series of patterns, all different but beautiful.

Aha, synchronicity! Dr Mandelbrot is on today's Google Doodle here.

The möbius strip is also the symbol for infinity...

My Latin class at the Benedictine college was too large for the dinky classrooms we had, so we took over the science auditorium, a small-sized amphitheatre-style room that sloped down to the big blackboards at the front. Which is why I needed student help one morning. I commandeered the first to arrive and made him stand at the other door and hand out pieces of sticky tape and pairs of those rounded scissors - the kind I had a boxful of for the kindergarteners - and strips of paper.

The baseball team came in. 'Oh, no,' said the pitcher. 'This is gonna get weird.' I chuckled evilly.

When they were all seated, I held up a strip of paper and a piece of tape.

'Last time, you asked why the word 'universe', and I said it had only one side,' I grinned. 'Now I'm going to show you.' I twisted the paper and taped it. They did likewise. 'Now take a pencil and draw a line down the middle of the paper.'

They did: the line came back to meet itself, but traverse every surface of the paper. They liked the 'cutting it in the middle' bit, too. A good time was had. Minds were opened.

When students asked about me, they were told I was 'nutty, but harmless.'

Professor Möbius is the main character in 'The Physicists', a German (Swiss) play you really SHOULD read. Dürrenmatt is so much more human than Kafka. Möbius professes to be possessed by the soul of King Solomon.

http://www.cambridgeinternational.org/images/153844-june-2012-pre-released-material-12.pdf

I like to please people by bringing things up that might delight or entertain or edify others.

I've just spent an hour watching the Spring videos you made, Dmitri. They warm my heart in this cold season.

Oh, I'm glad, Paul. I was trying to make a moving photo album, sounds like I succeeded.

It's sunny here, but few birds around. A good time to look at old pictures.

Hi folks just letting y'all know I still exist. Very busy at the mo with loads of explorations, mainly plants and birds, and also a gig illustrating prehistoric animals for a Florida museum.

I'd love a gig for painting a book or music album cover!

Getting the job of illustrating prehistoric animals for a Florida museum sounds like a real achievement!

Yes minorvogonpoet, it's the kind of work I always wanted to do. I really hope I can make it to the end! If I can do this successfully I am sure it will open up more doors...

The Mobius strip is ingenious.

Wish I had thought of it first.

Objects in the class of the Mad Magazine 'Blivett' have not been exhaustedd.

Yes mvp!! I love your suggested meaning of the Mobius. (Good song title, Meaning Of The Mobius. I need an artist for the CD cover. heheh.)

The way the outside surface becomes the inside, and the inside surface becomes the outside ..

Definitely.

I need coffeeeeeee.

Mandlebrot set, ah fractals, those mathematical patterns, sooo amazing.

What about Strange Attractors? I bet your husband knows about them. I remember coming across pictures of them once, and I went totally mad about them for several months. So beautiful in their mathematical design.

I started to think about a laundromat in Clapham Junction in fact, after seeing them.

S'cuse me, topic drift, this is shuffling the chapters to a ludicrous degree.

Wait! See, when I was a wandering youth I had this idea I would meet my future husband, (later I changed it to Enigmatic Spirit Guide, to try to sound more interesting), in the laundromat in Clapham Juction, where I lived the time. Well, I didn't live in the actual laundromat, not after 11pm anyway...Point is, Strange Attractors. Attractors. Attraction. A mathematical story. I can picture the cover art .. ...