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

Yes, and you will all then write it up for ...that's an order.

Oh, and while I'm horning in, here:

1. MVP, can I steal your poem for the 24th? and

2. You lovely creative people: please start thinking now about stuff for Halloween. Boy, would I love to have a bunch of Halloween-and-spooky writing and art for come the end of October.

Hi Dmitri.

You're welcome to that poem, as far as I'm concerned but, as I said, it's a Daydream Journal poem - madeup from bits of everybody's postings.

I'll make a note in the intro.

mvp, poetlady, that is a wonderful poem.

This thread is a treasure trove of delights, the postings, the remixes, the vibe

Is Halloween right at the end of October? I'll try a spooky-ish but fun illustration ... keep reminding me folks!

Thank you Peanut.

And yes, this thread is a box of delights. It's cactuscafe's ideas that scatter the dust.

Hey Willem! Mr.DreamGeniusJnr11X! Yes, I think Hallowe'en is at the end of October. Imagine the drawings you will do! I would like to write a hallowe'en offering for . I don't know how. Yet. hmm

I am never sure what Hallowe'en really is. There must be a Guide Entry on it. Must check.

I like it when all the shop windows display giant plastic spiders (sorry Elektra eeeek)(she doesn't like s), and peculiar green skulls and yellow plastic jellylike blobby things.

What??? Yellow plastic jellylike blobby things?? Yes, the shop windows in our town were full of them last year. (I think). (Or was it a dream?)

. Strawberry break. Healthier than a ciggie break.

'Morning pilgrims! What special things you say. I love the inspiration of all our ideas put together.

Also I love the trust I feel here, because, for me, ideas can appear on sparkly wings if I am allowed to be playful and quite stupid, even though I can get quite annoying sometimes. .

Also though I can be deep, because I guess it must be obvious by now that I sometimes get a bit intense, a bit broken and scarred.

All in the human mix, eh?

And on we go, into the mists of Avalon! (that reminds me, I must get to Glastonbury).

Good evening oh world of many hues and textures.

I was thinking almost-intelligently about a lot of things a few hours ago, but I just had a sauna and it all sweated out of me. Come back thoughts! I need you for reasons which I also forgot. .

They say that a sauna is good for you, especially if you have an ice cold shower in between sessions. Some people feel very ill in saunas.

I like the ice cold shower. I feel like I'm in a toothpaste ad, all pure and healthy with a perfect smile, , drinking icy water from a mountain stream, without having any nervy twingy toothache.

I go the sauna quite often, because I think I might have been an iguana in another incarnation, and I like to bask in 100F. .

Also my joints ache sometimes, more so these days, and it's good for that.

I was in the sauna once with this guy who had just returned from a sweatlodge ceremony, and he was telling me about it, which was really interesting in fact, very ceremonial and medicinal. I felt a bit bad because he had been at this amazing ceremony, then he ended up in the sauna with me sitting there like an ageing iguana.

So I went out to the cold shower, and returned to try to charm him with my toothpaste ad smile, but he had disappeared.

Aha. He was a sauna-spirit guide. I like saunas, too.

Halloween is 31 October. Short version:

Halloween was originally Samhain, the Celtic new year. Somewhere along the line, it got associated with remembering the dead. Then got all kinds of superstitions associated with it. Then there were the jack o' lanterns...

In the oldy days, people used to carve turnips, put candles in them, and use them for torches at night. In the US, fewer turnips - but tons of pumpkins. Hence the jack o' lantern.

Back in the 19th Century, in the rural US, hooligans would play silly tricks on people on 31 October, and pretend it was s. Stuff like putting the hay wagon on the barn roof...annoying.

Gradually, to put a stop to that, we developed the custom of 'trick or treat' - kids would dress up in silly costumes and go from door to door, begging for sweets. Give a treat, avoid a trick.

When Elektra and I were growing up, this was a big deal for us kids. We'd make a costume from stuff around the house - bedsheet for a , old skirt and blouse of mom's plus cardboard hat for a , etc. I did a one once by getting my mom to sew me a long shirt out of scrap material, then drawing 'kabalistic' signs all over it. Then we'd go door to door.

We'd also read spooky stories and eat till we got sick from all the sugar.

Somewhere along the line, people pretty much stopped doing this. In our Philadelphia neighbourhood, it stopped after 9/11, for some reason, and never started again. The grown-ups took it over as a party holiday, much to our disgust.

But it's a great time to frolic with the idea of otherworldiness...remember all the Stuff in last year? A87709459

Pictures welcome. Poetry welcome. Stories welcome...

Hah! Splendid! Now I am getting the history of Hallowe'en, plus stories of the Southern childhood, all wrapped in the one cloak. heheh. I love it!! Thanks! Reminds me of everything, somehow, reading your writing. Great images, and awwww that's so adorable thinking of you and Elektra and all you kids dressed like that. Oops, heheh, I'm meant to be reeeely spooked. .

Ah yes, I remember that Post last year .... that sets my lantern eyes alight with the creative fire, remembering that.



You think that guy was a sauna spirit-guide? . I never thought of that. He'd tell me it's OK to be an aching ageing iguana then. He'd have to be nice to me, because he's a spirit guide. . I thought I saw him in town the other day, in fact.

See? Then you can be a spirit guide in the sauna, too.

Aha, here's a memory: When I was 12, we moved to the hills north of Pittsburgh. Now, that's the age when you become too old to trick-or-treat, but you get to walk the little kids around, so I was taking my sisters.

One neighbour fella had, for some reason, a spacesuit. A real one. He put it on, and set up a tent in his yard. When he gave the kids candy, he regaled them with tales of his journeys in space. What a nut.

One year, Elektra and I were at my folks' house, since we went to uni in Pittsburgh. She dressed up like a gypsy fortune-teller, and used a large, spent lightbulb from the dorm as a 'crystal ball'. I was a wizard, and handed out candy and Kool-Aid from my 'cauldron'.

One young witch backed into a candle on the porch and set her costume on fire. We immediately rolled her on the damp lawn, thus preventing a re-enactment of 17th-century Salem right there.

Nobody burns witches on OUR watch.

I love it! So amazing, these images. I love the spacesuit guy. Where did he get a spacesuit from? Not easy to lift a spacesuit. You can't conceal it under your coat. Not that I've tried. I suppose you could just wear it. Walk into the NASA offices, come out wearing a spacesuit.

Look into the lightbulb Elektra .... heheh... where am I going? Please? Tell me ....

And of course you end it like a story. Nobody burns witches on OUR watch. Now there's a last line. Cor honestly, writers.



Extraordinary programme on Channel 4 last night, called Audience. It shouldn't have worked, it really shouldn't, but it did. At least,I thought it did.

In short, each week the programme features a person trying to make a life changing decision, and they can't, they are stuck.

So they call in this group of fifty people ....

(a total cross section, the characters are amazing . presumably there's a different group each week)

.....who follow them everywhere through their life for four days, and then they make the decision for them.

It's really funny, and moving, and bizarre, all at the same time.

Last night they were tramping all over this guy's farm. He was confused because it was a long standing family business, but part of him wanted to leave and make a new life, but that would mean selling the farm, and what would happen to the uncles?

The group met the uncles, his mother, his girlfriend. Did he leave? hah! Not telling. teehee.

We can't get Ch4 in the States! I hear you protest. Erm... OK, he left.

At first I thought there's no way I would want to be followed by fifty people for four days, all focussed on my problem, but now I think I would. The attention would be great!

Any offers?

...

PS Oops, now I ruined the ending for anyone who can get Ch4 but hasn't yet seen The Audience. hahah. hmm. Well, erm ... you could watch it anyway. Don't listen to me. . You had to be there really. Now, back to recruiting my group of fifty. .

Isn't 50 people a bit much?

If 50 people followed me round my house, they wouldn't be able to move. And if they did it for four days, they would be so bored, they'd be sleeping in heaps on the carpet. And would I have to provide them with and ?

12 would be more manageable. The number of the disciples, and of a jury.

I agree with you about "Nobody burns witches on OUR watch". That would be a great last line for a story. I haven't got any bright ideas for a Halloween story yet. Perhaps I need or one of your slow sloe gins.

Great. At least we've got you all thinking about Halloween.

That sounds like an amazing series, CC. 50 does sound like a lot of people, but I'm fascinated by the idea of brainstorming on that scale.

12! Ah yes, the twelve apostles (can you name them? I can't, not without checking ), and of a jury.

Juries! Yikes, I'm scared of the word jury. I have never ever been called for Jury Service (in the UK it is random selection....) and I'm really scared about it, because I don't know if I could do it, if I was called.

That would be a good time to call in my audience of fifty. .

I know what you mean, mvp, trying to fit fifty people in our small first floor flat .... they would have to go on the roof, except there's also a flat in between us and the roof. The neighbour would worry. It would be like the seagulls again. . In the programme, half of them were outside the window, peering in.



Back in a minute. I'm fretting about something, and need to air it.

Hmm. I think I might be too old for hootoo, these days. Not that age matters, its just that I think I'm not well versed enough in facebook and twitter and internet relating.

I think I come across as a funny old lady who can't talk on computer. heheh. hmm

I'm OK here in my journal, but when I went onto the Test thread, which is hilarious and I love it, , I got all shy about meeting the community at large. And now I am totally upset, but I'll get over it. .

Also, seeing from Hallowe'en last year reminded me of Bel, and I got upset again.

I'm not taking sides here, please, if this goes out on air, I don't want a bunch of controversial postings. Please don't even try. What happened was a private matter between Bel and the community.

It's just reminds me of Bel, and she was the Ed before Dmitri and she gathered together all my writings which were scattered over the site like the bones from a previous incarnation, and she put them all together and named it Cafe Dreams Archive, and gave me a Post Reporter's badge, and I am so grateful to her.

Wah

That was all one sentence. heheh. Take a breath.

Hey, I understand that researchers move on, and sometimes it isn't always harmomious, their reasons for leaving.

I think I might move on eventually, but just because I am a funny old lady who can't talk on computer , not because I have fallen out.

Communities are transient. However, they are also like families and there are feelings involved. Scrappy scruffy illogical feelings.

Am I allowed to thank Bel, here, without everything going apeoid?

I think one of the reaons I was so shy back there was because of nervous tension, wondering if I can mention Bel.

hmm.

I am sorry you are upset

you are doing fine on the test thread, don't be worried, it is just lovely to see you there, sprinkling your magic dust

I saw something in my garden today, a spider cleaning its web

plucking out bits of grass and throwing them overboard

it was really fascinating to watch. I have never see a spider web cleaning before.

love Peanut

Hey luv thankyouverymuch for being understanding. I guess sometimes nervous pressure builds up in my head, and then I am like a kettle that tries to dream through the steam, but then melts instead of boiling. Sort of thing.

I had no idea that spiders did housework. Webwork.

Cor honestly, said Ms Spider, cleaning up the huge pile of unwashed socks (needs eight socks to make a matching set )from the kids' web. If these kids don't learn to do their own webwork .....



Well, yes .... and now what, I don't know, except turn it all back into creative energy, and try to write a story for Hallowe'en unless I spook myself first, and run away. But there is one thing I have yet to do before I return to the corner of the coffeeshop and glorious obscurity, and that is to write a story in total stream of consciousness, (edited of course) which probably won't make because it will be even more incomprehensible than usual, but ah yes yes yes ......

PS What is harmomious? Re typo in my intense posting. One day I woke up and found I could play the harmomium like Bach, without even blinking. .