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

soory about the "h"....

I hope you weren't wearing earphones!

Anyway, with that all done and over, back to the matter at hand... what was the matter at hand again?

Ummmmmh....Deja-Vu? Ghosts? Astral Projection? I don't know either. Help me out, here.

Don't tell me that we've run out of paranomal phenomenal topics already?!

Wait... Duh! Why not talk about extraterrestrial life? I mean, we are on an HHGTTG, EE, board aren't we?

Anyone got anything to say about little green guys, hearsay or otherwise?

(I personally think that alien life forms don't nessesarily have to be carbon-based, water or oxygen dependent. Humanoid aliens would be cool, but that may be pushing it a bit. There is one theory out there that we are in fact descendents of humanoid aliens, much like what happened with the telephone sanitizers in Douglas Adams' books. I'm not quite redy to swallow that, but what's your guys' take on it?)

Well, I believe that there must be other forms of life out there, but I don't think that every UFO seen is one of their intergalatic transports. Never been real interested in the whole abduction subject. Still, I'll concede the possibility that they have made contact.

Oh, and we're not out of topics yet. After we get done with aliens, how about cryptozoology?

Cryptozoo-what?

(We are not done with the aliens yet, by the way...)

Oh, wait a second... The good 'ol American Heritage Talkning Dictionary on CD ROM...

Cryptozoology-
The study of unsubstantiated animals such as Sasquatch, Sea monsters, etc.

I think the aliens left them here.

Aliens.

Of course I believe that other life exists out there somewhere. Those people who don't believe this are just being un-realistic. The universe is just too damn big not to contain an abundance of life.

I do think that there is far too much focus on extraterrestrials lately. I suppose it has something to do with shows like the X Files and the like. I tend to get really annoyed most of the time when I turn on the tv and, well.... nevermind. I don't want to go on a rant.

In one of my illustration courses I tore into a very nice girl for annoying me with some artwork she did on the subject. I still feel a little guilty for that.

I don't know too much about cryptozoology. A friend of mine swears that he once saw a Bigfoot. I don't doubt him....or I don't doubt what he thinks he saw. Although we do live on a tiny planet and we think we've seen everything, I doubt that we have.

A couple of years ago a friend and I were walking in the woods and we were being stalked by something. The locals have for years reported hearing an strange scream during the late hours. I've heard it once myself. I thought it was a bobcat but have since written that one off. It sounded too close to a human scream...but much deeper and more gutteral. I think that what was following us was a black bear. Not a bigfoot.

There may very well be a Loch Ness Monster. People have seen many things. The Giant squid was believed to be a myth up until a few years back. I would love to know what could be floating around in the oceans....maybe Leviathan is swimming around out there.

The only other thing I can think of is the Chubacabara.....the Mexican Goat Sucker. But I can't remember any stories of that right now.

Must stop. Getting long winded.

I dunno, the millennium is just around the corner, and all the sudden we think something astronomical is supposed to happen; aliens land, the Loch-ness Monster (or at least one of them, albeit small) is caught, Bigfoot is interviewed on CNN... Something.

Look at all the junk they're running on Discovey and Learning channels right now; Ancient Prophesies, Curious World, Secrets, etc. Even the Sci-fi channel (and that fi stands for fiction, mind you) is drumming up pre-hype for some home video show, with the tag "sci-fi happens", asking people to send in their videos of anything and everything that they can possibly fake (they don't come out and say that, though).

I don't exactly know what the point was anymore, but it just goes to show that Unexplained Phenomena is not the campfire/fringe group topic it once was.

*Contemplates last statement for a bit.*

Sigh.

Yeah, I just saw that "sci fi happens " ad a little while ago. When is enough enough? They have milked it all for much more than it's worth...so much so that I just can't care anymore, if I ever did. If I see anothe show about area 51 I might just accidentally throw my beer at mt tv.

There is a point where it is no longer entertaining.
I found myself feeling offended when I saw that ad on the sci -fi channel. I have a feeling that were about to delve into the subject of "the dumbing down of america".....(if it's possible to dumb the masses down any more.)

Another bit of art/college advice. (Possibly the best I can give you): Lock away EVERY pencil, ruler, tube of paint, chunk of charcoal, roll of canvas, matte knife, pallete knife, pad of paper, art book, etc( I think you get the idea).

Art students are generally nice people (if you ignore the moodiness) but they'll nick anything that's not chained down.............you should see my library. One of my professors liked to lend out books. uh oh. I didn't just imply what I think I did, did I?

I have a gorgeous 1927 copy of the Arabian Nights which somehow found its way into a milk crate when I moved back home.

*whistiling sound*

1927 copy of Arabian Nights? I'd say you have three options: 1) keep it kicking around your place until it gets lost in a move, or one of your offspring take a sudden interest in musty, old books, 2) try to track the prof. down and return it (would he ask about what else you 'borrowed'?) or 3) e-Bay!! (now or at a later date, of course...) Of course, it's practically yours to do with what you want...

Yeah, I've heard stories of moochy, sticky-fingered college kids, but up until now all I've geard about are depleated supplies of Apricot-Mint Body wash and a missing pen here and there. Maybe it's dangerous to assume that other people have the same respect for your stuff as you do theirs, yes? Anything big ever stolen that you heard of? Stereos, TVs?

I can't remember anything like that being stolen. I did have a pair of expensive speakers kicked in though.

Hey, take a look at my page. I just put up a new drawing...

My brain seems to be on vacation tonight.


He would ask what else I borrowed, unfortunately. I can't get rid of it. The illustrations are by a man named Edmund Dulac....you should look him up if you haven't heard of him.

Edward Dulmac... Hmmm... that sounds ever-so-slightly familiar.

Out of morbid curiosity, have you ever heard of an artist named Otto Geiss (alternately GeiB) ? Born and raised in Germany, but could be anywhere right now. He's a surrealist and a pervert, but a good one. (Good surrealist, I mean...) I'm trying to see if I can find a book or something that features a collection of his works, but due to the way he lives (paints a wall-sized canvas, sells it, and lives off of the cash until necessity demands he paints again,) I think it will be a daunting task.

Dulac painted in watercolor and bleach. He illustrated a lot of Hans Christian Andersens stories. He was the first to work on the original version of the little mermaid.

I just did a search for this Otto character.The man certainly has talent. He's really not my cup of tea though. Why is it that all of the perverts turn to surrealism? Dali, now there was a weird b*****d.

Lately I've been trying to deconstruct the techniques of Rembrandt and Vermeer....Rembrandt is fairly easy. Vermeer is damn near impossible for me to figure out. I don't know how he began a painting.

Don't think anybody knows jack about Vermeer's techniques. I recently went to the National Gallery in DC, and got to see the "Art of Painting." Couldn't pick out a single brushstroke in the thing. And as far as I know, that guy had no formal training. Man, if I had those technical abilities...


... and as long as I'm wishing for things I don't have, if I owned Microsoft, I could buy a fleet of private jets. Better just stick to the fairly good skills I've got.

What did you turn up on the search? Where did you find it? The net?

Okay, quick expalnation: He's my mother's father's youngest brother, (making him a grand-uncle), and I was recently in Germany to meet all these people for the first time, and saw his stuff and was wowed. I saw both ends of the spectrum, from strictly perverse to merely weird looking, in three faded prints in a basement, and two that I didn't get a very good look at.

Of course, being an eccentric artist, he makes great pains to elude pesky family memebers by habitually dropping off the face of the earth for extended bouts of time. I wish I could have met him, but all anyone knew was that he was still in Europe, last anyone had heard, which was quite a while back.

When I got back home, I did a few image searches on Otto Geiss/GeiB, and came up with tons of distantly related Ottos, all with very active digital cameras and very crappy-looking web pages. So, Kumabear, cough it up-- what did you find?

ps
Watercolors and bleach? I'm unfamiliar with bleach as an art medium... can you explain?

This is what I found on him last night. http://www.otto-geiss.de/ there's not much there....I think it's the same guy. the paintings are surreal.

Even x-rays don't seem to reveal anything about Vermeer's work. He had no formal training, was dirt poor and lived and died in obscurity. I wish I had gotten to see that exhibit. I had plans to go but the person I was going with backed out at the last minute.

Bleach used with watercolor is a great little trick. Once you figure the technique out a lot of depth can be added to a w/c. The first thing you need to know about it is that Yellow's are pretty damn impossible to bleach out. Every color reacts differently. The bleach also works differently on varied papers. Basically it's a matter of trial and error. Always use it on wet paper..or damp. If you try it on dried paint chances are that very little will happen.

I discovered bleach when I spilled some on a pair of pants. Later when I was working on one of hundreds of failures I noticed the white splotch on my leg...so I dumped some bleach on what I was working on. It still looked like sh*t but there was obvious potential.

I use bleach with "concentrated watercolors".. The intensity of the color is unbelievable. They are more expensive though and not to be used by the faint of heart.

*Gasp* On Otto's website, that picture of the boy and girl... the one entitled "me and my first girlfriend"-- that's my MOTHER! (And we only rediscovered that picture a few weeks ago-- stupid coincidence.)

Of course, it wasn't Uncle Otto's first girlfriend... it was Halmut's, the boy in the picture. Though it's not surprising that he had that picture-- everyone in the family had a copy. (Mebbe we should e-mail him and ask for a signed print for the model?)

Ah, okay. I figured bleach wouldn't be too predictable as a medium, or an alterer of one. I thought perhaps that there was a special 'artists' bleach' out there, specially formulated for watercolor use or something. After all, even spagetti scauce can be used to alter paintings. (That was a nasty lesson: never eat spagetti within 5 feet of a work-in-progress!)

There's no special bleach out there that I know of. I've found that Clorox is the only one that's consistant.

I know (I've been told, rather) that vinegar can be used as a medium for oils as well but I don't think that I will ever dare that one.

Here's a good Dulac site. You'll see why I can't give up the book. http://www.datadesignsb.com/art/