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

Monumental piece. "Et in terra pax hominibus" is spectacular, managing to be light and airy, as well as grand. Not an easy thing to pull off.

I'm working on Ptolemy's Almagest and Tolkien's Nazgûl.

The 4x4x4 Rubik Cube needs some actual research, which I intend to do while I'm on my holidays next week. The entry on the shape of raindrops is one which I know all the facts but just need to get them down in an interesting way. Bohernabreena Reservoirs will need another visit become I'll be comfortable writing them up.

That's not how I would spend my holidays .

But chacun a son gout / to each his own.

It's bugged me for years that I can't figure out how to solve that 4x4x4 cube.

I developed a method for unscrambling the 3x3x3 one back in the early 80s although it took me 19 days to do it. I don't know anyone else who worked out how to do it. I don't think my brain is as fast now as it was then, but on the other hand I know a lot more about solving cubes.

I worked out an incomplete solution of 3x3x3 on a fortnight's holiday in 1981. Finally got it on the plane home. Then I read up some better solutions.

Incomplete in that it didn't always come out, but a bit of rescrambling would get it eventually.

My eldest son was 11 then. I taught him the book solution when I had got it down to three minutes, and he immediately got it down to one and a half.

Back to Bach... John Eliot Gardiner describes that part where I get goosepimples as follows:

"But the most poignantly human moment is reserved for that ghostly bridge-passage that links the Confiteor to the Et Expecto. In these extraordinary bars we can detect traces of Bach's own struggles - with tonality, counterpoint and harmony - but perhaps even with belief."

From "Music in the Castle of Heaven" which I'm currently reading. Turned that very page (p.482) the day after writing my worth above.

It took me 16 days to work out an incomplete solution and another 3 to make it general. I never tried for speed, and I've no idea how long it would take me. Current world speed records are in the 6 to 10 second range.

That Bach passage you mention is my favourite part of the Mass in B Minor, and possibly the hardest to sing as well.

My favorite parts are the "Gloria" and the "Sanctus" and the "Dona Nobis Pacem."

Hmmm, maybe I should just say the whole piece. And if you want to blow your mind, you could have a double-header and hear Beethoven's "Miss Solemnis" right after the Bach Mass.

Or for comic effect, do P.D.Q. Bach's "Missa Hilarious." "K-K-K-Kyrie" is my favorite part. It's done to the tune of "K-K-K-Katie," which always gives me images of Kate Smith arriving with the moon over that mountain.

The Sanctus is amazingly exotic. Swinging censers dispensing scented smoke.

Today's new entry in Gnomon's Guide:

Entry A87856159 The Nazgûl, Tolkien's Black Riders

I definitely enjoyed reading this.

The only query I had was where you wrote 'Nazgûl' means 'ring' and 'gûl' means 'sorcery'. Should that be ‘Naz’ meaning ‘ring’?

<BB<

As time progressed, their started to fade >they

The sentence above the subheader The Enslavement of the Nazgûl is a little unclear: maybe it would be easier to grasp 'Sauron's forces had been driven out'.

You seem to have omitted one circumflex in Nazgûl, down in the Black Easterling section. I'm not confident about this, because when I went back to the page the instance of the word Nazgûl without its accent was not where I remembered it.

I have a discomfort about saying 'This is another of those Obiwan meets Darth Vader moments'. The same discomfort is felt when people call Mozart's extraordinary 21st piano concerto 'The Elvira Madigan', after a thoroughly forgettable movie. Ho hum.

I can't agree with your last sentence, either: I would not expect the kings so long enslaved and so unable to act for a thousand years when their lord was dormant to have the will power to commit flamboyant suicide. But it's your call. Besides, this is all fiction, so any part of the story hasn't been written by the author is entirely unsayable.

I agree about "Elvira Madigan," but purveyors of classical music too often seem to be on the defensive about the "relevance" of their music. Having a movie -- even a lousy one -- with a tie to a great Mozart concerto must seem a coup to them. Likewise the march of the Austrian soldiers [they must have been out of breath going so fast! -- from the "William Tell" overture, that many people associate with the Lone Ranger. In a way this is poignant, because "William Tell" is an extraordinary opera that deserves to be better known than it is.

And now let me apologize to anyone if it seems I've hijacked someone else's thread. I mean well.

I would have thought watching Elvira Madigan would be enough to put anybody off the Mozart piece. I didn't think much of the film but I hated the way it just kept repeating the slow movement theme without any development.

I'll consider your points, R, when I get onto the pc later. It's virtually impossible to make serious edits on a phone.

Good of you, you really don't have to! Just sounding off.

William Tell is a Swiss tale, surely?

Ah, Tell was in revolution against Austrian overlords. Though the Habsburgs came from Switzerland, they became rulers of Austria, and it was Tell's revolt that founded the Swiss Confederacy (more or less).

Thanks, BB, for spotting that mistake where I'd put Nazgul instead of Nazg. I did some global replacing to try and convert u to û in every occurrence of Nazgul, but somewhere along the way I mucked it up, and then added a few more Nazguls later. I think it is all sorted now.

R, I've changed the two sections you objected to - I now have the meeting of the Lord of the Nazgûl and Gandalf at the gate as a possible inspiration for the Star Wars scene. I've also toned down the end of the Nazgul, just saying they were never seen again.

I thnk the next ones I'll work on are Ptolemy's Almagest, the Bohernabreena Reservoirs and the Shape of Raindrops.

"I would have thought watching Elvira Madigan would be enough to put anybody off the Mozart piece. I didn't think much of the film but I hated the way it just kept repeating the slow movement theme without any development." [Gnomon]

I've never seen "Elvira Madigan," and can't think of a reason to see it. If I want to hear the Mozart theme, there are plenty of fine interpreters -- Mitsuko Uchida, Daniel Barenboim, Walter Gieseking, and 154 others, not that I've heard all of them. it's just that there are 157 available versions.

New to Gnomon's Guide today:

A87857257 The Bohernabreena Reservoirs, County Dublin, Ireland

This includes a description of the reservoirs and how they were built, details of a 9km walk around them and some folklore from the valley.