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

Got it! The title is (appropriately enough) 'After his Death'. I found it in the Rattle Bag.

No, that's not the one. Still, I have two plane trips tomorrow, so I can spend the time pleasantly, looking through the Collected Works for it.

I love:

It turned out
That the bombs he had thrown
Raised buildings.



http://bonobopomes.blogspot.com/2007/05/somersault.html

I'm attempting Baudelaire in French at the moment.

You'll never guess. The title of Norman MacCaig's poem about Hugh McDiarmid is...'Hugh McDiarmid'.

When he speaks a small sentence /he is a man /who presses a plunger that will/ blow the face off a cliff.

He also wrote one called 'Hugh McDiarmid's Lyrics' - it's only two stanzas, but I don't think I can give you it all because of copyright.

Who woulda thunk it!

I think I had the two poems mixed up. Scots & water.

Getting back to M. Marceau...

The perfect music for his funeral: John Cage's 4'33"

Je vais chercher mon manteau.



(Translation for the monoglot weekend Mods: 'I'll get me coat')

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6660356161929933283 -- an orchestral performance of 4m 33s in the Albert Hall by the look of it.

The orchestra look perfectly comfortable with it; which is not surprising since a lot of their work consists in keeping quiet and counting bars' rest anyway.

The conductor hams it up a teeny bit, by wiping his forehead between movements and so on. The audience join in the spirit by saving their coughs (mostly) for the breaks between movements.

Not what you'd call a good piece of music, but certainly a memorable one.

Sorry -- Barbican. BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Lawrence Foster.