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"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink."
-- George Orwell
" There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity."
-- Robertson Davies
"The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun."
-- P. G. Wodehouse
"What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes!"
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
 Guenivere · Tue Apr 26, 2011 @ 05:48am · 0 Comments |
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Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
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[first lines]
The Book: It's an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, Man had always assumed that he was the most intelligent species occupying the planet, instead of the *third* most intelligent. The second most intelligent were of course dolphins. Dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of earth and had on many occasions tried to alert mankind but their warnings were mistakenly interpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for titbits.
The Book: In the beginning, the Universe was created. This made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea.
The Book: It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet. Since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell;
The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay, okay calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!
[Dies]
The Book: Curiously the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias, as it fell, was, "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew *why* the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.
The Book: According to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the best drink in the known universe is the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. It has the effect of having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon... wrapped around a large gold brick.
The Book: The Encyclopedia Galactica, in its chapter on Love states that it is far too complicated to define. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love: Avoid, if at all possible. Unfortunately, Arthur Dent has never read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The Book: Vogons. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious, and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, lost, found again, queried, subjected to public inquiry, lost and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighter. On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry to you.
The Book: Vogon poetry is the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem "Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning" four of his audience members died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. The very worst poetry in the universe was written by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex. Thankfully it was destroyed when the earth was.
The Book: "The Babel fish," said The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish. "Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic. "'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. "Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best- selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God. "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
The Book: A man who no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India company.
The Book: This man is a 5'11" ape descendant and someone is trying to drive a bypass through his house.
The Book: Space, says the introduction to the guide, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how hugely, mind bogglingly big it is. And so on.
The Book: [about the Point of View Gun] The Point of View gun conveniently does precisely what its name suggests. That is if you point it at someone and pull the trigger, they instantly see things from your point of view. It was designed by Deep Thought, but commissioned by a consortium of intergalactic angry housewives, who after countless arguments with their husbands were sick to the teeth of ending those arguments with the phrase "You just don't get it, do you?"
The Book: It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated. For instance, at the very moment that Arthur Dent said "I wouldn't want to go anywhere without my wonderful towel," a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle. The two opposing leaders, resplendent in their black jewelled battle shorts, were meeting for the last time, when, a dreadful silence fell, and, at that very moment, the words, "I wouldn't want to go anywhere without my wonderful towel" drifted across the conference table. Unfortunately, in their native tongue, this was the most appalling insult imaginable, so the two opposing battle fleets decided to settle their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our galaxy, now positively identified as the source of the offending remark. For thousands of years the mighty starships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the planet Earth - where, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time.
The Book: What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer.
The Book: Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?
Guenivere · Tue Mar 20, 2007 @ 04:46am · 0 Comments |
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I think I may have just put a stake through the heart of something and now that it might be gone, I have never wanted it so much...which prolly means I'll never have the chance to get it back. gonk
Guenivere · Sat May 20, 2006 @ 06:07am · 1 Comments |
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Have you ever stood back and detached yourself from the human species? I've said in the past that as whole, people whomp, but indiviually it's something else entirely. You watch them and you watch as their hands move and their feet take steps and you realize that it's really rather spectacular. I mean, do you ever just think...what are they thinking? I mean, do you ever think about the rationality that propels people to do whatever it is that they do.
I mean, take religion for instance. I don't understand religion. There are various types of explanations for creation and man's supposed supremacy and all those other pesky little mysteries of the world. Taking those, religions incorporate basic principles of moral living and convey them with creative stories of Gods and prophets. And then people, for whatever reason, prescribe to one version and they carried out the attached rituals. Now, the part where I get lost is where they then proceed to defend their version and actually go so far as to kill and die for it. I mean, it's like they've taken a good idea and corrupted so far from its original purpose, that it loses its meaning and becomes nothing.
Then there's love. A relationship has one of two possiblities: in ends when one of the two dies, or when one of the two call it quits. Of the former, it...weird to think that one day you'll come upon someone and hit off to such an extent that you'll be together forever. Obviously, I'm single, but still, to be the notion of falling in love is both paradox and romantic fantasy.
Then there are breakups that either nice and clean...or a complete slaughter. Lord help the friends in the middle! Still, that again I don't understand. I mean, if they breakup with you it should be a good thing- it spares you from an unhappily ever after. So why do some people take months to get over it? I mean, maybe two weeks, tops, unleash the break up was horrendous. The other thing I don't understand is slander. Why is it sometimes when there are breakups the person who was God's gift to man last week is now the slime of the earth? You got dumped, not raped.
Which brings us to communication. I have always been fascinated with language; how the same words can soothe in one arrangement and inflict pain in the other. Words themselves are fascinating. I find that people who are diverse in languages are...phenomenal. It truly is impressive how he took the noises we make and converted them into syllables which in turn spawn words. To be able to say one line and having mean a thouasand things to a thousand people is incredible.
So, basically what I'm trying to get across is that people, as a whole species in general, suck. However, when viewed separately and objectively, they're more. And there in lies what makes them beautiful.
Guenivere · Fri Apr 28, 2006 @ 05:56am · 3 Comments |
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I really just hate people. The entire human species is just...I just hate them.
SEE HERE FOR DETAILS
Guenivere · Mon Jun 06, 2005 @ 05:20pm · 4 Comments |
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<center>Darkness binds me, keeps me lost
Memory stirs, thoughts awaken
Trapped within 'til life exhausts
No way out to be taken
Sun has set, shadows lengthen
Nightmares rouse, haunt my sight
Hope is gone, horrors strengthen
Locked now in endless night
Ever now my heart grows cold
Meaning's lost, left alone
Monsters scare, no hand to hold
The board is set, the game unknown
The story's written, comes the end
No time to heal- I'll never mend.</center>
Guenivere · Thu Dec 23, 2004 @ 09:02pm · 5 Comments |
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