Every Inchie Monday: Party

Hi Folks,

Arthur, speaking in a cold voice upon first seeing Zaphod on The Heart of Gold spaceship:

"We've met, haven't we Zaphod Beeblebrox -- or should I say ... Phil?...
"You'll have to remind me" said Zaphod. "I've a terrible memory for species."
"It was at a party", pursued Arthur [text left out]
"A party six months ago.  On Earth ... England ..."
"London," insisted Arthur, "Islington."
"Oh," said Zaphod with a guilty start, that party."

So Ford is upset because Zaphod was on Earth while Ford spent 15 years desperately waiting to be rescued. and  Arthur is upset because he was pursuing a particular girl when Zaphod interrupted Arthur's "plying her with a bit of talk" saying he, Zaphod, was from another planet  --  and Arthur "never saw [the girl] again". 

Until now that is, because it turns out that the girl, whose earth name is Tricia McMillan, is actually Trillian, who, as she says, "hitched a lift" with Zaphod. 

Needless to say Arthur isn't happy. [chapter 13] 

So in honour of Arthur's terrible time at the party, I offer Lesley Gore and It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to:

And a more traditional party image with a quilled balloon, and candy and confetti (which are on the paper):

Hope everyone has a party of a week!

Every Inchie Monday: Radio

Hi Folks,

"A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold  cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha RADIO (sic) wavebands for news of himself.  The machine was rather difficult to operate.  For years RADIOS (sic) had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch sensitive -- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope.  It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme." [chapter 12]

 This is a picture of the battery operated radio I bought for safety reasons in case the power goes off and I want to hear the news.  Well, actually, I bought it to listen to Blue Jays baseball games and to carry around with me while I do so.  (Mine's actually white, but white is boring to colour).

And here is my quilled radio inchie:

Does anyone listen to the radio except in their cars these days?  I certainly don't listen to music on mine.  How about you?

Every Inchie Monday: Ghastly

Hi Fellow Inchers!

Well this one was not easy to find, except that it was near the button and brain references.  Good old Marvin, the depressed robot, is talking about the doors of the Heart of Gold which were endowed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation with "the new GPP feature" or "Genuine People Personalities". Thus "all of  the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition.  It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done".  

"Sounds ghastly," says Arthur.  Marvin replies "Ghastly...it all is.  Absolutely ghastly. [chapter 11]

Now it is not easy to depict concepts, as I'm sure we have all found this week.  So I cheated a bit.  My first offering is  a Pokemon character called Ghastly.  He is, isn't he?

And I couldn't figure out what to quill.  My (unreliable) memory recalls a line from the movie "Meet me in St. Louis" where the little girls are going out for hallowe'en and one of them (I think it's Margaret O'Brien) says she's going out dressed as a Ghastly Ghost and the other sister is some other kind of ghost.  This may be stretching both my memory and the idea.  So here is a ghastly ghost. 

Hope your week is far from ghastly!

Every Other Monday: Robot

Hello Folks

I love Marvin the depressed Robot in HHGG.  'Brain the size of a planet' he often laments.  Poor thing.  I also love how the characters in the story soon become impatient with him and rather insincerely try to deal with him.


One of my favourite cartoons growing up was The Jetsons, so of course I had to draw Rosie the maid/robot of the Jetson family.

And here is my quilled robot.  I had a hard time photographing it because I thought it would be neat to put it on shiny paper like a well polished robot - not a good decision as it turned out.  (It showed the glue too much too).

Now if we could all have servant robots like Rosie, wouldn't our lives be easier - or would they?

Has anyone seen the animated movie Robots?  It's very funny and well worth a watch.

Every Inchie Monday: Button

Hello Folks,

I do love the button that comes along at this point in HHGG when out travelers have been picked up by the Heart of Gold.  Looking around at the ship, Arthur "reached out and pressed an invitingly large red button on a nearby panel.  The panel lit up with the words Please do not press this button again."  Pure Douglas Adams.

There is another mention of buttons slightly farther on, but  I think one reference is enough - am I boring everyone?

I confess that Trillian's marvelous collection of buttons and trinkets had me buying some tiny buttons for no other reason than that they are pretty:

I couldn't think of how to quill a button, but I do have the Martha Stewart button punch, which I bought simply because I love buttons.  So it's not quilled but it is made of paper.

Hope everyone has a good week.  And for those of us in  Canada - Happy Victoria Day (We celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday.)  The weekend is also called the May two four weekend, because of the date, and because Canadian beer is sold in cartons of 24 cans.   It's the unofficial beginning of 'summer'.   Enjoy the holiday and fireworks.  "It's the twenty fourth of May, [edit] the Queen's birthday, if you don't give us a holiday, we'll all run away"  (childhood rhyme which no one sings anymore).  [realized on Tuesday I had the rhyme wrong - ah memory]

Every Inchie Monday: Three dimensional

Hello Folks,

First, the spot in HHGG where I found a reference to this week's word at Every Inchie Monday:  three-dimensional.  It comes in a description of the Heart of Gold at the beginning of Chapter 11, where we are told the cabin is NOT "an ordinary three-dimensional oblong room,"  Because of this fact, it "looks excitingly purposeful" and kept the designers happy.  OK...  

Here is a rather boring three dimensional box drawn in two dimensions.  It used to be one of my favourite things to teach to first year art students because if you follow a few easy rules it is quite simple to make things look 3D and it always gave the students a great feeling of accomplishment.

 More exciting is the type of street art that draws on flat pavement and makes the image look three dimensional. Often you have to look at a particular angle to see the effect, which has been used in painting for hundreds of years.  This particular one is a simple little guy but I love this artist's work (If anyone can tell me her/his name I would love to know.)  There are many more examples, some very complex, to be found on my Pinterest Board called Street Art (my Pinterest name is Kia2828).  Or Google it.

And for my quilled offering I made a three dimensional mushroom. 3D quilling is its own separate little niche.  (It's less than one inch tall too!) 

Obscure fact:  Did you know that one of the earliest science fiction novels (1884) is called Flatland and is about a world where everything has only 2 dimensions.  

There, I got through the whole post without spelling dimensional with a 't'.  Thank you spell check.

Every Inchie Monday: Brain

Howdy Inchers,

This Week's word at Every Inchie Monday is brain.  Now, in chapter 10,  there is a "Sub-Meson Brain" which is involved in the creation of the improbability drive of the Heart of Gold, but I prefer the reference to Marvin the depressed robot who complains: "Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge.  Call that job satisfaction?  'Cos I don't." [chapter 11]  I do love Marvin.

The human brain is such an amazing thing.

Too hard to quill anything that looks like a brain, so my quilled inchie relates to that moment of brain flash when you get an idea:  (Does it look much like a lightbulb?)

Exercise your brain this week.  It's fun!