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Person from Porlock
- zh3 5y agoPorlock. Nice place, roads in and out will test driving skills (I love the smell of burnt brake lining in the morning - oh, and clutch for drivers who haven't seen the like before). Rather stiff climb out the back to Dunkery Beacon, doable on a bicycle but a challenge for cars in icy conditions.
- tonylucas 5y agoYou always knew when summer had arrived when you could smell burnt brakes! Saw more than the occasional jackknifed lorry as well on that hill
- lttlrck 5y agoRaced down Porlock Hill on my Raleigh racer when I was 15. Walked it back up... second only to Telegraph Hill on the A38 - now that was stupid.
- rawling 5y agoI'm pretty sure Kubla Khan was quoted in a sci-fi book I read once, but I've not been able to find it again. Don't suppose anyone knows?
- LeoPanthera 5y ago"Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" by Douglas Adams.
- rawling 5y agoI've never actually got around to reading that, so I must be thinking of another one, but thanks!
- LeoPanthera 5y agoThere's actually a few on the page linked to by this post.
- rawling 5y agoYou're right - there's more references to Porlock than on the page for the poem itself...
- gwm451 5y agoSee Ray Bradbury's short story, "A Miracle of Rare Device". EDIT: The Ray Bradbury Theater adaptation: https://youtu.be/2Ro9K9MWc7g https://youtu.be/2Ro9K9MWc7g
- finnh 5y agoSome Piers Anthony series? the ones about the twinned sci-fi/fantasy world? EDIT: a quick search tells me "Apprentice Adept" is the name of the series I'm thinking of.
- rawling 5y agoOk, what I'm learning is a lot of different sci-fi writers REALLY like this poem
- finnh 5y agoYeah that's a safe bet. Also: my recalling that series is NOT a recommendation. Even as a bored 12-year-old I'm pretty sure I knew it was dross. Yes I read all of them...
- egypturnash 5y agoAnthony gets even worse if you go back and read him once you're an adult, and you realize just how much time he spends looking up the dresses of pre-pubescent girls in his books.
- egypturnash 5y agoGreg Bear's fantasy "The Infinity Concerto" revolves around a series of attempts to transmit Songs Of Power to Earth; Kubla Kahn was one, and the Person from Porlock was sent by a rival faction who wanted to send a different Song of Power. Had it been written down in full it would have changed the world in mysterious, magical ways.
- chris_wot 5y agoIsn’t it “man from Porlock”?
- madmads 5y agoIt is indeed in the first paragraph of the article mentioned that "person from Porlock" can also be referred to as "man from Porlock", or just "Porlock"
- LeoPanthera 5y agoThe exact quote is on the page linked, but here it is, with Coleridge writing about himself in the third person: > On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!
- tonylucas 5y agoVery random seeing Porlock on here. I grew up in the Village, although haven’t been back in many years
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoReminds me why I don’t miss working in an open office.
- vintermann 5y agoI didn't know this one. Suddenly the Penguin Cafe Orchestra's piece "Another one from Porlock" makes slightly more sense.