koot hoomi
Oct. 5th, 2005 11:52 pmSo I'm sitting here reading Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati in the same bemused suspension of disbelief I seem to bring to all of his books. Since about halfway in I've been faintly wondering why Nuit is arching over every single illustration in the thing; I'm not feeling Mystickq enough to guess what the Significance of that might be without having him spell it out at some point.
Then I come across a passage that makes me start giggling.
Hoot Koomi. Hoot Koomi.
I'm not laughing because it's a funny-sounding name (though it is). I'm laughing because I've run across the name before. I'm pretty sure Hoot Koomi showed up in one of Daniel M. Pinkwater's books.
A lot of my first contact with Weird Stuff like that was Pinkwater's books, to be honest- though I never knew it until twenty years or so later, when I ran across the same things in other contexts. and I didn't figure it out until I re-read his stuff as an adult and realized, hey, wait a second, this guy in Alan Mendhelsson, the Boy from Mars is a parody of L. Ron Hubbard, and all the gurus listed in The Last Guru were parodies of real gurus who found fame and fortune in the sixties, and...
Of course, I could be wrong: Googling for "Hoot Koomi" turns up a reference to Terry Pratchett's Pyramids as the first result that doesn't refer to the real Koomi.
Oh! Or perhaps the familiarity with the name is Tim Powers' Expiration Date, which centers around a boy named after Koomi. Who is posessed by the ghost of Thomas Edison - it's complicated. So maybe I'm misremembering Pinkwater. But I wouldn't be surprised if he, too, borrowed the name.
Because. Who could resist a name like that for comedic, mystic fiction?
Koot Hoomi.
And hey,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
postrodent and I had a discussion of how mind-meltingly cool Pinkwater's books were to our pre-adolescent selves, and how different they are when revisited as adults - maybe better, maybe not, I really can't decide. And I got to describe the wonderful author photo that graced a lot of my copies of his books: Pinkwater mid-leap, a delighted smile on his face, finger raised in a sort of 'aha!' moment, seemingly levitating.
PS. I got my boobie pills today. Hooray!
Then I come across a passage that makes me start giggling.
Dr. Baker represents the Theosophical Society, founded by Madame H.P. Blavatsky, based on alleged transmissions from a Secret Chief named Hoot Koomi.
Hoot Koomi. Hoot Koomi.
I'm not laughing because it's a funny-sounding name (though it is). I'm laughing because I've run across the name before. I'm pretty sure Hoot Koomi showed up in one of Daniel M. Pinkwater's books.
A lot of my first contact with Weird Stuff like that was Pinkwater's books, to be honest- though I never knew it until twenty years or so later, when I ran across the same things in other contexts. and I didn't figure it out until I re-read his stuff as an adult and realized, hey, wait a second, this guy in Alan Mendhelsson, the Boy from Mars is a parody of L. Ron Hubbard, and all the gurus listed in The Last Guru were parodies of real gurus who found fame and fortune in the sixties, and...
Of course, I could be wrong: Googling for "Hoot Koomi" turns up a reference to Terry Pratchett's Pyramids as the first result that doesn't refer to the real Koomi.
Oh! Or perhaps the familiarity with the name is Tim Powers' Expiration Date, which centers around a boy named after Koomi. Who is posessed by the ghost of Thomas Edison - it's complicated. So maybe I'm misremembering Pinkwater. But I wouldn't be surprised if he, too, borrowed the name.
Because. Who could resist a name like that for comedic, mystic fiction?
Koot Hoomi.
And hey,
postrodent and I had a discussion of how mind-meltingly cool Pinkwater's books were to our pre-adolescent selves, and how different they are when revisited as adults - maybe better, maybe not, I really can't decide. And I got to describe the wonderful author photo that graced a lot of my copies of his books: Pinkwater mid-leap, a delighted smile on his face, finger raised in a sort of 'aha!' moment, seemingly levitating.PS. I got my boobie pills today. Hooray!
