Harvey

[watervole]

I was working on a story yesterday (and actually making progress!) when one of the characters turned round and suddenly said "And here's my friend Harvey", gesturing to the empty seat beside her.[Poll #1030775]

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

More film fans than Farscape fans, I guess. (Is it a real Farscape reference? I wouldn't know. What's more, I only know there's a character called Scorpius in Farscape because of Harry Potter wank.)

[dougs.livejournal.com]

It's a film? I saw the play.

[(Anonymous)]

*Ouch!*

Okay, you got me. I've never seen it on stage...

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

*Ouch!*

Okay, you got me. I've never seen it on stage...

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I saw the play in London in the 70s with Jimmy Stewart in the lead - but I don't think it's been revived since. (High time it was).

There must be lots of othre Harveys (Nichols? Smith?) but my mind defaults to the white rabbit.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

It toured after its London run, I saw it in Windsor. I was very very young.

[darth-tigger.livejournal.com]

I'm jealous. I've read the play, but only actually seen the film.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Also a rather sweet filk song (I think by Joey Shoji) based on the play/film.

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

I must admit to only knowing the reference from the filk song. :)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued. Is the filk song on the web?

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether the song is on the web. I have it on a very old filk tape - probably one of the Bayfilk tapes. I'll look it out, if you like (but not tonight - I'm just getting over a bug and I'm about to crawl into bed.)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

The song is actually by Kathy Mar and the lyrics are here

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Harvey-lyrics-Kathy-Mar/B1D04AD842F50D4948256DC90012181D

I have it on a Joey Shoji tape somewhere, which is why I thought it might be his.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's a good song. Now, if only the melody was there as well, I could have tried to play it.

The words bring back the movie to me!

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

If you like I can try and find the tape and copy the song for you.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'd like that. Thanks. I think Harvey is going to be in this story for some time and the song feels very right. (I just have to resist the temptation to try and sing it until my voice is recovered from the Teledu bug)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Thanks. (If you're at Recombination, you could sing it to me)

I always find it a pain that so little filk seems to be on the web.

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

It's a real Farscape reference- the lead character gets a chip put in his head by Scorpius, which causes him to see a hallucinatory Scorpius that no-one else can see. To distinguish this from the real one, the lead character refers to the illusion as Harvey, after the six-foot rabbit that only Jimmy Stewart could see

[paranoidangel]

I know that although it's in Farscape, it's s reference to something else, I just don't know what.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's a reference to the James Stewart movie - with the six foot tall white rabbit. Lovely gentle fun, rent a copy. 'Harvey'

[darth-tigger.livejournal.com]

One of my favourite films ever. Jimmy Stewart being lovely and sweet, gentle humour, heart-warming life-affirming ending and a six foot tall invisible rabbit. What more could you want?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Or, in Bad Timing, he's a brain chip of Scorpius and a giant rabbit.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

... SCcrpius disguised as a six-foot white rabbit.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

Now there's an image...

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Actually, Harvey was the one in pink (http://www.farscapefantasy.com/photos.4.422.2/images/422_080__JPG.jpg).

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

He is a Pookah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pookah

"The pookah takes many forms, but is most famous when he appears as a giant, six-foot white rabbit - which is the form most Americans know from the play and film, Harvey. Whatever form the pookah takes, he retains the special ability of his species, which is like that of Thoth in Egyptian legend, Coyote in Native American myth or Hanuman the Divine Monkey in Hindu lore - he can move us from one universe, or Belief System, into another, and he likes to play games with our ideas about 'reality.'"
From "Cosmic Trigger Volume 2" by Robert Anton Wilson

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered about the use of the pooka[h] legend as background for Harvey, because I first came across the pooka in the form of a black horse or black dog in Irish myth (I bet that's where JKR got the Grim from as well - oh damn - another HP [six foot tall] plot bunny...)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

No, the Pookha is a shape changer, though most familiar in horse or dog form, while there are masses and masses of ghostly black dogs that pressage death in English myth. I'm not sure that the first one I came across wasn't locally in Sheffield... I believe the 'Grim' is actually one of those names. Of course, now everything is smothered in Harry Potter, I shall have to resort to real text books...

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

No, actually, I won't.

See http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/folklore/black_dogs.html

And yes, the Peak District is full of them, one of which haunts the local railway tunnel we used to use as a bike dirt track.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

As inamac says, the form of pooka that I first came across is the one detailed here

http://www.irelandseye.com/paddy3/preview2.htm

where it most often appears as a horse.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

Yup, Bob loved "Harvey". In fact, sometimes I wonder if maybe Bob *was* Harvey. lol

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

And just to prove Bob *was* Harvey, the message above (unknown to me at the time) was #23 (this will have relevance to Wilsonian folk).

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Skidoo *g*