Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:
So. First book on my “adult fiction” shelf is Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Here’s an excerpt. This one is for my good friend Emily – who flew to New York City to see the premiere of Hitchhiker’s Guide – and a huge group of us all convened … all bloggers from the tri-state area (and Emily) … and it was SUCH a fun night. I am posting this, too, because dear Emily brought a towel to the movie theatre, and laid it on her lap. She’s die-hard, man.
Excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
On this particular Thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings, huge as office blocks, silent as birds. They soared with ease, basking in electromagnetic rays from the star Sol, biding their time, grouping, preparing,
The planet beneath them was almost perfectly oblivious of their presence, which was just how they wanted it for th emoment. The huge yellow something went unnoticed at Goonhilly, they passed over Cape Canaveral without a blip, Woomera and Jodrell Bank looked straight through them, which was a pity because it was exactly the sort of thing they’d been looking for all these years,
The only place they registered at all was on a small black device called a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic which winked away quietly to itself. It nestled in the darkness inside a leather satchel which Ford Prefect habitually wore slung around his neck. The contents of Ford Prefect’s satchel were quiet interesting in fact and would have made any Earth physicist’s eyes pop out of his head, which is why he always concealed them by keeping a couple of dogeared scripts for plays he pretended he was auditioning for stuffed in the top. Besides the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic and the scripts he had an Electronic Thumb – a short squat black rod, smooth and matt with a couple of flat switches and dials at one end; he also had a device that looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million “pages” could be summoned at a moment’s notice. It looked insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words DON’T PANIC printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in,
Beneath that in Ford Prefect’s satchel were a few ballpoints, a notepad and a largish bath towel from Marks and Spencer.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit, etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happiily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)
Nestling quietly on top of the towel in Ford Prefect’s satchel, the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic began to wink more quickly. Miles above the surface of the planet the huge yellow somethings began to fan out. At Jodrell Bank, someone decided it was time for a nice relaxing cup of tea.
my friends and i brought towels are first time, too. there were way too many people giving us strange looks, i wanted to berate each one personally for not reading the book[s]…
Gaaah, I remember reading the trilogy in college. Laughed so hard I pulled muscles. Can’t wait to hand ’em down to my kids!
I brought a towel. I don’t remember if people looked askance, since I never pay attention to peoples’ askancement…
And thanks to Bill, along with that towel, I was also carrying around a stuffed Jar Jar Binks all night. He behaved very well in the theater after I smooshed him in the cup holder. That *was* a lot of fun.
Yeah, I wasn’t too worried about people looking at me funny because of the towel, either. Like that’s the weirdest thing they’d seen in Manhattan on that day alone.
I love that so many people brought towels.
And I forgot about Jar Jar!! hahahahahahaha
“He behaved very well in the theater after I smooshed him in the cup holder.”
I should point out here just to be clear that by “he” in that sentence, I meant Jar Jar, not Bill.
I fell into the net community because of H2G2. Being a long-time fan myself, after seeing the movie, I had to find a place to vent. That place is Douglas Adams Continuum where I met Emily. And through her found myself here and other blogs. Then I get the bug myself.
All because of Douglas Adams, I tell you.
Cullen – I didn’t know that! That’s cool!
It’s kind of appropriate, considering DNA was one of the first and fiercest defenders of the internet as a genuinely useful resource while a lot of people were crying foul about the “dangers” of it erasing culture and that kind of BS.
It is kind of appropriate.
These are some of my favorite books. I’ve played the text adventure game (over the phone with my friend… nothing like it! She had the screen, we both had encylopaedic knowlege of the books…).
But, my best memory is a few years ago. I was at a Apple Developers Conference. He gave part of the Keynote Address. He was funny, pointed, and amazing. There is something about being in the same room as him that will remain one of my favorite memories.
I swear to you I have made friends by responding to the dilemma of a new aquantance by saying, “42… Now we just need to know the question.”
Those “in the know” just light up. More than one man has declared his undying love for me on the spot. Funny how warmly recieved the news of a fellow Adams fan is. Love the books. Also love that you HAD to put up a quote, Sheila, because I have often stopped trying to explain my fondness for these books and just went poking around my bookshelf to retrieve a copy and made someone listen to a paragraph or two. Because a lot of people who would NEVER read a book with robots and spaceships and aliens end up LOVING the books when I show them that it’s really about the absurdity of the universe. And finding a good cup of tea. And digital watches.
Jar Jar held up pretty well that night, all things considered.
Oh my God – that photo. The blog-post title … I am crying with laughter!!
I’m feeling my hangover coming back!
Bingley – I just looked thru the comments to that old post of yours – and that OTHER photo of Jar Jar is giving me a conniption fit – the one of him hanging upside down at Chumleys. I’m dying!!!
With the cover of Ginsberg’s “Howl” in the background … I am crying!
Sheila,
Do you remember – we were all absolutely repulsed at the prospect of dining with Jar Jar. I can’t remember whose idea it was to stick him there, but that’s where he stayed until we left.
hahahaha I know – it was like we were ANGRY with an innocent stuffed animal. hahahaha
Last October I ended up buying around forty towels for a group of eighth graders because they needed one at an overnight Civil War Adventure Camp. Not one brought a towel although it was listed as something they needed to pack.
However, no one wanted to pack their wet towels for their trip back home to Anchorage, and I ended up ‘schlepping’ all of them back to my apartment!
Obviously, none of them have read the book or they would have known to be prepared. Pity.
But I now have a collection of Martha Stewart towels in assorted colors to choose from when I go out on tour. This week it’s one of the rust-colored ones!
so long, and thanks for all the fish!
Did Bill and I remember to tell you guys how the staff at Chumleys sprayed something like 4 cans of Raid in that booth area where we sat before y’all got there? At first we were a little put off by the prospect of sitting there and eating, but then we bought eachother a round and got over it rather quickly.