The Deranged Imagination of Douglas Adams

As I predicted, the beginning of school has given me a hunger for life again.  I am reading more, waking up earlier, talking more often and more loudly, smiling, going to bed at ten o'clock on the dot, ironing my clothes, and getting excited for tomorrow.  Annie's naive sentiment that the sun will come out tomorrow is not looking very realistic with all this rain, but yet, I am looking forward to each new day for its oppertunities to spend more time with the people I love at school.  I spent an hour today just deep in conversation with a friend who spent Christmas in Paris, London and Berlin, and it just excited me so much to hear about it.  I'm also twitching with anticipation to resume conversations with T and K.  There's something reenergising about having real living, kicking people around.   

Well, anyway, I suppose the point I just made was that I've actually been reading, and so here is an excerpt. 

Monetary Units: None.

In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count.  The Altairian dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems.  Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles long each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu.  Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change.  From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination. 

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams, (1980). 

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is just as full to bursting with witty quips as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  That, I suppose, is the thing that makes Douglas Adams appealing to me - his challenging, ridiculous logic and wit that seem to squeem with the perfect words. 

I also was recommended a couple of books, and wondered whether any of you had read them? 

Looking for Alaska by John Green

and

When God was a Rabbit, the latter being a "quite charming" book, recommended me by someone who recently read and adored Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Therefore, I'm thinking that this could be an exciting new venture for us!

Counselling for Neurotic Elevators

I'm pleased to announce that I'm delving back into Douglas Adams with his second volume in the five-part "trilogy" of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  It's a bit to hot to do anything other than lounge around reading, today, so that's exactly what I've been doing.  And this in particular tickled my fancy:

Modern elevators are strange and complex entities.  The ancient electric winch and 'maximum capacity persons' jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.

This is because they operate on the curious principal of 'defocused temporal perception'.  In other words, they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing, and making friends that people were previously forced to do whilst waiting for elevators.

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.

An impoverished hitchhiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counsellor for neurotic elevators. 

The Resutrant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, 1980.

Wrapping Up...

'You know,' said Arthur, 'it's times like this, when i'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.'

'Why, what did she tell you?'

'I don't know, I didn't listen.' 

Chapter 7, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adam's (published 1979). 

Well, I've started a new book by now, The Last Tycoon, by F. Scott Fitsgerald, and as I have stuff to share with you from it, I guess it's time that we wrapped up Hitchhiker's.  Not that it wants wrapping up.  I enjoyed it too much.  There's too much in it.  It's so choc-a-clock with gags and laughs and such sweet little moments, and metaphors that I feel that it can't possibly grow old.  How could something like this grow old?  It's a great experience, and I would urge everyone to take a couple of steps into it at least.  So much fun!

Having a plethora (now that's a word I don't often use) of DVDs at my fingertips, I decided quite promptly after finishing the book to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.  It's actually a very trusty adaption, and bears quite the same witty, blunt and comical atmosphere.  In fact, there are long sequences of dialogue which are straight from it, which was exciting!  And what stands out to me most of all, is that the things that made me nearly choke on my tongue in the book are the same things that made me splutter my tea everywhere in the movie!  But then, to their detriment and exaltation (take it which way you would rather), the same things that were a tad odd in the book remain unchanged in the movie.  Like the whole sperm whale thing.  It goes for just a bit too long to be really hilarious, and they did it exactly the same way in the film, which is lovely and considerate of them, don't you think?  It's kind of cute even.  Anyway, the movie is a good one, and Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent is great.  Here's the trailer. 

It kind of makes me want to read the whole book again!  It was exactly what I wanted and needed at the time, but over too quickly, like a really nice lolly that disolves too quickly in your mouth.  And it isn't just sweet and shallow, but rather full of quite quirky and challenging metaphors which pop up like meer cats along the narrative.  I think I'll need to do it again some time.  Actually, I know I will, because I can hardly keep my mind off it!  Uughh!  It's time to wrap it up in a nice big towel, pat it tenderly, tell it not to panic and let it float into hyperspace for a bit. 

... If only I knew where my towel was...

To Know Where One's Towel Is

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker 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 vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft 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 to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but 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: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker 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 knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking 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.)

Chapter 3, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (published 1979). 

I like the idea of being a 'really amazingly together guy'.  Sounds like it might be nice for a change.  To be a hoopy or frood.  Wouldn't that be nice? 

*    *    *    *    *

OK!  I've just come back from randomly and reminiscently swaying in my chair mumbling "wouldn't it be nice if the world was Cadbury?"  I wanted to read a lot today, but I couldn't get my eyes to focus on the letters and it was frustrating me.  So I bludged the day away.  

This afternoon, I experimented with using a microphone set and computer audio program to 'read on' and audio book.  It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time, but even after a couple of hours worth of fidgeting, I haven't been able to find a way of eliminating the horrible noise that lies over the top of the vocal recording.  When I first started I wasn't hearing it, and then all of a sudden, it was the only I can hear, and I can't get rid of it.  Hmm.  I know it's all terribly unproffesional, but I would still like to be able to produce a plausibe sort of result.  Maybe I just need to do it differently, but I'm not at all well up to know in programs and equipment of this sort.  This initial failure is accompanying a general mood of 'what the hey?' and 'I'm bored'.  I just don't know where my towel is today. 

Confession and Illusion

I have a confession to make.  I finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I actually finished it two days ago.  I actually finished it the same day I started it!

Oh the horror!  I swear, I'm not usually like this!  You've obviously seen how I can spend long months on a book.  And for some reason I felt gluttonous because I ate it up so quickly.  I felt guilty. 

But I see now that I had no need to.  I had the time on my hands, I had a nice warm bed and lots of cups of tea, and I was earnestly and deeply enjoying it.  I had no need to stop.  I just kept on reading and enjoying it.  I should be proud of myself for the self-care.  Trust human nature to try and guilt trip me for self-care.  Hmmph!! 

Anyway, I had enough things written down to keep on talking about Hitchhiker's for days, so I intend to.  I'm sure you won't mind, because they are very good little tidbits.  Listen to this little snippet!  I think you'll catch up on the context. 

'Listen!'

'But I can't speak Vogon!'

'You don't need to.  Just put this fish in your ear.'
Ford, with a lightning movement, clapped his hand to Arthur's ear, and he had the sudden sickening sensation of the fish slithering deep into his aural tract.  Gasping with horror he scrabbled at his ear for a second or so, but then slowly turned goggle-eyes with wonder.  He was experiencing the aural equivalent of looking a picture of two black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a picture of a white candlestick.  Or of looking at a lot of coloured dots on a piece of paper which suddenly resolve themselves into the figure six and mean that your optician is going to charge you a lot of money for a new pair of glasses.
He was still listening to the howling gargles, he knew that, only now it had somehow taken on the semblance of perfectly straighforward English. 


Chapter 5, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (published 1979). 
This little passage was a bit of a a-ha moment for me.  I am personally familiar with the image of the silhouetted faces and the candlestick, but it's something like this. 

 

This optical illusion, developed around 1915, was designed by the Danish psychologist, Edgar Rubin.  It is known mostly as Rubin's Vase.  The point is that all of a sudden you will see it the other way round.  You begin seeing it one way, and enough time or concentration or lack of concentration will suddenly render it an entirely new image, revealing the other side to it.  It's a very popular well known illusion.  But the thing I love about this all, is that in Douglas Adams' reference to this illusion, he is making such a great point.  I immediately know exactly what he means.  Don't you?  That sudden switch in perspective?  It's brilliant.  It's such a brilliant little snack, this book is.  I do love it. 

Ode To A Lump of Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning

Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe.  The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria.  During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatuelent of his poem 'Ode To A Small Lump of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning', four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his legs off.  Grunthos is reported to have been 'disappointed' by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on reading his twelve-book epic My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles when his major intenstine, in a desperate attempt to safe life and civilisation, leapt up through his neck and throttled his brain. 

The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in the destruction of the planet Earth. 

Chapter 7,The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (published 1979). 

The thing I love about Hitchhiker is that it is written in such a way that certain words jump out at you and surprise you so you can't stop laughing.  Like in this excerpt, the choice of the word 'intenstine' rather than some other organ makes the picture twice as ridiculous in my mind.  It really does crack me up!  And then that the audience died of internal haemorrhaging of all things justs suits perfectly the occasion, don't you think?  His wording is part of his wit.

Ps. This post is to make up for what I didn't say last night, so you might even like to expect another one following close on its heels tonight.  Take care. 

Don't Panic!!

I know this is probably a lot to swallow in one go but in reality it's only a page and a half's worth from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I tried to make it smaller but it's so brilliantly effective, ironic, meaningful and hilarious in its entirity.  When you finish it I will tell you what I think about the book so far.  I can tell it's going to be a popular one, this one. 

'The Babel fish,' said The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, 'is small, yellow, and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe.  If feeds on brainwave energy received not from its carrier but from those around it.  It absorbs all unconcious mental frequencies from this brain-wave energy to nourish itself with.  It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them.  the practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any  form of language...

'Notw it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidences that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existense of God. 

'The arguement goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

'"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it?  It could not have evolved by chance.  It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguements, you don't.  QED." 

'"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. 

'"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove black is white and gets himself killed on the enxt zebra crossing. 

'Most leading theologians claim that this arguement is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

'Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers of communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.' 

Chapter 6, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (published 1979). 

Alright, well, firstly, I feel that my exam went pretty well, so thankyou for your 'break-a-leg' attitude.  It was appreciated, even though I only recieved your wished luck afterwards.  I remembered everything that I needed to remember, and as it was a response-to-stimulus essay exam, I'm content to report that the essay itself flowed satisfactorily.  Isn't 'satisfactorily' a kind of hefty and difficult word to say right off the top of your head?  It's like 'familiarly'.  I really need to consider it a little before I say it.  And even then, I'm not a hundred per cent sure whether I've done it justice.  It's a handy word, though. 

OK.  So, onto business.  I rushed home after the exam, set my electric blanket on three to heat up, ate a museli bar, made a cup of tea and took the stairs two at a time to leap into bed, snuggle and begin The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

I am very reportedly and unashamedly NOT a modern book person.  I imagine I've probably said that a couple of times before.  I read classics.  But Hitchhiker kind of falls into a weird category, where it's new but still acceptable.  Hmmmm.  Really I'm just making an exception.  1979 or whatever... that's not too bad.

Well, I have toiled away pretty well undistractedly since I got home and as it's really only quite a small book, I am actually more than half way through it, which isn't such a common occurance for me.  Usually I spend a month, perchance two months etcetera.  So sitting, reading aloud, laughing and giggling, and actually making progress has been a great change and pleasure for me.  I have been really enjoying it, and for a little bit of something sweet to slip in between main courses, it is just the thing. 

It is so different to the normal style of books I read.  For one thing, people like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins are terrible solemn most of the time, but every now and again snap out of it to offer up a little gem of comic relief, which takes the acquired taste of a Dickens or Collins reader to appreciate.  But Hitchhiker is nearly exhausting, in comparison, because so much is funny!  It's a great comedy, but comedy with a really good point.  You laugh, but you laugh because it is so true - it's humour of irony and sarcasm, and also, most significantly, it's humour of the wrong thing at the wrong time being just SO right, that you almost die laughing!  It has been such a joy so far!  I think that this has been a much needed change of scenery...  or galaxy, I suppose, more specifically. 

DON'T PANIC!!