Douglas Adams Towel Day

No one know for certain when or what 'Towel Day" is anymore than we know why H2G2 stands for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this sort of fuzzy logic seem to follow Douglas Adams career and now, that he is gone, it carries on after his death maybe even more so. So in this whimsical fashion is that May 25 has been unofficially declared "Towel Day" as a memorial to Douglas Adams. Lots of people will be celebrating that day by wearing a towel or a Hitchhiker's Guide quote on their t-shirt, I suggest you celebrate it by giving away free copies of Douglas Adams books.

Author, Douglas Adams, is best known for his trilogy: "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", "The Restaurant at The End of The Universe", "Life, The Universe and Everything Else", "So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish", concluding with "Mostly Harmless". That is five books, you say. Good you can count. The story began on an ordinary day when Arthur Dent was mysteriously saved at the moment earth was destroyed to make way for an Intergalactic superhighway. With the help of his earth/alien friend, Ford Perfect, he began hitchhiking around the galaxy. The trilogy, which began as a BBC radio broadcast, is not your typical somber Science Fiction. British born Adams has a wacky sense of humor. You either get it or you do not and his fans get it.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Quote

"What a depressingly stupid machine," said Marvin and trudged away".

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Fine Art-"The Whale"

This frame presents us with an interesting representation of the philosophical whale, depicting some fascinating secret code in the text. I am particularly proud of this posession. The whale is of course my favorite bit from the original Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio broadcast. You can see "The Whale" art here, as well as other related Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy art HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE Whale Art

And here is the appropiate excert from H2G2 for your enjoyment:

"Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.

This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah ... ! What's happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I?

Hello?

Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?

What do I mean by who am I?

Calm down, get a grip now ... oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It's a sort of ... yawning, tingling sensation in my ... my ... well I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what's about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that ... wind! Is that a good name? It'll do ... perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What's this thing? This ... let's call it a tail - yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can't I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn't seem to achieve very much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now - have I built up any coherent picture of things yet?

No.

Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with anticipation ...

Or is it the wind?

There really is a lot of that now isn't it?

And wow! Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ... ow ... ound ... round ... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground!

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now. "

-Douglas Adams/The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hitchikkers Guide to the Galaxy




Introduction

The books are described as "a trilogy in five parts", after having been described as a trilogy on the release of the third book, and then a "trilogy in four parts" on the release of the fourth book. They have a wide following around the world, thanks to their outlandish situations, characters and concepts (eg. Babel fish, Vogon poetry, Slartibartfast and other minor characters, The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything), their anarchic, ironic humour, and their subtle social commentary.

The series was originally going to be called 'The Ends of the Earth' and each episode would end with the Earth being destroyed in a different way each week but this idea was scrapped and the Hitchhiker's Guide was born.

The title The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is often abbreviated as "HHG", "HHGG", "HHGTTG" or "H2G2".

Note on spelling: Unfortunately, the different editions of the Hitchhiker's Guide spell it differently -- thus "Hitch-Hiker's Guide", "Hitch Hiker's Guide" and "Hitchhiker's Guide" are used in different editions (US or UK), versions (audio or text) and compilations of the book. For the sake of coherence, Wikipedia spells it Hitchhiker's Guide, which is reportedly the way author Adams himself preferred it.