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All of you who are excited as I am about The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Movie coming out next weekend are probably excited because you're already fans of Douglas Adams' work. He's one of my favorite fiction authors, namely because of his ability to poke fun at the human condition and, well, life, the universe, and everything.
There's an interview in this week's Living On Earth with Robbie Stamp, a close friend of the late Douglas Adams and executive producer of the new film. He talks about something that is rarely discussed about Adams in comparison to his humor and fiction. Adams was a hard core conservationist. Stamp discusses the underlying environmental messages in the Hitchhiker's Guide series and Adams' book on endangered species called Last Chance To See.
Stamp mentions that Douglas once did a publicity stunt in Kenya for Save The Rhino by walking around Mt. Kilimanjaro in a Rhino costume. A bit from the book as read by Stamp:After a quiet interval had passed, I carefully pulled the pink writing paper out of my bag and started to make the notes that I am writing from at the moment. This seemed to interest him a little more. I suppose he'd never seen pink writing paper before. His eyes followed as my hand squiggled across the paper and after a while he reached out and touched first the paper and then the top of my ball-point pen, not to take it away from me or even to interrupt me, just to see what it was and what it felt like. I felt very moved by this and had a foolish impulse to want to show him my camera as well. He retreated a little and laid down again about four feet from me with his fist once more propped under his chin. The most disconcerting intelligence seemed to be apparent from the sidelong glances he would give me, prompted not by any particular move I'd made but apparently by a thought that had struck him. I began to feel how patronizing it was of us to presume to judge their intelligence as if ours was any kind of standard by which to measure. I tried to imagine, instead, how he saw us, but, of course, that's almost impossible to do because the assumptions you end up making as you try to bridge the imaginative gap are, of course, your own. And, the most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making. But somehow, in the genetic history that we each carry deep within every cell in our body, was a deep connection with this creature as inaccessible now as last year's dreams, but, like last year's dreams, always invisibly and unfathomably present. There's a passage from one of the books that really hit home when I first read it, mainly because it reminded me so much of the kind of stuff Daniel Quinn writes in Ishmael and his other books. Adams uses the same metaphor I've used for the current situation of the world, only he does it much better than I ever have. I don't know if many people actually get this metaphor when they read the passage... I hope they do. I'm going to post the whole thing, even though it's long, because... well... because it's my website god dammit and I do what I want!
The longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth generation, and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at his watch, but that was eleven years ago, and there has been no follow-up. The mess is extraordinary, and has to be seen to be believed, but if you don't have any particular need to believe it, then don't go and look, because you won't enjoy it. There have recently been some bangs and flashes up in the clouds, and there is one theory that this is a battle being fought between the fleets of several rival carpet-cleaning companies who are hovering over the thing like vultures, but you shouldn't believe anything you hear at parties, and particularly not anything you hear at this one.
One of the problems, and it's one which is obviously going to get worse, is that all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn't leave in the first place, and because of all the business about selective breeding and regressive genes and so on, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical partygoers, or gibbering idiots, or, more and more frequently, both. Either way, it means that, genetically speaking, each succeeding generation is now less likely to leave than the preceding one. So other factors come into operation, like when the drink is going to run out. Now, because of certain things which have happened which seemed like a good idea at the time (and one of the problems with a party which never stops is that all the things which only seem like a good idea at parties continue to seem like good ideas), that point seems still to be a long way off.
One of the things which seemed like a good idea at the time was that the party should fly - not in the normal sense that parties are meant to fly, but literally. One night, long ago, a band of drunken astro-engineers of the first generation clambered round the building digging this, fixing that, banging very hard on the other and when the sun rose the following morning, it was startled to find itself shining on a building full of happy drunken people which was now floating like a young and uncertain bird over the treetops. Not only that, but the flying party had also managed to arm itself rather heavily. If they were going to get involved in any petty arguments with wine merchants, they wanted to make sure they had might on their side.
The transition from full-time cocktail party to part-time raiding party came with ease, and did much to add that extra bit of zest and swing to the whole affair which was badly needed at this point because of the enormous number of times that the band had already played all the numbers it knew over the years. They looted, they raided, they held whole cities for ransom for fresh supplies of cheese crackers, avocado dip, spare ribs and wine and spirits, which would now get piped aboard from floating tankers. The problem of when the drink is going to run out is, however, going to have to be faced one day. The planet over which they are floating is no longer the planet it was when they first started floating over it. It is in bad shape. The party had attacked and raided an awful lot of it, and no one has ever succeeded in hitting it back because of the erratic and unpredictable way in which it lurches round the sky. It is one hell of a party.
I would recommend listening to the interview, going to see the movie next weekend, reading all of Douglas Adams' books and listening to all the Hitchhiker's Guide radio shows, and realizing that Adams was a man who, had he not died far before his time, would be an outspoken member of the world community right now.
Also, don't ever forget your towel.
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