Meet Douglas Adams
IGN is hosting an amusing and entertaining look at Douglas Adams, author of the famed Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The article features descriptions of Douglas from friends and professional acquaintences.My personal favorite is this story from Monty Python alum Terry Jones.
I was lucky enough to buy two tickets for the first ever screening of Abel Gance's Napoleon in Kevin Brownlow's restored version. I don't know why I bought the tickets, because I'd never heard of either the film nor Abel Gance, however the idea of a five-hour silent film with a final sequence that prefigured Cinerama with three screens interlocking sounded pretty intriguing.
However, when the day of the screening came (a Sunday), I had a hangover and so did my wife. She decided she didn't feel up to sitting in the cinema watching a silent movie from 10.00am until 5.00pm. So I rang Michael Palin. He said he had a hangover and didn't fancy the idea of sitting in the cinema watching a silent movie from 10.00am until 5.00pm. So I rang up Douglas. He said he had a hangover and didn't fancy the idea of sitting in the cinema watching a silent movie from 10.00am until 5.00pm.
So I gave up, and decided that since I'd bought the tickets, hungover or not, I'd have to go on my own.
Just as I was leaving the house, however, the phone rang. It was Douglas. He said he'd been thinking about it, and the idea of sitting in the cinema watching a silent movie from 10.00am to 5.00pm sounded so dreadful that he just had to do it to see if it was as dreadful as it seemed.
So that's what happened. Douglas and I met up, thinking we'd give the middle of the film a miss, but instead finding ourselves riveted and at each interval impatient to get back into the film. It was, in short, one of the cinematic events of my life.
But for me the interesting thing was Douglas's fearless curiosity. He came precisely because it sounded like such a bad idea! That really was Douglas.
As a huge fan of the books, it is wonderful to know that DA's sense of humor apparently permeated his whole life. I hope someone can tell a great story like this about me some day when I go.
posted by Paul at
5:40 PM
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