A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has a 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: nonhichhiker) 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., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily 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 hichhiking 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.)Classic.
I am very fond of the Hichhiker's books, and I miss Douglas Adams. I plan to celebrate Towel Day on the Thursday. Maybe I'll post pics on my photoblog.
Any other fans out there?
*copyright © 1979 by Douglas Adams
5 comments:
Great books.... Shame about the movie.
Though I do have a 're-imaged' Marvin on my desk... [grin].
Shame about the movie ... LOL I totally agree. I've spoken to a few who liked the movie a lot, but they never read the books.
The re-imagined Marvin was cool, but they over-emphasized his head. "Brain as big as a planet," yes, but only figuratively so!
Overall, I disliked the movie intensely. The characters were actually fairly well done though. I didn't like how Zaphod's second "head" was represented.
I only watched the movie once. I've been known to change my opinion of a movie upon a second viewing.
The movie made my 'Ten Worst' - save your money & try to bury the memory.
New Marvin was cool (though maybe a little *too* re-imaged) but he certainly wasn't depressed enough for my liking... and don't get me started on 'Ford' - he was APPALING.
I actually prefered the new Trillian to the original BBC version though..
The movie storyline was truely dire. Unfortunately this conversation has brought it all back. I just hope that I can make it to the bathroom in time...
great books - read many, many times. Great man too, plenty of good quotes;-)
I was not impressed with the film, although Aggie liked it! Apparently Adams himself was very pleased with Marvin & Zaphod's head (He was actively involved in the film before he died), but I much prefered the BBC series.
I'm sure Adams wasn't concerned about sticking close to the book, so long as the story line was a good one. I think there were some good ideas in the movie that weren't developed well. I felt that the movie couldn't make up it's mind about whether it wanted to stand on its own or be like the book, and so it failed to do either very well.
Hard to believe it's been over a year since the film's release. Check out my review and pictures from last year!
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