Douglas Adams also wrote a number of other books such as Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul The Meaning of Liff The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book and Last Chance to See… Today we celebrate him and all of his work, but especially The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and do so by carrying a towel.
The series has been adapted to television, theater, film, comics, and even to a computer game.
In total, the books have sold over 14 million copies. It follows Englishman Arthur Dent in a world of absurdity and randomness and is filled with humor and cynicism. The series parodies and lampoons modern society. It was followed by the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1979, and then four other novels: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Life, the Universe and Everything So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless. He wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, which was a 12-part series that ran from 1978 through 1980 on BBC radio. After graduating from Cambridge in 1974, he wrote for Doctor Who and wrote scripts for the BBC. 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.ĭouglas Adams was born March 11, 1952, in Cambridge, England. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker 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.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological 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 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 (such 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. The day then became an annual event.īut what do towels have to do with anything? Chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy talks about the significance of towels:Ī towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Wrap it around your head, use it as a weapon, soak it in nutrients- whatever you want!Ī few days after the post, Chris Campbell registered to spread word about the day. Make sure that the towel is conspicous-use it as a talking point to encourage those who have never read the Hitchhiker's Guide to go pick up a copy. Williamson made a post on the open source forum "System Toolbox," proposing that May 25 should be Towel Day. On the day, fans are to carry a towel to show their appreciation for the author and his books.
The day was first held on May 25, 2001, two weeks after Adams passed away on May 11, at the age of 49 from a heart attack. Towel Day celebrates author Douglas Adams and his best-known work, the science-fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.