Douglas Adams Towel Day. Why does Arthur Dent need to bring a towel in the form of the film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Happy international towel day

With it, you can demonstrate the strange behavior of water in zero gravity...

And in general - do not panic! It's a story about a book, a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an absolutely wonderful book.

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti reads (in English) lines from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams in honor of Towel Day from the Columbus European Laboratory Module on the ISS. In this book, several lines are given to the towel. It says that a towel is an extremely important and useful thing for an interstellar traveler.

To all the frouds from the safest planet called Earth - Happy Towel Day!

Towel Day is celebrated on May 25 each year as a tribute to the late author of this work, Douglas Adams. On this day, fans of his talent throughout the universe proudly wear towels in his honor.

@AstroSamantha

Subtitles
From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams:

“... this is a story about a book. About a book called "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A Free Wanderer's Guide", commonly referred to simply as "The Guide" - a book written not on Earth, never published on Earth and unknown to any earthling before the catastrophe. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book.

Perhaps this is the most remarkable of all publications of the grandiose "Publishing Corporation of Ursa Minor", also unknown to any earthling.

The book is in great demand, leaving far behind the "Interstellar collection of advice on home economics"; sells out much faster than "53 More Ways to Pass the Time in Zero Gravity", and causes even more controversy and discussion than the philosophical trilogy "Where the Lord went astray", "The main mistakes of the Lord God" and "Who is he after all, Is this the Lord God?

In the enlightened and relaxed civilizations of the Outer Eastern Ring of the Galaxy, the Guide has supplanted even the great Great Galactic Encyclopedia as a universally recognized storehouse of wisdom and knowledge. For, despite the abundance of omissions and blatantly distorted, and even simply apocryphal information, the Guide has two major advantages over the Encyclopedia.

First, it's cheaper. Secondly, on the title page in large letters are the sacramental words: "NO PANIC!".

“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says the following about towels.

A towel, it says, is perhaps the most useful of all the exceptionally useful things an interstellar traveler (hiker, in their own jargon) might need. First, it has a wide practical application. A towel can be wrapped around for warmth as you cross the cold expanses of the Jaglan Betan moons; on a towel you can bask on the shining marble sands of the beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the intoxicating aromas of the sea; you can cover yourself with a towel while sleeping under the red stars of the desert world of Kakrafun; a towel can be used as a sail while rafting down the slow, sleepy river called the Mole; it can be wetted and used in hand-to-hand combat; or wrap it around your head to protect yourself from poisonous fumes or from the gaze of the bloodthirsty beastbug from Traal (a mind-blowingly stupid animal, it believes that if you do not see it, then it does not see you - stupid as a cork, but very, very voracious) ; in case of danger, a towel can give an SOS signal, and of course, you can dry yourself with a towel if it is still clean enough.

More importantly, the towel is an invaluable psychological factor. For reasons that have not yet been clarified, strugs (a strug is not a hiker), when they see that a hiker has a towel with him, automatically assume that he also has a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, a pack of cookies, a flask, a compass, a map, a coil of rope , insect spray, diving suit, space suit, etc. etc. Therefore, the guards do not hesitate to supply the hiker with any of the listed or other necessary accidentally "lost" items. The Guardians in this case argue as follows: a person who traveled the Galaxy up and down, endured hardships and inconveniences, spent the night the devil knows where, overcame the insurmountable, finally overcame it and at the same time managed not to forget where he had a towel - this is without a doubt a man who can be trusted."

Towel Day is celebrated every year on May 25th as a memorial day for the famous British writer, author of humorous science fiction, Douglas Adams*. This day was first celebrated in 2001, two weeks after his death on 11 May. On this day, fans of his work carry a towel with them.

In his novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams described the towel as an indispensable item for a hitchhiker.

The Guide devotes an entire chapter to towels. “Towel,” it says there, “is perhaps the most necessary item in the everyday life of a tourist. In many ways, its value is determined by practice: you can wrap yourself in it when traveling through the cold moons of Beta Jaglan; you can cover yourself with them like a blanket, sleeping under the stars that pour red light on the desert planet Kakrafun; it is comfortable to lie on the sandy beaches of Santraginus, enjoying the heady aromas of the sea; it is convenient to use as a raft, going down the slow, heavy waters of the Moth River; you can wave it around for distress signals, or you can wet it for hand-to-hand combat, or wrap it around your head so as not to inhale poisonous gases or avoid the gaze of the Bloodthirsty Animal from Traal (a strikingly stupid creature that believes that since you cannot see it, then and she does not see you; extremely stupid, but extremely bloodthirsty); well, after all, you are quite capable of drying yourself with it, if, of course, the towel is clean enough. Much more important, however, is the psychological significance of the towel. For inexplicable reasons, when a non-tourist (non-tourist) finds out that a tourist has a towel with him, he automatically assumes the presence of toothpaste, a flask, a compass, a skein of twine, a raincoat, a space suit, etc. etc. Moreover, the Nechok will gladly lend to the tourist any of the named or unnamed items “lost” along the way. In the eyes of a non-Chok, a man who has traveled the length and breadth of the galaxy, endured the worst adversity, with honor came out of desperate situations and kept his towel, certainly deserves the greatest respect.

Other possible dates are February 11 (the 42nd day of the year), March 11 (Adams' birthday), April 2 (4/2 using the American date system) or February 4 (4/2 by the British date system), May 11 (the day Adams died), June 22 (the 42nd day after his death) and October 18 (the 42nd Thursday of the year of his death).

The advent of the holiday

Towel Day began with a post titled "Towel Day: A Tribute to Douglas Adams" posted on May 14, 2001 on Binary Freedom, a short-lived open source forum.

<…>Douglas Adams will be missed by all his fans around the world. So that all fans can pay tribute to his genius, I propose to celebrate the day two weeks after his death (May 25, 2001) as “Towel Day”. All Douglas Adams fans are encouraged to bring a towel with them on this day.

Keep the towel in plain sight - use it as a talking point so that those who have never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy go and find themselves a copy. A towel can be wrapped around your head, used as a weapon, soaked in nutrients - anything!<…>

Information about * Adams

Douglas Noel Adams (Eng. Douglas No? l Adams; March 11, 1952, Cambridge - May 11, 2001, Santa Barbara, California) - English writer, playwright and screenwriter, author of humorous fantasy works. He was one of the lead writers for the Fourth Doctor on Doctor Who.

Biography

Douglas Niles Adams was born in March 1952 in Cambridge. He graduated from high school in Brentwood. He studied at college, in 1974 he received a bachelor's degree, and later - a master's degree. He specialized in English literature.

In March 1978, his four-episode production The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started on BBC radio, which literally made him famous. She was nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1979 but lost to Superman. Nevertheless, she received the "Imperial Tobacco Award" (1978), "Sony Award" (1979), "Best Program for Young People" (1980).

Some time later, Douglas Adams released a book of the same name, which was a phenomenal success and topped the list of English bestsellers in 1984. Douglas Adams became the youngest writer to receive the Golden Pan (an award given for 1,000,000 books sold).

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the few books that are written in the genre of humorous fiction, and written really masterfully. The protagonist of the series is an earthling, Arthur Dent, who, in a strange irony, works as a correspondent for the BBC. For him (and for the readers), the book starts on a Thursday, but Arthur's Thursdays are a mess - so first his house is torn down to build some stupid highway, then his planet is destroyed to build an equally stupid hyperspace route, and then Arthur finds himself among the dirty laundry in the pantry of one of the Vogon ships (the Vogons are the very entities that destroyed the Earth). A significant role in the adventures of Arthur is played by Ford Prefect, who saves Arthur from death during the destruction of the planet. Ford is hitchhiking the Galaxy, and that explains a lot.

Adams later wrote sequels The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) and Life, The Universe and Everything (1982) .

In 1982, Adams's books were included in the New York Times bestellers list and Publishers' Weekly bestsellers list - the first time since the days of Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond) that an English writer manages to achieve such success in the United States.

That same year, his first two books are adapted into a six-episode television production that wins awards for Best TV Graphics, Best VTR Editing, and Best Sound.

In 1984, the fourth book in the series, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984), was published.

In 1984, Adams began working with Infocom, which at that time was the "king" of the adventure game genre, and was directly involved in the development of the interactive fiction text quest "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy". The game has received an award from Thames TV and is considered by many to be the best sci-fi or humorous (depending on the point of view) Infocom game. Adams' cooperation with Infocom did not end there, a little later he wrote another humorous adventure game - "Bureaucracy". He was one of the lead writers for the Fourth Doctor on Doctor Who.

In 1984, Douglas Adams, together with Jhon Lloud, wrote the non-fiction book Meaning of Liff. The book is also a success and later - in 1990 a sequel - "The Deeper Meaning of Liff" - is released.

In 1987, Adams tried his hand at a slightly different genre and released the book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently's Detective Agency). This is a strange mixture of mysticism, detective, humor and everything else. Unfortunately, many underestimated her. However, a year later, a sequel is released - “Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul” (“Long Tea Party”).

In 1990, Adams, together with the zoologist Mark Carwardine, published Last Chance to See, a book about rare and endangered species of animals.

In 1991, the audiobook "HHGG" was nominated for "Best Spoken Word Recording" at the prestigious Grammy Awards.

A year later, Adams wrote the final, fifth book of the Guide - "Mostly Harmless" ("Mostly Harmless").

In 1993, the video "Making Of HHGG" was nominated for "Best Documentary" in the Video Home Entertainment Awards.

In 1996, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was ranked #24 on Waterstone's Books/Channel Four's "One Hundred Greatest Books of the Century" list.

In 1998, Adams founded The Digital Village, a company that released the Starship Titanic quest computer game that same year.

In the last years of his life, Douglas Adams was writing a new novel and helping Disney make the feature film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He said about this: “Yes, I know that Disney made Bambi, but do not forget that he also made The Terminator. I hope that The Guide... will be somewhere between these two films...”.

Douglas Adams died at the age of 49 at his home in Santa Barbara from a heart attack on May 11, 2001.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

The most famous work, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (one of the translations is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), first appeared in 1978 as a radio show on the BBC. Later came the literary "trilogy in five parts":

1979 - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

1980 - "Restaurant" End of the Universe "" / The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe;

1982 - "Life, the Universe and everything else" / Life, The Universe And Everything;

1984 - "All the best, and thanks for the fish!" / So Long And Thanks For All The Fish;

1992 - “Mostly harmless” / Mostly Harmless.

Dirk Gently Series

1987 - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency;

1988 - The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul;

2002 - Salmon of Doubt / The Salmon of Doubt (last unfinished novel).

Other works

1984 - The meaning of life / The Meaning Of Liff (co-authored with John Lloyd);

1990 - You won't see them again / Last Chance To See (co-authored with Mark Carwardine);

1990 - The Deeper Meaning Of Liff (co-authored with John Lloyd).

Screen adaptations

2005 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

According to Wikipedia

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is Douglas Adams' cult book series and one of the finest pieces of humorous fiction from Cyrano de Bergerac's "States and Empires" of the Sun and Moon to the present day. Books, as befitting cult works, have spawned several memes that are easy to find both online and offline.

(Log in to clean up the page.)

42

42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and all that from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the first in the series. The number has become a meme offline, and is also highly visible online. In the book, the inhabitants of a distant planet built a giant supercomputer that would answer the main question. The computer, after a long time, figured out the answer, but no one knew the question itself. The meme is very noticeable offline. For example, the Allen Telescope Array or ATA is a radio telescope built from satellite antennas and consists of forty-two dishes. In Lost, 42 is the last of the numbers in the fatal sequence by which the Dude won the lottery. The names of companies, studios, as well as references in literature, cinema and games are innumerable. An extensive but far from complete list of allusions can be found at Lurkmore.

- Forty two! screeched Lunkquool. “Is that all you can say after seven and a half million years of work?”
“I checked everything very carefully,” the computer said, “and I can state with all certainty that this is the answer. It seems to me that if we are to be absolutely honest with you, then the whole point is that you yourself did not know what the question was.
But this is a great question! The ultimate question of life, the universe and all that! Lunkkuool almost howled.
“Yes,” said the computer in the voice of a sufferer, enlightening a complete fool. “And what is that question?”

Google Calculator knows this!

Philosoraptor thinks about what happens when .

Towel and "Don't Panic!"

Two of the most memorable and universal pieces of advice from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which accompanies heroes on all journeys: "Don't panic!" and "Don't forget to bring a towel." The towel is the most versatile item that can help the space hitchhiker in a huge number of seemingly hopeless situations. International Towel Day - aka Douglas Adams Memorial Day - is celebrated annually on May 25th.

A towel is perhaps the most necessary item in the everyday life of a tourist. In many ways, its value is determined by practice: you can wrap yourself in it when traveling through the cold moons of Beta Jaglan; they can be covered like a blanket, sleeping under the stars that pour red light on the desert planet Kakrafun; it is comfortable to lie on the sandy beaches of Santraginus, enjoying the heady aromas of the sea; it is convenient to use it as a raft, going down the slow, heavy waters of the Moth River; you can wave it around for distress signals, or you can wet it for hand-to-hand combat, or wrap it around your head so as not to inhale poisonous gases or avoid the gaze of the Bloodthirsty Animal from Traal (a strikingly stupid creature that believes that since you cannot see it, then and she does not see you; extremely stupid, but extremely bloodthirsty); well, after all, you are quite capable of drying yourself with it, if, of course, the towel is clean enough. Much more important, however, is the psychological significance of the towel. For inexplicable reasons, when a strug (not a hitchhiker) learns that a hitchhiker has a towel with him, he automatically assumes the presence of toothpaste, a flask, a compass, a skein of string, a raincoat, a spacesuit, etc., etc. Moreover, the strug will gladly lend to the tourist any of the named or unnamed items “lost” along the way. In the eyes of the Strag, a man who traveled the length and breadth of the Galaxy, endured the hardest adversity, with honor came out of desperate situations and kept his towel, certainly deserves the greatest respect.

If you're planning an epic journey, you don't need thirteen dwarves and a mage. All you need is a towel!

Paranoid android Marvin

A highly intelligent robot is suffering... Why would he suffer? Enjoys chronic depression. Marvin is a storehouse of the most poisonous sarcasm. Not from a good life, of course. His gigantic intellect so rarely meets worthy tasks that the robot suffers from boredom and is weighed down by the primitiveness of the universe. The charm of a gloomy bore brought him immense popularity.

sperm whale and petunia

Two objects that owe some of their cult status to Fallout 2, where they are present as one of the "desert encounters" - locations that the player finds by chance while moving around the map. According to the book, these objects were turned into missiles aimed at the ship of heroes, under the influence of an improbability field.

“When you meet a person in the crowd…” In short, if today you meet a person with a towel, do not think that he is coming from the bathhouse. Most likely, you are a fan of the work of the British science fiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, master of absurd humor and paradoxes Douglas Adams, author of the cult series of science fiction novels The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (we already wrote about it). The fact is that on May 25, every year, fans of the writer around the world celebrate Towel Day.

Towel Day is a mischievous and cheerful holiday (it’s a pity that it’s not a day off), but it arose on a very sad occasion. May 11, 2001 in Santa Barbara (California, USA) Douglas Adams died at the age of 49 years.

And already on May 14, 2001, at Binary Freedom, a short-lived forum onopen source software, a message was published under the heading "Towel Day: A Tribute to Douglas Adams":

“Douglas Adams will be missed by all his fans around the world. So that all fans can pay tribute to his genius, I propose to celebrate the day two weeks after his death (May 25, 2001) as “Towel Day”. All Douglas Adams fans are encouraged to bring a towel with them on this day.

Keep the towel in plain sight - use it as a topic of conversation so that those who have never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy go and find themselves a copy ... "

Douglas Adams fans actively responded to this call. Since then, the holiday is held every year in many countries and cities around the world.

But why a towel? It is he who is called the most indispensable item for a space hitchhiker by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

“A towel,” he says, “is the most useful thing for a space hitchhiker. Partly because it has great practical value: you can wrap it around for warmth on the cold moons of Beta Jaglan; you can lie on it on the delightful sandy beaches of Santraginus-5, inhaling the tart sea air; you can sleep under the red stars in the desert worlds of Kakrafoon; make a sail out of it, sailing on a small raft on a slow river called the Mole; wet it, tie a knot at the end and use it in a fight; wrap your head around it to protect you from pungent odors or the gaze of a ferocious bug-like beast from the planet Traal (a mind-blowingly stupid animal: it thinks that if you cannot see it, then it cannot see you; stupid as a log, but very ferocious); you can wave your towel around to get noticed, and of course dry off with it if it's still clean enough.

But more importantly, the towel has immeasurable psychological value. For example, if a streg (streg: not a hitchhiker) knows that a hitchhiker has a towel with him, he will automatically assume that he also has a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, biscuits, flask, compass, map, roll of twine, mosquito repellant , umbrella, space suit, etc., etc. What's more, the streg would then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these things, or a dozen others that the hitchhiker might have allegedly lost. Streg will assume that a man who has traveled the length and breadth of the galaxy, gone through hunger, want and deprivation, and yet has a towel with him, is a man with whom you can deal.(Translated by Y. Arinovich)

So, a person who has a towel with him is a person who can be dealt with. But what do people do with towels on this day?

In fact, Towel Day has become a holiday dedicated to the work of Douglas Adams.

There is a website that contains detailed information about where and what will happen ( http://www. towel day . org/).

The program is very diverse: there are contests, quests, cosplays (you can also use a bathrobe with a towel as a costume), free screenings of films based on the works of Adams, fights of Vogon poetry, loud book readings (and even at the international space station!) And much more . Publishers on this day arrange promotions and discounts on Adams' books. And towel manufacturers produce towels embroidered with the famous phrase "Don't panic!". On a special scale, the holiday is held in the writer's homeland in the UK and in the USA.

Towel Day is celebrated every year on May 25th. Douglas Adams passed away on May 11, 2001, and three days later an announcement appeared on the Binary Freedom open source forum:

Douglas Adams will be missed by all his fans around the world. So that all fans can pay tribute to his genius, I propose to celebrate the day two weeks after his death (May 25, 2001) as “Towel Day”. All Douglas Adams fans are encouraged to bring a towel with them on this day.

Keep the towel in plain sight - use it as a talking point so that those who have never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy go and find themselves a copy. A towel can be wrapped around your head, used as a weapon, soaked in nutrients - anything! The thing is that in his novel, Adams devoted a rather large passage to the towel, which was well remembered by most of those who read the book.

“A towel is perhaps the most necessary item in the everyday life of a tourist. In many ways, its value is determined by practice: you can wrap yourself in it when traveling through the cold moons of Beta Jaglan; they can be covered like a blanket, sleeping under the stars that pour red light on the desert planet Kakrafun; it is comfortable to lie on the sandy beaches of Santraginus, enjoying the heady aromas of the sea; it is convenient to use it as a raft, going down the slow, heavy waters of the Moth River; you can wave it around for distress signals, or you can wet it for hand-to-hand combat, or wrap it around your head so as not to inhale poisonous gases or avoid the gaze of the Bloodthirsty Animal from Traal (a strikingly stupid creature that believes that since you cannot see it, then and she does not see you; extremely stupid, but extremely bloodthirsty); well, after all, you are quite capable of drying yourself with it, if, of course, the towel is clean enough.

Much more important, however, is the psychological significance of the towel. For inexplicable reasons, when a strug (not a hitchhiker) learns that a hitchhiker has a towel with him, he automatically assumes the presence of toothpaste, a flask, a compass, a skein of string, a raincoat, a spacesuit, etc., etc. Moreover, the strag will happily lend any of the named or unnamed items "lost" along the way to the tourist. In the eyes of the Strag, a man who has traveled the length and breadth of the galaxy, endured the most difficult adversity, with honor came out of desperate situations and kept his towel, certainly deserves the greatest respect.
On Towel Day, festivities and all sorts of actions usually take place. For example, on May 25, 2015, astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (the first Italian woman in space) read a passage about a towel during a broadcast from the International Space Station.

Recall that the novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was first published in 1979 and sold millions of copies. Subsequent books in the series have not been as successful.