{"id":155123671,"date":"2025-01-24T13:31:28","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T13:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=155123671"},"modified":"2025-01-24T13:31:28","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T13:31:28","slug":"friday-links-mostly-harmless-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=155123671","title":{"rendered":"Friday Links: Mostly Harmless Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

“She had what it took…the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care.” – Douglas Adams, ‘Mostly Harmless’<\/h2>

It\u2019s no doubt been made clear in our blog posts that I\u2019m firmly against humans colonizing other planets. I think NASA programs are pretty rad, especially all those unmanned missions zipping past the borders of our solar system and sending us fun pictures. But we belong here on Earth. Tourists don\u2019t belong on the moon. The amount of satellites we have floating around probably shouldn\u2019t increase. <\/p>

But Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide<\/em> makes it all seem like such a fun adventure. Like, so fun<\/em>, despite all the horrors. That\u2019s one reason I love it\u2014and, thanks to jagoffs like Elon Musk, one reason I never tell strangers at parties that I love Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide<\/em>. <\/p>

What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p>

We\u2019re at the end of the five books of the Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide <\/em>trilogy. I\u2019m super glad I read this. It\u2019s a hell of a lot of fun. That said, I think I\u2019ll be taking a break from Douglas Adams for a while. He\u2019s wonderful, but his writing project and mine are different. Wish I could time travel and tell 17-year-old Chris this. I\u2019ll get to The Salmon of Doubt<\/em> one day. But hey! My edition includes a cool short story. <\/p>

\"The<\/figure>

Young Zaphod Plays It Safe<\/strong><\/em> by Douglas Adams: <\/strong>a fun short story! Like I said. After a total absence from So Long and Thanks For All The Fish<\/em>, we get a pretty hilarious story of a Zaphod adventure. The story involves lobsters and no amount of playing it safe. What a blast. Hey, you\u2014you\u2019re a real cool customer.<\/p>

Mostly Harmless<\/strong><\/em> by Douglas Adams: <\/strong>compliment sandwich: I loved seeing Arthur as The Sandwich Maker, happily puttering away his alien days. I loved loved loved seeing Ford in full Hunter S. Thompson mode, swaggering around and yelling about the nomad artist\u2019s life while running up expense account statements so brutal he fights robots. But it seems a little like Douglas Adams was ready to be done with the trilogy. I can\u2019t say Trillian or Random are particularly developed, even though they\u2019re arguably doing more important things than Arthur or Ford. At their expense, we get some New Atheist-style digs at a resident of the planet Arthur is marooned on, Old Thrashbarg, and the Bob for whom he is a prophet (get it?). We find out who the bar singer at the Domain Of The King is, which is connected to Ford losing then replacing some blue suede shoes (get it?). At the end, the Vogons come back, because if the 2024 election taught us anything, it\u2019s that the most odious and unpleasant of us always come back. Meanwhile, perfectly pleasant people who make us happy\u2014Fenchurch\u2014disappear without warning or explanation. This is my fifth-favorite book of the trilogy. But I will hold on to the dual images of Hunter S. Ford Prefect and Arthur The Sandwich Maker as two aspirational figures in life.<\/p>

LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>

Something to listen to while you browse? Reading all this Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide<\/em> has got me listening to Sithu Aye. Sithu makes what he calls \u201chappy progressive metal<\/a>,\u201d and what attracted me to him was the beautiful cover art on his records and his penchant for making instrumental \u201cconcept albums,\u201d or at least albums with a story. Here\u2019s a playthrough of the title track for Set Course For Andromeda!!!<\/em><\/p>

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