Neil, Wednesday, 23 April 2008 11:00 :. 34 Clock
memories of Douglas # 1
I wrote one of two or three Douglas Adams discharges This here was the introduction to MJSimpsons Biography of Douglas, Hitchhiker .
memories of Douglas
I met Douglas Adams in late 1983. I had been asking him for to interview Penthouse . I was expecting somebody cracked BBCisches and smart and someone who sounded like the voice of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . I was greeted at the door of his home in Islington by a large man with a big smile and a large, slightly crooked nose, very clumsy and playful, as he would, despite its size still growing. He had just returned after a terrible time in Hollywood to England, and he was happy to be back. He was charming, he was funny, and he was talking about. He showed me his stuff: he was keen on computers that did not exist at that time almost and guitars, and giant inflatable crayons, which he discovered in America and shipped terrible costly to England had, before he had to find that they were very cheap in Islington. He was clumsy: he was leaning against things, tripped over, or sat down suddenly on top of it and broke it.
that Douglas had died, I learned on the morning after his death, in May 2001, from the Internet (that had there been no 1983). I was interviewed by telephone by a journalist in Hong Kong and a little fluttered by the death of Douglas Adams on the screen. I grunted, unimpressed (only a few days before that, Lou Reed performed at Saturday Night Live, to refute the Internet rumors about his death). Then I clicked on the link. Shortly after I stared at the BBC news site and had to acknowledge that Douglas was definitely dead.
"Are you OK?" Asked the journalist in Hong Kong.
"Douglas Adams is dead," I said stunned.
"Oh yes," he said. "It's been all day going through the news. Did you know him? "
" Yes, "I said. We continued with the interview, udnich do not know what was not said. The journalist reported after a few weeks once to tell me that nothing intelligible or usable more on the tape, after I had learned that Douglas had died and asked me if we could repeat the interview.
Douglas was an incredibly charming man, phenomenally articulate and amazingly helpful. In 1986 I dug quite a lot in his life, while I Do not Panic! worked. I sat in the corner of his office while I rummaged through old folders and draft Hitchhiker after another in various stages of development pulled over long-forgotten sketches stumbled, or scripts to Dr Who , newspaper clippings, and he was always ready to answer my questions and tell me things. He presented with dozens of people I had to find for interviews, people like Geoffrey Perkins and John Lloyd. He liked the finished book, or at least said that he liked it, and that helped too.
(A memory from that time: I was sitting in Douglas office, drank tea and waited for that he was finished with the phone so I could interview him, he had a little fun in the call about a project that he. for Comic Relief book worked. When he was finished, he apologized and explained to me then that he had to accept this call because it was John Cleese, and although he said it in such a way as to make clear was that he had delighted with the room threw: John Cleese had just called him and they had to talk professionally as adults. They knew at that time already more than nine years, but he wanted me to know that he had a great day. Douglas always had heroes.)
Douglas was unique. What are we all of course, but it is also true that there are certain types of people out there, and there was only one Douglas Adams. I have never met another man who could bring non-writing into an art form. No one else was in a position so happy to be fundamentally unhappy. No one else had the easy smile and the straight Nose, or the delicate aura of embarrassment that seemed to surround him like a shield.
DouglasTod After I was often interviewed because of him. I said I did not think he was ever really been a novelist, despite the fact that he had been an international best-selling author who has written several books that are now a quarter of a century later as classics. Writing novels was a profession to which he leaned, or over which he tripped, or he suddenly sat down and he broke.
I think that Douglas may have been something for which we do not have the word. A futurist or a commentator or something. We recognize that one day be that the most important job of all for someone to explain to the world the world in a way that they will not forget. Someone who can the plight of an endangered species just as easily (or at least as good as anything that Douglas ever did right was easy) to explain how he can explain an analogous race, what it means to be digital. Someone whose dreams and ideas, practical or impractical to always have the size of planets, and always goes ahead and bringing the rest of.
This is a book filled with facts about someone who dealt in dreams.
Neil Gaiman
Bologna, 15 May 2003
memories of Douglas # 1
I wrote one of two or three Douglas Adams discharges This here was the introduction to MJSimpsons Biography of Douglas, Hitchhiker .
memories of Douglas
I met Douglas Adams in late 1983. I had been asking him for to interview Penthouse . I was expecting somebody cracked BBCisches and smart and someone who sounded like the voice of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . I was greeted at the door of his home in Islington by a large man with a big smile and a large, slightly crooked nose, very clumsy and playful, as he would, despite its size still growing. He had just returned after a terrible time in Hollywood to England, and he was happy to be back. He was charming, he was funny, and he was talking about. He showed me his stuff: he was keen on computers that did not exist at that time almost and guitars, and giant inflatable crayons, which he discovered in America and shipped terrible costly to England had, before he had to find that they were very cheap in Islington. He was clumsy: he was leaning against things, tripped over, or sat down suddenly on top of it and broke it.
that Douglas had died, I learned on the morning after his death, in May 2001, from the Internet (that had there been no 1983). I was interviewed by telephone by a journalist in Hong Kong and a little fluttered by the death of Douglas Adams on the screen. I grunted, unimpressed (only a few days before that, Lou Reed performed at Saturday Night Live, to refute the Internet rumors about his death). Then I clicked on the link. Shortly after I stared at the BBC news site and had to acknowledge that Douglas was definitely dead.
"Are you OK?" Asked the journalist in Hong Kong.
"Douglas Adams is dead," I said stunned.
"Oh yes," he said. "It's been all day going through the news. Did you know him? "
" Yes, "I said. We continued with the interview, udnich do not know what was not said. The journalist reported after a few weeks once to tell me that nothing intelligible or usable more on the tape, after I had learned that Douglas had died and asked me if we could repeat the interview.
Douglas was an incredibly charming man, phenomenally articulate and amazingly helpful. In 1986 I dug quite a lot in his life, while I Do not Panic! worked. I sat in the corner of his office while I rummaged through old folders and draft Hitchhiker after another in various stages of development pulled over long-forgotten sketches stumbled, or scripts to Dr Who , newspaper clippings, and he was always ready to answer my questions and tell me things. He presented with dozens of people I had to find for interviews, people like Geoffrey Perkins and John Lloyd. He liked the finished book, or at least said that he liked it, and that helped too.
(A memory from that time: I was sitting in Douglas office, drank tea and waited for that he was finished with the phone so I could interview him, he had a little fun in the call about a project that he. for Comic Relief book worked. When he was finished, he apologized and explained to me then that he had to accept this call because it was John Cleese, and although he said it in such a way as to make clear was that he had delighted with the room threw: John Cleese had just called him and they had to talk professionally as adults. They knew at that time already more than nine years, but he wanted me to know that he had a great day. Douglas always had heroes.)
Douglas was unique. What are we all of course, but it is also true that there are certain types of people out there, and there was only one Douglas Adams. I have never met another man who could bring non-writing into an art form. No one else was in a position so happy to be fundamentally unhappy. No one else had the easy smile and the straight Nose, or the delicate aura of embarrassment that seemed to surround him like a shield.
DouglasTod After I was often interviewed because of him. I said I did not think he was ever really been a novelist, despite the fact that he had been an international best-selling author who has written several books that are now a quarter of a century later as classics. Writing novels was a profession to which he leaned, or over which he tripped, or he suddenly sat down and he broke.
I think that Douglas may have been something for which we do not have the word. A futurist or a commentator or something. We recognize that one day be that the most important job of all for someone to explain to the world the world in a way that they will not forget. Someone who can the plight of an endangered species just as easily (or at least as good as anything that Douglas ever did right was easy) to explain how he can explain an analogous race, what it means to be digital. Someone whose dreams and ideas, practical or impractical to always have the size of planets, and always goes ahead and bringing the rest of.
This is a book filled with facts about someone who dealt in dreams.
Neil Gaiman
Bologna, 15 May 2003
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