Wear the Lilac Towel Day

~ Jenny

Today is Towel Day, in honor of Douglas Adams’ injunction in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to never forget your towel (also, don’t panic).  It is also Wear the Lilac Day, in honor of Terry Pratchett’s Watch tradition and to support Alzheimer’s Research, Pratchett’s cause..  Mostly it’s just to remember Adams and Practchett, two very smart men who looked at reality with skepticism and wit and decided the worlds inside their heads were better.  They were right.

.  I am grateful for their books because, as one of Pratchett’s characters (and my personal fave) Susan Sto Helit once thought, “. . . this she knew was a far more accurate way of looking at it — the book was true and reality was lying.”

Wear the Lilac Towel today and read Adams and Pratchett; what’s reality ever done for you? 

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15 thoughts on “Wear the Lilac Towel Day”

  3. “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

    I love these guys. DA probably shaped my childhood, but…I was a weird kid. I was reading Anne Stuart (specifically Cats Paw, in a homemade Monty Python-inspired cover so we could pass it amongst friends and not get laughed at) and Douglas Adams (and other books, but they stand out).

    And my Dad came with me to hear Terry Pratchett speak (I do not remember if this was in Melbourne or in the country town I grew up in) and waited patiently in line with me to meet him and have him sign a poster of one of his books.

    I always know where my towel is.

  4. Reality sucks.

    I had a professor who liked to say, “I’m not good with reality.” Hear, hear. I am a Taurus and very grounded in that sort of thing, but reality is depressing.

    1. They’re not headhopping. They write in omniscient voice (at least Pratchett does; have to go look at Adams again but I’m pretty sure he’s omniscient third, too).

      1. I don’t have texts on my to check, but I feel like there are scenes set in Vimes’s point of view that do a head hop to explain Fred/Nobby behaviors. There are two interpretations of those kind of scenes:
        1) It’s not really head-hopping, because it’s Vimes’s interpretation of them, his perception of their backstory
        2) It’s a send-up of how classical literature would do random digressions out of protagonist POV.

        1. Or they’re omniscient.
          There are a zillion Vimes’ scenes, but I’m fairly sure (hedging my bets here) that they’re all omniscient, Pratchett telling what Vimes is thinking and then telling what others are thinking. I’m pretty sure all of his adult novels are omniscient.

  6. I had a niggling feeling all day that it was someone’s birthday. I called a friend in the afternoon to ask if I’d forgotten anyone in our group. “Nope,” she said, ” birthday’twill be tomorrow.”

    It did turn out to be a group member’s wedding anniversary.

    But, THIS. THIS IS WHAT I FORGOT.
    ARGH!

    1. Have towels, had NO IDEA yesterday was this kind of fabulousness but I DID get a box of lilacs from a certain amazing Deb so hey, serendipity is a thing!

  9. I love those two guys. Surrealism grounded right straight in reality.

    And the lilacs are blooming here!

  10. I didn’t even know this day existed. Shame on me! I’ll celebrate it next year.
    Lilacs are wonderful. Have always loved how they smell. Will always love Pratchett, too. I wish I’d got the chance to meet him just once.

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