O/T: Douglas Adams has died.

[The Mad Hatter]

This has certainly put a cloud over my day... I just found this out on a Yahoo news article. Douglas Adams apparently suffered a heart attack while he was exercising yesterday, and collapsed. He was in great shape and only 49, so this was a shock to everyone.

In case you don't know, he was the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is perhaps the seminal sci-fi/comedy novel. His writing approached everything from a wonderfully witty British perspective that was simultaneously hilarious and thought-provoking. He'll be sorely missed by myself and his legions of fans.

[HellCat]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
This has certainly put a cloud over my day... I just found this out on a Yahoo news article. Douglas Adams apparently suffered a heart attack while he was exercising yesterday, and collapsed. He was in great shape and only 49, so this was a shock to everyone.

In case you don't know, he was the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is perhaps the seminal sci-fi/comedy novel. His writing approached everything from a wonderfully witty British perspective that was simultaneously hilarious and thought-provoking. He'll be sorely missed by myself and his legions of fans.

That's terrible.The guy was a legend.

[Craig Marinaro]

And beyond being a legend, he was also one of the most clever comedy writers of this century. The world already feels a bit less funny.

Anyone who isn't familiar with his work--well, I'd strongly recommend getting familiar with it. Brilliant, wonderful stuff.

[E. Penrose]

"Hitchhiker's Guide" came out in America as a Monty Python offshoot. (Adams cowrote Graham Chapman's _A Liar's Autobiography_.) Monty Python and Douglas Adams wrote postmodern comedy: a cool, unsentimental attitude and intellectual approach; use of all the technical devices of their media; exploitation of cultural touchstones. People watched and listened. The marks of this comedy are now spread across the world. "Animaniacs" and its sequels turned postmodernism to a younger audience. But comedy is now written for idiots. The sour skepticism has been domesticated, given a happy ending in every sitcom. Nihilism and commerce kiss. In one of the Hitchhiker books, Arthur Dent learned how to fly.

E. Penrose

[Sharklady]

I remember that. Dent discovered that flying consists of "falling, and then forgetting to hit the ground."

But my personal most-appreciated Adams book is non-fiction. A LAST CHANCE TO SEE chronicles his journeys to several remote places of the world, to view seriously endangered species such as the white rhino and the flying-fox fruit bat. My favorite sentence in the work is Adam's description of the komodo dragon: "It gets up to three feet tall and twelve feet long, which one cannot help thinking is entirely the wrong size for a lizard to be."

May he rest in peace.

[Calhoun07]

oh my god


That is the worst news I've heard in a while. He was definately one of my favorite authors.

I heard a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie has been in limbo for quite some time. It would be bittersweet to see the project come to fruition in the light of such grim news, but it seems that the great artists of our time are never fully appreciated until they are gone.

I know Douglas Adams wasn't a prominent figure in the world but he will be greatly missed for his input.

[DR. BELCH]

http://music.yahoo.com/fc/YMusic/Perry_Como
They say these things happen in threes, so I wonder who's next? Howard Stern and his boys even have a celebrity death pool going (morbid lot, eh?)...though according to http://www.marksfriggin.com/death.htm, no one gets a nickel because, surprisingly, no one picked Como.

"Anvilania...Anvilania...Aaaaaaanvilaaaaaaaaniaaaaaa."