{"id":920,"date":"2016-02-05T23:54:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T04:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/?p=920"},"modified":"2016-02-05T23:54:15","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T04:54:15","slug":"the-hitchhikers-guide-to-avenue-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/2016\/02\/05\/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-avenue-b\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hitchhiker&#039;s Guide To Avenue B"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A great many people have read Douglas Adams&#039; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_%28novel%29\"><em>The Hitchhiker&#039;s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em><\/a>; I was not one of them. And then I finally read it.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s interesting that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy\">the franchise<\/a> started out as a radio drama; knowing that you can read it and hear why that is; in fact, the thing seems more interesting that way.<\/p>\n<p>At least one person in book club was nervous to give it the full book club critique, lest a longtime favorite get cut down to size. I don&#039;t know why, because it&#039;s good, though it is a little disjointed, obviously owing to the retro-whatever nature of its novel form. I remember reading a version of E.T. for a book report in grade school and it felt like this. Also, Mr. Kiddo&#039;s written-word versions of stuff like <em>Dinosaur Train<\/em> and <em>Paw Patrol<\/em> &#8212; in other words, Jesus Fucking Christ don&#039;t even ask.<\/p>\n<p>Perseverating on the notion that the radio play was the original version, I&#039;m interested that no one seems to have resurrected it for the podcast world. I don&#039;t really listen to podcasts and only have a vague acquaintance with <em>Hitchhiker&#039;s<\/em> but it seems like a kind of no-brainer. In fact, if I googled it I bet someone&#039;s figured this out, but I&#039;m feeling incredibly lazy and unmotivated right now and won&#039;t google it myself.<\/p>\n<p>Which leaves me with this: this fellow died at what is now emerging to me as a ridiculously young age: 49.<\/p>\n<p>[By the way, I just took an extended deep dive into GG Allin&#039;s final day alive; I wondered how old he was when he died &#8212; 37 &#8212; and got sucked into figuring out what the establishment at 1:14 was today; he, naked, hides out in a sort of plywood vestibule:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3F9yk8X1TAw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For the record, these days it seems it&#039;s been some series of shitty SLA\/CB-unfriendly venues, basically like this:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/embed?pb=!1m0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1454733151572!6m8!1m7!1sSTqlcm1qW4el4pJB76VBAA!2m2!1d40.7223181742744!2d-73.98324529832924!3f123.55805253552556!4f-15.076093838486571!5f1.1076306628940567\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, weird.]<\/p>\n<p>Back to 49 . . .<\/p>\n<p>For most people, 49 is young. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/uknews\/1330072\/Hitch-Hikers-Guide-author-Douglas-Adams-dies-aged-49.html\">Adams was working out at a gym in California when he had a heart attack<\/a>, which makes me immediately suspicious of California.<\/p>\n<p>Having not known the provenance of the book &#8212; i.e., that it was a radio play (and also that Adams apparently had an issue with writer&#039;s block, especially later) &#8212; I was intrigued that it was such a short book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/2015\/12\/13\/too-long-didnt-read-except-i-did-and-now-im-fucking-cranky-about-it\/\">perhaps for obvious reasons<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A great many people have read Douglas Adams&#039; The Hitchhiker&#039;s Guide to the Galaxy; I was not one of them. And then I finally read it. It&#039;s interesting that the franchise started out as a radio drama; knowing that you can read it and hear why that is; in fact, the thing seems more interesting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[266,1054,100],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-are-the-suvs-of-writing","tag-book-club","tag-e-t-the-extra-terrestrial","tag-gg-allin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":921,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/slightest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}