From ts@hit.zer.de Wed May 11 07:10:35 1994 Received: from golden-gate.owl.de (golden-gate.uni-paderborn.de) by vela.acs.oakland.edu with SMTP id AA11759 (5.65c+/IDA-1.4.4); Wed, 11 May 1994 07:10:11 -0400 Received: by golden-gate.owl.de (Smail3.1.28.1) from royal.UUCP with UUCP id ; Wed, 11 May 94 11:37 MET DST Received: from hsp.zer.de by royal.owl.de with bsmtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #14) id m0q0yOP-0003S1C; Tue, 10 May 94 22:27 MET DST To: swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu Message-Id: <5O_InP-LGmB@hit99.hit.zer.de> From: TS@hit.zer.de (Thomas Schaefer) Path: hsp.zer.de!bionic.zer.de!hit.zer.de!TS Organization: Tom Traveler's Private Site of Handshake e.V., Germany Subject: Douglas Adams in Germany Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 18:03:00 +0100 X-Mailer: CrossPoint v3.0 R/A2835 X-Gateway: ZCONNECT UP royal.owl.de [UNIX/Connect v0.71] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 109 Status: OR >look Lecture Hall. This is your normal type of lecture hall: it contains a few hundred seats and, at this moment, at least a few thousand people. There is a stage with a black table to the north. On the table sits a black halogene lamp. The only visible exits are to the northeast and northwest. There is a man standing on the stage, talking wildly. He is obviously in his mid-forties. >listen Apart from the constant talking of the man on the stage, you can make out no particular sounds. >look at man The man looks a great deal like the man on the photos of Douglas Adams you've seen. >listen to Adams He seems to be talking about various things: Australian doctors, strange birds, Chinese River Dolphins and some even more abstruse topics. >consult guide about Goettingen The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has the following to say about Goettingen: Since Douglas Adams, one of the greatest authors of the known universe, visited this otherwise quite dull town on an insignificant little blue- green planet on the outer Eastern rim of the Western spiral arm of the Galaxy to hold a reading on Monday, March 14th 1994, the city has witnessed a gigantic growth in nearly every aspect. Here are some important historical facts to this day: At about 8:15pm, Mr Adams entered - accompanied by the most frenetic applause the lecture hall has heard since the great Qalloping Zygalquasits of Gook in the late 4280's - the room and started with what about a thousand people who had come from the remotest parts of Germany to see The Author have waited for their lifetimes. The first thing Mr Adams did was to replace the microphone which had been put into the right place (that is, when you're sitting) just a few minutes before by an overenthusiastic organizer. During the following two hours, Mr Adams stood in front of the audience and delivered a speech which was that well-presented and that tremendously funny that the audience sometimes couldn't stop applauding. He started with Last Chance To See and enlightened the audience with the story of Dr Sutherland - excusing for his poor Australian accent ("But, hell, there are only Germans here.") -, making it even happier with the more than slightly difficult sex life of the Kakapos and coming to the climax with the problems of getting hold of condoms in Shanghai ("It's to record dolphins, what do you think?"). Mr Adams made a graceful link to the Hitch Hiker Trilogy reading an excerpt of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the food scene at Milliways ("May I urge you to consider my liver?"), then gave a short lecture on how to fly properly and finally proved his terrific artistic talents by doing the confrontation between Arthur and Agrajag. -- Thank Zarquon the PA survived his "Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrggh" as without them his perfect interpretation of Marvin and the Frogstar Robot Class D would have been much less brilliant. But there is a minor flaw to note: It seems that Mr Adams had the same difficulties in coming back home he had when coming to Germany (he was slightly delayed by some minor problems at Heathrow Airport) as he stormed off after the reading to protect himself from thousands of Krazy Krauts (tm) wanting autographs. [BTW: I myself couldn't get through him to give him a copy of the Index but I gave it to a lady who looked a great deal like his mother and told me she'd see him for dinner and promised to give it to him. -- Mathias] >look Lecture Room. The lecture room is empty now. >ne Hall. This is the Hall. You see thousands of cheerful fans waving their towels at each other and trying to hitch-hike home. Mathias Maul Thomas Schaefer ps: Douglas, come more often to Germany. There's a *huge* lot of fans just waiting there for you.