A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

  ©2002 Del Rey Books The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Five Novels in One Outrageous Volume  By: Douglas Adams Publisher: Del Rey Publication Date (Reissue): April 30, 2002 Genre: Humor, Space Opera, Science Fiction   🪐 Do You Know Where Your Towel Is? If you do, congratulations—you’re already ahead of 99.9% of Earth’s population when it comes to surviving spontaneous planetary demolition. According to the gloriously illogical logic of Douglas Adams’ five-volume “trilogy,” knowing the whereabouts of your towel is the first step toward interstellar competence. It means you’re ready to hitch a ride off Earth one fateful Thursday afternoon, just before the Vogons arrive to pulverize the planet in favor of a hyperspace bypass. It helps—immensely—if your best mate turns out to be from Betelgeuse rather than an out-of-work actor from Guildford. It helps even more if his name is Ford Prefect and he moonlights as a field researcher for the most wildly unreliable ...

© 2025 Alex Diaz-Granados  Introduction to "Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen" An Invitation to the Threshold In the hush before the noise, in the moments when solitude threads itself through the fabric of a crowded room, there is a peculiar clarity—a quiet awareness of one’s place among the swirling energies of others. Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen begins at just such a threshold; it is a story that drifts between the spaces of belonging and isolation, where the act of observation becomes its own form of participation. This excerpt introduces a narrator more attuned to the subtle rhythms of connection than the cacophony of spectacle, a character for whom the art of being seen is as much about gentle presence as it is about silent withdrawal. Here, memory unfurls in time with music and laughter, coloring the present with the pastel shades of a spring evening in 1984. The scene—alive with the vivid details of denim, perfume, and restless conversati...