IT TAKES TWO TO MAKE IT

Good morning Internet.

Jill St John would like to buy you an orange juice – if you’ll leave Robin in the Batmobile and do the Batusi for her.

And you will. You can't help it.

"Everly Brothers "When Will I Be Loved"" (Watch on YouTube)

Who taught you to riddle,

This is dF

THE PATRIOT ACT AND OTHER GREAT DEMOCRAT PRACTICAL JOKES

ITEM: The Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill renewing expiring provisions of the Patriot Act that, you may recall, greatly expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security, including:

1. Allowing broad warrants to be issued by the secretive FISA court for any type of record, from financial to medical, without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation. (A proposal that would put limits on such requests was defeated.)
2. “Roving wiretaps” that allowing the FBI to obtain wiretaps from the FISA court, without identifying the target or what method of communication is to be tapped.
3. A “lone wolf” measure that allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of a person for whatever reason — even without showing that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.

Nine Democrats voted in favor of it – including, incidentally, Senator Al “The 4th Amendment, Let Me Read You It” Franken.

Better yet, five of the seven Republicans on the committee voted against it – although that was only because they opposed a couple of new Demo measures that make the PA slightly less Draconian: (1) compulsory public audits on how it uses the PA (it’s currently voluntary), and (2) warrants for library searches issued by FISA must actually have something remotely to do with a terror investigation.

Progress!

I can’t add to what I’ve said before. I just thought you’d like to know how much of a difference the Democratic supermajority is making.

Ha ha.

Same as it ever was,

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THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO GALACTIC BEEF

ITEM: The first book of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series came out 30 years ago today.

To celebrate, here’s Douglas Adams reading out the scene with the cow on a Richard Dawkins special.

"Total Destruction to Your Mind" (Watch on YouTube)

BACKGROUND: Richard Dawkins, if you don’t know, is a scientist, atheist and author of The God Delusion. He also doesn’t believe Intelligent Design should be taught in science classes. This makes him a fascist, according to Bill O’Reilly. Which by turn would also make Adams a fascist.

And me, for that matter. But then we’re all Hitler. So it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.

Eat me,

This is dF

AND ANOTHER THING

Speaking of H2G2 ... I have no idea how I missed this story for an entire year, but I did. So if this is old news to you, then just humor an old man for a moment.

ITEM: Apparently there’s a new Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy book coming out today. Here’s the cover.



Notice the author’s name is Not Douglas Adams.

Which is perfect, because it raises a topic I’ve been meaning to bring up ever since I saw Dracula the Un-Dead – the official sequel to Dracula written by Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre – in a Dymocks shop window a week or so ago:

Authors taking over characters from other authors. Especially authors who are now dead.

I remember all the kerfluffle in the 1980s when John Gardner was green-lighted to take up where Ian Fleming left off and write new James Bond adventures. Fleming purists were aghast at the idea. But Gardner still went on to  write more Bond books than Fleming ever did, and has since been succeeded by Raymond Benson and Sebastian Faulkes.

Meanwhile, sequels have been done for a number of classics (some authorized, some not). Then there are slightly weirder examples – like KW Jeter writing official sequels to Blade Runner (as in the film, rather than PK Dick's  Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, though Jeter sort of refers back to the book as well).

So there’s tons of precedent, sure. But as a rule I never read “official” sequels written by other people. Eoin Colfer’s H2G2 will be no exception – and not just because I wasn’t all that impressed with Artemis Fowl.

Here’s the thing:

For my money, writing is the purest and most personal non-oral form of storytelling there is. As such, writing novels is an intensely personal project to the point that it’s hard to separate the creator from the work.

To put it country simple, I’m not just a fan of Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin et al – I’m a fan of the bloke what wrote them. The H2G2 books (and the radio series before them) are what they are because Douglas Adams brought his own personal experiences and observations and sense of the absurd into the narrative and the characterizations. Not just anyone could have written it to the same effect.

By the same token, unless it’s a series designed from its inception to be written by multiple writers (Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Sweet Valley High, etc) – or unless yr Frank Herbert’s boy, perhaps – not just anyone can simply take over a story and get the same result. It might be a good different result – but it wouldn’t be the same experience any more than it would be if you hired Garrison Keillor to write a sequel to Tom Sawyer, or Warren Ellis to write a sequel to Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

Nor should it be. And to be fair, I don’t think Eoin Colfer wants to pass himself off as the New Douglas Adams any more than John Garder wanted to be the new Ian Fleming or Dacre Stoker wants to be his great-grand-uncle. And since I do respect the idea of public domain that leads to things like new Sherlock Holmes stories and a zombie version of Pride And Prejudice, I guess technically official sequels by new authors are no different.

But I’ll pass anyway. Best of luck to Colfer, but I’d rather re-read the Adams books.

To be continued,

This is dF