Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another little tidbit from the upcoming adaptation of Douglas Adams' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. A guy by the name of Richard Johnston over at Comic Book Resources sent this puppy in (click here to read the original article!) The more that leaks out about the movie, the better and more faithful it looks to be. I can't wait to hear this chorus!!!
Last Saturday, I spent the afternoon in a church in Highgate, London, singing a hymn. It was a most peculiar hymn, to a god, it seemed, who had sneezed out the universe. This was an audio recording for Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy.
From the novel, The Restaurant At the End Of The Universe by Douglas Adams;
"Many races believe that it was created by some sort of God, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.
The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming of The Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel."
And so, in this ancient church of St Martins in Highgate, we sang to a church organ what sounded like a common Anglican dirge, voices screeching high and low. The first verse will appear in the movie, subsequently verses in the soundtrack.
Here's one of those later verses now, by Jody Talbot.
Through empty void and vacuum your mighty sneeze was blown
And from its far-flung remnant the universe was grown
Your cosmic phlegm and mucus became the stars above
And celestial droplets of saliva
Coalesced to form Jatravardidity
It took a fair few takes before the congregation stopped corpsing in every verse.
There have been fears expressed that a movie version, especially one created after Adams' death, would lose his spirit. From this hymn alone, presenting such a ludicrous explanation of the universe's beginning as a sombre, serious piece of religious liturgy, whiule simultaneously making the point that all religious explanations of the world are just as ludicrous, I think Adams' legacy is in safe hands.
I wonder what Capalert will make of this one?
Hymns are already on eBay...
