h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi all,

My fiance and I are big DNA fans, and we're getting married on Boxing Day. Everything is set to go, but we want a reading. (Typically, a particular poem, significant passage, or a song is used during the wedding ceremony.)

Anyone have suggestions for us? We'd like it to tie infinity, partnership, friendship, eternity, and love into a thought provoking, memorable, and humorous paragraph. Our searches have been fruitless, so far. Now, I'm asking you!

Thanks,
regenerati

Right,

I've read through the H2G2 entries under weddings, but nothing really pertains to appropriate Adamsesque readings for the ceremony. I've flipped back and forth through my collection of his writings, to no avail.

Thanks,
regenerati

PS: She's a Kiwi, and I'm a Yank, living near San Diego, California.

Can't help you much, but you might find something on one of these sites

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&hs=yTy&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&q=Quotations+Douglas+Adams&spell=1

Basically I just put Quotations Douglas Adams
into Google

Good Luck

Yes,
I've Googled, but to no avail. Some of us Douglas Adams fans must have ideas on good Adams quotes to use in a fun wedding ceremony. It need not be from the Hithhiker books.

Thanks for any and all replies/suggestions!
regenerati

I tried to find a humourous reading for our wedding and gave up in the end - the only one anyone ever suggested to us was the Pam Ayres one that I wouldn't have had in a million years!

In the end we went for the excerpt from Captail Corelli's Mandolin (Louis de Berniers), the Art of a Good Marriage (Peterson), and the Apach Marriage Blessing (Anon.). All should be googleable


My friend had Wedding Day by Robert Palmer that is quite light-hearted.

Good luck looking

Thanks!

I'll sure check those suggestions out. Here's what I found last night. Using Dogpile.com and various search strings, I hit upon a fan's web site with many longer quotes. I didn't get a chance to note the URL, but I'll paste the quotes below.

I'm thinking that we may be able to paraphrase, and cobble together something that'll be short, funny, and meaningful.

What do y'all think?
regenerati

- - Quotes follow, borrowed from someone - -



POPULATION OF UNIVERSE : None.

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in it. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

#


THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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.

However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.

For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact Forty-two - and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.

And this computer, which was called the Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet - especially by the strange ape-like beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware that they were simply part of a gigantic computer program.

And this is very odd, because without that fairly simple and obvious piece of knowledge, nothing that ever happened on the Earth could possibly make the slightest bit of sense.

Sadly however, just before the critical moment of readout, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished by the Vogons to make way - so they claimed - for a new hyperspace bypass, and so all hope of discovering a meaning for life was lost for ever.

Or so it would seem.

Two of their strange, ape-like creatures survived.

Arthur Dent escaped at the very last moment because an old friend of his, Ford Prefect, suddenly turned out to be from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he had hitherto claimed; and, more to the point, he knew how to hitch rides on flying saucers.

Tricia McMillian - or Trillian - had skipped the planet six months earlier with Zaphod Beeblebrox, the then President of the Galaxy.

Two survivors.

They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever conducted - to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

And, less than half a million miles from where their starship is drifting lazily through the inky blackness of space, a Vogon ship is moving slowly towards them.

#

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the marriage cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.

Ogden Nash, 'A Word to Husbands', Everyone but Thee and Me, 1962.

Cool and amusing O. Nash poem. Maybe I can whip that out at one of the receptions.


Anyone wanna see what we've come up with? I'll paste it below. Forgive the lack of citations, but this is what my bro in law will be reading. My fiance and I stripped out things like that, so he could read it better. Share and enjoy.

Feedback is still welcome, too.

See ya on the beach this Boxing Day!
regenerati

READING:

This world in which we live seems both amazingly small and large at times. This paradox can be seen in our meeting here today: That two people from opposite sides of the earth, who fit so well together, could find each other. They overcame the adversaries of time, distance and illness to make this day a reality. One of their commonalities is a belief in the true philosophical mastery of Douglas Adams.

Paraphrasing from Douglas, let’s review why the population of the Universe is virtually Zero …
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space... However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is (nearly) nothing…, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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.

However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.

For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact Forty-two - and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.

And this computer, which was called the Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet - especially by the strange ape-like beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware that they were simply part of a gigantic computer program.

And this is very odd, because without that fairly simple and obvious piece of knowledge, nothing that ever happened on the Earth could possibly make the slightest bit of sense.

Sadly however, just before the critical moment of readout, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished…, and so all hope of discovering a meaning for life was lost for ever.

Or so it would seem.

Two of their strange, ape-like creatures survived.

Two survivors.

They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever conducted - to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Simone and Fred are not the survivors that Douglas Adams described, but they are survivors nonetheless.

We are gathered here today to celebrate the facts that they found each other, and are joining their lives in marriage on this often bizarre and inexplicable planet.

Hey all!

I've got our towels in the wash right now, and my new bride is sleeping. Thought I'd let y'all know what happened with the reading...

My bro in law read it, with a little editing. He made it more understandible, easier to read, and was able to emphasize the key points. He also found ways to bring the crowd into the reading, by an aside when DNA's text mentions ape descended people, my bro in law said something like, "That'd be all of you." And then resumed his reading. He did a few other edits, I think to simplify names, for his own sake, mostly.

The weather was perfect. Despite a forecast for rain (and some overnight rain), the afternoon was warm and sunny. The rain helped make the sand easier to walk on, for those unaccustomed to such.

Another reading was by my sister, who wrote her own. She's quite the wordsmith, and was able to whip it up in no time... The other wordy bits were written by my wife and I: ring exchange, champagne toast, and the vows. Our minister was able to give a cool intro after interviewing us. He's an old friend of mine, so just needed to fill in a few details, and he was ready.

It was a fun ceremony, and then we hit the road... doing our honeymoon thing.

regenerati

Congratulations!

I hope you have a lovely Arthur/Fenchurch style honeymoon.

Well, they deserve to!

Congratulations!!

This post has been removed.

I got married in 2015.

At my wedding, my (now) wife's Godmother read from "So Long and Thanks For All The Fish". The bit about the biscuits... which segues into a bit about realising you've met the love of your life. I recommend it.