Yvette Keller's Blog, page 8

Attacked by The Lizard

Not everything that happens on a once-in-a-lifetime birthday celebration quest is perfect. Here’s a short excerpt from my Forty-Two Places scouting trip that didn’t go so well.

The turf cushioned my butt gently as if in apology for the extreme pain of my right ankle. Throb ouch throb ouch throb ouch. My throat constricted to squeeze out something between a sob and a wail that I hoped would be mistaken for a bird call if anyone heard me.

No one did. I could see for at least a ha...

Sweet and Snarky

Audiobook updates have been slim and none while I’ve been wordsmithing this next revision of Forty-Two Places: A Literary Tourist’s Guide To Douglas Adams.

Today brought me a few new members of my Review Crew and an opportunity to help someone! A new member shared that they were recovering from a recent eye surgery and excited to listen to the Viola Roberts Cozies as therapy. Audiobooks were an important part of keeping their eyes closed and recuperating.

Can I tell you how SWEEEEEEEET ...

SLATFATF Always Results in Geography Questions

I wish after he’d knocked Arthur Dent’s House down, Douglas Adams had stopped alluding to its whereabouts. After years and years of re-reads, I keep telling myself to give up, but the likely location for Arthur Dent’s House still tugs at me.

Film Site For Arthur Dent’s House

What we know:

1) House, country lane, outside a village with a Horse & Groom (name unimportant), does have neighbors across the way (with rosebushes to hove above), so it is not a lone house.
2) A few different ex...

The Many Anniversaries of May (Bad and Good)

The Month of May is Fraught With Both Good And Bad

Headstone of Douglas Adams

May 11th is the 20th anniversary of Douglas Adams’s death.
By a highly improbable coincidence, it is also the 6th annual deathday of my father, Robert (Bob) Keller:

I keep wanting to go “check” on my Dad.
Yep. Still there. Still a corpse.
Finding the humor, Sans Gallows.

Yvette Keller, Facebook May 11, 2015

In his final act of comedic irony (and the only one I don’t find funny), Douglas died of a ...

Get Lost, Dirk.

One sub-quest of my pilgrimage to Forty-Two Places was following in the footsteps of Dirk Gently’s midnight cigarette quest. Mark and I did it in the daytime, and I must have been occupied by my MapMyRide app, a fantastically nifty little thing I had become addicted to during cycling training.

My plan was to use it throughout the trip to document my exact routes. I could turn it on and it would locate me anywhere in the world, make a map of everywhere I went, and share it with my husband o...

Guest Spot on Electric Monks Podcast

Friends, followers and fans, here’s a link to my recent guest appearance on Electric Monks: The Dirk Gently Podcast.

As my second foray into the world of podcasting, episode Thirty-Three doesn’t get to “my bit” until close to the end. If you are a die-hard Yvette fan rather than a BBC America Dirk Gently TV Series fan, you can jump to 1:10 to hear about my book project in the last 30 minutes.

The Episode Description reads:

Ed and Nemo are joined by special guest Yvette Keller to ...

Yvette Keller for Towel Day Ambassador!

Check out the video I made to run for Towel Day Ambassador 2021.

Someone of Consequence

(continued from Spouses and Research)

Since The Long, Dark Teatime of The Soul forewarned of flames and explosions, we didn’t stick around. However, based on when we passed through it, Heathrow won my award for the emptiest and quietest extremely busy airport I’ve ever encountered. 

Quiet, but not dead. At some point, we became aware that Someone of Consequence had arrived after we did. Someone we never saw, but whose presence was undeniable. I’d have guessed President of The Galaxy, but...

Spouses

In Heathrow Airport, travelers glided down, down, down the Escher-esque escalators while I rose up. The fact that I’d had no solid sleep, that the grey-green walls went on for uncountable kilometers, and that the luggage reclaim area was involved in an elaborate game of hide-and-seek from me, provided the real sense that home was very far away.

Welcome To Heathrow!

I felt my trip was not a good idea, no good would come of it, and that I should go home. Right now.

Then I channeled Kat...

Research

Is there ever such a thing as “enough” research?
When I prepared for my first solo overseas travel, I did some research.

I re-read all of Douglas Adams’s novels. I skimmed a non-fiction book that claimed to be about Hitchhikers. I struggled to remain awake through a dense biography, gave up, and packed it.

Physical Adams Collection

My theory was that if I took it with me on the journey, perhaps in-situ the biological happenstances would somehow feel more interesting. Nope.

In additi...